Notes on Mark Anderson, Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One

Professor Mark Anderson kindly sent me a copy of the above-captioned book the other day.  I am about a third of the way through its 108 pages.  To write a proper review is hard work, something I will not attempt in the humid heat of the Arizona monsoon.  But I will offer a few somewhat random comments over one or more posts.

PURE is a stimulating collection of aphorisms, observations, and obiter dicta which document "one man's struggle against the intellectual and existential disorder called Modernity." (1)  It is written in a partially aphoristic Nietzschean style against Nietzsche who for Anderson is the anti-Plato.  So while the packaging is Nietzschean, the content is Platonic. Indeed, the author sees "the intellectual history of the West as a prolonged struggle between Platonism and Nietzscheanism." (3)

I will now quote a passage that brings out Anderson's brand of conservatism:

The Reactionary: Not the size of government, but the end and aim of government is the salient matter.  The ancients teach that the object of the political art is the production of virtuous citizens. In this they go further than America's founders.  John Adams knew that the well-being of our society and our government depends on the virtue of the citizenry.  Plato knew more: he taught that the virtue of the citizenry depends upon the government's inculcation and promotion of specific habits and social institutions.

No man can become good, and no man good man can flourish, in a decadent and corrupt culture.  Therefore, governmental authority must extend even into those cultural concerns that we moderns are accustomed to regard as inviolably private. (23)

Like Anderson, I am a conservative, but of a less reactionary sort. (I do not use 'reactionary' as a pejorative: it cannot be a bad thing to react against the wild and pernicious excesses of the Left.)   So while I agree with much of the above observation, I think it needs to be qualified to be incorporable into a sound conservatism.

First of all, it is certainly true that "the well-being of our society and our government depends on the virtue of the citizenry."  This is a point of agreement.  We are in trouble  precisely because virtue is on the wane and vice is on the rise both in the citzenry and in the government.  But can it be the legitimate role of government to inculcate and promote specific habits?  Is it the job of the government to teach moral and intellectual virtues?  Did Plato know more than Adams?  No.  The teaching of virtue occurs, if it occurs at all,  at the level of the individual, the family, the school, the church, and the local community.  Furthermore, pace Anderson, size is salient.  As Mr. Jefferson said, "That government governs best that governs least."  We need government, and we need a lot more of it that we did in Jefferson's day, but it is a necessary evil.  It would be otherwise if our leaders were enlightened sages, but they are not, and they never will be.  They are finite, fallible, and fallen, just like the rest of us.  Indeed, many of them are worse than most of us.  There is no philosopher-king on the horizon who can save us.  Nor are there any political messiahs. Not even Barack Obama, that harbinger of 'change,' can save us.

The second paragraph of the quotation is a non sequitur, though I do not dispute the premise, slightly qualified.  It is surely true that  that it is very difficult to become good and to flourish in a decadent and corrupt culture, a culture in which entertainment is a form of debasement, worthless celebrities are idolized, and criminals are coddled.  I expand on this thought in Good Societies and Good Lives.  But how is it supposed to follow that "governmental authority must extend even into those cultural concerns that we moderns are accustomed to regard as inviolably private"?  This might follow if our governors were good, knew the good, and fairly enforced it.  But these conditions are not met.

As a conservative, I am open to the idea of a certain amount of government censorship.  Why should cultural polluters be given free rein to contaminate the minds of impressionable youths?  But there is a threat to liberty hidden in any attempt at censorship.  This is a problem I would like to see Anderson address. 

So far, then, our difference seems to be shaping up as follows:  Anderson is more of an authoritarian conservative whereas I am more of libertarian conservative.  This connected with our different attitudes toward the Enlightenment.  But more on this later.

Comments

[Mark Anderson]

Thanks, Bill, for these thoughtful questions and criticisms. As you know, Pure is not a political book; I have not attempted explicitly to articulate a political position. In fact, like you, I believe that one must disengage from a certain type of the political life. Nevertheless, it is true that there is at least an implicit political position in Pure (however un- or under-developed).

You write: “…how is it supposed to follow that "governmental authority must extend even into those cultural concerns that we moderns are accustomed to regard as inviolably private"? This might follow if our governors were good, knew the good, and fairly enforced it. But these conditions are not met.”

I agree with this completely. The aphorism you cite is (like most of the book’s content) an attempt to think from within a premodern perspective, from within a perspective that assumes the knowledge and goodness of the governors. Governors who are prudent (in a fully Aristotelian sense of this word) should indeed possess the censor’s authority and power. Our contemporary governors should not, for they are ignorant and vicious.

Does this impose limitations on liberty? This depends upon one’s account of liberty. As Aristotle believes that a mature man’s voluntary ethical behavior depends upon his having been inculcated with certain definite ethical beliefs when he was young, so I believe that true liberty requires certain definite limitations. Unfettered “liberty” leads—not necessarily, but practically—to enslavement; the “liberated” individual is slave to his unnecessary desires and to those who manipulate them.

So does the authoritarianism of prudent governors limit freedom? To the contrary, this alone provides freedom’s necessary conditions.

A final point: I agree that size is relevant, not only the size of the government but the size (i.e., the numbers) of the population as well (as you know, in this I am following Aristotle). The former of course follows from the latter (again: not necessarily, but practically). So, according to the premodern perspective (which, according to the first footnote in my Introduction, is a philosophical rather than a historical term—although the two often coincide), from within which I composed this aphorism, a small government is assumed.

Let me put it to you this way: assuming a small government administered by prudent men (ignoring for now the very real problem whether such an arrangement is possible today), where do you find fault with the “reactionary-authoritarian” view?

[Brandon Frazer]

"This connected with our different attitudes toward the Enlightenment. But more on this later."

Looking forward to later.

[BV]

Mark,

Thanks for the good-natured reply. We certaintly agree that true liberty has nothing to do with licentiousness or profligacy. So true liberty requires restraint and discipline. In the imagery of the Phaedrus, the bit in the mouth of the unruly steed has to be pulled back hard lest chariot, charioteer and both horses end up in the sphere of confusion & dissipation. The diaspora of the senses, if you will. The problem is: who applies the discipline? Who does the restraining? Your view, I take it, is that some adults have legitimate authority over other adults. They have the right to command and be obeyed, and the right to force wayward individuals into line, thus violating their autonomy.
Now where do the authorities get their authority? Since might does not make right, their authority (their right to command and be obeyed) cannot derive from the mere fact that they have the power to force the people under them to do their will.

Do the authorities possess superior insight? Will you say that the philosopher-king has descried the Form of Justice, and having descried it, knows what justice is and what it requires? But now the modernist (as opposed to the premodernist) -- I did study your footnotes and understand that you don't intend these terms historically -- will demand to see the epistemic credentials of one who claims to know -- presumably by a visio intellectualis or intellektuelle Anschauung -- what justice is and what it rquires.

I don't think you can avoid the modern problematic. It is indeed useful to think within the premodern perspective so as to articulate it and contrast it with the modern perspective. But you cannot just assume that there are wise governors, or even that such are possible.

I would say the the modern is prefigured in the premodern, and that a sound political philosophy must incorporate the insights of both. More later.

[BV]

Mark,

We are both drawn to the Platonic anthropology according to which man has a dual nature with soul and body in tension with each other. Our higher and noble nature is always on the point of being swamped by our base lower nature. And we both oppose societies such as our own which aid and abet the swamping of the higher by the lower. But I find it onesided when you write, "The history of the West is a story of the slow but inexorable liberation and ascendancy of the slavish elements in man." (p. 21) And then you go on to speak of Sklavenaufstaende as "externalized manifestations of the underlying struggle of our slavish appetities to free themselves..." But this ignores all the legitimate rebellions against illefitiomate authorities. The American Revol'n might serve as an example. Or how about the (unsuccessful) Warsaw Ghetto uprising? You will agree that the Nazi state was a Verbrecherstaat (to borrow a word from Karl Jaspers).

If God rules us, then of course there cannot be a legitimate rebellion. But God does not rule us. And when people claim to be God's temporal representatives, and doing his will here below, then he modern epistemological problematic breaks wide open: how validate these claims? I don't see that such questions can be ignored.

[Mark Anderson]

Bill,

I fear you have said it all when you have said that "the modern is prefigured in the premodern." To my ears, this is another way of saying, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind." In other words, history moves inevitably downward (whether along a linear or cyclical trajectory).

The modern will indeed insist on the premodern's epistemic credentials, as the adolescent will insist to know the source of his parents' authority. There is an answer; and I believe (as I think you do, too) it to be a legitimate answer. But the modern, like the adolescent, will not accept it.

Therefore, I think that all one can do is "avoid the modern problematic." "Avoid" is the key word here. In other words, withdraw. Not a monkish withdrawal (not to deny that this is good for some; I believe that it is), but rather what I have taken to calling Platonic Bohemianism. The American Bohemians withdrew by declining to participate in the trends and characteristic behaviors and activities of bourgeois society; but what they adopted in place of these things was decadence. The Platonic Bohemian remains a part of society--lives, works, marries, etc in it--but he withdraws by adopting a lifestyle (philosophical assumptions first and foremost, but also attitudes and behaviors, even an outward appearance) that reflects his Platonic commitments. But now I am deviating a bit from our main concern…

I suppose I can only sum this up by saying that the out-of-time Platonist can must abandon the attempt to formulate a “sound political philosophy.” And do what instead? But this question I try to answer in the concluding sections of Pure.

[Mark Anderson]

Bill,

I posted the above comment before reading your comment concerning Sklavenaufstande… All I can say in reply is that you are right. But, as you know, an aphorism encapsulates a thought, perhaps a one-sided thought, perhaps only an ephemeral thought. I wrote the line you cite with Nietzsche in mind, and I did not intend that it apply literally to all revolutions. Having said that, I add that I by no means renounce the thought: I believe there is truth in it, even an important truth. But I know as well that to communicate the truth with some power and force one must compact it so densely that one inevitably squeezes some elements out. (I do not mean to suggest, however, that one who calls attention to these missing elements and insists on discussing them is acting illegitimately.)

[BV]

Mark,

An aphorism need not, and indeed cannot (if it is to remain an aphorism), provides reasons for its central thesis. But an aphorism to be worthwhile must be true. But the thought expressed in #1 on p. 21 is just not true.

>>The modern will indeed insist on the premodern's epistemic credentials, as the adolescent will insist to know the source of his parents' authority.<<

This shows that we have nothing further to discuss. If you think you can simply ignore or evade the modern problematic, then I say you are no philosopher and also do not understand what Socrates himself is doing.