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: acraiutu@indiana.edu

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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).

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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

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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.

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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.

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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. His writings addressed important topics such as civil society, pluralism, religion, participatory democracy, democratic mind, the limits of affluence, the ambiguous effects of individualism, the complex relationship between the market and society, the acceleration of history, and the difficult apprenticeship of liberty. 6 On this issue, see Stephen Holmes, “Tocqueville and Democracy,” in David Copp, Jean Hampton, and John Roemer eds., The Idea of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 33.

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sometimes endorse disastrous policies with lasting long-term consequences. Democratic

governments are, as a rule, more expensive than others and do not know the art of being

economical.7 Often times, a good part of their enterprises are ill-conducted or remain

uncompleted, with expenditures being disproportionate to the size of the intended aim.

Moreover, most democratic governments lack a clear perception of the future since

“people feel much more than they reason.”8 As a result, the laws passed by democratic

legislatures are “often defective or incomplete,”9 since the people are gullible, subject to

transitory impulses, and often prone to endorse short-sighted plans.

Nonetheless, in spite of so many defects, democratic governments enjoy a

privilege that is denied to all other governments: it allows people to make retrievable

mistakes, and in so doing, provides valuable opportunities for political learning. With his

characteristic passion and style, Tocqueville drew our attention to the real strengths of

democracy. Democracy, he argues, never displays a regular form of government, even

when it benefits from exceptional local circumstances. Furthermore, compared to

despotism, democratic freedom does not carry its undertakings through as perfectly as an

enlightened despot would; it often abandons them before it has reaped the benefit, or

embarks on new and perilous projects without finishing the old ones. Yet, Tocqueville

adds, in the long-run democracy produces more than any other political regime. It does

each thing less well than an enlightened despot or absolute monarch, but it does more

things in total and raises the general intellectual level of the population. The citizens of a

democracy are more enlightened and more alert than those living under any other form of

7 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 202. 8 Ibid., p. 214. 9 Ibid., p. 221.

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government. They display civic spirit, are aware of their rights and duties, and respect the

laws because the latter promote the general interest and can be changed peacefully:

Under its empire, what is great is above all not what public administration executes but what is executed without it and outside it. Democracy does not give the most skillful government to the people, but it does what the most skillful government is often powerless to create; it spreads a restive activity through the whole social body, a superabundant force, and energy that never exists without it, and which, however little circumstances may be favorable, can bring forth marvels. Those are its true advantages.10

Nonetheless, left to its own inclinations, democracy tends to run into extremes,

oscillating between too much freedom and too much equality. That is why the cures for

democracy’s ills must be carefully weighed and chosen and democracy must be educated,

purified of its unsound instincts, and moderated through institutional crafting.

Today, humanity is driven by an powerful force which we can hope to moderate,

but not to defeat. This force poses a number of significant threats to freedom: the

excessive interest in the private sphere (at the expense of the public sphere and the

common good), narrow individualism, and social isolation. The task of those who are

called to govern modern society (and the mission of philosophers) is “to instruct

democracy, if possible to reanimate its beliefs, to purify its mores, to regulate its

movements, to substitute little by little the science of affairs for its inexperience, and

knowledge of its true interests for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to time and

place; to modify it according to circumstances and men.”11

Needless to say, this is no minor task since democracy contains in itself

contradictory tendencies and antinomies that have to be countervailed through wise and

prudent institutional crafting. By its nature, democracy threatens freedom of thought and

10 Ibid., p. 234. 11 Ibid., p. 7; all emphases added.

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fosters the tyranny of the majority; this tendency can be neutralized by cultivating sound

judicial habits, the custom of public hearings, and the taste for formal procedures that act

as effective barriers against arbitrary power. Furthermore, democracy is inherently

unstable and dangerous not so much because it is predicated on a constant tension

between equality and liberty, but because most people would seek to solve this tension in

favor of equality by abandoning liberty. Since the natural instincts of democracy “are to

subordinate the individual to the state and to crush the former under the weight of the

masses,”12 the mission of philosophers living in democratic ages is to join in exerting the

strongest possible pressure in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the corrosive effects

of equality do not stop here. Taken individually, democratic citizens tend to withdraw

within the narrow sphere of their private interests. New social bonds are slow to emerge

and civic apathy becomes dominant.

