In a small section dedicated to history of political ideas, the latest issue of the Annals of the CPSA under this editorship features two texts: Luxury or Something Else? Causes of the Collapse of Feudalism and the Emergence of Modern Commercial Society in the Political-Economic Theory of Adam Smith by Nikola Noršić, and Rousseau's Hidden Theory of Conflict by Damjan Stanić. Noršić’s text focuses on interpreting the third book of Smith’s Wealth of Nations to delve into the deeper dynamics of political-economic movements in Western history, which continue to pose challenges to the Enlightenment-based normative framework of the modern state. Meanwhile, Stanić’s work finds interpretative space for conflict within the works of the “Citizen of Geneva” and “solitary walker,” who is nominally known as a proponent of peace. In the text’s final crescendo, Rousseau's escapism becomes a political lesson on the corruption of modern society, which transforms its conflicts rather than living through them in a truly republican spirit. What connects these two articles on such different authors and themes?
First, these are articles by young authors, their reworked graduate theses that have passed through the baptism of fire of review process in the Annals. They represent the freshest expression of the tradition of studying the history of political ideas at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb, serving as a mirror to the scientific and educational work within a sub-discipline of political science.
Second, and more importantly, in addition to the shared fates of the authors’ coming of age journeys, there are also methodological parallels suggested by a shared identity of a tradition. Although they handle the necessary context and dense layers of interpretation in the secondary literature, both articles exemplify a strongly textualist approach, dedicated to close reading of the original texts in the languages they were written in, focusing on critical hermeneutic moments. For these authors, such moments represent a kind of paradigmatic switch that, following the Straussian tradition, reveals the esoteric meaning of the text. This approach interrupts the dogmatic slumber of surface-level discourse regurgitation, which hinders a deeper understanding of the interpreted authors.
Third, there is a stylistic similarity between the articles that logically may not coincide with methodological one. Both articles presented to the readership have a strong dramaturgical element, building tension and providing its resolution. Similar to how a gesture—be it a strike or a touch—interrupts the escalation of superficial chatter and brings about a breakthrough from a communicative deadlock in Melville’s films, careful reading of a single paragraph, or even a single sentence, unveils vistas of new worlds and deeper truths within the text, whether it is Smith’s note on luxury in The Wealth of Nations or Rousseau’s reference to Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories.
This brings us to the fourth similarity. Both articles engage with Machiavelli’s readers, utilizing his ideas to better understand the authors they discuss. Stanić’s study is as much a study of Machiavelli as it is of Rousseau. Machiavelli’s focus on conflict and rejection of naive moralism as a dead-end for good politics and sustainable political communities remains an obligation for interpreters of the political even today (or especially today).
Fifth, the articles employ certain ontologies of the subject from the tradition of hypothetical homunculi within contract theory, most famously articulated in Hobbes’s resolutive-compositive discourse. This should not be dismissed as an epistemological anachronism. It is not about ignoring interdisciplinary scientific advances regarding human beings, but about penetrating the essence of things through the hermeneutic myth of humanity, which, like Machiavelli, does not shy away from uncomfortable truths about its nature.
In this sense, sixth, the focus of both authors on the problem of economic and social dynamics in what they call modern commercial societies is significant. This focus encompasses the relationship of such a society to the nature of the human subject throughout history. Such societies present a challenge for the political articulation, in the Gramscian sense of a philosophy of praxis, which can be detached from specific ideological positions of the Marxist left. As a global reality, these societies challenge contemporary political science which can find excellent inspiration within its own history when coping with them.
To conclude, in a non-orthodox reading—which both articles offer—old texts come to life. These texts often tell us much more than some contemporary methodological labyrinth, which, behind its flashy technical display, hides the political banalities of today, and is more part of the problem than its solution. Not only can old texts teach us much about specific issues, such as migration and military service, if carefully read—as Noršić and Stanić do—but they can also reveal much more in the tradition of critical ontology of ourselves. They tell us about the nature of the political community in which we live and wish to live. They offer (im)moral stories about human nature, social decadence, and the political as a realm of worldly freedom.
Ultimately, Rousseau is not a liberal, whereas Smith is, leading their interpreters to somewhat different understandings of freedom, the structure, and limits of community. The emphasized similarities between the articles do not erase the fact of the differences among them, so interpreters and interpreted alike sometimes seem worlds apart. Nevertheless, both classic authors, competently and challengingly mediated through the readings by young interpreters, through a play of similarities and differences, lead us to the very heart of political science, which deals with the problem of order and freedom.
