Interview with Norman Mailer on God, the 20th Cent.

[speed]

Evil, you've said more than once, is growing in power — especially in the last hundred years. Do you think there was ever a golden age, when good was in the ascendancy?

Let's say that in my lifetime, certain things have gotten better and other things have grown worse, so much so that latterday events would stagger the imagination of the 19th century. If, for example, the flush toilet is an improvement in existence, if the automobile is an improvement, if technological progress is an improvement, then look at the price that was paid. It's not too hard to argue that the gulags, the concentration camps, the atom bomb, came out of technological improvement. For the average person in the average developed country, life, if seen in terms of comfort, is better than it was in the middle of the 19th century, but by the measure of our human development as ethical, spiritual, responsible, and creative human beings, it may be worse.

The English language has hardly been improved in the last half century. Young, bright children no longer speak well; the literary artists of 50 and 100 years ago are, on balance, superior to the literary artists of today. The philosophers have virtually disappeared — at least, those philosophers who make a difference.

I take it that, in your view of history, the Enlightenment and the rise of science were not steps forward.

Mixed steps forward. Forward and retrograde. It all depends on what God intended. I could give you a speculation: perhaps God intended that human beings would get to the point where they could communicate telepathically. To the degree that a man or woman wished to reach others, he or she could transmit thoughts to them. One could create operas in one's mind, if one were musically talented, and beam them out to all who were willing to listen. All the means and modes of modern communication may be substitutes, ugly technological substitutes, for what was potentially there.

My ongoing question is whether the Enlightenment was for good or for ill. To assume automatically that the Enlightenment was good means you have to say, Yes, it created marvelous freedom for many people. It also created the worst abuses of communism and fascism — so much worse than the Divine Right of Kings. It also helped to foster the subtle, insidious abuses of technology. I've said before that technology represents less pleasure and more power. It may be that we are supposed to arrive at our deepest achievements through pleasure and pain, rather than through interruption, static, mood disruption, and traffic jams.

I can see communism as an unhappy fruit of the Enlightenment, but isn't fascism a reaction against it? The fact that it cites the blood, the blood-consciousness, all that?

One of the cheats of the Nazis was their implicit claim that they were going back to the blood when in fact they were abusing human instinct. The extermination camps were an absolute violation of any notion of blood. The Nazis were cheating people of their deaths. They informed the camp inmates they were going to have a shower. Into the chamber they all marched, took off their clothes, happy to have a shower what with all those lice inhabiting them, hoping the shower would be hot. In they went and were gassed. Their last reaction in life had to be, “You cheated me!” They died in rage and panic. That's not going back to the blood, to instinct, to preparing oneself to enter the next world. They were obliterated by their own excess of reason. They were ready to assume that even their vile guards were capable of sanitary concerns for them, the imprisoned.

Reason, ultimately, looks to strip us of the notion that there is a Creator. The moment you have a society built on reason alone, then individual power begins to substitute for the concept of a Creator. What has characterised just about every social revolution is that sooner or later revolutionary leaders go to war with each other and turn cannibalistic. Only one leader is left, an absolute dictator. Once you accept the notion that there is no God, then the ultimate direction for the Left, the Right, or the corporate Centre is totalitarianism.

Much of your thinking seems to be premised on the event of the Holocaust. I wonder if there had never been Hitler, would your notion of a limited, embattled God have been conceived? Is Hitler the final thing that pushed you into that belief?

Since I'm Jewish, the fair answer to that is probably yes. But there still would have been the gulags. And the failure of Bolshevism. The noblest social idea to come along, the most intense and advanced form of socialism, proved to be a monstrosity. That alone would be enough. Then came a capitalist contribution — the atom bomb, the fact that 100,000 people could be wiped out at a stroke. And this in the early stages of nuclear development. So if you eliminate all three of those, Hitler, gulags, atom bombs, maybe I couldn't have come to these ideas. But historically speaking, you can't perform such an excision. Those three horrors dominate the 20th century — not to mention the trench warfare of the First World War, which, indeed, accelerated the growth of communism.

Are you ready to talk about the Devil?

My notion of the Devil depends to a good degree on Milton. I think he fashioned a wonderful approximation to what the likelihood might be. In one way or another, there was a profound argument between God and some very high angels — or between God and gods — and the result was finally that one god won, the God we speak of as our Creator. God won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, because Lucifer, if you will, also became well installed. And this war has gone on ever since, gone on in us.

My understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions. As I've said many times over the years, when we work with great energy it's because our best motive and our worst motive — or to put it another way, God and the Devil — are equally engaged in the outcome and so, for a period, working within us. There can be collaboration between opposites, as well as war. This collaboration can consist of certain agreements — “The rules of war will be...” — and, of course, the rules can be broken. The Devil can betray God. Once in a while, God also breaks the rules — with a miracle. But my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome. (Their differences will be settled later.) Whereas when we work with little energy, it's because They are not only at odds but are countermanding each other's impact upon us.

Let me take up the “Four Last Things” of Christian eschatology: death, judgment, Heaven, Hell. You have commented, at least obliquely, on all but one, Heaven. Why have you given Heaven such short shrift?

Because I don't believe in it. My notion [is] that the only Heaven and Hell we receive — the only judgment that comes to us — is by way of reincarnation. To wit, as a reward we can be given a better possibility in our next life. Or we can be born into a worse one.

I'm not interested in absolute moral judgments. Just think of what it means to be a good man or a bad one. What, after all, is the measure of difference? The good guy may be 65 per cent good and 35 per cent bad — that's a very good guy. The average decent fellow might be 54 per cent good, 46 per cent bad — and the average mean spirit is the reverse. So say I'm 60 per cent bad and 40 pe cent good — for that, must I suffer eternal punishment?

Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There's no reason to receive a reward if you're 57/43 — why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med? That's almost impossible to contemplate.

The point is that God still has an unfulfilled vision and wishes to do more. So I would suppose that we receive instead a partial reward or partial punishment and it is meted out to us in our reincarnation. How better to account for the ongoing feeling of conscience that we all seem to have? Conscience is there for good cause; conscience is vital — if, for nothing else, it's there because it gives us a clue to what is likely to be our next future. Will we be reborn in a situation that offers more opportunities? Or, for punishment, will there be fewer good chances? Will our next life be easier or more painful?

Now, this notion is simple, but people who are fixed entirely on notions of eternal Hell and eternal Heaven can't come near to it. Yet for those who are wondering if there is a viable scheme to the afterlife, these assumptions can become meaningful. Why do I strive to become a better person? Can it be because I wish to have a somewhat better life the next time out? If I am going to be reborn, I want to do more in my next incarnation than with this one.

I have a joke to tell at this point: I die and go up before the Monitoring Angel. He says, “Oh, Mr Mailer, we're so glad to see you. We've been waiting. Now, tell us — we ask everyone this — what would be your idea of a proper reincarnation for yourself? What would you like to be in your next life?” I say, “Well, you know, everything considered, I think I'd like to be a black athlete. I won't argue with where you position me at birth — it can be under poor, ugly circumstances, I'm willing to take that on — but I would like to be a black athlete.”

The Monitor's face clouds up. “Oh, Mr Mailer,” he says. “Everyone these days wants to be a black athlete. We're dreadfully oversubscribed. So let me see where you have been put.” He looks it up. He says, “I'm afraid we've got you down for cockroach. But — here is the good news — you'll be the fastest cockroach on the block!”

All right — we are going to be reincarnated. Whether we know what our reincarnation will be, I doubt. I expect it will be full of surprises, most unforeseen. Some, given our vanity, are likely to seem outrageously warped.

 

[MURAI]

Are you ready to talk about the Devil?

My notion of the Devil depends to a good degree on Milton. I think he fashioned a wonderful approximation to what the likelihood might be. In one way or another, there was a profound argument between God and some very high angels — or between God and gods — and the result was finally that one god won, the God we speak of as our Creator. God won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, because Lucifer, if you will, also became well installed. And this war has gone on ever since, gone on in us.

My understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions. As I've said many times over the years, when we work with great energy it's because our best motive and our worst motive — or to put it another way, God and the Devil — are equally engaged in the outcome and so, for a period, working within us. There can be collaboration between opposites, as well as war. This collaboration can consist of certain agreements — “The rules of war will be...” — and, of course, the rules can be broken. The Devil can betray God. Once in a while, God also breaks the rules — with a miracle. But my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome. (Their differences will be settled later.) Whereas when we work with little energy, it's because They are not only at odds but are countermanding each other's impact upon us.

Let me take up the “Four Last Things” of Christian eschatology: death, judgment, Heaven, Hell. You have commented, at least obliquely, on all but one, Heaven. Why have you given Heaven such short shrift?

Because I don't believe in it. My notion [is] that the only Heaven and Hell we receive — the only judgment that comes to us — is by way of reincarnation. To wit, as a reward we can be given a better possibility in our next life. Or we can be born into a worse one.

