Discourse on Hope in Politics

TO THE EDITORS:

Alan Mittleman’s article “Hope in Politics: A Jewish Perspective” (Azure 36, Spring 2009), which studies politics as a harbinger of salvation, awakens a spirit of hope for political discourse and its possibilities. The importance of the article lies not only in the questions it raises—to which I would like to call attention here—but also in the very fact of its attempting to incorporate the concept of hope into a concrete political discourse. Indeed, the proposal to treat politics as an ethical realm that should be rightly influenced by the discourse of hope is in itself an admirable political act.

I wish to point to the importance of the question raised by Mittleman, and to wonder whether or not he gives it the proper response. Mittleman asserts that “hope” is significant because it motivates people to direct their resources toward political endeavors. It seems to me, however, that he does not pay enough attention to the importance of hope within the political endeavor itself. Or, in terms appropriate to philosophical discourse, the possibility that the political realm must also be an ethical one.

The question of hope can be posed in terms of ethics: Are ethics and politics two distinct spheres that ought to be connected? Should we relate to politics as a realm of “possible action,” in contrast to ethics, which is the realm of “proper action”? Should we see “possible action” as subordinate to “proper action”? Should we defer to ethics when we move into the realm of politics? Is the willingness to devote time and energy to political action an ethical act in itself? And finally, is it possible to propose a different option for ethical-political action, in which political action can be determined by ethics and attempt to operate in an ethical manner?

I think that an in-depth answer to these questions can be found in our willingness to internalize the idea of hope. Mittleman’s answer, on the other hand, limits itself to addressing the realm of politics. By contrast, the thinkers he discusses—Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber—allowed themselves, or demanded of themselves, the possibility of formulating a political discourse based on hope.

This fundamental issue can be formulated by using the terminology employed by the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in the preface to his book Totality and Infinity (1969), in which he asks if any discussion of politics defers a discussion of ethics. Does the ethical discourse weaken man and society? Levinas’s answer to this, which he couched in terms of messianism, refers to hope as part of political and historical discourse. The importance of messianism is not that it offers an ultimate solution to politics. Rather, it is that it introduces into history the possibility of creating an ethical-religious horizon for man.

Messianic discourse and messianic belief can be described in a simple, even childish manner as concepts that leave the final resolution of historical problems in the hands of God. Messianism can also be seen as a discourse of despair in the face of one’s current reality, as though history were so lost that an outside force is needed in order to save it. But it can be described in other ways, too. For example, as the introduction of a different kind of spirituality into history, one that has the power to save man from man and to salvage the human species from the calamities that it brings upon itself.

Hermann Cohen saw a thinking that lacks a messianic perspective as tainted by desperation. According to this point of view, history is devoid of an optimistic perspective, and political action is subject to extant reality. Messianic discourse, however, is the introduction of an alternative—that of hope—into the discourse of the despairing. As long as we continue to hold on to despair, politics will keep going around in circles without any real possibility of breaking out in the direction of justice or peace. As long as we continue to view man as a fundamentally evil creature, we will continue to relate to political action as a type of compromise whose sole aim is to restrain mankind’s aggression. Peace, then, becomes little more than the mitigation of war, as in the famous Latin saying Si vis pacem, para bellum, “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” Under such circumstances, we will operate peacefully as long as we are able—or desire—to defer actual war. We will instead turn it into a verbal war, or into declared but not actually implemented aggression (in accordance with the criticism voiced by Weber, vis-א-vis Kant, regarding the possibility of viewing politics as a profession).