The Antimodern Condition

An Argument Against Progress

Peter King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317044949
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Much of social and political thought over the last three centuries has been concerned with transgression and change, with progress and a focus on creating something 'better' than we have now. But when many of these ideas are put into practice the result has been violence, turmoil and human misery. This, we might say, has been the result of grand ideals taking precedence over the interests of ordinary people. This book presents an alternative view: the antimodern condition. This involves the rejection of change and progress and instead seeks to promote certainty, permanence and settlement. The antimodern condition is where we are in place and settled. It is where we are part of the world around us and not at war with it. It is where we accept our place: we are with those who we care for, and so we are theirs. The antimodern condition is where we recognise that we dwell within traditions, which may evolve and change, but which keep us within the bounds of what is known and what works. This book takes a cross-disciplinary approach, integrating ideas from politics, philosophy, social theory and architecture to present an alternative to progress and other modern conceits.

Chapter 1 Backwards

DOI: 10.4324/9781315612461-2

I

We make sense of our lives by looking backwards. Any society is grounded in its past. It is based on the specific nature of its constituent parts, and these are the institutions and the people who have built them and who must now maintain them.

But to acknowledge this basic fact involves an acceptance of the limits imposed on us by the specific institutions that our ancestors have built. We are not innovators but rather the recipients and trustees of a tradition. We depend on institutions and habits that have evolved over time through the actions of others living together. As Edmund Burke (1999) has shown, our nature makes our morality and our principles of government are complete as they are. We can use them and hand them on, but we do not expect, and do not need, to improve on them.

This view is grounded in the knowledge that we have no other life than that we are currently living. The promise of a better life merely distracts us from our daily existence and asks us to sacrifice actually doing what we can for the sake of a hope or dream, which may in any case only be available to others (if it is available to anyone at all). What is more, we can know this as soon as we start to read the past.

If we accept this view, we will naturally turn away from ideas of and hopes for the future. Instead we can look around us and relish what we have. Instead of illusive ideas of a better future, we merely have an attitude or disposition, and one that is conservative instead of progressive. What this disposition is composed of has been summed up Michael Oakeshott:

To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbound, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of the more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty and promise. (1991, pp. 408–9)

Oakeshott favours what is already known. We will prefer the familiar to the unknown, what is already around us as opposed to what we cannot yet understand.

The sense that we get from reading Oakeshott is not one of anxiety and fear. We do not favour the familiar and the known because we are frightened, rather we do so out of experience and a sure understanding of what we already have. There is indeed a confidence in the prescriptions of the conservative disposition that does not brook doubt. And this confidence comes out of an appreciation of how we are not as others might wish us to be.

But this view, however, is not a particularly popular one, be it in the academy or in politics and this includes within the major conservative parties of the Western world. Instead of a belief in the efficacy of the past, politicians of all shades look to the future and promise change. The present, they suggest, is not good enough and so we must move forward to a better tomorrow when injustice, inequality and unhappiness will be eradicated, as they surely can be (even though their ancestors have had little success in their attempts). This call for progress may be based on a genuine view that the present conditions are unacceptable, or it may be because it is felt that our true nature is not to accept what we have but to strive for something better. It may be argued that it is in our nature to progress and seek to eradicate injustice (Archer, 2000). We are, it may be said, programmed for change. The human condition is to progress and to evolve always into something better.

But this is a very modern idea that can be dated to no further back than the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Guénon, 2001e). Indeed, it may be said that this view of the human condition actually encapsulates the very essence of the word ‘modern’. According to René Guénon, most societies throughout history would not have recognised this desire for progress as either natural or desirable. The traditional view of time was not linear but circular, based on the seasons and the movement of the heavens. There was no reason to assume that things would necessarily change for the better. Life was based on what was known and what was established. Innovation was aberration and to be opposed rather than accepted. It is this basic nature of traditional societies that the great conservative thinkers, such as Burke and Oakeshott, have noted and dwelt upon. It is this which I have chosen to refer to as the antimodern condition.

II

Antimodernism is a product of the Enlightenment, or rather what rose to oppose it. This movement, made up of French conservatives and reactionaries and German romantics, has become known as the Counter-Enlightenment, a term coined by Isaiah Berlin (1997). The Counter-Enlightenment came to oppose the notions of progress, rationalism and sceptical enquiry that have formed the basis for much of modern thought. As Anthony O’Hear (1999) has stated, the differences between the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment are readily apparent:

If the Enlightenment stressed reason, the Counter-Enlightenment stressed feeling. If the Enlightenment stressed science and modern civilisation, the Counter-Enlightenment stressed nature and the primitive life. It looked within, into our hearts, where the Enlightenment sought objectivity. Further, the Counter-Enlightenment emphasised the diversity of human society, and questioned the very notion of progress that saw modern societies as better than ancient of primitive ones.

