Pavle Rak, Kranj
SHESTOV BEYOND AND ON THIS SIDE OF GOOD AND EVIL
Although this is a scientific
symposium, I will risk a totally non-scientific approach
(I am not pretending to objectiveness or to a complete
knowledge of scientific literature about Shestov...),
namely: I will base my contribution on a subjective,
personal impression of certain mobiles which generated
Shestov‘s ideas and some of their consequences. I hope I
have the right to do this: Shestov himself used a
non-scientific, personal approach in his writings. All
rationalism, particularly idealistic rationalism applied
on questions about the sense of human life, was the main
target of his attacks. He wrote that in this field
rationalism is nothing but a lie that helps us to
misunderstand the tragic essence of life. And that idea
is clearly the consequence of Shestov’s own personal
experience, and the pretended personal experience of his
heroes – Augustin, Luther, Pascal, Tolstoy, Nietzsche
and Dostoevsky. In Shestov’s case, everything from his
literary style to his manner of argumenting and drawing
conclusions has the mark of a non-scientific, if not
anti-scientific, approach. So, I think I also have the
right to expose my personal impressions to the public.
Science, rationalism, knowledge –
these are the original sin in Shestov‘s interpretation.
Is human life directed by abstract laws, obeying human
logic, or are we dealing with the anthropic tragedy, the
inexpressible, obeying no laws, at least not the laws of
idealistic rationalism?
This question, quoted by Shestov, is taken from the
works of Belinsky and Dostoevsky: is it possible to
justify the sufferings of the innocent creature, not
only the small baby, but the least of innocent insects –
that is, to justify it by future happiness for all? Is
it possible to rationalize suffering, to hide it like
Kant did when he created the notion of Ding an sich, or
to hide it behind the „Good is God“ of Tolstoy?
Not at all, says Shestov. Future
eternal happiness has nothing to do with past suffering,
but precisely the contrary: any past suffering
undermines future happiness.
The greatest madness of all,
especially great because it pretends to be the greatest
cleverness, is the attempt of theology and philosophy to
limit almighty God and bind Him by the laws of our own
human logic. Over the centuries, philosophers and
theologians alike have attempted to replace fate with
the worst disbelief, to replace abrahamic trust in God
with the poor crutches of our knowledge of good and
evil. „Nonbeliever“ Shestov was constantly fighting for
the rights of faith, against the ratio. That is his
great merit for the cause of faith in the 20th century,
when – faced with the atrocities of world wars and
totalitarian regimes – many well-read apologists
capitulated. In that sense, Shestov is a 20th century
hero of faith. As he was not a follower of any religion
or church, all of them should venerate him. The
foundations he was building are appropriate for any true
believer. Shestov – a universal saint of the 20th
century, a justifier of faith in times of military and
totalitarian despair?
But Shestov the philosopher of faith
and the philosopher of tragedy was not at all interested
in world wars and totalitarian socialist systems. His
philosophy could be just what it was – free of any wars
or totalitarian systems generated by the Bolshevik
revolution or any other socialist movement (in all his
writings we can find nothing about wars and only one
article about bolshevism, which he disliked so much, as
his female companion writes, that he never talked about
it and even preferred it had never been written). The
suffering that Shestov writes about, the suffering that
should be „integrated“, that should be „lived with“, is
completely different. It is not historically or socially
conditioned.
Shestov had to deal with suffering
that is extreme, perhaps the greatest suffering of all
(he uses the words of Nietzsche, applying them in
particular to Dostoevsky), that is, the suffering caused
by disdain. Some interesting things can be found when
following this logic: not the suffering caused by wars,
and not the suffering caused by unbearable social
circumstances, and not the suffering caused by the
physical or moral pains of the innocent baby were in the
focus of interest of Shestov‘s tragic heroes. These
heroes are interested in their own personal experience –
that they are incapable of fighting against a very
personal disdain. The feeling of being offended, pure
psychology, Shestov would say. And what does this „pure
psychology” justify? The choice is not too big. It is
either knowledge, ratio and virtue as the fruit of the
laws of good and evil, or it is irrationalism, a priori
ignorance of such laws, the self-will of God and
mankind. Even worse: when we speak of the irrationalism
of an offended man, his feeling of being offended easily
becomes a need for vengeance, a very selective and
strange vengeance, that is, not vengeance against those
who caused the offence, but vengeance against others,
against the innocents, who are guilty because, by their
mere existence, they make possible the aggressiveness of
others. The offended man can satisfy himself with the
disdain of all others who are weaker than him (he cannot
return disdain to the powerful, says Shestov, evoking
the case of Dostoevsky, who suffered from the disdain of
robbers and killers, elevating them to the throne of
“the most talented men among all our peoples”). This
means that the offended man will disdain the weak and
venerate robbers and killers, that is, the mighty and
the ruthless. That is what Shestov finds in Dostoevsky
and in Nietzsche. He named this “the philosophy of
tragedy” – as opposed to optimistic, rationalistic
idealism. If we follow Shestov, the choice is really
poor: either the insipid, shallow lie, or the truth of
the disdained, summarized in a single sentence: “Let the
whole world perish, if this is necessary for me to have
my cup of tea.” As we know, the truth is always better
than a lie, even if it is such an ugly truth.
Whose truth is this? Dostoevsky‘s?
Nietzsche‘s? Shestov‘s? Or the truth of the Russian
“underground” conscience? Why only Russian? Isn‘t it the
truth of Western “nihilism” up to now? What does this
truth offer in place of the “rationally good,” of that
selfish, self-contented lie?
The heroes of faith could also be
the fanatics. To be consistent in anything, even in the
negation of rationalism – is an aberration of that same
rationalism. Fundamentalism is the nonwanted child of
rationalism which, with the adamant logic of
jurisprudence, drives to absurd consequences the
assumptions of rewarding good and punishing evil.
Between the two you can smuggle anything you want.
Of course, „rational good“ is
superficial, nonradical, speculative. Nonspiritual. That
is the eternal subject and the eternal vanity of Russia:
to disdain the West, which compels to good deeds by
force of law, which knows only a selfish good, a good
that pays for itself; and to oppose all the goodness of
a free soul, which agitates or does not agitate only
from itself, and not for the sake of outside law. As for
Russia, the results are known: much talk about soul, and
a great deal of recklessness in everyday life. As it is
not possible to give to God what belongs to God, it is
also not possible to render unto Ceasar the things which
are Ceasar’s.
But this is not only a particularity
of Russia. The West is also acquainted with rebel
thinking, as opposed to rationalistic idealism. Thinking
that is ”beyond good and evil” in its glorification of
power, or liberty that transgresses the boundaries of
self-will – how much ink was used to glorify the
“philosophy” of Marquis de Sade, how much to obtain the
abolition of punitive logic and institutions, or to
defend “heroes” like the murderer Claude Mesrine? If the
only enemy is the rationalistic lie, if there really is
no other enemy and everything else is welcome in the
struggle against this unique enemy – then nothing can
help us. In such cases we are obliged to bear the
consequences of a choice that is too narrow.
Shestov (and many other philosophers
engaged in the struggle against rationalism) does not
have the possibility of retreat. His rationality is in
irrationality, his consistency in inconsistency. The
knowledge of good and evil is opposed by ignorance that
is “beyond.” But if that “beyond” is not marked in some
other way, if it is outside of definition, it could very
well turn into an alibi for the radical self-will, which
often ends not “beyond,” but on this side of the most
banal evil. The evil which was not wanted, but which we
are unable to rid ourselves of by a mere struggle
against rationalism.
(That is the main difference between
the ignorance of evil and good preached by contemporary
philosophy, and the ignorance found in Areopagit or
Confessor: the old apophatics does not exclude a certain
degree of “kataphatic approach,” and it ends in absolute
knowledge, though such knowledge is of an absolutely
other kind. Yet, besides rationalism and irationalism,
that old apophatics also knows the category of love.)
What forced Shestov into a struggle against the lie of
idealism? The scenes of despair which make every idea of
good not only helpless, but senseless? And, God knows,
Russia is full of those scenes, even if we do not
mention the suffering caused by a well-known Russian
particularity – the treatment of the people by their own
government.
* * *
A street in the centre of a
metropolis. A meeting with a woman who keeps some 20–30
dogs in her apartment on the first floor. A friend and I
want to help her. She is a good-looking lady in her
seventies, with lively eyes, two high-school diplomas,
good manners, a distinguished way of speaking... but,
you would do better not to stand too close to her, after
a few seconds it becomes unbearable.
She explains what happened: some
15-20 years ago (who knows exactly), the town
authorities promised her a house in which she could have
a dog asylum. The dogs were already gathered. In the
last minute, somebody made a deal on the house: no more
asylum. What to do? Subject the innocent animals to a
cruel death? Well, in the years that followed, the story
continued. Some dogs were dying, others were found,
saved from the winter cold, hunger or disease, from
killing.
It stinks so bad on the stairs that
my friend stays outside. The money he brought will be
delivered later, when we return from the flat. She and I
slowly enter the double door, careful not to let the
dogs escape. Although it is winter and the windows have
no glass, but are only covered with paper and it is cold
inside – the smell is terrible. What will it be like in
the summer? The poor animals are constantly indoors, as
the woman is unable to take them for a walk. They do
everything here, in the flat. For more than 10 years
no-one has cleaned the flat. That would be impossible
now. Seven years ago there was a fire in the hallway and
rooms, which is still visible in the charred pieces of
furniture. Between them, wet dogs and dung-heaps half a
meter high. Poor lighting (later she begs me to buy her
some lightbulbs, she simply cannot – they won’t allow
her to enter any store because of the smell). The dogs
bark incessantly, some of them come to greet an unknown
face, some would like to play. The entire troop follows
me as I explore, with difficulty, their living space.
The troop rolls around me, they are everywhere,
everything is black, slippery, stinking... I cannot see
any recognisable piece of furniture, so I ask her where
she sleeps. In the bathroom. And she asks me not to tell
anyone about all this “in inappropriate places; they
could send me to the madhouse, and all these dogs would
simply be killed.”
She also tells me that she once had
“subtenants” on the back staircase: being the only user,
she let vagabonds in in the winter, not only to help
them endure the extremely cold winter, but also to help
her a little with the dogs. This did not turn out too
well. The quarrels between them were worse than between
animals. Alcohol, knives, fire... in a few months, seven
corpses were evacuated. Now, the staircase is strictly
locked (I have already seen such abandoned flats
occupied by homeless people, I have seen the clashes
between them, kicks in the head of those lying on the
floor, hopelessness, senselessness).
What, then, does hell look like, if
this is the flat of an educated, intelligent woman? I am
sick, not only because of the awful smell, but above all
because of the helplessness and despair. These are the
consequences of love, the consequences of the desire to
help innocent creatures. Where is reason in this case?
Evidently, its boundaries are far behind us. What is the
human good, the rational good in this case? Nothing, a
great big lie. When you see scenes like that, all those
big human words can be thrown directly into the dustbin.
But, how can we continue living? By forgetting. And if
we cannot forget?
I would not be surprised to learn
that Shestov was also struck by such a scene of
senseless suffering, a senseless effort to help. So he
damned, once and for all, rationalism, idealism, the
entire knowledge of good and evil.
Translated by Suzana Stančič
