Contrasts between the Romantic Syndrome and the Enlightenment Syndrome: Political Theory

Abstract

In this chapter we continue our study of influence of the various romantic biases defined in Chapter IV. We shall now examine their influence on the formulation of political theory. It is important, here as elsewhere, to distinguish between what is affected, and what is not affected, by these biases. All sorts of complex factors in a man’s heredity and environment, we may suppose, go to determine whether he becomes a poet or a philosopher or a political theorist; the biases defined here do not seem to be among these factors. Rather, they determine, if he is a poet, the kind of imagery he prefers and if he is a metaphysician, the kinds of metaphysical formulas he finds congenial. So, if he is a political theorist, they determine the kinds of arguments he uses to justify his politics. In a word, we are not claiming that our axes explain why one man is a Marxist and another is an Eisenhower Republican, or a liberal, or a conservative, or a reactionary, or a utopian socialist. What we do assert is that liberals in politics will defend their liberalism by quite different arguments, depending on whether they happen to have a romantic or an enlightenment configuration of biases.