John Locke’s ‘Second
Treatise of Government’ is seen as a seminal text for Classic British Liberalism
and for the Enlightenment. Isaac Newton was Locke’s contemporary and the latter
coincided with Milton and Dryden, names given by TS Eliot as coinciding with
his ‘dissociation of sensibility’ - a dissociation between 'thought' and 'feeling.' I recently read a short critique of Locke’s
treatise by the Israeli political philosopher, Yoram Hazony, in his recently
published ‘The Virtue of Nationalism.’ Hazony takes Locke to task for giving an
undue and almost sole emphasis in his account on the human capacity for
consent. In Locke this usually means consent to entering into contracts –
social and otherwise, with rulers and others. Hazony does not dispute this
aspect of us – deriving from our free will – but he complains that Locke allows
other aspects of us to drop out of the bigger picture thus giving a biased account
of our nature, political and otherwise. He speaks of the deep bonds and associations
on which society is founded which precede the part of us that consents and
enters into legal contracts. To Hazony, Locke too casually lays all of this
aside or simply forgets it.
In reality human society derives from sexual and familial
bonds in the first instance. These bonds emerge from the animal side of our
nature that precede the more rational and conscious side that enters into
contracts or participates in scientific enquiry. The emphasis in such bonds is
to do with things that are more unconscious and visceral. One of the pleasures
of sex - that leads to sexual bonds and family through the reproduction that
ensues - is that it involves the exhilarating putting aside of the artificial artefacts
of clothing and reason and plunging into the sensuous and animal side of our
nature with a child-like or animal-like abandon. This may seem base to the
high-minded who prize the intellect highly but it is actually the substrate on
which human love –at first between sexual partners and then between parents and
children - is founded. Without any of this talk of social contracts is
redundant. One can ask the question ‘When is it that we are most ourselves? In sexual
relations and the expression of affections to partners and children or when we
are indulging in ratiocination? Clearly we do
both. One may seem more elevated than the other but which is the more important
to us ultimately?
This is to say that there are two sorts of precedence. In historical terms human societies which arise out of sexual bonds and the products of those bonds can only aspire to be talking about legal contracts and the scientific and political benefits of 'enlightenment' when they have moved, in sophistication, sufficiently up Maszlo’s Pyramid of Needs to be able to do so. Where those societies came from may seem primitive compared to the legal systems and contracts that then ensue but none of that would be possible without the ‘primitive’ bonds. And since love itself is based on those bonds one has to ask how primitive they really are. The second precedence is one of the ordering of human ontology or being. The part of the human which thinks consciously using reason, doing science and creating legal systems emerges from and is entirely dependent on the more primitive things that precede it in terms of ordering. These things are the senses, sexual interest and relation, an inbuilt moral sense, a spontaneous religious need and fierce bonding emotion.
If, as many might consider that it did, the Enlightenment ignores or forgets this substrate and prioritises the conscious, the intellectual, the scientific it risks moving towards a ‘head in a jar’ model that forgets what we are and believes too readily that the head alone will solve all human problems and bring about utopias. The intellect becomes untethered from what we are and begins to have unrealistic pretensions and to think that happiness can be found in places where it does not dwell. With most people happiness is found to dwell in participation in human bonds and love which are mediated through sex, the senses, affection and emotion. It is post hoc rationalisation of these things that helps us to appreciate how wonderful they are by bringing them to awareness and making sense of them. Reason certainly plays a role but it is a late arrival at the party. It is connected and simultaneous with linguistic articulation and awareness of a condition already in existence and thus preceding it. This is why to enthrone reason and science above all things, as our culture to all real intents and purposes does, is a mistake.
This is to say that there are two sorts of precedence. In historical terms human societies which arise out of sexual bonds and the products of those bonds can only aspire to be talking about legal contracts and the scientific and political benefits of 'enlightenment' when they have moved, in sophistication, sufficiently up Maszlo’s Pyramid of Needs to be able to do so. Where those societies came from may seem primitive compared to the legal systems and contracts that then ensue but none of that would be possible without the ‘primitive’ bonds. And since love itself is based on those bonds one has to ask how primitive they really are. The second precedence is one of the ordering of human ontology or being. The part of the human which thinks consciously using reason, doing science and creating legal systems emerges from and is entirely dependent on the more primitive things that precede it in terms of ordering. These things are the senses, sexual interest and relation, an inbuilt moral sense, a spontaneous religious need and fierce bonding emotion.
If, as many might consider that it did, the Enlightenment ignores or forgets this substrate and prioritises the conscious, the intellectual, the scientific it risks moving towards a ‘head in a jar’ model that forgets what we are and believes too readily that the head alone will solve all human problems and bring about utopias. The intellect becomes untethered from what we are and begins to have unrealistic pretensions and to think that happiness can be found in places where it does not dwell. With most people happiness is found to dwell in participation in human bonds and love which are mediated through sex, the senses, affection and emotion. It is post hoc rationalisation of these things that helps us to appreciate how wonderful they are by bringing them to awareness and making sense of them. Reason certainly plays a role but it is a late arrival at the party. It is connected and simultaneous with linguistic articulation and awareness of a condition already in existence and thus preceding it. This is why to enthrone reason and science above all things, as our culture to all real intents and purposes does, is a mistake.
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