Very interesting discussion! I am reading I. Berlin’s “The Crooked Timber of Humanity” and he detects two conflicting trends in the history of ideas. One dates back to the Pre-Socratic aspiration for an ideal ‘regime’ that would correspond to the ‘essence’ of men, and, hence, usher in what some would call heaven on earth. The other trend is more recent; it is the French Enl’t and the subsequent Romanticism of Herder, etc., that insists on self-determination, expression of self-will, irreducible plurality of men that cannot be accommodated under some mythical ‘heaven on earth’. (C. Taylor traces something similar in his essay “Politics of Recognition”)
It seems to me, Grant and Jonner, that your discussion highlights the mutual incommensurability (to throw in a big word) of these trends. Now, Grant, you seem to be suggesting that Kuyper’s vision was to somehow transcend beyond this vicious dialectic and work toward a social and political vision that would accommodate the dynamic that animates both trends. That is, Kuyper’s is a vision of an ‘optimally’ structured society, maximally open to the diversity that characterizes the modern condition. If this is what you mean, this is interesting indeed! Though I am quite sympathetic to such line of argument, I remain riveted by the fact that the entire Reformational tradition, Kuyper included, has tended (as I do) to view the irreducible plurality (what Rawls calls the fact of simply pluralism) as a manifestation of religious antithesis. Our society is pervaded by deep and thoroughgoing differences that are irresolvable, in some ultimate sense. So, the Reformational posse has tended toward a pluralistic models of society and political community. What concerns me, however, is that there is still a deep-seated conviction that such state of affairs (incommensurability and pluralism) are a result of sin and brokenness. It needs to be accommodated, politically and socially (the alternative of coersion is unacceptable), but we do so willy-nilly, it seems. We (Christians, Reformed) insist that there will come a day when those fundamental differences will cease to be. This kind of ‘covert resentment’ is in sharp contrast to someone like I. Berlin, or Arendt, or Rawls, who view plurality of visions of the good as endemic to humans. So, we remain open to an accusation that we are still after the old Greek myth about some ideal constellation, pristine garden when difference shall be no more. Are we denying the fundamental ‘human condition’?
sgassanov
Sep 27 2002
07:01 am
Very interesting discussion! I am reading I. Berlin’s “The Crooked Timber of Humanity” and he detects two conflicting trends in the history of ideas. One dates back to the Pre-Socratic aspiration for an ideal ‘regime’ that would correspond to the ‘essence’ of men, and, hence, usher in what some would call heaven on earth. The other trend is more recent; it is the French Enl’t and the subsequent Romanticism of Herder, etc., that insists on self-determination, expression of self-will, irreducible plurality of men that cannot be accommodated under some mythical ‘heaven on earth’. (C. Taylor traces something similar in his essay “Politics of Recognition”)
It seems to me, Grant and Jonner, that your discussion highlights the mutual incommensurability (to throw in a big word) of these trends. Now, Grant, you seem to be suggesting that Kuyper’s vision was to somehow transcend beyond this vicious dialectic and work toward a social and political vision that would accommodate the dynamic that animates both trends. That is, Kuyper’s is a vision of an ‘optimally’ structured society, maximally open to the diversity that characterizes the modern condition. If this is what you mean, this is interesting indeed! Though I am quite sympathetic to such line of argument, I remain riveted by the fact that the entire Reformational tradition, Kuyper included, has tended (as I do) to view the irreducible plurality (what Rawls calls the fact of simply pluralism) as a manifestation of religious antithesis. Our society is pervaded by deep and thoroughgoing differences that are irresolvable, in some ultimate sense. So, the Reformational posse has tended toward a pluralistic models of society and political community. What concerns me, however, is that there is still a deep-seated conviction that such state of affairs (incommensurability and pluralism) are a result of sin and brokenness. It needs to be accommodated, politically and socially (the alternative of coersion is unacceptable), but we do so willy-nilly, it seems. We (Christians, Reformed) insist that there will come a day when those fundamental differences will cease to be. This kind of ‘covert resentment’ is in sharp contrast to someone like I. Berlin, or Arendt, or Rawls, who view plurality of visions of the good as endemic to humans. So, we remain open to an accusation that we are still after the old Greek myth about some ideal constellation, pristine garden when difference shall be no more. Are we denying the fundamental ‘human condition’?