Abstract
For the last 30 years, the United States has been rifted by factionalism, especially in academia, in social service organizations and in government, particularly at state and national levels, and, at the more local level, in large cities. These rifts have been caused by “set asides” and by affirmative action and quotas, by racial politics and by the insistence of social groups that their identities be recognized. But the broader issue concerns the assumptions underlying the self-definitions of various social groups. European countries may not yet have seen this kind of factionalism to the same extent and in the same way, but there is no question that the Atlantic countries especially have seen comparable factionalism and, in all likelihood will soon see, in ever noisier form, variations of the United States’ divisiveness. Social fads, after all, travel from West to East, and in this, are borne on the wings of television and other media.
The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know
(Harry Truman)
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Notes
This could be supported by a virtually endless supply of texts, but to pick one that echoes many of the points I make: Eric Hobsbawn, “Identity Politics and the Left”, Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust Lecture, Institute of Education, London, May 1996 (also published in Phil, and Social Criticism 217 (May/June, 1996). In a similar vein, see this book, which I used in preparing this essay: Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams (New York: Random House, 1995).
The time frame for this claim is the mid 1930’s in Germany. The theme of the end of civilization, of apocalyptic challenge to Western civilization, was central to Nazi ideology and provided much of the persuasiveness behind its widespread acceptance by the population.
May 1935, “Philosophy in the Crisis of European Mankind”; presented to the Vienna Kulturbund; then, “The Crisis of European Sciences and Psychology”, given in Prague, November, 1935. These two lectures were outgrowths of and bases for the book, Die Krisis der europaeischen Wissenschaften and die transzendentale Phaenomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die phaenomenologische Philosophie, Husserliana, Vol. VI, 1954. The text now available contains material not published by Husserl. The first two parts of the book were published in the journal Philosphia in 1936. The English translation is: The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1970). A new edition of the original text has recently appeared as Husserliana,Vol. XXIX. E. Husserl, Die Krises der europäischen Wissenschaften and die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband: Texte as dem Nachlass (1934–1937) Hrsg. von R. N. Smid (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993).
Husserl addressed his “Crisis” by citing the timeless; this probably will not work, for three systemic reasons: 1. text/context/(we cannot isolate one from other, thus nothing is timeless) empty intention/forestructure à la Heidegger (the expectation, intention, thought, of what is sought “opens” up the “environment”; thus, everything is done for a reason, all is prefigured) the cultural nature of language (history and the intertwining language) and thought (thought is “grooved” if not determined by language and language is always “some” language, someone’s language. “All truth is seen from somewhere” (M. Nussbaum).
A. Maclntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). This text most insistently sounds the “tradition” theme, but it was advocated in his earlier After Virtue, 1984, and in Whose Justice? Which Rationality, 1988, both from the same press.
R. P. Buckley, Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub, 1992), p. 27.
The title assigned the Vienna/Prague lecture by his American translator.
A penultimate summary: fractious pluralism arises from a lack of shared myths; a lack of shared myths IS the crisis of culture; fractious pluralism is a symptom and sign of cultural crises. How we determine our culture is by what we privilege as worthy of being passed on, i. e., how we create our “history”. Thus, fractious pluralism is a by-product of not assimilating a common and shared history. Obviously the solution is to create a common history, but fractious pluralism is exactly the rejection of a common history (i.e., tradition is the cause and source of the problem).
We can make this point far more elaborately with deontological rules. We can show, as with the “transcendental” principles of communicative or Discourse Ethics, that, “a priori”, one is logically and rationally compelled to accept x, y, z; OR one can show that RATIONALLY reciprocity requires a, b, c; OR, it’s only REASONABLE that if you want “a”, then you have to do “b”; OR RATIONALLY, if you want “x” for yourself, you need to help others get “x”, too. This is all well and good, but the assumption of some common RATIONAL humanity, or some shared notion of substantive or procedural justice, or some utilitarian principle ranging over a common humanity won’t work IF IDENTITY IS DEFINED NEGATIVELY AND BY EXCLUSION. If we are primarily defined by the exclusionary group to which we belong, which in turn is defined by difference (by what we are NOT), then the commonality underlying the various strategies is missing and the arguments can’t even get started.
So we come full circle. Theoretical solutions to practical problems are only solutions if they are successfully put into practice. In the case at hand, the real solution can only come when the fractious pluralists WANT reason. Persuasion, not proof, solves practical problems.
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Overvold, G. (2000). Fractious Pluralism and Husserl’s European Reason. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Paideia. Analecta Husserliana, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2525-5_14
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