[size=95]In order to make his position clear once and for all, I post the following “note” sent by Neumann to the administration of Scripps College, where he was a teacher at the time. I post it in the precise form in which it is included in his book, Liberalism.
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[size=150][b]Chapter 33
Who Should Teach Philosophy at Scripps College?[/b][/size]
During our conversations, I did most of the talking. Heidegger’s tendency was to remain silent … From the beginning our relationship was devoid of enthusiasm. It was not grounded in the depths of our nature … He said, in a slightly angered tone, that it was foolish to have so many professors of philosophy; one should keep only two or three in the whole of Germany. ‘Which ones then?’ I inquired. No answer.
– Karl Jaspers¹
This note explains my rejection of the usual candidates to teach philosophy (or humanities) at Scripps, although – or because – they would be acceptable to most orthodox contemporary teachers of “philosophy.” I asked Jaffa to meet the candidates and to write his evaluation of them for the same reason that I asked him to teach our joint courses. I regard him as one of the very few philosophic teachers in existence today.
The candidates soon reveal the emptiness at the core of their pseudo-liberal cleverness and sophistication. They are, like most professors pseudo-liberals, liberals too cowardly to confront their nihilism. They are not philosophic! When I make statements such as this somebody usually counters with “But that just reflects your opinion or prejudice about what it means to be a scientist or a philosopher” or some such remark. I would agree with this observation, but I would add that whatever anyone believes – especially about the crucial life or death issues – always is his own prejudice. Nor do I believe that there is anything unbiased about the claim that everyone has a right to his own opinion. This claim (that everyone has such a right) is no less bigoted, unless it is not just another claim or bias, but is an objective moral absolute negating as false all contrary claims. Jaffa, with whom I have been arguing in our joint class all this term, believes in such moral absolutes (he calls them natural or divine rights). I do not.
Except for rare exceptions of intellectual honesty, moral-political life (that is, all human life) is a hot or cold war between opposing bigotries which are considered by each of the warring factions not as bigotries but as gospel truth: only the enemy is the bigot, not one’s own righteous commitment! Whether communist, democratic or nazi, apartheid or anti-apartheid, each moral-political faction perceives itself as the party of truth and its enemies as in league with the devil!
Rarely do they muster the courage to realize their own bigotry as Hess and Bukharin did. Instead they, usually without admitting it (pseudo-liberals), presuppose “gods,” permanent, non-arbitrary standards, permitting them to distinguish genuine morality from bigotry. In good conscience, they can then castigate their opponents as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. It constitutes a considerable political victory to infiltrate the public speech with such terms (weapons) which degrade one’s opponents to enemies of genuine humanity represented, of course, by one’s own righteousness. Such terms are political weapons designed to preent one’s bigotry as a crusade on behalf of genuine tolerance, love, “diversity awareness” and other “consciousness-raising.” For the “diversity” here never includes tolerance or love for the enemies of such tolerance or love! Its pseudo-liberalism is political, a war to destroy its enemies, a war fought, of course, in the name of universal peace and justice (see the Wettergreen quotation about contemporary democratic “liberation” movements, above, Introduction).
Naturally those enemies are branded as “special interests,” elitists," bigots preventing the progress of mankind! One’s own cause never is a “special interest!” No teacher worthy of the name participates in this swindle endemic to contemporary schools. No serious teachers of philosophy regards any morality as more than bigotry!
The intellectual honesty of a Bukharin or Hess, a Beckmann or a Grammaté, is rare. It is politically insignificant, since political men refuse to see their morality as arbitrary willfulness, bigotry, a “special interest,” no better and no worse than that of their most deadly foes. Because they view their morality as truly good, they demand its political empowerment. Politics is morality legislated and enforced by military-police power. Unlike Hess and Bukharin, most grovelers do not view this enforcement as tyrannic, but as the victory of truth and justice over “special interests;” a fight to empower their morality against racist, sexist, homophobic bigots.
Only genuine liberalism, the intellectual toughness of a Hess or a Bukharin, liberates morality or politics from religion, from faith in a “god,” a permanent, non-arbitrary moral standard. Liberals despise those “fishing in the murky waters of values and universals.” Immune to illiberal and pseudo-liberal siren songs, they know that nothing legitimates their politics or morality except their willful resolve.
I mention all this because opponents of my moral or philosophic taste often tell me what I freely acknowledge without their prompting – that my views are my tastes or “values,” based on nothing but my taste. However they are unwilling to say the same of their usually pseudo-liberal claims (about everyone’s right to his own opinion or morality – the words “opinion” and “morality” mean the same).
I disagree strongly with Marcuse on crucial points. However I agree just as strongly with his contention (in Repressive Tolerance) that nobody really is tolerant; all tolerance is repressive or intolerant, depending on whose ox is being gored. For example, those who would give every man a right to his opinion generally are intolerant of men who deny that all or most men have this right. This intolerance exists in their hearts whether they admit it or not. Schools are funny, quixotic places in which the fantastically difficult effort is made by students and teachers to be really tolerant – tolerant in one’s heart and soul – of all moral bigotries (“moral” and “bigoted” mean the same thing). Since nothing goes more against the grain, this effort requires constant opposition against the teacher’s or student’s all-too-human urge to condemn opposing moralities as intolerable or immoral. The fight – and it always is a fight – against this urge is the only serious reason to be a student or teacher; the rest is academic window-dressing; pseudo-liberal sophistication. This fight, no less than the refusal to engage in it, arises from moral bias: the intellectual’s desire for academic freedom is no less bigoted than communist, democratic or nazi suppression of that freedom. It is simply the main moral bias of schools, of students and teachers (not an absolute truth, just another bias – but a bias for which real students and teachers are prepared to die, if necessary). As such it is the heart and soul of any school at any time.
A philosopher’s job in schools is to remind first himself and then if possible all students and teachers that their most cherished claims are only prejudices. I see my philosophic (not scientific or nihilist) service to Scripps mainly, if not exclusively in my opposition to the bigotries dominating Scripps (and most schools) in the last dozen years: the anti-Viet-Nam War movement, women’s liberation, homosexual liberation, black liberation. I do not oppose them as merely moral positions, that is, as personal or interpersonal biases. I have opposed the Scripps administration, faculty and students insofar as they regard them as more than mere bigotries.
This opposition has not, and was not intended to, make me popular at Scripps. For example, the day after the Kent State killings, I was the only teacher openly to oppose condemnation of the soldiers. I told the assembled mob that they must know of some natural or divine right which makes it always unjust for soldiers to shoot students (since it was only the day after the shootings and no formal inquiry had taken place. The issue is still debated). I denied the existence of such objective grounds for right and wrong. I am a scientist or nihilist, a genuine liberal, not a true believer! Similarly, there was much indignation among her allies when I asked a feminist professor at Scripps why it would be wrong to put women back in harems rather than give them equality.
I have asked – and seriously asked – these unpopular questions because the dominant elements (at Scripps) are convinced that men have a moral right – not just a bigoted claim – to be liberated from slavery, concentration camps and harems. I believe that this conviction at Scripps (and at most schools) is another example of moral conformity. In this case it is conformity to a government whose “sacred” founding document, its Declaration of Independence, clearly asserts those moral rights.
What we need at Scripps is not philosophy teachers who, at heart, share the present Scripps’ pseudo-liberal commitment to its dominant moral bigotries – that all men are created equal, that all have a right to their life, liberty, and opinions, etc. I believe this conviction is basically nihilist since it is not grounded in an objective divine or natural right – in a right not subject to change by human freedom or creativity. Such claims are, I believe grounded in nothing but the will or whim of the man claiming them – hence atheism or nihilism. (I know I said “man” as I have used “man” or “his” throughout this note. This seems to me proper philosophic usage in “schools” such as Scripps devoted to women’s equality. It would be philosophically improper in schools devoted to harems for women.)
Because I am a nihilist or realist (I prefer “realist,” if realism means liberal rejection of things which do not really exist – things such as rights to life or freedom as distinct from prejudices in favor or life or freedom), I like to test my arguments against consistent anti-nihilists or anti-realists. That is why I am teaching the joint courses with Jaffa. Some people have gotten the wrong idea about these courses. We do not teach them because we share conservative leanings. The crucial issue is that I see these leanings as tastes or prejudices and nothing more, while Jaffa believes that they are based on an objective, natural standard of justice.
Jaffa is more consistent than those who seek to justify their liberal (nihilist) leanings by loudly shouting that all men are entitled to their life, liberty and opinions. He realizes that the claim to universal human equality denies that all men are entitled to their opinion – insofar as an opinion denies that all men are equal. As Marcuse rightly noted, all tolerance is repressive. Thus Jaffa believes that the only valid opinions are those grounded in what he calls natural right. His liberal conservatism (not mine) is sparked by the contention that “nature and nature’s god” entitle all men equally to the right to live and to be free. However he agrees with me that rejection of any natural or divine order results in nihilism. [Hence our course. Socrates (Jaffa) or Nihilism (Neumann)?.]
Now what I suggest about hiring a philosopher is this: Scripps needs someone like Jaffa – a consistent moral absolutist (philosopher) or, as I call him, an anti-realist. Like most teachers (including practically all contemporary professional “philosophers”), the Scripps faculty usually are pseudo-liberals, inconsistent nihilists or realists – while I am a liberal, a consistent realist (scientist) or nihilist (as I said I see it as my academic duty to try to regard this nihilism as just another bias). Unlike Jaffa, most at Scripps reject any sort of divine or natural objective basis for their liberalism which consequently is nihilist, grounded in nothing but their own bias or whim.
We should try to balance Scripps’ nihilism (pseudo-liberalism) with a consistent anti-nihilist (philosopher), a Jaffa or, since he already has a job, one of his most thoughtful students. We at Scripps need someone like Jaffa desperately to balance my consistent, and my enemies’ inconsistent or unconscious, nihilist biases. Precisely because pseudo-liberal feminist and homosexual rights candidates are so attractive to the dominant faction at Scripps, they should be rejected. If men want to be liberal, really “liberated,” they must liberate themselves from the pseudo-liberal cowardice obfuscating their nihilism. Nothing goes more against the grain!
I am under no illusions about the fate of this recommendation. The dominant elements in the Scripps administration and faculty will reject it! Their pseudo-liberalism, panders to the universal cowardice responsible for transformation of education into “consciousness raising.” Like philosophy itself, schools are desperate, impossible enterprises easily degraded into propaganda institutes for their most cherished prejudices. My recommendation was meant to prevent this transformation at Scripps, as if indeed it still could have been prevented! To be sure, in reality’s nihilism, anything is possible. But I realize that success in this effort is as impossible as a liberally educated Singleton (above, end of Bloom review). As Strauss wisely observed, political legitimation of philosophy, of free inquiry, is detrimental to philosophy’s health (above, end of appendix to Bloom review). Nothing contributes more to this disease than the contemporary higher education responsible for Nietzsche’s utopian dream: "I would drive out of my ideal state the so called ‘educated’ just as Plato drove out the poets; this is my terrorism!"²
- “Philosophical Autobiography,” The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, Second Edition (La Salle, 1981) pp. 75 (5, 8-9).
- Nietzsche, Kritische Gesammtausgabe, edited by Colli and Montinari, (Berlin, 1967 ff.) III3, p. 172.