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No More Manifestos: the political philosophy of Eisel Mazard, à-bas-le-ciel
You cannot imagine how we lived in the year 2020, because you cannot imagine the contradictions we lived with. I say this knowing that many of you, holding this book now, lived through it with me, just a few years ago. We thought that the epidemic would be over within a few months, and we thought that the war in Afghanistan would go on forever, and, of course, it proved to be the other way around. As cities burned, and looters recited the slogans of the most ludicrous ideologies, we had hope and hopelessness at one and the same time. I do not mean "contradiction" in the Marxist sense (and this meaning of the term remains very influential, even amongst people who have never been Marxists) but in a simple, moral sense, of living with the belief that something is both good and bad, being unaware of (or intentionally blind to) the incoherence of our own beliefs. In this way, it is impossible, today, for any of you to understand the way that we were in 2020, and it was impossible for us to imagine, then, what we would become, just a few years later.
The moral contradictions of one epoch are incomprehensible to another: we feign sympathy in reading history, but in this department we're incapable of it. In the middle of the 14th century, in the account of the short-lived republic led by Cola di Rienzo in Rome, we have the example of a pious monk who, we are told, was the best among men, while looting, pillaging and raping his way across Italy. With no contradiction (or no awareness of contradiction), the anonymous author of these medieval annals explains that Messer Morreale was "a Friar of St. John", and "acquired a great deal of money through his robberies and plundering." Without the slightest hint of criticism or irony, we are told that he "destroyed many towns in Puglia; he burnt and fired many; he sacked countless communes, and carried off the women. In Tuscany he held Siena, Florence, Arezzo and many other towns for ransom; he divided the money among his companions. He passed from there to the March and destroyed the Malatesti; he captured Monte Feltrano and Filino, where more than seven hundred peasants died; he burnt and robbed the towns; he held the men for ransom and carried off the women, who were attractive." This is the translation of John Wright --who, also, does not add any footnote to draw our attention to the moral contradiction, perhaps presuming it to be obvious enough to a modern reader.
Just a few pages later, we are told that this same monk-and-marauder was, "A man of action, triumphant, a brilliant warrior: from the time of Caesar to the present day there has never been a better man." How is it possible for the author, who is an Italian, a Roman, and a Catholic, to praise someone so highly who looted and pillaged his own country, and made a mockery of the explicit vows and implicit moral law of his own religion? It is possible. It is inevitable. We live with notions of virtue that defy all the laws of logic and reason --both then and now. We have not escaped the darkness of the dark ages.
In Portland, in Seattle and elsewhere, in the year 2020, the anarchist was misperceived as fighting for justice, and the Communist was misperceived as fighting for democracy --even when they were quite literally pelting the police station with firecrackers, engaging in looting and arson, under the banner of the most ludicrous and impossible-to-implement demands. Decades ago, Barack Obama became the most powerful man in the world by promising hope; now, ten thousand petty tyrants are gathering donations on the internet by preaching hopelessness. Their moral position in the history of our democracy is just as absurd as Messer Morreale in the midst of the history of feudalism: he was simultaneously the best and the worst of men, and acclaimed as such in his own culture, because people lived with such sharp contradictions within their own system of morality.
The moral contradictions of one epoch are incomprehensible to another: we feign sympathy in reading history, but in this department we're incapable of it. In the middle of the 14th century, in the account of the short-lived republic led by Cola di Rienzo in Rome, we have the example of a pious monk who, we are told, was the best among men, while looting, pillaging and raping his way across Italy. With no contradiction (or no awareness of contradiction), the anonymous author of these medieval annals explains that Messer Morreale was "a Friar of St. John", and "acquired a great deal of money through his robberies and plundering." Without the slightest hint of criticism or irony, we are told that he "destroyed many towns in Puglia; he burnt and fired many; he sacked countless communes, and carried off the women. In Tuscany he held Siena, Florence, Arezzo and many other towns for ransom; he divided the money among his companions. He passed from there to the March and destroyed the Malatesti; he captured Monte Feltrano and Filino, where more than seven hundred peasants died; he burnt and robbed the towns; he held the men for ransom and carried off the women, who were attractive." This is the translation of John Wright --who, also, does not add any footnote to draw our attention to the moral contradiction, perhaps presuming it to be obvious enough to a modern reader.
Just a few pages later, we are told that this same monk-and-marauder was, "A man of action, triumphant, a brilliant warrior: from the time of Caesar to the present day there has never been a better man." How is it possible for the author, who is an Italian, a Roman, and a Catholic, to praise someone so highly who looted and pillaged his own country, and made a mockery of the explicit vows and implicit moral law of his own religion? It is possible. It is inevitable. We live with notions of virtue that defy all the laws of logic and reason --both then and now. We have not escaped the darkness of the dark ages.
In Portland, in Seattle and elsewhere, in the year 2020, the anarchist was misperceived as fighting for justice, and the Communist was misperceived as fighting for democracy --even when they were quite literally pelting the police station with firecrackers, engaging in looting and arson, under the banner of the most ludicrous and impossible-to-implement demands. Decades ago, Barack Obama became the most powerful man in the world by promising hope; now, ten thousand petty tyrants are gathering donations on the internet by preaching hopelessness. Their moral position in the history of our democracy is just as absurd as Messer Morreale in the midst of the history of feudalism: he was simultaneously the best and the worst of men, and acclaimed as such in his own culture, because people lived with such sharp contradictions within their own system of morality.
- GenresPolitics
645 pages, Paperback
Published June 25, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 2, 2022
I'll try to respond in book form, later this year, or the next, in some ways this book truly invites the exercise. Although I had for a long time the plan to be the first to write a lengthy critical review, I have left it to someone else or for another occasion (perhaps reflecting back on it a number of years later).
Though not new to me, having read Eisel Mazard's academic essays on communism or buddhism, for instance, the intellectual level, philosophical imagery and imaginative writing style are mastered at an unprecedented degree of sophistication (which political and historical writing does even come close to this, while retaining lucidity and tutorship, i.e. making it easy for the reader, hm?), addressing the most important political questions (and answers) of the millenium and making it useful and urgent to the person reading this book. As Karl Popper says in his two volume The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), this book is an introduction to political philosophy that presents new answers -- found on most of the book's many pages -- and poses new questions -- the new questions that should underlie democratic politics are to be brought by people engaged in a process of imaginatively revising fundamental institutions of society, while getting to such a level of engagement implies that we readers should start asking new questions of our own and come up with ways to institutionalise these processes, creating polity where none there was.
I had much joy sharing my opinion on the book with the author and correcting many dozens of typos throughout the several stages, reading it aloud back to him and his girlfriend and communicating some of my own findings, which have (once or twice) made their way into the book. The exceptionally low price of this long book allows me to share my enjoyment in the form of gifts to friends and family (though it is, in some ways, a curse as much as a gift, and sorrow or outrage as much as joy, that I share in the process, because my memory of its contents happen to be fairly accurate...😉). Yet the reason for this extravagant gift-giving has more to do with the fact that each and every friend whom I can count on to read a book on politics will find a new perspective along with historical understanding completely unbeknownst or otherwise dangerously misunderstood -- ignorant and mythologising as childhood forces us to be prior to adulthood -- about basic facts of world history too often left untold, if not consciously lied about. To learn about the American Revolution over hundreds of pages is perhaps not everyone's idea of "a good story", even less a morality tale. However, this book makes arguments about the American constitution and its history that will be impossible to unsee and disentangle from the context of any country influenced by or constitutionally commensurable with it, regardless of whether it lies right across the Atlantic, or further across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Though not new to me, having read Eisel Mazard's academic essays on communism or buddhism, for instance, the intellectual level, philosophical imagery and imaginative writing style are mastered at an unprecedented degree of sophistication (which political and historical writing does even come close to this, while retaining lucidity and tutorship, i.e. making it easy for the reader, hm?), addressing the most important political questions (and answers) of the millenium and making it useful and urgent to the person reading this book. As Karl Popper says in his two volume The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), this book is an introduction to political philosophy that presents new answers -- found on most of the book's many pages -- and poses new questions -- the new questions that should underlie democratic politics are to be brought by people engaged in a process of imaginatively revising fundamental institutions of society, while getting to such a level of engagement implies that we readers should start asking new questions of our own and come up with ways to institutionalise these processes, creating polity where none there was.
I had much joy sharing my opinion on the book with the author and correcting many dozens of typos throughout the several stages, reading it aloud back to him and his girlfriend and communicating some of my own findings, which have (once or twice) made their way into the book. The exceptionally low price of this long book allows me to share my enjoyment in the form of gifts to friends and family (though it is, in some ways, a curse as much as a gift, and sorrow or outrage as much as joy, that I share in the process, because my memory of its contents happen to be fairly accurate...😉). Yet the reason for this extravagant gift-giving has more to do with the fact that each and every friend whom I can count on to read a book on politics will find a new perspective along with historical understanding completely unbeknownst or otherwise dangerously misunderstood -- ignorant and mythologising as childhood forces us to be prior to adulthood -- about basic facts of world history too often left untold, if not consciously lied about. To learn about the American Revolution over hundreds of pages is perhaps not everyone's idea of "a good story", even less a morality tale. However, this book makes arguments about the American constitution and its history that will be impossible to unsee and disentangle from the context of any country influenced by or constitutionally commensurable with it, regardless of whether it lies right across the Atlantic, or further across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 19, 2022
Getting this book was a total headache: I had to pay for an overpriced amazon delivery service, took about a month to arrive but it was all worth it.
I am quite having a hard time trying to resolve the ideas I have, there is just so much in here from the hilarious afterword, the discussions on education, the American constitution, etc. Many times I had to do some supplementary reading as I was unfamiliar with many of the things mentioned eg: 2000s now obscure celebrities, cults, particular framers from the US constitution, etc.
There's just something to Eisel's writing that made me have to force myself to put the book down so I could do the other things I need to do, instead of forcing myself to read it.
I would like to close with a quotation from the book, which sums up my thoughts
"The value of a leader is not in being led. The value of an intellectual is not in pandering to the audience. The value of a lecture is not in saying what people already want to hear, nor even in explaining what they already find interesting --but in leading them to discover what they didn't realize they needed to hear, developing their interest in areas that had heretofore been unimaginable and unthinkable. We are asking the wrong question in wondering what people can relate to. The purpose of our philosophy is not to relate to people, but to profoundly change them"
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews