Max Horkheimer on Montaigne

Max Horkheimer's take on Montaigne is far harsher than that of Ivan Sviták. (See previous post and Sviták's essay on Montaigne.)

Horkheimer, Max. "Montaigne and the Function of Skepticism" (1938), in Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings, translated by G. Frederick Hunter, Matthew S. Kramer and John Torpey (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), pp. 265-311.

Horkheimer sees skepticism, especially in the bourgeois period, as fundamentally conservative. He lays out the contemporaneous situation viz. the rising bourgeoisie, intensification of labor exploitation, the rise of Protestantism and its effect on Catholicism, the indictment of Montaigne by fellow-reactionary Pascal. Horkheimer analyzes skepticism as bourgeois inwardness, religion as the indispensable irrationalist undergirding of bourgeois rationalist existence, Hume's skepticism as liberal bourgeois status quo, the skeptical ego (290) esp. from the early bourgeois to the imperialist epoch, skepticism's adaptation to tyranny, transformation of skepticism into conformism, nationalism and fascism in 1938, hatred of the masses and celebration of Montaigne in the 19th century, Nietzsche's admiration for Montaigne (303-4), Dilthey's conservatism and advocacy of Montaigne, D.F. Strauss's demythologization of Christianity and its compatibility with authoritarianism, Hegel's dialectics as a way out, materialist dialectics vs. the unity of thought and history.

Here are a few choice quotes:

 "Just as bourgeois individuals reserve philosophy for their leisure hours and thus turn it into idle thought, knowledge and critique are isolated in the society as particular aspects of business." [p. 289]

"The idiocy of the notion that an individual or collectivity can save itself or the world by conciliation with the spreading rule of violence has now become so patently obvious that it can only be understood as a thinly veiled sympathy with that rule, or as an anxiety about sunk capital." [p. 293]

"The further society develops, the more obviously this principle [bourgeois equality], and with it that of bourgeois freedom, reveal their internal contradictions. The continued dominance of this principle, the skeptical rejection of revolutionary activity, and the hostility toward critique of the totality thus have something cynical about them. They reveal subordination to irrational relations, not integration into rational ones." [p. 295]

"Skepticism is a pathological form of intellectual independence: it is immune to truth as well as to untruth." [p. 307]

Conclusion:

"To be sure, it is typical of skepticism, as well as of the dominant character as such, to ascribe the vulgar motives--according to which alone the rulers of the world act--not to them and their principle, but to the idea of humanity itself. The difference here is that the critical theory which we espouse, in contrast to skepticism, does not make an antitheoretical absolutism of the insight into the inadequacy of things as they are and the transitoriness of cognition. Instead, even in the face of pessimistic assessments, critical theory is guided by the unswerving interest in a better future." [p. 311]

For noteworthy philosophical generalizations see esp. pp. 270-4, 278-9, 284-5, 290, 295.

Ivan Sviták on Montaigne

Once again:

Sviták, Ivan. The Dialectic of Common Sense: The Master Thinkers. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979.

This volume covers Montaigne, Voltaire, and Holbach (also published separately). I have added a link to the essay on Montaigne, which comprises pp. 1-42 of this book. The link is to a PDF file consisting of images of the text rather than true text.

It is a curious take on Montaigne, both praising him to the skies and analyzing the historical context and obsolescence of his philosophy. I am sure that this reflects Sviták's predicament under Stalinism. The extreme intellectual measures undertaken to escape reification remind me of Merab Mamardashvili in the USSR in a certain respect.

Descartes' Secret Notebook (3)

Aczel, Amir D. Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. xiv, 273 pp.

Now we come to Chapter 20: Leibniz's Quest for Descartes' Secret. Leibniz was attracted to aspects of Descartes' philosophy but was seriously repelled by it as well. Leibniz was critical of Descartes' principle of doubt, suggesting that degrees of doubt rather than absolute doubt be admitted in specific cases (209).

Some of Leibniz's major interests are outlined. I note a mutual interest with Descartes in Ramón Llull's ars combinatoria (210). After three years in Paris, facing the prospect of being recalled to Hanover, Leibniz urgently pursued his aim of inspecting everything that Descartes ever wrote. On June 1, 1676 he succeeded in gaining permission to view Descartes' hidden manuscripts. Scanning the Preambles, Leibniz, a Rosicrucian, recognized an oblique reference to the Rosicrucians (213). The secret notebook, De solidorum elementis, contained obscure formulas and figures. The geometrical figures were depictions of the five Platonic solids, and a connection to mysticism was evident. Leibniz began to copy the records, recognized what was going on, and added a marginal note (219).

