The Ineffable Understanding of Solitude

Zhenping Wang in an essay “The Mind in Motion: Hopper’s Women through Sartre’s Existential Freedom” presents Edward Hopper’s paintings of women posed in solitude and argues that Hopper was influenced by the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre.  In referring to the women subjects he states “Being in outward solitude, they are allowed to enjoy the inward freedom to desire, to imagine, and to act (167)."  He further contends that this implies the potential for individual agency by the women subjects.

Edward Hopper's The Automat (1927) is from the permanent collection of the Des Moines Art Center. The woman subject, still and silent, fashionably dressed, is gazing into her coffee cup in a patently urban setting. Her mood seems contemplative. Is she attuned to her secret desires? Does it suggest the freedom of Sartre's philosophy? 

                             Edward Hopper's Morning Sun (1929).  

The female subject was modeled after Hopper's wife Jo. Light is associated with creation; woman is associated with creation. Morning is associated with beginning anew. She is secluded in the privacy of her bedroom watchfully attuned to the new day.  Some see this scene representing the bleakness of the modern urban landscape, but it can be seen as representing a woman on the threshold of exploring Sartrean possibility--I prefer the latter.

                             Edward Hopper's Chop Suey (1929)   


Hopper biographer, Gail Levin, locates the Chop Suey restaurant, she says, "the setting recalled the inexpensive, second floor Chinese restaurant the Hoppers had been frequenting in Columbus Circle."  Part of the restaurant sign is shown in the painting.
  
According to galleryIntell "The very fact that the key figures in Edward Hopper’s ‘Chop Suey’ are two women dining alone at a restaurant is a testament to the fundamental changes in American society. Up until the 20’s, such behavior would have been construed as inappropriate, but the rise of feminism in the mid-1920’s contributed to gradual changes in such perceptions and restaurants began to post signs in their windows ‘Tables for Ladies’."

While we might hope for the female subjects to be sharing those secret desires and imaginings they each experience in solitude, their being together to share a meal and to have time together may be a sign of Sartrean freedom foreshadowing the forthcoming feminist movement.

Zhenping Wang's concluding words are an appropriate way to close, "Women figures who are seated, standing, or leaning forward are looking out the windows toward sunlight into the far distance in retrospection. They are performing much more than just imagining or anticipating the future activities they might get involved in. They are demonstrating their strong desires (sexual and beyond) for self-determination through their own perceptions and actions, exhibiting their ability of solitude, freedom, aggressiveness and the undefined. This ability is the individual agency of a human being, as Sartre calls in his existential term, the being-for-itself, the continuous inward capability to move oneself forward and project oneself far into the future."

Solitude!  Samuel Beckett said, "Art is the apotheosis of solitude" and Hopper's art reveals an understanding of solitude, as ineffable as the awe it inspires.

Comments on Juan Carlos Onetti's "A Brief Life"

Juan Carlos Onetti, in “A Brief Life” creates a story with the essentials of Existentialism, by what the characters do and by how the characters view and live their lives.

The following Onetti passage captures the fundamentals of Existentialism and ironically the words are uttered by a character who is a clerical Bishop. What he calls the “laws of the game” represent the conditions of existence; “eternity is now” represents the temporal grounds for action by the individual, and, most importantly, the “strive to be himself” represents the commitment to the authentic self that is so significant and that must be in effect “at all times and against all opposition.”  His words are a worthy surmise of how each human being should confront life and confront death.

“I will kiss the feet of he who may comprehend that eternity is now, that he himself is the only end, that he must accept and strive to be himself, simply that, without need of reasons, at all times and against all opposition . . . I applaud the courage of he who accepts each and every one of the laws of the game he did not invent and was not asked if he wanted to play (198).”

The fact that meaning is necessary for life is the abiding notion of human existence. Much meaning is created through human connection with others, family, friends, relationships, work associates etc.  Good health and sufficient financial resources need to go together with good relations with others. As long as things are going well we tend to take our lives for granted.  It is when something is taken away that meaning goes too.  The break up with someone, an addiction we can’t shake free of, the death of someone we are close to are examples of losses that may cause us to realize what we had is gone.  It is the absence of meaning that we become painfully aware of.  The words that follow by one of Onetti’s characters articulate this idea quite well.

“What’s wrong with life isn’t that it promises things it never gives us, but that it always gives them and then stops giving them (87).”

The goal of Existentialism is the search for meaning by the authentic self. Not surprisingly some will never be aware of the necessity for the search because of religious indoctrination, and those who are aware may not do what is necessary to carry out the search as an authentic human being. So few of us that are about to die will be able to say, “I searched and thereby I got to know myself.”  The Onetti character sees others each with a look on their face that symbolizes a certain emotional bearing and says:

I saw the methodical, the jovial, the resolute, the resigned, the incredulous, I saw the sad; I saw all those who will die without knowing themselves(129).

