Dick Howard: What is a Revolution? Reflections on the Significance of 1989/90
... In order to understand the significance of the ruptures of 1989, I want to put them into a broader historical context that began with the American and the French revolutions (themselves part of a wider movement that R.R. Palmer described in his classical study as The Age of Democratic Revolution). But the political possibilities opened by this emerging democratic revolution were not realized in either case, and still less elsewhere. Instead, the next two centuries were marked by the successive emergence—and, truth be told, relative success—of what I call forms of anti-politics. Before going further, I should stress that this concept does not refer to what many participants in the dissident movements in East Central Europe meant by this term. I do not refer to the opposition of society against the totalitarian state, nor do I mean the attempt to create an autonomous, self-governing civil society that could ignore the state, nor do I point to some form of existential “living in truth.” What I have in mind is a more general, long term historical tendency which I will show later helps to explain the paradoxical fact that these dissident movements could have a political force that contributed to the overthrow of what remained of really existing totalitarianism.
Anti-politics is a paradoxical tendency that was born with the origin of political thought itself. Its most famous practitioner was Plato, who was writing not only after the defeat of Athens, but after its restored democracy had voted death to Socrates. Plato’s just society was to be ruled by Philosopher-Kings who were the “selfless servants” of Truth. Their rule would make participation by the citizens unnecessary, superfluous, even harmful; its universal justice would leave no place for particular judgment concerning singular events. The classical Greek reaction to Plato’s anti-political philosophy is represented by Aristotle’s recognition of the role of particularity, diversity and difference in the construction of a Polis composed of finite humans who come together to maintain not simply their biological life but to enjoy what they freely determine to be the Good Life. Although the competition between the Platonic and the Aristotelian visions of politics reappears throughout the history of political thought, it becomes more acute in modern times, when the teleological vision of the world is replaced by a progressive, historical conception.
The historical forms of modern anti-politics to which I will refer here did not conceive of themselves as anti-political; on the contrary, each of them—economic liberalism, conservatism and socialism, to name only most general forms—considered itself to be the means to the highest realization of the traditional goal of politics: the creation of justice and the realization of the Good Life. Each developed political programs, supported by political ideologies, and appealed for support from social and political interests. And each of them achieved at least some of their goals, while their competition with other forms of anti-politics (including supporters of absolute state power) produced a relative stability that lasted until the explosions of 1914.
It was only the ruthless seizure of power by totalitarianism that made it possible to recognize paradoxical foundation of anti-politics. Whether in its Nazi or Bolshevik form, totalitarianism claimed to incarnate an ultimate value whose realization would mean that there was no longer any need for either political deliberation or personal participation. Of course, in reality these totalitarianisms were not static; but they tolerated political activity only insofar as it was directed against “enemies” of their absolute power. Political militants existed in the world of the totalitarians, but they were (as Harold Rosenberg put it) “intellectuals who didn’t think.” They didn’t think because they didn’t need to think; they had only to consult the party line to know what was true and what was false; they had no way to judge in particular instances, and no ability to deal with ambiguity. The totalitarians had given up their autonomy in its literal sense, as “autos”-“nomos”, the ability to give oneself (or one’s community) freely chosen laws. Yet it is just this autonomy that is the essence of democratic politics.
I do not mean to equate totalitarianism with the political currents that came to dominate Western political life during the two centuries that followed the two historical democratic revolutions. Such accusations belong to the polemical arsenal of the totalitarians, whose unsubtle use of the tu quoque argument, claiming that the other is guilty of precisely the sins that they themselves are accused of, was easily discredited by the facts. My point is that totalitarianism radicalizes the anti-political implications of a style of thought that emerged at the time of the “age of democratic revolution” because its proponents were not able to understand and to live with the political uncertainties, instability and conflicts that are inherent in democratic social and political life. The anti-politics of the market liberal, the conservative or the socialist (to remain with these most general categories) were attempts to re-introduce principles of certainty, stability and harmony into the post-revolutionary world. Totalitarianism went one step further, being less idealist, less tolerant of ambiguity, unwilling simply to understand the world when the task was nothing less than to change it.
From this point of view, the significance of the revolutions of 1989 was that they made it possible to return to the starting points of the democratic revolutions in the attempt to create a free political life—in the West (which was blind to its anti-political assumptions) as well as in the formerly communist lands. The fact that totalitarianism—however revised, pacified and reduced to formulaic incantations—had not been defeated from outside but had fallen to its own internal contradictions could have been understood as a sort of “revenge of the political,” a return of the repressed, or a negation of the negation. There are no doubt many reasons why that did not take place. My thesis is that one reason that the new possibilities were not recognized lies in the simple fact that the art of thinking politically had been lost during the two-centuries of anti-political domination. How that loss took place, and how and why anti-politics became hegemonic, needs to be explained in order to understand the strangely passive manner in which the fall of communism was received in the West—as a kind of tree that falls in a forest where no one hear its unexpected and unnoticed demise—and why its protagonists in the East remained content with the elimination of an old regime without yet being able to imagine the lineaments of their new political life....