Descartes' notebook disappeared, and Leibniz's papers on this subject remained undetected for two centuries. Several subsequent viewers of these documents failed to crack the code. Finally, in 1987, Peter Costabel published his analysis of Leibniz's copy of Descartes' manuscript (220). Leibniz had discovered that Descartes discovered a formula that generalizes the structural characteristics of the Platonic solids (221).

Chapter 21: Leibniz Breaks Descartes' Code and Solves the Mystery. Kepler had postulated a connection between the five Platonic solids and the spacing of the six known planets. Descartes found a formula for all polyhedra, but because others would connect this with Kepler and Copernicus, and so kept it to himself (225-229). Descartes' formula F + V - E = 2 inaugurates the field of topology. Euler discovered this formula, which was named after him.

Other misfortunes befell Descartes' legacy in the 17th century, when his works were proscribed by the Catholic Church and teaching of Cartesian philosophy banned in France. It wasn't until 1824 that his works were reprinted. Adrien Baillet came close to crediting Descartes' discoveries in his biography, but not being a mathematician, did not understand Leibniz's explanation and omitted publishing the information (230). Leibniz remained obsessed and ambivalent concerning Descartes, praising him while alleging limitations. Leibniz kept in contact with Cartesian scholars (231). Leibniz was at work developing the calculus. Concerned about the priority dispute with Newton, Leibniz would not have wanted to acknowledge an influence from Descartes (234-235).

Aczel adds an epilogue to this story. Descartes is seen as the great forerunner of contemporary astrophysics, heavily dependent on geometry linked to algebraic methods. The Platonic solids are n longer relevant, but . . . but satellite data obtained in 2001 supports the notion that the geometry of the universe as a whole fits the geometry of some of the Platonic solids (238-239). One new model posits the universe as an octahedron folded onto itself. The icosahedron and dodecahedron have also served as models.

It's a somewhat peculiar final tribute to Descartes, and Descartes' whole life story is a somewhat roundabout way of getting to discussing the mysterious notebook, but the story is nonetheless interesting, and, aside from the tribute to the mathematical and scientific geniuses of the early modern world, it reveals even more the peculiarities and complexities of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution.

Descartes' Secret Notebook (2)

Aczel, Amir D. Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. xiv, 273 pp.

Chapter 12 finds Descartes moving to Holland in 1628, meeting and eventually breaking with his friend Isaac Beeckman over claims about what Beeckman taught Descartes.

Descartes worked on his book Le Monde from 1629-1633. Descartes was a Copernican, but cancelled publication in November 1633 upon learning of Galileo's ordeal under the Inquisition. Descartes' situation was probably much safer, but he continued to steer clear of publication, fearing reprisals. Details follow.

Chapter 13 recounts Descartes' secret affair or marriage with a servant woman, Hélène Jans, which produced a daughter Francine. Descartes was devastated when Francine died in 1640 (p. 147).

Chapter 14 is devoted to Descartes' epoch-making 1637 work Discourse on the Method. Descartes' invention of analytical geometry was a revolutionary discovery. Chapter 15 details Descartes' solution to the ancient Greek mystery of doubling a cube—the Delian problem.

Chapter 16 concerns Descartes' friendship with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, hungry for knowledge of metaphysics, physics, and mathematics.

In Chapter 17 we find Descartes embroiled in confrontation with academics in Utrecht, chief among them Gisbert Voetius, who in opposing Cartesianism levelled the dangerous accusation of atheism. Cartesian philosophy was banned from the university. Ultimately, there was a vicious lawsuit which Descartes lost, and he had to issue a letter of apology to avoid imprisonment.

In Chapter 18 we approach the final chapter of Descartes' life, in which he is induced to come to Stockholm by Queen Christina. She lavished honors on him while others in the court were hostile. Tutoring the queen also cramped Descartes' lifestyle. Worse, as we see in Chapter 19, the Swedish climate did him in. He resisted until almost the end the quack cure of bleeding the patient, and then gave in, and then died. His last words were: "Ah, my dear Schluter, this is the time I must leave." (p. 197)

The fate of Descartes' remains is summarized here, but you can also read the whole story in Russell Shorto's Descartes’ Bones. Now we return to the story of what became of Descartes' locked box (202).This box contained copies of various correspondence and responses to critics, but also secret manuscripts—Preambles, Olympica, Democritica, Experimenta, Parnassus—and a notebook containing cryptic mathematical and other symbols. In the final installment, we shall review Leibniz's inspection of Descartes' notebook and the ultimate deciphering of the mysterious text.

