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REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.08
Political Crime
Chapter XI Conclusion
By Louis Proal
Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpableexpedients and the adoption ofimmoral maxims; for their reputation tobe retrieved they must bebrought into accord with morality. Afterhaving resorted for so long tocunning and falsehood, to intrigue andviolence, politics, were it onlyfor the novelty of the thing, shouldtry the effect of fairdealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, morethan at any period, noveltyis liked. And what greater novelty couldthere be than politicsconducted on moral lines? It is possible thatpeople will end byrecognizing that in public as in private lifehonesty is the mosteffective and the most skilful policy. Not onlyshould Machiavellism be loathedby honorable people, but it should beregarded as fatal to the trueinterests of nations. A great policycannot be immoral. Craft andviolence may score ephemeral successes,but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country.Thesuccesses achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; soonerorlater nations, like individuals, politicians, just as privatepersons,are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do.Politicalcrimes are punished more often than is supposed. Thosewho put theiradversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold oftenundergo alike fate; those who send others into exile are exiled intheir turn.
There is more immorality than profoundnessin Machiavellism. It was nota shifty and violent policy that waspursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital,Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin,or Washington. Their example showsthat it is possible to be a greatKing, a great Minister, a greatcitizen, and at the same time an honestman. On the other hand, mightygeniuses have been the ruin of thepeoples they have governed, becausethey despised justice and pursued aMachiavellian policy. Napoleon I.,who was solely guided by reasons ofState, lost his senses in the endand embarked upon the war in Spainand the Russian campaign. Danton andRobespierre, who did not lacktalent, brought the Republic to ruinthrough trying to save it by theTerror. Liberty is not to be imposedby the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination（根除）of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded bypopular or judicial massacres.
Thedisciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resorttoviolence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safetyofthe people, but what they call the safety of the people isoftennothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the18thFructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变）under pretext ofsaving the Republic, violated the law solely with aview to escaping apersonal danger; and far from saving the Republic,by demanding theintervention of a general they created a precedent forthe 18thBrumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence andeveryiniquity. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed toassurethe safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime isnecessary,or that the people might not have been saved by other means.The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than inits violation. A people that does its duty can await the futurewithconfidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice itisrare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the caseofnations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them andvices that debase them.
AMachiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it agreatgenius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients thanbyprinciples. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity forapolicy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensiblethatMachiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign,shouldfind it to his interest to sow divisionamong his subjects in order torule them; on the other hand, the maxim,"Promote division in order toreign," is out of place in a freeGovernment that is supported byopinion and whose interest it is tounite and not to divide thecommunity. Terror may be an instrument ofgovernment for a popular ormilitary dictator, but it becomesinapplicable under a government ofopinion. This being the case,instead of saying, as under the oldsystem of politics, "Cunning, stillcunning, and always cunning;audacity, again audacity, and alwaysaudacity," the watchword（标语） ought tobeunder the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness,stillstraightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice,stilljustice, and always justice."
Diplomatic dissimulationbecomes more difficult with the publication ofparliamentary debates.This publicity, which has its inconveniences,offers the advantage thatit is profitable to morality. It isimpossible for a Minister to confessin a public discussion that heharbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes moreenlightened, and acquires greater weight,its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing（用策略对付某事） of thediplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV.did not have recourse to（求助于）craft. A diplomatist who is in ¬thehabit of resorting to falsehoodceases to inspire confidence and atonce loses the greater part of hisauthority.
A policy based upon immorality is antiquated andunworthy of modernsociety; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, andan antagonism thatought not to exist between those who govern and thosewho are governed.The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolutesovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality.
Whateverthe skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessitiesofpolitics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attaintogreater perfection. Corruption is not an indispensable methodofgovernment: liberty can exist without license,it is allowable to hopefor a state of things in which theadministration will be impartial,the legislation equitable, theelections sincere, and in which industryand merit will be rewarded. TheEuropean Governments show better faithin respect to their financialengagements at the present day than inthe past; they are conscious thatit is to their interest not to tamper（干预)withtheir coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason thatpublicconfidence in their credit is their principal force. Why shouldthey notarrive at understanding that they ought to have the samerespect forliberty and human life as for the public debt?
The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted uponto render(回报) politicsmore straightforward and more in accordance withequity. Politicians,assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they willbe called upon togive an exact account of their conduct before thetribunal（审理团）of public opinion, will become more circumspect in theemployment ofexpedients of a kind to arouse public indignation.Politics should servean educational purpose as well as maintain orderand protect materialinterests. Men are governed by ideas andsentiments as well as byappeals to their interests and to force. Alofty sentiment does not spoil politics. Thegreat advances made in thesphere of politics have been advances of aphilosophical order and havebeen due to an application of Christianphilosophy. Unprincipledpolitics are Pagan politics, and their resultis not the progress ofsociety. The true policy consists in anapplication of reason to theaffairs of the State.
