In an article by Franklin Sherman back in 1976 on the works of Paul Tillich, he describes something of interest:
The rendering of the term “bourgeois” is a matter of some difficulty, since the word is not used in common speech, nor is it normally a part even of scholarly discourse in English-speaking circles, except in Marxist literature. It of course refers to the class of traders, entrepreneurs and, in general, “solid citizens” (Bürger). In seeking for equivalents, I have often thought that the phrase “bourgeois morality” could simply be rendered “middle-class morality,” that “bourgeois society” is close to what has been called by others “a business civilization,” and that the “bourgeois mentality” has many features of what more recently has been identified as the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) outlook.
Tillich’s interpretation of the “bourgeois principle” — i.e., of the basic assumption and the driving power of bourgeois society — can perhaps be summarized as follows: “Everything is analyzable, everything is manipulable.” It involves a far-reaching, dehumanization, or Verdinglichung (literally, “thingification”) of human life. “Goal-setting takes the place of concern for being, the creation of tools replaces the contemplation of intrinsic values.” Everything is to be made subject to human reason; but in the process, human beings themselves become objects.
In bourgeois society, the “myth of origin” is broken, and all ties to the origin — in the double sense of the past and the depth dimension — are broken. These include cultural traditions, loyalties to family, nation, place or social group, the sense of the transcendent (the incalculable) — all are brought out in the pitiless light of rationality. The life-feeling of bourgeois society is that of a self-sufficient finitude, but eventually a sense of emptiness ensues (cf. Tillich’s later phrase “a self-emptying autonomy“). The crisis reaches its climax when the belief in the automatic harmony which sustained bourgeois society in its laissez-faire approach to economics is shown to be futile by the malfunctioning of modern capitalism.
[bold emphasis mine]
No major deal. I just want to save this piece because it’s describing what I’m referring to when I talk about the “middle class mentality.” The bolded portion just stood out to me, since I agree this is an increasing trend to view one another less and less with the basic humanity we deserve. But I read some of Tillich’s articles and so far we have several areas of disagreement, namely the typical conflict over the definition and characterization of “sin” (no less “original sin”) and other rejected Christian tenets. But I sure find his political sentiments interesting.
Here’s another excerpt from Sherman’s article:
‘Political Romanticism’
It is in the face of these problems that the countermovement arises that Tillich calls “political romanticism.” The term is apt, since this movement shares many features with the romanticism of literature and philosophy — the stress on feeling rather than rationality, on individuality (e.g., the individual nation) rather than universality, on particularity (e.g., of blood and soil) rather than abstraction. To this is added a distrust of the electoral process and a preference for hierarchy or elitism over egalitarianism.
Tillich distinguishes two forms of political romanticism. The conservative form, which is the more innocent, consists in the effort of Prussian Junkers and others to defend such of their tradition and/or possessions as had not yet fallen prey to bourgeois domination. It is “the revolutionary form of political romanticism” that poses the insidious threat. This phrase, in fact, functions in Tillich’s book as a code name for Nazism.
The attitude toward Nazism expressed in The Socialist Decision, has a strange ambiguity — partly attributable, no doubt, to the fact (little remembered today) that Nazism originally presented itself as a form of socialism. The full name of the party was “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” It had a populist character; it was supposed to represent true (nationalistic) socialism over against false (internationalistic; i.e., Marxist) socialism. Hitler himself once commented: “Our Socialism goes far deeper. . . . Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.” Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz, “the general good before the individual good,” was a Nazi slogan.
Apparently Tillich was among those who held some hope, however faint, that a genuinely socialist element in the movement could be salvaged, and even made to predominate. Of course he utterly rejected Nazi anti-Semitism — its authoritarianism, its brutality, its hypernationalism, its appeal to primitive mythology — and he fully recognized Adolf Hitler for the demonic figure that he was. But there were other leaders, and Hitler had not yet at that time consolidated all power into his hands. (It was during the months immediately following the publication of The Socialist Decision that Hitler proceeded to do just that; and it was only a year later that Gregor Strasser, generally considered the leader of the more authentically socialist wing of the party, together with all those who offered any challenge to Hitler’s absolute leadership, was murdered in the Great Purge of June 30, 1934.)
Sympathy for the ‘Little People’
This interpretation of Tillich’s attitude toward National Socialism is partly derived from reading between the lines, and I hope that it is not unfair to him. What is clear is that his whole analysis was such as to create sympathy for the “little people” (workers as well as members of the lower-middle class) who were joining the Nazi movement. They were in flight from the depersonalization of bourgeois society, from unemployment, from status anxiety, from starvation of the symbolic and emotional dimension of existence. They longed to return to “mother and father,” to the security of the womb and of an authoritarian demand.
Tillich presented socialism to them — a renewed and deepened form of socialism, “religious” socialism — as the fulfillment of their genuine aspirations. Bourgeois society provided the thesis, political romanticism the antithesis, and socialism the synthesis, sublating and “saving” what was legitimate in the two preceding movements. (Again, these are terms that I am imposing on the argument; but Tillich’s thought does move along these Hegelian lines.)
