Jonathan Erdman: My blog, theology, pilgrimage, and personal revolution.
"Carl Rogers referred to the grace humans express to each other as unconditional positive regard. He claimed that it was the main factor in whether people are psychologically healthy or sick." --Radical Grace, J. Harold Ellens, p. xiii
"The most fatal thing of all is to satisfy a want which is not yet felt, so that without waiting till the want is present, one anticipates it, likely also uses stimulants to bring about something which is supposed to be a want, and then satisfies it. And this is shocking! And yet this is what they do in the religious sphere, whereby they really are cheating men out of what constitutes the significance of life, and helping people to waste life."
Soren Kierkegaard
The Attack Upon "Christendom"
This is an interesting commentary. My first instinct was to think of our hyper consumeristic society, a culture where advertising and marketing anticipates and generates our desires for corporate goods and services. But it is intriguing that Kierkegaard applies this idea to "the religious sphere."
As an existentialist, Kierkegaard believes in wrestling through our own inner worlds. Faith is a personal journey, not something that can be scripted by the church. Too often religion cheats us out of the significance of faith by averting us away from the struggle. This reminds me of what King David said: I will not sacrifice to my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.
The idea of sacrificing for anything is an obsolete notion in the U.S. Here we have our lives and faith scripted out. Marketing and advertising lines it all up for us: a meaningful life = these goods and services. Just sign the dotted line. Work a job that doesn't inspire you, or even one that you hate. Sign the dotted line. Take out as much credit as you can.
The system is artificial, though. And when it collapses, perhaps then we can struggle again. Then we can have a meaningful faith, something we have to really struggle for.
Be still and know that I am God
Since last spring, I have implemented a regular practice of meditation and silent prayer. The main focus of this practice is to simply be silent and still.
Silence and stillness is a tricky thing. In stillness and silence, any number of thoughts and feelings might arise. Ideally, when one is meditating, all attention is focussed on breath. This is also called "mindfulness." When one is mindful of nothing but one's own breathing, then there is a deep sense of stillness, silence, and peace.
This is the ideal.
As I have engage in a regular practice of stillness, I quite naturally want to become better or more skilled at the practice. I want there to be less noise from my heart and mind. I want to enter into that sense of peace.
Many spiritual practices are like this. We tend to look at "spiritual growth" in terms of mastery: are we mastering the our particular moral or spiritual skill/art/practice? We tend to be critics of ourselves, measuring ourselves by some standard that we hope to achieve.
James Finley, a spiritual teacher, says that good meditative practices tend to be messy. This is a wise approach.
The act of stillness, silent prayer, or meditation is not about achieving some state of peace. It is not in any way about becoming better. It is an end in itself. It is a practice of grace. As a practice of grace, the point is not to "grow" or "achieve." The point is to just be. Just as I am.
When grace is the foundation, then we can embrace everything that we experience during stillness. If we feel distracted, then we can become aware of our distracted heart/mind in a gracious way. If we are deeply hurt by others, then we can become aware of our pain in a gracious way. If our soul is restless, then we can become aware of our feeling of restlessness in a gracious way. If our minds are busy and excited, then we can become aware of this positive buzz in a gracious way.
This practice of grace is a "letting be." Whoever we are is okay. We become grounded in something that is deeper than merely the rising and falling of our thoughts and feelings. Whatever it is that we are "grounded in" is mysterious. It isn't something that we can define or ever capture. From the perspective of the Christian tradition, this is the sense of "Be still and know that I am God."
By letting ourselves be, just as we are, we become less clingy to life. We become less controlling of life. We realize how much is out of our control, and how necessary it is to extend grace in the same way that we have experienced grace.
The practice of stillness, silence, and meditation is about honestly engaging the feelings and thoughts that channel through us. We develop awareness of who we are and surrender ourselves into grace.
For the last year or so, I have been exploring the practice of meditation. Initially, my thoughts were somewhat in line with the Quakers: explore silence and make room for the voice of God. For me, this is still an important part of my meditative practice. However, I have also been intrigued by the many other benefits to spiritual, psychological, and even biological health.
As such, my good friends, I would like to direct your attention to an interesting link:
Opening to Our Lives
"Opening to Our Lives" is an NPR, Speaking of Faith episode with John Kabat-Zinn (air date April 16, 2009). Kabat-Zinn's approach is firstly a scientific and biological approach: what are the scientifically measurable results of meditative practice? In a nutshell, the conclusion of his thirty years of research is that meditative practice helps us to be more human and to have a better understanding of our humanness.
Kabat-Zinn's approach has been non-religious, and even non-spiritual. He doesn't see the need to have discussions about spirituality or religion, rather, he prefers to stick with issues of health. Meditative practice, Zinn says, is about mindfulness and awareness: "The real practice is living your life as though it really mattered from moment to moment. The real practice is life itself." So, for those who are a bit skeptical of meditation, this perhaps can be a bit disarming. The point of mindfulness, then, is not to reach some extreme, other-worldly state of mind. On the contrary, it is opening to what is right in front of us: "You've already got it." It is an awareness of the fact that everything we need is before us.
Zinn points out that much in our society is dependent on us being attentive and aware, and yet, ironically, this awareness and attentiveness is very rarely cultivated. We are told to pay attention in school and in classes. We are told to listen to what our teacher are saying. We are expected to be attentive and productive at work. And for all of this, we suffer consequences if we are not. But who comes along to teach us about being aware and attentive? And yet this is precisely the point of meditative practice and of mindfulness: to be mindful of the present moment.
In the church circles that I used to run in, people were told to be present with God or to "pray without ceasing," but the mental element of this was rarely if ever addressed. That is, it was just kind of expected that one should either try harder, listen to more Christian music, go to more church services, or spend more time reading/studying the Bible. (I remember hearing on more than one occasion) that if one was experiencing doubt or some sort of lack of energy in their faith, the best solution was to go out and witness to someone.) The above listed practices may have value, but the idea of just being present to God was absent. It seems so basic, but a part of being present to God is to bring our whole self in mindfulness of who we are. There is a certain need to be attentive and aware, to cultivate environments where we can just be--just be everything we are, for better or worse. Just to be present to God, in the silence and stillness. And then to just be present to God in the noise and the busyness.
"Only that day dawns to which we are awake."
---Walden
Zinn cites Walden, above, and says, "Any moment we are not attentive to is lost." We lose ourselves in what we do in the world (or in our religious tradition); we lose ourselves in the image we want to put out for others; or we withdraw from the moment and hide ourselves, afraid to bring ourselves to the moment; or we lose ourselves in trying to grasp and clutch those things around us, to cling to them in an unknown sense of desperation. Meditative mindfulness realizes that what counts is the present, regardless of whether it meets our expectations.
Lastly, I was intrigued by a comment Zinn made about technology: "Our technology is getting more sophisticated than our understanding of ourselves as human beings." That is, as human beings we will have to change our method of being to adapt to technology. This presents certain dangers for us, if we lose the being element of "human being." This is where mindfulness and the life of meditative awareness comes in: to alert us to who we are as conscious beings. In the terms of philosopher Martin Heidegger: we are the beings for whom being is an issue.
Consciousness itself is our great gift. Yet it seems that it is so easily sacrificed in the name of so many other pursuits.In the book of Romans (chapter 12), the Apostle Paul talks about renewing the mind. That transformation is directly linked to what we do with this great gift of consciousness.
John Doyle, a good friend of our blog has a post on the unconscious that I found particularly intriguing.
Here's a bit:
"Based on a count of receptor cells and their neural connections, neuroscientists estimate that the human sensory system takes in more than 11 million pieces of information per second. Based on studies of processing speed on tasks like reading and detecting different flashes of light, cognitive psychologists estimate that people can process consciously about 40 pieces of information per second. What happens to the other 10,999,960? It’s processed unconsciously.
