by Evan Dara
—And he what. What. He went out, he just went out and went in there and got them, OK?, he got like this amazing pair, going halfway up the shins, gorgeous light brown, with all beautiful inlaid curvy-like Western stylings in the leather, toes steel and hard-looking pointy, a real pair of shitkickers, Von Dutch make, and just beautiful, beautiful—
—So: Welcome! Nice to … A pleasure. A—
—So. Yes. Descartes. Well, where to begin. Because doesn’t everything go back to him. And to Bacon, of course, but most robustly to Descartes. Because he was the first, I’m quite sure, to link doubt and self. The first to connect the critical faculty to the emergence of being. To establish identity as the bulwark against nihilism. And this was big stuff, a big big act of resistance to the increasing mechanization of his time. He—
—Listen: you always gotta look at Descartes as a child of war, as a product of the religious wars that had shredded the late 16th Century and were continuing even as Descartes was born. So what does he do? Confronted with the tidal bores of blood that had flushed away the Renaissance and had kinda cast into disrepute the Christian dogmas and their mace-wielding sales teams—
—Descartes, you see, heard what’d happened to Galileo, OK?, so he realized he had to come up with somethin’ strong and like inviolable enough to stand up to the Inquisition – something that no grim-face robe-folded nobody in some torch-snort private chamber could whittle or intimidate away. Because Mr. D, you follow, he didn’t want none of that trial or excommunication shit, you know what I’m—?
—From a world of brutal exteriors, Descartes – perhaps ironically, perhaps inevitably – drew inward, to subjectivity. This no one could touch, and, accordingly, this became the very focus of his project. Seeking an absolute, unshakable legitimization of knowledge, he turned to the subject – the questing, feeling, validating subject, who both initiates the method and, ultimately, resolves it. To learn something real, to find solidity, Descartes came to believe, separate yourself from the trickster universe. Thus, with this, perhaps the furthest expression of his mind-body schismatism, he posited a new law. For truth to be, even for the universe to exist: only disconnect—
—This was his – I believe – great addition: Descartes added up to down. He dissolved in order to rebuild. Before him, classical skepticism, from Pyrrho on out, held that, yes, the wise man doubts everything, and ceaselessly. But – and isn’t this unfortunate – all our doubting inquiries turn out to be futile, as they yield conflicting beliefs. You believe one thing, I believe another, everything looks different to everybody, it’s impossible to stand apart from the fray and so actually judge, so no one can be sure of anything. To the skeptic, reality is relative, with no absolutes waiting to be unconcealed. So if there is no place to build your home, if the calamities of life indeed are endless, then the wise man derives happiness from removing himself from the war zone. And this, the skeptics believed, is best achieved by epoche – suspending judgment. We can’t know anything, so don’t bother trying. Better just not to think about it. Where there can be no answer, the answer becomes the silencing of the question, and this is best accomplished by bracketing our inquiry off from consciousness. This we can do, and so tranquility, known to the trade as freedom from disturbance, becomes the highest human goal—
—Check this out: before Descartes, the best we could hope for, in terms of, like, happiness, was ataraxia – a kind of sluggardly tolerance, a feckless, positivist submission to things as they seem – which means, of course, as they seem they seem – because relativist mind can’t do no better. It’s like: Stop your opposition, and learn to love the relief it brings. I.e., roll over and play dead. And stay dead …
But René walked away. The guy added something, like, new—
—His defense was self. That became his mother lode, his cornerstone, what he needed to move forward. Through hyperbolic doubt, Descartes drilled down to psychic bedrock, then constructed his city upon it. In establishing self as clear, distinct and incorrigible truth, Descartes then had a base, or model, or enabler of other truths. If I exist, and this is true, then truth itself exists, and this in turn opens up the possibility of further facticity. The existence of self, for Descartes, is the precondition for all other meaningful assertion, and in fact functions as the generator of all valid reality—
—And now you know why Descartes is listed as lyricist for the theme song of the IMF:
There’s no interest
Like self-interest
Like no interest
I—
—No less infelicitously, Descartes assumes there to be a unified locus of subjectivity – by which I mean a self that’s separate, coherent, distinct. Well, this is highly problematic. Many others would not agree, of course, favoring a more universal intelligence, some shared essence or entity in which individual minds participate, and I will stop just by mentioning Averroës and his One Intellect, the Neoplatonists and their World Soul or Nous, Zabarella and his Spirito Stronzone – and of course Le Roy’s noosphere, Vernadsky and his omniconsciousness, Teilhard’s Single Thinking Envelope – and then again one might go on to mention Jung and his whoop-de-do, Crention and his – in fact virtually every expression of The Perennial Philosophy … So you see much of Descartes is indeed questionable—
—Which of course leads us right back to external reality—
—From which, of course, Descartes cut us off entirely—
—OK—?
