THE HEALTH OF NATIONS Part 2 ppsx

the w ill to know and the w ill to power 29

‘state ofnature’ concept in social theory, pre-normative but haunting

the making and breaking ofall norms. It implies that conscious be￾haviour is intrinsically repressive ofsomething, that mental life is nec￾essarily a struggle and it seems to define sanity (or what was once called

‘happiness’) as some sort ofsuccessful integration ofthe conscious and

unconscious aspects ofthe mind, and that social life is, in some way, an

unnatural suppression ofour natural selves.

1.54 In short, the idea ofan unconscious level within the human

mind, which is surely confirmed by our own introspection and experi￾ence, seems to imply that we have within us, as the ultimate source of

our behaviour, a sort ofhidden god or demon, wilful and inscrutable,

acting as an ultimate explanation both ofthe need for social and moral

order and ofour relentless propensity to violate social and moral order.

And, since the public mind ofa society flows out from and back to the

private minds ofsociety-members, we may expect that human societies

will reproduce on a large scale the structural characteristics and hence

the pathological potentialities ofthe mind ofthe individual human

being.72

1.55 The Freudian scheme presents consciousness as dynamic, flow￾ing from the past through the present to the future in a process of

ceaseless self-re-creating. But it is the past which dominates the whole

process, a past which is remembered or repressed or imagined. On

this view, psychopathological conditions may arise from a relationship

with the past which gives rise to existential problems in the present.

A society has a specific relationship to its past. At any particular time,

its own self-understanding, its own theory of itself, includes an idea

ofits own history, partly remembered, partly repressed, partly imag￾ined. Very easily, a society’s self-idea can become distorted in a way

which causes it to fail to adapt to the realities which transcend it, in￾cluding its relationship with other societies and its relationship with

the ideas and aspirations ofits members (subordinate societies and

reason as that we infer it from its effects –, but of which we know nothing.’ S. Freud,

New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1932–3), in Standard Edition of the Complete

Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (tr. and ed. J. Strachey; London, Hogarth Press and

Institute ofPsycho-Analysis; 1964), xxii, p. 70. 72 ‘Is it not, then, said I, impossible for us to avoid admitting this much, that the same forms

and qualities are to be found in each one of us that are in the state? They could not get

there from any other source.’ Plato, Republic, 435e, in The Collected Dialogues (fn. 52 above),

p. 677.

30 soc iety and law

individual human beings).73 And the eternal presence ofa distorted

past may lead, in societies as in individuals, to ‘repetition’74 – for ex￾ample, re-enacting behaviour appropriate to imperial power, an ancien

r´egime, an era ofreligious orthodoxy, or an era ofunchallenged cultural

superiority.

1.56 When social psychopathology takes the form of collective

fantasy-thinking, repressing the unthinkable, believing the unbeliev￾able, then social psychotherapy may be impossible ifsociety succeeds

in suppressing all alternative thinking. The discrepancy between the

fantasy and the reality may be very great but the society will tend to in￾terpret the discrepancy as a demonstration ofthe reality ofthe fantasy,

as the paranoid mind finds endless confirmations ofits special reality.

Democracy and capitalism are remarkable examples ofa reality whose

axes are ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’ but whose lived experience is ofintense

social control and glaring inequality, so that another possible self-idea

would be that they are systems designed to enable the few to dominate

the many. Similarly, religious theories ofindividual salvation, expressed

perhaps as a reward in an after-life, may generate, in practice, extreme

systems ofsocial control, physical and mental.

1.57 To tell a psychotic person that their fantasy of omnipotence

is not a fantasy but is part of reality, and that they are right to believe

that they are exempt from morality, legality and rationality, might be a

reasonable course ofaction in a very short-term situation. To persist in

such a course ofaction could only mean that you yourselfhad checked

into the asylum. And yet that is what responsible people have told the

masters ofthe societies called ‘states’. It is little wonder that the human

world, in possession ofsuch a reality, has been filled with the works of

madness and evil which have characterised the history ofso-called ‘in￾ternational relations’ for the last seven centuries, including the madness

73 Mannheim discusses such distortions under the heading of‘false consciousness’ through

which a society’s particular ‘reality’, based on an ‘ideology’ inherited from the past, may not

correspond with the new reality within which the society must exist. Ideology and Utopia

(fn. 25 above), pp. 84ff. It is the overall contention of the present volume that this is exactly

what has happened in the relationship between the theory and the reality ofinternational

society. 74 In accordance with Freud’s hypothesis that ‘all the organic instincts are conservative, are

acquired historically and tend towards the restoration ofan earlier state ofthings’. S. Freud,

Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), in Standard Edition (fn. 71 above), xviii, pp. 37–8.

the w ill to know and the w ill to power 31

and the evil ofwar and the madness and evil ofsocially organised human

oppression and exploitation.

