Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

by Mark R. Levin

  Rousseau then contended that the way around this desolation is for the individual not to focus on his own vanity, needs, wants, etc., but instead to identify with the general will, the public good, and the welfare of society—an egalitarian utopia. Thus individual rights and freedom are renounced and transferred to the collective, where the individual is forced to be free, forming a whole person through the collective. In Discourse on Political Economy (1755), Rousseau explained: “The body politic, taken individually, can be considered to be like a body that is organized, living, and similar to that of a man. The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain, source of the nerves, and seat of the understanding, the will, and the senses, of which the judges and magistrates are the organs; the commerce, industry, and agriculture are the mouth and stomach that prepare the common subsistence; the public finances are the blood that is discharged by a wise economy, performing the functions of the heart in order to distribute nourishment and life throughout the body; the citizens are the body and limbs that make the machine move, live, and work and that cannot be harmed in any part without a painful impression immediately being transmitted to the brain, if the animal is in a state of good health. The life of both [the human body and the state] is the self common to the whole, the reciprocal sensibility, and the internal coordination of all the parts. What if this communication were to cease, if the formal unity were to disappear, and if contiguous parts were to be related to one another solely by their juxtaposition? The man is dead or the state is dissolved.”8

  Like the recurring theme with modern progressives, Rousseau compared the body politic to the human body, where in order to function as a perfect state, the state must be composed of all the parts of society. Furthermore, the best society is where the individual is at one with the state. Indeed, in his second essential rule of public economy, Rousseau expounded further on what becomes increasingly evident—his prescription for tyranny. “Do you want the general will to be accomplished? Make all private wills be in conformity with it. And since virtue is merely this conformity of the private to the general will, in a word, make virtue reign.”9 The duty of the citizen, then, is above all else to the collective good. And when governing officials are cultivating the collective good, they and the politics of governing are said to be less consequential. “[W]hen citizens love their duty, and when those entrusted with public authority sincerely apply themselves to nurturing this love through their example and efforts, all difficulties vanish and administration takes on an easiness that enables it to dispense with that shady art whose murkiness constitutes its entire ­mystery. . . . Public mores stand in for the genius of the leaders; and the more virtue reigns the less talents are needed. . . .”10 Moreover, Rousseau declared: “It is not enough to say to the citizens: be good. They must be taught to be so; and example itself, which is in this respect the first lesson, is not the only means to be used. Love of country is the most effective, for as I have already said, every man is virtuous when his private will is in conformity with the general will in all things, and we willingly want what is wanted by the people we love.”11

  When it comes to government, Rousseau argued that the legislative power belongs to the people but the “supreme administration” or executive, which carries out government administration, does not belong to the people, for its task, albeit important, is nothing more than ministerial. In “Discourse on Social Contract” (1762), Rousseau wrote: “We have seen the legislative power belongs to the people and can belong to it alone. On the contrary . . . executive power cannot belong to the people at large in its role as legislator or sovereign, since this power consists solely of particular acts that are not within the province of the law, nor consequently of the sovereign, none of whose acts can avoid being laws.”12 Rousseau explained that there is a “public force” that “must have an agent of its own that unifies it and gets it working in accordance with the directions of the general will, that serves as a means of communication between the state and the sovereign, and that accomplishes in the public person just about what the union of soul and body accomplishes in man. This is the reason for having government in the state, something often badly confused with the sovereign, of which it is merely the servant.”13

  “What then is government?” asked Rousseau. “An intermediate body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication and charged with the execution of the laws and the preservation of liberty, both civil and political.”14 “The government receives from the sovereign the orders it gives the people, and for the state to be in good equilibrium, there must, all things considered, be an equality between the output or the power of the government, taken by itself, and the output or power of the citizens, who are sovereigns on the one hand and subjects on the other.”15

  Rousseau contended that the democratically elected sovereign (the legislature) represents the will of the people, which the unelected executive is compelled to follow. “[T]he trustees of the executive power are not the masters of the populace but its officers; that it can establish and remove them when it pleases. . . .” The trustees simply obey and implement the general will. “[T]hey merely fulfill their duty as citizens, without in any way having the right to dispute over the conditions.”16 However, how is the “general will” discerned? After all, Rousseau asserted that “[t]here is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will. The latter considers only the general interest, whereas the former considers private interest and is merely the sum of private wills. But remove from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, and what remains as the sum of the differences is the general will.”17

  Of course, Rousseau’s formulation is incongruous. If the legislature (the sovereign) represents the will of the people, but the will of the people is not necessarily the same as the general will, and if the sole job of the executive (the government) is to institute the decisions of the legislature (the will of the people), then who discerns what the general will is and institutes it? Hence much governing discretion exists in the ambiguity of Rousseau’s construct, particularly respecting the executive, even though Rousseau clearly opposed the tyranny of the government. However, he would not reject the totalitarianism of the collective, for it is the manifestation of the general will, which is infallible. In fact, among the adherents to Rousseau’s teachings was Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758–1794), a bloodthirsty leader of the radical Jacobins during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.