Descartes' Bones & The Best of All Possible Worlds

I never got around to continuing my review of Russell Shorto's Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason, nor did I ever get around to reviewing Steven Nadler's The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil. The former has objective content that merits attention regardless of Shorto's spin on the subject suggesting a moral for our time. Shorto is a journalist. Nadler is a serious scholar of Spinoza and of that period. Here is a paragraph I wrote on 21 July 2010:

The last two books I'm reading are about early modern philosophy: Russell Shorto's Descartes’ Bones and Steven Nadler's The Best of All Possible Worlds. The latter is about the theological-metaphysical problematic of Leibniz, Malebranche, and Arnauld. [This] . . . coincidentally dovetails with parts of the former book, which I'm still reading. Nadler refrains from drawing too many conclusions from this material, unlike Shorto, who thinks like a shallow journalist in reading today's conflict between faith and reason into the past. However, one can draw more severe conclusions from Nadler's book, should one choose to adduce the evidence presented therein to condemn Christianity—not just religion in general but Christianity in particular. I will write about this, assuming I can catch up to my proliferating ambitions.

Descartes' Secret Notebook (1)

"The sciences are now masked; the masks lifted, they appear in all their beauty. To someone who can see the entire chain of the sciences, it would seem no harder to discern them than to do so with the sequence of all the numbers. Strict limits are prescribed for all spirits, and these limits may not be trespassed. If some, by a flaw of spirit, are unable to follow the principles of invention, they may at least appreciate the real value of the sciences, and this should suffice to bring them true judgment on the evaluation of all things."

   — Réne Descartes, Preambles

Aczel, Amir D. Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. xiv, 273 pp. (The above quote can be found on pp. 38-39.)

While I recommend reading this in hard copy, you have a number of online options at your fingertips. Begin with the Publisher description. You can also read a sample text.You can read the whole book online at scribd.com. And if you have a compelling need to download yourself a pirated copy, you can also download a compressed file from Megaupload.

I've written on this blog before on the burgeoning genre of popularized history of philosophy. Often the ideas themselves are shortchanged, but the biographical narratives are compelling and vividly portray the social contexts of the times. I have been especially rewarded by a complex of books whose narratives (unintentionally) bleed into one another; they could almost be grouped as volumes in a single series:

Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity;

Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World;

Steven Nadler, The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil;

Russell Shorto, Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason.

Aczel's book fits in here, too, especially as it intersects the narratives of Nadler and Shorto. While Descartes' coded secret notebook is ostensibly the subject of this book, it is in actuality a biography of Descartes, with the decoding of the notebook the climax of the tale. There are, of course, other biographies of Descartes. Here is one review:

Serfati, Michel. "Descartes, the Pioneer of the Scientific Revolution" [review of Desmond Clarke, Descartes: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2006], Notices of the AMS, vol. 55, no. 1, January 2008, pp. 44-49.

I have not found any awe-inspiring reviews of Aczel, but here are a few:

Book Review – Descartes’s Secret Notebook, 22 April 2009

Star Topology, 13 Jan. 2011

Descartes' Secret Notebook, Steve Zipp, 20 Jan. 2009

One interesting feature of this book is the incorporation of recent discoveries and scholarship concerning Descartes.

Aczel begins with an account of his encounter with Descartes' cryptic manuscript: actually, the original is lost, and Aczel is really looking at the insatiably curious Leibniz' transcription of Descartes' manuscript. Aczel recounts also how he came by the idea of writing this book. Then he tells the story of Leibniz's encounter with Descartes' hidden work. Some quotes from variously titled texts are adduced, along with Descartes' pseudonym Polybius. The encrypted notebook itself consisted of 16 pages, with alchemical and astrological symbols, obscure figures, and puzzling number sequences. Following this teaser, the book traces the entire course of Descartes' life.

