The Virtuous Citizen

by Rachel Douchant

T.S. Eliot’s poetry and writings mourned the culture of destruction and fragmentation, calling readers to the frightful vocation of self-knowledge. Although T.S. Eliot was no classical liberal, his essay on "Catholicism and the International Order" is full of the wisdom of a thoughtful, truth-seeking man.

Many of his observations relate directly to political philosophy. Eliot, in only a few words, made a great, if inadvertant, contribution to the debate over whether a free society requires virtuous people. I use virtue here in the Greek sense: the excellence of the intellectual, moral, and productive human capacities. Generally, the necessity of virtue in the citizenry is a topic which worries libertarians because of State claims to ensure our future through moral education. However, from the premise that a free society requires at least a constituency of virtuous citizens, it does not follow that there must be a State to educate them. Even a minimalist State need not be the institution that educates. Whether taught in the home or by a religious community, a remnant of virtuous men and women are required to support the institutions of civil society which provide the true infrastructure for human thriving.

Eliot’s essay is surprisingly insightful in the light of Austrian economics, particularly regarding the more robust theory of man that excludes extensive use of modeling in the social sciences. Although he claims to have a "less than sketchy" knowledge of economics (which probably arises from his "considerable respect" for Keynes), he nevertheless observes:

"the majority of actual practitioners of both political and economic science, in their very effort to be scientific, to limit precisely, that is, the field of their activity, make assumptions which they are not only not entitled to make, but which they are not always conscious of making" (114).

Their Cartesian approach to the social sciences confuses the object: a one-dimensional man is exchanged for the dynamic, fallen, ingenious, complicated men we know. It is no surprise that Eliot considered neo-classical economics "more incomprehensible than mathematics" – it had borrowed the instruments of mathematics and applied it to an over-simplified, and therefore false object, the so-called ‘economic man’. Actually, to consider economics or politics first is to get ahead of oneself, since any theory of "putting the world in order" must first have answered the question "What is the good life?". After all, "we cannot expect economists to help us until we know what we want of them".

All humans want the ‘good life’, but how do we find out what it is?

Unfortunately for the rigors of the enlightenment mind, "this is not a matter of science, but of wisdom; and wisdom is only gained in two ways, and well gained only through both; a study of human nature through history, the actions of men in the past and the best that they have thought and written, and a study through observation and experience of the men and women about us as we live" (116-7).

The answer to our ultimate question, ‘What is the good life?’, presupposes an understanding of human nature itself. But this can be messy. As Aristotle says, "it is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness in each kind which the nature of the particular object admits" (Nicomeachean Ethics 1094b25-28). We can not expect the same precision from a study of man as we can from mathematics. The goal in studying human nature is a "satisfactory working philosophy of social action, as distinct from devices from getting ourselves out of a hole at the moment." Too often, modern economists devise how the further destruction of money can finance State projects, and politicians erode long-cherished liberties to overcome a current ‘emergency.’ The discovery and implementation of a political philosophy based on an understanding of human nature requires discipline. The kind of discipline required, he thinks, is epitomized in the Catholic culture.

As an Anglo-Catholic, Eliot saw the Church as providing the tradition and culture of self-reflection necessary to acknowledge the human dilemma. And it is knowledge of humanity, a dovetailing of self-knowledge and general historical knowledge, which is the key to the political system that will foster a life of human excellence.

The Catholic has several advantages regarding this lofty project to gain wisdom. First, unlike the overly emotional Protestant and the overly cerebral secularist, the Catholic can accomplish a convergence between "the intellect and the emotions" (117) [See The Metaphysical Poets for Eliot’s explanation of this ‘Disassociation of Sensibility’]. The "proper balance between head and heart" is particularly important for political philosophy. In evaluating the League of Nations, for instance, Eliot says, "[t]he whole conception seems to me to date from the period of Rousseau, and to illustrate that exaggerated faith in human reason to which people of undisciplined emotions are prone" (120). This kind of personal imbalance leads to two Christian political "heresies": 1) the hierarchical structure of the spiritual order is unduly mapped onto the temporal one, creating "some error of absolutism or impossible theocracy", or 2) the ideas of humanity, brotherhood, and equality before God leads to the notion that "the Christian can only be a socialist."

The two heresies join in the ruination of individual liberty, thus:

"The conception of individual liberty, for instance, must be based upon the unique importance of every single soul, the knowledge that every man is ultimately responsible for his own salvation or damnation, and the consequent obligation of society to allow every individual the opportunity to develop his full humanity. But unless this humanity is considered always in relation to God, we may expect to find an excessive love of created beings, in other words humanitarianism, leading to a genuine oppression of human beings in what is conceived by other human beings to be their interest" (119).

One is reminded of Isabel Patterson’s analysis of the humanitarian with a guillotine (God of the Machine). The same insight seems to guide his claim that Catholics are served well by developing a "sympathy with foreign points of view, which is much better worth having and more effective than a diffuse goodwill". Eliot believes this mistake is characterized by a tendency to have low ideals, but great expectations. The Catholic, on the other hand, has high ideals, indeed, absolute ideals, but only moderate expectations from humanity (122). Eliot’s ideal is indeed high and absolute – it is the conversion to Catholicism of the entire world. He wants "cultural unity in religion", though he adds that it is "not the same thing as cultural uniformity" (124). Why such a lofty social goal? All other substitute goals soothe with promises of freedom, only to collapse under the weight of human passion, leaving disillusionment in its wake. These substitutes are dependent upon a passionate belief in human unity through scientific (often pseudo-scientific) means. They expect too much from "vague benevolence" and self-interest. They refuse "to face the fact that no great change can ever come without a moral conversion" (130).

This presents a great challenge to the conservative libertarian, that we not "live in the constant expectation of some material miracle, and follow a will o’ the wisp which to some eyes takes the shape of Prosperity, and to other that of Revolution". In a sense, both of these are stumbling blocks for libertarians, who anticipate that when all the unnecessary laws are abolished, prosperity will follow. They too easily forget that the truth of this statement is dependent on people becoming willing to sacrifice whatever personal gain to abolish these laws, and then to manifest the positive side of their virtue in upholding all the structures of civil society that the State had usurped. This requires personal virtue, both to create and maintain the infrastructure of law that is so easily twisted and destroyed. Ludwig von Mises, although a firm believer in the mutual advantage created through self-interested action, knew that such advantages could only be gained in a certain institutional structure: respect of person and property. In this more fundamental arena of social cooperation his view of history readily applies. Whatever contingent historical circumstances of geography, race, or access to natural resources, the final determinant of history is ideas. This is why ‘moral conversion’ is the most basic requirement of political philosophy. Only a true moral conviction about respect of person and property as well as personal duty can long sustain the classical liberal order.

Eliot makes several more compelling comments on human nature. Observing that humans function best in community, he claims to be "instinctively in sympathy" with the burgeoning regionalism of his day. "I have little hope for the future of America until that country falls apart into its natural components; divisions which would not be simply those of the old North and South and still less those of the forty-eight states" (127). He recognizes the temptation of power when he complains of the imperialism of Britain and America, who in the unrealistic hope of bringing unity to the world believed it was necessary for "the rest of the world to model itself or be modelled by force upon Britain or America respectively" (124).

This essay is a sober reminder to conservative libertarians that we too must base our own course of action on a keen understanding of both human nature and the particular humans around us. Ultimately, our goal must be to do the hard work of wisdom, and then to persuade the hearts and minds of individuals. No amount of external change can replace the moral conversion necessary for the stable maintenance of our fathers’ fragile liberty.

Eliot, T.S. "Catholicism and the International Order" in Essays Ancient and Modern. London: Faber and Faber Limited (1936).