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I find parts of your (chief drafter's) critique of Voegelin's overly broad use of the term gnosticism to be correct, however I think that some of the paragraphs have the wrong tone for a Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia should be an open-ended resource for knowledge, and not simply a receptacle for this or that particular thesis. In this spirit, I have added some language to the conclusion to attempt a more balanced approach. I hope you'll respect the variety of views on this thinker (and not assume we're also 'smart idiots'... ha, there would be some irony in that...). Anyway, the thrust of your viewpoint is still fully in place. Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to draft the entry in the first place.
If you remove critical views on Voegelin, they will be reinserted. You must account for Voegelin's Gnostic conspiracy and not try to hide it. Nixdorf 16:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
OK, instead of just scrapping you contribution (which I will reinstate anyway) isn't it better if we try to iron out a unified view on Voegelin's views of the Gnostics? I am not a hopeless person, so please expand you views on this issue so we can agree on the form of that particular piece of text. Nixdorf 17:29, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Who is Paul Cassirer and how can you relate him to Voegelin?
Again, in my usual diplomatic style, I would suggest rephrasing of certain overly polite phrases such as this one:
Which in my book translates to: it was unpedagogically and self-referentially written, so it is hard to read. I know this line of writing is very common in academic literature, but in my opinion it is not clear and informative. Nixdorf 17:40, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Like Nixdorf, I think the sentence in question obfuscates rather than clarifies. However, I think Nixdorf jumps to misleading conclusions in his proposed revision. Familiarity with Voegelin's ontology and an eye for the trajectory of his formal argument will go along way toward making his ideas comprehensible and his otherwise elegant style enjoyable. Nixdorf raises a fair point on the matter of self-reference. Voegelin can be difficult to understand without an appreciation of his concept of gnosticism (and by extension, his theory of symbols and immanence). Even Bob Dahl had trouble wrapping his head around the New Science of Politics because he never thoroughly analyzed Voegelin's premises. However, I have to raise two objections to the consequences that Nixdorf deduces from self-reference. First, Voegelin's thought on gnosticism appears early in his career and recurs throughout, making it quite accessible. Anyone wishing to understand what he's driving at with "gnosticism" can do so without sifting through extensive arcana. Second, calling his style "unpedagogically and self-referentially written, so it is hard to read" misleads. Voegelin employs a very rigorous style of argumentation that, if anything, could be accused of being overly-pedagogical. Because he lays out his arguments so thoroughly, at times he comes across as "slow." However, his ability to couch rigorous formal argumentation in elegant prose makes most of his work quite readable (I'll concede that the books on race can be laborious, but his major works are readily comprehensible). As such, I'm willing to keep with the idea that Voegelin can be too self-referential, leading many readers to forsake his work prematurely. I would also add that, compared to contemporaries like Carl Schmitt or Leo Strauss, Voegelin seems to belabor points, making for a slower cadence. But I can't accept calling his work "unpedagogical" or "hard to read" as the first has no grounding in the texts and the second seems too subjective. Finally, returning to the initial sentence, by the standards of his contemporaries (again, think Strauss and Schmitt) Voegelin was neither uncommonly broad in his references nor excessively inclined to creating/using jargon. Therefore, I propose removing the text in question and replacing it with an acknowledgment of his systematizing inclination and a critique of its consequential self-referentiality. The sentence might read something like this:
Because Voegelin works within an elaborate ontological system of his own creation, his writings contain a significant level of self-reference. As a result, an understanding of his major terms is a prerequisite for understanding his ideas. Moreover, Voegelin's parsimonious argumentation can bog down the pace of his writing, making it seem dense and impenetrable to the casual reader.
Sorry - forgot to log in before I wrote the above. -- LTTYGS
Your invitation to further discussion is kind, but I don't believe this discussion would be fruitful.
Instead I return your generosity by recommending that you avoid the posture of authority on Eric Voegelin when your ignorance regarding him and his context is so great that you have never even heard of Ernst Cassirer. If you would like a more informed view of Voegelin, the three links I introduced will quickly lead you to all of the pertinent online resources. If he were still to appear wanting in your estimation from such a vantage point, you could offer an informed critique here. After all, it is not as though Voegelin cannot be faulted. Indeed, you would undoubtedly be interested in the criticism of Voegelin's Gnostic theme which appears in the secondary literature and, in fact, in the author's own work. However your critique is simply inaccurate as it stands now.
