Of the two thousand Frenchmen who arrived in Buchenwald the day I did, only thirty were alive when the United States Third Army liberated the camp. That I am still here is one of those thirty miracles. My twenty-nine comrades cannot explain it any better than I can.
Yet I do not hesitate to say that I owe to my blindness more than to anything else that I was able to hold on. You must not understand this in a physical sense. When I succeeded in being tolerated in a camp where the Nazis systematically annihilated those whom they classified as “incapable of work,” it was because I had found a way to make myself useful in the community of prisoners. I had become an interpreter. This was a real function. I was not an interpreter between the Nazis and my comrades — the Nazis ignored us except in the hours of destruction — but between my comrades themselves. In this international society, which lived in terror, it was very important to speak French, German, and later some Russian. I established communications, carried news; I listened to the mendacious news of the Wehrmacht high command, explained it to my comrades, deciphered it, corrected it. This activity assured me a place among them. I was no longer an invalid.
But that was not enough. In order to survive in a concentration camp, no ruse is sufficient. No form of intelligence is enough. When death is present every minute, when all those we love disappear, when humaneness vanishes, when no concrete reason any longer exists, nor a single sensible reason to hope, then an immediate refuge is necessary, an all-powerful refuge. And that is faith. Yet even the most fervent faith usually is no more than faith. A kind of faith is necessary that has its roots in our very being, that in time has become our very self. In other words, an experience is necessary. I had encountered that experience. Blindness had taught it to me one day.
I knew that when the light was taken from me, I could bring it to life again in myself. I knew that when love was taken away from me, its spring would flow again in myself. I even knew that when life is at stake, it is possible to find its source within oneself.
I know these are explanations that may seem abstract and that one does not live by theoretical solace. But for me they were not abstract. Every time the sight and the tests of the camp became unbearable, I closed myself off from the world. I entered a refuge where the SS could not reach me. I directed my gaze toward that inner light which I had seen when I was eight years old. I let it swing through me. And quickly I made the discovery that that light was life — that it was love. Now I could again open my eyes — and also my ears and nose — to the slaughter and the misery. I survived them.
If someone does not accept this explanation, which is the only correct one, then it seems to me that he does not know an all-important truth, namely, that our fate is shaped from within ourselves outward, never from without inward. Blindness, like any other great physical or moral loss, teaches this truth so thoroughly that in the end it is impossible to deny. Can I still call an accident that brought me such a gift “misfortune”?
Misfortune I met only later. What I call misfortunes here are the circumstances that our personal efforts cannot change, those which are imposed upon us by the prejudices of the majority and the indolence of those in power.
Let us never forget that the fate of the blind community is the fate of all minorities. It is of no importance whether these minorities are of national, religious, or physical origin. At the very best they are tolerated. They are almost never understood.
When the war ended, I returned to my homeland prepared to finish my studies and choose one of the professions for which I believed myself best qualified: diplomacy or teaching. But in 1942 the Vichy Government, in imitation of the Nazis, had enacted a new law. This law established the physical qualifications that were required of candidates for admission to the professions supervised by the government. It applied specifically to teaching and diplomacy.
Today this absurd law no longer exists. But seventeen years of unending effort were necessary to abolish it. And in those seventeen years I discovered the gulf that separates the seeing from those who do not have the light of their eyes.
I know that in this respect France showed a narrowness and stubbornness that does not exist in other countries. But the French example remains very meaningful. The seeing do not believe in the blind.
Their unjust and stupid doubt directed my actions during all those years. I decided not to fight the law directly, but to offer proof. I wanted to teach. I taught, so to speak, by force. I took it upon myself to teach without guarantees, without fixed employment, without pension rights, without pay during vacations. I offered my services with persevering stubbornness. I asked only that they be judged by their value, instead of by what was believed to be their value. I carried on a long and lonely battle, which undoubtedly was the hardest of my life. Again, the story of my struggle is not my personal story; the struggle is the same one that all blind persons must fight.
I am convinced that the time has come to show the world what blindness really is. It is not an infirmity for which the afflicted constantly try to compensate according to their ability — that is, always incompletely. It is instead another state of perception. This state has its inherent practical difficulties. A blind professor needs a secretary to obtain the material he requires for his work. The blind manager of a trading company must be accompanied wherever he goes. But under modern conditions such obstacles are hardly noticeable. What lawyer, what engineer, even, could manage today without the help of a few competent assistants? Blindness is a state of perception which — when taken in all seriousness, accepted, and used — is capable of increasing many faculties sorely needed in every intellectual and organizational activity.
The memory of a blind man is better than that of a seeing person, given equal talent. And when we say “memory,” we imply at the same time that other valuable ability: the ability to combine facts and ideas, to compare, to perceive new connections. There is no mystical reason for the better memory. It is simply that the blind in the course of time are forced to remember more than are the seeing. Thus a blind person, as I have frequently said, immediately discovers the all-powerful and entirely unexplored realm of attention.
