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The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century: An Essay On Late Modernity
In The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century , the sequel to Icarus Fallen, published by ISI Books in 2003, Chantal Delsol maintains that the age in which we live—late modernity—calls into question most of the truths and beliefs bequeathed to us from the past. Yet it clings to a central belief in the dignity of the human person, the cornerstone of the doctrine of universal human rights to which even secular Westerners still cling. At the same time, the process of dehumanization so evident in the ideologies and totalitarianism of the twentieth century remains at work. Delsol charges that it is not enough to proclaim human rights as a sort of incantation but that, rather, one must understand what sort of being the human person is if humans are to be genuinely respected. In other words, if the philosophy of human rights is to form the basis of Western culture, it must rest on a truer understanding of the human person than that which is taught—both explicitly and implicitly—in the contemporary West.
300 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2006
3 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Chantal Delsol
73 books36 followersChantal Delsol is a French philosopher, political historian and novelist. Founder of the Hannah Arendt research institute founded in 1993. She is openly Catholic, and a disciple of Julien Freund and Pierre Boutang, describes herself as a "liberal-conservative".
Chantal Delsol main political ideas are liberalism, federalism, as well as the principle of subsidiarity based on the idea of singularity.
Chantal Delsol main political ideas are liberalism, federalism, as well as the principle of subsidiarity based on the idea of singularity.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 3, 2011
Whereas
Icarus Fallen
was a poetically acute examination by Mme Delsol of the modern European (French) malaise—and that of the Western democracies by extension—that carefully laid out the current cultural and social state of affairs with a sympathetic insight, The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century revisits that same ill-being with a sharper blade, cutting away the layers of late modernity to get to the stricken core and expose it to the more piercing refulgence of her corrective light. If the first book expounded upon the causations and effects of the postmodern condition, the second probes why they have proven debilitating and dangerous, and what would be a more prudent, beneficial, and sustainable means of achieving society's desired ends.
Most of the points the French philosopher raised in Icarus Fallen are tackled anew, and perhaps it is the fact that I read this opening salvo a mere three weeks ago that made UL seem so repetitive. Canadian academic Robin Dick again provides an excellent translation—Delsol is a lovely writer—though the sequel doesn't achieve quite the same poetic grace of Icarus; and the text, IMO, could have been shaved by a decent margin if Mme Delsol had resisted the urge to reiterate the same basic points—notwithstanding from different angles—in every chapter. Still, it's a remarkable effort—my (relatively limited) experience with French philosophy is that it ofttimes doesn't easily render itself into pleasant English, and the fact is that both of Chantal Delsol's essays on late-modernity have been a true pleasure to read, rife with searing observations and memorable phrasings that readily lend themselves to quotation.
The central thrust of UL is that Western society, at the turn of the century, was a culture of contradictions: having learned the hard way that societal utopias, the eradication of evil, and human perfectibility were parlous illusions, that ironclad ideologies and historic certainties had led only to dehumanizing totalitarianism and repression, late-modernity yet based their sole remaining certitude—that of a human rights based upon the essential dignity of man—upon the same bedrock of beliefs that gave rise to the discredited utopian mindset. Guided by those who were either determined to ensure the impossibility of such immense suffering ever recurring, or those who, bitterly hating the failure of their cherished ideologies, fervently desired that all beliefs and systems be destroyed, Western (European) society smothered everything under the heavy blankets of relativism and equality.
Certitudes (other than of human rights) were anathema; morals flattened; religion and sectarianism abhorred; judgement condemned; law made ever more stringent and abstract; charity deemed demeaning unless given in anonymity; equality pursued through a strangled collectivity in which the individual, self-sufficient unto himself, was paramount above all. In an effort to maximize personal freedom, meaning was erased from existence, the subject emptied out and left hollow, without support systems of any kind—and the plenitude of freedoms deprived of their immanent value. Deluded into thinking himself a demiurge, designer of his own reality, modern man—refusing to accept his finitude—was isolated within his biological essence, his physical manifestation his only verity. Violence and strife, thoroughly discredited by the totalitarian disasters, was to be avoided at all costs: the weapon wielded by modernity was derision, the armament of negation, empowered only to destroy, to tear down. Derision and scorn served to ostracize those who protested the Western malaise, who spoke against the rudderless, mediocre norm or were deemed guilty of being proponents of beliefs or sectarian truths that would prove inflammatory or stir the ashes of division. Furthermore, the banishment of certitude and universal truths meant that all transgressions were now judged through the emotive lens of indignation and self-righteousness, with all of the tendentiousness and changeability such attitudes inherently bring. This also applied to actions, whose criminality was ameliorated by the perceived idealism that underlay them; thus the fact that, unlike Nazism, communism—despite its vast catalogue of cruelties and evils—was never condemned in the manner it warranted due to the prevailing belief in its having had good intentions behind its savage actions. Most dangerous of all, the same potentiality for totalitarian renewal can be found in the pseudo-religious fanaticism that surrounds pantheistic worship (environmentalism) and the politics of identity groups—beliefs in which select aspects of human life are singled in upon with great zeal while the remainder languish in the background.
As mentioned, much of this is a reinforcement of the themes detailed in Icarus Fallen; and—even more so than in the latter tome—several points which Mme Delsol addresses are specific to turn-of-the-century France, especially those that reference its educational system and union/management conflicts. Having suffered the humiliation of defeat in World War Two, and the fascist-lite collaborative government in Vichy, the right-wing was far more anathematized—and the communist party much stronger and politically relevant—in France than in Canada or the United States, and this is an important fact to keep in mind when reading this essay. Her suggested changes and solutions, expounded upon in considerably more detail here, strike me as reasonable within the context of her critique. It is impossible to do them justice in the space of a review, but they essentially amount to re-empowering the human subject by the acceptance of finitude, of imperfection, of insufficiency; that universal truths must be advanced and averred—debated, never set-in-stone, but averred, and that some measure of transcendence is a necessary component of lived humanity; that freedoms and rights are meaningless without corresponding responsibilities and obligations; that evil is ubiquitous and cannot be eradicated, nor the good instituted universally; that human existence must perforce contain, and accept, an element of risk, of uncertainty, of exploration, even at the peril of the renewal of inequity or violence or conflict—there can be no all-encompassing equality, security and safety; even that we should perhaps investigate whether paternalism or hierarchy are in fact necessary oppressive elements in Western liberal democracy, whether maternalism or a communitarian collectivity does not, in fact, inevitably lend itself to oppression in a totalitarian manner. These are, for the most part, well-argued and worthy of debate. IMO, however, the larger problem lies in her neglect of certain relevant aspects of the current situation.
As Daniel Bell and others have remarked upon, Capitalism and the Market inevitably alter and distort the societies which embrace them, even with strong socialistic elements. Delsol tackles this briefly in her chapter on Economics as Religion, acknowledging its destructive and determinative effects upon culture and the bitterness it engenders in its overt consumerism—she expounds upon the desirability of transferring fervor from Economics—the path of possession unfolding across space—to that of Politics or Religion, unfolding across time, under the premise that space divides, while time unifies; the only authentic bonds and solidarity being found in the spiritual aspect of the latter. What she doesn't acknowledge is how economics has imbued itself into virtually everything—our politics is overwhelmed by the economic aspect of every avenue of pursuit; art has been subdued by the Market's strictures; culture bowed down underneath its mighty weight. In particular, her preferred approach—classical humanism—today would position itself on the right half of most Western political systems, but it is this side that has been most completely co-opted by the Economic. Today, it seems that even Jesus is made out to favor the rich and encourages his believers to augment their wealth for the glory of God. In part, this is because one can discuss money, taxes, and redistribution in the abstract, without having to delve into other policy issues—with their messy moral and ideological complexities—that would require a broad knowledge on the part of the electorate, and complimentary peroration on the part of the politicians. In another, there is a distinct dichotomy between the rhetoric of limited government and the prevailing belief in the inefficiency of government mandated services and the desire of the government to expand into and intrude upon personal freedoms, and the actual reality that constitutes the current makeup of western societies wherein a vast and tiered array of government services has been the foundation upon which the immense expansion of trade and technocratic economies with stable citizenries has been designed around. Without addressing this reality, Economics will always remain at the fore.