This being Wikipedia, you may of course have your way with my text.
In surveying these remarks - many of which, admittedly, went up some years ago - a missing or under-emphasized distinction strikes me that I think may offer some clarity to this discussion. First and foremost, Voegelin's discussion of gnosticism should not be conflated with Gnosticism, by which I mean that his theoretical instrument is not the same as the historical phenomenon with which it shares a name. To do so is to mix a proper noun with a categorical descriptor. Voegelin looked at Gnosticism (the historical phenomenon) and noticed a tendency to invert the conventional hierarchy of the sacred and the profane. He then examined contemporary mass movements and noticed a similar phenomenon, though in this case with a specifically political content. He then looks for past iterations of this politicized inversion of the sacred and the profane - what he calls political religion - and traces it through a series of unconnected instances. Thus, when Voegelin refers to "political gnosticism" or "political religion", he is driving at the politicized inversion of the sacred and profane, wedded to an apocalyptic teleology that can be expedited by human intervention. None of this has anything to do with the historical phenomenon of early Christian Gnosticism, other than that it serves as the source of Voegelin's "gnosticism". Whether Voegelin was wise to call this inversion "gnosticism" may be debated, but any assertion that he advocates a continuous trajectory between early Christian Gnosticism and the gnosticism of twentieth-century mass movements is quite wide of the mark. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LTT - YGS ( talk • contribs) 16:39, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Any hope the expunger might explain what was wrong with these passages, or say why they are not controversies?
The writer of this sentence considers the idea that Voegelin's work is representative of a conspiracy theory of history to be ludicrous, so I suppose that is a controversy. Conspiracy theories of history are usually understood to imply, not that there are no successful conspiracies - consider the American, French and Russian Revolutions - but that history is determined by a conspiracy or by the wars between conspiracies. Voegelin does not think that. If anyone reads that into Voegelin they are seeing his idea of 'gnosticism' as a movement, rather than as a recurrent spiritual sickness.
More standard controversies around Voegelin focus on whether he was a Christian or not, and whether he was a political Conservative. The arguments for both positions are equivocal. Probably the truth is that Voegelin does not fit in easily within any pre-existent in-group.
To deal with the Christianity controversy first. This might seem irrelevant to many people, but as Voegelin argues that society is based on a perception of transcendental order, it becomes important for believers to ask whether he thought Christianity was successful or not. The arguments and anecdotes are best covered in Federici's book and Wagner's essay. It is true Voegelin believed in something which we can call 'God' (see especially the essays in CW 12) but that does not mean he was a Christian. He did at the time of the Gnosticism essay think that the advent of Christianity was important for world history, but that is possibly a position he later abandoned (See What is History). He considered Thomas Aquinas an important philosopher, but his attitude to doctrine, that it is useful but can also be harmful when fossilised, suggests that he would not be happy with any dogmatic Christianity. Anecdote suggests that he called himself a pre-Nicene Christian - ie one from the period before dogma become enforced. St. Paul is criticised as at least partly gnostic in The Ecumenic Age. He criticises churches both Protestant and Catholic for their actions and philosophies, and it is clear in the book on 'Hitler and the Germans' that he considers that belief in Christianity is not sufficient to make a person resist racism or state terror, if it does not effect them. It seems probable that Voegelin respected Christianity as the best symbolisation of the divine ground of being available to Westerners, without necessarily believing in all the dogmas of the various churches.
Voegelin's political ideas are equally hard to gauge in actuality, partly because he did not often comment on contemporary politics in the USA. In his youth, it was clear that Voegelin opposed totalitarian fascists, Marxists in general and racism. In the rest of his life he opposed classical liberalism. These are positions which could be taken by people of either the left or right. It is true that leftists tend to see some value in Marx's critique of capitalism and rightists tend to see some virtue in racism or think it doesn't exist or can be cured by ignoring it, but these positions are not inevitable. Voegelin was also probably an elitist, thinking that the divine ground of being could not be experienced by everyone, but needs to be disseminated by an elite - again another reason why epistemological questions cannot be avoided. But there have been communist and fascist elites, and even democratic and liberal elites. Voegelin's respect for order does not mean that he did not think being open to new visions of order was not important. So he had no dogmatic respect for tradition. Despite his acquaintance or friendship with Mises and Hayek he was aware of the now lost Conservative Critique of Capitalism, and was able to support government intervention in the economy. He could even make what sound like neo marxist statements such as: "When society differentiated into capitalist and worker, the model of the society of free, equal citizens was overtaken by a reality that pressed toward the crisis of class struggle. There arose the social-ethical problematic, which after long political struggles led to the massive introduction of socialist elements into the liberal economic structure" (CW 12: 96). Anecdote suggests that he like Walt Kelly's 'Pogo' cartoon strip, which has often been condemned as Liberal.
