CESDC - the Politico-Cultural Dimension Prof. DDr. Christian STADLER

Agenda On Notion & Nature of the “Politico-Cultural” Classical Political Concepts – Plato Classical Political Concepts – Aristotle Classical Political Concepts – Cicero Modern Political Concepts – Machiavelli Modern Political Concepts – Spinoza Modern Political Concepts – Fichte Hypothesis: “The citizen is a soldier in civilian”

On Notion & Nature of the “Politico-Cultural” Political means “centred, motivated, oriented” at the “polis”, the basic community of people organising their living-together based on shared laws, values, virtues – and not (only) on shared interests or enemies. Cultural means that these common laws, values, virtues are based on tradition and transcendence – and not (only) on convention and comfort. Politico-cultural describes a normative dimension, which is founding and founded in the political experience of broken traditions and revolutionary changes of a community which condenses more and more into its cultural heritage.

Classical Political Concepts – Plato Plato may be considered as the founding father of European political thought. In his “Politeia” he developed an utopian concept of a state - based on pure reason. Within this concept, the soldier (as part of the “guardians”) is highly elitist and professional. The soldiers represent the basis for the political leadership and are no part of the citizen’s community In his “Nomoi” he gave up the utopian project and developed a more “realistic” state, based on reasonable laws instead to pure reason itself. The soldiers are now part of the society which has to be fit from morning to evening in order to meet the challenge of the “war all against all”, as Plato expressed the nature of International Relations.

Classical Political Concepts – Aristotle Aristotle was a major student at Plato’s Academy. Nevertheless he did not follow the main teachings of Plato – especially his – utopian – theory of the Ideas. He was more analysis oriented, argued inductively, based on empirical evidence. In his political theory he argues from the experience of the Greek cities and their constitutions of his time. For Aristotle, the rich male people are both politically and militarily full citizens. Who does not fight has not to vote – because the right to vote is based on the military commitment to the polis-community. This is one of the reasons, why women – e.g. in Switzerland – had for such a long time no right to vote in Europe – due to the status quo of Aristotle

Classical Political Concepts – Cicero Cicero is one of the key thinkers in the field of law, values and virtues in the European philosophical tradition. Although he is not the genius of originality, he compiled a fine blend of crucial thinking of Hellenistic and Roman tradition – of Stoa and of Imperium. His main works – “De officiis”, “De re publica” and “De legibus” – have a similar topical structure to the Platonic writings – it’s about a Republic (Politeia) and about the Laws (Nomoi). “De officiis” is a transformation of Hellenistic-Stoic Ethics into imperial moral reflections. What Cicero declared as “good” and “valuable” – that is still today a core momentum of our laws, values and virtues. And therefore many moral arguments of e.g. the US are based in the imperial reflections of Cicero.

Modern Political Concepts – Machiavelli With Machiavelli one can state without exaggeration that the the Modern Times in political thinking were starting. He overcame in his “Principe” the medieval concept of the “morally excellent” leader and introduced the morally neutral optimization of power - based on reason, terror and totalitarianism. In his further major works – “Discorsi” – and “The Art of War” we find a different Machiavelli: in these books he is the theorist of the modern republic and its citizen based military system. Machiavelli stated, that republics are politically – and also militarily – more aggressive than monarchies without citizen participation in the power!

Modern Political Concepts – Spinoza With Spinoza the rationalistic political philosophy starts in Europe – as opponent to Thomas Hobbes, who argues only materialistically. The human being is for Spinoza only a “modification” of the all-one substance (god – nature), but on the other hand EVERY human being is a “modification” of the all- one substance (god – nature). Therefore the human being is really free and autonomous, if he understands that his truth is to be reasonable, not driven by “animalistic appetite”, but reason and reflection. In order to organize one’s social life in a reasonable way, one has to establish an effective rule of (reasonable) law and a democracy. Such a freedom based and securing democracy of free citizens has a “natural right” to fight all its enemies pre-emptively with toughest military power.

Modern Political Concepts – Fichte Fichte is considered not only as one of the leading philosophers of German Idealism, but also as the founding father of “socialism” and “nationalism”. As far as “nationalism” is concerned, he was as critical towards Germans and Germany as were e.g. Hölderlin or Nietzsche! As far as “socialism” is concerned, he developed indeed the concept of the modern welfare-state half a century before Marx did so, but the intention of such a welfare state was for him the task to fulfil one’s ethical duties, based on transcendence: the fact the GOD is the reality of freedom. Therefore he argued for a freedom army based on free citizens who prove their freedom with military service!

Hypothesis: “The Citizen is a Soldier in Civilian” Taking all these classical political thinkers into consideration there could be formulated the following hypothesis for the “politico-cultural reflection group” Opposite to the principle e.g. of the German Bundeswehr of the “Soldier, being a Citizen in Uniform”, the philosophical reflection lets us believe, that in reality the Citizen is a Soldier in Civilian. So far my proposal for tomorrow’s reflection group on politico-cultural dimensions of “Soldier Citizen – Citizen Soldier”. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION!