Differentia: Review of Italian Thought

Number 8 Combined Issue 8-9 Spring/Autumn Article 42

1999

Liberalism and Democracy by Norberto Bobbio

Edmund E. Jacobitti

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Recommended Citation Jacobitti, Edmund E. (1999) "Liberalism and Democracy by Norberto Bobbio," Differentia: Review of Italian Thought: Vol. 8 , Article 42. Available at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia/vol8/iss1/42

This document is brought to you for free and open access by Academic Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Differentia: Review of Italian Thought by an authorized editor of Academic Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. reviews 369 tive forms. She also ignores the fact individual (liberals) and those of that his later works abound in the society (democrats). Beginning in the pathetic fallacy, engulfing and ancient world where individual obscuring external reality in personal rights were essentially unknown, emotion . This imbalance is evident in Bobbio traces, in a bare ninety pages some of Ruskin's sketches of the and seventeen chapters, the encoun­ 1870s, which Corradini mentions in ters of society with those who defend passing. She explains Ruskin's ety­ the right of the individual against the mologizing and its contemporary weight of society. His text covers, analogues, but apparently accepts his among other things, Hobbes, Locke, assumption that words have natural and natural rights theory, Kant's hos­ origins and that a word's "original" tility to state paternalism, the uneasi­ meaning is the true one. Her analysis ness of Alexis de Tocqueville and might have benefited from Derrida's John Stuart Mill about the tyranny of "White Mythology", among other the majority, the complications aris­ works. While Corradini notes that ing out of the encounter of socialism Ruskin's ideal of adjectival accuracy and democracy, as well as the prob­ influenced the Decadents, who aban­ lems raised by the appearance of the doned his moralism, she might have popular and democratic authoritari­ mentioned that his aesthetic, combin­ an state. ing dynamism and stasis, anticipates The modern version of the conflict Vorticism. Ezra Pound shares between the individual (liberalism) Ruskin's desire to harmonize fact and and society (democracy) may be seen insight and to promote international in the impossibility of reconciling the literary standards through close read­ contradictory ideals displayed in the ing . 1789 political slogan: liberte, egalite, and fraternite. The problem of recon­ ROBERT CASILLO ciling liberty-with its inherent University of Miami recognition of the right of each per­ son to rise to his/ her own chosen level (and equality) with its demand that before the race begins, everyone must be brought to the same level-is Liberalism and the prime meridian across which Democracy stare Rousseau, Mazzini, socialism By Norberto Bobbio. and other leveling forces on the one Translated by Martin Ryle and Kate side, and Montesquieu, Cavour, de Soper. New York: Verso, 1990. Tocqueville, and defenders of the individual on the other. How could Though Bobbio says that "liberal­ one ever come to an agreement that ism and democracy have never been everything practical had been done radically antithetical" (73), the bulk for equality and that the starting pis­ of this text, rightly concerns the bor­ tol could then be fired? Worse, how der warfare that has raged and ever could one ever come to an agreement will rage between the partisans of the that everything had been done to 370 DIFFERENT/A bring the many to the starting gate, if interests outside the state, which the some still persisted in choosing ludi­ majority might find objectionable. crous life goals: mere wealth for one For the republican Mazzini, the issue and going on the bum for another? was how the educational role of the But the struggle between the liber­ state to shape its citizens could be al and the democrat was not always fulfilled by a minimalist state. As over economics. It can be traced back Bobbio notes, the issue became a to the determination to stand out drama in real life when Mazzini from the crowd, the moral right to be seized power in Rome in 1848 and different that is symbolized in the had to confront the liberal French clash of Socrates and Athens. As Foreign Minister, de Tocqueville, noted by de Tocqueville, and later, whose hostility "sealed the fate of the Weber, Kafka, and perhaps Foucault, Roman republic" (71). the question was and still remains: Though Bobbio does not note it, it will the demos-because of its size was this same confrontation between and its suspicion of inequality, differ­ liberalism and democracy that was to ence, and quality-overwhelm liber­ plague the Italian state right into the ty with its suspicion of the many, of Giolittian period and beyond. homogeneity, and the organizational Indeed, the question became all the man . The liberal asks: "Will the world more complicated when Giolitti, the be so homogenized by the time the heir of Cavour's liberal state, found race starts that no one will be inter­ that he had to defend liberty and its ested in, or have the moral resources merely procedural rules against a to be, different?" The democrat asks: majority hostile to liberty and con­ "Do the community and its traditions trolled by the Black International or not have some rights against the odd, the Red. How does one play by the disruptive, menacing-and unan­ rules and defend liberty against an swerable-'why' of the pest and the illiberal population? It is a question eccentric?" one suspects President Yeltsin will In this sense, the conflict pits the soon have to answer again. democrat's faith that the many can be Since the rise of socialism, brought to share the interests of the Marxism, and other mass political few against the liberal' s suspicion movements, but especially since the that a state capable of such an industrial revolution transformed the achievement could only be an Ethical globe, the debate between liberalism State like that of Gentile. In nine­ and democracy has tended (recently teenth-century Italy, this debate in the works of Hayek and Nozick, between liberalism and democracy for example) to center on a defense of was played out, as Bobbio notes, in the minimal state to protect econom­ the struggle between the ideals of ic, property, and acquisitive rights of Cavour on the one hand and Mazzini the few. In other words, the conflict on the other . For the liberal Cavour, between the one and the few against the question was primarily one of the many has lost its Socratic flavor limiting the state and defending the and has focused on the right of the right of the individual to pursue few to consume. The question that reviews 371