It seems that Voegelin must be read without adherence to contemporary political divisions, which probably have no particular reference to the truth of being in themselves.
Freedom and Serfdom: An Anthology of Western Thought, edited by Alber Humold. (D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland, 1961), p. 280. Eric Voeglin:
Once an argument has been classed as "positional," it is regarded as having been demolished, since the "position" attributed to it is always selected with a perjorative intent. The choice of the position selected is an expression of the personal antipathies of the individual critic, and the same arguments can therefore be attributed to any one of a variety of "positions," ccording to what comes most readily to the critic's hand. The wealth of variations afforded by such tactics is well exemplified by the variety of classifications to which I have myself been subjected. On my religious "position" I have been classified as a Protestant, a Catholic, an anti-Semite and as a typical Jew; politically, as a Liberal, a Fascist, a (Nazi) and a Conservative; and on my theoretical "position," as a Platonist, a Neo-Augustinian, a Thomist, a disciple of Hegel, an existentialist, a historical relativist and an empirical skeptick; in recent years the suspicion has frequently been voiced that I am a Christian. All these classifications have been made by university professors and people with academic degrees.
Taxonomy is both a useful and a limiting tool in learning. Naaman Brown ( talk) 11:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone list the sources Voegelin used on Gnosticism? I am under the impression that he never read or cited the Nag Hammadi library which is the primary source on Gnosticism, so that he rather relied solely on secondary sources?
Look in the preface and the first couple of pages of Science politics gnosticism. Voegelin used the best sources and scholarship from before the Nag Hammadi library's publication
I've taken the libery of moving your paragraph closer to the begining of the section as it interupted the flow between the gnosticism section and the next section. I've also expanded the secondary references. The issue of translation of the Nag Hamadi texts is probably irrelevant as Voegelin always tried to read the originals. He also apparently claimed that Quispel, the editor of the Nag Hammadi finds, was an "old friend", so he probably had some idea of what was going on, but who knows?.
"And thus Nazism becomes 'gnostic' because it suggests we can have a 'pure' race when the racially inferior are exterminated."
Where did you get this - What is the base for this statement?
This argument is evident in Voegelin's works. That is the basis of that statement. Read Voegelin's writings if you want an in depth explanation of this argument, and don't expect wikipedia to spend forever outlining philosophical reasoning.
To make heaven on earth within history is to deny Devil's right to domination within material world. A Gnostic is fully aware of this scriptural standpoint (Sola Scriptura, see Isaiah 45:7 and http://members.home.nl/tgeorgescu/bible-speaks-2.html ) . Therefore, the Gnosis itself proclaims that one should not attempt to do what is impossible. It follows that a Gnostic would never seek to immanentize the eschaton, since this is contrary to his Gnostic science. Therefore, Voegelin is wrong that Gnosis implies imanentizing the eschaton. Perhaps only a crippled and flawed version of Gnosis would attempt such madness. So, the problem lies not with Gnosis, but with a crippled version of it, which pretends to be the full Gnosis. tgeorgescu
If a Gnostic goes political, he/she would indeed use his Gnostic knowledge, but he/she would prove far more tactful than Voegelin suggests, and would never attempt to produce a regime he/she knows from the very beginning that it will collapse, since it is untenable due to not taking into account the inherent evilness of the material world. tgeorgescu
LoveMonkey ( talk) 17:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
A Gnostic is aware thereof, and he/she would try to produce not the best regime, but the least evil regime. The perspective of cultural pessimism from the Book of Daniel, chapter 2, implies that as the time goes by, the worldly regimes decay and the political situation gets worse (therefore, progress is an illusion). This is just another argument that a Gnostic would project the regime which is probable to bring the least increment of evilness and decay, instead of seeking to make true some vision from never-never land. tgeorgescu
LoveMonkey ( talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
To quote Fritjof Capra, "In the East, a virtuous person is therefore not one who undertakes the impossible task of striving for the good and eliminating the bad, but rather one who is able to maintain a dynamic balance between good and bad." The Tao of Physics, p. 158, III. The Paralllels, Flamingo, HarperCollins, London 1991. tgeorgescu
LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
LoveMonkey ( talk) 12:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Why the occult? Well the whole thing boils down to the ideas of determinism ( Uroborus ) versus freewill (true infinity, Absolute Infinite). Either God and the Universe are a machine and we are destined or fated to salvation (as an elite of the Sethian, enlightened, knowing) and do not have to answer to freewill. Or we are responsible for our actions within the opportunity of existence in the Universe. Determinism as such being "the ends justifies the means" (making the idea then synonymous with utilitarianism) and being deterministic in that we create our finite lives, they are temporal and an illusion and have no infinite value or weight (this is in contrast to soteriology). Voegelin allotting that the characteristics of gnosticism are really just "tools" or "arguments" to deny people freewill. These "tools" or "ideas" are now quite famous and it is under them that one may begin to see the manifestation of cult devotion that is the destroyer of freewill. It was Christianity that taught freewill as a corner stone to existence. It was gnosticism (in its attempts through it's various sects) that tried to deny freewill and or attack it as evil. Claiming the God of freewill ( Yahweh) as the devil. That because the universe has both chaos and order that both do not facilitate freewill but rather they evoke tragedy. This denial of existence and or turning away from existence as it is. Voegeling expressed in the New Science of Politics. Politics now modeling their ideas to gain power after the " utopia" or " a piece of blue sky" or " pie in the sky" cult qualities, sales pitches. Or as Dostoevsky stated in the The Grand Inquisitor they will claim to teach logic or reason and offer land (the world or power over it), bread and freedom but it will end in slavery. Or simply ""Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him." LoveMonkey ( talk) 12:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Voegelin in his critique of Auguste Comte states Auguste Comte is "a spiritual dictator of mankind". FER 74-75 That along with other eighteenth century figures like d'Alembert, Voltaire, Diderot, Bentham, and Turgot, Comte and his accomplices "have mutilated the idea of man beyond recognition." Hence the only truth is no truth and that all is nothing but a meaningless illusion with no value toward ones salvation. Therefore we can deny truth and make our own truth. Since truth is a priori and can not be really eliminated. Therefore, ultimately there is no truth but man and since man is empty or a machine then, there is no truth in existence, hence nihilism which is the manifestation of Misotheism. From the vantage point of Voegelin's perspective of a symbolist, artist or creator, cults are to their respective hosts (religion, science, politics) - Kitsch or poshlust (they are a distortion of "one must live for ones soul not ones' self") they're fake or false (according to Voegelin) cheap knock offs that have no substance and serve no purpose but distraction from the ennui or anxiety of existence (Voegelin called this ersatz). Hence false gnosis is nothing but the "knowledge" of the demagogue. The tricks of the trade for the conman, because who could be as such and still believe in a higher truth, hence such a person's truth is sophistry a belief in nothing (since what is after power and life but the nothing of death). Reality can be a system for God, but it cannot be so for any human individual, because both reality and humans are incomplete, and all philosophical systems imply completeness. False infinity, false knowledge (thats usually hateful or racist or antisemitic again Hitler, Stalin) and also false apophatism.
Hence to
immanentize the
transcendent (claiming to know the unknowable) and or anything of the infinite or divine (yes the eschaton) or the
uncreated (knowledge of the uncreated/infinite/divine is true gnosis), most obviously knowledge as an end in itself, as being synonymous with human existence and human experience. Magic is to manipulate the supernatural for greedy and selfish aims. To reduce God, art, human existence and human experience and the supernatural to formula (
2+2=4) "all to knowledge" is the gnosticism that Voegelin speaks of. "In the end all corruption will come about as a consequence of the natural sciences" (see
Sociological positivism). But such a scientific method becomes especially dangerous and pernicious when it would encroach also upon the sphere of spirit. Let it deal with plants and animals and stars in that way: but to deal with the human spirit in that way is
blasphemy (of the Holy Spirit), which only weakens ethical and religious passion. Even the act of eating is more reasonable than speculating with a microscope upon the functions of digestion.....A dreadful sophistry spreads microscopically and telescopically into
tomes, and yet in the last resort produces nothing, qualitatively understood, though it does, to be sure, cheat men out of the simple, profound and passionate wonder which gives impetus to the ethical..The only thing certain is the ethical-religious." This above is the lesson of
gnosiology.
