â¦
âµ
1 Consciousness as Anxious Alertness
Pain â the threat of pain â fear â alertness â consciousness. That is how I see the philosophical and ontological genesis of consciousness. Real, living consciousness cannot be without content out of which it emerges and grows from the start. So, it must be marked in its content by its origin. Real consciousness is and must be burdened with pain, a sense of threat and fear. Consciousness is a form of awareness, anxious alertness in its very nature. It is worth noting that the meaning of the French word apprehension (fright, fear, conception, concept, the ability to conceive) may be a slight but nevertheless interesting argument for the thesis that there is a fundamental connection between fear and consciousness, fear and conceptualising and concepts. The proximity of fear and consciousness (thinking, understanding) are captured in a peculiar way by Anton Chekovâs sentence: âMy dear, I do not understand and fear lifeâ, and âMy dear, I donât understand people and I fear themâ.1 Miguel de Unamuno says: âIt always turns out that there is fear found at the source of wisdomâ.2 Consciousness, i.e. understanding â the world, life, people â emerges out of fear as its negation, the (constant) overcoming of fear. Fear overcome in and by consciousness must (despite that and as a result) somehow persist in that consciousness. So ultimately, then, pain is a foundation of human consciousness. Any vision of the world which does not perceive that as a basic element does not, as Witold Gombrowicz said, have any notion of âthe history of consciousnessâ.3
According to Nikolai Berdyaev, a lack of suffering would indicate mankindâs contentment with the state of the world as the ultimate world, because suffering is the source of effort aimed at something else â it is the impulse behind transformative action. âDostoyevsky even considered suffering to be the only cause of the emergence of consciousness. Consciousness is indeed connected with suffering. [â¦] Such is humanityâs path. Such is the bitter path to knowledgeâ.4
This is a very important statement â on the bitterness of the human path to understanding, the bitterness of consciousness.
This painful and fearful origin of consciousness and therefore also of human reason, is betrayed by quite marked features of consciousness of reason â diversity, multidirectionality, indecisiveness, hesitation.
Memory is a mediating bridge: memory as the experience of pain and the mystery of evanescence, the life-giving water from the divine source near the site of the dead. So it is that we can still describe a vulgar person as painless, lacking in memory, being carried by the stream of life direction unknown, purpose unknown. Or, if someone prefers Hebbelâs âwittyâ metaphor: a rat fully occupied with chewing a bit of lard placed in a trap.5
Is there anything one could say in defence of the ratâs attitude in the trap? A person without sensitivity to pain and therefore without fear of pain and so without a sense of the threat of pain could not survive in a painful world. The theory of consciousness (and above all its philosophical conception) must take account of this pain (suffering) â and therefore fear â lying at the roots of consciousness. It must acknowledge in consciousness content that hails from living, painful experience. Consciousness cleansed of this content â âpurely cognitiveâ consciousness that certain philosophers take delight in â is fiction.
Gombrowicz writes: âI have always believed that philosophy should not be overly intellectual; it should be something emerging from our sensibility. For example, the mere fact that I am, let us suppose, aware of the existence of this tree has no meaning for me until the tree brings me pleasure or pain. Only in this way does it become significantâ.6 But he puts the matter too literally, too narrowly. The tree is in fact â for me, for us â important as a potential pleasure or pain. The attitude towards potentiality is a generalised attitude, differing from the attitude towards the source of a specific pain or pleasure. In the same way an area lit by a pocket torch differs from the area under sunlight.
The above comparison comes from Arthur Schopenhauer. And Gombrowicz writes precisely that the torch lights only âwhat is being looked for, whereas higher intelligence is like the sun which casts light on everything. That is the source of great artâs objectivism. It is selflessâ.7
Alertness towards potentiality (of pain or suffering!) is not and cannot be selfless, not at all! It only differs from the usual everyday kind of self-interest precisely in the lack of a specific, defined attitude â it is generalised interest an attitude towards any potential eventuality â just in case. Perhaps there is a similar situation with art â it does not satisfy a specific, interim purpose or interest but a generalised one.
In the everyday attitude towards pain, which in the chain we have described above is the first link, there is a moment of deception which turns on the fact that we wish, as Ernst Jünger puts it:
to locate pain in the kingdom of chance, in an avoidable domain, one we can escape or which we might avoid. After all, if we can attain a cool distance to the object of our enquiries, an indifferent gaze like the one we cast from the circus benches at the blood flowing from the wounds of the unknown swordsmen, we will quickly arrive at the conclusion that pain is a certain and unavoidable interference in our life. There is nothing more certain and fated for us that pain. It is like a mill which catches a grain from an ear of corn, grinding it more and more finely or the shadow of life that no agreement can protect us from.8
At this point we should add something important. Pain does not belong to the realm of chance; it is a necessity. However, luckily, this does not concern pain in general â pain as such. Perhaps it is faith in the divine granting of pain and suffering to mankind which inclines us to treating pain as accidental, essentially an instance of chance (for the âeating of the appleâ has all the hallmarks of a chance occurrence, dependent on caprice, both Godâs caprice and Adam and Eveâs). Yet placing pain in the realm of chance is not completely misguided â or is forgivable at any rate. It is true that mankind cannot avoid all pain, but it is also true that it can avoid each particular pain. This last conviction is not delusory, it is an important truth about life, a truth that makes life possible. So, we should come to terms with the world of pain, because it is our world. We can and should rebel against every individual case of pain, because this resistance is also a necessity of life and the success of this resistance is a condition for life. This issue â pain as a necessity and yet something intolerable â is raised by Gombrowicz for whom pain is the first and most basic principle of life.
If, however â Gombrowicz says â one would want the deepest and most difficult definition of that someone I am talking about who should begin to live in those structures and constructions, then I would say that that someone is Pain. For reality is that which offers resistance; namely, that which hurts. And a real man is one who is in pain. No matter what we are told, there exists, in the entire expanse of the Universe, throughout the whole space of Being, one and only one awful, impossible, unacceptable element, one and only one thing that is truly and absolutely against us and absolutely devastating: pain. It is on pain and on nothing else that the entire dynamic of existence depends. Remove pain and the world becomes a matter of complete indifference.9
Many years before Gombrowicz, the pain lying at the foundation of consciousness was also noted by Miguel de Unamuno who noticed: â[â¦] all consciousness is consciousness of death and painâ.10 He also added: âHow, without greater or lesser suffering can one know about oneâs own existence? In what other way can one take the turn to the self, acquire reflective consciousness â if not through pain?â11
â¦
This chain (this series of links) from which we began this section demands two remarks. Let us recall the sequence of links: pain â threat of pain â fear â awareness â consciousness. Apart from the last, all the links are the work of the evolution of animal experience. They are all also necessary conditions for the emergence of the last link â consciousness. But the passage from the preceding links to the last could not have taken place through âanimalâ evolution. The passage to consciousness must have already taken place in a human way, i.e. via the humanisation of all the previous links, through the humanisation of pain, the threat of pain, fear of pain and awareness. What this humanisation consisted in, how it took place, is a problem for separate consideration â we will not be addressing it here.
Second remark. I wrote that authentic, real consciousness is burdened by the content of its own history, its genesis, i.e. pain, fear, awareness. This is, however, only a part of the truth. The second part is expressed in the thesis that when this chain comprised of elementary links of experience is complete with the last the link, that last link (consciousness) in a reflexive way absorbs, is saturated, oversaturated in its content with all the previous links.
This second remark leaves us with a new question. What is characteristic of the pain which is âilluminatedâ with consciousness and what is unique about conscious fear and awareness?
2 Pain â the Possible Limit of Every Sensation
Pain should also be considered, perhaps above all, as a shifting boundary called sensory sensitivity. We experience the world, the impact of the world, through our senses. Each impact can potentially be painful in nature and this possibility is from time to time realised. And since this realisation occurs sometimes, it is somehow always present as a possibility, as fear or awareness â in every regular and painless sensory experience of the world. Sensitivity to pain is an essential condition for and at the same time a limit to cognitive experience. What is pain and what more can it be? Pain is an indicative sign of the transgression of the border of the bearable world or the border or healthy or safe experience. In the first place, pain is a sign of an unbearable world, a sign of the âsicknessâ of the world. Secondly, pain is a sign, a symptom of sickness in our organism (Hippocrates).