I'm not interested in absolute moral judgments. Just think of what it means to be a good man or a bad one. What, after all, is the measure of difference? The good guy may be 65 per cent good and 35 per cent bad — that's a very good guy. The average decent fellow might be 54 per cent good, 46 per cent bad — and the average mean spirit is the reverse. So say I'm 60 per cent bad and 40 pe cent good — for that, must I suffer eternal punishment?

Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There's no reason to receive a reward if you're 57/43 — why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med? That's almost impossible to contemplate.

The point is that God still has an unfulfilled vision and wishes to do more. So I would suppose that we receive instead a partial reward or partial punishment and it is meted out to us in our reincarnation. How better to account for the ongoing feeling of conscience that we all seem to have? Conscience is there for good cause; conscience is vital — if, for nothing else, it's there because it gives us a clue to what is likely to be our next future. Will we be reborn in a situation that offers more opportunities? Or, for punishment, will there be fewer good chances? Will our next life be easier or more painful?

Now, this notion is simple, but people who are fixed entirely on notions of eternal Hell and eternal Heaven can't come near to it. Yet for those who are wondering if there is a viable scheme to the afterlife, these assumptions can become meaningful. Why do I strive to become a better person? Can it be because I wish to have a somewhat better life the next time out? If I am going to be reborn, I want to do more in my next incarnation than with this one.

I have a joke to tell at this point: I die and go up before the Monitoring Angel. He says, “Oh, Mr Mailer, we're so glad to see you. We've been waiting. Now, tell us — we ask everyone this — what would be your idea of a proper reincarnation for yourself? What would you like to be in your next life?” I say, “Well, you know, everything considered, I think I'd like to be a black athlete. I won't argue with where you position me at birth — it can be under poor, ugly circumstances, I'm willing to take that on — but I would like to be a black athlete.”

The Monitor's face clouds up. “Oh, Mr Mailer,” he says. “Everyone these days wants to be a black athlete. We're dreadfully oversubscribed. So let me see where you have been put.” He looks it up. He says, “I'm afraid we've got you down for cockroach. But — here is the good news — you'll be the fastest cockroach on the block!”

All right — we are going to be reincarnated. Whether we know what our reincarnation will be, I doubt. I expect it will be full of surprises, most unforeseen. Some, given our vanity, are likely to seem outrageously warped.

Even though he is Judeo-Christian, he answers the questions in an interesting way. For example, I like how he says God and the Devil is behind our strongest drives. I believe, when oneself is driven by something strongly and acts on it, while doing it, it does feels like something else in control than really oneself. In this case, it can be interpreted like spiritual beings like what Mailer is saying here.

He argues in the case of good and evil we are a mix of box. He says most fall in between around half and half. This reminds me of what Herman Hesse in "Steppenwolf" that people are divided between duality of saintlihood and animal and he says most average, weaker people only wander around the middle.

I love his comic play on the idea of reincarnation. People strive to be good just to get a better life in the next one but most likely can not estimate on the outcome. So, some might do it out of self-interest when you should not. It was funny when he asks to be a black athlete and he gets the fastest cockaroach in the block. That made me laugh out loud.

 

[Seditious]

Even though he is Judeo-Christian, he answers the questions in an interesting way. For example, I like how he says God and the Devil is behind our strongest drives. I believe, when oneself is driven by something strongly and acts on it, while doing it, it does feels like something else in control than really oneself. In this case, it can be interpreted like spiritual beings like what Mailer is saying here.

ermm, the brain does a lot of its work totally beyond our introspection. I'd have thought merely the concept alone of 'the unconscious', never mind all the recent work in neuro-science, would have been enough to invalidate the 'interpretation' of it as demons n shit.

 

[kmik]

I think MURAI, later in the novel he comes to realize that the dichotomy is stupid and unnecessary. The soul is too complex to be understood in these terms and I agree.

Seditious I don't understand what you say. First of all advancement in neuroscience is pathetic in comparison to everything else. There's nothing we don't know so much about like the brain. Second of all that is reducitionism to think we can understand thoughts in terms of brain cells. Unless you're being sarcastic, I'm not sure..

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Are you a cartesian dualist? Really it's been beyond discussion that thoughts arise from brain cells firing in patterns for quite some time. Among cognitive scientists anyways.

 

[kmik]

Are you a cartesian dualist? Really it's been beyond discussion that thoughts arise from brain cells firing in patterns for quite some time. Among cognitive scientists anyways.

No, I'm not. On the contrary. I'm just not sure what he's saying...

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Well it ought not to be "beyond discussion."

That thoughts "arise" causally from brain cells does not reveal how they are en-owned (crudely: invested) with thoughtly character, as thoughts. We have accounted for how thinking happens mechanistically, but not what thinking IS.

