Krasilov, 1997. Metaecology-20. Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY. Jesters. Job.

Mephistopheles (conclusion). Faust. V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997. 208 p. Part 20. Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY. Jesters. Job. Job (conclusion). Lycurgus. Rats. Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY If we knew from what refuse verses grow, feeling no shame, we would, one must suppose, lose all interest in poetry. But therein lies the function of the system: the output product possesses a higher degree of organization than the raw material at the input. This holds true both for ecosystems that produce living matter from nonliving, and for ego- and meta-ecosystems that generate spiritual life by employing biological material. This chapter will demonstrate how complex metaecological constructions can be erected upon the foundation of elementary experiences connected with the fear of death and the drive toward reproduction. Although the spiritual principle developed in opposition to the biological, it is precisely the primordial biological differences that still determine the fundamental diversity of egosystems. In particular, differences between the sexes in the spiritual sphere (which seemed so significant to ancient philosophers that they were compelled to introduce immaculate conception as a condition of spiritual wholeness) trace back to role specialization in the reproductive process. A man, in order to perpetuate his lineage, must care for the woman who carries his child. A woman, with the same aim, must care for herself. All else is secondary. However, significant enrichment of the primary material, to the point of losing any visible connection with it, occurs only in developed egosystems whose structure is adequate to the metaecological environment. When the principle of adequacy is violated — at early stages or as a result of artificially arrested development — the product differs little from the original "refuse," and the structure of the personality proves unbalanced and, in essence, unfit for existence in a complex sociocultural environment. The prosthesis of egosystems by means of standard spiritual production, which substitutes for personal spiritual experience, does not guard against spiritual breakdown but merely creates easily manipulated masses whose aggregate creative potential approaches zero. What is commonly taken as a manifestation of egotism — ambition, working "for an audience" — is in reality explained not by hypertrophy but by deficient development of the ego, which requires constant self-affirmation, nourishment at the expense of others — a kind of ego-vampirism. As Ramakrishna observed, the aspiration to confer benefits on millions is more commonly found among paupers. For the creative personality, the struggle against one's own ego is destructive in character and leads to the production of mortmass, almost in the literal sense of the word (thus Dante Rossetti placed his poems in the coffin of his prematurely deceased beloved, believing they had been destined for her alone and certainly not for millions; they had to be exhumed afterward). From the example of the great civilizations of the East, one may be persuaded that the consistent simplification and suppression of the ego leads to the mortification of an once-flourishing culture. For culture in all its manifestations is precisely the aggregate product of egosystems. At present, spiritual production is organized according to the market principle of supply and demand. Certain of its domains die off as demand becomes saturated, while at the same time discoveries in the domain of culture create new spiritual needs. In this way the system maintains its own existence. Within it there is room even for such not entirely attractive phenomena as ego-vampirism. The general developmental tendency, however, leads toward the replacement of consumption by mutual enrichment (analogously, biological systems evolve from predation and parasitism toward mutually beneficial symbiosis). Chronologically we find ourselves in the concluding phase of a 400-year cycle. This is the Kali Yuga, a period of floods, riftings of the earth's crust, Egyptian plagues, and messiahs. The Kali Yuga demands not only special safety measures in connection with the increased frequency of catastrophic floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, but also heightened attention to what grows from what refuse, in the metaecological sense. Jesters If, being born, we weep, the fault lies in the universal buffoonery that turns life into a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Is a rational life in the ideal perhaps free of suffering? This Epicurean premise runs up against the diametrically opposed Stoic position, which makes suffering the condition of moral perfection. Indeed, at the biological level suffering may be interpreted as the consequence of imperfect organization and at the same time as a stimulus to further development. However, the higher one ascends the natural ladder, the greater the suffering. The grass eaten by a cow suffers little. The cow destined for food by a bipedal primate suffers more — while that primate shakes the entire world with its suffering. Social