Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of Deculturation
It is possible to get all the way through a respectable university education without ever hearing of Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). Like another notable German-speaking intellectual refugee from Nazism, namely, Leo Strauss, Voegelin built his reputation upon the writing and teaching he did at American universities. Like Strauss’s, Voegelin’s answer to the failures of 20th century thought re-presented the wisdom of the classic Platonic-Aristotelian thought for three generations of American intellectuals.
Unlike Leo Strauss, though, Voegelin owes no popularity to the efforts of self-styled “disciples” to spread his influence. You can’t find Voegelin’s books on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, and that probably has something to do with the fact that his students did not self-consciously promote the teachings of their guru. It probably has more to do with the fact that Voegelin’s thought was much less friendly to classical liberalism and its heroes than Strauss’s. (One recalls Strauss’s arguments of four decades endeavoring to paint such thinkers Socrates, Machiavelli, and Spinoza all as agreeable anti-totalitarian liberals, which rather suited the tastes of 20th century American anti-totalitarian liberalism.)
A late essay of Voegelin’s called “On Classical Studies” (1972) provides an excellent and accessible introduction to some of the major themes of his thought. The point of the essay is to illustrate how what Voegelin calls the “deculturation” of the modern West—what he argues is a mixture of the ancient Gnostic heresy and various forms of the libido dominandi—has ruined our ability to understand the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, as it has indeed ruined everything. Since the apparatus of modern thought is broken, it is unable to comprehend the most important truths about the ancients—which are about the truths held by the ancients--, even as modern science has made secondary aspects of ancient life better understood now than ever before.
Voegelin starts this essay by “properly” defining classical studies in the words of Friedrich August Wolff: (1759-1824): “the study of man’s nature as it has become manifest in the Greeks.” The very conditions of modernity have rendered such a definition ridiculous, he writes, for “the man who manifested his nature in the Greek language has become the subject matter of specialized histories…Classical studies are reduced to enclaves in vast institutions of higher learning in which the study of man’s nature does not rank high in the concerns of man.” (256)*
The heart of the essay is a succinct enumeration of the ways in which, according to Voegelin, the findings of the “Platonic-Aristotelian...science of the nature of man” are in conflict with the opinions of modernity, “even more than with the Sophistic of their times”. The nine-point list deserves quoting at length:
1. Classic: There is a nature of man, a definite structure of existence that puts limits on perfectibility. Modern: The nature of man can be changed, either through historical evolution or through revolutionary action, so that a perfect realm of freedom can be established in history.
2. Classic: Philosophy is the endeavor to advance from opinion (doxa) about the order of man and society to science (episteme); the philosopher is not a philodoxer. Modern: No science in such matters is possible, only opinion; everybody is entitled to his opinions; we have a pluralist society.
3. Classic: Society is man written large. Modern: Man is society written small.
4. Classic: Man exists in erotic tension towards the divine ground of his existence. Modern: He doesn’t, for I don’t; and I’m the measure man.
5. Classic: Man is disturbed by the question of the ground; by nature he is a questioner (aporein) and seeker (zetein) for the whence, the where to, and the why of his existence…Modern: Such questions are otiose (Comte); don’t ask them, be a socialist man (Marx); questions to which the sciences of world-immanent things can give no answer are senseless, they are Scheinprobleme (neopositivism).
6. Classic: The feeling of existential unrest, the desire to know, the feeling of being moved to question, the questioning and seeking itself, the direction of the questioning toward the ground that moves to be sought, the recognition of the divine ground as the mover, are the experiential complex, the pathos, in which the reality of divine-human participation (metalepsis) becomes luminous…Modern: the modern responses to this central issue change with the “climate of opinion”.
7. Classic: Education is the art of periagoge, of turning around (Plato). Modern: Education is the art of adjusting people so solidly to the climate of opinion prevalent at the time that they feel no “desire to know.” Education is the art of preventing people from acquiring the knowledge that would enable them to articulate the questions of existence. Education is the art of pressuring young people into a state of alienation that will result in either quiet despair or aggressive militancy.
8. Classic: The process in which metaleptic reality becomes conscious and noetically articulate is the process in which the nature of man becomes luminous to itself as the life of reason. Man is the zoon noun echon. Modern: Reason is instrumental reason. There is no such thing as a noetic rationality of man.
9. Classic: Through the life of reason (bios theoretikos) man realizes his freedom. Modern: Plato and Aristotle were fascists. The life of reason is a fascist enterprise. (258-260)
It is more than thirty years old, but Voegelin’s summary of the oppressive dogmatic opinions of modernity is not seriously dated by any of its contents. One might change the vocabulary a bit: no one calls Aristotle a “fascist” anymore. (I am told, however, that “hegemonist” is what people say in graduate school now. The irrationalist opprobrium is the same.)
If anything, the truth of Voegelin’s insights is more visible today after three decades of development. The frightening prospect of “human perfectibility” through biotechnology really isn’t any more frightening than previous doctrines of perfectibility through progressivist liberal-pragmatism or global Communism, which is not to say that it isn’t frightening. It is the same anti-classical axiom: the nature of man can be changed, which is the same as to say that there is no nature of man.
And that opinion is what makes “classical studies” utterly meaningless to modernity. For if there is no such thing as man’s nature, what is there to study that was uniquely manifested in the Greeks? Grain merchants’ inventory lists? Indo-European liquid consonant development?
Voegelin illustrates the near-impossibility of leading young minds in their current climate of opinion to discover the insights of classic Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy:
In the mid-1960s I gave a course in classical politics at a major university. All went well as long as the students believed they were offered the customary fare of information on Plato’s “opinions”. An uproar ensued when they found out that philosophy of politics was to be taken seriously as a science. The idea that some propositions concerning the order of man and society were to be accepted as true, others to be rejected as false, came as a shock; they had never heard of such a thing before. A few actually walked out of the course; but the majority, I am glad to report, stayed on, they became enchanted by Plato, and at the end they profusely expressed their gratitude to have at last learned of an alternative to the drivel of opinions they were routinely fed. (261)
It is heartening to read of Voegelin’s success in helping these students to turn around (periagoge); the idea that there is truth in political philosophy remains radically contrary to our current climate of opinion. But I wonder if in a class of undergraduates at a major university of 40 years later there would be anyone who would care enough to cause an uproar and walk out. Have 40 years of educational deculturation taken us even farther than Voegelin could imagine—past “quiet despair” and “aggressive militancy” into something totally new: the dogmatic slumber of complete epistemological apathy and agnosis?
(* All citations are from The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, v. 12: Published Essays 1966-1985, edited by Ellis Sandoz and published in 1990 by Louisiana State University Press.)
It is possible to get all the way through a respectable university education without ever hearing of Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). Like another notable German-speaking intellectual refugee from Nazism, namely, Leo Strauss, Voegelin built his reputation upon the writing and teaching he did at American universities. Like Strauss’s, Voegelin’s answer to the failures of 20th century thought re-presented the wisdom of the classic Platonic-Aristotelian thought for three generations of American intellectuals.
Unlike Leo Strauss, though, Voegelin owes no popularity to the efforts of self-styled “disciples” to spread his influence. You can’t find Voegelin’s books on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, and that probably has something to do with the fact that his students did not self-consciously promote the teachings of their guru. It probably has more to do with the fact that Voegelin’s thought was much less friendly to classical liberalism and its heroes than Strauss’s. (One recalls Strauss’s arguments of four decades endeavoring to paint such thinkers Socrates, Machiavelli, and Spinoza all as agreeable anti-totalitarian liberals, which rather suited the tastes of 20th century American anti-totalitarian liberalism.)
A late essay of Voegelin’s called “On Classical Studies” (1972) provides an excellent and accessible introduction to some of the major themes of his thought. The point of the essay is to illustrate how what Voegelin calls the “deculturation” of the modern West—what he argues is a mixture of the ancient Gnostic heresy and various forms of the libido dominandi—has ruined our ability to understand the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, as it has indeed ruined everything. Since the apparatus of modern thought is broken, it is unable to comprehend the most important truths about the ancients—which are about the truths held by the ancients--, even as modern science has made secondary aspects of ancient life better understood now than ever before.
Voegelin starts this essay by “properly” defining classical studies in the words of Friedrich August Wolff: (1759-1824): “the study of man’s nature as it has become manifest in the Greeks.” The very conditions of modernity have rendered such a definition ridiculous, he writes, for “the man who manifested his nature in the Greek language has become the subject matter of specialized histories…Classical studies are reduced to enclaves in vast institutions of higher learning in which the study of man’s nature does not rank high in the concerns of man.” (256)*
The heart of the essay is a succinct enumeration of the ways in which, according to Voegelin, the findings of the “Platonic-Aristotelian...science of the nature of man” are in conflict with the opinions of modernity, “even more than with the Sophistic of their times”. The nine-point list deserves quoting at length:
1. Classic: There is a nature of man, a definite structure of existence that puts limits on perfectibility. Modern: The nature of man can be changed, either through historical evolution or through revolutionary action, so that a perfect realm of freedom can be established in history.
