A World Beyond Politics? A Defense of the Nation-State

Extract

A World Beyond Politics? A Defense of the Nation-State. By Pierre Manent. Translated by Marc LePain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. $35.00.

Has the world outgrown politics? The conviction that it has, according to the French political philosopher Pierre Manent, is what animates sophisticated European thought today. The self-understandings of the creature, the parent, and, above all, the citizen have increasingly been displaced by that of the individual. And what an individual is is determined by the individual, and whatever he or she decides for him- or herself is dignified and deserves our respect. The idea of dignity is being liberated from any particular human content, from any particular conception of human goodness or morality. That means, among other things, that the idea of human rights has been liberated from any conception of civic or national obligation. So the idea of compulsory national military service is an affront to the individual's dignity, and in the name of human dignity the Europeans increasingly seem even to believe that they can unilaterally become pro-choice on war.