Social Change and Human Values: A Study of the Thought of Bertrand De Jouvenel
| Author | Carl Slevin |
| Published date | 01 March 1971 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1971.tb01921.x |
| Date | 01 March 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
SOCIAL CHANGE
AND
HUMAN
VALUES:
A
STUDY
OF
THE THOUGHT
OF
BERTRAND DE JOUVENEL
CARL
SLEVIN
University of Warwick
BERTRAND
DE
JOUVENEL is an enigmatic figure in ‘Anglo-Saxon’ political
science. More often than not he is seen as
a
gifted amateur whose admitted
freshness of approach to ‘age old’ problems is hardly to be distinguished from
an inventive and inconsistent eccentricity
;
and whose great subtlety in argument
and beauty of expression (both in English and French) arouses the suspicion of
thoroughly confusing the empirical and the logical. But
I
wish to sketch
a
fuller
study of his thought which will show its essential continuity and unity and to
suggest why it is important.
Jouvenel has been attacked for basic conceptual mistakes and for producing
God,
‘even as a conjurer produces a white rabbit out of a hat’,’ to fill the gaps
left by his lack of expertise. It has been suggested that he fails to provide a reason-
able degree of evidence for
his
basic hypotheses, without which, the interpretation
of political theory becomes literary criticism.* While some professional political
scientists do take Jouvenel’s work very seriously indeed and, for what it is worth,
his books have been published in up
to
five languages, the image of the cultured,
aristocratic amateur, working as did Montesquieu in the eighteenth, or Tocque-
villein the nineteenth century, remains.
In
France, this image is less of a disadvan-
tage than it is in England (where it is, in turn much more acceptable than in the
USA.),
and Jouvenel’s work has been officially recognized by the extremely
rare distinction of appointment to a chair at the Sorbonne, although he has never
presented a thesis. Jouvenel has been influential among French political scientists
since the end of the Second World War, although nothing like a full analysis
of what he has written has yet been produced in France, and still less in England
or the
USA.
Interpretation of Jouvenel’s thought presents a number of special problems,
apart from that of dealing with
a
living author. Jouvenel’s writing since
1924
consists
of
a vast number of articles in newspapers and journals as well as
a
considerable number of books3 and much of this material is no longer easily
available. Jouvenel’s reputation in academic circles, both in France and abroad,
dates only from the publication in
1945
of
Du
pouvoir
and rests largely
upon
1
Leonard Woolf,
Political Quarterly,
Vol.
29, 1958,
p.
187.
2
R.
A.
Dahl, ‘Political Theory: Truth and Consequences’,
WorldPoliricsQ
October
1958).
3
In
this article, apart from those mentioned in the next footnote, reference will
be
made to
the following:
L’iconomie dirigie: Le programme de la nouvelle gdniration
(Paris,
1928);
Vers
les
Etats-Unis
#Europe
(Paris,
1930);
La crise du capitalisme amiricain
(Paris,
1933);
Le riveil
de 1’Europe
(Paris,
1937);
AprPs la difaite
(Paris,
1941);
The Ethics of Redistribution
(Cambridge,
1951);
Arcadie, essais sur le mieux vivre
(Paris,
1968).
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XM,
No.
1.
(49-62)
4
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