I am sure that in this age of big European grants somebody has already monetized the following thought. So, it’s perfect for a little digression.:)
Anyway, the idea is this: sometimes a political tradition or political orientation uses a literary trope to alert the reader that one is in the presence of a certain sensibility or it signals adherence to a certain mission or faith. I don’t think is necessarily done to disguise one’s commitments or to engage in an esoteric campaign (but it is, of course, also compatible with that.)
The previous paragraph is pretty vague. So let me give an example, and hint at its significance. In the very first chapter of the first part of Constant’s (1814) Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation, Constant (1767-1830) introduces a trope. I will quote the whole passage, and I ask you, my friendly reader, not to get distracted by all the ways the text anticipates Constant’s better known lecture, “The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns,” (1819); it’s related to what I want t to say, but let’s leave it aside. Okay, here’s the passage:
Our world is, in this respect, precisely the opposite of the ancient world. While in the past each nation formed an isolated family, the born [sic] enemy of other families, a great mass of human beings now exist that, despite the different names under which they live and their different forms of social organization, are essentially homogeneous in their nature. This mass is strong enough to have nothing to fear from hordes that are still barbarous. It is sufficiently civilized to find war a burden. Its uniform tendency is towards peace. The warlike tradition, a heritage from distant ages, and above all the errors of governments, slow down the effects of this tendency, but every day it makes further progress. The leaders of nations pay tribute to it when they try to avoid an open confession of their ambition for conquest and their hopes for a glory won solely by force of arms. The son of Philip” would no longer dare to propose to his subjects the invasion of the universe; and the discourse of Pyrrhus to Cineas would appear today the height of insolence or folly. (pp. 52-53 in Biancamaria Fontana’s translation)
Now, before I get to the trope I want to discuss, first, note that the homogeneity and homogenizing effects of modern (commercial) society is a thesis we find early in Spinoza’s Political Theological Treatise (Hereafter: TTP). (See here for my argument.) The TTP ends with a defense of the beneficial effects of commerce, although Spinoza combines that with a republican alertness to its corrupting effects when it promotes luxury (ibid). It won’t surprise you that both the TTP and the Political Treatise defend forms of federalism in the service of peace projects (again here). Sadly I have never found any allusions in Spinoza to Pyrrhus or Cineas (despite Spinoza’s familiarity with Plutarch). That Spinoza’s TTP is significant to Constant’s argument I have noted a few days ago (here)).
Second, the claim that modern commercial society is not at risk of conquest “from hordes that are still barbarous” just is one of Smith’s important claims in the Wealth of Nations. Smith’s rests this claim on the superior technology of modern, commercial societies. (We know that Constant was immersed in Wealth of Nations just a few years before.) Wealth of Nations closes with a federal plan to turn the North Atlantic into a pacific, inland sea-trade empire. Smith himself is less optimistic about modern society than Constant; I doubt there is anywhere in Smith the equivalent of Constant’s idea, that “Its uniform tendency is towards peace.”
So, when I read the quoted passage, I immediately knew that in this work, Constant would argue for federalism and for commerce (and against war, although the title of the work also alerts one to this). And I knew that because the exchange between Pyrrhus and Cineas is one of those tropes I have in mind at the top of the post. The exchange between Pyrrhus and Cineas is a lengthy set-piece in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 3.3.31, pp. 150-151. Under the influence of the editors of the Glasgow edition the passage is usually interpreted as evidence of Smith’s stoicism. This is a bit peculiar because Cineas was a student of Demosthenes, and not known as a Stoic, but as an Epicurean. (See here for an alternative analysis.)
Now, I learned to become alert to the significance of all this through a comment in a lecture of 22 March 1978, when Foucault directs attention to a now forgotten work called The New Cyneas. The author was a man called Émeric Crucé (1590–1648). The New Cyneas is an amazing work. Let me quote Leibniz (!) (see here; here) on the work’s significance:
When very young, I came to know a book titled the New Cyneas, whose unknown author counseled sovereigns to govern their states in peace and to resolve their differences through a tribunal; but I can no longer find this book and no longer recall any details. We know that Cyneas was a confidant of King Pyrrhus, who advised him to rest [and rejoice] first, since it was his purpose (as he confessed) when he had conquered Sicily, Calabria, Rome and Carthage.--Leibniz to Leibniz to Saint Pierre, 4 April, 1715.
The Abbot Saint Pierre wrote a famous proposal for European pacific Federation, which also inspired some work by Rousseau (recall)). One thing worth adding to Leibniz’s description is that the New Cyneas’ project of perpetual peace is not limited to Europeans or Christendom. It also treats commerce as an important means to secure peace.
Diehard readers of these digressions know that in Haberler's Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy after Forty Years (American Enterprise Institute, 1981) there is a discussion of Schumpeter’s earlier essay, "Imperialism and Capitalism." Haberler was a fine Austrian economists who played a key role in the development of GATT (predecessor to WTO) and the liberal, rule-based economic order we will miss once it is gone. Anyway, in Haberler’s short essay there is a two-page footnote on the exchange between Cyneas and King Pyrrhus (yes the one of the victory). I have discussed it here.
Constant clearly takes knowledge of the exchange between Cyneas and Pyrrhus for granted. In an accompanying footnote, Fontana dutifully cites Plutarch, but suggests Constant was probably familiar with Boileau’s version (about which some other time). But Constant was most certainly also familiar with Smith’s version in TMS (there are lots of allusions to TMS in the work, too). (I would love to find hints of his familiarity with Crucé!) And so treats the exchange as well known to his audience; that is, a trope.
In fact, part of Constant’s point is the performative prediction that before long the trope will have outlived its utility because the progressive times are changing. What was once an edifying anecdote will soon just convey mere conventional wisdom; there will not be a need to re-tell it. That is — the scholar contemplates this with a grim sadness — the homogeneity of prosperous modernity will also be accompanied by a necessary or predictable forgetting.
I miss the social-democratic rules-based order of which GATT was part, along with Bretton Woods and Keynesian economic management. But the WTO era has shown what happens when the rules are written by and for corporations: TRIPS, ISDS, MAI and many more such acronymic horrors. I'm not shedding any tears over its demise.