2. Classic: Philosophy is the endeavor to advance from opinion (doxa) about the order of man and society to science (episteme); the philosopher is not a philodoxer. Modern: No science in such matters is possible, only opinion; everybody is entitled to his opinions; we have a pluralist society.
3. Classic: Society is man written large. Modern: Man is society written small.
4. Classic: Man exists in erotic tension towards the divine ground of his existence. Modern: He doesn’t, for I don’t; and I’m the measure man.
5. Classic: Man is disturbed by the question of the ground; by nature he is a questioner (aporein) and seeker (zetein) for the whence, the where to, and the why of his existence…Modern: Such questions are otiose (Comte); don’t ask them, be a socialist man (Marx); questions to which the sciences of world-immanent things can give no answer are senseless, they are Scheinprobleme (neopositivism).
6. Classic: The feeling of existential unrest, the desire to know, the feeling of being moved to question, the questioning and seeking itself, the direction of the questioning toward the ground that moves to be sought, the recognition of the divine ground as the mover, are the experiential complex, the pathos, in which the reality of divine-human participation (metalepsis) becomes luminous…Modern: the modern responses to this central issue change with the “climate of opinion”.
7. Classic: Education is the art of periagoge, of turning around (Plato). Modern: Education is the art of adjusting people so solidly to the climate of opinion prevalent at the time that they feel no “desire to know.” Education is the art of preventing people from acquiring the knowledge that would enable them to articulate the questions of existence. Education is the art of pressuring young people into a state of alienation that will result in either quiet despair or aggressive militancy.
8. Classic: The process in which metaleptic reality becomes conscious and noetically articulate is the process in which the nature of man becomes luminous to itself as the life of reason. Man is the zoon noun echon. Modern: Reason is instrumental reason. There is no such thing as a noetic rationality of man.
9. Classic: Through the life of reason (bios theoretikos) man realizes his freedom. Modern: Plato and Aristotle were fascists. The life of reason is a fascist enterprise. (258-260)
It is more than thirty years old, but Voegelin’s summary of the oppressive dogmatic opinions of modernity is not seriously dated by any of its contents. One might change the vocabulary a bit: no one calls Aristotle a “fascist” anymore. (I am told, however, that “hegemonist” is what people say in graduate school now. The irrationalist opprobrium is the same.)
If anything, the truth of Voegelin’s insights is more visible today after three decades of development. The frightening prospect of “human perfectibility” through biotechnology really isn’t any more frightening than previous doctrines of perfectibility through progressivist liberal-pragmatism or global Communism, which is not to say that it isn’t frightening. It is the same anti-classical axiom: the nature of man can be changed, which is the same as to say that there is no nature of man.
And that opinion is what makes “classical studies” utterly meaningless to modernity. For if there is no such thing as man’s nature, what is there to study that was uniquely manifested in the Greeks? Grain merchants’ inventory lists? Indo-European liquid consonant development?
Voegelin illustrates the near-impossibility of leading young minds in their current climate of opinion to discover the insights of classic Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy:
In the mid-1960s I gave a course in classical politics at a major university. All went well as long as the students believed they were offered the customary fare of information on Plato’s “opinions”. An uproar ensued when they found out that philosophy of politics was to be taken seriously as a science. The idea that some propositions concerning the order of man and society were to be accepted as true, others to be rejected as false, came as a shock; they had never heard of such a thing before. A few actually walked out of the course; but the majority, I am glad to report, stayed on, they became enchanted by Plato, and at the end they profusely expressed their gratitude to have at last learned of an alternative to the drivel of opinions they were routinely fed. (261)
It is heartening to read of Voegelin’s success in helping these students to turn around (periagoge); the idea that there is truth in political philosophy remains radically contrary to our current climate of opinion. But I wonder if in a class of undergraduates at a major university of 40 years later there would be anyone who would care enough to cause an uproar and walk out. Have 40 years of educational deculturation taken us even farther than Voegelin could imagine—past “quiet despair” and “aggressive militancy” into something totally new: the dogmatic slumber of complete epistemological apathy and agnosis?
(* All citations are from The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, v. 12: Published Essays 1966-1985, edited by Ellis Sandoz and published in 1990 by Louisiana State University Press.)
posted by famulus_veritatis at 8:37 AM
1 Comments:
Nobody--
I can't count how many times as a youth I heard my dear mother yell at me from downstairs: "Are you immanentizing the eschaton again?"
"No, mom, just fooling around with an open C tuning on my steel string..."
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