Skepticism has brought into existenceat the present day a generationof politicians who set more store uponpalpable realities than uponprinciples. A policy of expedients and of vulgar(粗俗的) satisfactions is theoutcome ofskepticism. The change that has taken place in our politicalmorals hasdeep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous,thatdespised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, nowforpolitical liberty, now for military glory, does not becomepositivelyskeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached tomaterial interestsin a day. This change of character is the result ofthe numerousdeceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutionsit hasundergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs.
"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils thatcrop up（出现）can be remedied, except by removing the corruption andreinstatingprinciples; any other corrective is useless or a freshevil." Thesuppression of the parliamentary regime would not be aremedy; theestablishment of a dictatorship would be a fresh evil and aworse evil.The true remedy consists in a return to principles.Politics, like humanlife, need to be spiritualized unless they are tofall into the mire andto remain there. To change the persons composingthe political worldwould be insufficient, unless a moral reform beaffected at the sametime. Clearly if the new politicians were asdevoid of （完全没有）principles as the old, all that would have been done wouldhave beento exchange fat for lean kine, who in turn would wish to waxfat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is butslight,or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of theformer.Obviously satiated skeptics are less dangerous than skepticswhoseappetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having lookedaftertheir own interests, they will at last look after those of thecountry.This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical remark made byMaisonwhen the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They aremakinga mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my owninterests andwas going to look after theirs."
A return to principles andmoral beliefs and the substitution of ideasfor appetites are, inconsequence, the true remedies for that hideousmalady politicalcorruption. It is only in the power of great passionsto drive petty（琐碎的）passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments,love of countryand of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revivedin a country theparliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated（变质，败坏）.
Doubtlessto exercise authority it is not sufficient to be abovereproach; a clearintellect, tact, and experience are necessary.Talent, however, withoutmorality is insufficient, and mereintelligence is no preservativeagainst moral backslidings. Nobodywould entrust his daughters or hisfortune to the care of a clever butdissolute and extravagant man. Whythen confide the country and thepublic fortune to the care of men ofpleasure, who easily develop intomen whose sole concern is money? Whena money- and pleasure-loving mandeclares himself a friend of thepeople, who can believe in hissincerity? Affection is not proved bywords, but by acts. The truesentiments of politicians are not to bejudged by their professions offaith or their humanitarian speeches, butby their character and theirhabitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Governmentinvolves not only his own personal integrity,but the choice on hispart of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If wewould pass for menof integrity," says Cicero, "we should not onlydisplay probityourselves, but exact it of those about us."
Statesmenwould avoid many political errors if they were morerespectful ofjustice; their political errors are often moral errors;their good senseand their skillfulness suffer in proportion（相符，符合比例） as theyswerve（突然转向） from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passionsthat cloud（毁坏）their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions areinspired by anupright conscience, whose qualities influence theintelligence. To be aman of good sense it is sufficient to be anhonest man.
By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison（合唱，比喻一致的协调行动）withcommon-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases calledtheSocialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result ofthesophisms by which we are inundated, and ofthe letting loose ofevil passions. We lack reasonableness at thepresent day; our brainsare disordered; our good sense, a quality thatused to be particularlydistinctive of the French, has been affected byinnumerablephilosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reachus fromGermany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Goodsense hasceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adoptedGermanpessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italianskepticism,Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us becomeFrenchmen againand Christians, let us return to the school of goodsense and morality.
The malady from which contemporary societysuffers is a moral diseaserather than a political or economicaldisease. It is doubtless usefulto improve institutions and to reformabuses but how much morenecessary it is to reform morals and to givetone to men's minds byhealthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is tobe saved from thecorruption by which it is invaded, and from therevolutionary barbarismby which it is threatened, spiritualistteachings must be restored tothe place they formerly occupied in men'sminds and in politics; thisis the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred.
Thesentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must bere-establishedin the public mind and in the education of the young. Itis necessary tofight against the sophisms which lead to the absorptionof theindividual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizeninto apart of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributesitaccording to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we aretraversing is a return to the old morality,which teaches thatworking-men in common with their employers areintended to do theirduty, and to labor, and have theirresponsibilities. What otherdoctrine will teachthe rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntaryrenunciation of whatis superfluous, and the poor the obligation ofpersonal effort, themerit of patience, and respect for legality?
It is not by encouraging atheism and materialism that a Governmenteffects an improvementin morals, that it stills passions and relieveswretchedness. Hostilityto religion is contrary to sound politics.Merely from the utilitarianpoint of view the blindness and perversityare incomparable of thoseincredulous fanatics who would rob theirfellows of the beliefs in whichthey find consolation. Who can denythat the religious sentiment conducesto morality? The more religiouscitizens there are in a State, the fewerare the restless spirits, theSocialists and the Anarchists. In a periodof skepticism, materialism,positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, whocan dream of denying theimmense services rendered by Christianity ininculcating the dignity ofhuman nature and the obligatory character ofduty, and in opposing theworship of an ideal to the worship of thegolden calf? In a society inwhich there istalk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, ofthe rightsconferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of thedisgrace ofpoverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religionteachesself-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, andresponsibilitybefore God and before the conscience. At a period inwhichSocialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that theStateshould be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful workinstanding out for the rights of the human being and the rights oftheconscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State.Ifspiritual beliefs were not regaining ¬their hold over men'sminds onewould be forced to tremble for the future of society, for"there comes aday when truths that have been scorned announcethemselves bythunder-claps."
Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not toseparate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality,dictates to them justice and charitableness,which are alone capable ofpreserving peace and with it the benefits itcarries in its train. Thepolicy that teaches nations that they shouldenvy, hate, and injureeach other, that their conduct should be solelyguided by theirinterests, and that the difficulties that crop upbetween them shouldbe settled by force alone, such a policy is criminaland mistaken. Thestatesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, thisenvious andmalevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely aliveto theinterests of the moment that are a source of division, but theyareblind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and aboveallto the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keepin view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war.
Howfar preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that dividesnationswould be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bringthemtogether! How far happier the nations would be if they would ceasetolend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch（最高点）of prosperityEurope would have reached if, realizing the project ofHenry IV., it hadapplied to politics the rules of good sense andChristian morality. Theaspect of the world would be changed if thenations, consideringthemselves members of the same family, wouldbanish（放逐）violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christianpeoplesis still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is toenjoy peace.
Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for militaryglory,M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength ofnationsserve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over eachother?"It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might bemoreusefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which aresodearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disastersandcatastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer othernations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit toitself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met withfailure.To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. causedmillionsof men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal:the formerdied in a convent, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena;Spain andFrance were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how manyconquerors maynot these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammerthat shattered thenations of the universe has itself been broken inpieces."
A policy that aims at international equilibrium ¬is better thana policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; theysuccumb（屈从）,sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations.That onenation should rule over another is always a danger to thecommonliberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a toopowerfulsovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of awisemoderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motiveforcein politics, why should not moral domination achieved throughscience,literature, and institutions be made the object of the activityofnations?
Skeptics are disposed tosmile when they hear moralists express thehope that international warswill cease, and that arbitration will takethe place of recourse toforce. Lord Salisbury, however, who at onetime considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it isrealizable."Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law courtdecisions forduels between private persons and conflicts between thegreat.International wars are destined in the same way to give place tothecourts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In1883Switzerland and the ¬United States pledgedthemselves to submitto a court of arbitration all difficulties arisingbetween them duringa period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracteda similarengagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 theplenipotentiariesof seventeen American Republics, assembled atWashington, admitted theprinciple of permanent arbitration.
Itmay be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarerinproportion to the progress of civilization and of the moralandeconomical solidarity existing between different nations. The newengines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, alsocontribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereignsrecoil（畏缩） in terror fromthe frightful consequences of a war waged withsuch formidable enginesof destruction. The tendency of public opinionis more and more tocompel Governments to maintain peace. It may behoped in consequencethat war, which is already more civilized, willbecome of rareoccurrence.
Still, as peoples and sovereigns have a tendency to become intoxicatedby success,historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts tocombat theirunruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admiresuccess, too oftenforget, when narrating wars, to inquire into theirmorality and utility;they almost always exalt the conquerors, and inthis way corrupt publicopinion, by accustoming it to allow itself tobe dazzled by success.They should keep a little of the admiration theylavish upon conquerorsfor the upright men who have given evidence oftheir love of humanityand of their respect for human life.
As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasinglycombat thesophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons ofState are thenegation of reason; that the object of government is notto divide butto unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy thehigher morality,because there are not two moralities; that publicsafety lies in justicealone: that the end does not justify the means;thatillegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that rightissuperior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maximthatright is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough forwolvesbut not for men.
Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.
COMMENT:
Bravo!~~
Itmust be the longest law-realated article, wonderful as well, i've everread. However,I'm not encouraged by its length to finish itsuccessively, which in turn, diminish the whole image,which is alreadylimited by my major context, of the article i've attained.
Accordingto the author, politics is deeply related to the morality. As a result,violence and iniquity which assume the safety of people are merely anexcuse of the rulers' own interest.Meanwhile, morality as the authordefines shoule be Christian rather than the mixture of other kinds.
Ofall the novel concepts he puts, i'm more interested in the purpose ofone nation, which is far away from the conquest . Because when oneempire gets expaned, how to rebuild a limits moderarion is one bigheadache, let alone the expense it took within the course ofconquering.And today, peace is more likely to put forward since peopleare aware the aftermath of a war and tend to recoil in terror from it.Thus, building a morality-based politics serves a critical role. |
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楼主: 番茄斗斗
发表于 2010-1-9 21:16:59
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