Thus, one must ask, how are we to come to this reevaluation of our culture and belief systems? Every avenue of media promotes the simple present, the now; superficiality is prized over depth, because it can be presented quickly, and we can proceed rapidly to the next spectacle. A quick shock, laugh, or indignant splutter is all that is sought—stirring up any deeper emotional response would be playing with a potentially destabilizing fire. With a citizenry focussed almost exclusively—by necessity—on the driving question of how will they ensure a better life for their children, or even ensure the presence of food on the table, with the regular cycle of boom-and-bust back in full swing, where will we find the political will to address these aspects of the malaise and treat them with the seriousness they deserve? Even more difficult is the question of exactly how is this transcendence, this spiritual aspect, to be conceived? Mme Delsol favors monotheistic religion over any pantheon or pantheism, as she holds that only the former intrinsically provides the subject with a personal eternity and self existence that serves to buttress tendencies for a democracy composed of unique individuals—yet she admits the irreversible effects of the established religion's diminishment and errors in the limning glare of modernity. One cannot fake or force belief if it is to have any beneficial effects—and if we explore various avenues of where to seek universal verities, where to entrust our faith, no matter how reasonably and compromisingly we may enter into it, human experience is that, inevitably, it will lead to strident declarations of one true path being the only way, and all other belief systems heretical, dangerous, and qualified for harsh corrective measures. This may all be part and parcel of our need to embark upon risks if we are to break the cycle of apathetic listlessness with which society is inflicted, but its potential for catastrophe is well-documented throughout history. We must face the possibility, as dismaying and dispiriting as it may be, that our chosen path of Western democracy married with technological capitalism is one-way; that we cannot, in effect, go home again. At least, not without a violent and immense outbreak in which all current societal bonds are shattered or loosened, and is that not what we are, in effect, trying to avoid with these solutions?
I'm no philosopher, and I'm doubtless doing Mme Delsol an injustice with my simplified and abbreviated review of her impressively argued and soberly passionate essay, one that is—along with Icarus Fallen—well worth taking the time to read. In particular, her chapters on The Modern Subject, or Incomplete Certitudes and The Ubiquity of Evil are outstanding, especially in the latter when she discusses ideological Manichaeanism and examines the Eastern European philosophy (of Jan Patocka, for example) that allowed the majority of the Warsaw Pact countries to emerge from their communist inertia with a minimum of violence and vengeance. Never in my life of the Left or the Right and skeptical of ideology, always unsure in my beliefs and swinging back and forth between optimism and pessimism, growingly aware of the chimerical lure of utopia and susceptible to the tenet that some manner of compromise is almost always preferable to conflict, I find that, as I age, the philosophy of classical humanists like Chantal Delsol holds much that is wise and bracing and worthy of examination. This is the kind of tome that provokes a bounty of questions—often troubling ones—and stirs the mind from its comfort zone into a roil, a disturbance that leads one's thought in new directions and forces it to find some measure of reply: always the mark of success as far as a philosophical critique is concerned.
Most of the points the French philosopher raised in Icarus Fallen are tackled anew, and perhaps it is the fact that I read this opening salvo a mere three weeks ago that made UL seem so repetitive. Canadian academic Robin Dick again provides an excellent translation—Delsol is a lovely writer—though the sequel doesn't achieve quite the same poetic grace of Icarus; and the text, IMO, could have been shaved by a decent margin if Mme Delsol had resisted the urge to reiterate the same basic points—notwithstanding from different angles—in every chapter. Still, it's a remarkable effort—my (relatively limited) experience with French philosophy is that it ofttimes doesn't easily render itself into pleasant English, and the fact is that both of Chantal Delsol's essays on late-modernity have been a true pleasure to read, rife with searing observations and memorable phrasings that readily lend themselves to quotation.
