Further Forms of Faithfulness

Abstract

In light of recent rehabilitations of the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo by Jean-Luc Nancy, Slavoj Zizek and others, the present essay examines whether that doctrine can or cannot be a resource for the critique of capitalism. Agreeing with Nancy and Zizek that the doctrine can be of use in the critique of capitalism, the essay takes up their discussions and adds to them by analyzing the relationship between the doctrine and Marx's treatment of human agency and capitalism. By situating Marx's philosophy in relation to Aristotle's and Hegel's discussion of the infinite, I contend that, despite Marx's overt rejection of creation ex nihilo, human activity is conceived by him according to it, and that capitalism, as he presents it and as supplemented with Nancy and Zizek, can be understood to be a "decreation" of the worldhood of the world.     

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Repudiation of Protestant German War Theology

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a revolutionary in two senses. Obviously, his role in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, when it was discovered, stamped him as a political revolutionary. Beyond that, however, Bonhoeffer was a theological revolutionary in that he repudiated and refuted the prevailing Lutheran‐Hegelian‐Rankean Geschichtsbild, i.e., image of German history, that had become paradigmatic for his class, the so‐called Bildungsbürgertum, the highly educated upper middle class. Central to this image was the idea of the Creator God as essentially a “warrior” God who realized the history of salvation via the power struggles of nation states. Bonhoeffer, in his confrontation with the Third Reich, came to the conclusion that its evil triumph had a great deal to do with the image of history that underpinned it. This article traces the evolution of the doctrine of the Power State rooted as it was in Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms or realms, and shows how Bonhoeffer via his reflections expressed in the fragments known as Ethics, overturned that doctrine and thereby wrought an intellectual‐historical achievement of immense significance not only for Germany, but also for the modern world.     

Military doctrine,command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d'être is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article's departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as ‘the soul of warfare’. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy. The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy‐makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied. Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch's six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.     

Faith before Creed: The Private and Public Religion of George Washington

George Washington's religious beliefs have long been debated by scholars, who have insisted that he was anything from a devout Anglican to a Deist. This study argues that he was neither, instead contending that Washington had Latitudinarian tendencies, and that while he believed in God, he was not otherwise particularly religious. As some with Latitudinarian affinities, he showed no preference among varying creeds or forms of worship despite his Anglican upbringing. His personal beliefs also intersected with his stance on public religion. Washington favoured broad religious liberty for Christians and non‐Christians alike, reflecting his Latitudinarianism because he believed that denomination, dogma, doctrine, and creed were insignificant, and that it was up to the individual to decide the best way to worship God.     

How the Missionary got his Mana: Charles Elliot Fox and the Power of Name‐Exchange in Solomon Islands

Charles Elliot Fox (1878–1977) was one of the Anglican Melanesian Mission's most emblematic figures, extending its reputation for scholarship and respect for Pacific traditions. Uniquely among the Mission's European figures, however, Fox is also credited with exceptional powers (mana). Based on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork among the Arosi (Makira, Solomon Islands), I argue that Fox's name‐exchanges with Makirans have contributed in unrecognized ways to his reputation for mana. In so doing, I show how, in contrast with name‐exchange in Polynesia, Arosi name‐exchange implies the internalization of a gap between ontological categories that renders name‐exchange partners two persons in one body, endowed with access to one another's being and ways. Fox's writings indicate that he understood this aspect of Arosi name‐exchange as a prefiguration of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. This understanding, in turn, shaped his mission method and motivated his otherwise puzzling claims that he was a Melanesian.     

