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Culture: Society: Justice: The
Development of a Justice-Based Society by
Dr. Arrigo Colombo 1. Basic convictions.- 2. The
twenty-year research project upon which these basic convictions are formed.- 3.
The Movement for a just society and for hope.- 4. Points for Research and for
Action. 1. BASIC CONVICTIONS: That the entire history of humanity,
despite many difficulties, strives towards the design of a society based on justice; that since the English Revolution, that
is for three centuries, it has been building this society; that this course of
history to some extent guarantees its continual construction for the future;
and builds hope for the entire human
community, for every one of us, a vision of the past, present and future which
comforts us, gives us strength and drives us to commitment. 2. THE TWENTY-YEAR RESEARCH
PROJECT UPON WHICH THESE BASIC CONVICTIONS ARE FORMED 1. The advancement of our
research into utopia and the emergence of justice It is during our research into
utopia, its history and its meaning, that we encounter justice and the just
society. We had already discerned that literary utopia alone could not provide
us with any answers to this phenomenon since it is far greater, far more grand.
We had already seen the signs of this in present-century stories of utopia
(starting with Mumford, right up to the Manuels and beyond) which centered on
the literary, but which inevitably evoked and briefly contemplated facts
of far greater historical importance: Jewish Messianism, millenarism and
Christianity. We already had the backing of Mannheim and Ernst Bloch’s
significant interpretations of utopia as an historical factor (a subversive
factor for Mannheim), as the most essential element in the dynamic construction
of history itself, as the historical "process" par excellence. And
yet Bloch was unable to satisfy our intuition or our – and others’ –
experience, what with his historical-dialectical materialism, which was typical
in that he was Marxist and yet atypical; with his subject "matter"
and its evolutionary and constructive force of which humanity was part and
which fired the entire process to its extremities: the end of alienation, the
disappearance of contradictions, and that obscure "true democracy". Besides, Bloch had never influenced
our intuition or our research, rather we had been spurred on by the
consideration of the history of utopia mentioned above. Our research had
unearthed and replotted a course which followed the trail of those
movements, the "religious salvation movements", starting with
Jewish Messianism, on which the evangelical message was grafted, while
millenarism had already come into being two centuries earlier. Later
Christianity developed Mediaeval and modern heresy, which, with Puritanism and
its transposition of the religious design to a political one, was to trigger
the second series of movements, the "modern revolutionary movements".
Both these sets of movements embodied the utopian design as the design of
the society based on justice, and later of the fraternal society. We had already briefly encountered justice in the previous and prehistoric
phase: the phase of myth, the golden myth, the golden age at the dawning of
humanity, or at least, that is, in the works of poets such as, for example,
Hesiod, Catullus and Ovid. Later, however, justice was to become a dominant
category in Jewish Messianism. Thus in Jeremiah the "Messiah", the
consecrated one, the Redeemer, was known as "Yahveh-our–justice"; His
city was known by the same name; throughout prophetism He was heralded as the
upholder of justice for His people who were oppressed by other peoples,
especially by the great empires of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Alexandria and
Rome. He was also seen as the founder of a just society which would be free of
tyrants and oppressors, where the weak – the poor, the orphans, the widows –
would be protected. It is also significant that the charismatic and
prophetic figure who founded the Essenian Movement was known as the Master of
Justice. Furthermore, throughout Messianism justice was never simply considered
in the fundamental biblical sense of the transcendent perfection of God in
Himself and in relation to His creation (a perfection which a person of faith
strives to imitate) but rather justice was seen as a fair relationship between
individuals, in society and in the city. For this relationship to be fair it
had to be one in which human dignity and rights were respected. This was the
concept of justice that came to light: justice as the reciprocation of the
dignity and rights of human beings, of every person to every person, in his own existence and in coexistence, since
a human being is, by constitution, a coexistent being in that he/she is one of
a species, a model which exists in multiplicity, in an unlimited potential
totality of individuals (and yet persons, not merely a species but a
soul-species – soul, a word which is today often avoided or rebuffed but which
is crucial). And that is realized through generation, then growth and maturity
up to independence; a process which takes place in coexistence, in extremely
intimate moments such as intercourse, pregnancy and nursing, but also at school
and at work, in short universal human co-operation. Consequently, reciprocation
of human person and to human person in him/herself and in all spheres into
which human coexistence extends: the family, love, friendship, association,
school, the church and the factory. And last of all in his/her relationship
with the polis, the state, which through the surrender of their rights
by individuals becomes a principle of rights. This involves mutual
reciprocation, of the polis to the individual,
of the individual to the polis. Hence Ulpian’s famous definition,
"stabilis et perpetua voluntas [speaking here of virtue] ius suum cuique
tribuendi" (a firm and perpetual will to attribute to everyone his right)
may still be relevant if we attribute this "ius suum" to the human
being as such, not to one of his/her particular prerogatives, such as material
possessions, class, intelligence and culture or economic and social status. This concept of justice taking root
and flourishing in humankind is, of course, rebuffed by the post-modernists and
post-metaphysicians. They either slight anything which has the substance of
being, or they deconstruct it until – or at least they think – it loses its
substance, leaving us with the individual as the partner of
"discourse", since the whole reality is reduced to discourse
(according to the theory of Habermas), as the "narrative unit of a
life" (as described in a short essay by Ricoeur). However, this writer has
already spoken at length in his book L’utopia. Rifondazione di un’idea e di
una storia about the philosophical alienation of the post-modernists and
their "destructive thinking", as well as about Rawls with his
mental constructs, his justice made of liberty and inequality, his ideological
theorization of the bourgeois system (§§ 43.3, 59). Thus if justice is reciprocation of
the dignity and rights of human being in his existence and coexistence, then
its essential elements must be liberty, equality and solidarity. Liberty
coincides with human dignity and rights and this dignity lies in
self-consciousness, self-determination, self-construction, autonomy. It is here
that human rights take shape and prevail, allowing nobody to interfere but
requiring everybody to acknowledge, respect and reciprocate such rights, albeit
within the bounds of ethics governing the individual. Equality involves
every human being enjoying equal dignity and rights simply by virtue of being
human, but with everything such dignity and rights bring with them, in material
possessions, spiritual and cultural assets and even social assets. Solidarity is to be found in
coexistence, in co-operation, in the great human undertaking in which everyone
is procreated, grows and matures to the historic levels of needs and culture;
the necessary reciprocation of each individual, the active commitment of
everyone. 2. The course of construction:
the religious salvation movements, the modern revolutionary movements Research into utopia, which
throughout the past century advanced from the literary to the historical level
and then to the peoples’ movements, uncovers a course which hinges on
justice and matures in time to construct the society based on justice. It
has been mentioned above of the development of two major streams of these
movements which have spanned nearly three millennia: the "religious
salvation movements» and the "modern revolutionary movements". There
is, however, a previous phase which spans this entire stretch of history, that
which we call the "implicit popular project" phase, which concerns
the conditions of people, above all of peasants (and to a no small extent
townspeople): conditions of hard labor, scarcity, ignorance, subordination,
exploitation, oppression and widespread poverty; conditions of injustice where human dignity and rights
are violated, and later still conditions of servilism and slavery; conditions
which embody a conscience, a tending towards justice, the just society,
quite simply the implicit popular project. The existence of this project is
corroborated (as well as by utopian myths, which will not be detailed here) by
three sequences of events: the popular revolt, which is endemic throughout the
history of humanity; the processes of democratization (Athens, Rome, the
Mediaeval free cities); the modern revolutions. But these events will not
expanded upon here, as the writer has dealt with them in the book quoted above,
L’utopia, especially the modern
revolutions, including the so-called "bourgeois" revolutions, whose
motive power and more advanced design are popular (§§ 9 and 25-29). Thus, if the two streams of popular
movements mentioned above chart a particular course through history, one which
was eventually to lead to Western civilization, the Jewish-Greek-Christian and
later European sphere, that of the implicit popular project and particularly
popular revolt is one we might rather call planetary, even though it was
restricted to civilizations (not including the so-called "primitive"
cultures) which instituted forms of oppressive and despotic power. Therefore the society based upon
justice has its antecedent and together its permanent site, we might say its
most profound historical upholder, in the conditions, conscience and popular
tension of the "implicit project". This project comes to light in the
first of the "religious salvation movements", i.e. Jewish Messianism, and throughout the prophecies several
essential elements stand out: justice, of course, as described above; peace
(including peace with the animal kingdom); peoples united in worshipping God and
in justice; prosperity. And this is no longer merely a project but rather a
prophecy, the foretelling of a future reality, of a justice which will be
achieved, albeit with the help of faith. Millenarism, a movement which is not very well-known, has a considerable
historical importance in that it runs from the second century B.C. throughout
the entire Roman Christian period, the Middle Ages and modern times, with its
zenith in America in the 1800’s; a movement, moreover, which always finds much
popular support, which is indeed mythical but which expresses admirably how
people tend towards justice (see the acute, suggestive work by Norman Cohn).
Its utopian design is the same as that of Jewish Messianism from which it
derives, although often with a far stronger earthly, material emphasis:
justice, peace, prosperity, the unification of humankind which are, however,
reserved only for the righteous and the elect, who are first and foremost the
poor, since the ungodly were all wiped out in the eschatological battle.
Here we sense a strong spirit of resentment and revenge. In the evangelical message
(an expression preferred here to "Christianity", which is a far too
complex and contrasted phenomenon), which stems from Judaism but alters it
drastically, the design of a society based on justice has already been
acquired, even though it is transcended in a far higher design, the
"fraternal society", the law of love. We seldom come across the word
justice, except in the transcendent biblical sense mentioned earlier, but its
principle and spirit are acquired and exalted. Above all, in the proclamation
of the gospel to the poor, in their blessedness which also becomes their
earthly and material redemption, as we see in the primitive apostolic community
described in Acts where possessions are communal, where those who have
share their possessions according to each individual’s needs, so that
"there was not a needy person among them" (2, v. 42-47; 4, v. 32-35):
earthly redemption for the poor, therefore the end of poverty. It was also the
end of wealth in its expropriable, discriminative sense: the rich and the poor,
the strong and the weak, the exploiter and the exploited, the oppressor and the
oppressed; the all-time extremes of an unjust society. The evangelical
message demolishes wealth and power since they are forms of evil, forms
of discrimination and oppression. Wealth is "unjust", a wealthy
individual may not receive God’s "kingdom", that is to say the
society of salvation, the fraternal society: "It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
God", as the famous quotation goes. But this is no mere saying, snubbed by
ideological tradition, the tradition of a society and a church governed by
wealth, rather it is one of the main themes throughout the evangelical message.
When it comes to the might, the unilateral power of one person over another,
the evangelical message is radical. It allows no form of superiority, social
prestige or doctrinal intellectual moral power (one may not be called lord,
father or master, occupy the highest seats in the synagogue or the best seats
at dinner). Instead we must use our prerogatives as gifts to serve our
brothers. The evangelical design puts an end
to every form of human discrimination, starting with economic discrimination
which is the greatest and which has, to a certain extent, given rise to and
sustained all other forms: between the rich and the poor, the strong and the
weak, the master and the slave, servant or subordinate (here the wage contract
comes in). It brings the end of all kinds of religious, ethnic, social and
sexual discrimination. As Paul explains, there is no difference between Jews
and Greeks, between Greeks and barbarians, slaves and free persons, between men
and women, there is only brotherhood which contains the highest form of
justice. So if Jewish Messianism was
prophecy, then the Gospel is proclamation and foundation ("I will
found my ekklesìa", my ecclesial assembly, community); it is
already a construction of the fraternal society which incorporates and
transcends the society of justice. This construction is marvelously elevated,
it is an historical novelty, but it does not last because it immediately gets
entangled and lost in the webs of power and hierarchy of society in its attempt
to alter it, even as early as the apostolic era, as we see in the Pastoral
Epistles, the last in Paul’s corpus. It then continues to get lost
in the webs of power and wealth until it finally goes adrift in the
"imperial model": the pope, emperor and super emperor; the bishops
and princes; all coming together in the long-lasting feudal system. A model
which basically still lives on today. There had been, however, some form of
construction: that of a community. Next comes Mediaeval heresy,
as it is called, a term which will be used for the moment (although strictly
one should speak of alternative ecclesial movements and leave the question of
orthodoxy for the time being), which is nothing other than an attempt to return
to the evangelical message in its authenticity, the ecclesial community in its
original, unaltered state. This is why poverty is so important here (the poor
of Lyons, the poor of Arnold of Brescia, and of Lombardy), as is the
"spirit" (in Joachim of Flora and throughout the
"spiritual" stream) and the lay state; redemption of the poor, of the
people. It is an attempt to carry on building what Christ and his Apostles
began, i.e. the just and fraternal society, since the fraternal society
embodies the just society at its highest level. Thus we have a whole chain of
movements spanning five centuries, starting in the eleventh century, in 1056,
the year which saw the rise of the Milan Pataria, all of which are immediately
wiped out by opposition only to regroup and start all over again. This chain
continued up to the days of Wyclif, of Hus and of the Bundschuh, to 1517, the
year of Luther’s "theses", reaching the age of modern heresy
and therefore Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anabaptism and Puritanism, its pillars,
if we can call them that. However, with so many complex movements, the design
inevitably modulates and swings on its axis. Nor can we say that Luther or
Calvin fight for a church of the poor; the former enjoyed the support of
princes and was a fierce opponent of the "peasant war" and the latter
was backed by the bourgeoisie, yet both strive for a people’s church. But it
does not matter that the design oscillates. What does matter is that its
substance remains intact until we reach English Puritanism in the 1600’s, when
it moves from the religious into the political, triggering off and shaping the
first of the modern revolutions, the first sine addito
revolution. There are no revolutions before modern times, no global subversive
movements by the people for freedom, which is the meaning of the word
revolution in its strict sense. Here we are talking about four
revolutions: the English Long Parliament Revolution, 1640-1653; the French
Revolution; the Russian Revolution; and the student revolts of the Sixties and
Seventies. Their design is the same: the society based on justice. However, we
seldom encounter this term in debates or in "charters", unlike other
words such as liberty, rights and equality, though, as we have seen, these are
nothing other than factors of justice. What does appear are the structures of
the just society, its progressive construction. Therefore, if the
"religious salvation movements" phase is the design phase and the
attempted abortive construction phase, in alienation and annihilating struggle,
then the "modern revolution movements" phase is quite definitely the
construction phase. Construction begins, proceeds, reaching our times
and continuing through our disheartened skeptical age. There are various reasons for this
pessimism, the historical skepticism of our age, especially this last
decade, the end of the millennium. Firstly, the modern bourgeois
conscience, modern reason, has reached a crisis point, after much violent
exaltation in attempting to resolve the whole of reality in itself. This crisis
has lasted a century and a half, bringing with it the death of God, of man, of
values and moral obligations, of history, provoking the mythical wait for the
end of the West, of civilization and history, and finally nihilism. This is
true, at least, in the intellectual, philosophical and literary world.
