Comment: What Liberalism and Civic Humanism Have in Common — The Distortion of Classical Thought

Comment: What Liberalism and Civic Humanism Have in Common - The Distortion ofClassical Thought Peter J. Smith's paper describes a symbolic struggle and an academic quarrel about what it means. He summarizes the debate, executes the programannounced, and ends with a declaration that none ofus is ever likely to dispute: the question is very complex and much work remains to be done. This is no doubt true enough. However, I would like to suggest that the whole civic-humanism/ liberalism dispute is, in certain crucial respects, a parochialdoxological squabble. If I may quote from Michel Foucault: "Their controversies may have stirred up a few waves and caused a few surface ripples; but they are no more than storms in a child's paddling pool." Let me put the question raised by this paper somewhat less provocatively: why is Hobbes the last great English political philosopher? Why is it that when we teach the history of Western political philosophy we really haveto try to make LockeorJamesMill or his son interesting? We don't have that problem with, say, Nietzsche or even Rousseau. One reason, I believe, is a consequence of the opacity of language used by English-speaking political thinkers after the Restoration. This is illustrated easilyenough in the anachronistic language used by both sides in thedispute analyzed by Peter J. Smith and, indeed, uncritically adopted by him. For instance, Smith speaksofrepublicanismorof civic humanismas an ideology. This is a conventional , but by the same token an uncritical appropriation. Or, a few pages later he muses about the relationship ofLocke to liberalism. We should remind ourselves that ideology and liberalism are terms that were developed during the French, not the American, revolution. This is not mere pedantry. A close consideration ofthe symbol wrepublican" would have brought to light the fact that it was not simply a polemical term useful to criticize Christian opinion but that it also helped to eclipse experiences of reality that were 44 expressed in classical political philosophy. The so-called civic humanists may have quoted Aristotle, as Smith indicates, but the Aristotle they quoted was a kind of neopagan . However, Aristotle was not a pagan; he was a philosopher. There were no pagans until the Christians characterized their opponents as pagani, which we might translate as bumpkins. So, to appropriate Aristotle to their cause, the civic humanists had to turn him into an anti-Christian, which had the twofold result ofdistorting Aristotle and of leaving a certain class ofsentiments and experiencescutofffrom any symbolic or discursive control. These sentiments, emotions and experiences did not disappear but they did wander off in some peculiar directions . Consider, for example, the rather flat meaning of corruption, namely political corruption. This flatness was also responsible for the plausibility ofthe proffered remedy, namely good political and social institutions. Suchcorruptionand such remedies, however, are a long way from sin and redemption, to use Christian symbols, orfrom injusticeand justice, to use classical ones. These considerations bring us back to the narrow horizon ofEnglish-speaking political thought. There is no doubt that the Patriots, the Loyalists, Locke, and the Republicans all expressed their convictions about right political order. But the range ofexperiences and the corresponding symbolism available to them was restricted. They all, for instance, accepted the destruction of classical and medieval political science as given. Moreover , the institutions within which they existed were stable enough that the principles ofpolitics could be identified with conflicting interpretations of parochial English political life. What does this mean for political science? It means, as Smithindicates, that the thoughts ofpoliticians in liberal societies, no less than theLoyalists'debate with the Patriots, is likely to be akin to the arguments ofLocke: they are slippery andself-servingat worst and a decent and gentlemanly defence of interests and tradition at best. The technical term for such political discourse is civil theology, not political philosophy. So we should not be surprised when Janice Potter shows that the Revue detudes canadiennes Vol. 26, No. 2 (Ere 1991 Summer) Loyalists would rely on whatever arguments they could. Nor when William Nelson identifies the network of micro-interests that helped filter Loyalists from Patriots. Indeed, when dealing with this relatively low levelof political discourse, we should lookfirst to...