Given current events, it appeared
apropos to put up a couple of extracts from my recent readings. These speak
about far-distant times, and about far-away places, but they shed more than a
hint of light on what has gone on closer to home over the previous five decades
(and even during weeks just past). Only very recently has the page begun to turn –
and even then the writing overleaf may not differ as much as one might expect,
however dramatically the paper flaps in the air.
On the primacy of the state and its agents in shaping thought and discourse:
“By the last decade of the (18th) century, every German city and many towns had a variety of public institutions... In this discourse, as in the related realms of literature and philosophy, educated élites played a predominant role. To be sure, a variety of social groups were drawn to the various organisations within the public sphere: landowners, businessmen, a few upwardly mobile craftsmen and small merchants. But the most important element, both quantitatively and qualitatively, was the clerisy, those academicians, civil servants, and clergymen who provided the basis for the literary culture at large. These people had the training, experience, and opportunity to formulate ideas about contemporary politics and society. Their education made them aware of intellectual developments at home and abroad; their social position separated them from the traditional worlds of village, guild, or court; and their role within the state linked them to the most powerful instrument for change in both political practice and political theory...
... Wolff’s account of governmental power is both more comprehensive and more convincing than his discussion of individual rights. In his Vernünftige Gedanken vom gesellschafttlichen Leben der Menschen, published in 1721, Wolff articulated the essential elements of enlightened absolutism: since the state exists to ‘promote the common welfare and security’, it can and must bend its citizen to the pursuit of these goals. The state’s authority, and the obligations of its citizens to obey, are limited only by the rationality of its purposes...
... Kant did not specify the institutional implications of public enlightenment. Indeed, he maintained that, while the process of enlightenment was going on, institutional authority should remain intact... a pastor, for example, could challenge dogma as an author but in his Sunday sermon he must toe the line of accepted orthodoxy. This combination of intellectual freedom and political restraint was, Kant believed, Frederician Prussia’s distinctive strength...
A number of eighteenth-century intellectuals shared Kant’s willingness to combine ‘public’ criticism and practical accommodation. Herder, for instance, condemned ‘all inquisition’ as harmful to the ‘republic of learning’, but none the less admitted that... if freedom of expression ‘stops the wheel of state’, it must be repressed. Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, frequently cited as a radical, put the matter even more baldly: ‘Everything that does not injure the state can be freely spoken and written; but whatever directly and really injures the state... must be forbidden.’ These views reflect the widespread recognition of the state’s power and authority; to many eighteenth-century Germans, the state was the best hope for reform, the ultimate defence against reaction on the one hand and mob violence on the other. Furthermore, a reluctance to challenge the state came from the dependent relationship writers often had with established authority. Unable to live from their work, a majority of intellectuals held office, occupied an academic post, or were supported by a well-placed patron. The sort of critical acquiescence one finds in Kant’s life and thought perfectly expressed the difficult position of someone deeply embedded in, but not especially comfortable with, his political order.
Closely connected to these mixed attitudes about political authority were intellectuals’ views of society. Although many writers cited the Volk as the ultimate source of culture... they viewed with distaste what Herder called ‘the rabble of the streets which never sings or creates, but roars and mutilates’. In contemporary literature it is as a rabble that the common people are most often portrayed... in Schiller’s Fiesko the populace seem without direction or restraint, fully deserving the contempt with which the hero treats them... Words like Aufklärung and Kultur, Moses Mendelssohn wrote, belong to literary speech [Büchersprache], ‘the mob scarcely understands them’. Like their view of political authority, these social attitudes mirror the historical position of eighteenth-century intellectuals, who prided themselves on being the representatives of the Volk, but at the same time wanted to be a new élite, set apart from the unenlightened masses...
Seen as a whole, German political discourse corresponded to the political experience of German educated élites... Germans were usually not much interested in the location of sovereignty, the scope of governmental power, or the degree of popular participation. But this does not mean that they were as ‘non-political’ as some scholars have claimed. Many eighteenth-century thinkers were very much engaged with politics, but their engagement was necessarily shaped by the political world in which they lived. Given the opportunities for action available in this world, they had to think and act like bureaucrats and publicists rather than like party leaders and parliamentarians.”
- J.J. Sheehan, German History 1770-1866 (The Oxford History of Modern Europe), Pgs 193, 197, 202-205
“It would be a mistake to think of this emergent public sphere either as a supine, passive mass of apolitical burghers, or as a seething force of opposition and latent rebellion. One of the most striking things about the social networks that sustained the Prussian enlightenment was their proximity to, and indeed partial identity with, the state. This was in part a matter of the intellectual tradition out of which the Prussian enlightenment grew... Then there was the social location of the Prussian intelligentsia. Whereas men of independent means or free-lance writers played an important role in contemporary French letters, the dominant group within the Prussian enlightenment was that of the civil servants. A study of the Berlin Monthly has shown that of all contributors to the journal over the thirteen years of its existence (1783-96), 15 per cent were noblemen, 27 per cent were professors and school teachers, 20 per cent were senior officials, 17 per cent were clergy, and 3.3 per cent were army officers. In other words, more than half of the contributors were in paid state employment...