Secondly, the scourge of the two world wars, the persistent rage of peoples
against peoples, global slaughter, atrocities, death camps, and then the
institution of totalitarian regimes, Communism and Nazism, oppressive and
despotic regimes, the surge back of barbarities into and out of "civilized"
Europe. In particular, the seventy-year-long duration and expansion of Soviet
Communism which becomes a galaxy of police states and attempts to enslave the
planet with the brutal death toll of a hundred million (see S. Courtois et al.
14). This is followed, paradoxically, by the collapse of communism and with it
of the utopian design it embodied which had, to a certain extent, engendered
this communism which was to bring about the "kingdom of freedom" with
the end of alienation and expropriation of human labor, the raising of working
conditions and living standards so that man could be a "total man"
(Marx’s phrase), radical equality and consequently a classless society,
all this giving hope and strength to humanity. Inevitably, the collapse of
communism brings about a surge in capitalism, in the "liberal state",
an unjust society with capitalism as its warped soul. At the same time the
working class climbs into the middle class and slowly disappears after two
centuries of being the historic upholder of the process toward freedom and of
the construction of the just society. These, then, are the reasons for
this historical pessimism, but there are even stronger reasons for the
optimism, the confident hope in the present-future. These lie in the very
process of history reconstructed herein thus far, starting with Jewish
Messianism in around 1000 B.C., the era of David with its early Messianic
allusions (see 2 Sam 7; 1 Chron 17, the prophecy of Nathan), and
the religious salvation movements right up to Puritanism and the English Long
Parliament Revolution. It is here that construction, the phase of
construction, begins. The task now is to briefly trace and review this last
crucial phase, highlighting its structures. 3. Construction from the English
Revolution to the present day A good starting-point would be the
main ethical principles which reach maturity in the modern conscience:
the principle of the human being which emerges with Humanism in the 1400’s and
shines and develops throughout the age through the human dignity, the dignity
of person, dignity and rights; the principle of liberty and liberties
(conscience, thought, speech, the press, action, association), of equality and
of the sovereignty of the people which comes to the fore in the English
Revolution (but the principle of equality is, of course, fiercely opposed by
the privileged classes and their ideologists, by capitalists and the
bourgeoisie: in my argument the bourgeoisie is the class holding the capital);
the principle of reason and interiority – by which it is one’s right and indeed
duty to act according to his inner reasoning – which reaches maturity in the
sphere of modern reason; the principle of solidarity which takes shape in the
united fraternal struggles of revolutions, as well as in the united struggles
of the working class; also in the process of the unification of humanity which
possibly begins with the great geographical discoveries, developing with the
birth and growth of a universal technological and political practice, one of
communication and information which result in ubiquity and collective presence,
in the forming of an international community which spans the planet, of a
global economy. The sense of solidarity has been touched upon above. The historical endorsement of the
development and establishment of these principles is to be found in the peoples’
charters: the English Agreement of the People in 1647; the Declaration of
American Independence in 1776; the First Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen in 1789; the Constitutional Charters of America and the
French Revolution in particular; and then the other democratic constitutions;
the Atlantic Charter, the United Nations Treaty and subsequent charters and
pacts. Herein lie the mark and seat of the modern ethical conscience and its
principles, not in the thinking and writings of philosophers which are
often alienated or aberrant, especially since the great crisis mentioned
earlier, which is still under way. As a result of a rejection of the
foundations, of powerlessness to found a principle, and of a rejection of truth
and certainty, albeit finite (human truth can be but finite), ethical
obligations cease being peremptory, "categorical" in the Kantian
sense, only to become "weak", valid only if accepted, albeit within
the supposedly universal "community of discourse" (the theory of
Habermas again). Consequently, in the face of so much uncertainty, we need to
know whether "not to kill", "not to enslave our fellows" is
a final obligation, one which is inflexible and unyielding, because if it is
weak then it will not bind the conscience inflexibly and thus man may kill; if
it is not accepted by the community of discourse, then again he may kill. But
what unyieldingly binding force can this community exert on a person, on his
autonomy? If ethical obligations are not categorical then individual judgment
comes into play, leaving humankind at the mercy of social chaos. This brings us
back to the concept of bellum omnium contra omnes, but no longer as a
mere hypothesis. Thus philosophers go on expressing their impotence and
defeatism in books and newspapers. Thank goodness the principles and ethical
obligations taken up by the modern conscience are securely safeguarded in the
peoples’ charters. Another important stage in the
construction of the society based on justice is the democratic model
which comes into being with the English Revolution. Fundamental to this model
is the law (the will of the monarch or aristocrat is no more); secondly
parliament, which acts as the organ of the law elected by the people so that
the people themselves, through their representatives, are the principle of law,
subject only to laws made by themselves; and thirdly a single judicial organ
which is the same for everyone. At first parliament invited little participation
by the electorate, especially since one of the Houses was based on hereditary
peerage amongst the nobility, but it later broadened until universal suffrage
was finally achieved, with an upper House based on a hereditary system which
still partially survives in Britain nowadays, though only with a limited power.
