[This
is Chapter Six of Murphey’s book Understanding the
Modern Predicament.]
Chapter
Six
THE
IMPACT OF IMMATURITY
My main purpose in the preceding chapters in discussing what I have called "man's cosmic immaturity" and the non-paradigmatic nature of earlier social systems has been to lay a foundation for understanding the divisions within modern civilization. These bring us to see that we could hardly expect modern man to have arrived at a consensus or to behave in a thoroughly mature fashion. Since my purpose has been to lay this foundation, I have not been discussing the immaturity and lack of paradigm for their own sakes.
They are, however, interesting
enough in themselves that I hope the reader will forgive me for dwelling on
them for just a while longer. It is worthwhile, I think, now that we have the
background of the preceding chapters in mind, to notice how very greatly human
immaturity and incapacity have affected each of the major social philosophies.
Each philosophy strains, after its own lights, to make the best of an imperfect
humanity. And each, in turn, is rendered problematical
by the fact that its aspirations and expectations will in all likelihood be
frustrated by the diverse and seemingly obstinate nature of mankind.
Classical Liberalism
Classical liberalism is the social
philosophy that favors capitalism and limited government. Broadly speaking, its
approach toward the problem of human incapacity is to establish a "free
floating" system. Within this system, individuals are to rise and fall
according to their respective abilities. A factual supposition of classical
liberal thought is that people are for the most part capable of handling their
own affairs. But there is also a moral postulate: a "moral
imperative" that they make themselves capable. The upshot is that
classical liberals generally think it ultimately more beneficial to human
well-being not to treat weakness with overweening solicitude. This is so even
though many favor placing a floor under at least the "deserving
poor."
The summary I have just given masks,
though, a number of subtleties. If we focus first on the capacity of the
average man to participate in public affairs (as distinguished from running his own personal business), we see that historically
classical liberals have differed among themselves about it. On the continent of
The tendency in
In neither case, of course, did
classical liberals feel confident about an unlimited majority rule. "If
men were angels,"
Personally, I think this is a
wholesome distrust. When we consider the mixed condition of mankind -- in which
good and evil, the social and the anti-social, the strong and the weak compete
in perpetual tension --, the classical liberal hesitation seems quite
realistic. It has the advantage of avoiding the naive supposition that
governments will be dependably benevolent. And unlike the usual socialist, a
classical liberal doesn't assume that someone sharing his values will always be
in control. Instead, he knows that "power tends to corrupt."
The second aspect of capability has
to do with each man's capacity for handling his own individual concerns. As I
have indicated, classical liberals believe, as a factual matter, that most men
really are able to handle their own affairs. They sense that men are tough and
not dumb when it comes to their own interests. This doesn't, of course,
preclude some naiveté when people are dealing with something that is unfamiliar
to them. But it is amazing how "savvy" the average person is about
things that really touch him. The result of the classical liberal's
appreciation of the average person's ability is that in his political
philosophy the classical liberal is not going to interfere with that person's
freedom in order to assist him paternalistically. At the same time, however, a
classical liberal will have reason to favor such laws and institutions as are
helpful in providing the framework in which the individual can act. (A statute calling
for a uniform method of disclosing the true rate of interest paid on a savings
account, for example, might facilitate individual choice, since most people
can't be expected to have, or to gain, sophisticated knowledge about the many
ways interest can be computed.)
It is precisely because they see men
as basically capable that classical liberals value the voluntary transaction as
a valid expression of freedom. Such transactions are in their system given
social and legal sanction and become the building blocks, when repeated
billions of times, for the "market economy." The linking of voluntary
relationships leads to vast human effort and to the division of labor.
The Left opposes the market economy
by attacking both the presumption of capability and the voluntary
transaction. Its adherents argue that
millions of men are trapped by life and that the voluntary transaction is
vitiated by "exploitation." In this regard, I distinguish between
four different theories of exploitation. An adequate discussion of them
requires considerable space, so I will have to leave that for my later books on
the ideologies themselves. It is enough right now to say that classical
liberals don't agree with the exploitation theories (although in my writing I
have stressed that there are points raised by two of the theories that
classical liberals should take seriously in the context of their own
philosophy).
I mentioned earlier that classical
liberalism imputes a moral imperative over and above the factual supposition
about capability. To the extent men are not capable,
their duty as free human beings is to make themselves so. This is ethical, not
descriptive. It is an ethic of self-reliance that is fundamentally important to
a free society. If men are not self- reliant, they cannot be left to their own
decisions; nor will they want to be. The work ethic and the push toward
education are essential parts of individualism. Because of this, classical
liberalism identifies strongly with the so-called "Protestant" or "middle
class" ethic. (By calling the ethic "Protestant" or "middle
class," the Left seeks to categorize it in a culturally relative way to
diminish its universality; classical liberal thought posits it as a general
ethic and not simply as the ethic appropriate to a certain religion or class.)
If individuals fall down within a
voluntaristic setting, the solutions offered by classical liberalism are
consistent with its overall value system. It calls first upon the individual's
own energy and pride. Secondly, it will look to private charity as the
voluntary form of help. If tax supported relief is still needed, the classical
liberal would much prefer to see that relief given on the local level. At the
same time, an important desideratum, even though it doesn't appeal to the type
of humanitarianism we have heard for so long from the Left, will be to design
the relief in such a way that it will encourage those who are on it to get off
at the earliest possible time.2
It would be erroneous to think that
all classical liberals have agreed on the priorities I have just recited.
Herbert Spencer, for example, was a man of clear intelligence and very real
compassion, but he adopted a Darwinian-type evolutionary rationale and even
argued for letting the weak perish.3 His views in this regard were
not representative of the majority of classical liberals.
I happen to think that the
mainstream of classical liberal thought deals appropriately with the problem of
human weakness. It recognizes both the strengths and weaknesses of people and
builds in a pull toward a higher elevation. If the framework of classical
liberalism is adequately designed, a free society has many advantages. A part
of my earlier comments, though, was that each of the philosophies is rendered
problematical by the problem of weakness. This is certainly true with classical
liberalism. The movement away from it in the past century suggests that, among
other things, classical liberalism is "out of keeping" with the
actual spiritual and intellectual condition of mankind.
We often remark that the Welfare
State reduces initiative. The relationship, however, almost certainly runs the
other way, too, with human weakness contributing to the demand for the Welfare
State. Classical liberalism today represents a higher aspiration than many
people are willing to accept.
It may even be that this is a
profound disparity; it may be too much to expect men at our present
evolutionary level to sustain a system based heavily on self-reliance. If this
is true, it militates strongly against the realization of classical liberal
values at this point in history.
But this is by no means clear. It is
still problematical because of two factors that have been so influential that
they have kept the past century from being a clear test of the average man's
aptitude for freedom. Because we cannot isolate the factors, we cannot know how
much our recent reliance on the Welfare State is due to these two factors and
how much is due to innate weakness.
The first factor is the alienation
of the intellectual subculture from bourgeois society (this, in fact, is the
main subject I will discuss later in this book). When deep alienation exists in
men who have the cultural leverage that intellectuals exercise, it isn't
surprising that the society will move away from classical liberalism. This is
especially true because the intellectual has consistently sought an alliance
with the have-nots, which in turn has led him to champion their cause as he
perceives it. Thus, the root of the Welfare State and of egalitarian socialism
may be more in the ail of the intellectual than in the
mediocrity of the average man. This obscures the situation, keeping us from
getting a clear reading of how well classical liberalism comports to the
underlying human condition.
The second complication has to do
with the hedonistic, pragmatic, unprincipled characteristics of modern life.
These qualities lead men away from classical liberalism. It may, however, be
too early to tell whether spoiledness is unavoidable under affluence. If it is,
classical liberalism will be inherently unstable; such men will be impatient
toward the responsibilities it imposes.
Not all types of socialist theory
are egalitarian, but most do involve a far-reaching egalitarianism. In this
context, "equality" does not mean "equality under the law"
or "equality of rights." It refers to an unequal treatment of
unequals to produce an equal result.
Socialism and the Welfare State seek
this type of equality through the state or some other collective. Because of
the Left's perception of humanity as largely trapped and exploited, the state
is seen not simply as an equalizing but also as a liberating mechanism. The
state becomes the "next friend" of the weak.
