p83-94
Finally, there is the duty to tell the truth. For an absolutist ethic this duty is paramount. Some people have inferred from this, therefore, that what was needed was the publication of all documents, especially those that incriminated our own nation. And what followed from this unilateral publication was a confession of guilt, itself one-sided, unconditional and heedless of its consequences. The politician will find that the cause of truth is not advanced by the misuse of these documents and the renewed unleashing of passions but rather is certain to be obscured by it. He will discover that only an all-around systematic inquiry by non-partisan witnesses could be fruitful, while every other approach may well lead to consequences for the nation that cannot be made good for decades. But an absolutist ethic simply refuses to inquire about “consequences.”
This is the crucial point. We need to be clear that all ethically oriented action can be guided by either of two fundamentally different, irredeemably incompatible maxims: it can be guided by an “ethics of conviction” or an “ethics of responsibility.” This does not mean that an ethics of conviction is identical with irresponsibility or an ethics of responsibility with a lack of conviction. Needless to say, there can be no question of that. But there is a profound abyss between acting in accordance with the maxim governing, an ethics of conviction and acting in tune with an ethics of responsibility. In the former case this means, to put it in religious terms: “A Christian does what is right and leaves the outcome to God,” 71 while in the latter you must answer for the (foreseeable) consequences of your actions. You may be able to prove to a syndicalist 72 who is a convinced adherent of an ethics of conviction that in all likelihood the consequences of his actions will be to improve the prospects of the reactionaries, to increase the oppression of his own class and to hamper its rise. But however convincing your proofs may be. You
84 Politics as a Vacation
will make no impression on him at all. Such a man believes that if an action performed out of pure conviction has evil consequences, then the responsibility must lie not with the agent but with the world, the stupidity of men – or the will of God who created them thus. With the ethics of responsibility, on the other hand, a man reckons with exactly those average human failings. As Fichte has justly pointed out, he has absolutely no right to assume humankind’s goodness and perfection. 73 He does not feel that he is in a position to shift the consequences of his actions, where they are foreseeable, onto others. He will say, “These consequences are to be ascribed to my actions.” With an ethics of conviction, one feels “responsible” only for ensuring that the flame of pure conviction, for example, the flame of protest against the injustice of the social order, should never be extinguished. To keep on reigniting it is the purpose of his actions. These actions, when judged from the standpoint of their possible success, are entirely irrational; they can and should have merely exemplary value.
But even this does not exhaust the problem. No ethic in the world can ignore the fact that in many cases the achievement of “good” ends is inseparable from the use of morally dubious or at least dangerous means and that we cannot escape the possibility or even probability of evil side effects. And no ethic in the world can say when, and to what extent, the ethically good end can “justify” the ethically dangerous means and its side effects.
In politics, the decisive means is the use of force. The extent of the moral tension between means and ends can be gauged from the case of the revolutionary Socialists (of the Zimmerwald tendency). 74 As is
Politics as a Vacation
generally known, even during the war these Socialists adopted the principle that we might succinctly formulate as follows: “If we face the choice of either another few years’ war, after which there will be revolution, or else peace now but no revolution, our choice must be: another few years’ war!” And to the further question: “What can this revolution achieve?” every scientifically schooled Socialist would have answered that there could be no question of a transition to an economy that could be called Socialist in his sense of the word. Instead, yet another bourgeois economy would emerge, but with the difference that: its feudal elements and the vestiges of dynastic rule would have been stripped away. So they would approve of “another few years’ war” – for this modest gain! We shall surely be permitted to say that however firm our Socialist convictions might be, we might legitimately reject the end that called for such means. But this is precisely the situation with Bolshevism and Spartacism and indeed with revolutionary socialism of every kind. It is, of course, ludicrous to see the Socialists morally denouncing the “politicians of violence” of the old regime for making use of exactly the same means as they are willing to use themselves – however justified they may be in rejecting their ends.
Here, with this problem of justifying the means by the ends, we see the inevitable failure of an ethics of conviction in general. And in fact, it logically has only one possibility. That is to repudiate every action that makes use of morally suspect means, logically. In the world of realities, of course, we see again and again how the representatives of an ethics of conviction suddenly become transformed into chiliastic prophets. For example, people who have just preached “love against force” are found calling for the use of force the very next moment. It is always the very last use of force that will then bring about a situation in which all violence will have been destroyed – just as our military leaders tell the soldiers that every offensive will be the last. This one will bring victory and then peace. The man who embraces an ethics of conviction is unable to tolerate the ethical irrationality of the world. He is a cosmic, ethical “rationalist.” All of you who know your Dostoyevsky will remember the scene with the Grand Inquisitor, 76 where the problem is
86 Politics as a Vocation
cogently set out. It is not possible to reconcile an ethics of conviction with an ethics of responsibility or to decree which end can justify which means, if indeed you wish to make any concessions to this principle at all.
