In my last post, I wrote briefly about a recent trip to Portland, Oregon, where I attended the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Among the places I visited was Powell’s City of Books, which advertises itself as the world’s largest bookstore. I don’t know if that’s really true, but it certainly is the largest bookstore that I have ever been in. The first time that I went there in 2005, I was so overwhelmed by the size and expanse of the place that I wandered through the whole store, never stopping to browse, exiting the three-story building empty-handed with a feeling of deep anxiety. This time around I was calmer, taking multiple trips to visit multiple sections of the store on multiple days. Breaking up my book browsing in this bite-sized manner helped to make the experience less overwhelming and more relaxing. And this time I did not leave empty handed.
I found many interesting books that I would have liked to buy, but then I would have had to haul them back home on the plane, which seemed like more inconvenience than it was worth. In the end, I decided to purchase just one used pocket book that could easily be carried in my backpack. It was a 1973 paperback edition of Hubert Selby’s 1964 novel Last Exit To Brooklyn. This would be my first introduction to Selby’s writing, which I was interested in primarily because I am a fan of Darren Aronofsky’s film Requiem For a Dream, based on another one of Selby’s novels. If Powell’s had a copy of that book, I would probably have started with it. Instead, I paid $4.95 and walked off with the book that a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle called, “A profound vision of Hell.” When my wife saw my purchase, she said that she was familiar with Selby’s reputation but had no interest in reading his work. I was excited to discover what I had got myself into.
Last Exit To Brooklyn reminds me of other novels, like Trainspotting, that are assembled from short stories that could be read in isolation from one another, but which are held together because they constellate around a common location. In this book, that location is an all-night diner called The Greeks, in Brooklyn, New York. The characters in the various stories pass in and out of the diner, and some of their paths cross during the course of the book, but their narratives pursue differing trajectories, mostly ending in tragedy and abjection. There is a group of hoodlums who beat up and almost kill a serviceman; a trans woman who falls in love with one of the hoods from the diner, but ends up being degraded and abused by him; a guy who really wants a motorcycle; a woman who begins life as a predator, but ends up becoming a victim of gang rape; a union shop-steward who, while awakening to his own homosexual desires, ends up badly beaten by the hoods from The Greeks; and finally an imagistic snapshot of the meaningless and dismal lives of the residents of a government housing project.
In the course of reading one story after the other, I experienced a feeling like I was zooming in and out of various atrocious dramas transpiring in a neighborhood populated by residents with no real sense of community or compassion for one another. Their desperation, despair, and self-loathing are exhibited through alcohol and drug abuse, violence toward family and strangers, and the willingness to debase themselves and others sexually. No one is sympathetic in this novel, and I can see why some people really detest it. Published in 1964, it was praised by critics for its boldness and originality but in 1966 it was the subject of an obscenity trial in Britain, where it was, for a time, banned. Today, an uninitiated reader like myself will probably be confounded upon first starting to read the work, but as I stuck with it, the intensity and strength of Selby’s writing engulfed me, and I was drawn into a world that I would never care to experience in real-life.
One of the things that makes the book so challenging is the author’s unconventional style of writing. One sentence runs into another, mimicking the way that the characters speak in rambling, manic, alcohol and drug-induced streams. Interior monologues overlap with exterior conversations, and there are no quotation marks to indicate where one begins and the other ends. This stream of thought stretches on into paragraphs that run for pages, before an indentation or a text-break jolts the reader out of the flow. At times it is difficult to understand precisely what is going on in terms of the action (which may be a blessing in chapters like “The Queen is Dead,” and “Tralala”), but the manner of writing is always successful in arousing a frenzied mood of dread, disgust, and often horror. In “Landsend,” which appears as the last chapter – and is identified as a “Coda” – the agitation of a married couple who communicate solely by yelling at one another is evoked by the use of ALL CAPITAL LETTERS EVERY TIME THAT THEY OPEN THEIR MOUTHS. Once I stopped trying to think about who was who and who was saying what, I found myself slipping into the rhythm of Selby’s writing, which in turn placed me directly into the awful world of the characters. Throughout the book, I felt as if I was listening to the outbursts of particularly loathsome neighbors who might drive me to violence myself.
The chapter that I found most engrossing is titled “Strike.” More like a novella than a short story, it is longer than the other chapters and written in a more-or-less conventional style. Because of its length, the main character is more completely developed than those appearing as mere sketches in the other chapters; and because of its style, the narrative is easier to follow.
The central character in “Strike” is Harry, the steward for a union shop that manufactures machine parts. His resentment against management, and his devotion to the Union, is a mask for his own underlying lack of self-esteem and unhappiness in life. He is married and has a child, but his mind is filled with obscene fantasies about tearing his wife apart during sex and abandoning his family, who are just scapegoats for his discontent. He seems to be angry at everyone, and no one really likes him.
When his shop goes on strike, Harry feels and acts like a big-shot, running the strike office and telling everyone who will listen that he is the one in charge of the collective action. No one listens too closely to Harry, and no one really believes anything that he says, as it is clear that he is desperate for attention and using his position to boost his low self-esteem. After a violent confrontation between the striking workers, police, and strike-breaking truck-drivers (during which Harry is cowardly and indecisive), he starts to stock the office with kegs of beer, which he charges to the Union account. Each night he stays late, getting drunk and hosting late-night parties for some of the denizens of The Greeks, which sits just across the street from the office.
It is during one of these impromptu parties that Harry is introduced to a predatory transsexual who frequents the diner. Finding himself unexpectedly aroused, Harry starts to regularly visit a gay bar downtown, ultimately forming a relationship with one of the transwomen, who he wines and dines with money from the Union account. It seems as if Harry is finally happy, with friends and a lover who really enjoys spending time with him. However, when the Union strike eventually ends, so does the money, and Harry is dumped by his girlfriend, ostracized by the rest of the people at the gay bar, and left humiliated. In despair, he tries to seduce a young boy on the street and is beaten and battered nearly to death by some of the same hoods who he partied with at the Union office.
The other stories in Last Exit To Brooklyn are similarly bleak (except for “And Baby Makes Three,” which is a very short sketch of a guy who fantasizes about, and eventually gets, an old, junky motorcycle). The world that Selby conjures is populated by desperate people who share intimacy with other desperate people that can’t be trusted. I consistently felt dread as a seemingly minor event (such as Harry ordering a keg of beer) foreshadowed other events that I knew were bound to lead to no good at all. As I hoped for some sort of kindness, tenderness, or compassion on the part of the characters, I also shuddered at the more likely probability that any apparent benevolence was actually a precursor to continued victimization and cruelty.
But I guess that’s the genius of the author. Out of this series of stories, he successfully opens up an abyss of abjection that the reader falls into, partly willingly, and partly with reluctance. Selby repeatedly assaults us with such hyperbolic horror that we become conditioned to expect the worst while vainly hoping for some sort of upturn. The closest that the novel comes to any sort of redemption is in the final chapter, where one of the residents of an urban housing project, while cheating on his wife, ends up getting more sex from his one-night-stand than he anticipated.
That, and an old beaten up motorcycle, are apparently the best things that the characters in Last Exit to Brooklyn can hope for.
My application for sabbatical during the fall 2024 semester has been approved. During my leave, I will work on revisions to The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress, which went out of print in 2023. I tentatively plan to title the revised edition Wondrous Distress: The Path of Philosophy. Once complete, I will reissue it through a new publisher.
What follows is the main substance of my sabbatical proposal. I have not included schedules, the bibliography, or other supplementary materials. Notice the heavy emphasis on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), which is now a central element required in all projects supported by the College of Marin.
Application for Sabbatical Leave: Fall 2024
John Marmysz
Instructor of Philosophy
I am requesting one semester of sabbatical leave in fall 2024. At that time, I will have been a full-time philosophy instructor at the College of Marin for a total of nineteen years. This will be my second, single-semester sabbatical. My previous sabbatical was granted for the spring 2014 semester.
The kind of leave I am requesting is for the purpose of pursuing an independent project. This project involves the revision of my textbook The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress (Cengage, 2011).
Description of my proposed independent project, its goals and objectives
The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress was written as a guidebook for my philosophy students at the College of Marin. It traces the history of western thought from its beginnings in ancient Greece to contemporary developments in the postmodern world. In this work I demonstrate how philosophy is unique and distinct from religion and science while at the same time showing how all three disciplines are interrelated. The unique essence of philosophy, I argue, lies in its commitment to Truth, its enthusiasm for raising questions, and its willingness to defer final answers to those questions. This essence I call “wondrous distress.” By examining the arguments and contributions of influential thinkers from the ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern periods, I show how philosophical thinking has historically served as a motivation for the pursuit of new developments in science, religion, and philosophy itself.
I published The Path of Philosophy with Cengage Learning in 2011. In 2023, the book went out of print. For my sabbatical project, I shall undertake a revision of the manuscript in preparation for the book’s reissue. This project includes the following goals and objectives:
Revision and update of content: I shall revise the existing chapters and add new chapters to the book highlighting equity and diversity in philosophy. This will be reflected in the treatment of a greater variety of women philosophers and philosophers of color. I also plan to include a new chapter that addresses contemporary developments in philosophy that are relevant to current issues in our culture. (A more detailed breakdown of the anticipated revisions, and a timeline for their completion, appears at the end of this proposal.)
New illustrations: The book in its current form contains original illustrations by Juneko Robinson. I shall once again commission her to create illustrations to accompany the new content.
Correction of errors: The text currently contains a number of typographical mistakes and minor factual errors. I shall correct these for the sake of accuracy and rigor, reflecting my concern for academic excellence, which is also one of the College’s core values.
I plan to share the outcomes of this project with members of the campus community in the following ways:
Students: Upon completion, the revised work will continue to be used as the primary textbook in PHIL 110: Introduction to Philosophy and PHIL 117: History of Philosophy: Modern to Contemporary. I shall post the chapters on the classes’ Canvas sites, which will eliminate textbook cost to those students. There are too many problems with the State’s Open Educational Resource program for me to be comfortable making the text available there. (Issues include: questions about uncompensated academic labor, lack of academic review, quality control, profiteering by companies and venture capitalists, and copyright complications.)[1] Eventually, I plan to seek a peer-reviewed republication of the book with a reputable press in physical form, as I have found that there is a large minority of students at the College of Marin who prefer physical books to electronic texts.
Colleagues: I shall give a presentation on the book’s central concept of “wondrous distress” and its relevance to equity and diversity at an open campus forum. Additionally, I shall write and submit a post-sabbatical report. Eventually, once published in physical form, the book will be available in the campus library.
Benefit to students, program, colleagues
I am the sole philosophy instructor at the College of Marin, teaching all of the philosophy courses we offer. Since I began teaching here, I have grown the philosophy program by introducing new classes, expanding offerings online, working to articulate all philosophy classes with the UC and CSU systems, introducing an AA-T degree program, mentoring and supporting the activities of the vibrant student Philosophy Club, and growing overall student enrollment. Our philosophy students regularly transfer and continue their educations in philosophy (at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels) at universities such as USF, UCB, UCLA, UCD, UCSC, SFSU, SSU, SUNY Stonybrook, and Stanford University (among others). In addition to transfer students, our philosophy classes regularly attract community members seeking cultural enrichment rather than a degree.
Philosophy classes at the College of Marin are consistently popular. We offer 18 units each semester, with all classes either filled and with long waiting lists, or near full enrollment. Summer enrollment in philosophy classes has exploded in the last few years, and as a result, three sections of PHIL 110: Introduction to Philosophy are now offered each summer, representing enrollment of around 90 students.
With this background in mind, my proposed sabbatical project offers the following benefits to students, the program, and my colleagues:
Student success: The primary textbook in PHIL 110: Introduction to Philosophy and PHIL 117: History of Philosophy: Modern to Contemporary is The Path of Philosophy. Each academic year (including the summer session) the collective enrollment in these classes alone is approximately 300 students. Revising and updating the textbook articulates with the mission of the College of Marin by serving the needs of these students, improving their philosophy education and promoting their success in these classes. This in turn benefits those who seek the AA-T degree in philosophy while preparing them for transfer and continued success in four-year philosophy programs at other colleges and universities. It also serves those in our community who seek a high-quality introduction to the discipline of philosophy but who are not interested in a degree.
As philosophy students take other classes at the College of Marin – or as they earn their degrees, graduate, transfer to four-year institutions, and enter the workforce – the lessons that they have learned about philosophical thought will, I hope, be taught by them to others on and off of our campus. It is a shame that philosophy is increasingly being marginalized in higher education in general, and at the College of Marin specifically. The California State Legislature has reduced the number of philosophy classes that count toward fulfillment of GE requirements, as well as (astonishingly) eliminating Logic as a class that meets the Critical Thinking requirement for graduation.[2] At the College of Marin, I have for years vainly advocated for the hiring of another philosophy instructor to help support our AA-T degree program, but have repeatedly been rebuffed. It feels as if the discipline I love is increasingly being devalued by those in power. There seems to be a stereotype that philosophy is too abstract to have any real-world application. Many people in positions of power (on both the right and the left) seem to think that philosophers are wishy-washy or that they weaken our political confidence and resolve. The results of my sabbatical project will, I hope, help to refine a picture of philosophy that pushes against these falsehoods and that reaffirms philosophy as one of the most important fields that a college can offer. In promoting “wondrous distress,” philosophy teaches us to remain logical, inclusive, and open to what we don’t know so that we may strive without end to learn more about ourselves and the world of which we are a part. This is a message beneficial not just to philosophy students, but also to my colleagues and the staff at the College of Marin. It is also a message that I think today’s world needs to hear, perhaps more than ever.
Academic excellence and innovation: Revising and updating The Path of Philosophy articulates with the College of Marin’s commitment to academic excellence and innovation. The textbook is already a work of original scholarship insofar as it is the culmination of years of study, research, and reflection. I have used this textbook in the classroom at the College of Marin for more than thirteen years. Over that period of time I have discovered errors that need correction, topics that need further articulation, and I have been exposed to new, relevant research that has led me to rethink some of the interpretations offered in the book. During this time, I have also been introduced to new issues and thinkers that deserve inclusion in the text. Revising and updating the book so that its contents are up to date, accurate, and rigorous would reflect the college’s commitment to supporting academic excellence and innovation.
Collaboration, open communication, and critical thinking: Philosophy is a discipline that teaches the importance of logic and critical thinking, the importance of questioning ideological assumptions, and the need unceasingly to engage with others in open conversation and the exchange of ideas. In these ways, it is a discipline that embodies the values of collaboration and open communication, which are among the core values of the College of Marin. Many of the revisions and improvements that I plan to make have been prompted by conversations with students, colleagues, and staff. They are a concretization of the open, rational, and ongoing process that is involved in teaching about, and rethinking the details of, my discipline over the last decade or so. The product of this sabbatical, thus, will in large part be inspired and made possible by the atmosphere of collegiality here at the College of Marin. As I carry on with its use in the classroom, this text will continue to transmit those same values to future philosophy students.
Equity and diversity: Equity and diversity are at the forefront of everyone’s minds these days. One of the goals I will pursue while revising The Path of Philosophy is to integrate a more diverse array of underrepresented thinkers into the book’s narrative. Presently, there are two women philosophers who appear: Hannah Arendt and Simone De Beauvior. In the revision I plan to address the contributions of many other women philosophers as well as philosophers of color including: Hypatia of Alexandria, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hildegard of Bingen, Luce Irigary, Julia Kristeva, Angela Davis, W.E.B Dubois, Yukio Mishima, Nishitani Keji, Kitaro Nishida, Frantz Fanon, Cornell West, Frank Wilderson, Jorge Gracia, George Yancy and others. The inclusion of these thinkers will not only increase the ethnic and sexual diversity of the philosophers represented, but it will hopefully also be inspiring to the widely diverse population of students at the College of Marin who will see themselves reflected in the pages of the book.
Featuring a more diverse selection of philosophers in this text goes beyond a concern for the mere inclusion of minority voices. The intent is to offer a fuller and more accurate treatment of the rich and varied perspectives that have been, and that continue to be, brought to bear on the eternal and indestructible philosophical questions. The addition of underrepresented thinkers, thus, is not an exercise in mere tokenism, but represents an attempt to offer a more sophisticated, fine-tuned, and truer account of the viewpoints that have come to define the history of philosophy.
Minority thinkers – like all philosophers – are part of a tradition that involves the ongoing logical discussion, critique, and development of ideas. For instance, to understand the ideas of Cornell West, it is necessary to understand a history of thought influenced by Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and Nietzsche. West is inspired by the insights of past thinkers to diagnose and critique current manifestations of racism in western culture, and his conclusions on these matters differ from other black scholars like Calvin Warren, who, building on the thought of Martin Heidegger, derives different, and much more pessimistic conclusions. Including thinkers such as these in the narrative helps to demonstrate how relevant philosophy is to contemporary cultural debates, and (perhaps even more importantly) shows that we need not agree with one another in order to engage in reasoned, logical, discussion about important issues. This is, I think, an empowering message, helping students to understand that disagreement need not be hostile. It can be a useful tool helping us to unite and to engage in conversation with those from whom we differ. This is the very essence of real diversity and inclusion: respecting the ideas and thoughts of those different from us.
Philosophy is not about coming to final, unquestionable conclusions. It is about the ongoing openness of thought. This is a tradition that teaches us to respect one another as intelligent, rational beings. As such, it energizes us all to engage with our culture and our communities while avoiding overconfidence and zealotry. Philosophy should make us more uncertain, getting us to interrogate our own assumptions and the assumptions of others. The rich body of thought produced by philosophers from various minority communities enhances this tradition by challenging many of the unrecognized assumptions we take for granted and by exposing us to a greater variety of perspectives.
Enhancement and improvement of my teaching and professional competence
Currency in the field: As the only full-time philosophy instructor on campus, it is absolutely imperative that I remain current in my field. A revision of The Path of Philosophy gives me the opportunity to do research that updates and improves the text, bringing it up to date with contemporary developments in philosophy, thus enhancing and improving my own expertise in the subject and in turn contributing to the educational excellence of the philosophy classes offered at the College of Marin.
While it is impossible to predict the exact ways in which my own understanding of these philosophers will be improved in the course of researching and revising the textbook, I can say that by becoming acquainted with a more diverse array of thinkers and how their work is connected to the thousand-years-long history of philosophical thought in the west, the richness and fullness of my understanding of philosophy (a field to which I have devoted my life) cannot help but expand and improve. In turn, this richer and fuller understanding will be conveyed to the students in my classes, improving the quality of their educations and, I hope, their lives as well.
Cultural currency: Additionally, it is important that I continue to develop my ability to relate the sometimes very abstract ideas in philosophy to concrete social and cultural phenomena. A revision of the text gives me the chance to explore and to demonstrate the relevance of philosophy to contemporary cultural controversies and debates related to racism, sexism, homophobia, right- and left-wing extremism, and the growth of ideology. An update of the book will enhance my own cultural currency, thus improving my ability to teach today’s students and appeal to their diverse backgrounds and interests.
Conclusion
I am very excited about this proposed sabbatical project and the benefits it will bring to myself, the students at the College of Marin, and to the District. In summation, the goals and outcomes I anticipate from this sabbatical project are:
revision and updating of textbook content, including increased emphasis on equity and diversity
commission of new, original illustrations
correction of typographical and minor factual errors
increased competence in my own field concerning contemporary developments in philosophy
increased currency and familiarity with the concrete applications of philosophy to cultural issues
enhancement and improvement of the quality of the philosophy classes at the College of Marin and of my teaching
Thank you for considering this proposal. I eagerly look forward to your decision.
The final chapter of Afropessimism brought me to tears, and in doing so it may also have undermined the thesis developed throughout the rest of the book. Perhaps this was the intent. I’m still thinking it all through. I’m not sure whether the author’s purpose was to develop an objective ontology of racial relations or whether his purpose was to develop a subjective phenomenology of his own inner struggles with racial identity. If his goal was the former, then the book is a fascinating failure. If the latter, it is a heart-rending success. In either case, it is an uncomfortably captivating read.
Afropessimism is part autobiography, part psychoanalytical reflection, and part philosophical ontology. The author, Frank Wilderson, a professor of African American studies at UC Irvine, tells his own story of growing up in a Black, upper middle-class Minneapolis family while struggling with his identity, drugs, mental health, and larger political and philosophical issues related to race. His mother and father were successful academics – professors at the University of Minneapolis – involved in social activism and liberal causes. Wilderson recounts, in a series of fragmented yet temporally sequential events, how he rebelled against their liberal world-view, drifting into radicalism first as a Marxist and then as an Afropessimist: a philosophical position holding that there is no hope for any sort of positive change in the world of race relations. The broad trajectory of this story charts his awakening to the fact that nothing will ever change between Blacks and non-Blacks precisely because in this world, blackness is a necessary antithesis to whiteness, serving to define what it means to be human. White is human while Black is non-human. The only possibility for changing this situation, he claims, lies in ending this world.
Wilderson’s Afropessimist philosophy is articulated in bits and pieces, developing into something like a coherent whole toward the end of the book. While citing influences such as Marx, Gramsci, and Fanon, what really struck me was the deeply Hegelian nature of Wilderson’s thought process. The world we inhabit, he claims, is premised on a fundamental dialectical opposition between two points of reference: White and Black (terms that he himself capitalizes). White is the ideal and Black is the antithesis of this ideal. Whites and Blacks, he claims, are like “cats and dogs”; a strange analogy, since cats and dogs are not really the antithesis of one another. There is no necessary conceptual connection between them, as you can understand what a cat is without knowing what a dog is, and vice versa. But perhaps what the author is suggesting is that like cats and dogs, Whites and Blacks have an ingrained suspicion or hostility toward one another. In any case, Wilderson asserts that while “White” defines everything that is human, “Black” defines everything that is the opposite of human. His startling conclusion is that Blacks are not human at all, and yet they are a necessary presence in this world against which non-Blacks must define and orient themselves. All of the violence and hatred directed against Blacks buttresses the current human, social order. Echoing Hegel’s ontological dialectic from The Phenomenology of Geist, Wilderson accounts for the very structure and unfolding of our human world through the opposition of Master (White) and Slave (Black). It is this very opposition that opens up the space within which humanity operates. “There is no world without Blacks” (p. 40).
According to Wilderson, what this state of affairs implies is that Blacks stand alone and unique, apart from everyone else in the world. “The Black psyche emerges within a context of structural or paradigmatic violence that cannot be analogized with the emergence of White or non-Black psyches” (p. 247). So it is that Asian, Middle Eastern, Jewish, Feminist, and mixed-race struggles are fundamentally different from the struggles of Blacks, and in fact are dependent upon the “social death” (p. 248) of Black people. All non-Black people are still human to the degree that they emulate whiteness and reject blackness. They still have a place and a stake in the world while Black people have no place and no stake in the world whatsoever. Blackness is pure absence, a nothingness filling Whites and non-Blacks with revulsion and horror. But it is an absence structurally necessary for the present order of things to operate.
These are, obviously, very provocative and controversial claims, and the evidence Wilderson provides to buttress his position comes from personal autobiography. He remembers, as a child, his own desire to see a Black youth stab a White community worker; he recounts how his father was racially insulted by a group of Native Americans that he was trying to help; he remembers a Palestinian acquaintance who described the humiliation of being searched by a Black Jew as opposed to a non-Black Jew; he recounts later experiences at an academic conference where White liberal feminists expressed horror and hostility toward his Afropessimist philosophy; near the end of the book he recalls the racism he encountered working as a waiter and while serving with the ANC in South Africa. Even those experiences that, to the reader, seem like positive instances of interracial exchange, friendliness, and love are offered as examples of the unbridgeable gap between White and Black: his friendly conversation with an Arab cab driver and the White couple he shares a ride with in Berkeley (in which he feels latent fear and hostility); his marriage to a White woman (a relationship in which he says he remains a slave while his wife remains the master). Some of the experiences that the author reports are flat-out bizarre, like when he was a 20-something living with his girlfriend in an apartment that he was convinced was being contaminated with nuclear radiation by a White neighbor.
Clearly, the autobiographical evidence Wilderson offers in support of his thesis is not adequate to establish his conclusion. There is a huge gap between his personal experiences with anti-Black racism and his claim that, structurally, our world is premised on an ontological division between White and Black that relegates all Blacks to “social death.” And yet, upon finishing the book, I felt there was a truth that Wilderson had articulated in this work. I do think it is reasonable to observe that the suffering of Black people is of a unique sort, and that it differs in nature from the suffering and struggles of other people. The legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism that exists in the US hangs like a cloud over our own culture, casting its cold shadow on interracial relations. In the US, the “one drop” rule (also known as hypodescent) held that if people had even “one drop” of Black blood in their veins, they were to be considered Black. No matter how irrational this may be (after all, how does one measure “one drop of Black blood”?) it has had an impact on how we think about and how we perceive race. A person with one Black parent and one non-Black parent is commonly perceived as Black, categorized as a minority among the majority of the population. This perception does often have the effect, as Wilderson suggests, of casting our world as a place where everyone is either Black or White. We have been wounded by this history of racism and racialized violence, and that wound has not healed, as is all too clear from contemporary events. And I agree with the author that giving expression to feelings of hopelessness and rage concerning this cultural situation is worthwhile, healthy, and important, regardless of how “negative” it might all sound.
What I disagree with is that the divide between White and Black is as unbridgeable as he believes it to be. It is the unremittingly pessimistic stance of Afropessimism that I find unrealistic. My own evidence for this is also personal. I have spent most of my life in love, and in a relationship, with an Afro-Asian woman. Additionally, many of the most important people in my life – among them family members, friends, and students – are of color. These personal experiences alone make me question Wilderson’s unequivocal opposition between Black and White. But his overly pessimistic standpoint is also disrupted, I think, by my own emotional reaction to the book’s final chapter. In this, which strikes me as the most honest part of the work, Wilderson describes his mother’s descent into dementia and her eventual death. His grief over her passing resonated seamlessly with my own experience with my mother’s passing many years ago. I shed tears as I read this closing section, feeling united in heartache with the author, but not at all separated by race. The fact that his mother was a Black American woman and that my mother was a White Scottish woman was completely irrelevant to my response. Our suffering was the of the same sort: the purely human sadness of a son losing his mother.
This is what makes me think that the correct way to approach Afropessimism may not be as an objective and universal ontology of the relationship between Blacks and Whites, but as a subjective account of the effect that the author’s personal struggles have had on his own psychological and phenomenological processing of his world. This reading is encouraged by the fact that Wilderson begins and ends the book with an account of his nervous breakdown while attending UC Berkeley. From the very start, the scene is set for readers to consider what contributed to this breakdown.
In diagonising his mental struggles, Wilderson highlights the ugliness of racism, but there is also an equally important thread addressing the ongoing friction between the author and his parents. Wilderson writes of a life-long resentment against his mother and father. Their liberal politics and confidence in the American way of life aggravate and anger him. And yet, as the story moves forward, he ends up uncomfortably occupying the same sort of valued position within the world as did his parents. He becomes a respected academic at a public university, the winner of various literary awards and an NEA Fellow. Could the pessimism he expresses about the racial fate of the world possibly be connected to his own participation in the very kind of mainstream life he grew up resenting? There is also the detail, never really deeply explored, that the two romantic relationships he writes about the most are with women (one Black and one White) much older than him in age. When this detail is coupled with his explicit resentment toward his mother and with the final conclusion in which he grieves her death, a psychological drama deeper that race seems to be playing out. Lest you think it unfair that I make these observations, I would point out that Wilderson himself is influenced by, and in his book freely applies, psychoanalytic principles to his analysis of culture and race. Rather than detracting from its value, I feel that bringing this perspective to bear actually deepens the humanity of his work. Looking at it this way, Afropressimism is not a book about a non-human (as Wilderson refers to himself and all Blacks), it is a book about a deeply sensitive and wounded human being with whom readers of any color can sympathize.
If, on the other hand, it is read as an objective description of the ontological structures underling the relationships between all Blacks and Whites, Afropessimism ends up essentializing race, erecting absolute “Whiteness” and absolute “Blackness” as the pillars holding up the entire human world. But who is absolutely White? And who is absolutely Black? Aren’t these antithetical absolutes simply Hegelian abstractions with no real, concrete exemplars? If, as Wilderson writes, all mixed-race people are non-Black, and if no one is absolutely White or absolutely Black, then isn’t the real, concrete world that we actually inhabit populated entirely by non-Black people?
That would mean that in reality there is no such thing as a purely White or a Black person at all, which, by the way, is just fine with me.
I was browsing through the on-demand movies, trying to find something interesting to watch when I discovered The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), available for no charge. It first caught my eye because one of my favorite bands, The Angelic Upstarts, has a song inspired by this story of a working-class kid who ends up in a detention facility, where he excels at running cross-country. The metaphor that carries the story along is embodied by the main character who has been running away from his true self for most of his life. It is only at the end of the film that he realizes this and stops running, just as he is about to win a competition against a wealthy boy’s academy.
As we watched the movie, my wife was scrolling away on her phone, reading about the story’s author, Alan Sillitoe. “Looks like he also wrote a book called Travels in Nihilion about a fictional nihilist country,” she said. My jaw dropped and I hit the pause button. “Really?!,” I exclaimed. “That’s the title of an XTC song, but I had no idea it was also a novel.” And so it was that I was introduced to Sillitoe’s 1971 absurdist masterpiece.
Travels in Nihilion is presented as a travel guide to the world’s only country run according to the principles of Nihilism. In the Prologue, the Chief Editor explains that while human beings are not by nature nihilistic, in Nihilon the government has been successful at devising a system of “regimented chaos” that represents the same direction “most of the capitalistic freedom-loving nations are going in.” (p. 8) The editor has sent five correspondents to Nihilon in order to gather observations. There is Adam, who arrives on a bicycle; Benjamin, who arrives by car; Jaquiline – the only female correspondent – arrives by train; Edgar arrives by boat; and Richard arrives by plane. Each of these travelers has been given 2000 klipps, the currency of Nihilon, with instructions to write down their reports and observations, which the Chief Editor will incorporate into a narrative presented in novelistic form.
