Liberty or Equality

CHAPTER IV DEMOCRACY AND MONARCHY

1. THE QUESTION

Mir ist das Volk zur Last:

   Meint es doch diess und das;

Weil es die Fürsten hasst,

   Denkt es, es wäre was.

The hatred for the monarchical principle has gone so far that people want to have four-part solos.

IN the last chapter we tried to make a critical approach to democracy. In the course of that analysis we pointed out several shortcomings of this form of government. These alleged defects are to be found either in the non-fulfilment of specific claims made by the supporters of this political doctrine, or in its intrinsic character.

We mentioned, moreover, certain qualities and needs of democratic parliamentary government which severely restrict its application to our civilization; and we have also tried to follow Don Sturzo’s warning not to separate history from philosophy. And, finally, we could not but hint at the various evolutionary processes—some of them due to extraneous forces, others emanating from the very nature of democracy—which tend to transform popular representative governments into the plebiscitarian tyrannies of our days.

Our accusations against democracy can be summarized in the following catalogue:

1.  Democracy—with the exception of direct democracy, practical on a minute scale only—is not “self-government.”

2.  It is emotional, at best irrational, and often anti-rational and anti-intellectual.

3.  It is corrupting in most of its implications and thus morally dangerous.

4.  It is wasteful from the point of view of the “human material.”

5.  It is historically closely bound up with the liberal heresy (“sectarian liberalism”), with the despair of the attainability of objective truth, and with the maladies of militarism, ethnic nationalism and racialism.

6.  It is, because of its egalitarianism, teleologically incompatible with liberty.

7.  It is the last step in the political evolution towards the modern form of tyranny.

8.  It prospers only with the support of strict, semi-totalitarian or totalitarian societies exercising control in the form of “horizontal pressure.”

9.  It is collectivistic and anti-personalistic.

10.  It failed for these and other reasons in Catholic Europe, and flourished in Protestant countries only.

To the full elucidation of the last-mentioned point we are devoting Chapter V of this study.

In the preceding part we have dealt with democracy in its classic sense as well as in its modern, popular formulation, which signifies representative mixed government based on majority rule, legal equality and the liberal tradition (the last an extraneous element). We will omit the comparison with the republic controlled by a hereditary aristocracy or a “closed oligarchy,” although such a form of government is, historically, by no means rare; the British monarchy after 1688, for instance, was in practice nothing but a camouflaged aristocratic republic.

2. THE ESSENCE OF MONARCHY

Monarchy seems to be the most natural sort of government, for whatever nature produces with more than one head is esteemed monstrous.

Some of the strength of the monarchical idea in Europe was derived from the circumstance that it stood for an institution which was at the same time social and political, and that it lent itself to an organic perpetuation. Francis Joseph, once asked in a moment of candour by Theodore Roosevelt what he considered to be the rôle of a monarch in the present day and age, replied: “To protect my nations from their governments!” Yet even greater importance has to be attributed to the fact that it fitted harmoniously into the general cultural picture.

The whole history of the rise of European civilization and culture is written in terms of the familistic affection for rulers, an attachment which has lasted in some countries right into the twentieth century. The Hungarian noblemen who shouted, after Maria Theresa’s passionate plea for help, Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresia!—“Let us die for our king, Maria Theresa”—(and meant it) have their successors in the citizens of Brussels who wept openly in the streets in September 1935 at the news that their Queen had died in an accident.*

Still, the fact remains that it took a long time until the familistic principle found expression in the political sphere. Monarchy was to Disraeli an institution of the highest evolutionary development. He said in his Coningsby (Book V, Chapter viii): “The tendency of an advanced civilization is in truth monarchy. Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilization. . . . An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of what is called a representative government.”

3. THE CARICATURE OF MONARCHY

Je suis né le vingt-sept septembre mil neuf cent trois, Sans Dieu sans maître sans roi ET SANS DROITS.

—E. L. T. MESENS, Troisième front (London, 1944)

If we incline to too much democracy, we shall soon shoot into monarchy.

