Eschaton Redux.

Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order, by Michael P. Federici (ISI, 250 pp., $24.95)

Today's challenge: Try, nonchalantly, to work into an everyday conversation the phrase "immanentization of the eschaton." Obscure to the point of pedantry yet luminous in its wisdom, the phrase bears the marks of its creator, Eric Voegelin, the 20th-century German emigre and political philosopher. In Jewish and Christian religion, the "eschaton" is the end time, when God will make heaven out of earth. Immanentization of the eschaton is thus a baroque term for "utopianism," which Voegelin regarded as the central error of modern times.

There is more to it than that, of course. Any free-market economist can warn you of the dangers of utopianism. Voegelin's formulation does not merely restate conservative chestnuts about human nature or the inefficacy of state planning, but suggests a far more peculiar, if not counterintuitive, conclusion: The crisis of the West is at root spiritual and is precipitated by the misappropriation of its religious symbols. To be more exact, our political problems are in fact problems within our souls, which have lost their capacity to experience the divine.

To explicate these and other difficult ideas, Voegelin canvassed several times over the whole of Western intellectual history in a series of multi-volume works, and developed a technical vocabulary all his own. To grasp even a part of Voegelin's system is beyond the stamina and ken of most professors, to say nothing of most laymen. The world should thus render thanks to Michael P. Federici for having produced this book -- a small miracle of clarity and concision. Federici introduces the major phases of Voegelin's thought, explains key concepts, and even provides thoughtful responses to some of Voegelin's critics. Perhaps most helpful of all, Federici appends a glossary of over 100 Voegelinian terms of art. (After "immanentization of the eschaton," bonus points can be awarded for "theogonic process" and "metastatic apocalypse.")

Born in Germany in 1901 and raised in Vienna, Voegelin shares not a few traits with that other giant of American political philosophy, Leo Strauss. Both fled the Nazi regime to assume academic posts in America, both argued that "premodern" philosophy could remedy contemporary ills, and both found votaries primarily on the American right. Most importantly, both belonged to the post-war generation of right-wing "gloominaries" -- who feared that the liberal West did not have the moral fortitude to resist the totalitarian threat. As Whittaker Chambers said of abandoning Communism, "I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side."

Whereas Strauss continues to inspire new generations of epigones, however, Voegelin remains admired but largely ignored. One reason is the comparative difficulty of Voegelin's work; another is that his ideas do not lend themselves very well to an ideological movement. Few young men and women can forget the frisson they felt when they read Strauss for the first time and suddenly became initiated in the secret history of Western thought; what Ayn Rand is to the 14-year-old, Leo Strauss, it seems, is to the 19-year-old. Voegelin, by contrast, requires the patience of middle age and does not provide the same sort of fearless delight.

Ironically for a political philosopher, Voegelin downplayed the importance of politics, arguing instead that problems generally viewed as political could be rectified by a recovery of religious experience. Voegelin was not quite as gloomy as his fellow gloominaries; although Federici devotes one of his seven chapters to Voegelin's account of the "crisis of the West," he is at pains to insist that Voegelin did not regard the crisis as permanent. Eventually, according to Voegelin, reality will reassert itself, and the pinched ideologies -- Marxism, secularism, progressivism -- that seek to cut us off from the experience of the divine will subside.

Time has, however, left a first sprinkling of dust on Voegelin's thought about these matters. Having witnessed the rise of both Nazism and Communism, he concluded that modernity had made such evils irresistible; by 1989, a mere four years after his death, a new generation was busy arguing that it had made their defeat inevitable. We can now envision the end of history, and liberal democracy will have won.

Or will it have? Today the West faces a threat not from within (although, let us not forget, in some Western nations Communism's energies have yet to give out) but from without. The largest disappointment in Federici's book is that, as brilliantly as it explains Voegelin's contribution, it does not attempt to explain his continuing relevance. This is a pity, for in Voegelin one may well find an understanding of the West as astute now as it was a half-century ago. Since September 11, awkward accounts of what we are fighting for have abounded. Is it the openness and supposed skepticism of Western society that we prize? No, for an entirely "open" society, as the European electorate may now be discovering, cannot defend itself against those who would destroy it. Is it its emphasis on individual rights? No, for although we should certainly continue to defend these rights, an exclusive focus on them undermines individual responsibility, frays the bonds of community, and at times renders us less humane. The obdurate rhetoric of "reproductive rights" should be enough to give anyone pause.

Voegelin has an alternative defense: What makes the West worth fighting for is its unique experience of the transcendent. From Athens we have inherited the achievements of our science, from Jerusalem the sanctity of the individual, and from their combined patrimony the glories of our art and our constitutional government. Some might argue that the legacy of Athens, insofar as it is significant, is primarily secular. Not so, says Voegelin. Socrates himself claimed to be in the thrall of a god who compelled him to ask questions. The Greek quest for knowledge, which Christian and Jewish scientists have continued, is a theological quest like any other. It is always the Muse who calls us to drink from the Pierian spring.

Federici's brevity, however, can sometimes be as frustrating as it is welcome. In describing Voegelin's experience with National Socialism, Federici recounts that no less a figure than Thomas Mann accused Voegelin of insufficient hostility to the Nazis. Federici assures us of the unimpeachability of Voegelin's record on that score, and although there is no reason to doubt him, he leaves us hungry for details. A thinker's relationship with Nazism oftentimes provides illumination of his career in general. For some, such as the glossolalial poet- philosopher and Nazi collaborator Martin Heidegger, it is the touchstone for all other assessments. One wonders how exactly Voegelin resisted the Nazi influence.

In all other respects, however, Federici's book is unassailable. He is admirably detached in evaluating Voegelin's achievement -- which, while immense, is not without shortcomings. The notion, axiomatic for Voegelin, that all political arrangements reflect the arrangement of the soul is at least as old as Plato's Republic, but has not become any less problematic with age. Although he does his best to explain how Voegelin thought an individual's discovery of transcendence gives rise to a political order, Federici ultimately admits that "Voegelin tends to conceive of transcendence in a way that makes its application to politics rather awkward and hesitant." At this, the perplexed but trusting reader will no doubt breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

Nevertheless, few readers will also come away from Federici's book thinking that Voegelin was anything less than prophetic. Federici is at his best when explaining how Voegelin differs from the philosophers he opposed. Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, Federici writes, misconceived the essence of modern life because they lacked the imaginative vision of a Voegelin. Specifically, Voegelin remained open to reality, even transcendent reality, while they remained closed. Russell Kirk is said to have described conservatism as openness to reality, and modern ideologies as attempts to allow us to see only a part of it. If this is so, Eric Voegelin has done as much to open our minds and spirits as any other philosopher of the 20th century.