A Thought from Eric Voegelin:The Crisis of The West

The Crisis of The West

The following is from Michael P. Federici’s book on Voegelin simply titled “Eric Voegelin.” Federici is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Mercyhurst College and Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the National Humanities Institute in Washington D.C.. This is the first book that I have found about Voegelin. I’ve read much of Voegelin’s works, but it was refreshing, and helped connect several things that I did not see, reading Dr. Federici’s book.

Chapter Two: The Crisis Of The West

Pg. 22

Voegelin pointed to two common misconceptions regarding the Western crisis. First was the assumption that the crisis could be addressed by information about truth. The second was that a reform could “be achieved by a well-intentioned leader who recruits his followers from the very people whose moral confusion is the source of disorder.”

This second point was cause for sobriety about the possibility of restoration through political action- lawmaking, public policy, Supreme court decisions. drawing on Plato’s political philosophy, Voegelin believed that political and social order could only be restored by ordering souls. “The disorder of society, he wrote. “is a disease in the psyche of its members.” The quality of a political order reflected the ruling class’s ethical character. “The true alternative would be the restoration of spiritual substance in the ruling groups of a society, with the consequent restoration of the moral strength in creating a just social order.”

Philosophy was especially important in ordering the souls of the ruling class. But philosophy must be properly understood. “Philosophy is not a doctrine of right order, but the light of wisdom that falls on the struggle; and help is not a piece of information about truth, but the arduous effort to locate the forces of evil and identify their nature.”

In our current collective psyche, through positivism and materialism, we have lost the world of “meaning.” Science asks “what does it do?” Philosophy asks “what does it mean, what is its nature?” In his work, Hitler And The Germans, Voegelin asks a potent question: What is the moral condition of a people who knowingly elect despots as their leaders? This is a question we should ask ourselves in our time as well…

Works by Voegelin:

Voegelin, born in Germany in 1901, and educated at the University of Vienna, conntributed immensely to the American conservative revival of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Avoiding Hitler, he and his wife migrated to the United States in 1938, and both became citizens in 1944. He spent the preponderance of his career as a political science teacher and research professor at Lousiana State University, the University of Munich and at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

His work is currently being published (34 volumes so far) by the
University of Missouri Press. His “New Science of Politics,” (NSP:1952) and his larger work, “Order and History” (1956-1987) are his most ambitious and well-known.