Remembering Arthur Koestler

 One of my most favorite authors has been Arthur Koestler, who initiated me into the hyper world of books and   ideas.  Arthur Koestler caught my imagination very early in life and his influence lasted long. He was a great polymath and, from late nineteen forties to early nineteen eighties, he enjoyed great reputation as a unique intellectual who moved easily in such disparate disciplines as politics, science and literature. He was a great champion of freedom and fought authoritarianism of both the Right and the Left. In his young age he was a political activist, was sentenced to death by Franco but escaped miraculously. He wrote very good novels and at least one of his novels, “Darkness at Noon” is regarded as a classic and has since been translated into more than hundred languages. His legendry account of how he    was disillusioned with Marxism has gone under the rubric “The God that failed” and   has since become a political classic. He wrote on philosophy and methodology of science and rocked scientific establishment with his writings in early seventies.     Arthur Koestler’s world was not simple and linear; it was exotic, colorful, and mesmeric and had large cosmic horizons.   

Fighting Authoritarianism: Darkness at Noon

Arthur Koestler was a Hungarian Jew and was born in Budapest in 1905. He left education at an early age, when he was studying for engineering and joined Zionism. The Central European Jews in those days, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, had only two options: either to become a Zionist or to become a Communist.  Soon he took avidly to science journalism, became editor of a science journal and interviewed such great scientists as Louise De Broglie and Heisenberg. Later on he also had an opportunity of interviewing Albert Einstein. He did a short honey-moon with Marxism too, but was soon disillusioned with it and openly opposed it. He also   joined fight against Franco’s fascist forces and was captured   and sentenced to death by the fascist regime; however, while awaiting the sentence he miraculously received reprieve. 

The “Arrow in the Blue” and “The Invisible Writing” constitute his autobiographical writings that are full of action, drama and his early engagement with political ideologies and his fight against the forces of fascism and communism. In late 1940s he was to write one of the greatest novels of all times, “Darkness at Noon.” This novel powerfully portrays the dark side of  Soviet Marxism. One rarely comes across a novel that so vividly describes the communist world of investigations, enquiries and trials and shows how the traditional power structure and the ideology worked hand-in-hand to end freedom of human beings. It also shows, with deep psychological insight, how the communist dictators and bureaucracy retained their power by eliminating dissenters and those who challenged the system. The novel shows deftly how Soviet Communism carefully managed trials and how victims often confessed their guilt and cleared way to their own liquidation and led to perpetuation of power in the name of the ideology.  Translated into more than a hundred languages, “Darkness at Noon” is regarded as the most influential and penetrating novel yet written on the secret and subterranean world of Soviet Marxism.

Astride Two Cultures:  “Sleepwalkers” and “Act of Creation”

After the end of the Second World War, however, his writing took a different turn. He turned to philosophy of science and creativity. In nineteen fifties British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow held that the two cultures, science and humanities, are irreconcilably different from each other and that any attempt to explain them in a single framework may not work.  This stirred a great debate on the nature of science and nature of humanities and led to examination of many important ideas. 

 Arthur Koestler too was   toying with novel ideas. He was   trying to build a synthesis, a larger system of ideas that would explain both science and humanities in one common and unified framework.      Reading Arthur Koestler’s works is a wonderful and enjoyable exercise   for the sheer audacity of the attempt at synthesis of so many disciplines.    Koestler’s writing touches many disciplines simultaneously. It talks of scientific discoveries, evolution, psychology, creative writing, mysticism and spiritualism. In one single argument he invoked and sought to understand the basic patterns that lay behind such    disparate theories   and ideas as biological evolution, literary theories and other scientific theories and transcendentalism.

It is true that Koestlerian synthesis was not sustainable and did not work except for a while. It was too ambitious and too sweeping.  The fact, however, remains that this novel synthesis brought great insights into creative processes in scientific discovery, literary creativity and all forms of art.    In the matter of relationship between science and man, his trilogy--- “The Sleepwalkers”, “The Act of Creation” and “The Ghost in the Machine”--- by far remains unsurpassed both in scope and contents. “Sleepwalkers” was a patient and thorough enquiry into   man’s changing vision of the cosmos from antiquity to the times of Galileo and Copernicus and it showed very insightfully how science has progressed through a process of trial and error and how men of science whom we often blindly worship as heroes also at times were not free of dogma. It   is a philosophical discussion on increasing schism between science and religion on one plane and faith and reason on another. It presented a historical and sociological perspective on science and discovery.  It demolishes the view that scientists are heroes and the world,   a villain, a view that dominated the discourse in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. “Sleepwalkers” demonstrates that science is a process of trial and error, a slow and non-linear process of learning that moves to and fro and then consolidates itself and moves on again. He also mentions that science was not a crusade against religion and in practice religion did not work against science. Indeed in most of the cases the early scientists and thinkers who greatly revolutionized our ideas were themselves clergies and churchmen.  It also traced increasing schism between faith and reason in the field of knowledge and pointed to increasing schizophrenia afflicting man’s world of progress. The progress of science, argues Koestler, slowly broke down the unity between science and religion,    and faith and reason. Koestler’s argument that the traditional systems and institutions of knowledge were not entirely obscurantist and in many cases those traditions were fairly enlightened did not go down well with the scientific establishment. 

 His argument was that with more and more progress science has come to excessively rely   on reductionism. And with increasing schism between faith and reason, reductionism itself is progressively becoming barren and unproductive, and in turn science is neglecting phenomena that it considers irrelevant.  Although these opinions sounded strange   to the older scientists, the young generation of scientists saw some point here.  Koestler, through his Alpbach Symposium “Beyond Reductionism” also gave voice to the concerns expressed by the generation of young scientists and sought to break the barrier imposed by reductionism.

