Book Review -- THE JUDGING EYE by R. Scott Bakker

Almost two years ago, I sat in a coffee shop in Fukuoka Japan with a latte and a copy of R. Scott Bakker's The Judging Eye. I finished it there, at that coffee shop close to my hotel. Since the second novel of The Aspect-Emperor series has just been published under the title The White-Luck Warrior, I thought it was time to dust off The Judging Eye and post my thoughts on it. For my reviews of The Prince of Nothing trilogy, which precedes this book, see my reviews of The Darkness that Comes Before and its two sequels.

The first thing I'll say is that this book, though comparable in size to the previous three volumes that made up The Prince of Nothing, felt much shorter than they. Indeed, it felt as if more happened in the preceding volumes. Not to say that much of the book is filler. It is rather well-paced, and Bakker does this by shifting perspectives from chapter-to-chapter (and even within chapters, on occasion). He has three major plot threads in this novel--the Empress and the court intrigues of the New Empire against an ancient cult of a mother-goddess, the Emperor and his Great Ordeal to destroy the Consult, and Drusas Achamian and his search for the origins of Anasûrimbor Kellhus and the location of the secret Dûnyain fortress.

As usual, Bakker's worldbuilding is woven into his narrative and dialogue. The cultures and traditions of the various societies are played out through the tale, rather than described, and the reader finally gets to see glimpses of the mysterious Empire of Zeüm and the Nonmen, beyond distant rumors and passing references. Especially well-rendered are the Sranc hunters that range the north and northeast for Sranc scalps that they sell for the Emperor's bounty.

Interestingly enough, Bakker chooses to employ a (by now) old fantasy trope--the journey through the darkness (cf. the Mines of Moria in The Lord of the Rings or the Hall of Kings in The Sword of Shannara, for example). But it serves more than simply a point of tension--it serves as a journey into the psyche of the Nonmen, the pre-human inhabitants of Eärwa. The journey is into far more than darkness, and it breaks the sanity of most of the characters, who are all renowned Sranc-hunters and hard fighting men. The inclusion of the Judging Eye, the ability to see good, evil, or even damnation in the soul of another, as well as the fanatic mother-goddess cult and their White-Luck Warrior, are imaginative complications to the narrative.

The characters themselves are also superbly rendered. Each has deep psychological foundations that Bakker appears to have mapped out and developed, with each character revealing his own mind and heart through his actions and words. Although sex, sexuality, and sexual frankness of narrative are much more toned-down in The Judging Eye (which I actually appreciate), the gritty realism is still there--characters void their bowels when they die, and others urinate themselves when terrified, for example. But, tactfully, Bakker never lingers on these things. They happen, he moves on.

Unfortunately, the tale itself does not carry that psychological and philosophical experimentation that the previous novels provided. Although he repeats much of the questions that he raised (and perhaps answered) in previous volumes, this volume fails to tread new ground. It is really just more of the same. Unfortunately, when I was finished, though I had thoroughly enjoyed this work, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. One reviewer posited that Bakker had "possibly...gotten a lot of his musings out of his system with his recent SF stand-alone Neuropath." If that's the case, in my opinion, The Judging Eye is actually weaker for it.

It also didn't have much of a buildup and/or payoff. Achamian's storyline, which featured the aforementioned descent into darkness, experienced a great increase in dramatic and psychological tension, which finally snapped to bring us a satisfying climax and exciting cliffhanger. However, the other two main plot threads really didn't peak in the same way. The plot thickened, but didn't achieve any sort of critical mass or breaking point. Achamian's story is mostly what carries the reader through the ending.

This doesn't mean that the book is not excellent. Indeed, it is very good. As a stand-alone novel, it is fun, intriguing, and thought-provoking; as the afore-mentioned reviewer commented, The Judging Eye is still "by some margin still the most intellectually-stimulating epic fantasy book since, well, The Thousandfold Thought." But in light of the intellectual challenge and progression-of-thought by which the novels comprising The Prince of Nothing were characterized, I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed. I am taking into account the fact that this is the first novel in a series, and the threads left dangling at the end certainly made me anticipate The White-Luck Warrior, which seems to be selling much better than The Judging Eye had. There's a lot of potential here with this series, and perhaps Bakker is just getting warmed up.

The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker
Style B+
Substance B+
Overall B+

Gnosis, Increased Consciousness, Prometheanism, and Depression--A Follow-up to My Review of FRANKENSTEIN

Promethean knowledge is an interesting theme in Romantic literature, it seems, and one of the more profound revelations that it conveys is that the more consciousness one attains, the more despondent and unhappy one inevitably becomes. In his comments on Frankenstein, Harold Bloom invokes Kierkegaard's remark that Satan, being pure spirit and therefore pure consciousness, undiluted by mortal and material constraints and distractions, is perhaps the most depressed individual in existence.

This, strangely, coincides with my fascination with noir literature, especially of the hardboiled kind. The gnosis that the world is a bitter and unhappy place is a constant theme in noir, and revelation and increased awareness are not only vital to the survival of a noir protagionist, but also inevitably lead to moral quandary and misery of the individual. Nevertheless, there is that thirst and desire for gnosis, the obsessive desire to open Pandora's Box and the consequences be damned (though they are more often damning).

Again, I have stumbled across something of which I have long been acutely aware, but have struggled to put into words. Hardboiled noir fiction helped me isolate and describe some of the major characteristics of reality and society. Mary Shelley and my introductions to Romanticism have confirmed to me that knowledge, consciousness, gnosis are all reflections of a Promethean ascendancy, and that increase of esoteric wisdom and awareness will only serve to cause the ascendant pain and suffering.

However, we mustn't forget what Prometheus' name means, nor his ultimate fate. Προμηθεύς--"forethought"--was punished by Zeus for bequeathing the secret of fire upon mankind. This secret gave humans power and understanding, birthing civilization and threatening the ascendancy of the gods. For his crime, he was chained to a rock somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains, where every day an eagle would come and consume his liver from his living flesh, and every night it would grow back. The great irony of this is that Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley's husband, would write the epic romantic poem Prometheus Unbound, in which the gods are overthrown and the titan is released.

The unexamined life is still not worth living. In this, I believe, suffering makes stronger, wiser, but oftentimes more bitter and cynical. One has to wonder that, if one's liver is devoured every day, if gradually one shall discover oneself turning into the very stone to which one is chained. Wisdom and awareness always make one a superior individual, no matter what the cost in self-esteem or emotional happiness. Passionate poets and brilliant thinkers are rarely happy people, but are often disturbed and disturbing. They say the things other people try not to think about. But, ironically, these despondent individuals can find joy in things that engage them. Thus, escapism seems to be a powerful refuge for the intellectual. Yet, that escapism can become all to often a blanket beneath which the intellectual hides, and then he sinks to the level of the proles and even beneath in his refusal to peek out and accept the outside world for what it is. The proles may not accept that the world is bitter and evil in thought, but they certainly do in deed, and that makes all the difference. The intellectual, however, has to ensure that bitterness and cynicism doesn't prompt him/her to cold indifference, because that route leads to evil as well.

Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Four

I should really start picking up the pace with these and posting more than once per month. This particular post covers my readings of Part One, Chapters XVI to XVIII, where de Tocqueville rounds out his discussion on the tyranny of the majority with factors that mitigate it, as well as preserve democratic tendencies within the early American cultural-political framework. The final chapter is a brief look at what the future might hold for the United States from his point-of-view.

Part Three
Part Two
Part One

In my last post on Democracy in America, I lamented the current cultural situation we find ourselves in, what I now consider to be similar to what the ancient Greeks called στάσις (stasis). The subjugation of the individual is alive and well in American society, but instead of a monolithic, unified majority of Anglo-American culture (as de Tocqueville observed across the Jacksonian socio-cultural landscape), the current American outlook is one divided between rival factions and coalitions of factions. Identification with a faction is often integral to the individual's identity. Nevertheless, acceptance into and alienation from one's faction generally follows the guidelines that de Tocqueville describes regarding the individual amidst the majority in Part One, Chapter XV.

It is in Chapter XVI where de Tocqueville begins to discuss the existence of lawyers as an independent and powerful social caste. And yes, I do purposely utilize the word caste, although some may feel class might be a more accurate term. Lawyers are a sort of aristocracy amidst the absence of an actual landed nobility, de Tocqueville feels, and there very existence is a check not only to majority rule but to the very existence of democracy itself. They are, by their very nature, anti-democratic.

During the Jacksonian era, de Tocqueville observed how the wealthy had no common tie to unite them into a social class. Sadly, this has changed, as the rich and wealthy are, ironically, perhaps the most class-conscious segment of American society today. The modern wealthy are an outgrowth of the American emulation of the British aristocracy during the Gilded Age. This emulation injected a sense of social separateness and created the identity of a class of wealthy citizens that are set apart--many of these people have become movers and shakers in the broader corporatocracy that has so much influence over politics through finance, banking, and control of the Federal Reserve.

But that's an aside. During de Tocqueville's lifetime, the lawyer was the only apparent aristocratic element in American society. My own personal take, however, is that the lawyer is a priest as opposed to a noble, and for the very reasons that de Tocqueville goes on to describe.

"The special information which lawyers derive from their studies insures them a separate rank in society, and they constitute a sort of privileged body in the scale of intellect. This notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the practice of their profession: they are the masters of a science which is necessary, but which is not very generally known: they serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of directing to their purpose the blind passions of parties in litigation, inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment of the multitude. Add to this, that they naturally constitute a body; not by any previous understanding, or by an agreement which directs them to a common end; but the analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their methods connect their minds together, as a common interest might unite their endeavors."

If it weren't for their practice of an arcane, poorly understood form of knowledge (i.e. the science of law), I'd agree with de Tocqueville that the lawyers were simply a sort of American aristocracy. But it is the practice of this knowledge, and its possession, that makes the lawyer much more like a priest. His knowledge is something the common public is assumed to be incapable of grasping. Not only that, the layperson can never practice it without being properly ordained by the bar. Law school and the bar examination are a sort of progression from postulate to novice to vested and ordained practitioner. The procedures of the courtroom are a kind of liturgical ceremony intended to awe and instill a sense of wonder and fear before the power of justice and law itself. The very fact that the judge is often a lawyer is not lost to de Tocqueville, nor the fact that many public figures were as well. This latter de Tocqueville blames for the injection of legal procedure, method, and jargon into the bureaucratic workings of statecraft.

The primary safety-valve that de Tocqueville isolates that preserves the democratic spirit in the courtroom is the trial by a jury of one's peers. De Tocqueville heaps no small amount of praise upon this institution as a bastion of political freedom and an assurance of democratic ideals. The privilege of judgment is shared with the people. Each American citizen is given a stake in seeing the laws upheld, and service in a jury not only should instill an appreciation for the rule of law, but provide a means of enforcing public opinion and sentiment in the courtroom, in spite of the sentiments of the priestly lawyer caste.

The jury contributes powerfully to form the judgment and to increase the natural intelligence of a people; and this, in my opinion, is its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous public school, ever open, in which every juror learns his rights, enters into daily communication with the most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes, and becomes practically acquainted with the laws, which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar, the advice of the judge, and even by the passions of the parties.

Woe to the American people that the duty of the juror has, in turn, been made subservient to the legal system instead of a complement and check to it. My comments on jury nullification in "Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Two" should remind the reader of the amount of cultural and political damage that has been wrought.
Following his discussion of lawyers and jurors, de Tocqueville examines the preservation of democracy in the United States from a variety of other angles--geographic, social, and cultural. While he does admit that the North American continent is blessed with resources and an abundance of land that makes both wanderlust and the American οἶκος (oikos, self-sufficient household-farm) possible are vital to the upkeep of American democracy, he doesn't attribute the status of primae causae. After briefly touching on immigration and westward migration, he contrasts the American continent with the Hispanic states in South America, and concludes that culture, and not geography, must be the inherent cause of democratic tendencies within a society.

In other words, for de Tocqueville, the whole of a society must genuinely value and love the concept of democracy and be willing to sacrifice for it in order for a democratic regime to take shape and perpetuate.

"It is true that the Anglo-Americans settled in the New World in a state of social equality; the low-born and the noble were not to be found amongst them; and professional prejudices were always as unknown as the prejudices of birth. Thus, as the condition of the society was democratic, the rule of democracy was established without difficulty.

"...The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which may suit a democratic people; but the Americans have shown that it would be wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid of manners and laws."

What de Tocqueville terms as "manners" here would now be referred to as culture and values. It is the values of a culture (and by extension the laws they enact) that determine whether or not a democratic government can be maintained by a society, and those are aspects of Hispanic society to which de Tocqueville attributed the failure of democracy to take hold in South America.

De Tocqueville closes Part One of Democracy in America by discussing the future prospects for Europe and America alike. He focuses far more attention on Europe, especially in light of the possibility for there to arise a set of brutal tyrannies now that popular support for monarchism has dwindled throughout much of the continent. His fears prove prescient, especially when one views the dismal decades of the early-to-mid twentieth century.

"If absolute power were re-established amongst the democratic nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume a new form, and appear under features unknown to our fathers.

"... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary which divided good from evil is overthrown; everything seems doubtful and indeterminate in the moral world; kings and nations are guided by chance, and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bounds of license.

"...When kings find that the hearts of their subjects are turned towards them, they are clement. ... But once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of revolution... the sovereign is no longer regarded by any as the father of the state, and he is feared by all as its master. If he is weak, he is despised; if he is strong, he is detested. He is himself full of animosity and alarm; he finds that he is a stranger in his own country, and he treats his subjects like conquered enemies."

The restrictions of old are gone. All of the social safety-valves which limited and contained the excesses of tyranny have been removed by modernity, leaving society far more vulnerable to the abuse of absolute power in the hands of an individual. Modernity has also stripped the thrones of the earth of their sacrosanctness, ensuring that social control by any would-be Caesar requires domination of politics through force. The age of military dictatorships, of fascism in Europe, and the tumultuous wars of the early half of the twentieth century, would likely have not surprised de Tocqueville, though I have no doubt they would have grieved him.

