The Meaning of the “Common Man”

THE MEANING O:F THE 66 COMMON MAN" 1. THE " SovEREIGNTY OF THE CoMMON MAN " COMMUNISTS, philo-communists, Socialists and radicals or progressives of various shades criticize the " LiberalDemocratic " system of Western society on the ground of its being insufficiently democratic. To put it bluntly as they might, our democracy, too inhibited by its historic nexus with liberal constitutionalism-itself rooted in the traditions of Christian civilization-has not advanced far enough in its own direction. The inference from this is, of course, that Marxist-Leninist communism must be either accepted outright, closely imitated (subject to certain concessions and mitigations ), or emulated in a fashion dispensing altogether with its tyrannical and, therefore, " un-democratic " modes of procedure . The same " ideal " should be pursued, but if possible in such a manner that it would not hurt a great many people; the " dictatorship of the proletariat " should not " degenerate " into a "dictatorship over the proletariat." Better still, the dictatorship might be replaced by an immediate establishment of" substantial" or" social" democracy,-the liberal one being merely formal, juridical or political,-which would act from the outset in a mood of joyous spontaneity, and the stern and narrow grandeur of the proletariat might as well be broadened into the mo:re humane and tolerant concept of " the common people." This is the concept we propose to examine in the pages that follow. The Common Man, indeed, may be regarded as the" common denominator" between Communism and Liberal Democracy, and so far, envisaged on the plane of realities, as one of the chief ideological forces paralysing our resistance to Communist Imperialismo Many of us are incapable of being integrally anti-communist,-incapable, not in the formal sense only of granting everybody a " right to his own opinion " the name " tolerance " and abhorring the persecution of ever so pe:rni- THE MEANING OF THE " COMMON MAN " 273 cious enemies of liberty in the name of Liberty, but in the sense of a positive and specific sympathy with the Enemy, notwithstanding all reprobation or apprehension: for in spite of everything that can be said against them, the Communists are " after all " working on behalf and in the interest of the " Common Man," nay, to no other purpose than that of ensuring a social order in which the Common Man is supreme, wherefore a certain essential solidarity cannot very well be refused to them. Democracy, in our sense, as an actual regime, a subsistent social reality, would naturally tend to withstand the aggression and to counter the menace of Communism its lethal Foe-which being an embodiment of subversive Totalitarianism at its height, cannot tolerate any power besides its own, nor indeed any human reality or aspect of human nature outside the grip of its power. Yet Democracy as a " dialectical " p1·ocess, Democracy as informed and inspired by its inherent law of" evolution," no less naturally tends towards welcoming Communism as a "fulfilment " of its own transcendent aim and a " consummation " of its own meaning, or at any rate towards recognizing Communism as a rival brother labouring under imperfections of his own but yet representing the selfsame triumphant march of Man in quest of his self-conceived heaven on earth. From the point of view of Democracy's defence against the Totalitarian conqueror, then, the fetish of the" Common Man" appears as a " paralysing idea " of the first magnitude, and its philosophical destruction-apart from the purely intellectual interest which few will deny to such an enquiry-a practical task of great urgency. Moreover, even taking abstraction from the formidable threat proffered by the actual and present power of Soviet Communism, it is most important for those attached to the high values bred out and reflected by liberaldemocratic civilization in its given reality to take note clearly and fearlessly of the immanent dangers, the self-stultifying tendencies, the spiritually suicidal bent of that civilization; of the dismal ambiguity implied in the overworked slogan 274 AUREL KOLNAI "Democracy." What we have in mind is not, of course, a proposal to substitute for (Western) "Democracy," along with its ideological biases, a fancy system of Conservative Constitutionalism , nor a " return " to this or that specified stage of the past...