In other words, he is less distracted by the world. Why not take advantage of this? Why shouldn’t a blind person be assigned those tasks in the world that require his rare talent?
Let me make a practical suggestion. Since it is a fact that prejudices against the blind are strong, and prejudices are what human beings find most difficult to overcome, I would suggest the following rule: Every time a blind person applies for work, let us give him a chance. Let us employ him on probation. We could plan a probation of perhaps six or twelve months, during which the school, the office, or the firm that has hired him would be under no obligation. Nine out of ten blind persons have been denied employment not because they have proved themselves incapable, but because they have not even been permitted to furnish proof of their abilities. Let us allow them to work! Let us trust them for a while! The results would probably be amazing.
What I am suggesting is exactly what I achieved for myself. (Actually, we only really know what we have experienced ourselves.) It happened that I became a university professor in spite of my country’s feudalistic laws, and I have pursued my profession for twenty-four years without encountering any difficulties except those connected with the profession itself.
I even dare to make the following statement: Teaching is often less difficult for a blind person than for a seeing one. When this point is disputed, the delicate question of discipline is always mentioned. But I ask you, are no seeing professors unable to command the respect of their students? It is obvious that discipline depends on the natural authority, the moral strength, of the teacher, on his ability to make his material come to life. Moral authority has nothing to do with having eyes.
I have been a teacher for twenty-four years without having encountered any difficulty caused by my lack of sight. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. A lecture, a course, is an exercise of mind and charact
er. It is based entirely on our ability to develop our inner life and to transmit it to others. In that respect blindness is a school without equal.
Why should it be necessary, when I stand before my students, to observe the position of their arms and legs? Why should I watch the vague expression of their faces, which convey only their lack of attention or their curiosity? Blindness has shown me a space other than the physical one, which only serves to separate me from them and them from me. This is the space where the stirrings of the soul and the spirit come into being. I know it from long practical experience. And silence, a certain quality of silence, shows me much better the degree of understanding, of interest, or of objection I cause in my students than could any enlargement of a movie showing their physical presence in slow motion.
What causes the failure of so many teachers today — and in Europe as well as in America much is made of that failure — is their inability to step out of their own heads. Many teachers are capable, many make praiseworthy efforts, but very few are able to enter the one realm where teaching can flourish. That realm is the common space between minds. Blindness has helped me there. I had for a long time practiced the techniques of an immediate exchange between human beings: the evaluation of voices, the evaluation of silence. Thanks to blindness I learned to read many signs that came to me from others, and that usually escape the notice of the seeing. If there is one realm in which blindness makes us experts, it is the realm of the invisible.
An audience is not an enemy for me; it is a new entity. Many new connections are suddenly formed within me. Since I cannot observe my audience with my eyes, and since I need not make the futile endeavor to divide it into single perceptions, it speaks to me as a whole, as a unit that can communicate.
I will not hide from you that I love my profession. It permits me every day to impart some of the unexpected, disquieting wealth that blindness has brought me.
I must come to an end. Can I add anything more? Perhaps it is this: If blindness is regarded as privation, it becomes privation. If we think of blindness as a deficiency that must be compensated for at any price, a path may open; but it will not lead far. If, however, we regard blindness as another state of perception, another realm of experience, everything becomes possible.
Continuing to see in their own way is undoubtedly all-important for the blind. I did not tell you that I have your eyes; I told you that I have other eyes. I did not tell you that my experiences are truer or more complete than yours. That would be a ridiculous presumption, even a lie. I said that the time has come to compare our experiences. When my wife paints, I ask her what her eyes see, ask her about all the lines they follow, all the colors they meet. At the same time, I paint within myself another picture. I know it is she who sees the physical picture, but I see it as well as she does. Isn’t it a miracle that there are many ways of perceiving the world, not merely one?
Yes, you have heard me correctly: many ways of perceiving — but that very fact is our chance!
CHAPTER 2
BLINDNESS, A NEW SEEING OF THE WORLD
THIS IS MY STORY. I saw, saw with my eyes, until I was eight years old. For more than thirty-five years now I have been blind, completely blind. I know that this story, this experience, is my greatest happiness.
I know, too, what one could say to this: These are only words; this is merely a poetic embellishment; it is a comforting fairy tale; it is mysticism; it is a proud rebellion against fate. This, however, is not true for me. I know too well that I did not attain this happiness by fighting for it, but that it has been given to me, and in a very natural way. I know, too, that it is not my privilege, my property, but a gift that I must accept anew every day, and that all the blind can receive in their own way.
I hope I shall be forgiven for starting with such a declaration of faith. But I cannot say anything about blindness that would be more important. I am thinking of the spiritual and practical help that it could give to all who share it.
And now I face a basic question. What value has seeing for us? What purpose does it serve? And I notice that no one has an earnest answer, neither the seeing nor the blind.