  Consequently, Rousseau simultaneously preaches the individual’s subordination to society and the illegitimacy of social restraint on the individual. Indeed, because Rousseau rejected precepts of natural law and actual individualism for a socialist mysticism, it follows that he must also reject the governing construct that secures individual free will, ordered liberty, and the moral order—namely, constitutional republicanism. This helps explain the Progressive Era mind-set and approach that followed one hundred years later—that is, arguing for more direct democracy (in the name of “the will of the people”) while championing centralized, autocratic rule (in the name of the “general will”), an impossible notion that plagues American society and others to this day.

  We are next compelled to turn to German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), whose writings held great sway over not only Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), but also American progressives, including Croly, Wilson, Dewey, and Weyl. Hegel provided the most detailed exposition of what was known as the period of German idealism. Hegel’s influence reaches deep into modern American society. He was a prolific author on many subjects beyond political philosophy; therefore, it will be necessary to limit our scrutiny.

  As a starting point, Hegel is legendary for, among other things, developing the philosophy of historical progress like no other before him. In brief, Hegel argued that he is not inventing a new philosophy but describing the existing reality. The history of the worl
d is said to be progress toward conscious freedom and a state of harmony. Conscious freedom is based on reason and spiritual principles (meaning self-realization), as opposed to social customs, rituals, and habits, which subordinate the individual’s intellect, reasoning, and reflection. Hegel argued that human development, or the lack thereof, changes from one historical period to the next. Some societies are stuck in their own history, and others progress over time, but the trajectory of history generally is toward the ideal state. The method of individual and societal progress involves a dialectic process—some reasoned, some unconscious—in which opposites are in a constant state of conflict, synthesizing into ever-higher truths, which eventually lead to a fully developed state—the “final end.” That which appears irrational in a state will eventually be brought into harmony. And this, contended Hegel, is the fact of human history and evolution.

  Furthermore, the state is ultimately the external force (as opposed to eternal force) through which the individual finds his actualization—liberty, happiness, and fulfillment. As such, the individual is not consumed with his own existence and private affairs (“subjective thought”). Rather, by way of the state, the individual sees beyond self and becomes a citizen of the state, whose reality is part of a universalized whole and collective life, through which the individual learns what is reasonable (“objective thought”). This is the final end sought by the individual and the state—the consciousness of mind and freedom. In this way, the individual serves and benefits from the state and vice versa. That which came before effectively vanishes. Therefore, man progressively moves away from the state of nature to the final end through reason.

  In Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820), Hegel wrote of the ideal state thus: “The state is the realized ethical idea or ethical spirit. It is the will which manifests itself, makes itself clear and visible, substantiates itself. It is the will which thinks and knows. The state finds in ethical custom its direct and unreflected existence, and its indirect and reflected existence in the self-consciousness of the individual and in his knowledge and activity. Self-consciousness in the form of social disposition has its substantive freedom in the state, as the essence, purpose, and product of its activity. . . . The state, which is the realized substantive will, having its reality in the particular self-consciousness raised to the plane of the universal, is absolutely rational. This substantive unity is its own motive and absolute end. In this end freedom attains its highest right. This end has the highest right over the individual, whose highest duty in turn is to be a member of the state.”18

  Therefore, the individual is again subservient to the state, for the state can never attain the lofty utopian heights devised by Hegel, and the individual will never be adequate to the cause. Meanwhile, the individual’s independence and free will are absorbed by the state in the name of community and general welfare. Indeed, the unity of the “actualized” individual with the ideal state requires the abandonment of the past. Hegel found no relevance at all in the origin and founding principles of a nation, except to understand the next step in the historical process and the synthesizing that comes from dialecticism. In fact, Hegel took a direct shot at the notion of eternal natural law and rights, as well as the social contract, which, of course, are the bases of America’s founding and the Declaration of Independence. He insisted that the only legitimate form of thought involves the application of “the science of the state.” Sound familiar? This is a constant theme among American progressives—the diminution of the individual and the rejection of America’s heritage. Hegel went on: “Rationality, viewed abstractly, consists in the thorough unity of universality and individuality. Taken concretely, and from the standpoint of the content, it is the unity of objective freedom with the subjective freedom, of the general substantive will with the individual consciousness and the individual will seeking particular ends. From the standpoint of the form it consists in action determined by thought-out or universal laws and principles.—This idea of the state is not concerned with the historical origin of either the state in general or of any particular state with its special rights and characters. Hence, it is indifferent whether the state arose out of the patriarchal condition, out of fear or confidence, or out of the corporation. It does not care whether the basis of state rights is declared to be in the divine, or in a positive right, or contract, or custom. When we are dealing simply with the science of the state, these things are mere appearances, and belong to history. The causes or grounds of the authority of an actual state, in so far as they are required at all, must be derived from the forms of right, which have validity in the state.”19

  Of course, Hegel found no perfect state, for none has ever existed, not then or before. But there are positives that exist in every state, and it is these positives that are the building blocks to the next level and, eventually, to the final end. Hegel explained: “The state as a completed reality is the ethical whole and the actualization of freedom. It is the absolute purpose of reason that freedom should be actualized. The state is the spirit, which abides in the world and there realizes itself consciously; while in nature it is realized only as the other of itself or the sleeping spirit. Only when it is present in consciousness, knowing itself as an existing object, is it the state. In thinking of freedom we must not take our departure from individuality or the individual’s self-consciousness, but from the essence of self-consciousness. Let man be aware of it or not, this essence realizes itself as an independent power, in which particular persons are only phases. The state is the march of God in the world; its ground or cause is the power of reason realizing itself as will. When thinking of the idea of the state, we must not have in mind any particular state, or particular institution, but must rather contemplate the idea, this actual God, by itself. Although the state may be declared to violate right principles and to be defective in various ways, it always contains the essential elements of its existence, if, that is to say, it belongs to the full formed state of our own time. But as it is more easy to detect short-comings than to grasp the positive meaning, one easily falls into the mistake of dwelling so much upon special aspects of the state as to overlook its inner organic being. The state is not a work of art. It is in the world, in the sphere of caprice, accident, and error. Evil behavior can doubtless disfigure it in many ways, but the ugliest man, the criminal, the invalid, the cripple, are living men. The positive thing, the life, is present in spite of defects, and it is with this affirmative that we have here to deal.”20

  Time and again, Hegel described the dialectic of opposites posed against one another as a productive process that leads to the actualized person and state. He further illustrated this point by also comparing the state to a living organism. “Political disposition is given definite content by the different phases of the organism of the state. This organism is the development of the idea into its differences, which are objectively actualized. These differences are the different functions, affairs, and activities of state. By means of them the universal uninterruptedly produces itself, by a process which is a necessary one, since these various offices proceed from the nature of conception.”21 “The state is an organism or the development of the idea into its differences. These different sides are the different functions, affairs and activities of state by means of which the universal unceasingly produces itself by a necessary process. At the same time it is self-contained, since it is presupposed in its own productive activity. This organism is the political constitution. It proceeds eternally out of the state, just as the state in turn is self-contained by means of the constitution. If these two things fall apart, and make the different aspects independent, the unity produced by the constitution is no longer established. The true relation is illustrated by the fable of the belly and the limbs. Although the parts of an organism do not constitute an identity, yet it is of such a nature that, if one of its parts makes itself independent, all must be harmed. . . .”22 “The idealism, which constitutes sovereignty, is that point of view in accordance with
which the so-called parts of an animal organism are not parts but members of organic elements. Their isolation or independent subsistence would be a disease. . . .”23

  Given Hegel’s philosophy of history and historical progress, and the incompleteness of one historical period to the next, clearly no state has reached such a status and, in reality, no state ever will. Therefore, while preaching that his thinking is not about creating a philosophy but understanding reality, is not Hegel doing both, including inventing the ultimate ­abstraction—the “final end”? Indeed, up to this point his argument leads to fundamental ambiguities, which raise several questions. For example, how is the individual or the citizenry to know when society has reached the final end? How is this decided? Who decides? And if the final end has been reached, then what? Heaven on earth? Furthermore, is the individual to abandon his “subjective thought” and, therefore, his actual individuality, for the “objective thought” of a flawed or imperfect state that has not reached the final end? Yet how is the final end to be achieved if the individual does not submit to the collective subjective thought in advance of the final end—that is, must he submit to a pre–final end state? And if he does, how does becoming at one with such a flawed or imperfect state contribute to productive historical synthesizing and lead to harmony when it will likely lead to the opposite—the perpetuation of a flawed or imperfect state?

  In his book The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Karl Popper (1902–1994), an Austrian-British philosopher and strong Hegel critic, exposed Hegel’s illogic: “Hegel’s intention is to operate freely with all contradictions. ‘All things are contradictory in themselves,’ he insists, in order to defend a position which means the end not only of all science, but of all rational argument. And the reason why he wishes to admit contradictions is that he wants to stop rational argument, and with it scientific and intellectual progress. By making argument and criticism impossible, he intends to make his own philosophy proof against all criticism, so that it may establish itself as a reinforced dogmatism, secure from every attack, and the insurmountable summit of all philosophical development.”24