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THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY

I. A CLASH IN IDEALS

A CHALLENGE TO THE DEMOCRATIC PRIN

CIPLE

HUGO MUNSTERBERG

[From The Standing of Scholarship in America, 1909]

Behind all of it [i.e., the American "distortion of values"] stands a characteristic view of life, a kind of philosophy which is on the whole vaguely felt, but which not seldom even comes to definite expression. Whenever it becomes shaped in such definite form, it is proclaimed, not as a debatable proposition, and not as an argument which is upheld against any possible opposition, but it is always naïvely upheld as a matterof-course principle. This naïve philosophizing crystallizes about the one idea that the end of all social striving is to be the happiness of individuals. Now, this is exactly the well-meaning philosophy of the eighteenth century, the philosophy of enlightenment. It is a philosophy which formed the background of all the social movements of that important period, and was therefore the philosophy out of which the constitution of the United States naturally arose.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number of individuals is indeed the social ideal which, outspoken or not, controls the best forward movements of the country. It seems to stand above the need of any defense, as it evidently raises itself above the low selfishness of the masses. He who works for the pleasures of millions must be in the right, because those who think only of their own pleasures are certainly in the wrong....

But the history of civilization shows that such philosophy is by no means a matter of course; it is a particular aspect seen from a particular standpoint. Other periods, other nations, have seen the world from other standpoints, and have emphasized other aspects of reality. In a bird's-eye view we see throughout the history of mankind the fluctuations and alterations between positivism

and idealism. The philosophy of enlightenment is positivism. It is true, in the trivial talk of the street, we call a man an idealist if he does not think of his personal profit, but of the pleasure of his neighbors. But, in a higher sense of the word, such unselfish altruism does not constitute an idealistic view of the world. On the contrary, it may have all the earmarks of positivism.

We have positivism wherever the concrete experiences-and that means that which "is" -make up the whole of reality. We have idealism where the view of the world is controlled by a belief in absolute values for which there is no "is", but only an "ought"; which have not the character of concrete experiences, but the meaning of obligations which are to be fulfilled, not in the interests of individuals, but on account of their absolute value. For the positivist, knowledge and truth and beauty and progress and morality have meaning merely in so far as they contribute to the concrete experiences of satisfaction in existing individuals: for the idealist, they represent ideals, the realization of which gives meaning to individual life, but is eternally valuable independently of the question whether their fulfillment contributes to the pleasure of individuals. From such an idealistic point of view it seems shallow and meaningless to see the end of striving in a larger amount of individual happiness. The purpose of man is to do his duty, -not to be pleased.

THE MIND OF GERMANY

JOHN DEWEY

[From On Understanding the Mind of Germany, 1916]

In contrast to the fiction of a complete rupture between the older and the present German thought, Professor Francke speaks words of soberness and truth in his article in the Atlantic Monthly for October, when he argues for the essential conti

nuity of German mind in the imperial Germany of the present and the cosmopolitan Germany of Kant, Schiller, and Goethe, and makes his appeal to Fichte and Hegel instead of to Nietsche.

Continuity, observe; not identity. Continuity permits of development, even of transformation. Continuity may be understood from either end. We may employ the earlier stage to interpret the later; we may employ the later to appreciate and understand the earlier. Thus it is that the fact of continuity may seem to some the condemnation of the classic philosophy; to others the justification of the present mind of Germany. We are on safer ground when we ask after the ideas which have conferred continuity upon the German moral consciousness, and ask what changes of color they have undergone in the century between Jena and Liège.

I find nothing to subtract from the formulæ of Professor, Francke. Unconditional submission to duty, salvation through ceaseless striving of will, the moral mission of æsthetic culture so far as they go, these seem to me the ideas which have formed the continuing mind of Germany. If anything is to be added, it is an idea which in no way conflicts with the three ideas cited. It is the idea of historicism-to employ an expressive if barbarous locution. As for prescnt purposes it makes no difference whether one connects the idea with Herder, or with Lessing, or with Fichte (in his later period) and Hegel. By historicism I mean the notion of an Ideal, a Mission, a Destiny which can be found continuously unfolding in the life of a people (at least of the German people), in whose light the events which happen are to be understood, and by faithfulness to which a people stands condemned or justified.

