Conjectures and Refutations ~ Karl Popper - 18 - Utopia and Violence

Conjectures and Refutations ~ Karl Popper - 18 - Utopia and Violence.txt

Conjectures and Refutations ~ Karl Popper - 18 - Utopia and Violence


There are many people who hate violence and are convinced that it is one
of their foremost and at the same time one of their most hopeful tasks
to work for its reduction and, if possible, for its elimination from
human life. I am among these hopeful enemies of violence. Not only do I
hate violence, but I firmly believe that the fight against it is not at
all hopeless. I realize that the task is difficult. I realize that, only
too often in the course of history, it has happened that what appeared
at first to be a great success in the fight against violence was
followed by defeat. I do not overlook the fact that the new age of
violence which was opened by the two World wars is by no means at an
end. Nazism and Fascism are thoroughly beaten, but I must admit that
their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have been
defeated. On the contrary, it is no use closing our eyes to the fact
that these hateful ideas achieved something like victory in defeat. I
have to admit that Hitler succeeded in degrading the moral standards of
our Western world, and that in the world of today there is more violence
and brutal force than would have been tolerated even in the decade after
the first World war. And we must face the possibility that our
civilization may ultimately be destroyed by those new weapons which
Hitlerism wished upon us, perhaps even within the first decade¹ after
the second World war; for no doubt the spirit of Hitlerism won its
greatest victory over us when, after its defeat, we used the weapons
which the threat of Nazism had induced us to develop. But in spite of
all this I am today no less hopeful than I have ever been that violence
can be defeated. It is our only hope; and long stretches in the history
of Western as well as of Eastern civilizations prove that it need not be
a vain hope—that violence can be reduced, and brought under the control
of reason.

This is perhaps why I, like many others, believe in reason; why I call
myself a rationalist. I am a rationalist because I see in the attitude
of reasonableness the only alternative to violence.

When two men disagree, they do so either because their opinions differ,
or because their interests differ, or both. There are many kinds of
disagreement in social life which must be decided one way or another.
The question may be one which must be settled, because failure to settle
it may create new difficulties whose cumulative effects may cause an
intolerable strain, such as a state of continual and intense preparation
for deciding the issue. (An armaments race is an example.) To reach a
decision may be a necessity.

How can a decision be reached? There are, in the main, only two possible
ways: argument (including arguments submitted to arbitration, for
example to some international court of justice) and violence. Or, if it
is interests that clash, the two alternatives are a reasonable
compromise or an attempt to destroy the opposing interest.

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach
decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise,
rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in
convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by
force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.

We shall understand better what I mean by reasonableness if we consider
the difference between trying to convince a man by argument and trying
to persuade him by propaganda.

The difference does not lie so much in the use of argument. Propaganda
often uses argument too. Nor does the difference lie in our conviction
that our arguments are conclusive, and must be admitted to be conclusive
by any reasonable man. It lies rather in an attitude of give and take,
in a readiness not only to convince the other man but also possibly to
be convinced by him. What I call the attitude of reasonableness may be
characterized by a remark like this: ‘I think I am right, but I may be
wrong and you may be right, and in any case let us discuss it, for in
this way we are likely to get nearer to a true understanding than if we
each merely insist that we are right.’

It will be realized that what I call the attitude of reasonableness or
the rationalistic attitude presupposes a certain amount of intellectual
humility. Perhaps only those can take it up who are aware that they are
sometimes wrong, and who do not habitually forget their mistakes. It is
born of the realization that we are not omniscient, and that we owe most
of our knowledge to others. It is an attitude which tries as far as
possible to transfer to the field of opinions in general the two
fundamental rules of every legal proceeding: first, that one should
always hear both sides, and secondly, that one does not make a good
judge if one is a party to the case.

I believe that we can avoid violence only in so far as we practise this
attitude of reasonableness when dealing with one another in social life;
and that any other attitude is likely to produce violence—even a
one-sided attempt to deal with others by gentle persuasion, and to
convince them by argument and example of those insights we are proud of
possessing, and of whose truth we are absolutely certain. We all
remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and
gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind
intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. Only if we give
up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we
establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from
other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety
and duty.

There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness.
One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a
discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from
the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers
shooting you to being convinced by you. In other words, there are limits
to the attitude of reasonableness. It is the same with tolerance. You
must not, without qualification, accept the principle of tolerating all
those who are intolerant; if you do, you will destroy not only yourself,
but also the attitude of tolerance. (All this is indicated in the remark
I made before—that reasonableness must be an attitude of give and take.)

An important consequence of all this is that we must not allow the
distinction between attack and defence to become blurred. We must insist
upon this distinction, and support and develop social institutions
(national as well as international) whose function it is to discriminate
between aggression and resistance to aggression.

I think I have said enough to make clear what I intend to convey by
calling myself a rationalist. My rationalism is not dogmatic. I fully
admit that I cannot rationally prove it. I frankly confess that I choose
rationalism because I hate violence, and I do not deceive myself into
believing that this hatred has any rational grounds. Or to put it
another way, my rationalism is not self-contained, but rests on an
irrational faith in the attitude of reasonableness. I do not see that we
can go beyond this. One could say, perhaps, that my irrational faith in
equal and reciprocal rights to convince others and be convinced by them
is a faith in human reason; or simply, that I believe in man.

If I say that I believe in man, I mean in man as he is; and I should
never dream of saying that he is wholly rational. I do not think that a
question such as whether man is more rational than emotional or vice
versa should be asked: there are no ways of assessing or comparing such
things. I admit that I feel inclined to protest against certain
exaggerations (arising largely from a vulgarization of psycho-analysis)
of the irrationality of man and of human society. But I am aware not
only of the power of emotions in human life, but also of their value. I
should never demand that the attainment of an attitude of reasonableness
should become the one dominant aim of our lives. All I wish to assert is
that this attitude can become one that is never wholly absent—not even
in relationships which are dominated by great passions, such as love.²

My fundamental attitude towards the problem of reason and violence will
by now be understood; and I hope I share it with some of my readers and
with many other people everywhere. It is on this basis that I now
propose to discuss the problem of Utopianism.

I think we can describe Utopianism as a result of a form of rationalism,
and I shall try to show that this is a form of rationalism very
different from the form in which I and many others believe. So I shall
try to show that there exist at least two forms of rationalism, one of
which I believe is right and the other wrong; and that the wrong kind of
rationalism is the one which leads to Utopianism.

As far as I can see, Utopianism is the result of a way of reasoning
which is accepted by many who would be astonished to hear that this
apparently quite inescapable and self-evident way of reasoning leads to
Utopian results. This specious reasoning can perhaps be presented in the
following manner.

An action, it may be argued, is rational if it makes the best use of the
available means in order to achieve a certain end. The end, admittedly,
may be incapable of being determined rationally. However this may be, we
can judge an action rationally, and describe it as rational or adequate,
only relative to some given end. Only if we have an end in mind, and
only relative to such an end, can we say that we are acting rationally.

Now let us apply this argument to politics. All politics consists of
actions; and these actions will be rational only if they pursue some
end. The end of a man’s political actions may be the increase of his own
power or wealth. Or it may perhaps be the improvement of some of the
laws of the state, thus leading to a change in the structure of the
state or of society.

In the latter case political action will be rational only if we first
determine the final ends of the political changes which we intend to
bring about. It will be rational only relative to certain ideas of what
a state ought to be like. Thus it appears that as a preliminary to any
rational political action we must first attempt to become as clear as
possible about our ultimate political ends; for example the kind of
state which we should consider the best; and only afterwards can we
begin to determine the means which may best help us to realize this
state, or to move slowly towards it, taking it as the aim of a
historical process which we may to some extent influence and steer
towards the goal selected.

Now it is precisely this view which I call Utopianism. Any rational and
non-selfish political action, on this view, must be preceded by a
determination of our ultimate ends, not merely of intermediate or
partial aims which are only steps towards our ultimate end, and which
therefore should be considered as means rather than as ends; therefore
rational political action must be based upon a more or less clear and
detailed description or blueprint of our ideal state, and also upon a
plan or blueprint of the historical path that leads towards this goal.

I consider what I call Utopianism an attractive and, indeed, an all too
attractive theory; for I also consider it dangerous and pernicious. It
is, I believe, self-defeating, and it leads to violence.

