Intellectuals and Power

A scholar from whom I much profited while writing the introduction to my volume on the history of freedom of speech was J.G.A. Pocock, especially articles on the problematic nature of the concepts of "Europe" and "the West" generally. As Pocock wrote in the article "Some Europes and Their History," Europe is a word used to denote "a great many things that are important in human experience." It was in another work, Pocock's multivolume study of Edward Gibbon, however, that I came across an interesting quote: "Power and philosophy seek each other." It comes from the book Utopia and Reform by the Italian historian Franco Venturi. Recently I got Venturi's volume out of the library and read it in several sittings, finally finding the quote in the last chapter. I will say more about this work in succeeding postings, but I wanted to mention something today because it sheds some light on why Goethe chose to stay in Weimar.

Venturi's starting point, as the title indicates, was the perceived need, beginning in the early 18th century, for a solution to a felt political crisis. The absolutist states, with their desire for expansion and power, were placing intolerable burdens on the population and on the functions of government, while the still existing independent republics had insurmountable problems of their own. As Venturi writes, ideas of reform and utopia were linked by the attempt to modify aspects of society inherited from the past and to bring about practical change. The absolutist governments of Prussia, the Hapsburgs, and Russia were in this sense top-down reformist. Catherine the Great, for instance, ordered the translation of Western works in the 1760s. There was, as Venturi writes, a "determination to change things," which derived from a common language and center in France, in particular the writings of the Encyclopedie circle.

In this reform of existing institutions, the philosophes, according to Venturi, were asking to be allowed to act as guides: "Everywhere in Europe, one finds this pretension, this determination to lead and guide society." I will try not to get ahead of myself -- by the 1770s, especially in France, reform of existing institutions had been abandoned in favor of a total transformation -- and now turn to Goethe.

Goethe went to Weimar in 1775, as the Duke's guest, and initially played a role that fit in with the cultural policies of Anna Amalia. Weimar was becoming a literary center, one of the most important signs of which was the Teutscher Merkur, established by Wieland. Still, Weimar was remote and backward, even in comparison with Goethe's native Frankfurt. Moreover, as is well known, the first decade in Weimar was a backwards step in Goethe's literary production, something Goethe himself acknowledged by fleeing to Rome in 1786.

His reasons for remaining in Weimar touch on the very issues that Venturi mentions. In "enlightened Europe" of the 1760s and 1770s, the new intelligensia became conscious of its own strength in "speaking truth to power." Indeed, Goethe's Sturm und Drang works might be said to voice these challenges to traditional authority -- church, state, or otherwise. Within Goethe's first year in Weimar, Carl August had appointed him as one of his privy councilors. Did it seem to Goethe that he might be able to help transform a small, impoverished duchy through "enlightened" reforms?

Nicholas Boyle, the most recent biographer of Goethe, thinks so. As he writes: "Weimar offered him an entrée to the court life that he had hitherto seen only briefly and from outside, and like any other autocracy, untrammeled by constitutions and traditions, it offered to young, ambitious, and gifted men the prospect of far more rapid advancement in the exercise of administrative power than could be hoped for in the cautious city-states, where promotion came essentially only with age ... Goethe saw in Weimar's offer the possibility of doing something -- perhaps even useful to his fellow men ... certainly of fulfilling the ambitions that his father had had perforce to renounce when the door closed on his own political career."

In the end, the experiment failed, and in 1785 Goethe withdrew from his governing duties and ended his political career. His one success at "reform" seems to have been in helping the Duke to subdue, according to Boyle, "both the martinet and the playboy within" and making of him "a benevolent despot." In this respect, Goethe was more successful than Voltaire had been with Frederick the Great. (See Lytton Strachey's entertaining account of that relationship.) Power and philosophy sought each other, to paraphrase Venturi, and the result was disillusion on both sides.

Picture credits: Felix Petruska; Helmut Roewer; Roger Payne

Goethe on Schwanau

I came across this charming postcard on the Goethezeit-Portal website. The date on the card would seem to refer to a visit by Goethe on the island of Schwanau on July 17, 1775. The visit would have occurred on his return from the so-called first Swiss journey, which Goethe undertook from Frankfurt with the Stolberg brothers in May of 1775. Goethe was supposedly fleeing from the pressure of his amorous entanglement with Lili Schönemann. The poem "Auf dem See," recording an outing on Lake Zurich, recalls this relationship. (Here a translation by the singer Tomoko Yamamoto.) While in Zurich he stayed with Lavater, who introduced him to some of the local eminences, including the now aged Bodmer. Though Goethe had dreamed for years of making a journey to Italy, he went only as far as the Gotthard Pass, which he reached on June 23.


