Metternich, Kissinger, and Hitler

Why would a modern diplomat, the Secretary of State, at the end of the twentieth century, bother investigating what an eighteenth century diplomat's actions in the early nineteenth century? In other words, why would Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, study the diplomacy of Metternich's Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815?


Because the principles of international relations do not change, even if the settings do. Writing about Kissinger, Robert D. Kaplan noted that

if the technology of war had changed, Kissinger implied, the task of statesmen remained the same: to construct a balance of fear among great powers as part of the maintenance of an orderly international system - a system that, while not necessarily just or fair, was accepted by the principal players as legitimate. As long as the system was maintained, no one would challenge it through revolution - the way Hitler in the 1930's.

Metternich is worthy of study: if peace is the goal of a diplomat, Metternich excelled. The Congress of Vienna created a stable system that ensured peace for a century.

With the British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Robert Stewart Castlereagh, Metternich built an order so ingenious that from 1815, the year of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, to the outbreak of the First World War, a hundred years later, Europe knew no major conflicts, with the exception of the ten-month-long Franco-Prussian War, in 1870-1871. Thanks in significant measure to Metternich, who did everything in his power to forestall the advent of democracy and freedom in the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, Europe in 1914 saw peace and steady economic growth as natural and permanent conditions. Europe had thus lost that vital, tragic sensibility without which disaster is hard to avoid, and troops rushed onto the battlefields of Flanders in a fit of romanticism.

In addition to the Franco-Prussian War, there was also the Crimean War, and a few other conflicts - all of which, added together, were laughably small, compared two the horrors which flank the century of peace: the 25 years of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars at the beginning, and World War One at the end.


Although Kissinger's study of Metternich, published as a book with the title A World Restored, is in no way about Hitler, the generalizations which he makes seem to implicitly reflect Kissinger's experience of Germany in the 1930's:

Kissinger's response to Munich and Nazism in A World Restored is pellucid. The key word is "revolution," something that Kissinger's experience as a youth, augmented by scholarship, taught him to fear. Rapid social and political transformation leads to violence, whether throughout the Europe of the early 1800's, owing to Napoleon's aggression -- itself a direct result of the French Revolution - or in the Germany of the 1930's. Although the word "revolution" is applied to the America of the 1770's ... the cultural and philosophical awakenings among English settlers in America ... took place over decades and were, in truth, evolutions. Iran did experience a revolution in the late 1970s, as did Cambodia in 1975, China in the late 1940's, and Russia in 1917.

Kissinger saw, as did Edmund Burke and others, that the American Revolution and the French Revolution were fundamentally and essentially different - and latter marked out a path to later be taken by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

Cultural Success, Political Failure

When Karl the Great - often known as 'Charlemagne' - united most of Europe into his empire, and fueled a burst of education, art, and science which illuminated the intellectual climate to the extent that some historians call it 'Carolingian Renaissance', it would have surprised most of his contemporaries to learn that within a few generations, his empire would crumble. Although his academic impact would propel human learning for many centuries, his political structure left something to be desired. Frederick Copleston writes:

The empire of Charlemagne turned out to be a political failure. After the emperor's death his dominions were divided. Further, a wave of invasions occurred. The year 845 witnessed the burning of Hamburg and the sack of Paris by the Northmen or Vikings, while in 847 Bordeaux suffered a like fate. The Frankish empire was ultimately split into five kingdoms, frequently engaged in war with one another. Meanwhile the Saracens were invading Italy and nearly captured Rome.

We see two forces arrayed against the Carolingian Dynasty: one internal, the failure to plan an orderly succession which would keep the empire unified; one external, the Muslim Saracens whose Islamic armies would attack Italy, Sicily, and along the Mediterranean coastline from Spain to Greece.

A third force destabilized society: the corruption and destabilization of the Church. Long a center of learning - the monasteries of the early Middle Ages housed the sum of Greco-Roman classical wisdom and literature - and a center of social support - food, clothing, vocational training, and employment were offered freely to those in need - the Church was infiltrated by those who were interested neither in rational reflection nor in social welfare. Pretending to embrace the Christian faith, these spies insinuated themselves into the Church's structure and spread their unchristian activities from within:

The Church fell victim to exploitation by the new feudal nobility. Abbacies and bishoprics were sued as rewards for laymen or unworthy prelates; and in the tenth century the papacy itself was under the control of local nobles and factions. In such circumstances the educational movement inaugurated by Charlemagne could not be expected to bear much fruit.

It would be decades before the intellectual engine of Europe would reach peak operating power again: but when it did, the Scholastic philosophers of the High Middle Ages would lay the groundwork for modern chemistry and physics as they turned human reason's attention both to nature and to the mind's own processes.

How Long Do We Live?

Common wisdom tells us that in our era, people tend to live longer lives; a century or two ago, life spans were shorter, and during the Middle Ages, they were very short. Right? Maybe not. Our lives may not actually be that much longer than those of our ancestors.

How did the general impression arise that we now have much longer life spans? One of the chief culprits is ignoring the difference between 'average life span' and 'life expectancy'. These two phrases sound similar enough that we care inclined to think that, because the average life span in the Middle Ages was shorter than current life expectancy, we are living much longer nowadays. A Washington Post article tells us that:

To hear that the average U.S. life expectancy was 47 years in 1900 and 78 years as of 2007, you might conclude that there weren’t a lot of old people in the old days — and that modern medicine invented old age. But average life expectancy is heavily skewed by childhood deaths, and infant mortality rates were high back then. In 1900, the U.S. infant mortality rate was approximately 100 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2000, the rate was 6.89 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

To be sure, we are living longer. But the difference may not be as much as we think, given the nature of the statistics. 'Average life span' is what it seems to be: on average, how long a person lives. But the phrase 'life expectancy' is used to factor out infant mortality, and unusual statistical hiccups reflecting large numbers of unexpected deaths: 'life expectancy' is how long a person will probably live, if she or he has made it through childhood, and if nothing drastically unexpected happens (a war, a famine, a plague, or a hurricane); it's an attempt to capture a person's natural life span. Declines in infant mortality have boosted average life spans, but don't really change life expectancies:

The bulk of that decline came in the first half of the century, from simple public health measures such as improved sanitation and nutrition, not open heart surgery, MRIs or sophisticated medicines. Similarly, better obstetrical education and safer deliveries in that same period also led to steep declines in maternal mortality, so that by 1950, average life expectancy had catapulted to 68 years.

Imagine the statistical skewing which would result from factoring out death deaths caused by WWI and WWII. Those would be huge numbers. So average life spans in the Middle Ages might seem short because they include the millions of deaths resulting from the Thirty Years' War and the Black Death plague, but the life expectancy of twentieth-century populations factors out the war casualties.

Statistics about life in the Middle Ages are to some extent guesswork; we can make much more precise comparisons about recent decades. Were lives really that much shorter a hundred years ago? Maybe not:

For all its technological sophistication and hefty price tag, modern medicine may be doing more to complicate the end of life than to prolong or improve it. If a person living in 1900 managed to survive childhood and childbearing, she had a good chance of growing old. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a person who made it to 65 in 1900 could expect to live an average of 12 more years; if she made it to 85, she could expect to go another four years. In 2007, a 65-year-old American could expect to live, on average, another 19 years; if he made it to 85, he could expect to go another six years.

The lesson? Life in our era is, in some ways, very different than life in previous eras; but in other ways, our existence isn't that different. The task is to determine what the similarities are, and what the differences. One of the similarities is life span: despite our mental images of the previous eras, lives weren't that much shorter in the past.

University Life in the Good Old Days!

What was it like to be at a university, when universities were still a new idea? The world's first university was up and running by 1088 A.D. in Bologna, Italy. How was it organized?

The early universities were very loose in structure, compared with the institutions of later eras. The professors who taught there were very much "freelance" businessmen. If you wanted to teach, you simply posted a notice about when and where you would be lecturing, and what the topic of your lecture was. Students didn't pay the university, but rather they paid each professor individually. A professor could get a higher price for his lectures if he had the reputation of being a good teacher. What helped him build that reputation? If his students could pass the comprehensive examinations given by the university. In such as a system, there was a great deal of freedom for both professors and students.

Eventually, both groups realized that they had something to gain by uniting. The professors formed a guild, much as other Medieval tradesmen (bakers and cobblers, for example) did. Students formed unions. The guild for professors was called a collegium - the origin of our words 'college' and 'colleague'. The guild helped to stabilize prices and set standards for what students could expect.

The student unions found that they could bargain lecture prices downwards when they bargained as a group: a negotiating tactic which has many parallels. The students would also boycott a certain professor's lectures if his teaching was found to be defective. The student body was self-governing: they wrote and enforced their own rules upon their fellow students.

The first generation of universities were independent of both ecclesiastical authority and the power of nobles. They were organized and operated by laymen - by ordinary Christians, not employees of the church. This led to a certain amount of speculative freedom in theology: professors taught students from the text of Scripture - Hebrew and Greek - instead of from the church's interpretation of Scripture. In areas of politics, too, there was a chance to discuss divergent views.

Eventually, however, the nature of the universities would change. Their success led to growing numbers of students, and more universities, and the demand for more facilities. To fund the infrastructure - libraries, dormitories, lecture halls, cafeterias - required more funding than the freelance structure could provide, and so the universities looked for sponsors with deep pockets. Most universities would end up being funded either by local nobility, or by the church. If funded by regional aristocrats, the political teachings of the university might be somewhat self-conscious in light of the view of the local duke, earl, or baron. If funded by the church, the theology department might keep its speculations a bit more tame.

The university movement started in Bologna, and spread throughout Europe in a couple of centuries. A notable exception was Spain - of which Portugal was still a part - which lagged behind the rest of the continent in terms of cultural development. It was still recovering from the damage of several centuries of occupation by Islamic armies.

The university of Paris is often considered the high point of Medieval academic life. Founded by William of Champeaux and Abelard of Brittany around 1170 A.D., it is an example of the more developed stage of the university. Although William and Abelard are listed as the 'founders' of the university, this is not entirely clear; like Bologna, the university in Paris was formed in part by merging several older schools. In any case, it soon developed the more formalized structure typical of the university after its founding phase. The teaching faculty - the term magister was retained - was no longer purely freelance, but rather had to be licensed to teach by the university. One the one hand, this helped to ensure quality; on the other hand, it could generate a limiting force on academic freedom. The university in Paris was organized around four faculties: theology, cannon law, medicine, and the arts. 'Cannon law' is the body of regulations applying to those who work for the church. 'The arts' - or 'the liberal arts' as we now call them - includes disciplines such as mathematics and physics.

The teaching methods of the university at this stage consisted of two main practices. The first was dictation and lecture. The printing press, and the revolutionary changes it would bring into intellectual life, had not yet been invented. (Gutenberg would do that in the 1400's.) Student brought large quantities of blank paper with them to lectures, sometime bound into a book form, other times as loose sheets. The professor would read very slowly a text - perhaps a couple paragraphs of Aristotle or Cicero - and the students would copy exactly what he said (this was the 'dictation'). After the students had captured the text, the professor would then go on to deliver what we would consider a normal university lecture about those texts, taking questions at the end. Over the course of several years at the university, a student would create for himself several books this way: the collected dictations and lecture notes. Since it was impossible to buy textbooks (no printing press!), students literally had to make their own.

The second teaching method which dominated at the universities was debate. This was crucial, not only to learning the subject matter at hand, but also to forming the creative intellects which would make the major scientific discoveries of the Middle Ages. A debate would begin with a question posed. Often it was in the form of a statement, and the implied question following it was "is this true or not?" Students were assigned to prepare evidence for the debate, and the professors acted as umpires or referees. A student, or team of students, on one side of the question would offer data to support the statement - quotes drawn from pagan philosophers, from Holy Scripture, and from the church fathers; evidence could also be based on original reasoning from the students. On the other side of the question, the same procedure was followed: students presented data to attempt to prove the statement false. The professors judged the work according to the quality of the argumentation. After such a debate, students then changed sides, and were required to argue in favor of the other view - thus students became thoroughly familiar with both sides of the argument. This method was used in teaching all subjects.

