Ideology and Inconsistency
Ezorski, Gertrude
In a recent essay ("In Defense of Inconsistency" DISSENT Spring 1964), the Polish writer Leszek Kolakowski characterizes the consistent man of action as one who is ready to impose his views "by...
...Why does Kolakowski bother to polemicize against consistency when his metaphysical thesis dictates that consistent action can never see the light of day...
...Those who are bent on socially desirable aims may be forced by circumstance to employ methods that punish the innocent and pinion the helpless...
...He praises "the breed of the hesitant and the weak, the breed of the inconsistent...
...Thus the "basic human situations" where Kolakowski thinks one can behave with "perfect consistency" turn out to be the very situations where inconsistency may be unavoid able...
...It surely does not follow from a be lief in democratic socialism, that one must necessarily favor murdering all who dissent from that belief...
...Who else has systematically murdered off all those who disagree with them...
...tactical considerations cease to be valid...
...But it is precisely here that a principle may be in conflict with an aim...
...On the other hand, the man who regards tolerance as an aim rather than a principle, is committed to those means which would best preserve the practice of tolerance...
...The reality of values is inconsistent, i.e., it is composed of antagonistic elements...
...Are idealists justified in inflicting injustice...
...This is not a logical contradiction, since values are not theoretical theses...
...Surely, the situations created by what is "immanent in the world of values," must also be "basic human situations...
...While to act to further one's aims is to make practical results the deciding criterion...
...Stalin's purge of loyal military and technical personnel was hardly consistent with the aim of strengthening his regime, since it weakened Russian industry and military forces...
...In these cases "tactical considerations cease to be valid, i.e., situations toward which our moral attitude remains invariable whatever the circumstances...
...To refuse on prin...
...Kolakowski fails to recognize this because he has blurred the distinction between acting on principle and acting to further an aim...
...This portrait is calculated to shock us morally and Kolakowski, taking a humanist stance, opts for inconsistency...
...He sees tolerance as a principle to be followed, rather than a goal to be achieved...
...ciple to pursue a course of action is to proclaim any consideration of practical results irrelevant...
...Socialists, like all ordinary men interested in practical goals, have to consider whether the consequences of the means they employ will help or hinder their aims...
...He discovers an antinomy of tolerance which he stamps "eternal and eternally insoluble...
...Yet he now claims that in "basic human situations . . . tactical considerations cease to be valid...
...His views are contradictory, and where not contradictory, they are either false or plainly irrelevant...
...It is only thanks to inconsistency that humanity has kept alive on this earth...
...These elements cannot all be accepted as true simultaneously...
...absolute consistency is in practice identical with fanaticism...
...How can we proclaim and practice tolerance toward intolerant opinions and movements...
...One may very well question the seriousness of a position taken without regard for the reality of consequences...
...So Kolakowski's praise of inconsistency is a dispraise of totalitarianism, and one can hardly fail to sympathize with the spirit of his polemic...
...It is a contradiction inherent in the world of human behavior" (italics added...
...By taking a principled stand he rules out any consideration of practical results...
...yet each of them demands complete acceptance...
...The truth of the matter is that, while Kolakowski calls for "perfect consistency in "basic human situations," it is precisely in such situations that consistent action is most difficult...
...In a recent essay ("In Defense of Inconsistency" DISSENT Spring 1964), the Polish writer Leszek Kolakowski characterizes the consistent man of action as one who is ready to impose his views "by war, by aggression, by provocation, by blackmail, by murder, by intimidation, by terror, by massacre, and by torture...
...Such basic human situations include clearcut military aggression, genocide, torture, oppression of the helpless" (italics added...
...Hence, they should be duly aware of the traces that are left by any infringement of freedom: the creation of dangerous precedents, and the development of habits of political suppression...
...Hence, Kolakowski's antinomy of tolerance does not touch this position...
...But those who engage in this difficult and delicate weighing of empirical considerations will get no help at all from the eternal animosity of tolerance that is conjured up by Kolakowski...
...He is saying that in such a situation one must be consistent with principles and disregard one's aims...
...Kolakowski's failure to distinguish acting on principle from acting to advance one's aims has further and no less unhappy consequences...
...But has totalitarianism really been imbued with consistency...
...Kolakowski urges that in such a "basic human situation...
...Hence there is no prima facie inconsistency in rejecting this policy...
...Many who defended the murderous "excesses" of Stalinism took moral cover under the "principle" that the end justifies the means...
...Kolakowski claims that consistency requires wiping out all those who disagree with one's aims...
...But Kolakowski offers no evidence to prove that such a policy is a necessary means for the achievement of socialism...
