The Drama of Humanity and Other Miscellaneous Papers 1939-1985

the collected works of ERIC VOEGELIN VOLUME 33 THE DRAMA OF HUMANITY AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, 1939–1985 This page intentionally left blank projected volumes in the collected works 1. On the Form of the American Mind 2. Race and State 3. The History of the Race Idea: From Ray to Carus 4. The Authoritarian State: An Essay on the Problem of the Austrian State 5. Modernity without Restraint: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism 6. Anamnesis: On the Theory of History and Politics 7. Published Essays, 1922–1928 8. Published Essays, 1928–1933 9. Published Essays, 1934–1939 10. Published Essays, 1940–1952 11. Published Essays, 1953–1965 12. Published Essays, 1966–1985 13. Selected Book Reviews 14. Order and History, Volume I, Israel and Revelation 15. Order and History, Volume II, The World of the Polis 16. Order and History, Volume III, Plato and Aristotle 17. Order and History, Volume IV, The Ecumenic Age 18. Order and History, Volume V, In Search of Order 19. History of Political Ideas, Volume I, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity 20. History of Political Ideas, Volume II, The Middle Ages to Aquinas 21. History of Political Ideas, Volume III, The Later Middle Ages 22. History of Political Ideas, Volume IV, Renaissance and Reformation 23. History of Political Ideas, Volume V, Religion and the Rise of Modernity 24. History of Political Ideas, Volume VI, Revolution and the New Science 25. History of Political Ideas, Volume VII, The New Order and Last Orientation 26. History of Political Ideas, Volume VIII, Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man 27. The Nature of the Law, and Related Legal Writings 28. What Is History? And Other Late Unpublished Writings 29. Selected Correspondence 30. Selected Correspondence 31. Hitler and the Germans 32. The Theory of Governance and Other Miscellaneous Papers, 1921–1938 33. The Drama of Humanity and Other Miscellaneous Papers, 1939–1985 34. Autobiographical Reflections and Index editorial board Paul Caringella Jürgen Gebhardt Thomas A. Hollweck Ellis Sandoz The Editorial Board offers grateful acknowledgment to the Earhart Foundation and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., for support provided at various stages in the preparation of this book for publication. A special thanks for support goes to the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust. The University of Missouri Press offers its grateful acknowledgment for a generous contribution from the Eric Voegelin Institute in support of the publication of this volume. THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ERIC VOEGELIN VOLUME 33 THE DRAMA OF HUMANITY AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, 1939–1985 edited with an introduction by WILLIAM PETROPULOS and GILBERT WEISS university of missouri press columbia and london Copyright © 2004 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 54321 08 07 06 05 04 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Voegelin, Eric, 1901– [Works. 1989] The collected works of Eric Voegelin / edited with an introduction by Ellis Sandoz. p. cm. Vols. < > published by University of Missouri Press, Columbia. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: v. 1. On the form of the American mind — v. 2. Race and state — v. 3. The history of the race idea — [etc.] isbn 0-8071-1826–5 (v. 1 : alk. paper) — isbn 0-8071-1673–4 (v. 2 : alk. paper) — isbn 0-8071-1843–5 (v. 3 : alk. paper) — [etc.] 1. Philosophy. 2. History—Philosophy. 3. Political science—Philosophy. I. Sandoz, Ellis, 1931- . II. Weiss, Gilbert. III. Title. b3354.v88 1989 193—dc20 90–032092 isbn 0-8262-1545-9 Designer: Albert Crochet Typesetter: BOOKCOMP, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typeface: Trump Mediaeval Contents Editors’ Introduction 1 1. Foreword to the Second Edition of The Political Religions (1939) 19 2. Democracy and the Individual 24 3. Notes on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets 33 4. Cycle Theory and Disintegration 41 5. What Is Political Theory? 53 6. The Spiritual and Political Future of the Western World 67 7. The West and the Meaning of Industrial Society: Excerpts from the Discussion 89 8. Natural Law in Political Theory: Excerpts from the Discussion 112 9. Man in Political Institutions: Excerpts from the Discussion 150 10. The Drama of Humanity 174 11. Conversations with Eric Voegelin at the Thomas More Institute for Adult Education in Montreal 243 12. Notes on “Civilization and Foreign Affairs” 344 13. Structures of Consciousness 351 14. The Meditative Origin of the Philosophical Knowledge of Order 384 15. The Beyond and Its Parousia 396 16. Responses at the Panel Discussion of “The Beginning of the Beginning” 415 17. Autobiographical Statement at Age Eighty-Two 432 Index 457 vii THE DRAMA OF HUMANITY AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, 1939–1985 This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank Editors’ Introduction The second volume of Eric Voegelin’s miscellaneous writings con- tains unpublished and published texts from the time of his forced emigration from Austria until his death in 1985. They range from documents written shortly after his arrival in the United States, such as the foreword to the second edition of The Political Reli- gions and a talk on democracy in 1939, to his “Autobiographical Statement at Age Eighty-Two,” made in 1983. The focus of this volume is on dialogue and discussion and presents Voegelin primarily in the role of lecturer, discussant, and respondent. The texts show not only Voegelin engaged in dialogue but also his abiding concern for the practical and theo- retical conditions necessary in order that dialogue may take place. It is generally assumed that dialogue partners must share some common ground. However, as Voegelin noted in 1967, “We all have one thing in common: most of us don’t know too much about classic philosophy.” The result is that “rational dialogue becomes difficult. You just indulge in ideological monologues, you deliver apologies for your opinions, and that’s the end of the dialogue. There is no longer a common rational culture.”1 But “if there is no common basis of intellect, how do we talk?”2 The texts in this volume give Voegelin’s answer as he demonstrates that dialogue is still possible and, along with reflections on its nature, demonstrates how it is to be conducted. The dialogical character of most of the texts presented here means that it is a spoken language, including the occasional repetitions common to oral communication. But there are repetitions 1. “Theology Confronting World Religions,” 245 below. 2. Ibid., 245 below. 1 editors’ introduction of a more essential nature as well. Beginning in the 1960s, and continuing for the rest of his life, Voegelin focused increasingly on the problem of consciousness and language confronting the complex structure of reality. While this theme had always been at the center of Voegelin’s concern (compare his analysis of “meditation as the basic form of philosophy” in 19303), it took on new urgency in his late work. His investigations into the paradoxical structure of language, which is not a “linguistic problem” but re- flects the structure of being itself, led to ever new approaches and attempts to express the problems involved more precisely. These texts should help the reader to more closely follow the stages of the meditation that resulted in Voegelin’s last work, In Search Of Order.4 The texts of this volume have been arranged chronologically. 1. The foreword to The Political Religions was written for the second edition published in Stockholm in 1939. The first edition appeared in Vienna in 1938 only to be suppressed as a result of the National Socialist seizure of power that also forced Voegelin into exile. The second foreword was written in his new home in the United States; but because the publisher feared that some parts of the text might lead to reprisals against Jews within the reach of Hitler’s power, he asked Voegelin to delete them. Thus the entire foreword, as Voegelin wrote it, including the passages concerning Herschel Grynszpan, who, in response to National Socialist oppression and murder of Jews, killed an of- ficial of the German embassy in Paris in 1938, appear here for the first time. Voegelin states that the nature of the human being is imago Dei and asserts the right of the individual to defend himself by any means necessary against those who refuse to treat him as a person. He also answers the critics of the first edition who feared that Voegelin’s touching on religious themes might ennoble the phe- nomenon of Nazism. He makes it clear that it is because National 3. Eric Voegelin, “The Theory of Governance,” in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin (hereafter, CW), vol. 32, The Theory of Governance and Other Miscella- neous Papers, ed. with intro. by William Petropulos and Gilbert Weiss (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), 224–73. 4. Eric Voegelin, CW, vol. 18, In Search of Order, vol. V of Order and History, ed. with intro. by Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000). 2 editors’ introduction Socialism touches religious roots, but in pursuit of evil, that it must be opposed by an equally deep religious force for good; it cannot be fought from the standpoint of a progressivist notion of history that sees in it only a fallback into the “barbarism” of unen- lightened ages. The fact is that National Socialism had taken root in the thin soil of an Enlightenment that, with its view of religion as something that “modern man” must overcome, prepared the ground in which the ersatz religions of communism, fascism, and National Socialism could grow.

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