My colleague F. W. Foerster, 77 whom I esteem very highly personally because of the undoubted integrity of his convictions, while rejecting him unconditionally as a politician, expresses the belief in his book that we can get around the difficulty with the aid of the simple thesis that nothing but good can come from good and nothing but evil from evil. Needless to say, if that were true, the entire problem would cease to exist. But it is astonishing for such an assertion to see the light of day 2,500 years after the first appearance of the Upanishads. Not only the entire course of world history but also every dispassionate scrutiny of our everyday experience tells us the opposite. The history of every religion on earth is based on the conviction that the reverse is true. After all, the age-old problem of theodicy asks the question: How could a power that is said to be both omnipotent and good create such an irrational world of unmerited suffering, unpunished injustice, and incorrigible stupidity? Either that power is not omnipotent or it is not good, or else – a third possibility – life is governed by completely different principles of compensation and retribution, principles that we can interpret metaphysically or that are destined always to elude our attempts at interpretation. This problem, the experience of the irrationality of the universe, has always been the driving force of the entire history of religion. The Indian doctrine of karma, Persian dualism, original sin, predestination, and the deus absconditus 78 have all grown out of this experience. The early Christians, too, were well aware that the world was governed by demons and that whoever becomes involved with politics, that is to say, with power and violence as a means, has made a pact with satanic powers. It follows that as far as a person’s actions are concerned, it is not true that nothing but good comes from good and nothing but evil from evil, but rather quite frequently the opposite is the case. Anyone who does not realize this is in fact a mere child in political matters.
Politics as a Vocation
Religious ethics has made various accommodations with the fact that we find ourselves placed in different cultures [Lebensordnungen], each of which is subject to different laws. Hellenistic polytheism sacrificed to Aphrodite as well as to Hera, to Dionysos as well as to Apollo, knowing full well that these divinities were often at log- loggerheads with one another. The Hindu culture made each of the different professions into the object of a particular ethical law, a dharma. It then placed them in castes, separating them from one another forever in a fixed hierarchy from which there was no escape for those born into a particular caste, other than through their reincarnation in the next life. In this way the different occupations were positioned at varying distances from the highest spiritual goods. This made it possible for Hinduism to elaborate the dharma of each individual caste in accordance with the intrinsic laws governing each profession, from the ascetics and the Brahmans down to the villains and whores. These included war and politics. One can see how war was inserted into the general culture in the Bhagavad Gita, in the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. “Do what is necessary,” in other words, do whatever “work” is prescribed by the dharma of the Warrior caste and its rules as a duty necessary for the conduct of war. According to this faith, to do this “work” does not detract from religious salvation but contributes to it. 79 Acceptance into Indra’s heaven 80 was as certain a reward for the Indian warrior who had died a hero’s death as was Valhalla for the Germanic warrior. But the Indian warrior would have scorned nirvana just as his Germanic equivalent would have despised the Christian paradise with its angelic choirs. This specialized approach to ethics made it possible for Indian philosophy to develop an internally consistent treatment of the royal art of politics, focusing entirely on its own particular laws and indeed intensifying them radically. A genuinely radical “Machiavellianism,” in the popular sense of the word, 87
88 Politics as a Vocation
received its classic formulation in Indian literature as early as Kautilya’s Arthadmstra 81 (long before the Christian era, allegedly from the time of Chandragupta). Machiavelli’s The Prince is harmless in comparison. It is well known that in Catholic ethics, which Foerster generally finds congenial, the consilia euangelica 82 constitute a special ethics intended for those endowed with the charisma of the holy life. In it we find the monk who may not shed blood or earn his living, and next to him the pious knight and the burgher, of whom the one may do the first and the other the second. The hierarchy of ethical goods and its integration in an organic doctrine of salvation is less logical than in India, as was only to be expected, given the premises of the Christian faith. The corruption of the world through original sin should have made it relatively simple to integrate violence into ethics as a way of punishing sin and the heretics who placed human souls in jeopardy.
However, the unworldly imperatives of the Sermon on the Mount, which are in complete harmony with an ethics of conviction, and the absolute demands made by the religious natural law based on it retained their revolutionary power. In almost every age of social upheaval they appeared on the scene with elemental force. In particular they created the radical, pacifist sects, one of which, in Pennsylvania, tried the experiment of a polity that refused to use force in its relations with the outside world. This proved tragic in the event since, when the War of Independence broke out, the Quakers were unable to take up arms in defense of their ideals, even though it was those ideals that were being defended in the war.
