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The Man & His Works
In a previous post, somebody opened up a really excellent topic which I’d love to take a crack at having a conversation about in it’s own regard. The issue seems to be: can you look at an author or thinker or other creative person’s work without also looking at his or her life? The question was initially raised in relation to Julius Evola, but it could easily be levelled at many other prominent individuals. A quick example that springs to mind is Joseph Campbell. After his death, somebody came out with an article accusing him of anti-Semitism. And it’s weird to me to hear that, because of the rather obvious nature of his work being about exploring religions and finding out the wisdom in all of them. But who knows, maybe the man really was a raging anti-Semite in his private life. It’s never really tarnished his stuff for me. And I’ve encountered other similar things in people who I idolized, teachers, etc. At first it’s sort of disappointing to find out stuff like this about somebody. But then at some point, I started realizing that it just means they are human like anybody. With mistakes and faults and lapses of judgement and wild inconsistencies. It becomes after a certain point a matter of who wants to cast the first stone, really. In any event, there are a lot of different dimensions to this topic, and different directions we could go with it. If possible, I’d love to avoid using Evola as our centerpiece for conversation, as it’s already been sort of done to death. And even nicer would be avoid bringing in ties to the Nazis altogether. Not that I don’t think it’s important to look at, I just get tired of hearing conversations which revolve around Nazis after a while. Isn’t there some neologistic law of argumentation about that? I forget what it’s called, but it says that eventually somebody is going to bring up the Nazis? It’s sort of like kicking somebody in the crotch in what otherwise is a clean fist fight. Anyway, where was I? Oh right: is it possible or even worthwhile to separate the man from his works (literary or otherwise)?
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August 16th, 2005 at 2:23 am
You’re thinking of Godwin’s law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (i.e. certainty).”
This Wikipedia article goes on at some interesting length about it. I didn’t even realise who Godwin was until I looked at it just then.
August 16th, 2005 at 2:29 am
And I don’t think it’s ever possible to separate the creator from their creations entirely. However, one can certainly minimise the connection when it comes to one’s appreciation of those creations, depending upon the extent to which the work is affected by the creator’s beliefs. I try not to let the fact that H.P. Lovecraft was an anti-Semite and a racist (which are things I personally abominate) get in the way of my enjoyment of his stories, as I think there’s only a few of his stories where the racial ratbaggery is sever enough to be damaging.
August 16th, 2005 at 2:33 am
Which is of course a great argument to apply against God
August 16th, 2005 at 2:42 am
A couple of years ago, I read a book called Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House! by a guru-adept called Da Free John. Just an amazing book, full of all kinds of insight, combining stuff from East and West, just really fun and exciting. ” Da Free John’s teaching is, I believe, unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual teacher, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion”, this from Ken Wilber in one of the blurbs on the back of the book.
So naturally, I wanted to find out more about this “spiritual genius”. And what I found out was that Da has basically become the poster boy of the guru trap. This guy doesn’t just have flaws; to put it politely, he’s apparently just a complete sack of shit. Da’s the kind of guy, if a couple comes to see him, say, and the woman is attractive, he’ll tell them that after talking to them for awhile he can see they have problems with jealousy and possessiveness, and that the best way to deal with that is for the woman to have sex with Da while the man watches, so they can both get over it. All in the name of “crazy wisdom”, which is what he calls all his nonsense.
But none of this changes the fact that his work, or at least some of the earlier stuff, is great, powerful even. But then again, how could someone with seemingly so much to offer fall so short of living up to his own best insights? Just don’t have gurus, or heroes, I guess that’s the best way, take the best that someone has to offer, say thank you if you have a chance, then move on to something else.
August 16th, 2005 at 4:02 am
i tend to take a historical-biographical view of things, so i pretty much assume the tangled interrelatedness of persons & works as a fundamental human condition. personally, i find it much more interesting to look at the broader human context in which people and their works historically appear, than to simply take them at their word. as everyone knows, or should know, the best teachers teach by example, and the best learning occurs by questioning. that’s not to say that reprehensible people are incapable of works of great truth or beauty - that’s just an irony of life. but i think it’s entirely possible that people’s faults, errors and prejudices may sometimes distort their seemingly good works, in a way that might not be perceptible from the works themselves. considering the tendency of humans to rationalize and self-glorify, a little armchair psychoanalysis is sometimes wise.
August 16th, 2005 at 11:31 am
some great authors were nazi sympathizers (celine, knut hamsun) but i frickin’ love ‘em– they’re geniuses. on the other hand, discovering that beck was a scientologist pretty much destroyed his music for me. i dunno why– maybe it’s cause the scientologists are still plying their trade.
August 16th, 2005 at 11:44 am
Makes us sound like the victims for being affected so, not them.
