Political Authority and Visions of the Absolute
The pursuit of Absolute Truth is an inherently subversive endeavor. The idea of the Absolute, whether the Absolute itself exists or not, is accompanied by a sense that there is always something more perfect and more true than that which one knows or experiences. In the political realm, this sense might result in resistance to culturally ingrained institutions such as slavery, marriage, taxation, or whatever. It might lead to an exchange of representative for immediate government, or vice versa. In any case, the idea of the absolute will always bring about a change, for one political form can never be perfect, and humans will imagine things more perfect, though they fail to bring the perfect itself into being. This sense of the 'more perfect' has been at odds with the aims of many leaders in history, and I hope to show a pattern that lies within the literary formulations of the resulting tension. In the three important texts that I will examine, those who determine the order of their societies try or plan to preserve and/or intensify that order, and in doing so are forced to confront the subversive objectives that arise from the idea of the Absolute. The myth of Babel, the Gospel of John, and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov show us that as long as the idea of the Absolute exists, so long will social orders remain mortal, and their leaders mistaken in attempting to avoid, at great cost, the inevitable death of their creations. Given the succession of failed attempts at social immortality represented in the three texts, we can draw out and apply a principle to our own views of government and social order. If we lay aside for now the question of God's existence and accept it as an image or idea of the Absolute, my interpretation presents compelling reasons for the protection of the idea of the Absolute. If we preserve this idea with perseverance, it may be possible to avoid another repetition of the tragic pattern alluded to above.
The process that I will outline is one in which societies substitute politically structured, static and finite 'absolutes' for the subversive freedom to continually pursue the uncompromized Absolute. The conciseness of the story of Babel expresses beautifully the folly of such an attempt at preserving society, prefiguring the subsequent attempts of the Jewish authorities in the Gospel of John, and of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. In the following selection, only three sentences separate the Babelonians' statement of their purpose ‹ "let us build ourselves ... a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" ‹ and a word-for-word reversal of that purpose:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth." (Gen., 11.1 - 11.9)
The common language of "the whole world" and homogeneous ideals that must have accompanied it may seem to be an unusually solid foundation for the imposition of artificial absolutes. However, those who speak for the Babelonians are afraid that their people will "be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Their wish to "make a name" for themselves suggests the necessity of imposing a structure in place of a natural development. If the Babelonians needed to be "named," if a unifying identity did not emerge on its own, then surely they were not so unified as one might first guess. There is ample reason to believe that the foundation was not solid, and that the grand project is initiated precisely because there is no solid foundation for a common project. The progression that the city-builders follow is one of change or revolution: they "migrated from the east"; growth and prosperity: they built a large city and a tower to the heavens; and collapse: the unifying language disintegrates and the builders are widely scattered. The story of the Tower dates to a time before the explicit formulation of ideas such as that of a unified God or of "the Absolute." However, as Northrop Frye claims, it is precisely as a metaphor that biblical stories have their greatest meaning. I suggest, with the help of Dostoevsky, that the metaphor of the Babel myth is a formulation of events that describes the effects of the unsettled, seeking characteristic of the idea of the Absolute before the idea itself is conceived of. Though it is not expressed in political or philosophical terms, Babel codifies a pattern of political and philosophical development that is echoed in later texts. The project discussed above may then be considered the attempt to forge a socially unified (though, in pre-Socratic fashion, subconscious and distant) relation to Truth. The idea of 'something better' already existed at the time the story of Babel was written, and its effects were the same as those of our modern Absolute. Those who spoke for the Babelonians must have been aware that their society was fragmenting, or would fragment, and they sought to bolster its unity with a move completely counter to the society's natural tendency. While by such measures they may have increased its longevity, they did so at the cost of making their society more rigid, and therefore susceptable to a terrible and, at least from our own perspective, foreseeable calamity: the grand Tower, symbol of the unity and high civilization of their society, is reduced to rubble, and the harmony of the "one language" ceases to exist. They ignored the Absolute, and the Absolute, or God, "scattered them abroad ... over the face of all the earth." The Babelonians' speakers were fighting the inevitable. The "one language" of "same words," went so far as to actuate a sense of 'something better' but, like our own modern language, did not embody a formulation of the Absolute, and so could not possibly be made to last forever.
The significance of the Babel myth goes beyond a metaphorical account of human communication to frame a pattern that has transcended the particular form of culture from which it was born. The "one language," "same words," and the reference to a single group of people as "all the world" have been interpreted as components in the structure of an archetype that loosely describes a real historical period in human existence. This period is supposedly characterized by human communication free from the complications of semantic ambiguities. Different people meant the same thing by the same words, and this was so because they perceived the world, and ordered their perceptions of the world, identically with one another. In addition to its function as a linguistic archetype, the Tower myth presents an archetype of the political developments of later eras. It is the touchstone both for the authorities in John and Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor in their reasoning for suppressing the idea of the Absolute. Ironically, it also symbolically explains to us why none of these attempts at suppression can satisfy its purpose. By imposing a sense of absolute where no absolute exists, by attempting to live perfectly without being perfect, cultures beg for their own extinction. [[[why does the argument not use real history? The argument must account for real history and show that it applies not only to literature but to history as well.]]]
