{In Michael Polanyi’s opinion, modern nihilism emerged from a common-law marriage between secularism/rationalism and the millenarian passions of Christianity recast as Romanticism. In ‘Beyond Nihilism,’ Polanyi briefly outlined the trajectory of modernity and its unintended consequences. He ended his essay on a note of cautious optimism, urging readers to learn from the past, to embrace civility and moderation, and to eschew radicalism; since his essay was written in 1960, we must conclude that it failed to have its desired effect.}
Michael Polanyi, from Beyond Nihilism (1960):
Jean-Jacques Rousseau anticipated in three respects the inherent instability of the rationalist ideal of a secular society. He saw that it implied an unrestrained individualism, demanding absolute freedom and equality far beyond the limits imposed by any existing society. Next, he saw that such absolute sovereignty of individual citizens was conceivable within society only under a popular government exercising absolute power. Thirdly, he anticipated the rise of an amoral individualism, asserting the rights of a unique creative personality against the morality of a discredited society. These implications were the logical consequences of their antecedents: that is, of a skeptical rationalism combined with the secularized fervor of Christianity.
By his argument and rhetoric, Rousseau poured into the channels of rationalism a fierce passion for humanity. His thought so widened the channels that they could be fraught eventually with all the supreme hopes of Christianity, the hopes which rationalism had released from their dogmatic framework. The legacy of Christ blighted the hopes of complacent rationalists; it had other tasks in store for humanity. The rationalist philosophes not only failed to establish an era of quiet enjoyment, but induced instead a violent tide of secular dynamism, which degenerated in many places into a fanaticism fiercer than the religious furies which their teachings had appeased. Even before the principles of scientific rationalism had been fully formulated, Rousseau had conjured up the extrapolation of these principles to the kind of secular fanaticism which ultimately resulted.
The predominant opinion of Enlightenment thinkers opposed both the premises and the conclusions of Rousseau, and they continued confidently to pursue the prospect of free and reasonable men in search of individual happiness, under a government to which they would grant only enough power to protect citizens from encroachments by their fellow citizens or by foreign enemies—disregarding the question as to who would arbitrate between the government and the citizens.
Little did the great rationalists realize the transformation they were engendering. They did not suspect that the spirit of fanaticism would enter the teachings of the philosophers and set the world ablaze with their arguments, or that rationalism, so inflamed, would transform the emotional personality of man. Yet this is what followed. Man’s consciousness of himself as a sovereign individual evoked that comprehensive movement of thought and feeling now known as Romanticism.
In 1789, France led the world towards a revolutionary consummation of the contradiction inherent in a post-Christian rationalism. The ideology of total revolution is a variant of the derivation of absolutism from absolute individualism. Its argument is simple and has yet to be answered. 1 If society is not a divine institution, it is made by man, and man is free to do with society what he likes. There is then no excuse for having a bad society, and we must make a good one without delay.
In the 19th century, a new scientific sociology claimed to have proved three things: (1) that the total destruction of the existing society was the only method for achieving any essential improvement of society; (2) that nothing beyond this act of violence was required, or even to be considered, since it was unscientific to make any plans for the new society; and (3) that no moral restraints were to be observed in this revolutionary seizure of power. The revolutionary process was historically inevitable and so beyond human control; morality, truth, etc. were merely epiphenomena of class interests. Revolutionary action would embody all morality, veracity, and justice, in the scientific sense.
People often speak of Communism and Nazism as secular religions, but not all fanaticism is religious. The passions of the total revolutions and total wars which have devastated our age were not religious but moral. Their morality became immanent in brute force because a naturalistic view of man forced them into this manifestation. Once they are immanent, moral motives no longer speak in their own voice and are no longer accessible to moral arguments; such is the structure of modern nihilistic fanaticism.
This is my diagnosis of the pathological morality of our time. What chance is there of remedying this condition? The Enlightenment, having secularized Christian hopes, destroyed itself by its moral inversion, which proved disastrous in its turn; but we cannot simply return to older ideas which had proven unstable. The rule of some dogmatic authority is no more acceptable today that it was in the age of Voltaire. We shall not abandon the scientific revolution which has secularized extensive domains of knowledge. We shall not go back on the hopes of Christianity and become as calmly indifferent to social wrongs as secularized antiquity was.
We have arrived beyond nihilism today, even though the place at which we have arrived resembles that where we stood before; we cannot foresee the creative possibilities by which we may discover an avenue that does not lead back to nihilism. May we not, however, learn from the disasters of the 20th century to establish civic partnerships, united in their resolve on continuous reforms—our reforming dynamism restrained by the knowledge that radicalism will throw us back into disaster the moment we try to act out its principles literally?
It may happen, but we cannot limit ourselves to speculation. From here onward, thought must take on the form of action. 2
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1 With all due respect, Polanyi was simply wrong on this point. The arguments for “total revolution” and “absolute individualism” have been repeatedly and decisively answered, and had been long before Polanyi. That, of course, has not ended the debate. Fanaticism has a mind of its own; it tends to be impervious to reason.
2 “From here onward, thought must take on the form of action” strikes me as being not unlike Karl Marx’s “Hitherto, philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” I do not know if Polanyi noticed the similarity between his formulation and that of Marx.
Nihilism,
as portrayed by an AI program
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