Discovery (guided by truth) is most precious, however over simplification and or aping/hijacking power (sophistry is, truth is power truth is what works) to push an agenda (wanting to be God or a cult leader) is the essence of evil. Gnosticism is the by product (the most cynical or pessimistic/nihilistic) outcome of the
ennui of
existential crisis. It is the belief that this existence (
immanence/
hypostasis) is tyrannical or evil (see
Plotinus and
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism). Man becomes, a god wihout God.
LoveMonkey (
talk)
16:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
In the East this would be a loose definition of a gnostic..........
"There is another kind of selfishness which violates the hierarchy of values much more: some agents who strive for perfection and the absolute fullness of being and even for the good of the whole world are determined to do it in their own way, so that they should occupy the first place and stand higher than all other beings and even the Lord God himself.
Pride is the ruling passion of such beings. They enter into rivalry with God, thinking that they are capable of ordering the world better than its Creator. Pursing an impossible aim, they suffer defeat at every step and begin to
hate God. This is what Satan does.
Selfishness separates us from God in so far as we put before us purposes incompatible with God's will that the world should be perfect. In the same way selfishness separates an agent in a greater or lesser degree from other agents: his aims and actions cannot be harmonized with the actions of other beings and often lead to hostility and mutual opposition."
[1] This in contrast to
sobornost. In the East, gnosticism is a heresy specific to the
ascetic traditions. It is a distortion of the ascetic ideals. To Dostoevsky the greatest thing to overcome in life is oneself. The greatest freedom was to get over oneself. This is to say that
kenosis was more important then
gnosis.
LoveMonkey (
talk)
16:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
John Searle in Intentionality writes:
My own approach to mental states and events has been totally realistic in the sense that I think there really are such things as intrinsic mental phenomena which cannot be reduced to something else or eliminated by some kind of re-definition. There really are pains, tickles and itches, beliefs, fears, hopes, desires, perceptual experiences, experiences of acting, thoughts, feelings, and all the rest. Now you might think that such a claim was so obviously true as to be hardly worth making, but the amazing thing is that it is routinely denied, though usually in a disguised form, by many, perhaps most, of the advanced thinkers who write on these topics. I have seen it claimed that mentals states can be entirely defined in terms of their causal relations, or that pains were nothing but machine table states of certain kinds of computer systems, or that correct attributions of Intentionality were simply a matter of predictive success to be gained by taking a certain kind of "intentional stance" toward systems. I don't think that any of these views are even close to the truth ..."pg 262
As
Dostoevsky states
2+2=5 is a far better thing in that it fights the manifestation of tyranny, tyranny established through its scientific justifications just like Zamytin and his novel
We stated.
LoveMonkey (
talk)
16:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if any of the Voegelin or Arendt scholars here know if she had any particular influence on or was influenced by Voegelin. As I recall, Voegelin does mention in some of his non-academic writing either lecturing in a few of Arendt's courses or bringing her into his as a guest lecturer (perhaps while she was at the New School or while he was at LSU, though I can’t seem to find the references). As some of their main topics of study have close overlap, as did some of their circle of contemporary influences, did either ever specifically attribute significant lines of their own thought to the other. If so, she may be worth adding in the influenced / influenced by boxes.
Also, the Oxford Natural Law legal philosopher John Finnis makes several references to Order and History, sometimes in depth, in his Natural Law and Natural Rights. Though Voegelin was not a natural law theorist per say, perhaps Finnis should be listed in the "influenced" box. Aurelius89 ( talk) 04:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Since evil is in the East the concept of turning mankind against his, demiurge\creator\life\existence. This as nihilism is, the very essence of negation of life. A selfishness devoution, devoid of humility unwilling to submit to a higher truth. A nous or common sense interruption of Voegelin would be...The ends never justify the means because.. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Gnosticism and or cults if you will, is the devil's managing, planning and bankrolling of the project (to build the road to hell, that is). It is the evil's theology. Gnosticism/nihilism is the vilification of existence or, "life in its completeness". LoveMonkey ( talk) 20:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following from the section on Gnosticism. They have been fact-tagged more than long enough for someone to have cited them.
