of vulgar ambition and when. in a word. it ;!ppcm itr coclcty. and when at the same time \ocicty appears IO he ~lragmcntcd. then WC see the dcvclopmcnt of rhc fantasv of the Pcoplcas-One. rhc beginnings of a quc~t for a substantial idcniity. for a social body which is welded to its head, for an embodying power. for a state free from division. It is sometimes said that democracy itself already makes room for totalitarian institutions. modes of organization and modes of represenration. Whilst this is certainly true, it IS also still true to say that a change in the economy of power is required if the totalitarian term of Lociety is to arise. In conclusion. I return to my initial considerations. It seems strange IO me that most of our contemporaries have no sense of how much philosophy owes IO the democratic experience. that they do not explore its matrix or take it as a theme for their rellections. that they fail to recognize it as the matrix of their investigations. When one recalls how certain great philosophers were drawn to Nazism. at least in its early stages. and. to a much greater and lasting extent. to Stalinism. one begins to wonder whether. in modern philosophy. the ability to break with the illusions of both theology and eighteenthand nineteenthcentury rationalism does not carry with it. in turn. quasi-religious faith. 1 a nostalgia for rhe image of a society which is at one with itself and \; Hhlch h,l\ ,_.. mdstered its history, for the image of an organic community. But can we restrict discussion to the idea of ;I separation between philosophlcal thought and political belief? Can either remain unaffected. once they have come into contact? It appears to me that the question is worth asking. and that we might be able to shed Some light on it by following the evolution of the thought of Merleau-Ponty. A Gmilar necessity led him to move from the idea of the body to the idea of the flesh and dispelled the attractions of the Communist model by allowing him to rediscover the indeterminacy of history and of the being of the social.
Human Rights and The Welfare
State
As soon as we begin to ask ourselves about human rights. we find
ourselves drawn into a labyrinth of questions. We must first ask ourselves if we can in fact accept the formula without making reference to a human nature. Or, if we reject the notion of human nature, without surrendering to a teleological vision of history, For can we in fact say that human beings have embarked upon a voyage of selfdiscovery. that they create themselves by discovering and instituting _ rights in the absence of any principle that might allow us to decide as to their true nature and as to whether their evolution does or does : not conform to their essence? Even at this early stage. we cannot : ignore the question. Even if we attempt to avoid it and simply examine the import of an event such as the proclamation at the end of the eighteenth century of the rights known as the rights of man. other difficulties lie in store. If we adopt the latter course. our investigations appear to be guided. if not by observation, at least by a reading and interpretation of the facts. We begin by asking ourselves about the meaning of the mutation that occurred in the representation of the individual and of society. That question leads to another: can the effects of that mutation elucidate the course of history up to the present time? To be more specific: is it the case that human rights merely served to disguise relations established in bourgeois society. or did they make possible. or even give rise to. demands and struggles which contributed to the rise of democracy? Even this is too crude a statement of the terms of the alternative. Even if - and I believe that the organizers of this debate would accept the hypothesis - we agree that the institution of human rights has come to support a dynamic of rights. do we not have to investigate the effects of that development? It is one thing to say that social. economic and cultural rights (notably those mentioned in the United Nations Charter) arise as an extension of those original rights. It is quite another to say that they derive from the same inspiration. and it is yet another to take the view that they promote freedom. The question takes us further still if we ask whether
(Suny Series in the Thought and Legacy of Leo Strauss) Corine Pelluchon, Robert Howse - Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism_ Another Reason, Another Enlightenment-State University of New York Pr