Condemned to be free

When I was quite a bit younger, I went through an existentialist phase. It wasn't all that uncommon at the time. I'm not sure I ever entirely emerged from it.

Despite all the weight of apparent evidence for scientific determinism, I still have a core belief that however much our lives are conditioned by external and internal forces there is some small residue of choice if not in outcomes then at least in our reaction to them. And whatever decision I make or allow to be made, I can't help but feel it could have been done just a little bit differently. Or maybe a lot. And that the future is at least in part unwritten. Or maybe a lot.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who to be fair was not all that admirable a guy, famously stated that we are condemned to be free.

Apropos of nothing, some words of Sartre's have been on my mind lately. In essay he wrote for The Atlantic in 1944, shortly after the liberation of Paris by the allies, he wrote that:

 "Never were we freer than under the German occupation. We had lost all our rights, and first of all our right to speak. They insulted us to our faces. ... They deported us en masse. ... And because of all this we were free."

Obviously, he didn't mean the good guys then could do or get whatever they wanted. But extreme times made the weight of free decisions--to resist or to collaborate, to hold out a little longer under despair or interrogation or torture-- a little more stark.

That kind of freedom can be terrible and terrifying.

These are pretty dark times. While a lot is beyond our immediate control, the weight of our decisions is getting heavier.

In that sense, we're pretty free right now too.

Escape from freedom?

This op-ed of mine appeared in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.

Sometimes I get in the mood for a big fat Russian novel. It’s kind of like having a craving for a corn dog.

One hot mess of a novel that’s been on my mind lately is Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. It’s about the relationships between three brothers, the passionate and impulsive Dmitri, the saintly Alyosha and the tortured intellectual Ivan.

(If you think your family is weird, this book just might make you feel better.)

The most memorable part for me is the discussion about freedom and authority. It’s a riff on the New Testament story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness at the start of his ministry. In the novel, it takes the form of a “poem” or story told by Ivan about an imaginary encounter between Jesus and the Grand Inquisitor at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.

In it, Jesus appears as he did on earth even while heretics are being burned at the stake. He doesn’t make a scene but the people recognize him instantly and, drawn by his love and compassion, surround him asking for healing and his blessing.

The Grand Inquisitor is having none of it. He orders Jesus to be arrested immediately. The people are so used to being obedient to authority that they don’t object. That night he visits his prisoner in the dungeon and harangues him, asking “Why have you come to hinder us?”

In his view, Jesus’ fatal flaw was wanting people to be free to choose to follow him without coercion. The Inquisitor argues that freedom is the last thing people want and need, saying “nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom … I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”

In other words, what people really crave is a strong authoritarian leader who will tell them what they want to hear and overawe them with spectacle. The “wise and dread spirit” who tempted Jesus in the desert called it: Give the people “miracle, mystery and authority” (or at least the lying promise of it) and they will throw themselves at the feet of the charismatic leader.

Jesus listens in silence, gazing gently at his jailer. In the end, “he suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips.” The old man shuddered, opened the cell door and told him to go away and never come again.

Jesus disappears into the night.

As for the Grand Inquisitor, “The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.”

This story within a story isn’t really about an unfortunate period in European history. It’s about an unfortunate but periodically recurring tendency in humanity to willingly submit to authoritarian leaders, systems and regimes.

This was also the theme of Erich Fromm’s classic study “Escape From Freedom,” which was first published 1941. Fromm had fled Germany shortly after the Nazi takeover, which also prompted him to write the book.

His basic argument was that modern capitalist societies affect people in two contradictory ways: people become “more independent, self-reliant, and critical” while also becoming “more isolated, alone, and afraid.”

This leaves us with two alternatives: We can either move toward “positive freedom,” the often difficult step of creatively relating to others in work and love; or we can surrender to authoritarianism or conformity, both of which come at the cost of an authentic life. Of these, the former is more dangerous, particularly in hard times, while the latter is more common.

Those who give way to authoritarianism are aroused by and ready to submit to powerful leaders, whether they are individuals or institutions. They are also contemptuous of the weak and frequently target marginalized groups. For them, “the world is composed of people with power and those without it, of superior ones and inferior ones” and the lack of power of the “losers” is seen as a sign of guilt and inferiority.

