1
The Question of Democracy
My purpose here is to enorage and to cotriute to a revival of political philosophy I am not alone in woring to that end. Our nmers ae no dout, small, but they have been inceasing for soe time although it must e admitted that thee is as yet little ethusias for the task What surprises e is that most of those who ought to be est-equipped to udertake it ecause of their intellectal teperament, whih inlies the to break with dogatic beliefs beause of their philosophical cuture, because of thei desire to nd some eaning ehind the evets confused as they may be that tae plae in our world who ight be expected to have ecoe sfcienty disenchated with the rival doinant ideologies to wat to disern the preonditions for the deveopet of feedo, or at last to shed some light o the ostacles that stand i its way, ae and reai stubborly blind to the political Freedo the siple word I have jst used is usually aished fro scientic language or relegated to the veraular, when that is, it does not ecome a slogan for small groups of intelletuals who deare that they have taen sides and who are ontet with anti omunis. hey an be ignored no matter how much noise they make, as we have seen their kind before am ore oerned with those itelletuas ad philosophers who claim to elog to the left or the far left. Although they live in an era in whih a ew for of society has eerged uder the baner of fascism on the one hand and uder that of socialism o the other they refuse to cotemplate or even pereive that moentous evet. I orde to do so, they would of orse have to give new meaing to the idea of freedo. And yet they abado it to the vagaries of public opiio apparently on the gronds that everyoe dees it in aordane with their own wishes o interests By doing so they cut themseves off not fro pblic opinio ut fom politial phiosophy even though they clai to e in search of rigorou knowledg. For the soe motivatio behind political philosophy has aways been a desire to escape the servitude
On Modem Deocracy
The Question of Deocracy
oiety it ha away bore in mid the eentia dieree between the regime of freedom nd depotim or ideed tyrnny. Yet now that we are faced with the rie of a new type of depotim whih difer, et it be noted, from anient deotim a muh a modern demoracy difer rom aia demoray) of a depotim which ha moreover wordwide ambition, depotim ite i beoming inviibe Whenever they hear the word totaitariaim' phioopher ak What are you taking abot it a onept? How do you dene it Doe ot democray mak the domination and expoitation of one a by another, the tandardizatio of oetive ie and ma onformim Even i we do agree that hitory ha give birth to a monter what aued the mutation? Wa it an eonomi ae a tehoogia aue, or doe it reate to the rie of tate burearacy' am, a aid urpried: how an they hade ontoogia diferene with uh ubtety vie with one aother i expoitig the combined reoure of Heidegger, Laan Jakobo and Lvi-Stra, and the fa bak upon uh ra reaim when the qetion of poiti arie Marxim, of oure ha been through thi tage too; it detroyed the od reationhip that oe exited between phioohy and naivety by teahing u that the etabihment of a onentrationamp ytem the extermiation of miion o men and wome the ppreion of freedom f aoiation and freedom of expreion, and the aboitio of nivera frage or it onverion into a fare which give one arty ninety nine per ent of the vote te u nothig about the atre o Soviet oiety But the mot remarkabe thing of a i tht the withering away o that ideoogy ha done itte to et thought free or to hep it return to oitia phioophy. t may we be admitted that it i not oiaim or true' oiaim a they quainty ay that i beig ontruted in the USSR in Eatern Europe in China Vietnam Cambodi o Cuba bt how many inteetu are ti haunted by the petre o the orret theory, by the beie that it wi revea the aw that govern the deveopment of oietie and that it wi enabe them to dedue a forma or a rationa pratie At bet we d expreion of ymathy for the diident pereuted by ommuit regime or or popuar upriing But uh feeing have o ating inteeta effet They are unabe to dier freedom in demoracy beaue demoray i dened a borgeoi They are unabe to dier evitude in totaitarianim. t woud however be a mitake to retrit oureve to a ritique of Marxim. we are to reinterpret the oitic we mut break with ienti point of view i geera and with the point of view that ha ome to dominate what ae known a the oitia iene and oitia oioogy in particar. Poitia oioogit and ientit or their pat do not attempt to dene poiti a a uertrture whoe bae i to be ound at the uppoedy rea eve o reation o prodtion. They obtain thei
