A psychopath, on the other hand, is certainly uncivilized, insofar as his impulses, when enacted, are so taboo as to make him anathema to anyone who would call themselves ‘civilized,’ but he has no integrity, as he tends to live a duplicitous life, pretending to be other than he is, enjoying the protections of civilization while, when the opportunity arises, performing deeds that would reveal its fragility, or insecurity. I’m not even certain that the term ‘psychopath’ is suitable for the type of person that word presumes to describe, for it seeks to explain medically (or to legitimatize as a ‘pathology’) what is perhaps not a medical condition at all, but rather something closer to a proclivity for mortal sin.
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The ‘mad,’ as well, come close to removing themselves from civilization, and maybe in fact do. But, to the extent that they are not in control of their faculties, and lack the volition that would give purpose and meaning to their conduct, they would seem mostly to inhabit a sort of shadowland, neither civilized nor uncivilized, but persisting somewhere in between.
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Of his cousin John, who lived in the wilderness, wearing a leather loin girdle and surviving only on locusts and honey, while calling people to repentance, and preaching the coming of the Messiah, Jesus said this (to those who wondered about John, after he’d been imprisoned by Herod): “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’ Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist.”*
*Matthew 11: 7-11
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Jesus himself, during his incarnation, remained in civilization, among people who lived in cities and in villages, for his mission demanded it, though he did not embark upon that mission until he’d gone out to the desert for a period of time, and had fasted there, and “was with the wild beasts.”
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Jonah, for example, the prophet from the Old Testament whose story prefigures that of Christ, fled from civilization (in trying to flee from the mission that God had given him) and ended up thrown from a storm-tossed ship into the ocean, where he was swallowed by a whale, or some other great fish, and remained in its belly for three days, before being spewed onto dry land, whereupon he did in fact carry out his mission (to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh to its inhabitants [although, once the inhabitants had heard Jonah, and had repented, Yahweh showed mercy and spared the city]). Which illustrates the notion that one cannot flee from what God wants one to do, even if God, in his wisdom, does not bring about the results one had been led to expect would follow from one’s doing of it.
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The only type of person I can think of that truly does this is the hermit, for even monks or cloistered religious (or any other ascetic that lives in community with others) retain the semblance of civilized life, if only the most noble parts. Prophets also do this, to the extent that they do not care whether they live or die, and instead devote their life to, as it were, ‘waking’ others to the urgency of reality as they perceive it to be. But, by necessity, they must dwell among humankind, and go forth among their civilized brothers and sisters, delivering their message by whatever mode of expression is most natural to them. So that they never really abandon civilization, though they are concerned with its spiritual condition above all else.
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And so, because survival is the thing our bodies most want, one must be either reckless or brave, or both, to remove one’s self from civilization, and to exist without the protection and leisure it can offer.
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That these aptitudes and gifts can meet some need that exists within the civilization to which we belong is, I suppose, what makes them valuable from a perspective that would gauge the value of a thing by its usefulness or practicality. Which may not be the only perspective that exists, or that can be conceived of, but that is, perhaps, the perspective that is most relevant to civilization itself, the aims of which we are all involved in furthering, whether we are aware of it or not, if only because we choose, at some point in our individual lives (during our development and maturation) to belong to it rather than to disown it, or to orient ourselves in opposition or indifference toward it. Which is easier said than done, even if we feel compelled to do so (to disown it). For we are more likely to survive within the fold of civilization than outside of it, on our own, among the chaos that is found in those parts of creation that are untamed, and lawless.
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For it is true, I think, that every person has their own destiny, or what a religious person might call a ‘vocation,’ which has its roots in the Latin word for ‘calling,’ and which can be understood as an invisible mold into which our spiritual selves will fit if only we are able to identify and develop, and put into use, those aptitudes or gifts that are specific to us as physical and psychological beings, and that we in no way ‘earn,’ or ‘deserve,’ but that arrive in us through the accident of our own genealogy, and the evolution of our species, though it is true that our upbringing, and how we are raised, exerts some influence on how, or whether, those aptitudes find their expression in us.
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And yet commitment might see them through that regret. It might even be said that commitment has meaning, as a concept, because, of all the ways that one might respond to the predicament that Kierkegaard describes (wherein regret follows any important decision), it is commitment to a course of action not only as you set out upon that course, but also retrospectively, in how you decide to feel about it (regardless of the doubts that might assail you) that most provides your life with a sense of integrity and wholeness and consistency, which in turn allows you to sustain yourself as a being who is not overly susceptible to a fragmented and insecure self, and thus to progress toward whatever goals you might have set, with whatever talents are particular to you as a person who is different from every person who has lived, insofar as each of us has a unique history and destiny, and is possessed of a singular psyche, or ego, and experiences reality alone, or, anyway, while confined within the apparatus of our own senses, so that we seem to ourselves to experience it alone.
