Prof. Dr. Erol Göka
In the late 1990s, due to the conjuncture of the time, discussions on “civil society” were very popular. We participated in these debates on various platforms and collected our views in our article titled “A contrarian view on the relations between civil society and the state.” (See: https://www.erolgoka.net/sivil-toplum-devlet-iliskisi-uzerine-aykiri-bir-bakis/) A lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and we have arrived at a picture of the world that no one could have foreseen thirty years ago. Rereading and reflecting on this article of mine from thirty years ago in light of today’s global landscape, I find that it can yield highly useful insights—especially for understanding globalism and posthumanist thought—and I would like to present a summary of the article that brings its thesis to the forefront.
Civil society is a highly contested concept that has been used by many thinkers in varying senses. We will approach this concept, as is often the case in modern political thought, as the antithesis of the state (political society) and as a designation for a structure that emerged on the stage of Western history in the first phase of modernity. Understood in this way, we will argue that civil society and civil societalism are not a favorable condition or an advantage for the West, but rather a handicap that may ultimately lead to its undoing.
A Dilemma of Western Modernity: The Distinction and Opposition Between the State and Civil Society
One of the most distinctive features of modern times in Western history is the increasing widening of the gap between the state and society—a gap that was vaguely defined in earlier periods. While we view this as a negative development, many others see it as a clear sign of progress in the form of a state-society opposition. This assessment most likely stems from the legacy of the struggle against the feudal state and Catholicism in modern Western history. It is believed that “only through the antagonism between state and society could the new social struggle, led by the bourgeoisie—which emerged as a third class against the feudal state of nobles and clergy in England, France, the Netherlands, and Italy—achieve success.” And indeed, that was the case. But thought should not stop there; it must be carried to its logical conclusions.
The bourgeoisie, the new class that sprouted within the womb of feudal society in the West, presented society as a “nation” and itself as the “national representative” defending the rights of the whole society against the old state. The bourgeoisie never abandoned its legacy and mission of being a revolutionary, transformative, pioneer class. Although it consistently held a significant voice in state administration as the ruling class, it also, from time to time (and indeed, always implicitly), positioned itself as the “leader of civil society against the state”; it became a party to the “social contract.” As a result, pro–civil society ideas gained prominence in Western thought, especially in academia, and gradually permeated the entire Western consciousness throughout the process of modernity.
Until the end of the century, the concept of civil society (societas civilis) in the European tradition was used almost synonymously with the state—where the individual, as a member, was also a citizen subject to the laws of the state. However, it was after this point that a major rupture emerged in the life of the modern West (by now, the United States had fully entered the picture). Civil society, the state, and the individual began to drift in different directions, becoming centrifugal forces with respect to one another. On one side, the civil sphere; on the other, the political sphere. On one side, the pays légal; on the other, the pays réel. On one side, legality; on the other, unity…
This fissure in modern Western social and political history, while it has temporarily assumed positive roles in terms of the dynamics it has created, is also the source of many problems. Today’s real liberal societies are riddled with incurable contradictions between the “political good” and the “moral good,” the “general good” and the “particular good,” and between democracy and liberalism—contradictions whose origins lie in the fissure between civil society and the state. Because of these contradictions, Western modernization is, in a way, digging its own grave—if not in the very near future—due to this rupture between the state and civil society.
The fracture among the spheres of the state, civil society, and the individual in modern Western life is expanding at a rapid pace, despite the internationalization of economics and politics, despite scientific and technological advances, and despite the adhesive functions of attractive liberal ideals. It resembles a congenital anomaly that grows along with the child who is born with it.
Western Consciousness Trying to Patch Its Cracks
Naturally, the state mind in Western societies is aware of this fissure and is striving to remedy it in various ways. From this perspective, the modern political history of the West can quite plausibly be read—as long as one adopts a broad outlook that takes into account the specificities of various geographies—as a history of attempts to somehow overcome the tensions brought about by this fissure. (Such a reading of Western political history would be akin to interpreting our own ill-fated post-Ottoman Pause history as a history of the struggle to cope with the challenge posed by the West.) Keeping this in mind—and while fully aware that generalizing and oversimplifying may lead to errors and omissions—we would like to continue our contrarian perspective on civil societalism in the West, simply in the hope that it may open a new lane for thought.
