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Aurelian Craiutu Aurelian Craiutu Democracy and Philosophy in Eastern Europe: A Tocquevillian Perspective Paper prepared for the 5th Annual International Young Researchers Conference, Thinking in/after Utopia: East-European and Russian Philosophy Before and After the Collapse of Communism, Havighurst Center, Miami University, Ohio, October 27-29, 2005. Aurelian Craiutu (Ph.D. Princeton, 1999) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), Le centre introuvable (Paris: Plon, 2006), and Elogiul libertǎţii [In Praise of Liberty] (Iaşi, Romania: Polirom, 1998). E-mail: [email protected] 1 Democracy and Philosophy in Eastern Europe: A Tocquevillian Perspective “Problème de l’homme: comment vivre comme un arbre sans pourtant cesser d’être homme.” ~ Mihai Şora Philosophy After the Fall of Communism The fall of communism in Eastern Europe was the greatest most unanticipated event in the history of the twentieth-century. Nonetheless, in many ways, post- communism has proved to be an even bigger conceptual challenge than communism and its sudden demise. As the debates on the true meanings of the 1989 revolution, the transition to democracy, and democratic consolidation showed, political scientists and political philosophers have put forward conflicting theories of democratization to make sense of the new political and social scene in Eastern Europe and Russia.1 One conclusion on which everyone agrees, however, is that the transition to liberal democracy has had its own losers and winners. If entrepreneurs and politicians have widely benefited from the new freedoms and have become the new stars in the eyes of public opinion, the role and position of philosophers have radically changed. Before 1989, some of them may have dreamt of playing the role of philosopher-kings without having the opportunity to do so. They fought against oppressive regimes and became symbols of resistance to an official ideology which enforced uniformity and conformism. 1 For an analysis on this topic, see Aurelian Craiutu, “ ‘A Tunnel at the End of the light’?: Notes on the Rhetoric of the Great Transformation in Eastern Europe,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1999), pp. 31-58; Venelin I. Ganev, “The ‘Triumph of Neoliberalism’ Reconsidered: Critical Remarks on Ideas- Centered Analyses of Political and Economic Change in Post-Communism,” East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2005), pp. 343-378. Also see the essays collected in Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu eds., Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000). 2 After 1989, philosophers were called to play a new political role in the emerging democracies. While some of them have continued to act as public intellectuals and remained in the limelight, others have seen their role shrinking to that of academics isolated in their ivory tower and unable to influence public opinion any longer. Although this status change took them by surprise, philosophers should have known better, since the relationship between liberal democracy and philosophy has never been devoid of tensions and contradictions. The change in the philosophers’ status was accompanied by a transformation in the image of democracy. Fifteen years ago, the enthusiasm for democracy reached a high point in Eastern Europe as the former Iron Curtain came down and the contact with the Western world was reestablished. Today, the discourse seems to have changed as life in the newly emerging democracies has come to be dominated by pragmatism and an all- consuming obsession with getting (quickly) rich. Yet people have also discovered that, much like the indispensable (and often unquantifiable) things in life, the highest interests of the community have no exchange value and are bound to be neglected if supply and demand are allowed to (entirely) dominate the world. Most of the time, philosophy is unlikely to be promoted by the market. In spite of its many virtues, the market, a pillar of liberal democracy, tends to favor activities that are a source of material gain and does not always give scope to reasons and interests which are not a direct source of such profit. Democracy and Philosophy: A Difficult Marriage Tocqueville’s Democracy in America reminds us that the marriage between philosophy and democracy (at least in its American version) is far from being ideal. It has been remarked that the tension between the two arises from the fact that, while 3 democracy is based on equality, public opinion, and the will of the majority, philosophy starts from the dichotomy between opinion and (true) knowledge. The latter, it is implied, can be achieved only by those independently-minded thinkers who are not afraid to challenge the dictates of public opinion and the will of the majority. They form a learned elite that is often viewed with skepticism by ordinary citizens who claim to be equally competent in rendering judgments about justice and the good society. Tocqueville also pointed out that democracy fosters conformism and stifles dissent. In democratic regimes, public opinion rules supreme and its authority cannot be truly challenged with impunity. This situation comes into conflict with the demands of philosophy that require independence of mind and non-conformism. Philosophers will rarely be satisfied with such a state of affairs, since their whole intellectual enterprise is based on a Socratic questioning of all values and principles. How do Eastern European philosophers view this situation? Aren’t these worries childish musings of Western philosophers who, after all, have never felt at home in a bourgeois world dominated by the market and have constantly complained about its shortcomings, without being able, however, to offer a reasonably alternative? If we listen to Hungarian philosopher G. M. Tamás, there are some disquieting signs for Eastern European philosophers making the transition (back) to the capitalist world. The latter tends to silence through indifference, mockery, or marginalization all anticapitalist or antidemocratic theories and ideas.2 Tamás argues that, given the increasing commercialization of our world, the pretension of devotion to “higher things” looks suspicious in the eyes of the majority of citizens. At the same time, the life of the mind in 2 G. M. Tamás, “Democracy’s Triumph, Philosophy’s Peril,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 11, No. 1 (January 2000), pp. 103-110. 4 the emerging democracies is likely to conflict more and more with the logic of the economic market that seeks to extend its standard and uniform criteria to all spheres of life. Tamás finds this pragmatic and utilitarian state of affairs deeply troubling because, in his view, it tends to discredit any form of intellectual radicalism or romanticism. He also fears that the triumph of democracy might exercise a subtle and pernicious form of censorship with long-lasting effects on intellectual and cultural life. He claims that it is necessary for philosophers to be free to exercise their utopian and critical function by constantly challenging the predominant social constellation of values and principles. The underlying assumption is that philosophy flourishes in a world in which political regimes compete for supremacy and stagnates in world dominated by one such regime to the exclusion of all others. Before 1989, the somewhat mythical image of liberal capitalism represented such a credible and welcome alternative. After 1989, its absolute triumph has stifled the competition with its rivals and triggered a profound transformation in the role and status of philosophy. Consequently, Tamás opines, most philosophers are forced to become apostles of the new capitalist regimes (or mere academics isolated from public opinion) and are tempted to abandon their critical function: “A new ‘radical chic’ is unlikely to come into being.”3 The tension between philosophers and democracy is far from being a temporary phenomenon. It is exacerbated by the fact that, driven by their form of “holy madness,” the “true” philosophers will always “tend toward something that is not immediately 3 Ibid., p. 107. 5 accessible or available.”4 As such, they will remain in a state of rebellion against liberal- democratic dogmas as long as radical utopian views are derided or denied any legitimacy. Moderating Democracy and the Market In order to make room for philosophy, democracy and the market must therefore be moderated and educated. In this respect, Tocqueville’s ideas retain refreshing relevance for us today.5 The fall of communism in 1989 and 1991 was hailed as the triumph of Western-style democracy and capitalism over the totalitarian democracies imposed by Moscow’s will and armies. In the streets of Bucharest, Timisoara, and Prague, people risked their lives proclaiming their faith in the principles of democracy and open society. During the first phases of post-communism, democracy and the free market acquired the connotation of a passe-partout, good for everything, a miraculous potion capable of healing degenerate political bodies. This romantic and unrealistic view of democracy and the market has eventually been replaced by a more sober one that emphasizes their inherent limitations and contradictions. It is no coincidence that the new image of democracy and the market has led to a reconsideration of their limits and virtues that justifies democratic processes by invoking their side effects rather than their immediate consequences.6 This is no minor point since the virtues of liberal democracy are (often) not those that most people take them to be. As Tocqueville reminds us, the people’s choices and instincts are never infallible. The daily experience shows that they tend to choose mediocre leaders in free elections and 4 Ibid., p. 110. 5 Tocqueville grasped the extent to which modern democracy would change both the depths as well as the surface of people’s lives and was the first anthropologist of modern equality.
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