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April 9, 2000
Since we’ve recently been joined by several new subscribers, I’d like to say a few words about how I was introduced to philosophy and literature, and about my general approach to philosophy and literature. I became acquainted with philosophy and literature at age fifteen. Until then, I was interested mainly in sports, like other American youngsters. But when I stumbled across a world history textbook, a textbook that had been written for youngsters, the whole world of culture was suddenly revealed to me. The historical personage who caught my imagination most was Socrates, the ancient philosopher who was famous for discussing ideas in the marketplace. I became enthralled by Greek culture, and when my dentist gave me ether, I dreamed of Greek culture. I was not alone in being enthralled by Greek culture. The Romans, too, were enthralled by Greek culture, and so were the Renaissance Italians, and so was Nietzsche. Western civilization as a whole has followed the trails first blazed by the ancient Greeks. Only in the 20th century has Western civilization strayed from these Greek trails. My youthful infatuation with the Greeks gave me a deep feeling of kinship with the Western classics, with the heritage of Western civilization, and a deep feeling of alienation from 20th-century culture, from “modern art,” from everything “modern.” What I’ve attempted to do in my writings is to resurrect the tradition, to continue the tradition. If I’ve been successful in the field of philosophy, if I’ve breathed new life into the tradition, then surely others may succeed in imaginative literature, visual art, music, etc. I hope that my writings will inspire people with the belief that one can be faithful to pre-20th-century traditions, and at the same time create works that are original; the adjectives “traditional” and “original” can be applied to the same work. The first philosophical work that made a deep impression on me was a work by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, a work called Meditations. The aphorisms of Marcus Aurelius persuaded me to live a Stoic life. Other writers later persuaded me to live according to a different philosophy. Thus I was introduced to philosophy by living philosophy, I treated philosophy as a method of living, a set of values, not as a purely intellectual exercise. The next philosopher who caught my imagination was the French philosopher Montaigne. Here, too, philosophy was a set of values, a method of living, but Montaigne had something that Marcus Aurelius didn’t have: a love of literature and literary tradition, a desire to carry on a dialogue with earlier writers, a penchant for quotation. For Montaigne, the good life was (among other things) a literary life, a cultured life. Thus literature became more than a means of reaching truth, it became a kind of friendship, a kind of recreation, something to live for, part of the good life. And then I discovered Nietzsche. Nietzsche made a tremendous impression on me because, unlike Montaigne, he spoke directly to my generation, to me. While preserving classical taste and classical style, Nietzsche was modern, he understood the modern world, he understood the challenge of preserving culture in a democratic world, he understood the revolution in psychology that began with Schopenhauer and culminated in Freud. Furthermore, Nietzsche was preoccupied by a subject that was on the front of my mind: decadence, and its opposite, renaissance. With the help of Hegel’s theory of society as an organism, Nietzsche’s theory of decadence, and Freud’s theory of life- and death-instincts, I put together my own theory of decadence and renaissance, which constitutes my chief original theory, and which is set forth in the last chapter of my book, Conversations With Great Thinkers. Though I was interested in Nietzsche, this interest didn’t prevent me from being interested in other 19th-century thinkers, such as Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Ruskin. Nor did it prevent me from being interested in psychology, chiefly Freud and Jung. So my approach to philosophy was formed by modern thinkers, not by ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. My approach to philosophy was broad, and embraced all the humanities. I had little interest in philosophers like Kant, who defined philosophy more narrowly, and who emphasized metaphysics. Since I discovered Nietzsche about twenty years ago, the most important event in my development as a philosopher was my discovery of Zen, which happened in the last three or four years. I believe that Zen — which came to the West recently, about 100 years ago — represents a revolution in Western thought, comparable to the Copernican, Darwinian and Freudian revolutions. One of my goals as a philosopher is to preach Zen — the importance of Zen, the depth of Zen, the beauty of Zen — and to show how Zen is compatible with Western philosophy, indeed, represents the next chapter in the natural evolution of Western thought. If my dentist gave me ether now, I’d probably dream not of an ancient Athenian arguing in the agora, but of a Chinese or Japanese sage sitting in a mountain-top hut, sipping tea and watching the rain fall into the valley below. As for my present mode of life, I’m a part-time philosopher and part-time computer consultant. I have no connection with any university; I didn’t feel at home as an undergrad, so I never pursued any graduate-level education. The book discussion group that I organize recently read On Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. It’s a well-known book, a classic in its field. (Our discussion group looks for good books, regardless of their field, just as the Dallas Cowboys were once known for drafting the best athletes they could find, regardless of their position.) Kübler-Ross was a psychiatrist, a therapist, who worked with terminally-ill patients. Kübler-Ross argues that the process of dying usually occurs in five stages: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. The final stage, acceptance, is characterized by an acceptance of one’s fate and one’s mortality. What if someone reached this final stage, and then recovered, and lived on? This, I believe, is what happened to Nietzsche; he was gravely ill, he was expected to die, he reached the stage of acceptance of his fate and his mortality, and then he recovered. Nietzsche’s later works, beginning with his Gay Science, were written from beyond the grave, and often speak of amor fati, love of fate. Surely Nietzsche himself was aware of how much he owed to his illness, and how much he owed to the emotional instability that eventually caused him to go mad. Kübler-Ross speaks of a young woman, with young children, who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The young woman found this situation impossible to accept without the help of madness. As she approached death, she was able to accept her situation, and regain her sanity. While reading Kübler-Ross’s book, I was struck by how people can use insanity as a defense-mechanism. Insanity doesn’t always come upon us from outside, we create it ourselves as a response to our situation. But if insanity is voluntary, that doesn’t mean that insanity is faked; insanity has its roots in our unconscious being. When Nietzsche went insane, his friend said that he seemed to be pleased at how things had turned out, as if he wanted to go insane. Ten years later, when he was on the brink of death, he regained his sanity when he was shown a picture of his old friend Wagner. Apparently he didn’t need to wear the mantle of insanity when his life was ending. Thus Nietzsche’s insanity, like the insanity described by Kübler-Ross, shows that insanity is semi-voluntary, adopted in stressful times, laid aside when one’s race is run. Kübler-Ross says that our society is “bent on ignoring or avoiding death.” She advises us to face the reality of death before it faces us; “we should make it a habit to think about death and dying occasionally, I hope before we encounter it in our own life.” One who has accepted the reality of his own death can help others to face death: “It is the persistent nurturing role of the therapist who has dealt with his or her own death complex sufficiently that helps the patient overcome the anxiety and fear of his impending death.” One of the heroes of On Death and Dying is an Indian writer of poetry and fiction, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore’s work was praised by Western writers like Gide and Yeats, and Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913. More recently, his work inspired several movies by an Indian director named Ray. His writings still enjoy wide popularity in India. Kübler-Ross begins each chapter of Death and Dying with a quote from Tagore. These quotes prompted me to choose Tagore’s book Gitanjali for the next meeting of our discussion group. Tagore translated his own work into English, and he writes excellent English. But I find the poems in Gitanjali somewhat obscure; Tagore and I are on different wavelengths. In many of his poems, Tagore addresses God. Permit me to quote my favorite:
© L. James Hammond 2003 |