One Hundred and Seventy Five

I’m reading about Sylvia Plath, which I usually avoid doing because she’s an icon, and most icons don’t stand up well to scrutiny.  Doubly an icon in Plath’s case, for feminists and for the suicidal.  And we’re all suicidal now. 

I read Alvarez’ book about her years ago, when I was considering suicide myself, before I decided it would be pointless because I'm already dead in every way that matters.

I read his book because the reviews said it was about more than Plath’s suicide.  And it was.  It was more about Alvarez’s suicide attempt than Plath’s suicide.   

He depicted himself as the brave hero who met the savage god and lived, unlike poor sad Plath.  He was telling yet another version of the legend of poor sad Plath, victim of men.

The article I'm reading now is about Plath’s and Hughes’ marriage, which it depicts as an idyllic partnership of two talented and charismatic people.  The shock of his betrayal is therefore doubly great.  But the shock of her suicide is even greater.  How could this extraordinary woman be incapable of living without a man?  Hughes turned out not to be the person he seemed, but neither was she.

They were both actors, as are we all.  Bad actors fall in love with their roles, forgetting who they really are (if they ever knew) and are crushed when the curtain falls.  Plath and Hughes seem to have been in love not with each other, nor with themselves, but with an image of themselves as the perfect couple. 

After Plath’s suicide, Hughes claimed they had been about to reconcile.  A few more days would have made all the difference.  I think he was trying, like Alvarez, to rewrite Plath's story with himself as its hero.

A few weeks ago Justin telephoned and announced triumphantly that he and his wife had reconciled.  Then, a few days later, he called again and said Tatiana had gone home to Ukraine, and he hadn’t heard from her since.  Her family say they don’t know where she is.

He’s been telephoning me every day since then, and we talk for hours.  I keep telling him to contact his stepdaughter.  If anyone knows where Tatiana is, it’s her daughter.

But don’t just telephone her, I tell him.  Fly to the USA and speak to Natalia in person.  That will show her he's sincere.

Tatiana is probably with her daughter.  I keep telling him what he should say to her if she is, and what he should say to Natalia if she isn’t.

Justin keeps saying he will remind Tatiana of all the things he’s bought for her, and how much she owes him.  I grit my teeth and tell him to just tell her how much he loves her.

I think Justin loves the idea of being married more than he loves his wife; and poor sad Tatiana, deserted by her first husband, has taken her revenge by deserting her second.

One Hundred and Seventy Four

Camus said the only important question is whether life is worth living.  When we answer it, all our other questions become easier to answer. 

When I read that, as a child, it became clear to me that Camus was an inferior thinker.  That he was nevertheless celebrated (in some circles) for saying it led me to suspect that (most) modern thinkers are inferior.

It was clear to me that Camus was asking the same question, in a different (and inferior) form, that those who we call religious ask.  For them, the only important question is whether gods exist.  When we answer it, all our other questions become easier to answer.

If we answer that gods do exist, we also answer the question of why we exist. It's to serve them.  If we answer that gods do not exist, our own existence has no purpose. 

When I read that, as a child, it was clear to me that the religious were asking the same question, in a different (and inferior) form, that those who we call scientists ask.  For them, the only important question is why does anything exist.  Are we the reason why there is something rather than nothing?

When I read that, as a child, it was clear to me that scientists were asking the same question, in a different (and inferior) form, that we all ask as soon as we become self-aware: why do I exist?

In order to get the right answer, we must ask the right question.  But we keep asking the same question over and over again, as children do, each time in a different (though not necessarily better) form, because we don’t question our a priori assumptions, those questions we think we’ve already answered.  Thus we ensure that we get the same answer each time, in a different (though not necessarily better) form.  

We keep asking the same question over and over again because as much as we want to know the answer, we also fear knowing it.  What we call philosophy becomes what we call religion when we lose our courage and stop searching for the answer, tell ourselves we know it, and start searching instead for confirmation.

In the childhood of our race, when our earliest ancestors asked why we exist, they reasoned that gods – beings like us, but as superior to us as we are to other animals - must have created us to serve them, just we domesticated other lesser animals (and enslaved other lesser humans) to serve us.  Nietzsche erred when he said Christianity was a religion for slaves, because he was thinking only of Christianity.  Every religion we’ve created has been for slaves – and for masters, too, because they need plausible excuses as much as slaves do to reconcile them to the obvious injustice of slavery; and every society we’ve created has consisted of slaves and their masters, real and imaginary.  

 We created our gods so they could create us, just as we created our human masters because we were animals who could not or would not master ourselves.  Eventually we persuaded ourselves that our masters, both human and divine, do not regard us as merely their property.  They love us, as parents love their children.  Our human masters also persuaded themselves that they love us.  Deception and self-deception enable masters and slaves to live together without killing each other.  But just as our real parents are never as loving as the ones we imagine, so are our real masters never as masterful as the ones we imagine.   

Because they’re as human as we are, our masters are no more able or willing than we are to rule themselves.  They’re equally unable or unwilling to rule us, so eventually we lose patience with them.  But as long as we cannot or will not rule ourselves, we do not lose patience with those gods in whose name our human masters rule us.  We merely exchange one god, and/or one master, for another.

Whatever the form in which we imagine them, serving the gods has always been our answer to the question of why we exist.  But every god eventually fails us – or rather those who rule us in their name fail us – which raises the question not only of which god is our true god, but which of our human masters is that god’s true servant.

Namque pauci libertatem, pars magna iustos dominos volunt.