Oliver O'Donovan's Critique of Autonomy

Abstract

More than any other contemporary theologian, Oliver O'Donovan has revived political theology as a field of enquiry. Yet O'Donovan has been consistent in his critique of the modern idea of autonomy, judging it to be at odds with the more communitarian idea of covenanted community found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He contrasts this modern idea, and its political implications, with the older biblical idea, also adding some basic points from Aristotle's idea of the polis. But unlike many contemporary communitarians, O'Donovan is also able to incorporate the idea of human rights into his political theology. He sees this supposedly modern idea having fuller precedence in the biblical idea of mishpat ("justice"), which he takes to be God's primordial claim on His covenanted community, a claim that sufficiently grounds both individual rights and communal rights and which enables them to function together. However, O'Donovan draws the line when it comes to the modern social contract theory, arguing that it is at odds with biblical teaching that the primary responsibility of rulers is to divine law. While agreeing with O'Donovan's rejection of autonomy and his acceptance of human rights, this paper argues against O'Donovan's theological rejection of social contract theory. Instead, it argues that a social contract is consistent with the doctrine of the covenant; indeed that the very possibility of the social contract is best explained by the doctrine of the covenant, and that this acceptance of the social contract serves the best political interests of covenanted communities (like the Jewish People and the Christian Church) in an otherwise secular world.     

Passionately internationalist: Fred Halliday and nationalism studies

The aim of this academic obituary is to briefly consider Fred Halliday's (1946‐2010) contribution to nationalism studies. The article will first discuss Halliday's understanding of nationalism, which he defines as a set of ideas that asserts that the world is divided into distinct peoples with a particular history and various entitlements, and his position in the theoretical debate on nationalism. It will then focus on Halliday's combat with the ethical doctrine of nationalism, more specifically the tension between the moral claims of the latter and what he loosely terms Enlightenment principles. The article will conclude by a brief discussion of Halliday's political commitments and his internationalism.     

Ayatollah Khomeini: From Islamic Government to Sovereign State

This paper argues that the mature form of the political doctrine of the Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–89), Iranian Shiite religious authority and architect of the Islamic Republic of Iran, grew out of an encounter with the modern understanding of the state and the concept of sovereignty. Khomeini’s political doctrine, called the Absolute Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, although based on a religious foundation, should be studied as a break with the traditional understanding of political power in Shiism. It will be argued that such a political doctrine can play the same role as the Christian rhetoric of the early modern political thinkers played, pave the way for modernization of Shiite political thought, and prepare the ground for a modern temporal conception of politics.     

The Overthrow of the Government of Mosaddeq Reconsidered

The overthrow of the government of Mosaddeq has received considerable attention, scholarly and otherwise. The scholarly explanations differ in emphasis, but not in the general contours, particularly regarding the significant role of the Anglo-American secret services. There have also long been attempts to portray the overthrow of Mosaddeq as an isolated event taking place on 19 August 1953 and representing a conflation of royalist and traditionalist sentiments among soldiers and civilians. More recently it has been contended that it was not the Anglo-American secret services but the clerical nexus—prompted by Ayatollah Borujerdi, the highest religious authority in the country—which played the crucial role. This paper argues against reducing the overthrow of Mosaddeq's government to the events of 19 August, and views it as a protracted process. It further argues that assertions regarding the crucial and active role of Borujerdi are, on the basis of available evidence, untenable.     

The Later Jefferson and the Problem of Natural Rights

Abstract

The late Jefferson presents a puzzle to scholars. In his last years the author of the Declaration of Independence strongly opposed the Missouri Compromise and set important precedents for the political strategy of the antebellum South. This essay argues that these problematic aspects of Jefferson's career are more closely linked to his natural rights doctrine than is generally recognized and extend tendencies already present in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration. Unlike previous scholars who explain Jefferson's problematic politics by his racism or the inherent selfishness of Lockean natural right, I argue that the core flaw in Jefferson's natural rights doctrine is the encouragement it gives to self-righteousness. Because he responded to the problem of slavery in a spirit of angry self-defense, Jefferson's understanding of natural rights blinded him to the ways in which his actions strengthened slavery and undermined his own most cherished political achievements.     

