Political "evil" allows people to assuage their consciences in numbers. A person who might never lynch a man himself, might do so in a mob. Lynchings and torchings of black people were most often done by groups -not by individuals. The Holocaust required a "Reich". The Reagan regime required only an increasingly bourgeois populace only too willing to believe the lies it told itself. No member of such a group is truly free. No "good Republican" is free! No member of a mob is free. No group is free!While psychologists may diagnose individuals as "psychotic", the more harmful effects are sustained when a group exhibits symptoms and acts upon them. There are no un-motivated choices. Motivation follows from our very existence which precedes essence, in this case, the manifestation of character, the gestalt of our choices. I propose that we choose to be free. We become free when we accept responsibility for what we make of ourselves.
Hollywood script-writers say that motive precedes character. Many, perhaps most, will act upon what is believed, in good faith, to be true but others will act knowingly upon a lie. Bertolt Brecht addressed inauthentic" people when he said: "A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it ia lie is a crook!". To act knowingly upon a lie is to act upon bad motives. Jean-Paul Sartre would call it mauvaise fois.
In some cases, a lie may not be a true motivation, but only a "cover" for a truth that dare not be revealed. In such cases, there is the "truth" that is acted upon, and the lie that is publicly professed. The intention is to deceive. The GOP is, thus, enslaved by its own web of lies --the lies it tells the world, the lies it tells itself. Only those who can accept the truth of their own existence and take responsibility for it are truly free. The GOP is the party of blame, a party for whom everyone but itself is blamed for its failures at home, in Iraq, throughout the world.For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse.
That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion.
Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man.--Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism
In some cases, a lie is told oneself and the world. In other cases, the truth is known and ignored; a cover story is told the world. Trickle down theory is just such a lie --a falsehood of convenience told publicly to justify economic policies intended to enrich the very few while impoverishing the many.
It is often possible to convince oneself that a lie is true and, in those cases, truth is forever covered up. It is a rare culprit who accepts his own villainy. Most will excuse a crime with a lie, a rationalization. "I was only righting the wrong that had been done me". "I was mistreated as a child". "The money should have been mine".
"Republicanism" itself is a gestalt of lies of many sorts. Republicans embrace "trickle down theory" not because it is true but because it conveniently justifies piggish, often criminal behavior. There are perhaps two kinds of people in this corrupt White House -those who really believe the lies and those who know them to be lies but cite them, in bad faith, to promote the GOP agenda. Motives so assiduously disguised cannot be benign.
It is easy enough invoke a blanket "political motive" ie, if Bush had been honest and up front about the many ways in which his cronies would be enriched by war with Iraq, the nation would never have backed the war. But many would have backed the war and would have espoused the same specious arguments and for the same reasons. Bush lied about WMD because he dared not make public the other, hidden reasons to wage aggressive war.
Evil, and the hypocrisy it inspires, springs from a deep well. Hypocrisy and mass psychoses are only mechanisms by which evil objectives are achieved. Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the American psychologist charged with keeping the Nuremberg criminals alive until they could be duly hanged, identified evil with the primary symptom of "psychopathic personalities" ie, the "utter lack of empathy".
Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 1
Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 2
- Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 3
- Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 4
- Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 5
- Human, All Too Human (BBC) - Jean Paul Sartre: Part 6
A Short Based upon my interview with a survivor of Auschwitz
Even for Texas…
Texas, a perennial frontrunner in the stupidity stakes, is about to auction off a state wildlife preserve bordering Big Bend National Park:The property, which could be sold as soon as Tuesday, is the Christmas Mountains Ranch, a 9,270-acre tract abutting Big Bend National Park near the Rio Grande. It was given to the state in 1991 and leased to the nonprofit association of local residents to patrol
The dispute pits the donors of the land, the Conservation Fund and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, against a pistol-packing commissioner adamant about preserving hunting and firearms rights on the property, even at the cost of denying the land to the National Park Service, although Texas ranks 44th in park land.
Posted by Jerome Doolittle
The Existentialist Cowboy
Existentialism
Sartre
Philosophy
WWII
GOP Corruption
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5 comments:
Len,
What a wonderful article, Thank you. I do not have any education on Existentialism, and found it most informative and mind expanding. I really do agree that Man is responsible, for his actions. People do many things to other people that are very, very, cruel and then try to lie and distort what they do. Amazing!
"There are perhaps two kinds of people in this corrupt White House -those who really believe the lies and those who know them to be lies but cite them, in bad faith, to promote the GOP agenda. Motives so assiduously disguised cannot be benig" - Len H.
