3.99 - Howard, Dick - Political Chronicle. France, The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (en)

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Political Chronicle: France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

Political Chronicle: France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

by Dick Howard

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PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3+4 / 1987, pages: 360-367, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=0a3d3f96-8ad3-4089-b110-89e4753b2d5chttp://www.ceeol.com/


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POLITICAL CHRONICLE: FRANCE, THE SOVIETUNION AND YUGOSLAVIA

ETHICS and POLITICSDick Howard

This paper attempts to do three things, in order to open up a broaderdiscussion of our theme. It seeks first to address the topic proposed generallyfor our discussion. It then proposes a contemporary illustration of the topic inorder to show the implications of the theoretical question we are treating.Finally, it makes some theoretical proposals, drawn from my own recentwork. The latter aspect of the paper is, I fear, too brief. I can only hope thatmy manner of confronting the first two issues at least arouses your curiosityconcerning the conclusions.(I) The Relevance ofPhilosophyHad the title of our meeting posed the choice, ethics or politics, thephilosopher's task would have been simple. Either politics would be shown tobe an "art," if not a mere "technique"-in all events, dependant ultimately ona rational ethics; or a neo-aristotlean rehabilitation of phronesis would have hadto legitimate the philosophical dignity of politics while relativizing theassertions ofmoral a priori's. Similarly, the disjunctive formulation of our titlewould have made things easier for the political thinker. Either politics is a"higher" form of an ethics limited to individual rights and neglecting socialduties; or ethics is an ultimately ungroundable value-choice which theresponsible politician must but cannot ultimately avoid. In both cases, theconflict apparently set up by the disjunctive formulation is avoided. A "critical

philosophy," in the footsteps of Kant and/or Marx, is not so shy, or soself-assured.The problematic conjunction of ethics and politics is historically specific.Classical philosophy's foundation in natural law was destroyed by the adventof a modernity which Leo Strauss and his followers never tire of denouncing.The diagnosis is correct, although Strauss was hardly the first to encounter theproblem. Jiirgen Habermas' Philosophical Discourse of Modernity points toHegel as the first to make the diremption of the moral and the political, theindividual and the social, faith and knowledge, the immanent principle ofsystematic philosophy. We need only recall Hegel's early attempts tounderstand the tragedy of Greek Sittlichkeit or the paradoxical salvatorymessage of the Jew Jesus, and their transfiguration in the world-historicalpanorama of the Phenomenology. This Hegelian attempt to hold together bothsides of the conjunction defines our modern age. Hegel's successors attempt toPraxis International 7:3/4 Winter 1987/8 0260-8448 $2.00