The world is conducive to pain â the subject matter of studies in the ontology of suffering. In a world like this, beings without sensitivity to pain could not exist. Yet many persons think it would be wonderful not to feel pain at all. The structures of life, including human structures, must contain systems for early as well as the last warnings before the impact of destructive factors which are an inseparable part of the habitats of all life, including the entire environment of humanity. Painful sensations are precisely a kind of last level or layer of warning before destructive actions. Everything suggests that the âthicknessâ of this layer depends on the complexity of the life in question. For human beings this layer is very thick, perhaps to be treated as a multi-layered structure. After all â a subject we will return to later â fear can be treated as a kind of layer serving to sense pain or as a factor that strengthens painful sensations.
3 Consciousness between Fear and Hope
Delight (pleasure, contentment, satisfaction) â the possibility of repeating â hope â expectation (awareness) â consciousness. This positive path from the past, the genesis of our consciousness, must also be present in current consciousness. Let us say it again: consciousness is a form of awareness, in this case positive â awareness as hope and expectation.
Our present consciousness is always between our past and our future, between past experience and future. An authentic past experience is always made up of two signs: â+â and, âââ, the sign of delight (satisfaction) and of discontent or pain. Consciousness is a point between the past intersection of plusses and minuses and their future projection: it is always a hope that future experience will be a recurrence and will increase the positive experience of the past (wishful thinking, wanting, is an important element of consciousness) and fear of the unfulfillment of hope and the repetition of pain and discontent.
So, consciousness is the awareness of hope and of fear, where neither one nor the other is certain or guaranteed. When certainty of success replaces hope or when complete helplessness takes the place of fear, consciousness becomes impossible and ceases to exist. The domain of consciousness lies between certainty of success and certainty of failure (absolute helplessness or powerlessness).
Structures of certain success cannot include reason and neither can completely powerless structures. The subject is not and cannot be present in either case â in neither case is there consciousness (the power of reason). It is not a coincidence that through the ages people have been convinced that the gods always gifted success to those who are ultimately ill-fated â a sufficiently long series of successes is enough to rob even the wisest of their good sense. No one is immune to this!
So, Gombrowicz is right when he doubts in the connection with reality of that philosophy which takes its subject matter to be pure consciousness.
Can a philosophy whose starting point is consciousness have much in common with existence? Consciousness, as such, is something indifferent to life. Life knows only the categories of pain and pleasure. The world exists for us only as the possibility of pain or delight. Consciousness, if it is not the consciousness of pain or delight, has no meaning for us.12
Consciousness as such, pure consciousness â Gombrowicz tells us â is not significant. What matters is real human existence, that is to say, consciousness imbued with pain, suffering, fear or delight, satisfaction and hope. We could continue and say this latter consciousness truly exists, because consciousness is always consciousness of being, real being â of joy and hope, pain and fear.
Since this is the case, real consciousness is never simply consciousness, consciousness as such, consciousness in and for itself. It is always consciousness of something, for some reason, for something, in the name of something, against something. Moreover, it never is and cannot be merely consciousness of something (knowledge about something): it is always and must be someoneâs consciousness, one who values the object of consciousness in question â that something. Consciousness and knowledge are imbued with values, with valuation; consciousness (knowledge) that is completely free or independent of evaluation is unreal. So, what can we say about the subject matter of certain philosophical schools â those who seek to analyse pure consciousness, consciousness as such or knowledge as such, knowledge entirely free of the valuative?
[â¦]
4 The Reversibility or Irreversibility of the Negative Value of Pain
Less than a year before Gombrowiczâs death, he confessed that he was planning to write about pain. âIt seems to me that the whole, let us call it âintellectual dialecticâ of our time is flawed because no one is aware of the significance of pain. Pain is a basic, a fundamental factâ.13
The concrete and true reality is, according to Gombrowicz, pain, as we have already said. He protests against academic speculation according to which the negative value attributed to pain can be reversed (replaced with a positive valuation) in any system of values.
Philosophers, with the exception of Schopenhauer, seem to be a kind that sit comfortably in their armchairs and look down their noses with Olympian calm at matters involving pain. Until the day they have to go to the dentist and cry out, âOw, ow, Doctor!â Thus Sartre, contemptuous in his philosophy of the theory of suffering, claims, for example, that for one who deems suffering to be good, torture can become a heavenly pleasure. This view seems to me highly dubious, one characteristic for the French bourgeois which has, by its good fortune, avoided serious suffering for quite some time.14
This reminds us of old images of holy martyrs who were said to have accepted suffering â even in a state of happiness or bliss. It is against this tradition that Gombrowicz wished, as he said:
To write something that would give some sense of pain that is truly terrifying and absolute, that is the very basis of reality. The universe strikes me as something entirely black and empty, where the only reality is what causes suffering, pain. This is the real devil. The rest is only posturing. So, I think that if I do write a play, it will be moving in this direction.15
Gombrowiczâs polemic with Sartre concerns a problem already posed by Plato who â as perhaps the first â relativised the experience of pain and joy to the system of values. Plato believed that the value of directly experienced pain (or joy for that matter) does not result from this experience but is dependent on the system of values held. Only then can the experience of pain (suffering) be for us a negative or positive phenomenon.
Plato considers the problem of suffering together with the problem of pleasure. He views both â pleasure and pain â in the context of the domain of sensation and the domain of judgments (convictions, valuations). One experiences delight (which may mean we react positively with a sense of pleasure) and then judge the value of this delight (its significance, meaning). The same goes for suffering: one experiences it and then evaluates its depth and meaning. Well, According to Plato, this judgment may be adequate or inadequate:
So, Gombrowicz categorically opposes this axiological relativisation of pain and suffering. He opposes the reversibility of the value attributed to pain and suffering. The value of pain is always negative in his view. Pain always has a âââ sign and never the opposite. This sign can only be changed in the world of philosophical theories and not in life.
So perhaps, Gombrowicz says, for example, Michel Foucault more or less seriously in the name of philosophical-structuralist fun claims that mankind does not exist. But this is only âtrue up until the moment he has his first toothache: then he will be quite sure of his existence and his philosophy will lose all meaningâ.17
â¦
I was about to agree with Gombrowicz, but something is holding me back, something suggesting a different conception. At this point the words of BolesÅaw LeÅmian suggest themselves: âThey said of her: âshe sobs and so she is!â And they said nothing more. But if everything hurts so much, then perhaps I am indeed alive? I hear the words: Blessed is the one who suffers, they have found Lifeâ.
And here is Simone Weil: âPhysical pains. Some of them cut the ground from under our feet â like at the dentistâs. Others connect us with the world â an example is gathering mowing that is full of thorns with your bear handsâ.18
This dualism appears elsewhere as well, for example, in our efforts at work. This is understandable: the effort involved in fruitful work and in pointless work or alienated work which is not for oneself. Another example might be the exhaustion of a sportsperson who has won a competition and one who has lost. Weil speaks about two kinds of delight in an analogous manner and about two kinds of hunger, of duty and of death. Not everything here is entirely transparent, but the criterion of distinction seems both clear and important: âthe criterion of sense of realityâ. That pain and suffering which distances us, tears us away from reality (cuts the ground beneath our feet, makes the world collapse, fall apart, makes being implode, for instance: the dentistâs drill, an earthquake, social anomie surrounding me (everyone turning away from me), pointless work, effort that results in failure ⦠On the other hand, there is pain and suffering that connects us with objective and human reality, for example the effort involved in every creative endeavour, the effort involved in a fruitful venture, hardship and pain that is endured or overcome, âgathering mowings full of thorns with oneâs bare handsâ.19 This same dualism, according to Weil, applies to hunger, duty, death.
In any case, there is no truth in life without pain and suffering. But is it possible to have a life filled only with suffering?!
The possibility of a change in the intensiveness of pain (upwards or down) or even the change of its character, its âsignâ (from âââ to â+â) must be considered in two contexts: (a) in the context of direct emotional sensation and (b) in the context of varying value systems, i.e. an axiological context. For it is obvious that a so-called higher value for whose sake pain is suffered makes it easier to bear. In other words, it is easier to take pain which is normatively instrumentalised. It turns out that at a more elementary level, at the level of the direct sensation of pain the relationship is analogous. In Pavlovâs laboratory, the animal (dog) was given food following painful stimuli and after some time the painful stimulus turned into a sign of imminent feeding, which extinguished defence mechanisms, i.e. typical manifestations of pain. The relationship of the intensiveness of pain and the context of other stimuli and even the possibility changing the evaluation of pain using positive contexts has also been experimentally shown for people, in particular for pre-school children.
5 Pain â the Antithesis of Freedom â Necessary Reaction
In the cited remarks of Gombrowicz there is a fundamental thought about pain: pain is an unacceptable necessity! The dialectics of this formulation are of key significance, the unity of opposites â a unity that it would seem both Marx and Hegel would be content with. Pain as a necessity is still too little to say, it is still almost a trivial claim. But pain as an unacceptable necessity is an authentic source of movement, a real stick of historical dynamite! This is something completely different from understood necessity (freedom?) In Gombrowicz, pain is precisely unacceptable necessity. And philosophers and theologians (the entire Christian theology of redemption) have accepted the doctrine of necessity which is reasonably accepted â¦
Here is the next part of Gombrowiczâs statement:
But pain (and thus pleasure) of its very essence contradicts the concept of freedom. To say that we have the slightest possibility of freedom in suffering (which would be tied to the sense of purpose delineating our system of values, even if it were only freedom âin a given situationâ), one has to scratch the meaning of the word. Suffering is something I donât want, that I must âget throughâ, having no choice is its essence, that is, a lack of freedom. It is hard to come by greater opposites than suffering and freedom.20
So, opposition and resistance is the only possible human attitude (and probably not only human!) towards suffering. Pain and suffering demand resistance and opposition; they do not permit any degree of tolerance (really?) â no patience. This is how Gombrowicz sees things. His opinion seems to find confirmation in the direct human experience of pain and reactions to it. Resistance and opposition to pain is a basic reaction of a sensitive being, an elementary truth of sensation.
So, there is no doubt that resistance to pain and suffering is a basic truth of life (an inevitable necessity) on a reactive-sensory level. However, it is not such an obvious truth (such a necessity) at a conscious level, with contextual-normative evaluations of pain and suffering. Here resistance, rebellion can be quelled in the name of higher values and as a means to their realisation. Then suffering can be borne and even sincerely accepted. So, the thunderbolts thrown at the philosophers by Gombrowicz should be somewhat subdued.
So, insofar as we consider these matters at a reactive-sensory level, resistance towards pain and suffering seems to be not only a necessity but a right and a duty. Things get more complicated at the second, higher, level.
The moral right to resist pain and suffering can still not be questioned here. But the necessity or absolute duty is at least doubtful and for various reasons. âOne must suffer suffering patiently,â writes the poet Andrzej Burda. Absolutely! So Gombrowiczâs âunbearable and unacceptable necessityâ should sometimes â having understood the above â be accepted or at least â borne. The idea of freedom as an understandable necessity appears!
6 A Program for the Complete Taming of Pain and Suffering
Gombrowiczâs attitude to pain (is it the same towards suffering?) is apparently metaphysically univocal and absolute: pain is unavoidable and at the same time unbearable. So resistance is both a necessary and a hopeless human response to pain. A truly existential situation. This necessity of pain does require, however, that its resistance is accompanied by determination and patience. If pain is unavoidable, then it must be somehow borne until it is overcome.
Philosophers with a metaphysical bent have had the tendency to occupy assertive positions: either total rebellion, or the complete accommodation of pain and suffering (the attitude of theology).
I will now present a particular kind of metaphysical-theological attitude. Its program is the taming of all suffering by granting it an axiological, or moral, meaning. I stress at once that this program is rational and morally justified only as long as it is not made absolute. Interpreted in an absolute fashion (in a metaphysical-theological manner) is an offence to God, logic and ethics. Making an absolute of our conception denies it all meaning â it is the path to unreason. Every absolute order is as against life as absolute chaos: extrêmes se touchent.