systems were created principally to alleviate physical suffering, but in the course of their development they themselves became the source of ever more intense and seemingly inexhaustible suffering connected with inequality, oppression, unsatisfied ambition, the inferiority complex, and the like. One may suppose that the slaves of Rome did not perceive their condition tragically — for it was an order sanctified by centuries of tradition — until Spartacus and his like showed that here was cause for suffering. The romantics of the Byronic type, who in proud solitude challenged the social system, and the Carbonari still hiding behind their backs opened new vistas of suffering. The spiritual world, it seemed, offered refuge from physical and social suffering. That apparently paradoxical fact — that spiritual suffering eclipsed all others — is explained by the formation of a rigid metaecological system in which one may attain the carefree existence of grass, meekly accepting the role assigned to it, or, setting out on the path of metaphysical rebellion, drain the cup, be pierced by a lance, be crucified upon a cross, or even experience all of these simultaneously. Spiritual suffering, like biological and social suffering, has a tendency to increase in the course of the evolution of metaecological systems. Fatalism in this sense was the most fortunate system, since a person had no choice but to meekly accept the blows of fate. Suffering accompanies birth, the ailments of growth, the ailments of old age, and death; in other words, it is the tribute paid to fate — to what happens to us against our will. Only madmen who desperately go against fate will complain. In the karmic system there opened, hitherto unknown, the possibility of guilt for deeds committed in previous generations, and, by the laws of symmetry, the prospect of atoning for that guilt through suffering. The Christian system, erected upon this foundation, transformed redemptive suffering into the goal of earthly existence. Suffering stands at the origins of ethics. For Prince Siddhartha, the path to enlightenment began when at the age of seven he saw a bird eating an earthworm and for the first time reflected on the universality of suffering. In Buddhism, suffering is inseparable from samsara, the chain of reincarnations, since the past constantly dies in the present, and the present in the future. Only the breaking of the circle of causes and effects brings liberation. In contrast, in the mythological journey suffering is a stage that must be passed through for the sake of rebirth. The idea of suffering is thus the turning point at which the paths of East and West diverged. It determines one's life position — passivism as flight from suffering in the present or future, or activism as its overcoming. This applies equally to individuals and to entire ethnic groups. Thus in medieval Europe there existed a certain general disposition toward suffering, which was considered necessary for attaining, by the principle of opposition, blessedness in the antipodal world of the afterlife. This disposition was shaken by the Renaissance, which reoriented Europeans toward earthly pragmatics. In the spiritual life of peoples who, for one reason or another, did not pass through a Renaissance, the notion of the necessity of suffering long persisted. In China it successfully withstood Confucian pragmatism. In Russia, a prosperous life was until recently viewed with considerable suspicion, not without reason seen as an encroachment upon spirituality; and even the striving for wealth here was determined not so much by the pragmatic disposition toward well-being as by a thirst for unbridled extravagance and self-destruction. At first glance it is not entirely clear why pragmatism is incompatible with an intense spiritual life. Totalitarian regimes, which had deprived human beings of spiritual freedom, were ultimately defeated by the pragmatism underlying modern democratic society. However, the pragmatic disposition forces one to select from the entire wealth of culture only what is necessary for immediate success. This form of selection, by simplifying the metaecological system, also constrains the freedom of spiritual life. True, in a society of pragmatists, alternative ideas are not anathematized and their adherents are not burned at the stake. They are simply forgotten as superfluous, achieving unanimity far more successfully than those who burned books. Thus the Epicurean aspiration to avoid suffering may become an additional source thereof. The inexhaustibility of suffering is the cornerstone of philosophy, whose very existence is connected, first and foremost, with the interpretation of this phenomenon. In the ancient tradition, suffering was attributed to a disruption of cosmic harmony by the very act of creation — of the world and of man, who, in order to attain perfect life, is compelled, as Plato wrote, to "correct the Revolutions in his own head, which were disturbed at birth." In the biblical version, the universal idea of a primordial disruption was transformed into the concept of original sin, which absorbed a series of associatively linked ideas. Eve, created from Adam's flesh, might be regarded as his daughter or at any rate as a blood relative, the union with whom fell under the most ancient incest taboo. In the participation of the serpent and the apple one can discern echoes of totemic magic, characteristically employing natural objects. In the struggle between the ancient totems and the new gods, the serpent constantly appeared as an opponent of the latter, whether Teshub, Zeus, Apollo, Heracles, or Jehovah. This inextirpable enemy became the symbol of incestuous desire. Recall that in the myth of Oedipus, whose sufferings are likewise explained by the incestuous sin, the cunning Sphinx plays an analogous role. In terms of the double-figure interactions discussed at the opening of the book, the conflict between Jehovah and Adam, created in his likeness, is analogous to the constant conflicts of mirror doubles, one of whom, immortal, sends the other, mortal, along the solar path, with submersion into the otherworldly realm at the descending stage and subsequent return. For the deity, reproduction amounted to the creation of a limited number of his own copies — the world and man. The latter was not intended for mass reproduction; his multiplication was not foreseen. In the general philosophical context, the idea of an original error or corruption was necessary in order to explain the disharmony of human existence, which contrasts with the harmony of the universe. For the human soul was conceived as a copy (double) of the cosmos, and its imperfection was to be attributed to some accident, perhaps to feminine caprice (in the ancient story of Pandora, in the biblical legend of Eve, and in the Gnostic myth of Sophia Epinoia, the primary source of suffering lies in the excessive curiosity displayed in all cases by women). The concept of the original error — original sin — makes it possible to construct a coherent system in which good and evil find their place, and which proposes paths for resolving the conflicts of human existence. Sin acquires a distinctly karmic character — it passes to subsequent generations. The guilt complex is stably linked to karmic sin, not only in religious mythology but also in modern psychoanalysis. The first man and woman, hatched from an egg brooded by Brahma, knew that they were twins and endeavored (unsuccessfully) to avoid incest. The Semitic variant is less forthright, yet the sons born of Eve were doomed to fratricidal enmity. The Greek Aegisthus was born of an incestuous union as an instrument of blood vengeance in the struggle between the fraternal Pelopids. With an analogous aim at the other end of the world, Signy bore by her brother Sigmund the hero-avenger Sigurd. The cosmopolitanism of ancient metaphysics is impressive. In the supposition that incestuous impulses may be the cause of unconscious guilt, there is a rational kernel, since these impulses manifest and are suppressed at a very early age, remaining in the unconscious, as attested by unwanted and therefore rarely remembered dreams (according to Plutarch, on the eve of his crossing of the Rubicon, Caesar dreamed that he had lain with his mother). At the same time, Freud's hypothesis ("Totem and Taboo," 1913) regarding the ritual murder of the tribal chief (specifically, Moses) as the cause of karmic guilt reveals a completely different aspect of original sin: power over the world they themselves had created contains the preconditions for the death of the gods. In antiquity the chief embodied fertility: under him harvests were good and livestock multiplied, and since climatic cycles exist (four-to-five-year ones and doubled, seven-to-nine-year ones), lean years inevitably came and the chief had to be put to death (with the consolidation of personal power, the chief could present a substitute). The leader of a monkey troop, in a moment of danger, is likewise compelled to sacrifice himself for the sake of his kind, though he does not appear altruistic, since the subordinate adult males receive from him only blows and bites. One gains the impression that they invite this themselves, since punishment is the sole form of communication with the leader, and without such communication there is no sense of belonging to the troop. I am punished, therefore I exist. Psychologists affirm that children not infrequently invite punishment, repeating in their development the ancestral behavioral stereotypes. The unconscious striving toward punishment is not difficult to discern in the behavior of women who tease and provoke their husbands and lovers, though the true motives are camouflaged as sensuality, love of freedom, and the like. "I knew you would kill me," says Carmen. And she might have added: "I wanted it." Highly characteristic is the behavior of Anna Karenina before her death, when she entices the first man she meets and torments her lover. Having waited in vain for punishment from him, she punishes herself. The idea of punishment does not contradict the idea of chosenness; on the contrary: punishment testifies to non-indifference. God punishes, which means He has deigned to pay attention. Upon this rests the faith of the outcast, his sense of closeness to God (the prophets declared every natural catastrophe, every military defeat to be divine retribution for some indistinct transgression, and the people felt guilty as a beaten dog. After the exile, relations