I have looked through all of my reference books and can find no indication that Goethe was actually on Schwanau, a small island in Lake Lauerz. There is today an inn on the island that has a "Goethe-Stube" that can accommodate (according to the inn's website) 30 guests. As can be seen in the photo above, the room, with its windows and ceiling, looks just like the one in the postcard.

Goethe's visits to even the most obscure locations are pretty well documented. For instance, a year earlier, in July 1774, Goethe made an excursion on the Rhine and the Lahn with Lavater and Basedow. According to the plaque picture on the postcard, Goethe and his companions left their ship and had a "Mittagsmahl" at the "Wirtshaus an der Lahn" near Coblenz.

It was already fashionable in the 18th century to travel in the footsteps of beloved authors. In 1791, for instance, Friederike Brun visited another Swiss island, the Isle of Saint-Pierre on Lake Biel. It was made famous by Rousseau, who described his idyll there in 1765 in the fifth promenade of Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Rousseau, when the lake was not calm for rowing, liked to find a charming, isolated nook, where he could dream undisturbed and where the view, he wrote, was limited only by the distant range of mountains. After enjoying lunch in the humble room in which Rousseau stayed, Brun, in a nice inversion, refers to the prospect outside the window, hemmed in by the peaks of glaciers: "The view is limited, but vast for the imagination." The title of one of her poems gives an idea of her sentimental itinerary: "Die Insel auf dem Bielersee (An Rousseaus Schatten)."

So, the visit to Schwanau remains mysterious. Maybe someone reading this has information on the visit there?

Indexing

One of the things that kept me busy last month was the task of indexing my book. Indexes are one of the arcana of scholarship, along with footnotes. In most cases today the footnote has lost its former position at the bottom of the page of text and has been relegated to the back of the book, thus becoming an "endnote." The footnote has even been the subject of an impressive academic study by Anthony Grafton, who specializes in the arcana of scholarship. According to Grafton (this is a quote from a review of The Footnote: A Curious History), the footnote is "critical to the scientific nature of historical writing and therefore reflects both the ideology and technical practices of the craft. The footnote confers 'proof' that the historian has visited the appropriate archives, dusted off the necessary documents, and consulted and exhausted the secondary literature. It is, in short, a badge of legitimacy." Okay.

I have not yet come across a scholarly study of the index, but it too has a history. The most famous index is of course "the Index," the list of books prohibited by the Catholic Church. I was raised Catholic in the years before Vatican II so the Index was not an unfamiliar term to me as a child. I didn't associate it with Descartes or Galileo but with certain scandalous movies.

In contemporary publishing of course the index is not a separate entity, but goes to the back of the book. I am certain that everyone reading this knows what an index is. Suffice it for me to say that the index has received literary treatment. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle includes a character who is an indexer who claims (I am taking this from Wikipedia) to be able to read an indexer's character through the index. I look forward to hearing what people think of my index. I have prepared indexes before -- I had a career in scholarly publishing before turning scholarly myself -- but this one was a hair tearing-out experience. Had I read Cat's Cradle I might have taken the indexer's advice never to index one's own book. Nevertheless, the work made me appreciate even more the general excellence of the book. Perhaps a reviewer will even note the excellent index!

There is a parody of an index in Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, reflecting the narrator's insanity. A final literary example is the novel House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, which, among other unconventional attributes, includes a 200-page index of words in the novel. The Guardian reviewer called it "a satire of academic criticism." Well, at 709 pages, I am unlikely to read it.

Picture credits: Indianetzone; Avesta Archives

Catching up, a bit

I have fallen behind in my posting. Overload is the only way to describe the past couple of months, not least because of health issues involving my husband. We persevere.

Another bit of overload was preparation for my talk at the New York Public Library, which actually went swimmingly. It took place at 1:30 of a Thursday afternoon, and there was a very large crowd. My aim was to demonstrate how current anxieties regarding speech have their origins in the 18th century. For instance, people worried back then not only about offending the feelings of what were considered the "disadvantaged," but there was also the tendency to categorize non-Europeans as large ethnic or racial groups, thus effacing the differences among individuals. This tendency, I would suggest, is part of the "universalizing" narrative of the Enlightenment, whereby we are all "humans," rather than individuals affected by history, tradition, custom, convention, etc. In fact, it is all those historical and traditional traces that one must jettison in order to be "enlightened."

Thus, even some of the most "advanced" thinkers of the Enlightenment, those men Jonathan Israel (a contributor to my book) has referred to as belonging to the "radical Enlightenment," had reservations about "public opinion." They argued for the freedom to publish and to voice their own opinions, of course, which they believed would lead to the discovery of what they called "truth." Truth, however, is not the standard of modern liberal societies, where the free flow of information and opinion drives material progress.

It is not their fault that they could not foresee the advent of a garrulous public square. Among the philosophes, I believe it was only Rousseau who saw this coming. He was very uncomfortable with dissent and disagreement. His solution was to suggest that we all give up our opinions to a "General Will," which we arrive at by avoiding the opinions of others and listening instead to "the voice of duty."

You can imagine that the subject of my talk could have been somewhat arcane for a non-academic crowd, but I livened it up with a remarkable visual presentation. The Mac has its own version of Power Point, which offers some really wonderful effects. I don't think a single person fell asleep.

It's Entertainment!

Various matters have kept me from posting lately, but I saw something this morning that seemed to require comment, especially since I have posted on this subject already, namely, the Alexander McQueen exhibition. In fact, I have posted on it twice.

I live on the West Side of Manhattan, directly across Central Park from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since I am there frequently, I saw the McQueen show early on, when it was still possible to view it without much of a wait. Something about the exhibition really caught on, however, and gradually the lines began to lengthen. If you go to this link, the exhibition space for McQueen is the orange area at the top on the second floor.

The lines for the show soon snaked out down that narrow hallway parallel to the 19th-century galleries (in light purple on the map). They then began to extend further, making a 45 degree turn and continuing through the Ancient Near Eastern galleries (the part that is indicated by blank space above the three green rooms, 175, 174, 173), all the way to the Great Balcony (which you can see labeled on the map). It wasn't long before the lines went down the Great Staircase itself and down into the rotunda of the museum. This morning, as can be seen in the above photo, the lines are now outside the museum and snaking around the back up to the east drive of Central Park. One of the guards told me people had started lining up at 6 a.m. The museum will be open until midnight tonight and tomorrow.

So, why did this exhibit catch on? Well, I am not going to spend much time analyzing it. As I wrote earlier, novelty has much to do with the crowds. Novelty produces a certain desperation; people don't want to think they missed something new. Of course, we are an age saturated with the continuous production of the new. In fact, the brightest minds of the generation under 50 years of age are engaged in producing entertainment. I'm not immune to good entertainment. Though I don't have a TV, I gladly watch Burn Notice on my iMac.

McQueen, whatever one thinks of his couture creations, was highly gifted, though the "vision" thing was a little offputting to me. I remember saying to myself as I looked at some of the clothes: "I can see why this guy committed suicide." Very morbid mind. (See example above. Amazingly the collection is called "ready to wear.") It is probably this morbidity that also drives people to the show. We want to see extreme things. Maybe because we are banned from extremities in our speech. Being honest nowadays, after all, is often called hate speech. Politeness has been expunged by McQueen.

All that is novel passes. According to the Drudge Report yesterday, the most recent episode of Jersey Shore was a "bust": only 9 million viewers! (Full disclosure: I have never seen it.) Will people talk about Alexander McQueen a year from now? Or will they only talk about the fact that they stood in line for two hours?

Photo credits: Wall Street Journal online; Oodora; NJ.com

Birth of "the modern liberal state"

The phrase in quotes above is from the very end of Rory Muir's review (in the July 1 Times Literary Supplement) of several new publications (re)evaluating military strategy of the Napoleonic era. In his summation of the five books under review, he mentions the "diversity" of those who fought against Napoleon: the rank-and-file British soldiers under Wellington; the peasants and ordinary people, especially in Spain, who took to the hills to resist the French; the Austrian Joseph Radetzky and his polyglot army; and Clausewitz and the Prussian officer corps. Thus, the portrait here of a Cameron piper urging on the Highland Line at the Battle of Waterloo. And, Muir writes, "it was this very diversity that was at stake in a struggle to preserve local traditions and differences in the face of an intrusive modernizing government that was intervening to an unprecedented extent in areas of life and belief that had hitherto been private."

In the end, the battle was won -- Waterloo -- but the war was lost. As Muir writes, the battle was won only by copying Napoleon's methods: "Income tax, conscription and the gendarmerie became permanent fixtures of European life. The modern liberal state was here to stay."
At a glance, I can't quite see what income taxes, conscription, and the gendarmerie have to do with the "liberal state," which for most us probably rests principally on the rights and freedoms guaranteed by law. It is true, however, that modern law is "universal" and, indeed, in its application is by its very nature contemptuous of local traditions. For instance, all men (make that "humans") are "equal." The insistence on equality means that all of us must be reduced to the same common denominator, without allowance for local sentiments, traditions, and the like.

But our so-called liberal values and rights are not "universal." I agree with the postmodernists in this respect. Those values and rights have been historically achieved, the outcome of centuries of attempts by peoples all over western Europe to carve out different realms of freedom for themselves: to own businesses, to make a profit, to worship as they chose, to exchange cultural and scientific information, to pay less in taxes, to hold the powerful accountable. And it was the intercourse among all these different peoples that gradually produced, by the beginning of the 19th century, a very similar way of life among the elites and well-to-do of these different cultures and the belief among them that their way of life was "natural." And, so, though they were products of different cultures, they all ended up producing legal systems that protected this way of life.

Clearly, there is something about "Western" institutions that is attractive, especially to people from nations inimical to individual rights, but one should not think that there is anything "natural" about these institutions. As I point out in the introduction to my new book on the history of freedom of speech, our values seem natural to us, because they are "our" values. And because they are "ours," a legacy from previous generations, they should be cherished like any precious object that we inherit from our forefathers and foremothers.

When I was doing research for my introduction, I came across an interesting quote from the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham. His response to the doctrine of natural rights was that it was, "from beginning to end so much flat assertion." Islam, after all, also claims universality for its doctrines, and its adherents believe these are self-evident. For instance, the women above probably believe it is natural to be fully covered at all times, even in 104 degree heat. Or maybe 120 in Afghanistan. But Islam and other world religions are also powerful traditional and institutional entities. The current "return of religion" does not necessarily indicate revanchism, as some claim; rather, it affirms the power of institutions and traditions, not just religious, but also social, political, cultural, and so on.

Thus, the modern liberal state and the values it enshrines are not merely an abstract construct, but, in a multicultural world, represent an authentic cultural product, one that is the work of generations. Knowledge of how this product was created -- and imparting that knowledge is the aim of my book -- will also help us to preserve it.

Manhattan circumnavigation

The past week has been busy with reading proofs for my new book, communicating with the contributors to the volume, and, now, getting ready to prepare the index. Still, it has not been all work. Last Saturday I went on a kayak circumnavigation of Manhattan. The photo at the top shows part of our group launching from Pier 40 in Manhattan in the early a.m. That's my friend Rose in front, with whom I often kayak, and New Jersey across the Hudson River in the background. And the glorious photograph and the others below (including one of myself) is by kayaking pal David Gottlieb, who is also a photographer extraordinaire. Last year I did another circumnav, and David's photos were just as splendid. I wish I could take pictures like that myself, but I've learned my lesson. Last year, landing at South Beach on Staten Island, my kayak was caught in a rip current and turned over, drenching me and everything that was not in the hatch, which included my non-waterproof camera.

Kayaking is something I only got involved in about six years ago, and there is no way I will ever reach beyond my current BCU2 level. I simply don't have the time, and, if I had my druthers, I would really prefer to spend lazy afternoons on a lake or lazily paddling down a quiet river, as in the small figure in the painting here, which I saw in Chelsea this spring -- and, unforgivably, I don't know the name of the German painter. I will find it, however, and correct the omission, but suffice it to say at the moment that the river in question in the Fulda.

Paddling in an urban area like Manhattan, however, you get kind of tough and macho and push yourself to newer feats. Last year, several of us paddled to the Verrazano Bridge and beyond, hoping to land at Swinburne Island, but at a certain point past Staten Island you start to feel you are really in the ocean, and there was no way we were able to put in on the island. That's when we turned back and landed instead on South Beach, where I had my encounter with the rip current. This year, my goal is to paddle north to the Tappan Zee Bridge, about a forty-mile paddle. The trip has to be timed to catch the currents right, and what makes the trip more unpredictable in summer is that, even if you have the current on your return -- and the ebb current is really stronger in the Hudson than the flood -- you are likely to encounter south winds, which means you can face gigantic swells.

That's what happened on the circumnav on Saturday. According to Phil, another kayak buddy who keeps a track of these things by GPS, we covered 30.1 statute miles, with an average speed of 4.7 mph -- and a maximum speed of 9.6 mph. All was well through the 27-mile mark, but at 125th Street, about a mile south of the George Washington Bridge, we crashed into strong south winds that pushed three- to five-foot swells against the current. The picture below gives an idea of how rough the river was.

Before those swells set in, however, there were sights to see, and even a break at Hallets Cove in Queens. By the way, I should add that I have fond memories of Pier 40, where we launched at 7 a.m. on Saturday. Pier 40 was where, as a girl of eighteen, I caught a ship of the Holland-American Line, for my first trip to Europe. I had come to New York, where I actually stayed in a hotel by myself. I had a friend from college, with whom I had gone to see a Broadway play the night before, Oliver! The next morning, leaving my hotel, I caught a cab and told the driver, "Pier 40." It was like saying, "Grand Central Station." Everyone knew what Pier 40 meant, and I often think of that first European trip when I bike past Pier 40. The ocean liners don't berth there anymore, but it is the site of various boating activities, including the Downtown Boathouse, where I am a volunteer.

UPDATE (9/9/11): The painting above of a kayaker on the Fulda River in Germany is by Silke SchÖner, whose exhibition I visited back in May at the Dillon Gallery in Manhattan. Sometimes it helps to clean off one's desk.