It can be seen how this type of instruction - requiring students to become familiar with both sides of a dispute, encouraging them to develop sophisticated logic to out-maneuver the students on the other side of the debate, and allowing them to use their own original reasoning in addition to the data found in texts - created several generations of shrewd and clever mathematicians, astronomers, philosophers, physicists, and theologians. The large amount of intellectual creativity generated during the Middle Ages was responsible for advances and progress in various academic disciplines. The relative lack of progress made in subsequent times (during the Renaissance) was hidden by the fact that the Renaissance would claim as its own many of the intellectual creations properly belonging to the Middle Ages.

Socrates Exits

Among the earliest dialogues written by Plato are four which report the arrest, trial, and execution of Socrates. Although they are more historical than some of Plato's later dialogues, and give up a relatively life-like impression of Socrates, we are hesitant to rely on their details for factual history. And although they give us good examples of characteristically Socratic argumentation, their philosophical valued is often sadly overshadowed by the drama surrounding the death of Socrates.

The dialogue called 'Euthyphro' recounts a discussion about the exact definition of 'piety' - placing the matter of precise definitions in the spotlight, typical for Socratic thought, and a great contribution to the history of philosophy. Piety is central to the narrative across the four dialogues, because one of the charges brought against Socrates, at least in Plato's version of the trial, is impiety.

Second in the series is the 'Apology' - a defense speech made by Socrates at his trial. Here the dramatic nearly drowns the philosophical. Important issues are raised, but the dialogue is written in such a way that one wonders if Plato's main purpose was to create sympathy for Socrates, rather than ponder abstractions. The defense is not much of a defense; Socrates continues his habit of critiquing or even insulting certain prominent Athenians, even some who are part of his jury. One may speculate that Socrates wanted to be convicted. There are good examples of ironic 'Socratic ignorance' - a sort of epistemological humility - and he accuses Athenians of loving money more than justice. He denies the charge of impiety, points to the lack of any monetary gain from his activities, claims that he's being accused because he exposes the ignorance of others, shows that he lacks any motive for the additional charge of corrupting his fellow citizens, and - intriguingly - speculates that the charges brought against him may be a cover-up. Indirectly and implicitly, questions are raised about the democratic government of Athens: can democracy be so good, if it yields the manipulated verdict for Socrates? What might be covered up? This dialogue has been fuel for the view a Socrates as a martyr for the cause of free speech, and for comparison with the trial of Jesus.

After his trial, Socrates awaits his execution in jail, which provides the setting for the dialogue called 'Crito' - friends offer Socrates a chance to escape from prison and live elsewhere, but he declines, not wanting to live the rest of his life as a fugitive. The dialogue wrestles with the tension between deontological and teleological ethics, with definition of justice, and with the search for a rationalist foundation for ethics. Several propositions contain embryonic forms of a social contract theory. Socrates also advances a paternalistic view of government. By declining the offer of escape, Socrates effectively chooses death a second time - the first time having been his calculated behavior at his trial - and again invites comparison with Jesus. The dialogues is structured nicely, inasmuch as one can list precisely the arguments given for and against the notion that Socrates should escape.

Finally, the dialogue entitled 'Phaedo' gives us a discussion of the immortality of the soul, as Socrates faces his death. Here again the argumentation is definable, with four separate arguments for immortality.

These dialogues, taken as a group, do indeed offer some insight into the specific nature of Socratic philosophizing, and raise powerful questions; the delivery is marred, however, by Plato's tendency toward drama. Later Platonic dialogues tend to be more sober, less popular, and deliver a keener, more intelligent, philosophy.