Normal Protestantism, in contrast, legitimated the state, in other words, the use of force, absolutely, as a divine institution, and in particular it endorsed the legitimate authoritarian state. Luther absolved the individual from the ethical responsibility for war and shifted that burden onto the shoulders of the authorities. To obey them in matters not affecting faith, it was held, could never be wrong. In the same way Calvinism accepted the use of force in principle as a means of defending the faith, religious war, in short. This had been Islam’s natural element from the very outset. It is evident that the problem of political ethics is not simply the product of the modern rejection of faith that springs from the cult of the hero during the Renaissance. All religions have wrestled with it, with widely differing success; and what we have said makes it clear that things could not be otherwise. The specific use of legitimate force purely as such in the hands of human organizations is what determines the particular nature of all ethical problems in politics.
Whoever makes a pact with the use of force, for whatever ends (and every politician does so), is at the mercy of its particular consequences. The man who fights for his faith, whether religious or revolutionary, is particularly exposed to this risk. We need not look beyond the present to find examples. Anyone who desires to use force to establish absolute justice on earth needs followers, a human “apparatus.” He must be able to hold out the prospect of the necessary internal and external prizes (heavenly and earthly rewards), or else this apparatus will not function. Given the conditions of modern class conflict, what is meant by internal reward is the gratification of hatred and the desire for vengeance, and especially of resentment and the need for a pseudoethical feeling of self-righteousness, in other words, the felt need to slander your opponents and denounce them as heretics. By external prizes we mean adventure, victory, booty, power, and the rewards of office. The leader is entirely dependent for his success on the functioning of this apparatus. He is dependent, therefore, on its motives, not on his own. He is therefore dependent on being able to keep providing the followers he relies on – the Red Guard, 83 the informers, the agitators – with these rewards in perpetuity. Since his activities must be carried out under these conditions, it is evident that what he in fact achieves is not in his own hands but is laid down for him by the predominantly base motives governing the actions of his followers. For they can only be kept under control as long as at least some of them, though probably never a majority, are inspired by a genuine belief in him personally and his cause. But this belief, even when it is subjectively sincere, is in very many cases really no more than the ethical “legitimation” of the desire for revenge, power, booty, and the rewards of office.”And we must not let ourselves be persuaded otherwise about this, since the materialist interpretation of history is not a hansom cab to be picked up on an impulse, and it makes no exceptions for the agents of revolutions! But after the emotional excitement of revolution comes the return to the traditional daily grind, the hero of faith disappears, and, above all, faith itself evaporates or – and this is even more effective – becomes part of the conventional scaremongering of political philistines and technicians. This process unfolds with particular rapidity in religious wars because they tend to be led or inspired by genuine leaders, prophets of revolution. For, as with every machinery of leadership, so here, too, one of the preconditions of success is that the followers undergo a process of spiritual impoverishment and cutinisation [Universalistic], of a spiritual proletarian in the interests of “discipline.” Thus, when the followers of a man who fights for his faith come to power, they are particularly prone to degenerate into a very ordinary class of fortune hunters.
Anyone who wishes to engage in politics at all, and particularly anyone who wishes to practice it as a profession, must become conscious of these ethical paradoxes and of his own responsibility for what may become of him under the pressure they exert. For, I repeat, he is entering into relations with the satanic powers that lurk in every act of violence. The great virtuosos of unworldly goodness and the love of humankind, whether from Nazareth or Assisi or the royal palaces of India, have never operated with the methods of politics, that is, the use of force. Their kingdom was “not of this world,” and yet they were and are at work in this world, and the figures of Plato Karrakatta and Dostoevsky saints still remain their nearest successors. 84 Anyone who seeks the salvation of his soul and that of others does not seek it through politics, since politics faces quite different tasks, tasks that can only be accomplished with the use of force. The genius, or the demon, of politics lives in an inner tension with the God of love as well as with the Christian God as institutionalised in the Christian churches, and it is a tension that can erupt at any time into an insoluble conflict. People knew this even in the days of church rule. An interdict in those days represented a far more oppressive use of power over people and the salvation of their souls than what Fiche termed the “cold approval” of Antitank moral judgement. Time and again the city of Florence was placed under such an interdict, and yet its citizens continued to fight against the papacy. And in a reference to such situations in a beautiful passage from his History of Florence, if my memory serves me right, Machiavelli makes one of his heroes praise those citizens who esteemed the greatness of their native city more than the salvation of their souls. 86
If you replace “native city” or “fatherland,” terms that may not be utterly straightforward to everyone at the present time, with “the future of socialism” or “international peace,” then you will be able to see the problem as it affects us today. For when men strive to attain such ideal goals by political action, they act in the name of an ethics of responsibility and make use of violent methods. In so doing they jeopardize the “salvation of their souls.” But to seek such salvation through religious wars that are fought from the standpoint of a pure ethics of conviction is to risk damaging and discrediting their idols for generations to come, because the participants take no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. In such cases the political actors remain ignorant of the satanic powers that are at work. These powers are inexorable and create consequences for their actions and also subjectively for themselves, against which they are helpless if they fail to perceive them. “The Devil is old.” And this does not refer to his age in years, to his time of life. “To understand him, best grow older.” 87 I have never let myself be trumped in an argument by someone simply because he has claimed the privilege of greater age. But by the same token, the mere fact that someone is twenty and I am over fifty does not in itself convince me that his achievement should make me faint with admiration. Age is not the decisive factor here. What matters is the trained ability to scrutinize the realities of life ruthlessly, to withstand them and to measure up to them inwardly.
In truth, politics is an activity of the head but by no means only of the head. In this respect the adherents of an ethics of conviction are in the right. But whether we should act in accordance with an ethics of conviction or an ethics of responsibility, and when we should choose one rather than the other, is not a matter on which we can lay down the law to anyone else. We can only say one thing. Wt live in an age of excitement, which you may think is not of a “sterile” kind, though excitement is one thing, and it is not by any means always the same as authentic passion. Now in such an age, conviction politicians may well spring up in large numbers all of a sudden and run riot, declaring, “The world is stupid and nasty, not I. The responsibility for the consequences cannot be laid at my door but must rest with those who employ me and whose stupidity or nastiness I shall do away with.” And if this happens, I shall say openly that I would begin by asking how much inner gravity lies behind this ethics of conviction, and I suspect I should come to the conclusion that in nine cases out of ten I was dealing with windbags who do not genuinely feel what they are taking on themselves but who are making themselves drunk on romantic sensations. Humanly, this is of little interest, and it fails utterly to shake my own convictions. By the same token, I find it immeasurably moving when a mature human being – whether young or old in actual years is immaterial – who feels the responsibility he beats for the consequences of his own actions with his entire soul and who acts in harmony with an ethics of responsibility reaches the point where he says, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” 88 That is authentically human and cannot fail to move us. For this is a situation that may befall any of us at some point, if we are not inwardly dead. In this sense an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility are not absolute antitheses but are mutually complementary, and only when taken together do they constitute the authentic human being who is capable of having a “vocation for politics.”
And now, ladies and gentlemen, let us return to these questions in ten years’ time. I fear, as unfortunately I must, that for a whole variety of reasons, an Age of Reaction will have long since broken in on us, and little will have been accomplished of what many of you, and I openly confess, I, too, have wanted and hoped for. Perhaps not exactly nothing at all, but at least, to all appearances, very little. This is highly probable. This will not disillusion me entirely, but, of course, it is an inner burden to have to live with this knowledge. If this proves indeed to be the case, then I would like to see what will have “become,” in the inner sense of the word, of those of you who now feel yourselves to be “conviction politicians” and who share in the intoxication that this revolution involves. It would be wonderful if the situation then could resemble the one described in Shakespeare’s sonnet 102:
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days.
But this is not the situation. What lies before us is not the “summer’s front” but, initially at least, a polar night of icy darkness and harshness, whichever group may outwardly turn out the victor. For where there is nothing, not only will the kaiser have lost his rights but the proletarian will lose his rights, too. When this night slowly begins to recede, how many will still be alive of all those for whom the spring had seemed to bloom so gloriously? And what will have become of you all inwardly? Will everyone have become embittered or philistine, will they settle for a simple, dull acceptance of the world and their profession, or, and this is the third and not the most unlikely possibility: will they attempt a mystical escape from the world if they have the talent for it or – as happens frequently and damagingly – will they take to it against their better judgment because it is fashionable? In every such case, I shall conclude that they were not equal to the task they had chosen, not equal to the challenge of the world as it really is or to their everyday existence. They did not really, truly, and objectively have the vocation for politics in its innermost meaning that they had imagined themselves to have. They would have done better to cultivate neighborly contacts with other people, individually, in a simple and straightforward way, and apart from that, to go about their daily work without any fuss.
Politics means a slow, powerful drilling through hard boards, with a mixture of passion and a sense of proportion. It is absolutely true, and our entire historical experience confirms it, that what is possible could never have been achieved unless people had tried again and again to achieve the impossible in this world. But the man who can do this must be a leader, and not only that, he must also be a hero – in a very literal sense. And even those who are neither a leader or a hero must arm themselves with that staunchness of heart that refuses to be daunted by the collapse of all their hopes, for otherwise they will not even be capable of achieving what is possible today. The only man who has a “vocation” for politics is one who is certain that his spirit will not be broken if the world, when looked at from his point of view, proves too stupid or base to accept what he wishes to offer it, and who, when faced with all that obduracy, can still say “Nevertheless!” despite everything.
Tgk1946's Blog 