the regard a particar fat and a ditint from othe articuar oa fat, h a the eonomi, the juridia the aethetic the cienti or the purey oia oia being dened a deignating mode of reatn between grop or ae. Thi approah imie a urreptto referene to the pae that i deignated a oiety. t aim to be abe to provide a detaied rvey or reontrution of that pae by oiting and artiating term, by forging ecic ytem of reaton or eve by ombining them into an overa ytem a though the obervation ad ontt did not themeve derive from the experiene of ocia ife, a exeriee whih i at one primordia _ and uqey haped by our inertion into a hitoriay ad poiticay det�rmined framework. One effet of thi tion i immediatey obvu: modern demoratic oietie are harateied by among other thing the deimitatio of a phere of intitution, reation and ativitie whih appea to be oitia, a ditint from other phere whh appear to be eonomi, juridia and o on Poitia ocioogit ad ientit nd the preondition that dene their objet and their aproah to knowedge in thi mode of appearane of the oitica without ever examiing the form of oiety within whih the diviion of reait into variou etor apear and i egitimated The fat that omething ike poliics hod have been irmribed within ocia ife at a given time ha in itef a poitia meaning ad a meaning whih i not artiuar but genera. Thi even raie the quetion of the ottutn of the oia pae, of the fo of oiety of the eene of what wa oe termed the ity' The poitia i th reveaed not in what we a poitica ativity but in the dobe movement wheeby the mode of ititution of oiety appear and i obured t apear in he ene that the roe whereby ociety i ordered and unied ao it diviion beome viibe. t i obcured in the ee that the ou of poiti the ou in whih partie ompete and in whih a geera ageny of powe take hape and i reprodued) become deed a patiar whie the prinipe which generate the overa onguration i oeaed. Thi obervation i in itef an ivitatio to retur to the quetion that one inpired poitia phioophy: what i the ature of the differene between form of oiety tepreting the poitica mean breakig with the viewpoint of oitia cience beaue poitica iene emerge fom the uppreion of thi quetion. t emerge from a deire to objectify, and it forget that no eement, no eementary truture, no entitie cae or egmet of ae) no eonomic or tehnica detemiatio and no dimenion of oia pae exit unti they have been given a form Givig them a form impie both giving them meaning (ise en sens) and taging them (ise en sne). They are given meaning in that the oia pace unfod a a pace of inteigibiit artiuated in aordane with a peic mode of ditiguihing betwee the rea and the imaginary, the tre and the
I
n Mod Doacy
The Question of Deocay
noral ad the pathologial. They are staged i that this pa contains within it a qasi-rpesetatio of itel as bing aristorati, onarhi despoti, docratic or totalitaria. As w know, the corollary of the dsire to objtify is th positioig of a sbjet apable of perforing intelletual operations whih ow othing to its inolent in soial lif Such a ntral ujt is oerned only with deteting ausal relations between phenona and with discoering th law that gor the oganiatio ad th woking of soial systes or s-systes. Th tion of this subjet is ulnerale to or than th arget of critical ociologist ad Marxists who objet to the distintio twn factual judgeents and ale jdgeent, and who show that th analyst i working within a prspti fored po hi by the nd to dfnd his onoic or ultual inteests. Well-fonded as it ay e this argent itelf cos p agaist liitations whih will not b xaind hr. It fails to reognie that any yte of thought that is ond p with ay for of soial lif is grapplig with a bjt attr whih ontai withi it its own itrpretatio ad whose eaning is a onstitet elent of it atr. y aribing ntrality to th bjct it dpries