Michael R D James

Hannah Arendt argues that Totalitarianism was unleashed by Imperialism which in its turn unleashed the power of a subterranean stream of globalising forces that surfaced and began to flow with a power that the nation-state was unable to harness or control: forces such as the will to colonise, the omnipotent will which felt that there was nothing which could limit its power, and the mass feeling of powerlessness in the face of powerful institutions. Running deeply in a part of this stream is a paradoxical cross-current: a belief amidst an educated middle class in the actualizing potential of the moral personality and the universal importance of an ethical imperative. In relation to the above thought consider an interesting Philosophical and Historical perspective which relates to Ernst Cassirer's work "The Myth of State". Cassirer claims that all political theories of the 17th century have a common metaphysical/mathematical background. Metaphysical thought in the following century, amidst philosophers, took precedence over theological thought which in its turn was already being undermined by the subterranean stream of Stoical belief in a moral personality that surfaced first in the form of the thought of Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence which began with these famous words: "We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The above experiential reflection on the rights and dignity of man preceded their philosophical/ethical justification through the works of Kant, a few years later, which put the final nail in the coffin of speculative metaphysics of all kinds ,and also provided a philosophical foundation for both human rights and the inevitable philosophical consequences: the idea of a United Nations and Cosmopolitanism. Further, the Kantian "Copernican revolution" provided a rational, non-experiential foundation for religion and politics and superseded the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke which originated from the empirical/scientific method: the method of resolving a known whole into less known elements and synthesizing these elements back into a constructed whole again. In this methodical process, an individual's moral personality mysteriously disappeared especially in the case of Hobbes who claimed that there was a legal bond between subjects and their sovereign which amounted to a pact of submission on all issues related to the sovereigns power and authority. Cassirer argues that what we were witnessing during these years of the Enlightenment was a revival of Stoic ideas which "seemed alone equal to the task of providing principles admitted by every nation, every creed, every sect." One critical element of this revival was the idea that if a man was forced to give up his personality he would cease to be a moral being, he would become a slave of a Machiavellian Prince or sovereign. Unfortunately Stoic thought did not sufficiently acknowedge the central concept of Freedom. This idea of practical reason had to be fashioned by Kant as part of a middle position between an experiential view and a foundation in Cartesian thought. He favoured a position with a foundation in action that maintains trust in nonmathematical and non- speculative theorizing. "Kantian" Actions were, however, subseqently evaluated in terms of theoretical standards and it was these standards that provided the 18th century with its strength, inner unity, and Spirit. This absolute Hegelian Spirit, unfortunately, resulted in Romanticism and its attempt to poeticize the world in all its aspects in defiance of the political and philosophical ideals of previous Kantian generations. The poetic spirit, in its turn, reduced history to a romantic account of the portraits of great heroes and reduced ethics to reliving the spirit of the Homeric pre-Socratic era. This Romantic focus probably diverted the Kantian stream of emphasis on free ethical action and the dignity of man into subterranean experiential caverns. The Romantic spirit dominated and Carlyle´s historical theory of hero-worship was transformed into race worship in which it was maintained that only the white man possessed the will power to build a cultural and political life(Gobineau). The black and yellow races, it was claimed, did not have the energy or the spirit for such work. Thus was born: "the totalitarianism of race that prepared the way for the late concept of the totalitarian states"(Cassirer, The Myth of the State"). Romanticism was opposed by Academic Philosophy and Science which, in its turn attempted to continue the project of Hobbes: subjecting politics to the scientific method. Psychology, instead of focusing on the Philosophical idea of action preferred to use a scientifically determined concept of behaviour which was value-neutral and for that very reason could not be used in the debate about the moral personality and the ethical imperative. According to Arendt, the negative sub-currents of globalization transformed a doctrinal religious prejudice against the Jews into a racial prejudice which manifested itself into the anti-Semitism of the first political parties in Europe in the 1870s. For Gobineau, Kantian ethics and its categorical imperative with its universal condition and assumption of a universal moral personality was a contradiction of the facts: there was, it was argued, no universal ethical attitude or personality. Behind such conviction was a scientific and epistemological claim that only the facts would reveal whether such a personality was a reality. If the claim was that such a personality was a universal phenomenon it would suffice to use the scientific method and engage in scientific observation to detect one actual case in which this was not true. One case observed sufficed for the universal theory to collapse. But all this teaches us is that a scientific and epistemological claim searching for the truth is a very different kind of claim to an ethical judgment relating to the idea of the good which is behind all ethical action. The idea of the good situates us in what modern philosophers call the "ought-system of concepts" in which arguments are constructed in terms of an ought major premise and an ought in the conclusion. We ought to have ethical self-knowledge but the fact that many people do not is still consistent with the major premise that we all ought to develop ethical personalities and the conclusion that an individual ought to develop his moral personality, that, in other words, an individual has a duty to develop their moral personality. Romanticism and the scientific imperative, together with the dissolution of religious and many other forms of authority, including the authority of institutions, produced what Freud called the "discontents of civilization" as well as the idea of a global cosmopolitan community that is the world historical equaivalent of a moral personality. Globalization does not mean the creation and maintenance of the commodious life styles promoted by Hobbes and his followers. Globalisation means many things but amongst these things we find moral and political attitudes that have been on the aims and objectives lists of both Aristotelian and Kantian moral and political Philosophy.

