'The laws of God, the laws of man'
The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.
A.E.Housman (1859-1936),
quoted in "The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse"
Stephen Coote, editor.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Orwell on Nonconformity
In a society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behavior is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.
George Orwell (1903-1950), ne Eric Blair,
from "Selected Essays",
quoted in Seldes, "The Great Thoughts" (1980).
George Orwell (1903-1950), ne Eric Blair,
from "Selected Essays",
quoted in Seldes, "The Great Thoughts" (1980).
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Freedom from Repression?
Justice demands that all be treated equally--that no one viewpoint be forced upon others who may wish to go their own way--that everyone should be free to go his own way, separate from majorities, if that be his wish, so long as no one else is deprived or harmed thereby.
Camille Paglia is quoted in the Spring, 1995 issue of "Free Inquiry" (pages 6-7) as saying that "the strange truncations, limitations, and repressions of Judeo-Christianity ... have produced the cult of the striving, heroic, turbulent, individual artist. ... [and that] this is part of the greatness of the West. It's based on neurosis and repression. ..."
Or, as interviewer Timothy Madigan paraphrased in the same article: "The artists are somewhat like oysters producing pearls from the irritants of their upbringing."
Firstly, let me say that I am inclined to agree with the accuracy of the above observations. But they raise, however, some intriguing questions--questions which I believe are important enough to deserve honest answers (or honest attempts at answers). Try (if you will) to sharpen your mind on THESE:
Do we not desire a just and equitable society--in other words, a society free from repressions? Do we not desire (as much as reasonably possible) to eradicate those very repressions that (apparently) have historically been the 'friction which produced great art'? Or do we, after all, really wish merely to preserve the 'status quo'--all for the sake of maintaining our present culture, so that still more 'great art' may continue to be produced?
Question: What sort of art would be produced in a society in which such frictions--such repressions--are largely absent? Would it perhaps be nothing more than a visual form of socio-political propagandising, or like the admittedly bland, passionless 'tractor art' of the mid-twentieth-century Soviet Union?
Question: Is adequate justice (or freedom from repression) really POSSIBLE or realistic in present human societies, given our continued ties to and dependence on the primitive, irrational animal emotions of fear, taboo, superstition, and intolerance (or xenophobia)? Are we perhaps fools to desire that the human race evolve away from this animalistic heritage, and to desire moreover that it happen in the short space OF OUR OWN LIFETIMES?
Question: Is a state of freedom from repression (or 'justice') even DESIRABLE in some instances, seeing that such a condition would (so it seems) eradicate the basis of friction which has historically produced great art (or artists)?
It would thus seem that to desire a society where repression is absent is to desire a society where great art or artists (as we have historically known them) WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE.
Question: If great art (and therefore culture) can only be produced under conditions of friction and repression, which do we then desire most--FREEDOM from that repression (and, presumably, more comfortable lives), or great art and culture, and lives made richer because of that culture?--because 'great' art is great, because it speaks more deeply, more directly, more RELEVANTLY, to the archetypes we perceive and feel, or to the strong emotions we experience over the courses of our lives.
Surely, then (I hasten to add), a life or society without great culture would be a fairly BLEAK one--at least to a sensitive, intelligent soul more finely attuned to the emotional or aesthetic content of life--to a human being with the feeling, sensitive soul of a poet (which is the defining hallmark of the true artist, as Thomas Mann said repeatedly earlier in this century).
Well, I frankly admit that I do not have any firm, final answers to these questions I have proposed; like many others before me, I merely seek answers--which phrase I suppose could be more accurately rendered as "I merely seek greater existential security or stability." In this, surely, I am not alone. More directly relevant to the above discussion, I will add that I myself desire both freedom from repression AND great culture. Perhaps I foolishly desire the impossible. ...
And yet ... and yet, we all of us, at some time or another, feel to say that justice and fairness MUST be actual possibilities, beyond mere abstract concepts, because our brains are capable of IMAGINING that they exist. And (more importantly), without the HOPE for a state of (eventual) justice and freedom, how could humankind continue to have the aspirations and the courage to continue living and struggling, and striving to make a better world? I therefore believe that these issues are of fundamental importance.
21 July, 1995--27 February, 1996.
Camille Paglia is quoted in the Spring, 1995 issue of "Free Inquiry" (pages 6-7) as saying that "the strange truncations, limitations, and repressions of Judeo-Christianity ... have produced the cult of the striving, heroic, turbulent, individual artist. ... [and that] this is part of the greatness of the West. It's based on neurosis and repression. ..."
Or, as interviewer Timothy Madigan paraphrased in the same article: "The artists are somewhat like oysters producing pearls from the irritants of their upbringing."
Firstly, let me say that I am inclined to agree with the accuracy of the above observations. But they raise, however, some intriguing questions--questions which I believe are important enough to deserve honest answers (or honest attempts at answers). Try (if you will) to sharpen your mind on THESE:
Do we not desire a just and equitable society--in other words, a society free from repressions? Do we not desire (as much as reasonably possible) to eradicate those very repressions that (apparently) have historically been the 'friction which produced great art'? Or do we, after all, really wish merely to preserve the 'status quo'--all for the sake of maintaining our present culture, so that still more 'great art' may continue to be produced?
