Common Knowledge

Shweder, Richard A.

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-056

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Stanley Katz (who now chairs the editorial board of this journal) invited the intellectual community to reflect on its own history of involvement in public affairs and to make good on its mistakes. This essay examines a single case of intellectuals involving themselves in public affairs and some of the difficulties in saying and evaluating exactly what happened. Critical attention is given to Anthropological Intelligence , a book by David Price published in 2008, which concerns the involvement of anthropologists in wartime activities during World War II and argues that even that "just war" left an indelible stain on the moral fabric of the discipline.

Cohen, Mitchell

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-057

This article explores the problem of the political responsibilities of intellectuals and philosophers through an appraisal of Michael Walzer's work on the idea of "connected criticism." The author elaborates the main elements of this theory, shows how it approaches various thinkers, like Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre, and shows where it fits into American intellectual life, particularly the intellectual history of Dissent Magazine and the democratic Left. Walzer's idea of a connected social critic contrasts to Sartre's idea of an "engaged critic." The article also examines Walzer's theory in light of some of the arguments made by "commonsense" moral philosophy, such as those of Irving Howe, John Rawls, Theodor Adorno, and Leo Strauss. Cohen defines Walzer's theory as part of a social democratic approach that also can serve in part as an antidote to intellectual hubris. Finally, this article presents a critique of Edward Said's understanding of intellectuals in his Representations of the Intellectual . The author argues that Said's book misrepresents Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons . Cohen suggests that there are radical differences between Said's description of this novel's central character, Bazarov, and the world in which he lives, and those created by Turgenev. Said's approach is evaluated in relation to the notion of connected criticism and some criticisms of connected criticism are offered.

Perl, Jeffrey M.; McDaniel, W. Caleb; Kraugerud, Hanne Andrea; Ramberg, Bjorn Torgrim; Fricker, Christophe; Plotkin, Sidney; Dandelion, Pink; Mulsow, Martin

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-058

In this introduction to the fourth part of an ongoing symposium on quietism, Perl, the editor of the sponsoring journal Common Knowledge , remarks on a new question raised in this latest grouping of articles. Can there be such a thing as a " mezza voce quietism"? Can there be activist quietists or quietist activists or active teachers of quietism without self-contradiction? Perl takes Gandhi and "passive resistance" as his own test case, concluding that Gandhi was a teacher of quietism and that satyagraha was a type of moral education directed at those (first the South Africans, then, more momentously, the British in India) whose spirits were imperiled by their self-confident certainty and whose manners were spoiled by their indelicacy and intrusiveness.

McDaniel, W. Caleb

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-059

In common usage, quietism is often conflated with passivity, and pacifism is often equated with quietism. As a result, pacifism has often been confused with passivity. In the antebellum United States, John Brown and other militant abolitionists who endorsed the use of violent antislavery tactics criticized nonviolent reformers like William Lloyd Garrison as men of words instead of men of action. Garrison and his allies rejected the equation of their pacifism with quietism, but the charge that Garrisonian abolitionists were more passive than Brown still survives. In fact, the most recent scholarship on John Brown has tended to reinforce Brown's own division of the movement into active reformers like himself and less radical pacifists like Garrison. In this article, McDaniel challenges this polarized view of the abolitionist movement, which is partly the product of the common polarization of quietism and activism. He shows that both Garrison and Brown were complex icons, neither of whom can be easily categorized as a quietist or activist. A careful look at the antislavery movement suggests, therefore, that pacifism and quietism are not synonymous. Moreover, a careful look at Brown suggests that quietism and activism are not antonyms. On some definitions of quietism, McDaniel argues, even a violent activist like Brown can exhibit quietistic aspects. This article therefore challenges, as well, the common connotation of quietism as inaction.

Kraugerud, Hanne Andrea; Ramberg, Bjorn Torgrim

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-060

Is Richard Rorty a philosophical quietist? We consider different stances Rorty has assumed toward philosophy, arguing that on the face of it there is no conflict between them. However, Rorty's extensive writing on the topic of truth suggests a tension between Rorty's own recommendation of "benign neglect" of metaphysics and his actual philosophical practice. The topic of truth actually serves Rorty's philosophical purposes well, allowing him to change the direction of conversation from a concern with the nature of concepts to a direct concern with human practice. The switch Rorty envisions is captured in the emblematic figure of the ironist, and we consider the ironist variety of quietism accordingly. For Rorty, we conclude, quietism is a contingent, conditional, strategic stance. Rorty's aim is to change the direction of a strand of philosophical conversation, not to free us from philosophical illusion or to bring philosophy to an end.

Fricker, Christophe

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-061

This article deals with the question of whether Ernst Jünger's long story Auf den Marmorklippen (1939)—the publication of the text itself as well as its contents—should be interpreted as political action or quietist retreat. The author examines the notions that the text advocates fatalism and escapism, both of which could be seen as tenets of (anti-)Catholic Quietism, of which Fénelon is cited as a practitioner. A close reading shows that Jünger's protagonists value their carefree and quiet lives before the story's wars and only join the militant Mauretanian order because of its promise of serene detachment. Jünger's world is imbued with manifestations of the divine—much unlike the Quietists'—and as such is worthy of the protagonists' sustained intellectual attention. They arrive at a thorough appreciation of the prevailing social and political situation and develop a new language to capture it. They understand that resistance against the ruling party is futile but do not reject their own responsibility for their friends and neighbors. The article concludes that Jünger presents the protagonists' escape at the end of the story as a temporary solution. He writes a complex narrative that leaves its interpretation and application to his readers. He neither fashions himself as a national redeemer-poet nor do his protagonists content themselves with a reclusive life forgetful of their surroundings.

Plotkin, Sidney

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-062

Though a radical critic of capitalist society, Thorstein Veblen was a political quietist. His ideas of social evolution, cultural lag, and predatory power help to explain why. Veblen saw the need for deep-seated social change but despaired of its chances. He was in crucial ways a tragic writer, a radical realist who refused to yield to the temptations of political life. Veblen's quietism also helps to explain the hesitant, often unwelcome reception more ideologically minded scholars have given to his work. Attributing Veblen's quietism to timidity or confusion, they have frequently avoided coming to grips with his distinctions between theory and pragmatism, science and politics, which lie at the heart of his political refusal. Theory and science push toward reasonable explanations and accounts of things; pragmatic and predatory political actors apply "worldly wisdom" to the exploit of others. Scientists cannot change institutions; political actors cannot dispense with the operations of power. Veblen asks much of us: for he struggled to undrape the veils of power while puncturing false hopes in the prospects of democracy. His quietism situates itself within this awful contradiction. Above all, Veblen's work serves the purpose of reminding us that neither science nor democracy constitutes a self-evident ground for belief in the inherent reasonableness or justice of action per se. For these reasons alone, an acquaintance with his work should be part of any solidly grounded education in the possibilities and limits of democratic political life in a scientific age.

Dandelion, Pink

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-063

This contribution to a symposium on quietism concerns what is known as the Quietist period of Quakerism in the eighteenth century. Dandelion addresses the key question of conflict between the quietist commitment of the Quaker faithful and the commitment of many among them to abolitionism and other pressing social causes. He reviews the scholarship on this issue, noting the recent tendency to look for mystical aspects to the social commitment of Quakers. Instead, however, he argues that the culture of Friends during this period became self-enclosed to a remarkable degree, permitting some of the members to move about extramurally, as required by conscience, then return to their essentially quietist world.

Mulsow, Martin

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-064

When authors act by either publishing or non-publishing their texts, they sometimes use a language of gestures. These gestures can assist to position the author in the intellectual field. In this way some German eighteenth-century philosophers who thought against the grain of mainstream rationalism withdrew from the public sphere, using the image of the Egyptian god Harpocrates, who puts his index finger to his lips—a symbol for maintaining silence. In a sense one can thus label this kind of quietism as "harpocratism." The essay examines the imagery and contextualizes it in three case studies from the years 1720-50. Moreover, it explores its sources in political as well as antiquarian and hermetic discourses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The essay serves as a model for defining intellectual positions not so much by their content, but rather by their practices of symbolic distancing from others, of building identities in emotional communities, and of shaping free zones of inquiry where they could flourish.

Baker, Lori

2010 Common Knowledge

doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-065