Anyone have a source for these? --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 04:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Hey I like the article without McKnights comments. But there is the problem of understanding. Or to be more direct.. What Voegelin have you read? Since I have not sourced sentence for sentence but sections. Tell me what parts you'd like sourced per se. And again what Voegelin have you read? Since if you are not familiar with the subject matter how might you discern it's validity, since I can not directly quote or it will be removed as copyright violation. And what I might take from 3rd party could be biased and inaccurate. LoveMonkey ( talk) 14:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Vögelins standpoint should be very heavily criticized by philosophers and theologicians by now, according to my gut feelings: there must be sources out there essentially claiming that Vögelin essentially shoe-horns facts into the label "gnostic" meaning "ultra-heretic". This should be clear from only reading Irenaeus, since Irenaeus claims that gnostics where not out for salvation for the whole humanity, nor any act to erect an otherwordly regime here on earth, while Vögelins standpoint instead says (section Voegelin on Gnosticism):
Needed in the article is opposing statements, and sources for those. Anyone inclined to, are invited to start. I'll also have an eye open for such debunkals to be inserted.
IMHO, Vögelin describes the extrovert cults very good. ... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 11:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Why not paraphrase and summarise the contents of the above and put them in a section of their own? The Sound and the Fury ( talk) 20:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This passage is interesting and useful, but it seems to fall far outside what should appear in Wikipedia:
I'm not sure if there is some other way to include these recommendations. The Sound and the Fury ( talk) 20:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
After reviewing the current assessment, I've downgraded the article to C-Class, as it does not currently pass the B-Class criteria. Further discussion may be fruitful, but I can see that the problems have been previously addressed in the above threads with no improvement forthcoming. I'm also concerned about the image source, as I tried to track it down and could not; the image also appears to have been edited in a strange way with a glowing outline added to the head, neck, and shoulders. This is unusual for a biographical image. Viriditas ( talk) 00:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
That's a shame. Voegelin is a hugely important thinker. I will add some of his vision of the premodern polity to this article later. The Sound and the Fury ( talk) 02:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
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The above picture doesn't resemble those in non-free sources such as this. Looks like a case of misidentification. Autarch ( talk) 21:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
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In my opinion the description of Voegelin's early development in the English wikipedia artice on Voegelin from December, the 4th, is inaccurate. I had added some changes a two weeks ago, but they have quickely been reverted. Therefore, I'd like to explain my reasons for the changes here, and propose them again.
When saying that the wikipedia-article in its present (December, the 11th 2017) form is inaccurate, I mean in particular the statement that Voegelin's two books on race theory where directed against racism is wrong.
Quite the contrary, Voegelin's books on race theory advocate a particular brand of racism, namely, a racism that takes body and soul into account, and analyses and also criticises another brand of racism, nameley a racism that relies exclusively on biological features like blood ties. The brand of racism that Voegelin advocates draws strongly on authors such as Othmar Spann, Ferdinand Clauß and Carl Gustav Carus, all of which are disucssed very favorably in Voegelin's books. Thus Voegelin's race books were meant by its author as a critical constructive contribution to the racist discourse at the time of their publication. Unsuprisingly, Voegelin's book "Race and State" received favorable reviews in Nazi Germany. (The same is true for Voegelin's other race book, though it did receveive fewer reviews.) But it did not receive favorable reviews throughout the Nazi camp and it also received favorable reviews from reviewers that were no Nazis (like Helmut Plessner, for example). How is that to be explained? Well, obviously, the book were not well received by those Nazis that insisted on a purely biological version of racism, while those Nazis that were more flexible in their racist creed could find them quite acceptable.
But how is it too explained that Voegelin's book also received some positive reviews outside the Nazi camp. In my opinion there are two possible reasons:
1. In spite of its being racist itself, the book still delivers a critical analysis of certain brands of racism and their social function that readers found worthwhile that did not share the books positive racist stance. Voegelin's book analyzes race theories as a kind of political mythology, and his analysis can - if read against the grain - potentially be used to critize racism. Voegelin, to be sure, did not object to political mythologies. Quite the contrary, in his fascist phase he considered a political mythology as a necessary ingredient of the intellectual foundations of a nation state. Therefore, he did not object to racism merely on the grounds that it was a political mythology rather than a scientific theory. As long as it wasn't too narrowly biological, Voegelin did not mind racism.
2. In an intellectual climate where the most outrageous racist ideologies thrived, Voegelin's book could still appear as a relative moderate form of racism.
