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| QUOTATIONS 1043-1059 |
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| 1043. All successful, long lasting relations, be it between the two individuals, an individual and a group, or between the two groups, are but the infinite variations of the one and the same theme - the mutual admiration society. For they all are kept alive by the reciprocal flattery, both tireless and inexhaustible. 1044. The one who is constantly driven by the overpowering, uncontrollable urge to generalize, as I am, has to be much more knowledgeable about numerous particular cases and details than those who never venture beyond them. For he should expect to be forever attacked by the enraged "particularists" trying to shatter his generalizations by using every possible exception to overthrow the rule, and be well prepared to defend the universality of truth from the singularity of relativism. 1045. Since nowadays only the most willfully ignorant and blatant racists can suggest that the national characteristics are genetically predetermined, and yet even the most orthodox universalist cannot deny the existence of this unique mixture of peculiar habits, manners of speech, culinary and artistic tastes, etc., that had come to be known as the national character (for one has to pretend to be deaf and blind to ignore the fact that the average Englishman's socio-cultural behaviour is somewhat different from that of the average Frenchman) the explanation has to be found for such obvious differences. Now, besides the undeniable influence of history and geography in general on the formation of a national character, another, more specific cause comes to mind, the one which to the best of my knowledge hasn't been offered yet in this regrettably little explored field of social studies, namely the importance of the dominant social class in society to set the tone for everybody else to imitate and to conform to, in a manner not unlike that of a strong, domineering personality of one individual moulding the group he is part of in his own image. This assertion is based also on the assumption that a class behaviour for all intent and purpose is universal, regardless of this or that particular country, that similar classes in different countries have a lot in common and that, for example, the English dairy farmer and his French counterpart would feel much more comfortable, language aside, with each other than with, let say, government bureaucrats in their respective countries. And the same rule applies, as far as class mores are concerned, to the middle class, industrialists, military, etc. But in each country, for whatever historical reasons, one class becomes politically, economically, socially and finally culturally predominant and begins to dictate from this position of dominance the norms and rules of conduct to the rest. And if this class stays in power long enough its specific mode of behaviour becomes equated with that of the whole nation. Thus, the origin and the pattern of the so-called British character can be derived from the stereotyped behaviour of the English middle class (or to be more precise, the upper portion of it) which began its rise to power in 18th century, reached its pinnacle in Victorian Britain, and still maintains its relative position of importance in today's England. To the lesser extent (for no other European nation was as isolated due to its island location as England) the other nations took their respective cues from their own predominant classes - Germans from the military aristocracy, Italians from their artists and artisans, Dutch from traders, etc. For one can easily find the traces of the specific class behaviour of these dominant sub-groups in the national character of their compatriots. And finally, as an afterthought - not a single political demagogue has ever lost by betting on this perhaps elusive and sometimes hard to define but nevertheless real national character in his quest for power. 1046. There are probably no other people on Earth that deserve less the name of a nation in the modern sense of the word than the Jews. Not only do they not share the same territory, state, language and culture, but even psychologically and spiritually 2000 years of dispersion all over the globe have brought about the situation when a German Jew has much more in common with his German compatriots than with his Russian co-religionists. And yet, against seemingly unsurmountable odds, even the Jews have managed to acquire some resemblance of a national character. For there is at least one inclination common to all Jews in the world, no matter where they live or what social position they occupy. Whether in Russia or Argentina, whether a carpenter or a lawyer a Jew always displays the unmistakable propensity to prophesy. As to the cause of this impulse, though one is tempted very strongly to trace it to the Biblical prophets, perhaps another reason more practical is fitting in this case. For given their history of endless persecutions and permanent uncertainty, the Jews more than anybody else had come to rely on the "correct" reading of the future to survive. To paraphrase the famous American expression, trying to guess whether you are going to be hanged the next morning, and if yes to find a way to escape before it's too late, concentrates one's mind wonderfully. 1047. There are few things that can pull people as far apart as trying too hard to get closer. 1048. The rapacious, the violent, the power hungry are never completely satisfied if what they crave for is simply given to them. For unlike the rest of us, their peculiar brand of pleasure, their true gratification is derived not from the mere possession of the desirable but from getting it by force, by crushing the resistance of the unyielding and unwilling to give in, from the sheer act of rape in all its various manifestations, shapes and forms. And if one is looking for some symbolic illustration of the above described phenomenon, a man who upon finding a prostitute he just hired already undressed and in bed orders her to get up, put the clothes on and resist him, should be a close one. 1049. Oh, how I envy the people who are not constantly driven by relentless compulsion to say something new, original or simply something of their own, like I am, but go through life contentedly parroting everybody else around them, seemingly not a bit distressed or embarrassed by endlessly repeating all those cliches, platitudes and common places currently in vogue. Yes, how do I sometimes envy them. But only sometimes. 1050. Most of the people most of the times in order to get what they want have to do what they don't. 1051. Some accuse us by what they say, the others by what they as individuals are. As, for example, the moral and the honest people accuse the immoral and the dishonest ones not so much by words of condemnation but mostly by their upright behaviour. The same applies to the approval. Some praise us with words the others by being the same as we are. 1052. Every young religion begins by criticizing the shortcomings of the old one, with most of criticism directed against its preoccupation with the external manifestations of faith and the neglect of its internal meaning, and ends up by doing exactly what it once condemned. For while the established religion relies heavily on symbolism, especially the visual one, of its rites and rituals, there is always a minority in its midst which is dissatisfied with such a superficiality and is looking for a deeper spirituality in its faith. And when this minority becomes sufficiently strong and self-assured it revolts against the established religion by denouncing first of all the disproportionate amount of attention paid to the symbolic or purely theatrical aspects of the religion at the expense of its essential message. But as these revolutionaries gain more and more followers, as their numbers grow, they begin, in order to keep their new flock from leaving, to develop gradually their own set of symbolic ceremonies and mysterious rituals unable to resist the craving of the masses for spectacle and entertainment. Judaism which started as a rejection of the polytheistic multiplicity of gods and the theatricality of the pagan worship in all its tremendous variety of images, colours, sounds, and movements by opposing this visual splendour with austerity and simplicity of a single deity without name or face, went on to develop in its mature and established as a state religion stage its own elaborate and numerous symbols, rules and regulations. When Christianity was born in the bosom of Judaism, the early Christians attacked this imposing edifice with the vengeance of zealots, all the while claiming that they come not to destroy but to fulfill and to restore Judaism to its original and unadorned spirituality, purpose and meaning. But as Christianity itself became the dominant religion, the Catholic Church created its own symbolic rites and rituals combining the excesses of both pagans and jews. The Protestants followed the pattern. Reformation also began by condemning the excesses of the Catholic Church, its obsession with the visual, largely ceremonial symbols and material aspects of religion at the expense of its spiritual and intellectual side. It stressed the primacy of knowledge of the Biblical text over the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic service. Yet, after establishing itself Protestantism restored some of it, albeit to a different degree in its different denominations. It must be acknowledged though that the emphasis on symbolism are much weaker over all in the Protestant churches than in Catholicism. Perhaps it is the result of the growing educational level of the believers, perhaps of the division within Protestantism, caused by the continuous competition between its various branches for the adherents, with their conflicting claims of the original purity of the Faith as the main attraction. But if Protestantism represents the trend, which is by no means certain considering that the Catholic Church is still the largest one with the hundreds of millions of followers, then as literacy and education spread, all religions, the old and especially the new ones will have to appeal more and more to heart and the head than to the eye and the ear. Though I personally doubt it, because the conflict between extrinsic and intrinsic, form and substance, body and soul, symbolic and essential is not new but deeply rooted in the different functions of senses and intellect. The senses perceive the extrinsic, form, body, and symbolic, the intellect contemplates the intrinsic, substance, soul, and essence. And since the act of sense-perception is immediate and effortless but the process of understanding is long and arduous, requiring substantial efforts, it is not surprising that only a small minority at any time and in every religion is willing to endure the hardship of the second, while the majority will always prefer the first as an easy way out. "What was will be again; what has been done will be done again." 1053. If what one is saying is not understood by the listeners, the two different explanations are possible. The first, that what has been said is very much above their heads and therefore is not the fault of the speaker, the second that the speaker has failed to make himself understood right away due to his inability to express himself clearly and concisely. Needless to say, the arrogant and lazy prefer the first explanation and accordingly wouldn't even make the slightest effort to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between them and the audience, while the modest and industrious will try again and again to reach out, if not all then at least half way. 1054. Not so long ago someone who preached one thing and did quite the opposite was called a hypocrite or worse. Nowadays, in our post-Freudian, psychoanalytic, all-explained-all-condoned age, such a person is described as a complex individual, or in the case of glaring, unpardonable contrast between ostensibly professed views and every day conduct, as the one having a multiple personality. 1055. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems obvious to me now, after having observed for many years different people and their relative degrees of success in life, that in order to achieve anything worthwhile one has to be driven primarily by the need to prove to others and to oneself that he is capable of more than what was expected of him at the beginning. Which explains why so many who had promised so much when young have failed so miserably later. For such an early acknowledgment of their abilities was apparently for many the sufficient reward in itself, and thus stunted the drive for it later in life by removing, right from the start, one of the main incentives of human striving. Besides, while such an early acknowledgment is obtained, as a rule, almost effortlessly, solely on the strength of one's congenital potentials, the actual fulfilment of the promises later requires hard and consistent work, which for someone who grew accustomed to easy success is very difficult to do. 1056. There are always some ambitious individuals, primarily men, who want above anything else to be a "dominant male" (blame the monkeys) wherever they are, and nothing less will ever satisfy them. In view of this, all human groupings like family, tribe, church, cult, political party, gang, etc. can be traced to such power hungry individuals who organize them to obtain this position of dominance. And if only the world had enough of these positions for all who crave for them, it would have been a much more peaceful place to live in. Unfortunately for the rest of us, though the number of such aspiring leaders is limited, there seems to be never enough positions of leadership to placate all of them. Hence the conflicts, the struggle, the strife, the sufferings which are continuously inflicted upon the majority of ordinary people by a small minority of eager for superiority Fuhrer wanabes, always in single-minded quest for obtainment and preservation of power. Are there any remedies against this universal plague? The citizens of the ancient Athens, forever wary of tyranny, used the custom of ostracism to banish the potential dictators from the city. But it seldom worked, for quite often the exiles would return to wreck bloody vengeance on their opponents. The modern democracy, which is much more sophisticated than the ancient one, deals with this social disease by providing the legitimate opportunities for creation of the seemingly infinite number of different human associations to allow the power hungry to get what they want with doing the least possible amount of harm to the rest. But as with the material greed, the lust for dominance is never fully satiated - the one who today rules a hundred wants to command a thousand tomorrow, and ten thousands the day after. And woe to them who are in his way. 1057. Several years ago when I had read my poetry for the first time in public, one of the listeners told me in a rather accusative manner that I wasn't the first to have expressed such particular sentiments or thoughts. I still remember being so chafed by this remark and so defensive at that moment that I actually demanded from the "accuser" to prove it by names and quotations. Nowadays I'm much more sanguine about the whole matter. First of all, it is not who said it first (for since "there is nothing new under the sun" in truth nobody knows it for sure) but who said it the best that counts. And even if I haven't done it any better but only differently than anybody else before me and, most of all, independently, I still have a consolation of being in such an illustrious company of like minded poets and thinkers and my only regret is that most of them had been dead for a long, long time. Moreover, one should rejoice rather than lament the fact that others have written before what he is writing now. For I strongly believe that the main purpose of writing is to dialogue with someone out there, who would truly understand what you are saying, and finding out that there were or are actually people who felt and thought exactly like you do now, makes one feel somewhat less lonely in this huge and indifferent world. 1058. At some, hard to pinpoint stage in literary history, evidently sick and tired of rhyming "bright" with "flight" or "heart" with "art", the modern poets began to look for the refuge from the banality of the well-trodden ways in the non-rhymed free verse, bordering on and often almost indistinguishable from the rhythmic prose. Alas, this did not make them immune to the disease of the commonplace obsolescence they so eagerly sought to escape since no artistic form, no matter how innovative and fresh it looks at first, can be protected from misuse and abuse when hundreds and hundreds of artists begin to replicate once proven successful pattern, and in the process turn new into old, original into worn out, fresh into stale. For the form, regrettably for those obsessed with it, can only carry one so far, but at the end nothing can substitute for the content, the disappearance of which was the next logically inevitable trend in this quest for liberation and innovation. For once being freed from "rhyme' why not to free oneself from "reason" as well, since there is something exhilaratingly liberating in discarding the constrains of the accepted and the conventional, the largely precipitous process which starts like a tentative snowflake but quickly gains speed and force until finally turning into an avalanche sweeping away in its path all the rules and norms hitherto considered universally sacred. 1059. Imagine, if you can, Isaiah meeting Jeremiah (or if you wish put any other prophets in their place). Would they have anything (besides yet another drought in Negev desert) of mutual interest and importance to talk about? I doubt it very much. For if they prophesy the same thing, then what one has to say would sound like a broken record or a tiresome echo of his own voice to another. And if their prophecies are contradictory, then considering the single-minded certainty the prophets usually possess, they would probably immediately label one another as a false prophet or worse. Which brings us quickly to the point I'm trying to make, which is that what your average prophet needs is the appreciative audience of credulous listeners, whose usual concerns seldom go beyond the next paycheck, and the last thing he ought to do is to try to share his latest revelation with another prophet, who is of necessity his rival, for there could not be several futures equally true to come - one inevitably will cancel all the rest. Now, coming down from the prophetic heights to the somewhat less elevated grounds of mere intellectuals, it is obvious that even they have a hard time relating to each other. For there is no true intellectual, worth his propositions and conclusions, that doesn't fancy himself to be at least a minor prophet, and therefore naturally treats all other intellectuals as rivals or impostors and imitators, having the gall to claim as their own "the revealed truth" which rightfully belongs to him as its first discoverer. |
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