This trust in the state raises problems,
though, that relate directly to the nature of man. It invokes coercive power as
a principal instrument. This recalls a famous exchange in which Friedrich Hayek
argued in The Road to Serfdom that because of its use of coercive power
even democratic socialism possesses a tendency toward totalitarianism, and in
which Herman Finer responded in The Road to Reaction that types
of socialism differ and that democratic socialism has no such inherent
tendency. For my part, I agree with Hayek in the weight of his concern, even
though I don't agree with his thesis that the tendency is irresistible. Lord
Acton seems to me to have been correct when he wrote that "power tends to
corrupt, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely"; and Parkinson was
perceptive when he noted the tendency of bureaucracy to grow. Great power also
serves as a magnet to demagoguery and opportunism. All classical liberals
consider the problem of power of profound concern. In shrugging off the danger,
democratic socialists have failed to take sufficient account of human nature.
But there are still other factors
that make the socialist solution dangerous. The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega
y Gasset diagnosed the spiritual condition of modern man fifty years ago in The
Revolt of the Masses. He took a pessimistic view of the average man, whom
he described as spiritually self-satisfied and inert. He said that such men
demand nothing of themselves; they are persons "for whom
to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on
themselves any effort toward perfection."4 Such a man possesses
a "spoiled child mentality"; he wants the benefits of a developed
social order while at the same time his nature keeps him from appreciating the
roundabout, orderly processes by which that social order is maintained.
Civilized men, Ortega wrote, make force the last, not the first, resort, but
the "mass man" reverses this because of his "direct action"
tantrum mentality. This use of force has its final social expression in
statism, which institutionalizes the psychology of the predominant type of man.
Much of what Ortega ascribes to the
"mass man" I would attribute to the broader category of human
immaturity in general. I would place his views in perspective by pointing out
that "direct action" techniques are by no means the invention of the
modern "mass man." The history of almost any epoch is, in fact, a
wearying recital of their use. Nevertheless, both his view and my broadening of
it point to spiritual factors that make any reliance on a powerful state very
dangerous.
The strong tendency of the
intelligentsia to use the state for elitist and essentially theocratic purposes
also points toward abuse. The intellectual's sensitivities and his normal
self-serving aspirations often cause him to want to use the state as a church--i.e.,
as an instrument to remold men. The modern era has seen no real separation
between the church and state, since secular social religion has attached itself
to the state. The result has been a tendency toward intolerant uses of the
state to carry out the values of the intellectual elite. This is obscured by
the intellectuals' alliance with the have-nots; the alliance's emphasis on
majority rule and a leveling egalitarianism masks the elitism.
We should note that each of the
factors that lead to the serious abuse of socialism are
also factors that make socialism unstable. Neither democratic socialism nor the
Welfare State can give assurance that it will not be just a transitional phase.
A leveling egalitarianism has
serious defects, though, even if the danger of abuses isn't considered. A part
of its ideology is to refuse to make "bourgeois" moral distinctions.
The moral imperative toward decency and capability which is stressed by
classical liberalism is deliberately omitted and even attacked. I recall Morris
Cohen's comment a few years ago in the
An awareness of the underlying
elitism of the intellectual subculture, though, can justify a projection not of
a leveled sameness, but of a new domination by an intellectual priesthood. The
result will probably be more like the intellectual despotism desired by Auguste
Comte than like the mild leadership hoped for by John Stuart Mill. It is
despotism rather than an educated self-reliance that the diminished man will be
best suited for. Socialists often assume that everyone will become an
intellectual in such a society -- that men will not remain diminished, but will
blossom into self-fulfilled individuals within a high culture. Thus, the New
Left author Robert Theobald projected that "life will essentially be
learning."7 And I am reminded of the socialist utopia
fantasized almost a century ago by Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward in
which socialism supported vibrant individuals who filled their lives with
music, literature and the arts.8 Such an assumption reflects an
intention to remake men. This is based both on a thorough-going dislike for man
as he is and on a naive Rousseauistic optimism about man's residual
potentialities.
Until the middle of the nineteenth
century, the worldview that in a broad sense I refer to as "Burkean
conservatism" was the main force in Western civilization, even though by
that time it had long been under attack. It has a number of extremely literate
advocates even today.
The contemporary Burkean authors
Wilmoore Kendall and George Carey have summarized the position by referring to
six main points: a principled morality as distinguished from a relativistic
view; social hierarchy; historic, evolved rights as against a rationalistic
"rights of man"; tradition as opposed to "the will of the
present generation"; and, finally, religion versus secularism. In making a
separate list, Russell Kirk emphasized the same points: belief in divine
intent, affection for traditional life, a "conviction that civilized
society requires orders and classes," support for private property,
control over man's will and appetite, and a distrust of change for change's
sake.