A Better Way

Although old textbooks still sometimes view feudalism in bad light, current scholars have come to see how it provided a better societal structure than either the Roman Empire which preceded it, or the Renaissance absolutism which followed it. Feudal structures were decentralized and therefore more flexible and responsive to local conditions; they involved mutual obligation rather than autocratic authority, allowed for negotiated outcomes rather than arbitrary decrees. Historian Irma Simonton Black writes that

In the High Middle Ages, the feudal system worked like this. A great and powerful lord loaned to one of his noble followers a tract of land to plant and to use. The follower, or vassal, had to pay for the use of the land by furnishing fighting men when his lord needed them. He promised loyalty by kneeling and placing his hands between those of the lord. The vassal's chief service was to fight for his lord, but in peacetime he owed other services. Usually he attended his lord's court for a certain time each year. And he had to make a gift of money on special occasions such as the marriage of the lord's oldest daughter, or the coming of age of the lord's oldest son.

Almost every lord was a vassal, and almost every vassal was a lord. There was only one person in the entire nation who was not under a lord: the king or queen. But even the king or queen did not have absolute authority; rather, he or she had to negotiate with lords, or barons, of the nation. This prevented the despotic imperialism of Roman Empire from returning, and prevented the absolutism of later ages from starting. Most vassals were also lords: as they had pledged to help their lord, so their vassals had pledged to help them. Only the serfs had no vassals below them:

Even the greatest lords were vassals of the king, who was in theory the owner of all the land in the kingdom. The whole system was supposed to be an elaborate network leading to the king. But in practice, the king was very often at the mercy of his powerful vassals, who had their own armies an courts to compete with his.

To maximize freedom, it was necessary that the king or queen not be high above everyone else in the society; otherwise, the royal ruler would be tempted into autocracy. The existence of powerful nobles provided a sort of check and balance, or a division of powers.

A vassal inherited his his right to use land from his father, and in turn he passed it on to his oldest son. In time, noble families forgot that their land had originally been loaned to them by their lord. They held control over their enormous holdings and administered them as their own.

Naturally, most of the economy revolved around agriculture. Although there were trades, like working with wood and metal, and even banking systems, most people were involved in farming. Most of the farming was done by serfs:

The main duty of a serf was to help his fellows take care of the noble's broad fields. In addition, nobles allowed their serfs little strips of land to plant for themselves. On this they raised food for themselves and their families, and perhaps a little extra to sell.

Although serfs were economically dependent upon, and bound to, their lords, the ability to raise extra crops to sell provided a measure of autonomy; the ability to raise crops to feed their families provided a measure of motivation. This prevented Medieval Europe from facing some of the agricultural problems which had faced the Roman Empire.

Bush on Islam

In the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave a number of important speeches. His words would set the tone for America's response to terrorists. In particular, he gave focus to a view of Islam as a world religion:

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam, we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace.

President Bush's words shocked many. Not only Americans, but all around the world, people had associated Islam with violence and terror. Bush was challenging people to acknowledge the peaceful face of Islam, and to acknowledge the existence of peaceful and moderate Muslims.

America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect.

In the weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Bush went on to say that

the terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.

These statements by the President constitute an analysis of a religious faith, and, like any analysis, must ultimately be subject to an objective judgment which will show it to be true or false. Is President Bush correct in saying that Islam

teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace.

or when he says that

All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's faith based upon love, not hate.

and continuing to generalize that Islam is a religion of peace?

If President Bush is correct, then it would mean that not only are there moderate and peaceful Muslims in the United States, which we already know, but that there might be moderate and peaceful Muslims in other nations - and there are. But are there enough of them to make a significant political difference? Are there enough of them to throw off the harsh dictatorships which have oppressed nations in the Middle East for the last one thousand years? This question takes the form, in the year 2011, of the so-called 'Arab Spring' - the hint that individual freedom might overthrow the orthodox Islam of the region: that personal liberty might undermine the rigid control imposed by those Muslims who adhere to the teachings of the Qur'an.

Could it be that nominal Muslims will generate a new wave of freedom and liberty in the Middle East? We must watch and wait to learn the answer.