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History and the Interpretation of Texts TERENCE BALL

. In Greek mythology Hermes was the winged-foot messenger of the gods and something of a trickster to boot. Like the Sphinx and the Oracle at Delphi, he relayed messages from the gods in an encoded and allusive way, typically in the form of riddles, leaving it to his human hearers to interpret the meaning and significance of any message (Palmer, 1969: 13). Sometimes they got it right, and sometimes not – often with disastrous results. Students of political theory do not attempt to decode and interpret the meaning of messages of divine origin. But we do, of necessity, Thus political theory is in important ways a . A very considerable part of its In this respect political theory is quite unlike (say) physics. One can be a very fine or having read Aristotle’s Physics or the Ionian nature philosophers or, for that matter, the works of Galileo and Newton. of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Mill and many others if she is to be competent in her chosen vocation. But that comprise the canon – changing and contested as it is – of political theory. My aim in this chapter is to say something about the variety and diversity of approaches to the interpretation of texts in political theory. I shall begin by noting that interpretation is not an option but a

necessity for the meaning-seeking creatures that we are. Next I shall sketch briefly the chief tenets of various ‘schools’ of (or, less formally, approaches to) interpretation – and the interpretive controversies between and among them. Along the way I shall supply several cautionary tales about how not to interpret particular passages from important thinkers. And finally I conclude by presenting and defending my own ‘pluralistic’ and ‘problem-driven’ approach to the interpretation of texts in political theory. I want throughout to emphasize two points in particular:

THE INDISPENSABILITY OF INTERPRETATION

. Our prehistoric ancestors interpreted the meaning of animal entrails, omens and other signs that might make their world more intelligible and perhaps portend their future. They, like modern meteorologists, attempted to forecast the weather by looking at clouds and observing the behaviour of birds and other creatures. With the coming of literacy came the primacy of the written over the spoken word. Religious people, then as now, interpret the meaning of sacred scripture. Judges, lawyers and ordinary citizens read and interpret constitutions and other texts. And students of political theory read – and adjudicate among rival interpretations of – texts in political theory.

History and the Interpretation of Texts

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classic or otherwise. t. Hermeneutics can be, and often is, a deadly serious – and sometimes simply deadly – business (Ball, 1987).

It is therefore important for students of political theory t .

anew and from their own vantage point. These authors and their works comprise an important aspect of our political tradition, which we renew and enrich by reading, reflecting upon and criticizing these works. And yet to read and attempt to underdifferent language, by an author whose mentalité differs remarkably from our own, is a daunting task. The reader finds herself in a position akin to that of an anthropologist studying an alien culture (Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner, 1984: 6–7). As readers of works by Plato and other long-dead authors, we find ourselves in an alien age or culture with whose concepts, categories, customs, and practices we are largely unfamiliar. In such situations we are often at a loss to know . A good translation or interpretation is one that diminishes the strangeness of the text, making it more familiar and accessible to an otherwise puzzled or perplexed observer. The artifacts or texts produced in political cultures preceding and differing from our own do not readily reveal their meanings even to the most careful reader. To read a text ‘over and over again’, as some (e.g. Plamenatz, 1963: I, x) advise, is no doubt necessary. But it is hardly sufficient to enable us to arrive at anything like an adequate understanding of what (say) Plato meant by advocating the use of ‘noble lies’ or what Machiavelli meant by comparing ‘fortune’ (fortuna) to a woman who must be beaten and bullied.

. Nor is there a

t. Every interpretation, in short, implies an interest that provides the ground for and possibility of an interpretation – These interests are, moreover, multiple and varied. One’s interests can be contemporary: what (for example) can Mill still teach us about liberty? Or they may be more historical: why did Mill’s arguments in On Liberty take the form they did? Who were Mill’s main targets and his intended audience? Or one’s interests may be more narrowly linguistic or literary: what metaphors did Mill employ, and with what effect? Or one’s interests may be logical or philosophical: is Mill’s argument in On Liberty logically consistent? Are there gaps or lacunae in the argument? Is the argument convincing? None of these interests necessarily excludes the others. But they do dictate what will count as a problem, what constitutes an interesting or important question, and what method might be most appropriate and fruitful for answering such questions. One would not, for example, assess the logical adequacy of Mill’s argument by examining the metaphors he uses. Nor would one be able to answer questions posed from a historical perspective by looking only at the logical structure of his argument. What one’s guiding interests might be – and how one goes about answering to them – is as likely as not to depend on the interpretive ‘school’ to which one belongs. ‘SCHOOLS’ OF INTERPRETATION There are today a number of influential schools of, or approaches to, interpretation. Each takes a distinctive approach to the history of political thought, and each is highly critical of the others. Disputes between and among these schools are heated and often protracted. I want now to offer brief thumbnail sketches of several approaches to interpretation. Marxian Interpretation I begin by considering the Marxian approach to textual interpretation. Marx famously remarked that ‘ ’ (Marx and Engels, 1947: 39). That is, . So it comes as no surprise, Marxists say, that in slave-owning societies slavery is portrayed and widely regarded as normal and natural: Aristotle said so in fourth-century BC Greece, as

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Handbook of Political Theory

did George Fitzhugh and other apologists for American slavery before the Civil War. In capitalist societies the free market is portrayed in the mainstream media – books, mass-circulation magazines and newspapers, television, movies – as the most normal, natural and efficient way to organize and run an economy. Other alternatives, such as socialism, are always portrayed negatively, as abnormal, unnatural and inefficient. a more or less consistent set or system of ideas that Marx calls an ‘ideology’. The point and purpose of any ideology is to lend legitimacy to the rule of the dominant class. Thus ideologies serve as smokescreens, hiding tawdry reality from a credulous public, and , that rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving, and distributes valued goods in a just and equitable manner.

(1947: 30). This general approach, which is now sometimes called ‘ ’, takes no statement at face value but views it as a stratagem or move in a game whose point is An adequate or good interpretation is one that performs the function of ‘ example may serve to illustrate what this might mean in actual interpretive practice. One particularly important Marxian interpretation of key works in political theory is (1962). By ‘possessive individualism’ Macpherson means the . He finds , in particular, to be ideologists and apologists for capitalism avant la lettre. Thus Locke, for example, ceases to be the good, grey, tolerant, proto-democratic thinker we thought we knew, and becomes instead an extraordinarily clever propagandist for the then-emerging capitalist order. Macpherson makes much, for example, of Locke’s discussion of private property in the Second Treatise of Government (1690).

27. Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property.

Even so, Locke adds, there remain restrictions on how much one might justifiably remove from the common store – namely, one may not take more than one can ‘use’ without its ‘spoiling’. You might make apples from a commonly owned tree your own property by expending your labour – by climbing the tree, picking the apples, sorting and washing them, etc. – but you are entitled to take no more apples than you can use without their spoiling. are overcome, however, with the introduction of money: 47. And thus came in the use of Money, some lasting thing that Men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent Men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable Supports of Life. 48. And as different degrees of Industry were apt to give Men Possessions in different Proportions, so this Invention of Money gave them the opportunity to continue to enlarge them.

Macpherson makes much of these passages, which he takes to represent a key juncture in Locke’s justification of capitalist accumulation and evergreater inequalities of wealth (1962: 203–11, 233–5). Macpherson’s critics contend that it is anything but: t (the love of which is said in the Scriptures to be ‘the root of all evil’); that the word Locke uses in paragraph 48 is not ‘property’ – that which is properly and by right your own – but ‘ (which is mere fact without moral or legal import: a thief may possess your wallet but it is not properly his, i.e. his property); hence the most we may conclude is that money, and therefore presumably capital itself, is ‘a human institution about whose moral status Locke felt deeply ambivalent’ (Dunn, 1984: 40). A Marxian approach to textual interpretation encounters a number of difficulties, among them the following. We have seen already that Marxists assume that the ruling ideas of an epoch are those that serve the interests of the ruling class; and since most political thinkers have belonged to an educated and literate elite, their ideas serve the ruling class. But then Marx and Engels (and Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Lukács, and many other prominent Marxists) have not belonged to the class of oppressed labourers but to a learned and literate