Of particular concern is the tendency of democracy to produce a steady lowering

of the intellectual level of society. The constant instability of the democratic social state

has long-lasting effects on how people feel, think, and connect with each other. It tends to

shrink their mental horizon by making them prisoners of “here” and “now,” engulfed in

the pursuit of material pleasures, without any concern for larger vistas. As Tocqueville

pointed out in the seminal preface to Volume One of The Old Regime and the Revolution,

in a democratic society “nothing is fixed, everyone is constantly tormented by the fear of

falling and by the ambition to rise. Money has acquired an astonishing mobility,

ceaselessly changing hands, transforming the status of individuals, raising or lowering

families, and at the same time becoming the chief means by which to distinguish between

people. … The desire to enrich oneself at any price, the preference for business, the love 12 Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Eduardo Nolla, vol. II (Paris: Vrin, 1990), p. 272, fn. h.

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of profit. The search for material pleasure and comfort are therefore the most widespread

desires.”13 Thus, living the “tumultuous and constantly vexed life” which equality gives

to men, most citizens living under democratic regimes contract the habits of the industrial

and commercial classes. Their minds, Tocqueville writes, take a “serious, calculating, and

positive turn” which makes them pragmatic to the point of forgetting that there is more to

life than getting rich. Tocqueville attributed this transformation to equality which “does

not destroy imagination in this way, but limits it and permits it to fly only while

skimming the earth.”14

Commenting on the cultural and intellectual effects of unchecked and uneducated

democracy, Tocqueville noticed that “in democratic countries, manners ordinarily have

little grandeur because private life there is very petty”15 and vulgar; he also pointed out

that thought has few occasions to raise itself above preoccupation with mundane

domestic interests. Furthermore, democracy fosters homogeneity and monotony.

Consumed by the desire to improve their well-being and having the opportunity to do so,

the citizens of democracies have many passions and goals, but they all end in love of

wealth. The highest price to pay for their freedom to get rich is the homogenization of

society. “Variety is disappearing from within the human species,” Tocqueville

commented, “the same manner of acting, thinking, and feeling is found in all the corners

of the world.”16 Democracy diminishes people’s ambitions and transforms their souls by

stifling great and noble enterprises and by placing a tacit ban on considering any political

13 Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. I, trans. Alan S. Kahan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 88. 14 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p. 571. 15 Ibid., p. 579. 16 Ibid., p. 588.

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and cultural alternatives. If democracy may be a bazaar, as Plato once famously claimed,

modern democracy is much less colorful than its ancient predecessor.

The current trends are not promising. Eastern European countries are rapidly

discovering the pleasures of materialism after decades of enforced scarcity. Without

condemning this trend, one is left wondering if the forces of the market alone would

promote culture and excellence, or would foster mediocrity and the lowest denominator.

That is why Tocqueville’s preoccupation with promoting “virtuous materialism” and

religion as means of counterbalancing the potentially pernicious effects of the love of

material comfort retains a refreshing relevance for us. But can philosophers be effective

in their attempts to moderate democracy by purifying its instincts and educating its

beliefs?

Democracy, Alienation, and Authenticity: a Romanian Perspective

There are many things that exceed philosophers’ abilities and skills and it would

be futile to list them here in detail. But what they can (and should) do is to remind their

fellow citizens that life in a democracy never goes on in a moral vacuum and needs the

support of cultural and spiritual forces and principles outside of the market. As such, the

values and principles of democracy ought to be regarded and endorsed only as part of a

wider order encompassing ethics, laws, and the natural conditions of life and human

happiness. According to this view, democracy and market society are not everything and

they must find their place in a higher order of things which is not ruled by utilitarian

considerations dominated by supply and demand.

Mihai Şora’s philosophical writings are an interesting case in point. They shed

light on the tension between democracy and philosophy and challenge us to rethink the

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relationship between freedom, authenticity, and liberal principles and values. For Şora,

the philosopher must resist the “lure of Syracuse”17; the task of the philosopher is not to

be a political ruler nor must he attempt to influence directly the leaders of the city. The

philosopher is first and foremost someone who reflects responsibly on the affairs of the

polis and attempts to discern the final values and to relate them to the instrumental ones.

In so doing, he reflects on and searches for the best means of ensuring a harmonious co-

existence between unique and diverse individuals.18 Şora’s philosophy of authenticity and

dialogue has a strong normative bent which is inseparable from his views on the good

society and integral humanism. Şora (b. 1916) joins those who argue that men do not live

only by the goods they possess but also by the whole world beyond the market that

includes beauty, poetry, grace, love, friendship, and openness toward transcendence. This

is the world of dialogical communities which allow people to cultivate and enjoy the

diversity of the universe and to achieve their human potential in freedom.

