Which way now?

Leszek Kolakowski’s essays (in this selection) have been stimulating and intriguing me for a few weeks now. A Polish philosopher who lived through the German occupation and the Communist era, he has an intensely personal as well intellectual insight into both Fascism and Communism. The truth twisting of Stalinism especially angered him – in fact, pretty much anything related to Marxism generated considerable ire. And his arguments are well made. Besides which, who’s ever going to claim for any ‘good’ in either ideology? Well, he feels that modern Leftists who claim that Marxism was 'wrongly applied' in all actual political incarnations are under an illusion. The very roots, in his view, are poisonous.

He says that all Marx's predictions failed to come to pass. they did in his lifetime - but now, I think, we are starting to see at least growing class polarization and the disappearance of the middle class in societies based on a market economy and the seeds of the absolute impoverishment of the working class. Marx also predicted the inevitable fall of the profit rate - post Covid-19, I wonder? And the hampering of technological progress by the market? Well, that has happened as pharmaceutical companies, for example, until now, have focused on drugs that will make money (say for male sexual dysfunction and depression) rather than those that offer genuine human benefit. So maybe Marx wasn't completely deluded.

Still, Kolakowski sees the roots of communism in the Enlightenment – the rationalism, contempt for tradition, disregard for the mythical underpinnings of culture. These values were twisted into the persecution of religion and the view of individuals as expendable for the ends of the idealised Soviet state. I think that’s rather like blaming Jesus for the Inquisition. I mean, there may be a causal link, but you have to take some pretty disquieting turns to get there.

Kolakowski also despises post-modernism. Again, his arguments are well-thought out and persuasive. In large part, I also agree. Essentially, to simplify it to my level of understanding, you say there’s no God, so Truth can’t be found there. You say that we don’t have a First Cause for the universe and that we cannot ‘know’ that there is really anything there, because we can’t get outside ourselves and there is no certainty at the deepest level. Even science rests on the assumption that there is something to be scientific about. And science avers that it never ‘knows’ – it can only make the best, but always defeasible, hypothesis. Then you think, well, maybe we can rely on history teaching us and demonstrating progress. But you get the Holocaust and who the hell can make sense of that? So history too is just contingent and chaotic and complex and near-enough-random. So where is the truth, let alone The Truth, in all this?

So then all that leads you to think, well, reality is just as I think it – from my perspective, my gender, my era, my class, my age – and my view is as valid as anyone else’s. So there. And I’m going to balance my Chakras, microdose psilocybin and vote for the Age of Capricorn (Aquarius is so last year).

Or you get panic, despair and desperation. Mental health issues, suicide, violence and neo-liberal consumer capitalism. Workaholics and populism.

Or you get religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism and millenarianism. People gotta believe in something.

Kolakowski’s view is that humans need to feel absorbed in something better, or just bigger, than themselves. They need to feel ennobled by a cause or a belief. And he feels that what we have been left, he was writing the particular essays I’m here referencing in the latter part of the twentieth century, is not enough to sustain us. He claims that a renewed value and belief in the foundational guide of Christianity, as given by Jesus, offers the best antidote for all this. And his analysis of Christ’s philosophy is both rigorous and appealing as a moral structure. In many ways, he seems to be singing from the same song-sheet as Tolstoy in his later years. Of course, had he – or Lev - been born in a different tradition, he might have wanted to go back to the core tenets of Buddhism or the Tao. But that’s to put something of a relativistic spin on an absolutist claim.

I understand the dangers posed by extreme relativism and a radically post-modernist stance. But, to be honest, they seem to be real dangers only in the Academy – and particularly in the Humanities. For most people, it’s really not on their radar until Jordan Peterson takes a swipe at post-modernism. On the other hand, I think this perspective also offers certain valuable insights. It can loosen us from invalid convictions. It can help us to understand how perspectival our views and beliefs really are. Michel Foucault, for example, has added greatly to our more nuanced understanding of concepts like power and madness, by splitting the white light in which we tend to see them through a prism. Freedom does not have to become anarchy. It can simply become greater freedom.

I also understand the drive to have a firmer foundation for ethics than ‘the greater good’. Kant tried; and his idea of universalism is helpful. But I can see that it fails to satisfy in the way a divine edict might.

I understand too the scepticism about science as a foundation for ‘progress’ – don’t more discoveries just lead to more potential threats? Well, yes. Unless we’re guided by…. Oh, no, a divine edict?

So, where do we go from here? I have no idea where we go. I am not in a position to issue an edict. But I do know what I value:

Compassion – which means not just being kind and not just not causing harm, but taking others seriously, listening to them, accepting one can learn from anyone and that their view to them is as valid as mine is to me and that I do not have access to God-if-there-were-a-god’s perspective. It means granting them respect and dignity and valuing their needs as well as my own. It means keeping promises and not lying to them.

Curiosity – which encourages one to listen to others, but also to read, explore and learn. Not to assume that I have the answers. It’s about openness and expansion. It keeps one alive and vibrant which makes one better company as well as more cheerful, purposeful and determined.

Consideration – which is about not leaping to conclusions. Allowing time before reacting. It means taking other views seriously, but not being bowled over by everything. It involves reasoning and judgment, patience and thought. It means being careful enough and cautious enough. It’s about setting limits on openness and imposing some order, without ever being closed or rigid. It’s about realising that, in time, changed circumstances or new information can shed a different light on things.

Creativity – which is about allowing newness, adapting what exists, getting a different vantage point, working on rather than accepting ideas. It means being active rather than passive. It means shaping not just being shaped. It is about realising responsibilities. It relates to inspiration and awe and wonder – but also to the absurd, the obscure and the extreme. It is about beauty and order and symmetry, and about intricacy, confusion and fear. It is about being human, being conscious, being alive.

Cronedom – and of course it’s about being just a little bit sceptical and somewhat frustrated with the way things are. It’s about feeling ‘that’s not right!’ and wanting to work out why and how it could be better. It’s about being a bit older, wiser and uglier and not caring so much about what others think or how they judge. It’s about being able to stand up and say, ‘I’ve thought about this – and this, I think – for now, based on reasoned evidence, is what I believe!’

Five Cs. That’s enough.