History and the Interpretation of Texts

t. All attempts (by Marx and others) to answer this question – that there are some who through will or intellect transcend their ‘objective’ class basis, that the

. Moreover, how Marxists can interpret all political theories, past and present, as ideological masks concealing and justifying the domination of one class by another – and yet . And, not least, Marxian interpretations have a formulaic, cookie-cutter quality: the interpreter has preset ideas about what she will find – namely ideological trickery or obfuscation in the service of the ruling class – and, presto, she finds it lurking in even the most innocent-sounding passages. ‘Totalitarian’ Interpretations The twentieth century saw the rise to power and , among which fascism and communism were particularly prominent. One important and influential approach to textual interpretation views

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which is ‘always right’ and ‘cannot err’. The second is Rousseau’s chilling assertion that would-be dissidents must be The third is the ominous figure of the The fourth and most frightening feature of Rousseau’s ideal republic is the s Taken together, these four features constitute a bill of indictment of Rousseau’s totalitarian intentions (Talmon, 1952; Barker, 1951; Crocker, 1968).1 c Among the most f the ‘totalitarian’ approach to textual interpretation was the late a (1963 [1945]) is the most a t ‘ An Austrian Jew who fled from the Nazis and emigrated to New Zealand in the 1930s, Popper regarded his research for and writing of The Open Society as his ‘war effort’ (1976: 115). It may be instructive to revisit Popper’s Open Society to show how sincerely held present-day concerns can inform – or misinform – our interpretation of ‘classic’ works in political theory. Let us choose from the preceding rogues’ gallery a single example for closer examination: (1952: 10). Popper quotes Hegel’s remark in English transla-

. . It was therefore deemed important to in light of the . Once one begins to look for

Thus Hegel holds that ‘everything that is now real or actual exists by necessity, and must be reasonable as well as good. (Particularly good is … the existing Prussian state)’ (Popper, 1963: II, 41). that practised censorship, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without due process of law. In this way, Popper claims, of the modern totalitarian state, and so must himself be accounted a ‘totalitarian’ thinker and apologist.

Much the same might be said about

The first is his notion of the

But is Hegel guilty as charged? The short answer is no. Let us see why. Here is Hegel’s own statement in the original German: ‘Was vernunftig ist, das ist wirklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernunftig.’ Note that wirklich is translated not as ‘real’ but as ‘actual’. In everyday German, as in English, there is

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ordinarily no sharp distinction between ‘real’ and ‘actual’. . He draws and maintains a sharp distinction between wirklich (actual) and reell (real). In Hegel’s philosophical nomenclature an acorn (for example) is real; but it is not actual until its potential is fully actualized, that is, when it becomes a full-grown oak. In other words, Hegel uses wirklich to mean ‘fully actualized’; he contrasts ‘actual’, not with unreal, but with ‘potential’. Thus Hegel’s (in)famous statement means something like, ‘What is rational is that which fully actualizes its potential;

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There is a larger hermeneutical lesson to be learned from Popper’s (and many others’) misreading of Hegel (and Plato, Rousseau, and other theorists). First, In this instance that means taking note of how Hegel uses an apparently ordinary term in a non-ordinary or technical way. Second, one should

– a penchant Popper shares, ironically, with the Marxists he so detests. Psychoanalytic Interpretation In

and other works, famously argued that

. Psychoanalytic interpretations, like Marxian ones, fall under the heading of My apparently accidental slips of the tongue (or pen), for example, may reveal to a trained psychoanalyst aspects of my ‘unconscious’ that are not evident to me. So too with my dreams. Suppose I dream that I am at bat in a baseball game, bottom of the ninth inning, with my team losing, all bases loaded, one ball and two strikes. Here comes the pitch. As I begin to swing, my bat suddenly turns rubbery and floppy, like one that a circus clown might swing. The ball whizzes past my ineffectual bat and I strike out, losing the game for my team, and bringing embarrassment and disgrace upon myself. How to interpret what I’ve dreamed? Well, if I were a baseball player who’s afraid of cracking under pressure, the meaning of my dream would be

pretty transparent. But, alas, I’m not a baseball player. I’m merely a 50-something male academic. An analyst might interpret this dream as a fear of losing sexual potency, particularly when there are high expectations and lots of pressure to ‘perform’. In this case, the baseball game is not a game and the limp bat is not a bat but a symbol standing for something else … Well, you get the idea.3 One can supply psychoanalytic interpretations not only of dreams but of all sorts of texts – including those in political theory. This has been done in the case of Machiavelli (Pitkin, 1984), Edmund Burke (Kramnick, 1977), Martin Luther (Erikson, 1958) and Mahatma Gandhi (Erikson, 1969), among others. I want to look, more particularly, at Mill is most famous as the author of On Liberty (1859) in which he argues in favour of a s without undue interference from others, no matter how well-meaning those others may be. Now as Mill tells us in his Autobiography, Young John was not allowed to associate with other children, to play games, or to do anything except to read and be exactingly examined on books assigned by his father. The elder Mill’s strict educational regimen was constructed and carried out with the best of intentions. This tightly regimented upbringing produced impressive results, but also took its toll. At age 20 John suffered a mental breakdown from which he recovered only slowly and in part through the reading of romantic poetry (chiefly Wordsworth and Coleridge) of which his father heartily disapproved. From that point on Mill ceased to be his father’s intellectual clone; he became a thinker with a mind of his own, and an author more prolific and more famous than his father.

(perhaps that’s what Nietzsche meant when he said that all theory is autobiography).

(Mazlish, 1975: ch. 15). As Freud theorized, sons subconsciously wish to kill their fathers and possess their mothers: this he called the What then of his relations with his mother? Her name was Significantly, as Mazlish notes, (you guessed it)

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History and the Interpretation of Texts

t . From a psychoanalytic perspective, this is strong stuff, and Mazlish makes the most of it (1975: 283–93). Although often suggestive and sometimes insightful, psychoanalytic interpretations face stiff evidentiary challenges. They are open to criticisms that they are s To the claim that Mill symbolically defeated his father and married his mother, for example, a sceptic might answer that (indeed Mill had a younger sister named Harriet) . As for Mill’s motivation in writing On Liberty, one can note that may have correctly pinpointed one source, that is largely beside the point if one wishes to understand the aim and argument of On Liberty. Psychoanalytic interpretations direct our attention away from the text and toward its author: which is fine, if what we wish to understand is the latter instead of the former. But textual interpretation is not the same thing as limning authorial motivation. Mill begins On Liberty by saying that ‘The subject of this Essay is … the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.’ He does not say ‘by fathers over sons’. To assert, as Mazlish does, that the latter is the ‘real’, albeit hidden, meaning is merely to speculate about Mill’s motives, not to understand the argument of On Liberty. It is perhaps because of these evident shortcomings that psychoanalytic interpretations have by and large fallen out of favour among students of political theory.4 Feminist Interpretation Feminism has had a profound and lasting impact on the way we study and interpret works in the history of political thought. and from that vantage point one views political theory anew and makes interesting – and sometimes appalling – discoveries [see further Chapter 21]. Such a sensibility injects a strong strain of scepticism into the study of ‘classic’ works. For, as bserves, ‘the great tradition of

. t . t have made, and continue to make, startling and often unsuspected connections between phenomena as apparently disparate as a thinker’s view of the family and his (yes, his) view of liberty, authority, power, equality, obligation, and other concepts in political theory. A feminist or gender-centred approach to the history of political thought t’, t l s causes. One early anthology (Schneir, 1972) included not only selections from Mary Wollst...