The Tribal Origins of Totalitarianism
Aretae and Borepatch have been riffing on the long standing differences between the Roman tradition and the Celtic/German tradition:
The Roman model is top-down, and has appealed for centuries to the Intellectual Elites who see themselves as potential Imperators, or at least Equites, fit by birth or by Class to instruct the Lower Orders. Palin is through and through representative of the Germanic/Celtic bottom-up system, where talent and determination is more important than Class membership.
But recently I came across a passage from Carroll Quigley's superb history, Tragedy and Hope, that argues a very different view. Quigley's passage sounds a bit like a "just so" story, and I'm not really sure what his evidence is. I personally know very little about German history, and so I cannot really take one side or the other. But on every topic in Quigley's book that I do know a lot about, Quigley is better than almost any other history I've read. So I do find the passage quite intriguing. Here it is:
The fate of Germany is one of the most tragic in all human history, for seldom has a people of such talent and accomplishment brought such disasters on themselves and on others. The explanation of how Germany came to such straits cannot be found by examining the history of the twentieth century alone. Germany came to the disaster of 1945 by a path whose beginnings lie in the distant past, in the whole pattern of German history from the days of the Germanic tribes to the present. That Germany had a tribal and not a civilized origin and was outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire and of the Latin language were two of the factors which led Germany ultimately to 1945.
The Germanic tribe gave security and meaning to each individual's life to a degree where it almost absorbed the individual in the group, as tribes usually do. It gave security because it protected the individual in a social status of known and relatively stable social relationships with his fellows; it gave meaning because it was all-absorbing— totalitarian, if you will, in that it satisfied almost all an individual's needs in a single system. The shattering of the Germanic tribe in the period of the migrations, fifteen hundred years ago, and the exposure of its members to a higher, but equally total ... social structure—the Roman imperial system; and the subsequent, almost immediately subsequent, shattering of that Roman system caused a double trauma from which the Germans have not recovered even today. The shattering of the tribe left the individual German, as a similar experience today has left many Africans, in a chaos of unfamiliar experiences in which there was neither security nor meaning.
When all other relationships had been destroyed, the German was left with only one human relationship on which he turned all his energy—loyalty to his immediate companions. But this could not carry all his life's energy or satisfy all of life's needs—no single human relationship ever can—and the effort to make it do so can only turn it into a monstrosity. But the German tribesman of the sixth century, when all else was shattered, made such an effort and tried to build all security and all meaning on personal loyalty. Any violence, any criminal act, any bestiality was justified for the sake of the allegiance of personal loyalty. The result is to be seen in the earliest work of Germanic literature—the Niebelungenlied, a madhouse dominated by this one mood, in a situation not totally unlike the Germany of 1945.
Into the insanity of monomania created by the shattering of the Germanic tribes came the sudden recognition of a better system, which could be, they thought, equally secure, equally meaningful, because equally total. This was symbolized by the word Rome. It is almost impossible for us, of the West and of today, imbued as we are with historical perspective and individualism, to see what Classical culture was like, and why it appealed to the Germans. Both may be summed up in the word "total." The Greek polis, like the Roman imperium, was total.
We in the West have escaped the fascination of totalitarianism because we have in our tradition other elements—the refusal of the Hebrews to confuse God with the world, or religion with the state, and the realization that God is transcendental, and, accordingly, all other things must be, in some degree, incomplete and thus imperfect. We also have, in our tradition, Christ, who stood apart from the state and told his followers to "Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's." And we have in our tradition the church of the catacombs, where clearly human values were neither united nor total, and were opposed to the state.
The Germans, as later the Russians, escaped the full influence of these elements in the tradition of the West. The Germans and the Russians knew Rome only in its post-Constantine phase when the Christian emperors were seeking to preserve the totalitarian system of Dioclesian, but in a Christian rather than a pagan totalitarianism. This was the system the detribalized Germans glimpsed just before it also was shattered. They saw it as a greater, larger, more powerful entity than the tribe but with the same elements which they wanted to preserve from their tribal past. They yearned to become part of that imperial totalitarianism. They still yearn for it. Theodoric, the Ostrogoth (Roman Emperor, 489-526), saw himself as a Germanic Constantine.
The Germans continued their refusal to accept this second loss, as the Latins and the Celts were prepared to do, and for the next thousand years the Germans made every effort to reconstruct the Christian imperium, under Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor, 1519-1555) as under Theodoric. The German continued to dream of that glimpse he had had of the imperial system before it sank—one, universal, total, holy, eternal, imperial, Roman. He refused to accept that it was gone, hating the small group who opposed its revival and despising the great mass who did not care, while regarding himself as the sole defender of values and righteousness who was prepared to sacrifice anything to restore that dream on earth. Only Charlemagne (died 814) came close to achieving that dream, Barbarossa, Charles V, William II, or even Hitler being but pale imitations.