the sjet of the ean to grasp an eperiene generated and ordrd by a ipliit onption of th rlation tw ha beings and of their relations with the world. t preents the subject fro grasping th on thig that has b grapd i ry ha soiety the one thig that gies it it status as han soiety: naly th diffrn twn lgitiay and illgitiay twen truth ad lies, be tween athentiityad ipostre etween the prsuit of power or o priat intsts and th prsuit of th coon good o Strausss attaks on what ight e tered the astration of politial thoght a a rult of th ris of th oial siee and of Marxis ar sufiently eloquent for us not to dwell on the issue here we ha only to turn to the itiq that ops Natul Right nd Histoy' et e say siply that if we ignore ditintios that are basi to th xri of the intellt on th grond that we canot pply their riteria and if w lai to be able to rde knowledge to th liits of objetie siene, we bra with th philosophial tradition. If we rfus to rik akig judgeents, we lose all sense of th diffrne etwee fors of soiety. W then fall bak on ale judgeents ithr hyporitially, enath the cloak of a hierarhy in the deterinats of what w take to be the ral or aritrarily i th rud stateent of preferenes
doe not result fro a transforation of th ode of production. n th as of Geran or Italian fasiss th point doe not ha to b stresed as thy adaptd thsels to the aintnanc of capitalist strtur whater hages thy ay hae undergone as a rult of inreased tat intrention into the cooy t it i iportant at leat to rall that th Soiet regi aquired its ditinctie features bfor the era of th soialiatio of th ans of prodction and of olletiiatio. Modr totalitariais aises fro a political utation fro a tation of a syboli order, and th hage in th tatu of power is it larest expression What i fat happn is that a party arise claiing to by it ry natre diffrt fro taditional parties, to rprsent th aspirations of the whole peopl ad to posss a legitiay whih plas it ao the law It tak power by detroyng all oppoition the ew power is acountale to no on and is beyond all lgal otrol ut for our purpose th ous of eents i of littl iport; w ar onernd with th ost harateritic fatur of th new for of oity A odnsation ta pla et een the sphe of power, th sphere of law and th pher of knowldg Knowldg of th ultiat goals of soity ad of th ors whih regulate ocial pratie boes the property of powr, and at the a ti powr itslf lais to th organ of a disours whih articuates the real as suh Powr is ebodid in a group and, at it highst ll, in a singl indiidual and it rgs with a knowledge which is ao bodied in suh a way that nothing an split it apart. Th thory or if not the thory the pirit of the ont as i Nais y well turn eerythig to aont a irustae dand, but it can nr be hallngd by exprie Stat and iil soiety ar asud to ha erged; thi is brought abot throgh th agcy of th ubiquitou party which prate erythig with th doinant ideology and hads down powrs oders, a irtancs dand, and through the foation of a ltipliity of iroodie (organiations of all ids in whih an artiial soialiatio ad rlation of powr oforig to the gneral odl ar reproded A logic of idetiation is t in otion, and i goernd by th rprsntation of power as eodit. The proltariat and the people are one; th party ad th proletariat ar oe; the politrau ad, ltiatly, th got, and the party are o. Whilst there deelops a repreentation of a hoognous and lftranparnt soity, of a Popl-a-On soial diision in all its ods is denied, ad at the ae tie all igns of differene of opiion blif or or are condend W an se the te despotis to haraterie this rgi, ut only if we speify that it is odern and diffrs fro all the fo that prcd it. Powr akes o refern to anything eyond th ocial; it rules as though nothing xited outsid the soial, a though it had no liit (th are th liits stalished y th ida of a law or a truth tht is alid in itself; it lates to a soiety beyod whih there is nothing
I wold like now to daw attentio to what reinterpreting th politial an in or ties. h ri of totalitarianis both i it fasit ariant (which ha for th oent ee dtroyd though w ha no gound to thik that it ight not rappar in the ftur and in its onist aiant (whih is going fo strength to strength obliges s to r-xaine deoay.
