Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

by Boris Mouravieff

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I
 

According to a universally held tradition whose origins are lost in the distant past, man is given the possibility of surviving death. It is in this way that self-denial up to and including the supreme sacrifice, can be justified for the individual through the hope of finding compensation after death. But in fact this is not the case for the masses, because the masses only live once, so that for them death signifies final disappearance. Hell, purgatory and paradise for these people all come to fruition here below. Yet the history of international relations offers us a permanent spectacle in which the tribes, the masses, nations and states are led by egoistic politics, all of which justify themselves by this fact as described above. The pompous proclamations of political altruism and the efforts of ‘disinterested’ politicians, like, for example, those of the Emperor Alexander the First and his successors, were either folly or hypocrisy, so that we are obliged to admit that, on the international scale, the politics of nations, viewed objectively, were and always will be guided by egotistical considerations. In addition the self-consciousness of the masses – as in any community - has never had and is not able to have any end in mind other than the well-being of its members – well-being in any form, but always here below.2

This fact of nature is implicitly recognized by all reflective individuals in their heart of hearts. Its concealment is useless and perhaps dangerous. At times it leads directly to armed conflict.
It remains to be seen if it is possible to find an organic method to create conditions of coexistence for the people and nations of the globe in an ambiance of real peace, with neither hot nor cold war, without either classical hypocrisy or the support of fantasy, and in a form in which everyone finds his due.

In searching for an answer to this question, let us quickly try to analyze the fundamental principles of the self-consciousness of the bearers of the civilization of which Europe is the entrance way and France the cradle.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - this sacred formula is engraved on the occidental spirit - and has been engraved so strongly that, with time, it has been raised to the status of a dogma.

On the interior plane, as well as on the international plane, we proclaim liberty. And it is doubtful that without a minimum of liberty anyone can even live in the true sense of the word, that is to say, can develop ourselves in peace and dignity. One remarkable study was made recently by Maurice Lambriliotte,3 penetrating to the root of the problem with lucidity and rare courage, and - with much tact and benevolence - drawing the logical conclusions from this. His way of treating the problem is all the more valued since the object studied is an eternal apple of discord that transforms itself easily into a barrel of gunpowder and so leads to a torrent of blood.

Certainly we can add nothing to his analysis. We can only hope that it will be heard and thoroughly understood. We would only wish - and this will be our modest contribution to the study in question - to examine the real nature of the principle of Liberty, the chief object of L’Examen de Conscience. Let us endeavour to find its real place in the scale of the political values that were proclaimed by the French Revolution, which placed it at the head of its formula of three universally held elements.

Strange though this may appear at first glance, the formula that was established seems to us to have been the reverse of the natural order of things.

Let us look at this more closely. Generally, the idea of liberty is conceived of as a right. Converted into action, it immediately takes the form of a demand, often supported by armed force. Once agreed and given, liberty is taken to the limits allowed by law or by treaty.

Liberty as we know it has been criticized on more than one occasion, most often concerning its practical application. It is said, for example, that it is not of much value to agree to liberty if it is not accompanied by means sufficient to allow it to be realised. If this is not so, we have liberty for certain people, but not for all. This is no more than a return of the aristocratic principle in the guise of democracy.

But it is equally possible to criticize the principle of equality. We can say that it is purely imaginary, since life, in this case referring to the human race, is founded on the diametrically opposite fact of inequality. We can say, in fact, that even if equality is proclaimed it is in fact reduced to a judicial equality of citizens before the law. Again, the facts do not always correspond to the theory.

Certainly, in the imperfect world in which we live, it would be absurd to wait until something was perfect. But at least our efforts should be directed toward the degree of perfection possible under the conditions of our lives, and that those lives should be organised in a strictly logical manner. Now, as we have just said, the formula: Liberty, equality, fraternity seems illogical to us.
Liberty always has aggressive implications.

Equality is in a state of collapse.

Fraternity, unhappily, goes no further than a formal declaration of intent. All in all, after two centuries of experience, we still cannot see any way to improve on the practical application of that famous formula of 1789.

