| Politovolia - The universal practical Political Willl |
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| Written by Ianko Stoianov |
| Saturday, 27 September 2008 23:30 |
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Politovolia
(The universal practical Political Will)
For a Neo-Communist Manifesto it is absolutely important to offer the public its theoretical principles for consideration. Furthermore, the theoretical foundations of the latest development of the principles of humanism deserve to be profoundly presented. Willing to define the volitions of the absolutely actual universal Political Will, which self-determines its complete theoretical and practical reality in the world, manifests itself in it and rules it, we have to introduce the concept of Politovolia. Being the highest organisation of the Absolute Rational Will in the living process of its continuous self-development, Politovolia is a manifestation of the all-inclusive and omnipotent willing itself Political Will, which constantly carries out into practice itself in the world history and changes the ethical and civic virtues as well as the ethical values and political culture of every society in each particular epoch. It is the universal power that is in everything and there is no social human activity in which Political Will does not rule itself through itself. Practical Politovolia ? in which all people are involved and which includes practical politics, the constitutional and private law, economy, trade, religion, art, culture as well as all other fields of human activity, ? constitutes the totality of political life. Being based on the complete reality of the absolute material rational volition, Politovolia is the highest organisation of the latter and aims at satisfying the Rational Will of all actual human beings. Politovolia elevates the principle of Absolute Rational Will ?Will yourself? as the highest principle of the world. It manifests itself in the totality of practical life which embraces the one-sidedness of intellectualistic philosophy and contains its principle ? ?Cognise yourself? ? as sublated. In Politovolia the willing Volition sublates Thought, Will sublates Spirit, Freedom sublates Truth, in other words, Politovolia sublates philosophy. Only in virtue of its principles can we explain the world history deeper and better. The purpose of forming the Will of man is to elevate him from the state of being a political animal, which possesses Reason, to the state of having a political personality with strong political Will. To possess himself as a political personality ? this is the highest determination of Man; it is the richest and the deepest one to which he advances in his development. People are predestined to know and possess themselves as free ones, to have the energy to take care of their own interests, of their own purposes in a world of political Freedom. Politics is the supreme form in which the Absolute Rational Will demonstrates itself because it is the definite way of its self-cognition, self-possession and self-ruling. To want participation in the life of state, in political power, means that you want to take possession of your absolute property and genuinely possess it. Aristotle expresses this idea in his own way. His great speculative ideas are definitely well worth being taken into consideration because contrary to our pseudo-democratic societies, in which every ordinary citizen thinks that politics is a dirty game and all politicians are corrupted, Aristotle lived in times when the ancient Greeks knew what a genuine democracy is all about. He is absolutely right to claim that ?All science and all capacity (???????) have an end, and this is the good: the more excellent they are, the more excellent is their end; but the most excellent capacity is the political, and hence its end is also the good.?1 Aristotle says that the Good is the end of all abilities, so the end of the supreme ability is the supreme Good. But the supreme ability is the political ability and undoubtedly the end of politics is the supreme Good. This determination is magnificent in any way; it is the highest one ancient Greece gave the world. Aristotle says that the happiness of each separate person and the happiness of the state are identical. The best life for each person separately and for the whole state is and has to be one and the same: ?Since the end of individuals and of states is the same, the end of the best man and of the best constitution must also be the same.?2 The supreme Good is one and the same in social as well as private life. This is a great definition. Noteworthy and great in Aristotle is that he was the first philosopher in the history of ethical Thought to put the willing itself Rational Will with its urges and desires in the basis of ethics, whereas Socrates, who created the science of ethics, made the virtues knowledge, considered them as products of knowledge for he based his ethics on intellectual philosophy and Spirit. Aristotle, however, went further on. Hegel acknowledges that fact: ?Of Ethics Aristotle recognises that it indubitably also applies to the individual, though its perfection is attained in the nation as a whole,? in politics. ?Aristotle indeed appreciates so highly the state, that he starts at once (Polit. I. 2) by defining man as ?a political animal, having reason. Hence he alone has knowledge of good and evil, of justice and injustice, and not the beast,? for the beast does not think.?3 Not only does Political Will comprises all the determinations of Rational Will but it also is its highest moment. It is unconditionally necessary for each person to take part in the political world and life ? his supreme purpose, his highest interest and only when does he act in a society well-organized as a political community, he fully has, takes possession of and uses his own spiritual-willed nature. The glorious ancient Greeks were totally immersed into the politics of their city. For them the political strength (ability) of the state realized through their subjective activity was their most superb determination, their essence. As Hegel notices: ?with Aristotle, as with Plato, the state is the prius, the substantial, the chief, for its end is the highest in respect of the practical.?4 Politics is the most important amongst the practical sciences ? the ancient Greeks reach to this great definition. The political is the supreme, because its purpose is supreme as far as the practical is concerned. Aristotle notices that: ?Now politics appears to be such? a most authoritative and most architectonic science or faculty; ?for it is this which regulates what sciences are needed in a state and what kind of sciences should be learned by each [kind of individuals] and to what extent. The most honoured faculties, too, e.g., strategy and economics and rhetoric are observed to come under this [faculty]. And since this faculty uses the rest of the practical sciences and also legislates what men should do and what they should abstain from doing, its end would include the ends of the other faculties; hence this is the end which would be the good for mankind. For even if this end be the same for an individual as for the state, nevertheless the end of the state appears to be greater and more complete to attain and preserve; for though this end is dear also to a single individual, it appears to be more noble and more divine to a race of men or to a state.?5 Suffice it to say that Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and other intellectual philosophers speak about politics superbly. Yet, Practical Will has not yet found its true Right in philosophy and definitely cannot find it there; Politovolia is faced with the necessity of freeing itself from the shackles of cognising philosophy. Its desires have the power of the absolutely actual. It is the willing itself will and it knows that. The whole infinite wealth of the absolute Volition, which Hegel, for example, reveals to us in his philosophy only in the categories of Spirit, can be expressed incomparably better in the categories of Political Will ? i.e. in the categories of totally practical universal Rational Will, ? in the science of Politovolia. The word is a compound of POLITO like in the word politologia and VOLIA from the Slavonic word wola (will or volition in English). Politovolia deals with the volitional nature of the practical thinking Will and put stress on its material actuality, not the moment of pure scientific knowledge; all the more that from the very beginning the science of politologia was insufficiently ? if at all, ? interwoven with speculative philosophy. No wonder that politologia, such as we know it today, is not a speculative science. But Politovolia is infinitely more than being a science only; that is the reason we do not use the term of politologia. Politovolia is as much a living self-organizing deed that takes possession of itself as a scientific system as it is a scientific system that develops and initiates itself as a living deed; it is the absolutely actual Political Will. Unlike modern philosophy, which is a pure science devoid of any serious putting into practice, not only is Politovolia a science ? the Science of Political Will, ? constantly examining and developing theoretically the volitional kingdom of freedom, but it is also the carrying itself into practice Practical Will, and in so doing, it is the eternal living process of its own coming into possession of itself through its rational Volitions. The moment of realizing its purposes is absolutely essential; in the process of its self-development within and through itself the absolute volition takes possession of itself and uses itself in a practical manner in the world of political Freedom, which it creates for itself. Being the absolutely actual and, therefore, the principle of vitality of real life, of all volitional activities and deeds, practice is more important than theory and contains the latter in itself as sublated: the world-history is only a history of the development of Politovolia; the coming one after another political demands and needs in various political epochs are principles of development of both theoretical and practical Politovolia. Each of these principles had to perform a great history-making deed: to become a principle of the world, to transform it, to win recognition as an universal actual principle of the power to will, which has the supreme volitional purpose intrinsically in itself and prepares the birth of a new, higher principle. As a result of the whole preceding development of practical Politovolia, the latter contains the principles of all the previous epochs as sublated. Politovolia is the empirical proof of the fact of primacy of the practical over the theoretical. While Politovolia is the absolutely necessary, philosophy itself as a science is insufficient and unsatisfactory. People began to develop philosophy only after all their material needs were satisfied, i.e. long after practical Politovolia had been created. From its very beginning in ancient Greece philosophy got rid of material life. All ancient philosophers retired into private life dedicated to truth, knowledge and spirit and did not want to be a part of the energy of actual life. They exerted great influence on the entire further development of philosophy. Aristotle admits that philosophy is nothing else but cognition for the sake of cognition: ?That it is not a science of production is clear even from the history of the earliest philosophers ... since they philosophised in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know and not for any utilitarian end. And this is confirmed by the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake.?6 This quotation is extremely important; it expresses superbly well the credo of all philosophers who think that the aim of philosophy is truth. ?Cognise yourself? ? the principle of all intellectualistic philosophies, ? started its victorious march in ancient Greece. From the very beginning it inspired philosophers to withdraw from the material actuality of the absolute; the ancient Greek philosophers were the first ones to start developing idealistic philosophical doctrines based on the principle mentioned above. Hegel's philosophy is the developed result of this principle, because he united the principles of all the philosophies, which preceded his own one; he united them as aspects of the supreme principle ?Cognise yourself? and thus reduced them to moments of the Absolute Idea. That is the reason why Hegel mainly deals with the Theoretical Idea. His examination of the Practical Idea, ? the practical action, in which the Rational Will as a self-determining practical activity realises itself, ? is insufficient. Hegel himself was not satisfied by the state of practical philosophy of his time. It had failed to gain speculative character and nobody knew it better than Hegel. Although he pays close attention to practical philosophy, which the latter entirely deserves, he cannot develop it. The very principle of his philosophy ?Cognise yourself? is only a moment of the absolute material actuality and, therefore, cannot be the highest principle of universal practical philosophy, i.e of Politovolia. Hegel failed to discover the absolute Volition and its supreme principle "Will yourself"; they belong to the standpoint of our time. He omitted to interweave the two aspects of the absolute material Volition: ?Cognise yourself? (Spirit, theoretical activity) and ?Will yourself? (Will, practical material actuality) in their volitional totality, the result being that he is not speculative enough. He failed to elevate philosophy to the standpoint of absolute volition. Today we say that according to its highest determination the Absolute is a thinking and willing itself absolute rational Will; it is as much a spiritualised Will as it is a volitional Spirit. The absolute Will is the living process of realizing its rational Freedom and in each particular moment it has the latter as the result of the whole course of its self-development up to that moment; a result, which the Rational Will invariably demonstrates in its self-organization as a state. The importance of Politovolia cannot be denied. Political Freedom was the absolutely necessary prerequisite for the appearance of Philosophy. Hegel also acknowledges that Politovolia and political Freedom were the first to appear; he claims that free, philosophic thought has direct connection with practical freedom. Consequently, "on account of the general connection between political freedom and the freedom of Thought, Philosophy only appears in History where and in as far as free institutions are formed."7 Being the absolutely actual and, therefore, invariably practising itself, Political Will thinks itself, has to make and makes decisions permanently, at any given moment of its world-historical development and implements them immediately; the primacy of the practical over the theoretical is beyond any doubt. Truth is the absolute object of theoretical philosophy. However, it is only a moment of the ultimate Ends of men of deed and practice ? everyone is a man of deed and practice in real life. They have absolutely practical Ends in their real lives; they will the Good and desire their welfare for these are the absolute Ends of objective Volition. In Politovolia, their practical philosophy, the primacy of the practical over the theoretical is unquestionable. Politovolia ? the universal practical philosophy of the absolutely actual political will ? is outside the University auditoriums, because only outside the cold walls of the Universities green and living is the tree of life. It cannot be the other way round for the end of Man's Will is action. In practical life, Rational Voluntarism ? the I's will to think, ? deals only with the usefulness or practical consequences of volitional actions as a test of truth. This use, or experience, is the true test of real existence. Rational Voluntarism sets up action and satisfaction of volitional needs, as the standard of truth. "I will" is the principle of rational Voluntarism; it sublates in itself "I think" ? the principle of all intellectualistic, idealist philosophies. Neither Hegel's philosophy nor any intellectualistic philosophy can be put into practice; the ultimate uselessness, the plight and obvious decline of academic philosophy are hardly amazing. Paradoxically enough, Hegel knew it perfectly well. Stating in the preface of his Philosophy of Right that philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give instruction as to what the world ought to be, he continues as follows: ?As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is already cut and dried after its process of formation has been completed... When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.? This is a perfect expression of the role of Spiritual Will as such. Hegel is right: Spiritual Will alone and especially its speculative philosophy cannot do the job but practical Politovolia can and always does. Being the manifestation of absolute reality, Politovolia has never accepted and cannot accept the excesses of absolute idealism. Sensation of the external world, memory, thinking, the formation of habits, and personal identity all rest upon the organic features of the living body; the self is invariably embodied. Free will is both practically and personally essential to the character of human life. The political Man knows that it is not Thought that determines itself to Will; he turns away from pure speculative principles. Being the subject of the Absolute Rational Will, he is a man of deed and turns towards the concreteness and adequacy of his rational Volition, towards action and towards power. He is a rational voluntarist and politovolical empiricist. Human beings' ideas about their volitional desires in the world of material volition are the rational reality of the self-realising and omnipotent Absolute Will, which cognises itself only in order to enter into consummate possession of itself and rule itself for itself. Since times immemorial rational voluntarists ? the whole mankind, ? have known that if and only if an idea can be successfully employed in human action in pursuit of human goals and interests, it agrees with the complete reality of material volition, and, therefore, is true. Not Hegel's Absolute Truth, but true Freedom is the absolutely actual since it is the unity of the Will for-itself of the absolute material volition and Spirit's Absolute Truth, which as the knowing itself Will is only Will in-itself. The in-and-for-itself ruling itself Absolute Will sublates its above mentioned two immanent moments, contains them in their unity and, in so doing, attains to its True Freedom. The Absolute Rational Will governs the World and has its highest end ? True Freedom, ? as its goal and, thus, as its beginning. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel says: ?So far as I understand law, I can find in it, among the Romans?, the Roman jurists and in Roman law by and large, ?nothing either of thought, Philosophy or the Notion.?8 As a matter of fact, however, there is more to be found in Roman law than philosophy. It is a manifestation of pure practical Politovolia, precisely speaking, a stage in the development of politovolia, but Hegel failed to think so; he failed to raise philosophy to the genuinely higher principle ?Will yourself.? It was not yet the need of his time; Hegel himself says that each philosopher is a son of his people and his time. He still did not know that the very philosophy is insufficient as a science. Politovolia is significantly older than philosophy; it is the supreme practical worldly-wisdom and a common deed of every person in the state, in other words, it is the developed political organization of Rational Will. The cognition of Truth, the highest goal of philosophy, is only a moment of the actual rational Will, which cognises itself within and through itself so as to take possession of itself. The main purpose, which we put forward in this chapter of the manifesto, is to show that the movement of the absolute World-Will towards a humanistic polity as a genuine common good, ? as a res publica ? is both an eternal necessity and an absolute purpose of that Will, and in so doing, to develop the science and practice of the world of modern Political Will, i.e. of modern Politovolia. In its absolute totality the absolute spiritual Will reconciles its absolutely opposite speculative moments ? personalism and communism, ? which we understand as a life in a genuinely humanist political community, as a life in a res publica and contains them in their unity for each of these principles is one-sided. Reconciling them is of enormous importance; each of them developed in its totality turns into its opposite. The Will cognises and takes possession of itself in the process of its infinite coming to itself - this is the freedom of Will, its absolute and supreme purpose. Its determinations are individuality and universality, the common good. Since Will contains them in their absolute unity, each of these two moments can be understood only through the other one and together with the other one. In his really speculative philosophy Hegel expresses it superbly: ?The principle of personality is universality.?9 It is a great true definition. The individual personality is the absolute subject of Rational Will, in and through which the will realizes its greatest and absolute purpose, i.e. to cognise and possess the very itself in the infinite form of truth and freedom; this alone does the rational will in world-history. Man is the infinite free volitional subjectivity, which determines the march of world history in the course of its own activity. Personality ? the practical, objective volitional self-possession of each person, ? is the absolute subject of the ever realizing itself highest principle: ?Will yourself.? As the directed toward itself absolute activity personality is the living process of organizing its scientific, industrial, trade, legal, religious and ethical activities, or in other words, its political actuality; it is the Rational Will for a well governed social life in a political, strong-willed union of the whole society, which in and through this union organizes its political Will for Freedom and Justice in the state ? its highest Public Good. Here, however, we will explore the human person in his logical ? i.e. free of any historical details, ? form. Everything begins with man and everything comes back into him; he is the will which wills to possess itself, to be in power over itself because he is an embodiment of the directed towards itself its own highest good. He is the infinite subject of universal and supreme political rational Freedom, which ? as a political personality ? he wills to reach and possess and towards which he naturally strives for in and through his political community. The Absolute has and uses its immanent power to rule and determine itself and possess itself in the totality of its self-knowing and self-possessing Will. In its complete reality Politovolia is as much a practical as a theoretical system in development. It