3
On Mode Deocracy
T Quetion of Docray
producd y h pop who iv i i. Th diinciy modrn au of oaiarianim i ha i comin a radicay ariciai ida wih a radicay organici ida. Th imag o h ody com o comind wih h imag o h machin. ociy appar o a communiy a o who mmr ar ricy indpd a h am im i i aumd o conrucig if day by day, o b riing oward a goa h craion o h w man ad b iing in a a of prman moiizaion W ca ignor or faur, which ha dcibd a ngh wh uch a h phnomno of h producioniminaion of h nm h my wihin bing dnd a an agn of h nmy wiho, a a parai on h od, or a a irrnc wih h working of h machi) Nor am ying hr o a h conradicion oaiaianim com up again. En hi brif ouin aow u o r-xami dmocracy. Whn n again h background of oaiariaim, i acquir a nw dph and cano rducd o a ym of iniuion. I i urn, dmocrac oo i o a form of ociy and o ak i o udrand wha coniu i uniqun, and wha i i aou i ha ad o i orhrow ad o h adn of oaiarianim. Anyon who undak uch a projc can arn a gra da from Tocqui Th hing ha mar him ou rom hi conmporari i in fac hi raizaio ha dmocacy i a form of ociy, and h ari a ha concuio bca in hi viw dmocracy ad ou agai a backgrond: h ociy from which i mrg ad which h ca ariocrai ociy a rm which i woud o b appropria o dic hr Tocqui hp o dciph h xprinc of modrn dmocracy by couraging u o ook back a wha cam bfor i and a am im, o ook ahad o wha i mrging, or may mrg, in i wak Hi inigaion ar imporan o u i ra rpc. poi h ida ha a ga hiorica maion i kig pac, n hogh i prmi had ong aihd, and h pu forward h ida of an irrvri dynamic. Ahough h amp o oca h fundama princip of dmocracy in a ocia a quaiy of condiion h xpor chang i vy dircion, ak an inr in ocia bond and poiica iniuio in h indiida in h mchanim of pic opiio, in form o niiiy and orm of knowdg in rigion, aw, anguag, iraur, hior, c Hi xporaion ad him o dc h ambigii of h deocratic revoltio in ry domain, o ma, a i w a xporaor iciion ino h eh o h ocia A ry momn o hi anayi h ook a hing from oh id mo from on id of h phnomnon o h oh and rva h ndid of boh h poii nw ign o frdom and h ngai nw ign o rid I i ony rcny ha Tocqui ha bcom a fahiona hinr ha h ha n dnd a h pionig hori of modn poiica
conradicion ha ari whn oci ordr no ongr a ai m o m o b mch mor impora a hi rpuaion. H rac hi conradicion by xaminig individa, who ha bn ra from h od nwok o prona dpdc and grand h fdom o hik and ac in accordanc wih hi ow orm u who i on h ohr had, ioad impovrihd ad a am im rappd by h imag of hi fow now a agguinaion wi hm poid a ma of caping h hra of diouion of hi idniy. H xamin pubic opiion a i conqur h righ o xprion and communicaio and a h am im com a forc i i ow igh, a i com dacd om ubjc, in ad pak fo if, and com an anonymou pow anding or hm. xamin aw whic, cau i i drawn o h po of h coci wi, accp h w dmad ha ar orn o cag in mnaii and pracic, and which, a a r of quaiy of condiion, i incraingy ddicad o h ak o andardizing norm of aior and, nay xami powr which ha n r from h arirarin of prona ru, bu wic, prciy cau i droy a indiida inanc of auoiy, appar o bog o n on, xcp o h pop in h arc ad wic ran o com nimid, omnipo, o acquir an ambiion o ak carg of ry pc of ocia if. am no aying ha Tocqi' anayi of i conradicion, whic i ihrn in dmoray, i irrfa i do opn up ry fruiu in o arc which a no bn purud. Wiho wihing o dicu h difcui ino whic h um I ha gin om indicaion o h wr2 m impy orv a hi xporaion ar ay rricd o wa I a rmd undrid of h phnomna h bi o b caracriic of nw ociy, and ha h do no puru i xporaion by xamining h ndrid of h undrid. T a cnry ad a af a gon by inc h pubicaion of Deocray i Aeria W rfor njoy h of xprinc and ha h capaci o dcipr ing ha i ahor cod ony gimp. B i i no imp i ack o xprinc which rric hi irpraion hr i ao, I bi an inca rucac which i ound p wih a poiica prjdic o confo h unknow mn in dmocray. A I canno dop my criicim hr I wi mry a a i hi amp o ring ou amiguou fc of quaiy of codiio Tocqui uay ri o uncor an inrion o manig nw arion o ingariy fad in h fac of r o anonymiy; arion of diffrnc of bif, opinion or moa fad in fac of h r of niformiy piri o innoaion i riizd by immdia joymn of maia good and by h purizaion o ioica im rcogniion a human bing ar mad in on anohr in i doyd y ri of ociy a abrac niy, and o on. Wha h fai o and