Descartes was the progeny of a wealthy family, endowed also with a tremendous curiosity, an ability to master a variety of skills and a wide range of knowledge, with an especial brilliance in mathematics. He was particularly fascinated by Greek mathematics, and by the power and limitations of what the Greeks could construct with straightedge and compass alone. Descartes was also quite the adventurer, joining in several military escapades, apparently motivated by curiosity rather than partisanship, even taking the side of Protestants in some campaigns though he himself was a lifelong Catholic. (Descartes was a confident swordsman who on one occasion fended off a boatload of criminals he had hired who schemed to assault him and steal his money [pp. 93-95]. He also got caught up in a duel over a woman [pp. 123-125].) Because of his extraordinary ability to solve mathematical problems, Descartes befriended a Dutchman whom he met as a soldier, Isaac Beeckman. They shared a considerable range of knowledge. (Note Descartes' letters to Beeckman of March 26 and April 29, 1619 on Ramon Llull, pp. 47-48.) This is where Descartes' curiosity about mystical ideas was aroused.

Chapter 4 recounts the key dreams that inspired Descartes, his notations in the text Olympica, and the possibility of a meeting with Kepler. Chapter 5 concerns the Athenians' obstacle in doubling the size of the Apollo Temple, a mathematical problem that cannot be solved by straightedge and compass alone. The Delian Problem, as it is known, stumped the Greeks. Descartes' meditation on this problem led him to the mathematical revolution he initiated: the unification of geometry and algebra.

Chapter 6 details the key meeting with the mystic-mathematician Johann Faulhaber of Ulm. We also find a confirmation that Descartes planned to write a mathematical treatise under the pseudonym Polybius the Cosmopolitan. In his notebook Descartes used alchemical symbols used by Faulhaber (pp. 74-75). Faulhaber was interested in the Kabbalah as well as in alchemy. Descartes' solved Faulhaber's mathematical problems. While engaged in a military campaign in Prague, Descartes noted in Olympica on 11 November 1620 a great discovery (p. 79).

In the following chapter we are introduced to the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, or the Rosicrucians, who were cosmopolitan philosophical revolutionaries. Descartes was heavily influenced by the Rosicrucians, so much so that he had to publicly deny any such allegiance, whether or not he was covertly a Rosicrucian. (This rumor also disturbed his close friend Mersenne, a Catholic priest albeit more progressive than most.) Descartes was quite interested in occult matters, and the Rosicrucians were also leaders in mathematical and scientific investigation. Faulhaber was a Rosicrucian. Kepler at least had a Rosicrucian assistant, if he was not one himself. Leibniz, who examined Descartes' notebook, was a Rosicrucian.

I am leaving out of account several details of Descartes' life: his bon vivant lifestyle as well as his periodic retreats into solitude—in hiding even—his military adventures, his interests in women, his financial affairs, etc. The most puzzling aspect of Descartes' character is his investment but apparent detachment regarding military affairs. Aczel finally addresses this question at the end of Chapter 11, after detailing Descartes' participation as a scientific observer in the brutal siege of La Rochelle, in which the population was starved out in the course of its military defeat. Descartes had no animosity against the Huguenots, who were crushed by the Catholic power, or against Protestants in general, whom he had fought for. Aczel attempts to explain Descartes by noting that he was trained by the Jesuits and was inducted into and attracted to military order and structure. In the 17th century, war was conducted in a highly and visibly ordered manner. (pp. 129-130)

This might be one of the more telling indications of the contradictions of the birth of modernity. If I believed in the notion of "instrumental reason" as a fundamental explanatory category, here I would find a key target, as I would in the other unresolved dualities of religion and reason, occultism and science, omnipotent mind/immortal soul and mechanical body.

Roland Boer on Terry Eagleton

Quailing Before the Real: Terry Eagleton on Ethics
[review of Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics]
By Roland Boer, The Hobgoblin, 1 December 2010

Roland Boer makes mincemeat of Eagleton's left Catholicism. I have doubts about Ernst Bloch as well. I will never ever trust the advocates of liberal or left religion.

Michel Onfray in Esperanto

I've blogged about Onfray on my Esperanto blog Ĝirafo several times, as I have on this one. Onfray is cited or mentioned from time to time in Le Monde Diplomatique en Esperanto. Onfray has subscribed to a petition regarding the acceptance of Esperanto in the French academic establishment: Campagne pour l'espéranto au bac, which advocates:

Pour toutes ces raisons nous demandons que l’espéranto soit ajouté à la liste des langues admises en tant qu’option au baccalauréat.

Now Onfray's Traité d'athéologie, which has been translated into several languages—in the USA it goes under the title Atheist Manifesto—is available in Esperanto translation: Traktaĵo pri Ateologio. I have blogged about this in Esperanto: Michel Onfray en Esperanto.

On this blog you will find my critical remarks about the ideological perspective underlying Onfray's work. I have not seen a critique in English that matches the thoroughness of this Russian Esperantist's critical review:

Ateismo subjektiva, limigita kaj katolika [An atheism that is subjective, limited, and Catholic] by Nikolao Gudskov

Gudskov cites a number of omissions in Onfray's historical account, but in addition to other specific criticisms, Gudskov criticizes Onfray's underlying methodology. Gudskov, who has no sympathy for Stalinism, nevertheless evidently learned something from historical materialism, as he insists that religion as a historical phenomenon cannot be understood as an abstraction isolated from the social factors that motivate it, and that the critique of religion cannot be limited to the critique of the Abrahamic religions or monotheism in general. He sums up Onfray's work as intellectually inadequate but useful as a popular work that articulates what fledgling atheists feel but have not yet fully articulated for themselves. I concur.

This is an interesting example of prevailing ideological differences among the intellectual cultures of different nations or linguistic spheres, in this case the French, Russian (formerly Soviet), and Anglo-American, though I should hasten to add that different intellectual cultures overlap said boundaries and can be found within them. Of course, Esperanto is not indispensable for overcoming provincialism nor does it by any means guarantee doing so. Nevertheless, it provides opportunities for dialogues among persons that would not exist otherwise.

Earl Browder, the Communist Party, & religion in the 1930s

It must have been at least twenty years ago I looked up what Earl Browder had to say about the Communist Party's policy toward religion: it was in an issue of The Communist published between 1933 and 1935, I think. While I can't find the appropriate issue on the Internet, a web search suggests that what I have in mind is the report of a 1935 discussion with a group of students at Union Theological Seminary. And there is this publication, which almost certainly reprints the article in question:

Browder, Earl. "Religion and Communism," in Communism in the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1935), chapter 22, pp. 334-349.

This is an entirely different publication:

Browder, Earl. Religion and Communism. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939. 16 pp. (Address delivered at the regular morning service of the Community church in Boston on March 5, 1939.) Also available via Scribd.

And there is this:

Browder, Earl. A Message to Catholics. New York: Workers Library Publishers, June 1938. 16 pp.

Programmatic statements do not, of course, give us a full picture of the orientation stated here in practice, especially, given that in the USA as elsewhere, the CPUSA had to ingratiate itself with a variety of religious populations. I have not systematically studied this period, so I will confine myself to a few stray references. The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II by Fraser M. Ottanelli depicts a sea-change in the Party's style with the advent of the Popular Front. An anti-communist study, Communism and the Churches by Ralph Lord Roy (Harcourt, Brace, 1960) credits Browder with putting a halt to the chronic ridicule of religion in the Party.

Naturally, this would be a treacherous minefield or tightrope to walk (take your metaphor of choice). I'm no fan of Browder, Stalinism, or pandering, but Browder's bold statements of 1935 should be studied today. In comparison to the flabbiness of the left today, they are exemplary.

Jean Anouilh’s Becket

I've always preferred literary art with a philosophical dimension. Case in point: the play Becket by Jean Anouilh. I was introduced to the play via the film starring Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, which I saw with a friend 35 years ago or more.

We were so impressed with this drama that some years later, my friend initiated a local theater production of it. It never panned out, but I can still remember the rehearsals. Though not an actor, I participated in reading rehearsals, playing an archbishop locked in a power struggle with the King. Tossing out veiled threats was, I admit, intoxicating, even in fantasy. Nothing says sadistic lust for power like the Catholic Church.

But I recall as well something far more important—my reason for the fascination with the play—the curious self-awareness of the Becket character and the ambiguity of his role-playing, culminating in a martyrdom predicated on assuming "the honor of God". Having worked behind the scenes in the theater (long ago and far away) and kibitzing incessantly for years, I got to observe actors, directors, and playwrights. It's instructive to see who really has awareness of the meaning of plays and who doesn't. I've found actors in plays are just as clueless as actors in real life. But some roles can't be adequately played without profound inquiry into meaning. This play presents such a challenge.