The central thrust of UL is that Western society, at the turn of the century, was a culture of contradictions: having learned the hard way that societal utopias, the eradication of evil, and human perfectibility were parlous illusions, that ironclad ideologies and historic certainties had led only to dehumanizing totalitarianism and repression, late-modernity yet based their sole remaining certitude—that of a human rights based upon the essential dignity of man—upon the same bedrock of beliefs that gave rise to the discredited utopian mindset. Guided by those who were either determined to ensure the impossibility of such immense suffering ever recurring, or those who, bitterly hating the failure of their cherished ideologies, fervently desired that all beliefs and systems be destroyed, Western (European) society smothered everything under the heavy blankets of relativism and equality.
Certitudes (other than of human rights) were anathema; morals flattened; religion and sectarianism abhorred; judgement condemned; law made ever more stringent and abstract; charity deemed demeaning unless given in anonymity; equality pursued through a strangled collectivity in which the individual, self-sufficient unto himself, was paramount above all. In an effort to maximize personal freedom, meaning was erased from existence, the subject emptied out and left hollow, without support systems of any kind—and the plenitude of freedoms deprived of their immanent value. Deluded into thinking himself a demiurge, designer of his own reality, modern man—refusing to accept his finitude—was isolated within his biological essence, his physical manifestation his only verity. Violence and strife, thoroughly discredited by the totalitarian disasters, was to be avoided at all costs: the weapon wielded by modernity was derision, the armament of negation, empowered only to destroy, to tear down. Derision and scorn served to ostracize those who protested the Western malaise, who spoke against the rudderless, mediocre norm or were deemed guilty of being proponents of beliefs or sectarian truths that would prove inflammatory or stir the ashes of division. Furthermore, the banishment of certitude and universal truths meant that all transgressions were now judged through the emotive lens of indignation and self-righteousness, with all of the tendentiousness and changeability such attitudes inherently bring. This also applied to actions, whose criminality was ameliorated by the perceived idealism that underlay them; thus the fact that, unlike Nazism, communism—despite its vast catalogue of cruelties and evils—was never condemned in the manner it warranted due to the prevailing belief in its having had good intentions behind its savage actions. Most dangerous of all, the same potentiality for totalitarian renewal can be found in the pseudo-religious fanaticism that surrounds pantheistic worship (environmentalism) and the politics of identity groups—beliefs in which select aspects of human life are singled in upon with great zeal while the remainder languish in the background.
As mentioned, much of this is a reinforcement of the themes detailed in Icarus Fallen; and—even more so than in the latter tome—several points which Mme Delsol addresses are specific to turn-of-the-century France, especially those that reference its educational system and union/management conflicts. Having suffered the humiliation of defeat in World War Two, and the fascist-lite collaborative government in Vichy, the right-wing was far more anathematized—and the communist party much stronger and politically relevant—in France than in Canada or the United States, and this is an important fact to keep in mind when reading this essay. Her suggested changes and solutions, expounded upon in considerably more detail here, strike me as reasonable within the context of her critique. It is impossible to do them justice in the space of a review, but they essentially amount to re-empowering the human subject by the acceptance of finitude, of imperfection, of insufficiency; that universal truths must be advanced and averred—debated, never set-in-stone, but averred, and that some measure of transcendence is a necessary component of lived humanity; that freedoms and rights are meaningless without corresponding responsibilities and obligations; that evil is ubiquitous and cannot be eradicated, nor the good instituted universally; that human existence must perforce contain, and accept, an element of risk, of uncertainty, of exploration, even at the peril of the renewal of inequity or violence or conflict—there can be no all-encompassing equality, security and safety; even that we should perhaps investigate whether paternalism or hierarchy are in fact necessary oppressive elements in Western liberal democracy, whether maternalism or a communitarian collectivity does not, in fact, inevitably lend itself to oppression in a totalitarian manner. These are, for the most part, well-argued and worthy of debate. IMO, however, the larger problem lies in her neglect of certain relevant aspects of the current situation.
