60. Freedom and Society

In the last issue of this journal, I expressed the view that the assessment of social questions in the present day suffers from the fact that the thinkers who put their scientific abilities at the service of this question apply the results that Darwin and his successors obtained for the animal and plant kingdoms to the development of mankind in an all too stereotyped manner. I have named "The Social Question" by Ludwig Stein as one of the books to which I have to make this reproach.

I find my opinion of this book confirmed in particular by the fact that Ludwig Stein carefully collects the results of recent sociology, extracts the most important observations from the rich material, and then does not set out to derive specific sociological laws from the observations in the spirit of Darrwinism, but simply interprets the experiences in such a way that exactly the same laws can be shown in them that prevail in the animal and plant kingdoms.

Ludwig Stein correctly identified the basic facts of social development. Although he violently applies the laws of the "struggle for existence" and "adaptation" to the development of social institutions, marriage, property, the state, language, law and religion, he finds an important fact in the development of these institutions that is not present in the same way in animal development. This fact can be characterized in the following way. All the institutions mentioned arise first in the

In a way that the interests of the human individual recede into the background, while those of a community receive special care. As a result, these institutions initially take on a form that must be fought against in the further course of their development. If the nature of the facts at the beginning of the development of culture did not place an obstacle in the way of the individual's striving to bring his powers and abilities to bear on all sides, marriage, property, the state, etc., could not have developed in the way they did. The war of all against all would have prevented any kind of association. For within an association man is always compelled to give up a part of his individuality. Man is also inclined to do so at the beginning of cultural development. This is confirmed by various things. In the beginning, for example, there was no private property. Stein says about this (p. 91): "It is a fact, which is asserted by scholars with a unanimity that seems all the more convincing the more rarely it can be achieved in this field, that the original form of property was a communistic one and probably remained so during the immeasurably long period deep into barbarism." Private property, which enables people to assert their individuality, did not exist at the beginning of human development. And what could illustrate more dramatically that there was a time when the sacrifice of the individual in the interests of a community was considered right than the fact that the Spartans at a certain time simply abandoned weak individuals and left them to die so that they would not be a burden on the community? And what confirmation does the same fact find in the fact that philosophers of earlier times, e.g. Aristotle, did not even think that slavery had anything barbaric about it? Aristotle takes it for granted that a certain proportion of people must serve another as slaves. One can only hold such a view if one is primarily concerned with the interests of the whole and not with those of the individual. It is easy to prove that all social institutions in the beginning of civilization have had such a form, which sacrifices the interest of the individual to that of the whole.

But it is equally true that in the further course of development the individual endeavors to assert his needs over those of the whole. And if we look closely, the assertion of the individual against the communities that necessarily arise at the beginning of cultural development, which are built on the undermining of individuality, is a good part of historical development.

With sound reasoning, one must recognize that social institutions were necessary and that they could only emerge with an emphasis on common interests. But the same healthy reflection also leads to recognizing that the individual must fight against the sacrifice of his own particular interests. And thus, in the course of time, social institutions have assumed forms which take more account of the interests of individuals than was the case in earlier conditions. And if one understands our time, one may well say that the most advanced strive for such forms of community that the individual is hindered as little as possible in his own life by the ways of living together. The awareness that communities can be an end in themselves is increasingly disappearing. They should become a means for the development of individuality. The state, for example, should be organized in such a way that it grants the greatest possible scope for the free development of the individual personality. The general institutions should be made in such a way that not the state as such, but the individual is served. J. G. Fichte gave this tendency a seemingly paradoxical, but undoubtedly the only correct expression when he said: the state is there to gradually make itself superfluous. This statement is based on an important truth. In the beginning, the individual needs the community. For only out of the community can he develop his powers. But later, when these powers are developed, the individual can no longer bear to be patronized by the community. He then says to himself: I will arrange the community in such a way that it is most conducive to the development of my individuality. All state reformations and revolutions in recent times have had the purpose of promoting individual interests over the interests of the community as a whole.

It is interesting how Ludwig Stein emphasizes this fact to every single social institution. "The obvious tendency of the first social function, marriage, is a constantly increasing personalization, because it is complicated by psychological factors - a struggle for individuality" (p.79). With regard to property, Stein says (p. 106): "The social ideal is, philosophically speaking, an individualism tempered by the communist trait in the institutions of the state." According to Stein, the following applies to the institution of the state in general: "the obvious tendency of social events" is towards "uninterrupted personalization" and the "driving out of the individual tip of the sociological pyramid". Looking at the development of language, Stein says: "Just as sexual communism leads to individual monogamy, just as the original ownership of land irresistibly dissolves into personal private property, so the individual wrests his spiritual personality, his language, his style from linguistic communism, which is in the interests of society. Here, too, the slogan is: "Self-assertion of individuality". Stein says of the development of law: "The soul of the development of law, which originally extended to the entire genus in order to gradually take possession of the individual corporeal individuals and then within these individuals from corporeality to the finest and most delicate mental ramifications, draws us a fleeting, but nevertheless sufficiently characterizing picture of the process of individualization of law, which is in infinite motion" (p. 151).

I now think that, having established these facts, it would have been the task of the sociological philosopher to move on to the basic sociological law in the development of humanity, which follows logically from them, and which I would like to express as follows. At the beginning of cultural states, mankind strives for the emergence of social associations; the interests of the individual are initially sacrificed to the interests of these associations; further development leads to the liberation of the individual from the interests of the associations and to the free development of the needs and powers of the individual.

Now it is a matter of drawing conclusions from this historical fact. Which form of state and society can be the only desirable one if all social development is based on a process of individualization? The answer cannot be too difficult. The state and society, which see themselves as an end in themselves, must strive for rule over the individual, regardless of how this rule is exercised, whether in an absolutist, constitutional or republican manner. If the state no longer sees itself as an end in itself, but as a means, it will no longer emphasize its principle of rule. It will set itself up in such a way that the individual is asserted to the greatest possible extent. His ideal will be the absence of domination. It will be a community that wants nothing for itself and everything for the individual. If one wants to speak in terms of a way of thinking that moves in this direction, then one can only fight everything that today amounts to a socialization of social institutions. Ludwig Stein does not do that. He moves from the observation of a correct fact, from which, however, he cannot deduce a correct law, to a conclusion that represents a rotten compromise between socialism and individualism, between communism and anarchism.

Instead of conceding that we are striving for individualistic institutions, he tries to support a principle of socialization that only allows itself to take individual interests into account to the extent that the needs of the whole are not impaired. For example, Stein (p. 607) says of the law: "By the socialization of law we mean the legal protection of the economically weak; the conscious subordination of the interests of the individual to those of a larger common whole, still of the state, but ultimately of the whole human race." And Ludwig Stein considers such a socialization of law to be desirable.

I can only explain a view such as this to myself if I assume that a scholar has been so taken in by the general catchwords of the time that he is incapable of deducing the corresponding corollaries from his correct preliminary propositions. The correct propositions derived from sociological observation would force Ludwig Stein to present anarchistic individualism as the social ideal. This would require a courage of thought that he obviously does not have. Ludwig Stein seems to know anarchism only in the boundlessly stupid form in which it strives towards its realization through the rabble of bomb throwers. When he says on page 597: "With a thinking, purposeful, organized working class, for which the laws of logic have binding validity, one reaches an understanding", he proves what I have said. Understanding with the communist-thinking working class is not possible today for those who not only know the laws of social development like Ludwig Stein, but who also know how to interpret them correctly, as Ludwig Stein cannot.

Ludwig Stein is a great scholar. His book proves that. Ludwig Stein is a childlike social politician. His book proves that. So the two are quite compatible in our time. We have achieved a pure culture of observation. But a good observer is by no means a thinker. And Ludwig Stein is a good observer. What he tells us as the results of his and other observations is important to us: what he concludes from these observations is none of our business.

I read his book with interest. It was really useful to me. I learned a lot from it. But I have always had to draw different conclusions from the premises than Ludwig Stein drew from them. Where the facts speak through him, he stimulates me; where he speaks for himself, I have to fight him.

But now I ask myself: why can Ludwig Stein arrive at the wrong social ideals despite having the right insights? And here I come back to my original assertion. He is not able to really find the social laws from the social facts. Had he been able to do so, he would not have arrived at a rotten compromise between socialism and anarchism. For he who can really recognize laws necessarily acts in accordance with them.

I have to keep coming back to the fact that thinkers in our time are cowards. They do not have the courage to draw conclusions from their premises, from their observations. They compromise with illogic. They should therefore not touch on the social question at all. It is too important. Just to build a few trivial conclusions on correct premises, which would be worthy of a moderate social reformer, to give lectures and then publish them as a book, that is not what this question is for.

I regard Stein's book as proof of how much our scholars can do, but how little they can really think. We need courage in the present; courage of thought, courage of consequence; but unfortunately we only have cowardly thinkers.

I would consider the lack of courage in thinking to be the most striking trait of our time. To blunt one thought, according to its consequences, to juxtapose it with another "equally justified" one: that is a very general tendency. Stein recognizes that human development is moving towards individualism. He lacks the courage to think about how we can arrive at a form of society that takes individualism into account from within our own circumstances. Recently, E. Münsterberg translated a book by the Brussels professor Adolf Prins (" Freiheit und soziale Pflichten" by Adolf Prins, authorized German edition by Dr. E. Münsterberg, Verlag Otto Liebmann, Berlin 1897). In its entire content, Prins knows the truth that must cut off the head of all socialism and communism without further ado: "And I think that among the elements that form the eternal foundation of humanity, the diversity of men is one of the most resistant." No socialist or communist form of state or society can take due account of the natural inequality of human beings. Every organization pre-determined in its essence according to any principles must necessarily suppress the full free development of the individual in order to assert itself as a total organism. Even if a socialist generally recognizes the justification of the full development of all individual personalities, in the practical realization of his ideals he will seek to grind down those characteristics of individuals that do not fit into his programme.

The Belgian professor's train of thought is interesting. He admits from the outset that the accumulation of ruling powers in one place is harmful. He therefore speaks out in favour of the medieval institutions with their administrative and judicial systems based on local associations and regional individualities as opposed to the efforts originating in Roman times, which wanted to unite and centralize all powers in one place by bypassing individual properties (p. 4o ff). Prins is even opposed to universal suffrage because he believes that a minority is thereby violated by the rule of a perhaps insignificant majority. Nevertheless, he also comes to recommend lazy compromises between socialism and individualism. That all salvation springs from the activity of individualities: that should have been obvious to this thinker from all his considerations. He does not have the courage to admit this and says: "But the highest degree of individuality does not arise from an excess of individualism" (p. 63). I would like to counter this by saying that there can be no talk of an "excess" of individualism, because no one can know what is lost from an individuality if its free development is restricted. Those who want to maintain moderation here cannot know what dormant powers they are eradicating from the world with their clumsy application of moderation. This is not the place to make practical suggestions, but it is the place to say that anyone who knows how to interpret the development of mankind can only advocate a form of society that aims at the unhindered all-round development of individuals and to which any domination of one over the other is an abomination. How the individual copes with himself is the question. Each individual will solve this question if he is not prevented from doing so by all kinds of communities.

Of all the dominions, the worst is the one that social democracy strives for. It wants to cast out the devil with Beelzebub. But today it is a spectre. And since red is known to be the most exciting color, it has a terrible effect on many people. But only to people who can't think. Those who can think know that with the realization of social democratic ideals all individualities will be suppressed. But because these cannot be suppressed - for human development is once concerned with individuality - the day of the victory of social democracy would also be the day of its downfall.

Those who allow themselves to be intimidated by the red flag of social democracy to such an extent that they believe that every theory about human coexistence must be lubricated with the necessary drop of social oil do not seem to understand this. That's how oily they are, Ludwig Stein's and Adolf Prins'.

Both don't really know how to help themselves. They think. This should make them individualists or, let's put it bluntly, theoretical anarchists. But they are afraid, hellishly afraid of the consequences of their own thinking and so they oil the consequences of their thinking a little with the state socialist airs and graces of Prince Bismarck and the social democratic nonsense of Marx, Engels and Liebknecht. He who brings much will bring something to some.

But that doesn't apply to thinkers. I am of the opinion that everyone should work for the undiminished consistency of the view that is in accordance with his nature. If it is wrong, then another will prevail. But whether we will win, we leave that to the future. We just want to stand our ground in the battle.

The people of the thinking craft have a decisive role to play in the discussion about the social question. Because it is said that their craft does not give rise to blind party passion. But thinkers also need a passion. That of ruthless recognition of their own views. The thinkers of our time do not have this ruthlessness.

In the introduction to his book, Ludwig Stein regrets that contemporary philosophers are so little concerned with the social question. I would not regret this to the same extent. If our philosophers were thinkers who had the courage to draw the consequences from their thoughts, then I could agree with Stein. But the way things are, if philosophers were actively involved in the discussion of social issues, nothing extraordinary would come of it. And Ludwig Stein has proved this with his thick book. There is nothing in it that would have any bearing on the question. The general cabbage that is served up to us by the center parties and compromise candidates all over the world is presented to us by Ludwig Stein with a little philosophical salad. That doesn't make it any tastier.