Thinking IS in-the-world. The "in" of in-the-world ought not to suggest location - as in: this drink is in contained within this bottle - but a dwelling. We might almost write "inn," with all the connotations of a public house or a lodging.

What does this mean?

Thinking is bound up with Human Being (Dasein). Dasein is inn the world more primally than the subject/object distinction upon which cognitive scientism is founded. When we open a door, for example, the handle does not show up for us as a wooden baton eight inches in length, hard, combustible and connected to a steel hinge; we barely register it analytically at all. Yet a disconnected entity of material properties is exactly the kind of being we would expect to encounter if scientific analysis were to provide primal insight into the phenomenon of the world.

Conversely, and fascinatingly, it is only when Dasein is shaken in its dwelling that such subject/object contemplation arises. It is only when the door handle breaks that it shows up for us as an entity (we might stop, stare at it, try it again, examine it, become aware of it) - though even then it is not revealed in isolated scientific detachment, as it still shows up in its worldly context.

A further example: ever been out driving and thought suddenly "wow I don't remember how I drove that last mile. I was thinking about something else entirely."? One is inn the car as a mode of Being, founded upon dasein's being-inn-the-world. The steering wheel shows up in its “steering” character. The indicators become extensions of the hands. You do not encounter them as objects, from the cognitivist perspective of a detached observer, but towards them you dwell in-the-world. They become invisible, or forgotten – like the lenses in your glasses when you look at a painting. It is only when the indicator goes wrong that your dwelling-inn-the-world is impoverished to the point of merely-being-towards-contemplating it. It's only this contemplation that can reveal the item as "occurent," and can abstract from its situational circumstance general notions of occurentness to formulate scientific models. (Perhaps if dasein is not skilled scientifically (e.g. dasein enjoys jane austen novels ) one might only reveal "pure occurentness," which would be an empty staring at the broken indicator bulb with very little other involvement )

Cognitive scientists obscure from their research the phenomenon of the World. I can only hint at this here. This obscuring prevents an understanding that thinking is bound up in what Dreyfus terms the "equipmental nexus" of the ready-to-hand (the kind of beings of “equipment”). That is, the equipmental character of a "hammer" only makes sense against the background nexus of a towards-which (nails to be hammered)in a workshop, for-the-sake of dasein. Thinking IS in-the-world. This nexus brings forth the worldly character of the world. Nothing in-the-world IS in isolation.

In essence then, the cognitivist account of thinking is impoverished, and detached from the primal everyday being of dasein. That cognitive science is empirically verifiable, skilful and productive does not excuse its failure to recognize that thinking is already inn-the-world. Science is powerfully successful, breath-taking and demonstrable, but it is not primal, and its ignorance towards the question of Being belies the muddle-headed claims of Scientism.

That's a lot of hot air. How thinking happens mechanistically IS what thinking is. We`ve evolved sensory organs, and our brain filters out reduntant phenomena so we`re able to focus. Being is an illusion.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

You can pretty much guess my opinion on this (if, by some freak accident, you remember what any of my other posts have been). I consider it an all too easy and simple-minded position to take, viewing today as some sort of dammned age and looking lustfully towards the past. It's very easy to romanticize the past because it is no longer here. The grass is always greener on the other side. The writers and philosophers of today might not write as "well" by the conventions of archaic English, but the things that they have to say are every bit as important and intelligent as Thoreau and Shakespeare and Confucius. Personally, I think it's much easier for people to have faith in and champion the works of the past for two reasons. One, they've already been praised and respected by the establishment, or at the very least they have survived through time, so it doesn't take balls to support what is already supported. Secondly, things from the past are less tied to the distastes of today. Older things are freer to be molded and bended. I'm not saying Norm is wrong, I'm just pointing towards some of the potential failures of his postion. Personally I think everybody's beliefs should be perpetually ripped to shreds. In truth, there's no argument that isn't fallible and can't be made a legitimate mockery of, icluding this one. I view thought and discussion as an intellectual game more than a pursuit of truth.

 

[Cythraul]

Are you a cartesian dualist? Really it's been beyond discussion that thoughts arise from brain cells firing in patterns for quite some time. Among cognitive scientists anyways.

How thinking happens mechanistically IS what thinking is. We`ve evolved sensory organs, and our brain filters out reduntant phenomena so we`re able to focus. Being is an illusion.

Wow...this is dogmatic scientism at its worst. I'd like to make a couple points.

1) Since when has any theory in science been "beyond discussion"? That seems a bit naive to me.

