Political Consciousness and Meritocracy Revisited

A little while ago, I wrote two posts on political consciousness and meritocracy, which I would like to revisit in light of a passage I came across just the other day. In the post on political consciousness, I observed that many today consider the attainment of political consciousness as necessary for an individual's maturation. Moreover, these same people often define attainment of political consciousness as the rejection of authority. Rejection of authority, then, becomes an essential condition of growing up. In the second post, I reproduced a quotation from Tocqueville, where he points out that meritocracy makes individuals free to pursue their own happiness without regard for others. While this phenomenon is usually praised for enhancing individual freedom, it does have the negative effect of alienating many individuals from society; in many cases, according to Tocqueville, this alienation ends in suicide or insanity.

It should not surprise anybody, then, that these two ideals of political consciousness and meritocracy together have devastated the family. It also should come as no surprise that all these individuals, once beyond their fathers' control, would devise new institutions to deal with their alienation. And without further ado, here is the passage:

Hierarchical, patriarchal, circumscribed families were being replaced [among Russian Jews and the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s] by egalitarian, fraternal, and open-ended ones. The rest of the world was to follow suit.

All modern societies produce "youth cultures" that mediate between the biological family, which is based on rigidly hierarchical role ascription within the kinship nomenclature, and the professional domain, which consists, at least in aspiration, of equal interchangeable citizens judged by universalistic meritocratic standards. The transition from son to citizen involves a much greater adjustment than the transition from son to father. Whereas in traditional societies one is socialized into the "real world" and proceeds to move, through a succession of rites of passage, from one ascriptive role to another, every modern individual is raised on values inimical to the ones that prevail outside. Whatever the rhetoric within the family and whatever the division of labor between husbands and wives, the parent-child relationship is always asymmetrical, with the meaning of each action determined according to the actor's status. Becoming a modern adult is always a revolution.

There are two common remedies for this predicament. One is nationalism, with the modern state posing as a family complete with founding fathers, patriotism, a motherland, brothers-in-arms, sons of the nation, daughters of the revolution, and so on. The other is membership in a variety of voluntary associations, of which youth groups are probably the most common and effective precisely because they combine the ascription, solidarity, and intense intimacy of the family with the choice, flexibility, and open-endedness of the marketplace.

(Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, p. 142. Princeton University Press, 2004)

Slezkine's main idea here is that many of the most important institutions and ideals of the modern world are all tools invented to deal with the demise of the family. Once we (or at least, the truly modern among us) reject traditional authority, we are free--but we do not know how best to use this freedom. To make up for the loss of our family, the result of our self-emancipation, we form voluntary associations, especially youth groups, where those who have rejected parental authority can unite; or, we conceptualize the "nation" or "people" (in the 19th-century biological/racial sense) as our real family, with a greater claim to our loyalty than our own flesh-and-blood parents.

In the end Slezkine leaves us with a very perturbing question: How much of the modern world is really just our attempt to flee from authority?

Political Consciousness

What is it about the term “political consciousness” that I dislike so much? I think I first noticed that I hated the term when I realized that the people who asked the question, “When did you become politically conscious?” really meant: “When did you become liberal?” It’s the liberal equivalent of an evangelical asking: “When did you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

This has been my experience. I would be interested to know whether my experience matches others’ experience.

So, what specific reason do I have for disliking the term “political consciousness”? To begin with, the term seems to me to be intimately connected to the ideals of protest, revolt, and outrage. It’s taken to mean that rejection of authority is the sine qua non of growing up. I am not really human unless I am outraged about something. In other words, a good liberal needs to mount the barricades and support the revolution—at least in spirit.

This is an attitude I have to reject in principle. How can it be true that I am not happy unless I am outraged? The two ideas seem to exclude each other. Now, I do not deny the need, in some circumstances, for outrage. However, I cannot base my life on outrage; I will only be unhappy in the end.

My observations are, of course, not original. They first crystallized in my mind when I recently read some of Thomas Manns’ “Reflections of an Apolitical Man.” In one essay, Mann identifies “politicization” as “training for rebellion.” This also bears some relation to Alasdair MacIntyre’s remark in “After Virtue” that democratic discourse today is marred by our obsession with “unmasking” hypocrites, i.e. proving that all authorities are hypocrites. In other words, we only seem to be happy if we are outraged about an authority’s misfeasance.

I have a suspicion, though, that here in America much of this rejection of authority is mere posturing; just as the hypocrite plays a role (υποκριτης), so too does the unmasker. Why do I think this? Just look at all the idiots who wear Che Guevara T-shirts imagining that they’re antiauthoritarian. They revere Che for trying to spread the Communist revolution throughout the world, with absolutely no risk to themselves. They are protected by the most liberal free-speech laws in human history, yet they feel that spouting their support for a murderous thug transforms them into daring transgressors. Their outrage is nothing more than self-indulgence in their alleged moral superiority.

I also dislike the term because it reeks of democratic superciliousness. What do I mean by that? I mean the conceit that we must all be good liberal democrats in order to be good men. This can be traced back to Kant’s idea, found in “What Is Enlightenment?”, that enlightenment is the human race’s coming of age. Until the Age of Enlightenment, mankind had been suffering under the cruel yoke of benighted authority—ecclesial and political. One of the key aspects of our coming of age, therefore, was rejection of traditional authority, thinking for ourselves in matters of religion, and demanding democracy. Kant believed he was helping usher in a new golden age of humanity, when all men would be free and autonomous. In short, Kant maintained a rather questionable philosophy of history.

What can I propose in the stead of “political consciousness”? Do I reject the term outright? No, of course I don’t. There is a time in most people’s lives (including my own) when we start to care much more about politics than we did as children. Unfortunately, though, I only have time for a quick rejoinder, which might come across as a mere “I told you so” argument. Be that as it may…

Any adolescent has to face the question of authority. In that sense it is an essential part of growing up. I would suggest that what we need to do is “grapple” with authority, perhaps in the same way that Jacob “grappled” with the Lord (Gen. 32:23-33). Without confronting authority, we do not know our true place under it. After confronting authority, though, we should prove more humble. I see no reason why I should be forced abandon all authority as a matter of principle merely because of inevitable conflicts with authority.