Yes, we live in troubled times. No one would have thought that the cradle of
democracy would have produced such offspring.
And who would have thought that after ‘The End of History’ – the finality of
the Cold War and the resurgent supremacy of Liberal Democracy – that the likes
of Bashir el-Assad, the Ayatollahs, Kim Jong-Un, and Vladimir Putin would be
ascendant?
Had anyone been paying attention to the Balkans – how long-repressed
antipathies, hostilities, and resentments would resurface unmitigated after 50
years – they would not have been surprised at the violent emergence of ethnic
and religious animosities.
Why is it a surprise that radical nationalist populism is sweeping Europe and
the United States? How is it that anyone paying attention could have
neglected the rising resentment of the middle class –the class marginalized by
progressive insult and insistent interventionist programs to neuter traditional
religion and family values?
Perhaps; but a longer perspective of history belies the anxiety of the
moment. Kings, queens, courtiers, and the aristocratic elites of Europe, India,
and China have always behaved in a patriarchal, self-interested, and
aggressively territorial ways. There is nothing new in the rise of Donald
Trump, Vladimir Putin, or Marine Le Pen.
Bourbon royalty wanted nothing to do with rabble and paid for their disdain
at the guillotine. Trump, Le Pen, and Putin want the same heads and the same
revolution.
With the exception of Putin who, it would seem, would be quite happy to
assume the royal throne of the Tsars, the rest of Europe and America is restive,
angry, and in the mood for dramatic democratic reform.
The world it seems has never been in such chaotic flux. The very foundations
of Western civilization – liberal democracy, Enlightenment principles of
rationality, dispassionate inquiry, and logic – seem to be disassembling. There
are no longer any absolutes – the Bible, the Church, or the received wisdom of
the French and American Revolutions – and an individualistic, self-centered,
me-positivist culture is in its ascendancy.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Historians have known for
centuries that history not only repeats itself but does so in predictable,
repetitive patterns. The cycles of aristocracy-democracy, populism-autocracy,
nationalism-internationalism have repeated themselves over and over and so
frequently and predictably, that they yawn at every ‘new’ emergence of the same
old things.
Social scientists have noted since the beginning of their discipline that
human societies do not change. They exhibit the same expressions of
self-interest, territorialism, and hegemonic demands as every cultural era
before them.
Social psychologists have understood since Oedipus that human nature rules
human action. We all are governed by the same genes that propel us to jealousy,
suspicion, hatred, and internal homogeneity.
The question, then, is why the angst, the dislocation, and the frustration?
Why is it that in full consideration of history we still take umbrage at
political venality and sabre-rattling nationalism?
The works of Conrad Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, D.H. Lawrence and many others have
given us reason to pay no mind to temporal, inane concerns. Gudrun, Ursula,
Birkin, and Gerald have little concern for events, nor for public consideration
of them. They are only concerned about themselves.
Neither Gudrun, her sister, nor their male friends are sympathetic
characters. They are diffident to say the least and indifferent at worst to the
lot of ordinary people. They are islands unto themselves, often adrift, looking
for mooring, but so antipathetic that few readers will care if they ever make it
to port.
But at least they have considered who they are; and most importantly have
understood that self-definition can only come through a battle of wills – who is
victorious and who lies down in defeat.
They all – Birkin, Gerald, Gudrun, and Ursula – want nothing to do with the
world around them. The confining, defining, limiting, and oppressive society
into which they were born.
They all resolve their inner conflicts for better or worse. They are selfish
and antipathetic; but Lawrence is deliberate about his characterization. The
reader is not supposed to like Ursula, Birkin, or their group. They do not like
us; and we don’t like them; but their final resolution on sexual grounds –
domination, submission, gratification – is essentially ours. There is no
resolution other than personal and sexual.
Tolstoy for most of his life searched for answers to being, eternity, and
meaning; and of course found no answers; but at least he was concerned with
issues of life and death.
Conrad was only concerned with jungle and sea and the existential challenges
they posed. Heyst, Lord Jim, Kurtz, or James Wait fled society and not tried
to accommodate it. They all met untimely and perhaps deserved deaths because of
their stubborn embrace of it.
Tolstoy, despite his
A Confession, was a life-long nihilist who
challenged anyone to show him meaning; but in the end made peace with his demons
and agreed that ‘there might be something’.
Dostoevsky was even harsher and more critical of the status quo. Christ sold
us all a bill of goods, he said, promising the chance of salvation – not the
guarantee – for faith and obeisance. We all want only mystery, miracles, and
authority so we reject his revelation and are doomed to a short life of
solitariness, brutishness, and nastiness.
The point is that there is far more to life than temporal concerns; and
absolutely little to be gained from temporal engagements.
Whatever one might think of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama,
such concerns are irrelevant, disposable, and uninteresting.
Of course no one is ever focused exclusively on existential concerns; but it
is hard to dismiss them entirely. ‘Why are we here?” doesn’t parse well with
“Is Donald Trump a good President”. Anyone with a narrow or even clouded window
into history understands that politics are temporal, excusable parts of human
denouement, but nothing more.
Undue attention paid to politics or current social events are only likely to
confirm prior observations.
Does that mean that we are closed-minded and only self-affirming in our
judgments?
Not at all. Shakespeare understood it best. He knew that his Histories,
although individualized fables of famous men and women, were only tales of
repetitive history. Kings, queens, courtiers and peasants all always acted the
same and always would.
The point is context. It serves no purpose to conclude anything on the basis
of temporal factors. Today’s predominant issues of race, gender, and ethnicity
are irrelevant when considered in the light of historical context. Conrad,
Shakespeare, Lawrence, Ibsen, Faulkner, Joyce, and others used contemporary
context only as a backdrop for their fundamental dramas.
The more cacaphonic politics becomes, the more urgent the need to disengage.
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