This fourth conception is not, however, so much an addition to the other three factors as it is an expression of the way in which they are to be understood. For during the nineteenth century the ideas which were first applied to individuals were transferred to the state itself as an individual, and so gained a new meaning. The transfer is obIvious in the case of the Kantian idea of duty. With Kant duty marked a connecting link between the individual and humanity; it expressed what was truly human and thus universal in man. But "humanity" is not yet organized. There are no social institutions in which humanity, as distinct from

local or national citizenship, is embodied. It expresses a mere rational ideal; something which is not realized, though it ought to be.. Consequently Kant himself proclaimed that while men are to act from the motive of duty, duty is an empty notion. It has to get its filling, its specific subjectmatter, from empirical circumstance.

This may sound like a mere philosophical technicality. But it turned out otherwise. Kant thought of duty as a command; as, in his own words, an imperative. The essence of morality is obedience. That Kant thought of it as obedience to an abstract law of reason representing an ideal of an unrealized humanity, is evidence of his own noble aspirations. But human beings at large can hardly guide themselves by such remote abstractions. An identification of the essence of morality with obedience to law lends itself to an implicit acquiescence in whatever laws happen to impinge upon the individual. The modern age inherited from medieval thought the notion of morality as obedience to a sovereign command. As late as the seventeenth century, the central question of all political moral theory, even in England, was the legitimacy of resistance to constituted authority. In the eighteenth century, thought in England and France moved away from the medieval notion of obedience as central in morals. Kant was a means to fastening the idea upon German thought. The fact that he gave the idea a singularly elevated tone was just what enabled the idea to survive against the forces which everywhere else had undermined the identification of morality with obedience to the command of authority.

The merging of the idea of moral obligation into that of political obedience was furthered by the Germanic exaltation of the state. When the authority which demands acquiescent obedience is thought of as "the manifestation of the divine upon earth"; when, as in Professor Francke's words, the state is thought of as "an organism uniting in itself all spiritual and moral aspirations," it is only too easy to identify moral duty with political subservience. The ideal of a collective nation embodying a divine purpose in its historic development took captive the Kantian idea of duty; it replaced the endeavor of the isolated individual to realize in his own humble sphere the ideal of a law as broad as humanity. A cosmopolitan ideal, evolved in an agricultural, quasi-feudal,

weak, and divided Germany, became an intensely nationalistic reality in a united, imperialistic, industrial, and prosperous Germany. Thus I think that Professor Francke is entirely right in saying that in the Germanic exaltation of the state as a supreme ethical entity, the line of moral regeneration which took its start from Kant reached its climax. But there are also opportunities for degeneration when moral obligation is found in political subordination and subservience.

At all events, the fact that German thought still entertains a type of moral conception which has well-nigh evaporated in the cultures of other modern nationalities, throws light on the difficulties the nonGerman world has in understanding the language in which intellectual Germans formulate their ideas and justify their practical policies. The Germans are always saying that the American lack of sympathy with the German cause is due to the fact that we get our information from British sources, and hence do not understand the Germans. Well, it is not a matter of the source of our information, but of the source of our ideas. And it is not a matter of the past year or the past twenty years. For over two hundred years our minds have been educated in English political ideas to which German thought is foreign; for over a hundred years, our ideas have been fed upon an even more disparate social philosophy, that of the French struggle for liberté. There can be no disguising the fact that our American conception of Freedom is incompatible with the idea of duty as that has developed in Germany. I make no attempt to decide which is right. I only say that they are so incompatible that minds nourished on one ideal cannot readily understand the type of mind nurtured by the other.

The second element in the continuous tradition of Germany is said to be the ideal of ceaseless, restless striving. The gospel of the strenuous life, of the value of energy of will for its own sake, has sometimes been thought to be peculiarly American. I think Professor Francke is right in believing it to be distinctively German. An American must after all have an end to call out and center his activities. Results are needed to justify an activity. Otherwise his restless striving, his taut energy, becomes neurasthenic. I fear we are not sufficiently particular as to the character of the end or the quality of the results. Almost anything will do, from win

ning a ball game, or forming the biggest business corporation in the world, to converting a community to Billy Sundayism. But some end there must be to account for the expenditure of energy. Otherwise the cult of will never lays hold of us. Consequently, when we find the example of Emperor William cited as a "particularly conspicuous evidence of this spirit of striving," as an example of "universal and impassioned impulse of achievement," our reaction is cynical rather than admiring. That, we say to ourselves, is just about the sort of example we should expect to find. We have difficulty in understanding it as other than a semi-pathological love of the lime-light. We may be wrong, but we cannot, it must be admitted, understand how and why we are wrong. For it is ingrained in us that some end there must be for energy which is exercised. Towards activity merely as ceaseless striving we react in what is perhaps our most characteristic national slang: Give us a rest.

