Eric Voegelin facts for kids

Eric Voegelin (born Erich Hermann Wilhelm Vögelin, 1901–1985) was an important German-American thinker. He studied and taught about politics and how societies are organized. Eric was born in Cologne, Germany. He later studied at the University of Vienna in Austria.

In 1938, he and his wife had to leave Vienna. They were fleeing from the Nazi forces. They moved to the United States and became citizens in 1944. He spent most of his teaching career at Louisiana State University, the University of Munich, and Stanford University.

Early Life and Education

Eric Voegelin was born in Cologne, Germany, on January 3, 1901. His family moved to Vienna, Austria, in 1910. He then went on to study at the University of Vienna.

His main teachers for his advanced studies were Hans Kelsen and Othmar Spann. After finishing his studies in 1928, he taught about political ideas and how societies work. While in Austria, Voegelin became good friends with Alfred Schütz and F. A. Hayek.

Career and Teaching

In 1938, the Anschluss happened, which meant Nazi Germany took over Austria. Because of this, Voegelin lost his job. He managed to avoid being arrested by the Gestapo. After a short time in Switzerland, he arrived in the United States.

He taught at different universities. In 1942, he joined the Government Department at Louisiana State University. Voegelin stayed in Baton Rouge until 1958. Then, he accepted a job offer from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany. He took over a famous teaching position that had belonged to Max Weber.

In Munich, he started a new center for political science. Voegelin returned to the United States in 1969. He joined the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He continued his work there until he passed away.

Voegelin's Main Ideas

In his later life, Voegelin tried to understand why there was so much political violence in the 20th century. He thought about politics, history, and how people think. Voegelin believed that a wrong way of understanding Christianity led to harsh movements like Nazism and Communism. He did not want his work to be labeled with any specific political ideas.

Voegelin wrote many books and essays. One of his early books was Die politischen Religionen (1938), which means The Political Religions. In this book, he said that totalitarian ideas were like new religions. This was because they had similar structures to traditional religions.

He also started writing a large series of books called Order and History. This series began in 1956 but was not finished when he died 29 years later. His book The New Science of Politics (1951) is often seen as an introduction to this series. It is also his most famous work. He left many writings that were published after his death.

Understanding Order and History

Order and History was planned as a five-book series. It looked at the history of how societies create order. Voegelin started this project because he saw so much disorder in his own time. The first three books came out quickly in 1956 and 1957. They were called Israel and Revelation, The World of the Polis, and Plato and Aristotle. These books focused on how order was understood in ancient Near East and Greece.

Voegelin faced some challenges that slowed down his writing. He also had university duties. This meant that 17 years passed between the third and fourth books. The fourth book, The Ecumenic Age, was published in 1974. It looked at how different societies understood order throughout history. This included examples from ancient Sumeria to Hegel.

He worked on the final book, In Search of Order, until his last days. It was published after he died in 1987.

Truth and Experience

One of Voegelin's main ideas was that our experience of something greater than ourselves gives us a sense of order. He believed that this greater truth cannot be fully described. However, it can be shown through symbols. A certain understanding of this greater order forms the basis for a certain political order. So, understanding how people think can help us understand politics.

Voegelin was more interested in the deeper meaning of these experiences. He was less interested in how we know if an idea of order is true. For Voegelin, truth is about trust. He thought that all philosophy starts with experiencing something divine. Since God is seen as good, we can trust that reality can be known.

Views on Gnosticism

In several of his books, Voegelin wrote about what he saw as harmful Gnostic ideas in politics. He described gnosis as a belief in a direct, special understanding of truth. This understanding does not need careful thought. It is seen as a special gift for a select group of people.

Voegelin thought that Gnosticism was a way of thinking that claimed to have complete knowledge of reality. Because it relied on this special knowledge, it believed its ideas could not be questioned. Gnosticism could be about spiritual ideas (like ancient Gnosticism) or worldly ideas (like Marxism).

Voegelin saw similarities between ancient Gnosticism and modern political ideas. He especially focused on Communism and Nazism. He believed that the root of the Gnostic way of thinking was alienation. This is a feeling of being disconnected from society. It also includes a belief that this disconnection comes from the world being disordered or even evil.

This feeling of alienation has two main effects:

• The first is the belief that the world's problems can be fixed by a special insight or knowledge. Voegelin called this a Gnostic Speculation.
• The second is the wish to put this special idea into action. This means trying to create a perfect "heaven on earth" in history.

Voegelin argued that Gnostics reject the Christian idea of a future spiritual kingdom. Instead, they try to create human salvation on Earth.

For Voegelin, a key sign of a Gnostic idea is the belief that the world can be completely changed and made perfect. This change would happen through a special group of people, a human who acts like a god, or even human-gods. This "chosen one" has special knowledge (like magic or science) on how to make human life perfect.

This idea is different from the belief that people find peace by connecting with the divine. For example, Voegelin saw Marxism as "gnostic." This is because it claims a perfect society can be made on Earth after capitalism is removed. Similarly, Nazism was "gnostic" because it believed a perfect world could be made by achieving racial purity.

In both cases, Voegelin thought that the desire for total control came from people feeling disconnected from society. This led to a desire to dominate others. This desire came from the Gnostic's strong belief in their own vision. It also came from their lack of connection with many people in society. As a result, they did not care much about the harm caused by their politics.

Some critics have said that Voegelin's idea of Gnosticism is not precise enough. They argue that it cannot be used as a scientific way to study political movements.

Don't Try to Create Heaven on Earth

One of Voegelin's most famous sayings is "Don't immanentize the eschaton!" This means: "Do not try to make what belongs to the afterlife happen here and now." Or, simply, "Don't try to create Heaven on Earth."

When Voegelin used the word gnosis in a negative way, he was thinking of how it was used in ancient times. He believed this idea later appeared in modern times, especially in different political movements. Voegelin also used the ideas of Hans Jonas about Gnosticism. This included the idea that some people try to have so much understanding and control over reality that they become as powerful as God.

Voegelin argued that true knowledge comes from faith. He believed that the ancient pagan traditions wrongly separated faith from understanding. He also thought that the Gnostic idea of two separate worlds (internal and external) caused problems for human thinking. He believed that bringing these two worlds back together would restore order.

Spiritual Recovery

Voegelin's work did not offer a simple plan for fixing modern political problems. However, he often mentioned the idea of a spiritual recovery. This meant rediscovering the basic experiences of divine order. He was not focused on religious rules for personal salvation. Instead, he wanted to see a return to the classical idea of a "spiritual person."

He did not guess what forms a spiritual recovery might take. But he was confident that the current 500-year period of non-religious thinking would end. He believed this because, as he said, "you cannot deny the human forever."

In an essay from 1965, Voegelin suggested that the Soviet Union would eventually collapse from within. He thought this would happen because of its historical roots in philosophy and Christianity. Later, in 1972, he even suggested the Soviet Union might collapse by 1980. He believed this because it failed to meet its goals at home and faced challenges from other countries.

See also

In Spanish: Eric Voegelin para niños