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Praxis International 361break out of this uneasy conjunction by emphasizing one or the other of itsconstitutive poles. Habermas' political, and moral, imperative is that we must"complete the Enlightenment" and realize the modern project. But no morethan Strauss, Habermas does not explain the relation of his general description of modernity to its concrete forms. Its "realization" remains abstract, itsrelation to the Enlightenment (or its individual-philosophical form) is unclear.Hegel's prescriptive power fell short of his diagnostic skill. The Philosophyof Right distinguishes between abstractly universal Moralitiit and concretelyexperienced Sittlichkeit. Within the latter, "civil society" is based on aprinciple of particularity which seems to recall the imperatives of morality,but whose limitations make necessary the presence of a state. l Hegel stressesthe specificity of the modern state, which "has prodigious strength and depthbecause it allows the principle of subjectivity to progress to its culmination inthe extreme self-subsistent personal particularity, and yet at the same timebrings it back to the substantive unity and so maintains this unity in theprinciple of subjectivity itself."2 But Hegel does not explain the concreteorigin and nature of this state which, it will be recalled, is only the firstmoment of a movement that engulfs it within intra-state relations beforeabsorbing it into World History as "the Court of the Last Judgment."The Hegelian state might be interpreted as the symbolic form of theclassical conception of "the political." It is that moment in which a societyrepresents itself to itself as different from its empirical form. Marx of coursedenounced the Hegelian "illusion of politics"--but he did so on the basis of ashared premise: the primacy of civil society, which defines a problem forHegel, and presents a solution for Marx. Civil society is the real "place" whereethics and politics are united, as a question or an answer. The result is thatsocial theory replaces both ethics and politics. The liberal contractualist,whose invisible hand provided Hegel the model for the Cunning of Reason,appeals to it as does the Marxist materialisation of this historical teleology.Philosophy, ethics and politics are simply variants of social theory-as theMarxist Habermas tried to show in Knowledge ofHuman Interests.The autonomy of ethics and the specificity of politics emerge against thebackdrop of the failure of social theory and of its liberal or communistincarnations. Totalitarian societies call forth an ethical response from theindividual which acquires a political implication of which its agents may nothave been conscious because the totalitarian system (in principle at least)conjoins ethics and politics. We might then address our topic by asking whatkind of a balance these societies could permit such that neither the ethical northe political extinguish the other. The "self-limiting civil society" of pre-coupPoland could serve as a case in point. Rather than speculate on which mighthave been had not December 13, 1981 intervened, I want to look at theexample of a liberal society because it seems to illustrate the more frequentlyconsidered and intuitive disjunctive formulation of our topic. A closer analysiswill show the philosophical importance of the conjunctive formulation.

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362 Praxis International(11) A Modern Example: 1968-1986From November 22 through December 8, 1986 French students forced thegovernment to withdraw its proposed educational reform. The shock was

double: the reform was a rather modest attempt to adapt an outmoded systemto a new society,3 while the students' outraged reaction did not express thesociological attributes expected of their individualist, pre-yuppie generation.The commentators were quick to seize upon the contrast of the Winter of '86with the Spring of '68: the former was a movement based on ethics, the latterwas the product of political demands. The comparison forgets that thestudents' movement continued to the 10th of December, concluding with ademonstration commemorating the brutal death of a student at the hands ofthe police. The slogan of this final protest was "Plus jamais ca," and it was notwithout importance that the dead student was a beur, a French citizen ofAlgerian origin, with whom the students felt the need to show solidarity. Thecomparison further neglects the fact that, in withdrawing its educationalreform, the government also cancelled the winter session of Parliament,annulling a series of other measures on its agenda. 4 But the comparisonprobably was true-in the political eyes of the government, which recalledthat the "excesses" of May were followed by a massive reaction providingvictory for the "parti d'ordre" in June 1968. This explains the brutal behaviourof the Minister of the Interior, and the use of 'agents-provocateurs' (identifiable to the TV-watching public by their yellow scarfs!) during the demonstrations.The relevance of the 68-86 comparison for the government, and itsirrelevance to the self-understanding of the movements, suggests a theoreticaldistinction. The present government called itself liberal in its campaignagainst the Socialists in 1986, but it is composed, uneasily, of three distinctgroups-neo-liberals (the PR), centrists (the CDS), and a hard right that canonly be called the "parti d'ordre" (the RPR). It has constantly to worry aboutholding the 12 per cent of the vote that went to the far-right National Front;and its various leaders have to think within the perspective both of the present"co-habitation" with a socialist President, and of the upcoming May 1988presidential elections. This means that governmental politics have a doublesense: to the everyday give and take of politics is added a symbolic dimensionwhich means that each measure has a resonance beyond its immediate goals.Measures taken aim not only at their immediate results; they seek to create a"climate of opinion." This was the case for the proposed privatization of theprison system, for the reform of the nationality code, and of course for theeducational reforms. 5 From this point of view, the students were notprotesting simply against a measure that touched their personal concerns; theywere not putting into question particular programs (la politique) but theassumptions carried by, and implicit in, the politics of this regime (lepolitique). This does not make the students political "revolutionaries," in thesense attributed to 1968. The results of '86 suggest, rather, that the '68ersmisunderstood the implications of their actions for the same reasons thattransformed the 'ethical' revolt of 1986.


