On Politics Part Five — Civilization and its Discontents
As stated above, this essay attempts no novel scheme. If the reader notices the parallel between the statement that it is a self evident truth that governments are instituted among men to secure to themselves their natural right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and statement that the primary passions and interests which incline men to civilization are love of life, of the good life, and of domestic life, the parallel is no coincidence.
To recapitulate: we know from the nature of reason that man is a rational animal possessed of free will. We know from even the most cursory examination of human nature that we live in a world of mortal danger and natural scarcity, and that we are political, bisexual and altracial creatures who naturally form families and tribes both to alleviate the scarcity of nature, and to prey on each other without mercy.
We know that in the absence of law and civilization, force and fraud will prevail, and the desire for life and liberty and domesticity impels men to create and uphold laws and customs to maintain civilization.
The primary purpose of law is to render men secure in their property and contracts, to secure their liberty, and to discourage the vice and unchastity which threatens marriage.
The first great achievement of law was written law and rituals of law, which rendered the administration of punishments more objective and less arbitrary. The second was the restriction of the sovereign power to the law, of which the sanctity of private property or contract defines the fundamental restriction. The third was the sanctity of marriage, of which the abolition of divorce after the passing of the pagan world was the primary defense.
There have been many other albeit smaller achievements in the West aside from these: such as the discovery of the principle of limited government, of the separation of offices of government into executive and legislative and judicial, or the abolition of slavery, or the invention of constitutional forms of government protecting individual rights, or the creation of limited liability corporations, or the institution of coin money as an indirect means of barter, or the institution of trial by jury. However, these smaller achievements are tactical rather than strategic victories for civilization, and I do not propose in this essay to justify or comment upon them.
If this is the primary purpose and motive of civilization, what, then, is the primary discontent with civilization? What is the motive which inclines men to amend or abolish it, or which stirs the heart to raise the Jolly Roger of revolt or the Black Flag of anarchy?
We have already seen that the primary reason why men gather into bands and clans and nations and troops and collectives and empires, and placing themselves under sovereign power is for military strength: out of a lust to prey on others and a fear to be preyed upon, or a desire that one shall be honored (or feared) by others so they their predation be for a season deterred.
We have already seen that the primary drawback to gathering into bands and empires is the reasonable fear that the sovereign will give into the temptation to abuse the power entrusted to him by his followers, and render the lives of subjects more wretched than the natural anarchy which exists in the absence of sovereign power. Hence we can measure the progress of the art of law as the degree to which each individual man is likely to enjoy the benefits of civilization with his kin and kith and sojourners and strangers (those benefits being life, amenities, and domesticity) while escaping the discontents, drawbacks or detriments.
No doubt the modern reader is confused that I neither seem to be a conservative, a creature whom the modern mind defines as one who always prefers the institutions and conditions of the dark past to the enlightened present, nor a radical, a creature whom the modern mind defines as one who always prefers the enlightened present to the dark past. This is because the modern mind is simplistic and makes a simple mistake of confusing the act of time passing with the art of improving the institutions and conditions of man, in the case under discussion, the art of law.
In reality, as time passes, some disciplines degenerate, and others improve. Popular music is much simpler, cruder and more barbaric than it was in my father’s time: one need only compare the complexity of musical scores or the cleverness of lyrics between Cole Porter and MC Hammer. At the same time, popular television in the same span of time has improved the depth and artistry of the writing, the richness of the sets and props, and the scope of the themes tremendously. Likewise here, some aspects of the art of law have improved over time and others dwindled. In reality the idea that whatever is older is better is a foolish as the idea that whatever is younger is better. A thing is better or worse only according to how well is achieves the perfection of its nature, or lives up to its natural standard.
Law serves the natural standard of justice, and we must take it as an axiom that justice is an objective standard, or else we are involved in a paradox that the justice of one age, or one hour, is the injustice of another, and we are left with no standard to tell them apart.
However, injustice arrives from many different quarters among different eras and peoples, and certain crimes are pursued more enthusiastically among some generations than others. During the time of Titus Oates, perjury was such an outrageous wrong that legal mechanisms concerning habeas corpus and writs to compel testimony had to be devised to fight it; during the time of George III, the main wrong done the colonists was suspension of jury trials and the issuance of general warrants, and this wrong was wrong enough that the legal mechanism of due process and particularity of warrants was enacted to fight it, not to mention a continental mutiny. During the time of Solomon, idolatry was the main wrong, which had to be fought by establishing the religion; during the time of Queen Elizabeth, the establishment of religion was the main wrong.
Hence part of the difficulty in assessing whether a change in the laws and customs of man is an improvement or not is caused by the fact that different ages arrange their laws and customs to fight different manifestations of injustice.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