2) What makes you think that to give a causal explanation for how something arises is tantamount to explaining what that thing is? The example of thinking is just a case of a more general problem about conscious experience. It's not clear at all how telling some causal story about one's brain is supposed to account for the conscious experiences that people have. It's not enough just to simply write it off as an illusion. You need to provide an explanation for why we would have such an illusion in the first place, otherwise I don't see any motivation for writing off what seems to be a perfectly legitimate explanandum. Furthermore, there is no distinction between illusion and reality in the case of conscious experience; if it seems to me that I am having some experience, or thinking something, then I simply am having some experience or thinking something. And it seems to me that in the absence of any reason besides those derived from dogmatic scientistic bullshit, there is something to be explained here.

 

[Seditious]

Second of all that is reducitionism to think we can understand thoughts in terms of brain cells. Unless you're being sarcastic, I'm not sure..

Silly me, using reductionism, making an asymmetric explanation, I should have known better to think brain cells were behind 'brain activity'.

Obviously there isn't one big thinker who's responsible for all his actions, we're only responsible for some, and others we're to blame on a group of homunculi spirits. Yes, lets avoid reductionism and chalk it up to spirits instead. Demons cause our mean impulses, angels cause our nice impulses, and we cause anything else, and there we have it, we know where our impulses come from. Where do impulses come from, those of the demons and angels?---shhhh! stop drawing attention to the fact we haven't explained anything yet. No, wait, I've got it!!---God causes their impulses, and God is the uncaused cause so you don't get to ask me what causes God's impulses, there, I won! ha! I...forgot to explain impulses, but I won, damnit!

 

[kmik]

Silly me, using reductionism, making an asymmetric explanation, I should have known better to think brain cells were behind 'brain activity'.

Obviously there isn't one big thinker who's responsible for all his actions, we're only responsible for some, and others we're to blame on a group of homunculi spirits. Yes, lets avoid reductionism and chalk it up to spirits instead. Demons cause our mean impulses, angels cause our nice impulses, and we cause anything else, and there we have it, we know where our impulses come from. Where do impulses come from, those of the demons and angels?---shhhh! stop drawing attention to the fact we haven't explained anything yet. No, wait, I've got it!!---God causes their impulses, and God is the uncaused cause so you don't get to ask me what causes God's impulses, there, I won! ha! I...forgot to explain impulses, but I won, damnit!

You did not understand what I mean at all. I agree that the origin of all thought is in the physical - brain cells. However, to understand thought in terms of brain cells is insufficient. Sociology, for example - society is made of humans who are in turn made of cells made of atoms. Does that mean we can understand sociology in terms of physics? Of course not. Similarly with thought. Studying brain cells is like studying the grammar of a language without understanding what the words mean. If an alien was to analyze our brain all he would find is a very complex system. He can learn the rules but theoretically he might not even be aware we have a consciousness. The relationship between consciousness and brain cells, the nature of consciousness and all these things are not explainable by science. And drop this fucking attitude

 

[Seditious]

You did not understand what I mean at all.

show me how you meant

I agree that the origin of all thought is in the physical - brain cells. However, to understand thought in terms of brain cells is insufficient. Sociology, for example - society is made of humans who are in turn made of cells made of atoms. Does that mean we can understand sociology in terms of physics? Of course not. Similarly with thought. Studying brain cells is like studying the grammar of a language without understanding what the words mean. If an alien was to analyze our brain all he would find is a very complex system. He can learn the rules but theoretically he might not even be aware we have a consciousness. The relationship between consciousness and brain cells, the nature of consciousness and all these things are not explainable by science.

by

I like how he says God and the Devil is behind our strongest drives. I believe, when oneself is driven by something strongly and acts on it, while doing it, it does feels like something else in control than really oneself. In this case, it can be interpreted like spiritual beings like what Mailer is saying here.

 

[Justin S.]

(Out of respect for the integrity of speed's thread, the posts concerning Heidegger have been moved to a new thread)

 

[kmik]

Perhaps because MURAI said that ??

 

[Seditious]

Perhaps because MURAI said that ??

so it was just a complete tangent?

good to know.

 

[MURAI]

Look, I did not mean there literally is a god and a devil. I meant that it can be interpreted that it feels like there are metaphorical forces like that when one feels driven by strong actions. The idea of supernatural beings can be interpreted as man's projection on their self like their own drives and images.

 

[Norsemaiden]

It is important not to encourage beliefs in gods and devils. The rise of superstitious belief looks set to result in the persecution of scientists in the future, as our civilisation crumbles into violence and chaos.
Seditious made excellent points.