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Not that these two lovers would prefer an alternate ending, where they are kept apart from each other, but that Kierkegaard’s observation seems to show itself to be true, as it relates to their situation. For the regret they will endure, as a result of any action or inaction on their part, is to be found in either direction, though it is of different kinds, and originates in different reasons. In that now they must deal with whatever estrangement or anger or grief their choice will have brought upon their relationship with the girl’s family, whereas, before, they would’ve had to experience the loss of one another romantically, and in terms of physical nearness, though the girl’s relationship to her family could’ve remained intact.
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Which is true, I think, and is borne out by life. If you have seen the movie The Graduate, where a college boy played by Dustin Hoffman disrupts the wedding of the girl he is in love with (and who is also in love with him), and escapes with her from the sanctuary of the church where she has just exchanged vows with the man her father had persuaded her to marry (but who she does not love), you might remember how, once the two of them are free, and are out on the neighborhood streets, and have in fact hailed a bus and have boarded it, and are sitting among the passengers, fleeing to who-knows-where, the excitement and adrenaline that till then had been moving them begins to dissipate, their expressions change, and the camera pans in on their faces, which have become silent and unsure, so that the viewer is left doubtful and uncertain with regard to how they must be feeling about their future, and the consequences they’ve now set in motion, and must answer to.
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Which reminds me of something Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”
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Though one has to admit, I think, that Eveline’s decision to not allow herself to go away with Frank, and to not take that step into the unknown, cannot be attributed to timidity alone, or indifference, or some lack of moral courage, for the reader is made aware, early in the story, of her dutiful and loyal nature, which is evidenced by a promise she made to her mother, when her mother was dying, that she would “keep the home together as long as she could” after her mother would pass on. So that the situation itself, while having a resolution, does not reach that resolution without the character experiencing a great deal of conflict. And not only that, but the reader is left to wonder, I think, had Eveline made the choice to leave home, rather than stay, would she not be troubled by a regret and sadness in proportion to what she feels now, though for opposite reasons? For it is in the nature of reality to suggest to a person’s conscience those avenues of life that the person, through the choices they have made, has resolved to turn away from, or to reject, as if to force on them the opportunity to question or second guess themselves, by leading them to imagine the circumstances they now have lost, or forsaken.
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There is something in Eveline’s choice that is so obviously tragic that it needs no explication. For one can understand her, can recognize in her a figure that is not entirely unfamiliar. Like many of Joyce’s characters in Dubliners (the collection in which that story appears) she succumbs to a sort of emotional paralysis, and a nostalgia that is almost fatal in the depths to which it reaches in her person. So that, when faced with the opportunity to do something for herself, to allow herself the possibility of joy, she becomes reticent, and demurs. And yet, it is as if she knows how traumatic her decision will be if she allows her psyche to fully absorb it. Which is why she cannot bring herself to offer any parting gesture to Frank, nor to manifest any expression on her countenance. For then the emotional power of the moment would impress itself on her soul, and she would be destined not only to remember it always, but to be haunted by the feelings of loss that it would precipitate. And so she can only stand there looking at Frank, as he boards the ship without her, with a detachment she has imposed upon herself.
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James Joyce seemed to be onto it too, though he dramatized it in fiction, rather than philosophy. In his short story Eveline, a young woman who is planning to escape the drudgery of her life in Dublin, where she cares for her boorish but widowed father (in the home where she and her brothers grew up), decides at the last moment to stay behind, and continue the life she knows, however dull and obligatory she finds it, rather than board a ship to Buenos Aires with her adventurous beloved, a sailor named Frank who calls her “Poppens,” takes her to the theater, and is able to make her laugh. In the last lines of the story, as Frank cries to her from the gangway, “Come! Eveline! Evvy!” and beholds her with pained astonishment, she stands behind the railing and says nothing, but only sets “her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal,” while “her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.”
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What is it about the fear of freedom, that Nietzsche seemed always to be onto?
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And when he is gone, the mountain is still there, and the wind and the snow, and the boulders and rocks, and the line of timber a little further down, where the cold and the weather do not reach with such severity, though they do reach somewhat.
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There he is, way high up on a mountain, leaning into the wind, and into the snow that is blowing around him, an oaken stick in the grasp of his hand, and the hem of his cloak flapping wildly, almost angrily, but him making headway, his bootprints visible, if seen from above, in a long line that the eye can trace back into a growth of timber out of which he emerged at some time earlier in the day.
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And yet, I am not against Nietzsche. And I would not pretend to know why he went mad, or even that I’m certain that I understand his ideas in all their complexity and beauty. And I love him the way you love a person from the past that you have never met, but that you admire greatly and that you would like to have met and to have known.