May 8, 2011
A Reply to My Critics?
I’ve not much time for blogging these days, as on balance I find reading novels and cycling are far better ways to waste my life.
Nonetheless, it has come to my attention that I am rather unpopular with some sections of the Cambridge activist community. Apparently I have the wrong views about political violence, the nature of capitalism, the inevitable proletarian-student revolution, or something.
I thought I might do a post drawing on some of the finer thinkers of the 18th century. Specifically David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and the problem of political “enthusiasm”. Or as we would now call it, fanaticism.
The manner in which self-righteous, self-assured political conviction so easily takes hold over people’s minds. And then drives them to do terrible, murderous, destructive, and often outright evil things. Because enthusiasts are convinced that they have all the answers. And that everyone else is either too blind, or too morally twisted, to see their truths.
Or as Max Weber put it, describing a very similar thing:
“One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility, or when the one and when the other. One can say only this much: If in these times, which, in your opinion, are not times of ‘sterile’ excitation–excitation is not, after all, genuine passion–if now suddenly the Weltanschauungs politicians crop up en masse and pass the watchword, ‘The world is stupid and base, not I,’ ‘The responsibility for the consequences does not fall upon me but upon the others whom I serve and whose stupidity or baseness I shall eradicate,’ then I declare frankly that I would first inquire into the degree of inner poise backing this ethic of ultimate ends. I am under the impression that in nine out of ten cases I deal with windbags who do not fully realize what they take upon themselves but who intoxicate themselves with romantic sensations.”
But I have neither the time nor the heart for such exertions. And indeed, political philosophy is perhaps an unfruitful place to start. I gather that English Literature is the modern revolutionary’s Oxbridge degree of choice. Several thousand years of cumulative wisdom – helpfully captured in books now available at paperback prices – from the most intelligent people to have walked the earth, is all irrelevant. Art and deconstruction will fuel the revolution, which is itself unquestionably a good thing. Or so I’m told.
So let’s instead start from some putative common ground. Philip Roth is surely one of the great literary figures of the 20th century, and perhaps America’s finest novelist in the post-war era. For what it’s worth (basically nothing), I think that if we’re going to be political litterateurs, then we should begin with Roth’s blindingly brilliant I Married a Communist.
Here’s a short passage, from the culmination of a genuinely profound work:
“You control betrayal on one side and you wind up betraying somewhere else. Because it’s not a static system. Because it’s alive. Because everything that lives is in movement. Because purity is petrification. Because purity is a lie. Because unless you’re an ascetic paragon like Johnny O’Day and Jesus Christ, you’re urged on by five hundred things. Because without the iron pole of righteousness with which the Grants clubbed their way to success, without the big lie of righteousness to tell you why you do what you do, you have to ask yourself, all along the way, “Why do I do what I do?” And you have to endure yourself without knowing.”
If you don’t understand what that short passage is saying, the rest of the book will explain. I would recommend it as seriously worthwhile reading for anybody who is particularly sure of their convictions.
Shuggy said,
May 9, 2011 at 12:16 am
I love Phillip Roth but…
perhaps America’s finest novelist in the post-war era.
Nah, that would be Saul Bellow…
Paul Sagar said,
May 9, 2011 at 12:22 am
Shuggy, what’s your top Bellow?
Anthony Barnett said,
May 9, 2011 at 12:54 am
Surely America’s finest post-war novelist is Toni Morrison
Michael Riordan said,
May 9, 2011 at 1:01 am
There’s a difference. For eighteenth century philosophers such as Hume, the key target was way that religious notions of conscience or divine inspiration were used to justify a set of political premises: so for Johnson, enthusiasm was “a vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour or communication”. I’m not sure what it is that gives contemporary fanatics a similar degree of certainly.
RA said,
May 9, 2011 at 5:42 am
I vote William Gaddis.
Gavin Kennedy said,
May 9, 2011 at 6:17 am
For David Hume and Adam Smith ‘enthusiasm’ referred to religious passions, not politics, which was in their view by far the most disruptive danger to social peace than politics. from which the mass of most people were excluded in the 17th-18th centuries, but they had easier entry to religious enthusiasm. The results of religious enthusiasm were often extreme disruption seen, for example, in the public behaviour of the zealots in the Church of Scotland at the time, and in the ‘enthusiastic’ mobs in parts of Asia, and in incidents in Western cities today, by ‘enthusiastic’ individuals, Hume and Smith’s meaning of the word.
grrl said,
May 9, 2011 at 11:16 am
Paul said:
Unpopularity is also a form of popularity.
Jimmy Hill said,
May 9, 2011 at 3:08 pm
I saw this Hume quote today and thought of this post:
“I have long entertained a suspicion, with regard to the decisions of philosophers upon all subjects, and found in myself a greater inclination to dispute, than assent to their conclusions. There is one mistake, to which they seem liable, almost without exception; they confine too much their principles, and make no account of that vast variety, which nature has so much affected in all her operations. When a philosopher has once laid hold of a favourite principle, which perhaps accounts for many natural effects, he extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phænomenon, though by the most violent and absurd reasoning.”
Duncan said,
May 9, 2011 at 6:02 pm
it has come to my attention that I am… unpopular
Slowly and surely wins the race Paul.
Shuggy said,
May 10, 2011 at 1:03 am
Herzog. I’m with Jacobson and against Amis on this one; the latter went for ‘Augie March’. Not that this means anything…
Torquil Macneil said,
May 10, 2011 at 10:34 am
Amis called it right (always reliable in lit crit, whatever you think of the novels or politics), Augie March and Humboldts Gift are both better than Herzog which is wearying. Mind you, I think the best Roth beats the best Bellow hands down and neither of them wrote anything as good as The naked and the Dead (but neither of them went doolally either).
I was surprised you liked I Married a Communist so much, tough Paul, I thought it was one of his weaker ones, too much preoccupied with putting the boot into his ex and tending too much to the didactic (a big problem with Roth). Try Sabbath’s Theatre, his masterpiece and, unlike Communist or most of the late ones, still funny.
Paul Sagar said,
May 10, 2011 at 11:31 am
Torquil, I accept that IMaC is not Roth’s overall best, and indeed some of the sex stuff is overdone, but nonetheless I thought the analysis of politics and it’s intersection with human fallibility and frailty was outstanding.
Not read Sabbath’s theatre yet, but surely Roth’s masterpieces are Portnoy’s Complaint, American Pastoral and The Plot Against America?
Torquil Macneil said,
May 11, 2011 at 9:21 am
All of those excellent (although PaA dragged a bit to my mind) but Sabbath is the standout, for me, all the Rothian virtues combined and fewest of the vices. I like Ghost Writer too and, of course, The Counterlife (generally cited as his masterpiece that one and with good reason). The Anatomy Lesson is very sour and funny and immoderate and I think it is underrated. I wouldn’t hurry to read the latest string of novellas, though, for all the critical excitement, they come over like second rank Roth imitators.
Selfish and Deluded « Bad Conscience said,
November 22, 2011 at 10:22 pm
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