I will present a program to completely absorb suffering following the book of Victor Frankl.21 It is a program to grant suffering full meaning by treating it as a sacrifice for higher values and ultimately as a sacrifice for the highest value. Frankl rejects ânihilistâ attitudes â i.e. positions that reduce humanity to just one of the layers of its life and being â as part of his preparation before presenting his position. He rejects the reduction of humanity to the sphere of biology (ânaturalismâ, âphysicalismâ) or the reduction to the mental sphere (âpsychologismâ) or to the domain of sociology (âsociologismâ); he rejects anthropocentric attitudes (âanthropologismâ). He finally reaches the only proper theocentric doctrine, one which does not label itself as some âismâ, i.e. the one and only truth (as does, for example, âtheologismâ). The book is written in the spirit of taking care of the medical or religious community or flock.
Frankl makes an interesting remark about anthropology: âAnthropology, the science concerned with the essence of humanity had therefore to place mankind in the foreground. But it must not place humanity in a central placeâ.22 Why not? Well, because the basic thesis of Franklâs book is that: â[â¦] ultimately human being is suffering and the basic fate of mankind is to suffer, to be homo patiens. This is courage, the courage to suffer, to accept suffering, to affirm it. Only this way can we approach truth, not along the path of escape and fear of sufferingâ.23
Suffering is a necessity and a value, so it should be received and accepted.
So, as we have heard, the point is to accept suffering. To be able to receive and accept it, I must give suffering some purpose. For only then can âhappiness itselfâ spring from suffering, only then the âlight shineâ when I have âdrunkâ suffering, accepted it into myself, absorbed it body and soul. Only suffering combined with intention ceases to be suffering.24
Suffering acquires meaning here by transforming it into a sacrifice in the name of a higher value. As a sacrifice for someone, and ultimately in the name of a transcendent value. In Godâs name and for (?) God.
The sentence I have quoted above, especially the fragment about suffering out of which springs âhappiness itselfâ is a clear over-sweetening, unacceptably kitsch. This kind of language seems to me even indecent, akin to mockery, although I know this was not its intent. I cannot here resist the temptation to quote a few words of Gombrowicz on the subject of facile exaltation.
Someone sufficiently dishonest towards themselves to be able to say: the pain of others is more important to me than mine, immediately falls into this easy exaltation which is the mother of sanctimonious verbosity and all the generalities of a facile exaltation.25
So, we must guard ourselves against this too, this too easy exaltation, in particular the facile transformation of suffering into âhappiness itselfâ. Pain and suffering above all demand counteraction. Gombrowicz is fundamentally and basically right here. Pain and sufferingâs counteraction may take various forms. First of all, it can be directed at removing the objective (here including personal and social) sources of pain and suffering.
Secondly, it can be directed to dealing with the suffering itself. This could be achieved by developing resistance to pain in oneself or patience in suffering. This resistance and patience can be strengthened by various kinds of attempt to give pain and suffering meaning: for example, this pain has to be borne (e.g. the pain of an operation), because the result will be beneficial â health; or, we must bear the pain and learn to bear it because it will not be the last time we need to resist this kind of pain; we may need to bear the pain to be able to give an example, e.g. to a child who will also have to go through a similar process; we may have to bear the pain (e.g. of torture) because of the cause we are fighting for; we may have to bear the bitterness of a wrong, of injustice, humiliation because it serves the good of future generations including our children and grandchildren; we must bear the burden (often a cruel one!) of human existence as it was borne, in the name of human values, by those we honour as heroes â Prometheus, Christ, Maksymilian Kolbe, Janusz Korczak; suffering must be borne because we have done wrong and were deserving of punishment; the suffering has to be borne to remember and not repeat the actions that led to it; and so on. Yes, but all these rationalising manoeuvres that would teach perseverance and patience in suffering cannot remove our resistance to pain and suffering. In fact, they are a fragment of the program of resistance to pain and suffering. Yes, the basic attitude remains one of removing pain and suffering but we must agree with Frankl when writes âwe are not entitled to remove suffering at all costs and ensure ourselves freedom from painâ.26 I agree, but with a certain reservation to the word âentitledâ. We are indeed not âentitledâ to remove suffering at any cost. And that is because the price may be greater suffering than the suffering removed. The complete release from all suffering is an illusion, because here we always need to add some definite reason. I do not exclude the possibility, however, that the lack of entitlement that Frankl writes about, is a consequence of the assumption that suffering was given to mankind by the Highest Will and for this reason, and only for this reason, we should not attempt to free ourselves from it. This is an assumption that is difficult to accept â it cannot be defended rationally or morally.