The possibility of such a synthesis was already adumbrated in Tillich’s anthropological analysis in the introduction. If human nature has the two aspects of “being” and “consciousness” (being and being aware), political romanticism corresponds more to the former element, socialism to the latter. As Tillich says in the introduction, “The consciousness oriented to the myth of origin is the root of all conservative and romantic thought in politics,” while “the breaking of the myth of origin by the unconditional demand is the root of liberal, democratic, and socialist thought in politics.” But these two elements do not have a merely side-by-side relationship. Being is fulfilled in consciousness, and that which is pointed to by the question “Whither?” is the consummation of that which was intended by the origin (the “Whence?”). “The demand that man experiences is unconditional, but it is not alien to him. . . . It affects him only because it places before him, in the form of a demand, his own essence.” Or, as Tillich might have said, eschatology corresponds to protology. God is Alpha and Omega.
Socialism and Expectation
Tillich, then, was seeking for a socialism founded on something deeper than the diminished and over-rationalized view of humanity current in bourgeois society. He saw the conflict in contemporary socialism and its immobility in the face of the crises that confronted it — e.g., its inability to make decisive use of the means of power for its own protection and that of Weimar democracy as such — as due to its over-dependence on bourgeois presuppositions. In short, it needed a good strong dose of realism, but a “believing” realism, filled with courage to strike out for the new in history.
In striving for this deepening of socialism’s anthropological foundations, Tillich found an ally in the early Marx, whose “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844″ had just been discovered and published by J. P. Mayer, and Siegfried Landshut, two contributors to the religious socialist journal coedited by Tillich, the Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus. Here was a new picture of Marx the humanist, Marx the prophet, as contrasted to the later Marx with his more strictly economic focus. Tillich resists the tendency to play the one off against the other, however; the “real Marx”, he insists, is “Marx in the context of his development.”
The basic concept of socialism, for Tillich — or, to use his own terms, its central “symbol” — is expectation. It is in expounding the meaning of this symbol that Tillich, in this book, so clearly anticipates the “theology of hope” that was to develop three decades later. “Expectation” signifies life lived under the demand and promise of a greater justice, a greater measure of fulfillment for all beings. It posits the possibility of the radically new in history — though not the absolutely new, since what is coming develops out of what is, even if by way of contradiction. It looks to a particular group, the proletariat — that group which most directly experiences the contradictions of the present in its own “body,” as it were — as the bearer of the future.
[bold emphasis mine]
He goes on to say this about the form of socialism Paul Tillich advocated:
Building a New Social Order
Having laid this foundation, Tillich then goes on to set out the implications of the socialist principle for six major aspects of the problem of building a new social order. Each of the pair of concepts mentioned represents an antinomy which had been developed in Tillich’s analysis of the inner conflict in socialism due to its dependence on bourgeois presuppositions, and which is now resolved through a better grasp of the socialist principle.
Origin and Goal in the Expectation of the Future. Socialism’s goal of a classless society does not mean a society without roots, without loyalties, traditions, faith. Nor does it imply that historical development will come to an end; socialism points beyond itself.
Being and Consciousness in the Picture of Humanity. Socialism replaces bourgeois society’s objectified, rationalistic view of humanity with a new appreciation of the human being in terms of a spiritual and vital “center,” lying beneath the level of the conscious mind.
Power and Justice in the Structuring of Society. The use of power, including its use by a leadership group, is not rejected (the state is not expected to “wither away”), but power is based on consent and directed toward the establishment of justice. (The discussion here anticipates Tillich’s Love, Power, and Justice.)
Symbol and Concept in the Development of Culture. Socialism must give up its negative attitude toward religion and, rather, attempt to strengthen the prophetic over against the priestly element in the churches. It must seek a new language, combining sacred and secular symbolism. In education, it must frankly aim at “induction” into the socialist view of life.
Eros and Purpose in the Life of the Community. Socialism must rescue the idea of the nation from its perversion by political romanticism, learning to affirm the nation even more deeply, yet hold it under the demand of justice, both at home and abroad. Likewise socialism should continue to support the women’s movement, and guard against any return to male domination.
Nature and Planning in the Economic Order. The achievement of economic rationality is not to be left to the laws of the market, but is to be made a deliberate goal. Technology will serve actual needs, not the creation of artificial needs. The meaning of work will be restored through a new vision of its purpose and new structures of work relationships. As to the traditional socialist tenet concerning nationalization of the means of production, Tillich maintains that “positions of economic power held by private enterprise must be placed in the hands of society as a whole. . . . These positions of power include the landed estates, heavy industry, major manufacturing concerns, banking, and foreign trade.” At the same time, “in those forms of production that do not have a dominant position in society, a free economy can be preserved, and thus the bureaucratization of the whole economy can be avoided.”
[bolding mine]
This seems very similar to the form of socialism I discuss elsewhere in the blog. See, socialism isn’t some awful, “commie” concept. It really does possess vitality and could serve humans as we seek a more meaningful, natural existence on this planet. It isn’t simply “hippie idealism”; it has potential to serve as a viable alternative to the socio-economic systems currently in place. Still. Several decades after the dream was given a name.
Newsvine
Robaigh said
What is it about Tillich’s view on sin that you disagree with? Is it the concept of sin in general, or something more specific? (I’m really glad you followed up on this so thoroughly, by the way.)
wakemenow said
The concept of sin in general, the common Christian view of it. I don’t think in terms of sin when studying human nature and do not accept the popular myths associated with that concept. Deviance I understand, but that term and its meaning doesn’t carry the emotional weight of “sin” and “evil.” Though I can appreciate that Dr. Tillich in another piece explicitly rejected Puritanism, which has greatly influenced the modern American social environment (in more ways than we generally realize).