Announcement: Al Gore and Russell Kirk Agree on Something!

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal ran a review by Nick Schulz, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, of Vaclav Smil's new book Prime Movers of Globalization. Smil's book is, as the subtitle puts it, a study of the "history and impact of diesel engines and gas turbines." The book would appear to be of interest to a history and economics buff who has a mechanical bent and a desire to learn more about the technical innovations that have driven globalization forward in the past two centuries. Besides explaining the role these devices have played in making it easier to travel long distances and transport great loads quickly, though, Smil also acknowledges that there are environmental drawbacks to these devices. Smil himself, according to the review, does his best to maintain a balanced perspective.

The review, on the other hand, is anything but balanced and can only be termed disingenuous. Schulz's rhetorical strategy is to frame his summary of Smil's book in a denunciation of environmentalism. He begins with Al Gore's utopian call (in Earth in the Balance) for the elimination of internal combustion engines by 2017. Then, at the end of the review, Schulz mentions that Smil addresses some of the environmental damage caused by diesel engines and gas turbines as well as "social disruption that their inventors could not have imagined." But if the "creative destruction caused by global trade" is so extensive, why then has Schulz just penned an ode to the internal combustion engine? How can he simply shrug off these problems? A hint comes in his final line, a variation on Irving Kristol's well-known quip about neoconservatives, saying that Smil, as opposed to environmentalists, "has been mugged by the reality of physics and engineering."

This phrase "mugged by reality" is obviously meant to show that Schulz is a realist, not a deluded "hard-line environmentalist." But what the last paragraph of the review really shows is that Schulz is dismissing out of hand concerns about social upheaval on a previously unimagined scale because they are not part of his reality, the "reality of physics and engineering." Since when, though, did any environmentalist deny the reality of the internal combustion engine, or of global trade? Do environmentalists believe that physics is an illusion?

Obviously not. Why, then, does Schulz resort to such dishonest rhetoric when discussing environmentalism? Schulz names Al Gore as the archetypal environmentalist because he can show that Gore's proposed cure would be just as bad as the disease. By holding up one prominent environmentalist for ridicule, Schulz can then sidestep the serious questions posed by Gore and others concerning the environment, such as: Is it possible that humans cannot be trusted to use internal combustion engines responsibly? Would it have been better if they had never been invented if the risk of serious damage to the environment is so great?

Schulz also resorts to dishonest rhetoric so that he can studiously avoid, while pretending to acknowledge, the social disruption caused by the internal combustion engine. But it is precisely this allegation of social disruption that forms the heart of the complaint against the internal combustion engine that Schulz refuses to answer. This allegation was leveled by at least one conservative thinker strongly opposed to all utopian fantasies: Russell Kirk, who famously called automobiles "mechanical Jacobins" on account of their revolutionary effect on society. If Schulz honestly faced Kirk's critique, he would have to ask himself more uncomfortable questions, such as: Is commercial prosperity perhaps bad for society because it chips away at solidarity among people? Is the decrease in social cohesion caused by modern modes of transport actually more harmful than the benefit of unrestricted mobility?

As strange as it may sound, Al Gore and Russell Kirk actually share common concerns about technical progress, though Kirk very likely would have rejected Gore's solution to the problem. This strange agreement should at least give Schulz pause to consider the morality of technology in addition to its creative power. But by ignoring Gore's and Kirk's questions Schulz shows that his ultimate fault is that he willfully equates what is technologically possible with what is morally good.

That anyone should make this mistake after the 20th century is sad indeed. The reality of the 20th century should have mugged Schulz and jolted him out of his complacent faith in technical progress. What, then, could prevent him from seeing that technical progress often poses difficult moral questions? Schulz, apparently a neoconservative, would likely answer that the "creative destruction caused by global trade" maximizes freedom through the increased production of wealth. But freedom and wealth are not ends in themselves, and neither is technology.

Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig is an author who is not very well known in America today. Indeed, he is rarely mentioned in discussions of 20th-century literature even in Germany or his native Austria. When his name does come up, it is usually only in connection with his more famous friends. Zweig had many literary friends, such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Yet, less than 100 years ago he was the most widely-translated author in the world. In his own day he was probably the most prominent writer to emerge from fin-de-siècle Vienna, though that honor now goes to another friend of his, Sigmund Freud.

Zweig wrote in a number of genres. As a youth, Zweig began publishing poetry in a Viennese paper with the encouragement of its editor, who became yet another famous friend of his: Theodor Herzl. He also published translations of French poetry, especially that of Baudelaire and Verhaeren. Later in his career, however, Zweig concentrated on prose. His prose style is still noteworthy for its clarity and its pleasant fluidity, though he is now dismissed by some critics (unjustly in my opinion) as a “pedestrian stylist.” His prose work consists mainly of plays, short stories, and novellas, as well as many biographies. Of these biographies, perhaps the best known, and certainly the one Zweig valued the most himself, was that of Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Erasmus was something of a patron saint for Zweig. Zweig shared certain characteristics with Erasmus that made his intellectual adoption of Erasmus fitting. Both men were born into turbulent times, indeed into events that were truly epoch-changing in modern history: Erasmus was the famous humanist, author of The Praise of Folly and editor of the Greek New Testament, who died in the midst of the Reformation. Zweig was born into the “golden age of bourgeois security,” which ended with the slaughter of the First World War. Both men, however, refused to take sides in those conflicts. Though Erasmus was widely known for being critical of the Church’s hierarchy, he did not lend his skill to Luther’s cause—but neither did he come out strongly against Luther. Zweig did not join either Austria, his homeland, or France, where he had spent some of his most formative years. Instead, he fled to Switzerland, where he spent the war protesting the carnage and pleading for peace. Zweig’s pacifism led him to enter self-imposed exile once again, twenty years later, after the Anschluss; he fled first to England, and then to Brazil when England joined the war against Hitler. Zweig, following what he saw as Erasmus’ example, stood by his principles, even though that meant standing alone, forgotten by the polemicists and belligerents on both sides.

