To Alasdair MacIntyre and Beyond

but isn't this analysis [of mine, below,] of the interconnection of a Weberian nihilism (at least as Strauss views it) and therapeutic religiosity and consumerism already in chapter 3 of Alasdair Macintyre's "After Virtue" [?] -- scriblerus

Glad you asked. In several respects clearly yes, particularly the bit about emotivism and management, and MacIntyre's analysis of how social science methodology is the same as management ideology runs like a babbling brook through much of what there is to read here on related topics.

But there are important differences. First, MacIntyre is very firm that a tradition, and thus authority, begins to die when it stops changing, and that Burkean conservatives do woeful harm to the theory of tradition by arguing that we must not get too conscious of our traditions. For MacIntyre, unconscious heirs to a tradition help kill it off by not re-performing it constantly, and indeed re-performance requires in MacIntyre's estimation a healthy exercise of critical reason. I think this is a little overdrawn, and that the survival of traditions and authorities is not hostage to their moment-to-moment performance by human agents; following Geertz and Freud (and Rieff, I think) I judge that authoritative shared truths, and shared convictions in the verity of traditions, virtues, and so on, can fluctuate in their degrees of presence in the world.

In Geertzian terms, cultures, by their patterns of ritual, play up certain verities at some times and keep them in the background in others. There are seasons of urgency, and in societies with organized religions these take the form of holy days, fasting months, etc., etc. In Freudian terms, and on a longer time line, certain important contents of the unconscious (which is already collective to begin with) can and do stay latent for significant periods; they then appear as the 'return of the repressed.' Crucially, for Freud, the traditions contained in the collective unconscious -- and certainly we cannot be comprehensively conscious of everything contained in our past and its intersection with our present at every moment (or even most) -- only can become conscious because they have been incubated in latency; there is no other way to carry traditions, or to see them expressed, than for large, even decisive, portions of them to be latent.

Of course, this drives lots of social scientists nuts because of its metaphysical implication that real things can seep into some kind of invisible nether-world, in which no human agents perform them and structures only carry them as sort of forgotten memories, only to reappear later from 'nowhere' in identical or nearly identical form to the way they used to be. I suspect that what makes this possible is that humans are, in a very complex and mysterious way, fundamentally not rational creatures, as MacIntyre might wish them to be, but mimetic -- imitative and contingently memorious -- creatures. (I think Rieff can be read as confirming this in his discussion of why Borges' Zarathustra of the campo, Funes the Memorious, is such an unnatural and disturbing and inhuman being.)

With this settled I can address your question more squarely. The key to my analysis is that what Strauss offers us as an antidote for psychological historicism, which he only roughly grasps, is reason whereas what Rieff offers us is revelation. The MacIntyre of After Virtue is a bit more retroactive than the MacIntyre of today, I think, in so far as the point of After Virtue is that modernity is screwed and ought to be abandoned in favor of premodern virtue, but the point of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and subsequent works is more amenable to moving forward with traditions that can be kept alive despite, and perhaps even in conjunction with, modernity. So my analysis departs from MacIntyre's to the degree that I've got my eye more on the viability of returning (in Rieff's words) repression itself to the culture in the future rather than returning ourselves to the politics of the past.

But this is oversimplified. Tocqueville represents a sort of middle position between Strauss and Rieff in that he reads a certain type of politics as indispensable to enjoying the responsible freedom of equality (as opposed to servitude, or 'truant's freedom', in equality). That is, Tocqueville does not offer us revelation, at least not up front; but nor does he offer us reason up front either. The line he walks is eminently captured in the observation that it "would often be easier to get [lethargic citizens accustomed to obedience] interested in the details of court etiquette than in the repair of their common dwelling." As local political institutions decay and governmental power centralizes administration, the pull of local politics which brings us out of ourselves by obliging us to engage actively in relationships with our strange fellow men and women dies. Replacing it is the pull of delocalized psychology, premature in its intimacy because so disconnected from true relationships. A debased interest in the internal intrigues of emotional virtuosos replaces the healthy interest in the external exigencies of local political administration.

I would suggest, following Tocqueville, that we pay more attention to the significance of political institutions in helping us live in a fashion that psychology mimics poorly and unnaturally. This is an essentially forward-looking posture politically somewhat out of step with MacIntyre's type of communitarianism (which on other grounds I do rather appreciate culturally). But, still following Tocqueville, it is also an upward-looking posture, because it recognizes the important role that revelation plays in undergirding the whole coherence and pattern of local political organization -- namely, the equality of citizens in their capacity as beings made in the image of God. Things get interesting when we compare Tocqueville's Christian essence of religion -- love God above all others and love thy neighbor as thyself -- with Rieff's Hebraic emphasis on Old Testament interdicts, sacred Nos rather than sacred Yeses. But that's a story for another day.

Comments

[Boni]

MacIntyre's dismissal of Nietzsche is what renders After Virtue ineffectual for conservatives. By doing this, he also avoids Heidegger and Gadamer, who are as traditional as they are postmodern. If "traditionalism" has a prayer of making a comeback, it has to battle with the poststructuralists, using their weapons, on their home turf; otherwise, the Commies aren't leaving the academy any time soon. Every time they undermine a tradition, a new tradition is installed. I imagine many postmodern conservatives have figured this out, but can't find a way, nor do they have the numbers, to gain entry. Until they start to use the tactics of the Left, traditionalism is doomed to failure. It will either take a relentless assault or a trojan horse to weaken their stranglehold on values.

[scriblerus]

Thanks very much for such a detailed response. I didn't want to say that your overall project was exactly the same as Macintyre's, just that like him you have highlighted quite nicely how managerial nihilism goes hand in hand with a therapeutic mindset, in fact that the therapeutic is the way of getting along in a world without ultimate goods and final ends.

I think you are a little hard on Macintyre's version of tradition. In various places, he suggests that tradition is similar to an ongoing argument about various human goods. As the argument ebbs and flows, certain options (e.g., slavery) are rejected and the tradition grows and changes. So, the Borges comparison doesn't quite work, since not all aspects of a subject can be discussed at the same time.

That said, Macintyre certainly does seem to stress individual consciousness of tradition to such a degree that I really wonder who could ever put his ideas into practice. I think that his recent book on Edith Stein is an attempt to show how somebody who isn't a Thomist (at least to start with) could carry out the sort of inquiry he is proposing.

Macintyre is ultimately correct, however, I think to underscore the intentional aspect of tradition and the virtues. After all, as Aristotle said, virtues are habits oriented to right reason, so for a person to have virtues and be part of a tradition seems to require some sort of choice.

Along these lines, I'd say as a sort of response to your further thoughts about Tocqueville that Macintyre's emphasis on the rationality of tradition indicates the limits of a political/ institutional approach to living well. Politics can push people in certain directions and make it easier to form certain habits, but when people are vicious or morally weak, institutions can't force them to do as they ought. I'm reminded of the first two books of Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Once people had let their greed and intellectual weakness (superstition) get the better of them, it was incredibly difficult to hold the fabric of the Roman Empire together and protect it from tyrants, usurpers and generally corrupt individuals.

[scriblerus]

Boni,

If you think that Macintyre doesn't effectively engage Nietzsche and postmodernism, do read "Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry" and his lecture, "First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Debate" (in Knight, ed., "The Macintyre Reader"), or if you have read them, share your thoughts.

[Boni Jakubik]

Scriblerus-

Unfortunately, I only have Whose Justice?, A Short History of Ethics, and After Virtue by Macintyre. I am no expert on his philosophy. I do generally like him, though, and see similarities in our ideological biographies, including yours. I am a recovering Marxist, but was raised a Catholic first. Virtue ethics, I think, is something that should be promoted by intellectuals to the "ordinary" man. I don't mean that it should be used as some sort of manipulative social control, just that intellectuals tend to be hyper-rational, to the point of devouring their own feet, and should remember what happened to Plato's Republic in Sicily. They never learn (remember) that theory and praxis resist each other.

I have no problem with the deracinated intellectual in theory or in class -- though many of them should learn to be tolerant in practice -- but once they start playing surgeon, they end up being the disease, often reinforcing the problems they were trying to prevent. (Irony is for teenagers:])

Even Eagleton saw this problem and promoted virtue ethics in After Theory. (However, I've never been able to take Eagleton's Marxism seriously because I don't think he does.) I think we as "postmodern conservative intellectuals" -- a growing breed, I hope -- because we act humanely and decently in practice, as do most left-wing Cultural Theorists, have a responsibilty to point out the limits and dangers of philosophy. For example, the Right, in America, has always throughly marginalized the cruder materialist racists and other rigid Nationalists. However, the Left always protects, at times promotes, their most fanatical and violent Communists. They should be called on this behavior.

That being said, I tend to take Ayn Rand's quip about philosophy seriously, "A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war." Without slipping into eschatology and the Kali Yuga, but into worthy cliche, I think we are fighting, ideologically speaking, over man's soul. We should guard against our authoritarian impulses and the dangers associated with our various modes of being and thinking, but have to stop the excesses of mindless libertinism and the laughable militancy against Das Kapital. In many ways our American mythology has enlightened the world despite being largely based on historically ignorant and idealistic values. However, I think, because of our material comfort, it is time to enrich our Tradition with some of the nobler and more virtuous mythologies of the past.

I enjoy your blog, but would rather continue discussion via email -- it's a little more private. If you have any interest, please email me and we can discuss our ideas in a more scholarly way. I don't know much about Rieff, except what I've read by his ex-wife, but maybe you could point me in a general direction. He seems to come into the parlor from a psychological, rather than philosophical, angle, though I realize that's an ignorant generalization.

[Boni Jakubik]

Scriblerus-

Unfortunately, I only have Whose Justice?, A Short History of Ethics, and After Virtue by Macintyre. I am no expert on his philosophy. I do generally like him, though, and see similarities in our ideological biographies, including yours. I am a recovering Marxist, but was raised a Catholic first. Virtue ethics, I think, is something that should be promoted by intellectuals to the "ordinary" man. I don't mean that it should be used as some sort of manipulative social control, just that intellectuals tend to be hyper-rational, to the point of devouring their own feet, and should remember what happened to Plato's Republic in Sicily. They never learn (remember) that theory and praxis resist each other.