Very revealing in this connection is the lecture delivered in 1919 by the Viennese Freudian psychoanalyst Dr. Paul Federn, in which he dealt intelligently with the reasons for the undeveloped “father complex” in the United States. His paper contains a survey of the relationship between the concept of fatherhood and the various political, sociological and religious concepts of Western society. The author admitted that the grave setback suffered by the patriarchal principle on account of the political revolutions in 1917 and 1918 was only incompletely repeated in the other spheres of human relations. He closed his lecture with the following remarks:

The growth of a new political order [i.e., the democratic republic] is indeed struggling with the greatest psychological handicaps. The patriarchal tendency is inherited and, as I have explained before, intimately connected with all personal ties, such as our relationships to the mother, the wife, the relatives, the paternal friends, occupation, property and labour, religion and ideology. . . .

. . . finally, even among those who have now emancipated themselves from the social father-son relationship, the basic attraction to it nevertheless remains so strong that they merely wait for the appearance of a new, similar person who corresponds to their father-ideal, and with whom they can enter into a new father-son relationship. This is also the reason why after the fall of monarchies republics have yielded with great regularity to the rule of a popular leader. . . .

In the U.S.S.R., where the last vestiges of a public opinion have been eliminated, the situation is, theoretically at least, different. Yet the perpetuation of personal tyranny in the democratic guise involves sanguinary struggles among eligible successors—purges, assassinations, conspiracies, trials. The “royalization” of the Leaders certainly lacks today its psychological props.

Though we have seen self-styled “personalists” acclaiming democracy enthusiastically, we doubt whether democracy with its horizontalism (and anti-verticalism), its necessary social controls and pressures, its operation with crowds, masses and parties, can lead us to a rebirth of personal values. Is a vertical pressure worse than a horizontal one—a governmental persecution, other things being equal, a lesser evil than social wrath? The simplest answer to this problem would be an empirical one. We have only to ask a prospective inmate of a jail whether he would prefer a prison with hostile warders to one with hostile fellow prisoners. We think that he would.

All these problems are, at the present moment, of greater importance for the Continent than for America. It seems that kings, queens (as depositaries of male lines), dictators and “strong men” are going to rule the Continental scene forever. Britain also must understand this hard fact, and not shirk this issue in spite of its psychological remoteness and strangeness. The question which truly liberal nations have to ask themselves is simply this: “In any given country, what form of government offers the relatively best guarantee for the preservation of a reasonable maximum of individual freedom?” Noel Busch wrote quite aptly, in an article about Queen Wilhelmina published by Life, about “that reverence which Europeans, when deprived of royalties, are likely to direct toward dictators or mere politicians.” The attitude of the grocer in Little Lord Fauntleroy towards royalty is therefore not necessarily conducive to liberty in the Old World.

4. MONARCHY COMPARED WITH DEMOCRACY

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes Titus or Marcus Aurelius; the people is often Nero, and never Marcus Aurelius.

—RlVAROL

We have to preface this section with the observation that the individual (as individual, not as person) is, in the historicopolitical perspective, practically powerless. We have said before that the democratic principle of “one man, one vote,” viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility.

And now to the points of comparison.

1. Monarchy is by its nature dissociated from party rule. Only in the “constitutional” (i.e., parliamentary) monarchy are royalist parties imaginable; yet in a sound, organic monarchy all parties accept the common monarchic denominator, and the opposition is thus “His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.”

Democracy is by nature party rule. The President (or Prime Minister) is a “party man.” He lacks originally—and often permanently—general backing.

2. The monarch is the political and social head of the nation. The President of the United States, on the other hand, is decidedly not a “social” leader, even though his wife figures—unofficially—as the “first lady.” The monarch can, unlike a republican leader, rule not only through the mechanism of the laws but also though his prestige—an “endogene” force.