The Gospel of John describes a repetition of the process at work in the Tower myth. Beyond that, it describes a repetition that occurs despite a seemingly indubitable foreknowledge of the consequences indicated by the demise of Babel. Being biblical scholars, the Jewish authorities were aware of the Babel myth. They did perceive the similarity between their own attempts to suppress Jesus' revival of the Absolute within their current social order, and the Babelonians' previous attempt to ignore the Absolute so that they might preserve a social order. At the same time, however, they failed to see that the problems with the Tower were not isolated to its particular circumstances. They seem to imagine that their own project is fundamentally different and not prone to the same unfortunate consequences.
The tragedy of the Jewish authorities' mistake begins, in part, with the history of their culture. Northrop Frye suggests in his book The Great Code that conformity of societal values is strengthened by revolution, though only temporarily:
We spoke earlier of the latent terrorism in the rule of law, which has been seen many times in history since the Old Testament, and is often a post-revolutionary feeling. A great experience has been shared: the society feels drawn together into a single body, and social and individual standards become, for a necessarily brief period, assimilated.
Having survived long enough for liberation from the Egyptians' enslavement, and freed themselves from the abuses of many tyrant-kings, the Jewish people were already beginning to feel the "latent terrorism" of their post-revolutionary law when Jesus was born. The restlessness of the people, especially notable in the Gospel of Mark [John?], reveals a sense of dissatisfaction, a sense, brought on by the idea of the Absolute, of the existence of a more perfect social order.
In John, the Jewish authorities are not pleased with this development. Though a part of a religious institution, they are none the less political both in their practical function and in their ideals. They say of Jesus, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." Their role as spiritual leaders and counselors, as presented in the canonized gospels, is primarily that of enforcing Scripturally-based laws. Thus, the growing challenge to those laws, focused by Jesus, threatens to undermine their efforts to preserve a legally-based social order.
[Authorities ignore question of whether there in fact is Truth...] The authorities are concerned only with the immediate consequences that Jesus' teaching has for their social structures. ...
The authorities in John ignore the question of the Absolute because they believe that previous attempts to do so did not have the proper or the necessary refinement of technique. Only by planning to replace it with their own artificial construction can the authorities ignore the idea of the Absolute. Their first formal meeting regarding Jesus illustrates this lack of regard for the Babelonians' execution of the Tower project, and at the same time the ironic similarity between their project and the Babelonians':
So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, "What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed." He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. (John, 14.47 - 53)
Just as the Babelonians had sought to unify and "make a name" for themselves to the exclusion of the Absolute, so the Jewish authorities sought to reunite the world by discarding the Absolute in the person of Jesus. The Babelonians sought to subsume the idea of the Absolute in their own construction of an artificial one, which they hoped would be more lasting than any consequences of a subversive Absolute could be. The Jewish authorities tried something seemingly new, but in reality just as doomed and perhaps more so. They sought to eliminate the idea of the Absolute.
The purpose for Jesus' persecution given here ‹ "to gather into one the dispersed children of God" ‹ follows directly from the "scattered" or, "dispersed" condition of the Babelonians at the ending of their project. That the authorities in John are aware that the "children of God" have been "dispersed" and need to be "gathered" indicates that the Babel myth had become influential in Jewish culture. Yet the authorities see their persecution of Jesus as a reparation rather than a repetition of past damages. They allow their fear of Roman intervention to expand into a more positive ambition for unification. They see their acts to be progressive when they are in fact regressive.
In The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor is a powerful embodiment of the desire to gather the dispersed. He states, "But the flock will gather again, and again submit, and this time once and for all." He does not acknowledge that this was precisely the purpose given by the authorities in John, and that those authorities failed completely in their attempt to unify the world. However, just as the Jewish authorities were aware of the failure that they relived, so the Inquisitor demonstrates an intimate acquaintance with the Gospels and the Tower of Babel. These two moments are the primary referents in his argument for eliminating the idea of the Absolute. The very foundations of this argument are the chief voices against it, for they demonstrate that the persisting idea of the Absolute is immune, or at least resistant to cultural sophistication and other historical variables.
More explicitly and thoroughly than in either of the preceding texts, Dostoevsky examines the social and political implications of the Tower myth. He introduces Alexei Fyodorovich, the "hero" of The Brothers Karamazov, with a few words that clarify the issues contained in Babel and in the Gospel of John:
In just the same way, if [Alexei Fyodorovich] had decided that immortality and God do not exist [if he had abandoned the idea of the Absolute], he would immediately have joined the atheists and socialists (for socialism is not only the labor question, ...but first of all the question of atheism, the question of the modern embodiment of atheism, the question of the Tower of Babel built precisely without God, not to go from earth to heaven but to bring heaven down to earth).
