Eric Vogelin Institute

The Aunreality@ of the modern world: an exchange between E. Voegelin and H. Arendt

Copyright 2006 Horst Mewes

(First draft: not for citation)

Abstract

Arendt and Voegelin, in a brief exchange over the nature and origins of Totalitarianism , agree that the modern age is characterized by its lack of reality in political life. Modern existence is out of touch with human reality.  They additionally agree that what is real about human action is the Aessentially@ human, or the essence of what it means to be human.  They also are of one mind in their judgment that it is a rare accomplishment for any human, much less a community, to attain and sustain their essential state of being, and thus what ought to be most real.  However, they fundamentally disagree about what constitutes the essentially human, or the nature of human reality, capable of serving as the measure by which one can judge human conduct. In fact, Arendt, in a Apost-metaphysical stance seems to reject entirely what Voegelin considers the very source of what is real.  Despite their profoundly different views of basic human reality, they nevertheless in their writings express at least a Aglimmer of hope@ (Voegelin) that the American democratic republic will avoid the worst of the modern pathologies, be they individual or collective. Does this perhaps imply that the American republic embodies two diametrically opposed visions of reality, and can be successfully guided by both? The answer seems to hinge on the interpretation of the meaning of Acommon sense,@ and its role in Western democratic politics.

1. Introductory: the initial exchange ^[1]

Arendt=s fundamentally different view on the relation between essence and existence decidedly determines her replies.  First, she insists that Awhat is unprecedented in totalitarianism is not primarily its ideological content, but the event of totalitarian domination itself.@ ^[12] Thus, even if it were true that certain Aelements@ in liberalism or positivism Alend themselves@ to totalitarian thinking, what matters essentially, and what is in need of Asharper distinction@ in determining such essentials, is the sheer Afact@ that liberals don=t act like totalitarians. Moreover, its Adeeds,@ she argues, have in fact Aexploded our traditional categories of political thought... and the standards of our moral judgment.@ ^[13] In the light of such actual deeds, and the fact of the totalitarians= Aradical liquidation@ of human freedom as such, no Arealm of eternal essences@ will console us to the actual loss of man=s Aessential capabilities.@ No realm of such eternal essences, furthermore, can change the fact that Ahistorically we know of man=s nature only insofar as it has existence.@ ^[14] Hence, the very essence of totalitarianism Adid not exist before it had come into being.@ Consequently, Arendt rejects entirely Voegelin=s apparent central idea that Athe rise of immanentist sectarianism@ since the late Middle Ages eventually ended in totalitarianism.@ ^[15] Finally, Arendt resorts to one of Voegelin=s own arguments to make her point about the changeability of human nature: when Voegelin wrote in The New Science of Politics that prior to the Platonic-Aristotelian theory of the psyche Aone might almost say that before the discovery of psyche man had no soul,@ he tends to assume that the discovery did indeed change the realities of Ahuman nature.@ Hence her fear could equally be warranted that totalitarian experiments might make man Alose his soul@ in his real existence. ^[16]

The main point of contention: the nature of true Areality.@

Arendt was persuaded that reality as Atraditionally@ perceived had to be changed. In 1953 she was still convinced that totalitarianism had destroyed the Atraditions of political thought and the standards of moral judgment.@ None of them had prepared the world for totalitarian regimes, or adequately explained them, and none of them had been able to politically and morally withstand them. In her response to Voegelin=s critique,  Arendt still wrote as if this was true for the entire Amodern age,@ or the Amodern world,@ including apparently those countries which had in effect militarily defeated and political withstood at least the Nazi variety of totalitarian regimes.  Approximately ten years later, in the early 1960's, Arendt=s entire perspective on modernity fundamentally shifted after her interpretation of the American Revolution of 1776 and subsequent American history.  That revolution, culminating in the successful founding of a new constitutional order (the novus ordo saeclorum), based as it was on a partial revivification of the Roman elements of Western political tradition, had in effect escaped the total destruction of moral and political standards attributed earlier to totalitarianism. In the American revolution, moreover, political freedom had been resurrected. This change in perspective  requires a critical reassessment of everything Arendt wrote earlier about the need to start thinking anew about both the moral and political foundations of human existence.