...According to his metaphysic of behavior, the very cases he cites are ruled out as impossible...
...But he seems unaware of the fact that he has made his concept of consistency unintelligible...
...In that case, rejection of the means would be a form of inconsistency...
...It is strange to find a philosopher pledging himself to inconsistency...
...I have no wish to quarrel with him on that issue...
...While Kolakowski declares himself for inconsistency in action, he concedes, in his concluding remarks, that there are "basic human situations" where "perfect consistency" is demanded...
...The man who refuses on principle to act in an intolerant fashion places tolerance above any consideration of the consequences...
...But how can one even consider this thesis without specifying the aim to be achieved...
...The principle which forbids the use of torture cannot be violated in any circumstances...
...Earlier in his essay he claimed that the antagonisms which generate inconsistency are "immanent in the world of values...
...How can one behave consistently if behavior is inherently contradictory...
...Surely, the first problem a socialist should raise is: Would not a regime which systematically murders all dissidents become an obstacle to the development of socialist democracy...
...but we also act contrary to this principle if we tolerate them, since we thus offer them the opportunity to take power and to suppress the practice of tolerance...
...It was not merely inconsistent, but plainly insane, for Hitler to order the extermination of skilled Jewish workers during the war, when the labor shortage in Nazi Germany was acute...
...One gathers from this that the only consistent men who have appeared on the recent political scene are the totalitarians...
...Yet Kolakowski's praise of inconsistency, seen in a political perspective, seems less strange...
...But whatever the merit of the motives that prompted Kolakowski to assume his position, I cannot see that any good can be served by bad arguments...
...But that problem is made no less difficult by the a priori presumption that those who are committed to a given aim must, if they are consistent, murder anyone who dissents...
...Whatever his aims, there are certain means which a consistent man may reject...
...Consistency is, after all, an honorific term and I am not ready to award it to totalitarianism without an inspection of the historical record...
...The significant problem for those who face the danger of a growing intolerant movement is the effect of suppression on their goal: i.e., the preservation of tolerance as a social practice...
...He first argued that the consistent man is willing to use any means whatsoever to achieve his aims...
...But if contradiction is inherent in the world of human behavior, it surely follows that a consistent policy of action is impossible...
...Kolakowski's position is a belated implicit recognition that fidelity to a principle, as well as to an aim, is a form of consistency...
...Kolakowski admits that his choice of consistency in basic human situations renders his thesis inconsistent...
...Why Kolakowski singles out only those cases where consistency is required as "basic human situations" is a mystery to me...
...Having interpreted consistency in action as the willingness to use any means whatsoever, he concludes by characterizing the renunciation of certain means as an exemplification of "perfect consistency...
...Kolakowski constructs an unfortunate metaphysic to prop up his praise of inconsistency...
...Hence, he can with utter blind consistency ignore the argument that the consequence of his position is to offer an intolerant group "the opportunity to take power and suppress the practice of tolerance...
...However, if one distinguishes toler ante as an aim from tolerance as a principle, the "eternal" antinomy disappears...
...if the antagonists were otherwise animated by a fanatical spirit of consistency, they would just have to keep killing each other off until one side was wiped out...
...He does not consistently prefer inconsistency...
...They must be sensitive to the concrete interdependence of ends and means...
...But if one ignores the metaphysical snare Kolakowski unwittingly sets for himself, his target is plain to see...
...What Kolakowski must show is that murder of one's opponents is in fact a means to democratic socialism...
...The consequences of our actions may not be easy to estimate...
...But the man who is genuinely disturbed by this question should not be calmed by Kolakowski's answer...
...In that case, those who share Kolakowski's humane position will be consistent with their principles but contradict their aims...
...The fact that Kolakowski cites examples of consistent action muddles his position even more...
...While those who, hardening their hearts, stick to their aims, will be inconsistent with their principles...
...Consider the case of a soldier who is dedicated to the war aims of his government, but can only obtain crucial military information by torturing a prisoner of war...
...To argue that he is necessarily caught in an inconsistency is like saying that those who relish cold chicken necessarily contradict themselves because they must first heat the chicken by cooking it, in order to eat it cold...
...But whatever the deficiencies of this view, it is certainly not contradictory...
...A democratic socialist, interested in the problem of means and ends, will, no doubt, be shocked by Kolakowski's claim, but why should it convince him...
...The problem Kolakowski raises is a familiar one...
...Sup pose he adopts the position that it is necessary to suppress an intolerant group because there is a real danger that it will take power...
...If we reduce to silence such opinions and movements, we act contrary to the principle of tolerance...
Vol. 11 • September 1964 • No. 4