That’s how we acquire most of what we learn about environment, people, language, routine behaviors, and social interaction. We acquire this kind of knowledge not by assembling a series of discrete facts or events — the kinds of things consciousness is good at attending to — but by mastering complex patterns. The unconscious is particularly good at dealing with patterns...."
I enjoyed a wonderful time in northern Michigan these last several days. I was able to spend five days and five nights of solitary camping amongst the Michigan dunes along Lake Michigan. It was a refreshing experience. (Refreshing, as in, imagine me in a commercial, hot and thirsty, guzzling down a Coke. I exhale, deeply satisfied. Aaaaaaahhhhh. Can’t beat the real thing.)
In any event.
I read Slavoj Zizek’s The Fragile Absolute while I was enjoying the sun, wind, and air of the great outdoors. In this book, Zizek makes several interesting remarks that intersect with some of our recent discussions on The System. In these posts, we have been considering the intersection between economics, politics, spirituality, culture, and the general health of humanity.
Zizek has much to say on such issues.
For those not familiar with Zizek, his interests are philosophy, psychoanalysis, Marxism, culture, and film….amongst other things…..he is intimately familiar with the works of Jacques Lacan, an important but difficult philosophy and psychoanalytical theorist.
So, by analyzing Zizek, we are introducing a bit of psychoanalytic theory to our critique of The System.
One of the things that we have discussed is that The System exists to create discontentment. I am speaking here as an American: we have all of our basic needs provided for us (e.g., we actually waste/throw away about half of our food), so in order for our economy to continue to expand, we must be always buying. As such, advertising keeps us in a constant state of discontent: we (the consumers) must always be “needing” something new. There is a need to not just provide a needed good or service, but our economy is now invested in creating the need itself for that good or service.
Although a Marxist, Zizek says, “‘Actually existing Socialism’ failed because it was ultimately a subspecies of capitalism, an ideological attempt to ‘have one’s cake and eat it’, to break out of capitalism while retaining its key ingredient.” (p. 19)
This particular brand of socialism failed because it was actually a “subspecies” of capitalism, but left out the “key ingredient” of capitalism. What is this “key ingredient”? It is the gap between the object of desire itself and its cause.
“There is always a gap between the object of desire itself and its cause.” (21) This is a Lacanian move. Zizek gives an example.
“Henry Krips evokes the lovely example of the chaperone in seduction: the chaperone is an ugly elderly lady who is officially the obstacle to the direct goal-object (the woman the suitor is courting); but precisely as such, she is the key intermediary moment that effectively makes the beloved woman desirable—without her, the whole economy of seduction would collapse.” (20)
There is a gap between the object of desire (the woman) and the cause, the chaperone (the obstacle). This is the gap in which the motivation for seduction operates. The fact that the object of desire is blocked fuels the desire to possess/seduce the object. It is because the object is blocked that seduction can take place. Seduction operates in this gap.
Think Eve.
Think forbidden fruit.
The serpent’s “seduction” took place in the gap between the prohibition (“do not eat of the fruit”) and the desire to eat of it. Without the prohibition there is no seduction.
Without the chaperone there is no seduction, there is no gap.
In contrast to seduction is true love: “In love, the object is not deprived of its cause; it is, rather, that the very distance between object and cause collapses. This, precisely, is what distinguishes love from desire: in desire, as we have just seen, cause is distinct from object; while in love, the two inexplicably coincide--I magically love the beloved on for itself, finding in it the very point from which I find it worthy of love.” (21)
Zizek then immediately relates this back to Marx.
“What if his [Marx] mistake was also to assume that the object of desire (unconstrained expanding productivity) would remain even when it was deprived of the cause that propels it (surplus-value)?” (21)
What is “surplus-value”?
Simply put, for Marx, surplus-value is profit, interest, or rent income. Capitalism (again, simplifying) depends on the motive of profit as the cause of “unconstrained expanding productivity.”
Who was it that, when asked how much money was enough answered, “just another dollar more”? Rockefeller?
This quote, interestingly enough, is really not about greed, per se. It is a brilliantly succinct expression of what motivates capitalism: the desire for surplus-value, i.e., profit.
Zizek talks about the objet petit a (a Lacan term). The objet petit a is the unattainable object of desire. As unattainable, it keeps us in a state of something like eternal desire. It is perpetual discontentedness. “The nearer you get to it, the more it eludes your grasp (or the more you possess it, the greater the lack).” (24)
Zizek next turns his attention to Coca-cola to demonstrate objet petit a. Coke, “the mysterious and elusive X we are all after in our compulsive consumption of merchandise.” (22)
In the next post, we will continue our discussion of the system of seduction by looking further at Zizek’s analysis of how Coca-cola relates to the objet petit a (and to The System as a whole).
In the meantime, “have a Coke!”
No really. The inner voice that’s telling you it wants six million dollars and a nice vacation villa in Tuscany – how do you know it’s really your true self, and not just another imposter taking his turn at the microphone? Besides, aren’t you a little suspicious that everyone’s true self wants pretty much the same things: chronic happiness, lots of money, good weather, universal admiration? Maybe everyone’s gone too deep. Maybe we’re all delving somewhere down below unique individuality into the universal subconscious, where everything is pure narcissism, will to power, and the longing for fabulousness. p. 34 of John Doyle’s novel The Stations
What is it that draws a pilgrim away from the gravity, the force that pulls everyone toward the same things, the same thoughts, the same ideas, the same life?
In our prior pilgrimage post, Conceived in the Restless, we saw that for the pilgrim, something stirs. It’s like the split personality of the main character in the film Fight Club: there is a violent break in the norm, Tyler is breaking through. It’s not just a purely “inner” compulsion. It’s more than just an urge to extract one’s self from all of humanity, take up residence in the nearest cave, and hang a sign at the front that says, “Local hermit, do not disturb.” No, there’s something in the air, there’s something that’s not right in the general atmosphere…..and it leaves the would-be pilgrim with deep frustration.
A pilgrim is conceived in the restless.
Ultimately, the task at hand is not to define pilgrim, or even to say “this is what a pilgrim looks like.”
“For me the pilgrimage constituted an assembly of various ideas and practices: the pieces could be taken apart, bundled with others extracted from apparently unrelated sources, then reconfigured in strange and unpredictable ways. For me the Salon’s signpost always pointed toward the unthought and the untried. No permanent trails would be laid down, because no one would come along behind to follow the pioneers. Each installation of the Salon sat at the crossroads of an infinite number of possible pathways, all leading into the unknown. The same point on a map can be the beginning of one journey and the end of another. Novices and journeymen require different gear, and the Salon would be outfitter to them all. Still, the Salon could never hope to fulfill itself. Of the road there are no masters.” Prop. Stephen Hanley, p. 100
In this series of posts, we just want to stir things up a bit. We want to explore the idea of pilgrimage but also let the idea of pilgrimage explore us. “Deep calls to deep.”
While exploring “pilgrimage” (and letting “pilgrimage” explore us), we are simultaneously engaging in a bit of exegesis. The text is John Doyle’s novel The Stations. In The Stations, Prop. (short for Proprietor) Stephen Hanley stirs things up. He’s the Prop. at the Salon. The Salon is about exploring “the unthought and the untried.” What it is will never be clear and should never be clear. What it is not is a bit easier. Despite the fact that the Salon seems to be going about the business of self-discovery and self-exploration, the Salon is not therapeutic. It is not self-improvement: “The people who walk through the Salon’s doors have been raised on self-improvement, so they’re ready to aim themselves toward other ends if someone plausible teaches them how.” p. 7
How does a pilgrim break free of the pull of gravity?
Or, why does a pilgrim break free?
What is this pull of gravity?
Nietzsche talked about the “herd” instinct. He criticized democracy as being an institution that silenced the voices of the few and muted the insights of the gifted. This put the state on the slow and senseless path of the herd.
Kierkegaard talks about “the crowd.”
“There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side. There is another view of life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that ‘the crowd’ received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.
“The crowd is untruth. Therefore was Christ crucified, because he, even though he addressed himself to all, would not have to do with the crowd…would not found a party, or allow balloting, but would be what he was, the truth….. For to win a crowd is not so great a trick; one only needs some talent, a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the human passions.
“And to honor every individual human being, unconditionally every human being, that is the truth and fear of God and love of ‘the neighbor’; but ethico-religiously viewed, to recognize ‘the crowd’ as the court of last resort in relation to ‘the truth,’ that is to deny God and cannot possibly be to love ‘the neighbor.’ And ‘the neighbor’ is the absolutely true expression for human equality; if everyone in truth loved the neighbor as himself, then would perfect human equality be unconditionally attained….But never have I read in the Holy Scriptures this command: You shall love the crowd….It is clear that to love the neighbor is self-denial, that to love the crowd or to act as if one loved it, to make it the court of last resort for ‘the truth’, that is the way to truly gain power, the way to all sorts of temporal and worldly advantage - yet it is untruth; for the crowd is untruth.” (from The Crowd is Untruth)
Martin Heidegger brings together the thoughts of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard in his philosophy. There are original thinkers and artists who can somehow see beyond their world. They can envision new worlds, or appreciate new worlds.
Heidegger talks a good deal about “worlds.”
Terrence Malick is a Heideggerian philosopher turned filmmaker. In his filmmaking, Malick often explores “worlds.” This is particularly the case in his recent work, The New World (2005, with Colin Farrell, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale). This stunning film shows the collision of two worlds at Jamestown: European conquerors and the native American peoples.
We cannot reduce pilgrimage to the drive for adventure.
The New World captures the Imperialistic drive of the Europeans. They arrive to explore new possibilities for humanity—their humanity, on their terms, for the sake of their religion, and without any regard for the native peoples. They will transplant their familiar, European world into the new American world, with a few upgrades. Call in Europe 2.0.
In the midst of this collision of cultures, the film creates two characters who rethink. One is a pilgrim, she is the Pocahontas character (unnamed in the film). She loves her people and her way of life, but she also loves John Smith, and she risks alienation by reaching out to the white Jamestown settlement. She is expelled from her people, held hostage by the whites, and abandoned by her love, John Smith.
A pilgrimage doesn’t always have a happy ending.
Smith is on the verge of pilgrimage. But he chooses adventure over the life of a pilgrim. He resigns his love for Pocahontas and her people to the world of “dream.” He takes on a commission from England to explore, to look for the West Indies. Malick, in his filmmaking genius, shows us that in looking for a new geographical space, Smith abandons the infinite spiritual possibilities that were opened before him if he would have explored the “world” of the native Americans. The world of the natives is more than just the land, it is a particular approach to the land. It is not just about transplanting humanity, it is a change of perception about being human.
Smith misses it. Deep calls to deep. But no one answers back.
A pilgrim answers the call and explores the new worlds--the new ideas, new perceptions, new possibilities.
“Entering an alternate reality is like going to a foreign country. You can visit as a tourist, always staying at the big American hotel chains, buffered from the foreignness of everything that surrounds you. You can march in as a conqueror, forcibly replacing the strange with the familiar. You can be a chameleon, at home anywhere, indistinguishable from the habitat. Or you can be a traveler. You equip yourself for transport, then wait to see what happens. Use the things you find around you to assemble a rudimentary shelter. Experiment with ways of distinguishing food from poison. Allow yourself to become a gill-breather. Experience moods that have no names. You become nonexistent; you become your own double.” p. 73 of The Stations
A pilgrim equips herself as a traveler, goes to the new worlds, and experiences “moods that have no names.”
How do we describe this force that draws us to “sameness”?
“On just about any dimension you can think of, humans tend to clump together. Go farther and farther away from the center and you see fewer and fewer people. It’s hard not to see evidence of some sort of force at work, pulling everybody toward the center. Maybe the force emanates from a particular point in the world, like gravity, pulling people in. Maybe it’s a force that’s embedded within individuals, impelling them to move toward each other.” p. 47
The force. It’s like gravity.
And then there are “the outliers.”
“But what about the outliers, the people who resist the pull to the center? Do the outliers lack the normalizing force within themselves? Do they try to huddle with the masses, only to find themselves drifting away? Do they float effortlessly above the pull of gravity? Or do they exert a counterforce that drives them out of orbit? Maybe the outliers are already moving toward what’s destined to become the new center of gravity, and the rest of us will eventually find ourselves being drawn toward them. For good or for ill.” p. 47
That’s a very Heideggerian thought: the outlier envisions new worlds, explores new worlds, and eventually their imagination and vision becomes the new center of gravity.
Let’s talk more about this.
What is it that is moving through the pilgrim?
The pilgrim is conceived in the restless. Gradually (or perhaps all at once!), the pilgrim begins to realize that something is moving through her. Or, as we have previously discussed, she is latching on to something outside of herself; it’s outside and inside. Inside out.
Doyle describes it simply, as difference.
When Stephen Hanley decides to become the Prop of the Salon, there are plenty of friends to question the point of pursuing difference.
“Among our friends the opinion was consistent: Why would anyone want to pursue difference as a goal? Happiness, yes, or at least relief from suffering. Adjustment, success, serenity, self-discovery, even self-discovery of prior lifetimes (‘Regression Therapy’ took up half a page in my progressive town’s yellow pages) – these were the things people looked for from a therapist. People wanted their lives to be better than they were, preferably better than other people’s lives too. They didn’t just want to ‘get different.’ No one would come to the Salon.” p. 39
So no one would come to the Salon. That’s the prediction. And it was true. No one came. So, he went back to the way the original Prop did things: just wait on difference.
“Of course my friends were right. No one came. No one called about the ads I placed in the local paper. No one attended the free discussion groups. So I stopped advertising, stopped reaching out. I decided to do it Prop Adamowicz’s way. The ratty sign by the doorbell stayed, and so did I. I didn’t replace the sign until a long time later, when the tape wouldn’t stick to it any more and half the words had become illegible.” p. 39
In Doyle’s novel, “difference” is what is moving around and through the pilgrim. The herd huddles together, people use “the crowd” as their measure of truth, and no one seems to be interested in venturing beyond the “world” of the familiar. The force of gravity pulls at the masses of humanity. But the pilgrim, conceived in the restless, must somehow begin to understand what difference means.
The philosopher Jaques Derrida created a term, différance. This term is a play on words, it combines “deferring” with “difference.” Try as we might, things just won’t stick. Words, ideology, definition, laws, and roles. They are never fixed in any absolute position. Things are always being deferred and differentiated.
“Différance is the nameless name of this open-ended, uncontainable, generalizable play of traces.” Nutshell p. 105
This is something undefinable, and yet it is more than being different for the sake of being different. It is the calling out of something new, the voice that said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.” Deep calls to deep. The unknown stretches out endlessly on the horizon of possibility.
Difference is the voice that cannot speak. It calls the pilgrim to new worlds.
“Perhaps Yahweh’s great concern is the preservation of differences. Humans from gods. Humans from animals. Kin from non-kin. Men from women. Perhaps, finally, individual from individual. We’re all naked and afraid. We want to merge into something that will protect us. To become one flesh. Even if it means losing the very thing that makes each of us unique.” p. 125 of The Stations
We are beyond purpose. We arise from an infinite love for infinite love alone. There is no purpose that is big enough to account for us.
—James Finley
Before breaking for discussion on Kierkegaard’s view of the self, we had been discussing the relationship of economics and spirituality. In the first post, my position was that American economics is based primarily on economic expansion, which translates into profit. Economic expansion is at the heart of our entire American system. If the economy stops growing or if there is a recession, then this is a sign of “bad times.” No one questions it. Each party in the prior election agreed: we’ve got to get the economy going again. It is an unquestioned assumption.
In order for corporations to manufacture profit (and to expand the economy), consumers must buy more and workers must produce more. This produces a culture of discontentment and dissatisfaction, the subject of my second post You are your dollars. We have to find our identity in the products and services that Corporations produce. In this society and in this culture, we are most fundamentally economic units. As workers, we have the pressure to produce goods and services—we must produce more to grow the economy. After work, we put on our consumer hats and go off to make our purchases, the reward of contributing to economic growth, and now as the consumer it is our patriotic duty to buy goods and services and keep those dollars flowing through the economy.
We work, we spend.
If you would like to dispute the point, I am open to alternative thoughts, but as it is, I would say that we perceive of ourselves at a most basic level as being economic units. In this disposable society where discontentment and dissatisfaction are normative and even patriotic, this means that so many (if not all) of our relationships are mediated by the monetary system.
Jesus gets at this basic concept when he says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, what we invest in determines our self, our nature, our souls. So, the one who “gains the whole world and yet loses his own soul” is the self who has invested himself into the economic system of the world. The self is equated with being a worker/consumer. The treasure is in the system, so by definition the self is lost.
The heart of the Gospel is reconciliation. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5)
The system defines us as economic units. We define ourselves as economic units. Everything is mediated by money. And this leads me to my primary contention in this post: the system defines itself as disconnect. I have used the term “the system,” and now I am defining it strictly in terms of the disconnect. Or more to the point, the system is self-defined as disconnectedness. This is the level that is most basic to its core, to its being.
This is not to say that “the system” in all of its disconnect does not produce good. Neither do I mean to suggest that there are no meaningful connections within the system. We are so fundamentally relational beings that meaningful relationships still occur. They always break through. But consider: deeply profound relationships are the exception that proves the rule. We notice meaningful connections because they happen so infrequently. The rule is disconnect. The system’s survival is at steak. A content, connected society isn’t interested in economic expansion as its highest priority. A discontent, disconnected, and disposable culture will continue to work harder and buy more. This is good for the economy and feeds the system.
Another clarification: there is no Wizard of Oz.
When Dorothy & Co. showed up to present their queries to the Wizard, they found a man behind the curtain, pulling the strings and operating the big mechanism. All it took was the little dog to pull back the curtain and reveal a weak and comical old man. But this is not the system. The system is disconnect, so there is no one person to blame. The big bad CEO’s are not to blame. In fact, those with the most wealth are the most embedded within the disconnect, so in a very real way, my most basic disposition toward those with wealth is love.
Because there is no one person behind the curtain of the system, we can say “fuck the system” in love, kindness, gentleness, respect, and goodwill. The system is the disconnect. To say “fuck the CEO’s of America” is to perpetuate the disconnect by reacting with a violence that deepens the disconnect.
In a fucked up system, everyone who participates is fucked.
The Gospel is about reconciling all things with each other: ourselves with each other, ourselves with nature, ourselves with our selves, and our selves with God.
Fuck the system.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
We have been discussing Kierkegaard’s notion of the self. In the prior post, we saw that Kierkegaard defined the “self” as “spirit.” Theologically, this the “soul” or, I would suggest, the imago dei, the image of God. It is a beautiful gift, and one that must be cultivated and explored. We must treat this gift with care and love because it is so easy to lose ourselves in the world—in the busy activity, in the various roles we fulfill, and in the general fragmentation that is characteristic of the post-industrial world dominated by the desire for economic expansion.
Protestant theology of self with its emphasis on total depravity, tends to imagine that the self is completely beyond hope and in need of divine intervention. When this theology gets translated at a popular level, the result tends to be that people are looking to escape themselves with wistful thinking about the divine, or one might potentially look to a quick and easy religious experience as something that has “transformed” them.
The problem with popular Protestant theology in this regard is that it ultimately serves as an escape from truly facing our self; it also can cheat us out of the beauty and joy of exploring the “inward person” (Cf. Ephesians 3:16, eso anthropon).
To know God deeper, we must know self deeper. We must discover our uniqueness and cultivate our own awareness of our selves. “Self-consciousness is decisive with regard to the self. The more consciousness, the more self; the more consciousness, the more will; the more will, the more self. The person who has no will at all is not a self.” (p. 29, Sickness Unto Death, Hong translation)
As I mentioned in the last post, to emphasize the beauty of the self is not to say that the relation to God is any less important. This is not true, at least in part because God is in and through all things. (Cf. Acts 17:28 and Ephesians 4:6) To truly understand the creation and its interconnectedness simply is to know God. (Cf. Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”)
For Kierkegaard the God relation is important: “The self is the conscious synthesis of infinitude and finitude that relates itself to itself, whose task is to become itself, which can only be done through the relationship to God….the self is healthy and free from despair only when, precisely by having despaired, it rests transparently in God.” (p. 30) Kierkegaard in this regard stands true to the Protestant tradition; however, I think he still is able to recognize something very crucial: that the relation to God is warped if it leads us away from the self. Kierkegaard calls this “the fantastic.” The fantastic is a way of thinking about God (“the infinite”) in such a way that disconnects us from the self.
“The fantastic is generally that which leads a person out into the infinite in such a way that it only leads him away from himself and thereby prevents him from coming back to himself.” (p. 31)
Kierkegaard describes this state of being as an “intoxication.” The idea is that when one disconnects from self, no matter how good the intoxication may feel or no matter how “truthful” the doctrine/dogma may be, the result is still despair; the result is loss of self. When the connection with self is lost, the relation to God is perverse. Indeed, such a state of being is quite serious and alarming, because for Kierkegaard, this fantastic state can consume a person and leave them permanently disconnected from the self.
“When feeling or knowing or willing has become fantastic, the entire self can eventually become that….The God-relation is an infinitizing, but in fantasy this infinitizing can so sweep a man off his feet that his state is simply an intoxication….he cannot come back to himself, become himself.” (p. 32)
I think that Kierkegaard’s discussion of losing the self in a God-relation fantasy has good explanatory scope when examining the religious fundamentalist zeal of the contemporary world, especially in regards to the violence that such fervor can produce. The violence of religious fundamentalism varies in degree, from the terrorist suicide bombings to the subtle but no less damaging forms of judgmentalism, elitism, exclusivism, and isolation. Yet in its many violent forms, one can also detect that the violent religious zealot is also doing violence to their self. The self is alienated and disconnected from itself, lost in the fantastic.
As I discuss this, I wonder about the possible connection between violence and loss of self. Specifically, I am wondering if there is a sense in which the loss of self, the disconnection from self, is such a violent violation that it necessarily results in violence perpetrated toward others.
In closing, we return to Kierkegaard…..to be lost in the fantastic does not always manifest itself in ways that are obvious to the masses. It is in the context of discussing the fantastic that Kierkegaard discusses how easy it is to get along in the world without a self.
“But to be fantastic in this way, and thus to be in despair, does not mean that a person cannot go on living fairly well….It may not be detected that in a deeper sense he lacks a self. Such things do not create much of a stir in the world, for a self is the last thing the world cares about and the most dangerous thing of all for a person to show signs of having. The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss—an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.—is sure to be noticed.” (p. 32-33)
“A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation.” (Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, p. 13)
I am taking a brief respite from blogging on the spiritual/psychological/human consequences of our American economic system. The purpose of this hiatus is to discuss Kierkegaard’s notion of the self. “Self” is a term I use quite a bit in my blogging, so it seems worthwhile to discuss and dialog on what I mean by “self.” Kierkegaard is a great place to start. For Kierkegaard, “the self is a relation that relates itself to itself.” This carries with it the idea of a self as a process of understanding itself. A self has a certain consciousness of being a self. As human beings, we contemplate our place in the universe and the cosmos, we form a sense of identity, we look for meaning, try to discover our purpose, and we reflect on ourselves. We ask the “who am I?” questions. This capacity represents our capacity to be a “self.” In Heidegger terminology, we are beings for whom our very being is an issue. However, my understanding of Kierkegaard is such that even though we can begin to ask ultimate questions and contemplating existential issues of our individuality and personhood, this only represent the beginning of the possibility of discovering our self.
The self is a relation that relates itself to itself. But this process of understanding and becoming self is easily hijacked in the world. “Most men live without ever becoming conscious of being destined as spirit—hence all so-called security, contentment with life, etc., which is simply despair.” (p. 26)
We recall that Kierkegaard uses “spirit” and “self” interchangeably. Self/spirit is a process of “becoming conscious,” a process that most do not truly engage. We might ask questions of purpose and meaning, but these frequently remain somewhat trite, and they are often insignificant when compared with the securities and entertainments that life has to afford. In other words, we are easily distracted from deep knowledge of self. However, knowing one’s self and engaging the process of self-consciousness and self-awareness does not simply mean that one becomes the stereotypical brooding existentialist. This kind of brooding does not mean that the self is relating itself to itself in any meaningful way. (It could be a meaningful process, of course, but not necessarily so.) In fact, a person might live “full” lives, experiencing the wide range of emotions that human existence has to offer and yet still remain very unconscious of who one is as a self.
“…only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or what amounts to the same thing.” (p. 26)
Consciousness is a key component of self. There must be a recognition of a deeper connection that one can have with one’s self, a sense that there is a “me” that is much deeper than merely cruising through life, experiencing it’s joys and sorrows. Theologically speaking, I think that “self” also has to do with the imago dei, the image of God in all of us—the sense that as an individual, each person has a beautiful and majestic self; that we are capable of connecting with something divine within us, the “Inward Light” as the Quakers termed it.
“The self is composed of infinitude and finitude. However, this synthesis is a relation, and a relation that, even though it is derive, relates itself to itself, which is freedom. The self is freedom….
“Self-consciousness is decisive with regard to the self. The more consciousness, the more self; the more consciousness, the more will; the more will, the more self. The person who has no will at all is not a self.” (p. 29, emphasis added)
Will, freedom, and self are connected. To understand one’s gift as the image of God, a reflection of the divine—to appreciate the wonder of human existence—it is necessary to engage the process of becoming self, of being aware of self. In some sense, one’s ability to be human is at stake. “The world” is the environment where the self gets forgotten, where the deeper exploration of one’s soul is lost in the economics of daily life and the indulgences of the ego. No one cares about the loss of self. “Such things do not create much of a stir in the world, for a self is the last thing the world cares about and the most dangerous thing of all for a person to show signs of having. The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.” (p. 32)
In Kierkegaard’s philosophy/theology of self, God is an important aspect of self-hood, however, to lose one’s relation to their self means that the God relationship will be warped and perverted. To be related correctly with God means that one must be related correctly also with one’s self.
It is easy within the world to lose the self. It is quite common to get distracted from thinking and contemplating the self. It is often the case in this world, that we allow ourselves to become swept away and defined by the world, and to lose our sense of self and freedom. We lose our connection with ourselves, and we become fragmented. Or perhaps we define ourselves (by the standards of the world, of course), and believe we have some sense of identity. But the tragedy of the loss of self remains.
In the next post, we will look more closely about Kierkegaard’s insights about how a person’s relationship with “God” can become distorted if that person does not understand their self. That is, sometimes religious folk believe that they have escaped “the world,” but because they have still have no self/spirit, their view of God is, as Kierkegaard calls it, a fantasy of the infinite.
Part Two: Kierkegaard and the Self: The Fantasy of the Infinite
Fuck the system.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
“For decades, Americans have been known as epic consumers, but it would be more accurate to call us epic upgraders. During all those years of packing up and moving, we were headed to a bigger house, at a better address, perhaps for a higher-paying job. We were trading up, and that urge — to acquire something bigger or better, preferably something bigger and better — is a quintessentially American urge. It is so neatly woven into the double helix of our DNA that we hardly notice it.
Forget the upgrade. The game now is avoiding the downgrade. This is grim and troubling, in part, because so much of our consumer culture is built around the enticements of the Better....
Entire corporate strategies target the bottomless American appetite for the upgrade.
In the United States, upgrade-mania has bred a sense of entitlement, which has only stoked upgrade demands. In recent years, when anything went wrong in any transaction — the airline misplaced your luggage, Little Caesars sent you a medium with pepperoni and mushroom and you hate mushrooms — you were owed an upgrade. A business class ticket, an order of crazy bread, something.”
From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/weekinreview/26segal.html
The American economy has been in recession. People are losing jobs. Politicians on all sides agree: we must “get the economy going again.”
Oh really. But why? And, is this what we really want? Is this what we want for the long term?
What if the economy is over extended?
What if participating in the American economy is damaging to the oppressed in other nations, the earth, and to our own souls?
A few thoughts in these next few posts of mine, a few thoughts from my reflections on working in accounting, of participating in the American economy, and of contemplating the place of the soul, of the human person, in the midst of the American economic experience.
The theme passage to reflect on will be Jesus’ words, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
American economics at work
The American economic system is based on profit. Whether it is explicitly stated or not, American businesses and corporations exist to make a profit. What is “profit”? In a highly simplified form, profit is the excess, the excess revenue over expenses. Profit is the excess that exists after all expense obligations have been paid, including paying workers, CEO’s, etc.
Profit provides the basis for corporate/business expansion. With excess profit, a business can expand itself: expand current production, branch out into new markets, get a better grip on their current market share, etc.
Profit is the American expectation. Investors are looking for returns on their investment…..no profit, no return. Profit is the payoff of the risk an investor takes when they invest their money.
At this point, Readers, I actually have no theoretical problem with capitalism. As I understand capitalistic theory in it’s early development, it was based on the premise that businesses exist to provide a needed good or service. Businesses would rise up to meet the demands of the market: if people need warm socks, a business would meet the demand. Harmless, really, in basic theory.
But with the industrial revolution and mass production, meeting the basic American needs was easy. These days, we actually throw away something like half of our food….this despite the hunger and starvation around the world; we dump our food in the trash and then write a check to World Vision or Compassion International….but I digress……As Americans, we have our basic needs met.
But the economy has still kept expanding and expanding. Expanding, that is, until recent days. What is the expansion based on?
Certainly there are some humanitarian aims that are being achieved that go above and beyond our basic life needs: improving treatments for the sick, etc. But most economic expansion is based on comfort, luxury, or entertainment.
In other words, American economic expansion has been based in large part on the fact that we need to have more and more stuff: bigger and better stuff. As the above article states, we live in an American culture where “upgrade” is an entitlement. It is the American Dream.
But this is something we all have to participate in together. American corporations have to sink billions and billions of dollars into convincing us that our lives will be better with more possessions and with stuff that is upgraded. Apple, for example, is a company that has continued to do well, despite the economic downturn. Well run business? Or is it just the ultimate example of an upgrade-obsessed culture. American corporations have to invest heavily in making us discontent, but in the end, we are the suckers who buy the shit, who upgrade to something better, and who either work jobs we don’t enjoy, work long hours at the office, or some combination of both.
As Tyler from Fight Club says: We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don’t need.
To summarize this my first post….the American economic system is inflated and artificial. It is largely based on the perception that we need to participate in the upgrade culture. In short, we must be spiritually discontent.
One might suggest that recession is what we need. And yet I have a lot of compassion for people who lose jobs and homes. There is a sense in which we are all suckers, betting against the house with the odds against us. So, in the short terms, all the politicians agree: we’ve got to get the economy on track.
I’m not so sure. And I want to talk about alternatives.
I want to ask if this American economic system is really what we want, if it is really life-giving to humanity. After all, the system wouldn't work if people didn't keep showing up to work each day, punch the clock, and do their best to look and feel interested.
"...I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth....There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror...." - John Coltrane
One of the current topics of discussion here at Theos Project is freedom. As heirs to the Enlightenment and various popular versions of existentialism, we tend to think of freedom as the brute freedom of the individual: “I can do whatever-the-hell I want.” In the political sense, modern ideas of freedom emphasize emancipation--to be
free to self-govern, emancipation is tied to individual liberty. In the moral realm, modern freedom means autonomy--the ability to freely choose as a responsible moral being. Implicit in this free moral choice is that one makes their own ethical decisions. Contrary to popular belief, moral relativism is something of a uniquely modern idea, it was on the scene long before the so-called postmodern era. Kant's moral imperative ("act only according to that maxim that you would at the same time will that it would become a moral law") attempted to bring together our individual moral autonomy and some sense of moral law, but moral autonomy was still at the core of Kant's ethics.
However, on the heels of modernity, we still have inherited a prejudice to conceive of freedom as autonomy or emancipation. Even in this "post" modern era, we still have this rather modern sense of freedom.
The result of this belief is that we have a ridiculously difficult time bringing together a robust idea of personal/individual freedom together with a strong sense of community and interdependence. This develops within us a spiritual split between freedom and community. For example, freedom is what I want and community is what the others want. If the desires line up, then the two can co-exist; but if I desire one thing and the others desire another, then we feel the tension.
But is it possible to conceive of freedom and community in terms that avoid the dichotomy, that avoid pitting individual and community against each other?
This is our discussion question for the day. It is quite probable, I believe, that this is a question with many different answers.
A good start to the discussion, I think, is to recognize from the beginning that all things are interconnected in a way that is much deeper than many of us realize.
Philosophical Interlude......A few hundred years ago, Rene Descartes believed he could sit around in a room by himself and strip away all of his inherited "prejudices" and get at some foundational truths. Philosophers who followed suit worked under the assumption that we pursue truth in our minds--that we are basically brains/minds who sort through the data of experience to find truth. A few hundred years after Descartes, philosophers like Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that the reverse is true: as human beings we are first and foremost embedded in a given context. That is, our context is not something to strip away in order to find truth; in fact, truth is always only possible within context. This is not merely the tabula rasa, or "black slate" idea--that we our minds are a blank slate onto which our experiences are inscribed and then our rational capacity sorts it all out. For John Locke, we are still self-determining, autonomous beings because our rational capacities allow us to organize the experiences written on our tabula rasa. Even though Locke recognized a greater role for experience, he remained convinced that the rational capacity within the mind was foundational, in some sense, for determining our self-hood. This rational capacity allowed us to get at the truth and to then make free decisions. However, "freedom" remained an activity of the self, and as such the tension remained between self and others, the individual and the community.
For Heidegger/Wittgenstein and many other philosophers since, there is something more basic, more primordial, than mind and reason. To be human is to be contextual, in a more holistic way. Every sense of who I am is in relation to other people around me, my social context, and even the physical nature of the world I inhabit. Hence, there is not "pure truth" that transcends our contextual-ness. There is no "self" of the mind. There is no I without a relation to my context.
There are many ways to make the same point: we cannot exist without others--the others are a part of me and I am a part of the others. Interdependence is a matter of survival and brute autonomy, complete independence, and pure emancipation is an illusion. (For a well-written perspective on this see Tamie's Freedom in Light of Interdependence post.)
Freedom and interconnectedness, by way of illustration
So, what does it look like to actually hold together freedom and community? What does it look like to think in new ways about freedom? Does our nature as contextual beings prove that "freedom" is just an illusion? Are there ways to think about freedom that take into account our radical interconnectedness and interdependence?
Rather than describe how freedom and interconnectedness might relate to each other, perhaps it is most illuminating to show it in action. And for this, I turn to John Coltrane.
Let's try this one on for size: The more I become myself, the more I become like others, although the reverse is not necessarily the case.
Freedom and grace seem to me to be two of the most difficult things for human beings to live with.
I have a few more posts on the church and Christianity that I would like to share, and hopefully discuss with others....I hope that my intense negativity is not viewed too threateningly. In other words, I often fear that my negative posts are construed as primarily my opportunity to vent personal anger/bitterness/angst. While I do not deny that my exit from institutionalized Christianity has created no small internal turmoil, if I felt that vengeance was my primary motivation, then I would shut up and post about something else; however, I do think that in the previous post and in the ones to come, there are some important theoretical, spiritual, and existential issues to discuss.
It is almost a given that the era of institutional Christianity is over. The important discussion point is to ask what is next. (For example, my next post will discuss the end of the "emergent church" and some possible implications.)
Previously, I discussed the issue of apathy: where does apathy come from? Perhaps it comes (in part) from excess--being saturated. Are we apathetic in the churches because we are saturated with "Jesus" and "Christian" stuff? My main point was to suggest that we have lost the "the knowledge of God" because of saturation with the knowledge of God. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about destroying things that set themselves up against the knowledge of God. My thought is that it is "knowledge of God," itself that is eroding our knowledge of God.
I was recently listening to an interview with Rene Girard. Girard is the father of theories of "mimetic desire." Simply put, he suggests that our desires are never (or in most cases) for the object itself, rather, we want what we want because others want it. Our desires for things are primarily based on wanting what others desire, such that we rarely pursue the thing itself--even if we decieve ourselves into thinking that such is the case. Fashion is an obvious example: we wear things that appeal to us because we see others desiring those clothes.
Remember some of the crazy outfits Brad Pitt wore in Fight Club??? They were ridiculous by fashion standards at the time, but as soon as the movie hit the big time, clothing sellers found a demand, and one label even produced a separate "Fight Club" clothing line.
Girard's theory is fascinating and also complex. (For more, there is a good Wikipedia article on Girard, and our friend John Doyle (aka, Ktismatics) also previously posted on Girard, with some interesting commentary by myself and others.)
Without delving into the complexities, however, I'm sure you can see the link to our contemporary American advertising and marketing matrix, which Girard himself mentions in the interview: we desire the stuff that others desire. So, advertising focuses not on selling us a "thing"--that's stupid--they sell us a desire to be like the people who use the product.
About halfway through the interview, Girard begins to discuss Coca-cola. They sell the soft drink, says Girard, by showing the kinds of people who drink Coke: beautiful people on beaches who can't wear very much clothing because they have such perfect figures.
But Girard goes further, and he makes an interesting point. He says there is a "sacramental" aspect to Coca-cola: we drink the product to participate in the transformation. Sound familiar? Lord's supper, Eucharist, partake of the body of Christ, baptism, come out of the water and into new life? The sacrament of participating in the product sold to us by advertisers ushers us into a transformation.
John's (Ktismatics') above-mentioned post quotes Girard on this topic, essentially: we desire the being of others. Why? For one thing, it is because our being isn't good enough. We need to latch onto something else. But, I think, it is more than that. There is also a slothful element, as well: we don't want to engage in the process of becoming, of establishing our own being and working it out as a life process.
Our mass-media corporate culture is always there to sell us more desires....there's always something more to want, because the cool kids are always wearing new clothes.
Let's take this into the realm of our American Christian life. The multi-billion dollar Christian corporate machines operate on the same basis as other advertisers: stir up mimetic desire. Don't you want to have a fuller Christian life, like these best-selling authors, who also attach handy workbooks and just released this new DVD? Don't you want to have the worship experiences of these contemporary Christian music artists? Don't you want the security of knowing the right Christian doctrine, like these "biblical" Christian teachers?
It's a business of creating continual desire; it's no different than any other corporation: there's always something new to desire. We can continually put off the faith-process of becoming by purchasing the latest Christian product.
How about the local church? Surely the scene is better here, is it not? I say no. I think the local church does the same thing: there's always a new sermon each Sunday, always a new musical worship experience, always a new "ministry" or "program." It's still mimetic desire. We live our spirituality through others. Once again, the process of personal becoming that is at the heart of faith is eternally delayed by our almost voyeuristic need to watch others perform their faith on stage. It's show biz.....Mimetic desire.
So, our churches become sacraments to be a part of the institution, part of the crowd--to participate in the spiritual desires of others. What church most certainly is not is a participation in the life of Christ. Endlessly running after the spiritual desires of others results in never becoming a person of faith.
My point here, is not to condemn Christian corporations or the church or to suggest that any corporate Christian purchase is immoral or wrong--that's too easy. The point is to develop a self-awareness of what it means to participate in a process of endless, mimetic desire and to discuss the consequences. Hence, I think it is obvious that this is not a uniquely "Christian" discussion. We are discussing the 21st century "self" in an age where media uses mimetic desire to shape and form the self.
Dirty, starved skeletons
- description by American soldier of the liberated prisoners at Dachau
I spent five hours at the Dachau concentration camp. Even though there were many many deaths, Dachau was a work camp designed to confine prisoners that the NAZIs viewed as enemies of the state. I was surprised by the diversity of the prisoners: thinkers and political activists, of course, but also entertainers, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, beggars, and those considered racially inferior. In other words, people groups from all spectrums of life were represented.
I don't feel it is possible to neatly summarize Dachau and provide any kind of perspective or interpretation. I was simply dumb struck and speechless. No one can understand Dachau except those who experienced it. For the rest of us--especially those of us who are nearly 70 years removed--there is only the possibility of feeling as though we are tripping around in the dark searching for a light switch.
The primary objective of the work camp was to de-humanize. The sign on the gate is cold and ironic: Arbeit mach frei "Work brings freedom." The daily routines included brutal torture (for example, hanging from poles, beatings, etc.), intimidation, malnurishment, degredation, and harsh work. Upon entrance into Dachau, the prisoners have their property taken away from them and they are told, "You are without rights, dishonorable, and defenseless. You're a pile of shit and that is how you are going to be treated."
The following photograph is significant in its dehumanizing representation: all of the prisoners are simply part of a herd, "pests" shown here as being beneath their superiors:
In the Dachau Museum, the layout is chronological. The beginning points is the NAZI's rise to power, the chronology of Dachau, and then the freeing of the prisoners by American forces.
It is difficult to move through the exhibits. I felt I was more and more overwhelmed by the brutality and horror. The point at which I felt the most potent impact was perhaps when I came to a small exhibit on the poetry of Dachau. As I understand it, the poets sometimes took risks in writing down poetry, but most often they kept their poetry in their minds. I read the following bz Mirco Camia, a prisoner of Dachau, who writes about his encounter with Nevio Vitelli's poem "Mein Shatten in Dachau." I wrote down the words, but I had to stop several times, overcome at several points.
"The value of this poem for me?...it contains everything: the agony of captivity and the elegy of freedom, the meaning of the greatest earthly love, maternal love...and something else that is banished from the normal thoughts of youth and from human suffering: forgiveness.
"It is not possible to endure subhuman conditions, to be nothing more than an 'object'...without being pursued by it an entire lifetime, even in your soul, or without destroying what you possessed before this experience--...the beauty of a vision of the universe and of mankind...Nevio made it possible for me to find mzself again in his unknown poem."
For me, Dachau is a land marker in my life. It is a reference point. I don't feel that I have the ability to understand it, but merely to allow it to inform and shape me at every stage of growth.
For all of the efforts at Dachau to de-grade the human being, for all of the energy spent de-humanizing, the words of the Karl Röder (prisoner 1933-44) are poignant:
"In the camp I made a meaningful discovery: No power exists in the world that is capable of destroying humans as spiritual beings."
Today we discuss The Grand Inquisitor, one of the most widely-discussed chapters of Dostoevsky's masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov. We left two of the brothers, Ivan the Atheist and Alyosha the naive, aspiring young monk, in a dialog on evil: why is there suffering and terror? What has God to do with it all? If there is a reason for evil and a final "harmony" at the end of all things, is it really worth it? Ivan says no. He tells Alyosha that although he does not reject God, he rejects God's world. He "returns to the ticket":
"It's not that I don't accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket."
"That is rebellion," Alyosha said softly, dropping his eyes.
"Rebellion? I don't like hearing such a word from you," Ivan said with feeling. "One cannot live by rebellion, and I want to live.
"Tell me straight out, I call on you--answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature...would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
"No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly.
Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov explores the turbulent lives of a dysfunctional family: a "wicked," "baboon" of a father and the three sons that he neglected. The main characters of the novel struggle to come to grips with their inner demons and the darkness they find within themselves and in world. To be a Karamazov is to have a thirst and a lust for life; it is to have a fantastic capacity for both good and evil.
At the end of the Rebellion chapter, Alyosha is at a loss. Ivan has presented his rejection of God's world. And who can blame him? Ivan doesn't find there to be any hope for forgiveness and reconciliation. The world is evil; the world is absurd. In the face of it all, it is best not to forgive. Who has the right to forgive? And so, Alyosha responds:
"You asked just now if there is in the whole world a being who could and would have the right to forgive. But there is such a being, and he can forgive everything, forgive all and for all, because he himself gave his innocent blood for all and for everything. You've forgotten about him...."
"Ah, yes, the 'only sinless One' and his blood! No, I have not forgotten about him; on the contrary, I've been wondering all the while why you hadn't brought him up for so long, because in discussions your people usually trot him out first thing." (p. 246 of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation)
Ivan then tells a story of the Grand Inquisitor. It is difficult on a first reading to see the connection between the prior chapter on Rebellion and this story of the Grand Inquisitor. After hearing the story, Alyosha himself is confused, "But...that's absurd!" he cried, blushing. "Your poem praises Jesus, it doesn't revile him...as you meant it to."
Why does Ivan launch into this narrative (or "poem" as he calls it)? We will return to this dilemma later.
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The Grand Inquisitor: walking through the narrative
The story of the Grand Inquisitor is set in Spain during the Inquisition. Jesus has returned to earth.
"He appeared quietly, inconspicuously, but, strange to say, everyone recognized him. This could be one of the best passages in the poem, I mean, why it is exactly that they recognize him. People are drawn to him by an invincible force, they flock to him, surround him, follow him. He passes silently among them with a quiet smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love shines in his heart, rays of Light, Enlightenment, and Power stream from his eyes and, pouring over the people, shake their hearts with responding love." (p. 249)
People are drawn by his "invisible force," and eventually a little coffin with a little girl is brought to Jesus. Jesus raises the girl from the dead.
Enter the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor.
"He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and straight, with a gaunt face and sunken eyes, from which a glitter still shines like a fiery spark....And such is his power, so tamed, submissive, and tremblingly obedient to his will are the people, that the crowd immediately parts." (p. 249)
Jesus is arrested and the Grand Inquisitor comes to his cell. Jesus never says a word, but the Grand Inquisitor has something he needs to express, something to say.
The Grand Inquisitor has a complaint against freedom: humanity cannot handle the radical freedom that Jesus offered.
"You want to go into the world, and you are going empty-handed, with some promise of freedom, which they in their simplicity and innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear--for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom." (p. 252)
For the Grand Inquisitor, this empty hand of freedom is not what humanity needs. The masses of humanity do not want freedom, they are "weak, eternally depraved, and eternally ignoble." (p. 253) Jesus rejected the bread offered to him in the wilderness, and this may be fine for the strong, for those who can handle freedom, but it is not enough for the weak masses of humanity. They need something real. They need a miracle worker; they need bread.
"And if in the name of heavenly bread thousands and tens of thousands will follow you, what will become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who sill not be strong enough to forgo earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly." (p. 253)
The Grand Inquisitor weaves a grand theology based on the three temptations that Christ faced in the wilderness. The three temptations that Jesus rejects represent three powers: miracle, mystery, and authority. That which Jesus rejects are what the whole of humanity needs. Perhaps the few, the elite, can do without them, but the Grand Inquisitor's desire is to provide the great masses of human beings with happiness.
To be happy, human beings need their physical needs met. This is bread. But there is more. Humanity has a moral sense, a conscience.
"Give man bread and he will bow down to you, for there is nothing more indisputable than bread. But if at the same time someone else takes over his conscience--oh, then he will even throw down your bread and follow him who has seduced his conscience." (p. 254)
The mystery that the Grand Inquisitor gives to humanity is the appeasement of their conscience. Human beings cannot handle absolute freedom.
"There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either." (p. 254)
This is where freedom and law come into conflict, and for me it is one of the most intriguing portions of this chapter. The Grand Inquisitor says to Jesus,
"You desired the free love of man, that he should follow you freely, seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law, man had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide." (p. 255)
For the Grand Inquisitor, law replaces freedom. It sets the boundaries within which people can do right or wrong. The freedom that the Grand Inquisitor attributes to Jesus is a freedom based on being "seduced and captivated" by Jesus with only his image as a guide.
The Grand Inquisitor charges Jesus with overestimating humanity:
"You overestimated mankind, for, of course, they are slaves, though they were created rebels....Respecting him less, you would have demanded less of him, and that would be closer to love, for his burden would be lighter. He is weak and mean." (p. 256)
The three powers, miracle, mystery, and authority, all work together: "There are three powers, the only powers on earth capable of conquering and holding captive forever the conscience of these feeble rebels, for their own happiness--these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority." (p. 255)
The third power, authority, is the unifying force: "A means for uniting everyone at last into a common, concordant, and incontestable anthill--for the need for universal union is the third and last torment of men. Mankind in its entirety has always yearned to arrange things so that they must be universal." (p. 257)
Miracle, mystery, and authority is the answer for the happiness of humanity. Jesus has his "chosen ones," the few and the proud. But what of the rest? "You are proud of your chosen ones, but you have only your chosen ones, while we will pacify all." (p. 258)
And then comes the intriguing twist: the Grand Inquisitor was once of the so-called "chosen ones."
"I am not afraid of you. Know that I, too, was in the wilderness, and I, too, ate locusts and roots; that I, too, blessed freedom, with which you have blessed mankind, and I, too, was preparing to enter the number of your chosen ones, the number of the strong and mighty, with a thirst 'that the number be complete.' But I awoke and did not want to serve madness. I returned and joined the host of those who have corrected your deed. I left the proud and returned to the humble, for the happiness of the humble."
So, we find the shocking revelation that it was for the love of the "weak" masses of humanity that the Grand Inquisitor rejected the freedom of the "chosen ones."
Ivan's story ends with the Grand Inquisitor declaring that the next morning Jesus will be burned as a heretic.
"Suddenly he approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips. That is the whole answer. The old man shudders....'Go and do not come again...do not come at all...never, never!'" (p. 262)
Ivan and Alyosha continue to discuss Ivan's beliefs and his approach to God. Ivan believes that "everything is permitted," and this creates a tension.
"But now I see that in your heart, too, there is no room for me, my dear hermit," Ivan says to Alyosha with unexpected feeling. "The formula 'everything is permitted,' I will not renounce, and what then? Will you renounce me for that? Will you?"
Alyosha stood up, went over to him in silence, and gently kissed him on the lips.
"Literary theft!" Ivan cried, suddenly going into some kind of rapture. (p. 263)
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Interpreting The Grand Inquisitor
I interpret Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor chapter as primarily a commentary on freedom, love, and human nature. The Grand Inquisitor is correct: the masses of humanity cannot handle the kind of radical freedom that Jesus suggested--the kind of freedom that is "seduced and captivated" by Jesus and has only his image as a guide. At their core, human beings will reject this absolute freedom. They need more; they need miracle, mystery, and authority.
The Grand Inquisitor embodies two perspectives on how to approach this tension between freedom and human nature; actually he lives out these two perspectives. He first embraces absolute freedom and seeks to become one of the chosen ones. The result of this choice is isolation from human kind. But the Grand Inquisitor finds that this approach to freedom is something that people will not respond to in masses. People don't want it and can't even comprehend it. To continue to live his life out in absolute freedom is to be an island to himself and to isolate himself from humanity. He would be free and one of the elite, but he wants to lead "the weak" masses to happiness. Hence, he changes course to a second approach.
The second approach is to call on the powers of miracle, mystery, and authority--to unite human beings under the power of a religion that provides for people's physical needs, gives them laws to govern their consciences, and will punish and/or ostracize anyone who diverges from the institution. This approach grants human beings comfort, security, and happiness.
These two perspectives also represent the two dominant Christian sects: Protestantism and Catholicism. Dostoevsky is presenting something of a caricature of these approaches to Christianity: a focus on individual purity with a small group of "chosen ones" (Protestantism) or a power structure that seeks to unify all people under one institution, discarding absolute freedom but providing humanity's true needs (Catholicism).
I think Dostoevsky is rejecting these two caricatures in favor of something far more simple. I think he endorses the idea of absolute freedom, but places it in the context of the chaos of the world. So, absolute freedom expresses itself in unconditional love as it interacts with "the weak" masses. Rather than unite the world under an institution or pursue personal freedom at the cost of the masses, Dostoevsky offers us a gentle kiss on bloodless lips.
In other words, the freedom and love offered by Christ is something that cannot be institutionalized, captured in creeds, or even understood, but it must be demonstrated in the world and for the world. That is, the only thing that counts is "faith expressing itself through love," as Paul says in Galatians 5.
Dostoevsky's vision is for a world that is transformed by love through the touch of love. Freedom and love cannot be captured through the institution but must be transfered by demonstration. The Grand Inquisitor, then, is not necessarily "wrong," he has just failed to appreciate and experience that the true transformation of humanity occurs by acts of love. This is what truly sets people free.
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The Grand Inquisitor and the problem of evil
My last move is to situation The Grand Inquisitor as a response to the Rebellion chapter. Ivan's rebellion is to reject God's world, and by implication he rejects God as well. The world contains absurd and incomprehensible evil. This absurdity is compounded exponentially when God is introduced in the picture: it is the age-old question of how a loving God could allow such a world.
In such a wicked and chaotic world, those who suffer dare not forgive; they do not have the right to forgive. Alyosha introduces Jesus: the sinless one can forgive, he has the right.
I think that Ivan's answer to Alyosha is brilliant, and it proves Dostoevsky's overall theme of the chapter and of the book (see above). In an absurd world of chaotic evil, only an absurd love will transform. Absurdity is answered by absurdity. It need not make sense because the evil we encounter cannot be rationally comprehended.
Ivan never states that Jesus does not have the "right" to forgive, so it seems as though he stands by his point: we dare not forgive. But even Ivan recognizes that there is power when one kisses the bloodless lips of another. Forgiveness and unconditional love transform; to do so is to be truly free. It cannot be understood, but this is the whole point.
The "whole answer," as Ivan puts it, is to be set free through forgiveness and love. Jesus never says a word to the Grand Inquisitor; he allows him to express his frustration. The only thing Jesus does is express love through his kiss. This leaves the reader to decide if such love and forgiveness is possible or even desirable. Should such freedom be pursued? Can such transformation occur? Dostoevsky's text itself seems to be an attempt to illustrate how absolute freedom might be expressed and pursued and to leave for the reader the question of whether an absurd love can truly overcome an absurd world--whether love can inspire "the weak" to be transformed and "the chosen ones" to engage and demonstrate absolute freedom.
