Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and the Stockholm School of Theology
Ukrainian political culture is based on principles that have sound and progressive origins, but in Ukrainian political realities they sometimes cease to serve their original purpose.
Take personalism, for example. It is a global intellectual movement that emerged as a response to the totalitarian ideologies of the first half of the twentieth century, which appealed to the masses. Communism, fascism, and Nazism, despite their differences, all regarded the collective as more important than the individual. The latter was expected to submit to the mass. Otherwise, the individual faced marginalization or even destruction. Personalism, which originated in liberal Christian circles, emerged as a response to totalitarian ideologies. Its central idea is that the human person is unique and priceless. The person embodies the image of God to the fullest extent, is the cornerstone of existence, and is the most important category of human civilization. The person must be placed above any social and political mechanisms that restrict them. Personalism became one of the philosophical trends in both European and American thought in the twentieth century. It is not a school but a broad movement that encompassed various philosophical schools and extended far beyond them, including into the political sphere.
On the contemporary political scene, there are many figures who consider themselves personalists – or would consider themselves such if they knew more about this movement. Among other things, it provides a theoretical foundation for the idea of the rights and freedoms of every individual. Modern democratic doctrines place personalist values above collective ones. Politically, however, personalism works well only when there are effective state mechanisms of checks and balances, as well as instruments of oversight by civil society that prevent it from exceeding constitutional boundaries. Modern constitutions, including the Ukrainian Constitution, while proclaiming personalist values, simultaneously restrict the authorities from applying those values to themselves. In the latter case, personalism can easily turn into a convenient means for autocrats to consolidate unlimited power. They rule according to the principle that since the person stands above the law, any legal restrictions, including constitutional ones, diminish the personal freedom of those in power.
One striking example of such an application of personalist principles was demonstrated by the leader of South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm. He believed that the person was more important than the collective and built the ideology of South Vietnam upon this principle – in contrast to the communist ideals of North Vietnam, whose leaders proclaimed the dictatorship of the masses over the individual. When Ngô Đình Diệm’s party came to power, it proclaimed personalism its official doctrine, which was reflected even in its name – the Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party. Yet in South Vietnam’s political practice, this admirable doctrine, which presupposes the priority of every person, created privileged conditions for one particular person – Ngô Đình Diệm himself. As a result, he gradually turned into a corrupt autocrat. This eventually led to a revolt against his personalist regime, his removal from power, and ultimately his assassination.
The story of Ngô Đình Diệm is in some respects similar to the story of every Ukrainian president. Of course, our presidents lack the theoretical sophistication of their Vietnamese counterpart – they act more on the basis of intuition than knowledge. Nevertheless, the rule of each of them is intuitively personalist, in the narrow sense of the term. Sooner or later, each begins to regard their own person as superior to any state institution and to extrapolate this idea onto their exercise of power. Likewise, many other representatives of Ukraine’s political class and bureaucracy act in the spirit of intuitive personalism. Moreover, practically every “ordinary Ukrainian” is, deep down, a personalist. As already noted, the origins of this spirit are anti-totalitarian, and in this sense it corresponds to the Ukrainian mentality. Yet, as the experience of South Vietnam demonstrates, it is only a small step from the personalism of those who hold power to totalitarianism. To prevent this, personalism should be cultivated in society and restricted at the top of the power pyramid. Is this possible in principle? Yes, and the experience of European democracies confirms it. In Ukraine, however, personalism remains pervasive – for ordinary citizens and those in power alike, especially at the highest levels. We have not yet learned how to use this excellent instrument of modern political culture without harming ourselves.
There is another fundamental principle of democracy that has certain peculiarities in its Ukrainian implementation – republicanism. The Roman Republic replaced the rule of kings, as is generally believed, in 509 BC. From that time onward, the source of authority for Rome’s rulers was not the gods but the Roman people and the Senate (populus senatusque Romanus – hence the famous formula SPQR). They elected two consuls each year and vested them with the highest authority in the republic. Yet even for such a short term, the consuls were constrained by a complex system of checks and balances, in which the Senate played a key role. The republican period is considered to have ended when, in 44 BC, one Roman consul, Gaius Julius Caesar, was proclaimed “dictator in perpetuity” (dictator perpetuo). The Roman Republic provided for granting a consul dictatorial powers, but within limited parameters, under extraordinary circumstances, and for a short period. The Senate granted Caesar dictatorial powers for an indefinite period. This became the point of no return in the transformation of the republic into a monarchy.
Contrary to a widespread stereotype, even during the so-called “imperial” period, the Roman state continued to cultivate various attributes of republicanism, although mostly superficial ones. For example, emperors did everything possible to avoid associations with the pre-republican kings. They called themselves “first citizens” (princeps) and “first among equals” (primus inter pares). Almost every one of them, upon ascending the throne, promised to respect and even restore the declining republican institutions. Yet before long, they would continue the tradition of dismantling them, including through populism. The foremost among the populists was Caesar himself, who sought to communicate with the plebs over the heads of traditional republican institutions, thereby undermining their authority.
Soon another, less conspicuous transformation took place within the Roman political system. Following the example of the ancient Roman kings and their contemporaries, the Persian shahs, the emperors began to perceive their authority not as the result of the will of the people and the Senate, but as something bestowed by the gods. Before long, they were proclaiming themselves gods. Caesar’s successor, Octavian, assumed the title “Augustus,” which until then had been used only in reference to the gods. His contemporary, the Roman historian Cassius Dio, described Octavian as “one who is more than human.” In essence, this signified a change in the status of Roman rulers – from technocrats to messiahs. If a ruler is a messiah, then he does not need the people and the republic as the source of his authority. His mission itself becomes that source.
Among the Roman emperors were ideologues (Octavian), capable administrators (Diocletian), admirers of antiquity (Hadrian), brutal corrupt rulers (Caligula), oligarchs with patriotic rhetoric (Caesar), and even showmen (Nero). Each of them began as a republican, promising solidarity with ordinary people, promising to overcome corruption, and so forth. And each successive emperor sought greater power than his predecessor, identifying the state with himself and firmly believing in his own chosenness for a special mission. For some, this fixation on their mission played a cruel joke – the more strongly they believed in their chosenness, the shorter their tenure became. Julian, for example, believed that Zeus himself had brought him to power so that, in addition to converting the empire back from Christianity to paganism, he could defeat Rome’s eternal enemy – Persia. It was during the Persian campaign that he died, having occupied the throne for less than two years.
Almost every Ukrainian president develops Julius Caesar syndrome. They come to power promising, and sometimes even believing in, republican ideals. It is precisely for this that the freedom-loving Ukrainian people elect them. The people, too, believe that from now on everything will be different, that this time the president will truly become the “first among equals,” their servant. Yet before long, the ambitions and style of the elected president increasingly begin to resemble Caesar’s behavior. Somewhere deep inside, they even begin to nurture the idea of dictator perpetuo, explaining such a necessity to themselves by extraordinary circumstances – especially since every Ukrainian president finds more than enough such circumstances, both real and imagined.
This, in fact, is why the need for Maidans or a radical change of elites through elections does not disappear in Ukraine. Every Maidan and almost every Ukrainian election is the symbolic execution of yet another Ngô Đình Diệm and Julius Caesar. Every Ukrainian president, after only the first few months of their term, transforms from a consul into an Augustus. They take up the mace as a personalist and a republican, but before long begin to behave like a monarchist, at the center of whose universe stands their own person, together with the persons of their dear friends. Like Julian, they begin to believe that it was not the people but God who brought them to power – for the sake of a unique historical mission.
A way out of this vicious circle will be found when, during the election campaign and inauguration in the Verkhovna Rada – as almost all Roman emperors once did in the Senate – the president not only proclaims the values of republicanism and personalism for everyone but also embodies them in everyday politics. When the president understands that it is the people who may have a mission, not the administrator they have hired. Unrestricted personalism in Ukrainian realities is a direct path to autocracy. Only adherence to the Constitution, strong state institutions, an active civil society, and independent media are capable of directing it toward the construction of a republic – a republic that protects the value of the human person.
Source: Mirror Of The Week
Photo: © Unsplash/alschim
