Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Conservative Liberal and the Illusions of Modernity
by Daniel J. Mahoney
Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2005
218 pages; soft cover $15
Many pundits allege that the latter half of the twentieth century is notable for its relative paucity of towering intellectual figures. ISI Books’ new Library of Modern Thinkers argues that the promulgation of that belief lies in the fact that many impressive minds are simply obscure. In Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Conservative Liberal and the Illusions of Modernity, the fifth book in the Library of Modern Thinkers series, Daniel J. Mahoney argues that the ideas of this difficult-to-classify political philosopher are indispensable to a fuller understanding of the nature of modern politics and morality.
Political scholars Dennis Hale and Marc Landy have dubbed de Jouvenel (1903-1987) “the least famous of the great political thinkers of the twentieth century.” Mahoney portrays de Jouvenel as a brilliant thinker who addressed issues with a subtlety and thoroughness unmatched by most of the celebrated intellectual figures of his day. The paradox in the subtitle (“conservative liberal”) underlines de Jouvenel’s determination to follow “a principled middle path between reactionary nostalgia and progressive illusions.” De Jouvenel’s inability to be easily politically categorized led him to be dismissed as irrelevant or ignored by many pundits.
If de Jouvenel had such a perceptive mind, then why is he a peripheral figure in today’s intellectual discourse? Mahoney suggests that at pivotal moments in his career, de Jouvenel was his own worst enemy. As a young man, de Jouvenel was just starting out as a journalist and tried to gain fame by interviewing some of the leading political figures of his day. His interviews with Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain advanced his reputation considerably, but he made a mistake with lifelong career reverberations when he interviewed Hitler in 1936. At the time he considered the article a triumph of investigative journalism, but despite the fact that he had no sympathy for Nazism and worked for the French Resistance during WWII, the interview forever stigmatized de Jouvenel.
De Jouvenel’s lack of fame is due to more than an ill-fated article from early in his career. Mahoney occasionally berates de Jouvenel for his “lack of character,” a charge that seems to blame de Jouvenel for not being omnipotent. Additionally, de Jouvenel is often castigated for his attempts to “reinvent himself.” Late in his life, de Jouvenel partially moved away from some (but not all) of the “conservative liberal” views that made him an intellectual force to be reckoned with and instead moved towards some leftist groups, even going so far as to express some empathy with socialist and communist causes. Mahoney is not enthusiastic about the alterations in de Jouvenel’s public image, but he believes that such attitude changes should be interpreted as a mild identity crisis, not as a repudiation of the scholar’s earlier work.
The critical stance de Jouvenel takes towards modernism is based on his criticism of twentieth-century politics. Those who attended the 2004 Chesterton Conference will likely remember a debate between Dale Ahlquist and Mark Pilon on the merits and shortcomings of the French Revolution. Since then, the debate has occasionally reemerged onto the pages of Gilbert Magazine. Mahoney enters the debate swinging both fists, coming down squarely on the side of those who see the French Revolution as a tragic mistake. Mahoney uses de Jouvenel’s musings to argue that the French Revolution helped to perpetuate the great crises of the twentieth century by glorifying institutionalized violence, mob rule, and irreligion, thereby inspiring the world wars and totalitarian systems that besieged Europe. It is insinuated that the aforementioned plagues are an integral part of the modern political system, and that a preference to listen to inflammatory demagogues rather than reasonable and reflective political scholars like de Jouvenel.
Chesterton and his views on distributism are mentioned briefly in a section describing de Jouvenel’s views on economics and calls for redistribution of property. Mahoney thinks highly of Chesterton, but argues that distributism never became widely popular in twentieth century Europe despite widespread calls for economic change because it was insufficiently radical. Distributism does not appeal to people who “demand the revolutionary creation of a new man.” People were more interested in a utopian future than an idyllic past, and therefore turned to ideologies like socialism or communism in order to satisfy their desire for a complete restructuring of the societal structure.
This book focuses mostly on de Jouvenel’s work, Mahoney’s personal critique of his writings, and the opinions of other scholars of de Jouvenel’s work. There are a lot of unexplained technical references that will only be understood by experts. By focusing almost entirely on the man’s ideas and providing a relative paucity of biographical information, the book does an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of his philosophy and outlining his role in twentieth century intellectual discourse, but it only supplies a glimpse into the psyche that formulated impressive political musings.
This is not so much a book about a man as it is a book about a voice crying out in the wilderness. Mahoney predicts that because he was a “great defender of European liberty,” de Jouvenel “will be read long after Sartre, Althusser, Bourdieu, and Foucault have been relegated to the realm of ideological criticism.” This may be so, but this book will appeal mainly to people interested in ideological criticism and comparative political theory.
–Chris Chan
This review first appeared in Gilbert!
