Eric Voegelin (5)

The course of social and political corruption

Two excerpts. The first is from World of the Polis, p. 363:

. . . When the corrosion of reason has reached a certain degree in depth and has befallen a sufficiently large proportion of the people, effective leadership in terms of reason becomes difficult and perhaps impossible, even if the man at the head under more favorable conditions could exert such leadership; in a further degree of corrosion a man of such qualities will, precisely because he possesses them, find it impossible to reach the position of leadership; and in a final degree the society by its corruption may prevent the formation of a man of such qualities even if by nature he should not be lacking in such gifts.

The second, from Plato and Aristotle, p. 57, refers to the older generation in a rapidly decaying society, who are sympathetic figures because of their genuine virtues, yet also slightly contemptible because they practiced those virtues out of the force of habit or tradition rather than any love of wisdom. When tradition breaks down, they are unable to muster any arguments (or other forces) in its defence.

. . . And in a crisis they have nothing to offer to the younger generation which is already exposed to more corruptive influences . . . . For the men of [their] type are the cause of the sudden vacuum that appears in a critical period with the break of generations. All of a sudden it appears that the older generation has neglected to build the substance of order in the younger men, and an amiable lukewarmness and confusion shifts within a few years into the horrors of social catastrophe.

With regard to the first quotation, it is important to note, however, that Voegelin sees corruption not only as a social phenomenon that infects politics, but also (or even primarily) as something with political sources. In the case of Athens, Voegelin says, a fatal but inevitable decision was made to hold on to her empire by force after winning the Persian war had catapulted the city to wealth and Greek leadership. The alternative, a return to Athens' previous modest peasant existence, would have been politically unthinkable. "The process, spreading from the public to the private sphere, begins with habituation to unjust action in the affairs of state and ends with the dissolution of honesty, loyalty and shame in personal relations" (World of the Polis, p. 362).

Eric Voegelin (4)