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Praxis International 363The French students of 1968 can be seen as an inverted image of thecoalition government attacked by their successors. They were a combinationof political movements fused by the catalyst of the March 22nd Movement.The critique of the University, from which the movement began, turnedquickly to the capitalist nature of the society served by that institution.6 Oncethe Universities were engulfed, the premises of the movement condemned itto political paralysis. Some, like the Maoists who were to become the GaucheProletarian, went so far as to leave the barricades ofMay 13 for the workers'quarters, from which alone salvation was to be hoped; others, like the PSUand many autonomous leftists, were captivated by the idea that state powermight be seized through a 'long' Revolution in which Mendes-France wouldplay the role of Kerensky in February 1917; others, like the communists,played the card of realism and reform against the "anarchist provocations" ofthe students. With isolated exceptions, like the authors ofLa Breche,7 no one

could conceive of the movement on its own terms-despite its own selfidentification in graffiti and slogan, and its own practice which did, for many,changer la vie. It was as if the political premises of the movement's actorsblinded them to the moral implications of their own actions. But themovement did not end with the June triumph of the party of order, any morethan the "self-dissolution" in December 1986 marks the conclusion of the newstruggle. 1968 became gradually what it had been all along: a culturalmutation hidden by an imaginary political schema drawn from the past andneeding a new political representation to understand its own future. 8 That"political representation" turned out to be, in fact, "ethical."The political agenda that emerged from May '68 took first the form of thedemand for workers' self-management. This orientation could be formulatedwithin the framework of Marxism. This explains why, although condemningthe invasion of Czechloslovakia in August 1968, the movement did not drawthe ethical implication that this self-management is simply a form of moralautonomy. The "socialism with a human face" that had been crushed inPrague was instead given the political form of "Euro-Communism," whichpermitted the first steps toward a Common Program of the Left that finallycame to power in 1981. A different attitude was suggested by the critique oftotalitarianism, rendered vivid by Solzhnetsyn and popularized by theso-called "new philosophers." Even the self-managed form of Marxism thatwas supposed to insure that "real democracy" replace the formalism ofbourgeois institutions, was sharply challenged, in theory but also by events.When the Vietnamese victory brought the tragedy of the "boat people," andPol Pot's political enforcement of the true community proved to be terror,politics was condemned; it was reason run rampant, totalizing particularity,destroying society. Only the individual moral stance-whose foundation is avalue choice!-could stop this machinery. It was a short step to the consecration of this return of the disjunction of ethics and politics in the wake of 1968

in the form of the primacy of individualism as ethical value choice.From this perspective, 1968 prepared the anti-political generation which"logically" should not have emerged as a political force in the winter of 1986.The age ofmorality became the "era of the void," the defense of particularity,


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364 Praxis Internationalthe atomism of the solitary entrepreneur. The ruling Socialists' 1983 rejectionof the national and republican mission of "La France" in favor of an"austerity" politics seemed to consecrate the replacement of politics by theadministration of things; meanwhile ethics, in Foucault's phrase, turnedaround "the care for oneself." The disjunction of ethics and politics seemedultimately to imply the demise of both as the "liberal" inversion of theirtotalitarian conjunction. This conclusion was refuted de facto by the students.Its philosophical foundation, in the abstraction typified by Strauss andHabermas' theories of modernity, is put into question at the same time.Philosophy need not abandon either itself or the concrete so easily.(Ill) A Philosophical Explanation ofPolitical ConfusionThe disjunction of a political '68 and an ethical '86 cannot be maintained.Nor is the modern attempt to explain their empirical conjunction by means ofsocial theory adequate. Marx's rejection of the "political illusion" is no moreacceptable than his denial of ethical autonomy in his critique of the notion ofthe Rights ofMan (in "On the Jewish Question"). '68-'86 are not defined bytheir empirical effects, or by their declared or imputed intentions; that is thepoint of view of the policeman (or that of the present French government).'68-'86--unlike the "free schools" movement of 1984-reacted to the symbolicimplications of politics. As one provincial lyceen put it, they knew that theywould not achieve full equality of their schools with the privileged Parisiens,but "we have to fight for the principle." In so doing, he continued, "we livedwhat our parents experienced in 1968." He described that experience aslearning to listen to others, to debate with them and to take each otherseriously. He didn't use the word, but what he was describing-at the level ofprinciple and that of experience-is what the French are coming to know asdemocracy. 9The conjunctive framework of modernity is not determined by socioeconomic conditions; nor does it presage totalitarianism. Marx's reduction ofthe political and the ethical to the social blinded him to the radical novelty thatStrauss and Habermas glimpsed, but only abstractly. The separation of ethics