I have no problem with the deracinated intellectual in theory or in class -- though many of them should learn to be tolerant in practice -- but once they start playing surgeon, they end up being the disease, often reinforcing the problems they were trying to prevent. (Irony is for teenagers:])

Even Eagleton saw this problem and promoted virtue ethics in After Theory. (However, I've never been able to take Eagleton's Marxism seriously because I don't think he does.) I think we as "postmodern conservative intellectuals" -- a growing breed, I hope -- because we act humanely and decently in practice, as do most left-wing Cultural Theorists, have a responsibilty to point out the limits and dangers of philosophy. For example, the Right, in America, has always throughly marginalized the cruder materialist racists and other rigid Nationalists. However, the Left always protects, at times promotes, their most fanatical and violent Communists. They should be called on this behavior.

That being said, I tend to take Ayn Rand's quip about philosophy seriously, "A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war." Without slipping into eschatology and the Kali Yuga, but into worthy cliche, I think we are fighting, ideologically speaking, over man's soul. We should guard against our authoritarian impulses and the dangers associated with our various modes of being and thinking, but have to stop the excesses of mindless libertinism and the laughable militancy against Das Kapital. In many ways our American mythology has enlightened the world despite being largely based on historically ignorant and idealistic values. However, I think, because of our material comfort, it is time to enrich our Tradition with some of the nobler and more virtuous mythologies of the past.

I enjoy your blog, but would rather continue discussion via email -- it's a little more private. If you have any interest, please email me and we can discuss our ideas in a more scholarly way. I don't know much about Rieff, except what I've read by his ex-wife, but maybe you could point me in a general direction. He seems to come into the parlor from a psychological, rather than philosophical, angle, though I realize that's an ignorant generalization.

[Boni Jakubik]

I have no problem with the deracinated intellectual in theory or in class -- though many of them should learn to be tolerant in practice --

I think we as "postmodern conservative intellectuals" -- a growing breed, I hope -- because we act humanely and decently in practice, as do most left-wing Cultural Theorists, have a responsibilty to point out the limits and dangers of philosophy.

These two sentences, accidentally, contradict each other. I meant to say that the left-wing ideologue, pedant, Sophist, cosmopolitan -- whatever marginalizing slur is least offensive, but most effective -- tends to view the "ordinary" man, especially provinicial white males, as a possible, but not an automatic, enemy: a person who can be won over to the "open" and "progressive" team, though they've been filled with "hateful" prejudices. They are, however, defenseless against a right-wing nihilist -- please understand nihilism is a sophisticated philosophy -- because "hatred" is a value judgment, and the tables can be turned to show their "hatred" of the new "other".

I am reminded of Rorty's temperamental outburst that reveals the "liberal" agenda so nicely:

It seems to me that the regulative idea that we heirs of the Enlightenment, we Socratists, most frequently use to criticize the conduct of various conversational partners is that of ‘needing education in order to outgrow their primitive fear, hatreds, and superstitions’ . . . It is a concept which I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities, invoke when we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own . . . The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point. Their point is that we liberal teachers no more feel in a symmetrical communication situation when we talk with bigots than do kindergarten teachers talking with their students . . . When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we do not consider the possibility of reformulating our own practices of justification so as to give more weight to the authority of the Christian scriptures. Instead, we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank. . . You have to be educated in order to be . . . a participant in our conversation . . . So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours . . . I don’t see anything herrschaftsfrei [domination free] about my handling of my fundamentalist students. Rather, I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [domination] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents . . . I am just as provincial and contextualist as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Stürmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause.

-‘Universality and Truth,’ in Robert B. Brandom (ed.), Rorty and his Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 21-2.

(I copied that from the current Wiki because I'm too lazy to cherry-pick Rorty's books right now, but it fits quite nicely into our conversation. It might be a little long for a blog comment.)

He admits to behaving like a Nazi; except, he plays for the "good" team.

I'm also reminded of Chesterton's quip against "progressives" -- There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.

I think the left-wing performance, though it reached its peak in the 80's and early 90's, has done more damage to the outside world than the "ordinary" man recognizes, since the Marxist historians are right about at least one thing -- Cultural Amnesia. More often than not, though, their sweeping, myopic social causes are responsible for this memory-loss. This isn't a new battle like some conservatives like to think, blaming the rise of the New Left in the 60's for everything. It goes back, at least, to Socrates. Without historical depth, i.e. a Classical Education, and, simultaneously, the ability to speak in the latest fashion, I think right reason will always suffer from nostalgia. Its strength lies in its age and endurance, but it is "immuno-deficient" in the short-term against managerial nihilism, and will remain a nice, but antiquated, ideal like chivalry.

I apologize for the double post earlier. My browser reported an error, so I wasn't sure if it went through.

[Avi player]

I've read "Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry" and really enjoyed it. Macintyre involves Nietzsche more than effectively and never loses the track of common sense.