Leaders of authoritarian political movements play on these feelings and on the resentments and frustrations of people in uncertain times. In “Mein Kampf,” for example, the worst of the lot wrote that the German masses really wanted after years of defeat and depression was “the victory of the stronger and the annihilation or the unconditional surrender of the weaker.” They “are far more satisfied by a doctrine which tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal freedom …”

He described in detail how authoritarian movements help people overcome their sense of isolation:

“The mass meeting is necessary if only for the reason that in it the individual, who in becoming an adherent of a new movement feels lonely and is easily seized with the fear of being alone, receives for the first time the pictures of a greater community, something that has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most people. … If he steps for the first time out of his small workshop or out of the big enterprise, in which he feels very small, into the mass meeting and is now surrounded by thousands and thousands of people with the same conviction … he himself succumbs to the magic influence of what we call mass suggestion.”

That sounds like a contemporary political rally. It’s not a coincidence that both the Washington Post and the New York Times have recently published columns and news stories about the renewed debate on fascism in the United States and around the world.

Authoritarian movements and leaders can be tempting. At different times, many admirable peoples and cultures have fallen for them. The results generally aren’t good, either for their victims or supporters. The temptations of “the wise and dread spirit” and the Grand Inquisitor will always be there and at times they can seem very alluring.

It comes down to a choice.

(Note: Over 20 years ago I listened to a recorded lecture on this topic by now retired Barnard College professor Dennis Dalton. I found it fascinating but remote at the time. Recent events prompted me to revisit the sources.)

It's personal

The last time I posted on this blog (Monday morning) the topic was endurance sports as a metaphor for the struggle for human justice and progress. At the time, I had no idea that a vile terrorist attack would occur targeting the Boston Marathon. Maybe I'm a little more sensitive to the issue with my legs still on fire from running a half marathon this Saturday on trails. Maybe not.

But I've always considered the marathon to be a sacred event, one the celebrates an ancient victory between the nascent forces of an open society against the forces of monolithic despotism. For what it's worth, and in honor of those who were wounded, killed or maimed in Monday's despicable attack, here is an old post from this blog about the marathon and what it means dating back to August 2007:

Of all endurance events, the marathon is special to El Cabrero. Sacred even.

The event takes its name from the place of a battle between a huge force of invading Persians and a hastily assembled Athenian force in 490 BC.

According to Herodotus, Pheidippides was a professional runner who covered the distance between Athens and Sparta (around 150 miles) in two days in an effort to urge the Spartans to resist the invaders. Along the way, he had an encounter with the god Pan, who pledged friendship to the Athenians.

The Spartans were sympathetic, but for religious reasons could not send an army until the moon was full. So he had to slog back.

A much later legend has it that after the Athenians defeated the numerically superior Persian force, Pheidippides ran the 25+ miles back to Athens to deliver the news. As the story goes, he said something like, "Rejoice, we conquer" and fell dead.

(This is what happens when you overdo it.)

This story was the subject of a poem by Robert Browning. Here's a stanza:

"Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis...!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield,
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!"

Whether it happened or not, it's a good story. And the consequences of the eventual Greek triumph were really great. It permitted the full flowering of Greek science, art, literature, philosophy and democracy. They had plenty of shortcomings--but they also helped to give us the tools with which to criticize them.

When the great tragedian Aeschylus died, his grave marker said nothing about all the prizes he won for drama. Instead, it simply said

"Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak, or the long-haired Persian who knows it well."

It was a big deal. No wonder that when the Olympic games were revived in 1896 they included a long run of 40 K (24.8) miles. Now the distance is 26.2.

Running a marathon is kind of a big deal too. Running for more than 25 miles isn't normal. Aside from the obvious, the body tends to run out of readily available fuel after about 20 miles. This is known among marathoners as "hitting the wall." Basically, you just have to gut it through the rest.

Training for one isn't as hard as it might seem. You don't need to run 100 or more miles a week. Three days of hard training, with an easy day between, are enough. One day should be a long run, culminating in one of at least 20 miles around 2 weeks before the race. Another day should include tempo runs, which start slow but include several faster segments.

The day that REALLY builds character is interval training, which often consists of a mile or two warmup followed by repeated hard 800 meter intervals with a brief jog between each. Six, eight, ten, twelve, whatever, striving to finish each in the same time. Pushing yourself over and over. I love it. I hate it. It hurts. It's awesome, even if your interval is a whole lot slower than anyone else's.

Then comes the race. I've done three. One good, one bad, and one ugly. The worst was when my knee blew out halfway through and I had to limp the last 13 miles.

(Note: the line between endurance and idiocy is fine and El Cabrero is not the best judge of where it starts and stops. With my corazon in the shape it's in, I may not have another one in me.)

But here's my best advice: run it one mile at a time and don't worry about who passes you or who you pass.

In the long run, we run against ourselves.