To the German, on the other hand, this inability of ours is another evidence of our utilitarianism, our Philistine culture. But even Germans recognize, I think, that this idea of universal striving as an end in itself is a child of Romanticism. Similarity of words is often a bar to mutual understanding. The Germans say Wille; we say will. Hence the easy assumption of a community of meaning. But our word is affected (or infected, if you please) with the spirit of a Puritanic morality, and of struggle for political liberties and economic savings. The word suggests personal resolution and endurance in the face of disagreeable odds. But Wille suggests an impersonal, an absolute energy striving through personal channels for manifestation. It is affected by the Romantic movement. The conception is calculated to impart a tinge of enthusiasm to deeds otherwise prosaic; it colors with emotional universality (or mysticism) the specific jobs which have to be done. But it also is admirably calculated to serve as a protective moral device. Activities which are "all too human," activities which have a definite practical goal of advantage in view, seem to lose all taint of self-seeking and to gain a sacred character when they are felt to be manifestations of a universal Overwill. Materialistic things look quite different when they are viewed as the necessary consequences of an idealistic devotion to the gospel of ceaseless striving; when they are

looked upon as the conquest of spiritual will over matter. The doctrine lends itself, assuredly, to intellectual confusion and to selfdeception.

Moreover, this conception has also been invaded by the nationalistic idea-by the conception of the German state as a peculiar incarnation of a spiritual force unfolding in history. The older Romanticism was at least confined to superior personalities striving for wide cultural achievements in their own private spheres. Transfer the habitat of spiritual energy from the strivings of the private person for the enrichment of his own life to the organized public state striving for the expansion of its own powers, and you get something like the current Teutonic apologia for the present war. I have no doubt that there are some German statesmen who know precisely what the present war is about; what particular concrete gains are at stake. But to the "intellectuals" of Germany-vide the manifestos they have showered upon us-the object is that utterly Romantic thing: the expansion of Kultur, the spread of distinctively German ways of thinking and feeling. In short, the war is a part of the ceaseless striving for realization on the part of the Wille embodied in the German people. That the French and the English should have specific objects in view, particular advantages to gain and disadvantages to avoid, seems to many highly instructed Germans (if we may trust their language) something peculiarly base. It is no wonder that the German rulers frequently speak with contempt of the political capacity of German subjects. But one must question whether there is anything but a diversion of what might have been political capacity into the channels of Romanticism.

The extraordinary revival of interest in the Middle Ages associated with Romanticism is a familiar fact. To it we owe most of our modern appreciation of the real life of that period. One may ask, however, whether we are dealing with a revival or a reversion. The affection of the Romantic spirit for the Middle Ages seems to be an expression of its own medieval quality. I am not ambitious to characterize the spirit of Romanticism as that has shown itself in Germany. But certainly one of its marked features is an exuberance of unchastened imagination, and an introspective reveling in the emotional accomplishments of such an imagination. How largely German philosophy has sought refuge in an inner world, a

world of consciousness; how largely it has made traits of this inner life a measure of reality! From the standpoint of one who is not a subject of Romanticism this means but one thing. The Romantic spirit has deliberately evaded the testing and sifting of emotions and ideas; it has declined to submit them for valuation to the tests of hard and sober fact. It has avoided the test of attempted execution in action. To those who believe that human consciousness is a wild riot of imagination until human beings act upon it and thus bring it to the test of reality, Romanticism can mean only an undisciplined imagination, immaturity of mind.

It sounds silly to say that Germans, with their devotion to science and their habits of subordination to authority, have brought into the modern world of politics the untried and unchastened fancies and feelings of medievalism. But I mean only what the Germans themselves say when they tell us that they combine with supreme discipline in the outer world of action supreme freedom in the inner world of thought. I mean what they themselves mean when they say that the German people as a people lack the political sense, the political capacity of the selfgoverning nations of our day. For this is in effect an admission of unripeness, of immaturity of thought with respect to the supreme concerns of human action. We live in a period of political disillusionment. The tree of political liberty, watered with blood and tears, has brought forth many bitter fruits. In our disappointments we overlook what the struggle for self-government has done for those who have participated in it. At least it has chastened the unbridled imagination of man; it has developed a sense of realities; it has brought a certain maturity of mind as its outcome.

Now, when not only the Bernhardis but the Bismarcks and the von Bülows tell us that the Germans are marked with an absence of political sense and capacity, that they have not the gift of self-government, that they accomplish great things only under the leadings from authority from above, what are they saying except that the Germans, with all their achievements, have missed the one great experience in which the national minds of Great Britain, France, and America have been educated and ripened? With all our defects, is any measure of technical efficiency, of comfortable ease, in a "socialized Germany," a compensation for the absence, I do not say of political

democracy, but of the experience which comes to men only in a struggle to be free and responsible in their moral and social action? Compared with such freedom, the irresponsible freedom of inner consciousness seems, I repeat, an extension into a modern world of the undisciplined mind of the Middle Ages.

If there be any truth in this conception,and unless there be truth in it, the struggle for democracy lacks intellectual significance, -we have probably the root of the difficulty of mutual understanding as between the German mind and that of other peoples. Politically we do not speak the same language because we do not think the same thoughts. My final word would not be one, however, upon this discouraging note. It is rather a word of hopefulness regarding what has given Americans so much cause for perplexity-the "hyphen" problem. It is natural in a time of emotional stress, and in a time when those of German ancestry find hard things said on all sides about their ancestral land, that German-Americans should indulge in idealization of their older country, should bring forth with emphatic fervor the numerous fine things which current criticism is ignoring, and should in their irritation seek out the weak things in their adopted land and speak with harshness of its institutions. But I cannot believe that any large number of them have remained here without being profoundly influenced by the struggle for responsible and self-respecting common management of common affairs.

War brings with it a recrudescence of the spirit of Romanticism, a reversion to the undisciplined mind, among all peoples. To be in an unsympathetic land, a land which does not understand, is a stimulus to the most tense kind of Romantic fancy. But when the emotional strain passes, there will be an equal reversion to the light of common day, with its usual tasks and the illumination of these tasks by the thought that we are all engaged together in the greatest enterprise which has ever enlisted human thought and emotion: the attainment of the common control of the common interests of beings who live together. Whether German-Americans will then attempt to educate their countrymen at home to an inherent lack in any Kultur of a modern state not based on the principle of self-government, I do not know. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But I am confident that all, except a few incurable aliens who merely happen to be

physically among us, will respond with eagerness to any call which Americans who are longer acclimated may issue, to make our own experiment in responsible freedom more of a reality. And this response is, after all, the final test of loyalty to American institutions.

THE GOSPEL OF DUTY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

JOHN DEWEY

[From German Philosophy and
Politics, 1915]

The gospel of duty has an invigorating ring. It is easy to present it as the most noble and sublime of all moral doctrines. What is more worthy of humanity, what better marks the separation of mar. from brute, than the wili to subordinate selfish desire and individual inclination to the commands of stern and lofty duty? And if the idea of command (which inevitably goes with the notion of duty) carries a sinister suggestion of legal authority, pains and penalties and of subservience to an external authority who issues the commands, Kant seems to have provided a final corrective in insisting that duty is self imposed by the higher, supranatural self upon the lower, empirical self, by the rational self upon the self of passions and inclinations. German philosophy is attached to antitheses and their reconciliation to a higher synthesis. The Kantian principle of Duty is a striking case of the reconciliation of the seemingly conflicting ideas of freedom and authority.

Unfortunately, however, the balance cannot be maintained in practice. Kant's faithful logic compels him to insist that the concept of duty is empty and formal. It tells men that to do their duty is the supreme law of action, but is silent as to what men's duties specifically are. Kant, moreover, insists, as he is in logic bound to do, that the motive which measures duty is wholly inner; it is purely a matter of inner consciousness. To admit that consequences can be taken into account in deciding what duty is in a particular case would be to make concessions to the empirical and sensible world which are fatal to the scheme. The combination of these two features of pure internality and pure formalism leads, in a world where men's acts take place wholly in the external and empirical region, to serious consequences.

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