—Locking us away with our secret inner something, prodding it and coddling it, monstrously divided and separated from—
—All Hail the Patron Saint of Love Canal!
—Where the new self, steeled, victorious, is created, and called money. Where the generally accepted accounting principles are easy, and entirely transparent: more money equals more me. Draw the line and know it all. In other words: make another barrier.
—But what Descartes got wrong, of course – where I’ve always found a fundamental, even fatal error in his project – is his adversarial relationship to nature, his Manichaean conception of the world as inherently resistant, and hostile, even aggressively so, to mind. What he did not see, or couldn’t, was that the evil genius is not evil at all, but beneficent – that it wasn’t trying to trick him, but to teach him. He was looking to the wrong horizon for sunrise—
—I mean, come on: Are you really going to spend time on a guy who conducted experiments to reverse gray hair … ?
Is this where all the hyperactive doubt came from?
—Doubt … ?
OK …
But, like, about what …
Truth … ?
Truth…?
Are you … ?
As in like some kind of who-knows-what that acts as our final arbiter … ?
Jesus …
I mean, hey, let me break it to you gently: that shit went out the window a long time ago …
And if you ask me – good riddance … !
Absolutely: The false God has been terminally deflated. A vastly regressive and destructive force has been shot down. I mean, Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Bokassa – all the biggies in the middle-finger hall of fame were absolutely sure that they knew the truth, and that they were its agents. No wonder it was sent packing. And in fact, the happiness crowd – Mill, Sidgwick, Bentham, all those boys – they all went to their deathbeds sighing with delight because they’d finally be free of it. If ever anything was ripe for downsizing, it was quote-unquote truth …
Ultimately, everyone now knows, truth, through human intervention, is endlessly reduced, and the most you can hope for is a kind of serviceable muddle. In fact, there was a German guy, Vaihinger, who formed this as a law – as if it were a law. He called it Fictionalism, and it down-the-drains all the residue of truth-gunk that managed to cling to the washbasin of experience, and declares that the best we have, and therefore the best we have to work with, is what he called – and I quote – the most expedient error. Which is also known by its married name, the most pro
ductive skonk …
And that’s great stuff. Of course, if Vaihinger is correct, then Fictionalism itself is an error. But it’s proving to be a highly expedient one …
Tell me you don’t agree. Tell me you don’t see this all the bloody time. These days people only appeal to truth when it serves their purposes. It’s a negotiating tool, pure and simple. Part of the arsenal. A hitman in psychic gangland. And if it happens to work, to bring results – hey: why not? Give it a round of applause. So go ahead and accord the stuff a certain force, if you like. Nostalgia’s good that way. But we now know we’re all just Loyolan schemers, micro-Machiavellists trafficking solely in effective truth. So hey: exclude me in! And Vaihinger would love it: truth – so to speak – as an enforcer of invincible error itself. OK? You got it? The economy of truth runs exclusively on fire sales—
—Historical objections to truth … ? Semantic ones … ? How can you buy into that … ?
Try structural …
Because barriers even precede our inquiry. Look here: You want to know, to investigate, truth. All well and good. But unless we have a prior understanding of truth, we can never understand or affirm its definition. So to find it or to prove it we must already know it, though it will still, by necessity, be unproven. Well, my boy, I hope you don’t mind if I stand aside while you kick that hornet’s nest—
—What was the name of that great old tune? Maybe mid-’70s … ?
I think it went something like this: Any definition of truth rests on the assumption that some independent reality exists outside our cognizing mind, and, for human truth to arise, our cognitions must come into congruence with this independent reality. The two are the same, you got truth. They ain’t, it’s all inaccuracy or illusion. Problem is, we can never step outside our cognizing mind to actually get at independent reality, to perceive it in any way. All we get is more cognition. Even if truth were there, just like hanging out at Bistro 110, we couldn’t make contact with it …
Oh yeah: Dream On. Great old ballsy rocker—
—And Berkeley? What about him? – if he existed, that is. Or may be.
—In short, as DeLoaiza puts it, truth is error. A totally incomprehensible statement we easily understand. Just like every other.
—So the only truth left is that truth does not exist. If I may say so.
—And the cool thing, the really great and lucky thing about, like, truth not existing, or like it being indeterminable and all, is like, then, how can skonk exist?
—On the contrary, my boy! Wherefore this negativity? Why any bad feelings at all? Celebrate! Proclaim! Take pride – constantly! Should people with diabetes or heart-valve irregularities feel ashamed? So say it: I’m a Zinky and I’m proud! It’s – a gift! You’re special! Mr. Cowan, you’re beautiful!
—Sir, do you think you are alone in this? Let’s be adults. Did you come here for answers or for condolences? You are concerned, ultimately, with control, with non-heteronomy. But listen here: self-perpetuating motion may be the grail in physics or in general mechanics, but it’s the default setting within the human skull. Anything that will yank our fair species out of the driver’s seat – and plunk us down in death, as Tony Brick, ah, wonderfully wrote in All Aboard! – is sought, cherished, coveted, often to devastating effect on household budgets. Automatism accounts for 94% of the workings of our mental life, according to a study done by Steve Smalling in my department, with conservatively 75% of all so-called conscious decisions made precisely to avoid having to make other, more consequential ones. Throw in rote preconscious processing and you got virtually the whole shebang, including – spare me – your rote invocation of free will. So we call it harmony, we call it courtesy, we call it efficiency, we call it comfort … or we call it tradition, or religion, or interest, self-interest – but I call it surrender, a refusal of agency that you don’t have to be pinching Gitanes between stinking fingers to find entirely … regrettable. Spengler named this the way of the Myrmidon, and it don’t take the Pied Piper to tell you he was on to something. There’s a continuum from door-holder to willing executioner, and I, and I—
—Well, in my field – well, yes, we do deal with this, naturally we do, though of course in its inner expressions. Maybe the best place to begin is with Bob Pepin, who used to have his office just four doors down the hall from here. Bob, of course, was doing fieldwork in the ’80s with the orange-growers association in Orlando when he came up with his notion of autaganda, and the autagandistic effect. And this, maybe, may have some bearing. Autaganda, of course, is the propaganda we feed ourselves, all the suggestions and exhortations and judgments and secular beliefs – you see what I’m getting at – that we accept as original and true, indeed as coming from our innermost essence – unmediated, as it were, arriving from eternity, and delivered with Godlike authority by our inner PA. Do this, or This is good, or You are like that or You are that – that kind of thing, all the advocating and self-praising and self-defining. But it’s also present, of course, on the flipside, in all the self-criticizing and -harping and -castigating: You can’t accomplish this and You shouldn’t have that and This: bad and all the many variations on You stink, you stink. That kind of thing …
And a main reason why we heed autaganda, of course, is that it seems to arrive on its own, unbidden. In fact, because of its seemingly automatic presence in our minds, Bob found, we accord it truth-value, almost absolute authority, as if it were a pure expression of consciousness, nature itself talking, a report from Deep Mind One – even though, of course, every concept, every opinion, every morpheme in us has its origin elsewhere. I think, therefore you are – that kind of thing. The Witty stuff …
So what did Bob conclude? Two main things. There were many others, of course, but these were the two main ones. One, that – perhaps ironically – within a given culture, autaganda-production rises as levels of skonk increase. This may be a defense, this may be a defeat – we don’t know. Two, that the highest goal of any commercial enterprise should be to get access to, influence upon, and eventually control of the autagandistic function – to create pure outer/inner moiré, and make your message seem to come from inside. Bob showed – proved – that this is far more effective than design, endorsement, word of mouth, value, quality, any other selling point. And, well, as you may know, after he did this research, Bob’s career just—
But … ? OK? Are you, are we – is that what you—?