In the twentieth century this
outlook is championed mainly by a group of Catholic thinkers. Its name is
derived from Edmund Burke, who in the eighteenth century expressed its values
in his critique of the French Revolution.l0 This can be misleading,
though; Burkean conservatism embodies a view of man and of institutions that is
far larger than any one group of thinkers. The organic view of a society headed
by landed aristocracy and morally directed by organized religion was the Roman
ideal of the mos maiorum. It was the central conception of the Middle
Ages. As late as the nineteenth century it was articulated by such figures as
Samuel Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold.
An aristocratic philosophy is
acutely aware of human weakness. Russell Kirk spoke of "the doctrine of
human depravity," which he said is broader even than Augustinian
Christianity.ll Richard
Weaver based his analysis on the Catholic doctrine of original sin.12 For
the Burkean, human will, appetite and reason are very much suspect. He hopes to
overcome these by integrating the individual into a social order founded on
hierarchy, faith and religion. This is just the opposite of Rousseau's
optimism; it is also different from the classical liberal's mixed view of men.
Historically, the aristocratic view has not favored individual liberty as a
general system that would involve countless individuals pursuing their own ends
and happiness.
Burkean conservatism deals with
weakness by incorporating the individual into an organic whole. The leadership
of society is placed in the hands of people who are leisured, cultured and
educated -- ideally a good hedge against the incapability of ordinary men. Many
thoughtful people have favored this out of a sincere regard for the welfare of
humanity. Samuel Johnson was one of them; he said that "I am a friend to
subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a
reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.” He added that "I
consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society.”13
His goodwill was evidenced by his statement that "an adequate provision
for the poor is the test of every civilization." The Burkean system, seen
as an ideal, is not intended to be harsh and malevolent. Its supporters think
of it as embodying profound truths about man and his relation to God. They also
believe it has advantages arising from a sense of community, from an ethic of
chivalry and civility, and from the virtues of humility, piety and discipline.
I will hasten to add, though, that I
cannot agree with this idealization of it. Although I agree with John Stuart
Mill's belief that Burkean philosophy captures some important truths (Mill saw
an important half of the truth in Coleridge's writing14), I don't
view Burkean conservatism as correct either in general or as a way of dealing
with the problem of weakness.
The intellectual humility
fundamental to classical liberalism precludes any feeling that a given
religious view should be made the foundation of civil society. It also
precludes any designation of who shall and shall not be the aristocrats in
society, especially if that station is to be passed on by inheritance. Even to
select an aristocracy of merit presupposes an exercise of judgment that the
mentality of freedom finds repugnant. The Burkeans will answer that they don't
intend these to result from rational selection by a planner, but despite their
protests to the contrary their philosophy does involve a preconceived model. However, even if such social patterns were
set upon spontaneously, they would be untenable for other reasons. The organic
conception of society offers, for example, no solution to the problem of the
abuse of power. History shows that such a regime cannot be counted on to remain
benevolent; a status system is often characterized by a type of mental death
and rigidity and oppression. This abuse of power would be especially
predictable if the Burkean's own postulates about evil are correct, but it is
predictable even under the more optimistic mixed view of human nature held by
classical liberals.
There are two additional points I
would make about the Burkean solution. The first is that a solution that would
divide mankind into those who are capable and those who are not would tend
strongly to solidify the incapable in their weakness.
The second is that it would act to
reverse the tendency toward increased compassion that has occurred during the
modern period. More people participate in society today and are the objects of
concern by others for their rights and well-being. Julien Benda wrote that this
compassion is mainly the residual of the eighteenth century and that that is a
moral capital we are rapidly losing; but I can't fully agree with him on it.15
The increased compassion does have important origins in that century that have
been weakened, but it is also the product of our increased affluence and of the
“age of the common man.” Even though this compassion may be shallow and
incomplete, any shift back toward aristocratic, status principles would be a
serious loss of progress already made.
With regard to the other
philosophies, I have concluded by commenting on their instability. The
instability within Burkean conservatism resides in the tendencies toward abuse
inherent within it and toward reaction against that
abuse.
Each status society has had a built-in class struggle as the lower orders have
fought their way free. It cannot be a permanently acceptable paradigm.