As Daniel Bell and others have remarked upon, Capitalism and the Market inevitably alter and distort the societies which embrace them, even with strong socialistic elements. Delsol tackles this briefly in her chapter on Economics as Religion, acknowledging its destructive and determinative effects upon culture and the bitterness it engenders in its overt consumerism—she expounds upon the desirability of transferring fervor from Economics—the path of possession unfolding across space—to that of Politics or Religion, unfolding across time, under the premise that space divides, while time unifies; the only authentic bonds and solidarity being found in the spiritual aspect of the latter. What she doesn't acknowledge is how economics has imbued itself into virtually everything—our politics is overwhelmed by the economic aspect of every avenue of pursuit; art has been subdued by the Market's strictures; culture bowed down underneath its mighty weight. In particular, her preferred approach—classical humanism—today would position itself on the right half of most Western political systems, but it is this side that has been most completely co-opted by the Economic. Today, it seems that even Jesus is made out to favor the rich and encourages his believers to augment their wealth for the glory of God. In part, this is because one can discuss money, taxes, and redistribution in the abstract, without having to delve into other policy issues—with their messy moral and ideological complexities—that would require a broad knowledge on the part of the electorate, and complimentary peroration on the part of the politicians. In another, there is a distinct dichotomy between the rhetoric of limited government and the prevailing belief in the inefficiency of government mandated services and the desire of the government to expand into and intrude upon personal freedoms, and the actual reality that constitutes the current makeup of western societies wherein a vast and tiered array of government services has been the foundation upon which the immense expansion of trade and technocratic economies with stable citizenries has been designed around. Without addressing this reality, Economics will always remain at the fore.
Thus, one must ask, how are we to come to this reevaluation of our culture and belief systems? Every avenue of media promotes the simple present, the now; superficiality is prized over depth, because it can be presented quickly, and we can proceed rapidly to the next spectacle. A quick shock, laugh, or indignant splutter is all that is sought—stirring up any deeper emotional response would be playing with a potentially destabilizing fire. With a citizenry focussed almost exclusively—by necessity—on the driving question of how will they ensure a better life for their children, or even ensure the presence of food on the table, with the regular cycle of boom-and-bust back in full swing, where will we find the political will to address these aspects of the malaise and treat them with the seriousness they deserve? Even more difficult is the question of exactly how is this transcendence, this spiritual aspect, to be conceived? Mme Delsol favors monotheistic religion over any pantheon or pantheism, as she holds that only the former intrinsically provides the subject with a personal eternity and self existence that serves to buttress tendencies for a democracy composed of unique individuals—yet she admits the irreversible effects of the established religion's diminishment and errors in the limning glare of modernity. One cannot fake or force belief if it is to have any beneficial effects—and if we explore various avenues of where to seek universal verities, where to entrust our faith, no matter how reasonably and compromisingly we may enter into it, human experience is that, inevitably, it will lead to strident declarations of one true path being the only way, and all other belief systems heretical, dangerous, and qualified for harsh corrective measures. This may all be part and parcel of our need to embark upon risks if we are to break the cycle of apathetic listlessness with which society is inflicted, but its potential for catastrophe is well-documented throughout history. We must face the possibility, as dismaying and dispiriting as it may be, that our chosen path of Western democracy married with technological capitalism is one-way; that we cannot, in effect, go home again. At least, not without a violent and immense outbreak in which all current societal bonds are shattered or loosened, and is that not what we are, in effect, trying to avoid with these solutions?
I'm no philosopher, and I'm doubtless doing Mme Delsol an injustice with my simplified and abbreviated review of her impressively argued and soberly passionate essay, one that is—along with Icarus Fallen—well worth taking the time to read. In particular, her chapters on The Modern Subject, or Incomplete Certitudes and The Ubiquity of Evil are outstanding, especially in the latter when she discusses ideological Manichaeanism and examines the Eastern European philosophy (of Jan Patocka, for example) that allowed the majority of the Warsaw Pact countries to emerge from their communist inertia with a minimum of violence and vengeance. Never in my life of the Left or the Right and skeptical of ideology, always unsure in my beliefs and swinging back and forth between optimism and pessimism, growingly aware of the chimerical lure of utopia and susceptible to the tenet that some manner of compromise is almost always preferable to conflict, I find that, as I age, the philosophy of classical humanists like Chantal Delsol holds much that is wise and bracing and worthy of examination. This is the kind of tome that provokes a bounty of questions—often troubling ones—and stirs the mind from its comfort zone into a roil, a disturbance that leads one's thought in new directions and forces it to find some measure of reply: always the mark of success as far as a philosophical critique is concerned.
February 28, 2017
This is Chantal Delsol's best book that I have read. What I said about her in a previous review (below) is tame as this book is so much better then the previous one I read. She is clear, concise and with a laser scalpel dissects the issues and diseases of late modernity that effects us today. If you are slowly coming to full intellectual maturity and awakening from the delusional dialectic do not miss adding Delsol to your library and your mind! You will not regret it
"I don't remember when I discovered Chantal Delsol, but it was a while back. I reread this book to gain a great appreciation of French intellectuals, even this rare French "conservative." I hate to even use the word "conservative" to describe her as we are used to American conservatives (blah) and she is definitely not one.
She is learned, highly intelligent, erudite and relevant. As a commentator on the intellectual foibles of late modernity and postmodernism she has no equal that I can think of on the "right." (on the left I can only think of the French intellectual and Radical Party Socialist member Jean Francois Revel, who she reminds me of, and who I adore)."
I highly recommend her to anyone recovering from the philosophical Sargasso Sea of the late 20th century that still infects us.
"I don't remember when I discovered Chantal Delsol, but it was a while back. I reread this book to gain a great appreciation of French intellectuals, even this rare French "conservative." I hate to even use the word "conservative" to describe her as we are used to American conservatives (blah) and she is definitely not one.
She is learned, highly intelligent, erudite and relevant. As a commentator on the intellectual foibles of late modernity and postmodernism she has no equal that I can think of on the "right." (on the left I can only think of the French intellectual and Radical Party Socialist member Jean Francois Revel, who she reminds me of, and who I adore)."
I highly recommend her to anyone recovering from the philosophical Sargasso Sea of the late 20th century that still infects us.
August 22, 2022
A collection of very penetrating essays on western society in the aftermath of communism. Delsol looks at many of the weak points in modern western thought, particularly the inadequacies of human rights fanaticism.
She particularly notes and critiques the shift over the past few centuries from caring about the soul and higher values in times past, to the concern over just sustaining biological life for as long as is enjoyable which dominates minds today. Her discussions on the obsession with capitalism, materialism, and consumerism were also very helpful.
She particularly notes and critiques the shift over the past few centuries from caring about the soul and higher values in times past, to the concern over just sustaining biological life for as long as is enjoyable which dominates minds today. Her discussions on the obsession with capitalism, materialism, and consumerism were also very helpful.
July 23, 2019
Great book.
December 31, 2022
FANTASTIC
May 23, 2025
A very thoughtful reflection on our situation in the contemporary world.
April 22, 2016
This is an excellent critique by a political philosopher of our era, late modernity. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is concerned about the direction Western civilization is taking both here and in Europe. Delsol is insightful and obviously well-educated. This book should be required reading in undergrad political science or history courses.
September 25, 2020
Good thoughts but overblown language.
November 19, 2015
Very conservative, but thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews