The Pan-European Journal

Constants in human affairs and history, no matter how eternal or universally true, do not explain anything in themselves. They acquire their explanatory force only when a concrete situation reveals which of them are at play and how they interact. They are conditions of explanation, but not explanations in themselves. One could say that what a conflict "says about itself" is not necessarily what drives it. This is the reason why authors such as Hobbes, the French moralists, Schopenhauer, Burckhardt, and Nietzsche remain relevant to this day.

"The acceleration that has resulted form technological-industrial progress and – in contrast to the past – can be registered as the experience of a new time. Of course, both types of acceleration, which a theory of time must strictly differentiate, naturally blend together and influence each other in everyday speech and can provide arguments for a more universal-historical theory of crisis, like the one masterfully assembled by Jacob Burckhardt." - Reinhart Koselleck, "Does History Accelerate?" in Sediments of Time: On Possible Histories Jacob Burckhardt began his academic career by studying theology, which he quickly abandoned. One of the reasons for this was that he became an atheist through the rational Bible criticism of his teacher de Wette. Nonetheless, he retained some of his Christian baggage when he turned to history. The most important Christian notion he took with with was that of original sin. This is one of the root causes of his attack on the Enlightenment, which, for him, was crystallised in the thought of Rousseau. For Burckhardt, the "plebeian dreamer" Rousseau, with his anthropological optimism, was completely detached from the real, concrete life and sorrows of the everyday Frenchman. Rousseau therefore remained a utopian theorist, and all utopias, as history has shown, are pregnant with terror precisely because reality will never correspond to ideality. This is why Burckhardt says in his Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen: "We, however, shall start out from the one point accessible to us, the one eternal centre of all things – man, suffering, striving, doing, as he is and was and ever shall be. Hence our study will, in a certain sense, be pathological in kind." No utopian vision, no idea, and no religion can change man, and therefore no idea can change what animates history: man. This is one of the main things that Nietzsche took from Burckhardt. Nietzsche realised that history can only truly change if man himself changes. Only when man's "physiological structure" has been fundamentally altered can his capabilities, possibilities, and experiences - and, by extension, history itself - change. In modernity, the world of Representation moves rapidly on, and the appearance of moral and material progress becomes omnipresent. But the world of Will remains unchanged. The human being was complete long ago, and his completeness therefore precedes any supposed "completeness" of history or "progress." Modernity, with its rapid development, would in Burckhardt's view, lead only to the depletion of natural resources and spiritual bankruptcy through the division of labour, specialisation, the growth of the state, materialistic meliorism, and the associated sentimentalisms and utopianisms. Genuine crises bring the three historical constants Burckhardt identified into question: the State (power), religion (ideas), and culture (society). In the dissolution brought on by genuine crisis, men unleash their passions; they become fearsome, and violence, obedience, and madness become abundant. Even so, a genuine crisis should not be met with total despair, for, as Burckhardt notes: "Crises and even their accompanying fanaticisms are (though always according to the age of the people passing through them) to be regarded as genuine signs of vitality. The crisis itself is an expedient of nature, like a fever, and the fanaticisms are signs that there still exist for men things they prize more than life and property. Yet men must not merely be fanatics in opposition to others and quivering egoists for themselves. All spiritual growth takes place by leaps and bounds, both in the individual and, as here, in the community. The crisis is to be regarded as a new nexus of growth." As one constellation of State (power), religion (ideas), and culture enters into crisis, the possibility of another one begins to emerge. But what takes shape, and how it does so, depends on the concrete actors involved in each particular situation. Genuine crises, in short, reveal who believes in what and why. They bring friends and enemies alike into view, but never in a Manichean fashion. The values they hold dear acquire their meaning only in relation to one another, and often through that which they oppose. History, as Burckhardt would put it, a spiritual continuum.

A political organism undergoing a steep decline in its capacity to project power does not necessarily have to go through a corresponding decline on the intellectual and cultural fronts. Athens after the Peloponnesian War is a good example, as is the Third French Republic. "After the Peloponnesian War, Greek cultural history becomes, in essence, synonymous with Greek history. Before this, the Hellene was only to be understood as a living particle of his polis, which was the focal point of all his creativity, activity and morality. However, the darker aspects of the developing democracy, and the devastation brought down on the Greeks by the Peloponnesian War, had the effect – even in Sparta – of relaxing the moral and to some extent the practical ties that bound the ablest men to their polis. Some were only intent upon governing the state and exploiting the condition of Greece, without feeling themselves intimately bound to anything. Others lived for intellectual interests which no longer had any relation to the State; while the majority only sought enjoyment, and many would sell themselves as mercenaries to any powerful man who could pay enough." - Jacob Burckhardt, The Greeks and Greek Civilization

"As bourgeois [European] society was the first to cover the globe, the present crisis stems from a mainly Utopian self-conception on the part of the philosophers of history – Utopian because modern man is destined to be at home everywhere and nowhere. History has overflowed the banks of tradition and inundated all boundaries." Koselleck is a must read, and Critique and Crisis is a great exposition of the dialectic of absolutism. C&C is also a fantastic introduction to "polemology," particularly in the realm of the history of ideas and social history. To paraphrase Burckhardt - whom Koselleck largely follows in spirit - both joy and sorrow must become knowledge. Through this knowledge, history truly becomes a guide to life - magistra viate. Historical knowledge, which is at once anthropological and sociological, does not makes us wiser for "the next time." It is what makes us wiser for all time.

This whole situation is not particularly interesting. People either support or oppose Tusk depending on whether they perceive his actions to serve their interests - whether materially and politically within Poland itself, or polemically, elsewhere. Either way, the strategy of the Right™ is once again to call out "liberal" or "leftist" hypocrisy. This is, of course, not a winning strategy. Even if hypocrisy and contradiction are at play - which they are - neither has ever prevented an idea or political movement from succeeding. In any case, I think there is good reason to revisit Machiavelli. In Chapter VIII of The Prince, he draws a distinction between power and glory. Although the two may overlap, they are ultimately distinct ends. One can acquire power without glory, just as one can attain glory without seeking or acquiring power. In Chapter XVIII, Machiavelli says that the prince must understand how to act against morality when necessity demands it, while retaining the appearance of virtue - and, by extension, glory. Cruelty is therefore a political instrument justified under particular conditions in pursuit of particular ends. What matters is not simply whether the prince acts virtuously, but whether he can maintain the appearance of virtue while doing what political necessity requires. There is ultimately a distinction between political self-preservation and political greatness. Power and security are indispensable, but glory is more difficult to attain. For Machiavelli, the prince's glory is ultimately connected to the common good, i.e., his ability to establish, preserve and strengthen the political order. The exercise of power, even when it entails cruelty, can therefore be justified in the name of the preservation of order and the advancement of the common good. So, is there "liberal hypocrisy"? The problem with the Right™ is that it mistakes exposing contradictions in liberal theory and practice for acquiring political power. The Right™ thinks that exposing a discrepancy between someone's professed principles and actual conduct is, in itself, politically damaging. But this is to misunderstand the relationship between appearance and reality in politics. A contradiction does not have to undermine authority. It can be utilised, rationalised and even celebrated, as long as the political actor has the capacity to define the meaning of events and maintain the appearance of serving a legitimate purpose. The highest form of power is to make subjectivity appear as objectivity - to exercise control over the meaning of symbols, whether they take the form of actions or something else. The question, then, is not whether Tusk or his opponents are being hypocritical, because they are. Nor is it whether the same actions would be celebrated or condemned if the Right were doing what Tusk is doing, because they obviously would be. The more interesting question is who has the political capacity to turn these actions into a source of legitimacy, consolidate their position and shape the institutional order. Machiavelli's distinction between power and glory is relevant here, but it also raises another question: glory in whose eyes? Is it in the eyes of the prince, the establishment, the people or future generations? These are not the same audiences, nor do they necessarily define glory according to the same criteria. Power can be exercised without glory, just as glory can be claimed without the possession of power. But the most successful political actor is he who can bring the two together. To exercise power effectively while convincing others that the exercise of it serves something greater than the interests of the person(s) wielding it - this is the highest ambition of the prince. Will Tusk fail? Time will tell.