[my italics; page 26, "Elders" 1.1.5, The Brothers Karamozov]
In The Brothers Karamazov, the struggle to maintain the idea of the Absolute takes a new and more subtle form. Alexei Fyodorovich, the advocate of the Absolute, need not struggle against the State or against those who determine the social order. His struggle is against a powerful cultural shift in Russia that includes a growing disdain for the idea of the Absolute. The danger presented by Dostoevsky is not a physically present one such as that represented by the Jewish authorities, but rather a looming potential that develops within the Russian people. This potential is still so distant for Dostoevsky that he never fully links a real character to its expression. The Cardinal Grand Inquisitor presents the most developed and complete formulation of Dostoevsky's vision of a Godless, eternal city of Babel. For all his depth of character, the Inquisitor is a figment of Ivan Fyodorovich's imagination. He is a fiction within fiction.
Yet Dostoevsky describes a real potential for tragedy. Dostoevsky says that Alexei is unusual in his fervor, so he does not claim that anyone who does not believe in the Absolute is necessarily a socialist. What he may be suggesting is that the ultimate consequence of such unbelief at the social level is socialism, even if the trend toward socialism is not identifiable in every individual. Again, Dostoevsky indicates to us the potential in unbelief or abandonment of the Absolute.
The Tower of Babel built "precisely without God" and for the purpose of bringing heaven down to earth is Dostoevsky's expression of the mood of his times. God is dead. Many believe that they can create a perfect society "precisely" because God is dead. Science promises to solve every material problem imaginable. And there are no problems but the material to be solved, since, as the Inquisitor puts it (p. 253) "there is no sin, but only hungry men." But even the Inquisitor recognizes the error in this simplistic optimism for science. He claims,
Oh, never, never will they feed themselves without us. No science will give them bread as long as they remain free, but in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: "Better that you enslave us, but feed us." [p.253]
For the socialists' dream to come true, not only must the world lose its purpose with God, but humanity must also. For humanity to be satisfied, it must abandon all notions of 'something better' and with them its freedom, for freedom does not exist where there is no such notion.
[include a close reading of the passage above]
The Grand Inquisitor, like the Jewish authorities, is not concerned with the truth of Jesus' claim to divinity, with the question of whether Truth exists. In the following passage, it is useful to substitute "Absolute" for the "you" indicating Christ. In this way, the similarity between the reasoning of the Jewish authorities and that of the Inquisitor becomes apparent. The Inquisitor says to Christ,
I do not know who you are, and I do not want to know: whether it is you, or only his likeness; but tomorrow I shall condemn you and burn you at the stake as the most evil of heretics. [Dostoevsky; The Brothers Karamazov, page 250]
The Inquisitor seeks to condemn and execute the Absolute. Whether the leaders in these texts are trying to avoid the splintering of society, or to unify the world, their motives are captured by Dostoevsky with the words, "Mankind in its entirety has always yearned to arrange things so that they must be universal." Leaders in particular have thought the free idea of the Absolute troublesome, and sought to ignore, suppress, or eliminate it. For a series of leaders in literature, the Tower was merely a primitive attempt at arranging the universal, one that might be successful given the more sophisticated approach of 'modern' techniques. Leaders have wrongly concluded that their predecessors were merely primitive more than once, and despite great and continuing technological development, the fundamentality that the role of the idea of the Absolute takes on in societies has remained constant. We are thus led to believe that the subversiveness of this idea transcends the technical sophistication of its native culture.
The Grand Inquisitor would prefer to end the continuity of change that accompanies the idea of the Absolute, even if it means the total elimination of freedom. Dostoevsky writes,
Instead of the firm ancient law, man had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide... ["The Grand Inquisitor," page 255 in The Brothers Karamazov]
Again, it is useful to maintain our identification of God, Christ, and the Absolute. Dostoevsky reminds us of the enormity of social change which Jesus' teachings heralded. They rendered obsolete the "firm ancient law" derived from the Old Testament, replacing it with the ephemeral law of the individual conscience. [???]
These artificial absolutes, as I shall call them, are in every case imposed at the very moment when the notion of an attainable Absolute seems most ludicrous. When humanity suffers most from its inability to freely and therefore truly attain the Absolute, then it is most tempting, and simultaneously most fruitless, to create an artificial absolute out of sympathy for the suffering of humanity due to its failure to reach the Absolute.
Bibliography
Dostoevsky, Fyodor The Brothers Karamasov
trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
North Point Press (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux): New York, 1993
New Oxford Annotated Bible
Oxford University Press: New York, 1991
Frye, Northrop The Great Code: the bible and literature
Harcourt, Brace, Johanovich: New York, 1982