But totalitarianism as a political and ideological event was by no means the only, and perhaps finally not even the main reason, for Arendt=s conviction that political (and philosophical) thinking had to start anew. At a deeper level, it was the modern  Ademise of metaphysics and philosophy@ which requires us to Alook on the past with new eyes, unburdened and unguided by any traditions.@ ^[20] (A quotes Heidegger=s Aovercoming metaphysics@ p.9) Overcoming metaphysics does not mean that men have lost the capacity or desire to Athink,@ or that the age-old questions about the mystery of human existence have become meaningless.  It does mean that the traditional metaphysics of the Atwo-world hypothesis@ has been discarded by modern philosophical thinkers themselves, an event Arendt welcomed, and whose reversal Arendt finds Anot very likely or even desirable.@ ^[21] As she encapsulates it, metaphysics distinguished between the sensory and the Asuprasensory@ worlds, and insisted that the latter, whether called AGod or Being or the First Principles and Causes...or Ideas is more real, more truthful, more meaningful than what appears.@ ^[22] This very distinction can no longer be maintained.  For Arendt, the basic fact upon which everything else depends, and on which particularly our political life depends, is the fact that for humans Aappearance is reality.@

 Arendt and the world of appearances

 However, as modern society abundantly shows, what Arendt would consider properly private activities also seem to share this urge to appear before publics.  As I shall show below, it is thus inadequate to Adefine@ the public as the realm of appearance, but it must be shown to be the realm of what Aproperly@ ought to appear there.  Hence, and despite what seems to be Arendt=s argument, the political is not adequately or essentially defined as Athat which has the urge to appear in public.@  The political must also be defined as Aall those matters which properly ought to concern a public,@ rather than individuals in private.   Traditionally, and in various forms and fashions, the political, associated with the activity of governing, has been distinguished, in a common sense manner, as dealing with the public good, or what Arendt calls public business.  It was described by James Madison as Athe permanent and aggregate interests of the community,@ in the widest sense of the phrase, including the need for public virtue and the ability to determine Amerit@ of public character and performance.  

 Arendt on Human Nature

Speaking through St. Augustine, Arendt affirms her assumption that Athe problem of human nature...seems unanswerable in both its individual psychological sense and its general philosophical sense.@ (my emphasis) ^[41] That is to say, neither psychology nor philosophy can determine the reality of human nature. However unanswerable it may be, Arendt does emphatically recognize the existence of human nature as a problem.  Moreover, when singling out Augustine as her sole source for the discussion of human nature, she does so  because she agrees that the problem of human nature is ultimately a theological problem, that human nature, as created, can only be considered in conjunction with the Aquestion about the nature of God,@ the creator, and that Aboth can be settled only within the framework of a divinely revealed answer.@ ^[42]   Consequently, one is led to assume that a Asecular@ political theory cannot rely upon a concept of human nature either in theory or practice.

Arendt is best known for her defense of the Agreatness and dignity@ of politics, according to which political action is not a means to another end, however valued, but is viewed in terms of its own intrinsic meaning of freedom.  Political action is undertaken for the sake of its intrinsic freedom. Hence, Arendt=s political theory does not regard politics as primarily activities dealing with forms of government, or the creation of legal order and the determination of what constitutes Alegitimate@ rule of some men over others.  Instead, governments (and associated administrative activities) are the formal organizations of a space or public realm in which free political action can take place. (Although frequently Arendt writes that of course political action has to do with Agoverning.@)  And, unlike in modern liberalism, governments and politics are not primarily Ainstituted amongst men to protect@ individual non-political rights, but to guarantee political freedom, which is the Aright to be a participator in government.@ ^[48] Consequently, Arendt=s theory of free action does in effect favor a form of government most fully based on the political freedom to participate in governing.