I've distilled out of the play some key quotes revealing this most intriguing character:

Jean Anouilh's Becket: Choice Quotes

There's not a line wasted in this play, so it's hard to extract the essentials. I vividly recall almost all these extracts from decades past. I'll just add a comment about the King, since I've not focused primarily on him in these extracts. The King constantly marvels at the intelligence and elusiveness of his close friend Becket, who understands the social order the King commands better than the King does himself. This king—as is characteristic of all rulers—is obtuse to certain underlying properties of the social system he commands. Becket, however, as a member of a conquered people who collaborates with his conquerors, exhibits an excruciating self-awareness and a deeper awareness of how all components of the social order fit together, thus enabling him to help the king rule with greater efficiency. The King is merely pragmatic, though thoroughly so, and like all pragmatists he can see through pretense but not through pragmatism. Hence it is child's play for the King to deflate the hypocritical pretenses of the Catholic Church, while Becket remains an enigma to him. The interplay between these two characters is key to the brilliance of the play.

If you want some entertainment that makes you think instead of settling for the usual pabulum, you'd do well to rent this film.

René Girard: Violence and the Sacred

I never got around to completing my review of:

Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred, translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

Note also that there is a newer book continuing these thematics with contemporary political references:

Jeurgensmeyer, Mark, ed. Violence and the Sacred in the Modern World. London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1992. Publisher's description:

This book explores the relationship between symbolic violence and real acts of religious violence with reference to some of the most volatile religious and political conflicts in today's world. These involve the Hizbollah movement in Lebanon, the Sikhs in India, militant Jewish groups in Israel and Muslim movements from the Middle East to Indonesia. The contributors also respond to theoretical issues articulated by René Girard in his well-known book, Violence and the Sacred.

Here are some notes I wrote on Girard's book over the past few years.

* * * * *

Written 14 Jan 2006:

The article on Kant, Bataille, and Sacrifice [by David York] is just idiotic. This shows where francophilia will get you. BTW, Bataille was a member of the College of Sociology in the 1930s; there's an anthology of their writings translated into English. This group had a preoccupation with occult phenomena, ritual, the sacred, etc. Really creepy and in my opinion smacks of crypto-fascism.

If we're going to read French blowhards, I would prefer to engage René Girard's Violence and the Sacred. I've been intrigued by the title for years but have still not read it. There's an interview with Girard you can find online:

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/anthropoetics/AP0201/interv.htm

In our time, the ideology of sacrifice is the ideology of fascism and reached its apogee with Hitler.

If we are going to apprise irrationalist philosophy in relation to sacrifice and the violence and ignorance that underlies its ideology, we could also examine the major irrationalist philosophers of the modern age, e.g. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Kierkegaard wrote a notorious analysis of

Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac, justifying this horrible barbarism. Note also Girard's treatment of Nietzsche.

Written 2 Nov 2007:

I've been keeping up with the new atheist books published this year, but the books that have most penetrated my thinking this year are not new.

The Mind of the Bible-Believer (Edmund G. Cohen)

Primitive Man as Philosopher (Paul Radin)

Violence and the Sacred (René Girard)

[. . . .] I first read Radin over 30 years ago and over the summer I felt the need to re-read it. Radin's goal 80 years ago was to dispel popular and anthropological biases about the cognitive abilities and orientation of "primitive man" to to prove the obvious: the capacity for individual thought, reflection, and criticism. Re-reading it though forced me into an anthropological mode I got out of decades ago. I have not yet finished Girard, having bogged down in his detailed analysis of the Greek classics which I really don't need.

. . . . .

You can't get a complete picture of where Girard is coming from from Violence and the Sacred alone. His colors are fully revealed in his other books. This book is about sacrifice as the origin and motive force of all religion, and sacrifice as a socially controlled deflection from the constant threat of an uncontrolled and uncontrollable escalating cycle of violence feared by humanity from its primitive ancestors onward. He begins with the belief systems and practices of "primitive" cultures and ancient civilizations. He spends several chapters on the ancient Greeks, convinced that critics have entirely misinterpreted the classics.

From all this you would not guess his views on Judaism and Christianity, or the fact that he is a Catholic and that he believes Christianity to be fundamentally different from all other religions, because it introduces a fundamental change into the nature of sacrifice.

You will get a fair summary of Girard's views and criticisms of them in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Girard

Here you will already get an indication of how despicable Girard is, though there is much to be learned from this one book, and for all I know, from his others.

