Posted on 12/24/2001 11:15:18 AM PST by cornelis
Are you telling me that to Augustine the two Cities do not coexist in the same human mind, or that Augustine would not acknowledge the presence of daily economic activity which is neither saintly or murderous?
...the most characteristic thing about contemporary politics is their rationalist inspiration . . . The rationalist faith in the sovereignty of technique is the presupposition both of the notion that some over-all scheme of mechanized control is possible . . . if Rationalism now reigns almost unopposed, the question which concerns us is, What are the circumstances that promote this state of affairs?the answer to this question is that the politics of Rationalism are the politics of the politically inexperienced, and that the outstanding characteristic of European politics [we can add the U.S.]--that of the new ruler, of the new ruling class, and of the new political society--to say nothing of the incursion of a new sex, lately provided by Mr. Shaw. How appropriate rationalist politics are to the man who, not brought up or educated to their exercise, finds himself in a position to exert political iniative and authority, requires no emphasis. His need of it is so great that he will have no incentive to be sceptical about the possibility of a magic technique of politics which will remove the handicap of his lack of political education [why does this remind me of FR?]. The offer of such a technique will seem to him the offer of salvation itself; to be told that the necessary knowledge is to be found, compete and self-contained, in a book, and to be told that this knowledge is of a sort that can be learned by heart quickly and applied mechanically, will seem, like salvation, something almost too good to be true. And yet it was this, or something near enough to be mistaken for it, which he uderstood Bacon and Descartes to be offering him. For, though neither of these writers ventures upon the detailed application of his method to politics, the intimations of rationalist politics are present in both, qualified ony by a scepticism which could easily be ignored. Nor had he to wait for Bacon and Descartes (to wait, that is, for a general doctrine of Rationalism); the first of these needy adventurers into the field of politics was provided for on his appearance a century earlier by Machiavelli.
It has been said that the project of Machiavelli was to expound the science of politics, but this, I think, misses the significant point. A science, we have seen, is concrete knowledge and consequently neither its conclusions or the means by which they were reached, can ever, as a whole, be written down in a book . . . .
with the new ruler, who brought to his task oly the qualities which had enabled him to gain political power and who learnt nothing easily but the vices of his office, the caprice de prince, the position was different. Lacking education (except in the habits of ambition), and requiring some short-cut to the appearance of education, he required a book. But he required a book of a certain sort; he needed a crib: his inexperience prevented him from tackling the affairs of State unseen. Now, the character a crib is that its author must have an educated man's knowledge of the language, that he must prostitute his genius (if he has any) as a translator, and that it is powerless to save the ignorant reader from all possibility of mistake. The project of Machiavelli was, then, to provide a crib to politics, a political training in default of a political education, a technique for a ruler who had not tradition. He supplied a demand of his time. . . the new ruler was more interesting because he was far more likely than the educated hereditary ruler to get himself into a tricky situation and to need the help of advice . . .
Probably not in the sense you're thinking of. Of course both you and I know cities don't exist in the mind. They are real places worthy of capital nouns.
For Augustine, it was Rome. This fact alone shows how difficult it will be to compare Augustine with Locke. For Rome aspired to build its glory on the ancient virtues. By the time Locke comes around, there is no such kind of city. Gratia ad Machiavelliam. Virtue will no longer be the foundation of the City of Man. Its new foundations will no longer be the summum bonum, but the summum malum. And the philosopher-kings--princes, if you will--are free to prostitute themselves for the adulations of the masses.
How Augustine, belonging the City of God, could live in a City of Man called Rome is answered in his classic treatise: The City of God The answer comprises 25 books with ample diversions. A short-cut to the answer can be found in St. Paul. There, as for Augustine, the king and ruler is named Christ, the source of justice. There really is no other justice for Augustine. So we might say that while the two cities are not existing in the same mind, they do exist in the same universe, but only for a while. The two cities are vastly different: the one temporal, the other eternal. This distinction falls away for the intellectual figures who pass for giants in the modern age. Most of the time the temporal is fused with the eternal, as perhaps it did for the Stoic, who identified city with universe. It is not a coincidence that the Enlightenment was enamored with the stoics and the skeptics. It is not a coincidence this would culminate with Hegel in the universalization of Reason, the human god that deifies everything it thinks of.
As for political history and history in general, I quote Gilson: the "philosophies of history which developed after St. Augustine have been so many attempts to resolve, with the light of natural reason alone, a problem which was first posed by faith alone and which cannot be resolved without the faith." The excerpts from Oakshott and Bloom, both attest to the new orientation of what is hailed as the last man. By shifting the rank and order of importance, the identity of human nature became less than it was, and more of a half-man committed to ever more gratitude in commerce.
By the same token, Locke doesn't really contradict Augustine, does he? Jesus spoke to His disciples but He also spoke to a legionnaire. To the latter, His advice was, kind of, Lockean: do your work, don't cheat, don't bully.
I'm just reading along on this thread, as usual, and enjoying it.
BTW, I know you already have many sources, but have you ever taken a good look at the web site (a long page of links) called Primary Source Documents ? If not, I think you'll like it.
. . . and more. As you say: "free us from having to only use greek classics" But those are your words, and expresses quite a different sentiment than Descartes. Here's Descartes. "je quittai entierement l'etude des lettres." Which is to say he thumbed his nose at it. This is the beginning of violence.
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