"The Left must advance an alternative modernity." And an alternative morality, I would insist.
I wish to write a few words on Erik Baker's Review of Ronald Beiner, Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Return of the Far Right (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
I shall resist the temptation to write too much and instead point people in the direction of my work over the years. I have been digging deep into the issues raised here for a long time, and it is encouraging that young new thinkers and scholars are beginning to engage with the problematic at the heart of liberal capitalist modernity. The problem is deeper than the ownership and control of property, although that alienative and exploitative mode of production is a crucial part of it.
This article criticises a book by Ronald Beiner, who remains trapped in the antinomies of liberal modernity. There really is “a spiritual void at the heart of modernity.” And the task of the liberal democrat - it is claimed - is to defend modernity despite the overwhelming evidence of its “spiritual or cultural vacuity.”
Liberals have been trying that defence - and are asserting it all the more now in its rejection - and it is being swept away. What is striking is the assumption that centrist liberal managerialism is all that modernity ever was, or ever could be!
Beiner highlights the Nietzschean pedigree of Max Weber, his great model for a tragic liberalism. And he makes little effort to conceal the Nietzschean elitism of his own political vision.
"It is a classic double-truth doctrine. What Nietzsche and Heidegger expose about modernity is safe and even salutary for committed, enlightened liberals to understand."
And it is a cul-de-sac, one that enlightened liberals, cleaving to a centre-ground that exists nowhere except in their wishful thinking (and political evasion), head down time and again.
Beiner is absolutely right that it’s possible to offer a coherent Nietzschean defense of liberal capitalism, Baker writes, and Weber is one, dominant, model. Over the past century, the view of Weber has prevailed over that of Marx. Weber described The Communist. Manifesto as a "pathetic prophecy." He also warned that "the dictatorship of the proletariat" would be realised as "the dictatorship of the officials." Whilst that is taken on the simple level as a critique of socialism as necessarily bureaucratic in imposing the social good, the deeper point is that such bureaucratic organisation is implicit in the 'rational' forms of liberal modernity itself. Weber thought that terrain untranscendable. Marx offers a way out in locating the problems not in some ahistorical Reason but in an alienated system of production. That alienation is revocable for Marx in a way it isn't for Weber. But, yes, it hasn't happened yet. It needs to. Because a defence of liberal centrism against those protesting the loss of the sense of belonging, meaning, and morality will be swept away.
Beiner takes his stand on a centrist liberalism that can be distinguished from ultra-rightism only by a decision about values, rather than a difference in underlying worldview. Baker notes that 'that doesn’t bother Beiner too much,' since he is 'confident that the good guys can stick, indefinitely, to the basically non-rational commitment that separates them from the bad guys. Or at least that it’s the best hope we’ve got.'
That's untenable, and complacent, for reasons I present over and again in my work. That 'defence of values' is arbitrary and unsustainable, a projection of will which will be met by rival projections. This is Weber's view of the polytheism of values characterising the modern world, the war of rival gods/goods - which may just as well be described as devils/bads, given the absence of objective standards and criteria. This is a sophist power struggle, a cycle of power/resistance, with Hobbes on one side and Foucault on the other. There are no good reasons, in a disenchanted world, to take any of these values seriously. Only power can decide issues.
"Weber is hardly the only Nietzschean “liberal” to have played sustained footsie with the authoritarian or nationalist right." Hayek, Von Mises ... neo-liberalism didn't come from nowhere, it is not an abberent theory, it is in the DNA.
Beiner assumes that the central dilemma of modern politics is whether one is “for” or “against” liberal modernity. That assumption is utterly undialectical and misses entirely the complexity of the issue. And it is not a good choice for progressives to make. As Baker comments, 'liberal centrists and moderates defending liberalism will find that the dividing line between liberal centrism and fascist rightism is disturbingly unstable in practice.'
How can it be otherwise when a world, conceived as objectively valueless, meaningless, and purposeless, has become little more than projection and imposure of will? Many people are complaining about living in a post-truth society. It is significant that such people tend to equate this truth with fact and scientific knowledge. They are working within the antinomies of liberal modernity themselves, and the loss of objective truth and value is built into the modern DNA. Whilst I don't care for Sam Harris, and suspect his motives in pushing science hard against religion, I do agree with his concern to reclaim the notion of moral truth and knowledge. He proceeds by way of science, which doesn't quite engage with the complexities of the issue, but he is at least getting beyond 'is/'ought' dualisms. If an 'ought' cannot be derived from an 'is,' what on Earth can it be derived from, if we are to retain an 'ought' at all? Discard it? Beyond morality? Beyond good and evil?
There is no centre-ground in a world what, detached from notions of objective value, goodness, and morality, has been sent to extremes in its everyday practice.
I engage with Nietzsche and Weber not because I am a Nietzschean and a Weberian but precisely because liberal modernity proceeds inexorably in their direction and those who remain within liberal modes of thought, action, and politics will succumb to the tragic vision contained in their pessimistic, elitist worldviews. Nietzsche loathed socialism and democracy, but he loathed the Judaeo-Christian tradition all the more, as the origin of the view of equality. Nietzsche's 'death of God' is not the great liberation many may be inclined to take it to be. The loss of an authoritative moral framework leaves notions of sociality and common good bereft. We live under the shadow of Nietzsche and Weber - no answer to them, and you have no answer.
And an 'ironic' liberalism is no answer at all. What we seem to be left with – on these terms - is what Jean-Luc Nancy calls “groundless grounds,” or the “liberal ironist” stance of Richard Rorty, in which we have to live with the irony that our deepest commitments have no necessary objective support. (Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (New York NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989).
'Ironic realism,' I would argue, is the defining feature of a conventional or political liberalism that has shed its metaphysical underpinnings.
I maintain that the ironical stance is inadequate, and that at some point the effort of maintaining commitments in a condition of “irony” becomes unsustainable, the underlying pointlessness and meaninglessness sooner or later coming to the surface.
It’s like playing a game of football without goals at either end of the pitch – at some point exhaustion is reached and someone asks ‘what’s the point?’ The grounding of our experiences and justification of our views and values cannot be arbitrary, still less empty, in this way. That entails having to provide a realist account of value, knowing the extent to which the ontological status of things has been found to be uncertain. But I see the inadequacies of the alternative. The early work of Thomas Nagel adopts a similar ironist stance in relation to the “the absurd.” Nagel underlines how difficult it is for human beings to be content with the value experiences that arise naturally within the particular form of life in which we are placed given that we also naturally take the self-transcending step of wondering how our experiences fit within the overall scheme of things. (Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (New York NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979), p. 21).
Nagel's view designates life as absurd since the things about which human beings express a deep concern about lack an objective grounding within reality and an overall view of that reality. The best we can hope for is a sense of irony in knowing this to be the case. (see Cottingham, ‘The Good Life and the “Radical Contingency of the Ethical,”’ pp. 32-8). I hold that irony and absurdity are utterly incapable of sustaining a vital and confident civilization. I, therefore, look for stronger grounds and reasons to sustain our evaluative commitments with respect to truth and justice and a society that not only treats all with respect but unites each and all in a mutually unfolding freedom and happiness.
We are hearing the word 'disaster' a lot in these days of climate change and global heating. The word 'disaster' derives from the Latin 'dis-', meaning 'away', 'without,’ and 'astro,’ meaning 'star.’ Hence 'disaster' means to be 'without a star.’
The word ‘desire’ is composed of the Latin prefix ‘de-,’ which means ‘lack of something’ and the word sidus which means ‘star.’ As the condition of wishing for something, desire literally means ‘lack of stars,’ ‘to feel a lack of stars.’ That lack implies a passionate searching.
In desire, in the midst of disaster, we are in a condition of lack and longing, ‘without a star’ and ‘wishing for a star.’
Dante ends every canto of The Comedy with a return to the stars.
We are missing the stars.
The moderns no longer believe in all that medieval mumbo-jumbo. But before being dismissive, take a look around at the world - a world of loss and longing - and consider whether such condescension towards the past is in order. In making gains in some areas, we have suffered losses in others.
