George Eliot, Middlemarch. In a conversation with Unburying the Lead, Hungry Ghoast, and Abby Jean yesterday about homelessness, I was reminded again of the problem an individual faces in confronting –or even in reacting to- vast, systematic problems; one cannot feel for the whole world or one will collapse, as in the probably-apocryphal tale of Nietzsche and the beaten horse (the sentimental interpretation of which is a classic example of how people misunderstand and romanticize mental illness, as though it involves some sort of profound lucidity, some “seeing through” that is too terribly true to bear!).
But is Eliot right? She writes of a “keen vision and feeling” overwhelming us, when it seems to me that a keen vision is to be sought provided one’s feelings can be successfully contextualized (presumably by a moral philosophy, ideology, or religion). If one weeps at every instance of poverty one can help no one, not even oneself; but if one can see and grasp the problem without anguish one can act. The Dalai Lama suggests as much when asked how it is that he is so happy despite the suffering he witnesses and combats, and further how it is that he maintains that happiness is important to seek even as one works for justice and peace.
Furthermore: if there is an anthropological limit to empathy –as there must be, a Dunbar’s Number for concrete compassion- it isn’t precisely right to call someone who obeys it “well wadded with stupidity,” any more than to call someone who doesn’t pay attention to 50 Khz sounds “deaf.”
Questions
- Can one have a keen vision of human life without being overwhelmed by feeling? Is this just a matter of whether one is “sensitive” or not?
- What explanations –religious or otherwise- can contextualize suffering such that we aren’t brought to despair by empathy? Are any satisfactory? Should one be able to consider war, famine, genocide -or the death of a child, a parent, a friend, even a pet- without devastation? Since suffering surrounds us, how does one choose on what to focus, what to feel?
- Should we work to expand our circles of empathy –through imaginatively experiencing suffering, through literature, art, religion? Is it more important to increase the clinical accuracy of our vision, without worrying about feeling? If there is a deficit of charity, does it stem from insufficient understanding or a lack of compassion in humanity?
- Whom should one emulate: the cheerful doctor whose belief in some religious order permits him to volunteer in developing countries, rarely despairing despite the anguish he sees and his own statistical insignificance in combating it? The miserable filmmaker, who -like Woody Allen- can’t be happy if one person in the world is starving, whose unhappiness perhaps catalyzes action in others but stays him from engagement with life, with charity, with anything beyond his suffering?
- How keen is your vision, you feeling, of all ordinary human life? Are you well wadded with stupidity?
Superior answers will be incorporated into my personal philosophy; here is your chance to change another human being.
(via mills)
I have nothing of consequence to add to Mills’ words yet but this post should be as present on my pages as it is in my thoughts.
Found via mills. 51 Notes. Permalink. Wed, Feb 24th 2010, 10:16 AM (∞).
