Part of my college essays series: This is one of the essays I wrote during the political theory general exam for my PhD. The exam was an approximately 15-hour marathon session, involving 6 out of 12 essay questions, for a final total of 33 double-spaced pages written without access to any notes or sources. In this one, I threw my Voegelinian professor Ellis Sandoz a few bones. I no longer have the original exam questions to which I responded below, so bear with me through the beginning of the essay.

Questions one and three seem strongly related but have a somewhat different focus. Both interest me but I will attempt to focus on the former while nevertheless attempting to answer the latter at least in part, owing to the last element of the first question having to do with the subject of poet philosophers. Hence, I will write a critical essay on the following quotation:

Euripides shows us that our self-creation as political beings is not irreversible. The political, existing by and in nomos, can also cease to hold us. The human being, as a social being, lives suspended between beast and god, defined against both of these self-sufficient creatures by its open and vulnerable nature, the relational character of its most basic concerns. But if being human is a matter of the character of one’s trust and commitment, rather than an immutable matter of natural fact, then the human being is also the being that can most easily cease to be itself — either by moving (Platonically) upwards towards the self-sufficiency of the divine, or by slipping downward towards the self-sufficiency of doggishness.

I will attempt to address this quotation in light of the questions raised and with regard to my own research interests in the possibility of transcending the liberal/communitarian debate with a form of Aristotelian liberalism.

Civilization is susceptible to rigidification and decay on the one hand and disintegration on the other, with the latter usually as a result of the former. The modern state-of-nature theorizing of the Enlightenment-liberal social-contract tradition provides an interesting case study of a philosophical anthropology built upon Enlightenment metaphysics and epistemology, particularly atomism, materialism, mechanism, and hypostatized rationalism and empiricism. In this worldview, man in the state of nature is a beast, the worst of them, Locke’s unrealistically benign version notwithstanding. Ethical and political philosophy built upon these foundations, particularly when ethical language and action is impoverished by a single-minded focus on the proliferation of rights (with the result of trivializing them), is bound to produce impoverished human beings, the sort of atomistic individuals communitarians have accused liberalism of necessarily producing. The heirs of the Enlightenment (even Nietzsche) have sometimes lapsed into holding up this beast as if he were a god to be universally emulated.

On the other hand, communitarians have been just as prone to confuse convention (nomos) with nature (kosmos) and dogmatize or hypostatize a particular set of cultural values and institutions as the Good from which they themselves and others have no natural or conventional right to deviate. Deviation is labeled atomistic individualism, immorality, the mark of the beast. It is overlooked or forgotten that while man’s telos  [end] is eudaimonia [well-being, flourishing] and his telos involves social and political life, this telos does not have one unitary and universal form for everyone and must be freely chosen. Moreover, and in any case, man is not a god possessed of omnipotence, omniscience, and infallibility. The communitarian impulse is always in danger of falling into paternalism and totalitarianism.

Both the atomistic god-beast and the communitarian god-automaton cease to be human. Indeed, are the two really so very different? Both are capable of the most inhuman atrocities.

Freedom or community is a false alternative — for there is another option: freedom in community — but, for the most part, neither side has yet to formulate an adequate conception of it in my estimation. I do not mean to suggest that there is any final solution or utopia that can be reached, however. Human existence in the metaxy — our open and vulnerable … our rational, individual and social nature — make this a tension and a struggle that each of us must face within ourselves and together every day of our lives, and every generation.

Some illustrative examples of this tension in Euripedes’ Hecuba and Aeschylus’ Oresteia are in order.

Hecuba is set after the Trojan war, with the victorious Greek army on its long journey home but stranded for lack of wind for their sails and haunted by the ghost of Achilles demanding a sacrifice. Hecuba, the Trojan queen, and her daughter, Polyxena, have been taken captive by Agamemnon; and Hecuba’s son, Polydorus, had before the war been sent to the safety of a friend’s home, the Thracian king Polymestor. Polymestor tragically takes advantage of Hecuba’s misfortune to slay Polydorus and keep for himself the great wealth that had been sent with Polydorus from Troy for safekeeping. Polymestor chose to break with his moral and traditional responsibilities as host and friend, forsaking convention.

Agamemnon chooses to give up Polyxena as a sacrifice to appease Achilles, acceding to the demands of the soldiers who were instigated by the demagoguery of the wily Odysseus. Here we see the misuse of convention and the tyranny of the community over the individual in the name of the alleged “prudential” necessity of achieving the supposed common good at the expense of an individual’s good. Hecuba unfortunately takes out her revenge against Polymestor on his sons, but in defending the justness of her actions appeals to a higher law and leaves her fate up to reason and her ability to persuade.

Fast forwarding a bit, the Oresteia is set during and after Agamemnon’s return home. The Trojan war was tragically begun ostensibly for honor and to reclaim a wayward or stolen bride (Helen). Agamemnon has been away at war for some ten years and has brought back a mistress, the prophetess Cassandra. In the meantime, his wife has grown estranged and resentful and has taken up with another man who has a familial obligation, or so he perceives, to slay Agamemnon. Agamemnon is slain by his wife and her new lover, who are both in turn slain by Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, driven by bloodlust and his own perceived familial obligation for revenge (and, admittedly, at the instigation of Apollo). For the sin of slaying his own mother, Orestes is hounded by the Furies (or his own guilt?) and flees to Athens where Athena presides over a trial in which Orestes is found innocent of wrongdoing and the Furies are appeased with a place in Athenian, democratic society.

While admittedly not ideal examples, the plays Hecuba and Oresteia both movingly portray trajedies that could have been avoided, highlight the dangers of renouncing one’s humanity in favor of either pole of our tensional existence, of renouncing either freedom or community, while at the same time providing a ray of hope that reason, persuasion, and a respect for difference can help us avoid further tragedy by stopping the cycle of violence. And, in the worst case scenario, surely it is more Greek and Christian (and less modern!) to die human rather than by our own actions to live an inhuman life. The nature of human existence is such that neither freedom nor community can ever be completely eradicated from the hearts and minds of men.

With regard to the alleged conflict between poetry and philosophy, and the question of the poet philosopher, I think this conflict is an illusory one and both the poet and the philosopher have value, especially the poet philosopher. Ever since I was twelve years old I have had a deep and abiding fascination with and interest in fiction, particularly fantasy and science fiction, graphic novels, and comic books. It is my belief that the best of these writers, even of popular fiction, are as good if not better observers and critics of the world than most philosophers and social scientists and at worst it is difficult to tell which is the more pernicious. Indeed, one can argue that the best poets¹ are at least to some degree philosophers. But, if taken separately both poetry and philosophy have value, then surely their combination is all the more valuable. In isolation philosophers have a dreadful tendency to become detached from the world and poets can become lost in the meaningless, trivial, or pernicious dramatization of concretes.

There is no guarantee a poet philosopher will not philosophize and dramatize error, but the combination could help to mitigate the countervailing tendencies and keep, so to speak, one’s philosophical side down to earth and one’s poetic side mindful of the philosophical import of his work. With this in mind and in light of the foregoing, Plato’s Republic appears to me to be a philosophical tragedy, for despite being a poet philosopher, Plato’s ambivalence toward politics and poetry perhaps led him to too single-minded a focus on the transcendent and a detachment from the immanent. Plato’s philosopher tragically removes himself from the polis for want of a realistic standard for political and social action.²

1. I’m using “poetry” very broadly here to mean artist, particularly those who craft their art in words, including prose and what we today consider poetry. ↩

2. See, e.g., Claes G. Ryn, “The Politics of Transcendence: The Pretentious Passivity of Platonic Idealism,” Humanitas, Volume XII, No. 2, 1999. ↩

“Immanent Politics, Participatory Democracy, and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia,” Libertarian Papers 3, 16 (2011).