De Tocqueville's final predictions of American development are quite prescient, though not prophetic, and are proof of what an analytical mind can do when projecting possible future events. De Tocqueville anticipated the westward expansion to the Pacific Ocean with a certainty borne on having witnessed the dynamism of American settlement firsthand. His analysis of American infiltration into Mexican territory through the settlement of Texas prompted him to predict an eventual conflict between Mexico and the United States.

What is a bit surprising, however, is his foresight into conflicts between the United States and Russia.

"Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned of their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

"All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principle instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe."

There's not much one can really add to this quote. The origins of American power are exactly opposite those of Russian. The Russians emerged from beneath servitude and subjugation to challenge the more civilized nations of Europe. Their rusticity is comparable to that of the Americans, yet the nature of their struggles are exactly the opposite. The Americans have tamed the wilderness while the Russians have battled off European civilization in order to achieve their strength. This, indeed, goes beyond the United States vs. the Soviet Union, as many other readers of de Tocqueville have assessed. Indeed, anyone who understands modern Russian culture and society will readily realize that a great deal has not changed since de Tocqueville penned the above passage. Indeed, although due to economic disaster, American power is waning, Russia is perpetually crouched above Central Asian wealth.


De Tocqueville seems to believe very firmly in democracy, and his deep and incisive analysis of American democracy is not a blueprint for Europeans, nor is it a critique. Rather, it is an idea-mine. De Tocqueville's Part One is an examination of what makes American democracy work, and asks what the Europeans can learn from the Americans. De Tocqueville admits that there's a lot that cannot (and should not) be applied to the European democratic society, because though these elements might function well in the United States, they are not suitable for Continental culture. De Tocqueville insists that democracy is possible in Europe, and indeed preferable for its inhabitants, and looks to America for proof of the cultural and societal bounty that can be reaped from having an active and healthy democracy.

Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Three

I've been trying to post at least one of these a month, but it gets pretty depressing, actually, considering I'm an incredible pessimist about the future of my country. Regardless, it is very fascinating, enlightening, and revealing to wade through de Tocqueville's philosophical and sociological treatise on American political life during the early 19th century.

Part One
Part Two

One of the major topics I discussed was the situation regarding the legal system and the overwhelming power that the police and the courts dangle over the heads of common citizens.

Centralization of Government, Centralization of Administration, and the Subjugation of the Individual
To return to some of those themes, I am reminded of some of my analysis regarding George Orwell's 1984, particularly regarding the culture of surveillance, the elimination of privacy, and the thought-police. The subversion of the system is painful--it was originally designed to protect us from a tyrannical government, and yet the judicial branch has grown to encompass the police and create a political faction that no one seems to really notice. It has a very direct and immediate impact on the lives of all Americans, unlike the distant mandarins in Washington, D.C. whom we elect. De Tocqueville characterized the agents of law enforcement as invisible because free citizens of a democratic polity have social obligations towards the legal system--obligations of which we have been stripped.

De Tocqueville draws a definite line between a centralized government and a centralized administration, and argues that, of the two, the centralized administration is by far the more dangerous. A centralized government with no central administration will tend to try to accumulate centralization of administration anyway. A centralized government concentrates authority, but without a similarly concentrated administration, the actual power to enforce its authority becomes more distributed, forcing the government to macro-manage instead of micro-manage. Such a micromanaging government, with undiluted power, inevitably isolates and subjugates the individual, just as we see in 1984.

An overcentralized government seems to destroy itself.

"The legislative bodies daily encroach upon the authority of the government, and their tendency... is to appropriate it entirely to themselves. The social power thus centralized is constantly changing hands, because it is subordinate to the power of the people. It often forgets the maxims of wisdom and foresight in the consciousness of its strength. Hence arises its danger. Its vigor, and not its impotence, will probably be the cause of its ultimate destruction."

Whence comes this vigor? From the tyranny of the masses (more on this later). De Tocqueville felt that the decentralization of administration during his tour of Jacksonian America was excessive, giving society the appearance of disorganization to a European visitor. But where the administrative arm was weak, the American populace picked up the slack. "I am persuaded, on the contrary, that, in this case, the collective strength of the citizens will always conduce more efficaciously to the public welfare than the authority of the government."

De Tocqueville's amazement that criminal investigation is a co-operative effort between the populace and the authorities is a testament to how the individual feels that he/she personally has an investment in the laws of the land. It illustrates one of his major points that the average American citizen feels himself enfranchised as a miniature legislator, with a certain stake in the law and an immediate desire to see it fulfilled.

"In no country in the world, do the citizens make such exertions for the common weal. I know of no people who have established schools so numerous and efficacious places of public worship better suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in better repair."

In Jacksonian America, the individual wanted to pick up the slack for decentralized administration. That initiative was a testimony to the popular sentiment of authorship for the very government that was over the citizen. Government undertakings succeeded or failed through availability of popular support.

"The American republics have no standing armies to intimidate a discontented minority; but as no minority has as yet been reduced to declare open war, the necessity of an army has not been felt."

Here, indeed, I feel that de Tocqueville's observation is especially telling and painful. The United States now does, indeed, have a standing army. And yet, that army is not a tool of oppression. There is no gendarmerie in America. Indeed, that duty is done by the police. And what branch of government is it to which the police belong? Some might argue the executive, since their duty is to enforce the law, but that is not necessarily the case. Indeed, I would argue that their duty is not to enforce laws, but to accuse people of committing crimes. The entire criminal justice system is a fantastic system of administrative centralization. The United States government has delegated the authority to decide who is a criminal and how to punish them entirely to the "justice" apparatus.

The system is centralized per state, but the existence of a network of state judiciaries under the Supreme Court actually serves as a unifying factor. The court system isn't actually subservient to the popular whim, but to its own inertia. It is a leviathan--having accumulated more power than it should have, it sustains itself by creating criminals and investing itself into an entire strata of American society. Its shadow looms over every single American, especially when they turn the key in their automobile's ignition.

Indeed, we have now entered an era where the police are interpreting the law. As I argued in my previous post, the system does not exist to see justice done, but to see laws satisfied. Those are two radically different, and occasionally opposed, ideas. But the complacency of the American electorate permits this sort of tyrannical and terrorist paramilitary organization to instill us with fear, and through that fear, compel our obedience and servility.

The Tyranny of the Majority
The big theme that de Tocqueville wishes to hammer home is the threat of a tyranny of the majority. Through a unified and majority, the voices of minorities are suppressed.

“The most absolute sovereigns in Europe today are powerless to prevent certain thoughts hostile to their authority from silently circulating through their states and even within their courts. The same cannot be said of America: As long as the majority remains in doubt, people talk, but as soon as it makes up its mind once and for all, everyone falls silent…I know of no country where there is in general less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America.”

What is paradoxical about current American affairs is the major transition we've undergone. The majority has been cowed into silence, and radical fringe minority factions have the voice. This goes directly contrary to what de Tocqueville said about the lone dissenter: in contrast to the physical violence done to the body, the masses would instead excommunicate the hapless individual for dissenting from common opinion.