Şora’s writings and unique intellectual trajectory make him a fascinating

companion for anyone who reflects on the relationship between philosophy and politics

or on the virtues and limitations of liberal democracy in the Eastern European context.19

17 I borrow this phrase from Mark Lilla, The Reckless Mind (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2001). 18 Şora describes the role of the philosopher in the city as follows: “Filosofului îi revine, mai de grabă, sarcina de a desluşi cumva resorturile care pun în mişcare treburile politice, de a distinge scopurile şi de a ierarhiza mijloacele, de a dibui adevăratele valori finale şi de a imagina valori instrumentale adaptate ţintei ochite, dar în acelaşi timp şi compatibile cu valorile-ţintă; într-un cuvînt: de a nu pierde din vedere idealul urmărit în toate inevitabilele şerpuiri, urcurşuri şi coborîşuri ale ‘drumului spre.’ Un filosof în cetate trebuie, aşadar, să fie un lămuritor pentru sine al treburilor cetăţii, polis, si să încerce să induca în semenii săi aceeaşi deschidere cercetătoare în legăturǎ cu regulile corectei vieţuiri-asociate, bazată pe transparenţa comunicării nestînjenite, cît şi cu taina bunei convieţuiri avîndu-şi sursa în harul comuniunii” (Mihai Şora, Firul ierbii, [The Leaf of Grass], Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, 1999, p. 468). 19 I have previously commented on Şora’s political philosophy in Aurelian Crăiuţu, “De la dialogul interior la dialogul generalizat: Note despre filosofia politica a lui Mihai Şora,” in Sorin Antohi and Aurelian Crăiuţu eds., Dialog si libertate; Eseuri in onoarea lui Mihai Şora [Dialogue and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Mihai Şora] (Bucharest: Nemira Publishing House, 1997), pp. 101-119. For an analysis of Şora’s writings in the context of Romanian philosophy, see Virgil Nemoianu, “Mihai Şora and the Traditions of

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After studying philosophy at the University of Bucharest from 1934 to 1938 where he

was one of Mircea Eliade’s favorite students, Şora received a generous fellowship from

the French government in 1939 that allowed him to study (and stay) in France until 1948.

His first book, written in French, Du dialogue intérieur: Fragments d’une anthropologie

métaphysique appeared at Gallimard in early 1947.20 Published in a prestigious collection

(La jeune philosophie), it offered an original synthesis between neo-Thomism (Jacques

Maritain), phenomenology (Edmund Husserl), Christian existentialism (Gabriel Marcel,

plus a touch of Pascal and Charles Péguy), personalism (Emmanuel Mounier), and

Marxism.

Like many French intellectuals of that period, Şora’s early political ideas were

defined by his allegiance to a particular form of Marxism combined (paradoxically) with

a highly individualistic outlook that was bound sooner or later to clash with the Marxist

orthodoxy. Among the book’s most important themes were the “inner dialogue,”

“attention,” “attached detachment,” “ontological salvation,” and the relationship between

authenticity and alienation. It is no mere coincidence that among Şora’s avowed

influences one finds Aristotle, Aquinas, Pascal, Cusanus, and Husserl. Much of Şora’s

early themes aimed at justifying a certain form of philosophical “rebellion” (in the name

of being) against social conformism and existential complacency. Du dialogue intérieur

Romanian Philosophy,” Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 43, No. 1 (March 1990), pp. 591-605; also Thomas Pavel, “Le Sel de la terre,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale, No. 4 (October-December 1980), pp. 539-542. A collection of essays on Mihai Şora as philosopher, editor, and writer can be found in Antohi and Crăiuţu eds., Dialog si libertate; [Dialogue and Liberty]. Commenting on Şora’s writing style and method, Nemoianu remarked: “Rarely in philosophical writing has anybody used such long sentences (some of them cover more than one page), with so many digressions and parentheses, and with several rounds of quick dialogue embedded in one sentence” (Nemoianu, p. 602). 20 A Romanian translation of this book (with an original postscript) was published only in 1995 at Humanitas Publishing House.

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reminded its readers that freedom has a very important inner dimension in the absence of

which political liberty cannot survive for a long time.