Here’s the abstract:

This paper builds on the burgeoning tradition of Aristotelian liberalism. It identifies and critiques a fundamental inequality inherent in the nature of the state and, in particular, the liberal representative-democratic state: namely, an institutionalized inequality in authority. The analysis draws on and synthesizes disparate philosophical and political traditions: Aristotle’s virtue ethics and politics, Locke’s natural rights and idea of equality in authority in the state of nature (sans state of nature), the New Left’s conception of participatory democracy (particularly as described in a number of under-utilized essays by Murray Rothbard and Don Lavoie), and philosophical anarchism. The deleterious consequences of this fundamental institutionalized inequality are explored, including on social justice and economic progress, on individual autonomy, on direct and meaningful civic and political participation, and the creation and maintenance of other artificial inequalities as well as the exacerbation of natural inequalities (economic and others). In the process, the paper briefly sketches a neo-Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural individual rights, for which the principle of equal and total liberty for all is of fundamental political importance. And, finally, a non-statist conception of politics is developed, with politics defined as discourse and deliberation between equals (in authority) in joint pursuit of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being).

Follow the link above for the pdf and MS Word files as well as discussion of the article on the Libertarian Papers website. You can also download the pdf from my Mises.org Literature archive.

Older versions of this article were presented at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2008 and appeared in my doctoral dissertation (May 2009) as chapters six and seven.

First, I wish to answer the charge of gnosticism that might be leveled by followers of the political philosopher Eric Voegelin. Voegelin is very popular in certain conservative and communitarian circles, particularly those averse to philosophical systems and principled, as opposed to practical or pragmatic or “realist,” politics.¹ I should know; I studied political science and philosophy at Louisiana State University where Voegelin had been a prominent professor. Indeed, LSU is home to the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies. I was introduced to the work of Voegelin by Professor Ellis Sandoz, a student of Voegelin himself and the director of the institute.

Gnosticism, as Voegelin uses the term, essentially means a “type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis, gnosticism considers its knowledge not subject to criticism. As a religious or quasi-religious movement, gnosticism may take transcendentalizing (as in the case of the Gnostic movement of late antiquity) or immanentizing forms (as in the case of Marxism).” Now, does that sound like it applies to libertarianism, much less Austro-libertarianism? Rather, it makes me think in particular of the constructivist rationalism, criticized incisively by Friedrich Hayek, that arose out of the Enlightenment and pervades various forms of modern statism.

In his political analysis, Voegelin uses the term to refer to a certain kind of mass movement, particularly mass political movements. As examples, he gives “progressivism, positivism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, communism, fascism, and national socialism.”² In his view, the consequences wrought by these movements have been disastrous. With few and only partial qualifications, I do not disagree. What makes them gnostic are certain similar characteristics they share with the original Gnostic religious movement of antiquity. Before listing the main characteristics, it first bears pointing out that even the broad libertarian movement as a whole might not yet qualify as a mass movement. However, as Voegelin points out, “none of the movements cited began as a mass movement; all derived from intellectuals and small groups,”³ so contemporary libertarianism and Aristotelian liberalism are not off the hook yet! With regard to the following list, Voegelin cautions that the six characteristics, “taken together, reveal the nature of the gnostic attitude.”⁴

1) It must first be pointed out that the Gnostic is dissatisfied with his situation. This, in itself, is not especially surprising. We all have cause to be not completely satisfied with one aspect or another of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Despite Voegelin’s caveat it seems this characteristic does not carry much explanatory power. It would seem more relevant if the dissatisfaction manifests as a form of profound alienation from the world, from the society as a whole in which one lives, or from its government. Certainly liberals and libertarians must feel some alienation, but is it enough to really count significantly toward gnosticism?

2) Not quite so understanding is the second aspect of the gnostic attitude: the belief that the drawbacks of the situation can be attributed to the fact that the world is intrinsically poorly organized. For it is likewise possible to assume that the order of being as it is given to us men (wherever its origin is to be sought) is good and that it is we human beings who are inadequate. But gnostics are not inclined to discover that human beings in general and they themselves in particular are inadequate. If in a given situation something is not as it should be, then the fault is to be found in the wickedness of the world.

Voegelin comes dangerously close here to extreme pessimism and fatalism, and to absolving people of their responsibility for not behaving as well as they should and are able. On the other hand, it seems from his description of the gnostic that the gnostic too flirts with, even embraces, absolving people of responsibility: It is not their fault; they could not help it; all the blame rests with flawed institutions and/or deterministic socio-economic and historical forces.

Liberalism, particularly the version of liberalism (or libertarianism) presented in my dissertation, avoids both of these extremes. In order to approach and achieve our ideal, human nature need not be changed. What is necessary is education and a change of institutions. There is a reciprocal causal relationship between people and their institutions; people shape them and are influenced in turn. Institutions present definite behavioral incentives and disincentives. But responsibility for one’s behavior ultimately resides in the individual.

3) The third characteristic is the belief that salvation from the evil of the world is possible.

Salvation is certainly too strong a word for what we expect from our ideal society. It would bring greater material and spiritual prosperity, less injustice, i.e., less crime, exploitation, and war. But it will not bring heaven on earth or personal salvation. There will still be crime, some wealth and income inequality (for that is only natural), scarcity, unhappiness, and suffering. It will simply be much better than conditions are now. All the evils that exist in the world are created by human beings, and while these evils cannot all be eradicated entirely, they need not be as great and prevalent are they are and have been.

4) From this follows the belief that the order of being will have to be changed in an historical process. From a wretched world a good one must evolve historically. This assumption is not altogether self-evident, because the Christian solution might also be considered — namely, that the world throughout history will remain as it is and that man’s salvational fulfillment is brought about through grace in death.

Perhaps some contemporary classical liberals and libertarians believe there is an inexorable progressive historical process tending toward a final stage of history, but I do not think most do. Indeed, there is nothing guaranteed about achieving our ideal and even should it be achieved there is no guarantee that it will last forever. Human beings and human society being what they are, it is always possible for the necessary traditions and institutions to erode in the minds and hearts of men over the course of generations.

5) With this fifth point we come to the Gnostic trait in the narrower sense — the belief that a change in the order of being lies in the realm of human action, that this salvational act is possible through man’s own effort.⁵

Classical liberalism and libertarianism in general, and the account presented in my dissertation in particular, do not seek to change the entire order of being. Some things, like the laws of physics and of economics, just cannot be changed by man. The only changes that are sought lie within the realms of personal education and morality as well as social, economic, and political institutions. These are changes that are within the realm of human action. Unlike other political movements, however, the changes and goals of liberalism properly conceived cannot be achieved by aggression, top-down central planning, or sudden and violent cultural revolutions. Rather, they can only be achieved through persuasion, education, the building up of alternative institutions — in short, a far from inevitable process of social evolution driven by purposeful, but not centrally coordinated, human action, the results of which on the macro-level will not be of human design. It will take generations, but “anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.”⁶

6) If it is possible, however, so to work a structural change in the given order of being that we can be satisfied with it as a perfect one, then it becomes the task of the gnostic to seek out the prescriptions for such change. Knowledge — gnosis — of the method of altering being is the central concern of the gnostic. As the sixth feature of the gnostic attitude, therefore, we recognize the construction of a formula for self and world salvation, as well as the gnostic’s readiness to come forward as a prophet who will proclaim his knowledge about the salvation of mankind.⁷

Even non-gnostic movements have their leaders and their “prophets.” Knowledge is necessary for any human endeavor. This is another feature that does not really add much by itself. Features 2-5 seem to do the bulk of the explanatory work. Taking all six features into consideration together, it seems we can say conclusively that liberalism, particularly Aristotelian liberalism, does not qualify as a gnostic political movement. Aristotelian liberalism is about liberty and human flourishing; it is no more gnostic than Aristotle’s ethical and political philosophy.

In answering the hypothetical charge of gnosticism, the charge of utopianism has partially been met as well. The conception of human nature presented in my dissertation is, I think, a realistic one and the ideal society envisioned does not require human nature somehow to be miraculously changed in order for it to be brought about and maintained. The ideal society is not a perfect one in an otherworldly Platonic or Christian sense. It will not bring Heaven on Earth or usher in the End of History. We do not seek to immanentize the eschaton.

I take the moral case to have been made fairly strongly in my dissertation, although the case can always be strengthened by fleshing the arguments out more fully and presenting more than time or space allowed there or in a blogpost. What I did not spend much time addressing in my dissertation is the question of practicality, which raises objections that are variations on the theme “it will never work.” Addressing this question is largely beyond the scope of my dissertation and this blogpost. I must restrict myself to saying a few things.

The moral/practical dichotomy does not sit well within Aristotelian philosophy. As I have argued elsewhere, Aristotelian virtue ethics, unlike most modern ethics, does not recognize a natural tension between what is moral and what is in one’s rational or enlightened self-interest. Immorality is never practical or in one’s rational self-interest in this view, even though a Hobbes or a Machiavelli would counsel otherwise. Moreover, if a critic is not convinced of the practicality, that does not by itself obviate the moral case; arguments need to be presented against the latter as well. This is simply a point about proper argumentation and should not be taken as implying an embrace of a theory/practice dichotomy. It is sometimes said, “Well, it’s good in theory but it doesn’t work in practice.” But this is nonsense. If a theory is inapplicable to reality, then it is not a good theory.

The various theories of statism have been making a royal mess of things for centuries now. Perhaps it is time to try something radically different. Ronald Hamowy has observed that “For at least two hundred years [owing to the Scottish Enlightenment], social philosophers have known that association does not need government, that, indeed, government is destructive of association.”⁸ Scottish Enlightenment thinkers like Adam Ferguson, David Hume, and Adam Smith as well as modern thinkers like Austrian economist F.A. Hayek have theorized about and described the emergence of society, culture, law, language, and markets as spontaneous orders. Austrian economists, libertarians, and others have built up a significant body of literature that demonstrates both theoretically and historically that legislative law and state-provided goods and services are inferior to other institutions in civil society: free markets and free enterprises, cultural norms, customary law and polycentric legal systems, and private organizations such as the family, churches, private schools, clubs, fraternal orders, and the like.⁹

1. In Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, Voegelin writes: “Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one” (p. 32). It can never be an attempt to understand being at it is? I think Voegelin makes a spurious generalization here. When one reads further, it becomes apparent that he makes this mistake at least in part because he believes in a Christian Beyond that is not amenable to (human) reason. ↩

2. Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 1968 [2004]) p. 61. See also, Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1952 [1987]). ↩

3. Ibid., p. 62 ↩

4. Ibid., p. 64; emphasis mine. ↩

5. Ibid., pp. 64-65. ↩

6. Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature (New York: Signet/Penguin Books, 1975; Revised Edition), p. viii. ↩

7. Voegelin (1968 [2004]), p. 65. ↩

8. Ronald Hamowy, The Political Sociology of Freedom: Adam Ferguson and F.A. Hayek (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2005; New Thinking In Political Economy Series), pp. 236-237. ↩

9. See the bibliography of my dissertation and a footnote in the concluding chapter for an extensive list of references. There are too many to convert for this blogpost. ↩

I have received official permission to provide a pdf copy of my chapter, “Freedom Is the Right of All Sentient Beings,” on my website. Technically, I don’t think I really need legal permission; I don’t recall signing over to Open Court the copyright that federal law automatically vests in me as the author. Anyway, download it from that link and enjoy!

The chapter title comes from a quote by Optimus Prime in the first of the recent live action movies. The chapter itself is kind of a condensed and lite version of the Aristotelian-liberal theory of virtue ethics and natural rights explained in more detail in my dissertation, applied to the transformers and to artificial intelligences more generally.