Arendt=s reflections on the human soul

Moreover, Arendt routinely differentiates between the mind and the soul (reminiscent of Aristotle=s suggestion that Anous@ is a different kind of soul, independent of the body). The soul, Awhere our passions, our feelings and emotions arise, is a more or less chaotic welter of happenings which we do not enact but suffer...@ whereas Athe mind is sheer activity.@ ^[51] Arendt seems to reject the notion that the mind is the Asoul=s highest organ,@ or that it can Arule the soul=s passions.@ However, there is such a thing as the traditional virtue of Aself-control,@ and it appears in the outward presentation of passions. ^[52]

Arendt: AReality@ as perceived by the public audience, the spectators of action

If this were the extent of Arendt=s understanding of the reality of appearances, reality would amount to complete and unmitigated subjectivism, even solipsism. However, the Asubjectivity of the it-seems-to-me@ is, according to Arendt, Aremedied@ by the fact that an Aindication of realness,@ a sensation of reality accompanies each appearance.  This reality is  constituted of a kind of Asixth sense,@ combining the working of the other five senses into a  Acommon sense. More importantly, it is the result of my knowledge that many others, although each perceiving subjectively, nevertheless all perceive the same Aobject@ as I do. The intersubjectivity of reality is thus guaranteed of a commonness of perception, despite each living in their own world of semblance, due to the agreement of the Aidentity@ of the Aobject@ perceived by all despite their  plurality of perspectives.  We must conclude that the reality inherent in appearances consists of the abstract Aidentity@ of  an Aobject,@ i.e. an actor and his action, which cannot Aappear,@ since in that case it would immediately turn into a Asemblance@ or what it would seem to me. My reality as a public actor, then, would consist of what I appear to seem to countless others, without being able to identify one real concrete personality or character as myself, except for myself as a non-identifiable, because non-appearing,  identity of an object. ^[61]

Voegelin

Voegelin=s reading of Aristotle=s phronesis as Aexistential virtue.@

The differences between Voegelin=s and Arendt=s view of the nature of political reality is strikingly revealed in one of Voegelin=s many penetrating and trenchant interpretations of Aristotle. I only want to single out one particular aspect of Voegelin=s treatment of Aristotle=s concept of phronesis and its relation to physei dikaion or natural justice.

Concluding Remarks: the nature of common sense and the realities of American democracy

In their remarkable exchange about totalitarianism=s Ameaning@ in modernity, Arendt and Voegelin reveal the profound range of judgment which to a great degree has been made possible by the paradoxes and ambiguities of the Amodern age@ itself.  But despite their vast differences in envisioning true reality, they agree that American democracy has (still) avoided the most politically debilitating of those ambiguities.

Voegelin notes that the more energy modern civilization devotes to the Agreat enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action,@ the more remote will be the life of the spirit. ^[73] A new modern psychology, instigated by Hobbes, produced the concept of a psyche appropriate for a reality without divine transcendence, the psyche of modern man entirely motivated by his individual passions. ^[74] Modern man is possessed either with individually enjoying the world, or collectively conquering it.  For Arendt, on the contrary, modernity is characterized by increasing Aworldliness,@ withdrawal from the common public world into the diversity and eccentricities of the private realms.

For Voegelin, Christianity=s influences on modernity are equally pervasive, and perhaps even more complex.  First, Christianity is said to have brought the philosophical understanding of the human soul to its Afulfillment@ in the Aultimate border of clarity@ in the experience of revelation. ^[78] But, and without going into the required details, Christianity also created political problems once, during the late Roman Empire,  it could no longer fulfill the function of a Acivil theology.@ It in effect left the world A a vacuum of a de-divinized natural sphere of political existence,@ in which a Asearch for civil theology@ began, based on the attempts to transfer Christian salvation and perfection from the realm of the transcendent divine into the Aimmanence@ of this  world.  This, Voegelin=s famous notion of the modern Agnostic search,@ by his account found its Ajourney=s end@ in modern totalitarianism. Hence, both the modern de-divinization of the world, as well as its gnostic Are-divinization@ have its origins in Christianity, or at least its heresies.   Perhaps an even deeper and far-reaching problem intrinsic to Christianity, or in fact any religious Afaith,@ Voegelin identifies in passages of particular force and beauty: the Aburden@ of substantive things hoped for, but to be found only Ain faith itself,@ is too Aheavy@ for Amen who lust for massively possessive experience.@ ^[79] Such men, who are in effect without the Aspiritual stamina for the heroic adventure of the soul that is Christianity,@ will grow in number as more people are Adrawn or pressured@ in the Christian Aorbit.,@ until the Afall from faith@ will become a Amass phenomenon.@ ^[80] Under modern circumstances of increasing technological mastery of the natural world to the benefit of man, the Alust for massively possessive experience@ will be accruing to the benefit of world-saving Agnostic@ movements, or, alternatively, and less evenly considered by Voegelin, modern economic systems of consumer oriented mass democracies, based on natural rights of the individual.