That it is self-defeating is connected with the fact that it is
impossible to determine ends scientifically. There is no scientific way
of choosing between two ends. Some people, for example, love and
venerate violence. For them a life without violence would be shallow and
trivial. Many others, of whom I am one, hate violence. This is a quarrel
about ends. It cannot be decided by science. This does not mean that the
attempt to argue against violence is necessarily a waste of time. It
only means that you may not be able to argue with the admirer of
violence. He has a way of answering an argument with a bullet if he is
not kept under control by the threat of counter-violence. If he is
willing to listen to your arguments without shooting you, then he is at
least infected by rationalism, and you may, perhaps, win him over. This
is why arguing is no waste of time—as long as people listen to you. But
you cannot, by means of argument, make people listen to argument; you
cannot, by means of argument, convert those who suspect all argument,
and who prefer violent decisions to rational decisions. You cannot prove
to them that they are wrong. And this is only a particular case, which
can be generalized. No decision about aims can be established by purely
rational or scientific means. Nevertheless argument may prove extremely
helpful in reaching a decision about aims.

Applying all this to the problem of Utopianism, we must first be quite
clear that the problem of constructing a Utopian blueprint cannot
possibly be solved by science alone. Its aims, at least, must be given
before the social scientist can begin to sketch his blueprint. We find
the same situation in the natural sciences. No amount of physics will
tell a scientist that it is the right thing for him to construct a
plough, or an aeroplane, or an atomic bomb. Ends must be adopted by him,
or given to him; and what he does qua scientist is only to construct
means by which these ends can be realized.

In emphasizing the difficulty of deciding, by way of rational argument,
between different Utopian ideals, I do not wish to create the impression
that there is a realm—such as the realm of ends—which goes altogether
beyond the power of rational criticism (even though I certainly wish to
say that the realm of ends goes largely beyond the power of scientific
argument). For I myself try to argue about this realm; and by pointing
out the difficulty of deciding between competing Utopian blueprints, I
try to argue rationally against choosing ideal ends of this kind.
Similarly, my attempt to point out that this difficulty is likely to
produce violence is meant as a rational argument, although it will
appeal only to those who hate violence.

That the Utopian method, which chooses an ideal state of society as the
aim which all our political actions should serve, is likely to produce
violence can be shown thus. Since we cannot determine the ultimate ends
of political actions scientifically, or by purely rational methods,
differences of opinion concerning what the ideal state should be like
cannot always be smoothed out by the method of argument. They will at
least partly have the character of religious differences. And there can
hardly be tolerance between these different Utopian religions. Utopian
aims are designed to serve as a basis for rational political action and
discussion, and such action appears to be possible only if the aim is
definitely decided upon. Thus the Utopianist must win over, or else
crush, his Utopianist competitors who do not share his own Utopian aims
and who do not profess his own Utopianist religion.

But he has to do more. He has to be very thorough in eliminating and
stamping out all heretical competing views. For the way to the Utopian
goal is long. Thus the rationality of his political action demands
constancy of aim for a long time ahead; and this can only be achieved if
he not merely crushes competing Utopian religions, but as far as
possible stamps out all memory of them.

The use of violent methods for the suppression of competing aims becomes
even more urgent. For unavoidably, the period of Utopian construction is
liable to be one of social change. In such a time ideas are liable to
change also. Thus what may have appeared to many as desirable at the
time when the Utopian blueprint was decided upon may appear less
desirable at a later date. If this is so, the whole approach is in
danger of breaking down. For if we change our ultimate political aims
while attempting to move towards them we may soon discover that we are
moving in circles. The whole method of first establishing an ultimate
political aim and then preparing to move towards it must be futile if
the aim may be changed during the process of its realization. It may
easily turn out that the steps so far taken lead in fact away from the
new aim. And if we then change direction in accordance with our new aim
we expose ourselves to the same risk. In spite of all the sacrifices
which we may have made in order to make sure that we are acting
rationally, we may get exactly nowhere—although not exactly to that
‘nowhere’ which is meant by the word ‘Utopia’.

Again, the only way to avoid such changes of our aims seems to be to use
violence, which includes propaganda, the suppression of criticism, and
the annihilation of all opposition. With it goes the affirmation of the
wisdom and foresight of the Utopian planners, of the Utopian engineers
who design and execute the Utopian blueprint. The Utopian engineers must
in this way become omniscient as well as omnipotent. They become gods.
Thou shalt have no other Gods before them.

Utopian rationalism is a self-defeating rationalism. However benevolent
its ends, it does not bring happiness, but only the familiar misery of
being condemned to live under a tyrannical government.

It is important to understand this criticism fully. I do not criticize
political ideals as such, nor do I assert that a political ideal can
never be realized. This would not be a valid criticism. Many ideals have
been realized which were once dogmatically declared to be unrealizable,
for example, the establishment of workable and untyrannical institutions
for securing civil peace, that is, for the suppression of crime within
the state. Again, I see no reason why an international judicature and an
international police force should be less successful in suppressing
international crime, that is, national aggression and the ill-treatment
of minorities or perhaps majorities. I do not object to the attempt to
realize such ideals.

Wherein, then, lies the difference between those benevolent Utopian
plans to which I object because they lead to violence, and those other
important and far-reaching political reforms which I am inclined to
recommend?

If I were to give a simple formula or recipe for distinguishing between
what I consider to be admissible plans for social reform and
inadmissible Utopian blueprints, I might say:

Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the
realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by
political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries. Or,
in more practical terms: fight for the elimination of poverty by direct
means—for example, by making sure that everybody has a minimum income.
Or fight against epidemics and disease by erecting hospitals and schools
of medicine. Fight illiteracy as you fight criminality. But do all this
by direct means. Choose what you consider the most urgent evil of the
society in which you live, and try patiently to convince people that we
can get rid of it.

But do not try to realize these aims indirectly by designing and working
for a distant ideal of a society which is wholly good. However deeply
you may feel indebted to its inspiring vision, do not think that you are
obliged to work for its realization, or that it is your mission to open
the eyes of others to its beauty. Do not allow your dreams of a
beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here
and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be
sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal
of happiness that may never be realized. In brief, it is my thesis that
human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and
that happiness is not such a problem. The attainment of happiness should
be left to our private endeavours.

It is a fact, and not a very strange fact, that it is not so very
difficult to reach agreement by discussion on what are the most
intolerable evils of our society, and on what are the most urgent social
reforms. Such an agreement can be reached much more easily than an
agreement concerning some ideal form of social life. For the evils are
with us here and now. They can be experienced, and are being experienced
every day, by many people who have been and are being made miserable by
poverty, unemployment, national oppression, war and disease. Those of us
who do not suffer from these miseries meet every day others who can
describe them to us. This is what makes the evils concrete. This is why
we can get somewhere in arguing about them; why we can profit here from
the attitude of reasonableness. We can learn by listening to concrete
claims, by patiently trying to assess them as impartially as we can, and
by considering ways of meeting them without creating worse evils.

With ideal goods it is different. These we know only from our dreams and
from the dreams of our poets and prophets. They cannot be discussed,
only proclaimed from the housetops. They do not call for the rational
attitude of the impartial judge, but for the emotional attitude of the
impassioned preacher.

The Utopianist attitude, therefore, is opposed to the attitude of
reasonableness. Utopianism, even though it may often appear in a
rational-ist disguise, cannot be more than a pseudo-rationalism.

What, then, is wrong with the apparently rational argument which I
outlined when presenting the Utopianist case? I believe that it is quite
true that we can judge the rationality of an action only in relation to
some aims or ends. But this does not necessarily mean that the
rationality of a political action can be judged only in relation to an
historical end. And it surely does not mean that we must consider every
social or political situation merely from the point of view of some
preconceived historical ideal, from the point of view of an alleged
ultimate aim of the development of history. On the contrary, if among
our aims and ends there is anything conceived in terms of human
happiness and misery, then we are bound to judge our actions in terms
not only of possible contributions to the happiness of man in a distant
future, but also of their more immediate effects. We must not argue that
a certain social situation is a mere means to an end on the grounds that
it is merely a transient historical situation. For all situations are
transient. Similarly we must not argue that the misery of one generation
may be considered as a mere means to the end of securing the lasting
happiness of some later generation or generations; and this argument is
improved neither by a high degree of promised happiness nor by a large
number of generations profiting by it. All generations are transient.
All have an equal right to be considered, but our immediate duties are
undoubtedly to the present generation and to the next. Besides, we
should never attempt to balance anybody’s misery against somebody else’s
happiness.

With this the apparently rational arguments of Utopianism dissolve into
nothing. The fascination which the future exerts upon the Utopianist has
nothing to do with rational foresight. Considered in this light the
violence which Utopianism breeds looks very much like the running amok
of an evolutionist metaphysics, of an hysterical philosophy of history,
eager to sacrifice the present for the splendours of the future, and
unaware that its principle would lead to sacrificing each particular
future period for one which comes after it; and likewise unaware of the
trivial truth that the ultimate future of man—whatever fate may have in
store for him—can be nothing more splendid than his ultimate extinction.

The appeal of Utopianism arises from the failure to realize that we
cannot make heaven on earth. What I believe we can do instead is to make
life a little less terrible and a little less unjust in each generation.
A good deal can be achieved in this way. Much has been achieved in the
last hundred years. More could be achieved by our own generation. There
are many pressing problems which we might solve, at least partially,
such as helping the weak and the sick, and those who suffer under
oppression and injustice; stamping out unemployment; equalizing
opportunities; and preventing international crime, such as blackmail and
war instigated by men like gods, by omnipotent and omniscient leaders.
All this we might achieve if only we could give up dreaming about
distant ideals and fighting over our Utopian blueprints for a new world
and a new man. Those of us who believe in man as he is, and who have
therefore not given up the hope of defeating violence and unreason, must
demand instead that every man should be given the right to arrange his
life himself so far as this is compatible with the equal rights of
others.

We can see here that the problem of the true and the false rationalisms
is part of a larger problem. Ultimately it is the problem of a sane
attitude towards our own existence and its limitations—that very problem
of which so much is made now by those who call themselves
‘Existentialists’, the expounders of a new theology without God. There
is, I believe, a neurotic and even an hysterical element in this
exaggerated emphasis upon the fundamental loneliness of man in a godless
world, and upon the resulting tension between the self and the world. I
have little doubt that this hysteria is closely akin to Utopian
romanticism, and also to the ethic of hero-worship, to an ethic that can
comprehend life only in terms of ‘dominate or prostrate yourself’. And I
do not doubt that this hysteria is the secret of its strong appeal. That
our problem is part of a larger one can be seen from the fact that we
can find a clear parallel to the split between true and false
rationalism even in a sphere apparently so far removed from rationalism
as that of religion. Christian thinkers have interpreted the
relationship between man and God in at least two very different ways.
The sane one may be expressed by: ‘Never forget that men are not Gods;
but remember that there is a divine spark in them.’ The other
exaggerates the tension between man and God, and the baseness of man as
well as the heights to which men may aspire. It introduces the ethic of
‘dominate or prostrate yourself’ into the relationship of man and God.
Whether there are always either conscious or unconscious dreams of
godlikeness and of omnipotence at the roots of this attitude, I do not
know. But I think it is hard to deny that the emphasis on this tension
can arise only from an unbalanced attitude towards the problem of power.

This unbalanced (and immature) attitude is obsessed with the problem of
power, not only over other men, but also over our natural
environment—over the world as a whole. What I might call, by analogy,
the ‘false religion’, is obsessed not only by God’s power over men but
also by His power to create a world; similarly, false rationalism is
fascinated by the idea of creating huge machines and Utopian social
worlds. Bacon’s ‘knowledge is power’ and Plato’s ‘rule of the wise’ are
different expressions of this attitude which, at bottom, is one of
claiming power on the basis of one’s superior intellectual gifts. The
true rationalist, by contrast, will always know how little he knows, and
he will be aware of the simple fact that whatever critical faculty or
reason he may possess he owes to intellectual intercourse with others.
He will be inclined, therefore, to consider men as fundamentally equal,
and human reason as a bond which unites them. Reason for him is the
precise opposite of an instrument of power and violence: he sees it as a
means whereby these may be tamed.


Notes

   An address delivered to the Institut des Arts in Brussels, in June
1947; first published in The Hibbert Journal, 46, 1948.

¹ This was written in 1947. Today I should alter this passage merely by
replacing ‘first’ by ‘second’.

² The existentialist Jaspers writes ‘This is why love is cruel,
ruthless; and why it is believed in, by the genuine lover, only if it is
so’. This attitude, to my mind, reveals weakness rather than the
strength it wishes to show; it is not so much plain barbarism as an
hysterical attempt to play the barbarian. (Cf. my Open Society, 4th
edn., vol. VII, p. 317.)