A Nonfiction Book
Can character be revived in paradox?
We have mentioned the possibility of becoming “Overmen,” “Deleuzian Individuals,” the Shamen of Alexander Bard, and/or “Absolute Knowers,” so that we as a society avoid collapsing under the existential pressure caused by the loss of “givens” and “The Conflict of Society.” This would suggest there is a “new kind of character” we need, but is character even still possible? No, what traditionalists mean by “character” is not the same as what Deleuze supports or Nietzsche encounters, but it is possible that processes which make both possible require conditions and systems which are similar to the rituals and practices which made “character” possible in the past. To explore the possibility of character then can be to explore the possibility of people becoming “Deleuzian Individuals” (and all the other terms I’ve used), people who alone might be able to handle the split between “the practical” and “the technical.” Admittedly, this might sound “elitist,” but really it’s more “rare,” for indeed those who do the hard are rarer than those who do the easy, regardless the socioeconomic status or class.
Nicolas Berdyaev suggests the tension between “givens” and “releases,” on how gaining freedom forces humans to confront their lack or presence of “spirit.” He wrote:
‘The purely spiritual and moral problems of life arise only when man is outwardly free. Then the tragedy is no longer in the conflict of personality with its social environment but is transferred to the inner spiritual life. A free man, whose moral judgments are not dictated by the community in which he lives, is faced with an inner conflict of values and with the necessity of making a free and creative choice.’¹
It seems Berdyaev had a sense of what Berger, Rieff, and Hunter would later elaborate on, warning that ‘[t]he ethics of freedom is stern and demands heroism.’² To become “Deleuzian Individuals” and “Absolute Knowers” is an act we can associate with Nietzsche’s “child,” and in that sense all of us today must become “heroes” to live with “The Conflict of Society.” Are we ready for this? Do we have a choice but to try?
Everything can entail an A/A-orientation to just “be,” which causes pathology and trouble. Character could be considered the ability to resist the temptation of this “being,” but strangely “The Value Circle” makes clear that “values” seek to “be,” and yet we often associate character with values. Indeed, there is something about a person with character having values, but it would also seem that a person given character according to Deleuze and Absolute Knowing would not try to make values “be”: a value of the Deleuzian would be to not let values “be,” which is to say those with character resist the temptation to make values “be,” precisely as values naturally seek to “be.” This suggests the character of the Deleuzian or Absolute Knower is paradoxical, but if we understand that “values” trying to “be” causes “The Conflict of Society,” then based on the truth of this social reality, we can understand why this paradox is necessary.
A person with character resists temptation and does what is right, but under Pluralism, when “The Conflict of Society” is strong and vivid, character would resist the temptation of values to “be” — a strange reversal. Character is thought to practice and embody values, not resist them, and yet what we are describing here suggests that we have character precisely because we resist the drive of values to “be,” which normally might be seen as an act against character. I am no expert on “Spiral Dynamics” or similar theories of social and personal development, but perhaps we have reached “a developmental stage” where the values we must try to make “be” are values which resist the inherent desire of values to “be,” which is to say that we live in a world where we let values “be paradoxical” and at peace with their inherent desire to exist non-contingently. The Deleuzian and Hegelian “values” of today are those which keep us from falling into pathology and neurosis, precisely as values logically inspire us to “be.” To address paradox, paradox is needed.
If we believe in Jesus, then Christians traditionally can see those with character as those who try to spread Christianity across the world, in government, society, neighborhoods, and the like, which is to say a Christian is thought to be “a good Christian” to the degree he or she tried to make Christianity “be.” But if Christians are to take Deleuze and Hegel seriously (as being described in this paper), then what it means to “be like Jesus” can radically shift (but perhaps strangely shift closer to what Jesus intended). Many of the followers of Jesus thought he would overthrow Rome and restore Israel to the Jewish people, but this was not Jesus’s plan, as described by theologians like N.T. Wright. Like all of us naturally, the Jewish people wanted their values to just “be,” but Jesus did not give into this “temptation,” which for the Jewish people wasn’t a temptation at all but the right and moral thing to do. Furthermore, if we accept that Jesus “fulfilled the Law,” then Jesus embodied the values of Judaism precisely in the act of seeming to deny and undermine them — are we called to do something similar?