Bobbio raises-and as he notes, it philosopher and the city. For only by was a question raised earlier in the recognizing that theory and practice, debate between Einaudi and Croce­ philosophy and rhetoric each have is to what extent is this economicright their claims and that liberty cannot essential to the moral right of liberal­ survive the domination of either one ism's defense against democracy? or the other, can we understand the This is no easy question: If a person importance of the dialogue and the has decided that wealth is the good conflict between liberalism and that he or she above all else wishes to democracy. pursue, what moral right does the puritan have to say this is wrong? EDMUND E. JACOBITII Inasmuch as the many poor will Southern Illinois University always resent the few that are rich, at Edwardsville how is one to distinguish legitimate moral resentment from the Nietzschean ressentiment of the low­ minded? This dilemma is only apparently II Sublime: Teorie made easier by the fact that today estetiche nell'lnghilterra wealth is as powerful a threat to lib­ def Settecento erty as the masses ever were; for By Samuel H. Monk. today wealth can pave the globe, buy Translated by Rachele Garattini. elections, or procure nuclear, chemi­ Introduction by Giuseppe Sertoli. cal, or biological weapons for entire Milan: Marietti, 1991. nations of fundamentalist kamikazes. In such a world, it becomes plain that Samuel Holt Monk (1902-1981) liberalism and democracy require reg­ published The Sublime: A Study of ulation. But by whom? Critical Theories in XVIII-Century Bobbio' s answer is that the two England in 1935 when interest in the regimes-liberalism and democra­ subject was at its lowest ebb in two cy- must learn to accommodate hundred years . Academic scholarship each other and become tense allies . paid little attention to the sublime, To such a complex question, one and no modern school of poetry or should not expect an answer any criticism had found any use for it. more definite, though one wishes Nor did Monk succeed in resuscitat­ Bobbio had spent more time on the ing the concept, though when a necessity of the debate between liber­ revival did happen-in the 1960s­ alism and democracy rather than on his study was republished and hon­ explaining the various forms of that ored as a trailblazer. This Italian debate. After all, what will the translation of a classic work in the world's fate be if ever an evil, hyp­ "history of ideas" is a testimony to its notic, and wealthy liberal does wed continuing value. the elusive demos? To put the issue in Monk's special virtue was to trace classical terms, liberty requires both the concept of the Longinian sublime Socrates and Aristophanes, the from its humble beginnings as a side issue in neoclassicism to its thunder-