Human nature was not universal, it was particular and historical: different peoples had their own cultures and norms, and they could not be compared or judged prejudicially – from the point of one society or the other. And where the Enlightenment sought to found social institutions on human reason and human choices, the Counter-Enlightenment looked for religious foundations for society and morality. Finally, where the Enlightenment would submit all old beliefs to the test by contemporary scientific reason, the Counter-Enlightenment saw virtue in habits and beliefs just because they were old, because they had stood the test of time, because they embodied ancient and not necessarily immediately discernible wisdom. (p. 27)

We might summarise this distinction by stating that the Enlightenment sought to question all traditions, habits and institutions on the basis of a universal idea of reason, whereas the Counter-Enlightenment sought solace in the particular and the established and did so precisely because they were so specific and entrenched. Instead of looking where we want, or ought, to be, the Counter-Enlightenment sought to stress the utility of being just where we already are. It saw individuals and communities as being grounded or rooted in their place and that this differentiated them.

Berlin (1997) argues that ‘one of the most interesting and influential’ (p. 20) thinkers of the Counter-Enlightenment was Joseph de Maistre. De Maistre provided a critique of the modern, including the preference for the scientific method and rationalism over intuition and providence (de Maistre, 1996, 1998). Instead of the optimistic Enlightenment view of humanity as rational and capable of good, he put forward an understanding of humanity as violent and aggressive. We do not come together naturally to co-operate and live peacefully, but rather we need discipline and order in our lives directed from above. Instead of maximising autonomy and freedom, the state needs to be the focus of authority and this authority should be absolute. There can be no compromise with democracy or the will of the people. This is a betrayal of the providential role of the state as the absolute determinant of the social order. In his St Petersburg Dialogues (1993) de Maistre considers the role of the executioner as the symbol of this absolute sense of order. The executioner may be a figure who is regarded with disgust and repugnance, but according to de Maistre, it is he who ensures the order of the whole.

De Maistre (1850) was a critic of what he saw as the burgeoning atheism of the post-Enlightenment period, with its denigration of the place of the Church and Papal authority. He sought to justify placing spiritual authority over the temporal. He argued that all societies have a religious basis to them that pre-dates any form of temporal governance. All this can be seen as a justification for sustaining and, where necessary, restoring what is long established and traditional rather than concentrating on what is new.

This, we might suggest, is a deeply pessimistic view of humanity, but it is not an unconfident one. This is because human societies have already discovered the means to control their aggressive urges, and this is through the establishment of a proper social order. The problem of the Enlightenment, according to de Maistre, was that it sought to destroy this order and to replace it with a naïve and fallacious view of human nature. It is not that we lack the remedies, it is that, according to de Maistre, we choose to ignore them, preferring to new and fashionable ideas.

As a thinker, de Maistre is important because he reminds us of the limitations of what it is to be human. He places us within a scheme that is greater than that of our own making and understanding, and so calls into question the human quest for perfection. De Maistre is sceptical of science and of what we now refer to as positivism and argues instead for a return to a more providential view of human social order (de Maistre, 1993, 1998). There is very little we can do on our own in a complex world not of our own making. As Jean Starobinski says of de Maistre:

The rejection of revolutionary innovations was accompanied by a political fatalism that defined itself more specifically as a providentialist quietism. The will of God (‘the great geometer’) would be accomplished sooner or later despite human designs. One needed only to be patient. In the meantime, the Jacobins and the republican armies would do their work – territorial conquests – that would eventually profit the future monarchy. The designs of Providence would be realized with the inevitability of the laws of nature. (2003, p. 327)

De Maistre had a confidence in the failure of progress and felt we could just wait for the inevitable.

De Maistre demonstrates a particular cast of mind, a mentality that is properly reactionary. He is one of the best examples of a brilliant and cultured mind focused on maintaining a particular traditional sense of the world. De Maistre’s virtue is in his attempt to show the unvarnished reality of human nature, and so to provide a necessary counterweight to Enlightenment optimism and the idea that progress was, and is, inevitable. He shows us that progress can be destructive, and this is because of how human beings really are rather than what the French philosophes assumed them to be. Human beings, according to de Maistre, need order, discipline, constraint and punishment. He reminds us that wars happen and that some people relish them and are proficient in prosecuting them, and that the rest of us rely on these people for our protection. We are glad when such people are there for us, even though we might be concerned about what they actually do in our name, and we might not wish to delve too deeply into the full nature of their actions. In short, de Maistre shows that human beings are by no means perfect, nor are they perfectible, and this is not just some temporary aberration.