The issue of (existential) alienation loomed large in Şora’s book and appeared in

its first appendix (“Être, faire, et avoir”)21 that presents a sophisticated case for a

particular form of skepticism and rebellion vis-à-vis society’s institutions. Şora made a

fundamental distinction between four forms of “having”: avoir ontologique, avoir

pseudo-ontologique, avoir economique, and avoir institutionnel.22 The latter is

constituted by the common past crystallized in society’s common institutions. L’avoir

ontologique (which has a direct link to authenticity) designates that type of “having” that

is in harmony with our “being” at each moment of our existential journey, when the form

that we bring into actuality coincides (more or less) with our virtual potential. The second

form of “having”—l’avoir pseudo-ontologique—comes into being as a result of man’s

tendency to become a slave of his past and habits; as such, it is one of the many forms in

which the real of “appearance” (le paraître) seeks to surreptitiously replace that of

“being” (l’être).23 Şora argued that the “pseudo-ontological having” is nothing else than

one’s past transformed into tyrannical habits and inclinations that pose artificial obstacles

to the free development of one’s personality.

Concerned with finding the proper balance between being and having, Şora

defined politics as “une technique dont la function est de preserver l’être de tout ce qui

pourrait entraver son développement, mais dont le domain propre—comme celui de toute

21 See Mihai Şora, Du dialogue intérieur ou fragments d’une anthropologie métaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), pp. 141-187. 22 This theme also appears in A fi, a face, a avea (1985) and is the subject of the opening chapter of Eu & tu & el & ea … sau dialogoul generalizat (1990). 23 Şora, Du dialogue intérieur, p. 150.

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technique—est celui de l’avoir.”24 As such, the task of politics is to administer the

domain of “having” according to the needs of “being”: “organizer l’avoir en ayant les

yeux fixés sans interruption sur l’être.”25 Needless to say, this is an unconventional

definition of politics because of its normative implications which suggest that political

criteria for governing society must yield to extra-political considerations that are difficult

to quantify and on which we might never agree. The principle guiding the reform of

l’avoir economique, added Şora, should be ‘to each according to his being,’ whose

concrete manifestation might be ‘to each whatever he or she produces.’26

Şora’s earlier existentialism sui generis was illustrated by his belief that we must

always remain (existentially) vigilant not only because social and political institutions

become rigid and ineffective over time, but also because the routine of everyday life

tends to make us the slaves of our own instincts and habits. In this respect, man’s

condition is similar to that of a swimmer who must always be attentive and should

overcome gravity in order to avoid drowning. What is required from him is steady effort,

constant vigilance, and attention. This is particularly important since man is always faced

with a plethora of existential choices that are not of equal weight and value. Most of these

choices end up leading nowhere, while only a few fulfill his inner potential and allow him

to find the “royal way” of being.

Alas, the tragedy of man, writes Şora, “c’est de passer la plus grande partie de sa

vie à errer sur les voies innombrables et embrouillées du paraître … et à ne pouvoir se

repaître que des mirages décevants du paraître qui s’y trouve.”27 This is, of course, the

24 Ibid., p. 161. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., p. 163. 27 Ibid., p. 43.

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old theme of alienation which in Şora’s writings, is linked to (and derives from) his

concern for authenticity and “ontological salvation.”28 It is the inner dialogue’s mission

to keep us attentive and vigilant in our daily choices. The inner dialogue is a means of

ensuring that we remain authentic in what we do and who we are, and do not succumb to

the routine of everyday life. As such, le dialogue intérieur is the expression of our

freedom, since our identity is never fixed once and for all, but it is the unpredictable

outcome of our free choices.

After returning to Romania in 1948, Şora’s philosophical career was put on hold.

He was forced to accept various administrative positions that prevented him from

teaching in a proper university setting (his work as editor was however, highly successful

and rewarding). His first-hand experience with Communism woke him from the romantic

dreams of his youth. Şora’s second book, Sarea pǎmîntului [The Salt of the Earth]

(Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1978) was published after a long (self-imposed) silence

and was followed seven years later by A fi, a face, a avea [Being, Doing, Having]

(Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1985). In the late 1980s, Şora courageously joined a few

other dissenting voices who challenged the ways in which dissident writers were treated

by Ceausescu’s oppressive regime.

In the aftermath of the fall of the communist regime in Romania, Mihai Şora

served as the Minister of Education in the first post-revolutionary government and

emerged later as one of the most respected voices of the nascent Romanian civil society.

28 Broadly defined, ontological salvation amounts to “être de la meilleure manière qu’il peut, ce qu’il est déjà obscurement” (ibid., p. 31). It occurs when we manage to bring to fruition all the potentialities that we have been born with: “Notre problème immédiat et notre seul ‘problème’ véritable est celui du ‘salut ontolgique.’ Car, ce salut, nous sommes à même de le réaliser sans aucune aide extérieure, et nous le réalisons même avec chaque approfondissement de notre existence, avec chaque rapprochement des raciness de notre vie, avec chaque appropriation de nous par nous-mêmes. … Tout plongeon réussi vers les sources de notre être nous fait realiser l’état de ‘salut ontologique’ “ (ibid., p. 47).

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Although, as we have seen, Şora’s interest in political issues can be detected already in

the pages of Du dialogue intérieur in which he made a sophisticated case for adopting a

spirit of rebellion and vigilance vis-à-vis social and political institutions, his political

philosophy was fully articulated in two books published in Romanian in the 1990s: Eu &

tu & el & ea … sau dialogul generalizat [I & You & He & She… or the Generalized

Dialogue] (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1990) and Firul ierbii [The Leaf of Grass]

(Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, 1999).29 Earlier this year, Şora published Clipa si timpul

[The Instant and Time] (Pitesti: Paralela 45, 2005) which completes the remarkable

philosophical system that he has been building for over half a century.30

Along with Şora’s 1985 volume whose title drew inspiration from Gabriel

Marcel’s Être et avoir,31 these books (which present their ideas in the form of a free

dialogue between three characters) articulate an original political philosophy and shed

fresh light on important political and philosophical topics such as the role of the

philosopher in the city, man’s nature as zoon politikon, the relationship between

instrumental and final values, or the contrast between community and society. Influenced

by the philosophical movement of personalism that flourished in the 1930s and 1940s in

Europe, Şora makes a seminal distinction between “person” and “individual”. It has been

remarked that Şora’s books offer a vigorous defense of the principles of open society and

representative government (political pluralism, free competition for power, separation of

29 Of the essays collected in Firul ierbii (1990), the ones that highlight best Şora’s political philosophy are: “Noi, voi, ei – jaloane pentru viaţa împreună” (pp. 55-60), “Teologia politicii” (pp. 259-268), “Cîteva elemente de doctrină politică pentru România, azi” (pp. 310-327), “Rădăcina ierbii” (pp. 434-454), and “Filosoful în cetate” (pp. 464-479). 30 Şora also published an interesting dialogue with an younger philosopher, Despre toate şi ceva în plus: De vorba cu Leonid Dragomir [About Everything and Something in Addition: Conversations with Leonid Dragomir] (Pitesti: Paralela 45, 2005). I reviewed both books in my essay “Devino ceea ce esti!”, 22, No. 809, September 2005, p. 16-17. 31 For an English translation, see Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having (New York: Harper, 1965).

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powers, publicity, civil society, freedom of thought and association). What makes his

political philosophy unconventional is its grounding in an ontological model that

constitutes the core of his Weltanschauung (this foundational element distinguishes his

position from the method of Anglo-American political philosophers). By deriving

political and ethical propositions from his ontology, Şora reaches a number of original

conclusions regarding freedom and values. He posits a strong relationship between inner

liberty and political liberty and argues that there must be a link between the generalized

dialogue at the level of society and the inner dialogue at the level of each individual. In

Şora’s view, each of us has a threefold existential mission. First of all, we must strive to

bring into actuality all our virtual potentialities, similar to a tree that does this

spontaneously and naturally (How to live like a tree without ceasing to be a man? is one

of Şora’s defining questions; hence the epilogue of this essay).32 Secondly, we ought to

help our fellow citizens to do the same (to the extent that we can); and, thirdly, we should

work together with them to build a genuinely human community, à la taille de l’homme,

in which “being” is honored and placed above “having.” 33

These claims are pregnant with significant normative implications. Although Şora

declares himself a liberal (in the European sense of the word), his liberalism is not a

minimalist one that seeks to avoid questions about the human good. By stressing the

continuity between extra-political (ontological, metaphysical) questions and political

32 In this respect, is worth pointing out the similarity between Şora’s position and the ideas of the French Catholic philosopher, Gustave Thibon (1903-2001). Thibon, who was the editor of Simone Weil’s La pesanteur et la grâce, wrote about the need for roots in terms that reminds one of Şora’s “attachement détaché”: “Enracinement. - Les plantes sont rivées à un coin du sol. Problème: comment sauver l'enracinement sans verser dans l'étroitesse et le fanatisme? L'arbre reçoit sa sève du coin de terre où il prend racine. Imiter jusqu'au bout l'arbre qui se nourrit à la fois d'humus et de lumière. Synthèse du particulier dans ce qu'il a de plus borné et de l'universel ignorant les limites du temps et du lieu...” (Thibon, L’illusion féconde, [Paris, Fayard, 1995], p. 33; all emphases added). 33 See, for example, the chapter “Dialogue and Understanding” in Eu & tu & el & ea, especially the diagrams on pp. 181-182; also see pp. 176-77.

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issues, Şora rethinks the proper relationship between instrumental and final values and

puts forward an original theory of dialogical community based on the open dialogue

between free subjects. Politics, argues Şora, can never be a final value, since it is

concerned above all with securing the minimal conditions for an adequate social

interaction between individuals. Its dimension is the horizontal one and its domain is that

of instrumental values. But this must not be interpreted in a narrow sense since politics

cannot be indifferent toward supreme values which are always superior to purely

instrumental values. For Şora, one such supreme value is the “generalized dialogue”

(dialogul generalizat) which, in his view, is essential to rebuilding the social bonds that

had been destroyed by communism.

Dialogue, Freedom, and Democracy

The centrality of the notion of “generalized dialogue” to Şora’s analytical

framework must be duly underscored here. This concept is at the heart of his conception

of the good society and undergirds his theory of the dialogical community that has

affinities with Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue.34 It will be recalled that Buber

drew a seminal distinction between I-Thou (Ich-Du) relations and I-It (Ich-Es) relations.

For Buber (and Şora), there are two ways in which people can relate to the world around

them:

To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks. The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words. The one primary word is the combination I-Thou. The other primary word is the combination I-It. Hence the I of man is also twofold. Fir the I of the primary word I-Thou is a different

34 The core of Buber’s philosophy of dialogue can be found in his famous book Ich und Du [I and Thou], but also in Zwiesprache [Dialogue].

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I from that of the primary word I-It.35 As such, I-Thou is the primary word of relation, meeting, and dialogue between free

individuals who discover each other as their “Thou.” In the world of I-It, the relations

between individuals tend to be impersonal and utilitarian, without any attention paid to

the uniqueness of the human beings. That is why most I-It relations are characterized by

manipulation and domination.

In the footsteps of Buber and by drawing on his personal experience, Şora argues

that the fundamental fact of human existence is neither the individual nor the aggregate of

individuals; it is the meeting between two free human beings who discover each other as

their “Thou.”36 The recurrence of this theme in Şora’s philosophy has to do with his

first-hand experience of daily life under Communism when inter-personal relations were

characterized by suspicion and distrust. Any individual, argues Şora, becomes a real

presence only when he steps into a living relation with other fellow citizens who thus

emerge as dialogical partners. It is the meeting between an “I” and a “Thou,” multiplied

at the social level, that makes possible the generalized dialogue and a genuine

communitarian life. To be with others (miteinandersein) amounts to opening oneself to

and communicating with one’s fellow citizens, recognizing and addressing them as

unique human beings (miteinandersprechen). On this view, to realize one’s full potential

is inseparable from being part of a genuine community, with the caveat that the latter can

properly be called community only insofar as it is build up of living units of relation.

35 Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), p. 3. For a discussion of Buber and Şora, also see Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, “Mihai Şora şi condiţia dialogului interior,” in Antohi and Crăiuţu eds., Dialog si libertate, pp. 120-129. 36 It is worth pointing out that the text from which I quote was originally published in 1987 (and republished in Firul ierbii). Şora writes: “Oricum începutul, acesta este: să-i spui ‘tu’ celui pe care viaţa şi mersul lucrurilor îl aduc în faţa ta. Tot restul, de aici decurge” (Firul ierbii, p. 60). This theme is also discussed in the last chapter of Eu & tu & el & ea (pp. 206-220).

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Worth noting is the strong emphasis Şora puts on the distinction between

community and society that has its roots in the old German sociological tradition,

beginning with Ferdinand Tönnies famous’s book, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Such

a distinction, opines Şora, is far from being obsolete. By drawing on his dialogical

philosophy, the Romanian philosopher redefines the notion of community in an original

(and, to some, controversial) manner. The essence of community, he points out, is “the

free communion of concrete persons, with all their baggage of individual traits,”37 while

the basis of society is the communicational channels that make possible social

cooperation and ensure social cohesion. It must be pointed out that for Şora, genuine

communities are never collective super-entities that seek to obliterate the identity of their

members or to reduce them to a (rigidly defined) common denominator. A genuine

community is predicated upon fostering diversity and pluralism and thrives on them. To

stress this point, Şora makes a seminal distinction between two types of “us” and insists

that this distinction has major implications for what kind of society we (want to) live in.

The first one is an open and inclusive “us” (noi-cel-deschis), characterized by generosity,

pluralism, diversity, openness, and tolerance; the second “us” (noi-cel-inchis) is

characterized by a rigid identity based on exclusion, egoism, intolerance, and

uniformity.38

More importantly, Şora insists that keeping alive a strong communitarian life that

fosters pluralism and diversity is essential to rebuilding the social bonds between

individuals that had been destroyed under communism. In his view, this should also

37 Şora, Firul ierbii, p. 440. 38 Ibid., pp. 56-58. This theme also looms large in Eu & tu & el & ea (pp. 211-220) where Şora links it to the distinction between being and having. He writes: “Noi-cel-deschis ‘dă (mereu) din el, … pe palierul lui a fi. Puterea lui e de tipul înfloririi şi rodirii. Comportamentul, de tipul dăruirii. … Noi-cel-inchis, în schimb, e temeinic instalat pe palierul lui a avea” (Eu & tu & el & ea, p. 217).

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promote administrative decentralization and a vigorous local life based on the principle of

subsidiarity.39 A healthy democracy, claims Şora, is one that respects local traditions and

self-government; it is build from the bottom up, and not vice versa. “That is why,” the

philosopher concludes (paraphrasing Tocqueville), “one must always start from the local

level. … The true school of government of a country begins with its local

administration.”40

Furthermore, for Şora, the rebirth of a genuine communitarian spirit might also be

a means of re-humanizing and re-enchanting a world that has become atomized and

impersonal to the point that many of us live monadic and disconnected lives without

experiencing any sense of genuine sense of solidarity with our fellow citizens. In the

footsteps of Tocqueville, Şora is concerned about the pernicious effects of extreme

individualism that leads to social atomization and civic apathy. His response to this

modern predicament is articulated in unambiguous terms. While we must create the

minimal conditions for an adequate social coexistence (on the horizontal plan), we must

also at the same time strive to fashion a society suitable to man’s spiritual and cultural

needs in keeping with his vertical dimension. The market society is not the final answer

to the deepest problems and questions of human existence.41 The mechanisms of the

market and the institutions of democracy cannot create the cultural and spiritual reserves

39 Şora, Firul ierbii, p. 453. For an overview of Şora’s political and civic views applied to the context of contemporary Romania, see Mihai Şora în dialog cu Sorin Antohi, Mai avem un viitor? România la început de mileniu [Do we Still Have a Future: Romania at the Beginning of the Millennium] (Iaşi: Polirom, 2001). Şora’s strong defense of diversity and pluralism applied to the context of Europe at large can be found in a splendid study, originally written and published in French: “Unitas in pluralitate ou l’Europe en son entier,” Secolul 20, Nos. 234-236, 7-9/1980. A Romanian version of this text appeared in Firul ierbii, pp. 9-22. 40 Şora, Firul ierbii, p. 453. 41 For a discussion on this topic, see Şora’s essay “The Theology of Politics” in Firul ierbii, pp. 259-268.

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and resources they need to function properly; the latter come from outside the market and

are never produced by it.

Hence, concludes the philosopher, we need to preserve the savor of life and fight

against anything that promotes uniformity, vulgar materialism, and general dullness. By

avoiding to relate to our fellow citizens in purely instrumental and utilitarian terms and

seeking to acknowledge their uniqueness, we can preserve genuine plurality and diversity

in a world that tends toward more uniformity and conformism. Şora argues that

maintaining alive a strong communitarian life is essential to the preservation of a vibrant

civil society.42 But his understanding of communitarian life goes well beyond the

utilitarian and simplistic views put forward by proponents of communitarianism, many of

whom offer only slight modifications of the deontological arguments put forward by their

liberal colleagues. As already mentioned, Şora’s perfectionist form of liberalism is

predicated upon the assumption that in order to be effective, the institutions of liberal

democracy and market economy must draw on a certain set of extra-political and extra-

economical resources that are always in short supply. His political ideal is that of a world

that has solid foundations, protects diversity and pluralism, and successfully resists the

tendency toward standardization and uniformity. It is a world rooted in a healthy public

morality that gives priority to the long-term interests over short-term ones and is made up

of free and creative individuals who strive to live in genuine communities.43 Finally, this

42 “Pentru ca societatea (civilă) … să se menţină în stare de funcţionare corectă, e neapărat nevoie ca … să se desfaşoare necontenit o intensă viaţă comunitară exprimată prin intermediul unor persoane unice şi iramplasabile, viaţa căreia instituţia de vîrf a societăţii civile, adică statul, e obligat să-i asigure cale larg deschisă” (Firul ierbii, p. 441).

43 As already mentioned, Şora’s political ideal shares important affinities with Gustave Thibon’s ideas. In a speech given at the invitation of a meeting of the Association Lions Prospective in Marseille, Thibon described his ideal community in terms that would have also been endorsed by Şora: “Ces valeurs que nous défendons: liberté, solidarité, responsabilité, autorité, sélection, ne peuvent s'incarner dans les faits que

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is a world which gives the forces of the market and democracy their due while

recognizing that the most important things in life are beyond supply and demand, as the

German-Swiss economist Wilhelm Röpke once wrote. It is no mere coincidence that

Şora’s political philosophers share important affinities with Röpke’s Weltanschauung at

the core of which lay the idea that “man can wholly fulfill his nature only by freely

becoming part of a community and having a sense of solidarity with it.”44

Re-enchanting the Modern Democratic World

In our world of economists, calculators, and sophists, we must honor and pay

special attention to thinkers like Şora, Röpke, Thibon, and Tocqueville. As strong

defenders of liberal democracy and representative government, they remind us that we

should constantly strive to re-humanize and revive their institutions and ought to avoid

creating a material environment which tends to suffocate our souls and destroy the beauty

of life. Some of Şora’s political ideas might seem utopian (in the negative sense of the

word) or might be interpreted as mere romantic musings of a philosopher removed from

the reality of everyday life. Their maximalist and perfectionist tone might clash with the

more modest aspirations of those who want little else than peaceful social co-existence.

After all, one might ask, can we really reconcile in practice the demands of a

dans une société pluraliste et ‘hautement’ différenciée. J'y crois de tout mon coeur. Ce qui implique--et je ne dis pas que c'est facile, mais je dis que c'est nécessaire--une décongestion, une ventilation du corps social, une dissémination harmonieuse des tâches et des responsabilités, un climat où le contact vécu avec le prochain--ce sentiment du ‘nous’--permette à l'individu de sortir de son isolement sans tomber dans les regroupements artificiels et anti-sociaux issus des idéologies de classes et de partis. Cet idéal là, se situe aux antipodes non seulement du nivellement égalitaire, mais de toutes les formes de technocratie et de totalitarisme qui paralysent les libertés individuelles, qui dissolvent les communautés naturelles et qui favorisent à tous les niveaux le parasitisme et l'irresponsabilité” (all emphases added). This fragment is taken from an essay by Jacques Garello, “Gustave Thibon, Philosophe de la liberté,” published in Société, on the occasion of Thibon’s death in January 2001 (http://www.libres.org/francais/societe/societe.htm).

44 Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1998) p. 91.

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communitarian-dialogical philosophy à la Şora with a strict policy of individual rights

whose aim is to make sure that individual identity is not jeopardized by the claims of the

community? After all, it might be an exaggeration to argue, as Şora does, that the

transition from community to society amounts to one from “being” to “having” tout

court.45 And it might not be as easy as he thinks to wake in each of us the “person” that

lies beneath the surface (as already indicated, the theologically-inspired distinction

between “person” and “individual,” looms large in Şora’s writings). Much like society,

communities of various kinds can exert various pressures towards conformism that might

make Şora’s “detached attachment” rather difficult to espouse in the modern world.

Yet we should remember that Şora’s testimony is not that of a philosopher

isolated in his ivory tower, but the message of a man who has witnessed the greatest

social and political experiments of the twentieth-century (he also fought in the French

resistance movement in the 1940s) and has survived them with grace and dignity.46 He is

not proposing a new political utopia, because he is well aware that such attempts have

always ended in bloodshed and suffering. As his books demonstrate, Şora is a firm

supporter and defender of liberal democracy. He insists that the only reasonable goal at

the social level is to achieve a form of “convergent anarchy”47 and relative justice. But he

is not willing to confine his philosophical aspiration to this level. By inviting us to

rediscover the “meta-democratic” and “meta-political” limits of liberal democracy, Şora’s

philosophical writings offer us valuable suggestions for moderating and educating

45 Şora, Eu & tu & el & ea, p. 54. 46 On this topic, see Şora’s postscript to the Romanian translation of Du dialogue intérieur in Despre dialogul interior, trans. Mona & Sorin Antohi (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1995), pp. 201-214. Also see the final section of Sorin Antohi’s essay, “Utopiile unui Mai Ştiutor: Note despre filozofia lui Mihai Şora,” in Antohi and Crǎiuţu eds., Dialog si libertate, pp. 17-44. 47 Şora, Eu & tu & el & ea, p. 65.

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democracy and teach us how we can remain human in a fast-changing, agitated, and

superficial world.