1.58 Ifa particular kind ofsociety, say the ‘state’, is taught to see

itselfas being the ultimate source ofmorality, then it seems also to follow

that that society as a whole is beyond moral judgement and, as a second

corollary, that the inter se co-existence ofsuch societies is beyond moral

judgement.75 Ifa society is taught to see itselfas the ultimate source of

law, then it seems to follow that society as a whole is beyond the rule of

law, except to the extent that it consents, by agreement with other such

societies, to submit itselfto law-like constraints.76

1.59 And, at last in the twentieth century ofall centuries, the siren

voice ofprofessional philosophy whispers some interesting ideas into

the ear ofthose who govern and those who are governed: (1) there is

no rational ground for rationality; (2) the actual is necessarily rational;

(3) the actual is always rationalisable; (4) truth emerges from actual

practice; (5) truth proves itselfin practice; (6) values are an epiphe￾nomenal aspect ofrelations ofpower; (7) values are social conventions;

(8) values are rhetorical conventions; (9) the mind is nothing more than

a function of physiology and biology; (10) ends are justified means.

1.60 Morally sensitive human beings cannot find it in their hearts to

judge, still less to condemn, those human beings who are afflicted with

the terrible suffering of psychosis. Should we judge and condemn the

sickness ofwhole societies, perhaps now even the impending sickness

ofthe society ofthe whole human race? Should we, at least, judge and

condemn those ofus who fail to try to treat the sickness ofhuman

society, those ofus who fail to try to make a better human reality?

75 ‘For the History ofthe World occupies a higher ground than that on which morality has

properly its position; which is personal character – the conscience ofindividuals – their

particular will and mode ofaction.’ G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History (fn. 3 above),

pp. 66–7. 76 ‘International law governs relations between independent States. The rules oflaw binding

upon States therefore emanate from their own free will as expressed in conventions or by

usages generally accepted as expressing principles oflaw and established in order to reg￾ulate the relations between these co-existing independent communities or with a view to

the achievement ofcommon aims. Restrictions upon the independence ofStates cannot

therefore be presumed.’ France v. Turkey (The Lotus), Permanent Court ofInternational

Justice, series A, no. 10 (1927), pp. 18–32, at p. 18. The view that international law is

simply an aspect ofpower relations is, ironically, known as ‘realism’. A locus classicus is

H. J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace (New York,

McGraw-Hill; 6th edn, 1985).

32 soc iety and law

Theory and Eutopia

1.61 In the light ofall that has been said above, we can at least identify

rather precisely the painful moral situation of anyone who does seek to

make a better human reality. The essence ofthat situation is that the

obvious means ofmaking a better human reality are not available.

(1) Religion, the sublime capacity ofhuman self-transcendence, is

not religion but religions. What seems like truth and moral certainty

seen from within a given religion may seem like madness from outside

that religion. For this reason, religions have proved to be a major part

ofthe problem ofhumanity’s inhumanity.

(2) Science and mathematics, which makes science possible, are the

greatest achievements ofthe human mind. But they are a realm ofmeans

without ends. The purposes to which the ideas and the practices and the

products ofscience may be put must be determined by other means,

through the activity ofother systems within the human mind. And the

abuse ofthe fruits ofscience is another major part ofthe problem of

humanity’s inhumanity.

(3) Philosophy, the sublime potentiality ofthe human mind to im￾prove its own functioning by means of its self-contemplating, has also

proved capable ofdisabling that capacity and ofassisting the mind in the

exercise ofits other power, the power to do great evil, and to convince

itselfthat, in so doing, it is doing good.

(4) The former intellectual class in society, ofthose who recognise a

social and moral responsibility to use the power ofthe mind for the im￾provement ofhuman reality, has been marginalised and has marginalised

itself, losing its self-confidence and even its self-consciousness in the

face ofthe terrible events ofthe twentieth century and the rise ofthe

overwhelming forces of mass-consciousness.

(5) The universities, the realm devoted to the study ofboth ends

and means, whose ideal function is to use the capacities of the human

mind to their limits in human self-knowing and self-creating, and to

convey that potentiality from generation to generation, have lost sight

of that function, becoming either efficient servants of imperious socio￾economic systems or else obsequious rationalisers ofthe social actual.

(6) The common sense ofthe human species, the better voice ofaccu￾mulated experience and self-evolutionary aspiration within each human

mind, has been overwhelmed by another human voice, speaking through