Each social philosophy is concerned
with the question of means. Each forms an attitude toward change and toward the
methods that are available to promote change. In the present context, it is
worth noting that man's immaturity has an important bearing on this question.
The immaturity says, in effect, that
men are neither perfect nor readily perfectible. In turn, this suggests an
anti-radical conclusion: that we ought not to want to destroy much that is
valuable to make way for anyone's projected utopia. We have good reason to believe
a utopian prospect chimerical. We can hardly base social policy on an
assumption of man's perfection when we know that it will take a long
evolutionary cycle before he will drop (if he ever will) his many childlike
traits.
The restraint this suggests isn't
the same thing as a purely resigned acceptance of the status quo. There
are things we won't tolerate; and yet our willingness to use drastic means is
tempered when we consider that the abuses we abhor are not entirely remediable
under any circumstances; the fundamental imperfections of a childlike humanity
will continue in one form or another. It will never be worthwhile, certainly,
to tear down civilized society to pursue a utopia. When the Russian nihilist
Nechayev called for the destruction of all existing order as necessary for a
transition to a socialist utopia, his deep alienation had caused him to lose
all sense of a balance of values.16 He was devaluing the existing
society far below what it deserved and was valuing the utopia far too highly.
My point is a repudiation of the
Rousseauistic vision that has been repeated so many thousands of times during
the past two and a half centuries. Rousseau thought that social improvement was
largely a matter of clearing away debris so that the pure gold of a pristine
human nature could shine through from underneath. This idea was picked up by
Marx when he predicted that men would reach a perfected condition as soon as
the dialectical process had obliterated private property and the class
struggle. Recently the New Left philosopher Herbert Marcuse has looked forward
to a utopia based on a technological horn-of-plenty after the current society
has been smashed; and Theodore Roszak wants to undercut civilization so much as
to revert to man's primitive origins.17 Such views as these appear
profound in their radicalism; but they are actually simplistic, not nearly
radical enough. By catching on to scapegoats and illusions of perfectibility,
they produce anti-civilizational theories. Indeed, the alienation of the intellectual
has made him the most destructive element in modern civilization. He will
remain so until he sees that the problem is far more profound than he has
conceived it.
1. James Madison, The Federalist,
No.51.
2. The
classical liberal desire to encourage people to get off welfare was reflected
in the report of the royal commission in England in 1832 that embodied the Poor
Law Amendments that were enacted in 1834. The report said: "The first and
most essential of all conditions...is that his situation on the whole shall not
be made really or apparently so eligible (i.e., desirable) as the situation of
the independent laborer of the lowest class." Henry Hazlitt, The
Conquest of Poverty (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1973), p. 79.
3.
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics and Man
Versus the State (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897), p. 99; Man
Versus the State (Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969), pp. 139-141. Spencer's
compassion is apparent when he asks "What would you do if placed in the
position of the laborer? How would these virtues of yours stand the wear and
tear of poverty?" It is worth noticing that Spencer did not stand
consistently behind his endorsement of letting the weak perish; he was willing
to admit the validity of private charity because of its voluntary nature.
4. Jose
Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 1957), p. 15.
5. As
quoted in Henry May, The Discontent of the Intellectuals: A Problem of the
Twenties (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963), p. 23.
6.
Frederic Bastiat, The Law (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic
Education, 1964), p. 34.
7.
Robert Theobald, An Alternative Future for America (Chicago: Swallow
Press, Inc., 1968), p. 53.
8.
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York: Modern Library, 1942).
9. As
quoted in Jeffrey Hart, The American Dissent: A Decade of Modern
Conservatism (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), pp. 192-3.
10.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York: Liberal
Arts Press, 1955).
11. Russell Kirk, Enemies of the Permanent Things
(New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1969), pp. 146-7; The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), pp.
7, 8.
12. Richard Weaver, Ideas
Have Consequences (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1948), p. 4.
13. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (New York: Modern Library, 1952), p. 122; same (Everyman edition, Vol. I), p.
396.
14. John Stuart Mill, On Bentham and Coleridge (New York:
Academy Library, 1950).
15. Julien Benda, The Betrayal of the Intellectuals (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1930), p. 160.
16. Robert Payne, The Terrorists (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1957), p. 24.
17. Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1969); Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends (Garden City:
Doubleday & Company, 1972).