Nietzsche called out modernity, rejecting false projections of objectivity in religion/ethics AND (which is always forgotten) science. People who think they can accommodate themselves to liberal modernity go halfway on this, thinking they can keep the science. Weber did this. It's disastrous. A world of existential choice is arbitrary and empty and will shift in wretched directions. The separation of fact and value, with the former the realm of true knowledge and the latter the realm of irreducible subjective choice/opinion, is debilitating, opening up a split between reason and non-reason (which leaves us paralysed in the paradox of having to defend the value of reason/science by a field identified as non-reason). It's a morass.
It's worth bearing in mind that Weber's lecture on "politics as strong and slow boring of hard boards" - which I cite often, because that's what politics is, and if you lack politics you lack practical purchase - is that Weber's underlying goal in that lecture was to justify a less haphazard and more effective version of German nationalism/imperialism.
“The modern gives no satisfaction,” Marx wrote: there is a relentless movement at its heart. Modernity utters promises of democracy, freedom, and equality, while entrenching a political-economic system that is structurally incapable of fulfilling them. It offers a tantalizing vision of a world steered collectively toward the satisfaction of human needs, while operating in the short term to intensify exploitation on an unprecedented scale.
As Marx was the first to explain, modern capitalism creates the conditions for its own supersession, even if taking advantage of those conditions has proved more challenging than Marx ever anticipated. .
The problem with the ‘ironical’ position is that it is based more on an act of faith than the theological systems it purports to replace. Where in the past, these theological systems rested upon reason and faith, Aquinas affirming reason as far as reason could go, the modern position is split between fact as the rational realm of science and value as the non-rational realm of irreducible subjective opinion. That’s fine, you may think, in that we still have reason. The problem is that this reason is constituted on the basis of a disenchanting science which sees nothing but an objectively valueless, purposeless, and meaningless world. The ‘irony’ of progressive, humanist, or liberal thought here lies in acting as if one’s most cherished beliefs and values are grounded in something and therefore have good reasons to support them and commend them to others, whilst knowing that none of this is true. The problem is that those who disagree with such beliefs and values know that they rest on nothing but their proponent’s wish-fulfilment. There is no shortage of views in such a world, only of good reasons for anyone to take them seriously. Such a world is a world of existential choices that are ultimately arbitrary and empty, and even the choosers know it. Sooner or later, power will call the bluff of those advancing moral claims, and only power will resolve the dispute.
That describes a world of a purposeless materialism and empty morality; society loses its ability to steer itself by values and principles. Such a society is untenable.
I present this argument in the context of this article: Sobering odds: Is humanity close to the edge? By Richard Lea
‘In his study of humanity’s near future, The Precipice, Toby Ord argues that we find ourselves at a crucial moment in the long history of our species: technological progress has brought us to the point where we have the capacity to destroy ourselves, but we have not yet developed the wisdom that this deadly power demands. Either humanity will “act decisively to protect itself and its long-term potential, or, in all likelihood, this will be lost forever.”’
It is striking that even at this late stage, having been confronted by and analysing the crisis-tendencies of modern society for one hundred years or more, scientists calculating the (low) odds of humanity surviving list all the usual suspects - AI, WMD, pandemic, nuclear war, global heating etc, but don't even consider the risk factor of a disenchanting scientific materialism driving purpose, meaning, and value out of the universe and out of life – the end of teleology is the end of humanity by way of a calculating instrumentalism and utilitarianism, normlessness and meaninglessness, artificially reproduced scarcity, atomism in philosophy and in society, systemic coercion, means of production being turned into means of destruction via alienative and exploitative social relations.
We will get nowhere other than the oblivion predicted on objective trends and tendencies if the smartest minds among us continue to fail to distinguish between symptoms and causes, focusing on the former as the most obvious, physical, manifestations of crisis, and ignore the latter as the difficult, messy, mediated areas.
I'll resist the temptation to post links to a list of my own works on this. Read the article. If you agree, I take the questions deeper and further. I shall select just one, to be going along with for now. The Quest for Belonging, Meaning, and Morality
A related post, criticising attempts to reheat and rehash old notions and pass them off as solutions to current problems: The Critique of Enlightened Self-Interest