Cupid and Psyche: Part Six

This is the last section of "Cupid and Psyche" so after a very brief examination of will and intellect in literature, we shall tie up some loose ends. The loose ends are soome questions I have asked and left unanswered in previous writings, but more on that later. To get started with our examination of literature, we shall use the insights of two minor thinkers as guides: Colin Wilson, and C.E.M. Joad. Neither one belongs to the first rand of thinkers hitherto examined, but have interesting insights, and both also cite their main influence was literature. Both also point to George Bernard Shaw as the major influence on their thinking. So we shall begin with Shaw. Although everyone knows Shaw was a major figure in early twentieth century literature, but he was also influential in political thought. Along with the Webbs, Shaw was a driving force in the Fabiand Society, and in the founding of the London School of Economics. Joad actually attended a preschool run by the Fabian Society. As a young man Shaw read Marx; it would influence him for the rest of his life. The Marxist influence can be clearly seen in the dialogue on religion in the play "Major Barbara" Without going into a detailed examination of Shaw's plays, we shall try to give a summery of his ideas. (for the interested reader the most important plays for understanding Shaw's ideas are "Major Barbara", "Man and Superman" , and "Back to Methuselah") Shaw's starting point is that we should want a sane society. For Shaw a sane society is a socialist society, where childcare, healthcare,and education are taken care of by the government. Thus guaranteeing these services to all citizens. Of course, like all socialists the redistribution of wealth, and income equality are the keystones of Shaw's desired society. It should be no problem discerning that Shaw hold intellect over will. Even in his play "St. Joan" Shaw seems to have more sympathy for the Inquisitor than the Saint. Shaw mistrusted feelings and emotions; this is probably why his female characters seem wanting. The play where Shaw's thought is most developed is "Back to Methuselah" it is also the play where Shaw's deficiencies as a thinker can most cleanly be seen. Shaw's deficiencies are the typical are the typical faults of leftist politics. The most glaring is vitalism. The Lamarckian theory of evolution, that acquired characteristics is the mechanism of evolution. That human nature can be moulded and changed by the right kind of society. Of course this was the doctrine of the old Soviet Union under the banner of Lysenkoism. The other issue that stands out is Shaw's vegetarianism. That Shaw's ancients practically live on air. It is interesting how Wilson and Joad deal with Shaw's colossal arrogance. Joad fails to mention it, at least in the books I have read. Wilson tries to assert that Shaw's ideas and arrogance can be separated. It must be said Wilson's defense is less than convincing. Shaw's ideas seem to be the perfect compliment to his arrogance. When you take the perfect as your standard you can judge everything that exists as inferior. Shaw's sanctimony and arrogance are an organic whole with his ideas. Another member of the Fabian Society who was also a major literary figure was H.G. Wells. Wilson and Joad also credit Wells as an influence, but not as big an influence as Shaw. It seems surprising that Wells takes a second to Shaw, since Wells is clearly the greater thinker and the more original. Wells's ideas are present in all his writings, but most concentrated in his later writings. ("A Modern Utopia", "Men like Gods", and "Star Begotten") "Modern Utopia" and "Star Begotten" are examples of Wells"s discussion novels. I agree with Henry James that the discussion novel is an artistic failure, but it does show Wells's creativity and originality. Wells's starting point is slightly different than Shaw. Wells's justification for Utopian thinking is there is no alternative for trying to perfect society. The novel "Modern Utopia" seeks to critique and show the weakness in Utopian literature. Wells puts his finger on the weakness: the lack of individuality that is characteristic of Utopian literature. Utopian literature lacks dynamism, because it lacks the interest only strong characters can bring to a story. Not to say that Wells solved this problem.There is not much else to to recommend "A Modern Utopia" it has the usual ruling elite that intelligently and wisely guide society. The ruling elite is called "the New Samurai" the twist is that it is open to everyone who can qualify. The rest is the usual socialist Utopia, if the reader wants more, read the book. Wells does have some significant differences from Shaw. The most important being that Wells rejects vitalism and acquired characteristics. It must be remembered that Wells unlike Shaw had scientific training. So Wells has no faith that humans shall just evolve into a perfect society if it so desires. Wells seems to grope for some mechanism to change human nature. In "The Days of the Comet" it is a gas, in "Star Begotten" is is some sort of genetic meddling by the Martians. It is too bad that Wells did not live long enough to read and comment on R. Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters". We now turn to Wells's last written work: "Mind at the End of its Tether." This is the work where Wells looses faith in Socialist Utopias. It is not that Wells looses faith in Socialist Utopias, but he looses hope in humans ability to to realize the Utopia. He calls it a failure of imagination. Again with Wells we observe the preference for intellect over will. Wells never looses faith in abstraction, but in the concrete's ability to realize the abstraction. It seems ironic since Wells made such a point of denying original sin, that it would be original sin (humans self-serving nature) that would undo his life's work. With Shaw and Wells we observe champions of intellect and abstraction in literature. So we shall turn to a champion of will and emotions. Of course we have a lot to choose from in twentieth century literature. The names Eliot, Yeats, and D.H. Lawrence come to mind, but we shall chose an obscure nineteenth century novelist to examine: J.K. Huysmans. He wrote "Against the Grain" in 1884. It is odd that neither Wilson or Joad mention Huysmans. This is notably odd with Joad, since he wrote a book about and titled: "Decadence". Huysmans illustrates emotion and feeling in literature better than anyone that came before him in his book: "Against the Grain". In the book the hero has spent his life refining his sense of pleasure. This has two drawbacks for the hero, that he becomes jaded, he has to keep searching for more exotic pleasures, and that contact with the everyday world caused hem his refined senses pain. So he shuts himself up in his considerable estate, surrounded by objects that give him pleasure. Some of them are