with God changed, became more intimate, as between victim and torturer. Suffering became so inevitable, so inexhaustible, that it could not be assessed otherwise than as a special divine grace). For suffering inevitably provokes an aggressive response. If it is caused by an external force against which one cannot struggle (fate, the chieftain, or God), then the aggression is redirected or turned inward. Thus female seals in a moment of danger bite and shake their own perfectly innocent pups. Their behavior provides a key to understanding infanticide as a redirected aggression. Communities possessing a hierarchical structure are founded upon the suppression of aggression from inferiors toward superiors. Aggression may be partially redirected toward individuals of the same or even lower rank, in particular toward the young, but is principally turned back upon the sufferer himself, who recognizes himself as the cause of his suffering — that is, experiences a sense of guilt. Suffering in this case is transformed — justifiably or not — into punishment. Thus the guilt complex, truly karmic in nature, reaches far into the distant past. It is explained by the connection between suffering and guilt, inherited from animal ancestors and brought to the level of unconscious automatism. Particular explanations, such as original sin, represent attempts at the rationalization of karmic guilt, which opens at least a local pathway to the conscious level and thereby the possibility of liberation. God resolved to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, for "...their cry is great, and their sin is very grievous" (by "cry" is meant a certain denunciation that is still to be verified, but the presumption of innocence is not admitted: if there is a cry, then there is sin; let us note that there are as yet no stone tablets bearing the exposition of the laws, and therefore the accusation has no legal force). This story is instructive also in that it compels reflection upon the problem of collective responsibility for the transgressions of individuals. Abraham calls upon God to consider the righteous who will perish together with the wicked. Jehovah is prepared to spare Sodom if there are at least fifty righteous persons within it. Well, and if forty-five? That, one supposes, would do as well. Abraham progressively reduces the figure, aiming at the conclusion that even for the sake of one righteous person the city is worth preserving. And the Lord went His way, having left off speaking with Abraham. "The great Zen master Ummon had to lose his leg in order to gain inner sight, penetrating to the principle of life," says Daisetz Suzuki in one of his lectures on Zen Buddhism. The leg of the young Chinese monk was broken in the gate leaves by the teacher to whom he had come in search of truth. "The awareness that came to him," Suzuki continues, "more than compensated him for the loss of the leg." For the first of the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha is that life is suffering. The life of Christ may serve as an illustration of this noble truth. Nailed to the cross, he endures all the sufferings that fall to the lot of human beings — physical pain, social humiliation (the shameful execution of criminals, with the mocking inscription "King of the Jews"), and metaphysical doubt ("My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?"). Since Christian rituals reproduce certain moments of his life, there must be at least symbolic suffering within them — self-mortification (the Zen teacher may be wiser in this regard, since self-mortification contains a considerable share of pride: a person ought not to take upon himself more suffering than has been allotted to him). Metaphysics, accordingly, not only rationalizes but also sustains the sense of existential guilt, endowing it with dignity and magnitude. In particular, the Christian religion achieves this by proposing a moral ideal that is self-evidently beyond the ordinary person's capacity — raising the bar, so to speak, above human possibilities. The person is incapable of following the New Testament in all things and for that reason constantly experiences a sense of guilt. The great medievalist J. Huizinga notes (in "The Autumn of the Middle Ages") that at that time people, even those who were quite prosperous and fortunate, felt themselves to be deeply unhappy. Probably because "man strives on earth toward an ideal opposed to his nature. When man has not fulfilled the law of striving toward the ideal... he feels suffering and has named this state sin. Thus man must ceaselessly feel suffering, which is balanced by the paradisiacal pleasure of fulfilling the law, that is, by sacrifice. Here lies earthly equilibrium. Otherwise the earth would be meaningless." This passage from Dostoevsky's notebook (published by B. Vysheslavtsev) shows to what heights metaphysics may elevate a sentiment quite base in its origin. It is not God who punishes — let us leave this delusion to the conscience of the ancient prophets, who saw in God nothing more than a strict master. Man punishes himself with suffering for the discrepancy between his nature and the moral ideal, and rewards himself with bliss for the overcoming of his nature. Job For ancient man, the active life position, as we have already mentioned, consisted in the constant testing of fate, of oneself, of other people, and even of the gods (thus Tantalus, wishing to test the omniscience of the gods, attempted to feed them his own son Pelops; such a "rationalization" of human sacrifice that had passed into the past is highly characteristic of the Homeric period). In the Bible these relations are inverted. It is not man who tests God, but God who tests man — a conception that grants man far greater freedom of will than the ancient Greeks allowed. The idea of moral trial, whose origin is probably connected with nothing more than the practice of testing a slave's fidelity customary at the time (he swore by placing his hand under his master's "thigh"), acquired, in this way, enormous ethical significance, separating the Judeo-Christian world from the pagan. There arises — and persists in Christianity — the interpretation of life, of the earthly path, as a trial, which may be individual or mass, national, or universal. God tests Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his firstborn, Isaac, and then, in a yet more refined manner, Job. Following his example, Joseph tests his brothers. The entire people is likewise subjected to trial. It is not difficult to find numerous brilliant examples of the popularity of the idea of testing in the Christian cultural tradition. The Ghost of Hamlet tests the younger Hamlet. Lear tests his daughters for loyalty; they test him for resilience. The simplicity of Candide and the optimism of Pangloss are subjected to devastating trials. God, in league with the devil, tempts Faust. The Brothers Karamazov are tempted into the murder of their father Fyodor, and so on. But then life does indeed present us with trials that reveal our moral qualities, showing who we really are. Or is it that we view life thus, having behind us two millennia of Christianity? Can one say that an inexperienced boxer, knocked out in the first minute, "failed the test"? Or is the fault with the one who put him in the ring without adequate preparation? And is not the point of ethical teaching precisely to shield people from such trials? If one moves away from the logic of the master-slave relationship, the idea of testing appears in all its amorality. For the amoral gods of antiquity there is nothing unnatural in subjecting a person to any manner of trials. But from the moment God becomes the supreme judge and guarantor of morality, the existence of evil turns out to be a scarcely explicable anomaly, one that creates a serious obstacle in the development of religious ethics. Does God test because He does not know the outcome, or does He know it in advance yet tests nonetheless? Ancient symbolism of the two principles — light and darkness, suggested by the alternation of day and night (of relative safety and blind terror — our ancestors feared nocturnal predators above all else) — comes to the rescue. The light and dark are not always morally charged, but already among the Greeks the guardians of morality turn out to be — paradoxically for us — representatives of darkness: the underworld judges Minos and Rhadamanthus, the chthonic goddesses the Erinyes, who pursue the crime of murder. In Zoroastrianism light and darkness appear as symbols of good and evil, two aspects of Ahura Mazda, as it were doubles. The Old Testament devil is a minor figure, never rising to the level of God's double. In Christianity his role had so greatly increased that he subjected God Himself to trial. The sufferings of Christ become, at least in part, the result of the betrayal of one of the disciples, seduced by the devil. True, it is unclear who needed the betrayal of Judas and for what purpose in the practical sense, or for what he received his silver pieces — since Jesus did not conceal himself; everyone knew him ("Every day I sat with you teaching in the temple, and you did not seize me"). But for the scheme a betrayer is necessary. There is no forgiveness for traitors; for them is reserved the innermost circle of Dante's Hell. The very concept of original sin changed, having become the result of the devil's successful machinations: the devil founded his kingdom in the body of man, leaving to God only the soul. In this way the unity of the personality system was disrupted, transforming it into an arena of struggle between good and evil. Punishment acquired new meaning as well. The sect of the Essenes, who called themselves "children of light" (as opposed to all others — "children of darkness"), was a kind of outpost of Zoroastrianism on the shores of the Dead Sea. John the Baptist emerged from the Essenes or a sect close to them. In the Qumran caves there were preserved hymns, in which it is said in part: Thou hast created the wicked, To pour out Thy wrath upon them, From the womb Thou hast appointed For the Day of Destruction! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And Thy hidden design From eternity has appointed them For the fulfillment of great judgments Upon them — before the eyes of all! Mephistopheles (conclusion). Faust. V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997. 208 p. Part 20. Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY. Jesters. Job. Job (conclusion). Lycurgus. Rats.