4. The education which the ideal monarch can enjoy is not only intellectual, but also moral and spiritual. The democratic leader coming into power is always “unprepared.” It is the sudden or quick rise (especially if it is from obscurity) to fame and authority which turns the mind and upsets the balance of the careerist in a democracy. This corruption through power, naturally, is worse in a plebiscitarian dictatorship, where popularity combined with autocracy and lack of religious humility show the most devastating results. Grimmelshausen wrote:

Es ist kein Schwerdt, das schärffer schiert,
Als wann ein Baur zum Herren wird,

“The reception festivities are exquisitely arranged, and I honour them as expressions of our loyalty; but they are much too pompous. I am displeased by the accumulation of trophies, cannons and banners in front of the armoury and directly opposite my lodgings.

10. The monarchic principle is thus, as St. Thomas characterized it in his De regimine principum, a uniting, not a dividing principle.—Every election, on the other hand, is a solemn manifestation of division.

13. Monarchy more than any other form of government qualifies as “organic government,” i.e., a government which is “legitimate,” in the sense in which G. Ferrero uses this term, and “ideational” according to P. Sorokin’s terminology (see Note 442). The “organic” character was well described by the lines of Kipling:

“Ancient rights unnoticed
  As the breath we draw.”

Just because monarchy stresses the element of continuity, affection and religion, it will more easily assume an “organic” status than any other governmental variety.

19. Neither is there any need for flattering large parts of the population. Flattering the majority is the basic technique and art of governing political parties, as well as plebiscitarian tyrannies.

23. The monarch will be restrained in his actions by the thought of the integrity of his patrimony, which he intends to leave unimpaired to his son or any other heir. Rarely were the “great gamblers” legitimate monarchs. Democratic leadership knows of no such selfish scruples. Nevertheless, we have to take the subtly monarchical undercurrents in a republic into consideration. Again and again we see politicians who aspire toward a repetition of their careers by a son or a near relative; the latent patriarchalism of the masses supports this tendency, by voting members of the same family into power. In the United States we have seen two Adamses, two Harrisons and two Roosevelts as Presidents—and a third Roosevelt now beginning a political career; and Senator Taft probably owes at least some of his political influence to his Presidential father.

The average American’s difficulty to take monarchy seriously stems mostly from historic and geographic factors. His country is a Grossinsel, a Big Island protected by two Oceans, one Sea and the Arctic—not counting Canada or Mexico. But any Roman standing on the Palatine Hill and overlooking the Eternal City would see that this city has once been part of a monarchy, then of an aristocratic republic, then of a democratic and finally of a plutocratic republic followed by a military dictatorship, a Caesarian monarchy, a barbarian kingdom, a hierocracy, a kingdom, a republic, a kingdom and again of a republic. To him, or to an Athenian, forms of government such as monarchy or republic would neither imply “backwardness,” nor “modernity.” Where there is a king today in Athens there has been a democratic republic 2,300 years ago . . . a democratic republic which murdered Socrates and forced Aristotle into exile.

These facts are not quite obvious to Americans and they have difficulties in visualizing anything but an American Republic for the next 10,000 (or 20,000?) years. Yet if we had asked a Roman in the year 70 B.C. whether his country would soon be a monarchy he would have sounded a most hilarious protest. Wasn’t it the glory of Rome to have dispensed with such an Asiatic form of government? Ten years later Caesar loomed large on the Roman scene. And had we had the chance to repeat this conversation with a descendant of the same Roman in the year 280 A.D. he would have been unable to see the irony in our account. “Well, aren’t we still a republic,” he might have retorted. “We have a Senate. Of course we have also an Imperator, but that means ‘general’ and a general is not a monarch. We also call him princeps, but that means ‘first man’ and nothing else. Pronouncing Imperator like Emperor and Princeps in the way of Prince—well, these are just linguistics. The idea that we ever could become a monarchy is today as preposterous as 350 years ago.” Yet in 284 Diocletian became Roman Emperor. He was not another Vespasian who insisted on having it written on Capitol Hill that he had received his power from the people. The comedy had come to an end. Diocletian abolished the Senate, demanded Proskýnesis (prostration) and had himself adorned with a golden crown. Only now it was evident to all and sundry that the Republic had gone the way of all flesh.

 

 

 

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE

NEO-THOMISM AND THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY

I

We remember here the reaction of a German professor toward the magnificent structure of Thomism: ‘Ja, das ist sehr schön, aber das Leben ist nicht so!’

As we have already remarked, it is obvious that a writer trying to analyze a political or social phenomenon critically and methodically will be motivated by a more or less coherent philosophy. Since the point of view of the author deviates from the Neo-Thomist one, and this approach so strongly dominates the present-day philosophical scene of Catholic Britain and the United States, it is only fair to relieve the reader from the onerous task of guessing at or reconstructing the content of his philosophy.

We believe that the true significance of the work of St. Thomas is to be found in his effort to provide Catholic theology with a wonderful, logically consistent and, to a certain degree, even encyclopedic skeleton. The Summa, in particular, was written as a textbook—the most impressive and exhaustive textbook, perhaps, of all time. This fact has been overlooked by some of our Neo-Thomists, who are deeply in love with this skeleton and view all efforts to put living, warm flesh on it with suspicion and dismay. It has therefore been argued—and, we think, rightly so—that St. Thomas was not a Thomist.

The great Aquinate has striven primarily to elucidate objective reality, which must remain at all times the starting point and the dorsal spine of every true philosophy. The alternative, in its finality, is a rootless psychology, a vague sentimentalism, or absolute nihilism. Even those who treat the work of St. Thomas as an enormous cupboard with thousands of little drawers filled with replies—an inflexible theological and philosophical “Information, Please”—can rarely go entirely astray. (The simian ability to pull out the right little drawer within a fraction of a second has, by the way, often been considered to be the most important criterion of an accomplished scholastic philosopher.) The osteophilia of many of our Neo-Thomists, it is true, might prevent them from reaching the summits from which the final glories of knowledge and wisdom can be seen; but they will never lose themselves completely, either. But those toying with phenomenological approaches or with existential philosophy, especially if they dispense with the “skeleton,” face considerable risks.

II

“As a matter of fact,” Shatov declared, “if there is a revolution in Russia, it will have to start with the propagation of atheism.” An old, tough captain with grey hair sat and sat in silence, and did not breathe a word. All of a sudden he rose in the very middle of the room and, you know, said aloud just as if speaking to himself: “If there is no God, how can I then be a captain?” He took his cap, threw up his hands and left.

Whatever the distortions, misinterpretations and exaggerations of the Reformers and their theological epigones, it certainly would be rash to reject entirely the external evidence of the crude fact of an existing power. Such an attitude would be un-Scriptural. Neither would it be a sound procedure for a Catholic thinker to take, on principle, a point of view as remote as possible from a Protestant or any other non-Catholic position. Opposition for opposition’s sake would lead to curious results in matters theological; it is an attitude which would rather agree with a sect on the lunatic fringe than with members of the Church of Christ.

Since we believe that there are other will-powers in this universe besides that of God, we have a good right to view all actions and activities critically—to reflect, to speculate, to conform or oppose or resist. Thus it is evident that all power being exercised is subject to critical analysis by investigation of its purpose, its effects, the intentions of its exercisers. An exousia—regardless of whether we translate this Scriptural term as “authority” or “power”—has to have a positive relationship towards its purpose, the common good. To be theoú diákonos, “a servant of God,” it is necessary that a power be “reasonable,” i.e., ordained towards its natural end. A ruler in the possession of power, but misusing it by woefully harming the common good, is not a “helpmate of God” (leitourgós theoú) and thus has no claim to authority and to obedience. It can even be argued that power, well established and entrenched, claiming authority but methodically destroying the values of the common good, is diabolic in character. The satanic aspects of such government combining power (a divine attribute) with wickedness and irrationality are usually underscored by a quality of confusion; it rarely opposes the common good on all scores and in every respect, though its positive actions are often means to nefarious ends: for example, even maternity wards, recreational institutions and places of learning established by the state can be designed to build up armies intended for aggressive warfare.