“The Act of Creation”, the second book in this trilogy, goes further and tries to explore basic patterns behind all forms of creativity. “The Act of Creation” was an enquiry into all the creative activities suggesting    a common and similar pattern at work behind all creative works, be it a scientific discovery, humor, mysticism, self-transcendence or a work of literature.  With numerous case studies and examples drawn from different disciplines, Koestler concludes that there is remarkable uniformity in the patterns behind all forms of creativity: scientific discovery, literature and humor.   The last book in this trilogy, “The Ghost in the Machine” is some speculative writing based on the insights gained in earlier volumes in this trilogy and provides some clues as to  how the mind and the body may be  working together and how species may be slowly evolving. In some writings towards the end, Koestler indicated a possibility that something may have gone wrong during the process of evolution, resulting into some disparateness in the growth of Neo-Cortex and the Limbic brain in human beings. This he would say may be the beginning of the end of human race, a conclusion he drew, perhaps, without much conviction. We need not dwell much on this conclusion as any such hasty judgment on human race is not worth contesting seriously. However, in the process of arriving at this conclusion, Koestler discusses many brilliant and original ideas and speculates on them, an exercise that is interesting, insightful and rewarding.

 The trilogy, “The Sleepwalkers”, “Act of Creation” and “Ghost in the Machine”,   was an attempt at unifying faith and reason as also science and religion to understand fully the world of man. Increasing schism between faith and reason on one hand and religion and science on the other, Koestler would argue, is the source of all problems in the modern world. And hence he wanted to unify faith and reason in a framework to somehow reverse the process of separation between the two that had begun with the enlightenment. Koestlerian synthesis of faith and reason was also prompted by uneasiness in the scientific community in the sixties and early seventies that were largely directed against too much of reductionism in the methods of science that tended to neglect significant findings. 

   Koestler’s “The Case of the Midwife Toad” can be likened to a mystery book of science. But it is also an account of how the scientists and the world of science is still mired in the familiar and the furrowed world of jealousy, hatred, politics and blindness to new ideas. He tells the tragic story of a brilliant Austrian scientist Paul Kammerer, who committed suicide after allegations that he tampered with some samples in   experiments that were trying to demonstrate how evolution would follow a Lamarckian path rather than a Darwinian one.   He also wrote a controversial but important book “The Roots of Coincidence”, which examines discipline of parapsychology. He was of the view that the horizons of the scientific investigations should be broadened to include even such phenomena that are overtly non-scientific and non-rational.   

                                                                                                                                

Beyond Reductionism : Human! All too human!!

 Although the novelist-scientist Snow perceived considerable distance between the science and the liberal arts, there still was and always is a case for looking at their unity for both are valid ways of looking at the world, perceiving the world and interpreting the world. Both are results of observation and contemplation of a curious mind that wants to   explore what exists.   It is true that Koestlerian synthesis was not sustainable and did not work except for a while. The fact, however, remains that this novel synthesis brought great insights into creative processes in scientific discovery, literary creativity and all forms of art.  Koestlerian synthesis was bound to fail, sooner or later, for it was too ambitious---trying to unify faith and reason. It is not important that it failed. What is important is that in the process it gave deep insights into creative processes and human behavior.   The two cultures still remain fairly separate and all attempts to reconcile them in a unified framework have failed. And yet if a fair amount of friendly and useful trespassing is seen here, it is solely due to realization that both the cultures are complementary and have their origin in the human mind that tries to comprehend the universe in different ways.  Co-existence of two vastly different cultures may not be   schizophrenia after all. Indeed, continuing with two different cultures in human mind is a unique feature of human mind and needs to be read as a sign of wisdom.  

   

What an irony! A person who set out to lambast Skinner’s behaviorism ended up giving deep insights to the very science of behaviorism.  These are also the unintended benefits of purely intellectual criticism----serendipity, if you choose to define it. 

Koestler’s greatest contribution to the scientific world was his Alpbach Symposium which gave voice to a generation of young scientists and made the scientific world look beyond reductionism. He helped in bringing  science and its processes close to people and showed that science is very much a human process, correcting its own wrongs and in the process creating further wrongs. Posterity would also remember him as the author of that brilliant novel, “Darkness at Noon” that laid threadbare the nature of   communist regime.

Book Review : Henry Kissinger On China

    

In 1971, Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor to the United States, travelled secretly to China and initiated a process of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Officially, he was on his tour of Asian countries of Vietnam, India and Pakistan that was to terminate in Pakistan at Rawalpindi.  After arriving at Rawalpindi, however, feigning ill-health, he disappeared for rest for a goodly twenty four hours.  And his team likewise ‘retired’ to a hill station in the foothills of Himalayas.  Actually they were already in Beijing, parleying with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, working with him on the terms of reference of their engagement and perhaps making preparations for the visit of the American President to China.

     The Cold War Setting

This historic visit shocked the world and laid the foundation of Sino American relationship.   Significantly, the visit came at a time when China had been caught in the entrapment of its own home-grown recipe of “Continuing Revolution”, a mantra devised by Mao who was at once a romantic poet, a traditionalist strategist and a Marxist revolutionary. If the cold war was all about the two colliding and conflicting ideologies between the United States and the Soviet Union, one wonders why in late sixties and seventies, the stormiest days of the cold war, the communist China and the capitalist United States were trying to seek each other. The cynical answer lies in the overall geo-political considerations and especially the growing feeling of insecurity in the minds of the Chinese Statesmen about the Russian designs in Asia.    It was also no coincidence that this relationship came to be forged at a time when China was increasingly becoming weary of desolation and spiritual pain brought about by Mao’s Cultural Revolution.  Mao and his team found this   relationship   a source of great security especially in circumstances where her neighbour and ideological ally Soviet Union was trying  to encircle China and   continue encroachment on her borders: directly and systematically on China’s northern border and indirectly through neighbouring countries of North Korea and Vietnam on the Southern border. 