4
5
20
On Modem Deocray
the interests ad appetites of vulgar amition and when in a word it appears in soiety ad whe at the same time societ appers to e fragmented then we see the developmet of the fatasy of the People as-ne, the begiigs o a quest for a sustatial idetity, for a social body which is welded to its head for an embodying power, for a state free from division It is sometimes said that demcacy itself already makes room for totalitaria instittions modes of orgaiation and modes of representation. Whilst this is certainly true it is also stil tre to say that a chage in the economy of power is reqied if the totalitaian form of society is to aise. I onclusion I return to my ital cosdertons. t seems strange to me that most of or contempoaies have o sese of how much philosophy owes to the democratic eperience that they do not explore its matri or take it as a theme for their reections, that they fail to recognize it as the mati of their investigations. When oe recalls how certain great philosophers were drawn to aism at least i its early stages, and to a much geater and lasting etent, to Stalinism oe begins to wonder whether, i modern philosophy the ability to break with the illsios of both theology and eighteenth- ad ineteenth century ratioalism does ot carry with it, in trn qasireligious fith, a nostalgia for the image of a society which is at one with itself and which has mastered its history for the image o an oganic commuity But can we estrict discssion to the idea of a separation between philosophical thoght and political elief? Can either remai uaffected, once they have come into contact? t appers to me that the question is worth asking, and that we might be ale to shed some light on it by followig the evoltio of the thought of Merleau-Ponty A simila necessity led hm to move fom the dea of the ody to the dea of the esh and dispelled the attractios o the Commuist model by allowing him to ediscover the indeterminacy of history and of the being of the social.
2
Huan Righ and The Welfae Sae
As soon as we egin to as orselves abot hma ights, we nd orselves drawn into a labyrinth of qestions We must rst as orselves if we can in fact accept the formula withot makig reference to a hman nture r if we reect the notion of human nture withot srrendering to a teleological visio of history. or can we in fact say that hman beings have embarked upo a voyage of self discovery that they create themselves by discovering and instituting rights in the absence of any principle that might allow us to decide as to their tre ature and as to whether their evoltion does or does not conform to their essence? ve at this early stage we cannot ignore the qestion. Even if we attempt to avoid it and simply examine the import of an event such as the proclamatio at the end of the eighteeth centry of the ights known as the rights of ma, other difculties lie i store. If we adopt the ltter course our investigations appear to be gided, if ot by observatio at least by a readig and interpetatio of the fcts We egin y asking ourselves about the meaig of the mutation that occrred in the repesentation of the individal and of society. hat questio leads to another can the effects of that mtation ecidate the ourse of history up to the present time? o be more specic: is it the case that human rights merely served to disguise relations estalished in borgeois society, or did they make possile or eve give rise to, demads ad struggles which contriuted to the rise of democray? ve this is too crude a statemet of the terms of the alterative ven if and believe that the orgniers of this deate would accept the hypothesis we agree tht the instittion of human rights has come to support a dnamic of rights, do we not have to ivestigate the effects of that developmet? It is one thing to say that social ecoomic and cultural rights notably those mentioed in the ited atios Charte arise as an extension of those oiginal rights It is qite another to say that they derive from the same ispiration and it is yet another to take the view that they 1