Some bloggers perceive that de Tocqueville is drastically wrong about our current political climate--that it is the loud and obnoxious radical groups that are actually the minority here. And while I would agree, I would also point out that, in my opinion, the issues they are up-in-arms about are actually smoke-and-mirrors. The general apathy and disgust that the average American seems to hold for politics is actually a reaction by the masses against this extremism. Oddly enough, the university system has guilted large swathes of the masses (but not all) into remorse for any attempted tyrannical oppression of dissenting opinion.

But nowhere is that brutal ostracism of the soul, which de Tocqueville describes so acutely, more apparent than in the American school system. Middle and high schools in the United States are often dominated by hierarchical systems based on popularity. While large numbers of students (especially in high school) may not care much for the "popular crowd," they still implicitly go along with the current out of apathy. Those who seek to "march to the beat of their own drummer" and follow activities, hobbies, or interests that are not popularly sanctioned, or who perform too well in their courses, find themselves outcasts.

"...you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you, if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn."

De Tocqueville would not be so surprised or amazed, however, at how the majority seems to be so anti-tyrannical. Invective and hatred is poured upon the fringe groups through their own rivalries, but the silent majority stews in disgust, by-and-large. Most people find themselves leaning left- or right-of-center, and often are pulled into a faction by the polarities, but when you engage them as individuals, they often fail to prove themselves extremists.

Part of this is because it is a polar system. There are two opposing points on the spectrum that pull at the general populace, and it slowly and sluggishly vacillates between the two sentiments. But it is still caught between them. More radical or new ideas are often greatly resisted.

But the presence of counter-culture has actually weakened the tyranny of the majority as an active force. Counter-culture has allowed many fringe groups to have a voice, not just in society, but in politics. Counter-culture has generated art and great literature, where de Tocqueville had once lamented that we had no writers of genius because there could be no freedom of opinion.

What is most dangerous, actually, is the apathy of the majority. The fact that the majority is so willing to accept its culpability as an oppressive tyranny, it allows itself to be pulled around by the extremes. When the majority decides to sign away its freedoms, the minorities which wish to retain them will find they are stripped of their rights and their voice most violently. The decline in artistic value in much of American entertainment, coupled with the oppression of video games as an artistic medium, hint at the growing decline in the complexity and fortitude of the American character.

De Tocqueville attributed the small number of actual statesmen, compared to demagogues and bootlickers to the demos, to a growth in majority tyranny. He feared the debasement of the American character, and indeed, he would not be surprised by the devolution of American culture into a morass of consumerism. The omnipotence and omnipresence of the majority has taken the shape of a Lovecraftian entity, something amorphous, grasping, full of appetites and little else. It is like one massive mouth that must be fed, and so long as the warring factions keep it fat and happy, it will vote as they wish. What appears to be a conflict between various political ideologies is, actually, the result of a massive war for the opinion of a gigantic slothlike creature that has grown bloated and grotesque from glutting itself on consumerism and the empty calories of pop-culture. Politics are just another form of entertainment.

Thus, the legislature can pass laws that we no longer even know about. Thus, enormous bills, thousands of pages long due to rampant pork-barreling, can be passed by Congress and signed into law by a President, and we have no idea what they say--indeed, the Congress that passed them does not actually know what it was they passed, since the bill had been written by a committee in the first place.

And thus, the new shape of the tyranny of the masses. "If ever the free institutions of American are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority." De Tocqueville may just be right. The minorities of which he speaks, those who are forced to resort to physical violence and who destabilize society, ushering in anarchy, are not those minorities we see on television and in the newspaper. They are minorities we've yet to see.

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it can be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

This apathy allows the legislature to ram through laws that no one understands. These laws then, in turn, give power to the police and judiciary that oppresses the people. The legislature, as de Tocqueville says, is the slave to the populace. But since the apathy of the populace is so potent, and they are so driven by base appetites, the authority of the fourth, and most powerful, branch of the government (the demos) goes unexercised.


I close with this following thought:

"Centralization easy succeeds, indeed, in subjecting the external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which we come at last to love for its own sake, independently of the objects to which it is applied, like those devotees who worship the statue, and forget the deity it represents. Centralization imparts without difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of business; provides skilfully for the details of the social police; represses small disorders and petty misdemeanors; maintains society in a status quo alike secure from improvement and decline; and perpetuates a drowsy regularity in the conduct of affairs, which the heads of the administration are wont to call good order and public tranquility; in short, it excels in prevention, but not in action. Its force deserts it, when society is to be profoundly moved, or accelerated in its course; and if once the co-operation of private citizens is necessary to the furtherance of its measures, the secret of its impotence is disclosed. Even whilst the centralized power, in its despair, invokes the assistance of the citizens, it says to them: 'You shall act just as I please, as much as I please, and in the direction which I please. You are to take charge of the details, without aspiring to guide the system; you are to work in darkness; and afterwards you may judge my work by its results.' These are not the conditions on which the alliance of the human will is to be obtained; it must be free in its gait, and responsible for its acts, or (such as the constitution of man) the citizen had rather remain a passive spectator, than a dependent actor, in schemes with which he is unacquainted." (Emphasis added by me.)

Such is the lot of the American citizen today--a passive spectator in schemes with which he is unacquainted.

Πλάτων and Πολιτεία

About a year ago, I reread Πολιτεία by Πλάτων (The Republic by Plato), and I have mulled over some thoughts and ideas that I want to discuss in regards to that epic work. It is a dialogue between Σωκράτης (Socrates) and several of his companions (some of whom are critics, others who are disciples or friends) regarding the happiest of men. This leads them to the idea that being just is being happy, which further leads them into the discussion of "what is justice" which then descends into the hypothetical creation of the "most just polity." All this is to demonstrate a) what justice is, and b) why the most just man is happiest (especially in comparison to several other archetypes). The centerpiece of the book is a thought-experiment: the creation of the hypothetical πόλις (polis), Kallipolis (i.e. "beautiful city"), which is an attempt to harmonize the individual with the city, a city which will produce the best, highest type of individual. Plato, in order to illustrate what is the happiest man, must illustrate that man who embodies ἀρετή (arete) of mind, body, spirit, and patriotism, must create an environment that will produce such an individual. That environment, Kallipolis, is the embodiment of ἀρετή for the πόλις.

When reading the book, one can see where Socrates ends and Plato begins. It's demonstrably obvious. Socrates was a man who asked questions in order to reduce things to base principles. In other words, he would ask questions until some sort of self-evident truth was revealed, or else invalidating discrepencies made any attempts at axiomatic statements pointless. However, Socrates behaves strongly out-of-character throughout this work, but most notably after the beginning of Book II, when the hypothetical "just city" is being conceptualized. This is Plato speaking through Socrates in axiomatic statements. Only Book I really feels like an actual Socratic dialogue, because it is the only one in which Socrates is really engaged in a debate, and it is the only one in which he asks questions.

