As if a summons

[This post originated as a letter to Marie on February 10, 2017, the date I have posted it. But in fact I didn't get around to posting it here until April 25, 2020, some three years later. I'm indolent like that, as you've all long known.]

My love, my heart,

 

I saw an article today that sounds like it’s calling me, except of course that I have a job and a life and am generally busy with all kinds of other stuff. But I didn’t expect to read what I was reading.

 

A little background. You remember that when I was in graduate school (some 30+ years ago), I was studying political philosophy. In that time, the two most interesting writers that I ran across (other than the Big Names that everybody knew, that they offered classes in) were Carl Schmitt and Bertrand de Jouvenel. I read three short books by Schmitt (of which I lost two when we moved back home), and never actually read any Jouvenel until I was working at a slow job a few years later and had a lot of time on my hands. I’ve read one of Jouvenel’s books (Du pouvoir), and own a couple others that I mean to get to some day. (smile)

 

Check these two out in Wikipedia. (One place where I’m inclined to disagree with the article on Schmitt is that, according to my understanding, Schmitt’s Nazism during the 1930s-40s was pure opportunism and not based on any real commitment.)

 

But all these studies had something of the antique or historical about them. While Francis Fukuyama may have exaggerated in saying that the whole world was going to end up as neoliberal democracies, certainly there has been nobody literate and intelligent out there arguing at a philosophical level for any other set of political principles since … when? The 1930s? (I leave out the war period itself. Inter arma silent philosophi.) Of course there were self-proclaimed Marxists in the 1960s, but it’s hard to think of Marxism as a living body of thought by then. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but even so … the 1960s were a while ago. Of course there has been quite a lot written by political Islamists, but not much of that is likely to be directly applicable to Europe and the United States.

 

And then today I read this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/

 

Followed (as a P.S.) by this:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745

 

And here I sit, out of practice and out of shape and libraries behind the curve. (sigh)

 

In that parallel universe where I had made a career out of Schmitt and Jouvenel, I would have languished in total obscurity at some small, liberal arts college, until today … by which time I would have tenure (therefore liberty) and the background to fight against this stuff in my sleep. (sigh)

 

Oh well.

 

Back to work.