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The Perils of Inconsistency |
| Section: MODERN THOUGHT / THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY |
| Author: Michael Polanyi |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1986 |
| Size: 6,668 Words, 40,411 Characters |
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This piece is about intellectual freedom. I shall argue that its doctrine, as handed down to us, is intrinsically inconsistent and that the fall of liberty on the continent of Europe was an outcome of this inadequacy. Freedom of thought destroyed itself when a self-contradictory conception of liberty was pursued to its ultimate conclusions.
To present this argument, I must glance back for a moment to the very beginning of systematic thinking. Modern thought in the widest sense emerged with the emancipation of the human mind from a mythological and magical interpretation of the universe. We know when this first happened, at what place and by what method. This act of liberation was due to the Ionian philosophers who flourished in the sixth century B.C. They were succeeded by other philosophers of Greece covering a period of a thousand years. These ancient thinkers enjoyed much freedom of speculation without ever raising decisively the issues of intellectual freedom.
The millennium of ancient philosophy was brought to a close by St. Augustine. There followed the long rule of Christian theology and the Church of Rome over all departments of thought. The rule of ecclesiastic authority was first impaired from the twelfth century on by a number of sporadic intellectual achievements. Then, as the Italian Renaissance blossomed out, the leading artists and thinkers of the time brought religion more and more into neglect. The Italian Church itself seemed to yield to the new secular interests. Had the whole of Europe been at the time of the same mind as Italy, Renaissance Humanism might have established freedom of thought everywhere, simply by default of opposition. Europe might have returned to--or if you like relapsed into--a liberalism resembling that of pre-Christian antiquity. Whatever may have followed after that, our present disasters would not have occurred.
However, there arose instead in a number of European countries, in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, a fervent religious revival, accompanied by a schism of the Christian churches, which was to dominate people's minds for almost two centuries. The Catholic Church sharply reaffirmed its authority over the whole intellectual sphere. The thoughts of men were moved and politics shaped by the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism, to which all contemporary issues contributed by alliance to one side or the other.
By the beginning of the present century--to which I am leading up now--the wars between Catholics and Protestants had long ceased; yet the formulation of liberal thought still remained largely determined by the reaction of past generations against the period of religious wars. Liberalism was motivated, to start with, by detestation of religious fanaticism. It appealed to reason for a cessation of religious strife. This desire to curb religious violence was the prime motive of liberalism both in the Anglo-American and in the Continental area. Yet from the beginning the reaction against religious fanaticism differed somewhat in these two areas, and this difference has since become increasingly accentuated, so that in consequence liberty was upheld in the Western area up to this day and suffered a collapse in the territories of Central and Eastern Europe.
Anglo-American liberalism was first formulated by Milton and Locke. Their argument for freedom of thought was twofold. In its first part (for which we may quote the Areopagitica) freedom from authority is demanded, so that truth may be discovered. The main inspiration of this movement was the struggle of the rising natural sciences against the authority of Aristotle. Its program was to let everyone state his beliefs, and to allow people to listen and form their own opinion. The ideas which would prevail in a free and open battle of wits would be as close an approximation to the truth as can be humanly achieved. We may call this the antiauthoritarian formula of liberty. Closely related to it is the second half of...
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...e is an unstable foundation, modern totalitarianism is a consummation of the conflict between religion and skepticism. It solves the conflict by embodying our heritage of moral passions in a framework of modern materialistic purposes. The conditions for such an outcome were not present in the age of antiquity, before Christianty had set alight new, vast moral hopes in the heart of mankind.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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