Kidding Oneself (2) . . .

The question might be asked of me, arising from my most recent posting: Do I think that it is possible to engage in social and political activism without it in some way being ultimately a vehicle for the fulfillment of some unconscious emotional need?

And the answer I would have to give is no—I don’t think it is possible.

In relation to anything we do, the roots of our actions plunge much deeper than we can ever consciously know. It is open perhaps only to saints, or people analogous to saints, to approach any closer to an absolute knowledge of themselves and a rational control of their thoughts and actions—and then only to the extent that they have, as they say, already died to themselves. For the rest of us, no such disengagement from the influence of the emotions is possible.

When we speak of this or that individual as being more or less rational, it would be more accurate, I think, to talk in terms of he or she being more or less irrational. As a species, I believe, we are less rational than potentially rational—and I am using the term rational, not just in the conventional sense of the processes of abstract reasoning, but as a synonym for something more along the lines of, perhaps, say, enlightenment.

In such a circumstance, the systems of mechanical reasoning would continue to operate as before, but in the context of individuals of a deeper self-knowledge, compassion and unselfishness—and a deeper awareness, too, of the myriad of ways in which it is possible to deceive oneself—than the rest of us in general possess.

Is such a development possible on any sort of wide scale? Certainly not on the basis of the human species as it exists. Any such general change would involve at least several evolutionary shifts—and the nature of evolutionary shifts is that they involve minorities. The bulk of populations get left behind.

What is possible is for individuals to make the journey within the context of human existence as we know it . . . And it must be such a lonely journey—one that involves turning one’s back on the things that give human life its—ultimately delusionary—glamour and savour and sense of warmth. People who successfully take that path become, arguably, the leaven and justification for the rest of us—the true meaning of the ten just men of Sodom may lie somewhere along these lines.

Such people are not heroes likely to gain popular acclaim; instead they make the secret sacrifices by means of which the rest of us may live.

[I would hasten to point out, in case anyone should think so, that I am certainly making no personal claims in this regard. To quote Bertrand Russell (again!): ‘I made up my mind when I was young that I would not be restrained from preaching a doctrine merely because I have not practised it’—or, as I might add, am congenitally incapable of practising it.]