The opening line, "I went down to the Piraeus," mirrors a descent into Hades made by Odysseus, a descent that would be made by many heroes and warriors throughout mythic and legendary literature. But Plato's descent is much more mundane, and concerned not with glory, wealth, immortality or the rescue of a deceased loved-one, but rather with the intellectual and the philosophical. And indeed, throughout this work, we are confronted with a great deal of dark delving into the inherent contradictions within the human spirit that make such discussions as the nature of justice and the idea of the happiest man futile. An ascent is made, halfway through the book, into the idea of the Forms and universals, before descending into the afterlife again, in a discussion in Book X.

An astute reader will pay attention to the characters and their names, and how Socrates treats them. Polemarchus, whose name means "warlord" or "general," is concerned with honor and duty. Glaucon, whose name invokes terms such as "shining" or "glittery" is concerned with gain and glory, whereas his brother, Adeimantus, is obsessed with wealth and material gain. Cephalus, the host and master of the house to which Socrates has been compelled to visit, is aged and representative of Athenian tradition. It is not surprising that Socrates ousts him from the conversation almost immediately, and Cephalus excuses himself, permitting the discussion group to operate beyond the boundaries of tradition and convention and to explore the outlandish, hypothetical, and outright weird.

The discussion in Book I is sparked by a question regarding the nature of justice (since they agree that the happiest man is a just man). Socrates' interlocutors make statements, to which Socrates responds with questions. These questions force his companions to refine their ideas, rethink them, and inevitably abandon them. Socrates' questioning leads them to inescapable conclusions that their ideas are self-contradictory, hypocritical, or illogical. In the end, no satisfactory definition of justice can be enunciated. So, instead of examining something from a microcosmic perspective (i.e. the just man), Socrates decides to examine justice from the perspective of a just πόλις.


As goes the ideal, or just, state, so will go the ideal man. This is a theme that recurs later in the book, where Socrates compares different governments with their analogous individuals, psychoanalyzing both the individual and, by extension, the government to which he is coupled.

Thus begins the erection of an imaginary πόλις, from the very ground up. The genesis of this state was the certainty of a sort of pre-Marxian idea of class-struggle between haves and have-nots which generates misery, strife, injustice, and corruption within men. The antidote to this class struggle is to create a society in which class is sort of a moot point, and society is organized as an αριστοκρατία (aristocracy) in the purest, most original sense, meaning "rule of the best" (analogous to the modern idea of a "meritocracy" perhaps). Plato seeks to eliminate all factionalism and conflict from his πόλις, and argues that the only way to do so is to produce the best sort of ruler that will be ultimately just. These best are obviously philosopher-kings, but before you can object to having the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche enthroned above you in all his hateful contrarian, Hobbesian splendor, Socrates and his fellows axiomatically (meaning Plato and his fellows) state that only certain types of thinkers are philosophers. How convenient!

So, what, exactly, is a philosopher? Well, obviously a just person, one that is raised and conditioned in an ideal environment that cultivates not only his justice, but also his temperance, bravery, and wisdom. The philosopher is the lover of wisdom (the very definition of philosophy in Greek, φιλοσοφία, is "love of wisdom"). The πόλις is compared to a ship and the philosopher-king as its captain (the origin of the "ship-of-state" metaphor). But perhaps most importantly, a philosopher who would be king must understand the existence of the Forms, and thus the allegory of the cave is born (more on this later).

And here Socrates begins to speak axiomatically (as Plato's mouthpiece, I would argue). He states that justice, in and of itself, is not a virtue that is native to a person but rather the result of a well-ordered soul. In almost Daoist fashion, Socrates believes that people should follow their natural inclinations, and thus, for Kallipolis, divides people into soldiers, producers, and rulers. If their souls are well-ordered, people will naturally gravitate toward whatever lifestyle best suits them. If the city is well-ordered, all people will be raised as per their natural inclination. To raise people as per their natural inclination, strict measures of control need to be in place to prevent the corruption of individuals. Socrates emphasizes the four cardinal virtues, and implies that in the just society, all people will naturally come to embody these principles. In other words, the just society is one that will properly raise and educate such individuals, surrounding them only by influences deemed good and just, and by forbidding all others. Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared that Plato's Republic was the greatest educational manual ever written--the instruction and upbringing of the citizen of Kallipolis is at the very heart of the creation of a just society, and is the prime cause of all other aspects of the hypothetical πόλις's society and culture.

To preserve this society, as well as to preserve the meritocratic system of promotion and assignation of office, they create a repressive society in which many sorts of poetry, theater, and other art forms are banned from the πόλις, the reason for which is their tendency to corrupt with "untrue ideas" and "imitation." Here Plato grossly misunderstands (and misrepresents) the purpose of art, as well as its effect on the human psyche. He labels Homer as an imitator, because though Homer wrote about heroes, kings, wars, and governance, he himself did none of those things, thus invalidating himself. Plato states that Homer knew nothing of the realities of those subjects of his poems, and so, his value as a poet stands on tenuous ground. This is nonsense. Literature, poetry, and art do not exist to report truths of a tangible sort, and Plato of all men should know better after writing Books VI and VII (containing the idea of Agathon, the allegory of the cave, and theory of forms).

Nevertheless, Plato advocates the fabrication of an entire tradition, mythical cycle, and literary/poetical legacy in order to educate and serve as propaganda. Theology and mythology would have to be edited. Plato argues that the stories of the gods' misbehavior must be censored and bowdlerized in order to turn them into examples for the behavior of just citizens. The cultural heritage of the entire Greek people is called into question, and Plato deems a great deal of it unworthy and destructive.

Plato's programme for selection of philosopher-kings is predicated entirely upon their education, and a careful weeding-out of those who do not satisfy the prerequisite perceptions and skills. And here we return to exactly what the philosopher is. Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to illustrate the philosopher as the person who breaks free of the illusion and emerges into the sunlight.

This allegory Plato uses to illustrate how the average person is, like the prisoners, exposed only to a sort of "shadow reality," whereas the philosopher, through enlightenment and contemplation, approaches the capacity to perceive the Forms. Thus, knowledge of the Forms is a prerequisite to the possession of political power. The Forms represent abstract ideals for concrete realities that the everyday person can perceive. To Plato, however, these concrete realities are pale reflections of the abstract (and more "real") Forms. These Forms are the only things that can provide us with genuine knowledge, and not just guesses, theories, or supposition. Perhaps Plato requires this ability to perceive and understand the Forms for his philosopher-kings because the ruler must be able to perceive the Good and the Just, and attempt to turn his πόλις toward these Forms.

In the end, however, Plato's city is, at its heart, nihilistic. Justice becomes a non-entity. There is no injustice to which one can compare it, so as a virtue, justice is nullified. It ceases to be a characteristic altogether in its people. Adeimantus' objection to the city is that happiness does not exist, and Glaucon argues that the city has no glory or honor. The question as to whether this city is just is leveled against how natural it is, and then the discussion shifts to whether the city is even possible in the first place.

At least Plato understands that this πόλις cannot last forever. Indeed, what he describes would be absolutely impossible unless the philosopher-kings ruled with an iron fist. Plato dislikes democracy; although it is well-known that Socrates loved it, Plato uses his teacher's mouth to deride the institution. He sees liberty as giving license, a sort of blank check on behavior, leading to all sorts of vice and moral/social decay. He sees the factionalism and political conflict within democratic governments as antithetical to the sort of harmony that could produce a just man.

But to create the sort of "just society" Plato advocates would result in a puritanically repressive regime. History since Plato has been replete with those sort of societies that oppressed and repressed their populations in order to "preserve" things like "justice," "morality," and "truth." Although I agree with Plato a great deal on those three social virtues, I do not agree with his methods of creating the just society.

Plato's polity is about as realistically executable as communism or Confucianism--which is to say, it is impossible. Even on the city-state level, a population of about, say, 30,000 individuals, I'd venture to guess that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off without purging and exile by a bloody revolution. And, as we know from God Emperor of Dune, in the words of Leto II, "All revolutions carry within themselves the seeds of their own destruction."

There are, however, good things to be found within Plato's Republic. A love of justice, and the concept of the Good, the ideal Form of good and the ultimate form of knowledge. These are things that I share with Plato. Plato argues for the equality of men and women alike in his πόλις, and believes that no position should be denied them because of their gender. However, he fails to reckon with basic human nature on a number of levels, one of them being the need for love (sexual and familial). There is equality between the sexes, but intercourse is generally for the purpose of procreation in Kallipolis, partners are assigned, and any offspring are removed from their parents and raised by the state.

But perhaps Plato's polity is a satire, and we are all just too foolish to understand the contradiction between the ideal of the just society and the impossibility to imagine one without descending into a proto-fascist regime that nullifies the very meaning of justice. Perhaps that contradiction was Plato's entire point--the entire book is an expression of the futility in creating a just regime. Thus, we inevitably come full-circle--we are incapable of divining what is a just society, even when attempting to create the ideal πόλις. Ironically, this inability to perceive the Form of justice and the Form of the just πόλις, indicates how short we fall from Plato's ideal philosopher--the Form of the philosopher if you will.

The biggest disagreement I have with Plato's Kallipolis is simply this:

• If a people must be made to be just and good, then they do not deserve the benefits of peace and prosperity, justice and truth, that they would possess, if they cannot achieve it through democratic means.

In other words, if a democracy decays and falls into injustice, corruption, and loses its virtue, it is the fault of the people (as well as the leaders), and therefore deserves to suffer. Plato's rule by philosopher-kings would create a just society, but by his own admission (see Book X especially), it cannot change the nature of humans from being what they are. It is little more than a band-aid. And the very justice of the society is its tragic flaw--it is unjust because it has removed the liberty of choice, and the ability to select the option of being just. Depressingly, since there can be no truly just state, perhaps it must follow that there can be no truly just man. This brings into question the very existence of the Forms and perhaps the universals can only exist as amorphous, ill-defined shapes within the shadowy recesses of our minds.

Book Reviews -- THE PRINCE OF NOTHING TRILOGY, Books Two and Three

A little over a year ago, I finished R. Scott Bakker's stupendous The Prince of Nothing trilogy of novels. For your convenience and interest, I'm reviewing them both below, and also, I'm linking a few other reviews to give you a bit more insight and another person's view of these novels.

Review of Warrior-Prophet
Another review of Warrior-Prophet

Review of The Thousandfold Thought
Another review of The Thousandfold Thought

WARRIOR-PROPHET by R. Scott Bakker

The book opens immediately after the tumultuous cliffhanger ending of The Darkness That Comes Before, and follows the Holy War on its deadly course toward the holy city of Shimeh. The tale focuses less on Anasûrimbor Kellhus from his own perspective than the first book of the series, and instead follows his exploits more through the eyes of his companions, the Mandate sorcerer Drusas Achamian, the prostitute Esmenet, and the nomadic Scylvendi exile-general Cnaiür urs Skiötha. The book is roughly divided into three segments, each an ordinal-numbered march, marking stages in the Holy War's progress through Fanim-held lands toward its lofty goal. As the crusaders fight battles and pass through many different and dangerous lands, their numbers dwindle and they are forged into a hardened, determined, and tested force.

Bakker's mastery of psychology blossoms throughout this book. Kellhus' machinations and manipulations of the psyches of others is far, far more pronounced than in The Darkness That Comes Before. More of the conditioning methods of the Dûnyain are described through the few chapters that are told from Kellhus' point-of-view. Though the narrator is of the omnipotent third-person sort, he rarely dips into the mind of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, so when he does it is a rare and insightful treat.

This mastery of character psychology creates personae that are real and lifelike. They are far more than just caricatures. Each character has deep, psychological traumas in their life, traumas that Kellhus exploits to achieve his goal of subverting the Holy War. As the novel develops, Bakker uses Kellhus to examine and expose the weaknesses and strengths of his characters and expose the depths of their hopes, fears, and coping mechanisms. Kellhus' conditioning, separating himself from history and "what comes before" in order to achieve a sort of psychological oneness and Nietzschean Wille zur Macht, enables him to exercise a sort of free will that runs contrary to the psychological determinism of all of the other characters around him.

Here, Bakker's thought-experiments with psychology and philosophy (specifically Nietzscheanism and related forms of Existentialism) achieve a more free exercise across the pages. Removed from the complex political machinations of the Nansur imperial court, the young Kellhus gradually transforms himself in the perception of his fellows from a simple peer into a religious figure. Through examination and analysis of the surrounding characters' psyches, he manipulates everyone about him. Ironically, only the barbarian, Cnaiür urs Skiötha, is aware of Kellhus' power and thus remains impervious to Kellhus' machinations.

Simultaneously, Bakker begins to weave religious and moral questions into the fabric of the tale. Although they are perceived as heathen by the Inrithi warriors, the Muslim-esque Fanim are arrogant but not truly evil. The savage brutality of medieval warfare is described in exquisite detail, and this book is truly an Anabasis of fantasy. The battles, the suffering, and the political infighting within the Inrithi host, especially once Kellhus begins to manifest himself as a religious figure, are absorbingly detailed. I flew through this hefty volume in a mere eight days, pulled forward by the excellent pacing of events and interweaving of plot threads.

And Bakker wields multiple plot threads quite well, indeed. No space is wasted. Even when the author spends time delving into the characters' thoughts, it is not tedious, but revealing. Though the book is quite descriptive, the description serves to deepen both the characters and the world. Bakker reveals the rich history and culture of Eärwa through the actions and words of the characters. He makes very little use of the sinister, evil Consult throughout the book, perhaps aware that familiarity breeds contempt. Instead of revealing their history in The Darkness That Comes Before, Bakker instead chooses to assemble their twisted story piecemeal throughout Warrior-Prophet, culminating in their attempt to manipulate certain factions within the Holy War to eliminate Kellhus, the one character they perceive as the greatest threat to their plans outside of the Mandate School of sorcery.

