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A JOURNAL
Fall 1998
J.
OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Number 1
Volume 26
3
21
Cameron Wybrow
Robert D. Sacks
of
the
City
in Genesis 1-11
of
Job: Translation
and
Commentary
on
Chapters 39-42 65
Andrew Reece
Drama, Narrative,
Charmides
and
77
Mark Kremer
Liberty
and
Sheriffs of Bristol
99
Steven
Berg
Interpreting
to
Will
Zarathustra
Review Essays
121
Heidegger,
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
137
Whose Pluralism?
Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief
of
Grey
Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974)
Consulting
Editors
Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d. 1973)
Kenneth W. Thompson Terence E. Marshall Heinrich Meier
Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Elizabeth C de Baca Eastman Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Meld Shell Bradford P. Wilson Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert
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interpretation_journal@qc.edu
Interpretation
Fall 1998
-1-
Volume 26
Number 1
Cameron Wybrow
Robert D. Sacks
of
the
City
in Genesis 1-11
and
3
on
Job: Translation
Commentary
Chapters 39-42
Andrew Reece
21
Drama, Narrative,
Charmides
and
Mark Kremer
Liberty
and
Berg
Interpreting
Zarathustra
99
Review Essays
Heidegger,
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
121
137
Whose Pluralism?
Copyright 1998
interpretation
ISSN 0020-9635
Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief
of
Executive Editor
General Editors
Grey
Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974)
Consulting
Editors
Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Kenneth W. Thompson
Terence E. Marshall Heinrich Meier
International Editors
Editors
Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Elizabeth C de Baca Eastman Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Meld Shell Bradford P. Wilson Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert
-
Manuscript Editor
Lucia B. Prochnow Subscription rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18
Single
copies available. outside
Subscriptions
U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra; $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 weeks or longer) or $11.00 by air. Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by a financial institution located within the U.S.A. (or the U.S. Postal Service). Postage
elsewhere
in
Political Philosophy
as
Well
as
Those
Theology, Literature,
and
Jurisprudence.
contributors should
follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 1 3th ed. or manuals based on it; double-space their manuscripts, including notes; place references in the text, in endnotes or follow current journal style in printing references. Words from languages not rooted in Latin should be transliterated to English. To ensure impartial judgment of their manuscripts, contributors should omit mention of their
other work; with
postal/zip
put, on the title page only, their name, any affiliation desired, address code in full, E-Mail and telephone. Please send four clear copies,
be
returned.
Composition
by
(Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. 11367-1597, U.S.A. (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565
interpretation_journal@qc.edu
E Mail:
The Significance
of
the
City
in Genesis 1-11
Cameron Wybrow
McMaster
Divinity
College
where
The city is mentioned in three episodes in Genesis 1-11: in Genesis 4, it is said that Cain (or possibly his son Enoch) built the first city; in
Genesis 10, where it is stated that Nimrod ruled over (and possibly built) cities; and in Genesis 1 1, in which the unified human race attempts to build Babel, the
city and tower with its top in the heavens. Traditional exegesis of these stories, Jewish
and
Christian,
was
and antipolitical.
Why
the traditional commentaries a number of overlapping themes. those who are supposed to be
First,
the city is
impious in
their
Nimrod,
man.
the Babel-builders.
Second,
life,
Third,
number of
necessary for survival and many of which are possibly morally dangerous. Finally, the city is associated with improper aspirations toward human greatness or even human divinization, with
superfluous and
which
arts, few
desires to
compete
with,
or even
defy,
the Lord
God.
the the
In this
paper
wish
much of
traditional pious exegesis of Genesis 1-11 fails in its very reasonable task
elaboration of a moral or political of urban
because, in its urge to theory moralize about the lives and motives of the early city-builders, it makes funda mental interpretive errors. It improperly fuses the characters and accomplish
life
ments of
Cain, Nimrod,
and the
which
Babel-builders,
not
paying
enough attention
to
in
in
all
three cases,
failing
instance
features,
second
or at
least
reasonable
those
characters.
