Week 129

 

Another week goes by without us making substantial progress. My fault.

I am, at least, almost done with what I promised last week – that is, completing an answer on Mussolini's transition “from socialism to nationalism”. Here, if you are interested, the third “chapter”.

As for this week, while I was going through some old stuff for the answer above, I had a chance to revisit a work of the old days, an essay-program composed during the first half of 1918 by FIAT owner Giovanni Agnelli and economist Attilio Cabiati – which, surprisingly (?), appears to have been reprinted many times over the years – under the title “European Federation or League of Nations?”. The publication, which is otherwise more significant as a representation of a contemporary climate when a “democratic” conceit of the war appeared for a few weeks destined to find its affirmation over the “national” idea of the war, went with an extensive, and sympathetic albeit somewhat dubitative (the general climate had certainly changed by the time of publication, soon after the war), review by Luigi Einaudi.

This, in turn, reminded me that we are perfectly on schedule – rather, two weeks early – for the publication of another opinion piece by Einaudi (April 20^th 1920 - “Towards the City of God”); this time, a commentary on the contemporary work of philosopher Giuseppe Rensi, whose lectures in Genoa were to result in the publication of his “Philosophy of Authority” in June 1920. In it, Rensi drove from the observation of the conflictual and violent character of contemporary society and politics, as well as from the decisive experience of the conflict, to reach a substantial rejection of both idealism (in its traditional Italian formulation) and rationalism, in so far as positing a unitary and “universal” principle, arguing instead the existence of an irreducible “pluriversality” of which the conflictual behaviors, formations and instances of humankind were manifestations. On these grounds, Rensi's skepticism and irrationalism resulted in the affirmation of force as the one source of authority – something which didn't prevent Rensi from distancing himself and eventually becoming an opposer of the Fascist Regime (this shouldn't really be a surprise given the almost obvious “anti-totalitarian” imprint of his skepticism).

What is the rationale of a political constitution? – asked Rensi in his introduction – and what is the rational solution of political problems?

That nothing within the field of political life is accomplished by act of force, by mere imposition, by means of imperium; hence that no deliberation is made, of which those who are subject to it don't acknowledge and accept the reason; that any deliberation is, therefore, effective by means of willful consent, approval, request.

If anything is imposed and effected by means of mere force, which is to say by means of a command which is to be executed in so far as it has force at its side, but which people observe only because they fear that force at its side, while recognizing it as an arbitrary imposition, then we are in the presence of something violent and undiscerning, of a matter of brute force, that is of a matter which is, in its essential terms, irrational.

It is therefore necessary, in order for this irrationality to be removed, for there to be identity between what individual reason deems right, and therefore wishes, and what the law or the State deem right, and therefore command. […]

Rationalism and idealism had been the main proponents of this conceit; liberalism had then adapted it to political grounds, with its plebiscites, self-determination and universal suffrage. Now, the new political forces had brought it to its extreme consequences.

[…] Contemporary revolutionarism drives its original impulse from the aspiration of, not only transposing, but realizing that concept on practical grounds. […] If the social and political world is yet […] to be perfectly resolved in elements of reason, it may very well happen tomorrow; tomorrow […] one will be able to take care of all human matters in a perfectly rational way; if irrational, undiscerning elements still remain today, one last effort, one last change and they'll be removed, and rationality will penetrate, even in its the deepest recesses and forever, this grand city of humankind which will then becom the City of God of reason and justice. […]

It is indeed contemporary revolutionarism which, while having as its original purpose the actuation of such perfect rationality, which is to say the total and definitive coincidence of individual will with the will of the law and the State, […] brings such a conceit to its explicit and practical self-negation, to that self-reduction to absurd which, already in principle and in abstract terms, has mortally contaminated it. […]

As much as reality in general is far from reducible to reason or spirit – Rensi concluded – so is human reality. Irrational elements […] are and will continue to be fundamental in the formation of social and political associations. And the request that the latter may be, or become, composed entirely of rational elements […] leads to nothing else but the complete uprooting of the social association itself.

 

On April 20^th – amidst an increasingly contentious political climate – economist Luigi Einaudi penned a rejection of a contemporary piece from Rensi (La bestia bionda - which, to be clear, is not the one above, even if it must have shared substantial similarities), where the author, somewhat polemically (Rensi had substantially distanced himself from the socialist movement since the early Century), asked whether it was better to resist the socialist advance or to let them win. It is likely that Einaudi – had he had a chance to examine Rensi's subsequent works – would have read Rensi's piece somewhat differently, as the two appear to agree on certain points more than one would expect given the premise.

Nonetheless, this is one of those pieces I am especially fond of. It is, certainly, representative of its time, and therefore probably deserving of a more detailed commentary than the one I can provide now. But what always strikes me, is the fact that every time I revisit it, it seems to be telling something slightly different, like executions of the same score.

The piece which Giuseppe Rensi titles after the “gold haired beast” is a passionate, anguished outburst of someone who feels lost in the disorder, in the anarchy, amidst the current convulsive madness of all and everything. We want order; we want uniformity, commands, one idea for everyone to obey […] The bourgeoisie seems incapable of recreating some discipline […] Let's then leave the way to the proletariat, ignorant and cruel, but resolute in the affirmation of its ideal, to murder as many as it is necessary for every ideal to vanish and its own to remain alone, dominant, to give men what they most need: one authority, one discipline, one religion, for it to give society a true and living unity.

Giuseppe Rensi wrote […] a true hymn to force, which unifies, does away with doubt and leads the way. His hymn answers to a need of human soul, which shies away from conflicts, from clashes of men, of parties, of ideas, and wishes for tranquility, concordance, unity, even if obtained with blood and iron.

If I were able, I'd like to write an hymn […] to discord, to struggle, to disunion of spirits. Why should we have as an ideal to think and act the same? Why exalt proletariat, ignorant and cruel, which doesn't argue but demands? Which calls for something it doesn't know and calls more strongly the less it knows the goal it aspires to? What substantial reason is there for the State to have one ideal of its own […] for men to be compelled to adhere to it? Why one religion instead of many? Why one political or social or spiritual opinion instead of infinite ones?

Beauty, perfection, are not uniformity, not unity, but variety and contrast.

Those who complain about our current spiritual disarray and wish for a new order don't know how to read inside themselves, bewail what they love, suffer what gives them life. The aspiration to unity, to the empire of one, is an empty dream, it's the aspiration of one who holds to an idea, pursues one ideal of life, and wishes for everyone else to hold to the same idea and long for the same ideal. There is one thing they can't see: that the beauty of their ideal comes from the contrast of it with every other ideal, which he deems worse […] If everyone accepted it, his ideal would be dead. […]

The disorderly, labored, anti-unitary, ill-disciplined life we live may appear insufferable to us, who experience its painful individual, economical and moral consequences. It will look magnificent to future generations, who are going to enjoy the fruits of the political, economical and moral truths which our present conflicts will lead to triumph. […]