The book avoids becoming predictable by withholding aspects of the world and information of the environment from the reader, then springing them at a prime moment. This happens only rarely, though. As a whole, it is difficult to predict what will happen next. Knowing the psychologies of the characters, however, the reader is never in a position of disbelief. Every single character behaves exactly in accordance with their psychological make-up. This lends a very important depth of realism to the characters. Nevertheless, Bakker rarely ceases to surprise us. He takes his characters to far-away places, where they stand atop ruins of forgotten eras and are at times overwhelmed by the weight of history. The novel is laced with the interplay of a dozen ideas within Bakker's mind, and they explode into the pages with a forcefulness that is captivating.

The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker

The conclusion to The Prince of Nothing brings to mind a number of clichéd phrases often penned by penny-ante movie reviewers, such as "tour de force," "relentless," and "mindblowing." And I hate to resort to them, but in this case, I find myself hard-pressed to describe this novel in any other way.

The plot is a continuation of Anasûrimbor Kellhus' subversion and control of the Holy War, and by extension, the establishment of a new religious philosophy within Inrithism. The final march to Shimeh itself is detailed and the plots of Kellhus, his erstwhile and prodigal father, Moënghus, and the evil, nihilistic Consult all achieve realization on the pages. This build-up of tension and anticipation kept me reading the final 250 pages of the novel at a coffee shop for three-and-a-half solid hours. I finished this book in less than a week because every time I finished a chapter, I felt the inevitable tug to begin reading the next one.

Much of what can be said regarding Bakker's interplay of history, philosophy, and psychology has already been stated ad nauseum, so I will refrain from jamming that down your throat once more. However, there is a power and a scale of epicness that comes to fruition in this book more than the other. The motivation behind the evil Consult is revealed, including their alien heritage, the history of betrayal, and their attempt to escape from an afterlife by denying the God/gods any worshipers at all and cleansing the world of sentient beings. All of the characters meet their greatest fears, and confront their most daunting challenges. Each one overcomes them in a different way (indeed, whether or not they overcome these challenges at all is up to the interpretation of the reader).

A great many strings are left untied, but Bakker has made it clear that, although this particular story has ended, there is more to be written. Nevertheless, the final pages of this novel are a triumph of tragedy, in a manner of speaking. The most sympathetic character of the novels, the sorcerer Drusas Achamian, achieves his own sort of Wille zur Macht. Kellhus inadvertently creates a number of miniature Übermensch throughout the series, among them Achamian and the Scylvendi warrior Cnaiür (who is driven mad by his awareness). The merging of psychology and philosophy throughout the novel creates an absorbing interplay in which Bakker explores the consequences that ideas have upon the lives of his characters.

The Prince of Nothing Series Overall
A definite accomplishment of astounding scale, R. Scott Bakker has done something that few have ever done within the realm of epic fantasy. He has created a lavish, detailed world, complete with religion, history, and literature, populated it with characters so rich and psychologically motivated that they seem real and vital, and used it as a sandbox to explore complex ideas. This is not simply epic high fantasy of the didactic Tolkien-esque vein, nor the largely escapist world of the early Howardian pulps. It is a bit of a fusion of the two. It is a post-apocalyptic world, much like mid-twentieth century speculative fiction (such as per Jack Vance and Margaret St. Clair) with a character that is a fusion of Elric of Melniboné, Paul and/or Leto Atreides, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

The idea of history and the play of historical (and historiographical) concepts throughout the book demand the reader question their understanding of history itself. Many of the characters in the novel become acutely aware that they will become historical figures and icons of legend. As the tale progresses, they contemplate how they will be portrayed or understood within the inevitable songs and sagas that will be written about the Holy War. The sorcerer, Achamian, not surprisingly, is acutely aware of the sort of character archetype that will arise from his participation in what will eventually become a legend, and chafes at the idea.

Bakker, through Kellhus and the Dûnyain, challenges us with the age-old question of free will. The Dûnyain repudiate history, and claim that all men are slaves to "what comes before." Through mental conditioning and special breeding programs, they gradually seek to overcome all of the psychological impulses that determine their actions. The idea that all events are caused results in the idea that they are locked into a path from which they cannot deviate. Thus, individuals are slaves to their own personal history, whilst whole nations are slaves to the histories of their peoples. (Living in Korea and analyzing why the Koreans are the way they are is incredibly revealing in this regard.) Kellhus' conditioning separates his soul from all of the things that would seek to move it, enabling him to move is own soul. This is what makes Kellhus and his father, Moënghus, approach Übermensch status. Throughout the novels, Bakker plays out the struggle between determinism and free will on an epic scale, and places the fate of the world in the balance. Only the Nietzschean superman can save the world from an (ironically) ultra-nihilist enemy.

As said in my review of The Darkness That Comes Before, the proliferation of sex (and the aberrant sadism of the Inchoroi/Consult) make this a series for mature readers. Though Bakker's rendition of sex and sexual situations lacks juvenile eroticism or clinical sterility, they are still graphically described more than some conventions of taste would permit. Bakker's work is not for immature minds, and is most certainly an mature adult work. However, if you can grasp the complex relationship between free-will/deteriminism, Nietzschean existentialism, nihilism, and individual psychology (and that is only the beginning of the myriad influences that are brought to bear throughout The Prince of Nothing), then it would be a fair bet to assume that you are mature enough for the sexual situations that pepper the trilogy.

As a piece of literature, this series is astounding in its depth and complexity. Bakker has easily overcome many of his contemporaries. As one reviewer noted, he has, in three volumes, written a deeply philosophical and psychological work with a compelling, multifaceted, narrative rife with political and military intrigue, whereas many others, have started earlier than Bakker and still not yet finished (such as the late, infamous Robert Jordan and much more respected writers such as Steven Erickson and George R. R. Martin). His series is much darker and gritty than the unmuddied heroics of Tolkien, Terry Brooks, the late David Eddings, or even Robert Jordan. As a fantasy author, he brings a great many ideas to the plate that would make his series a compelling addition to any fantasy fan's own "Appendix N." The arrangement of sorcery into schools, the religious strictures against sorcery, and the political strife between the schools themselves make for a fantastic backdrop to explore ideas and themes in a fantasy setting.

The Prince of Nothing
by R. Scott Bakker

The Darkness That Comes Before
Style A
Substance A
Overall A

Warrior-Prophet
Style A+
Substance A+
Overall A+

The Thousandfold Thought
Style A+
Substance A+
Overall A+

Overall A+

Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Two

Click HERE for Part One

Glen Beck's revival couldn't have come off more tragic and misdirected. He called the American people to turn back the clock to a time when we were more faithful and pious, as if that would solve all of our cultural, political, and economic ills. Beck is somewhat right--religion can be extremely powerful in operating as a glue that can bind a people together and it has a profound impact on their culture. Late 19th century German sociologist and politico-economic theorist Max Weber described the intrinsic ties between northern European religion and socio-economic culture in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Beck isn't wrong in his assumption that an abandonment of religion (as well as many other traditional mores) has had a deleterious impact on American society.

Beck's detractors have been wont to point out that "turning back the clock" involves the re-imposition of segregation and undoes much of women's liberation. In a sense they're right, but they're also purposely misconstruing Beck's call for revival.

"What's all this got to do with Alexis de Tocqueville?" you might ask.

Simply, Glenn Beck doesn't realize the exact nature of the transformation he's trying to combat. American culture has been experiencing a gradual shift in values and ethics.