As Berlin (1997) argues, this can be taken as an extreme position, and we need not accept all of it. De Maistre was writing from within the specific milieu of the Enlightenment itself. He was not looking back with the benefit of 200 years of history, but from a position that saw the Enlightenment as incomplete, and thus an active threat to existing institutions. In our day we face different threats and have different concerns. The battles of de Maistre’s time have been won and lost, and we are faced with that legacy. But we can still learn much from the attitude to change taken by de Maistre, from how he sought to contest the heady optimism of an Enlightenment that would soon lead to terror and violence.

As Alain de Benoist (1993) has stated, we cannot know how figures such as de Maistre would respond in today’s situation. But their perspective, de Benoist speculates, remains relevant in a world in which the consequences of progress are now all too apparent. We are now all too aware of the consequences and complexities created by our desire for progress. We know what destructive impact scientific and technological progress has had on the environment and the inner health of many people, and we have begun to question this. This is not to suggest that we should agree with all that de Maistre says – we cannot judge him entirely without regard for the sensibilities of our age – but it does imply that he may still have much to tell us, and that we have much to learn, should we be willing. If he were alive today, we might expect he would quite naturally moderate his views towards the specific milieu in which he was born (although many would still find him extreme). Yes, he would be a reactionary, but he would, we might suggest, fit into the world in which he found himself. What he would provide us with, as he indeed does from across the distance of years, is a template by which we might judge our place in the world. It provides us with a set of presumptions by which we can locate ourselves. De Maistre allows us to place ourselves with regard to the modern.

So what are these presumptions? I wish to state that there are four key elements to antimodernism as it can be configured in the conditions that prevail in a world that is becoming sceptical of the effects of progress. Each of these elements builds on the previous ones to create an interlocking picture of antimodernism as a defence mechanism against progress.

The first is that instead of being concerned with what is new and different, we wish to focus on the accepted and habitual ways of acting and doing. We have a rhythm to our lives and we take this as normal and proper. This has developed over time and we have adopted it without any conscious act of will. It is not based on anything rational and is not amenable to rational assessment and critique. It is something we have inherited and accept because of who, what and where we are. Accordingly, we will resent being pushed out of this rhythm and resist those who seek to force us to accept what is new and different.

Second, these accepted and habitual ways of behaving lead us to believe that there is a common culture of which we are a part. This connects us with others around us and gives us a sense that we share something greater than ourselves. There are particular ways of behaving and responding that mean we belong to this greater whole. This common culture pre-dates us and will reach beyond us, and this makes us a part of something with a continuity and a significance that transcends our everyday concerns. This sense of allegiance, however, does not negate differences between us, nor does it mean that we will not sometimes feel separated or even alienated from others. However, the common culture ties us to others and determines our response to them and, in turn, how we expect them to act with regard to us. This sense of commonality may remain implicit and appear merely as part of the accepted and habitual. However, it may become explicit if it is challenged or threatened, either from within or without.

The third element takes the idea a stage further in that it stresses that the culture remains common only by making its transmission from one generation to the next a priority. One of the principal elements of a common culture is the regard for its own continuance. This is the only means by which the accepted forms of acting may be preserved and our lives continue on unchallenged. The key institutions of that culture need therefore to be geared towards its reproduction through the transmission of knowledge and understanding.

This takes us to the fourth and final element, in that we see the principal aim of government as being the protection of those institutions that transmit the common culture. The aim of government should be to maintain those institutions, traditions and practices that allow the common culture to thrive.

A key part of antimodernism is that it sees no real need to justify itself. The elements upon which it is based are merely accepted as self-evident: we feel them to be right and seek no further justification. Furthermore, we might resent it were our assumptions to be challenged and questioned. The experience of these institutions and habits and their continued existence is all that we need in order to believe in them. For us, they are tried and trusted forms that have worked and that continue to do so. The things that antimodernists lean on are not then speculative or utopian, but are rather the real traditions, structures and institutions that have created us as we are, and whose decline, forced by the cause of progress, has caused major social and political problems.

As its origins in the Counter-Enlightenment suggest, it is in the nature of antimodernism to present its arguments negatively. It is against something – those ideas that threaten the accepted and traditional common culture – and so it will tend to present a defensive argument. And of course what is argued against is modernity. It is only when modernity threatens tradition that antimodernism becomes active rather than passive. Richard Lebrun, in his biography of de Maistre, suggests that:

Much of the strength of a traditional society lies in the fact that its structure and values are unquestioned – indeed unquestionable. It is only when the status quo has been attacked and disrupted that the need to defend it becomes imperative. The conservative theorist almost inevitably finds himself in a defensive posture, involved in a debate on the relative merits of the old order versus the new, impelled to base his arguments on the assumptions of the innovators. And by engaging in the argument at all, he easily becomes suspect to members of the traditional elite who have always simply assumed the rightness of existing structures and values and their own privileged p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Backwards
• 2 Forgetting
• 3 Absurdity
• 4 ‘I’m good’
• 5 Complacent
• 6 Acceptance
• 7 The Antimodern Condition
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index