In the final analysis, Voegelin, more clearly perhaps than Arendt,  manages to incorporate and harmonize  his defense of  the pervasive divine (noetic)  influence over practical political order, or the priority of political action over private (including religious) activities or thoughts, with the original American notion of popular self-government by individuals endowed with individual  rights to Alife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.@ than does Arendt=s theory of the founders as Amen of action@ and lovers of public life and happiness.

We recall that the American constitutional order, without Aparallel in the annals of human society,@ was marked by Anumerous innovations@ intended to favor both Aprivate rights and public happiness,@ and support Avirtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith and of public and personal liberty.@ ^[83] Arendt=s interpretation of the American revolutionaries as Amen of action from beginning to end@ is a brilliant rendition of the constitutional founding.  Her critique of subsequent American history as the decline of the significance of political action and the rise of private society is largely accurate.  However, her singular preference for public political action and concomitant revelation of the real human essence, leaves the meaningfulness of all other non-political, private or social freedoms and activities either in a state confusion or rejects it. It certainly does not succeed in explaining how private and public activities can somehow be harmonized, an accomplishment  for which the Romans, the Amost political people we know,@ receives her high praise. While she certainly recognizes the need for it, the private realm nonetheless provides nothing more than the preparatory ground for reentry into public life.

Regardless, his common sense is quite obviously of a different nature than the one identified by Arendt: in political life, it provides for a more effective and meaningful shared commonality amongst, for example, the American type of citizen having sufficient virtue of self-government, than Arendt=s abstract sharing of an Aobject@ the Aidentity@ of which can never appear to anyone except in subjective form.

In light of Voegelin=s praise of America=s reasonable common sense, its emphasis on political moderation and citizen virtues,  one must infer that it, more than any Acivic theology@ or communal ideology, will prevent the victory of especially totalitarian ideologies. And despite the fact that Voegelin, reminiscent of Tocqueville, frequently also remarks upon the obvious Christian roots of original American democracy, underscored by praise of Lincoln=s view of the religious basis of self-government, it is not clear whether Christianity can in effect be either the support of much less a substitute for the predominance of common sense reason.  It is suspect because it is supposed  to enable the modern mass of democratic men to be able to withstand both the temptation Christian heretical movements promising the fulfillment and perfection of human existence in this life, and also to be able to live with  the Aheavy burden@ he identifies as the core of Christian faith.  By Voegelin=s his own account,  these temptations as well as high demands are intrinsic to Christian  religion itself, and, one presumes, shall remain so.

Modern pathological politics may not be able to destroy human essence, but it can permanently wipe out its existence in political , thereby hindering our recognition of the really essential.

But the most serious omission in Arendt=s new political theory of Apublic appearance@ is the failure of ontologically rooting the meaning of Athe public@ other than as an arena for the self-presentation of individual or collective actors.  While her ontology of appearance is highly innovative and suggestive of new ramifications,  the lack of an equivalent Agrounding@ of what essentially  distinguishes between personal and political appearance (besides inadequate references to gaining Athe widest possible audience@) is a seriously debilitating omission. In contrast,  Voegelin=s theory of man=s living in the Aexistential tension toward the ground as the center of man=s order,@ and  in a state of Areceptivity for the unseen measure, however many questions it leaves unanswered and details it fails to provide,  allows for a far more common sense understanding of the order of politics, appropriate to the highly complex Asynthetic nature@ of man and its infusion with essential reality, ranging from the Ahuman psychic@ to inanimate being. ^[92]