"But epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation, when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken, whilst the diffusion of knowledge is yet imperfect, and the civil rights of the community are ill secured, or confined within narrow limits. The country then assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can neither discover it under its own nor under borrowed features, and are emancipated from prejudice, without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they have neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy, nor the reflecting patriotism of a republic; but they have stopped between the two in the midst of confusion and distress.

"In this predicament, to retreat is impossible; for a people cannot recover the sentiments of their youth, any more than a man can return to the innocent tastes of childhood: such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward, and accelerate the union of private and public interests, since the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever."

De Tocqueville is here describing a transition from the childlike patriotism underneath a monarchical yoke to an enfranchised patriotism in a republican government. His error is that he didn't see that this stage can exist while the government progresses in the reverse order, as happened with the ancient Romans. Much of this has been brought about by a lack of enfranchisement in the political destiny of the nation--which has been stripped from our hands and placed into the clutches of an incredibly small, moneyed minority that concentrates a great percentage of the available wealth among themselves. Now, this does not mean that I disapprove of capitalism or the Protestant work ethic, but instead goes to show that the Protestant ethic is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and nothing Glenn Beck attempts will ever succeed in reviving it.

In February of 2009, The Wall Street Journal's Ian Salisbury invoked de Tocqueville when he wrote an article asking whether excessive pay for executive officers is dangerous for democracy. He posted an interesting comparative chart that is reproduced below.

If the amazing similarities between the pay-scale of the reconstituted French monarchy and the currently United States doesn't surprise and dismay you, I'm not certain what will. I feel it is quite necessary to ask, why, exactly, is the pay-scale this ridiculous? Why does the Goldman Sachs CEO need to pull in 5,267 times more money than a teenage register-jockey at Burger King? I mean, the President of the United States actually has taken a pay-cut over the past 180 years, but he was one of the highest-paid people in the entire country during the Jacksonian era. And I must also ask, what is Lloyd Blankfein going to do with that $69 million that he earned? Likely reinvest it. But that's sound, right?

I won't get into all of the myriad problems with this, but instead get myself back onto track and continue with de Tocqueville's discussion where I had left off. The last thing I had discussed in Part One was the concept that equality and liberty were not synonymous. This was a striking revelation, partially because this key idea sums up a great many problems with the divisiveness of American culture. De Tocqueville seems to believe that diffuse wealth spread among a broad and powerful middle class will naturally give the populace a sense of investment and enfranchisement in the state of the nation and government.

He keys in on the decentralization of a state. Law exists, but its agents of enforcement are invisible--free citizens, through tacit agreement, were the primary agencies of law enforcement. So long as administrative power is decentralized and the impetus exists among the individual and the communities themselves to enforce the laws, the centralized government will always be comfortably weak and removed from the day-to-day affairs of the individual. If the central government ever manages (which it has, by the current time) to amass centralized administrative power at the expense of the local authorities, then the individual will be isolated and subjugated.

De Tocqueville describes an America in which the populace is entirely self-motivated to act for the common benefit. Government undertakings succeeded wholly through the popular support of the citizenry, who saw themselves as enfranchised. Contrary to our current time, the populace was not dependent upon the government for administrative authority, but rather for a more distant, vague sort of guidance. Nowhere is this more evident than in de Tocqueville's description of a criminal investigation.

...A state police does not exist, and passports are unknown. The criminal police of the United States cannot be compared to that of France; the magistrates and public agents are not numerous; they do not always initiate the measures for arresting the guilty; and the examinations of prisoners are rapid and oral. Yet I believe that in no country does crime more rarely elude punishment. The reason is, that every one conceives himself to be interested in furnishing evidence of the crime and in seizing the delinquent. During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a country for the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling for his life against the agents of power, whilst the people are merely a spectator of the conflict: in America, he is looked upon as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him.

This makes the argument that the police are an extra- (and perhaps un-)Constitutional entity a compelling argument, especially when they've amassed so much authority and power unto themselves that the common citizen is afraid to question them. This is especially apparent when a citizen is operating a motor vehicle--the sort of terror the average citizen lives with in the back of their mind of being pulled over is the antithesis of the sort of criminal justice system that existed in the Jacksonian era. The phrase "police business" apparently didn't exist--or was at least uttered on remarkably rare occasions--when de Tocqueville visited. Currently, the common welfare is so far from the minds of the citizenry that we are perfectly happy to stay silent and hide while someone else is brutally murdered, screaming for help. That we live in a police state should be patently obvious by now, especially since the news media is only giving the recent trend in arresting camera holders (who happen to be taping police officers making arrests) only a cursory treatment. According to Gizmodo, "cameras are the new guns." This even extends to the military, which is, at this point, subordinate to the paramilitary police organization. The police officers' ability to give an order, and then arresting someone with "failure to comply," regardless of circumstances, feeds into this fear and creates a cowardly American populace that can easily be controlled.

Where de Tocqueville's observations are most painful to the current reader is his analysis of judicial power. He isolates three primary forms judicial authority takes:

1. Arbitration (such as lawsuits, divorce proceedings, etc.)
   
2. Pronunciation on special cases and not on general principles.
3. Limitation of action only to when it has taken cognizance of an affair.

De Tocqueville was impressed by the American judge's immense political authority, saying, "Americans have acknowledged the right of the judges to found their decision on the Constitution rather than on the laws. In other words, they have not permitted them to apply such laws as may appear to them to be unconstitutional." Assuming that judges serve the common good and not the law, de Tocqueville describes American justices as "at once the most favorable to liberty and to public order." Increasingly, we can observe instances in which judges are legislating from the bench. The ability for a judge to render null any statute that is deemed unconstitutional, once "one of the most powerful barriers which has ever been devised against the tyranny of political assemblies" is being eroded by judicial activism and political loyalties.

In addition, such precedents as jury nullification, which guarantees that justice, and not the law, is served by a jury, has a sordid and suppressed history in the United States courts. Videotapes shown to potential jurors inform then that their duty is not to be concerned with truth or justice, but the law.

De Tocqueville noted that "by minor prosecutions, which the humblest citizen can institute at any time, that liberty is protected, and not by those great judicial procedures, which are rarely employed until it is too late." However, we are all well aware of instances where major corporations have bullied smaller entrepreneurs, wearing them down by paying vast sums of money in attorney and court fees, until the small business or individual is exhausted, whereupon they move in and crush them ruthlessly. The labyrinthine nature of the law in this epoch makes the barrister necessary, and in order to engage in successful litigation, great sums of money are required. This has empowered that class of wealthy aristocrats, mentioned earlier, who are amassing huge sums of wealth.

The entire system has been subverted. However, the American populace doesn't quite realize it. They likely have never read de Tocqueville. Most of the people with whom I discuss politics don't even know who Alexis de Tocqueville is and why his observations and analysis of Jacksonian American democracy and society are so vital to comprehend how devolved we have become.

Unlike the first entry, this entry only focused on a bare minimum of pages. Hopefully I'll be able to write less lengthy and more succinct posts covering larger chunks of Democracy in America in the future.