Question: What sort of art would be produced in a society in which such frictions--such repressions--are largely absent? Would it perhaps be nothing more than a visual form of socio-political propagandising, or like the admittedly bland, passionless 'tractor art' of the mid-twentieth-century Soviet Union?
Question: Is adequate justice (or freedom from repression) really POSSIBLE or realistic in present human societies, given our continued ties to and dependence on the primitive, irrational animal emotions of fear, taboo, superstition, and intolerance (or xenophobia)? Are we perhaps fools to desire that the human race evolve away from this animalistic heritage, and to desire moreover that it happen in the short space OF OUR OWN LIFETIMES?
Question: Is a state of freedom from repression (or 'justice') even DESIRABLE in some instances, seeing that such a condition would (so it seems) eradicate the basis of friction which has historically produced great art (or artists)?
It would thus seem that to desire a society where repression is absent is to desire a society where great art or artists (as we have historically known them) WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE.
Question: If great art (and therefore culture) can only be produced under conditions of friction and repression, which do we then desire most--FREEDOM from that repression (and, presumably, more comfortable lives), or great art and culture, and lives made richer because of that culture?--because 'great' art is great, because it speaks more deeply, more directly, more RELEVANTLY, to the archetypes we perceive and feel, or to the strong emotions we experience over the courses of our lives.
Surely, then (I hasten to add), a life or society without great culture would be a fairly BLEAK one--at least to a sensitive, intelligent soul more finely attuned to the emotional or aesthetic content of life--to a human being with the feeling, sensitive soul of a poet (which is the defining hallmark of the true artist, as Thomas Mann said repeatedly earlier in this century).
Well, I frankly admit that I do not have any firm, final answers to these questions I have proposed; like many others before me, I merely seek answers--which phrase I suppose could be more accurately rendered as "I merely seek greater existential security or stability." In this, surely, I am not alone. More directly relevant to the above discussion, I will add that I myself desire both freedom from repression AND great culture. Perhaps I foolishly desire the impossible. ...
And yet ... and yet, we all of us, at some time or another, feel to say that justice and fairness MUST be actual possibilities, beyond mere abstract concepts, because our brains are capable of IMAGINING that they exist. And (more importantly), without the HOPE for a state of (eventual) justice and freedom, how could humankind continue to have the aspirations and the courage to continue living and struggling, and striving to make a better world? I therefore believe that these issues are of fundamental importance.
21 July, 1995--27 February, 1996.
To Mortify the Soul
Some years ago, after most of a lifetime spent producing what the world, in its vanity, is pleased to call 'works of art', I came to the realisation and determination that I would henceforth no longer produce any artificial, external 'art' of any great consequence, that the only work of 'art' of any value for me was the art of my own person or SOUL. My great work NOW is, therefore--as Whitman said, to create out of my own flesh and soul A GREAT POEM. This undertaking is, to my way of thinking, the greatest work of 'art' possible in a lifetime--to make one's own soul a great poem. And this is a work of art that most of the world will never see, or comprehend, because they "seeing, see not, and hearing, hear not"; they have not the "eyes with which to see" the glorious work I am in the process of producing--a soul refined and purified by the fires of trial and adversity. This is not so much a mortification of the flesh, as it is a mortification of the SOUL. What they THINK they see is a flat failure of a life (and recall that the same thing was said of Thoreau, by no less an eminent divine than Emerson); but oh! what they DO NOT see! THAT is where my true work lies!
16 February, 2003.
Most people spend an inordinate portion of their everyday lives assiduously avoiding life's pitfalls and the resultant pains; I, in contrast, try (as much as I can) to cultivate the direct, subjective emotional experience, not only of life's pure, simple, and sometimes unexpected joys, but also (and moreso, if it is possible) of life's pains and sorrows. Rather than fleeing from depression or sorrow, I try to cultivate them much as one might cultivate a rare, exotic hothouse bloom, yet realising all the while that the wild, lawless jungle of life, like some vast, primitive, ageless Amazon wilderness, is replete with both incredible beauty AND great peril--full of limitless possibility, yes, but also full of the potential for terror, death, and violent, wanton destruction.
My life is an unbelievably stressful balancing act--"a rope stretched over the abyss": some of the few who are acquainted with me at least suspect that I am light-years beyond their own preceptions or abilities. Some fewer of them still have seen occasional glimpses of the truth, and are no longer in any doubt. I am both the brightest hope and the greatest worry of my own family, a family which possesses both extraordinary brilliance and ability AND a tendency toward mediocrity and fearful, superstitious conformity--sometimes manifested in the selfsame individuals. If an individual's genetic make-up (in terms of personality) can be described as a random shuffling of the traits and abilities of one's ancestors, then, in my own case, most of the talents and brilliance which various of my forebears possessed, AS WELL AS many traits which most people today would unhesitatingly label "negative", have clearly and undeniably manifested themselves in my person.
I could even go so far as to correctly state that, in many ways, I am as fearless concerning the exploration of life and thought and (particularly) sexuality as was the infamous Marquis de Sade, despite the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in certain of his pet predilections. With others of them, however, that is most definitely NOT the case. ...
Suffice it to say that, for better or worse, I was dealt a hand by the Universe that was both a potentially winning hand and a potentially LOSING hand--at least in terms of its being very likely to strongly express itself in either direction: "success" or "failure"; or "good" or "bad" (as the world sees such matters, of course)--infinitely moreso, anyway, than in the average, hopelessly mediocre person.
August, 1998. (specific date unrecorded)
_______________________
The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.
Henry James, Sr. (1811-1882),
American theologian,
letter to his two sons,
William James and Henry James, Jr.;
quoted in Seldes, "The Great Thoughts" (1980).
16 February, 2003.
Most people spend an inordinate portion of their everyday lives assiduously avoiding life's pitfalls and the resultant pains; I, in contrast, try (as much as I can) to cultivate the direct, subjective emotional experience, not only of life's pure, simple, and sometimes unexpected joys, but also (and moreso, if it is possible) of life's pains and sorrows. Rather than fleeing from depression or sorrow, I try to cultivate them much as one might cultivate a rare, exotic hothouse bloom, yet realising all the while that the wild, lawless jungle of life, like some vast, primitive, ageless Amazon wilderness, is replete with both incredible beauty AND great peril--full of limitless possibility, yes, but also full of the potential for terror, death, and violent, wanton destruction.
My life is an unbelievably stressful balancing act--"a rope stretched over the abyss": some of the few who are acquainted with me at least suspect that I am light-years beyond their own preceptions or abilities. Some fewer of them still have seen occasional glimpses of the truth, and are no longer in any doubt. I am both the brightest hope and the greatest worry of my own family, a family which possesses both extraordinary brilliance and ability AND a tendency toward mediocrity and fearful, superstitious conformity--sometimes manifested in the selfsame individuals. If an individual's genetic make-up (in terms of personality) can be described as a random shuffling of the traits and abilities of one's ancestors, then, in my own case, most of the talents and brilliance which various of my forebears possessed, AS WELL AS many traits which most people today would unhesitatingly label "negative", have clearly and undeniably manifested themselves in my person.
I could even go so far as to correctly state that, in many ways, I am as fearless concerning the exploration of life and thought and (particularly) sexuality as was the infamous Marquis de Sade, despite the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in certain of his pet predilections. With others of them, however, that is most definitely NOT the case. ...
Suffice it to say that, for better or worse, I was dealt a hand by the Universe that was both a potentially winning hand and a potentially LOSING hand--at least in terms of its being very likely to strongly express itself in either direction: "success" or "failure"; or "good" or "bad" (as the world sees such matters, of course)--infinitely moreso, anyway, than in the average, hopelessly mediocre person.
August, 1998. (specific date unrecorded)
_______________________
The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.
Henry James, Sr. (1811-1882),
American theologian,
letter to his two sons,
William James and Henry James, Jr.;
quoted in Seldes, "The Great Thoughts" (1980).
Saturday, December 04, 2004
John Stuart Mill on Freedom, Individuality, and Nonconformity
From John Stuart Mill's 1859 treatise "On Liberty" (Chapter One):
In political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. ...
Society ... practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, ... penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them. ...
The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and have denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized. ...
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, ... that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any one of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. ...
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign. ...
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. ...
(Chapter Two:)
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ...
But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is always as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ...
It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error of prevailing against the dungeon and stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error ... The real advantage which truth has consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it. ...
There is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions. ... The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. ...
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. ...
It can do truth no service to blink [i.e., overlook or ignore] the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teachings has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith. ...
Christian morality (so-called) has all the characters [i.e., 'characteristics'] of a reaction; ... Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinince from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good. ... It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give human morality an essentially selfish character. ... It is essentially the doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established. ...
(Chapter Three:)
Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters. ...
The mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own. ...
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. ...
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. ...
In political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. ...
Society ... practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, ... penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them. ...
The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and have denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized. ...
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, ... that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any one of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. ...
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign. ...
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. ...
(Chapter Two:)
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ...
But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is always as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ...
It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error of prevailing against the dungeon and stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error ... The real advantage which truth has consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it. ...
There is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions. ... The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. ...
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. ...
It can do truth no service to blink [i.e., overlook or ignore] the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teachings has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith. ...
Christian morality (so-called) has all the characters [i.e., 'characteristics'] of a reaction; ... Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinince from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good. ... It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give human morality an essentially selfish character. ... It is essentially the doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established. ...
(Chapter Three:)
Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters. ...
The mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own. ...
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. ...
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. ...
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