Nonetheless, it is racism. And when Voegelin was asked by Ernst Krieck, then a leading Nazi intellectual and obviously impressed by Voegelin's book on the "History of the Race Idea", for his curriculum vitae and list of publications, Eric Voegelin hastened to oblige and in his reply to the Nazi-professor he did not fail to mention his perfectly aryan ancestry. (Krieck hadn't read Voegelin's other race book "Race and State" yet, but was eager to do so.) This clearly shows, that Voegelin did not even consider the book as anti-racist himself at that time, because otherwise would have clarified the misunderstanding in his answer to Krieck rather than emphasizing his aryan ancestry. Another Nazi scholar that Voegelin had contact with around 1933 / 34 was Alfred Baeumler.
These connections have carfully been examined and most clearly been presented by Emanuel Faye in a recent (2016) paper: [1] The paper also contains transripts of the correspondance between Voegelin and Krieck. A detailed examination of Voegelins race books has been published by Wulf. D. Hund recently: [2] Those, who do not understand these papers because they are written in German language, will find a very clear assessment of Voegelins racist and pro Nazi-views in Aurel Kolnai's book "The War against the West": [3] (see pages 187ff., 315, 447ff., 458f.) Kolnai considers "Professor Voegelin" as "a fascist savant of rare acumen and coolness" (p. 447). He couldn't do otherwise. Kolnai's book was published in 1938. Being a contemporary of Eric Voegelin, he did not know that Voegelin would turn against facism later. And by that time all of Voegelin's major books except "On the Form of the American Mind" have had an obvious fascist tendency. (Kolnai probably hadn't read Voegelins "Political Religions" which appeared in the same year as Kolnai's "War against the West".) Again, if Voegelin's two race books and Voegelin's Authoritarian state had really been directed against National Socialism as Ellis Sandoz maintains, how could an enlightended catholic and critical observer of National Socialism like Aurel Kolnai be so mistaken about their content?
In support of the assertion that Voegelin's race books were directed against racism or Nazism, the wikipedia article cites Voegelin's autobiography. But this is an unrealiable source. Gennerally, autobiographies are not the most reliable historical sources. And Voegelin's autobiography is highly unrealible with respect to his prewar engagements.
All of this is by now well established in the secondary literature about Eric Voegelin. Unfortunately, with the exception of Kolnai's today hardly remembered "War against the West" the scientific discussion about Voegelin's early development has taken place more or less exclusively in the German speaking countries and the related papers have been published in German language, wherefore these findings so far have remained largely unknown in the English speaking world.
Nonetheless, I do believe that the historical facts should be representented properly in wikipedia, and in this respect it just does not work to say that Voegelin's race books are anti-racist or anti-Hitler. They are not. It suffices to read the race books to understand that they are not. Luckily, both books have been translated to English as part of the Collected-Works-Edition of Eric Voegelin. (And for those whe lack background knowledge about Voegelin's influences and the ideological scene and fascist thinking in Central Europe in the 1930s in general, Kolnai's "War against the West" provides a good source.) Therefore, I propose the following changes to this wikipedia article:
Not untyptical for a young academic in a German speaking country at that time, Voegelin began to embrace fascism in the late 1920s. The most obvious product of his fascist phase are two books on race theory, where Voegelin defended an esoteric and anti-materialist racism in the footsteps of Carl Gustav Carus, Ferdinand Clauß and Othmar Spann against a purely biological racism. His books on race theory where well received in Nazi-Germany and Voegelin tried for some time to find a job in Nazi-Germany. It was only after his emigration to the U.S. that he critizsed racism as a political ideology.
Where does this leave us? And most importantly, does this make Voegelin a racist? I don't think it does, or at least not for more than a few years, because Voegelin seems to have dropped the race topic soon after publishing his race books. In a later article, pubished in the U.S. in the 1940s Voegelin clearly speaks out against the race ideology. However, taking Voegelins flirt with facism and racism in the 1930s into account can give us a much more nuanced picture of Voegelin's intellectual development. It is not true, as Voegelians would have it and as it is suggested by Voegelin's autobiography that Voegelin had known all along that National Socialism was dangerous. He hadn't, but he learned it, and by the time he published the "Political Religions" he knew it was dangerous. And he was to learn it the hard way, too, because soon nafterwards he had to flee from the Gestapo.
While racism was not a lasting ingredient in Voegelin's mindset, Voegelin's authorian political convictions proved to be deeper rooted. This is another point that is grossly misrepresented in Voegelins autiobiography and, ensuingly, in some of the literature on Voegelin. In 1936 Voegelin published a book on the "Authoritarian State" of Austria. In that book he justified the military coup that brought a facist regime to power in Austria in 1933/34 as a legitimate transition of power. In fact, the process was described by him as a transformation from a purely administrative state (as he disdainfully characerized the ancien regime and even more so the liberal democracy that had followed it after World War I) to a proper statehood.
In his autobiography Voegelin later maintained that he had advocated the authorian state, because, in the situation of the time, he saw an authoritarian state as the only chance to rescue democracy. Well, this is an obvious self contradiction, because an authoritarian state is not a democracy and therefore cannot be a means to save a democracy. But maybe what Voegelin meant was that in the situation of the time democracy didn't stand a chance in Austria and an authoritarin state was the lesser evil compared to National Socialism? Nope! There is no indication in that book that Voegelin cared about democracy or saw National Socialism as the danger. Quite the contrary, the form of government that Voegelin argues against is not facism or National Socialism but liberal democracy. And the philosophy that Voegelins most strongly critizes in this book is not that of Moussolini or Carl Schmidt - both of which are discussed and, as it seems, apreciated in the book on the "Authoritarian State", but the postivist philosophy of law and liberal political outlook of Hans Kelsen.
Again, the secondary literature in English language does not betray these connections, but it suffices to read the English translation of the book to get the message. Of course, just as with Voegelin's race book, some background knowledge on Central European political and intellectual history is required to understannd the book and properly place its message into the context of the time. I have also summarized some of my onw findings, most of which have been published in German, in a short essay connecting Voegelin's earlier fascist and authoritarian convictions the his later theological-political outtlook as in the "New Science of Politics". Unfortunately, I did not have the leisure to sufficiently polish it to get it published. But for those to whom German texts are not accessible, it may still be helpful: http://eckhartarnold.de/papers/2011_political_theology/Voegelins_Authoritarian_Political_Theology_V2012.pdf
Since the wikipedia article in its present form is, as I believe, insufficient concerning
Voegelin's firmly authoritarian stance in the 1930s, I recommend the following additions:
In his book on "The Authoritarian State" 1936 Voegelin then took side with the clerico-fascist regime in Austria and harshly critizes the liberal democratic outlook and positivist legal philosophy of his former academic teacher Hans Kelsen. When the Nazis started closing in on the Austrian Government, however, Voegelin came to see National Socialism as a danger. His book on the "Political Religions" (1938) is Voegelins first attempt to deal with the phenomenon of totalitarism and his only major work before his emigration to the U.S. that was directed against National Socialism.
I am looking forward to the discussion about the proposed changes. If there are no serious critical objections I am going to add those changes myself within a few weeks. Pantar3i ( talk) 07:28, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
References
How many of these people should we list in the infobox? From Template:Infobox philosopher, it says the following: "Entries in influences, influenced, and notable ideas should be explained in the main text of one of the articles. Those that are not mentioned in the main text may be deleted."
I don't know much about this person, so I do not know which of the people listed was actually influenced by him or influenced him. Natg 19 ( talk) 17:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
@ Atty Frederick Wagner and Chewings72: for more discussion By these standards, most of them should be removed. I am not sure I have the energy to incorporate them into the text. If writing a book about someone and teaching about him in a university is not sufficient, then many of those listed should be removed. Most of them have their own web pages. Twenty-one of them are dead scholars. Some of them are on Wikis in Norway, France, Germany, and perhaps more. I am trying to figure out what to do. Perhaps a complete rewrite of the whole page and put it up all at once? What do you suggest? Also, I have a question: every functioning organization has a hierarchy. How is that organized at Wikipedia? Atty Frederick Wagner ( talk) 17:58, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Trepani1 seems to take Voegelin's autobiography at face value. That's not how Wikipedia works. See de:Wulf D. Hund for credentials. Voegelin's autobiography is what he tells about himself, it's a WP:PRIMARY source. It's not what independent, secondary WP:RS tell about his life. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 17:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC
One cannot keep the WP:RS while denying what they say. WP:VER is the very opposite of that. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:13, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
Under WP:ELNO and WP:NOTDIR, I've moved these here for now. If they're useful as references, then they're still here: