ESSAY / For democracy, the highest value is not human life, but human freedom, which is right to defend even with a weapon in hand. This perhaps boring idea today comes from the book The Great Test of Democracies, already written by Julien Benda (1867–1956), a French philosopher and political scientist. It deals with the essence of democracy and the dangers that threaten it. The book was published for the first time in 1942 in New York, with the end of the war then in France and in 1947 here in Czechoslovakia. I am quoting here from this edition and interspersing my thoughts with the statements of some “personalities” from today, for example Alena Schillerová, Andrej Babiš and Tomio Okamura.
Alena Schillerová (ANO): “We don’t want to prepare for war, we want to live in peace.”
In this context, a chapter in Bend’s book deserves our attention in particular False pacifism. According to its adherents, a democratic state, taking into account its principle, should stand against every war, both defensive and offensive, refrain in its relations with other states from any action that could lead to war, even if it were just a matter of dignity, in short, accept in a policy of peace at any cost in its international relations. It is the doctrine of integral pacifism.
“Adherents of this position … cry that this war, which they describe as defensive, is in reality a war of offense, that it is wanted by politicians or industrialists interested in people killing each other, that no state wants to harm their state . They often refuse to accept the consequence of this position, which is to agree to be harassed from morning to night until the end of their lives by an enemy whom they refuse to oppose.” (p. 80).
Alena Schillerová (ANO): “I think that the arms manufacturers are one of the winners of this crisis together with energy companies, together with…, they plus the chains, that is, they are the winners, and the banks, I forgot about the banks, that is the fourth winner of this crisis.”
Their mistake, according to Benda, lies in the idea that the highest value for democracy is human life, while it is human freedom, and it is acceptable to sacrifice life for it rather than ending up in slavery: “After all, if our scholars are consistent, they must condemn the French revolutionaries who consented to the shedding of blood to secure their liberty and the Americans of the eighteenth century. century who preferred to fight rather than remain slaves to European masters. Some of these scholars make this reproach. But the question is to what extent they can call themselves democrats” (p.81).
Andrej Babiš (ANO): “I say that I do not agree with Mr. Pavlo that permanent peace is an illusion.”
They should consider the statement of a remarkable statesman, whom it will be difficult to label as anything but a Democrat: “If we take measures to respect our neutrality, foreign nations will not lightly decide to provoke us, and we will be able to choose war or peace, as our interest in harmony with justice dictates.” (George Washington in Farewell to the Nation of the United States, September 17, 1796.)
To which we quote Benda: “And no doubt the ideal of democracy is the suppression of the fact of war, but the proper means of achieving this end is to keep in check those who profess the cult of war. And in this means may be contained the acceptance of the fact of war. We forget that the democratic call: War of war contains consent to war.” (str. 82–83).
Tomio Okamura (SPD): “We refuse to have soldiers of Ukraine train on our territory for our money. We don’t want to have our country dragged into war!’
The difference between saving and peacemaking
To save the peace, Benda thinks, means to prevent war in the excitement of an emerging disaster, without a guiding thought, without a general idea, like putting out a fire with random means that flares up again after an hour. Whereas to create peace is to prevent war with a calm head, according to a well-thought-out plan, without any further fear of war, but when those who might in the future have been put out of power have been really put to shame.
As an example, Benda gives, among other things, the Munich agreement of the great powers on Czechoslovakia from September 1938, but the French and British representatives in this sense of the word “saved” peace, but did not create it. British Prime Minister Chamberlain: “It would be terrible if we had to dig trenches and try on gas masks, because in some distant country – Czechoslovakia – people are quarreling with each other about whom we know nothing. If we were to fight, we would have to have a greater reason.’
“Does it need to be said separately that agreeing to war, deciding to go to war, has nothing to do with wanting war, wishing for war? Integral pacifists, however, daily mix it up and accuse those who admit that the interest of their nation can compel it to war, that they are warmongers, bloodthirsty. The misfortune is that this mixing then bears fruit among many of the people.’ – writes Benda.
Likewise, in the opposite case, he does not try to distinguish what is the nature of the peace proposed by the pacifist, whether it is humiliating to the nation or fatal to its future. If in politicians “demagoguery consists in flattering the passions of the people, even at the cost of mocking the interests of one’s own nation, so demagoguery has found a new form in our days, i.e. flattery of the cult that the nation has for its peace and for the call Let’s save the peace!“, adds Benda under the subtitle New demagoguery (str. 85).
British Prime Minister Chamberlain returned to Britain with the signed Munich Agreement, where he introduced it in enthusiastic words: “I believe it is peace for our time.” Bend’s ideas are characterized by their topicality, which is clearly a testimony to the fact that the described problem is ancient and eternal. And that the same (verbal) weapons of peace are used regardless of time.