The three dominant strands of modern Western political thought—liberal, conservative, and social democratic—each of which shapes political practice, share certain common premises: they all conceive of the state as a product of reason or a rational society, and they all adopt a “dualist model” in which the distinction between the state and civil society is accepted as a fundamental and indispensable datum from the outset. In the history of modern Western political thought, the state has been regarded—until very recently, in one form or another—as a fundamental and irreplaceable element. The differences among these three major currents essentially lie in their respective priorities concerning civil society and the state.
Liberals and some conservatives believed that the spontaneous life in civil society was the main engine of development and prosperity, and that the state’s essential, even sole, task should be limited to protecting this flourishing in civil society. Some conservatives and social democrats, on the other hand, argued that civil society was the source of all kinds of misfortune, and that the state had an obligation to impose order upon it before it could fulfill any protective function. Yet all of them recognized the separate legitimacy of both the state and civil society, and believed that the tension between them could be harmonized in a balanced and coherent manner.
While liberals and social democrats regarded the political sphere essentially as a Rechtsstaat (state of law) and tried to bridge the gap between the political and civil spheres through legitimacy, conservatives argued that the state required an ethical foundation in the Hegelian sense, namely Sittlichkeit, and that state authority could attain legitimacy through this objective morality rooted in civil society. Indeed, the Hegelian perspective—which also forms the basis of conservative ideas—is highly significant in this process and deserves further analysis.
Hegel: The Crystallized Mind of the Modern Western State
While I carefully follow the proposition that modernity is a human condition distinct from Westernization, I am among those who unequivocally accept that modern civilization is, at its roots, Western civilization. What makes modern civilization Western is the fact that, through an archaeology aimed at uncovering its origins, we find Christianity, Roman law, and Greek philosophy as the foundations of Western thinking and living.
With the Renaissance and Reformation movements, the West sought to resolve the problems arising from its Christianization—problems that increasingly led to decline and dead ends in every sphere—by turning to its non-religious historical roots, namely Rome and Greece. The success of this resolution brought the West modern civilization.
In fact, it could be argued that there was no possibility of a religious solution for the Western world, which, under the concept of “original sin,” promoted misogyny, pursued an asceticism that denied worldly pleasures, and remained trapped within the straitjacket of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, both of which were based on the authority of the Trinity and the clergy. The Middle Ages represent a period of great political and social chaos for the West, but also a long era of theological crisis for Christianity.
The Protestantization movement—which emerged on all fronts, from Anglicanism to Lutheranism to Calvinism—was both a natural consequence and an integral part of the Christian West’s attempt to renew itself by clinging to its Roman and Greek roots. Modernity and capitalism owe their success directly to the renewing spirit unleashed by the Protestant mind.
Protestantism deserves this recognition; however, it must also be emphasized that the story does not end there. The modern mind is not solely a Protestant mind. It required yet another reformer—someone who would, after the centuries-old spell of Christianity was broken by Protestantism, cast away the enchanted relic and bring about a true revolution of thought. That revolutionary figure in thought, when considered in general terms as modern philosophy and science, is none other than Hegel, particularly in the context of our discussion.
Hegel saw long before—in both history and thought—what Huntington observed in the history of political struggles, and he set out to establish a systematic philosophy of history on behalf of the West and Christianity. Hegel was remarkably successful in his efforts to construct a systematic, modern philosophy that embraced the fundamental themes of Western history; so successful, in fact, that the individual’s self-reference and self-reflection—characteristics of modernity—achieve in his thought a level of sophistication capable of illuminating the meaning of history, philosophy, art, religion, humanity, and the entire universe. In this sense, Hegel is the philosopher of modernity; and the central problem of Hegel’s philosophy is, indeed, modernity itself.
However, Hegel does not philosophize modernity apart from Christianity—one of its structural pillars—but rather includes Christianity within it. Hegel’s intellectual predecessor is Thomas Aquinas, and for this reason, he is often referred to as “the last scholastic.”
What Aquinas sought to accomplish in the pre-modern age on behalf of Christianity, Hegel sought to achieve in the modern era—a time that also signified a rupture with the religious. His aim was to build a systematic and absolute meta-narrative that would include God, to bring God down to earth. Nietzsche, who stood at the exact opposite pole from Hegel (and thereby laid the groundwork for postmodern thought), quickly recognized this dimension of Hegel and characterized his endeavor as “an attempt at the rational validation of Christian ideology.”
Indeed, Hegelian political philosophy also resolves—at a single stroke—the very rupture between the state and civil society that we have discussed above in the Western context: “If we contrast the state with civil society, and define it as something for the protection and security of personal property and liberties, then the interests of individuals alone become the supreme end which they unite to realize, and being a member of a state becomes something optional. But the relation of the state to the individual is quite different from this; if the state is objective spirit (Geist)—which it is—then the individual will possess objectivity, truth, and morality only to the extent that he is a member of it.” (Hegel, G.W.F) … One can only tip one’s hat to such statements.
And so did the main currents of Western political reason—liberal, social democratic, and conservative. Despite their differing perspectives, they all sanctified the state under Hegel’s influence and did not hesitate to see it as indispensable, as pure reason. Yet, no matter what they did, “civil society” remained there—as an alternative source of power.
Hegel regarded the Christian-Germanic state (Prussia)—and according to some, Napoleonic France—as the final stage in the self-revelation of the spirit (Geist). According to him, as the process of the spirit’s unfolding advanced, the power of the Christian-Germanic state and the number of individuals living freely under the law of this state would both increase. Ultimately, the simultaneous realization of both human emancipation and the absolute sovereignty of the Christian-Germanic state would occur. “Divine reason” would complete its emancipation within history and culture, return to its original state, and thus the end of history would be reached.
Of course, like many thinkers interested in practical politics, Hegel was mistaken in these conclusions; neither Prussia nor Napoleonic France managed to bring about a breakthrough that could mark the end of history. But it is precisely for this reason that, as the 21st century began, Fukuyama tightly embraced Hegel’s theses on behalf of the United States and its new world order. Figures like Huntington, on the other hand, did not hesitate to call for Christian unity in order to decisively affirm the triumph of Christian modern civilization and to make the final arrangements along the road to the end of history.
Water Under the Bridge
At this point, let us conclude the summary we have made of our article from 30 years ago. I believe that, throughout the modernization process, the distinctions and fractures between the spheres of the state, civil society, and the individual in the Western mind have been laid bare, and the intellectual foundations of the state’s efforts to bridge them have been established. However, it has also become clear that the bourgeoisie has never fully internalized these ideas. As a consequence of its class consciousness, it has always, covertly, maintained a position “against the state,” and has continuously nurtured the perspective known in the world of thought and academia as “civil societalism.”
As you will recall, we said that “the rift between the state, civil society, and the individual in modern Western life is growing at a rapid pace, despite the internationalization of economics and politics, scientific and technological advances, and the adhesive functions of alluring liberal ideals. It resembles a congenital anomaly that grows along with the child born with it.” This issue—namely, the trajectory that the bourgeoisie, capital, has followed throughout modernization in socioeconomic life and in its innate position of opposition to the state—is a separate story altogether and deserves a lengthy exposition. In particular, the “internationalization of capital” is an entirely different process.
As we stated in the title of this article, when we look back, we believe that the ideology presenting itself today as globalism is the blossomed form of yesterday’s civil societalism. We also hold the view that the academic notion known as the “posthuman age” is not free from this legacy.