Since rebellion is likely to evoke bloodshed, it is obvious that it is in the nature of a “last resort”; it becomes justified only if all peaceful societal and constitutional efforts have failed to provide a remedy for the situation. Still, we have to be careful not to fall into an arid legalism, nor to adopt a concept of the common good which is too wide or too narrow. Under ordinary circumstances it would be difficult to demonstrate a specific right (i.e., a possessive right) of the monarch to crown and kingship—which can hardly be treated as property. The case becomes less clear when the merits of a dynasty are related not only to services rendered, but also to the very creation of a nation. There would be an England even without the Hanovers and the Coburgs; but there would not be an Austria without the Habsburgs.

Neither has majority rule any theological value. The concept of a “larger and sounder part” of a nation (wielding authority over a “smaller and less sound part”?) makes little sense if we give to the expression “sounder” any wider or deeper meaning than the simple word “sane.” There is, we will admit, a certain Catholic political tradition which, banking on the phrase securus iudicat orbis terrarum—“the whole world is a safe judge”—has shown something we might call a “statistical optimism,” but we are unable to agree with it.

In the preceding paragraphs we have insisted that reason can only be applied to matters whose nature is understood. Yet the so-called “larger and sounder part” is usually delinquent in training its reason, while political knowledge is only in the rarest of all cases “adequate”—among the multitudes as well as among the magistrates. Actually, as we have pointed out, the gulf between the things known and the things which ought to be known is constantly widening, thus necessitating judgment in the absence of knowledge—an action which necessarily results in emotionalism; and, if multitudes are called to judgment and action, an irrational mass emotionalism which is plainly of an animal nature is bound to follow. When the present author and his wife first arrived in the United States in 1937 the New Deal was still the question of the day. After collecting data on the question and working feverishly for a couple of weeks on the available material, we gave up, realizing that a study enabling us to arrive at any rational judgment would take several months. We estimated then that only a few thousand Americans could possibly be in a position to make a sound judgment on this economic policy; yet at least seventy million Americans (voters and non-voters alike) had the strongest possible convictions on it. These vast masses also lacked any deeper insight into the minds, intellects and mentalities of their representatives who had to deal with this subject in legislation—men whom to all practical purposes they did not know at all, often not even their names, faces or professed views!

The majority principle has been evoked by some Catholics by referring to papal elections. Yet in this case we certainly find no transference of authority at all, but a designatory act pure and simple. The modalities of the conclave are mere laws of the Church; theoretically, a papal dynasty would be possible, though probably not desirable. And just as papal authority is in no way transferred from God via the College of Cardinals, we do not have much reason to believe that the procedure in civil society should be a different one.

It is, moreover, obvious that a repeated act of designation takes place only in specific forms of government, not in all. (The intervals between these acts of designation or election are entirely arbitrary. “More democracy” would mean smaller and smaller intervals.) In a hereditary monarchy without plebiscites or elections, even the passive support of the population remains an unexpressed secret and a mystery.

The practical difficulties of the Catholic supporters of the thesis of popular sovereignty (entirely based on the concept of God as the original source of authority) are so many that the principle of a possible designation seems to us more logical. The latter actually has a stronger case, because it enjoys the support of papal authority—not of a dogma pronounced solemnly ex cathedra, but still of an encyclical and a papal letter. These documents merit, to say the least, a Catholic’s filial respect, attention and consideration. We refer to Leo XIII’s encyclical Diuturnum illud and to Pope Pius X’s letter condemning the Sillon movement. The encyclical says:

Indeed very many in recent days, following in the footsteps of those in the preceding century who called themselves “philosophers,” say that all power comes from the people; wherefore they say that those who exercise it in the state do not exercise it as their own, but as given to them by the people, and on this condition, that the people, by which it is given, may recall it at their pleasure. With these, however, Catholics disagree, for they derive the power to rule from God, as from a natural and necessary principle. . . .