Unfortunately, Zweig was overly conscious of standing alone, and so—in his autobiography, naturally enough—he set himself upon a pedestal, all alone in his single-minded pursuit of peace. The tone of Zweig’s autobiography (The World of Yesterday) is marred by this self-pity. It should not come as too great a surprise to the reader to find out that in 1942 Zweig (and his second wife) committed suicide.

Despite these flaws, what makes The World of Yesterday an interesting read is that, besides the wealth of historical detail, it gives a glimpse inside the mind of a member of the 20th-century literati who, confronted with the spectacle of the world falling down around his ears, had to wrestle with his most deeply-held prejudices. The inner turmoil evident in the narrative is heightened by two factors. First, the introductory chapter, in which Zweig describes the “golden age of bourgeois security” that developed under the guidance of the Habsburg monarchy, presents an idealized childhood that makes clear to the reader what Zweig will lose later. Second, Zweig had enough historical and philosophical learning to maintain some critical distance from his life and his prejudices—though not enough. The most important prejudice, inculcated in Zweig from his earliest days, was his belief in society’s inevitable material and moral progress.

Ultimately, though, Zweig was not able to overcome this prejudice. At the heart of The World of Yesterday is Zweig's gradual realization that progress is not inevitable. Indeed, after the childhood idyll of the golden age of bourgeois security, this realization begins to dawn in adolescence (to which Zweig devotes a chapter called Eros Matutinus), when Zweig deals with his own psychological problems and those of his classmates. The bloodshed of World War I, of course, shows Zweig that there were obstacles to peace. But even World War I did not spell the end of Zweig’s belief in perpetual progress; after the war, he became a firm believer in the League of Nations. At the same time, though, that he was advocating for international peace in the 1920s, Zweig was immersing himself more deeply in Freud’s psychology, which reinforced his adolescent experience of the fragility of man’s mind. It was only the outbreak of World War II, however, that seems to have shattered his comfortable belief in progress. Zweig apparently committed suicide in order to spare himself any further disillusionment.

In the end, then, Stefan Zweig, despite his achievements and his evident skill as a writer, remains a sad figure in a sad period of history: a victim of progress, and of his own prejudice.

Progress Rightly Understood

I do not consider myself a progressive. Progressivism is too often bent on changing man's nature, overcoming by pseudo-science and human effort problems which are far bigger than that. Put another way, progressivism usually involves redeeming man from the Fall through the proper application of politics. Sorry, but I don't go for that.

However, my rejection of progressivism has recently been tempered by reading Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate. He does not, of course, fall into the kind of errors I just sketched out. But he does remind us that a certain kind of progress is not merely compatible with, but integral to, Christianity. This is an important reminder for those of us - like myself - who have become jaded about "progress" and tend to ignore the term whenever we hear it.

Benedict's starting point in Caritas in Veritate is an encyclical by Pope Paul VI (pictured left), Populorum Progressio. Quoting the earlier encyclical, Benedict writes:

It is the primordial truth of God's love, grace bestowed upon us, that... makes it possible to hope for a “development of the whole man and of all men”, to hope for progress “from less human conditions to those which are more human”, obtained by overcoming the difficulties that are inevitably encountered along the way. (Section 8, quoting PP 42 & 20.)

Notice what they are talking about: "conditions", the physical circumstances, as well as the social and the spiritual, in which human beings live. However, that which gives us cause for hope with regards to these conditions is not our own willpower or technological might, but God's love. Elsewhere he writes:

Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested initiatives called forth by universal charity. Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development simply be handed to him. (Section 11.)

Moreover, Benedict points out that this is not simply the improvement of material circumstances, building bigger, faster and stronger gizmos. There is a kind of progress to that sort of thing, but it is not quite what Benedict is interested in. He writes:

If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. (Section 29.)

Thus, human progress (or development, to use Benedict's preferred term) must be oriented towards our true human nature and our ultimate end. Any kind of progress which ignores the fact that we have been made in the divine image and are created for heaven is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: perhaps a nice gesture, even interesting or meaningful in its way, but woefully missing the bigger issue at stake.

How are we to bring about this kind of progress? As with most aspects of the encyclical, Benedict avoids most details, preferring to make sure we have the principles sorted out first. However, he explains:

It should be stressed that progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient. Development needs above all to be true and integral. The mere fact of emerging from economic backwardness, though positive in itself, does not resolve the complex issues of human advancement.... Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development.... The exclusion of religion from the public square... hinders an encounter between persons and their collaboration for the progress of humanity. (Sections 23, 30 & 56.)

This is no paltry project of social engineering, conducted by technocrats and ignoring the transcendent.

Finally, Benedict, following Paul VI, explains:

Progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation”.... The vocation to progress drives us to “do more, know more and have more in order to be more”. (Sections 16 & 18, quoting PP 15 & 6.)

Thus, progress is not simply about a political ideology or a philosophic arguments: it is a part of the call given by God to mankind, redeemed by Christ and now eagerly pressing on toward the fullness of glory.


Photo credits: The picture of Benedict XVI comes from a mass in Paris, courtesy of Ammar Abd Rabbo. The image of Paul VI was ganked from the Per Christum blog, which no doubt ganked it from someone else.