Betrayal of educated people and pacifism
Even in his famous essay The betrayal of the educated with Benda engaging in false pacifism. (The Betrayal of the Educated was first published in 1927, in our country shortly thereafter; in 2018 it was published by Academia in a translation by Michal Novotný, from which I quote.) In the extensive preface in the re-edition Betrayals of the educated from 1946, Benda also made use of his experience from the Second World War.
In the chapter “The intellectuals betray their role in the name of ‘order’ / the meaning of their anti-democratism” he first condemns the war that the representative of Italian fascism, Benito Mussolini, waged against Abyssinia (Ethiopia) not long before the Second World War (1935–1936): “The same contempt for the individual was committed by the people of the spirit (in the Czech translation: educated people) ten years ago when they applauded the crushing of a weak nation (Ethiopian) by a stronger one, because the latter, they said, represents civilization, and this crushing was therefore in order.”
According to Benda, even the usual colonialist approach was no longer enough for them, where everyone admits that nations possessing a certain moral or intellectual superiority have the right to impose it on those who are deprived of it: “However, our spiritual champions understood by this that the favored person appropriates the other person, enslaves him in much the same way as a person treats an animal when he wants it to serve him, and does not in the least wish to endow him with his own level of civilization, rather the opposite (so as Hitlerism wished to make France a slave…)” (p. 61.)
Mussolini gave a speech after the victory “by the shining sword that cut all fetters and made the African victory clean, as all the legionaries will remember it… The Italian people won for themselves an empire which they will fertilize with their labor and which they will defend with arms against the enemy”. He concluded by asking the crowd: “Are you worthy?” And the crowd answered: “Again!” And under the subtitle Intellectuals and pacifism he condemned Bend’s thesis which demands that a moral person – an educated person – values peace as the highest value and fundamentally condemns any use of force.
“We reject it in its entirety and believe that the educated, spiritual man fulfills his role perfectly if he allows the use of force, and even calls for it, as soon as it is to act exclusively in the service of justice, and does not forget that it is only a temporary necessity, and never a value in itself.” (p. 63.) According to Benda, this thesis was supported by the same people who opposed punishments for the attackers (Mussolini’s Italy) in the Abyssinian case and repeated it again after the Munich agreement in the form of a policy of appeasement. Their reason was opposition to any use of force, even that which punishes the aggressor or resists his expansiveness.
Benda also refers to the Bishop of Canterbury, who was reproached for demanding the punishment of the attacker during the Abyssinian War. In response to the reproaches, the bishop replied: “My ideal is not peace, but justice.”
Jaroslav Bašta (SPD): “The Czech Republic should stop sending weapons to Ukraine.” It’s adding fuel to the fire. We take seriously President Putin’s statement that he will not stop even with the use of nuclear weapons. It is necessary to focus all our forces to help the peace negotiations.
Consequences of strengthening the far right
A connection with the above: today, in our entire circle of civilization, the approach to the values (and the atmosphere) from the 1930s, such as the nation and its interest, is gradually returning, but at the same time, everything is taken much more relativistically than a hundred years ago – other values so they lose their role as a social glue.
In other words, collectivist tendencies are again gaining recognition over individualistic ones, and authoritarianism is therefore gaining more and more supporters while democracy is losing them. And it is precisely people who are turning away from individualism that are beginning to be closer to Putin’s or Orbán’s “values”. It is therefore likely that ultra-conservative and other far-right parties will gain strength in this year’s elections in many democratic countries, causing even greater societal divisions than Europeans and Americans are experiencing today. Everything seems to be heading for further bigger conflicts.
Ivan Ilyin (20th-century theorist of Russian fascism whose work was favored by Russian dictator Putin): “Evil begins where a person begins.”
Benda has an answer for that too. He is a pure supporter of the fact that democracy is not only allowed, but must resist internal and external attacks, otherwise it has no chance of surviving: “Democracy is no more obliged than other regimes to allow freedom of action to those who seek only its destruction.” (p. 13) So it will be a matter of who and how will stand up for the defense of freedom.
Bend’s “Textbook of Democracy” The great test of democracies definitely worth a look, just like The betrayal of the educated. Mainly because his conclusions were confirmed by the following political and war events of the thirties and forties of the 20th century. Let us perhaps recall the statement of Joachim Gauck, a Lutheran pastor and preacher, in the years 2012-2017 the German federal president: “A pacifist approach, respectable in personal life, is an approach that does not lead to good, but consolidates the dominance of the bad, inhuman and criminal.”
František Kostlán is a publicist, musician, composer, lyricist and poet. He has been devoted to the issue of minorities and extremism for a long time. After November 1989, he was, among other things, editor-in-chief of Český deník and Parlament magazine, a commentator for Telegraf, Lidových noviny and České rozhlas Regina. In 2013, he received the Gypsy Spirit Award for long-term journalistic work in the field of human rights.
