Merleau – Ponty's Political

Abstract Maurice Merleau-Ponty has argued that society is created by violence and exists continually through violence. The basis of society is in other words terror. As such, society can only be changed by violence – a revolutionary violence. The task of this dissertation is to make a critical study of Merleau-Ponty‟s political thought and investigate its praxis within the Nigerian body-politic as it exists today. The tenets of his political philosophy however, will be exposed by making an assessment of his early and late political thought as it affects his conceptualizations of violence and liberalism. His theory on violence and the place of violence in Nigeria will be juxtaposed and examined. The argument of this essay is that: his first and later ideas reveal a certain lack of consistency and dishonesty as his later work on politics contradicts his earlier thought; his socio-political materialist critique though embraces progressive (revolutionary) violence and liberalism, the problem of violence cannot be solved as our society today does not need violence of any kind; his political thought on violence in concert with the on going violence in Nigeria will not only affect the victims but also become an endemic illness of civilization which has the effect of shattering the social network that makes us human; and above all, “humane- democracy” should be practicalized. The kind that will go a long way to avoid any political violence bu willt embrace mutual cooperation, peace and life- fulfillment for individuals. 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of Study Violence is an increasingly real problem in Nigeria and the world at large. Its occurrence ranges from the most daily expressions to those exceptional cases which are specific to the phenomenon of war. As such, its enduring presence within the fabric of our human world needs to be understood and addressed. Historically, one will always attest the fact of its existence, whether it shapes in some more or less drastic manner the world we live in; to have a total acceptance and live by it, or to avoid it and welcome peace. Placing the significance of the above into question prompted some philosophers and some great men alike in making violence a subject of discuss. Thus, considering if it could in any way be justifiable, the Greek philosophers believe that the proper end of politics is the good and happy life of the citizens of the polis. For both Plato and Aristotle, the aim of politics seems to be the good life for a minority, since freedom, leisure, and property are necessary for the kinds of political and intellectual activity that produce happiness. In this context, violence may be permissible if it benefits the ends of the city-state because some citizens may need to be controlled by those who know the “truth”. While in the sixteenth century Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli may have agreed that violence is innate to human beings, he is politically indifferent to morality and religion except as they affect politics. Living in a 2 time of political and social disorder, Machiavelli was concerned with establishing the principles at which competent political leadership can preserve the security and well-being of the leader. The most successful princes, emulating the example of ancient republican Rome, recognizes violence as part of political life, accepting it as an integral part of human nature while striving to control it. Machiavelli stresses that princes must not shirk from using violence; indeed, they must become proficient in its use, preparing for war even in terms of peace. Machiavelli‟s indifference to religion should not obscure the fact that for two centuries after the publication of his book The Prince (1513), the protestant reformation led to a merger of religious and political concerns. Yet while Martin Luther and John Calvin in the sixteenth century uphold the notion that resistance to rulers is sinful, some Protestants, such as John Knox, were formulating the view that resistance, even violent resistance, could be justified in circumstances where monarchs act contrary to God‟s will. Reflecting on the turbulence of seventeenth – century English society, Thomas Hobbes argued that self-interest is the driving force of human nature, a self-interest that produces a war of all against all. Hobbes marks the beginning of liberalism in that the existence of society is explained by reference to free and equal individuals who consent to regulate their attempts to find the best expression for their egotistical natures. 3 John Locke also writing in the seventeenth century, argues that there are no obstacles to the potential violence and oppression of an absolute ruler and seeks to arrange political institutions in such a way that a system of checks and balances will come up against the self-interest of another. For him the end of politics is to create a legal framework within which free, property-owing individuals can pursue their private ends. If individual rights are consistently undermined, he argues, then people have the right, even the obligation, to resist and form a new government. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, writing in the mid-eighteenth century, believed that “peace” under despotic rule could not be tolerated and that people are justified in using violence to restore their liberties. Among classical liberals, Thomas Jefferson is often celebrated as the most ardent supporter of rebellion. He argues that even unjustified rebellion can prevent the lethargy that is the “forerunner of death to the public liberty.”1 While the right to rebellion may be used to defend bourgeois political rights, it does not imply any right to resist the violence produced by social inequalities that are a feature of the emerging capitalist system of production. The radicalism of Thomas Paine, James Mackintosh, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft2 in the late eighteenth century may see lower-class violence as a response to power inequalities in political structure. According to Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels, writing in the mid- nineteenth century political violence is only the instrument and reflection of the violence of the class struggle. Revolutionary violence aimed at the capitalist 4 state is designed to end the violence inherent in the capitalist mode of production. Only the collective ownership of the means of production by the proletariat and the withering away of the state can alleviate this system. In Marxist theory, revolution is justified as a response to the violence of private capital accumulation. Although neo-Marxists such as Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Heidi Hartmann, and Juliet Mitchell3, have given greater prominence to non- economic components (like the state, gender, race, and ideology), most of them have agreed that the economic issues of capital accumulation and private ownership have priority. However, from the foregoing, many philosophers and thinkers have dealt with the question of violence from their own world views and perspectives. Merleau-Ponty is not left out. He believes that society is created by violence and exists continually through violence. The basis of society is – in other words – terror. As such society can only be changed by violence – a revolutionary violence. The only type of violence that is justifiable as it can only come up when there is a bad government which according to him, brings about future humanism i.e., co-existence among men. Merleau-Ponty acclaims that even to always restraining from violence either towards a person or a class that is doing so is in itself an act of violence. Indeed, using non-violence in order to stop another violent act is a tacit form of accepting that act. Thus, there remains a class struggle in the society. He identifies the reason behind this class struggle 5 by following Karl Marx in identifying class struggle with the Hegelian – type relation; that one class thinks of another as object and not precisely as an embodiment. This is the reason why “struggle” and master-slave relations exist. Merleau-Ponty condemns the capitalist institutionalization of violence since even the so called liberal capitalism imposes its abstract values on people dramatically which in effect results in aggressive liberalism. Hence, “an aggressive liberalism is already an ideology of war”.4 He further employs and advocates the communist use of terrorism. For him, communists may not be condemned by capitalists and liberals, because capitalists and liberals do not condemn the violence in capitalism and liberalism. Capitalists and liberals do not even recognize their own violence for what it is. He therefore commends that communists are preferable social company because they are at least honest about their violence. Besides, “violence under communism is like a lamp that produces maximum light before going out”5. As such, since we cannot totally be free from violence, Merleau-Ponty advocates revolutionary violence because it has a future of co-existence. He argues in addition that morally correct actions should aim at limiting violence and treating fellow men as men and not objects, rather than following any sort of categorical imperative. In this work, Maurice Merleau-Ponty‟s political thought on violence is to be examined to see how pragmatic and justifiable this theory of his will be if it is to be adopted especially from the area of Nigeria‟s political setting. The argument here, however, is that his socio-political materialist critique though 6 embraces revolutionary violence and intersubjectivity, it will not solve the problem of violence or rather welcome ever lasting peace as the revolutionists will not be credited for being honest of their act. Hence, the society might end up in a “cold war”. Besides, our society today needs less-revolution and/or violence .

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