In his recent book, “On China” Henry Kissinger has chronicled the story of forty years of Sino American relationship and captured   some dramatic moments of this history. This is not only a book of history and diplomacy but also an informal narrative of Kissinger’s personal encounters with the powerful top Chinese Statesmen. Few books, if any, would match the immediacy and authenticity with which Kissinger tells the story of these historic moments. The privilege that Henry Kissinger enjoyed is perhaps unique in the history of diplomacy. For over forty years Kissinger has been strutting on the scene that is embellished by a frightening array of great statesmen: eight American Presidents and four generations of top Chinese statesmen.

Sino--American Relationship and Rise of China

Ironically, Mao viewed this strategic relationship with the United States as an opportunity to end China’s isolation, buy peace and grow economically stronger and end her encirclement.  Mao had already admitted to Edgar Snow, American journalist through whom he was initially trying to establish contact with the US statesmen, that his Cultural Revolution had run haywire and that he was looking for new strategies to come out of it and consolidate the gains of Communist Revolution. Although, it was Deng Xiaoping who in the post-Mao period initiated great economic reforms and showed great pragmatism in marrying Chinese Communism to   market capitalism, it is questionable if China would have been able to achieve all she did without this beneficial relationship with the United States!

This growing relationship with the US proved immensely profitable to China. It ended China's twenty years'  isolation, increasingly brought her in the community of nations, redirected the rabidly aroused  energies of Cultural Revolution into constructive channels of economic growth and  hurtled her on the global scene as the most powerful economy after the United States.   

 Relationship between   China and United States was always uneasy and it got worse during the Korean War of 1950,   during the subsequent war in Vietnam, and during the three occasions leading to Taiwan Strait Crisis when China tried using force against the Nationalist government in Formosa.   Although Kissinger’s visit helped in establishing a special relationship between the two countries in 1970s during the cold war, this broad understanding was also uneasy and it got worse at some points of time, such as during the    Taiwan Strait Crisis and the period following the Tiananmen Square Tragedy in which the Chinese Government crushed and suppressed the student revolt in 1989.  And even today differences continue on two counts viz. highly undervalued Chinese currency that allows China to appropriate all the world economy in its favour and the unresolved issue of place of Taiwan.

  

Differences in Approaches and Perceptions

Kissinger offers a wealth of information, political, historical and cultural, relating to engagement of the West with China and narrates interesting encounters with his counterparts from China and from elsewhere as his narrative unfolds the story of over forty years. And through these anecdotes and stories the real faces of these statesmen that generally lie hidden behind their carefully guarded masks peep out, sometimes hideously and at other times humanely.  However, Kissinger’s book has a running theme of continuing contrast between the West--especially America-- and China as regards their perceptions, their paramount concerns, their world -views and the systems of their deeply rooted beliefs and fears that shape their foreign policies and their strategies.

Throughout the book Kissinger   unceasingly keeps reverting to the tension generated by different   approaches employed by the two partners in seeing realities and comprehending issues. He goes back to the history of the engagement of the West with China during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and highlights the abyss that separated the two. Kissinger traces the history of the contrast between the two fundamental approaches right from the time of visit of Lord George Macartney, British ambassador, to the court of Chinese Emperor in 1793-94 during the Qing dynasty.  The British ambassador   presented many advanced machines, equipments and other gifts to the Emperor with an intention to highlight the advanced and rising industrial civilization of the West and drive home the point of western superiority. The Chinese merely looked to them as some different things available with the visitors and considered as natural to receive these gifts as coming from an inferior race and “barbarians”, unmindful of the collapsing eastern order and western ascendancy. This chasm between China and the world and especially between China and the US recurs in Kissinger’s book from the beginning to the end and he keeps arguing that statesmen from both the camps must save this relationship from these differences. 

 Kissinger comments with great perspicacity on major differences in approach and perception between the two nations   and shows how it impacts relations between the two world powers and how great an ambiguity it creates in their relations.  First, the US, and in general the West see diplomacy as transactional in nature and as distinct from war and use of force.  They make fine distinction and allow diplomacy to run its full course. They view diplomacy as a series of moves or reactions or counter-moves to corner the opponents and score a sort of moral victory or a public showdown. Force is resorted to only when the diplomacy fails. The Chinese have a more traditional and holistic approach that is more strategic in nature and where the response may combine   diplomacy and use of force to achieve the desired result or a configuration. Moreover, Chinese traditional approach to the foreign policy and international relations is a steady-state universe where all pieces and all neighbours and countries fall in their own places and remain in equilibrium.

 Second, and more importantly, the Chinese view the internal affairs of a nation and its foreign policy as distinct from each other and would not bother about what happens inside a country or how the governments behave with their citizens. The foreign policy of the United States, on the other hand, is, in addition to geo-political considerations, determined by the fundamental values of Human Rights and Political Democracy. Americans come to this issue with a missionary and evangelical zeal and do not eschew use of force where they feel that human rights are at stake or where democracy and political rights of citizens are involved. To the Chinese, use of western values (or for that matter any values) in determining relationship with a country is anathema and they suspect that the West is merely trying to impose their own values on others.  This controversial issue of “democratic values in foreign policy” acquires further urgency for the United States because the American public opinion is very strong about it and no government wants to antagonize the public opinion in democracy. Again it is interesting to see that these differences arise primarily because there is a fairly mature democracy in the United States, and   statesmen are not free to make foreign alliances against public opinion.   

 Lastly, at least theoretically, the west and the United States would regard all nations as equal; though in reality when people sit across the table to negotiate, they sit consciously with power equations at the back of their mind. The Chinese, however, often treat themselves as the “Middle Kingdom”, the centre of all civilizations and regard others as their tributaries; and this sense is often consciously lent to discussions and deliberations outsiders have with them.

Kissinger also repeatedly refers to the Chinese national fear that often impacts its policy towards foreigners and international relations. In the collective psyche of the Chinese people the memories of the horrors of colonialism   are still very fresh. They know that the collapse of central power led to invasion by the outside powers in her territory.    And hence to them their own security is more important than respecting some lofty and subjective values. 

While commenting on these differences, however, Kissinger is   more balanced. He does not regard Chinese approach as any more flawed than the American. Very wisely and with   understanding he states that Americans should show more understanding and patience with countries that have culture different from theirs.  Although he sees problems with the American approach of mixing up human rights and democratic values every time every time America deals with the foreign countries, he sees the Chinese views also as an extreme view. The ideal and just approach according to him should be somewhere in between these two.

Tiananmen Square and Fang Lizhi Controversy

However, despite these differences of perception and approaches to resolving issues, the Sino American relationship survived many hurdles and challenges mainly because the statesmen on both the sides understood each other well and kept private communications open. Kissinger mentions many examples of this behaviour on part of statesmen on both the sides.

Tiananmen Square tragedy was such an event that strained the relationship between the two countries to the utmost. In 1989, while world communism was going through serious crisis, China also faced its share of rumblings.  It started with the death of Hu Yaobang, the general Secretary of the Party till 1986, and a political liberal voice that believed in political reforms. His death was the occasion for politically charged mourning. It became an event around which rallied all the dissidents and critics of the communist party. Soon the students in Beijing and other cities voiced their frustration with corruption, inflation and lack of political freedom. What had started as a demonstration soon became a challenge to the government with the demonstrators and students occupying the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, just across the seat of the Chinese Government. Although the government was confused initially in the light of the international attention the event had received, it soon, after about six weeks’ hesitation, cracked on the students, and the Tiananmen Square was cleared by army.  

The whole world strongly condemned the violent suppressing of the students’ agitation in Beijing. The public opinion throughout the world, and especially in the United States, was very strong and President George Bush was under great pressure to take action against China for violation of Human Rights. Bush did not want to take any action because he knew that China had always been a good friend and had cooperated with the United States on security issues on a number of occasions. Still Congress imposed some punitive measures on China. Chinese could not appreciate this as they thought that this was China’s internal affair and hardly a matter of international debate.

Thus again the Tiananmen Square brought in sharp focus the different approaches and different world views of these two big powers. This issue was exacerbated further by Fang Lizhi affair that strained the relations between the countries further. Fang Lizhi, a physicist and a former member of the Party took refuge in the American embassy in Beijing in the wake of reprisals that followed the clearing of the Tiananmen Square. Earlier, in the same year there had erupted a controversy over Fang Lizhi getting an invitation at the Dinner at American Embassy when George Bush, the American President was visiting China. It was really a diplomatic gaffe on part of the embassy then; however, in the wake of the Tiananmen reprisals the American embassy gave shelter to Fang Lizhi and his wife.   The Sino American relations post-Tiananmen came to depend on final solution to Fang Lizhi affair.  And ultimately at the highest level, and after much behind-the-scene-private-working, Deng, at the suggestion of Henry Kissinger, agreed to   allow Fang Lizhi leave China on   condition that he would not make much noise and embarrass China. But in exchange of  this gesture that showed China in a more positive light post-Tiananmen, Deng also secured reversal of sanctions and other measures against her from the United States.

These examples show how both the countries were eager to continue relationships despite vast differences between their perceptions, approaches and values.

Future of Sino American Relations

Sino American relations developed during cold war and sustained despite fundamental differences, and this was mainly due to   compulsions of the cold war.  Now with cold war over and Soviet Union sufficiently weakened, one may ask what the future of the Sino-American relationship is. This question needs to be seen not only in the context of a weakened Soviet Union, but also in the context of a vastly strengthened China, whose formidable economy is becoming a subject matter of global discussion. It also needs to be seen from the perspective of a fast tiring out United States who finds its manoeuvring and its missionary policing of the world a lot irrelevant and self-defeating.   What is the future of the Sino American relationship in this scenario? Or will they compete with each other as the US and the USSR competed militarily? Will they be able to remove mutual fears and apprehensions and co-operate in the new emerging world order?

Henry Kissinger devotes last pages of his book to a comprehensive   discussion on these issues. He appears fairly ambivalent, if not pessimistic.   He feels that although so far China and America   have sailed safely together, their relationship in future may not always be that smooth.  He feels that the cultural, historic and strategic gaps in the perception pose formidable challenges for even the best-intentioned and most far-sighted leadership on both the sides. And hence he feels that both the countries would have to work very hard together to steer clear of the disturbances.

 Despite this masterful discussion where Kissinger presents various strands of this issue, one still wonders why his discussion again and again fails to rise above the considerations and details of strategies, advantages and realities of politics. This is the language of the professional diplomat, the view of a cynical and continuously doubting scholar who, although he has a grand view of the history yet misses the spirit that governs the peace and understanding among the comity of nations and   the behaviour of statesmen who  preside over the destinies of people.  Statesmen do listen to   professional diplomats and their concerns, and they should. However, history shows that at critical juncture and at defining moments, some statesmen rise much above their own self during their engagements. During such moments they listen carefully to the dialogue the history holds with the present, the grand dialogue that one period holds with another, and also the dialogue that is suffused with existential wisdom.  These are the moments in which universal peace and harmony is born. 

Kissinger has captured such moments in his book, especially, in the formative period of this relationship. We should wonder why he fails to invokes such moments while discussing the future of Sino American relationship.

Octavio Paz : Locking Horns with Writers

“On Poets and Others” is a book of essays by Octavio Paz, the great Nobel Prize Winner poet, essayist, thinker and diplomat from Mexico. It contains essays on remarkable poets, thinkers and philosophers, novelists and literary personalities  he met in his life. Although some of the subjects and persons  he writes on  appear   rather dated, the themes and topics he discusses are still   relevant today.    

What would you expect when one of the greatest poets   writes in polemical and stylish prose on such issues as dissent of the intellectuals or the decadence of an ideology or comments on the increasing psychic schism and divided conscience of modern man?   He may not be always right, and sometimes you will find him not very agreeable; and yet he will engage you, allure you.  The poets, intellectuals and other literary personalities, which are really his subjects of writing, come in the picture as if incidentally.  He writes on them with love and penetration, but in the process he unfolds something much larger and greater. He creates a World of his own.  

Amongst the poets there are Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and Charles Tomlinson.    His essay on Robert frost   captures some magical moments of interaction between the  two when young Paz calls on old  Robert Frost on his Vermont farm.   Robert Frost speaks to him on  how he sees the world around him and how he communicates with  stones, farms, trees,  hills, knolls and everything around him.  They speak on relationship of poet with his tradition; they speak on how poet challenges tradition, creates the language for his poetry and how he creates a new world of his own.  They agree readily that solemn poets, humourless professors and howling prophets are dangerous entities and be best avoided.     People cannot face the reality of the self that descends on them in solitude, and hence they are in search of new schemes that give them speed and restlessness.  The tragedy is that man is running away from himself, says Frost.   Paz beautifully recaptures and plays the tunes of magical moments of their meeting on the Vermont farm.

Other essays cover such personalities and subjects as Dostoevsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jean Paul Sartre, Jose Ortega Y Gasset and others. All these are brilliant pieces and narrate the writer's encounters with great minds. They  constitute an insightful commentary on how writers and intellectuals engage with the world which they help shape.  I shall briefly discuss only three essays from this collection: essays on Dostoevsky, Sartre and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

 He argues that though Dostoevsky wrote in the nineteenth century, he is still a modern writer and his writings always appear contemporaneous and relevant to our times. Dostoevsky very competently explores the working of the mind of the modern man that is torn by various forces. It is the fragmented soul and the divided conscience that he explores in his writing and it is, argues Paz, very relevant to our times.  In eighteen sixties and seventies, in his writings Dostoevsky portrayed consciousness of full many generations that were to rule   Russia in future. Dostoevsky was describing something in his writing that actually came into being later in twentieth century. Stavrogin and Ivanov who ultimately commit suicide in “Demons” (or “Devils”) are the victims of nihilism and are possessed by a peculiar spirit that is indicative of the coming of the Russian Revolution, its ideology and absence of the process of dialogue. Ideologues do not enter into a dialogue. They rant and make speeches and indulge in soliloquies and impose on others what transpires from this spirit possession. It is depiction of this consciousness, argues Paz that is the sign of Dostoevsky’s authentic writing.   

 I think Octavio Paz’s analysis of the modern consciousness is very correct and appropriate. It needs to be added that in the twentieth and twenty first century this process of fragmentation of the self is further   accelerated by uneven economic development, barriers of cultures and traditions and absence of dialogue and communication.    Whichever way one looks, fragmentation of the self, lack of wholesomeness and   resulting fractured and distorted vision of the world constitutes  a large part of our existence with which we have to come to terms.

 While we can agree with Paz in hailing Dostoevsky’s portrayal of the Self in the modern world as very authentic and realistic, we need to mention that Dostoevsky presents many problems to his readers.  Amongst his novels, the “Crime and Punishment” is deep and philosophically engaging, and the “Brothers Karamazov” succeeds in depicting the existential dilemma of living authentically in the modern world. Both these novels and especially “Brothers Karamazov” repose faith in life and warn against abstraction of life. However,   affirmation of life comes so late and through such tortuous path that winds its way through violence, poverty and depravity that one wonders whether Dostoevsky was really aiming for these at all. Moreover, Dostoevsky’s glorification of the strange mixture of Russian tradition and religion, not to say his maudlin and sentimental scepticism of the West leaves one wondering and somewhat confused.    His other   novels, especially  “The Idiot”, present a very garbled vision   of man.  While, therefore, Paz’s fresh insight into Dostoevsky’s writing is welcome,   to an ordinary reader Dostoevsky’ world still appears dark, sombre and ambiguous.

  

 Was Dostoevsky a nihilist?   Paz answers that he was not.   There is no doubt that as a young person he was a revolutionary. However, as time passed he increasingly came to identify himself largely with the Russian tradition and old Christianity. Much of his writing was critical of not only nihilism but also of the western influences that were trying to undermine the local tradition. Dostoevsky, argues Paz, refuted both, nihilism and western ideas.  Even in “Crime and Punishment”, Raskolnikov, another product of the then extant Russian nihilism, ultimately realizes the value of human life. This again confirms Dostoevsky’s position as a novelist of the modern rising consciousness in the traditional societies that were being assailed by western ideas and modernity.  

 Paz’s essay on Dostoevsky, though at times bordering on oversimplification and at other times deliberately avoiding complexities, is a great testimony to his love for Dostoevsky. But more than that, its vision, lyricism and flow demonstrate with lucidity the   organic relationship between affairs of a nation and its literature.

Paz’s essay on Sartre too is very trenchant and insightful. Though unusually and highly critical of Sartre, the essay has great style and it shows power the pen can wield in destroying myths and reputations.  The essay very directly indicts Sartre, and I have rarely come across writing that demolishes anything so brutally and with such force.    He says that as a philosopher Sartre was certainly very formidable but that also underlined his limitations. Sartre may have been very scholarly, but much of his work was a continuation of others, such as Heidegger for example, without whom Sartre’s work could not have existed independently. As an artist, Paz says, Sartre had his limitations. He did not possess   creative powers and   capacity of a novelist to create the world and to populate it with   characters. His writing was full of abstractions and lacked authenticity. It did not, somehow, connect with the real world.  But he had great passion and emotion with which he debated and argued.  There was so much of passion and emotion in his thought and writing that it removed his writing farther away from reality. His hobnobbing with Marxism turned out to be a serious matter as it lent respectability to Marxism and in a strange way prolonged its tenure longer than was natural to it. Although, later on he admitted his mistakes of judgment in this case, he had already gone so far as to assert that all the leftist autocrats were at heart great non-violent souls and merely carried a mask of violence for the sake of appearances. 

We all  have read writers who have denounced Sartre and showed him up as a hypocrite and a diabolical intellectual machine. But Paz appears to be doing more than this in far less words. Sartre has rightly been criticized from many groups and many sides. And yet I find this assessment of Sartre rather harsh and one sided.  Mistakes of judgements by ordinary people are usually seen as blunders when they are committed by great men. This is what perhaps happened to Sartre.   One feels that before judging Sartre so harshly, Paz should have recorded, for sake of fairness alone, Sartre’s contribution too.    Sartre   revolutionized the whole world of intellectuals and gave it power and prestige.  His intellectual contribution during Resistance Movement during the Second World War was greatly hailed and became a world event.  Sartre was honest, intellectual, philosophical and fiercely independent, not amenable to compromising with powers. He gave voice to intellectuals and demonstrated how intellectuals can speak up to the power.  Had Paz mentioned some of his contributions perhaps the essay would not have looked as prejudiced as it looks!

Paz’s two essays on Alexander Solzhenitsyn too are very remarkable and insightful. Hailing Solzhenitsyn’s work “The Gulag Archipelago” as important he dwells at length on the various threads of Solzhenitsyn’s dissent and explores its anatomy. And in that he offers some very important insights into Russian history.  He argues that Solzhenitsyn’s dissent is not an ordinary dissent of an intellectual reared in western tradition that centres on individualism and   political freedom.  Solzhenitsyn speaks from an ancient tradition, and that his ancientness is that of the Old Russian Christianity that has passed through the central experience of the twentieth century---the dehumanization of the totalitarian concentration camps----and has emerged intact and strengthened.  While agreeing with Solzhenitsyn’s criticism of the Russian regime he also brings out Solzhenitsyn’s limitations especially his partially blind world view that is mired in some typical traits of Russian history.  Paz, in this essay, has done some very skillful tight-rope-walking here; and reading this essay is a tribute to his graceful and lucid writing that tends to seek both, truth and justice.  

I have already said in the beginning that   a few subjects that Paz handles here appear dated somewhat in perspective! And yet I would say the collection of essays is worth reading simply because despite globalization, the world has really not changed as much as we think. The Russian state   has still not been able to extricate itself from the historical clutches of its traditional bureaucracy; if anything Putin’s Russia appears as picturesque as portrayed by Paz.   Hubris and   arrogance of the western democracies that he discusses here have not abated a whit!  And Paz’s observations that the systems of local and traditional beliefs, especially in the emerging Eastern and Southern economies would evoke a strange ensemble and would play increasingly important role in world economy and politics also appear correct!

Even if, therefore, the collection of essays was published in 1986, it still makes sense to read Octavio Paz;  for the wisdom he brings with his essays is rare and unique.

Umberto Eco : Speaking Mahatma's Language

Umberto Eco is one of the finest novelists of our time.  He is also an important philosopher, a great scholar of semiotics and aesthetics of the medieval period. Some of his brilliant novels include “The Name of Rose”, “Baudolino”, “Foucault’s Pendulum” and “The Island of the Day Before”.   Although  an Italian, Umberto Eco represents represents rich European tradition and culture.

 “Turning Back the Clock” is his latest collection of fine essays on war, peace and media populism in our times. These   essays focus on the major world events that occurred between 2000 and 2005.  Eco sees in the pattern of these events something that is fundamentally new and   unprecedented.  So much so that he   wonders whether we are not going back in history and remarks, “Almost as if history, breathless after the leaps forward made in last two millennia, is drawing back into itself, returning to the comfortable splendours of tradition”.  This theme  returns and haunts his essays as he brilliantly takes up one topic after another.

Are we really going back in time? 

That things would go somewhat back, he argues, was indicated by the events that followed the fall of the Berlin wall. The return of  Afghanistan at the centre of the global prospects of peace after fifty years of   cold war, modern versions of traditional crusades, the resurgence  of anti-Darwinian polemics, reappearance of Christian fundamentalism, streaks of fascism here and there, Eco argues, may be signs of history being rewritten.  It is not possible to comment on all the essays here. It is, however, possible to list briefly the concerns  he addresses in his essays.  Eco appears to worry on three counts.

 First he draws attention to widening gulf between people’s aspirations and its understanding by politicians.  He is rightly worried about the increasing disconnect between people and their rulers and politicians. Especially he is worried about the unthinking wars that were launched by major democracies and their political leaders. That today’s politicians and statesmen rarely care to listen to  dialogue history holds with the present is one serious complaint he voices.  This is further exacerbated by their excessive dependence on experts and technocrats.

 He is further worried by the media populism that is generating lot of confusion in the minds of people by resorting to simplifying the terms of intelligent debates and converting important debates into Manichean “yes or no” polls.

And lastly he is worried by the increasing power of technology over science which he says may spell disaster for man. The universe of technology is encroaching on man’s sphere of autonomy, volition and reason. This is the fear he expresses in his important essay on science and technology.

Eco’s essays, brilliant and insightful, speak the language of truth and non-violence. They    examine many aspects of our existence and plead for more reason and more wisdom. Though erudite, his essays speak    universal language of peace and reason. I shall go further and say   that many essays in this collection speak the Gandhian language of Truth, Non-violence and Universal Peace. 

Magical world of technology : Are we jettisoning reason?

   

For constraint of space I shall mention only one essay, “Science, Technology and Magic”   that demonstrates how close he is to Gandhi. Eco argues in this essay that in our daily life and especially in mass media, the terms science and technology are interchangeably and wrongly used with the result that science and technology are often presented as magic in human life. Science and its investigations are more philosophical in nature and they underline the relationships between  cause and  effect.  Science tries to comprehend and understand the world.  Technology, on the other hand, gives power to human beings. This is the power of getting anything done by just pressing a button. An ordinary man does not care to understand the principles of science on which technology is based. He is more interested in getting things done quickly, by pressing a button and summoning at his fingertips great power and extra-ordinary intelligence. Technology encourages taking short cuts to  relationship between cause and effect and goes directly to harnessing power by pressing a button. We are so much used to  fast and instant results given by technology   that the whole thing resembles working of magic.

           Eco is very insightful on the issue of technology. And he perhaps voices concerns that were shown by a galaxy of great thinkers and activists that would include Tolstoy, Thoreau, Goethe and Mahatma Gandhi.    This attitude of the modern man of pressing a button for getting things done, and neglecting the processes of science   for attaining all kinds of pleasures and privileges and successes is abominable.   The philosophy of technology is to get maximum convenience and pleasure at no costs.  It is this that lies at the core of all evil: trying to get everything in the world without paying a price for it.    If this is what we do and if magic and its power is all the language we speak and understand, then somehow we are jettisoning reason from our social and human discourse---a serious matter with grave consequences for Man. Science is supposed to extirpate all magic and establish a Universe of Reason. But with complex technology and its instant, naked and brute power of pressing a button, the Universe of reason slowly gives way to the    Universe of Magic; and then this Universe of magic and power returns with all its dark portents and ranting soliloquies of triumph over the nature.

      Mahatma's language

            It is this universe of magic that Eco fears the most. And it is this fear of wielding unthinking power without ever trying to evolve spiritually that made Mahatma Gandhi and other traditionalists look to science and technology with suspicion. Mahatma Gandhi   hated lofty   technology for the simple reason that in course of time its magical and easily exercisable power would somehow dehumanize man’s relationship with himself and with the nature. Over years Gandhi may have slowly and perhaps carefully allowed some bare minimum technologies in his moral and ethical universe; however, his philosophical opposition to all technologies sprang from his fear of power flowing through science and technology and blindness it causes in human beings. Had I not read this powerful essay I would have never known how close Eco and Mahatma are on the issue of technology and power that flows from it.

The longish essay titled “The Return of the Great Game”, describes how Afghanistan has remained a thorny issue for about two centuries and how despite the world undergoing vast changes, it returns and occupies the centre place in the architecture of war and peace  of the world. And he does it through a number of anecdotes and stories of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson that have a reference to Afghan war and in which Dr. Watson had been wounded. This  essay is remarkable, both for its contents and its style.

 This volume has other essays on emerging fundamentalism, media populism, on war and on our dreams.  They are written with great style and poise and they sparkle with wit and humour. They present to us a gleam of the changing world and try to give meaning to the events that are unfolding around us. And I think that all intelligent and thinking people should read them.

 As to Eco’s fear, whether history will move backwards we cannot say anything.   However, the concerns he underlines are important and statesmen and decision makers should stop for a moment to ponder over them.  Every generation and its thinkers feel that they are living in unique times and amid great and mind blowing events that are set to bring great change. History does sometimes come back and sometimes plays out remaining parts; and, therefore, there is a need to learn lessons from history and gain some insights. Eco’s fear may be genuine but then history is perhaps the most wily and elusive discipline and proves mankind wrong every time something is predicted.  At least I do not think that history is going back or we should be pessimistic about our future unless we ourselves will that way, lose hope hand over  ourselves to the dark and retrograde  powers that wait for an opportunity.

 In the aftermath of the Berlin wall being pulled down Francis Fukuyama wrote  his celebrated piece “The End of the History…..” and majestically declared that  directional history has come to an end. Nobody, not even Fukuyama, really believed that   history has thus ceased to flow in   Hegelian or a Marxist sense. In the meanwhile   capitalism has undergone substantial changes and finds itself in a crisis; but the world has not ceased reading and studying Marx and Hegel. Eric Hobsbawm informs us that in   Marx’s birth centenary year, he was retained by a large American Airlines to write an article on “The Communist Manifesto” in the airline’s on-flight magazine. If  capitalism has gone that far, surely we  shouldn’t be afraid of history coming back and playing out remaining parts!

Although, therefore, Eco’s essays are very good I find his fears somewhat  unfounded!

Hind Swaraj and Evolution of Mahatma Gandhi

Recently, while Anna Hazare was fasting against corruption, there was an unsavory confrontation between his activist followers and the parliamentarians and it sufficiently muddied   our public life.    A friend of mine wrote to me a mail pointing out that there was nothing wrong perhaps in slamming the parliamentarians, for even Mahatma Gandhi had called the British Parliament “a whore” and “a sterile woman that produces nothing” in his classic work “Hind Swaraj”. The logic was that if the great Mahatma could describe the institution of parliament in such derogatory words, there was nothing wrong in hitting out at the parliament or the parliamentarians.

It is a fact that Mahatma Gandhi did describe British Parliament in these words. However, somehow, I did not feel that my friend was quoting Gandhi correctly and in context.  Quoting a great man in support of our arguments of today is   a problem, for often what he said on that occasion was appropriate to that particular stage of his development. Great men evolve continuously. Today they are not what they were yesterday and what comes from them cannot be quoted as gospel truth. Further, people learn mostly from their experience of life and therefore they are often at frontiers in creating and recreating new universe of experience and meaning for the benefit of the humanity.   Mahatma Gandhi said that the truth was his pole star and that he went wherever his pole star led him.  But following the pole star is not a simple thing.  There are often embarrassing discontinuities, singular points, false leads and sure setbacks.   Should we not then take more precaution in quoting great men?

  Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in 1908 while he was returning to South Africa. Gopal Krishna Gokhale whom Gandhi regarded as his Guru found the book utterly detestable and described it as crudely written. Anybody who reads the book even today would agree with Mr. Gokhale. “Hind Swaraj” is not a commentary on the western political system; it is not a constructive argument that advances an acceptable alternative to our existence.  Its canvas is much larger. It is a thoroughgoing and acidic criticism of the Modern  Civilization.   It negates everything with great force and vigor.   Gandhi denied everything that we adore today. He denounced with special force modern health care, hospital systems, railways, technology, science and practically all modern institutions that go with our life.   

But what is important, and what is not acknowledged is that the Mahatma gradually veered round, though very slowly and imperceptibly; and he substantially changed his position in course of time.   He himself acknowledged such shifts in his opinions and did   mention that in view of the dynamics   of life, no one should quote him out of context. He also further said that if he is to be quoted at all, his latest views on the subject should be referred to.   That is also perhaps a reason why he shuddered at the thought of being canonized by his followers and the laity!

Gandhi changed his views, at least in practice substantially since the publication of “The Hind Swaraj”; though his moral vision was largely defined by “The Hind Swaraj”.  By mid nineteen twenties he was making concessions to some “genuinely good and friendly technologies and machines” such as Sewing Machine for example. His opposition to technology sprang mainly   from fear of human beings being enslaved by the machine. He opposed it also on the ground that machine may replace man and bring upon large scale unemployment.

  

 His opposition to railways had vanished too early and we can say at least this safely, that no Indian statesman traveled so much, so frequently and so easily across the breadth and the length of this country by railway as Gandhi did.   Following Gokhale’s advice Gandhi traveled ceaselessly across the country for over a year, mainly by railway, after he had come to India from South Africa.

Thus Gandhi went on changing his views, but what is important is that he took responsibility for changed views. A Gandhi who would not, in early nineteen twenties, easily agree to the inter-caste marriage of his son, changed so much, that by late nineteen  thirties he would attend marriages only if they were inter-caste marriages. Gandhi, who   dominated his wife in the style of a typical traditional Hindu male chauvinist, increasingly regarded her friend in later life.   In an age when women generally did not come out of the house, Kasturba used to sit along with him on dais in public life.   Importantly,   it was under Mahatma that the Indian women came out in large numbers in social and political movements and fought along with the men folk.  

Gandhi may have called, in his youthful, forceful and rather nihilistic tone, the British Parliament “a whore” and “a sterile woman that produces nothing…”, and yet in 1933 he led the Indian delegation to England for the ‘Round Table Conference” to parley with the British Government and to demand from them Parliamentary System and Dominion Status for India.  And again in the forties we see his enthusiasm for parliamentary system and the representative democracy.

But perhaps an important phase in his life, according to me, unfolded during his   meaningful dialogue and close relationship with the young Jawaharlal Nehru. Although philosophically they were worlds apart, they were and remained very close to each other;  they argued long and ardently, each trying to convert the other to his point of view. Gandhi came to issues from tradition; Cambridge educated Nehru was thoroughly modern. Gandhi suspected science and technology; Nehru considered science and technology as key to human progress. Gandhi glorified villages, simple life and primitive economy; Nehru was practical when it came to technology and economy. But they had a strong common bond in that they both strongly believed in basic human values, democracy, dignity of human beings and non-violence.  Though nothing happened on the surface, Gandhi perhaps yielded sufficiently. And about Jawaharlal, we can only say that he had lost to Gandhi completely since the time Gandhi came in his life.    Evolution of the Mahatma over the years and silent submission of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Mahatma are perhaps of one piece and form  the most beautiful and engrossing poetry that flows alongside the story  of our struggle for freedom.

Today “Hind Swaraj” appears a far cry and may serve as a moral vision and a youthful dream of a yet evolving great statesman and it can be used for a limited purpose of explaining the origin of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas. Every thinker has a moral vision that is at once inchoate and primitive and this moral vision lies deeply rooted in his psyche.  “Hind Swaraj” should not, I believe, be   quoted in the context of a movement that is conducted in a democratic framework for its tone is sufficiently nihilistic.

  Lastly, “Hind Swaraj” was written largely under the influence of Tolstoy and in a Tolstoyan language, the deliberate high language of the great preacher of humanity.  Later on Gandhi came on his own; and in nineteen twenties, thirties and in forties he evolved uniquely in his own way through his own experience. And he left Tolstoy much behind.

 I regard Gandhi as a great nihilist in the tradition of a motley collection of mainly western spiritual nihilists such as for example Tolstoy. But Gandhi was very shrewd in dealing with his innate nihilism. He said that he rejected all technology and all machine including his body that is also a machine of some sort.  But as all mystics of all spiritual faiths--- Eastern, Western and mystics of all hues-----allow some tenability to the Body, (for without it the  existence and the whole range of spiritual experience including Moksha  is impossible)  he also allowed in his own way, various physical forms such as  technology, social relations and political organization  for  a bare minimum. This was a practical arrangement that served his purpose and his mission of spiritualizing politics and social life.

Incidentally, I feel that Tolstoy and Gandhi, the two great nihilists, evolved in their respective lives in opposite directions. Tolstoy started as a great and accomplished artist and an aesthete, working creatively with different themes and different colors. Perhaps, he could not control his innate nihilism and hence ended with an extreme vision that denied everything; so much so, that ultimately   he rejected even his own creative works. Gandhi, on the other hand, started in a singular Tolstoyan vision and evolved over time and ended  with an inclusive vision.