Artículos de Metapolítica
By Eduardo Hernando Nieto
Undoubtedly one of the most important authors in the nineteenth century, the Bishop of Arequipa, Bartolome Herrera (1808 - 1864). Educated at the famous San Carlos Convictorio which became Chancellor, she also served as Deputy Minister, Diplomat as well as being constitutional and designed a project to clear conservative mood in 1860 [1] . In the academic treatment to make a series of academic reforms seeking to banish the revolutionary and enlightened ideas that were in San Carlos [2] .
Certainly his is a speech also drew from sources that were fashionable at that time, such as French eclecticism providentialism Coussin and Bossuet, [3] and it was he who removed the "natural law" to replace the previous Heinecio historicist "Ahrens [4] . But his most famous thesis is referred to the form of government that was based on the idea of \u200b\u200b"sovereignty of intelligence" as a way to counter the theories of popular sovereignty spread through the work of Rousseau [ 5] and linked to modernism, liberalism and the French Revolution:
"They want to know, doi how much the people in the formation of leies (...) to believe that fear is not telling the truth when somehow able to influence public policy, injenuamente answer: the people, that is, the sum of individuals of all ages and has not the capacity nor the right to make laws. The Leies, according to confess the Patriots, are eternal principles founded on the nature of things: principles that can not be seen clearly, but the understandings are accustomed to selling the difficulties of mental work and exercised in scientific inquiry. Do most of the people is in a state to undertake the difficult task, indispensable to find these principles? No: it has no capacity. And who does not have the ability to do something, you can not say without being absurd, you are entitled to do so. The right to dictate the leies belongs to the most INTELLIGENCE - the aristocracy of knowledge, created by nature " [6]
The people would be required to consent to the government of the ablest basically natural and authorities need in turn would have the right to send [7] . And the people do not delegate any power because it is in your hands as claimed by the revolutionary discourse. The authority emanates from the nature of God and this eventually. For him, "justice is respect the body's own social order, balance preset social hierarchies " [8] .
In this regard, we would talk on the theory of an organic model in practice but should be contrasted with the reality of Peru (no estates for example), so the final result would not be an organic body politic but While a strong and concentrated, in which the president can be reelected indefinitely, the executive can veto legislation and dissolve the Congress and other powers [9] . In other words, what he was doing Bartolomé Herrera - according to his critics would be to use rational argument to justify an authoritarian regime [10] to lead the country towards progress.
Obviously, this authoritative discourse would be countered by liberal writers, and especially by Benito Lazo and Francisco de Paula Gonzalez Vigil, Judge Priest first and the second, but rather both embraced the principles of the French Enlightenment tradition and liberal religion (in its most widespread variant here, the contractual and rational) based on love of neighbor, solidarity, tolerance, coupled with the belief in progress, science, reason and religion [11] , as if this could be mixed without problems.
In fact, his speech was marked by the defense of the law against the attacks of warlordism [12] , in this sense is also evident that the liberal discourse ignored the nature of politics, especially the presence of exceptionality, and this precisely because the French Enlightenment was based as an abstract thought, isolated in space (geography) and time (history) and thus could not incorporate random or violence within the political reality [13] .
However, not necessarily as simple simplify Herrera thesis and its critics in terms authoritarianism and legalism because from the standpoint of classical political philosophy, perhaps even their own rivals also exhibit a liberal attitude in its original sense as suggested by Leo Strauss in his text "Liberalism Ancient and Modern" [14] .
So for Strauss was a liberal person who could practice the liberal, ie, the generosity, but to be generous one in the first place had to have some wealth (which obviously could not be in the hands of all) and other side had to show a prudent and moderate conduct, meaning he had to be an educated person in his character. [15] . To what extent so-called conservatives - like Arnold - and liberals - and Lazo - did not share this definition of liberal? And if this was true then we must consider that more was what they had in common that distinguished them.
[1] Bartolomé Herrera, Writings and Speeches, edited by the Congress under the leadership of Jorge Guillermo Leguía and Jorge Basadre, 2 Volumes, T.1, 1929, T. II, 1931. You can see also Augustine of Assisi, Bartolomé Herrera, Political Thinker, Sevilla, Escuela de Estudios Hispano - American Sevilla, 1954; Jorge Leguia, Men and Ideas in Peru, Santiago de Chile, 1941.
[2] Agustín de Asís, Bartolomé Herrera, Political Thinker ... p.17.
This meant specifically to eradicate sensualist philosophy of Condillac and Locke and Rousseau and Jansenists influences of San Carlos to introduce also de Maistre and Bonald.
[3] Jorge Basadre, Peru, problems and possibilities, Lima, Cotecsa, 1984, p.74.
[4] That being liable for the thought of Hegel and Krause, would be close to historicism.
[5] actually based on a very elementary and superficial reading of the work of Geneva as it does not correspond to the idea that the government should be in the hands of the people or of the majority but of the general will which is something completely different. Straussian political philosophers themselves have been responsible for giving us a closer look at Rousseau's thought. See Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs, Barcelona, \u200b\u200bGedisa, 1999.
[6] Bartolomé Herrera, Writings and Speeches, TI ..., p.131. Certainly, there is some affinity between these ideas and political concepts of authors such as Joseph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes, considered reactionary thinkers, however, advocating reactionary thought such a dictatorship - like the saber in Donoso - would be much more pessimistic with respect to human nature, love to take less seriously the theological and consider more valuable the idea of \u200b\u200bmonarchy. In fact, Herrera, has many similarities with the first Donoso, ie the doctrinaire liberals Donoso. See Eduardo Hernando Nieto, Thinking Dangerously reactionary thought and the dilemmas of deliberative democracy, Lima, Fondo Editorial Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2002 and Luis Diez del Corral, doctrinaire Liberalism, Madrid., Institute of Political Studies , 1956.
[7] Fernando de Trazegnies, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe right of law in the nineteenth century Republican Peru, Lima. PUCP p.95.
[8] Ibid ... p.99.
[9] Ibid . ... P.100.
[10] Gonzalo Portocarrero, "Conservatism, Liberalism and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century", In: Alberto Adrianzen, (ed) Political Thought of Peru, Lima, DESCO, 1987, p.95.
[11] Raúl Ferrero, Peruvian Liberalism, Typography Peru, Lima, 1958.
[12] Gonzalo Portocarrero, "Conservatism, Liberalism and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century" ... p.96.
[13] See Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, Buenos Aires, Struhart & Cia, 1998. The theme of exceptionalism has always been close to the classical political vision and can be seen very clearly in thinkers such as Donoso Cortés. Also the exclusion of the random sample positivist or Machiavellian character of the artwork. See Leo Strauss, "The three waves of modernity" in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, ten essays by Leo Strauss, Hilail Gilden (ed) Detroit, Michigan, Wayne University Press, 1989
[14] Leo Strauss, Liberalism old modern, Buenos Aires, Katz, 2007.
[15] Ibid . pp. 10 -11. Note also the difference of this definition with more contemporary liberal characterize as one that does not seek to cause pain to another. See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996
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