One's Own Possibilities

Yet [Walter] Benjamin’s letters are instructive also in the way in which they show how political commitments are something a bourgeoisie makes for itself, for its own good and its psychic well-being. Maimed as well as privileged, it has an interest in lifting the burdens of exploitation it, too, necessarily suffers (and not only, as at the present time, when capitalism devours its own bourgeois children). Benjamin makes the point in his arguments with Scholem. His Communism is not something chosen independently and somehow added onto his writing and intellectual life, capable, as Adorno thought, of deflecting it in wasteful or deplorable directions. The political choice is motivated by the writing itself: ‘a victorious party’ – the German Bolshevist party – ‘might make it possible for me to write differently.’ This is the crucial issue: under what conditions might a truly ‘literary’ life be lived, in what kind of situation might the vocation of the intellectual be most fully realised?


The critique of capitalism is for Benjamin first and foremost a critique of how it affects his own possibilities for writing, the commitment to socialism first and foremost a kind of class interest for the bourgeois intellectual, who suffers under the market and yearns to make fuller use of his intellectual energies. This is why classical right-wing talk about the ressentiment of intellectuals is ignorant and misplaced, and the familiar counter-revolutionary analysis of their role in revolutions and their lust for power an ingenious misconception. True intellectuals want to write, and their deeper political reflections turn on the obstacles a given social system places in the way of that vocation. Hence Benjamin’s allegiance to Brecht, whose ‘essays are the first ... that I champion as a critic without (public) reservation. This is because part of my development in the last few years came about in confrontation with them, and because they, more rigorously than any others, give an insight into the intellectual context in which the work of people like myself is conducted in this country.’


from "An Unfinished Project" by Fredric Jameson, a review essay on the correspondence of Benjamin with Adorno and Scholem.

One of Benjamin's great essays: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)

***

With no son of man do I stand upon any etiquette or ceremony, except the Christian ones of charity and honesty. I am told, my fellow-man, that there is an aristocracy of the brain. Some men have boldly advocated and asserted it. Schiller seems to have done so, though I don't know much about him. At any rate, it is true that there have been those who, while earnest in behalf of political equality, will accept the intellectual estates. And I can well perceive, I think, how a man of superior mind can, by its intense cultivation, bring himself, as it were, into a certain spontaneous aristocracy of feeling, -- exceedingly nice and fastidious, -- similar to that which, in an English Howard, conveys a torpedo-fish thrill at the slightest contact with a social plebian. So, when you see or hear of my ruthless democracy on all sides, you may possibly feel a touch of a shrink, or something of that sort. It is but nature to be shy of a mortal who boldly declares that a thief in jail is as honorable a personage as Gen. George Washington. This is ludicrous. But Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth -- and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister. It can hardly be doubted that all Reformers are bottomed upon the truth, more or less; and to the world at large are not reformers almost universally laughingstocks? Why so? Truth is ridiculous to men. Thus easily in my room here do I, conceited and garrulous, reverse the test of my Lord Shaftesbury.

It seems an inconsistency to assert unconditional democracy in all things, and yet confess a dislike to all mankind -- in the mass. But not so. -- But it's an endless sermon, -- no more of it. I began by saying that the reason I have not been to Lenox is this, -- in the evening I feel completely done up, as the phrase is, and incapable of the long jolting to get to your house and back. In a week or so, I go to New York, to bury myself in a third-story room, and work and slave on my "Whale" while it is driving through the press. That is the only way I can finish it now, -- I am so pulled hither and thither by circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always to compose, -- that, I fear, can seldom be mine. Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. My dear Sir, a presentiment is on me, -- I shall at last be worn out and perish, like an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces by the constant attrition of the wood, that is, the nutmeg. What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, -- it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

Melville in a well-known and much-cited letter to Hawthorne (Juneteenth, 1851)

***

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire.

from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (written between 1771 and 1790)

***


I HAVE been considering (my Friend!) what your Fancy was, to express such a surprize as you did the other day, when I happen’d to speak to you in commendation of Raillery. Was it possible you shou’d suppose me so grave a Man, as to dislike all Conversation of[60] this kind? Or were you afraid I shou’d not stand the trial, if you put me to it, by making the experiment in my own Case?

I must confess, you had reason enough for your Caution; if you cou’d imagine me at the bottom so true a Zealot, as not to bear the least Raillery on my own Opinions. ’Tis the Case, I know, with many. Whatever they think grave or solemn, they suppose must never be treated out of a grave and solemn way: Tho what Another thinks so, they can be contented to treat otherwise; and are forward to try the Edge of Ridicule against any Opinions besides their own.