Jesus as described here brings to mind the Jesus we see in “The Grand Inquisitor” of Dostoevsky, who the Grand Inquisitor makes clear is a failure. Jesus should have accepted the temptations of Satan in the wildness: it was foolish for Jesus not to do so. Had Jesus turned stones to bread, he could have used miracles to force the world to see that his values were the values which “ought to be,” noncontingently — the same logic applies had Jesus jumped from the temple and been caught by angels. We could even argue that Jesus was prideful and foolish not to bow to Satan, as Satan requested in the third temptation, for Satan promised to give Jesus all the nations if Jesus did so. Wouldn’t this have been a real Crucifixion, per se? Wouldn’t Jesus have really saved the world? The Grand Inquisitor says Jesus should be executed again for giving humanity freedom, which was too much for humanity, and also we can interpret the denial of the temptations as Jesus suggesting that the world must be redeemed in a certain “way,” according to God’s will, which is to say that not all “ways” are equal. What we see in Jesus is someone who supports “a paradoxical way,” where it’s not enough simply to “make values be,” because it also matters how values come to “be.” Perhaps this is the lesson we especially need to take to heart today if we are to take seriously the need to be “Deleuzian Individuals” and “Absolute Knowers,” but I fear that this will require us seeing Jesus “through” a traditional and popular understanding, one the majority of people will rebel against (naturally, for what Jesus shows is “unnatural” considering the natural desire of values to “be”). Literature, let alone The Brothers Karamazov, is rarely read.
The “character” we see in Jesus entails a paradoxical resistance to our values wanting to “be,” which doesn’t mean we ignore our values or abandon them but force them to submit to the proper and right “how” (which aligns with “the substantive democracy” of Dr. Hunter). This requires emotional maturity, the ability to handle anxiety, a spirit of peace and serenity, kindness, mercy, and wisdom. Following Dostoevsky, we see in Satan a temptation to make Christianity “be,” and Jesus rejects that temptation. Jesus, who I associate with Hegel (though I will not say they are equivalent), is an example of character which develops not simply from the “noncontingent exercise and applications of values,” but from resisting their hunger to “be” until the right “how” is possible — a “how” which people part of Christ’s very community and discipleship failed to understand and rejected him for pursuing. We must face a similar challenge, for if we resist the “being” of values, we will be rejected.
For centuries, we have been able to ask questions regarding ethics, values, and character in terms of determining “the right values,” which are mainly inquires of determination and definition. Now, in the 2000s, we must lift ourselves up to a higher plane of abstraction and consideration, for though I think Jesus Christ gave us an example of moral deliberations relative to this “more meta-dimension,” we have mostly interpreted Jesus traditionalistically and Conservatively, thus missing it. Now, we must ask questions of how to follow our values, which strangely requires resisting their inherent desire to “be” — a strange and complex undertaking. This is where “the moral landscape” must now be searched and determined, for we are in the midst of a Pluralism and Globalism that will otherwise “logically and morally” end up in totalitarianism, tribalism, and worse (as I fear is already occurring).
And so, let us ask the question: Could we find “belonging again” if we found “character” again? We have already touched on the topic of character earlier in this work, but more must be said, especially considering “character” as Deleuzian and Hegelian. It was said earlier that since community is gone, character is also gone, for there is no longer a “moral order” in which character can be situated and defined. It was argued that this might reduce the probability of “the banality of evil,” which is a benefit, but it’s not so clear now, after Rieff and Berger, if the loss of character won’t just be the loss of Bonhoeffer, that Hitler won’t still be with us. Now though, we are approaching the topic anew, for though perhaps “traditional character” isn’t possible without “givens,” could a more “meta-version” be established, a “Deleuzian Individual” or “Absolute Knower?” Could we seek a new form of “character” in which it is “given” that we must resist “being?” Perhaps. Always perhaps.
There is reason to think that we should try to restore character, but with “Traditional Character” being negated and sublated into “Hegelian Character” (or perhaps “Dialectical Character”), I’m not sure on the best language: I associate this new take on character with Jesus, Hegel, and Deleuze (though my biases rest with the first two, seeing as I have trouble with Deleuze’s epistemology, despite the beauty of his ontology, but that is another topic for another time). Regardless, the challenge of this paradoxical “Dialectical Character” is that we must maintain while simultaneously maintaining relationality with “others” and difference in general; otherwise, the social order will collapse. Could a “Dialectical Society” form, or is that too paradoxical to hold together? Aristotle warned that humans without society are either gods or monsters, and yet it almost seems that the “Dialectical Character” we are describing here is for humans to become “monsters/gods” (or “aliens,” as Cadell Last discusses) and somehow form “Monster/God Societies” — is that possible? Indeed, that is the question, and this strikes me as the character of “A Society of Absolute Knowing” (or “Absolute Society”).