In any case, the first principle is to counteract pain and suffering, but we agree â not at any price. The second principle is to create the capacity to bear pain and suffering. In creating this capacity a very important fact or means is to make sense of suffering, but also â not all suffering and not at any price! Now we should make a few remarks about the limits (the moral, psychological, social limits) in making sense of (justifying, ennobling) human suffering.
Every value whose invocation makes sense of our suffering (by accepting that suffering in the name of that value, treating our suffering as a sacrifice in the name of that value) has a greater or lesser, but finite, capacity (whether moral, psychological or public-relations based) to make sense of human suffering. How much human suffering has been swallowed up and justified by such values as: Fatherland, Freedom, Justice, Dignity or God! How often has suffering caused by ignorance, greed or human baseness been, though called a âsacrificeâ, justified in the service of said Value.
Here we ought not to have made sense of this suffering, we ought not to have made the sacrifice for one or other Value. We should instead have sought the sources (sources of suffering) in human action and counteracted suffering understood in that way. If instead of counteracting the suffering, we attempt to come to terms with it, making sense of it with the aid of higher or the highest values. We then commit a transgression â against those values. The values become blurred, they drown in an ocean of suffering which they cannot and should not take on to justify that suffering.
But do higher values not demand and at the same time justify sacrifice and suffering?
Within certain limits â yes!
What I have said concerns God, who for believers is the Highest Value, the absolute Value, the Ultimate. So I claim that even this value (and perhaps in a peculiar way precisely this value) cannot and should not be burdened with the function of making sense of human suffering treated as sacrifices for God, as sent by God, as âDivine giftsâ âgifts of a Divine trialâ. This response, particularly common even obsessive in Catholic circles, blames God for human suffering where we should seek the specific sources of that suffering and get to work counteracting it.
According to frequent statements of the faithful, among them Catholic priests, the difficulties faced by Polish people in life should be attributed to Divine intention which, in their opinion, is putting us through it to knock some sense into us. But couldnât He teach us reason in a somewhat gentler way? âThou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain!â Thou shalt not take the name of any higher values in vain to justify human suffering, which you can and therefore should counteract!
One could react âcynicallyâ to what I have just written: if offering human suffering to God (treating it as âdivine indulgenceâ, as part of a âDivine trialâ) brings humanity some relief, eases the suffering, then well and good, even very good. There is no need to be so concerned with God â that this behaviour will in some way dishonour Him.
But this attitude has two weak points. First of all, it is sacrilegious! Secondly, for humanity it is also a risky attitude. Sure, âoffering our suffering to Godâ, i.e. burdening God with it, may bring relief in our suffering, but it also weakens our motivation to deal with that suffering ourselves.
Altogether we should claim and proclaim that urbi et orbi, that theologians use and abuse the name of God!
â¦
It seems that none of the âtotalâ approaches is tenable. The path to a world entirely free of pain and suffering is closed. Humanity must learn to bear suffering, live with it, and this situation limits the depth and scale of necessary and possible resistance. No rebellious activism, no rational action or counteraction aimed at pain and suffering is in a position to eliminate it completely and irrevocably from the human âcosmosâ. And nor is this the result of some Total Intention or Total Purpose of any God.
At the same time each specific source of human pain and suffering is relative, limited, and so vulnerable to effective counteraction. So counteracting specific sources of pain and suffering is rational and can be effective â which is why each individual act of resistance to the world which creates sources of pain and suffering is a human right and even a moral obligation. In the face of this reality, human patience for pain and suffering cannot be absolute and limitless and no rationalisation here can be total.