After Charlemagne, the state and public authority vanished in the Dark Ages, while society and the Church survived. When the state began to revive at the end of the tenth century, it was obviously a separate entity from the Church or society. The totalitarian imperium had been permanently broken in the West into two, and later many, allegiances. During the split in the Dark Ages of the single entity which was simultaneously Holy Roman, Catholic, Universal, and Imperial, the adjectives became displaced from the nouns to leave a Universal Catholic Church and a Holy Roman Empire. The former still survives, but the latter was ended by Napoleon in 1806, a thousand years after Charlemagne. During that thousand years, the West developed a pluralistic system in which the individual was the ultimate good (and the ultimate philosophic reality), faced with the need to choose among many conflicting allegiances.
Germany was dragged along in the same process, but unwillingly, and continued to yearn for a single allegiance which would be totally absorbing. This desire appeared in many Germanic traits, of which one was a continued love affair with Greece and Rome. Even today a Classical scholar does more of his reading in German than in any other language, although he rarely recognizes that he does so because the appeal of Classical culture to the Germans rested on its totalitarian nature, recognized by Germans but generally ignored by Westerners. All the subsequent experiences of the German people, from the failure of Otto the Great in the tenth century to the failure of Hitler in the twentieth century, have served to perpetuate and perhaps to intensify the German thirst for the coziness of a totalitarian way of life.
This is the key to German national character: in spite of all their talk of heroic behavior, what they have really wanted has been coziness, freedom from the need to make decisions which require an independent, self-reliant individual constantly exposed to the chilling breeze of numerous alternatives. Franz Grillparzer, the Austrian playwright, spoke like a true German when he said, a century ago, "The most difficult thing in the world is to make up one's mind." Decision, which requires the evaluation of alternatives, drives man to individualism, self-reliance, and rationalism, all hateful qualities to Germanism. In spite of these desires of the Germans for the coziness of totalitarian oneness, they have been forced as part, even if a relatively peripheral part, of the West to live otherwise. Looking hack, it seemed to Wagner that Germany came closest to its desires in the guild-dominated life of late medieval Augsburg; this is why his only happy opera was placed in that setting. But if Wagner is correct, the situation was achieved only briefly.
I have never been to Germany, and no little of the German character. I know even less about German history. Quigley's passage is fascinating, but I'd want to read a lot more before trusting it fully. Anyone have any good sources about German culture and history?
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2 points by nick Jun 28Intellectual-Detox, Aratae, and Borepatch, great blogs all. Quigley: "This desire appeared in many Germanic traits, of which one was a continued love affair with Greece and Rome. Even today a Classical scholar does more of his reading in German than in any other language" Quigley is less in contradiction with Aratae and Borepatch than Devin suggests, and these two important sentences of Quigley suggest why. The culture of Germany proper today, at least its legal/political culture, is far removed from the ancient and early medieval Germano-Celtic, and the later Norman/English/British offshoot. While Germany and most of the rest of Europe from and after the late medieval period idealized Rome and replaced its own laws with those of Rome, Britain was idealizing ancient German culture and developing its own unique political and legal systems inspired (if not actually based) on it. Lumping the British legal tradition with the ancient Germanic/Celtic tradition as opposed to the Roman was popular in Britain -- the champions of English common law when the rest of Europe was imposing Roman imperial laws certainly thought of themselves that way -- but I'd caution that the historical reality is more complicated. Quigley suggests Hebrew influence and I'd add that Christian belief in the centrality of the soul (which has Egyptian, Persian, and Greek as well as Hebrew origins) as very important to shaping the individualist nature of medieval European and later British law. The main parent of English common law was probably not ancient Anglo-Saxon law but French law around AD 1000, which is prior to the recovery and spread of the totalitarian Justinian code in the West after the fall of western Rome. The French law at that time, brought to England by the Normans, was a mishmash of Germanic and Roman law and Christian ideas, but the procedural law (and thus the politics) was primarily Germanic and Christian. It was quite different from both Roman law and ancient Germanic law -- and it's not just a fusion of the two, it seems to incorporate innovations of medieval Europe. The key feature of the medieval and native French law and the later English common law it gave birth to that is missing from the Romanist law and worldview, and one I deeply wish folks would understand better, because the very idea has been lost today from our political discourse, was the idea of political property rights. It's a sophisticated idea that Romanists, with their somebody-must-be-in-charge view of the world, have a hard time grasping -- that political powers, like the world of land (real property) or the world of mobile things (personal property) or the world of ideas (trademarks, copyright, patents, etc.) can be divvied up and owned. And the best way to resolve political disputes is to be clear that some people own (or "hold") some powers, other people own others, and clearly defining these boundaries, and keeping them from being unduly concentrated, are the keys to healthy politics. This can also be thought of in a Montesquiean (sp?)/Madisonian fashion, as "separation of powers", "federalism", and the like -- but political property rights is the general case and the most valuable to think about. Political property rights bring about real formalism, actual rule of law. In contrast the Roman imperial mode of military-style arbitrary command is very anti-formalist. It's extremely unfortunate that Moldbug and his followers call their philosophy that idealizes a politics and law based on arbitrary military-style (or master-servant style) command as "formalism" when a world of arbitrary commands is quite the opposite of a world governed by rules. If you want to read some twisted polemics, there is a vast literature of medieval legal scholars trying to square the circle by trying to justify the French system of political property rights in terms of the Roman imperial law in which that concept was absent. The French Revolution was, among other things, the Roman model of law and politics overthrowing the native French model which never achieved intellectual cachet in the Rome-centric universities. Since the law of the Roman Republic, which is what they started out idealizing, had been lost (or at least was not understood), they ended up with the warmed-over version of the Justinian Code called the Napoleonic Code.
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2 points by Foseti Jun 13You could read Carlyle's massive biography of Frederick the Great. The problem with German history, as Carlyle routinely points out, is that it's really boring. |
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2 points by aretae Jun 13I have been to Germany, but am not the historical expert. Quigley's expertise is interesting...I suppose I have to now go back to the original Szabo line of Germanic/Celtic. The intent was to call out the set of decentralized, anti-ruler-ish stuff that led the Goths to their victories against Rome, the English to their individualist world, and the Netherlanders to throw off the Spanish rule in the 1500s. I'd love to hear after you've read, about the German character. Certainly there're European jokes about it.
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jul 02Nick, very interesting thoughts. I would really like to learn more about early English law, and Germanic law. If you have any books to recommend I would be very eager to check them out. It's a sophisticated idea that Romanists, with their somebody-must-be-in-charge view of the world, But didn't English political property rights originally derive from the "man in charge"? I know little about this period, but as I see it William the Conqueror conquered the island, and then subdivided the land among his nobles who he granted rights to. Much like how a CEO delegates to his officers. And the best way to resolve political disputes is to be clear that some people own (or "hold") some powers, other people own others, and clearly defining these boundaries, and keeping them from being unduly concentrated, are the keys to healthy politics. I think this is definitely a major point of dispute between us. IMO, division of powers is a major cause of totalitarian government. Or more precisely, powers that are divided along the wrong lines can create very bad government. It's extremely unfortunate that Moldbug and his followers call their philosophy that idealizes a politics and law based on arbitrary military-style (or master-servant style) command I don't really want to get into defending moldbug, he has contradicted himself many times. I'm inspired by some of his early ideas, but have gone a somewhat different direction. In a future post, I'll lay out my idea of what formalist government should be, and I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts. The French Revolution was, among other things, the Roman model of law and politics overthrowing the native French model which never achieved intellectual cachet in the Rome-centric universities. From my readings, Paris of 1900 was far more libertarian than Paris of the 1700's. Paris of 1900 was probably in the top one percentile of libertarianism of all places and cities in the world history. Doesn't this contradict your thesis that the Justinian/Napoleonic Code is the root of all evil? I don't know much about the Napoleonic Code, but to me it seems that it was the silver lining of the French revolution. The real tragedy was the levee en masse, the wars, and the guillotine. But the Napoleonic Code was actually probably a benefit. |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jul 08Nick- Thanks for the response and the reading list. I've downloaded them all and hope to read through these sources. Perhaps, one major question/point of dispute, is how do you return to the world that you desire. Let's say we agree on restoring your ideal system of political property rights? How do you get there? The moldbug way is to appoint a temporary absolutist ruler or dictator, who could clear away the existing corruption, lustrate the courts of the positivist judges, and then grant new charters to 'free cities' and permanently delegate political property rights (this may be a misreading of moldbug, he may want absolutism as a permanent end, but let's just pretend the above is the plan). Do you have a better way of getting to your desired end? The problem is that we have a political system now that is anti-formalist, anti-rule of law, and anti-propertarian. Yet returning to a system of rule of law requires breaking our current system, which is as anti-rule of law as you can get. So it's a catch 22. I can't see any return to your system, that doesn't require a very dangerous break in continuity. |
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1 point by nick Jul 08Just to make sure my position is clear, my main goal with respect to political property rights is to resurrect our memory of them so that the methodology can be available for constructing legal systems. I don't advocate full-fledged return to any ancient political system. I advocate a return to thinking about and implementing political property rights as a methodology for dividing and controlling power in clear ways. So, one could think of what I advocate as political property rights deployed towards Montisquean/Madisonian ends. As an incrementalist, I'd introduce political property rights in an experimental way or on a small scale. On a small scale we could make "charter cities" real charter cities by drawing up deeds of political property rights and then auctioning off the separate property rights to various parties. As for the U.S., there is no easy fix, and as with most societies there are many more ways to make it worse than to make it better. |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jul 11I mostly agree with you. As for the U.S., there is no easy fix, and as with most societies there are many more ways to make it worse than to make it better. Definitely true. |
2 points by nick Jul 03
Devin, thanks for your reply.
early English law, and Germanic law. If you have any books to recommend I would be very eager to check them out.
