GAULLISM, BONAPARTISM & MACHIAVELLISM IN EUROPE
Christopher Richard Wade Dettling (2018)
These principalities … they are upheld by higher causes, which the human mind cannot attain to, I will abstain from speaking of them; for being exalted and maintained by God, it would be the work of a presumptuous and foolish man to discuss them … Fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by these rather than by those who proceed coldly. And therefore, like a woman, she is a friend to the young, because they are less cautious, fiercer, and master her with greater audacity. Machiavelli¹
French and German dissatisfaction with the Atlantic system drove the political decisions that led to the establishment of the European Communities.²
The wars of the French Revolution marked the transition to the nation–state defined by common language and culture … [The United States of America] have never been nation–states in the European sense. America has succeeded in forming a distinct culture from a polyglot national composition.
Henry Kissinger³
On the international stage of 20th century world history, France is a socialistic country, while on the domestic stage French politicians like General de Gaulle divide their political arena into Left and Right: The French socialists were the Right and the French communists were the Left. In the clash between French socialism and communism during the Cold War there are varying degrees of political and economic intensities: Gaullism, at least for the greatest part, is not located at the epicenter of this domestic dispute, — where French socialism and communism intermingle under the thumb of world historical determinations (not all French socialists were seduced by communism, but the very nationalistic Machiavellians like General de Gaulle followed capitalism and corporate welfare as the surest path to self–aggrandizement).
Corporate welfare is called “investment” by the inferior ruling classes, and is often justified as public money for start–ups by pointing to the digital revolution in America: The mortally corrupt ruling classes thereby compare themselves to Uncle Sam, as though both are on the same political and economic level in the realm of world history, — namely, world historical politics and economics. This monstrous sophistry draws the sophistical political and economic distinction between modernity and Globalism, because the unreason of the sophists is not reason, while their irrationalism is not rationalism: The sophists, since the time of classical antiquity (when Socrates and Plato, as well as Aristotle, first liberated Western humanity from the coils of Oriental despotism and Asiatic barbarism, and advanced the rational political and economic spirit of Western civilization in the name of philosophical science), never conceived the notion of rational political economy, and therefore in their mental flabbiness they entirely missed the world historical distinction between superior and inferior ruling classes.
Corporate welfare is the legalized political and economic corruption of degenerate ruling classes: The sophists accuse Uncle Sam of corporate welfare in America, but they know not the ways of rational political economy of superior ruling classes, for they suffer profoundly from the delusion that America is a mere nation–state writ large like themselves, as they draw no rational distinction between imperialism and civilization, — they are mortally tainted by modern unreason and inexact historiography. How is it otherwise, dear reader, for those poor souls whose mental affliction results from their ignorance and neglect of the notions of Judaeo–Christianity (Jerusalem, Athens, Rome), and who have no world historical (rational) conception of the Western world, as opposed to the decadence and corruption of Oriental despotism and Asiatic barbarism? Sophistry is not philosophy, while ideology is never science.*
Aristotle, the beacon of Greek Idealism after Plato and Socrates, influenced Western humanity for centuries in the struggle for rational political and economic order: The Stagirite followed very closely in the footsteps of Socrates and Plato, and he thereby greatly advanced the science of philosophy. Modern sophists, especially since the French Revolution and the contagion of Bonapartism across Europe, ignore and neglect the rational distinction between exact and inexact philology, and they thereby make Plato and Aristotle into enemies, — in order to corrupt and debase Western Idealism as barbarism, especially in the realm of politics and economics. The poor devils are under the Kantio–Hegelian spell of modern unreason in the arena of politics and economics, namely Bonapartism: Their masters gorge themselves on champagne and caviar, thanks to their backwards cartels, outdated monopolies and corrupt trusts.
General de Gaulle, always the Machiavellian, supported America when Soviet communism threatened the national interests of France, — the General preferred that America and Russia should not greatly increase their power, but remain in a state of equilibrium, thereby leaving La France (the Gaullist ruling class) some precious room to manoeuvre on the world stage:
“When Soviet power represented a threat to the West in the Cuban missile crisis, General de Gaulle suspended his habit of dissent and gave America powerful support.”⁴
In Machiavellian fashion, Gaullists often oppose themselves to socialists and communists in the name of French conservatism, but like the latter they are very much the staunch supporters of Bonapartism (unlike de Bonald and company), namely autocracy founded upon popular consent, the outdated Napoléonic and French Revolutionary (modern) abstraction of right, — a very dangerous Kantio–Hegelian delusion in the world of today, especially in the Islamic republics. The downfall of modernity and rise of Globalism as the world historical form of Americanism, overcomes the power struggles between the Industrial and French Revolutions in modern European history:
“Churchill was never a rational man … in moments of crisis he sought guidance not by reasoning but by intuition.”⁵
Winston Churchill was an irrationalist? If Churchill was a political and economic irrationalist, he was, alongside his close associate and friend, David Lloyd George, in very good company, and certainly not alone at the table:
“The [Russian] Revolution is the greatest service which they have yet made to the cause for which the Allied peoples have been fighting since August 1914 … this war is at bottom a struggle for popular Government as well as for liberty.”⁶
The bloody Russian revolution, which greatly weakened Russia in the Great War against the so–called German Imperialism of the Kaiser, is a great service? David Lloyd George’s utter foolishness and demagoguery, swallowed by the uneducated British masses, is proof that old England was weak, ineffectual and under the thumb of the Liberal Lords:
“Why don’t the moderate liberals state that, if the Government continues their socialism and arbitrary ways, they cannot support them?”⁷
The old constitutional monarchy of the British Empire is powerless against the flood tide of world history, and for very good reason:
“A glance at the product of the French Parliament since 1879 shows that France today, as well as England, is a land where ‘freedom slowly broadens down,’ if not from precedent to precedent, at least from statute to statute. To be sure freedom is a larger thing than acts of legislatures, but it is also larger than decisions of judges. Reforms of abuses which the state can prevent constitute merely those definite stages in the advance of freedom which the historian can register as indices of the nation’s purpose. Yet here the work of the Parliament of the Third Republic will bear comparison with that complex and often hidden line of progress to be traced in England through law courts, local government and Parliament.”⁸
A glance at the product of the French Parliament since 1879 shows that France as well as England are lands where “freedom slowly broadens down”? The rotten work of Gambetta and Clemenceau and their minions has borne fruit. From whence comes this French and British freedom that slowly “broadens down”?
“Now the Kantian traditions have gained power once more.”⁹
On the eve of the Great War, the Kantian traditions have gained power once more?
“The awakening of the new age, namely, the ‘kingdom of the realized spirit’ (royaume de l’esprit réalisé), is the age of the Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the French Revolution. A free will, albeit formal, whose content is created as it touches the real, is the Kantian principle: This principle of the Critical Philosophy, without doubt, is the very basis of the French Revolution (c’est là le principe kantien et c’est, non moins, le principe de la Révolution française). The Kantian principle brings practical results to the French Revolution. Kantian reason legislates for the collective will as well as for the individual will … The French Revolution made the bold attempt to begin with individual wills, with the atoms of will: The revolutionary philosophy of Kant (philosophie révolutionnaire) attacks the collective will of the Ancien Régime for its abusive privileges.”¹⁰
The philosophy of Immanuel Kant, according to influential French government intellectuals, is the philosophy of the French Revolution: Kantianism is the philosophy of revolution, — at least in the debilitated minds of the French ruling class. The modern sophists ignore and neglect the rational conception of world history, otherwise they corrupt the exact historiography of the 19th century when they separate the Great Terror and the Jacobin general from the French Revolution:
“There is no mystery about the origins of Bonapartism. It is the child of Napoléon Bonaparte and the French Revolution … the strong executive founded upon the plebiscite which was to be the pillar of Bonapartism; and [Napoléon] had come to the conclusion that legislative assemblies should be merely supervisory, that they should have no power to change the constitution or to interfere with the executive … This is not the place for a detailed examination of the principles of Napoléonic law … The French nation, being consulted for the third time, for the third time by an overwhelming majority ratified its belief in Bonapartism … The guiding principle of Bonapartism was autocracy founded on popular consent, safeguarding social order and social equality [French Socialism].”¹¹
At home and abroad, the Gaullist division between Left and Right is based on Bonapartism, the freedom that “broadens down,” namely the Napoléonic and French Revolutionary abstraction of right, and therefore Gaullism opposes French communism (branded as Stalinism) only when French interests are at stake, as when the political and economic existence of the Gaullist ruling class is threatened, namely, the longevity of autocracy founded upon popular consent.
In the world historical clash between Western civilization and Barbarism (Oriental Despotism), as the 20th century struggle between capitalism and communism, Gaullism is therefore on the wrong side of history. Modern European political and economic irrationalism, namely Machiavellism, is passing away in the world historical supremacy of American Liberty, — as 21st century Americanism, in the birth of Global rational political and economic order. World civilization and American Liberty overcome modern European raison d’État in the form of Globalism: German Idealism is undone in the rise of Americanism. American capitalism rules the earth, and the rulers of capital are the bringers of progress into the world: American Idealism rules supreme.¹²
De Gaulle said of Pétain: “My first colonel, Pétain, showed me what the gift and art of leadership are worth.”¹³ De Gaulle so greatly admired the Marshall Pétain, his mentor and protector, that the dedication in his book Le fil de l’épée reads:
“This essay, Monsieur the Marshall, can only be dedicated to you, for nothing shows better than your glory, the virtue that action can draw from the light of reason.”¹⁴
Pétain rose quickly in the ranks, for he was a military professor at the French School of War, who groomed many youngsters in the science of warfare, some of whom like de Gaulle he advanced, and he dispatched them to his associates with especial mention. Pétain fought in the Great War under Georges Clemenceau: The Maréchal therefore knew all about the self–enrichment and corruption of the administration during the war, which certainly was an albatross around Clemenceau’s neck, since Pétain’s words were those of a war hero whereas the former was merely a politician, — with many enemies. Pétain, who was later a good friend of Adolf Hitler (they shook hands together in public) and who followed in the diabolical footsteps of der Führer, for he reduced nearly a million and a half French citizens to slavery,¹⁵ also deported thousands of French Jews to the gas chambers, including women, children and even babies, — amongst other profoundly evil crimes.
The General de Gaulle was the special protégé of Philippe Pétain, his early mentor, and therefore was profoundly inspired by the Bonapartist Machiavellism (Bonapartism) of Pétainism: De Gaulle sided with the allies against Hitlerism and Vichy which proves that the General was a far greater Machiavellian than Pétain, and far more cunning in 20th century military and world affairs, — inspired by Gaullist intellectuals like his associate Raymond Aron, the very influential French Kantio–Hegelian.¹⁶
De Gaulle’s modern European political and economic irrationalism is therefore evident to serious thinkers that master the conception of Gaullism after many years of hardship, namely the whole notion of European modernity and its rational and spiritual evolution within 20th century world history: The scientivity of the conception of Gaullism results from the speculative and cognitive power of ideation which conceptualizes the manifold notion of the Global world of today, — this profound philosophical and scientific activity of the speculative and cognitive power of ideation, involves the world historical conception of German Idealism, namely the schools of Kant and Hegel, and is therefore an important teaching of American Idealism.
Once the world historical task of the philosophical and scientific elucidation of Gaullism is accomplished, the discovery is made that de Gaulle’s modern European political and economic irrationalism very much appears as a form of fascism which placed its stakes on the winning side:
“All de Gaulle’s acts were directed not toward war, but toward politics and the seizure of power for his own purposes … Gaullism is a phenomenon originating in fascism. It is a political movement born at a time when Nazi ideology was victorious in France and in the rest of Europe … Gaullism is a form of fascism that placed its stakes on the winning side. It is a fascism that glibly uses the language of Democracy, while despising and hating it. It is a fascism that digs into the structure of the Republic as Italian fascism, at an earlier date, dug into the Monarchy.”¹⁷
Like his powerful mentor Pétain, the General de Gaulle was profoundly indoctrinated in modern European political and economic irrationalism, — inherited from the Bonapartist ruling class that drove France into the Great War.
Of course the modern European political and economic irrationalists of 20th century France had their family quarrels, based upon the question of which road quickly leads to power in the face of world historical obstacles: Their family disputes resulted from their struggles against Americanism, — the financial, commercial and industrial power of rational political and economic order in the world. Thus we learn of the strife between Aron and Sartre, as well as many other examples of family discord in the ranks of the French Bonapartist and Machiavellian ruling class. That Aron on the French right opposed Sartre on the left means that they disagreed on the best means to implement their Napoléonic and French Revolutionary abstractions of right in the world historical arena of 20th century politics and economics, — especially in the face of the rising power of Americanism within Europe. In the world historical strife between ruling classes, not all combatants of opposing sides are on the front line, some fall behind in the rear, — thus, these internal fractures are bottlenecks from external pressures. The political and economic struggles between the élites of the French Bonapartist ruling class are inscribed within the world historical clash between capitalism and communism, — as the 20th century collapse of European modernity and rise of Globalism in the form of American Liberty.
Great men make world history, — de Gaulle maintains in the final pages of his Le fil de l’épée: “Nothing great is done without great men, and their greatness consists in the power of their volition.”¹⁸
De Gaulle betrays his profound admiration for Napoléon Bonaparte in Le fil de l’épée, for the General knows nothing of the struggle between superior and inferior ruling classes, since he knows nothing of the genuine Hegel, unlike the great American Idealists who won the Civil War, and who thereby uplifted to a far higher world historical plane, the political and economic freedom of American civilization, and who were steeped in the Pure Hegelianism of the advanced Christianity of their greatest theologians, as were the selfsame idealists of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, the bastion of the American Revolution, who were steeped in the genuine Cartesianism of the advanced Christianity of their greatest theologians: Great men and women, together with superior ruling classes, make the history of the world. Inferior ruling classes unmake and pervert history.
The rise of Western civilization in world history is the work of superior ruling classes, while the collapse of civilization into barbarism results from the mortal corruption of inferior ruling classes, namely, political and economic satanism, — this at least is the rational and spiritual teaching of genuine American Idealism.
As the genuine Hegel of Pure Hegelianism has foretold, the grandeur and decadence of Western civilization is the result of the struggle between superior and inferior ruling classes, as the dialectic of finitude (die erscheinende Dialektik der Endlichkeit): The aggrandizement of Western civilization is the work of superior ruling classes,while the decline of civilization is the work of inferior ruling classes. The rise of Western civilization in world history is therefore the result of superior ruling classes, whether aristocratic, monarchical or democratic. Rationality is actuality, and actuality is rationality … the teaching of the concept is the inescapable lesson of history, — Hegel.¹⁹
In 20th century world history, de Gaulle and Gaullism constitute the death rattle of a dying order, the last spasm of European modernity in France, as the extinction of modern political and economic irrationalism under the thumb of Globalism and American Liberty: General de Gaulle is therefore a Bonapartist, namely a grand political and economic practitioner of French Machiavellianism in the tradition of Napoléon Bonaparte and the French Revolution. In other words, throughout his political career, the General always advanced the Napoléonic and French Revolutionary abstraction of right: Modern right, according to the General in his many conversations, speeches and writings, is the basis of French sovereignty. This fact is also profoundly evidenced in the Gaullist delusion of “l’independence national” which is French sovereignty as modern European right in the world historical arena of 20th century politics and economics: This selfsame delusion of modern right was shared by revolutionaries around the world, especially on the French Left and Right, whether Liberal or Conservative. After the Cold War and the demise of Soviet communism, the French Gaullists and neo–Gaullists imported and incorporated the last remnants of modern European unreason into the European Union from France, — in dangerous potencies, especially by the friends of François Mitterrand (e.g., Édith Cresson and company), but also by German politicians from East Germany after the reunification.
What exactly is national independence (l’independence national) according to General de Gaulle? National independence leads to aggrandizement (la grandeur):
“France is not really herself unless in the first rank … France, as she exists among the other nations of the world, such as they are, must, under penalty of mortal danger, strive upwards and stand strong. Thus, according to Gaullist doctrine, France cannot be France without self–aggrandizement (la grandeur).”²⁰
French nationalism (l’independence national) therefore leads to self–aggrandizement (la grandeur) in the debilitated mind of General de Gaulle: France is not real without self–aggrandizement (La France n’est réellement elle–meme qu’au premier rang). What therefore is French self–aggrandizement according to General de Gaulle? La grandeur is world power. National independence, the political and economic basis of Gaullism, is therefore the French quest for world power.
France needs nationalism (national independence), according to the General de Gaulle, in order to attain self–aggrandizement: France requires la grandeur in order to become a political and economic reality. France, without la grandeur, is not therefore truly real in the eyes of the General de Gaulle: Truth and reality within the realm of French politics and economics is inseparable from world power, — the result of French nationalism. We therefore maintain with good reason that de Gaulle’s “conception” of political and economic truth and reality is his “notion” of world power: Gaullist Bonapartism is therefore a magnificent delusion.
The Gaullist delusion holds sway in the European Union as the fountainhead of French Europeanism thanks to degenerate élites like Édith Cresson and company: Eurocrats oppose Americanism based upon their Gaullist delusion of Europeanism. In their quest for la grandeur, the Gaullist phantasm of national independence is rechristened in the world of today by his erstwhile followers as European independence. American Idealists within the European parliament confront Gaullist (and Sovietish) Eurocrats in the struggle between Americanism and modern European raison d’État, namely Bonapartism, — autocracy founded upon popular consent is the power of the people and the tyranny of the masses, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Alas, the very notion of Western civilization itself is corrupted and debased at the hands of self–aggrandizing European Machiavellians in the name of modern European political and economic irrationalism.
Europa, whither thou goest, whither thou art?
ENDNOTES
1. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, The Prince, Luigi Ricci, translator, Oxford, Humphrey Milford, 1921, 44–102. [1532]
See: “We propose a comparison between the doctrine of Machiavelli, as it emerges from the Prince, and the doctrine of absolutism, which we shall endeavor to discern, not from one or another of the theorists who were its champions, but from them all … the absolutist doctrines, in their application, lead rulers to the same results as the doctrines of Machiavelli … Machiavellism and absolutism are derived from analogous historical situations. This is the first essential point of our parallel. The historical situation inspires Machiavelli with the idea of the legitimacy of every means aimed at the achievement of public interest and the salvation of the State … those who were able to study Napoléon Bonaparte very closely tell us that he was a very powerful ruler who saw the spilling of blood [sang des hommes répandu] as perhaps the greatest remedy of political medicine … The Prince of Machiavelli and the doctrines of absolutism were born of the same sentiment of profound patriotism, at times and in countries where a powerful sovereign was necessary to put an end to the disorder and turmoil of the day, the causes of national distress … Machiavelli reveals himself as an immoral patriot who wants to save the State, even though his conception of government appears as a policy that is respectful of political freedoms and that is aimed at the happiness of the people.”
Louis Couzinet, “Le Prince” de Machiavel et la théorie de l’absolutisme, Paris, Librairie Nouvelle de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Arthur Rousseau, Éditeur, 1910, xix–xxi–xxvii–136–349–352: “Nous nous proposons un rapprochement, une comparaison, entre la doctrine de Machiavel, telle qu’elle ressort du Prince, et la doctrine de l’absolutisme, que nous essayerons de dégager, non pas de tel ou tel des théoriciens qui en furent les champions; mais de l’ensemble de ces théoriciens … les doctrines absolutistes, dans leur application, conduisent les princes aux mêmes résultats que les doctrines de Machiavel … Machiavélisme et absolutisme sont issus de situations historiques analogues. C’est là un premier point essentiel de notre parallèle. Cette situation inspire à Machiavel l’idée de la légitimité de tous les moyens destinés à atteindre un but d’intérêt public et à réaliser le salut de l’État … Tous ceux qui ont pu étudier Napoléon l de près, nous disent qu’il y avait en lui le Napoléon homme d’État, qui voyait dans le sang des hommes répandu un des grands remèdes de la médecine politique … Le Prince de Machiavel et les doctrines de l’absolutisme sont nés d’un même sentiment profond de patriotisme, à des époques et dans des pays où un souverain puissant était nécessaire pour faire cesser, sous sa domination, les désordres et la désunion, causes de la détresse nationale … Machiavel nous apparaît comme un patriote sans scrupule lorsqu’il s’agit de sauver l’État. Dans sa conception du gouvernement il se révèle à nous comme un politique soucieux du bonheur du peuple et respectueux de sa liberté.”
2. Marc Trachtenberg, ed., Between Empire and Alliance: America and Europe During the Cold War, New York, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003, 52. [Italics added]
See: “As with all questions of French policy, the first place to look was the attitude of the president, Charles de Gaulle. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, de Gaulle merely posed the overall framework for French economic policy … In December 1958, de Gaulle appointed a group of economic experts under Jacques Rueff, magistrate for the European Coal and Steel Community and a previous minister of finance, who drew up the plans that put the French economic house in order … the French government restricted the growth of credit … this practice of encadrement du crédit, however, discouraged investment because it limited industry’s access to capital … Many French officials, including French Prime Minister Michel Debré, believed that the United States relied on ‘easy money’ and an expansionary monetary policy that exported inflation abroad to countries such as France. They also believed that a major consequence of the U.S. capital outflow was encouragement of American investment in the French economy. Gaullist officials held what Robert Solomon has described as a ‘schizophrenic view’ toward multinational investment. On the one hand, French officials sought such investment because they welcomed the technological advances and influx of capital. On the other hand, they wished to see more national, and less foreign, investment in the French economy and wanted the EEC to adopt a common policy toward multinational investment. They also urged the United States to change its tax code to eliminate deferrals on taxation of overseas facilities. What the French government resented was the development of U.S. monetary seignorage that allowed the buying of European companies with dollars.”
Marc Trachtenberg, ed., Between Empire and Alliance: America and Europe During the Cold War, New York, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003, 102–102–103–103–103. [Italics added]
See also: Robert Solomon (1921–2013), The International Monetary System, 1945–1976: An Insider’s View, New York, Harper and Row, 1977.
Donald Sassoon, A Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century, London, Harper & Collins, 1997.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, French Democracy, New York, Doubleday, 1977.
3. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994, 806–808.
See: “American idealism remains essential as ever, perhaps even more so. But in the new world order, its role will be to provide the faith to sustain America through all the ambiguities of choice in an imperfect world. Traditional American idealism must combine with a thoughtful assessment of contemporary realities to bring about a usable definition of American interests.”
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994, 834.
Alas, what good are these words in the face of sophisters and historiasters?
* It goes without saying that American Idealism is not opposed to the welfare of humanity, only opposed to the so–called welfare of political and economic satanism. American Idealism uplifts the welfare of humanity, — in the name of superior ruling classes.
4. Abba Solomon Eban, The New Diplomacy: International Affairs in the Modern Age, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983, 167.
5. William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940, vol. 2, Boston, Little, Brown & Company, 1988, 664.
6. David Lloyd George in Robert Kinloch Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, New York, Atheneum, 1967, 459.
7. Edward VII in Giles St. Aubyn, Edward VII: Prince and King, New York, Atheneum, 1979, 431.
8. James Thomson Shotwell, “The Political Capacity of the French,” Political Science Quarterly, 24(1 March, 1909): 115–120.
9. “Author’s Preface to the Seventh German Edition,” The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development, Supplement to the Third English Edition Containing the Author’s Additions to the Seventh German Edition, Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain, translator and annotator, Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1915, ix–xii. [1912]
10. Charles Philippe Théodore Andler (1866–1933), “Préface: Hegel,” Le pangermanisme philosophique, 1800 à 1914: Textes traduits de l’Allemand par M. Aboucaya [Claude Aboucaya?], G. Bianquis [Geneviève Bianquis, 1886–1972], M. Bloch [Gustave Bloch, 1848–1923], L. Brevet, J. Dessert, M. Dresch [Joseph Dresch, 1871–1958], A. Fabri, A. Giacomelli, B. Lehoc, G. Lenoir, L. Marchand [Louis Marchand, 1875–1948], R. Serreau [René Serreau], A. Thomas [Albert Thomas, 1878–1932], J. Wehrlin, Paris, Louis Conard, Librairie–Éditeur, 1917, xxix–xlv; xliii: “L’ère nouvelle qui s’annonce, c’est–à–dire le ‘royaume de l’esprit réalisé,’ est celle, non seulement de Kant, mais de la Révolution française. Un vouloir libre, tout formel, dont le contenu se crée à mesure qu’il touche au réel, c’est là le principe kantien et c’est, non moins, le principe de la Révolution française. Ce principe donne des résultats pratiques dans la Révolution d’abord. La raison kantienne légifère pour le vouloir collectif comme pour le vouloir individuel … La Révolution fit cette tentative audacieuse de commencer par les vouloirs individuels, par les atomes du vouloir. C’est le vouloir collectif, l’Ancien Régime, que la philosophie révolutionnaire incrimine pour ses privilèges abusifs.”
See: “Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History demonstrate … that during the period of national sovereignty, a nation has rights conferred upon its people in virtue of their rôle as the ‘support of the universal spirit.’ With regards to this rôle, ‘the souls of all other people are diminished by right and they no longer count in world history.’ Hegel predicts for them a total moral absorption, a fate far worse than physical annihilation.”
Charles Philippe Théodore Andler, Ibidem, xxxvi: “La Philosophie de l’histoire démontrent … que, durant le déroulement de la période où il est souverain, un peuple a tous les droits que lui confère son rôle de ‘support de l’esprit universel.’ Au regard de ce rôle, ‘les âmes de tous les autres peuples sont diminuées de droit et elles ne comptent plus dans l’histoire.’ Hegel leur pronostique une destinée pire que la destruction physique, une totale absorption morale.”
See also: Michael H. Hoffheimer, “Race and Law in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Andrew Valls, editor, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press, 2005, 194–216.
See also: “Hegel’s own course notes and those of his students should be used with caution to clarify and illustrate the meaning of the texts he published during his lifetime … In general, the student notes written during or after Hegel’s classes should be used with caution … What has been said about the student notes must also be applied to the so–called Zusatze (additions), added by ‘the friends’ to the third edition of the Encyclopedia (1830) and the book on Rechtsphilosophie … Some commentators, however, seem to prefer the Zusatze over Hegel’s own writings; additions are sometimes even quoted as the only textual evidence for the interpretation of highly controversial issues. For scholarly use, however, we should use them only as applications, confirmations, or concretizations of Hegel’s theory. Only in cases where authentic texts are unavailable may they be accepted as indications of Hegel’s answers to questions that are not treated in his handwritten or published work. If they contradict the explicit theory of the authorized texts, we can presume that the student is wrong, unless we can show that it is plausible that they express a change in the evolution of Hegel’s thought … According to Leopold von Henning’s preface (pp. vi–vii) in his edition (1839) of the Encyclopädie of 1830, the editors of the Encyclopedia sometimes changed or completed the sentences in which the students had rendered Hegel’s classes.”
Adriaan Theodoor Basilius Peperzak, Modern Freedom: Hegel’s Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy (Studies in German Idealism), Reinier Munk, series editor, Dordrecht, 2001, xvi–27–28–29–29.
See also: “The transcripts known today for all the Berlin lecture series are consistently, even surprisingly, reliable testimonies … It may indeed be disconcerting that only today do we doubt — and not everyone does — that Hegel’s lectures … are actually reproduced authentically in the published [Berlin] edition … that did not become full–blown for more than a hundred and fifty years. We can hardly examine here all the reasons for this circumstance.”
Annemarie Gethmann–Siefert, “Introduction: The Shape and Influence of Hegel’s Aesthetics,” Lectures on the Philosophy of Art: The Hotho Transcript of the 1823 Berlin Lectures, Robert F. Brown, editor and translator, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, 32–46.
See also: Leopold Dorotheus von Henning, Hrsg., “Vorwort des Herausgebers,” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse — Die Logik: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe durch einen Verein von Freunden des Verewigten: D. Ph. Marheineke, D. J. Schulze, D. Ed. Gans, D. Lp. v. Henning, D. H. Hotho, D. K. Michelet, D. F. Förster, Erster Theil, Erste Auflage, Sechster (6) Band, Berlin, Verlag von Duncker & Humblot, 1840, v–viii.
See also: Leopold Dorotheus von Henning, Hrsg., “Vorwort des Herausgebers,” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse — Die Logik: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe durch einen Verein von Freunden des Verewigten: D. Ph. Marheineke, D. J. Schulze, D. Ed. Gans, D. Lp. v. Henning, D. H. Hotho, D. K. Michelet, D. F. Förster, Erster Theil, Zweite Auflage, Sechster (6) Band, Berlin, Verlag von Duncker & Humblot, 1843, v–viii.
See also: “After Hegel’s death, his former students came together with the rather noble thought of assembling various transcripts of the lecture series he gave and to which they had access, hoping to bring to the light of a general public the ‘system’ that [they?] were convinced was completed for years and presented orally in the lecture hall. However, the methodologies through which they assembled these transcripts into standalone monographs, with the aid of Hegel’s own manuscripts from his lectures is dubious at best. They paid little or no attention to changes between different lecture courses, combining them as they saw fit to guarantee the logical progression of the dialectical movement as they interpreted it. But without the original source material, it was impossible to test the suspicion that they may have falsified Hegel’s own views. Indeed, it was all we had to go on to have any understanding of his views. Now, however, many manuscripts and transcripts — even ones not available to his students — have been found. When one compares these manuscripts and transcripts with the lectures published by his students, the differences between them are in no case simply philological niceties … this information may drastically challenge our historical picture of Hegel.”
Sean J. McGrath and Joseph Carew, “Introduction: What Remains of German Idealism?” Rethinking German Idealism, Joseph Carew, Wes Furlotte, Jean–Christophe Goddard, Adrian Johnston, Cem Kömürcü, Sean J. McGrath, Constantin Rauer, Alexander Schnell, F. Scott Scribner, Devin Zane Shaw, Konrad Utz, Jason M. Wirth, contributors, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 1–19; 4.
Remark: Twentieth century pseudo–Hegelians and anti–Hegelians, modern sophists, like Charles Andler reject the genuine Hegelian notion of universal freedom found in the authoritative works of Hegel, based upon their Kantio–Hegelian interpretations of citations from the the non–authoritative editions: The Hegelian notion of universal freedom is sophistry, according to the Kantio–Hegelian delusions of modern irrationalists like Charles Andler, because for the inferior ruling classes of world history, “Hegel predicts for them a total moral absorption, a fate far worse than physical annihilation” (Hegel leur pronostique une destinée pire que la destruction physique, une totale absorption morale).
That I have laid out some of the philosophical reasons for the doctrine of American Idealism in the third edition of another writing of mine, an outline of sorts, named Americanism, is of slight importance: That the teaching therein involves the sciences of economics and politics is of some interest, however, and therefore has a bearing upon the subject at hand, albeit in a round–about way, namely, as the developmental unification and coaxial integration of the American world. In that work I flatter myself as the first Hegelian philosopher ever to apply the Dialectic of Hegel to the Hegelian Dialectic:
“Modern irrationalism, in order to validate pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism, squares the Lecture Notes and the great works published by Hegel in his lifetime. Pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism thus squares both Kant and Hegel in order to prove the speculative logical and dialectical system of the genuine Hegel’s philosophical science of Absolute Idealism is flawed. Irrationalism thus perverts the history of philosophy and modern Europe … Pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism is therefore the political and economic mask of modern European raison d’état. One drawback will never be remedied in Hegel philology: The Lecture Notes are not authoritative and are therefore useless in the exact determination of the ultimate worth of genuine Hegelianism … In the 20th century upwards of 500 million human beings were slaughtered in the contagion of modern political and economic satanism, more than in all the periods of history combined: Many hundreds of millions more were utterly ruined and destroyed by the most barbaric slavery ever recorded in the world. This is the ultimate verdict of exact historiography and universal history. From whence comes the disease of modern unreason?”
Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, Americanism: The New Hegelian Orthodoxy, 3rd edition, Archive.org, 2016, 6–9.
11. Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, Bonapartism: Six Lectures Delivered in the University of London, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1908, 7–22–39–87–120.
12. Remark: We Americans and Canadians are citizens of the New World, lovers of political and economic freedom: We Americans and Canadians are lovers of the American world. Since the last century, whenever the White House, Washington and Wall Street were greatly endangered, we Americans and Canadians have always put away our differences and pulled together, to wage warfare against the mortal enemies of Americanism. We are Americans and Canadians, lovers of the New World and American Liberty: We Americans and Canadians are lovers of rational political and economic order. As the peoples of Europe are European, so the inhabitants of the New World are American.
13. Charles de Gaulle in Jacques Le Groignec, Pétain et de Gaulle, Paris, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1998, 9: “Mon premier colonel: Pétain, me démontra ce que valent le don et l’art de commander.”
14. Charles de Gaulle, Le fil de l’épée, Paris, Éditions Berger–Levrault, 1932: “Cet essai, Monsieur le Maréchal, ne saurait être dédié qu’à vous, car rien ne montre, mieux que votre gloire, quelle vertu l’action peut tirer des lumières de la pensée.”
15. Ulrich Herbert, 1985/1997, 1.
16. Raymond Aron, Introduction to the Philosophy of History: An Essay on the Limits of Historical Objectivity, revised 2nd edition, George J. Irwin, translator, Boston, Massachusetts, Beacon Press, 1961.
See: Raymond Aron, Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire. Essai sur les limites de l’objectivité historique, Paris, Gallimard, 1948. [1938]
The last remnants of modern sophistry, such as the New York intellectuals, consider that Aron is not a crude, but rather a refined Kantian in his politics and economics: Raymond Aron was nevertheless profoundly influenced by the sophistical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and impure Hegelianism, and he therefore follows politically and economically in the world historical footsteps of Kantio–Hegelianism. The modern sophists either ignore and neglect the rational conception of world history, otherwise they denature exact historiography, in order to place Raymond Aron on the side of rational political and economic order.
17. Henri de Kerillis (1889–1958), I Accuse de Gaulle, New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1946, xii–259–260: Henri de Kerillis, De Gaulle dictateur: Une grande mystification de l’histoire, Montréal, Beauchemin, 1945.
18. “On ne fait rien de grand sans de grands hommes, et ceux–ci le sont pour l’avoir voulu.”
19. Translated by Christopher Richard Wade Dettling from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, zum Gebrauch fur seine Vorlesungen, Berlin, Nicolaischen Buchhandlung, 1821.
Remark: Modern sophists, especially at government controlled schools under the thumbs of nationalistic educational authorities, purposefully publish translations of Hegel into a very stilted English (notably very key passages of his doctrine), in order to teach the falsehood that Hegelianism is very hard to understand (which makes many of their pupils dislike Hegel, while making genuine Hegelianism most difficult to learn, and requiring far more effort, causing students to find their Hegel in the school textbooks and commentaries), meanwhile the selfsame irrationalists purposely translate Kant, their master, into easy English, which distorts his sophistry, and makes their sophistical interpretation of Kantianism appear rational:
“The theoretical foundations of modern liberal society were completed by Kant, who, separating legality and morality, defined the former as the ‘rules of the game,’ so to speak, law dealt with procedural, not substantive issues. The latter were primary matters of conscience, with which the State could not interfere. This distinction has been at the root of the American democracy.”
Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties, New York, The Free Press, 1962, 122. [Italics added]
See: “It is now known that unlike Kant, Hegel was despised by the Nazis.”
Yitzhak Y. Melamed and Peter Thielke, “Hegelianism,” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Game Theory to Lysenkoism, vol. 3, Maryanne Cline Horowitz, editor in chief, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005, 977.
See finally: Charles W. Mills, “Kant’s Untermenschen,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Andrew Valls, editor, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press, 2005, 169–193.
20. Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre: L’appel, 1940–1942, tome 1, Paris, Plon, 1954, 1: “La France n’est réellement elle–même qu’au premier rang … notre pays, tel qu’il est parmi les autres, tels qu’ils sont, doit, sous peine de danger mortel, viser haut et se tenir debout. Bref, à mon sens, La France ne peut être la France sans la grandeur.” [Italics added]
See: Charles de Gaulle, Le fil de l’épée, Paris, éditions Berger–Levrault, 1932, 46–47, 103–104, 167.
Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre: Le salut, 1944–1946, tome 3, Paris, Plon, 1959, 290.
See finally: “A word constantly used by de Gaulle, often misunderstood, never defined, the notion [sic] of Grandeur deserves to be the subject of a more in–depth analysis by the sophistical historiography (le biais de l’histoire) of France’s foreign policy during the time of General de Gaulle.”
Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1968, Paris, Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1998: “Mot constamment utilisé, souvent incompris, jamais défini, la notion [sic] de Grandeur mérite donc de faire l’objet d’une analyse plus approfondie par le biais de l’histoire de la politique étrangère de la France du temps du général de Gaulle.”
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raymond Aron, Démocratie et totalitarisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1965.
Raymond Aron, “Machiavel et Marx,” Études politiques, Paris, Gallimard, 1972, 56–74. (A paper delivered by Raymond Aron at l’Institut Culturel Italien de Paris, 6 November 1969 in Raymond Aron, Politikkens væsen: Udvalgte essays, 1944–1976, på dansk ved Trine Engholm Michelsen, København, København Universitet/Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2003, 27: “Oversat fra ‘Machiavel et Marx,’ forelæsning ved det Italienske Kulturinstitut i Paris, 6. november 1969, Études politiques, Paris, Gallimard, 1972, ss 56–74.”)
Raymond Aron, “Le machiavélisme, doctrine des tyrannies modernes,” Chroniques de Guerre: La France libre, 1940–1945, texte établi, présenté et annoté par Christian Bachelier; Jean–Marie Soutou, préface, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, 417–426. [1940]
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Silvia Ruffo Fiore, editor, Niccolò Machiavelli: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism and Scholarship (Bibliographies and Indexes in Law and Political Science, Number 13), New York, Greenwood Press, 1990.
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