Cracks in the ice cap
GEOFFREY BARRACLOUGII
Looking back from the present it is not diffi- cult to see that 1951 was a turning-point in British postwar history. It marked, we all know, the return of the Conservatives to power. More important, it saw the close of an era and the demise of a philosophy. In 1951 the long reign of Harold Laski came to an end.
Today, when Laski is a half-forgotten figure, a ghost in the grove of Academe, it may seem far-fetched and fanciful to speak of a Laski era. In 1945 it was different. It may have been an accident that Laski was Chairman of the Labour party when Labour swept the polls in 1945. But ever since the 'thirties he had been a power behind the Labour throne. People spoke of him darkly as an eminence grise; in one of his more imaginative moments. Beaverbrook depicted him as head of a future British Gestapo. It was nonsense, but it was also a sort of back-handed compliment. In fact, Laski's influence rested on his work at the Lon- don School of Economics, which he made into a household name both at home and abroad. Fiery African nationalists sat at his feet, im- bibing (as an American professor put it) 'the "-isms",' the main '-ism' being marxism. Laski was a marxist (though never a communist) with all the fearsome overtones that word carried in these far-off days; and he de- lighted to compose blueprints for a better future, which percolated down through the Left Book Club into every home that could afford half a crown a month. Without much exag- geration we can say that it was Laski's brain- child, the Left Book Club, that carried Labour to victory in 1945.
By 1951 the euphoria was over. We do not need to inquire why. 'Laski-ism' was dead -- for all time. And, by a curious coincidence, the year which saw Labour displaced by the Con- servatives saw Laski succeeded at the London School of Economics by Michael Oakeshott. One does not need to be a `Laski-ite' to see that more was involved than the usual academic re- shuffle. The replacement of a marxist activist by a philosophic conservative had wider implications. In fact, Oakeshott's influence. though less publicised, has been in many ways as pervasive as Laski's; and the appearance of a volume of essays issued to mark the occasion of his retirement provides a welcome oppor- tunity to lake stock of the seventeen years of his ascendancy and measure their impact. It IS no accident. 1 would suggest, that the LSE iS
as much in the news today—as notorious, if you like—as it was in the heyday of Laski's in-
fluence. If Laski made the LSE a centre of the left, it would hardly be too "much to claim that Oakeshott's tenure df Laski's chair—contrary, needless to say, to all his intentions—has con- tributed in no small measure to making it a centre of the 'New Left.'
I have used the word 'contribute' advisedly. The relationship between theory and practice is mysterious and obscure, and it would be an exaggeration to suggest that philosophising in the university classroom or the more esoteric periodicals can directly shape a climate of opinion. Moreover, Oakeshott's influence does not stand alone. Popper, Hayek, Aron, Berlin and Butterfield—to say nothing of a progeny of epigoni—helped to shape the intellectual climate between 1951 and 1968; and a full treatment would have to take them into account as well. And finally, it would be absurd to treat the current unrest in the LSE in isolation. Evi- dently it is part of a world-wide movement which reaches from Berkeley and San Francisco to Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and even Moscow. Nevertheless it seems to me that the case of Oakeshott is symptomatic, and it is as a symp- tom that it should be examined.
Briefly, Oakeshott's role, from 1951 to 1968, was to epitomise the reaction against all that Laski stood for. He exemplified a certain kind of conservatism, though whether it is the con- servatism of the British party system is another and more disputable question. His subtle critical mind took to pieces the postulates of Laski's political philosophy, and left nothing standing. Philosophically and historically, he destroyed the assumptions of 'rationalism' in politics—in essence, the belief in the power of ideology to create a new and better society. In Laski's case this was marxist Ideology; and there is no doubt that Oakeshott's attack had marxism chiefly in mind. By 1951 this assault probably was overdue; I do not think myself that Laski's marxism stands up well to scrutiny. The real question is what Oakeshott put in its place. Criticism is all very well; but where does it leave us, or, more important, into what impasse does it conduct us?
Oakeshott's reply to ideology was tradition, or what he calls the 'common recognition' on the part of a society 'of a manner of attending to its arrangements'; and it is no accident that the theme of tradition looms large in this book of essays. But tradition, as Oakeshott himself once wrote, 'is 'a tricky thing to get to know'; and the burden of this volume—paradoxical since it is written by admirers —is that Oake- shott's conception of tradition—indeed, his whole scheme of thought—is muddled, 'frus- tratingly sketchy,' mysterious,' marred by 'systematic elusiveness,' incomplete' and 'ambivalent.' Tradition, Mr Pocock shows, is every bit as much a part of the arsenal of the left as, differently interpreted, it is of the right. And Mr Minogue shows that Oakeshott fails to solve the dilemma of all traditionalists: 'either they rationalise their tradition, in which case it ceases to be tradition . .. or else they refuse to rationalise it' and become 'the upholders of a mystical trust in an existing political arrangement widely regarded as bankrupt.'
Nevertheless, Oakeshott's marriage of con- venience to traditionalism is the key to his thought, on politics, history and education. For him education is 'initiation in a heritage,' not rational criticism of that heritage; its purpose is the inculcation of 'the traditional style of be- baviour.' History, far from being 'a storehouse of practical wisdom,' is 'wholly without rele- vance to practical life'—a 'mistress' (according to one of Oakeshott's most quoted epigrams) of whom the historian 'never tires' but whom he 'never expects to talk sense.' Politics is the art (another much quoted phrase) of keeping afloat on an even keel in a 'boundless and bottom- less sea' and 'seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behaviour' —an art which can only be 'imbibed' through long apprenticeship' and 'never taught.' Philo- sophy, Oakeshott resolutely maintains, 'has nothing to offer' to the conduct of ordinary everyday affairs; principles are 'rationalist aberrations.' In the end what matter are 'the im- ponderables of experience' and these are the product not of concepts but of 'nuances' and All this bears a discernible relationship to a certain conception (or should we say miscon- ception?) of conservatism; but in spite of Oake- shott's contacts with the Bow Group (and at times with the SPECTATOR) it has little visible connection with anything observable in the Con- servative party today. Conservatism today— both the Heath and the Powell versions—has travelled far beyond a vague Burkean faith in tradition and suspicion of theory. It was, after all, a former Conservative minister who wrote, not long ago, that what Britain needs is not 'continuity with relatively minor changes'—the practical outcome of what Oakeshott advocates —'but discontinuity and radical change.' (Post- War Britain C. M. Woodhouse). This, curiously enough, is also the view of the radical left; but one of the significant features of the current political situation is the way people on both right and left are searching for what Wood- house calls 'cracks in the ice cap.' In doing so they are reacting against many things, but one of these things is surely the deadening (or, as one contributor to this symposium calls it, the 'dampening') influence of `Oakeshottian' philo- sophy. Underlying Oakeshott's views, there is, as W. H. Walsh observes, a deep pervasive 'pessimism,' the fear that 'whenever there is change' it will be 'for the worse.' Looking back, it seems to me, it is small wonder that seven- teen years of negation and pessimism have provoked a reaction—and, indeed, a violent reaction—among the students exposed to it.
Consider for a moment the position of the student embarking on a course of history who is confronted with the statement that historical analysis leaves the past 'totally unintelligible,' or that 'there is no reason to think that history makes sense in any fundamental way at all.' How is he meant to react? Or the young man studying politics who learns that 'theoretical thinking' is 'irrelevant to practical judgment, and may be misleading as well'? For people who desire to be creative and effective, not simply spectators of events, these are counsels of despair; and we should not be surprised if they react accordingly—if, in other words, they proceed to demonstrate by sit-down strikes and catcalls whenever Mr Wilson appears, that they at least can do something—however incoherent —while the Faculty sits huddled in committee- rooms, like Kerensky's government in 1917, passing resolutions and splitting hairs. Their political sense may be immature; but at least— as Woodhouse says—they have one, which is more than can be said for their elders.
We can see today that the Oakeshott era has come to an end. At the start of 1969, 1968 stands out as a turning-point, in much the same way as 1951. We can also see the reason why. Oakeshott's pessit aism, like that of so many of his contemporarin, was the product of an anxiety bred by lye 'thirties and 'forties, by the slump, the risO 3f Fascism, the dreadful moment in 1940 when Bri..n 'stood alone'—a fear that the structure of civilisation, so intricate and fragile, was toppling. Oakeshott's mistake—in this like his hero Hobbes, and like Burke as well—was to take this temporary situation for permanent, and make it the basis for an all- embracing philosophy. In fact, Oakeshott's pes- simism no more embraced the whole of reality than Laski's superabundant optimism. In any case, it was repugnant to a generation which bad experienced none of these things, and was far more impressed by the vast potentialities opened up by science. Who can be surprised if they lost patience? We may not like all the manifestations of their reaction; at this stage it is almost inevitably chaotic and disconcert- ing; but this does not mean that' it was not necessary and will not ultimately be healthy.
The burden of Oakeshott's message—like that of Aron and others of his stamp—was the end of ideology. There is a certain irony in the fact that the outcome of his years of ascend- ancy is the enthronement of another ideologue: Herbert Marcuse. I am not particularly im- pressed by Marcuse's one-dimensional man, but we need only survey the intellectual history of the preceding seventeen years to see how he came to power. But the change of mood is not only intellectual or confined to intellectual circles. Scientists, technocrats, the managerial
clas in business, are as deeply. affected as students, though in different ways. And right as much as left. It is a new generation asserting itself, and one' with which both Conservatives and Labour have still to come to terms.
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