—Well, in my department, many of us are interested in automatism, in all its forms. Many of us, in growing numbers, are working on what makes so-called individuals, and whole groups, proceed in lockstep to ends or goals – places – that in no way serve their – anyone’s – interests. And how these marches of folly have become more commonplace, and more fiercely defended, since the Enlightenment, with its faddism of laws and impersonal rules and eternal processes – and, of course, the source for this in England’s post-Great Plague fever for potty training. I could go on and on about the problems created by—
—But all these difficulties would be corrected if we would just use, if we would liberate the forces of the free market—
—O Stop. That’s irresponsible. Those guys aren’t blind, or stupid. And – come on now – the situation ain’t that bad. It’s only gotten to the point where it’s easier for us to imagine the destruction of the world than the changing of our economic system—
—Listen, Mr. Cowan: enough of this fuzziness. What is it, really? It’s mechanical, Dougherty’s ratio, line of least resistance. The mechanical impetus to minimal questioning. Newton would sign on without hesitation. Just add nothing, and poof!: Relax for the night; feed your farrow; buy the second home in Montecito. Choose not to choose, and then, fabulously, feel chosen …
And so small, so large. Sociology here is purely descriptive. We see suchlike cascading reactions through couples, through countries, through whole peoples. Slowly, silently or no, they gain momentum, impulsion, presence. They assume a force nowhere present in their origins
, a force that becomes irresistible—
—Well, what I think, you know, in my opinion, it’s that, well – despite what Gino DiCetti says – personal or social reasoning absolutely is monotonic. Believe it, baby! I just wrote a paper about this. Think about it: In non-monotonic logic, the truth of a proposition can change when new information comes along. Birds fly. Well, chickens are birds. Hey: maybe my definition of birds needs a little updating … ! Margie is a girl. Girls like boys. But Margie dreams of titties. So, so …
OK? Now our little myth: Learn something, be different. Do different. Adapt. Grow. That’s what they tell us. Unh-unh…! I don’t think so … ! Affectively, our minds are monotonic to the core, sister. Establish those propositions, and they ain’t changing without catastrophe. Feed in all the new data you want, honey, but our truth is still true. And sweetheart, it is stayin’ that way! And nothing you can say can convince me otherwise.
—C’mon, now. Really. Why all the worrying … ? Ain’t worth it! After all, what’s actually doing the worrying? I mean, to essentially every other member of your culture – statistically it qualifies as 100% – you’re just an obstacle before a capital pool. So how can that worry? Really, why bother … ? Here, let me show you something—
—Well, sure. Oh, yeah. Why not? Marital discord. Fraternal tension. Cycles of violence. Eritrea. Euskadi-Spain. Union Carbide-Bhopal. Hey: what could be easier? Race-hate. Tribe-hate. Faith-hate. Anything-hate. Simple as can be. Vengeance. Self-abuse by substance, self-abuse by time-trivialization. Blitzgreed. Two percent of the population, eighty percent of the resources. Ecobliteration. Tell me: what could be easier—?
—Absolutely. Great stuff. Just keep it all moving, shove the sequence forward: it’s the magic elevator, the easy chain, the hidden automatism of sensibilities and sociologies and its covert operative goes under the name of self. Look no further, demand no more. Just jump on board, and put out your hand for the gift that keeps on giving …