Ethics and Politics
Konrad, George
Amoral being looks on other human beings as ends and not means. Is there such a thing as a moral being? Shrewd behavior implies inducing another to do what suits me. The other's intention is...
...We are not competent to pronounce judgment over our own moral performance...
...There is need of an intermediary cordon between NATO and the Soviet Union that is guaranteed by international treaties...
...For a great many people it is not unpleasant to identify exclusively with their own nation and to turn a deaf ear to the truths and justice of another, even rejecting an exchange of ideas...
...International terrorism and fascists new and old do not rest content with being passive observers...
...When initiating the transformation we took on the responsibility of causing much trouble to others...
...People will lose their living, they will be left with a sense of bewilderment and of having been pillaged...
...The instrument of successful politics is as large as possible a consensus, and its dominant instrument is not force but persuasion and seduction...
...If the new democracies, as a result of majority pressure, continue to limit the cultural autonomy of the minorities in the manner of the previous regime, if multicultural reality is forced into a monocultural Procrustean bed, if the majority is not generous toward the minorities, if Jew-baiting grows beyond graffiti into the press, if the right to differ is disputed, if communist censorship is replaced by nationalist censorship, if the practice of customs officials and environmentdamaging works close to the frontier continue to sow suspicion among neighbors, if a government listens only to its own technical advisers and commits ecological aggression against a limitrophe nation...
...Let us suspend an answer...
...Will we leave things to local intimidation, which can destroy rights bit by bit, without shedding blood...
...perhaps it will be replaced not just by democracy but also by nationalism...
...Neutrality does not mean indifference, but a choice of civic—to replace military— action...
...They know that deciding means falling into sin, very much so if they are out of luck...
...A state economy can transform itself into a market economy Copyright 1990 by George Konrad...
...A politician who insists on seeing things as they are will never forget that you cannot have your cake and eat it too, and that the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
...The odds are on the right-of-center national parties in the parliamentary elections in the eastern Central European belt as a whole...
...Nationalism and Intellectuals Central and East European democratic movements successfully cooperated in the dissolution of the one-party dictatorships...
...If 1990 turns out to be the year of the nationalist follow-up, that would mean a botching of our chances for our own autonomy...
...It is likely that democratic changes will benefit more people than they will hurt but this sort of quantitative consideration falls outside the purview of ethics...
...There is need of a Central European federation made up of small nations that is both neutral and democratic...
...Let us leave it to future historians to decide whether the end of history has arrived, and power and the spirit, politics and morality are about to be reconciled...
...The majorities pathetically insist on the limitation of minority rights, and feel deeply offended if the minorities insist on their own...
...The new political class started as moralists but will soon become professionals...
...Nazism was followed by communism...
...the opportunity and responsibility of exercising power is theirs...
...Civic society marches into parliament...
...For the I the Thou is simultaneously end and means...
...Nothing now stands in the way of those who belong to the party of the mind, unless it be an ideological inner censorship and divergent loyalties...
...We are beginning to recognize the challenge of an integration that spreads to all points of the compass...
...Shrewd behavior implies inducing another to do what suits me...
...Forces are concentrated on creating multiparty institutions and genuine parliamentary elections...
...Imperial Headquarters in Moscow did not license demonstrations and pogroms...
...Superfluous nationalization cost a great deal, necessary denationalization perhaps less, but that, too, is a great deal...
...we will do to them what we do not want done to us...
...Adieu communism...
...perhaps the former will make a comeback, in a different way...
...It is a vain hope that political subjects should not fight, that they should not compete with each other, but it is feasible that the race be subjected to certain strictly formal rules of the game...
...Every kind of minority will do as the scapegoat, as the butt of manipulated anger, as the cause of general decline at a time of crisis...
...The spirit of liberal democracy is, in comparison with communism and nationalism, less prone to violence...
...The young minds ever more generally recognize joint Central and East European reflection and learning as the prospect of creative work...
...Amoral being looks on other human beings as ends and not means...
...The earlier political bureaucracy has lost its nerve and is ready to serve the new elite...
...it is an open question whether they will continue as citizens when they become parliamentarians and government ministers...
...Could it be that the minorities are not sufficiently tactful in 474 • DISSENT Nationalism and Intellectuals the timing of their demands...
...What is a good marriage if not an eternal game of subtle politics played by husband and wife...
...Does this mean the end of 476 • DISSENT critical talk and the coming of moralist apologetics...
...Supporting each other we strengthen our own sovereignty to allow ourselves to grow in our own natural environment...
...Can those who defend their rights ever be sufficiently tactful in the eyes of those who offend against them...
...It was not permitted to shoot off one's mouth in the High Street, and in the provinces quiet was the name of the game...
...these however must not be allowed to suspend the continuous Central European conversation whose aim is to use ourselves to weave Europe eastwards...
...only at great expense...
...They cannot avoid the question: Can one occupy the place of the bureaucracy without becoming a bureaucrat...
...The new national fundamentalists believe in the fight...
...Genuine insults and injuries exist...
...It no longer seems impossible that the day of the pogrom, of the demon's sabbath, will come in our region...
...I do not think that efficient but innocent politics can even be imagined...
...Why should we imagine that history is about to make a new start in our case...
...Can democratic federalism, the Western and rational palliative of national conflicts, operate in these surroundings...
...Our lives are at the same time both moral and sinful...
...Political ideas have cost a great many lives in the twentieth century...
...This region is now in a state of self-definition...
...Published by arrangement with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc...
...It could be that the transformation taking place will benefit the country as a whole but that there will also be many losers...
...We who wish to maintain yesterday's coordinated opposition in tomorrow's coordinated making of Europe as friends think of ourselves as particularly committed to such aims...
...Consumer demand for nationalist demagogy is limited...
...that is, if deeds do not accord with principles, then we will more closely resemble the Central European past than that democratic confederation imagined as a future solution that could then be an intermediate stage leading to the European integration of our nations...
...Swastikas and Jew-baiting put in an appearance...
...On the way from dictatorship to democracy the similarity of our aims and anxieties makes a continuous exchange imperative...
...Honest politicians reckon with the fact that their decisions favor some and damage the interests of others, and that the latter are likely to name the decision that hurts them a crime...
...We are fatally settled in proximity...
...Thoughtful Central Europeans are aware that success is possible even if failure is the more likely outcome...
...The match can still be won, we have not spoiled things yet, but the possibility of messing it all up is already present in outline...
...it is impossible for us to ignore each other...
...what can one do about them...
...They would confront principles and laws with practice and, although no weapons would be at their disposal to enforce their judgment, they could bring moral pressure to bear on organizations and even governments...
...Communism is passing but the dregs remain: isolation, the reflex of distrust that recognizes but a single truth...
...No outside taboo exists...
...But there is no such thing as an innocent idea...
...Then we saw two crowds confronting each other on the square, with soldiers between them, the larger crowd desiring to have a go at the smaller one...
...That is the human drama, and with vital differences of scale this is true of all politics, including that which intellectuals in Eastern Europe obtained, thanks to their writings and their spiritual deeds, even if they did not desire it...
...It is possible that the dissidents have pioneered the way for the nationalist bureaucracies, and that the latter will punish them for it...
...Will we lobby the Great Powers, telling tales on each other, as we used to...
...The intellectuals of our region have outgrown their minority...
...In opposition they could count on each other's intellectual and practical support and solidarity...
...We were able to witness demonstrations, many thousands of faces in full cry, clenched fists raised high, no longer cursing the tyrant but their neighbors, the minorities...
...What will discipline the newly democratic Eastern European states...
...Could it be that the intellectuals lose their clearsightedness precisely now when they have taken over power...
...they must however accept responsibility for the consequences as crimes caused by negligence...
...that's what they were trained for, to be officiously of service...
...This is most true of nationalism and communism, which have sometimes exchanged places...
...Self-respect compels expansion...
...Is there such a thing as a moral being...
...Nineteen hundred and eighty-nine was the year of the democratic new beginning...
...In earlier ages the Great Powers controlled the region, and after the Second World War the organized bloc curbed the various nationalisms in the region...
...But there is no sort of supranational sovereignty in Eastern Europe now...
...their desire is to defeat others, not to understand them...
...Communism has had its day in eastern Central Europe...
...Conflicts of interest exist...
...One competes, expands, conquers, rather than be a loser who cannot defend his or her own interests...
...Our intellectual friends are ready to undertake the practice of power and accept the responsibility that the turning of the political wheel of fortune has presented them with...
...What is more interesting is that the odds for our region were never before as good as they are now...
...Power wants to grow, every organization is happy when it is growing...
...FALL • 1990 475 Nationalism and Intellectuals There is no denying that lately intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe have achieved extraordinary powers...
...Without politics, we would still stand around the entrance of a cave, occasionally clubbing each other...
...Passions are let loose on the fringe of politics, anonymous letters and heavy-breathing telephone calls threaten political terror...
...the more westernized and bettereducated people are less receptive...
...Making friends is more difficult if the dominant intellectuals of the new democracies, in or out of government, do not commit themselves to the unimpaired human rights of all their fellow citizens, including, as of primary importance, the right to the use of a native language, in education as well, from the nursery to university...
...There is a danger, however, that a new isolation is in the offing and will come before citizens have had a chance to rehearse the morality of democracy that knows how to practice self-respect and courtesy at the same time...
...The new questions have to be formulated...
...They have overcome the censorship of the communist bureaucracy, created their own institutions, moving in on the state and the media...
...We relate as politicians...
...It is also true that at a time when many organized prejudices compete and expand they predictably balance each other, and none will prove able to enlist the majority in its service...
...Thanks to politics we can coexist in competition...
...Translated from the Hungarian by RUDOLF FISCHER FALL • 1990 • 477...
...The nationalisms do not recognize any sort of universal code superior to them...
...Do we want to be a healthy component of this continent, or an unhappy area of inflammation...
...Civilization would be impossible without politics...
...They know of no higher principle than national wrongs and the national interest as interpreted by them...
...Time is perhaps the only handicap, as also the invasion of the new political class and of the business world, which is now conquering the press and publishing...
...The inventory of an age submerges like a large ship, and with it a cargo of illusions and cynicisms...
...Those who initiate political processes can never know where they will lead...
...A higher authority must be available, a Central European transnational body, a court of arbitration and conciliation, where independent persons issue opinions on the conflicts of the region on the basis of a jointly accepted democratic charter...
...More's the pity...
...In Central Europe liberalism has done the least damage and has produced the most good...
...It is the latter two who are responsible for the gulag and extermination camps...
...It is up to us to choose between divisive nationalism and a democratic federalism that assures equal dignity to every person and community...
...The other's intention is to get me to do what suits him or her...
...Eastern Europe has now extracted herself from the bloc, the Soviet troops are withdrawing, and what one has to fear now is no longer foreign armor but local drunks, armed with crowbars, incited to hatred, who may well be paid for their rampages by chauvinist organizations...
...Minds are opening up, a certain moral awakening can be discerned, public interest is on the move and ready to weigh pros and cons...
Vol. 37 • September 1990 • No. 4
