A World beyond Politics?: A Defense of the Nation-State

A World beyond Politics?: A Defense of the Nation-State

A World beyond Politics?: A Defense of the Nation-State

A World beyond Politics?: A Defense of the Nation-State

Paperback(New Edition)

$29.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

We live in the grip of a great illusion about politics, Pierre Manent argues in A World beyond Politics? It's the illusion that we would be better off without politics—at least national politics, and perhaps all politics. It is a fantasy that if democratic values could somehow detach themselves from their traditional national context, we could enter a world of pure democracy, where human society would be ruled solely according to law and morality. Borders would dissolve in unconditional internationalism and nations would collapse into supranational organizations such as the European Union. Free of the limits and sins of politics, we could finally attain the true life.

In contrast to these beliefs, which are especially widespread in Europe, Manent reasons that the political order is the key to the human order. Human life, in order to have force and meaning, must be concentrated in a particular political community, in which decisions are made through collective, creative debate. The best such community for democratic life, he argues, is still the nation-state.

Following the example of nineteenth-century political philosophers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, Manent first describes a few essential features of democracy and the nation-state, and then shows how these characteristics illuminate many aspects of our present political circumstances. He ends by arguing that both democracy and the nation-state are under threat—from apolitical tendencies such as the cult of international commerce and attempts to replace democratic decisions with judicial procedures.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691125671
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 07/21/2013
Series: New French Thought Series
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Pierre Manent teaches political philosophy at L'École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales in Paris. His books include An Intellectual History of Liberalism and The City of Man (both Princeton).

Read an Excerpt

A World Beyond Politics?

A Defense of the Nation-State
By Pierre Manent

Princeton University Press

Copyright © 2006 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.

ISBN: 0-691-12512-0


Introduction

AT THE BEGINNING of his Poetics, Paul Claudel writes: "I am not considering the future, for it is the present the gods urge us to understand. Now and then, a man raises his brow, sniffs, listens, considers, and finds his position: he thinks, sighs, and taking his watch out his pocket, reads the time. Where am I? What time is it? These are the inexhaustible questions we ceaselessly ask the world." As we begin our political inquiry, these same questions motivate us; this same inexhaustible question urges us. To begin means to find one's bearings.

How shall we orient ourselves in the social and political world? In what way can we best begin our inquiry? I believe that, in relation to politics, the first question to ask is: What is it that holds authority for us? "For us" does not mean here for Peter or Paul, or for political science students, or for this or that social class or age group, but for all of us as citizens of a contemporary democracy.

Now, I believe that if we make the effort to answer in the simplest and at the same time broadest way, we will say roughly that we, the citizens of a democracy in a new millennium, recognize theauthority of science in the theoretical domain and of liberty in the practical domain. These are the two most widely recognized authorities in our societies. Of course, some among us also recognize other authorities, such as, for example, the authority of a Church or a religious Law, and this recognition can lead to conflicts of authority. But the most compelling authority, the one that inspires our laws and, beyond the laws, sets the tone of our society, is indeed the twofold authority of science and liberty.

When I say that science and liberty are our two great authorities, I obviously set aside the question of their truth or goodness. One can well think, as some ecologists do, that science is leading us to a catastrophe or, as do religious Fundamentalists, that liberty is drawing us further and further away from the divine law. It remains that these two authorities, these two "values" if you wish, effectively dominate our life. Our societies are organized for and by science and liberty. This is a fact and is, I believe, the main tenet of our present world.

But what do these great words "science" and "liberty" mean here? Are these notions not both hackneyed and vague? As for science, can we speak of science, when there are several sciences, very different from one another, and distinctions, and even oppositions, for example, between the natural sciences for which mathematics is an indispensable and essential tool, and the human sciences that seem to resist mathematization? Do quantum physics and sociology, for example, equally partake of science? The ambiguities surrounding the notion of liberty appear even greater. Which liberty are we speaking of? Did some of the greatest conflicts of the past century not arise from the fact that men conceived different ideas of liberty? What common ground is there, for instance, between the liberty of the liberals and that of the Marxists, except for the fact that each party declares that what the other party offers is nothing but slavery topped by imposture?

These difficulties are quite real and we must keep them in mind if we wish to remain alert to the complexity of the phenomena. I believe nonetheless that it is legitimate to speak of science and liberty, at least inasmuch as they orient decisively the life and movement of our society. Beyond the complexity and ambiguity of these two notions, there is in each a very simple active principle that needs to be brought out in all its force.

Let us start with science. The modern meaning of the term is not only exact knowledge; it is not simply exact knowledge methodologically, that is to say, one whose exactitude is obtained and guaranteed by the application of the scientific method. These aspects are very important; they belong to the very definition of science. But beyond these aspects there is something more fundamental, a truly unprecedented project. Its aim is to see the world as it is, not as it ought to be, that is, to make the world entirely visible to the mind's eye. Thus this project has a twofold aspect, moral and epistemological.

From the moral point of view, the scientific project brings forth the will to banish from our perspective on the world all that has to do with our desires and our wishes-to banish all "illusions." The first and most striking expression of this will is to be found in Machiavelli's The Prince, thus in a political context that goes back to the early sixteenth century. In chapter 15 of The Prince we read:

But since my intent is to write something useful to whomever understands it, it has appeared to me more fitting to go to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it. And many have dreamt of republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in truth; for it is so far from how one lives to how one should live that he who lets go of what is done for what should be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation.

Such is, formulated for the first time by Machiavelli, the realistic project of modern science. And such is the moral character of this science.

From the epistemological point of view, the scientific project is defined by the methodical effort to bring the world before the mind's eye in such a way that the world, inasmuch as it is to be known, is henceforth entirely before the mind's eye, in other words, is henceforth without mystery. The great German sociologist Max Weber, in a lecture given in the immediate aftermath of World War I and to which I shall return shortly, formulated this idea in a particularly forceful way. Speaking of the growing intellectualization and rationalization of life due to modern science, he states that they mean "the knowledge or belief that if one but wishes one could learn anything at any time. Hence it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation."

These two aspects of the modern project of knowledge converge in the mathematization that characterizes modern science, by contrast with Greek science, for example. Regarding the first aspect-the rejection of "illusions" and "imaginations"-, it is clear that mathematical theorems do not reflect our desires and are indifferent to our wishes. And whereas men are divided by the different ideas they entertain about the Good, they are all necessarily in agreement on the validity of mathematical demonstrations. In this sense, modern science reconciles people. As for the second aspect, it is no less clear that mathematics is entirely intelligible, since it is precisely mathematical demonstration that provides the model of perfectly conclusive reasoning. Here we have, if not modern science in all its aspects, at least the project of modern science as it was defined at its inception and has worked to this day.

I now come to the second great authority, liberty. It seems more difficult to give a synthetic definition of liberty than of science. Are we speaking of religious, or political, or again economic liberty? Are we speaking of the "external" liberty to "do what I want" without anyone stopping me, as Hobbes and Spinoza conceived of it in the seventeenth century, or are we speaking of my "interior" liberty, by which I determine myself, give myself the law, as Rousseau and Kant conceived of it in the eighteenth century? However interesting and important these differences within the modern notion of liberty may be, they do not impinge on the effectual and dynamic truth of modern liberty, namely, that man is the sovereign author, in fact and by right, of the human world. He is and ought to be its author. The world, in any case the human world, "society," does not have as its author God, or the gods, nor nature, but humans themselves. This fundamental truth of our condition, which in earlier societies was hidden and repressed, becomes visible in democratic societies. Democracy enacts and develops this human sovereignty. Every great election by universal suffrage, for example, gives life to the idea that the members of society, the citizens, are the authors of their own conditions of existence since they freely choose as their representatives those who will determine these conditions through legislation. Therein also lies the strongest and at the same time the noblest motive of the adversaries of modern democracy, of those who were once called "reactionaries." They hold that there is something supremely dangerous for man, in truth something impious, in the democratic ambition to organize the world "as we wish" instead of obeying the divine law or following the proven customs handed down from past generations.

The sketch I have just drawn is a summary for sure, but I believe that it gives a largely accurate idea of the two great "spiritual masses," to use Hegel's expression, that make up the world in which we are attempting to find our bearings. And all would be for the best in the best of worlds if strange phenomena did not arise as soon as we place these two masses side by side, science and liberty together.

Let us take a question that is much debated today, the question of genetic manipulation. Society, "democracy," is thought by many entitled to if not prohibit these manipulations purely and simply, at least to regulate them. In this way we would be affirming our collective liberty. At the same time, there is the no less widespread feeling, possibly among the same people, that this legislation would be pointless, that "science cannot be stopped," and that moreover one has no right to stop science! In fact, if the juridical situation, in different countries, is rather confused, it seems indeed that in practice genetic research is just about completely free. In short, our science seems to be stronger than our liberty, irresistibly stronger. But then what becomes of our liberty? Can one still speak of our liberty, our sovereignty, when science is our true and lawful sovereign? Besides, for a fairly long time now certain philosophers, such as Heidegger, have maintained that we live under the rule of science, that science is our fate, and that our much-vaunted liberty is illusory.

On the other hand, it seems that the contrary is also true, that liberty is stronger than science. No democratic government would dream of founding its legitimacy on science, for example, on the knowledge that science gives us of human nature or of human history. This was what totalitarian regimes claimed to do. Communism claimed to put into practice the scientific knowledge, elaborated by Marx, of the laws of history, under the name of "historical materialism." Nazism for its part claimed to put into practice the scientific knowledge of the laws of human nature, in particular those governing the "inequality of the races." The crimes committed in the twentieth century in the name of the laws of history or nature would without doubt be enough to turn any democratic government away from the temptation to found its action on science. But there is a further, more fundamental motive in addition to this one. For us, citizens of the democracies-and those who govern us are on this score citizens like us-there is no science of what is good for us, of what is good for man. What is good for us, individually or collectively, we discover or invent by ourselves and for ourselves, at every instant and in full liberty. What is good for us does not belong in the domain of science but of "values," and these values we choose, some even say we "create," freely. In this sense, for us, liberty is stronger than science.

On the basis of these two examples, we see that, now science intimidates liberty, reduces it to silence, now liberty in return bids science to be silent. Thus, we are tempted to say, just as the men of the Middle Ages had to orient themselves in a world that was at once organized and disorganized by the confrontation of the two great authorities of the pope and the emperor, so we, citizens of the modern democracies, have to orient ourselves in a world that is at once organized and disorganized by the confrontation of the two great authorities of science and liberty.

A moment ago I alluded to the distinction and even the separation that is familiar to us between the world of science and the world of values. We take this separation as if it were a given. At the same time, as we have just seen, this separation is not really a separation, since now science rules liberty and now liberty rules science. This separation is thus less a given than a wish. We would like to resolve real or potential conflicts between the two authorities by separating the combatants. This wish was first formed when the two authorities asserted themselves in their fullest force, that is, near the end of the nineteenth century. Philosophers and sociologists at the time elaborated a doctrine aimed at resolving, or rather preventing these conflicts. This doctrine is still ours. It is the doctrine that wants to distinguish rigorously facts from values. The scientist is concerned with facts; the man chooses or creates freely the values by which he wants to live. There is no science of values, no objective knowledge of the good. You are familiar with this doctrine: it is the one that holds sway today.

It is not for us to study this doctrine in a thorough way. But we ought to take stock of it and make at least a broad evaluation, for several reasons of unequal urgency. The most urgent is the following: Does this book have to do with science or with values, which in this case could not be any other than my values? If it has to do with science, you ought not to miss a single statement, and indeed you ought to give your consent to all that is said. If it has to do with values, that is to say my values, why would you pay attention, why would my choice of values interest you? This alternative is not satisfactory, of course, but it seems to be implied in the current understanding of the separation between facts and values. This calls for closer examination.

It is remarkable that the most famous and most influential text on this question should consist of two lectures given by a university professor. The first, which I have already quoted, is devoted precisely to the vocation of a university professor as a scholar. I refer of course to the lectures of Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation," delivered at the University of Munich in December of 1918, at a time of great political, social, and moral confusion. As I have already indicated, these brief texts are among the most impressive and influential writings of the twentieth century. I will offer a brief analysis of the first lecture, by far the more important for our purposes, the one that concerns the work and vocation of the scholar.

Speaking before students and colleagues, Weber asks himself what his duty is as a professor, what his audience can demand of him. He replies:

One can only demand of the teacher that he have the intellectual integrity to see that it is one thing to state facts, to determine mathematical or logical relations or the internal structure of cultural values, while it is another thing to answer questions of the value of culture and its individual contents and the question of how one should act in the cultural community and in political associations. These are quite heterogeneous problems.

Weber makes a rigorous distinction between science, which establishes facts and relations among facts, and life, political or otherwise, which necessarily involves evaluation and action. I have already underscored that not only is this idea familiar to us and so to speak a given, but it constitutes in some way our official doctrine. Yet, it is not easy to grasp because it seems that we cannot adequately understand human phenomena if we are incapable of evaluating them or if we refuse to do so. To cite an example, How can one begin to describe what goes on in a concentration camp without disclosing its inhumanity, that is, without evaluating it, without making a "value judgment"? Besides, as some commentators have observed, Weber himself, in his historical and sociological writings, does not tire of evaluating even as he establishes facts, or rather, in order to establish facts. Otherwise, how could he make a distinction, a very important distinction in his religious sociology, between a "prophet" and a "charlatan"?

(Continues...)



Excerpted from A World Beyond Politics? by Pierre Manent Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Preface to the American Edition vii

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1: The Organization of Separations 10

CHAPTER 2: The Theologico-Political Vector 21

CHAPTER 3: The Movement of Equality 32

CHAPTER 4: The Question of Political Forms 42

CHAPTER 5: The Nation and the Work of Democracy 51

CHAPTER 6: Europe and the Future of the Nation 60

CHAPTER 7: The Wars of the Twentieth Century 70

CHAPTER 8: The Forces of Trade 86

CHAPTER 9: Declaring the Rights of Man 98

CHAPTER 10: Becoming an Individual 110

CHAPTER 11: The Religion of Humanity 121

CHAPTER 12: The Body and the Political Order 130

CHAPTER 13: Sexual Division and Democracy 141

CHAPTER 14: The Question of Communism 151

CHAPTER 15: Is There a Nazi Mystery? 161

CHAPTER 16: The Empire of Law 171

CHAPTER 17: The Empire of Morality 186

CHAPTER 18: The Human Political Condition and the Unity of the Human Race 197

NOTES 207

INDEX 215

What People are Saying About This

Smith

Pierre Manent's A World beyond Politics? is at once a reflection on modern political philosophy from Rousseau to Tocqueville to Weber and an interpretation of the modern democratic state. Manent is one of the best—maybe the best—minds on the current French scene. His thought is always alive, original, and provocative. It would not surprise me if quite a few political philosophers began to revise their introductory courses to address the themes and problems articulated in this book.
Steven B. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science, Yale University

From the Publisher

"Pierre Manent's A World beyond Politics? is at once a reflection on modern political philosophy from Rousseau to Tocqueville to Weber and an interpretation of the modern democratic state. Manent is one of the best—maybe the best—minds on the current French scene. His thought is always alive, original, and provocative. It would not surprise me if quite a few political philosophers began to revise their introductory courses to address the themes and problems articulated in this book."—Steven B. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science, Yale University

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews