Fear and freedom: On 'cold war liberalism'

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 45-64

  Müller, Jan Werner ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Aron; Berlin; Historicism; Liberalism; Liberty; Neo liberalism; Popper; Shklar; Value pluralism

Indexed keywords

EID: 46849101079     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885107083403     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Peter Laslett (ed.) (1956) 'Introduction', Philosophy, Politics and Society. Oxford: Blackwell, p. xiv.
2. See for instance Paul Berman (2003) Terror and Liberalism. New York: Norton and Peter Beinart (2004) 'An Argument for a New Liberalism: A Fighting Faith', The New Republic (13 Dec.).
3. I shall not engage in this article with what is often referred to as the 'cultural cold war' - above all the role of the Congress for Cultural Freedom - and the moral choices, possible betrayals, etc. associated with it. On these questions, see Frances Stonor Saunders (1999) Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War. London: Granta and Pierre Grémion (1995) Intelligence de l'anticommunisme: Le Congrés pour la liberté de la culture à Paris (1950-1975). Paris: Fayard.
4. Zeev Sternhell (2006) Les anti-Lumières: Du XVIIIe siècle à la guerre froide. Paris: Fayard.
5. Recently, Ralf Dahrendorf has offered a moving portrait of his three 'fatherly friends' Berlin, Aron and Popper, from which I have learnt much - even if I am less convinced that a study of what Dahrendorf sees as three Unversuchbare can yield anything like a general Tugendlehre der Freiheit - a doctrine about the virtues required for liberty. See Ralf Dahrendorf (2006) Die Versuchungen der Unfreiheit: Die Intellektuellen in Zeiten der Prüfung. Munich: C.H. Beck.
6. Judith Shklar (1989) 'The Liberalism of Fear', in Nancy L. Rosenblum (ed.) Liberalism and the Moral Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 29.
7. Lionel Trilling (1950) The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society, p. 193. New York: Viking. It is important to underline that Trilling made the remark to criticize the, in his view, exaggerated belief in ideas, and the autonomy of ideas in particular, during his time. As he put it (p. 192)
8. We have come to believe that some ideas can betray us, others save us. The educated classes are learning to blame ideas for our troubles, rather than blaming what is a very different thing - our own bad thinking. This is the great vice of academicism, that it is concerned with ideas rather than with thinking, and nowadays the errors of academicism do not stay in the academy; they make their way into the world, and what begins as a failure of perception among intellectual specialists finds its fulfilment in policy and action.
9. Laslett (n. 1), pp. vii-xv; here pp. vii and ix. It is remarkable that Laslett drew attention to the omission of Karl Popper from his collection - calling him 'perhaps the most influential of contemporary philosophers who have addressed themselves to politics'. Ibid. p. xii. Shklar also spoke of the recent 'disappearance' of political philosophy in her 1957 After Utopia, while observing that 'liberalism has become unsure of its moral basis, as well as increasingly defensive and conservative. Certainly it has not presented an answer to a social despair that it fundamentally shares.' Judith N. Shklar (1957) After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith, pp. vii and viii. Princeton: Princeton UP.
10. See also Ralf Dahrendorf (2002) 'Popper und die "offene Gesellschaft"', Neue Zürcher Zeitung (27 July 2002).
11. Ralf Dahrendorf (2002) Über Grenzen: Lebenserinnerungen, p. 164. Munich: C.H. Beck.
12. See Mark Lilla's seminal essay (1994) 'The Other Velvet Revolution: Continental Liberalism and its Discontents', Daedalus 123(2): 129-57.
13. Judith Shklar (1989) 'The Liberalism of Fear', in Nancy L. Rosenblum (ed.) Liberalism and the Moral Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See also the excellent essay by Jonathan Allen (2001) 'The Place of Negative Morality in Political Theory', Political Theory 29(3): 337-63. Shklar herself is not included here because her thinking underwent a shift from the dissatisfaction with 'cold war liberalism' in the 1950s, to an advocacy of a 'survivalist' political theory with the 'liberalism of fear'. Paul Magnette has written an excellent short introduction to Shklar, but her thought still awaits a more comprehensive treatment that does justice to the trajectory from After Utopia to the late essays on citizenship.
14. Bernard Yack (ed.) (1996) Liberalism without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar. Chicago: University pf Chicago Press.
15. Karl R. Popper (1966) The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, p. 73. Princeton: Princeton UP.
16. Raymond Aron (1981) Le Spectateur Engagé: Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Missika et Dominique Wolton, p. 74. Paris: Julliard. Note also Aron's statement: 'Le libéralisme - ou, du moins, mon libéralisme - craint les ruptures violentes, les éternelles illusions de rebétir à neuf les vieux édifices des Constitutions ou des ordres sociaux.' See Raymond Aron, 'Un Libéral dans la Presse', in Willy Linder, Hanno Hebling, Hugo Bütler (eds), Liberalismus - nach wie vor: Grundgedanken und Zukunftsfragen (Zurich: Buchverlag der NZZ, 1979), pp. 313-23.
17. The main stylization is, arguably, a tendency to 'Berlinize' Aron and Popper in particular. I think a good case can be made that Aron stood not just in the tradition of the 'Anglo-Saxon school' of political and social thought in France, as has often been remarked, but was also a descendant of the French moralists (and therefore a certain kind of sceptic and a psychologist). Popper, on the other hand, was much closer to a confidence in social science and even technocracy that was profoundly alien to Berlin. I should also say that of course the three protagonists of my story knew each to varying degrees - but for the most part, they did not see each other as particularly close allies, even if they would have recognized that they were engaged in the same 'war of ideas'. Also, they did not see each other as engaged in the same kind of intellectual or, if you like, disciplinary pursuits. Berlin, for instance, thought Aron merely 'a very brilliant publicist', and some of his remarks on Popper seem to suggest that he thought the philosopher of science lacked the characteristics Berlin prized most: Empathy and a rich moral imagination. For Berlin on Aron and Popper, see 'Isaiah Berlin in Conversation with Steven Lukes', Salmagundi 120 (Fall 1998): 52-134; here p. 96; for Berlin on Popper, see Isaiah Berlin and Beata Polanowska-Sygulska (2006) Unfinished Dialogue, pp. 124-8. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books.
18. Karl Popper (1971) The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 279.
19. In this context, see the brilliant study by Ira Katznelson (2003) Desolation and Enlightenment: Political Knowledge after Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
20. See also Stephen Toulmin (1990) Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21. I won't say much about the former here. For a fuller account, see John G. Gunnell (1993) The Descent of Political Theory: The Genealogy of an American Vocation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22. My presentation of Strauss and Voegelin, I hasten to admit, is of course rather crude and reductionist. It serves as a contrast to the 'liberalism of fear' as another possible response to the cataclysms of the 20th century; in no way does it justice to the complexity and subtlety of these thinkers - which even their most severe critics have to acknowledge. In particular, I largely leave out the zetetic dimension of Strauss's thought, his attempt to regain the very possibility of philosophizing; and I drastically simplify Voegelin's epic historical diagnosis of modernity - which, one might argue, in certain respects runs parallel to some of the narratives and psychological diagnoses offered by the liberals. After all, for Voegelin, Gnosticism also originated in a 'drive for certainty' as a response to the 'anxiety' induced by Christianity. Moreover, Strauss's and Voegelin's quest for certainty is in many ways intertwined with the postwar attempt to formulate a liberalism firmly relying on some form of transcendence, 'objective reason', natural law or other forms of certainty - the very opposite, in short, of a liberalism concerned with interminable conflict, uncertainty and value pluralism. But, practically, Voegelin and Strauss in particular were of course also explicit advocates of moderation. In this context, see in particular John Hallowell (1943) The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology with Particular Reference to German Politico-Legal Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press. See also the general discussion in Michael Freeden (2005) Liberal Languages: Ideological Imaginations and Twentieth-Century Progressive Thought, pp. 19-37. Princeton: Princeton UP. For interesting discussions of the complexity of Strauss's zetetic approach and its relationship to any kind of quest for certainty, or echtes Wissen vom Ganzen, see Robert B. Pippin (1997) Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations, pp. 209-61. Cambridge: CUP. Harald Bluhm (2002) Die Ordnung der Ordnung: Das politische Philosophieren von Leo Strauss. Berlin: Akademie. Daniel Tanguy (2003) Leo Strauss: Une biographie intellectuelle. Paris: Grasset.
23. Eric Voegelin (1987) The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, p. 13. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See also John Gunnell (2004) 'Reading Max Weber: Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin', European Journal of Political Theory 3: 151-61.
24. See also Nasser Behnegar (2003) Leo Strauss, Max Weber, and the Scientific Study of Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
25. Voegelin (n. 23), p. 12.
26. Waldemar Gurian (1952) 'Totalitarian Religions', Review of Politics 14(1): 3-14; here p. 14.
27. Raymond Aron (1993) Mémoires: 50 ans de réflexion politique, p. 53. Paris: Julliard; 1st publ. 1983.
28. See Isaiah Berlin (1954) Historical Inevitability. London: OUP.
29. Manès Sperber (1979) 'Raymond Aron', Mélanges Raymond Aron 543-9; here p. 546.
30. Isaiah Berlin (1998, in n. 18), p. 92.
31. Duncan Kelly (2002) 'The Political Thought of Isaiah Berlin', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 4(1): 25-48; here p. 29.
32. Isaiah Berlin (Berlin, 1998), p. 108.
33. Sometimes, apparently, without having read Weber: See Berlin's embarrassed admission to Steven Lukes. It is telling that in turn the great anti-Weberians of the post-war period reacted so violently against 'cold war liberals'. Voegelin, for instance, wrote to Strauss on 18 April 1950:
34. This Popper has been for years, not exactly a stone against which one stumbles, but a troublesome pebble that I must continually nudge from the path, in that he is constantly pushed upon me by people who insist that his work on the 'open society and its enemies' is one of the social science masterpieces of our times'
35. See (1993) Faith and Political Philosophy: The Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, 1934-1964, ed. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper, pp. 66-70. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
36. Karl R. Popper (1978) Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, p. 116. London: Fontana. At another point Popper claimed: 'Eine vollkommene Gesellschaft ist unmöglich, wie man leicht einsehen kann. Zu fast allen Werten, die eine Gesellschaft verwirklichen sollte, gibt es andere Werte, die mit ihnen kollidieren.' See Karl R. Popper (1989) Auf der Suche nach einer besseren Welt, p. 129. Munich: Piper.
37. Popper (n. 15), vol. 1, p. 73.
38. As Aron put it: 'La formule de la "guerre des dieux" est la transposition d'un fait indiscutable - les hommes se sont fait des représentations incompatibles du monde - en une philosophie que personne ne vit ni ne pense parce qu'elle est contradictoire (toutes les représentations sont équivalents, aucune n'étant ni vraie ni fausse)'.
39. See also Philippe Raynaud (2002) 'Raymond Aron et le jugement politique entre Aristote et Kant', in Raymond Aron et la liberté politique: Actes du colloque international organisé par la Fondation Joseph Károlyi et l'Université de Sciences économiques et d'Administration publique de Budapest, pp. 123-31. Paris: Fallois.
40. Edward Shils (1985) 'Raymond Aron, 1905-1983: A Memoir', in History, Truth, Liberty: Selected Writings of Raymond Aron, ed. Franciszek Draus, pp. 1-19. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
41. Another marked contrast with Voegelin and Strauss in particular, for whom tradition only got in the way of asking genuine philosophical questions, and who pointedly distanced himself from Burke in Natural Right and History.
42. Karl Popper (2002) 'Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition', in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, pp. 161-82. London: Routledge; 1st publ. 1963.
43. See also Irving Louis Horowitz (2005-6) 'L'Angleterre et les États-Unis vus par Raymond Aron', Commentaire 28 (Winter): 955-65.
44. Berlin (1998, in n. 18), p. 121.
45. Berlin (1998, in n. 18), p. 62.
46. Karl Popper (1966) The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton UP.
47. Serge Audier (2004) Raymond Aron: La démocratie conflictuelle. Paris: Michalon. George Kateb (1998) 'Foreword', in Judith N. Shklar, Political Thought and Political Thinkers, ed. Stanley Hoffmann, pp. vii-xix; here p. ix. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
48. Aron (1982) 'Introduction', in Max Weber, Le Savant et le politique, pp. 7-52; here p. 23. Paris: Plon.
49. Isaiah Berlin, Unfinished Dialogue, p. 121.
50. See in particular Raymond Aron (1993) Machiavel et les Tyrannies Modernes. Paris: Fallois.
51. Berlin (1998, in n. 18), p. 76.
52. Malachi Haim Hacohen (2000) Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902-1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna. Cambridge: CUP.
53. As he put it in the preface to the Opium of the Intellectuals: 'Personellement, keynésien avec quelque regret du libéralisme...'. Raymond Aron, L'Opium des intellectuels, Nouvelle edition (1955, Paris: Hakette, 2002), p. 10.
54. Berlin (2006, in n. 18), p. 122.
55. Raymond Aron (1961) 'La definition libérale de la liberté', Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 2(2): 199-218; and, in particular, (1969) 'Liberté, libérale ou libertaire?', in La liberté et l'ordre social: Textes des conferences et des entretiens organises par les Rencontres Internationales de Genève, pp. 67-112. Neuchâtel: Éditions de la Baconnière.
56. See also Carl Joachim Friedrich (1955) 'The Political Thought of Neo-Liberalism', American Political Science Review 49(2): 509-25.
57. The classic work of neoliberal cultural pessimism was W. Röpke (1942) Die Gesellschaftskrise der Gegenwart. Erlenbach-Zürich: Eugen Rentsch. See in particular the passages about modern 'massification', or what Röpke called, in an absolutely untranslatable phrase, 'einen die Gesellschaftsstruktur zerstörenden Zerbröckelungs- und Verklumpungsprozeß' (p. 23).
58. Albert Hirschman (1991) The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
59. See for instance Raymond Aron (1978) 'Pour le Progrès: Après la chute des idoles', Commentaire 1: 233-43.
60. More on analysing conservatism along these lines can be found in Jan-Werner Müller, 'Comprehending Conservatism: A New Framework for Analysis', Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 11 (2006), pp. 359-65.
61. Leo Strauss (1959) What is Political Philosophy? Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, p. 32.
62. Berlin (1998, in n. 18), p. 101.
63. Shklar (1985) 'Nineteen Eighty-Four: Should Political Theory Care?', Political Theory 13(1): 5-18.
64. Trilling (n. 7), pp. xii-xiii.
65. Raymond Aron (2005) 'Histoire et Politique', in Aron, Penser la liberté, penser la démocratie, pp. 524-37; here p. 524. Paris: Gallimard.
66. Raymond Aron (1977) 'De la libéralisation', in Penser dans le Temps: Mélanges offerts à Jeanne Hersch, pp. 189-205. Lausanne: Éditions l'Age d'homme.
67. See Aron (n. 16), p. 233:
68. Si je me définis par le réfus du parti unique, j'arrive de manière naturelle à la notion de pluralisme, et de la notion de pluralisme à une certaine représentation du libéralisme. Il n'est pas fondé chez moi, à la différence du libéralisme di XIX siècle, sur des principes abstraits. C'est par l'analyse des sociétés que j'essaie de justifier le libéralisme politique et intellectuel...Je cherche alors les conditions économiques et sociales qui donnent une chance de survie du pluralisme, c'est-̀-dire du libéralisme à la fois politique et intellectuel.
69. Katznelson (n. 19), pp. 1 and 28.
70. Allen (n. 13), p. 349; Trilling (n. 7), p. xv.