HUMILITY OF THE SILVER SPOON

Before saying anything of our own, let us establish the proper context:
“And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” (Matthew 19:29-30.)
...Harsh, provocative, challenging, even confusing words! For a believer who accepts faith as knowledge, an irresistible temptation arises to take Christ’s words literally and calculatingly, and to start selling off one’s earthly assets: houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, lands, converting them into a stock in the afterlife. Just like another shrewd business deal, and just as amoral, but, in a certain sense, infinitely worse than a regular Caesarian business deal: Thus trading in God’s property makes it utterly immoral, an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, the dreaded guarantee of an eternal damnation!
One cannot buy God’s Grace by literally forcing oneself into poverty, pain, and deprivation, for the reason that a mercantile interest may hide behind such actions. The Gates of Heaven are closed to the merchants of the afterlife, shaking their alleged salvation IOU’s in St. Peter’s face… So, what is the true meaning of the first and the last?

I have always thought, even as a little child, that the last had nothing to do with being poor, as opposed to being rich, socially underprivileged, as opposed to being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth, or being physically or mentally sick, as opposed to being healthy, etc. To me, it was always a matter of attitude and demeanor. One did not have to mortify one’s flesh, like a flagellant, which to me constituted an inordinate preoccupation with the flesh, quite the opposite of its intent, turning a virtue into a vice. For me, the right approach meant to be indifferent to material matters, to channel your energies toward things worthwhile. I guess, in my previous life in Russia I could afford all kinds of eccentricities, because once you are known to be at the top, you can never be mistaken for a beggar, even if you start panhandling in the street. People like myself could indeed well afford to be genuinely humble; it’s what I call “humility of the silver spoon.” Alas, should one’s circumstances suddenly change, pragmatically demanding arrogance, rather than humility, as a better means of adaptation, it’s probably unrealistic to expect that one’s inbuilt attitude to life would change accordingly, on the strength of those external circumstances alone…

The point of my preceding tirade was to emphasize that I see the virtue of “the last” not in one’s deliberate withdrawal from the world, nor in a loud renunciation of every perk and privilege granted to him by life (my willingness to renounce them all had proved that I was indeed capable of such renunciation), but in being unpresumptuous, “unposturing,” yet caring so little about these things that, by the same token as I would never seek them, nor would I seek to deliberately relinquish the advantages of my status and material possessions, for the sole ulterior motive of becoming "the last."

Ending this entry on a note of sheer psychology, and to be quite honest with myself and with my reader, I’m not too sure, however, if at all, that were I to have been born without that precious silver spoon in my mouth, I would have developed into the naturally humble person which I genuinely am. After all, paraphrasing Karl Marx just a bit, the original Dasein, and not just some ‘primeval’ Bewußtsein, is most certainly responsible for quite a few permanent fixtures in every person’s psyche.

"POWER MAKES STUPID"

(This short entry was written several years ago, at the height of the neoconservative folly, that is, during the George W. Bush Administration, but its currency still holds today, and, I am afraid, may hold well into the future.)

The Arrogance of Power, as Senator Fulbright once put it, as the title of his memorable book, does not seem to go far enough in making the most compelling point, which Nietzsche has expressed with his usual brilliance: "Power makes stupid!" Had Washington politicians, but especially “America’s white-haired elders,” as I once called the thinking branch of this nation’s power elite, read more Nietzsche, they might, perhaps, have stumbled on this profound statement of his, which reaches beyond the simple Andersen’s child’s observable fact that the “Emperor has no clothes,” to exposing the reason why the Emperor is naked.


The sense of possessing superior power does make one stupid. The fall of the Dark Lord Voldemort in J. K. Rowling’s delightful and profoundly philosophical Harry Potter series, is splendidly explained by the very fact that, overconfident in his Dark Arts proficiency, the wizard treats everything else with utmost disdain, refusing to understand the seemingly “inferior” powers (which he himself does not possess), and, as it turns out, these are exactly the powers which are destined to defeat him!

I am far from calling anyone a "Dark Wizard", but the comparison with Voldemort is very proper. As a matter of fact, a far more benign character Sirius Black suffers from the same lethal shortcoming in his own attitude toward the House Elf Kreacher, and toward all other such "Untermensch," and he too has to pay the ultimate price for his folly. The arrogance of power is stupidity, as no one in modern world wields absolute power, and to denigrate and casually dismiss the combined, even if individually inferior, powers of others; to go against the elementary common sense contained in the principle of the Balance of Power, will prove again and again that there are no exceptions.

A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF "POISON"

It is almost eerie to find the exact circumstances of your situation put in sharp focus under the bright light of a genius, in his own precise words, where nothing can be added or needs to be taken away, like it happens in the following excerpt from Nietzsche, in direct application to the circumstances of my life:

“Our highest insights must and should sound like follies, and sometimes like crimes, when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed, and predestined, for them… What serves the higher type of men as nourishment must almost be poison for a very different and inferior type. The virtues of the common man might signify vices and weaknesses in a philosopher.” (From Nietzsche’s Jenseits 30.)

By the same token as I have been benignly characterized as being "ahead of my time," I've also been called, less charitably, "radioactive," and even "poisonous," practically in the same breath. All of it may be true, but not terribly instructive. Nietzsche is more to the point on my situation. My truth was indeed poison to those same people to whose better sense and elementary decency I had been trying to appeal, for a quarter of a century. Now, having established that, with Nietzsche’s help, let us go further.

So what can I do about it now that I see, looking at what has become of American foreign policy, that I have failed in my efforts to administer my honest poison, the reason being that one can’t persuade people to take a poison against their will? Do I modify my tactic, or reconsider it altogether, and come up with something totally new that would work better? But then, the substance of my offering would still remain the same. Call it being ahead of one’s time, or whatever, the fact is that by any other name, poison is poison!

And now here comes the answer. Regarding poison, please consult the following paragraph from Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica by Dr. Kent, the great American homeopath.---

“…The first impression would be to rebel against the use of such substances as Crotalus, Lachesis, Apis, and other animal poisons, and it is true that the lay mind must look with something like horror upon their administration; but when they are properly used and when we consider the dreadfulness of the necessity demanding them, and also when we have ascertained that there can be no substitute when demanded, and again that they are potentized and changed until they are perfectly pure, because, reduced to a state of simple substance, the horror passes away from the mind. It is true that the diseases that call for the use of such substances as Crotalus are very grave. When at the bedside of a Crotalus patient one feels that death is very near, the subject is horrible to look upon, and the mother in regard to her child, or the husband, would immediately say, ‘Doctor, use anything in order to save the life, resort to anything in order to heal this sick one.’”

Poisons are the foundation of extreme homeopathy. They cure very sick people better than any allopathic drugs do. Provided of course that the persons in charge of the sick patient recognize that he is very sick and wish the patient to be cured.

LIFE AS A GIFT AND A BURDEN

What is the worthiest subject of human contemplation? Many will jump with the answer God, remembering the noble endeavors of Isaac Luria and of the rabbis of the Kabbalah, and of all those religious philosophers and mystics who devoted their lives to contemplating the Divine and the esoteric. Yet the answer given in this entry is a different one. It does not mean that I am against such supernatural contemplations, far from it! But, as always, it is most edifying to offer a variety of different answers to a complex question, thus doing justice to its complexity.

One of my Apte Dictums says that “life is a contract between man and God, at the end of which we receive our wages.” (I bet that if one could be put to the test of writing down a thousand one-word descriptions of “life,” like the word “contract” above, in the course of a single day, such a task would not turn out to be too hard. After all, almost any word in the dictionary can apply, isn’t that true? In my wife’s splendid definition, for instance, “life is… an experiment.” Well, c’est… la vie!)

Among these thousand epithets, the words ‘gift’ and ‘burden’ ought to occupy distinguished positions. If we attempted to compare a large number of such lists and ran a semantic word-count analysis of these lists, both these words would appear high on the composite tally.

Now, how does the word "gift" apply, except to indicate something given? On the other hand, this is not a free gift, in the “take it or leave it” sense. Noblesse oblige that we do not discard this gift, when the giver is not looking. Yes, it is noblesse, and not the ignoble dread of “the undiscovered country.” As I have put it elsewhere, the words “death before dishonor” become meaningless, to the point of mockery, when death itself turns out to be a greater dishonor than a dishonorable life.

But let us be fair to the better, non-mechanical connotation of the word “gift.” After all, the many presents each of us used to receive for birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions, especially as young children, have meant much more to us than the fact of their being ‘given’ and dutifully ‘received’! Most of them were delightful and pleasurable in themselves, and they never failed to brighten our life. Let us, therefore, look at our life as an exceptional gift in that sense, too.

For many obvious reasons, life is a wonderful gift, especially, when we are young, and our list of “capital” regrets is short and mostly inconsequential. But extremely lucky are those for whom, at some critical point, life does not become a burden, either due to the infirmity of old age or an incurable disease, or else because of a mental anguish, caused by particular circumstances. On the first scenario, here is Nietzsche’s take on suicide, in Menschliches (80):

“The old man and death. One may ask, why, aside from the demands of religion, it is more praiseworthy for a man growing old, who feels his powers decrease, to await his slow exhaustion and disintegration, rather than to put a term to his life with complete consciousness? In this case suicide is quite natural and should rightfully awaken respect for the triumph of reason. This it did in those times, when the preeminent Greek philosophers and the doughtiest Roman patriots used to die by suicide. Conversely, compulsion to prolong life from day to day, anxiously consulting doctors and accepting the most painful, humiliating conditions, without the strength to come nearer the actual goal of one’s life, is by far less worthy of respect. Religions provide abundant excuses to escape the need to kill oneself. --- This is how they insinuate themselves with those who are in love with life.”

My opinion is that, of course, in most cases, suicide is a dishonorable ploy to bail out of our contract with God, which requires us to live out our life in toto. However, I am categorically opposed to prolonging one’s life artificially, without a perfectly good reason, that is, in Nietzsche’s words, purely out of being “in love with life.” The only reason to prolong life is when one has some useful unfinished business to wrap up, and that business is truly important. On the other hand, that reason should not, at any time, become an excuse…

So much, then, for prolonging life. But suicide is an altogether different matter.
I would not call suicide either a weakness or a strength of character, but rather a luxury no decent man can afford. In this sense, “death before dishonor” is an empty phrase. The so-called “dishonorable life,” if it is a life of involuntary dishonor, must be viewed as a penance, as an expiation of sins, so to speak, and as such it is no longer a dishonor. The real dishonor is avoiding penance, becoming “a fugitive from justice.” There is a remarkable passage in Plato, referring to the secret practices of the Pythagoreans, which, in my view, has a surprising relevance to this subject, although, to my knowledge, it has not been understood the way I see it, by anybody else:

“The saying uttered in secret rites, to the effect that we men are in a sort of prison, and that one ought not to loose himself from it nor yet to run away, seems to me something great and not easy to see through; but this at least I think is well said, that it is the gods who care for us and we, men, are one of the possessions of the gods.” (From Phaedo: 62 B)

I find this passage remarkable, in the sense that here I can clearly see an explicit prohibition of suicide, so unexpected to be found in classical Greek thought, which seems to treat suicide rather casually, especially if one allows himself to be convinced on this matter by the authority of Schopenhauer, who attributes to the Greeks an explicit approval of honorable suicide.
 Therefore, it is not what Schopenhauer thinks about it, but this Pythagorean Commandment of sorts-- Thou shalt not loose thyself from this prison, nor yet run away, as we men are one of the possessions of the gods! -- that, to me, becomes the definitive expression of the real Greek position on the inadmissibility of suicide as an easy way of bailing out of one’s duties and responsibilities to one’s life, and those who are of a different opinion, must rather be treated as an exception, and by no means as the rule.

But Schopenhauer, whether we disagree with him on the tricky subject of suicide or not, teaches us a very important pessimistic lesson about life (we need his old-age pessimism to balance our youthful optimism), suggesting that, generally speaking, life is more of a burden, than anything else:

“There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome, to be got over with.” (From Schopenhauer’s Counsels And Maxims, Section I.)

Here is a statement of profound philosophical and religious importance, because there is no greater subject of thoughtful contemplation than the meaning of life. True, that objectively there can be no greater subject than God Himself, but how arrogant and disrespectful would we be, should we dare to aim our incompetent thinking at God, at the expense of that most tangible to us of all manifestations of His Existence: our own life!

HUMPTY-DUMPTY

Certain decisions we make in life have the finality of pulling the trigger. No second chances. But, in order not to sound overly ominous, let me call this the “Humpty-Dumpty effect.”


...Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall. And it does not really matter why he fell --maybe even for a very good cause? -- because all that matters is the fact that he fell, and that nothing in this world can now restore him to his former self.

Come to think of it, Humpty-Dumpty is perhaps the saddest tale ever told. It is surely “a story of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo,” no offense to Shakespeare. When somebody says “Humpty-Dumpty” in your presence, tip your fedora as a token of respect…

UNHAPPY ARE THE FREE

The pursuit of liberty is a traumatic experience, but does it constitute happiness? It is hard to imagine that happiness can be found in a painful exercise, and, if we are to agree with Schopenhauer’s definition of the negative character of happiness as being nothing better than freedom from pain, there is a philosophically challenging contradiction here, which needs to be resolved one way or another, or else, this confusion over one of the basic concepts of our consideration will make everything else tainted with futility.
Is it possible that Schopenhauer is plain wrong, and that our selfish pursuit of freedom, like our pursuit of pleasure, is recklessly mindless of the consequences, and thus freedom falls into the same category as lust, and represents a form of self-indulgence? Or is he even “wronger,” failing to discern our love for pain in our love for thrills, the spices of life, which make a life without pain boring and miserable?
But perhaps it is all a matter of definitions, and we can turn this argument around any which way we want it to go, depending on how we shape it through the infusion of extra meanings into the words which we use.
…Perhaps, this is another argument about form, rather than substance?...
There is a sure way to reconcile our masochistic love for painful pursuits with Schopenhauer’s aversion to pain by insisting on a difference in principle between the pursuit itself and its outcome. It may well be that it is not the pain as such, that we are seeking, but the novelty of the experience, the challenge of a rough ride, foolishly expecting Schopenhauer’s freedom, that is, exemption from pain at the end of the ride.
But no matter how we put it, regarding the question of freedom, there is only one answer, which is in perfect agreement with Spinoza’s opinion on this subject. (In his Ethica, Spinoza suggests that those who think they are “free,” do not understand the causes of their own actions…) Unhappy are the free, for at the end of their painful quest they shall discover that freedom is just another form of unfreedom, and that all their wonderful sacrifice along the way had been for nothing.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSURD IS PHILOSOPHY TOO

The great wisdom of the ancient times that the earth was resting on three whales has long since become an expression of absurdity, which the modern world cannot help laughing at. I much doubt, however, that there is anything one could ever think of in modern wisdom that would have been so carelessly rejected as absurd by the ancient thinkers. As far as I know, the pre-Socratics, for instance, had a great respect for the absurd, and would not have failed to discuss it patiently and in good faith.

Ironically, all theology, but particularly Christian theology, has been based on what any clear-headed outside observer might characterize as absurd, such as, say, the dogma of God becoming man and executed on the cross, to redeem men’s sins; or the dogma of the Trinity, which is three persons, but one God, etc. One may argue that theology must not be confused with philosophy, which we are now discussing, but then, just think how much bona fide philosophy has sprung from Christian theology in an effort to justify and rationalize things which must normally be considered absurd.

My initial thoughts about the philosophy of the absurd, that started me on the road of writing this particular entry, were not triggered, as expected, by something written by Camus (who will be taking the center stage in my entry Absurdism As A Philosophy, to be posted later), but by the following curious excerpt from Nietzsche’s Jenseits. They are not presented here as a criticism of his point, which is unassailable, at least in so far as far as physiology is concerned. The key word of this passage, to me, is “absurd,” and my comment revolves around its implications for philosophy.

“To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist that the sense organs are not phenomena, in the sense of idealistic philosophy; as such they could not be causes!
What? And others even say that the external world is the work of our organs? But then, our body, as a part of this external world, and our organs themselves, would be the work of our organs! This is absurd, as the external world is not the work of our organs…” (Jenseits: 15)

Nietzsche is right, citing “physiology” against some of the more absurd proponents of idealistic philosophy, who outright deny the existence of all objective reality, apparently, just for the heck of it. As for me, I don’t see validity in any absolute positions which are held to the exclusion of others. This is why I am objecting to all philosophers who are trying to play God with their general theories. But I still believe in the freedom of hypothesis, no matter how absurd it sounds, as long as it contributes to the development of human mind by encouraging original thought, and can also serve in some useful applications. Idealistic philosophy, in my opinion, has the legitimacy of any similar ‘hypothesis.’ From the point of view of psychology, for instance, this amounts to an extreme form of eccentricity, rather than egocentricity (a rather peculiar phenomenon), and, as long as the philosopher satisfies himself with “What if?,” I will say, “Why not?” This position is, to me, consistent enough with the Socratic conversation method of inquiry (which is properly called dialectic, in the original sense of the word), where even asinine questions are gladly tolerated, as long as they allow a wise answer.
The only objection to absurd ideas is when their proponent isn’t satisfied with the rules of transparency and the easy-does-it attitude of an intellectual game, and, especially, when he possesses sufficient power over the playing field to promote them beyond the limits of the “reasonable.” Another objection is, of course, if he is just stubborn and annoying, and does not have any sense of humor, in which case, he should be sent away, but his idea may still be allowed to stay, if it possesses the quality of an intellectual challenge.

This contemplation on my part is not included here for nothing else to do. The whole issue of the freedom of thought and freedom of speech is contained in our disposition to tolerate the absurdity of ideas, as long as we are free to express contrary opinions and to engage in free deliberation on the subject. Unfortunately, in so far as political ideas are concerned, the level of intolerance exhibited by the powerful toward all ideas that they dislike, or feel threatened by, turns the whole issue from a simple matter of intellectual exercise into a situation of political persecution, and becomes no fun at all.
And, of course, human nature being the same in the best democracies and worst dictatorships, the way these differ is only in the severity of punishments imposed on the persecuted.

I hope that Nietzsche was fully aware of what I have just suggested, and that he engaged in his dismissal of the idealistic philosophy purely as a matter of polemics, ‘for the heck of it,’ as I said earlier. His random style in general, somehow convinces me that philosophy for him is always a challenge, and never a science. His point, I repeat, is well taken, but, again, it is only as a matter of polemics, where it has indisputable merit.