The absurd chaos of Nihilonian Nihilism is revealed upon the arrival of the first of these correspondents. At the border crossing, a guard asks if he can take Adam’s bicycle for a ride, and then hands over his rifle before peddling away down the road. When Adam accidentally discharges the weapon, the shot triggers a response from the neighboring nation of Cronacia, initiating a war between the two countries. Cronacia, it turns out, is socialist, “mild and orderly” (p. 15), but nonetheless hostile to the Nihilonians, with whom relations have never been good. The war unintentionally started by Adam escalates over the course of the novel, involving all five of the main characters and culminating in the overthrow of the Nihilist government and its leader, President Nil.
As the various characters travel through the country, they discover that very little is predictable about Nihilon other than its unpredictability. Laws are enforced at the whim of the enforcers but are guided according to a principle posted at the border near where Benjamin enters the country:
SELF EXPRESSION PLUS SELF-INDULGENCE EQUALS NIHILISM.
SIGNED: PRESIDENT NIL.
All of Nihilon’s wars are fought by the elderly rather than the young. Prices for goods change at the impulse of merchants, and differing forms of currency are used in the differing cities. The national drink is called Nihilitz, and you are required to carry at least one bottle in your car at all times. If you really want to get blitzed, you can order Anihilitz: a higher alcohol version of the original drink. It is a crime to drive sober, and when you do drive you must exceed the speed limit, especially in urban areas. It is illegal to carry tools or repair kits in your vehicle or to possess a driver’s license or insurance. Luxury trains travel slower than popular trains; but popular trains travel longer, circuitous routes so that they arrive at the same destinations later. Additionally, they have hard seats and no side enclosures with the result that passenger belongings are sucked out of the coaches and litter the countryside. Second-class airlines have nude flight attendants and defensive machine guns, while on first-class flights seats are replaced by bars serving Nihiltz and a dancefloor where passengers are joined by the pilots for in-flight parties. On third-class flights, passengers sit in gliders towed through the air by obsolete bomber planes while a continuous tape of crying babies is played. Ships have no lifeboats, and all maps of the country are intentionally drawn to be inaccurate since, “a well-mapped country is a dead country. A complete survey is a burial shroud. A life with maps is a tyranny” (p. 35).
Absurd as all of this sounds, what ties it together is the principle that any sort of consistency or order oppresses individual freedom. This is a caricature of nihilism that relates to Nietzsche’s concept of the Dionysian force of nature. In his early thought, Nietzsche characterized Dionysus as pure energy, vitality, and creativity; as the raw power of life itself. It is opposed to the Apollonian, which is the principle of order, structure, and control. For Nietzsche, whose philosophy (at least popularly) is thought of as nihilistic, the Dionysian promotes destruction and chaos, but also is endorsed as life affirming and potent. The government of Nihilon is nihilistic in this same sense: it promotes dangerous and disorderly living as a consequence of unleashing the vital and dynamic potential of human existence. “Obey – and feel young! Rebel – and live forever!” (p. 65) reads one Nihilonian billboard. Another, encouraging drunk driving, reads: “Drink Nihilitz! Keep death on the road! It’s fun!” (p. 66).
As each of the five correspondents embark on their own individual adventures, we learn that Benjamin, who arrived by car, served on the side of the opposition in the war which resulted in the establishment of the Nihilist government. He fought for the cause of Idealism – with the Rational Guards – but was tricked by a Nihilist agent into abandoning his post, and so was charged with treason and sentenced to execution. He escaped, however, and after he fled Nihilon the Nihilists won the war. Upon their triumph, there was a struggle for power between the left-wing Nihilists – who wanted to “destroy everything and have done with it” (p. 115) – and the Conservative Nihilists, later called Benevolent Nihilists – who wanted to “preserve nihilism, to put it into a shrine as it were, and make it last for centuries” (p. 115). In the campaign for popular votes that followed, the Benevolent Nihilists staged the destruction of “ten bridges, three power stations, twenty banks, and a dozen railway stations. …Countless cars had been driven from cliff tops, with fervent fanatical party supporters in black tracksuits at the wheels shouting ‘Long Live Nihilism!’ as they vanished into space” (pp. 115 – 116). And so they won by a popular vote and Nihilon was established as the first explicitly nihilistic country.
Sillitoe’s political critique, at least at times, appears to be directed toward capitalism and free-market economies. Throughout the book, the Nihilists proclaim economic success as a justification for their power. Merchants freely and arbitrarily charge what they want for goods, demanding outrageous tips regardless of the quality of service. All of this seems intended as a caricature of laissez-faire capitalism, and the author appears to be suggesting that this form of economic philosophy is itself “nihilistic” insofar as it recognizes no morality or value beyond making a profit. Nothing in Nihilon seems to have a set value apart from what the merchants demand. But as it turns out, the economy of Nihilon is in trouble; so much so that President Nil has been bankrolling the state by accepting huge sums of money from citizens in return for the legal right to hunt down and kill their own personal enemies! So, part of the message appears to be that capitalism is nihilistic, and despite the claims by the government of Nihilon, nihilistic capitalism is not only immoral, it doesn’t even work.
And yet, the opposing forces are depicted as no less dysfunctional. The Idealist revolutionaries who rise up during the conflict between Nihilon and Cronacia are just as foolish as the Nihilists, and perhaps even more worrisome insofar as there are indications that under their rule, order would be restored at the cost of freedom. People would be forced to be good under the imposition of an authoritarian, Idealist philosophy that is “even more diabolically cruel” (p. 157) than Nihilism, says a captured Nihilist colonel. After the revolution, order will be reinstated by Big Brother with a friendly face: “the suede, denim secret police” warned about in the songCalifornia Uber Alles. With the revolution, the country will swing away from the force of Dionysus and back in the direction of Apollo.
One of the key subplots of the novel that perhaps most explicitly illustrates the allure of Nihilonian nihilism concerns Adam, and his stay at a hotel in the town of Fludd. Fludd lies at the very bottom of a steep valley, below a massive dam. The streets are attractive and filled with cafes where people enjoy themselves. This uncharacteristic pleasantness is a far cry from the other towns in Nihilon, and as Adam bicycles along the streets he decides to stop for the night at the Hotel Fludd, an “unpretentious and homely” place where a luxury room costs only two klipps a night, and a sumptuous dinner costs only one klipp (including a bottle of Nihilitz). He wonders why everything is so cheap, but the pretty desk clerk tells him not to argue; and later even goes to bed with him! This all seems too good to be true. Something must be up. And it is. While Adam is eating dinner, the waiter informs him that the dam above town is unsafe. Cracks have opened up in it and everyone expects it to give way at any minute. Living under these conditions, the citizens of Fludd have become used to living in danger, aware that they may die at any instant; and this feeling has renewed their passion for life. People take nightly walks to view the leaking cracks, reminding them to “live in the present, as it were, never thinking about tomorrow. It’s somehow made us all human again” (p. 101). While all of this terrifies Adam, the waiter expresses only exhilaration and joy, stating:
“If we were to leave, our lives would be empty. We wouldn’t know what to do. We’d be like dead people. Our lives wouldn’t be worth living. Yet at the same time we know that we’ll die if we stay here, because the dam is bound to give way sooner or later, and sweep us all away. So we’re rather contemptuous of people who prefer to live in safety” (p. 101).
The existential theme expressed here is unmistakable. The inhabitants of Fludd are intently attuned to their own finitude and mortality, and this attunement has inspired them to embrace life enthusiastically. Philosophers such as Heidegger, Sartre, and De Beauvoir claim that an essential part of what it means to be human is to be a “being-toward-death,” and yet we normally suppress our awareness of this aspect of our existence because it causes us too much anxiety and dread. In Fludd, however, the townsfolk have an ever-present reminder of mortality, and as a result they are encouraged to enjoy life while they have it. In existentialist terms, they live in a state of “authenticity”: the honest awareness that they will not exist forever, and that what they do with life while they have it is their own choice.
What this episode in the novel seems to be expressing is one of the positive aspects of Nihilism. While in other places in Nihilion nihilism unleashes greed, chaos, and unpredictability, here in Fludd it does just the opposite. With the looming reminder that nothing is permanent and that nothing lasts, the citizens conclude not that they need to grasp onto money or personal power, but that they need to enjoy their time together, cherishing life. In the end, we all die. But under conditions of safety we are encouraged to forget about this inevitability. In Fludd, the people can’t forget, and so they choose to live life according to its fullest, Dionysian potential.
The culminating scenes of Travels In Nihilon focus on a “space hook-up,” in which the crumbling Nihilist government works to send a man and woman into orbit around the Earth where they will float in the void while having sex. This is to be broadcast world-wide, uncensored, demonstrating the technological triumph of Nihilism while also netting the government huge profits in copyright fees. A “mystic birth” is anticipated to result, which will act as a symbol of Nihilism’s awe-inspiring and holy power. The child will be some sort of nihilistic Jesus. As the war intensifies, the opposition wants desperately to subvert this obscene mission, but in the end, they are unable to stop it. Since the original, intended participants have fallen ill, Adam and Jaquiline are abducted, drugged, and sent up in the rocket to copulate in space. As it turns out, Jaquiline does not get pregnant, and neither she nor Adam end up suffering any psychological trauma from their ordeal, although they do become famous celebrities in the post-revolutionary world.
Finally, the Idealists win the war. Out of a sense of honesty, they do not rename the country and they decide to postpone victory celebrations for ten years, hoping by that time to have some national accomplishments they can honestly be proud of. Our five correspondents meet at a café for their own personal celebration before leaving Nihilion, but when they order a round of Nihilitz, the drink they are served turns out to be water. “Intoxicating liquors were banned in Nihilion from midnight,” the waiter explains. “They’re bad for the liver, sir. They corrode the heart and block the lungs” (p. 243). But then he offers to sell them a bottle of contraband Nihilitz for the outrageous sum of ten thousand klipps, which the travelers pay. So, it appears, nothing has really changed.
The novel concludes as the main characters leave Nihilion on a passenger ship, which President Nil has also clandestinely boarded. As they leave port, President Nil remotely detonates an explosion that consumes the harbor town of Shelp. Benjamin shoots him dead, throws his body overboard, and then goes to join his friends for more drinks in the ship’s saloon.
Travels in Nihilon made me laugh out loud. It is absurdly hilarious, and so obviously allegorical that my mind was constantly working to try and figure out what it is that Sillitoe is criticizing and making fun of. Clearly, he is drawing on the common, conventional meaning of the term “nihilism” in order to highlight the immoral and meaningless nature of capitalism and the quest for unlimited, individual freedom. Yet Sillitoe also obviously recognizes that the desire for freedom and for profit are things that can’t be driven out of human nature by idealistic, socialist movements. Written in 1971, this is a story that is clearly commenting on the Cold War, the Space Race, and the friction between communism and democracy. But it is also a story that refuses to take sides. The utter brilliance of the book is how it performs an argumentum ad absurdum by drawing on the premises of Western culture, demonstrating that unfettered individuality without a concern for collective well-being is futile and ultimately destructive, while an over-concern for collective well-being at the expense of individual freedom is equally destructive and oppressive.
It is wonderful to find a novel that makes you laugh while also making you think.
Jon Stewart’s A History of Nihilism in the Nineteenth Century is oddly titled, as it is not so much a history as it is a collection of essays summarizing some of the nihilistic themes found in the works of a handful of 19th Century authors. In the preface, Stewart justifies this narrow treatment, explaining that he wants to explore some of the “lesser-known figures” who have played a role in the development of nihilism, while not making the more well-known figures his primary focus (p. xi). In this way he hopes to bring something new to the field, avoiding a rehash of familiar material. I found the book interesting insofar as it did introduce me to the works of some literary authors with whom I was previously unfamiliar.
The book consists of 9 chapters that focus on a variety of authors, some of whom are no doubt quite familiar to students of nihilism (Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Turgenev, Nietzsche), and others who are probably less familiar (Jean Paul, Klingemann, Buchner, Moller). The overarching thesis of the collection is that the development of modern science during the 19th Century undermined religious faith, resulting in increasing feelings of meaninglessness. This general sense of meaninglessness is what Stewart defines as nihilism; and yet he also claims it is a mistake to treat nihilism as “a single concept or problem.” It is, rather a “constellation of related concepts and problems” (p. 2) which have to do with our orientation toward death, the fear of being forgotten, suffering, atheism, and moral relativism (pp. 2 -15). In a century when God died, it became increasingly unclear what value human life could have in the face of death, suffering, and the desire to be remembered. With no God in heaven and no hope for an afterlife, what could be the point? This is the root of modern nihilism according to Stewart; although he does also admit that nihilism itself is a phenomenon as old as humankind, already expressed in ancient works like The Epic of Gilgamesh and in Ecclesiastes. Ultimately, his main point seems to be that while the struggle with meaninglessness is an eternal human problem, this struggle takes on a distinctive character during the 19th Century; a character that then goes on to influence later Existentialist philosophy.
Stewart’s writing is very clear and workman-like, which is part of his stated goal of producing a study that is not solely intended for academic audiences. There are no complicated philosophical arguments; just clear, concise summaries of the plots of a variety of literary works and accounts of the ideas of a variety of thinkers. And while one of the book’s strengths is the author’s familiarity with the extensive secondary literature on nihilism, he doesn’t engage with this literature in the main body of the text. Rather, he focuses on dutifully describing the details of the works he scrutinizes and then drawing comparisons between them, showing readers how each of these details intersects with the various themes that he claims characterize and illustrate the phenomenon of nihilism.
The parts of the book that I found the most memorable were the first two chapters: “1. Jean Paul’s Vision of Nihilism and Plea For the Doctrine of Immortality,” and “2. Klingemann and the Absurdity of Nothingness in The Nightwatches.” As I was previously unfamiliar with the works of either Jean Paul or of Klingemann, I appreciated Stewart’s clear summaries of their stories, some of which now reverberate in my mind like bizarre nightmares. In particular, I find myself reflecting on Steward’s summary of a chapter titled “The Dead Christ Proclaims That There is No God,” from one of Jean Paul’s longer works. This tale illustrates the consequences of the scientific viewpoint and its shattering effects on the belief in God and an afterlife. The narrator of the story recounts a bad dream in which, amidst an apocalyptic landscape, Christ appears and proclaims that there is no God. Jesus says that he has traveled through the great empty spaces of the universe, crying out “Father, where art Thou?”, but has received no reply (p. 39). All of the children who have died over the course of time awaken and ask, “Jesus, have we no Father?”, to which Christ answers, “We have no Father” (p. 40). The dream ends when everything in the universe is destroyed, and the narrator awakens, happy that it was all just a nightmare. Steward presents this piece as an illustration of the negative, nihilistic view, echoed in Dostoyevsky’s writings and which predominated in the 19th Century, claiming that in the absence of God, the universe becomes a meaningless and awful place. I think it would make a great children’s animated program for Saturday morning TV.
In contrast to the anguished tone of “The Dead Christ Proclaims That There is No God,” there is August Klingemann’s Nightwatches; a story in which a character named Kreuzgang wanders about at night, making observations of the absurd nature of human life. It is at night that the real truth is revealed, and over the course of sixteen chapters, the main character observes a variety of scenes, such as a dying man who is threated with hellfire by a priest, a poet who has hanged himself because of a rejection letter from a publisher, and an insane asylum where the inmates are more mentally healthy than those who imprison them. Stewart observes that the tone of Nightwatches is markedly different from that of the Jean Paul piece, cynically suggesting the absurd and humorous nature of a world in the grips of nihilism. None of it makes any sense, and in the end all we can do is accept the ridiculous and meaningless character of human life. Thus, “Klingemann chooses the muse of comedy for his response. Laughter is the correct disposition to the meaninglessness and finitude of human existence” (p. 96). I appreciate this message, as it is the lesson that I myself have learned from my own experiences with nihilism.
The chapters of the book dealing with familiar authors (like Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Turgenev, and Nietzsche) are competent, but as Stewart himself suggests at the beginning of the work, these chapters feel like a summary of material that most students of nihilism are already familiar with. Perhaps the author could have steered clear of summary in these chapters and instead offered deeper and more extended philosophical critiques, or perhaps he could have instead addressed some of the other, lesser known authors whose names are only briefly mentioned in the concluding chapter: such as Leopardi, Novalis, Gutzkow, Carlyle, etc. (pp. 280 – 282).
One of the interesting angles that Stewart’s book pursues has to do with the fact that many of the key figures addressed never explicitly used the term “nihilism” in their writings. Stewart makes the argument that such authors were concerned with the concept nonetheless by connecting their stories and works to themes that, in the Introduction, he claims “constellate” around the “problem” of nihilism: namely death, the fear of being forgotten, suffering, atheism, and ethical relativism. But this introduces a difficulty that the author himself recognizes in his chapter on Turgenev. “The dissonance between Turgenev’s meaning of the term and the constellation of issues concerning the vanity of human existence and mortality have contributed to the difficulty of defining nihilism as a single specific concept” (p. 258). Turgenev treated nihilism as a political movement intended to liberate people from the hypocrisy of Russian culture and morality. This is in contrast to others who treated it as a personal encounter with meaninglessness. Turgenev’s nihilism, then, seems not to fit in so neatly with the sort of existential topics and themes that Stewart otherwise emphasizes as relevant to the concept.
But doesn’t it seem odd to claim that Turgenev, who did explicitly use the term “nihilism,” fits less neatly into the history of 19th Century nihilism than do authors who never even mentioned the word in their writings? Could it be that the “constellation” of themes Stewart introduces at the beginning of the book are based too heavily on the works of those who never actually used the term “nihilism” at all while neglecting the influence of authors who did explicitly use the term? I tend to think that Turgenev’s use of the word is not so dissonant with earlier, German uses precisely because of the link to Hegel, who taught the Russian Nihilists that history unfolds through the force of negation. The real core of nihilism – while perhaps related to the themes that Stewart enumerates – is, I think, actually found in the insight that the real and ideal negate one another, forever clashing and conflicting. I suspect that this theme – the clash between the real and the ideal – is one that can be found addressed in all works that deal with nihilistic themes and thus that it constitutes a more fundamental connection between nihilistic thinkers than Stewart’s stated characterisitics.
In any case, A History of Nihilism in the Nineteenth Century is clearly written and a worthwhile read for those interested in the topic of nihilism and for those who are curious about some of the 19th Century literary figures that anticipate 20th Century Existentialist philosophy. While it is not really a complete history of 19th Century nihilism, it does cover some facinating and novel territory.
Rudin was Ivan Turgenev’s first novel. It is a simple, straight-forward character study of Dmitry Nikolaich Rudin, a visitor to the household of Darya Mikhaylovna Lasunsky, an aristocratic widow who has opened her estate to summer guests. Rudin is a charismatic, well-spoken, and clever man who dazzles the others with his ability to argue and speak eloquently, but he finally falls into disfavor with Darya Lasunsky when her daughter, Natalya Alexeyevna Lasunsky, falls in love with him.
The character of Rudin was purportedly modeled on Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist with whom Turgenev was friendly for a period. This is what led Aileen Kelly to rely heavily on Turgenev’s novel in writing her book, Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism, a psychological hit-job that dismisses Bakunin as a bum and a totalitarian. It was, in fact, a recent re-reading of Kelly’s biography that inspired me to pick up Turgenev’s novel. Although Kelly finds much ammunition in Rudin to discredit Bakunin, I found Turgenev’s depiction of the character, on the contrary, quite sympathetic and positive. Assuming that Rudin was indeed intended to be a reflection of Bakunin, if anything, the novel lent a more human dimension to my understanding of the real-life revolutionary Russian idealist. But perhaps you find just what you’re looking for when reading novels like this.
The novel begins shortly before Rudin arrives unexpectedly at Darya Lasunsky’s country estate in place of a certain Baron Mueffel. The Baron has authored an article concerning politics and the economy that he wants to share with Darya Lasunsky, but since he has suddenly been recalled to St. Petersburg, he has sent his friend Rudin in his stead. Almost immediately upon arrival, Rudin becomes engaged in argument with Afrikan Semyonych Pigasov, a man who embodies the characteristics of a cynic (in the modern sense of the word). Pigasov is introduced as a misogynist who “criticized from morn to night, sometimes very aptly, sometimes rather obtusely, but always with enjoyment” (p. 40). He occupies the role of jester in the Lasunsky household, amusing guests with his non-stop cynical commentary. But (as is probably the case with many people of his nature), Pigasov’s cleverness is superficial and borne of his own experiences with disappointment and failure. He is poor, but desires a place in high society. He has studied for his degree, but has failed his dissertation defense. His wife has left him. Now he spends his time going from household to household, amusing and annoying his hosts with his unending, bitter commentary on life and the world. His utterances sometimes provoke laughter and sometimes anger, offering a distraction for the guests who seem to have little else to do with their time.
Before the arrival of Rudin, Pigasov lets slip his view on philosophy, which foreshadows his later conflict with the title character:
“Philosophy…is the highest point of view! These high points will be the death of me. And what on earth can one see from a high point? Suppose you wanted to buy a horse, you wouldn’t start looking at it from a watch tower!” (pp. 47 – 48).
The abstractions of philosophy are anathema to Pigasov. He instead prefers to recite “facts” and to comment, in a cleverly sneering manner, about how silly people are in their beliefs and convictions about the world. To him, the philosopher is someone with his head in the clouds; someone who has not yet been crushed by the disappointments entailed by living in the “real” world.
Upon arrival, Rudin introduces himself and is asked by Pigasov if he is familiar with the topic of Baron Mueffel’s article. As soon as Rudin begins to articulate its content, Pigasov swoops, using this an excuse to begin yet another attack on anything serious and philosophical. “Herr Baron Mueffel is specifically concerned with political economy or is it simply that he devotes to this interesting science only the hours of leisure remaining from time spent in social pleasures and in the office?”, Pigasov asks, laying a trap into which Rudin steps when he responds that the Baron is a “dilettante in the matter,” but that the article nevertheless “has much that is interesting in it” (p. 54). When Pigasov attempts to dismiss the article (which he has not read) on the grounds that it deals in generalizations that are merely based in personal “convictions,” Rudin, unlike the others in the household, rises to the challenge and logically engages with the cynic. He questions him, getting Pigasov to admit that his hostility toward personal “convictions” is based in his own personal conviction against convictions! A contradiction! This grabs the attention of rest of the guests who encourage Rudin to continue his attack, which he does, ultimately embarrassing his opponent, who is driven into an uncharacteristic silence. This silence is only broken when Pigasov admits that his poor opinion of humanity is based on, “a study of my own heart in which I daily find more and more trash. I judge others by myself” (p. 60).
The contrast between Rudin and Pigasov is one between idealism and cynicism. The cynicism of Pigasov is the result of his own self-loathing projected onto the world. Superficially he appears clever and sophisticated, as his is a stance not taken in by the potential lies and deceptions of others, but Pigasov’s view is also shallow and childish insofar as it assumes everyone is just as damaged and wretched as he is. Rudin’s viewpoint, on the other hand, is one of excitement about, and earnest interest in, the world, life, and the exploration of other people’s ideas. What is so refreshing to the guests at Darya Mikhaylovna Lasunsky’s summer estate is Rudin’s energy and enthusiasm. As Mikhaylo Mikhaylych Lezhnev states toward the end of the story:
“He has enthusiasm; and that, believe me – for I speak as a phelgmatic man – is a most precious quality in our time. We have all become intolerably rational, indifferent, and effete; we have gone to sleep, we have grown cold, and we should be grateful to anyone who rouses us and warms us, if only for a moment! It’s time to wake up!” (p. 157).
Natalya Alexeyevna is the daughter of Darya Lasunsky. Natalya is a reflective young woman, suspicious of her mother and also initially of Rudin, who she thinks treats her like a child. During a walk together on the grounds of the estate, she tells Rudin that with all of his brilliance and talent he should work and “try to be useful” (p. 78) in the world. This remark strikes a chord, and Rudin launches into a self-conscious monologue about his own uncertainty concerning whether he really has any talents and if so how he might put them to use. It seems that Rudin is a man looking for a purpose, wishing he had a cause to fight for, something to which he could devote himself wholeheartedly. But instead, he wanders from place to place, borrowing money and spending his time talking, arguing, and socializing with others. He is, in the words of Richard Freeborn, the translator of this edition of the novel, a “superfluous man,” (p. 9) who has no meaningful place or purpose in society. He is “homeless” in the Heideggerian sense.
After spending months at the estate, Rudin’s charisma has its effect on Natalya, and she falls in love with him. Rudin, in his own way, also falls in love with her; but their two forms of love are incompatible. Natalya loves Rudin in a way that readies her to give up everything for him, to turn against her own mother’s wishes, to break the heart of her suitor, and to run away with Rudin. Her love is the romantic sort of love that inspires one to do irrational and impulsive things. Rudin, on the other hand, loves Natalya platonically. His love for her is the dispassionate sort of love that a philosopher has for humankind. This is the paradox of Rudin: he is full of love, energy and enthusiasm, but he has no concrete purpose or target for these feelings. He has nothing he is willing to die for, no one he is willing to sacrifice himself for, and yet he can’t be still. He needs to act, but has nothing for which to act.
Rudin and Natalya meet secretly at Avdyukhin pond, where Natalya tells Rudin that her mother knows about her love for him and that Darya Lasunsky would rather see her own daughter dead rather than end up as Rudin’s wife. When Natalya presses Rudin to tell her what he thinks they should do, he responds, “Submit to fate” (p. 127). From the lips of a romantic this might be taken to mean that they should run away together, but from the lips of Rudin it means precisely the opposite. He explains to Natalya that it would be foolish for the two of them to be married: they would end up living a life of poverty, her mother would be angry, and she would suffer the break-up of her family. To Rudin, this is all too much to face. It is just not worth the cost.
While Natalya is prepared to give up everything out of love for Rudin, Rudin cannot commit to marriage any more than he can commit himself to a political or social cause. His “enthusiasm” for life is abstract rather than concrete. He is the kind of “philosopher” criticized by Pigasov in the beginning of the story. Rudin sees things from the heights, with enthusiastic detachment. And it is just this detachment that keeps him from acting in the world and making himself “useful.”
In the end, Rudin leaves Darya Mikhaylovna Lasunsky’s estate, and two years later Pigasov sits with some of the other characters telling stories about what became of Rudin. According to his account, Rudin finally decided he must fall in love and so focused his attentions on a French girl, bringing her books as gifts and talking with her about “nature and Hegel” (p. 155). Instead of expressing romantic passion, he stroked her hair and confessed his “feeling of paternal tenderness for her” (p. 156). Pigasov, jaded old cynic that he remains, finds this all very funny and laughs cruelly, but the others jump to Rudin’s defense. Lezhnev states, “His defects are well known to me. They are all the more conspicuous because he is not a shallow person,” while Bassistov exclaims, “Rudin is a man of genius!” (p. 156). What follows is a long account by Lezhnev of Rudin’s positive qualities: he is a genius; he is enthusiastic; his words have inspired many young people who will change the world, even if Rudin himself is incapable of doing so.
And so, we are left with a tragic, yet sympathetic image of Rudin. He is a philosopher who lives in the world of ideas. He is child-like and honest, and from this flows his eloquence and enthusiasm. But his fault is that he is unable to make concrete commitments either in love or in politics. He is an idealist who is unable to act precisely because nothing exists that actually lives up to his abstract standards.
In a short conclusion, Rudin reappears as a traveler on the road to some Russian city. As it turns out, there are no horses to take him where he wants to go, and so he ends up boarding a carriage to a different city. As he heads off Rudin says, “It doesn’t matter,” while looking “forlornly submissive” (p. 163). Turgenev later added an epilogue in which, several years later, Rudin encounters Lezhnev in a hotel where they have dinner, reflect on the past, and where we learn about a series of ill-fated projects that Rudin has embarked upon in the intervening years. Rudin laments his own continued inability to commit to action, which leads him to comment on the peace promised by the approach of death. Upon hearing this, Lezhev becomes upset, assuring Rudin that he has great respect for him as a man whose nature it is to be (as Rudin calls himself) “a rolling stone,” one who puts down no roots, but is constantly in motion, moving from one place to another, from one idea to another. After the two characters part, we learn in a brief, concluding section that Dmitry Rudin ended up dying on the barricades during the French Revolution, waving a flag and a sword while shouting something that no one could make out.
Aileen Kelly’s characterization of Rudin (and thus of Bakunin) as a childish, scattered, opportunistic, and totalitarian personality seems to me to be guilty of the same sort of cynical oversimplification engaged in by Pigasov. Yes, Rudin has many flaws: he borrows money, he is more comfortable with abstractions than he is with concrete feelings, he can’t make long-term commitments. But as the other characters articulate – and as Turgenev seems to want us to understand – Rudin is a complicated man, whose personality possesses both defects and characteristics to be admired. As Freeborn stresses in the Introduction to his translation, Rudin is both comic and tragic, absurd yet heroic, all at once. He is like Socrates, the great Greek philosopher who is embraced “warts and all” by those who love him, not just for his wisdom, but also for the fact that he is an imperfect human being. His imperfections, like Rudin’s imperfections, serve to make him aggravating but also lovable. Rudin, like Socrates, is a gadfly whose nature it is to provoke thought and action in others while himself remaining uncommitted to any particular, final Truth.
Silence, by Shūsaku Endō. Translated by William Johnston.
New York: Picador Modern Classics. 2016.
God is silent not only toward the atheist, but also toward the faithful. What separates the faithful from the atheist is a conviction that despite this silence, God must exist, since otherwise life would be meaningless.
This is the thought that stayed with me after finishing Shūsaku Endō’s Silence, a novel telling the story of Father Sebastian Rodrigues, a 17th Century Portuguese Christian missionary who travels to Japan in order to spread the Gospel. Christianity was outlawed in the Japan of this time, and those suspected of harboring the faith were forced either to renounce it (apostatize) while trampling on the fumie – an image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary – or they were subject to torture and execution. In this novel we follow the journey of the main character as he sails to Japan where he is eventually captured by authorities and pressed into apostasy. The real journey, however, is not Rodrigues’ outer, physical voyage, but his inner, spiritual struggle. The novel is an extended and painful meditation on a religious devotion tested both by philosophical reflection and by human cruelty. This is a book that offers no clear or comforting resolution to the main character’s inner, spiritual dilemma, but it does present a harrowing account of existential suffering and struggle that would make Kierkegaard shiver.
The book begins in the form of letters from Father Rodrigues detailing his efforts, along with fellow missionary Father Garrpe, to secure passage from China to Japan in order to make contact with Japanese Christians. They do so with the help of Kichijirō, a Japanese living in Macao who is eager to help them, but who denies being a Christian and who immediately arouses Rodrigues’ suspicions. Kichijirō is weak, cowardly, and cunning, and as the story unfolds, it is he who plays the role of Judas to Father Rodrigues, eventually betraying him to the Japanese authorities, just as Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans. But the relationship between these two characters is much more complicated than just that between betrayer and betrayed. A spiritual bond develops between them such that through their shared suffering, they mutually test their devotion to God. It is this concrete, worldly battle that makes room for a deeper spiritual drama to play out. Just as Judas was necessary to Jesus, so too is Kichijirō necessary to Father Rodrigues.
In traveling to Japan, Rodrigues anticipates his own martyrdom, but his conception of martyrdom is based on a superficial model of what really is involved in sacrificing one’s self for an ideal. He imagines, like the Japanese peasants he sees tortured and executed, that he too will be tested by a confrontation with bodily suffering and death, and that Kichijirō is simply one of the instruments enabling him to reach this spiritual climax. But this is a sign of Rodriques’ egotism and immaturity. Rodrigues’ vision of martyrdom neglects the reality that Kichijirō is himself a real, flesh-and-blood human being who also is in the midst of his own spiritual struggle. He is not simply a tool, but rather a fellow-traveler; a human being who is, in his own way, trying to understand his relationship to the creator. Rodrigues’ thought that Kichijirō is merely instrumental in his own martyrdom is indicative of Rodrigues’ vanity, which places himself at the center of things while relegating Kichijirō to the periphery of a metaphysical drama. This egotism is precisely what the Father must overcome in order truly to embody Christian love. And this is why Kichijirō keeps reappearing throughout the novel, first helping Rodrigues, then betraying him, and then asking for his forgiveness and absolution. Can Rodrigues love Kichijirō simply because he is another human being who lives and suffers and is tested by God?
Preceding Rodrigues to Japan years earlier was Father Ferreira, a respected priest who is rumored to have apostatized. Rodrigues can’t conceive how a man like Ferreira could have done this, speculating that if he did so he must have been subjected to incredible physical torture. But even then it would be unbelievable that a man of his standing and conviction would be moved to turn against God. How could such a man fail the test? It is easy to imagine that a cunning coward like Kichijirō would do so, but Ferreira? The problem with these reflections is that they are abstract and unable to come to terms with the concrete reality of the suffering actually endured by Father Ferreira or by Kichijirō. This is something that Rodrigues does not understand until he himself is betrayed by Kichijirō, captured by the Japanese authorities, and subjected to persecution. At first, he imagines that he will be tortured and killed, just like the three peasants he sees tied to crosses and left to drown in the rising tides on the seashore. He says to his interrogator, “Then you’ll kill me, I suppose.” The response he receives is unexpected:
“No, no…We won’t do that. If we did that the peasants would become even more stubborn. …Now if you really are a father at heart, you ought to feel pity for the Christians. Isn’t that so? …It is because of you that they must suffer” (pp. 90 – 91).
So it is that Father Rodriguez’s own Christian faith will be tested not by subjecting his body to physical torture, but by subjecting his soul to a kind of brutalization in which others will be made to suffer as a result of his own egotistical desire for purity and personal martyrdom. “Punish me alone,” (p. 91) he insists. But he will not be punished alone. His punishment will be connected to the physical punishment and suffering of the very people he came to Japan to help and that he claims to love.
Detained by the authorities, Rodrigues is visited by an interpreter, speaking in Portuguese, who says he himself has been baptised into the Church, but who also says that he has no wish to be a Christian. “…nothing but learning could make me great in the world,” (p. 93) the interpreter says to Rodrigues. This initiates a philosophical debate between them concerning Buddhism, Christianity, and the existence of God. The interpreter angrily tells the Father how full of contempt and disrespect previous missionaries were toward Japanese culture, forcing upon the peasants a religion that they neither wanted nor that was suited to them. He berates Rodriguez for misunderstanding Buddhism. To this, Rodriguez responds with an argument (drawn from Thomas Aquinas) to show that the Christian God must exist. The interpreter responds by citing the argument from evil to disprove the existence of the Christian God. Rodrigues in turn invokes the existence of human free will as the source of worldly evil as a rebuke to the interpreter’s argument. This philosophical back-and-forth ends abruptly when the interpreter angrily tells Rodrigues that all such argumentation is nonsense, and that if the Father doesn’t apostatize, then Christian peasants will be tortured for several days by being suspended upside down in a pit of excrement. He also informs Rodrigues that Father Ferreira, who has renounced his Christian faith, is alive and living in Nagasaki. The interpreter leaves the room, muttering the words, “A selfish rascal if ever there was one” (p. 97).
Rodriques is selfish. His conception of Christianity is anchored in sheer, principled conviction, immune to argument or reason. He does not question his beliefs, but finds strength in his obstinance. He laughs at the Buddhism of his Japanese interrogator; beliefs he doesn’t even understand. His mindset is one of pride: pride in how committed and unmovable his Christian faith is regardless of evidence, experience, or the suffering of others. But here we start to see the contradiction involved in Rodgrigues’ missionary work. He is motivated by self-centered confidence rather than by Christian love or compassion.
Transported to prison, Rodrigues is fed, treated well, and allowed to minister to other imprisoned Christians. At the prison, he is visited by Inoue, the feared governor whose interrogation is rumored to have convinced Father Ferreira to apostatize. Strangely, Inoue is neither angry nor fearsome in his approach to Rodrigues. Instead, he engages the priest in philosophical conversation about the nature of Truth, nodding in agreement with everything that Rodrigues has to say. “We will not punish the fathers without reason,” (p. 118) are Inoue’s last words before leaving. Shortly afterwards, in sight of the Father’s cell, a Christian peasant is beheaded after refusing to trample on the fumie. Later, Inoue returns to engage Rodrigues in further conversation about the inappropriateness of Christianity for Japanese culture, but the Father remains confident and unmoved.
It is not until he is brought to observe the drowning of three Christian prisoners that Father Rodrigues begins to experience a shift in his thought process. The prisoners, wrapped up in bamboo mats, their arms and legs immobilized so that they resemble “basket worms,” are tossed from a boat into the ocean. Father Garrpe, who was also captured by the authorities, drowns while trying to rescue them. As it turns out, all of the prisoners had apostatized, but because Rodrigues and Garrpe refused to do so, the prisoners were condemned to die anyway.Through all of this cruelty, God remains silent, neither intervening nor giving any sign of discontent, causing Rodrigues to fall into despair once he returns to his prison cell:
Did God really exist? If not, how ludicrous was half of his life spent traversing the limitless seas to come and plant the tiny seed in this barren island! How ludicrous the life of the one-eyed man executed while the cicadas sound in the full light of day! How ludicrous was the life of Garrpe, swimming in pursuit of the Christians in that little boat! Facing the wall, the priest laughed aloud (p. 148).
In this world of cruelty and suffering, if God does not exist, then everything is absurd and laughable. Without God, nothing makes sense, and there is no ultimate purpose. For some, the evil and suffering of life is evidence that God does not exist, but for Rodrigues, this very same evil and suffering is evidence that God must exist, as the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Though still remaining silent, God now, according to Rodrigues, resides “near to the earth” (p. 148). God’s silence is not evidence of nihilism, but of His necessary existence.
Rodrigues, now grown “big and fat” (p. 149), is carried by attendants to meet Father Ferreira, who is clean-shaven, wears Japanese clothes and has taken the Japanese name Sawano Chuan. He bears scars from being tortured by suspension in “the pit” and is in the employ of the governor as a translator of texts. Rodrigues is shocked by the reality of Ferreira’s transformation. So it is true that he apotitized! Ferreria tells Rodrgues that Japan is a swamp; that the roots sustaining Christian faith become rotten in this place, and that even those Japanese who call themselves “Christian” really, in substance, are not true Christians. The “God” they claim to believe in really has no resemblance to the Christian God. As both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche complained about European Christians, the Japanese have taken on all of the exterior trappings of Christianity without truly embracing or understanding the real nature of the faith. “Even in the glorious missionary period you mention, the Japanese did not believe in the Christian God but in their own distortion” (p. 159). Ferreria explains:
It is like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. At first it certainly is a butterfly, but the next day only the externals, the wings and the trunk, are those of a butterfly; it has lost its true reality and has become a skeleton. In Japan our God is just like that butterfly caught in the spider’s web: only the exterior form of God remains, but it has already become a skeleton” (p. 160).
God is dead.
Rodrigues, back in his cell, falls into deep, despairing reflection, concluding that Ferreira must be weak. After all, Rodrigues himself has watched as Japanese Christians were martyred for their beliefs. They would not have sacrificed themselves for a false faith! Paraded in front of the citizens of Nagasaki, Rodrigues is then placed in a room where he is once again asked to apostatize by the interpreter: “I don’t want to make you suffer. Please! I’m not saying anything wrong. Just say the word: ‘I apostatize” (p. 170). But Rodrigues still refuses, convinced that he will soon be tortured to death. As he sits in the dark, praying, Kichijirō’s voice comes through the door, begging for forgiveness. Rodrigues mouths the words of absolution, not sincerely but from “a sense of priestly duty” (p. 175), suggesting that the father, like the Japanese Christians described by Ferreira, is merely a shell of a Christian, carrying out the motions without truly, in his heart, exercising Christian love.
Through the darkness, as the father reflects on his situation, there comes a sound that he mistakes for the snoring of the guards. This “snoring” continues all night long. It is Ferreira who appears to tell him that the sounds he hears are not snoring guards, but the pained moans and groans of Japanese Christians being tortured by suspension in “the pit.” This is why Ferreira apostatized; not because of the physical torture that he endured, but because he could not bear the suffering of these peasants. And all through this suffering, God remained silent. “God did nothing” (p. 179). Rodrigues continues to pray, mechanically reciting words, which also do nothing to alleviate the unspeakable suffering of those being tortured.
And then Ferreira offers a suggestion: “Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them” (p. 181). Out of pure love, wouldn’t Jesus have renounced his own faith in order to save others? Isn’t this the true core of Christian belief? Isn’t stubbornly hanging on to the external appearances of Christianity, refusing to apostatize, just an empty gesture, an empty husk, like the skeleton of the butterfly in the spider’s web? The egotism that remains in Father Rodrigues is rooted in his own desire for salvation at the expense of those around him. This must be overcome if he is to embody true Christian love. The irony of the situation is that in order to truly be a Christian, Father Rodrigues must renounce Christianity.
And so he tramples the fumie placed at his feet by Father Ferreira and apostatizes. Like Ferreira before him, Rodrigues takes a Japanese name and spends the rest of his life serving the governor.
Silence is a powerful novel that grapples with painful and difficult issues that are not unique to Christians. It encourages us to reflect on the nature of our idealistic convictions and to examine the reasons why we believe and act the way that we do. The underlying message that the book conveys strikes me as fundamentally existential: when faced with the silence of the universe, the actions and beliefs that you choose must ultimately be undertaken without objective justification or certainty. It would be comforting to have an airtight philosophical argument whose conclusion compels you, or to hear the voice of God commanding you to act in a certain way. But arguments always have counterarguments and God does not speak. As Sartre points out, even if one encounters a compelling argument, or even if one claims to hear the voice of God, the individual still needs to choose to accept the argument or choose to believe that it is God that speaks. Such responsibility can never be evaded. A character like Father Rodrigues is an illustration of this existential reality. In his struggles throughout the novel, he develops an awareness that objective proof for his beliefs is non-existent. All of his attempts to argue for his religious convictions fail. He convinces no one – not even himself – through philosophical argumentation. Likewise, his desire to gain a sign from God verifying that he is on the right path is consistently frustrated. God is silent throughout the book. In the end, Rodrigues tramples on the fumie simply because he chooses to do something that will stop the suffering of those around him. This choice is his choice alone, and there is nothing other than his own will that can initiate it.
It was Kierkegaard who wrote of the spiritual transitions between the aesthetic, ethical, and religious phases of human life. In spiritual infancy we find ourselves in the aesthetic stage, preoccupied with pleasure and outward appearance. In the ethical stage we progress toward a concern for principles and universal codes of conduct. It is only in the religious stage, according to Kierkegaard, that we become spiritually mature, turning completely inward and remaining unconcerned with how we appear to the outside world, solely concerned with the call of inner conscience. This is the most difficult stage to achieve as it may require us to act in ways that those around us condemn as antisocial or even immoral. Nevertheless, it is the stage at which we are the most authentically true to ourselves and to God. Abraham achieved this state, according to Kierkegaard, as did Socrates. It is the state of being enjoyed by those who refuse the comforting illusion that any objective set of social rules or moral principles can serve as dependable guidelines for how we should act in all circumstances. We must always choose for ourselves how we act, and sometimes those choices will earn us the condemnation of others.
Father Rodrigues’ choice at the end of the novel Silence may represent something like this sort of religious choice. In apostatizing he turns against everything that he has, up until that point, lived his life for. He makes a choice to renounce his faith – at least externally – to alleviate the unbearable suffering of others. Other Christians (especially those back in Europe) will certainly condemn him as a weakling and a villian, but he seems to act according to the call of his conscience. On the other hand, if his internal motivation comes from a desire to make his life easier, to earn comfort and the regard of the authorities, then Rodrigues has certainly not acted out of spiritual maturity, but out of concern for appearances. The 9th Chapter of Silence, which details the continuing inner, mental struggle and uncertainty of the father’s ruminations while living in Japan, seem to suggest that far from finding final peace and happiness, he remains tortured by his inner struggle until the end of his life, leading me to think that, along with Abraham and Socrates, he has entered a state of being far removed from the merely aesthetic or the ethical.
In 2016, Martin Scorsese adapted Silence into a motion picture that offers a less ambiguous conclusion to the story of Father Rodrigues’ battle with his faith. Like the book, the movie is harrowing, but unlike the book it leaves the audience with a more comforting sense that Rodrigues ultimately remained steadfast in his Christianity.
As is often the case, the movie is good, but the book is better.
Without plan or design I have found myself immersed in the reading of a string of biographies. It was only after starting the sixth of these books that I began to wonder, what has driven me to become so fascinated by the lives – rather than just the ideas – of the particular thinkers about whom I have been reading: Freud, Nietzsche, De Sade, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Bakunin? Certainly, all of them are figures who I have had an interest in for a long, long time; but I have primarily been a student of their philosophies and works rather than the details of their personal lives. Why is it that lately I have been selecting these biographies from the bookshelf?
I have reflected on the feelings that well up inside of me as I read these books. What I found was my own deep absorption in the very mundane, human routines and activities of these otherwise extraordinary figures. While De Sade’s, Dostoyevsky’s, and Bakunin’s lives were anything but run-of-the-mill in many ways – what with De Sade spending most of his life locked in the Bastille, Dostoyevsky spending time exiled in Siberia, and Bakunin engaged in revolutionary anarchist activism – nonetheless, even they periodically devoted themselves to the commonplace. They had friends with whom they spent good times. They were concerned about their finances. They ate and they drank. They had health concerns. And in the cases of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and Bakunin, their paths crossed in the superficial ways that occur with the rest of us.
I suppose all of these trivialities might be seen as casting a reflection on the nature of their intellectual works in some faint manner, but that is not at all what I’ve found myself thinking about while making my way through this stack of biographies. What I’ve been thinking about is how human all of these people really were. Human, all too human, to make the obvious Nietzschean allusion. Turgenev strikes me as leading a life that is perhaps the most recognizably conventional out of the lot; and does it say something about me that he is also the one toward whom I feel the most sympathy? Here is a man whose writings and ideas were instrumental in freeing the Russian serfs and promoting the philosophy of nihilism. Yet here also is a man who often became bored, who got depressed, who suffered from gout, who enjoyed socializing and traveling, who doubted the quality of his own writing, and who was concerned that his life was a failure. And he tried all the while to stay in good humor. Is this really the creator of Bazarov, the model nihilist from Fathers and Sons? How could it be?
I realize that I’m finding comfort in this. On a recent visit to Tahoe, I spent hours sitting on the deck outside of our hotel room, reading about Turgenev’s financial troubles and his life abroad in Paris. A more bourgeois scene could not be imagined than me, sipping Starbucks coffee next to Lake Tahoe, while lounging about with a good book. It’s a scene that makes me feel silly, guilty, and self-conscious. And yet, here also was Turgenev, sipping wine and dining with his literary friends in France. There was plenty of time for nihilism and despair later on.
The comfort I find in reading biographies like these reminds me of a line from one of Bukowski’s poems; a line in which he states that life can’t be war all of the time. The older that I’m getting, the more I think this is true. 60 is on the horizon. I have close friends experiencing serious family troubles and battling health issues. I have relatives in the midst of interpersonal frictions and struggles that I wish I could solve. While writing this post, I learned of an acquaintance who committed suicide. This is enough despair to keep me going for a while; and all I can think about is how desperately I want to carve a realm of serenity and calm out of this world otherwise filled with chaos and sadness.
Reading these biographies makes me feel like I’m not alone. They make me realize that the creative figures who I greatly admire produced great works and made beautiful contributions to the world while paying the bills, minding their health, and taking time to be with friends.
The war must goes on, but it can’t be war all the time.
My first encounter with Katherine Dunn’s writing was through Geek Love, a perverse story of carnival freaks, their loves, lives, and relationships. In its shadow, her other books – Truck and Attic – just didn’t measure up. They lacked the gripping grossness of her sick and twisted masterpiece. I’m glad that I didn’t read those works first or I might never have given Geek Love a try.
That was decades ago. Now, Tin House Books has posthumously published one of Dunn’s short lectures in book form. More of a pamphlet, really, at 73 pages (with graphs and inserts), On Cussing is a brief history/philosophy/instructional guide on swear-words. And It’s fucking great! In this brief space, Dunn succeeds in offering an account of profanity that explains not just what was once found offensive, but that also sheds light on what pushes people’s buttons today. We are no less sensitive and prudish than our ancestors; we are just sensitive and prudish about different things.
Dunn begins by reminding us that cuss words are nothing new, appearing as graffiti on walls in Babylon and Rome. Cuss words have always been primarily intended as ways to offend and shock, and she classifies the offensive and shocking nature of these words into three categories. First there are religious cuss words. This usage is the original source of our terms “swear word” and “profanity.” Using God’s name in vain was, at least through Medieval Times, considered the most offensive form of cussing. Many of today’s less offensive swear words – like “darn” and “heck” – were coined as ways of softening the impact of this kind of profanity. I was surprised to learn that the exclamation “zounds!” is in fact a contraction of “by Christ’s bloody wounds!”: one of the most traditionally offensive of religious profanities.
The second category of cuss words includes those of a sexual and bodily nature. These are the words that today are considered rude, but that flow out of many people’s mouths (both on the street and in the media) with great regularity: “fuck,” “shit,” “piss,” “cock,” “cunt,” etc. Dunn posits an intriguing theory (first proposed by Melissa Mohr) that these particular words gained their offensive power only with the growth of the private realm. When European families and communities gathered during the winter months in large, centrally heated buildings, sexual and bodily acts were in full view, and thus treated as a visible part of everyday life. But with the increasing use of fireplaces (sometime in the 1500s in England) individual rooms could be heated separately, and so the acts that occurred in those rooms gradually came to be treated as private and indecent to speak of in public. Thus, words like “fuck” and “shit” became naughty. Such words continued frequently to appear in print up until the 1800’s when suddenly their usage ceased due to prudish censorship, before once again appearing regularly in works printed after the great World Wars.
The third category of cuss words are the ones that today are considered the most offensive. These are racial and ethnic epithets. Comedians like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin challenged the popular standards of polite, mainstream society in the 1960s by freely using these sorts of cuss words in their routines, with the result that they spurred both controversy and legal action. Today, such comedic efforts to drain this category of cuss words of their emotional power appear to have failed, and we are now, in the 2000s, still powerfully shocked and offended by their use. The contemporary power that these words retain is illustrated in Dunn’s own book by the fact that she gives not one example of this kind of profanity. We all know what these words are, but as in Victorian times, there are certain terms considered too offensive to put into print.
I read On Cussing in about an hour. Nevertheless, it kept me thinking for days afterwards. It is a timely piece that provoked me to reflect on the power of words and how the things that offend us change over time and across culture.
The Nihilist Void 