Betsy, The common good is a Socratic Platonic and Aristotelian concept of the principle or law of the good. Principles or laws are responsible for things happening as they do. It really does not matter how we describe them, they are what they are, so I do not really understand your point. Before we cry halleluja let us first wait and see if the joint efforts of the Democrats and the Republicans can bring about a peace settlement with regard to NK. When that is done lets hope they can then agree to take measures to prevent the HUGE numbers of people dying in the USA because of the so called "right" to bear arms. If I were a parent in the US I would tremble with apprehension everytime I left my child at the gates of their school. This is good?

Michael, I do not think the democracies of the past would tell us everything we need to know about our own democracy and that is because democracy is not merely a description of a form of government but also at least insofar as the common good is concerned, democracy has a prescriptive connotation. The American argument, (according to Kissinger's work "Diplomacy") for spreading democracy over the world was not a historical one built on the principle of causality and historical description: it was a judgment of value or as R S Peters claims a policy judgment claiming what ought to be the case. The Greek fear of a democracy in which unnecessary desires becomes the obsession of rulers and ruled and the rule of law becomes an arbitrary process was enough to strike fear into the greek heart. I see no reason to believe that the Greek account this is not an acceptable historical account of the democracies of the past(There are many historically accepted documents bearing witness to this fact and the causal processes involved) Betsy , Everything turns upon what one means by a government by the people. I personally doubt whether Trump could be subtle about anything as complicated as this but you are right to draw attention to Brexit and that is surely an issue of sovereignty versus the Kantian project of Cosmopolitanism which the EU venture is all about. Turning one's laws over to other parties has had its negative aspects. The different nuances of French, German and English law can appear exaggerated to those who do not have the patience to wait for the European adventure to mature into a true cosmopolitan project. Aristotle pointed out that if the many can engage judicially in decision-making processes then the resultant decision will usually be less perspectival and more universal. We in Europe(and 48% of Britain) believe in Aristotle and Kant and government by people with as many different interests as possible but these people must know and respect the law. Some Brexiteers have suggested that government by the Eu is beginning to resemble government by a body which is not remaining true to Aristotelian and Kantian Principles and there may be some truth in this. But this situation is not in any way similar to the situation in the US where Republicans and Democrats refuse to accept the principle that the common good is the common ground of both parties.

Michael, Thanks for the reply. Yes I think there is a relatively clear fall in the stocks and shares of authority which Hannah Arendt talked about in her work on Totalitarianism. Mass movements are paradoxically anti-authoritarian(Anyone can do anything, anything goes). They use Science and Philosophy to get to power and then abandon these as useless tools. Arendt points to Stalin and the purges of millions of people without real cause(they were no real threat). The Principle of Causality would seem to me to be(along with respect for the facts) a minimum condition for explaining what happens in the political realm. Aristotle suggested the concept of representative democracy but claimed that the size of the unit to be organized must be in the hundred thousand range rather than the million range. He might have imagined the rise of mass education because that would be needed by the golden mean class(the middle class) but perhaps could not have imagined the rise of the role of the mass media, a process in which principles get lost in the volume of information transmitted(I say "perhaps" because Aristotle may have conceived of the impossibility of mass transmission of principles in basically anonymous information transmission processes). I do not mean to suggest that Europe is immune to any of the above problems.(Brexit!) For further discussion of these issues see the lectures on my blog http://michaelrdjames.org/ or in the journals I edit on https://www.aletheiaeducation.eu/

The USA has according to Henry Kissinger regarded itself as a beacon for the world insofar as the communication of democratic values is concerned. I believe the Trump phenomenon puts this claim into its correct context. The election of Trump represents the triumph of direct democracy and this, in turn, represents the requiem of representative democracy in the USA. The Republican/Democratic opposition seen from the perspective of Europe is a phenomenon of partisan politics that has abandoned the concept of representation and no longer represents the interests of the American people. The reaction to this has resulted in the election of Trump. This surely must signify to the politically knowledgeable a problem with American democracy as the legal nooses tighten around the throat of a man that thinks the truth is seasonal and that even the law is seasonal and that he can alter the power of the law with the power of his office. If Kissinger thought that the USA was going to be a major actor in what he called the New World Order he surely must be thinking again in relation to the Trump phenomenon.