Otherwise, the democratic model prevails on a global scale. It is one of the first major stages
in the restitution of power into the hands of the people, though here only half
complete: representative democracy, mediated control, where the people’s
only intervention is as voters once every four or five years (and in referenda
in certain countries) with no chance of a prior examination of the candidates,
a set mandate, or an assessment of their work. The representative body is
governed by the parties which in a practical sense handle the election side of
things by themselves, manipulating the consensus in more ways than one, through
both their supporters and mass media persuasion. Similarly the same parties
tend to handle power outside parliament on its own too, taking possession in
more ways than one, in every way in fact. The consequence is the so-called party
power whose price we have already paid and are still paying today. The final stage is direct
democracy where the people have direct control of political power at all
level through assemblies, the earliest and best example of which is ancient
Athens, an unparalleled model, a point of brilliance which has been aspired to
ever since. There was a tending towards such direct democracy through the whole
modern democratic process, which was already evident in the political designs
of the Peasant War of 1524-25; then again in the English Revolution with
Winstanley in particular; in the French Revolution through the Constitution of
’93, in the revolutionary sections of Paris City Council, in the Babeuf
movement; throughout the French utopian stream of the 1800’s from Fourier to
Proudhon; in the Paris Commune in 1871; in the Soviet Revolution of February
1917, the real start of the Russian Revolution; in the student revolts of the
Sixties and Seventies; and finally in the political design of perestroika.
Such an insistent return indicates historical and moral tending
towards sovereignty of the people, its achievement. The bourgeois theorists –
as early as Rousseau - claim this is impossible and scoff at the idea: such an
achievement could only be possible in a small country the size of a canton or a
province, whereas today’s cities alone are big if not enormous. Ancient Athens
was not small, however. It numbered around 500,000 inhabitants, though its
citizens, those who had the right to take part in the assembly, totaled only
around 30,000, a number which seems quite awesome for an assembly today. In
actual fact, these scholars were so skeptical because they never seriously
considered the matter. We, on the other hand, have tackled it and certainly
haven’t found it impossible to solve. Big comes out of small (see a project in La
Russia e la democrazia 63-153; and Schiavone 1997). As parliaments fall
prey to party power, to lobbies, to corruption and to the greed of
political parties, the people begin to show intolerance and disgust for
politics and politicians, which is a further sign of a historical tendency
towards direct democracy. There are still further stages in
the construction of the society based on justice. The French Revolution sees
the destruction of the power of the monarchy and the aristocracy, which had
dominated the entire history of humanity, the beginning of the end for
monarchies and empires until by 1848 monarchs are surrendering their power to
the law, to parliament. With the First World War the continental empires
come to an end: the Hapsburg, the Prussian, the Russian and the Ottoman
Empires. Even the Chinese Empire had ceased to be by 1912, leaving only the
Japanese which comes to an end with World War II. It is when at last the colonial
empires expire that the principle of the self-determination of
peoples comes to the fore. Moreover in the French Revolution slavery
was abolished; reintroduced by Napoleon, the great despot and butcher,
suppressed again in 1815, subsequently abolition was gradually accepted
everywhere throughout the century. Then the death penalty was abolished
in the 1800’s and more definitively in the next century, even though there are
still major exceptions and huge delays in countries such as the United States,
despite their claiming to be the moral guide for the human race – a poor claim.
The state has no right to kill a citizen because its power comes from the
surrender of rights of the citizens themselves (“sovereignty and laws […] are
but the sum of minimal portions of the private liberty of each individual”, as
Beccaria forcefully pointed out in his Treatise on crime and punishments
§ 28) and such surrender cannot be total or he who surrenders is lost; nor can
individuals surrender the right to live or die since it is a right they do not
possess. One of the main stages in such
construction, possibly the most important and most crucial in the history of
humanity, is the rise of the working class and the improvement in working
conditions and living standards in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries: a rise in income, and an improvement in social security, education
and culture and general well-being. This process is still under way to this
day, even in economically and culturally advanced countries. Indeed labor
is still mostly subordinate work, often exploited, and will continue to be so
as long as the wage contract lasts, until the workers themselves own and run
the business. Income, on the other hand, falls due to exploitation and
the unilateral profits of the owner and is cut into by illegal uncontracted
labor and all kinds of underpaid labor, before finally being devoured by
consumerism as people are coaxed into making purchases which are often
superfluous and useless. This is the “affluent society”, a society of material
well-being which blows up out of all proportion resulting in waste and causing
serious problems of justice, of fair distribution of wealth and problems of
resources and the environment. Social security, welfare, and national
insurance, have reached a good standard, at least in Western Europe. Yet there
are still major problems, especially with the expansion and quality of health
care, with relief for the underprivileged and with fair pensions. A key point
here is job security, which in recent years has been under vicious attack by
technological unemployment under the tendency of capital towards profit in a
system which still lacks global provisions by the community for all its
members. In particular what is lacking is what we call the
“framework society” in which the production-labor-wealth situation is handled
rationally (there is no shortage of instruments to this end these days) so that
each individual can be guaranteed not only a job, but “his/her” job, one that
suits the person he/she has trained to become. Compulsory, free education,
regardless of quality, is still too short-term, consisting mostly of just
elementary and middle school, whereas it should at least go up to university
level if people are to acquire an adequate grasp of their cultural heritage,
seeing as it belongs to them in any case, and if, at this crucial point, the
all-time disparities, popular ignorance and incompetence regarding a work of
art, a Greek temple or classical music, are to be ended. Well-being or
prosperity has always been part of the utopian design, of its archetype (cp. L’utopia
§ 4); one of the highest aspirations of humanity, of those all-time popular
conditions discussed above, which are marked by hard work and destitution. This economic and cultural rise as
part of the construction of a just society is significant in that it finally
overcomes that popular condition for the first time; a condition which saw
people reduced to poverty and ignorance, to the hard materiality of labor which
consumed all their time and energy, restricting any mental or personal growth,
any personal expansion, and yet their potentially marvelous world contained
such unlimited potential for expansion. Such expansion, such humanity, humanitas,
homo humanus, was available only to a small privileged minority while the
majority were trapped in the inhuman. The fact that all this went on in
supposedly civilized regimes leads us to conclude that “primitive” conditions
must have been better. We need only think of Columbus’s admiration for the
“primitive” people he encountered. This is why this process, this monumental
transition, is so critical. It marks the beginning of “history” in the
Marxian sense, no longer inhuman but human. The beginning: a brief account has
already been given here of what has been built and what, in an inevitably
limited view, is still lacking. This leads to the conclusion that well-being is
imbued with ill-being. But this issue will be discussed later within this text.
At the basis of this rise, what made
it possible, are the two great inventions of the modern bourgeoisie: technology
and capital. Technology, or rather science-technology-industry, is
production according to universal models and thus can satisfy universal human
needs; «technics», i.e. production of single models and items, could not meet
these needs since production remained too limited in size. The process of
capitalization through the reinvestment of part of the profits, which
results in continual expansion, prepares the material – financial
and instrumental – ground for unlimited expansion of technological production,
the growth of global wealth and of the availability of goods to meet human
needs. Such a rise, however, would never have taken place, without the working
class struggle, one which involved a hundred years’ fighting, and
revolution. The student revolts of the
Sixties and Seventies form the fourth modern revolution which, albeit atypical,
brings about the end of the repressive society, a society which
acknowledges human rights but stops them from being enforced through customs,
ideological pressure – false reasoning, false morals – and the law, for
reasons of privilege and power: male power, religious power, power of the
adult, of the “normal” person, of a race (a word which is in frequent use but
of uncertain meaning) or an ethnic group. With this comes the end of every kind
of discrimination and marginalization: the assertion of the dignity and rights
of children, women, youth, social outcasts, the disabled and the sick
(especially the mentally ill with a really human attitude towards all kinds of
mental illness); the rights of blacks in a white society (the great struggle
for civil rights in America), and of ethnic and religious minorities. At the
same time there is a reassessment of sexual morals. Here again we have a monumental
leap, even though this process is still under way. With the environment crisis in the
Seventies human claims to an unconditional rule over nature collapses:
claims that are foolish in that a human being is him/herself a part of nature
and cannot live or survive unless he/she is in a natural environment that suits
him/her. The unconditional instrumental use of technology by profit-making
capitalism had led to unconditional exploiting of nature with its potential
destruction for profit. So nature as a principle is reaffirmed,
not because nature is a person, but because nature comes before humanity and
conditions it: hence the right relationship (not in the sense of justice, but
almost) will be based on recognition, respect and protection, reciprocation in
that sense. In particular, respect for animals as humankind’s younger
brothers (“teenage brothers”, as Péguy describes them): this is another
analogy, in that throughout evolution animals have prepared and developed the
advent of humanity, without catching it up, and humanity should
acknowledge this, we owe it to animals, to reciprocate. Perestroika and the collapse of the conflicting hegemonic blocs bring
about not only the end of the arms race but also – for the first time in
history – the beginning of a process in which arms start to be destroyed and
regular armies reduced in size. The will for peace, which had been expressed
throughout the last century through the various movements and which was
sanctioned by the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations Treaty, grows
stronger. The Security Council (albeit unjust in its structure and organization
of deliberative power) becomes more efficient in its interventions to prevent
and resolve local conflicts. An age of more widespread peace dawns, with the
breaking up of national armies to form a multinational peace-keeping force
governed by the community of nations. Thus far a picture has been painted
of the monumental process which begins with the English Revolution and is still
under way, in the present-future: the construction of a society based on
justice. But before going any further several points must be
considered. Firstly, this construction is still in motion and a long way
from completion (though it is impossible to speak of completion when it comes
to the finiteness and historicity of human matters) in those very countries
where it is most advanced in terms of the economic, political and ethical
levels reached. This is the case in Western Europe and North America where
there is tremendous imbalance. We need only look at the statistics concerning
the poor, for example (around 10 million in Italy, 40 million in the United
States – by “poor” we mean with a family income which is lower than half
of the average per capita income), concerning unemployment, drugs,
neurosis, and crime. Then there are the poor standards of education, health and
welfare, and inequality with often huge differences in income. In short,
innumerable unsolved problems. Secondly, this construction proceeds
at different rates in the different continents and nations. The difference
in economic and cultural standards is great, often immeasurable. We need
only think of Africa or Latin America with their widespread
poverty, illiteracy and lack of services, their bidonvilles and
favelas ; and then other global problems such as dictatorships,
fundamentalism, conflicts, and tribal massacres. Furthermore there are no
reasons why these differences cannot be wiped out. Indeed in many nations they
already have been, yet elsewhere they live on with disastrous, painful results.
Thirdly, this process is uneven,
irregular, except maybe in the global vision of the course replotted by
research and conscience. It follows a broken line, bending, stopping and turning
back. It is a difficult course because of the complex variety of contrasting
positions and forces, of opposite interests, because the past runs back into
the present-future and because the whole is marked by mistakes and
transgression. Finally, I should point out that it
is not exactly a Western or European process – even though the
strictly constructive phase, which starts with the English Revolution, begins
and develops mostly in the West – because the first phase of the process,
i.e. the religious salvation movements, Jewish Messianism, millenarism and even
Christianity, are of Asian origin, from the near East. This is not too
important, however, as the process is universal and concerns humanity as
such. We cannot say that human dignity, liberty and equality only matter in the
northern and not in the southern hemisphere, or that the moral restraints “do
not kill” and “do not enslave your fellows” bind the European but not the Asian
conscience. Ethical principles, the democratic model and the structures of the
just society are universal, as are science and technology and capitalistic
accumulation which contribute to the process, as we have seen. 4. The meaning of history, the
foundation of hope The construction of a society based
on justice, then, proves to be a procedure which incorporates and unites
the entire history of humanity – at first this was merely the intention, then
it became a fact – as it takes on universal value, bringing the whole of
humanity together into one universal history. We might say that
all this reaches maturity in the present day. For the moment everybody only
talks of “economic globalization”, but the process is deeper, more
comprehensive than that. It is a process of universalization
which embraces the whole of the human world starting with ethical principles,
the political model, science and technology and therefore industry, the world
of objects and the consumer behavior, the economy, culture, information and
communication, resulting in ubiquity and collective presence. It is true that
today there are historical cultures that assert their identities by differing
from and opposing the West. First of these is Islam with its ethics and laws
which are in some ways archaic and unfair (polygamy, women’s subordination in more
ways than one and the law of retaliation) and its political models, which are
clerical and/or despotic, both unjust. However, the injustice of such practices
is beginning to become evident within itself. In short, this process, this
construction of the just society, incorporates the entire history of humanity
and gives it new meaning. This meaning is precisely the construction of the
just society and, later, the fraternal society, a meaning which is truer than
the models of meaning given in the past. the providential one, of human
history guided and built by providence (just think of the nodal points
of the incarnation and redemption of the Son and Christ, of the presence and
actions of the Holy Spirit), a transcendental principle, history made by God
not by human beings, accessible only through faith; the modern rational
model, a model of reason and liberty which are indefinitely expanding, an a
priori principle even in its fundamental truth; the Marxian, Marxist model,
historical-dialectical materialism, history shaped by the evolution of
production systems which result in the culture, conscience, society and all its
forms, a model which amplified beyond all limits the role of the economic
basis, claiming to draw the entire history of humanity from it. This was where
Bloch came in. Instead, the utopian process, the design and construction
of the just society through the popular movements, religious salvation
movements and modern revolutionary movements, is obtained from history itself,
it is simply history: a thread of history which is the meaning of all history. This history is a foundation of
hope, the foundation of our hope for humanity. Hope for the past which is
so inhuman but which in this thread of history is redeemed; its inhumanity is
transcended by this human tension which is deeper, more forceful; inhumanity
brought and provoked by the ruling but unjust marginal classes, while the
popular tension towards a society based on justice was human and more forceful,
the tension of the vast majority, of near totality, which, by becoming first a
design, then prophecy, proclamation and construction, gradually eliminated the
inhuman. For the present, on the other hand,
there is the awareness of what has been built over these last three centuries
and of what is still being built, through the modern revolutions, the working
class struggle, its sacrifice, all the movements and their endless
contributions, whose benefits we reap today. This means an incomparably more
human condition, though it cannot be denied there is still a lot to
do. As a result, it is precisely in our times and among our peoples here in the
West that it is hard to understand historical pessimism and skepticism.
Maybe this is because of a poor knowledge and understanding of history or
because of the plight and fall of post-modern philosophers and intellectuals.
Yet fear penetrates and pervades the popular conscience too. Hope and fear,
fear where there should be hope. Nevertheless, there are reasons for this, but
contingent reasons, which do not affect the great historical foundations of
hope. Beginning with the precariousness, the wavering and trembling existence
people lead when there is no job security, insecure or low income and poverty.
Then in cases where one’s job is secure and one’s income good, other factors
come into play, such as organized crime which hounds businessmen and
entrepreneurs, petty crime lying perpetually in wait, drugs and prostitution
which plague certain districts, the invasion of immigrants (as they are
regarded, unfortunately). The fear even penetrates our souls in quieter areas,
in small quiet towns; fear more than hope. Why? Who generates this fear?
Certainly the mass media, newspapers and television, which feed on fear, on
crime, accidents and catastrophes, on anything that attracts attention through
fear; they foster evil and neglect good as the latter is not newsworthy. Then
there are the consolidated powers – capital, party power, the church –
which are keen on conservation; fear encourages this, holding back and holding
fast. It is vital that we fight those who spread this fear through our
personalities, our culture, our critical and creative ability, our ability to
resist and fight and our will for freedom. At the same time this historical
course forms a guarantee for the future, a course which has run for three
millenniums with three hundred years’ construction. Consequently, it is the
foundation of our hope in the present-future, of our confident
certainty. The category of hope was introduced by Bloch and it was to hope that
he dedicated his monumental and plethoric work Principle of Hope.
It was a great intuition which offset the other fundamental category and
existential tone, i.e. anguish, the feeling of nothingness in the human psyche
and conscience; this feeling of nothingness was offset by the feeling of
being in this nothingness, his operational and constructive capacity for
redemption, by what humanity has actually constructed and redeemed. This hope,
this confident certainty comforts us along the labored walk of life and
history, giving us strength, driving us to and supporting us in our commitment:
to a society based on justice which we will build and build in fellowship. REFERENCES ANDRIEU, Jules, Notes pour servir
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Liberty, London, Dent, 1938. 3. THE MOVEMENT FOR A JUST
SOCIETY AND FOR HOPE 1. Its origins The idea for this Movement first
came to us in Lecce, Italy, in January of year 1998, following a debate
entitled "The society based on justice. What we can and must hope
for", one of the many debates this writer had held around that time after
publishing his book L’utopia. Rifondazione di un’idea e di una storia
(Bari, Dedalo, 1977) and once it has been realized that it was no longer
simply a book, but a message, i.e. the just society, its construction,
the meaning of the history of humanity, the dawning of hope for humankind, a
message that would have to be passed on to the people, everywhere and in every
way. This book was the result of about twenty years’ studies carried out in a
"research community", a group whose members have been working
together for a long time in an environment where it is possible to exchange and
pass on ideas and criticism and where creativity is encouraged: the Lecce
University Interdepartmental Group and Centre for Research into Utopia. The original idea for the Movement
came into being among people talking after the debate since they had realized
its potential. They had realized that this message required further discussion
in order to get to the bottom of it, to feel it and experience it, to make it a
principle for action within society, a principle for commitment at all levels.
Then the message would have to be conveyed so that more people could grasp and
experience it, so that the hope could be passed on to the many. The idea was,
then, for a movement made up of people who would meet to discuss the
problems of the just society at its various levels, to foster hope in the face
of difficulties, to help one another act justly in their existence, in social
life, in their work, and to help found just institutions. Meetings would
be held monthly or fortnightly in local groups in various towns and villages.
This project was debated in various venues until the movement’s basic
charter was drawn up, one which also acts as the membership document and
which is set out as follows. 2. The basic charter and
membership document THE
MOVEMENT FOR THE JUST SOCIETY AND FOR HOPE This Movement was formed as a result
of certain fundamental convictions: The nodal points of this construction
of justice through the last three centuries: This construction goes on but,
inevitably, there are still many problems to be solved: poverty
and unemployment; drugs, neurosis, and crime; local tension and conflicts;
hegemonies, dictatorships, fundamentalism; migration of peoples. This construction progresses at
different rates in different continents and nations and will continue to do
so until the process of universalization gains ground. This tending towards a just society
and towards hope brings about commitment: The Movement is made up of
people who share this commitment and meet to experience it intensely, to pass
it on to others as best they can, to help build the society based on justice
and spread hope. It is formed of local groups who meet monthly or
fortnightly for discussion meetings based on a report drawn up on a set topic
concerning man’s problems and the problems of national and local society, a
topic all those attending will have read up on. In order to carry out its
activities the group can nominate a board with a moderator. 4. POINTS FOR RESEARCH AND FOR
ACTION Proposals for the research activity: First attempt at project proposals: Dr. Arrigo Colombo received his
Doctorate in Philosophy at the State University of Milan, and has devoted his
career to the research of Utopia, with a radical reworking of its
meaning. Dr. Colombo's vision finds its definitive expression in his book
L'Utopia: Rifondazione di un'Idea e
di una Storia, and then in Materiali per l'Utopia: Il Diavolo, and Materiali
per l'Utopia: La Società Amorosa. His other published works include Il
Destino del Filosofo, Le Società del Futuro: Saggio Utopico sulle Società
Postindustriali, Utopia e Distopia, and numerous others. In 1998 he founded
the Movement for the Just Society and for Hope, which is focused on the
development of a society based on justice, utilizing a positive vision of
history, in order to involve the people and give them clarity and hope. [ BWW Society Home Page ] © 2015 The Bibliotheque: World Wide Society |