Political mobilization and the Shi'i religious establishment (marja'iyya)

Since the fall of the Ba'athist regime in 2003, the Shi'i religious establishment in Iraq has come to the fore as a signifcant political force, intervening, guiding, supporting and opposing various types of developments. Its prominence has been directly related to the realization that the Shi'a constitute an absolute majority in Iraq and hence would have the primary influence in a democratic state. Alongside the recognition of its importance, some analysts tend to assume that the Shi'a are more inclined than others in Iraq to follow their religious and cultural leadership. This article attempts to clarify a number of issues pertaining to the actual attitudes and relationships between the marja'iyya and politics in Iraq. First, it examines three important approaches to an activist understanding of the role of the marja'iyya in politics and comments on the actual political movements that arise from them. Second, the article analyzes the role of the paramount fgure in the marja'iyya in Najaf, Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his attitudes towards politics and some of his active interventions in Iraqi politics. Finally, it comments on outstanding problems and failures within the leadership of Shi'i politics and the limitations of the marja'iyya in promoting democratic and civic politics. Any political actors in contemporary Iraq must take cognizance of the role of the marja'iyya but also account for the deficits that need to be overcome to propel Iraq beyond a compromise of ethnic and confessional affliations.     

Is a ‘Modi doctrine’ emerging in Indian foreign policy?

Narendra Modi's election as India's prime minister in May 2014 has generated speculation that a new ‘Modi doctrine’ is emerging in Indian foreign policy. This article assesses the evidence for that claim. It argues that a ‘doctrine’ should embody a set of clearly stated principles for foreign policy making. It analyses the main achievements of Modi's policy in the months after his election. It finds that while Modi has brought new energy to the conduct of foreign policy, his approach is essentially pragmatic, and his objectives are similar to those pursued by his two immediate predecessors—Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.     

Pufendorf disciple of Hobbes: The nature of man and the state of nature: The doctrine of socialitas

No doctrine of Pufendorf's is better known than that of socialitas. The reason is that Pufendorf himself declared that socialitas was the foundation of natural law. No interpreter of Pufendorf can therefore avoid dealing with it. Moreover, Pufendorf linked the issue of socialitas to the question of the state of nature, thus raising important issues with both theological and philosophical implications.

Given the prominence and importance of this theme in Pufendorf's work, a close analysis of what he meant by it is central to the interpretation of his work, even though this means to pose again a new number of questions already discussed in the scholarly literature. In particular, this article examines the relationship between Pufendorf and Hobbes with regard to this central theme. In fact, a traditional historiographic topos is that Pufendorf and Hobbes fundamentally disagree on the doctrine of socialitas, while the former is closer to Grotius and to the Aristotelian-classic tradition that see man as a social animal.

This article takes, instead, Pufendorf to be a follower of Hobbes, and tries to explain how the more traditional view of Pufendorf as a critic of Hobbes was in some way due to Pufendorf's own attempt to distance himself from the accusations of Hobbesism (and hence of atheism and moral indifference) that the critics made against him when his work first appeared. In order to do this, Pufendorf tried to rethink his own position within the history of ethics, and put himself on the side of the Stoics, of Grotius and of Cumberland, against Epicurus and Hobbes. This retrospective ‘illusion’ has greatly influenced later scholarship, giving us a distorted image of Pufendorf's own view of socialitas. A more precise account of the latter gives a better prospective from which to look at the relationship between Pufendorf and Hobbes.     

Political Philosophy and the Problems of International Order: Machiavelli,Kant, and Aristotle

Although international order is a consistent concern for both statesmen and citizens, it has received only rare attention from political theorists. In this essay I evaluate the contemporary international order in light of political thought, specifically with reference to Machiavelli, Kant, and Aristotle. Contemporary international order and its historical roots in the Peace of Augsburg find theoretical expression in the writings of Machiavelli, especially insofar as he advocates for overturning classical political thought. By rejecting classical political thought and the notion of natural right, along with Christian doctrine, Machiavelli set the stage for the political absolutism that underlies the concept of state sovereignty, as it was expressed at Augsburg. Kant, in rejecting Machiavelli's political absolutism, prepared the ground for international human rights. In doing so he provided theoretic ground for the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But while human rights may provide a welcome balance to state sovereignty, they undermine international order insofar as international order relies on state sovereignty. I suggest that the current theoretical and legal inconsistencies that come about from making room for both state sovereignty and human rights may have their origins in modern political theory's rejection of Aristotelian political thought.     

Narration of Violence or Violence of Narration: Bahram Beyzaie's The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad and The One Thousand and First Night

Bahram Beyzaie is one of the most distinguished Iranian playwrights. Beginning his career in the early 1960s and still working, he is considered as a playwright who has always been looking for discovering and inventing non-classic and non-western narrative templates. To fulfill this purpose, he has made considerable use of classic Iranian literary sources, among which the One Thousand and One Nights and Ta'ziyeh texts are special cases. By analyzing Beyzaie's two plays, Hashtomin Safar-e Sandbad (The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, 1964) and Shab-e Hezar-o Yekom (The One Thousand and First Night, 2003), which were produced within a forty-year period, this article attempts to highlight some of Beyzaie's methods of narration, particularly in relation to violence.     

The Locke Essay: Achievement and Promise

Abstract

Strauss's essay on Locke is devoted to Locke's early lectures on the law of nature, a text unpublished when he initially wrote on Locke in Natural Right and History. One purpose of his essay was to show that the Locke text did not contradict the position on the law of nature that Strauss had earlier attributed to him. Strauss also used the essay as an opportunity to further his own reflections on traditional natural law doctrine.     

Observations on the Population of Vilnius: The Grim Years and the 1942 Census

An American geographer, commenting on the preceding paper in this issue (Weeks, 2006), focuses more deeply on the results of a little-known but significant census organized by the Germans in May 1942. The author seeks to produce a credible estimate of the city's Jewish population (excluded from the census) some 11 months after the German invasion of Vilnius, and explores the factors underlying various claims that the census distorted the size of the Lithuanian and Polish populations. In the process, he sheds light on a deep interlayering of relationships among the city's diverse ethnic groups that contributes to a unique "sense of place" experienced by city residents. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O15, O18, R14. 7 figures, 3 tables, 63 references.     

Thomas Fitzherbert's reason of state

Thomas Fitzherbert's two-part Treatise concerning Policy and Religion (1606, 1610) was a rebuttal of unidentified Machiavellians, statists or politikes and their politics and policies. The work was apparently still well-regarded in the following century. Fitzherbert's objections to ‘statism’ were principally religious, and he himself thought the providentialist case against it unanswerable. But for those who did not share his convictions, he attempted to undermine Machiavellism on its own ground. Like both ‘Machiavellians’ and their opponents, he argued by inference from historical examples, but with a particularly copious knowledge of historians ancient, medieval and modern to draw on. Equally, however, he deployed the principles of speculative (principally Aristotelian) ‘political science,’ as well as theology and jurisprudence, to demonstrate that the kind of knowledge that Machiavellians required to guarantee the success of their ‘reason of state’ policies was simply unobtainable. A particularly striking strategy (perhaps modelled on that of his mentor and friend Robert Persons) was Fitzherbert's attempt to demonstrate, on the Machiavellians’ own premises, that they advocated policies which were very likely to fail, and would be visited with divine punishments sooner as well as later, whereas policies that were compatible with faith and morals were also much more likely to succeed, even judged in purely human and ‘statist’ terms.     

Sur les traces de Cortés: L'expédition du Mexique d'après Le Monde illustré

Unlike L'Illustration, with which it competed under the Second Empire, the weekly Le Monde illustré, which first appeared in 1857 and which was protected by the imperial government, did not count among the political newspapers overtaxed under Napoléon the Third's repressive regime. For this reason, it made great strides thanks to its blind allegiance to a French imperialism that had asserted its authority during the Crimean war, but which spent itself during the war against Juárez and his republican partisans in Mexico. While the French liberal press criticized the Second Empire foreign policy, Le Monde illustré persisted in turning the Mexican war into an antijuarist pacification favorable to a new Latin colonial empire, as well as to an application of the Saint-Simonian doctrine on Mexican industry and economy. In order to achieve this, the illustrated reports on the expeditionary force, military operations, and French victories were a warmongering that aimed to place this campaign in the afterglow of the conquistadors' era, as well as to idealize the imperial army as a symbol of the French nation.