a tortoise with a painted shell, the world's strangest library, and so on. The trouble is at some point it is no longer enough; he is miserable. Huysmans ends the book by saying the hero is faced with a choice between suicide or embracing Christianity. The latter is the path chosen by Huysmans. "Against the Grain" illustrates the problem that obsessed Wilson during his literary career: the descent into triviality. This is perfectly illustrated by Huysmans"s hero. That no matter how he seeks pleasure, they all end up trivial. This is of course, T.S. Eliot's "hollow men", and the theme of much of modern literature, Wilson comes close to defining the problem, but he never seems to have the confidence or insight to state it without ambiguity. Wilson asserts that the abstractions that worked in the Middle Ages do not work for modern people. Even though Wilson studied Whitehead, he does not have a deep understanding of his philosophy. That people need abstractions to focus their emotions, thus giving life meaning. This is how to escape the descent into triviality. Wilson also asserts like Shaw and Wells that there is a need for a new religion, but does not seem to understand how religions are created. Shaw and Wells also share this deficiency, That religion is not a creation of the intellect. That we cannot get a compendium of myths from existing religions to create a universal religion. Religion is a creation of the will, ti is the result of how humans feel about the cosmos. This feeling manifests itself in dreams, then the dream images become gods. Now let us turn to Joad. Joad unlike Wells never lost faith in humans or their ability to realize the Utopian ideal. Joad embraced Christianity and turned towards Plato in philosophy. Joad saw clearly that in order to keep the Utopian ideal, it must be a Platonic Form. This also plays into Joad's conception of decadence, Decadence is the falling away from the Platonic Forms, by embracing feelings and emotion. Joad ends up with a cautious theory that resembles Oetinger. That we can become collaborators with God to bring about a perfect society. It is also notable that Joad rejects Shaw's vitalism, while Wilson embraces both vitalism and acquired characteristics. This serves as a good bridge to our next topic: mythology. Most specifically German Idealism's claim that we need a new mythology of reason; this claim was made by Schelling, Holderlin and others. What they failed to observe is there is an already existing mythology of reason. An example of being to close to something, that you cannot see it. And it was a creation of multiple thinkers, as advocated by Schelling. The only possible mechanism to create a mythology of reason is the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction has created mythic entities: the One and the Forms. The neoplatonic framework of Western philosophy is that mythology. Again we are brought to the Wheeler principle which leads to Proclus. That a long time ago I stated that that exemplarism (analogy) and a dialectic of overlapping causes was irreconcilable. Well, I was wrong, and Mark Wheeler and Proclus were right. Professor Wheeler gave me a too generous evaluation on a paper I wrote, despite grave doubts on his part. Wheeler and Proclus may seem a strange pair, but both have done considerable work on the One. So how did Proclus reconcile analogy and a system of overlapping causes? How can the sensible realm be both an analogy and dialectical? Proclus accomplishes this by making the sensible realm a mirror image of the intelligible realm. An example would be instead of observing the true One, we only observe a powerless impotent reflection of the One in the sensible realm. While the true One is the most active entity in the intelligible realm. So in the sensible world the One seems to be at the bottom with the cosmos appearing as bottom up system, in the real world (intelligible) the power of causality proceeds from the One (top) down. The sensible realm is an inverted image of the intelligible realm. Hegel of course would make use of this idea of an inverted world. What a myth Proclus has set up. The more you examine the sensible realm the further you get away from the real ( intelligible ) world. This myth has of course worked out in Western intellectual history. The more science explores the world of matter (sensible realm) the further it has gotten away from God, and religion. So I have made my amends to Proclus and Wheeler. Our last topic is a question I asked some years ago. (see my 5 Meditations on Mind) Why has the physical center of human consciousness in the human body moved from the chest to the head? Ancient peoples, and some primitive people feel their consciousness is centered in their chest. An example would be that no primitive man would say "I am angry" instead he would say something like "the blood boils in my heart." We use the "head' and the "heart" as metaphors for intellect and will. As history has shown us many of out metaphors were taken literally in the ancient world. I believe this is an example. The question the modern student asks is how could the heart have been seen as the organ of consciousness and thought? So let us observe the chest. Like the face the chest is a center of a vast complex muscles. And the muscles also like the muscles in the face are very reactive to emotion. We have all felt our heart drop at bad news, and the burning in our chest when angry. So it should be no surprise that the chest could be viewed as the conscious center in the human body. So what changed to make the head the feeling of consciousness in the human body. This change seems to have happened in the rational revolution in the ancient world. The head is a metaphor for abstract thought, and this is the key. Most of us feel our consciousness dwells just behind our eyes. The eyes have become the organ associated with with abstract thought, and reason. So much so when we understand something we say "I see." Unlike other animals primates have a highly complex visual field. Primates a more highly developed binocular vision than other animals. Various reasons have been given to explain this, like since primates are tree dwellers they need to have the ability to focus on, and judge the distance between tree branches. That unlike other senses the visual field can be voluntarily narrowed to focus on a single aspect of the visual field, there is no muscle in our ears or nose to block sounds or smells we are not interested in. Vision does have such a mechanism. That one aspect of the visual field can be focused on and judged by its relation to other aspects of the visual field. This would siim to be the physical basis for abstract thought. That because we can abstract out single aspects of the visual experience; we can also abstract out qualities or features we are interested in, in thought. This is why humans were able to develop abstract thought. END