How to avoid the totalising attitudes examples of which I have described above? We should, it would seem, begin by questioning the treatment of pain and suffering as Universals. Theoretical misunderstanding and, as a result, practical-pedagogical difficulties issue from the fact that pain and suffering are discussed in general. These are then total questions, generalised questions, which is to say: questions directed at a vacuum and infinity. Whereas the reality of human existence is comprised of specific pains and sufferings, always concrete.
Bibliography
Berdyaev, Nikolai. Samopoznanije: Opyt filosofskoj avtobiografii. Paris: YMCA Press, 1949.
Chechov, Anton. Izbrannyje Proizwiedienija, Powiexti i razvkazy 1888â1896. Moskva: Izdatelstvo Chudozestwena Literatura, 1967.
Frankl, Victor. Homo patiens. Próba wyjaÅnienia sensu cierpienia [Original German title: Homo Patiens. Versuch einer Pathodizee]. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1984.
Gombrowicz, Witold. âGuide de la philosophie en six heures un quart.â In Gombrowicz, edited by Konstanty Jelenski and Dominique de Roux. Paris: LâHerne, 1971.
Gombrowicz, Witold. Diary, trans. Lillian Valle, New Haven â London: Yale University Press, 2012.
Herling-GrudziÅski, Gustaw. Dziennik pisany nocÄ 1973â1979 [The Journal Written by Night 1973â1979]. Warszawa: Res Publica, 1990.
Jünger, Emst. âO bólu.â Literatura na Åwiecie 9, no. 182 (1986): 177â230.
Plato, Philebus. Translated by Harold Fowler, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925.
Sanavia, Piero. Gombrowicz: la forma e ilrito. Padova: Marsilio Editori, 1974.
Unamuno, Miguel de. O poczuciu tragicznoÅci życia wÅród ludzi i wÅród narodów. translated by Henryk Woźniakowski. Kraków â WrocÅaw: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1984.
Weil, Simone. Cahiers, I. II, III, Paris: Libraire Plon, 1951â1956.
Anton Chechov, Izbrannyje Proizwiedienija, Powiexti i razvkazy 1888â1896 (Moskva: Izdatestvo Chudozestvena Literatira, 1967), 240.
Miguel de Unamuno, O poczuciu tragicznoÅci życia wÅród ludzi i wÅród narodów, trans. Henryk Woźniakowski (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 121). English translation: Tragic Sense of Life, trans. J.E. Crawford Flitch (New York: Dover, 1954).
Piero Sanavia, Gombrowicz: la forma e il rito (Padova: Marsilio Editori, 1974), 52.
Nikolai Berdyaev, Samopoznanije: Opyt filosofskoj avtobiografii (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1949), 343.
Gustaw Herling-GrudziÅski, Dziennik pisany nocÄ 1973â1979 [The Journal Written by Night 1973â1979] (Warsaw: Res Publica, 1990), 224.
Witold Gombrowicz, âGuide de la philosophie en six heures un quart,â in Gombrowicz, eds. Konstanty Jelenski and Dominique de Roux (Paris: LâHerne, 1971), 86.
Ibid., 89.
Ernst Jünger, âO bóluâ [On Pain], Literatura na Åwiecie 9, no. 182 (1986): 179.
Witold Gombrowicz, Diary, trans. Lillian Valle (New Haven â London: Yale University Press, 2012), 699.
Unamuno, op. cit., 155.
Ibid., 156.
Gombrowicz, Diary, 628.
Piero Sanavia, Gombrowicz: la forma e il rito (Padova: Marsilio Editori, 1974), 5.
Gombrowicz, âGuide de la philosophieâ¦â, 103.
Sanavia, op. cit., 28.
Plato, Philebus, trans. Harold Fowler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), 40C/42b.
Sanavia, op. cit., 28.
Simone Weil, Cahiers, vol. I, II, III (Paris: Libraire Plon, 1951â1956), 14.
Ibid., 15.
Gombrowicz, Diary, 628.
Victor Frankl, Homo Patiens. Próba wyjaÅnienia sensu cierpienia [Original German title: Homo Patiens. Versuch einer Pathodizee] (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1984).
Ibid., 91.
Ibid., 78.
Ibid., 79.
Gombrowicz, Diary, 179.
Frankl, op. cit., 86.