Review of D. J. Manning, LIBERALISM

Review Author(s): Thomas L. Pangle Review by: Thomas L. Pangle Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Dec., 1978), pp. 1380-1381 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1954554 Accessed: 04-12-2015 19:56 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Political Science Association and Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Political Science Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.62.52.144 on Fri, 04 Dec 2015 19:56:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1380 Vol. 72 The American Political Science Review longing for a father to worship" (p. 64). Sometimes Burke's critique of the aristocracy expressed this latent bourgeois radicalism; at other times, his attack on the Jacobins reflected, in effect, a self-criticism of attitudes and tendencies within his own personality which he sought to repress (pp. 155-61). "Burke's rage-filled indictment of bourgeois radicalism in his Reflections," Kramnick suggests, "should not obscure the very real extent to which he was himself a spokesman for bourgeois interests in these years" (p. 157). What the author calls the "bourgeois dimension of Burke" refers especially to the latter's "restless drive for upward mobility" and the embodiment of the values of "the self-made man" idealized by the emergent middle class (pp. 52, 63). Yet, Burke's intellectual association with the aristocracy represented at the same time an effort to escape from "the actuality of his middle-class origins and status" (p. 102). The conflict between the "ambitious Burke" and the "self-effacing Burke" thus "reveals the basic ideological ambivalence which is at the core of his politics and his being" (pp. 83, 93). Kramnick presses the argument in two directions. First, he links this ideological-personality ambivalence to Burke's doubts about his "sexual identity" (p. 9). From this standpoint, the "bourgeois" elements of his personality are identified with masculinity, ambition, sexual aggressiveness, and avarice, while feminine passivity, intricacy, mystery, and permanence reflect the "aristocratic" aspects of Burke (p. 97). Kramnick employs this interpretive axis in providing a controversial but interesting reading of Burke's Vindication of Natural Society and his essay On the Sublime and Beautiful, as well as his concept of party and his attacks on the Jacobins and Warren Hastings. Kramnick also attempts to integrate his view of Burke into a larger historical-theoretical framework, namrly, "the transformation," expressed as "the peculiar combination of love and hate that the bourgeoisie felt toward the aristocracy" (pp. xii, 193). Precisely why Burke is the "most important embodiment" and the most "dramatic personification" of the social conflict between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie is not made clear. On the one hand, Kramnick cites Erik Erikson's general observation that in periods of social upheaval "men are swayed by alternating world moods" to support his conclusion that Burke's ambivalence "matched most perfectly the historical identity crisis then being experienced by the advanced societies of England and France" (p. 190). On the other hand, with the dogmatic assurance of a therapist diagnosing a patient, Kramnick often declares that, as a matter of psychological necessity, "wherever Burke turned he saw this social conflict at work" (p. 109); it was, in short, "a projection onto external reality" of a psychological perception from which he "could not escape" (p. 156). Both answers beg the issue, and neither goes further than psychological determinism and historical coincidence towards providing a theoretical understanding of how and why personality characteristics are bound up with class divisions and the dynamics of social change. Somehow, the notion that "one of the great turning points in European civilization" manifests itself in the "conscious life strategy" of Edmund Burke (pp. xii, 139, 190, 193-94) comes perilously close to Hegelianism run rampant. We need to know less about how the world spirit flowed through Burke, and more about how his contemporaries expressed in their thought the historically-rooted ambivalence Kramnick locates in the social structure of industrial England. As a general observation, it appears to this reviewer that Hegel still supplies for too many Marxists the paradigm for the integration of social and individual consciousness. In any event, the historical, class-based axis of Kramnick's argument is, in this book, its weakest link; and yet, one feels, it is to the author the most important dimension of his overall interpretation. Nevertheless, this study casts a provocative spotlight upon the shadows of Burke's personality and thought, and Kramnick's interpretation merits both serious and critical attention. RICHARD ASHCRAFT University of California, Los Angeles Liberalism. By D. J. Manning. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976. Pp. 174. $10.95, cloth; $4.95, paper.) The ambitious aim of this book is to present an account of liberal theory that will comprehend all its manifestations. The author repudiates as "necessarily misleading" those characterizations of liberalism that focus on one or a few of the greatest liberal philosophers. "An accurate portrayal ... includes all the major points made by authors claiming to be liberals and recognized to be such by their fellow liberals, plus the points of authors subsequently recognized as the intellectual ancestors" (p. 139). Naturally, then, one cannot expect a brief book to give an accurate portrayal. Some criterion must be invoked to decide which This content downloaded from 128.62.52.144 on Fri, 04 Dec 2015 19:56:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1978 Book Reviews: Political Theory and Methodology authors are to be featured. Yet the selection cannot be based on any insight into the essence of liberalism, for it is "not characterized by an unchanging essence" (p. 29; cf. pp. 32, 60, 139). Nevertheless, Manning has discerned a "common framework" comprising three "principles": equal protection of the laws and a balance of political power; concern for self-expression and self-motivation; the university of humanity together with dedication to universal progress. These principles are held together by a "symbolic form of vision" that is more "aesthetic" than "logical." Despite its "incoherence," this symbolic form is illuminating because it is "persistent," because it "characterizes the tradition" and even sets the "limits" (pp. 13, 31, 143). Or does it? These principles are "not advanced as the criterion by which genuine liberal principles can be distinguished," for "there is nothing which is indispensable to a tradition of ideological thought" (p. 29). Having thus shown just' how precisely the subject matter can be defined using his approach, Manning proceeds to illustrate the development of the liberal "way of talking politics" by sketching how a succession of writers advocated toleration (Ch. 2). He then turns to the question of the "unity of liberal ideology"-he is aware that the first two chapters have not yet demonstrated a unity. The unity turns out to consist not so much in the "symbolic form" as in the arguments liberals advance advocating resistance to tyranny and free government. This account of what unifies and distinguishes liberals is inadequate because Manning never contrasts liberal republican theory with the republican theory of the classical or medieval thinkers. By seeking to understand liberalism in the light of a vague aesthetic "symmetry" shared by all its proponents, Manning does not do justice to the philosophers who stand at the core of the liberal tradition. The result is inevitably a kind of caricature: what comes to sight is a broad and varied but flat plain of discourse, lacking any standards by which one could distinguish the few fully worked-out systems of thought from the utterances of lesser "ideologists." Manning has some awareness of the danger. He knows that "it has been the objective of many liberal writers to demonstrate that their political conclusions logically follow from either incontestable metaphysical foundations or indisputable factual evidence" (p. 119). So in the fifth chapter he intends to demonstrate the absurdity of this claim by refuting, not Spinoza or Montesquieu or Kant's Metaphysics of Morals, but Spencer, Green, and Locke. The refutation of Locke-the only origi- 1381 nal thinker of the first rank he addresses-"is not difficult" (p. 138). It takes less than five pages, and the tone of the argument is revealed by the remark that "it cannot for a moment be entertained that Locke's political theory is perfectly consistent" (p. 124). Manning can rest satisfied with his exposition because he begins with the dogmatic assumption that all liberal theorizing is "ideology" (p. 5). Ideology is "systematic" but "subjective" thought; it lacks "academic objectivity." More precisely, while ideology always claims to be based on an "objective philosophic, historical or scientific account," it is "mistaken" in this claim and hence always "incapable of logical coherence." Now why have the liberal theorists,- who include great philosophers of logic like Kant and Mill, failed to manifest any inkling of this logical incoherence? The answer is simple: "their opinions are historically relative" (p. 138). The great liberal theorists of the past did not consciously sacrifice their intellectual integrity; they simply lived in a benighted age. But what does this mean for us? How does Manning think that he and we can remain liberals and still maintain intellectual honesty? Is it because we know that we cannot live without some subjective ideology, and hence we frankly choose the easy way, sticking with the beliefs Daddy said were good? But human beings cannot leave it at following inherited prejudice: they need an answer "why." According to Manning, the purpose of all ideologies is to meet the need not through "explanation" but through "assertion" and "the control of man's political inclination" (pp. 133, 155, 157). Once it is accepted that this is the function of ideology, it became doubtful whether liberalism, when compared with more "assertive" ideologies, can or even deserves to retain our allegiance. As Manning candidly observes, "this is not a liberal book" (p. 5). It does, however, reflect in a sobering way the current level of the self-understanding of liberal rationalism among some "objective academics." THOMAS L. PANGLE Yale University Policy Studies and the Social Sciences. Edited by Stuart S. Nagel. (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath, 1975. Pp. xiv + 315. $19.00, cloth; $5.95, paper.) This volume has been put together as a symposium, one of a series sponsored by the Policy Studies Association. The contributions This content downloaded from 128.62.52.144 on Fri, 04 Dec 2015 19:56:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions