Possibilities of Civilian Defense in Western Europe by Gustaaf Geeraerts

Author:Gustaaf Geeraerts [Geeraerts, Gustaaf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, General, Political Science
ISBN: 9781000678710
Google: VJtIEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-10-29T02:45:49+00:00

VI

It should be emphasized at this point that Civilian Defence theorists did not develop a new theory or an alternative which could easily be confronted with what is referred to as the empirical world. According to the standards of logical empiricism one could perhaps speak of avenues to theoretical perspectives.

The attempt to break through the aforementioned theoretical 'speechlessness' was not only hampered by the de-politicized handling of political values in the writings of the functionalists but also by the 'theoretical despair' latent in Critical Theory which influenced critical peace researchers. Critical theory, in its latter days, viewed the theoretical 'speechlessness' not as an inherent scientific condition but simply reflecting socio-political conditions. Adorno warned social scientists who had invested their hopes in the underprivileged as the source of social change. A glorification of the lower classes might well be a sign of helplessness:

'The glorification of the great underdog tends to turn into a glorification of the great system which produced him.'33

Adorno does not offer a way out of this dilemma, instead he keeps emphasizing and insisting on this dilemma. According to Critical Theory, this dilemma is characterized by a social order which insulated itself from innovative or alternative political values. Political thought, likewise, is unable to penetrate the general and specific laws governing human conduct. If this is true, then a social scientist does not 'know' society and is quite unable to calculate proposals for social change:

'However, it is essential to recognize society as the impenetrable object it is, which at the same time constitutes the external and internal reality of human beings. Proposals for change (which do not take this recognition into account — ms) only contribute to the maintenance of this impenetrable object. Either the proposals serve to 'manage the unmanageable or they are swallowed up by the chaotic whole'.34

Under these conditions there is no hope left for systemic social change. Individual attempts, subjective and honest, are bound to be frustrated:

'It is characteristic for the unholy condition that even the most honest reformer, recommending innovation through a meaningless language, strengthens the powers that be — which he wants to break — by taking over the established categorical apparatuses and the encompassing poor philosophy.'35

The only solution appears to be, then, to recognize such a situation and to preserve the idea of something else in one's mind:

'However, who does not want to do anything which — although well-intended —would tend to the worse, will remain in a reflective attitude.'36

This insistence on the 'untruthfulness' of the whole which penetrates the individual in a way so that the psychoanalyst will find in the individual's deep structure the micro-image of society at large was felt to be more and more unsatisfactory by those who did not share the experiences of the founders of Critical Theory. Adorno's insistence on a global analysis of structures of violence, of an anatomy and physiology of the Leviathan, is partially questioned by younger students of Critical Theory. Compare for example Habermas' critique with the general thrust of Critical Theory:

'The

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