Pius X is equally clear and explicit, leaving in our mind no doubt as to the meaning of the encyclical of his predecessor, to which he expressly alludes:

To the citizen (or subjectl), the problem of authority—and obedience also—has, in the practical field, strongly personal aspects of a somewhat existentialist nature. The “internal evidence,” in spite of its rational character, is not always immediately recognizable. The magistrate’s intentions preceding every “plan” are of a hidden nature. The difficulties in appraising the “internal evidence” are often considerable, and we must admit that flagrant and persistent violation of the common good is manifest only in the more extreme cases. Owing to man’s imperfection the total of “internal evidence” will always be an approximation, and never achieve objective perfection. Every analyst must most carefully take into consideration two imperfections—his own and that of the matter under review.

It may, perhaps, not be unwise to illustrate our thesis. At first, let us describe a simple case. A steamer is about to sink, and the passengers fight madly for the lifeboats. The officers of the ship have lost their heads. Yet one of the passengers draws a revolver, and with the help of this weapon and a stentorian voice is able to establish order and give directions. The passengers, thwarted in their immediate desires, resent him; but, fearful of his weapon, obey him. Has he authority? Certainly. He has power. He uses it for the common good. He enjoys no popularity. There is no contract between him and the other passengers. And still, he should be obeyed. Nor is it a refutation to say that this is an emergency. Life is emergency.

The only argument our revolutionary-minded Royalist could have put forward is a firm belief that the Bonapartist régime, by its very existence, was opposed to very important immaterial values—continuity, tradition, loyalty, legality. In other words—he had to be convinced that Bonapartism would make France lose her “soul,” and that all the horrors of a revolution would be a small price to be paid for a restoration (or “liberation”). Actually, we think, such a calculation would have been materially and historically wrong; but this does not obviate the possibility that a person earnestly consulting his conscience would come to a different conclusion. The final decisions always rest with the individual.

It is admittedly easy to theorize about rebellion; but we face here more than in other matters the complexities of individual conscience. To the opponent of the theory of popular sovereignty (either in its Roussellian or in its Bellarminian form) there is no philosophical connection between rebellion and public opinion. Ninety-nine per cent of a population might be blissfully happy under a tyranny based on the torture and exploitation of one per cent. Their sadistic instincts could be fully satisfied by the sufferings of a few fellow citizens.

It also ought to be clear to all participants in a rebellion that the elimination of traditional political institutions, especially if they enjoy “organic” status, are dangerous operations on the “body” of political psychology. After 1789—or rather, 1792—France never found her political equilibrium again; and her psychological recovery is today more remote than ever. Traditions which have slowly grown and finally achieved organic status—institutions which are generally considered to be integral parts of a cultural pattern—should not be lightly sacrificed if they undergo a crisis, or even though they may be useless or oppressive for the moment. The violent destruction of institutions in an impasse has brought untold harm to the world. The purely historical argument against revolutions is fairly strong; the balance-sheets of all revolutions and civil wars prove this conclusively. Whatever minor positive results the French Revolution may have had, the gifts of neo-nationalism, totalitarianism and conscription alone far outweigh these gains . . . not to mention the direct sufferings and the far-reaching political, spiritual and intellectual consequences.

All these decisions lie with the individual, whom theology cannot provide in all situations with an elaborate and infallible casuistry. And here we face, finally, a mere fragment of that terrible responsibility which all of us have, not only towards ourselves and our kin, but also towards that seemingly never ending process affecting mankind with all its pitiless forces—that great drama of which God is the everlasting spectator—history.

 

* The present anti-Leopoldism in Belgium—a sentiment of a predominantly non-republican character—has its deeper roots in the King’s remarriage. The rebellion is directed against a “stepmother” who, to make matters worse, is a “sister”—a commoner—and not a “mother” in any way. She could never replace notre bonne reine Astrid. Actually during the campaign for the plebiscite in 1950 the Socialists let the cat out of the bag by printing a poster with the picture of Queen Astrid in a black frame. Nous VOTERONS “NON”, said the text simply. A monarchy involves all the troubles, problems and joys of family life, on a large and public scale.