La Société des Nations suppose la Société des Esprits: The Debate on Modern Humanism

Abstract

This article focuses on the themes of the two conferences organized by the League of Nations—“Modern Man” and “The Foundations of Modern Humanism”—which were held in Nice and Budapest in 1935 and 1936, respectively. It was a time of deepening crisis, when the pervasive belief was that European civilization was declining. The more specific questions discussed in these conferences included the relation of modern man to the state, the impact of irrational theories on modern life, and the need for free education for everyone. Renowned writers and academics of the period participated in the debates, among them Thomas Mann, Jules Romains, Salvador de Madariaga, Alfred Zimmern, and Johan Huizinga. I present a critical overview of their debates, beginning with Paul Valéry, the initiator and chairman of these conferences, who coined the intriguing slogan “La Société des Nations suppose la Société des Esprits.”

Notes

1. For the aims, assumptions and organization of intellectual cooperation, see Pham-Thi-Tu, La coopération intellectuelle sous la Société des Nations (Geneva: Droz, 1962); Jan Kolasa, A League of Minds: The International Intellectual Cooperation Organization of the League of Nations (Diss. Princeton University, 1960); and Jean-Jacques Renoliet, L’Unesco oubliée. La Société des Nations et la coopération intellectuelle (1919–1946) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1999). For intellectual cooperation as part of the broad field of “cultural internationalism,” see Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997). For an overview of the discussions on modern man in Budapest, see Henri de Montety, “L’Entretien de Budapest sur le rôle des Humanités dans la formation de l’homme moderne (8–12 juin 1936),” Revue d’Études Françaises 12 (2007): 195–215.

2. Michel Jarrety, “Les ‘Entretiens’ de la Société des Nations,” in La république des lettres dans la tourmente (1919–1939), ed. Antoine Compagnon (Paris: CNRS/Alain Baudrie et Cie, 2011), 97–105.

3. Jan Kolasa, A League of Minds, 65–72.

4. Paul Valéry and Henri Focillon, introduction to Correspondance 1. Pour une Société des Esprits (Paris: Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1933), 13. Some years before, Valéry had already introduced the term “la politique de l’esprit.” See Paul Valéry, The Outlook for Intelligence, trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Mathews (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 89–113.

5. Lettre de Paul Valéry á Salvador de Madariaga, in Correspondance 1, 115–32.

6. George Meredith, Modern Love (sonnet 48), 1862. Ironically, the Nice and Budapest conferences were all male affairs, with only one woman, Elena Vacaresco, contributing to the discussions.

7. Valéry was highly interested in the Paneurope project of count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Valéry participated in the French Paneurope Committee that was founded in 1927. See Jean-Luc Chabot, Aux origines intellectuelles de L’Union européenne. L’idée d’Europe unie de 1919 à 1939 (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2005), 101.

8. Paul Gifford, “Thinking-Writing Games of the ‘Cahiers’,” in Reading Paul Valéry: Universe in Mind, ed. Paul Gifford and Brian Stimpson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 40.

9. Judith Robinson-Valéry, “The Fascination of Science,” in Reading Paul Valéry, 77–78.

10. Paul Valéry and Henri Focillon, introduction to Correspondance 1, 13.

11. Entretiens. L’avenir de l’esprit européen (Paris: Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1934), 289–93; hereafter cited in the text.

12. Entretiens. La formation de L’homme moderne (Paris: Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1936), 12–21; hereafter cited in the text.

13. Klaus Mann, Het Keerpunt (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1985), 97.

14. One of the reasons Mann hesitated to oppose the Nazis was his concern for his German publishing house. See Hermann Kurzke, Thomas Mann: A Life as a Work of Art. A Biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 381–87.

15. De Reynold and Valéry were definitely not the only intellectuals who believed that Europe was in a deep crisis in those days. Pessimism concerning Europe’s civilization characterized the ideas of Arnold Toynbee, Oswald Spengler, Hermann von Keyserling and many other leading intellectuals. See Jean-Luc Chabot, Aux origins intellectuelles de l’Union européenne, 229.

16. Nicole Celeyrette-Pietri, “Politics, History and The Modern World,” in Robinson-Valéry, Reading Paul Valéry, 238.

17. So long as the intellectual foundations were not in place, Zimmern thought that the League was powerless and thus that “all those whose activity lies in the realm of the intellect must set to work to lay those intellectual foundations. A. Zimmern, Learning and Leadership: A Study of the Needs and Possibilities of International Intellectual Cooperation (Geneva: League of Nations, 1927), 13–14, cited in Kolasa, A League of Minds, 88.

18. See the twenty-eight volumes of his novel Les hommes de bonne volonté (Paris: Flammarion, 1932–1946).

19. So De Madariaga, although he adhered to the international ideals of the League of Nations, clearly expressed himself here in nationalist terms. A phenomenon that was not uncommon during the intellectual debates, as can be learned from: Daniel Laqua, “Internationalisme ou affirmation de la nation? La coopération intellectuelle transnationale dans l’entre-deux-guerres,” Critique international 52 (2001): 51–67.

20. Valéry, The Outlook for Intelligence, 91, 94.

21. Johan Huizinga, “Humanisme ou humanités?” Entretiens. Vers un nouvel humanisme (Paris: Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1937), 200–203; hereafter cited in the text.

22. Malcolm Bowie, “Dream and the Unconscious,” in Robinson-Valéry, Reading Paul Valéry, 263.

23. Nicole Celeyrette-Pietri, “Politics, History and the Modern World,” in Robinson-Valéry, Reading Paul Valéry, 238.

24. From Valéry’s Cahiers we can learn that he was fascinated by the old world of the Mediterranean, a world in which trade and culture flourished and the notion of citizenship and respect for the individual predominated. To rescue this world for future generations and stimulate the study of the Mediterranean the Centre d’études méditerranéennes (later renamed the Centre Universitaire Méditerranéen) was founded in 1933.

25. Robinson-Valéry, “The Fascination of Science,” 70–84.

26. Einstein himself strongly defended the position of science with respect to philosophy. See his controversy with Henri Bergson on time and relativity in Jimena Canales, “Einstein, Bergson, and the Experiment that Failed: Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations,” MLN, Comparative Literature Issue 5 (2005): 1168–91.

27. Mario Vargas Llosa, The Future of Humanism, Lecture at the Nexus Institute, Tilburg, 8 June 2013.