by Adel Beshara
Finally, there is the contention, so crucial to Fayez, that philosophical diversity, and by extension, freedom of philosophical thinking, would evaporate from confining the Party to an exclusive philosophy. As an avid thinker and an ardent believer in philosophical freedom, Fayez cannot be blamed for taking a reserved attitude towards philosophical uniformity. Subordinating philosophy to ideological interests and imperatives can be fatal if it is not properly managed or if taken to hyperbolic extremes. It has the potential to falsify the essential functions of philosophy in national development and to produce non-philosophical devaluation of philosophy. However, for all its benefits and charms, philosophical diversity is not always practical or even desirable. This is especially the case when a national revival is being attempted and every atom of the nation’s energy and creativity is required. Under such circumstances, only philosophy located in the specific realities of a specific society can inspire, inform, and guide real change. During a deep and profound national crisis, the focus of attention is on the effort to establish practical philosophical principles that help the nation transcend parochial and usually discriminative and narrow interests rather than on maintaining philosophical diversity amid the divisions, biases, and adulteration of the existing society. Anyway, the principle of philosophical diversity, as Fayez prescribed, cannot be accommodated practically by comprehensive or ideological parties concerned with society. It is imaginable and desirable in parties organized around specific demands or specific issues, such as single-issue parties, but with comprehensive parties, the pressing weight of reality can outweigh the desire for philosophical diversity. In many cases, restrictions on the dissemination of and engagement with different voices and perspectives inside these parties are introduced to maintain ideological consistency or to avoid derailing conflicts. Without these restrictions, the comprehensive party will become a center of information for diverse philosophical views and forfeit the ideological and spiritual unity required for effective action. Moreover, contrary to Fayez’s contention, the subordination of philosophical dictates to ideological imperatives, at least during the transitional phases of a national or social revival, does not necessarily lead to philosophical fossilization. Providing the human mind is recognized as the supreme and autonomous master of everything, which was the view held by Sa’adeh, there is very little risk of that occurring. Philosophical ossification can also be avoided with practical measures. Creating a philosophical platform for the continuous refinement of methods and ideas, for example, can foster a climate conducive to the development of new ideas and hence to the advancement of knowledge even within the framework of a uniform philosophy.
Fayez assumed that all philosophical uniformity is evil and all philosophical diversity is good. This is not necessarily the case. Philosophical diversity within a fractured national context can be as harmful as philosophical uniformity within a stable national context. Each functions better in some situations than others. For example, philosophical uniformity in universities and colleges would fly in the face of academic excellence and progress. Likewise, philosophical diversity during a hard and painstaking revival may not be sensible or practical. It is all relative to circumstances and choices. A nation on the rise is likely to be less tolerant of philosophical diversity than a nation that has arisen. Similarly, a political party on the move is likely to be less accommodating of philosophical diversity than the one in power, or vice versa.
The point is that philosophical uniformity is not always inimical to philosophical inquiry, as Fayez seemed to assume. Sa’adeh’s assertion in his last letter to Fayez indicates that he was interested more in developing a unifying national philosophy than in imposing a one-sided totalitarian philosophy. Sa’adeh stated, “There may be nothing objectionable about translating the Berdyaev-Kierkegaard perspective into Arabic and familiarizing the Syrian thought with it.” For someone with an acute sense of history and a deep appreciation of the need for internal unity, Fayez’s reaction was unusual. Either he completely misread Sa’adeh’s intention or the aspect of a national philosophy did not occupy a central place in his philosophical thinking.
5 INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY
Finally, Whither To? culminates in a series of damning judgments. The most pathetic example is:
In the name of my nation and its dignity in the face of history, and in the name of the citizen in my nation, and in the name of my nation’s past, present, and future, I declare Sa’adeh, the suffocator of intellectual and spiritual freedom, an oppressive tyrant, and opponent of the Syrian nation.49
It is hard to comprehend that a condemnation of such proportion could flow from Fayez’s pen after all the praises he had heaped on Sa’adeh, such as:
Sa’adeh represents a live embodiment of the strengths and values of life that are latent in each of our souls but are ready to burst and take control of our entity. He represents a set of noble virtues, values, characteristics, and strengths that exist inside every person in a default dormant state and are sometimes visible in some people. In Sa’adeh, they have crystallized and coalesced. Thus, although they remain dormant and inherent in each of us, they are conspicuously, clearly, coherently, and supremely visible in Sa’adeh’s character.50
What occasioned Fayez’s remarkable about-face, and to what extent is it justified?
According to Fayez, the unforgivable sin that Sa’adeh committed and that made him a “tyrant” was his violation of the principle of intellectual diversity. By imposing a “personal” philosophy on the Party and demanding unquestioning commitment to it, Sa’adeh, so the argument goes, created a climate that stifled free thought and individuality and entrapped the members in a mind-numbing stupor. For Fayez, this represented a complete reversal in the breadth of Sa’adeh’s tolerance of intellectual diversity inside the Party and a hellish descent into a kind of intellectual moribundity. Repeatedly, he invokes the following statement of Sa’adeh in self-defense: “I have no desire to erase intellectual diversity in our movement. Rather, I want to preserve it and develop it, because it is necessary for our work and success.”