Read entire article at Excerpt from article published by Blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale Politik
Anti-politics is a paradoxical tendency that was born with the origin of political thought itself. Its most famous practitioner was Plato, who was writing not only after the defeat of Athens, but after its restored democracy had voted death to Socrates. Plato’s just society was to be ruled by Philosopher-Kings who were the “selfless servants” of Truth. Their rule would make participation by the citizens unnecessary, superfluous, even harmful; its universal justice would leave no place for particular judgment concerning singular events. The classical Greek reaction to Plato’s anti-political philosophy is represented by Aristotle’s recognition of the role of particularity, diversity and difference in the construction of a Polis composed of finite humans who come together to maintain not simply their biological life but to enjoy what they freely determine to be the Good Life. Although the competition between the Platonic and the Aristotelian visions of politics reappears throughout the history of political thought, it becomes more acute in modern times, when the teleological vision of the world is replaced by a progressive, historical conception.
The historical forms of modern anti-politics to which I will refer here did not conceive of themselves as anti-political; on the contrary, each of them—economic liberalism, conservatism and socialism, to name only most general forms—considered itself to be the means to the highest realization of the traditional goal of politics: the creation of justice and the realization of the Good Life. Each developed political programs, supported by political ideologies, and appealed for support from social and political interests. And each of them achieved at least some of their goals, while their competition with other forms of anti-politics (including supporters of absolute state power) produced a relative stability that lasted until the explosions of 1914.
It was only the ruthless seizure of power by totalitarianism that made it possible to recognize paradoxical foundation of anti-politics. Whether in its Nazi or Bolshevik form, totalitarianism claimed to incarnate an ultimate value whose realization would mean that there was no longer any need for either political deliberation or personal participation. Of course, in reality these totalitarianisms were not static; but they tolerated political activity only insofar as it was directed against “enemies” of their absolute power. Political militants existed in the world of the totalitarians, but they were (as Harold Rosenberg put it) “intellectuals who didn’t think.” They didn’t think because they didn’t need to think; they had only to consult the party line to know what was true and what was false; they had no way to judge in particular instances, and no ability to deal with ambiguity. The totalitarians had given up their autonomy in its literal sense, as “autos”-“nomos”, the ability to give oneself (or one’s community) freely chosen laws. Yet it is just this autonomy that is the essence of democratic politics.
I do not mean to equate totalitarianism with the political currents that came to dominate Western political life during the two centuries that followed the two historical democratic revolutions. Such accusations belong to the polemical arsenal of the totalitarians, whose unsubtle use of the tu quoque argument, claiming that the other is guilty of precisely the sins that they themselves are accused of, was easily discredited by the facts. My point is that totalitarianism radicalizes the anti-political implications of a style of thought that emerged at the time of the “age of democratic revolution” because its proponents were not able to understand and to live with the political uncertainties, instability and conflicts that are inherent in democratic social and political life. The anti-politics of the market liberal, the conservative or the socialist (to remain with these most general categories) were attempts to re-introduce principles of certainty, stability and harmony into the post-revolutionary world. Totalitarianism went one step further, being less idealist, less tolerant of ambiguity, unwilling simply to understand the world when the task was nothing less than to change it.
From this point of view, the significance of the revolutions of 1989 was that they made it possible to return to the starting points of the democratic revolutions in the attempt to create a free political life—in the West (which was blind to its anti-political assumptions) as well as in the formerly communist lands. The fact that totalitarianism—however revised, pacified and reduced to formulaic incantations—had not been defeated from outside but had fallen to its own internal contradictions could have been understood as a sort of “revenge of the political,” a return of the repressed, or a negation of the negation. There are no doubt many reasons why that did not take place. My thesis is that one reason that the new possibilities were not recognized lies in the simple fact that the art of thinking politically had been lost during the two-centuries of anti-political domination. How that loss took place, and how and why anti-politics became hegemonic, needs to be explained in order to understand the strangely passive manner in which the fall of communism was received in the West—as a kind of tree that falls in a forest where no one hear its unexpected and unnoticed demise—and why its protagonists in the East remained content with the elimination of an old regime without yet being able to imagine the lineaments of their new political life....