Contrast “will die without knowing themselves” to an individual who has lived a life of authentic meaning and self discovery.  What could be more satisfying at the moment before death than an act of ritual anointment accompanied by the words, “I searched, I found meaning and in the process I came to know myself?

Buddhism is an Authoritarian religion

Buddha with his serene smile and Buddhism with its four noble truths and the eight-fold path seems the perfect answer to the authoritarian religions such as Christianity or Islam.  The four noble truths deal with suffering, with the origin of suffering, with the possibility of liberation from suffering, and finally with the prescription for liberation from suffering—the Eight-Fold Path.  The Eight-Fold Path deals with Wisdom, Ethical Conduct, and Mediation through eight principles of rightness.

While it is apparent attachment to human desire may result in suffering and the rules of the Eight-Fold Path seems a beguiling process for alleviating the suffering, Buddhism requires surrender of perception on matters that are inherent to the Buddhist ideology-religion or to a Buddhist Guru. The surrender-control praxis was discussed in the blog-post (The Appeal of Authoritarianism-August 9 2018). There is a major difference between learning from a teacher and submitting to the control of a Guru or the ideological equivalent thereof. An individual should never give up her internal locus of evaluation, but the individual should always be open to counseling that identifies ego-driven destructive behaviors and the means for correcting those behaviors.

Kim iryop in her essay, “Reflections of a Buddhist Nun” explains her view of Reincarnation, “This life is only one short chapter in the innumerable chapters that are the lives and deaths to come.  There are endless garments called life that need to be changed through transmigration. There are those who think that there is only one life and one death and that this death is the end. Such people are like dolls that lack the mind of a human. In facing death, they tremble like a goldfish that feels fear when the water in its tank is changed.” 

Iryop’s beliefs are not subject to proof and are simply cut from whole cloth.  In my view Existentialism should begin with the premise that existence is a mystery.  Given that existence is a mystery we should embrace the mystery and nonetheless create meaning in life. It has been perplexing to me to find a number of young students I have been in class with who reject the idea of a Christian afterlife out of hand, but readily accept Reincarnation as a truth.

Mark Vernon of The Guardian reviews “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist” by Stephen Batchelor and states:

“Reincarnation and karma are rejected as Indian accretions: his study of the historical Siddhartha Gautama – one element in the new book – suggests the Buddha himself was probably indifferent to these doctrines. What Batchelor believes the Buddha did preach were four essentials. First, the conditioned nature of existence, which is to say everything continually comes and goes. Second, the practice of mindfulness, as the way to be awake to what is and what is not. Third, the tasks of knowing suffering, letting go of craving, experiencing cessation and the "noble path". Fourth, the self-reliance of the individual, so that nothing is taken on authority, and everything is found through experience.”

Since “nothing is taken on authority” and “Reincarnation and Karma are rejected” Batchelor eliminates the elements of Buddhism that are Authoritarian and these elements are precisely the elements that make Buddhism as commonly practiced Authoritarian.

*************

In a prior blog post (Alan Watts:a Guru in the Age of Aquarius December 6, 2015) I relate an experience of being with Watts at a dinner preceding his lecture at Lafayette College in April 1968 in which certain of his actions contradicted what he had been teaching us in the course of the discussion
during the meal. 

Geraldine’s Ethics of Empathy

Mother had the empathy of the oppressed. Being of Irish ancestry this is not surprising.  She had the ethics of care.  Her values were acquired from her father Johnnie, whose father came to the United States in 1847—the height of the potato famine which was called the “Great Hunger”.  During the famine more than one million Irish starved to death.  Queen Victoria exhibited the cruelty of the British towards the Irish by exporting grain and livestock from Ireland during this time.  She would not even let relief ships land at Ireland with food for those starving Irish.

Mother’s actions reflected the standard definition of “Empathy:” which is “the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another.”   However, Mother’s actions reflected three ethical tenets all grounded in empathy, these are: do not make fun of anyone, do not pick on anyone, and do not leave anyone out.  It seemed she felt the responsibility to acknowledge the human value of every person. In our society the “difference” of others is routinely used as a basis to pick on, make fun of and leave out those who are different.  It may be because of skin color. It may be because of sexual orientation. It may be because of gender. It may be because of the practice of a religion other than Christianity.  Whatever the person’s difference it is used as the justification for discriminating against that person.  This indifference to difference is based on fear--make someone afraid and you can get them to do all kinds of mean things. Mother accepted the duty she had to others of hospitality.