strives to reveal its subject matter, the absolute self-moving and self-developing process of the Rational Will. Having its inherent absolute purpose, the latter develops and self-determines itself freely in the process of its own activity, with the result that it makes itself what it is. Hence, in order to understand the content of politovolia, it is enough to grasp the course of the Absolute Rational Will?s development. In the course of the self-realizing development of its absolute principle ?Will yourself?, Politovolia reveals itself to itself totally and demonstrates its whole content as a determination of the infinite thinking will, which thinks and wills only the very itself. However, the aim of this manifesto is not to give an overall presentation of politovolia (Politovolia is yet to be written), but to dwell on the speculative presentation of its most important concepts - property and Freedom. In order to achieve these conceptions in their truth and right ? which is the highest purpose of this work, ? we will examine them in their development and realization; to save labour, we will not do it on the basis of practical but theoretical politovolia because the united principle, which pierce the one as well as the other, makes them one and the same and in the whole they correspond with one another. Property is the first principle of the infinite Rational Will; politovolia necessarily begins with it. That is why it is essential to present the dialectical ? i.e. through and from itself ? movement of the Rational Will, as well as the speculative result of its self-development; a result, which contains in itself all the stages and the whole wealth of this development as sublated, so that all particular principles of the preceding epochs are necessary moments of the highest principle of the united omnipotent Will: ?Will yourself.? At the same time not only do we want to present the concept of property through its complete development from its very beginning up to our epoch, but also to develop it further on the basis of the above stated and for the first time clearly realized principle, i.e. we want to grasp this concept deeper and more concretely and thus to make the next step in revealing its infinitely rich content. We will rely on the great achievements of our predecessors in the field of practical and theoretical politovolia. On principle these achievements are common property of all mankind, because they belong to the free and true thinking Will. The latter is the living process of its self-determination through which it organizes its actual political world. Having in view the purposes, which we put forth, that is, to give a brief report on politovolia, we are not so interested in the historical chronology of the development of the rational volition for property (which chronology is a subject of the history of politovolia) as in its logical development. It is extremely interesting and peculiar, that in the whole development of politovolia so far, property ? no matter whether it has been treated as private or common (public) one ? has been perceived mainly and most of all as taking possession of and being in possession of outward things, of the material world. This is a fact that does not need special proofs; it is easy to find them in every historical epoch and in any scientific politovolical work. That is why let it be perfectly enough if we quote Aristotle: ?Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with necessaries.?10 and Hegel: ?All things may become man's property, because man is free will and consequently is absolute, while what stands over against him lacks this quality. Thus, everyone has the right to make his will the thing or to make the thing his will, or in other words to destroy the thing and transform it into his own; for the thing, as externality, has no end in itself; it is not infinite self-relation but something external to itself.?11 Hegel ? like Aristotle and John Locke, ? is a great apologist and an upholder of private property as an absolute moment and actuality of freedom. Determining private property in the following way: ?Since my will, as the will of a person, and so as a single will, becomes objective to me in property, property acquires the character of private property,?12 Hegel determines the free private proprietor and his inviolable will as well, namely, that the person as such has in property the reality of his freedom, ?for in property the matter is posited as what it is, i.e. as something which lacks independence, and which, since it has essential significance only as the reality of a person?s will, is not to be touched by anyone else.?13 We must state unhesitatingly, that this determination of property as only outer sphere of personality's freedom is completely insufficient. Fortunately, however, Rational Will ? the creator of world-history ? has been working and works tirelessly on the further development of its determinations; it has a purpose and this purpose is to set itself as an absolute property, to attain the great wealth of its content, greater than which there is not possible to be. Practically, i.e. in practical politovolia, Rational Will invariably pursues its aim and does its hard work. It has already covered a long way ? through many stages and moments and, in fact, a long time ago it went beyond the framework of the quoted above defective determinations of property. But theoretical politovolia has not yet taken possession of this infinitely rich content. As if now the time has come for the Rational Will to cognise and possess more deeply itself, to return to itself, to attain its freedom as its own property, to posit itself as the having itself Will. But this is a point to be made now in more depth. NOTES:
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