Overmen, Deleuzians, and the like are possible in individual instances and have lived — the question here is not primarily in regard to their possibility but their spread and relatability. Can communities of Absolute Knowers form? As Tim Adalin put it, can Zarathustra really relate? Can we work to move beyond “Bestow Centrism” (as I call it) without leaving others behind? This is our challenge, and recognizing if we can rise to its occasion will require us to deal with the tensions we have described in this book in such a way that we don’t lose our capacity to relate to others in the process.
Yes, we could avoid “The Conflict of Society” if we could “transcendentally ground” our values, for then everyone could see the value as the values (and let the thought of “The Value Circle” fall away), but when this option is no longer with us, an existential anxiety arises that we must “pull into ourselves” and integrate with together. There is a sense in which awareness of “The Conflict of Society” is the end of society, or at least society as we have known it, and this would suggest that we are then left as “monsters/gods,” just as Aristotle taught. If we learn to live with this difficult and paradoxical reality, perhaps we will become more like gods, but if we fail we might become more like monsters. Those are the stakes of our current moment, which suggests that Hegel was right to see the future as progressive but that it become harder to move into the future with time. History progresses through paradox, failure, and “negativity,” and it ends when we can no longer handle the “negativity” demanded of us. Today, much is demanded.
It can be agonizing to listen to music that provides no notes of resolution, and arguably society is now a piece of music which provides no resolution notes. An “Absolute Knower” is someone who sublates that negation into themselves and is excited by the fact that a lack of resolution means there is no necessary end to the creativity, but can there be a whole society founded on this excitement versus terror (considering the weight of creativity and “becoming”)? Society has traditionally partly been about helping people live with what they don’t feel like they should have to live with, and it has traditionally accomplished this by concealing and mitigating “difference,” but now the necessary “givens” are gone. This means we must internalize and integrate with difference (A/B), and thus become a difference to ourselves. We must become a society of people who are not reducible or readily intelligible in terms of that society, a place full of Nietzschean “children” who create their own values and “become” and yet don’t isolate themselves within those values, which is to say they can still be understood and related to by others (to some degree). Deleuze teaches us to become “imperceptible,” but is this possible without us also becoming “obscure” (as Justin Murphy has discussed)? How? Religion provided society shared values, which brought shared intelligibility and shared social coordination, and without such coordination it becomes remarkably difficult for society to work and stay together. How is widespread coordination possible if everyone is creating their own values? Hard to say, but is facing this very risk part of how we might regain “character?” Is risking obscurity and a loss of relations in the very act of trying to maintain relations what those with character shall today do? What does this mean?
Traditionally, having character required standing up for values that others might oppose, which places character in a strange place where it requires a social order to be possible, and yet at the same time a person with character often stands against social orders. Character is paradoxical in its very composition, and if paradox is somehow what we today must become comfortable with, then perhaps character can be saved? Sure, but is all this even possible, and if so, is it possible to do so collectively? Furthermore, can we give ourselves our own values and grant them authority over us even if we know we created them? ‘Can [we] give [ourselves our] own evil and [our] own good and hang [our] own will over [ourselves] as a law’ (Nietzsche asks)?³ If the answer is “no,” then we cannot hope for our “intrinsic motivation” to express “will” instead of mere “want,” for us to be our own driver, as seems necessary if the society can no longer provide “givens.” The loss of “givens” is perhaps an evolution if indeed it introduces a paradigm in which humans identify with “otherness” (A/B), “Absolute Knowing,” and so realize Nietzsche’s Will into “intrinsic motivation,” but if not we may suffer mightily. Even if the future progresses, there is no guarantee of a future.
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Notes
¹Berdyaev, Nicolas. The Destiny of Man. San Rafael, CA: Semantron Press, 2009: 157.
²Berdyaev, Nicolas. The Destiny of Man. San Rafael, CA: Semantron Press, 2009: 158.
³Nietzsche, Fredrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (as featured in The Portable Nietzsche). New York, NY: Penguin Press, 1976: 175.
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