 

II

But the situation can be radically modified if we take the same formula in reverse: Fraternity, Equality, Liberty.

Let us suppose that, by a miraculous process, the great principle of Fraternity has been established and has become universal around the globe. What consequences might we imagine for such a situation?

At first, the principle of Fraternity would be turned against the immorality and flagrant illegality of violence in all its forms. Then, little by little, it would also heal individuals and groups who suffer from either an inferiority or superiority complex. It would condemn racial prejudice - that relic of tribal mentality - in a decisive and definitive manner. The practical application of the principle of Fraternity would certainly not change the face of the world at one blow. The transgressions, abuses, weaknesses and incomprehension - those scourges of the human race - will continue for a long time. But even if it does not modify the facts immediately, it will modify our attitude to those facts. In this way, certain transgressions, certain abuses, certain weaknesses from which the public suffers, will no longer become acceptable in actual practice.

The proclamation glorifying the principle of Fraternity will not be a chimerical act. It will be a very realistic enterprise, an historical evolution which will be met with approval and acclaim. Judiciously applied in practice, it will, for example, hinder cases in which the interest of a group of shareholders will engage the masses in a war. Also racial prejudice, which humiliates the pride of some and heightens the arrogance of others, will be generally stigmatized ...

- All that is very well and good, the pragmatic reader will say, but in practice how can we introduce the principle of Fraternity into the customs of the masses - not to mention the nations - in a form that will make it a moving force socially and internationally, instead of so many dead words? -
The question is well taken, because, in general, the value of all theory consists in its practical application. But, before we respond to this, let us complete our analysis of this formula of 1789 taken in reverse.

Let us suppose, as we have said, that by a miraculous process the great principle of Fraternity finds itself rooted in the consciousness of the masses and the States. Would it not be better to have the single possible guarantee of Equality, both on the social plane and on the international? And does it not seem then that Liberty will emerge as a logical and organic consequence of that new state of things?
 

We must understand and admit that, with technical progress as it is today, wars are no longer profitable enterprises. The experience of the great and the small wars of the XXth century has provided striking proof of this fact. Yet this fact has passed almost unrecognized. The paradox is explained by an obsession with the past. Man always comes late, and now he continues to direct the affairs in the second half of the XXth century with the mentality of the Napoleonic era.

III

Let us now find an answer to the practical question formulated above. To begin with, we will remark that it is fruitless to enter into a study and discussion of different political doctrines. Let us simply let them lie in their place. Whatever we profess, capitalist ideas or communist, progressive or obscurantist, the brutal fact which dominates all is that with technical progress, people are taken from an earlier system of restful isolation, and are abruptly placed in a world which is shrunken and reduced mechanically to unity.

This new fact, unnoticed and still poorly understood, imposes new demands on the masses and on the states. Threatening cataclysm as an alternative, it urgently requires man to reassess his values: to abandon outdated, indefensible positions and ineffectual methods. In principle, from this perspective, both communism and capitalism belong to history. With technical progress we are arriving at the doorstep of a New Era which imperiously imposes new forms of coexistence on the masses and the nations.

In one study consecrated to the problem of the Superstate Authority,4 the author of these lines has already drawn attention to the principal tendency which characterizes public life in our century: the intensified interpenetration of intra- and inter- state affairs accompanied by the widely recognized influence of economic and social factors on problems which are, properly speaking, political. And, in general, a growing entanglement of factors and influences which, in their ensemble, constitute modern public life, at once national and international. Finding himself, then, confronted in every domain by new facts which bring an absolutely new aspect to the juncture of world politics, Man is in effect logically called to search for the solution to the problem by new methods.

It is evidently impossible in the frame of the present article for us to discuss the arguments presented in the preceding work in detail. It is, nonetheless, necessary to direct the reader’s attention to an historic similarity which exists between the evolution which forced the feudal State to become the national centralized State — and that international juridical order as it existed before the first world war, with its current evolution toward a new stabilization, not yet definitively revealed.

Let us briefly recall that the feudal State ceased to exist as a result of the fact that national consciousness took precedence over regional consciousness (without, nonetheless, abolishing it). It is thus that States were born, endowed with a central power strong enough to impose internal order and peace. Men of genius like Richelieu had understood the call of the times and, in their work, anticipated the evolution of the elite. As a result, the unity of the French people would not be consecrated until the following century, by the constitutional assembly. This assembly abolished feudal privileges, and proclaimed national sovereignty as well as the separation of legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Finally, it affirmed the eligibility of all the citizens for public office and their equality before the law. For all that, this was nothing but the expression of the consciousness of Fraternity manifested in the frame of one single nation. Such is the process of transformation that interests us.

One can say that now, on the scale of the entire world - and despite the jolts which we are now witnessing - the elite man approaches a psychological state analogous to that which animated the French Deputies of the Constitutional Assembly of 1789. It seems that in his inner-most feelings the elite man in all the corners of the world is becoming - if he was not already - conscious of the fact that the “feudal” world regime with its watertight barriers between states, penetrated with suspicion and jealousy, no longer has a reason for being.

And the divine principle of Fraternity which transformed the Feudal states into national states continues to work on the spirit. It continues to act on the consciousness of the elite, but at present on a superior plane, on the international scale. The creation of organizations such as the League of Nations, and later the United Nations - are these not simply imperfect manifestations of the consciousness of international brotherhood which calls for an instrument with which to express itself?

The United Nations does not yet represent such an instrument. In effect, if one places the vast changes in circumstances on the world plane next to the feeble modifications which have emerged from efforts by the international legal order, one easily senses the lack of concordance between the structure of the United Nations in relation to the real facts and to the march of time. Recent events have furnished irrefutable proof of this since the United Nations was called not solely to heal the wounds, but effectively to prevent bloodshed.

The weakness of the United Nations is the direct consequence of an internal contradiction introduced at the founding of that organization. If we open the Charter, we will see that it was proclaimed in the name of the people, while the fulfillment of the responsibilities which were set forth at that time had been confided to governments.5 And that is not the same thing.
 

The population of the globe taken in its totality finds an analogy, on a restricted scale, to that of multinational States. The history of the latter furnishes us with suggestive examples. In the first place, they indicate that there exists only two positive means of unification: imperialism and federalism. A third and negative example is ancient Poland with its regime of liberum veto and the legalization, under certain conditions, of civil war. It is precisely to one such regime that one could compare the international legal order of the previous century. Order, which in principle is anarchic, was based on the equilibrium of opposing forces - by nature, unstable - and on the will of the strongest.

Now, the new international legal order finds itself still in an embryonic state and lacking efficacy. This is because it always searches, however vainly, for the solution to the problem on the level of the individual nations, when it is necessary to look for it on the super-national plane. Similarly, in the feudal states one found the force to surmount regional antagonisms and the rivalry of sovereigns by making an appeal to the supreme omni-national authority.

If one compares the whole of humanity to the population of a nation, with individuals in the two cases keeping their place, one will be obliged to recognized that the different contemporary states, on the scale of the globe, are analogous to the feudal fiefs of the Middle ages - on the scale of the State. Then the United Nations, as a governmental organization, well appear to us as an imaginary congress of feudal sovereigns, deprived of any real authority...

Faced with the inanity of attempting to unify humanity today through the principle of imperialism, which would in fact lead to the creation of a polizei-über-Staat, one has no other possibility than to examine the practical conditions under which it is possible to envisage the application of the federalist principle for unification.

There also, history furnishes suggestive examples, notably of the case of multinational States. Initially, we have we can look at the ancient Swiss confederation of sovereign cantons which transformed themselves into a federal State. Another analogous modern example is given by the USSR.

And we can ask ourselves, is it not possible to resolve the problem of a deficient current international legal order by drawing inspiration from these examples, of which one has stood the test of time and the other, that of invasions.

It must be said that political ideologies provide no inspiration whatsoever since, as we have already said, the search for the source of the super-state authority has not been directed toward a state super-structure. That would become nonsensical and would create a vicious circle. It is necessary frankly to change the field of research: abandon the state or interstate levels to go to the actual source of all public will - the voice of the people.
 

Taking realities into account, it is not possible practically to approach the problem within the current structure of the United Nations, understanding that that Organization was called upon to become world wide. On the other hand, could the example of multi-national States equipped with a federative constitution be, in effect, imitated on the world plane, and in which form? Could the two-parallel-chambered system of Switzerland or the USSR be introduced into the organization of the United Nations and make it more effective?

It is our opinion that creating, next to the General Assembly of States (the Members of the United Nations) a second General Assembly, that of the People, would modernize the international judicial order and equip it with an incontestable authority. Because the voice of the people is the precise organ of expression of the great principle of human Fraternity.

Equal in rights, seated at the same time and in the same location, the two Chambers would together form the Supreme Assembly of the United Nations, analogous to the Swiss Federal Assembly or the Supreme Council of the USSR.

This would also, in our opinion, re-establish a proper balance between the conservative principle expressed by The Assembly of States, and the progressive perspective of which The Assembly of People would be the home. Because, whereas the delegations at the current General Assembly of the United Nations come individually directed by an imperative mandate from their respective governments which they could not transgress, that of the general Assembly of the people would not be lead in this way. And at the heart of their Assembly, the delegates could form - and certainly would form - groupings without taking into obligatorily account their allegiance to such and such State or group of States, as in the former case. That would be, therefore, a true organ of expression on the international plane of the principle of human brotherhood.

And if, in the effort to modernize the United Nations, each of the two Assemblies is only able to make recommendations as suggested before, because of its nature their combined vote, constituting The Supreme Assembly of the United Nations, would be an imperative reason and force.

Evidently, despite all this, differences between states could surface and certainly would surface. It will be necessary to let time take its course. Therefore, we would perhaps begin by bringing together Parliamentary delegations in the Assembly of People only much later would begin direct and proportional elections. Still, the principal would be that henceforth the structure of the United Nations could be made to harmonise with the new pulsation of life - political and social - which calls for real liberty, no longer conditional or directed. This in turn would manifest itself as the framework of an effective form of equality, which would itself be based on the principle of human fraternity.

NOTES

1. It is curious that even atheist, ultra-materialist systems recognize this indirectly. Because if for them religion is only the opium of the people, and if they truly accept the principle that with death all comes to an end, then logically the human body will become to their eyes the supreme value — or condition. How then do they explain the call to sacrifice life that the materialist leaders hurl to the masses, in certain circumstances? — Must we not conclude then that their materialist confession of faith is only the same opium of the masses, offered under a different label?
2. Machiavelli, still badly understood and badly interpreted, long-ago attracted attention to the error of comparing States, on the international political order, with individuals in the internal order of society.
3. Examen de Conscience, (examination of conscience), by Maurice Lambilliotte, in the review Syntheses, No.126-127, November-December 1956, editorial, pages 5-16.
4. (added note by Editor:) The effects of giving pre-eminence to the idea of Liberty in this political slogan are well described in the Conclusions to a paper by Professor Romanides, which say that: “Franco-Latin and Western Civilisation and Islam have been consistently dominated by the quest for happiness. It is this very sickness which has been at the centre of all personal and social ills. When left unchecked, it cannot but lead to conflicts of interest at all levels of society and to the selfish exploitation of humans and the environment by humans. Modern science and technology have been forced into the service of this sickness as expressed in consumer economics, which is saturating social structures and pushing exploitation of natural resources to the limit.”

5. Boris Mouravieff, Le Problèm de L’Autorité super-étatique. Neufchatel, La Baconnière, passim.

6. The question has already been raised and studied by the Swiss Consultative Commission in 1918, and was the object of a message of the Federal Council of August 4, 1919. Cf. Le Problèm de L’Autorité super-étatique, cited above.

7. A third example is that of the United States of America. A study of the writings of deTocqueville reveals something of the significance of the fact that that great power was originally formed as a fusion of the separate states, and that even the separate states had originally come into being as a fusion of smaller communities.

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