In his landmark essay of 1784, Immanuel Kant argued that the convergence of authority and enlightenment in the same sovereign person utterly transformed the relationship between political and civil liberties, for, where the monarch was enlightened, his power constituted an asset, rather than a threat to the interests vested in civil society. The result, Kant argued, was a paradox: under a truly enlightened sovereign, moderate constraints on the degree of political liberty might actually ‘create a space in which the people may expand to the fullness of its powers’. The famous formula Kant placed in the mouth of Frederick: ‘Argue as much as you will about whatever you choose; but obey!’ was not presented as the slogan of a despot. Rather, it encapsulated the self-transforming potential within an enlightened monarchy. In such a polity, public argument and public criticism – a conversation, in short, between civil society and the state – ensured that the values and objectives of the state itself would ultimately merge harmoniously with those of the people, so that the duty to obey ceased to be a burden upon the subject.”
- C. Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947, Pgs 251, 255
On the political milieu:
“Democracy submits government to social control because it is premised on the superiority of the people to the state. For some of its advocates, democratic governance is animated by idealism – by the exaltation of a people presumed capable of virtue and thus inherently superior as the source of legitimate rule. But for at least as many, the system is hammered out of cynicism: the people, though riven with interest, remain a lesser evil than an autonomous leadership. More suspicious of leaders than people, the polity is founded on the values of pluralist debate and pragmatic compromise. It must consequently tolerate a high degree of division and indecision, review and reversal. It must concede disparate visions of the good and multiple centers of value.
Authoritarianism elevates the state above social control because it is premised on the superiority of rulers to the people. For some in Japan, authoritarianism was animated by idealism – by the exaltation of a leadership (ultimately an emperor) presumed capable of wisdom and thus inherently superior. But for at least as many cynics, a flawed leadership remained a lesser evil than a popular cacophony. Leaders might be tempered – by fierce eligibility requirements, ruthless competition for and within office, an ideology of public service and imperial devotion, and the surveillance of critics. The people, however, were an imponderable variable – divided in interest, disparate in achievement, viscous in movement. More suspicious of people than leaders, the polity was founded on the values of responsibility and expertise in officials, clarity and transcendence in decisions. It consequently had to tolerate the ultimate independence of leaders from public opinion. It had to imagine an ultimate community of national interest.
... Yoshino Sakuzo (1878-1933), to cite an eminent example, argued that “minority rule is always government in a dark chamber” where “excesses” and “abuses” are given license. Thus he insisted that policy be set “in accordance with the people’s opinions” and that suffrage be extended to guarantee a “just and equitable” government devoted to “the welfare of the people.” At the same time, Yoshino rejected “the dangerous theory of popular sovereignty,” embracing “loyalty to the emperor” as the “essence of our national polity.” Like the overwhelming majority of political actors in pre-occupation Japan, Yoshino Sakuzo continued to accept the premise of authoritarian rule: the power of decision lay finally in a leadership subordinate only to a sovereign emperor. ...”
- M.E. Berry, Public Life in Authoritarian Japan, Daedalus, Vol. 127, No. 3, Early Modernities (Summer, 1998), pgs 138-9
On the incumbent rulers and their portrayal by their critics:
“Almost without exception the Popes
between Gregory VII and Innocent III were practical men, and most of them had
already had long experience in papal business as legates or chancery officials
before election. To some extent this was... due to the method of election,
which finally (by 1179) put all power into the hands of the cardinals. It was
natural that they should chose men from their own ranks whose abilities had
been tested and on whose experience they could rely. Despite the long schisms
with which the period was disfigured there was a continuity of ability and
experience in the papal office, which is not found in the succession of any
other rulers in Europe. Yet there was a price to be paid for this efficiency.
There is no saint among the twelfth-century Popes... The prevalent mood was one
of satire. Men became more conscious of the classical grandeur and present
corruption... The picture in the Gospel
according to the Mark of silver, of the Pope gathering his cardinals
together and stimulating them in Biblical phrases to fleece the suitors at the
Papal court – ‘For I have given you an example, that ye also should take gifts
as I have taken them’, and again, ‘Blessed are the rich, for they shall be
filled; blessed are they that have, for they shall not go away empty; blessed
are the wealthy, for theirs is the Court of Rome’... Even John of Salisbury,
the friend of Archbishop Thomas Becket and the supporter of the high claim of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, allowed himself this...
“... They say, I said, that the
Roman Church, which is the Mother of all Churches, behaves more like a
stepmother than a mother; the Scribes and Pharisees sit there placing on men’s
shoulders burdens too heavy to be borne. They load themselves with fine clothes
and their tables with precious plate; a poor man can seldom gain admittance,
and then only that their glory may shine forth more brightly. They oppress the
churches, stir up law suits, bring clergy and people into strife, have no pity
for the oppressed, and look on gain as the whole duty of man. They sell
justice, and what has been paid for today must be bought again tomorrow. Except
for a few, who are pastors in fact as well as in name, they imitate the demons
in this, that they think they do well when they cease to do evil. And the Pope
himself, they say, is burdensome and oppressive to all: while the churches
which our father built go to ruin, he builds palaces, and he goes about not
only in purple but in gold.”
The satirical reaction to the
building up of the Papal government of the Church is in some ways readily
intelligible. Satire is an unwilling tribute to power; but it also implies the
recognition of a certain inevitability in the thing satirised, a lack of any
constructive alternative. The attitude to Rome in the twelfth century, the
jokes and cynicism which it inspired, may be compared with current jibes at
bureaucracy – they are a relief to the feelings rather than the symptoms of
practical opposition. So far as the position of Rome was concerned, the
question of principle had been settled in the generation of Gregory VII: it
only remained to work out, perhaps to deplore, but not to upset, the
consequences.”
- R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages, pgs 146-9
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