See below.
William the Conqueror conquered the island, and then subdivided the land among his nobles who he granted rights to. Much like how a CEO delegates to his officers.
(Hits head against wall, argh, argh, argh). Alas, like Bracton and Bodin and a horde of other Romanists this confuses a property grant (property law) with delegation (principal/agent law). They are very different things, indeed they are concepts from two completely different branches of law.
The distinction between property rights and delegation to an agent is the key that makes the difference between absolutism and pluralism. A delegation can confer possession but not title and is generally revocable at will. A grant confers title, an estate, equivalent in many ways to the king's own hereditary title, and can only be revoked under certain narrow circumstances after a quo warranto trial. In the U.S. we've basically replaced property deeds (charters) with written constitutions and quo warranto with constitutional amendment processes.
William's grants were quite thoroughly property grants. And indeed so were the medieval French grants and many of the medieval grants to "free cities" (which were corporations, and the origin of modern republics). Often these property grants were simply royal recognitions of already existing (prescriptive) property rights, others were sales for money, others were exchanges of land and political property rights for future payments and military services.
I can't blame you for the confusion between delegation and property grants. University political scholars from medieval to modern times have rarely properly understood the idea of political property rights. This comes from centuries of of cargo cult scholarship, trying to understand medieval Europe's sophisticated legal and political institutions in terms of Justinian's, under which all political powers were effectively delegations from the emperor to his servants.
For a good understanding of political property rights the old English common lawyers, trained in the Inns of Court rather than universities, are a far better source than university scholars. This means that unless one directly reads actual cases (in e.g. the excellent Selden's volumes found in many major law school libraries), or interpretations by common law centric characters like Littleton and Coke, one is probably reading an account highly distorted by Romanist lenses. Even Blackstone has Romanist distortions, but he's the least distorted of the summaries I can recommend, albeit at a llate date (industrial revolution era). There are probably ancient archives of pre-Revolution French lawyers available in some French law libraries as well that provide an undistorted view but not knowing much French I haven't had access to those those.
Since I have spent an extensive amount of time with the ancient English cases found in Selden's, focused on disputes over political property rights, the best concise account of political property rights is my own paper:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=936314
There is a ton of miscellaneous stuff on the net that sheds some slivers of light on the subject, for example this bit from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law
And another bit from me:
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/03/property-in-everything-some-background.html
Most, however, of the stuff you randomly find will by historically false Romanist interpretation. For example the Wikipedia article on charters insists that a charter must be authored be a "sovereign", an idea that didn't exist before Bodin and is foreign to the medieval common law (and mostly even to Blackstone). The claim is utterly false to history: a charter was simply a synonym for property deed and any property owner could alienate or lease their lands or political property rights (quite often both together) via a charter. Magna Carta for example is simply a "Great" charter, a property deed involving the king's and barons' property rights (mostly political).
Some background in real property law is important, for example "Real Property in a Nutshell" by Bernhardt and Burkhardt. The core thing to learn here are the common law estates, which very from fee simple (full ownership) to various kinds of leases. (Technically, all kinds of ownerships and leases are both "estates" and "tenancies" -- there was traditional no sharp distinction between owning and leasing, just a variety of estates of temporary or permanent duration). Here is a nice overview of the common law estates:
http://www.ciancolaw.com/docs/Common%20law%20forms%20of%20title.pdf
Interesting stuff about French Romanists scholars trying to come to grips with the pre-Revolution French laws of political property rights, and origins of the idea of "sovereignty" in imperial Roman law:
Myron Piper Gilmore, _Roman Law in Political Though, 1200-1600_, http://www.amazon.com/Argument-Roman-Political-Thought-1200-1600/dp/B00340M4SO
For a general history of English law Pollock and Maitland comes well recommended:
http://books.google.com/books?id=UhE7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA524&dq=franchise+pollock&hl=en&ei=rvUuTM_INYL5nAeHzcCGBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Alas, there's no particular "user-friendly" intro to English legal history that I know of that actually understands what was going on. The only people who understand what is going on are people with extensive backgrounds of common law scholarship writing for an audience with legal backgrounds. If somebody wants to fund the endeavor I'll write a more layperson-friendly account.