There are many links from this article alone, but somehow I got hooked up with this interview with René Girard by Markus Müller (Anthropoetics II, no. 1, June 1996):

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/anthropoetics/AP0201/interv.htm

There is an undertone of vileness in this piece as elsewhere that needs to be elucidated. Some bullet points:

(1) An anti-secular, anti-modern sensibility is at work;

(2) There is a reveling in the debased, violent, essence of man posited here--just the sort of mentality Catholicism thrives upon;

(3) There is no need to conceal the dirty secrets of human motivation; they merely confirm Girard's anti-humanist world-view;

(4) The reading of history is entirely metaphysical and psychological, even biomorphic--there is no real history here, only a mythic history;

(5) and it is combined with typical French intellectual conceits--Nietzcheanism, representation, mimesis--in the most obnoxious manner;

(6) concluding by reasoning about myth alone, that Christianity is fundamentally a mutation of the primordial mythical sacrificial logic rather than its (hypocritical) continuation.

This having been said, there is much to be gained from reading Violence and the Sacred. As a Catholic necrophile, Girard feels no need to conceal the debased violent nature of humanity; he claims that in religion there is no concealment of this at all--it's all right there in the open. There is a dampening of consciousness as to the real nature of sacrifice; indeed, reason is sacrificed in the act of sacrifice. But what seems rationally absurd makes perfect anthropological sense.

From these basic ideas Girard proceeds in endless detail, devoting a huge slice of the book to an analysis of Greek tragedy as an illustration of his ideas and a correction in his eyes of the fundamentally mistaken presuppositions of literary critics and classicists as to the nature of what it's all about.

For my interests, it's way too much detail, and my eyes tend to glaze over, but it is instructive in those moments in which I maintain focus. My interest is in the generalizations Girard articulates from time to time. These are the passages I have noted, and at some point I will type up short quotes which distill all this material into the general principles to be gleaned from it.

* * * * *

This year I've begun a survey of Marxist literature on religion. The Marxist understanding of ideology (esp. as a modern phenomenon) improves upon mainstream atheism, which, except for the appropriation of Darwinism (which excised teleology and natural theology from serious consideration), doesn't seem to have advanced beyond the 18th century. Yet I have my suspicion that the Marxist tradition (I'm excepting anthropology here) is not entirely satisfactory in its treatment of religion. In these excerpts I express my doubts:

Written 7 March 2008:

Last year I read two older books that had an impact on me, The Mind of the Bible-Believer by Edmund G. Cohen and Violence and the Sacred by René Girard. Even religious people today, ignorant and superstitious though they be, still live in a modern world predicated on assumptions quite different from the superstition-saturated environment that forms almost the entire history of the human race, and I think that this goes much deeper than the mechanisms referenced by Feuerbach and Marx, who were after all products of a liberal religious intellectual environment.

Written 13 June 2008:

I think, though, that this Marxian take, which probably follows in the footsteps of Feuerbach and atheized Christianity, erroneously persists in viewing popular religion solely as consolation, and not for what much of it is, a reproduction and intensification of the violence of nature and society which not just the ruling classes but the masses inflict on one another. As disgusting as René Girard's Catholicism is, he has emphasized the intrinsic link between violence and the sacred.

Written 13 July 2008:

I recently got a copy of a Alexander Saxton's Religion and the Human Prospect [. . .] Saxton suggests that Marxists missed the boat on religion for failure to differentiate it from modern ideologies. This is an interesting line I will pursue. After reading Edmund Cohen's The Mind of the Bible-Believer (Prometheus) and René Girard's Violence and the Sacred last year, I concluded that there's a depth of savagery that we moderns tend to forget because we are so acclimated to a technological society in which the world around us is automatically interpreted naturalistically, however bad our religious superstitions are.

Written 30 Dec 2008:

Furthermore, an exclusive class-against-class perspective ignores the multitude of functions and values that religion serves, including interpersonal control within classes, and the continuity of religion which predates not only the current but all manifestations of class society, and is ultimately rooted in primitive magical thinking. The notion of religion as merely the sigh of the oppressed creature and the heart of a heartless world is a limited notion rooted in the trajectory of liberalizing Protestantism. Religion is also rooted in magical thinking intertwined with fear, manipulation, cruelty, and viciousness. The picture of religion one gets from, say, Edmund G. Cohen's The Mind of the Bible-Believer or Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred is quite less benign than the Feuerbachian picture.

Written 29 March 2009:

Instead, I offer up Edmund G. Cohen's The Mind of the Bible-Believer as an entry point into the demented Christian mentality. And more generally, I suggest René Girard's Violence and the Sacred as an an additional antidote to the whitewashing of religious superstition by religious liberals (among whom I would count religious radicals, who are duplicitous in exactly the same fashion and from the same class standpoint).

The Marriage of Bette and Boo

The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang, directed by Perry T. Schwartz and offered by my favorite theater company in the Washington DC metropolitan area, Spooky Action Theater, is described as “Thirty years of divorce, alcoholism, madness and death in a wacky family world turned inside out.” It is also a tale of thirty years of serial pregnancy, psychological abuse, and Catholic ignorance, told in a series of flashbacks by Bette and Boo’s surviving son and a student of English literature, Matt. The play begins with the wedding ceremony of Bette and Boo, and what at first glance seems to be just another vapid middle class family scenario quickly morphs into a tactless farcical display worthy of an episode of South Park or Family Guy. In 1985 Durang was ahead of the curve. At first I had my doubts, but when Karl Hudlocke (Boo’s dad) referred to his wife Soot (no kidding) as “the dumbest white woman alive,” I knew I would love this play.

Bette begins her nightmare marriage as an airheaded Catholic girl, void of knowledge of the real world, dreaming about all the babies she wants to have. Decades of bitter experience that follow do not dissuade her from her illusions, i.e. her Catholic brainwashing. She is also unable to break Boo’s addiction to alcohol, itself propelled by her incessant urge to breed. Her sister Emily is a basket case constantly apologizing for her existence. Her other sister Joan is bitter and cynical . . . and seemingly always pregnant. Her father, Paul Brennan, has a speech impediment that will have you rolling in the aisles. Her matronly mother Margaret attempts to manage this menagerie. As for the in-laws, Soot Hudlocke is an addled doormat. Her husband Karl—my favorite character—is callous, cynical, tactless and totally outspoken in every situation without a tinge of self-consciousness. Then there is the doctor who keeps delivering Bette’s stillborn babies, and the pièce de resistance, the priest Father Donnally.

Time and hardship have a way of wearing down the naïveté of even the most clueless and wiping the forced smiles off the faces of even the most vapid. But the inability to learn anything from bitter experience takes a lot of effort, unless one’s faculties are disconnected from reality at the onset. This is where Catholicism comes in.

Father Donnally is an obtuse jackass, indifferently pushing the Church’s party line on these families without engaging them as real human beings, which they have been discouraged from becoming in the first place by their upbringing. One of the most hilarious, and perhaps the key scene in the play occurs at a marriage counseling retreat attended by both families in toto and conducted by Donnally. This moment reveals the disconnect between ideology and reality like no other. Donnally alternates between regurgitating the platitudes of church doctrine sans conviction and more convincingly imitating a slice of sizzling bacon. His audience listens without conviction. No birth control, no divorce, but also no thought is allowed by the Catholic Church. All resent and hate their lives and one another, but they are mentally and psychologically numbed and hence have no place to go. This is what happens to you when you’re not allowed to feel your own pain.

Father Donnally nevertheless has one moment of truth, which nevertheless fails to induce him to reflect on his theocratic propaganda. Donnally screams: why don’t people get to know the people they are marrying; why don’t they think about what they really have in common with the person they plan to spend the rest of their lives with? Why are people so stupid? He has posed the question of questions, but he will not stay for an answer.

You know, as comic as this play is, it’s not far removed from reality. I wasn’t raised like this, thank goodness, but I’ve known more dysfunctional Catholics than I can count. This dehumanization, this disconnect of one’s own emotions and thoughts from one’s reality, is one of the innumerable crimes the blood-drenched Catholic Church can never recompense.

The actors all did a superb job. How they could keep from breaking character while I and others howled in the audience is a miracle of the acting craft I will never understand. The set too was marvelous; I don’t know how this company does it without money. This is not establishment bourgeois theater for the upper crust; it’s always on the edge, and you should show up to support it.

Details:
The Marriage of Bette and Boo
by Christopher Durang,
directed by Perry T. Schwartz,
with Katie Atkinson, Gerald B. Browning, William C. Cook, Joe Cronin, Mary C. Davis, Bill Gordon, Martha Karl, Ellen Mansueto, David Rothman and Mundy Spears.

The Black Box Theatre at Montgomery College, Corner of Philadelphia (East-West Hwy) & Chicago Ave., Takoma Park, MD.
June 5 – 29, 2008. Performances Thu – Sat at 8 PM and Sun at 7 PM.

My reviews of other Spooky Action productions:
Alice in Washington