Everywhere one looks, it seems, one sees politics. The world has grown serious—life has become important. Everyone’s already found the answer to the question that Shakespeare made Hamlet ask: perhaps it’s for this reason that so many of us are not as cheerful as men like Goethe or Henry Miller were. It’s always dangerous to speculate on Goethe’s politics, but the matter is a bit simpler when it comes to Henry Miller. Miller was a man who rejected political life on purely aesthetic grounds; a man who declared himself free from anything resembling ideology; a man who devoted his life to playing the harmonica in ways that no one has played it since.
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Will you allow me to tell you a story about politics? Once, there lived a being who wanted to love the world but could not do so. His problem was simple: he was afraid for his security, and his fear kept him from enjoying the delights of friendship and philosophy. Suddenly, a man named Hobbes appeared on the scene, assumed a very solemn posture, and told our being to form an association with his fellows. “Once this association is formed,” Hobbes promised, “your fear will depart.” Our being, who was by nature a taciturn sort, did as Hobbes told him: he came together with his fellows and became a political animal. Flags were raised, debates were hosted, and elections were held; our being now had cable news, and he felt safer. It really looked as if things were getting better, as if the world would no longer be so frightening. It didn’t take long, however, for our being to grow scared once again, and—when his paranoia returned—he set out to find Hobbes. “Hobbes,” our being exclaimed, “I’m once again plagued by doubts and fears. What do you suggest I do now?” By this point, though, Hobbes had grown bloated, and he was in no position to offer advice, for he was busy writing a complicated book called The Fourth Critique.
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It’s somewhat difficult, of course, to take one’s politics cheerfully; after all, so much is at stake. But what exactly happens when we grow solemn and focus all our attention on the political sphere? And what happens when—after all of this unsmiling attention—the party we support wins all the important elections? Do our neuroses, fears, and obsessions—and I’m referring to the ones we face on an individual level—suddenly cease to exist? At some point, I’ll produce an aesthetic critique of politics: it’ll serve as the first principle of my metaphysics.
A word or two, now, on fiction. When it comes to literature, one often discovers surprises in the most unusual places. Consider Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, a novel about a world in which the omnipresence of violence has transformed every human emotion into a variant of fear. In Blood Meridian, violence follows every man from dawn to dusk, and brutality is the measure of all things. Yet McCarthy’s book—which treats human suffering with a kind of muted compassion—is marked by a total lack of interest in political questions. Perhaps this is because McCarthy wanted to publicize his utter boredom with the political realm; in fact, perhaps the emotional power of McCarthy’s prose was purchased at the price of a rejection of politics. Whatever the case may be, one thing is certain: today’s debates about the question of “political apathy” are strikingly outdated, for the rejection of politics is always the result of something more than apathy. For now, let’s just consider the possibility that, in our society, there’s nothing less apathetic—nothing more deliberate— than the decision to abstain from politics.
What does it mean when the most powerful creative artists, many of whom are filled to the brim with compassion for those around them, choose to produce apolitical art? One doesn’t need a sensitive eye to see that, come election time, the anxieties of a whole nation rise to the surface. As the election approaches, one sees the horrifying fury with which so many of us are prepared to defend the lands we’ve been trained to revere. One sees—and it’s not a beautiful sight—the limits of our cherished “tolerance.” And, if one’s eyes are sturdy enough, one also sees the ease with which we’re prepared to condemn those who make us feel afraid: hence the desire, by the way, to punish criminals. Such unattractive sights can do great harm to one’s vision: perhaps this is why the Harold Blooms of the world feel so compelled to banish politics from the artistic realm. In the end, it’s easy to lament “apathy,” but it’s quite difficult to prove to the artist—or to any sensitive human being—that he has a responsibility to participate in a political debate that nauseates him.
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I recently visited a bookstore to watch Philip Roth give a live interview on a gigantic television screen. For thirty–one minutes, Roth answered questions about the political content of his novels. A few dozen weary people, all of whom were dressed in the dreariest colors, sat quietly and listened to Roth—who could barely stay awake himself—talk about the Korean War. Suddenly, as Roth was in the middle of a sentence, the screen froze, and the sound died. We were told that technical difficulties had put an end to the broadcast, so our broken hearts club was forced to disband. I suspect that Roth, who probably just wanted to go home, was delighted that his interview was cut short.
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One more question needs to be dealt with: why is it that our political commentators refuse to discuss the utter ridiculousness of American politics? Every day, the nation’s presidential contenders employ the rhetoric of small children, and yet people still insist on taking the political process seriously. The candidates—grown men and women—call each other “mean” and “disrespectful.” Somehow, though, we manage to keep from laughing, and we even make ourselves believe we have an obligation to treat our politics with reverence. We insist on being “engaged,” we speak of “civic duty,” we celebrate when our favorite candidate wins, and—by some miracle—we do all of this with a straight face. This requires an explanation.
If there’s a single phenomenon that unifies every aspect of our politics, it can only be the law. In our society, nothing arouses as much awe, ambivalence, and discomfort as the law; never is the political climate more serious, more sober, than when “the rule of law” comes up for discussion. Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than the law is its opposite: violence. Consider the case of Hobbes. When we read Hobbes, we read a man who dreaded violence and wanted desperately to be free from fear. Hobbes needed to find a solution to the problem of violence at all costs. So, after cloistering himself in a safe place, Hobbes gathered all the courage he could muster and wrote a big book. This, by the way, is how modern political philosophy was born. This is also how Hobbes produced Leviathan, the first team–building exercise manual in modern history. Perhaps I should provide a new interpretation of this great book.
Hobbes held a belief that he didn’t like to discuss: he believed that he could reduce the threat of violence by getting people involved in politics. Hobbes created the political process in order to establish and uphold “the rule of law”—this is why it was so important for him that everyone take part in political discourse. But there’s more: Hobbes believed that the political process could be secure and stable only if it never became meaningful; for Hobbes, it was absolutely essential that politics remain boring. Here is the core belief of Mr. Hobbes: to establish “the rule of law,” to be safe from violence, and to live without fear, one must surrender the right to speak imaginatively and cheerfully about politics. For Hobbes, politics must never become inspiring—it must always be possible to predict everything. Everyone must debate, but no one must ever speak about the debate.
 Blue Face, Watercolor by Henry Miller. Miller bypassed the political, and devoted himself to his art, from which he derived unbridled pleasure. |
“If you want to be immune from the fear of violence, you must honor the political process. You must argue endlessly about politics, but you must never try to change it” —this is the fine print on the contract that Hobbes made everyone sign.
Like Hobbes, many of us are worried that, if political debate ever becomes profound or unpredictable, “the rule of law” will collapse. We’ve convinced ourselves that the monotony of our politics is the price we have to pay for a safe and law–abiding society. We worry that, if too many of us stop paying attention to poll numbers and campaign speeches, respect for the law will be undermined, leaving us vulnerable to violence. This is why we’re so bothered by “political apathy.” But we’ve covered our tracks well: we’ve taught our children that political engagement is courageous.
The law and violence—violence and the law: when the mold that’s grown atop our politics is cleared away, this is what remains. This, in fact, is precisely what keeps us so serious about political affairs. Some of us even treat these matters with the solemnity of Cormac McCarthy, who had to write Blood Meridian in a biblical idiom to remind his readers not to laugh. But McCarthy, like Hobbes, exaggerated the dangers of the world. McCarthy was scared of life: he believed in his fear, he took it seriously, and—lo and behold—the threat of violence became real for him! With Hobbes, the situation is even worse: this man couldn’t deal with his fears on a personal level, so he thought they would disappear if he formed a collective organization. Our politics has been following the lead of Hobbes: we’ve allowed this overanxious Englishman to take us to the big dance. But enough of Hobbes. Perhaps we ought to read Henry Miller, who never worried too much about danger or violence, and who taught that cheerless compassion is no compassion at all.
Above: Laocoön, etching by William Blake. In multiple languages, Blake declares war on polite society and its rejection of imaginative art. He writes, “Art Degraded, Imagination Denied, War Governed the Nations.”
PHILLIP PETROV is Columbia College senior. He is working towards a new conception of scholarship.