Politicians routinely exploit this tendency of picking on and making fun of people who are different.  The epitaph on the tombstone of these politicians could read: “Here lies a man who dedicated his life to picking on and making fun of persons who looked different than himself.” Kansas politicians are at the forefront of this xenophobia now and they probably were when we were growing up, so, possibly Mother protected us from them.

I don’t know whether Mother knew of Terence, the Roman playwright, but she lived by his words, “I am human: nothing human is alien to me.” You might say there were not any African Americans nor any Muslims in Axtell nor any other persons who live at the margins in our society and that is true, but greater diversity for Mother would not have mattered.  No difference in a human would have been alien to her. And no difference would have motivated her to pick on, make fun of or leave out that person.

In 1947 I was a freshman in high school. Mother was attracted to underdogs and Mohandas Gandhi was one such underdog. He employed nonviolent methods to resist the British rule.  India got its freedom from British rule in August 1947. Mother spoke of him to me and she identified with both his resistance as a subaltern and of his manner of resisting by nonviolent means.

Mother’s humility was revealed when she invoked Quaker sayings.  She had several of these sayings, but the only one I can remember is, “Everyone is a bit strange except thee and me and sometimes I’m not so sure about thee." While her reciting this aphorism was an act of humility, it was intended as a lesson for me.  The lessons were typically brief, but even though I can’t remember the context I believe the timing of the lesson was important and appropriate.

At times Mother uttered words of caution. One of these cautionary ideas was,, “anticipation is greater than realization.” I wish I could remember what I was anticipating when she said that, but I can’t.  I can only imagine the countless times Mother must have anticipated things and had her hopes betrayed. Life was not easy for her.

One empathy lesson Mother taught me was in the form of an anecdote about a little nine year old girl who had just returned from a friend’s birthday party.  Laura found her Mother in the kitchen.  “Oh, Laura did you have a good time?” “Mom, it was so much fun.” “Honey, what did you do?” “Well, we played games, and, then Jennie opened her presents, she got so many gifts and she got such a beautiful doll. And then her Mom brought out the cake with nine lighted candles and Jennie blew out all the candles in one whiff.” Then Jennie made her wish. All the while Mom had been peeling potatoes as she listened to her daughter and she said, “Laura, I am so glad you had fun, anything else?” The smile faded from Laura’s face and she got serious, she said, “Mom, a little girl fell off her chair and everyone laughed but me.” Her Mom looked up as she sliced the potatoes and said, “Well, why didn’t you laugh, Laura?”  Laura looked sad as she said, “Because, Mom, that little girl was me!”

Another lesson came in 1947.  I went from a one-room country school, New Salem, to Axtell High School in town.  The high school was a beautiful building and it was built by the WPA, thanks to FDR. In my freshman year I would be going from room to room being taught classes by a different teacher for each subject. When I got home from signing up for classes Mother asked what subjects I would be studying in my freshman year.  I told her each of the subjects and each of the teachers.  When she heard World History she said,, “Oh, Charles how wonderful that will be.  Edith Samuelson will teach about Egypt and its Nile River, and its pyramids—how exciting.  We had so little that I couldn’t have blamed Mother if she had said, “Charles, why do you have to take that stuff it won’t help you make good money in a job?” But she didn’t say that and her joy of learning was one of the many legacies she left me.

Sometimes just being with someone and seeing how they do things and sensing how they must feel as they do things in the hard times presents a lesson you couldn’t learn any other way.  Mother was that someone in the fall of 1941 when Daddy went to the Veteran’s Hospital in Leavenworth to be diagnosed for and treated for pernicious anemia.  I was eight years and I was just trying to be a big boy and help Mother and not disappoint her. If things weren’t bad enough the rain gods were vigilant in providing us with our daily supply of rain. The pigs had great freedom as they went “slip sliding away” under the fence and onto the road to play a game of “catch me if you can.” Sometimes Mother has been criticized for being a “Stoic” implying a manner of emotional distance. There was no dime store psychologist there to help us that fall and I can assure you her being stoic helped us survive. I never heard a complaint from her.  She would have made Job hang his head in shame.

Five years later in the summer of 1946 when we lived in Frankfort Daddy was taken by a disease that caused him to lose weight from 180 pounds to 135 pounds, the disease was diagnosed as “worry” worry about a two-thousand dollar debt on an eight-thousand dollar farm.  Daddy spent several months in the Veterans Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. Again it fell to Mother to tend the farm.  I was now “a coming of age boy,” so, I was more help to Mother.  Make no mistake though she was the person who held things together and she did so with the same grace and patience as was the case  in 1941.  Again, no complaints by her.