Well, this silence is quite natural. Why question something we own: life, sight?
Those who have sight do not think about it. Seeing to them is a simple act, an incontestable good. They might accept the warning of the philosophers who tell them: “Beware the delusion of the senses, and especially the delusion of the eyes!” But it is not seeing that is accused here, but the use that is made of it. Who will accept the validity of that other exhortation: “Close your eyes if you want to see”?
The blind, on the other hand, could ask themselves whether physical sight is deceptive, but they do not dare. They believe they do not have the right. They do have some answers, but they hide them even from themselves. They bury deep in their consciousness what appears to them as mere dreaming. As far as the eyes’ ability is concerned they share the opinion of the seeing, who daily make them believe it anew. The pressure of society — of those who see — weighs heavily upon them.
What is the value of seeing? Let me try to answer.
Seeing is a valuable sense. Those who are robbed of it know that very well. But seeing is primarily a practical sense. Seeing permits us to deal with shapes and distances. It makes every object useful, or at least usable.
Seeing presents itself to us as an extension of our hands, as an added ability to manipulate. Thanks to the eyes, we go forward. We make a greater part of the universe our own. We can operate even where our arms and legs do not reach.
We can make simultaneous observations through our eyes. When using them it is not necessary to know every object by itself, to measure things with the measure of our body. The eyes help us to many a beautiful victory over time and space. And that is the basic advantage of seeing; it places us in the center of a world that is much larger than we are.
But are these not the qualities of an instrument, or even a tool? Their advantages are obvious. But do they not depend entirely on the use we make of them? In short, does seeing have a power of its own, or is it nothing but a tool?
It is a very precious tool, and the blind who are deprived of it suffer a heavy loss. Yet it is only a tool, and therefore can be replaced. One of the greatest riches at our disposal is that there exist so many possibilities of sensual perception, that there is no unique or irreplaceable tool. Each sense can take the place of another, if it is used in its totality.
But now we are faced with a great difficulty, for seeing is a superficial sense.
It is often said that seeing brings us closer to things. Seeing certainly permits orientation, the possibility of finding our way in space. But with what part of an object does it acquaint us? It establishes a relationship with the surface of things. With the eyes we pass over furniture, trees, people. This moving along, this gliding, is sufficient for us. We call it cognition. And here, I believe, lies a great danger. The true nature of things is not revealed by their first appearance. I know that thinking can correct the information we receive through our eyes. But it is necessary to apply our thinking, and the whirl of daily necessities does not always leave us time to do so.
Seeing prefers outer appearance; this is part of its nature. It tends to regard consequences as causes. In our strange attitude toward the light we believe that our eyes see the sun, although they merely perceive lighted objects.
The danger, therefore, lies in the nature of seeing itself, in its quickness, in its usefulness. This is especially true when we use it for knowing other people. Think of the disastrous errors in our judgment when we base them on the clothes, the hairdo, and the smile of the person we meet. And yet the greatest part of our loving and our hating, as well as the greatest part of our opinions, depends on these clothes, on this smile.
A person approaches us. What does he mean for our eyes? First of all, he makes a physical impression: i.e., there exists no relationship — not even a fleeting one — between him and us. There is
only one between society and him, since it is obvious that clothes, smile, facial expression, even gestures, in a word, behavior, are the common property of society.
I think of the endless game, a game that has become involuntary. We play it to call attention to ourselves. It is the art of deceiving the eyes of the other person, an art that fills many minutes of our lives. What we deceive is the eyes. For them we work. We know very well that they will pass over us quickly and not examine us very long.
Naturally, there are eyes that examine and do not merely see. They are the eyes of a mother or an anxious wife, the eyes of a good physician, or a wise man, an artist, and — why not? — of a humorist. But why is it that the moment these eyes see, they seem half closed and turned inward?
This process has many names: thinking, concentrating, reflecting. When we really think about it, however, we understand that it is always a protection against seeing. After we have received pictures through the eyes, it is necessary to hold onto these pictures, to explain them to ourselves without any visual support, in short, to give them an entirely new form of existence: the inner existence. Without this willingness to give up, at least temporarily, the impressions we receive through the eyes, no true cognition is in my opinion possible.
This simple fact should warn us of a momentous illusion: the illusion that forms are all-powerful.
Human beings primarily collect. They dream of increasing facts and experiences unendingly. If they want to learn about the world of plants, to determine differences and similarities, they differentiate and classify. To enumerate and classify forms has become the most important function of intelligence. What is true of systematic research is also true in our daily life. For most people, traveling means seeing everything; all landscapes, all rooms of a building. He who did not see all the rooms of a house, did not see the house. He who did not see all lawyers, all workers, did not see the man who is called lawyer or worker. That is the basic principle of all encyclopedias, of all lexicons, of nearly all textbooks. In this manner historical research is pursued, research into man and research into nature. And then we are surprised at its being insufficient and inadequate.
Against the Pollution of the I Page 3