and politics is only possible within a constantly threatened unity conceptualized by Hegel's modern state. The dissolution of that state into WorldHistory was not a conceptual error. Such a state cannot exist once and for all;that would be the dream of the party of order, if not of the totalitarian party.But that state does exist, symbolically; it is that which makes possible ademocratic society in which politics and ethics are conjoined necessarily. Sucha democratic society is not that empirically real "society" to which Marxismand liberalism would reduce politics and ethics. Tocqueville's politicalliberalism suggests an approach to its philosophical (or phenomenological)description. IQ Volume One ofDemocracy in America describes democracy as a"social state" (etat social), determined by the conditions of equality found inthe New World. Political liberty appears to be the consequence of this socialequality. Volume Two inverts the perspective. Democracy is defined byliberty, yet threatened by the forces of equality which, in the earlier analysis,


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Praxis International 365made it possible. This dilemma, which Tocqueville rediscovers in thefoundations of the Ancien Regime, defines our modernity. Liberty andequality, morality and politics: in the language of philosophy, their relation isthat of the visible to the invisible; neither is possible without the other, butneither has an identity which is determined apart from the other.The movements of '68 and '86 were democratic movements which demonstrate the inseparability-and the "reversibility"-of ethics and politics. Theirdisjunctive contrast is misleading; it fixes them as eternally opposed essences,never to be reconciled. '68, and '86, refute the disjunction. This leaves openthe question, why were these movements successful where others failed? Arethere "lessons" to be drawn from them? Have students replaced Marx'sworkers as the "universal class"?11 Or are we confronted here with types of"new social movements" ofwhich feminism, ecology or pacifismmight also beillustrations? 12These empirical questions can be reformulated theoretically. What arethose particular conditions which call forth the moral-political response ofmodern individuals? And what explains the receptivity of modern polities tothese responses? Marx thought he had found the answer in the structure ofcapitalist civil society which produces the proletariat as its own grave-digger.This solution translates empirical reality into the language of principles. Themovements of '68 and '86 inverted this procedure; they began fromprinciples-political or ethical-and remained at that apparantly modestlevel. (For this, they earned the undesired and misguided praise of theirjournalistic elders, who constantly marvelled at their "maturity.") Their"success" cannot be judged empirically, as they knew in calling for an"Estates-General" in the spring to re-evaluate the situation. Their success ismeasured also in the slogan of their final demonstration: Plusjamais ca! In thecontext of the politics of the proposed Spring meeting of an Estates-General,this slogan poses ethics as a political question that can neither be avoided norresolved once-and-for-all.Tocqueville said ofdemocracy that he loved it not for what it was but for whatit fait faire. Democratic politics preserves the capacity of society to act,demanding now the increase of political freedom, now that of economicequality. The ethical and the political cannot be distinguished, assigned to oneor the other pole. The democratic task is not Habermas' "completion" of theEnlightenment and realization ofmodernity. That goal rings still of theMarxiancritique of the "illusion of politics," to which it seeks to put an end in reality.Democractic philosophy has, rather, to return to Kant, to the philosopher whoasked the question "What is Enlightenment?" and to the political thinkerwhose"Cosmopolitan History" postulated the creation of civil society as the greatest,and most difficult, task for humanity. These two Kantian themes point to thedemocratic realization of the aim of "critical theory," to putReason back on herThrone without the sacrifice either of the ethical or of the political. The

conjunction of ethics and politics transforms philosophy; Reason's throne isconstantly in question, while its necessity is constantly reaffirmed. This isperhaps why Kant's critical system ends with a theory of judgment.


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366 Praxis InternationalNOTES

1. This necessity does not depend on the empirical problems encoutered within the particularism of civilsociety. Hegel insists, in the Remark to Paragraph 258, that "I f the state is confused with civil society,and if its specific end is laid down as the security and protection of property and personal freedom,then the interest of the individuals as such becomes the ultimate end of their association, and itfollows that membership in the state is something optional." The Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 156. The nature of this "state," which is different fromthe sort of "welfare state" (the "Not-und Verstandesstaat") with which the discussion of civil societyconcludes, needs to be made explicit. I will return, briefly, to this question below. A more inclusiveinterpretation is found in my From Marx to Kant (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985).

2. Hegel, ibid. paragraph 260, p.161.3. France increased its mandatory school attendance age to 16 only in 1959. The percentage of highschool students receiving the high school diploma permitting them to enter the university is stillunder 30%. One proclaimed goal of the reform was to increase this to 80% by the year 2000. At theUniversity level, the system is divided into the elite Grandes Ecoles and the Universities, whosediplomas are in principle equal (as are those of all high schools). In principle, any student with a highschool diploma can go to any University. In fact, the Universities are unequal, and their admissionsare more or less open. The reform wanted to take this into account, making a virtue of necessity. Italso proposed differentiated tuition rates (in a ration of 1 to 2, or to 3 )- a small matter in fact, giventhe low cost of tuition, and the benefits available to those holding student ID's. The importance of thereform was not its empirical content-although the students could at first protest only against

this-but the political implications it symbolized within the broader framework of the right-winggovernment that came to power in 1986, as we will see.4. The cancellation also showed weakness on the part of the government, which was immediately seizedupon by various discontented groups which had heretofore felt too weak to push their demands in theform of strikes. The withdrawal was supposed to show the "statesmanship" of the government; itremains to see whether it will continue this path in the face of the new agitations, or return to thedisciplinary image it had adopted prior to December. The Paris correspondent of Die Zeit wrote withastonishment and disdain that "since the end of the War, no other Western democracy has capitulatedunconditionally in the face of demonstrators." (19 December, 1986).

5. It should be recalled that the proposed educational reforms of the socialist government, andparticularly the attempt to move toward a fully secular system, met with massive opposition beforebeing ultimately withdrawn in 1984. The "liberal" government was forced by electoral imperatives toplease specific clienteles. Its tactics were overlain with the rhetorical flourish of any "party of order."This explains its policies on naturalization and drugs, as well as its reaction to the wave of terrorbombings during the Fall. Beneath the rhetoric lies of course another reality, somewhat evident in thede-nationalization of industry, less clear in the reforms of labor law (firing procedures, flexible hours,etc), hidden in budgetary decisions. But before attributing these moves to "capitalist machinations,"one should recall that many of these proposals were made by the Socialist government after 1983. Ifthey are being pushed with such vigor now, it is for their rhetorical symbolism more than for their realeffects. It is in this context that the assassination of a beur was felt so strongly by the students.In the case of the Universities, the Minister charged with the reform, M. Devaquet, was less subtleHe explained that his proposed law would increase the role of full professors in university governancebecause, having reached this stage in their career, they had more free time to devote to the institutionthan those younger persons still climbing the academic ladder. This is of course simply a cynical wayof preparing what commentators called "the revenge of the mandarins" against the liberalization ofthe Universities begun in the wake ofMay '68 (the Faure Reforms) and continued under the socialistMinister, A. Savary. M. Devaquet's political naivete was apparant also in his statement that theCabinet would decided on modifications of his bill depending on the size of the next day'sdemonstration . . . which of course was enormous!

6. This was clear already in the pre-May pamphlet, "Pourquoi les sociologiques," distributed by theMarch 22nd Movement at Nanterre, and reprinted in Esprit, juin, 1968. The answer, of course, wasthat sociologists are there to regiment and discipline the working class.7. Claude Lefort, Edgar Morin and C. Coudray (a.k.a ., Cornelius Castoriadis), La Breche (Paris:


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Praxis International 367Fayard, 1968). This volume was published in June; Morin's contribution had already been publishedin Le Monde in May.8. This is the theme of Dany Cohn-Bendit's new book (and television series), Nous l'avons tant aimee laRevolution (Paris: Barrault, 1986), which is a compilation of interviews with actors from the differentmovements of the 60's. Cohn-Bendit seems to think that, while not giving up his ideals, he canunderstand now the need to realize them through a reformist, but democratic (his stress: constantly)politics. The argument is not convincing theoretically because its premise about the political nature ofthe movements separates the ethical from the political, distorting both. Interestingly, Cohn-Benditdoes not seem to consider the American civil rights movement as part of the 60's movements. His ownperspectives come out more clearly in a recent article, "Ich lebe da, wo ich verliebt bin," in Die Zeit,12 December, 1986.It is worth noting here that at the moment when the demonstrations threatened to get out ofhand, agroup of "ex-68'ers" formed themselves into groups identified by their white helmets and intervenedin order to preserve the success won by the "maturity" of the movement in the eyes of the public.(See, Le Monde, 12 decembre, 1986).

9. I say "coming to know," because the republican political tradition remains strong on the left, wherejacobinism and Marxism combine easily (as Lenin had noted already in "One Step Forward, TwoSteps Backward," and as those Ministers who opposed the 1983 austerity program argued). TheFrench are coming to know democracy through their concern with the critique of totalitarianism; andthey are coming to know it through the sobering experience of the Socialist Party in power and now in"cohabitation." This explains in part why the right has reacted more as "the party of order" than asthe "party of capital." It also explains the hope for success of the Socialists' present electoral strategy:the re-election ofMitterrand in 1988 against a divided right, and the attempt to draw centrist deputiesfrom the CDS toward a left government without calling for immediate parliamentary elections in1988. The result would be that, by the 1991 parliamentary elections, a democratic left could winpower on its own.

10. I am borrowing these remarks from Claude Lefort, who makes clear the phenomenologicalunderpinnings ofhis argument in a seminar onMerleau-Ponty offered at Stony Brook, Fall, 1986. OnTocqueville, see especially his "On Reversibility," translated by Martha Calhoun in Telos, Nr. 63,Spring, 1985.11. Under the title, "Who will Dare Reform the Schools?," Le Monde's Frederic Gaussen proposed ananalysis whose implications point toward the dilemmas of modern democracy. (Le Monde, 11decembre, 1986; see also Gaussen's earlier article of 25 novembre, 1986). The schools involve a vast

public-parents, who are voters; teachers, who are unionized; students, with no representatives; yetthis public is not linked to the political system by any "transmission belts." Politics, in the everydaysense of the term, becomes an impossible risk in these conditions. Yet political action is necessarybecause our modern societies make education the ticket to individual success. Individual pressurefrom below meets political imperatives from above. The result can only be explosive. It need not,however, be "revolutionary." Indeed, at the height of the December demonstrations, Le Monde'sfront page (12 decembre, 1986) headlined first that "Student Protest has Enlarged the Splits amongthe Components of the Majority," and in another article on the same page, "The Paris Stock Market isin its Best Form."

12. On the question of "new social movements," see the issue of Social Research (Vol. 52, Nr. 4, Winter,1985) edited by Jean L. Cohen, and her excellent introductory essay, "Strategy or Identity: NewTheoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements."

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3.99 - Howard, Dick - Political Chronicle. France, The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (en)