When Uncle Donald and Aunt Edla or Aunt Viva and Uncle Perry would come from Junction City for a Sunday afternoon visit I could tell how much they admired and respected Mother.  Although we were impressed by them as they were all dressed up in fine clothes and they seemed so sophisticated next to us, but none of that mattered because it was Mother’s authenticity that put everything in the proper perspective.  Fr. Frank was at his best when he was around Mother.  I could sense and observe the love between them.  The interaction towards Mother that people had, was such that to experience it was like the country song says, “Words just get in the way.”

I am sure each of my sisters has her set of memories that will add to and enhance this sketchy remembrance.  This is especially true for the period sometime after 1956 that Mother was an Angel of Mercy at the Axtell Community Hospital. I would understand it if a person who did not know Mother read these words and accused me of “idealizing” Mother’s many fine qualities. She does sound too good to be true. However, contrariwise, some or all of my sisters may find that the encomiums I have used are not generous enough.

As I experience these dreadful times in which a dystopian society is now considered normal I wonder how Mother would react.  The seven deadly sins have always been with us, but it is hard to imagine a time the sins are passed off as virtues.  When the venal man that is now in the White House is put in this the highest position in the country it speaks not only of his venality, but to the venality of those who put him there.

While Mother would be aghast and she would feel as helpless as we do, she would not abandon her ethics--Geraldine’s Ethics of Empathy.

Authoritarianism-Religion

Religion is an Authoritarian institution.  If primordial man had been able to accept his finitude we would have been spared the religion of an imaginary afterlife with God (the Authoritarian) as an abstraction outside of human experience. Religion is opposed to the acceptance of the facts of existence and, instead, preaches the belief in a palliative eternal afterlife. Religion is an obstacle to authentic being. Bertrand Russell in his lecture, “Why I Am Not a Christian” warns of the harm that fear-motivated religion does to its followers.

Russell states, "Religion is based primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things."

Evangelicals have been the foremost ally of Donald Trump whose venality is on display every day. Eight out of ten Evangelicals voted for Trump in spite of issues such as infidelity towards his wife.  This infidelity is an element of his abiding misogyny towards and his objectification of women. Trump’s bigotry extends to anyone who is not white. His cruelty of anyone on the margins of society is his brutish approach.  Thus Trump and Evangelicals fit Russell’s description, “cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.” Although there are some who will criticize aspects of the Christian religion Russell is one of the few who demonstrates the irreparable harm it does to society.  The Catholic Church with its endemic pedophilia and with the subsequent cover-up is an example of just how evil can dwell within the organizational structure of the Christian religion. Even more moderate protestant religions practice dissembling dogma like “love the sinner and hate the sin” in pretending to minister to the spiritual needs of the LGBTQ community.  And much of Christian charity is “proselytizing charity” since it is given with the quid pro quo of obedience by the recipient to the authority of the Christian sect in question. Religion is dominated by authority and power, not empathy and love. If Jesus were to return today he would see the need to reform the religion that bears his name just as he had to do with the Pharisee dominated Jewish religion of his day.

Russell concludes with words of wisdom that represent the model for a life filled with authentic meaning, “We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world—its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.” 

If we could follow these words of Russell another world, an ethical one, would be possible.

Bertrand Russell’s lecture can be found at this website:

https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

                              

The Appeal of Authoritarianism

The radical freedom that Sartre believed the individual has with an existence that provides no preordained meaning is mocked by the present Authoritarianism the president of the United States pursues daily.  Donald Trump, during the 2016 campaign said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”  If this were an idle boast it would be innocuous, but his followers are so mesmerized by him that they seem to celebrate his utterances that are obvious lies and his actions that are often mean spirited.

Erich Fromm in “Escape from Freedom” indicates that Authoritarianism is a mechanism of escape from freedom for those persons who experience their being with an “unbearable feeling of aloneness and insignificance.” As they cede control to the Authoritarian Fromm says, they may “attempt to become a part of a bigger and more powerful whole outside of oneself, to submerge and participate in it. This power can be a person, an institution, God, the nation or a psychic compulsion. . . . One surrenders one’s own self and renounces all strength and pride connected with it, one loses one’s integrity as an individual and surrenders freedom; but one gains a new security and a new pride in the participation in the power in which one submerges.”

Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad in “The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power” also discuss the individual’s relinquishment of freedom. They explain how the process of “surrender and control” works they say, “Surrendering control usually means shifting from internal control to being controlled externally, whether by a person or ideology.  But this shift is not clear cut for one must internalize the ideology to follow it, and the willingness to obey another is also internal.”

Both of the above passages speak to the process by which individuals surrender their freedom and control to the Authoritarian.  The individual must internalize the surrender of control so she feels she belongs to and participates in something greater than herself and that she shares in the power of the Authoritarian. The individual who does this sacrifices the freedom Sartre espouses and so forfeits the opportunity for authentic meaning in life.