August 16th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Of course, here’s where it gets tricky for me. I don’t even care about morality anymore- in fact, I’ve been entertaining ideas that would have been shocking and abhorrent to me not so long ago (for instance, maybe murdering 6 million Jews was a “good” thing in the long run).
Bet I shocked every reader of this blog right there, didn’t I?
What does it matter if an author is an anti-semite, anti-this, anti-that, anti-anything? Maybe HATE needs to be rehabilitated. One of the conclusions that I’ve come to as of late is that democracy, capitalism, utopia, and “the last man” never can be victorious because, in such a society, we’d be driven to suicide out of boredom. I grew up in a small midwestern city that is about as close to a placid utopia as one can get- to escape it, I spent a massive amount of time playing games which simulated war, combat, strife, etc… maybe it is this need which, at heart, is one of the driving forces of man, and cannot and should not be eliminated. Maybe actively teaching and institutionalizing violence is the answer.
My god, the Integral/Wilberian that I was only a few months ago would die of shock if he could hear me now! God I feel liberated…
But why should “Godwin’s Law”, thus, be the end of a conversation? Why should Hitler or the Nazis be the end, when they might have been on to something?
It may seem horrific, but what is the alternative? World peace and stagnation? That great illusion that would only result in mass suicide and death anyway? Heh…
August 16th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Tim, you might check out Frithjof Schuon and Rene Guenon as alternative Traditionalist writers.
August 16th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
It IS possible to separate an author from his works, if little is known about the author a la J.D. Salinger or William Gaddis. Eventually, when the author dies the pieces get put together (like with Salinger), but it saves the author much embarrassment during his lifetime.
Most authors are supreme narcissists, however, and are loathe to separate their personal identities from their work, even as they condemn critics for blurring the line. It’s like Johnny Rotten’s line about rock stars who bemoan their fame: “If you want to stop being a rock star, then just stop.”
As readers, ultimately we make the personal choice to accept or reject authors based upon (or in spite of) their human prejudices and faults.
August 16th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
sometimes i wonder if the pynchons and salingers of the world aren’t actually pretty narcissistic. i mean, they obviously love their privacy and all, but in their conspicuous absence this whole cult of hypothetical personality springs up. they’ve gotta love that. maybe not salinger, who you really never did hear a peep from, but pynchon going on the simpsons - c’mon, he’s feeding on that! in any case, learning about authors’ lives and their contexts only enriches the experience for me. i’ve never been too crazy about the whole ultra-semiotic ‘nothing outside the text’ kind of criticism, which just strikes me as sterile. imho, pre-50’s lit crit was so much more lively and full-bodied, precisely because it was so ‘vulgarly’ politicized.
August 17th, 2005 at 12:15 am
I recently discovered a writer I like a lot name Alain De Benoist who wrote a great book called on Being a Pagan (basically a Nietzschean critique of monotheism). Then I discovered he was a leading thinker of the European New Right.
So?
I don’t care what people are. It’s such a shut-down tactic nowadays to accuse people of being this that or the other thing I frankly don’t trust it anymore. Writings, ideas can stand or fall on their own merits. Is Nietzsche racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic? You can find evidence of either in his writings.
Was De Sade a depraved hater of humaity or a voice in the wilderness crying out for liberation?
Feh. I’m going to go listen to some whitehouse now.
August 17th, 2005 at 1:22 am
in case you missed it, rev, my disquisitions on evola were not just some random denunciation. for those with eyes to see, it was a load of fairly high grade conspiracy “theory.” fyi, european neofascism is kind of a relevant topic these days. i realize this isn’t really a political site, and tim can ask me to take it elsewhere if he prefers, but part of what seems to be happening is that we may find ourselves in these weird, uncharted interworlds where occultism and politics get mixed.
August 17th, 2005 at 1:57 am
hi albion
i missed yer disquisitions and can’t seem to follow the link that you posted
but i’m all ears
from my pov right now i feel like politics is all a con
politics combined with religion can make great theater
but i’m interested in personal growth and expansion of consciousness and politics really seems like a distraction form that and a trap, especially identity politics & victimology, patriotism, organized religion, all of it
i will of course loudly object to hings i disagree with
i’ve been kicked off of freerepublic.com more times than i care to admit
but at the end of the day the only political position that makes any sense to me is the sort of paleolibertarianism represented by lewrockwell.com
call it “quit-breathing-down-my-neck-and-get-off-of-my-ass-ism”
August 17th, 2005 at 2:19 am
getting repeatedly kicked off of free republic makes you my hero. the more i learn about organized politics, the less i consider it something to actually participate in, but i do find it incredibly fascinating, like a train wreck. especially when religion & occultism get mixed in. for some reason i can’t get that link to work. here it is raw:
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/7/1/134912/3377
nothing about de benoist there, but eurofascism is an extremely bizarre & tangled scene. the disquisitions on evola were, absurdly enough, in the peter carroll books? thread.