I think this goes for the rank and file also, so to switch to a political thread for a moment...those with an inkling of intelligence or conscious will be sitting out the up coming elections, I am guessing it will be a barely measurable amount of goppers, but maybe a detectable number.
benmerc
Diane B said...
Man is responsible, for his actions
Some essential existentialism: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Frankl survived Auschwitz. He said that when we are confronted by an unchangeable situation we are challenged to change ourselves. Frankl was recommended to me by someone who had been challenged precisely so.
Another must book is Existentialism and Human Emotion by Jean-Paul Sartre. Both books are "thin" and can be read leisurely and quickly. But you won't want to. You will want to read them slowly and savor. The link to Sartre is to lecture notes on the book. But Amazon, I believe, has both books in stock.
I also recommend two plays: A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt and Beckett by Jean Anouilh.
The motion picture versions of both plays are still very much with me, though I saw them when I was little more than a callow teen studying philosophy at university.
It is my belief that Voltaire himself inspired Existentialism when he rebuffed a "gang" of young aristocrats envious of the attentions Voltaire had received from the young ladies. They demanded that he tell them just who he thought he was. "I have no name but the name that I have made for myself", he is said to have replied. His rebuff reveals an indomitable sense of self and great courage. For his efforts he was beaten up by the gang, denounced, and imprisoned.
Later, Sartre would say essentially the same thing: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself".
Existentialism is about the freedom that comes from accepting responsibility for what we have, in fact, become. The famous fashion photographer Richard Avedon put it more bluntly: "You can't expect another man to carry your shit!"
Marilyn Monroe's photographer --Milton Greene --also said something that sounds very existentialist: "If you can't light it with one light, you can't light it!" I am sure that Marilyn always appreciated how Greene, a genius, lit her so beautifully.
Photographers make good existentialists. If they screw up, there is no one else to blame. Cowboys, likewise, make good existentialists. If they screw up, a herd is lost and possibly one's life. My family were pioneers. You can read about them at Life, Logic and Meaning
benmerc said...
I think this goes for the rank and file also, so to switch to a political thread for a moment...those with an inkling of intelligence or conscious will be sitting out the up coming elections, I am guessing it will be a barely measurable amount of goppers,
You're probably right about the rank and file. I've long ago given up on the GOP. I've never met one who was in any way "authentic". It's an endemically crooked party.
Great comments, both of you. You are why I keep blogging.
I think about these issues of responsibility a lot. Trained as a social worker, we were taught how groups are disenfranchised and how they are kept oppressed. However, social workers are taught that human beings are at heart good and want what is good for others as well as themselves. As a Buddhist I've learned that reality is what we make of it and that our enemies are our greatest teachers for they will teach us tolerance and patience. There is a branch of Buddhism that seeks to help oppressed groups in society, it is called "engaged Buddhism" and they seek enlightenment for all of humanity.
Me: one extreme or the other is not usually the best way. This goes for politics as well as human nature. We are not all born to wealth or blessed with good health or looks, etc. and yet our lot in life depends upon how we view ourselves in relation to others and how we make the most of what we have. Having good mental health and esteem helps greatly. If you are an oppressed group and hear and see negative things about your group from the rest of the social orders it can't help but to determine how you think about yourself, at least while you are young and have little life experience to draw upon. So I believe that when we are young we don't have as much self direction as we may like to think. If we are born well off and in a high status group our good fortune is not of our own making but is a gift from society. And if we are born into poverty or have an oppressed status it will be harder to be self directed because larger social forces are directed against us.
But then as you get older and have more experience then I believe you are more responsible for your life. You have more experience to deal with both yourself and the world.
As for politics, to be moderate I used to believe was a better way. I used to think of myself as kind of moderate politically but anymore I feel really radical. So much for the middle way, eh?
And sorry I am rambling all over the place.
Liberality said...
As a Buddhist I've learned that reality is what we make of it and that our enemies are our greatest teachers for they will teach us tolerance and patience.
My great prof and mentor, Truit Hilliard, spoke lucidly of Buddhism and existentialism. He also wrote Haiku.
As a Buddhist I've learned that reality is what we make of it and that our enemies are our greatest teachers for they will teach us tolerance and patience.
Reality is what we make of it, a concept that is confirmed even in physics. I cite Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Enemies are, indeed, mentors. As for current events, I am sure that many will feel that everything that they have learned to this moment has prepared them. That is the nature of a "crisis". Joseph Campbell's ideas on this have been appropriated by Hollywood. See: [Excerpts from "Joseph Campbell - The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers"] Chris Vogler's The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters is a great survey of Campbell's work and you don't have to be an aspiring screewriter to enjoy and learn from it.
Again, great comments, all. Thanks.
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