Hi John,
You have responded to this “virtue” in the form of a maxim exactly as I hoped that an ideal reader would. As a literary form, a maxim is usually phrased in a fairly dogmatic way, but the goal is catalytic, to destabilize the reader’s normal way of looking at an issue, to present a concept in a way that has resonance so that it becomes more rather than less complex as you look at it. In short, it should upend the common wisdom and prompt ongoing reflection rather than offer some sort of hard and fast truth. A good maxim does not even have to be accurate. For example, Nietzsche’s most famous maxim is probably “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” This could not be more ironic. In 1888, at the age of 44, he suffered a total nervous collapse, such that he was barely able to clothe and feed himself and had to be cared for by his sister until his death in 1900. This does not make the maxim any less true, with whatever truth it might have. It does, though, clarify the way that we should approach this or any other maxim: as a challenge, as a beginning and not an end.
In these “Anamnesian Virtues,” as in the “Anamnesian Maxims” that will follow in part two of this essay, I am trying to present certain virtues and principles that I believe to be valid, but I am presenting them in a highly paradoxical and open-ended way. In this virtue that you site, as in others, one of my goals was to argue against the facile logic of many contemporary conspiracy theorists, who tend to see all of the world’s problems as being caused by some immensely evil and powerful group of barely human “others.” Over the past ten years or so, I have been both amused and horrified to see the focus shift from Grand Masonic Cabals and Gnostic Archons and Reptilian Overlords to flat-out—and very unimaginative—anti-Semitism. While I do believe that there are many real conspiracies, I suspect that the great majority of these have to do with the simple acquisition of wealth and power, and that it is a mistake to attribute any vast occult powers to the participants. Even if this were not the case, I just do not accept that an “Us versus Them” attitude leads anywhere, not to individual liberation and not to any breadth of vision.
As to the idea of even the most generous of our actions being a crime, let me begin with Mozart, whom you mention. How could the creation of such perfect and generous works of art be a crime? I say this not in order express any cynicism about human motivations or to point the finger at great artists such as Mozart, but rather to call attention to the intricate way that self and other are connected. In Mozart’s case, for example, although the works themselves may represent certain high ideals as well as being perfect in and of themselves, early on Mozart was incorporated into the project of romantic German nationalism. He was seen as a messenger from the Realm of the Ideal, a divine youth, a hero with supernatural powers who was fated to die young. He was also proof positive of the superiority of German culture. Many enthusiastic Fascists were brought up in the cult of Mozart, and this did nothing to moderate the darker aspects of their behavior. I seem to remember, too, that Himmler never went anywhere without his copy of the Bhagavad Gita. We could also look at Tennyson, who was one of the very few Victorian poets to truly master the mock-Medieval style then in vogue. He was also writing at the time of what is quaintly called “The Irish Potato Famine,” which was really a form of genocide, in which the British systematically removed almost all of the food from the country. Tennyson’s great skill as a sonic technician did not make him any less of an apologist for the British Empire. One can trace a line directly from “The Charge of the Light Brigade” to the mass-slaughter of the First World War. Again, I say these things not in order to point fingers, only to point out how subtly and strangely high and low, good and evil, self and other are entwined.
Part two of this essay should be going up sometime over the next day or two. The 21 “Anamnesian Maxims” touch on many of the same issues as part one. Let us perhaps continue this discussion in the forum for that piece.