The Question is, Whether this be fair or no? and, Whether it be not just and reasonable, to make as free with our own Opinions, as with those of other People? For to be sparing in this case, may be look’d upon as a piece of Selfishness. We may be charg’d perhaps with wilful Ignorance and blind Idolatry, for having taken Opinions upon Trust, and consecrated in our-selves certain Idol-Notions, which we will never suffer to be unveil’d, or seen in open light. They may perhaps be Monsters, and not Divinitys, or Sacred Truths, which are kept thus choicely, in some dark Corner of our Minds: The Specters may impose on us, whilst we re[61]fuse to turn ’em every way, and view their Shapes and Complexions in every light. For that which can be shewn only in a certain Light, is questionable. Truth, ’tis suppos’d, may bear all Lights: and one of those principal Lights or natural Mediums, by which Things are to be view’d, in order to a thorow Recognition, is Ridicule it-self, or that Manner of Proof by which we discern whatever is liable to just Raillery in any Subject. So much, at least, is allow’d by All, who at any time appeal to this Criterion. The gravest Gentlemen, even in the gravest Subjects, are suppos’d to acknowledg this: and can have no Right, ’tis thought, to deny others the Freedom of this Appeal; whilst they are free to censure like other Men, and in their gravest Arguments make no scruple to ask, Is it not Ridiculous?

from Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1737), "An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour," Lord Shaftesbury.

Give Us This Day...

Lawrence, I would admit, at least in many of the essays I've read, has a totalitarian mind; he seems to believe that humanity needs authority. This is not an odd idea of course. And in truth, the democracy of the USA is authoritarian. Perhaps only Athenian democracy--while not inclusive of the whole, no votes for women for example--really was truly a type of "lottery" government of the people (demos). Any citizen (adult male who had completed military service) could be called to serve on a council and even be "elected" (ie, name pulled out of a hat) to serve as a judge. But I think it's probably true that we all take a thankfully mindless comfort in abdicating responsibility in much of our living. This is not unproblematic as you must be aware.

Though Lawrence is suspect in many ways, he is always incisive. From his essay on Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" he says of Dostoevsky that "we have to admit...[his] profound insight into the nature of mankind. Man can but be true to his own nature. No inspiration whatsoever will ever get him permanently beyond his limits." (p 234, Selected Literary Criticism) The Grand Inquisitor, Lawrence tells us, names the three "limits" of mankind.

1. He demands bread, and not merely foodstuff, but as a miracle, given from the hand of God.
2. He demands mystery, the sense of the miraculous in life.
3. He demands somebody to bow down to, and somebody before whom all men shall bow down.

Miracle, mystery, authority--these "prevent men from being 'free'."

Now, these are easy enough to consider as true. These demands play themselves out over and again. But it seems to me that the first demand, bread from the hand of God, must be the basic fault...the error that enslaves us, and that the rest springs--confusedly from there.

The essay goes on, in Lawrence fashion, making one point in several different ways as a way to cover all the angles should you disagree...but this one point is really simply an extension of the above demands but driving home towards the totalitarian need for an authority to give you bread. Your bread, the bread you grew, that he gives back to you as miraculous...and you thank him for it. The abstracted bread. And you forget that you can provide your own damn bread.

Here is the progression in Lawrence's essay (239-40).

...seed-time and harvest have been the two great sacred periods of miracle, rebirth, rejoicing....For it is the earthly bread as a miracle, a yearly miracle.

The earthly bread is leavened with heavenly bread. The heavenly bread is life, is contact, and is consciousness. In sowing the seed man has his contact with earth, with sun and rain: and he must not break this contact. In the awareness of the springing of the corn he has his ever-renewed consciousness of miracle, wonder and mystery: the wonder of creation, procreation, and re-creation, following the mystery of death and the cold grave....man must not, must not lose this supreme state of consciousness out of himself, or he has lost the best part of him....All this is life, life, it is the heavenly bread which we eat in the course of getting the earthly bread. Work is, or should be, our heavenly bread of activity, contact and consciousness. All work that is not this is anathema. True, the work is hard; there is the sweat of the brow. But what of it? In decent proportion, this is life. The sweat of the brow is the heavenly butter.
...
Miracle and mystery run together, they merge. Then there is the third thing, authority..."that which men bow down to"...They will bow down first, the Inquisitor saw, to the one who has the power to control the bread.

The bread, the earthly bread, while it is being reaped and grown, it is life. But once it is harvested and stored, it becomes a commodity, it becomes riches. And then it becomes a danger. For men think, if they only possessed the hoard, they need not work; which means, really, they need not live...

So that ultimately men bow down to the man, or group of men, who can and dare take over the hoard, the store of bread, the riches, to distribute among the people again. The lords, the givers of bread. How profound Dostoevsky is when he says that the people will forget that it is their own bread which is being given back to them. While they keep their own bread, it is not much better than a stone to them--inert possessions. But given back to them from the great Giver, it is divine once more, it has the quality of miracle to make it taste well in the mouth and in the belly.

Men bow down to the lord of bread, first and foremost.

Lawrence goes on to make statements about democracy failing the test of "heavenly bread." No great Giver and so no heavenly savor. You can see this leading into an understanding of a "need" for Jesus and then a need for an earthly Giver as a stand-in for Jesus until he returns. The Utopian "heaven on earth".

Again, the mistake comes with the first demand listed above. To not realize the gift is Nature and needs no other agency than work (and Thoreau would tell us even that work can be minimal). Life is Sweat; Heaven is Bread. But BOTH are in your hands.

Give yourself your daily bread. Or maybe better, go find some nuts and berries.

[As an aside, it seems interesting to consider the rise of Paleo diets in light of the "error" of the abstraction of bread...storage and control...commodification. The seeds of error in our minds, our conception of where the bread comes from--not the Giver who stores and doles out bread--not the grocery store...the wal-marts, etc.--also seems to lead us down the path of poor health. The disease of "extra-governance" in human systems and "heavenly" systems springs from our learning to grow and store food.]

A Business Wholly Mistaken

Charles Koch spouting nonsense in the WSJ today:

Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year's projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.

I'm not saying this is true or false--just that it's "only" rhetoric for the WSJ audience and it's nonsense...first of all, what is "overspending" in this context? Why do we spend and why are there deficits? Here's the simplest formulation I know: Governments spend on what is "necessary" to uphold the duty of Provision for the citizenry. Governments, to balance this needful spending must take in money in the form of taxes. Without appropriate taxation we fall into deficits.

There are any number of arguments for and against taxation and what indeed is "necessary" spending. There are any number of arguments for and against government period. (That government which governs least is best--right, Henry?)

However, people like Charles Koch argue from a particular motivation and it's not one that includes the welfare of the "common man" (unless he considers himself common). Let me reiterate that there are no "free markets" and all things become "cronyism" when the Capitalist amasses enough wealth to buy the officials. In reality, most of us today NEED our government to protect us from the "free market" that wants to take everything we have from us.

Digby has a fine post discussing/dissecting this opinion piece.

Whitman, from Democratic Vistas, again in Crase, I think speaking to the Tea Party mentality that the Koch's cultivate to their benefit:

The true gravitation-hold of liberalism in the United States will be a more universal ownership of property, general homesteads, general comfort--a vast, intertwining reticulation of wealth....So that, from another point of view, ungracious as it may sound, and a paradox after what we have been saying, democracy looks with suspicious, ill-satisfied eye upon the very poor, the ignorant, and on those out of business. She asks for men and women with occupations, well-off, owners of houses and acres, and with cash in the bank--and with some cravings for literature, too; and must have them, and hastens to make them.[my bold]

Perhaps, though, it's better to think of each and every single one of us in this way:

The whole object of the universe to us is the formation of character. If you think you came into being for the purpose of taking an important part in the administration of events, to guard a province of the moral creation from ruin, and that its salvation hangs on the success of your single arm, you have wholly mistaken your business. (Emerson, Journals 1828)

By Their Very Fear (Update)

The community is inhuman, and less than human. It becomes at last the most dangerous because bloodless and insentient tyrant. for a long time, even a democracy like the American or the Swiss will answer to the call of a hero, who is somewhat of a true aristocrat: like Lincoln: so strong is the aristocratic instinct in man. But he willingness to give the response to the heroic, the true aristocratic call, gets weaker and weaker in every democracy, as time goes on. All history proves it. Then men turn against the heroic appeal, with a sort of venom. They will only listen to the call of mediocrity wielding the insentient bullying power of mediocrity: which is evil. Hence the success of painfully inferior and even base politicians...

So today. Society consists of a mass of weak individuals trying to protect themselves, out of fear, from every possible imaginary evil, and, of course, by their very fear, bring the evil into being.

This is the Christian community today, in its perpetual mean thou-shalt-not. This is how Christian doctrine has worked out in practice.

There is no doubt that Lawrence is troubling...that his deep insights into the mind of man and the mind of the collective (not woman per se, though woman is lost in the collective) will often spill over into some very distasteful thinking. But baby/bathwater; wheat/chaff.

There is a clear understanding here of the weakness of humans in general. We fear for our very existence (we are small and soft as predators go) and so we have created systems for protection from the natural world and from each other.

Lawrence believes in the strong, brave aristocrat--where strength shepherds the weak--and believes that the religion of the masses, which is Revelation (as he propounds) and not that of Jesus, exists only to destroy all worldly power with the only "good" being the power yielded by the elect in another world (yet to come, but never arriving). Apocalypse is the theology of those who are already "left behind".

And those who feel this deep sense of denigration in their very soul have a singular desire to "equalize" through violence, to be "tough" in their fear.

UPDATE: Digby details some Tea Party plans regarding budgets, teachers, churches and armed employees of the state.