Plausible as it may sound, the argument does not have much to be said for it. Its premise depends almost entirely on the “personal philosophy” assumption. In fact, the aspect of “personal philosophy” is so crucial to it that it is repeated almost as a mantra. Yet, for all its preponderance, Fayez does not offer a succinct explanation. He does not discuss what “personal philosophy” is or does not prove that Sa’adeh had a “personal philosophy.” He does not reveal the constituents of that philosophy, assuming it existed in the first place. He makes the claim but does not elaborate. Consequently, we are left with a rudimentary observation with little else to go on. This is hardly surprising since Fayez, by his own admission, did not consider Sa’adeh’s “speeches and statements as having any kind of official status that obliges party members to accept and submit to them”.51 The inadequacy of this assessment is too obvious to require further comment.
Of far greater significance was the matter of intellectual diversity itself. On this level, too, Fayez’s performance was confusing and somewhat of a letdown. He presented himself as a defender of intellectual diversity, but apart from pointing at its inherent value to human progress, he did not successfully explain how it could possibly work in the framework of an ideological party. Rather, he seemed interested in pursuing diversity in its most full, extreme form. However, diversity is never understood as mere variety for its own sake but as something that facilitates other things: the advancement of knowledge, social equality, fairness, openness to others, etc. Like everything else, intellectual diversity has its limitations even in the context of society or in academic settings where it is supposed to function at its highest level. When the matter involves a political party based on a specific ideology, the limitations take on a completely new dimension. Simply stated, ideological parties are ill-disposed to intellectual diversity in the absolute sense advocated by Fayez. Any political party established on a set o
f beliefs anchored on a worldview regarding reality, life, meaning, and purpose would expect, if not demand, its members to adhere to its teachings and to strive for ideological unity. Conformity in this context is not necessarily inimical to free thought or intellectual diversity. Members can still discuss and debate different intellectual currents and express their opinions freely, but logically, they cannot use the party to promote the perspectives of another ideology or the tenets of another intellectual current within the party. From this practical standpoint, Sa’adeh contemplated and responded to Fayez:
[Ideological consolidation] does not conflict with the principle of freedom, whose terms of reference acknowledge the right of all advocates of an ideology to stand side by side in their quest to achieve the key aspect of their beliefs. Also, it does not in any way acknowledge the right of an advocate to work within the framework of a particular ideology for the success of another ideology opposed or detrimental to it.52
Sa’adeh was frank and honest with Fayez. He told him: “You failed to realize that it is the natural duty of this movement to consolidate its ideology and to strive for victory just like every movement in the world founded on basic teachings.”53 Astonishingly, Fayez did not pay adequate attention to the rationale behind this observation. He responded with a confusing and hard-to-follow remark: “The principle of free thought permits the followers of a particular faith to hold conflicting views on life, the universe, and art within the framework of full respect for their common faith.”54
It is difficult to imagine how this can be practical in an ideologically charged institution, be it political, religious, or economic. It is like saying, for example, that members of the Catholic faith are entitled to practice the worldview of their choice (Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or Protestantism) within the Catholic Church even if it runs contrary to Catholic teachings. If the Catholic Church were to allow this, the result would be total chaos and rampant disorder. Conversely, what the Catholic Church cannot do (and what would be morally wrong if it were to) is to prohibit its members from studying or discussing other religions or from interacting with other members of other religious orders. Nonetheless, the Church may still introduce restrictions if it feels the integrity and unity of its faith is being undermined. The same principle applies to ideological political movements. In this case, the relationship between free thought and faith is much more convoluted due to the nature of political work and its intense competition and rivalry. Here, more than in any other collective institution, the margin for intellectual diversity is very tight. Tolerance for rival ideologies is usually nominal, and the focus of the work is on building and consolidating the worldview of the movement. As Dean of Information and Culture in the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, whose duty and primary task was to protect the Party’s ideology from the intrusion of other currents and worldviews, Fayez would have known this.
As Fayez proposed, intellectual diversity can easily become a means of smuggling certain unspoken values into a political party. This form of chaotic freedom is capable of ripping the most robust of parties apart and derailing them completely. An ideological party (as distinct from a one-issue party) is like a motor vehicle programmed for a specific journey. The driver is the leader and the passengers are the members. If everyone inside the vehicle understands the purpose of the journey and where they are going, the group will have a better chance of arriving at the designated destination than if the members are divided and quarrelsome. The vehicle is unlikely to make it at all if each passenger wants it to veer in the direction of his or her personal choice. Likewise, an ideological movement cannot function, let alone achieve its objectives, if the members are allowed to engage in or advocate for diverse intellectual currents inside it. It is a recipe for disaster.
Fayez might have responded that philosophical diversity is in a category of its own, because philosophy is basically a theoretical enquiry into the knowledge of truth. But this only presupposes a total break between ideology and philosophy when, in fact, they sometimes overlap. As Barry Cooper has shown, philosophy, taken independently of power interests, is unable to achieve effective truth. There is, as it were, a co-penetration of power and logos.55 Whatever philosophy may invoke – metaphysics, natural law, divine purposes – it includes the activity of … a critical assessment of the assumptions and ideas involved in various spheres of human thought and action; of description, explanation, argument and judgment, and other kinds of purposeful behavior.56
Ideology requires a constant assessment and interpretation of human behavior and of the assumptions, methods, and ideas involved in political activity. As such, some mental activity is involved in this process and this “mental activity seems closer to being philosophical than anything else”.57 Even if philosophy and ideology can be shown to be distinct modes of discourse, and they are in certain respects, it still would not justify philosophical diversity within the context of a single political ideology.
In fairness to Fayez, he does advance a more prudent argument toward the end of Whither To?. He maintains that it was wrong of Sa’adeh to suppress philosophical diversity inside the Party if the different views are “consistent with the [Party’s] creed”. This is a reasonable observation, but Fayez does not elaborate on it. He provides no explanation as to how this diversity might work with the movement’s ideology or which philosophical views, aside from Sa’adeh’s, might be consistent with it. Perhaps what Fayez had in mind was the freedom to explore different philosophical perspectives to identify the one most adaptable to the Party’s ideology than to accept the Sa’adeh perspective as final. This is not implausible, but it requires the recognition of a self-contained worldview as a feature of the Party’s ideology, which is a condition that Fayez was not prepared to acknowledge.
For this reason, Fayez’s characterization of Sa’adeh as a “tyrant” was ignored. It failed to resonate even with the handful of intellectuals who sided with him. Of the few responses he attracted, the one by his student and strong admirer at the time, Labib Yamak Zuwiyya, was perhaps the most caustic:
It never occurred to me that you would descend so low as to ascribe intellectual sterility to a leader who showed you the way and lit before you the darkness of the past, and made you aware of all that you possess of true values and errors! It never occurred to me that one day you would be so ungrateful and so denying of favor. But you are indeed an ingrate, and your ingratitude implies selfishness that only those who were closely associated with you would know of.58
It was both selfish and absurd of Fayez to call Sa’adeh a tyrant after all the open and frank discussions they had had on philosophical issues. The accusation may have been warranted if Fayez had come forward with a philosophy equally or more consistent with the Party’s ideology than Sa’adeh’s, and Sa’adeh had decided to turn it down for no apparent reason. Since nothing of the sort happened, or seemingly was likely to happen, the accusation is baseless.
CONCLUSION
In presenting his side of the dispute, Fayez raised some interesting points. He addressed fundamental issues and trends that are unique to collective ideological movements and he was bold and outspoken. Yet, his bluntness, tactlessness, and impatience with others come across clearly. He did not seem to mind what others might think or who might get hurt. This suggests strong idiosyncrasies in personality that are sometimes hard to deal with.
With Fayez, we encounter a bleak exposé that depicts Sa’adeh as an originator of a mystical and religious vision of nationhood in which his person attains a sacred aura: a despot who sought to impose his own world view with complete disregard for others; and of all things, an avowed enemy of Syria:
In the name of Syria’s interest, which Sa’adeh taught me during the first stages of his struggle to work for and sacrifice any other interest for it, I declare Sa’adeh in the last stage a destructive factor and a danger to my Syrian nation!59
Yet, for all his hyperbolic rhetoric, Fayez failed to address the most important issue in the dispute w
ith Sa’adeh: the attachment he harbored for existential philosophy. It is hardly mentioned in Whither To? or rebutted despite the extensive space allocated for philosophy in the tract. This is both disappointing and unhelpful. Existential philosophy was the primary factor that shaped Fayez’s attitude, response and the extremity of that response. His failure to deal with it reflected badly on him. It caused the issue to fester and grow, solidified the suspicion that he was an existentialist propagator, and enabled Sa’adeh to land the final blow with effortless ease. The role of existential philosophy in the Fayez-Sa’adeh encounter is the topic of the next chapter.
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1 Alistair Grimes, “Ideological Disputes.” (New Blackfriars, vol. 63, no. 740, February 1982): 90.
2 F. Sayegh, Ila Ayn? (Whither To?). (Beirut, Dar al-Kitab, 1947).
3 Ibid.
4 Fayez Sayegh, Whither To?
5 On Fakhri Maluf see John Dayeh, Sa’adeh wa mafakiru an-nahda: Tajribat Fakhri Maluf (Sa’adeh and the Nahda thinkers: The Case of Fakhri Maluf). Beirut: Dar Nelson, 2008). See also, Adel Beshara, “A Great Man Has Died: Fakhri Maluf (Brother Francis Maluf) 1913-2009.” (Al-Mashriq: A Quarterly Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 9, No. 34, September 2010)