The
thing I
wish
to argue
text carefully
interpreters I
will
seem
to be correct: the unacceptability of the Babel project. the Babel-builders are not evil in
condemned
For,
as
argue,
although
intent,
of
the effort
they
are
making is indeed
narrator.
from the
to be
political-theological perspective of
the Biblical
Finally, I
is
wish not
to argue that,
in light
Nimrod's kingdom
of cities
understood as a
tyranny but
fectly
when
reasonable attempt
law, divine
or
conventional,
has
men at a time
heart.
interpretation. Fall
4
I
Interpretation
will
proceed
in the be
following
manner.
First, I
will
present
the
political
gleaned
of
Cain, Nimrod
and
the
will
Babel-builders in
show
Next,
the
inadequacy
handling
with
of
interpreters'
traditional
remarks
the
fine details
of
by
nally, I
will propose
my
the Bible's
moral-political
evaluation of
the
city.
The traditional
commentaries on
Genesis
are
tendencies.
tateuch, Augustine's
these
City of God,
a
and
Calvin's
I have
constructed
kind
I
technical,
ing (they
own.
different
are all
trying
between them
1. Traditional One
Hostility
with
Toward Cain
and
His Line
must
begin
who
is traditionally
him
credited with
founding
Christian
character,
had
abuse
upon
by
scores of
Jewish
and
interpreters for
at
least two
millennia.1
His
motives and
his
spiritual
his descendants, have all been impugned, often little basis in the text. This negative portrayal of Cain colors the event with he is associated, that is, the
an
which
founding
of
interpreters
recorded
(especially
Nimrod
and the
Babel-builders)
will
find it hard to
fair hearing.
Cain,
Cain's very birth is suspect, according to some of the rabbis. Noting that unlike his Genesis 5 counterpart Seth, is not said to have been born after
Adam's (hence
conclude that he is actually the offspring of death Sammael. This is why he becomes a murderer and Abel.2 kills the son truly in God's image, With this rather unauspicious head start in life, Cain cannot be expected to
fices to the
most
Thus, his religious performance is faulty. When he sacri Lord (Gen. 4.3-5), he offers (according to some of the rabbis) the
samples of
inferior
refuse,3
The
he
gives
City
in Genesis
paltry amount after finishing most of it off himself (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 153). Those interpreters, such as Augustine and Calvin, who only
a are not
nature of
vin
willing to supplement the Genesis story quite so blatantly regarding the Cain's offerings, supplement it equally regarding Cain's motives. Cal declares that there was nothing wrong with Cain's grain, but with his hy
religion and did not really serve God in his heart. Augustine, finding nothing wrong with Cain's sacrifice, declares that Cain's other activities (unmentioned in the Biblical text) must have been
evil.4
The traditional do
not
commentators are a
condemn
little lighter
on
Cain in
one respect:
they
and
ground
Cain's
be laudable
and
holy,
by
God in Genesis 1
and
and
(Calvin,
Cain's
tion:
p.
192). Augustine
says
nothing negative,
Rabbi Eliezer
of
allows
The Genesis Rabbah, however, says bluntly "Cain, Noah, and Uzziah lusted after the ground, and them. One became a murderer, another a drunkard, another
choice.
Cain's
leper"
occupa
no good came of
a
(Genesis
to
Rabbah,
vol.
2,
p.
29). Abravanel
sheds
light
on
the rabbinic
hostility
Cain's
farming
simpler,
career, explaining that "Cain also chose to engage in artful things and
ground,"
whereas
Abel
the
Abel, says Abravanel, was the proto type of all the great prophets and leaders of Israel, who were themselves shep herds: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David.5 Cain's desire to settle down
more
of a shepherd.
life
into
sophisticated, technical
to run away
which
human ten
dency
dience for
Rabbah
see a
Contrasting
life
of
on one
hand
Calvin
on
the other,
we
fundamental difference
I
life. This
activ
fundamental difference
allows room
which
for
Cain's
ities
and
intentions,
to
will return
later.
"wicked"
"house"
building of a city, some rabbis say that he, like other hoped to have immortality through a (presumably, his city and people, his son Enoch) which would live forever (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1, p. 255). Augustine sees the city which Cain builds as an allegory of the City of Man, that human society which seeks only earthly felicity and denies our supernatural end (City of God, XV. 1, 5, 8, 17, 21). Augustine takes great pleasure in repeat
About Cain's
which originated
with
is, (City of God, XV.5, 8, 21). ruthless The commentators are regarding Cain's descendants, and do not hesitate to invent facts in order to condemn them. The names of Irad, Mehujael,
and
Cain
Lamech
Metusael,
and
Lamech
are all
said vol.
(without
etymological
argument) to
of
mean sexual
"rebellion"
(Genesis Rabbah,
1,
p.
Lamech's
mistreatment of
his wives,
absent
are supplied
by
the
Interpretation
(ibid.). Tubal-Cain is
mentioned as noted
rabbis
for his
forging
of
of weapons
(which
specifically
the metal
implements
crime
ing
ancestor
Cain's
sister
to be
perpetrated
efficiently
(about
whom
absolutely
no
details
as
are
in Genesis), sang
and played
in honor
of
far
as we
can
4, did
In general, Cain's
generation were
they did
not need
159).
They
eyes,
like beasts,
flagrantly
about
rules
went
painted
tempting
the angels to
fall;
In
a more analytical
destruction
directly
linked to the
p.
acquisitiveness
257).
Taking
posite
(Calvin,
pp.
however, Calvin notes the wickedness of the atmosphere in which the arts arise; he affirms the vileness of Lamech's polygamy and waxes eloquent about
Lamech's cruelty and inhumanity (ibid.). Cain's line is uniformly contrasted unfavorably with Seth's line, the latter who lived more virtuously, the former being, if not being the "sons of
God"
completely evil,
God"
at
least
more carnal
of
are
Augustine
self-conscious that
they
are
the Church
(Calvin,
of
p.
238). In
who se
"daughters
men"
justified both
pp.
duced Seth's line into waywardness, creating the universal degeneration which lines' being wiped out by the Flood (City of God, XV.22; Calvin, 237-40). In sum, it
can
be
said that
Cain does
not
have
very
good public
image. His
birth is suspect, his offering to God was shoddy of farming is judged ambivalently, his founding
or even of
and/or of a
city is
vainglory
of vio
defiance
of
God, his
male
either
by
the
introduction
by
their
desire for
He
and
city
which
wealth, his female descendants seduced the only godly people into his line have few if any redeeming features, and because of this, the he founded, and all its connections (with the arts, with human law
making,
with political
life) fall
under a
dark
shadow.
Such is the
picture which
traditional exegesis of
Genesis 4 tends to
yield.
2. Traditional
He liter
actions
ally
onto the
Biblical
stage without
his
The
City
in Genesis
being
be
a
condemned.
Genesis 10.8
reads:
Genesis Rabbah interprets the verb "to mighty one in the (halal), here found in the hiphil form, as the-verb "to (halal), which is the normal meaning of the piel form of the same root. From the sense "pro
fane,"
earth."
deriving
all wicked
things,
mighty
and
thus
they
can
liberally
'rebelled'
when
he
was a
one
in the
earth"
(Genesis Rabbah,
"began"
2,
p.
260). In
stretching the meaning too much, they supply other examples of wicked people things, and hence were actually They mention the people of in not Genesis 4, who 4.26 are said, to degenerating calling
"rebelling."
who
"begin"
upon
Lord, but
mention
rather, to
"rebel"
in their calling
upon
the name
of the
Lord,
and
they
days,
who, instead of
"beginning"
(ibid.).
ants same
Obviously, in
must
company
whose
as the
Cainites
and
their offspring,
Nimrod,
"beginning"
is is
verb,
be evil, too.
Nimrod the
city-builder evil.
There is
Nimrod, being
mighty hunter, is reminiscent of the other hunter in Genesis, Esau. Esau, of course, is bad for two reasons. First, he was the foe of his brother Jacob, the
ancestor of
sym
bolizes the
Rome (Jacob Neusner, in Genesis Rabbah, vol. was obviously a furious Nimrod, being a a beast than a human he was also the originator of more like being; man, tyranny (Calvin, p. 317). Augustine tells us that Nimrod, like all hunters, is a deceiver, oppressor, and destroyer of earth-bom creatures (City of God, XVI.4).
2,
p.
He further
Nimrod
was a
Lord,
that
is,
he
10.9) means that Nimrod was a rebel (City of God, XVI. 3). And, if it
seems
bad
enough
for
not
hunting
is interpreted hunter.
do
say he fooled people into thinking he could cow fierce beasts, when in fact he did it by wearing the magical coats of animal skin which God had given to Adam and Eve when he put them out of
was a great
They
Eden. Thus, his claim to might, which is what persuaded people to let him them, was based on a sham (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 175).
Another thing
which counts against
rule
Nimrod is his be
being
a grandson of
Ham,
to slavery
by
slave, it
is
p.
against
he
should
king
174).
Finally, Nimrod is
lived
until
evil
the time of
because, although it is not mentioned in Scripture, he Abraham, and, as master of the pagan lands out of which
when
he
was
young.
In this attempt,
pp.
de Rabbi Eliezer,
420-21;
2,
pp.
60-61).
Interpretation
Nimrod, in
an
summary, is repudiated
by
because he
represents
was
impious
rebel against
God
He
the
the Ham
line, worldly
could
hardly
him
have
Urban life,
takes on a
associated with
and
his
kingdom,
again,
as
in the
case of
Cain,
bad
scent.
3. Traditional
Hostility
Toward the Babel-Builders explicitly state that Nimrod had anything Genesis 1 1, he was often assumed to have been
not
its initiator, for two reasons. First, the plain on which Babel was erected was in the land of Shinar, which, according to Genesis 10, was the area of his king dom. Second, it is said in Genesis 10 that Nimrod founded a city called Babel,
which
is
often assumed to
chapters are
be the city discussed in Genesis 1 1 Thus, the two intertwined in traditional commentary, and, as one might expect,
.
due to responsibility for the Babel project, and the is condemned because it was the brainchild of Nimrod. There is
odious
between Nimrod
and
Babel,
as
will point
later. In any case, the purpose of this section is to discuss the faults of the Babel-builders insofar as they can be discerned without reference to Nimrod. The tradition uniformly condemns the builders at Babel. Both their deeds
and
are
"rebels,"
"and this they begin to which, do" translated into rabbinic, means, "this they are rebelling to (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, p. 260). Why is their act a rebellion? They are trying to build a tower
says: with
are
trying
to challenge
God,
to displace him.
They
they
being
given the
heavens,
with
(Genesis Rabbah,
want
2,
pp.
They
filled
for they
p.
to make a
"name"
themselves (Gen.
(Genesis Rabbah,
and
vol.
11.4), 1,
probably
vol. at
they
made an on
261,
2,
their pride
impiety
and their
foolishness
thinking
ever challenge
concurs with the others that the story is about like that of the giants who tried to pile Pelion on Ossa to God-defying pride, scale Olympus and dethrone Jove in pagan mythology (City of God, XVI.4;
the
Lord; Calvin
Calvin,
p.
324).
There
are other
flaws in the
Babel-builders'
motives.
The
"settle"
in the land
of
Shinar.
"Settling"
is
moti
vol.
in
"settled,"
but
are on
the
50); God's people do not rest con move, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In
p.
2,
city,
needless to
say, the
Babel-builders
are reminiscent
The
of
City
us
in Genesis
on
the language
a
of mutual exhortation
in 11.3-4 ("let
brick,"
us make
"let
build
the
Babel-builders
that
wanted not
usual objection
life) but
social
people
they
thought that
the highest
form
of
life. It is their
is
at
fault. God's
do not need the political life of the city, says Abravanel. Abravanel thus, in criticizing the Babel-builders, manages to slip in the moral that the way of Torah is higher than the way of the Greeks, who defined man as a political
animal.
4.
Summary
City
associations.
The
city-builders of
Genesis 1-11
all
have unsavory
are
They
or
are
or rebels against
God; they
God's
murderers, sinners,
idola
They
wish
without
God's
help
by They
proud,
thinking
to
build
keep
forever.
They
are
from the
being
rejected
in favor first
of
Abel,
then of
Seth, Nimrod
being
things
some
part of
the Ham line which Noah subjects to Shem and Japheth. The the city, the arts,
political
which go with
cooperation,
human beings
by
stained
by
association
the
wrong sort of people. The arts come from the children of vengeful bigamist Lamech. Ruling comes from Nimrod, heir of a slave, and is associated with the
violence of
patriarchs.
hunting, which, being Esau's way, is inferior to the way of the Politics, the art of bringing people together to build a decent civil
order, is
ated,
not
rendered suspect
by
the
people to
be
political cooper
to build a better
cities
life, but to
desire to build
is unnecessary,
desire
of
walking away from God rather than with him. The city cannot provide for security against death; it cannot give one immortal life or even an immortal name; only God can do these things. The city, then, is grounded in folly. At best it is
a
necessary
evil
in
fallen world;
at worst
it is temptation to idolatry,
rejection of
God,
and
tyranny
over others.
One
upon
of the
traditionalists'
assault
Cain, Nimrod,
are quite are not
Babel-builders is how
much not
they
add
to the text.
They
story.
which
This
might not
be
bad procedure, if
the materials
they
supplied were
10
Interpretation
role of providing plausible explanations for what is recorded. far beyond this, however. They attribute Cain's birth to the angel They Sammael; they condemn Nimrod for his paganism and his attempt to murder Abraham. When material this far from the text is allowed to shape the inter
limited to the
go
characters'
pretation of
motives and
control
is lost. The
rule
text can mean whatever the interpreters want it to mean. We simply have to out much of the legendary material if we think our text of Genesis 1-11
make sense on
can
its
own.
Another mology
noticeable
interpreters'
fascination
with
ety
some of
fetched. For example, the but the rabbis stretch it beyond the resemblance may be significant, point, demanding us to allow not only the rendering of the hiphil
the claims made are simply too far
"profane,"
"begin"-"profane"
breaking
as the
"begin"
piel
ling."
but
also the
idiosyncratic
"profaning"
equation of
with
"rebel
word
Again,
when
they
"name"
can
only
mean
Cain's lies
descendants
I
"rebellion,"
they
ask us
to
accept
believe, however,
deeper. The
addition of
legendary
material and
interpretation; they are merely the justifications. The interpreters have already decided that Cain, Nimrod, and the Babel-builders
the reasons for the antiurban
are
evil, and
would maintain
this even
reasons.
if
all
the
etymologies
and
legendary
material were
First,
the evil of
Cain
is
axiomatic
which
ond, and
enough reading.
more relevant
interest, they
material, to
justify
their
They
contrast
can
indeed
appeal
to
a number of
textual details.
They
and
be
tween Nimrod
between the
violence of
Cain
and
Lamech
life
and the
is
reminiscent of
the evil
"mighty
"men
of
men"
wiped out
name"
in the Flood,
between the
pre-Flood
and the
Babel-builders'
desire for
Nimrod, Shinar, and Babel, to the fact that by Nimrod, to Nimrod's connection with
and associations upon
Ham,
and so on.
which a
Nonetheless,
the
errors
the traditional
of
the claims
facts simply do not fit into the antiurban picture. Among the following: Augustine's claim that Nimrod was a hunter is
considered who
"against
even
God"
by Calvin,
most
claim that
translators, Cain's
line
is
also
The
not murderers of
City
in Genesis
11
rabbis'
claim that
Nimrod
Canaan, Ham's son, is cursed to in Genesis 9. Canaan's brother Cush and Cush's son Nimrod are not slavery included in the curse.
Then there
are the
facts
that
do
not
fit. The
common
interpretation that
Nimrod
to aid
all the project.
undertook
his own,
or
him,
runs against of
Genesis 11,
which makes
"children
men,"
The interpretation
same
such
is, Abravanel,
for the
desire drastic
of
action at
Cain, Nimrod, and Asshur in Genesis 4 and 10. Further, there is bad reasoning in the traditional
pretation of
constructions.
The inter
Augustine
and
sarily violent and tyrannical, because he was a hunter and hunters kill things, is feeble. For shepherds (like Abel) kill things, too their sheep. And settled farmers (like Cain, and the later Israelites) kill their cattle. The way of the
hunter is thus
the settled
no more violent
his prey
creation
captive
farmer. In fact, the hunter is less violent, because he does not keep for its entire life before killing it. His victims enjoy God's
before
as
castrated,
the city
are
not
rounded
the association
who
and
with
is
peculiar.
hardly
closer
lives away from the city The landed farmer with his rural commu
in the marketplace, these
are
his
in
spirit
trapper who
is
self-sufficient.
The
association
between
hunting by the
and
by
Genesis is
supplementation
derive this
from textual evidence; rather, he infers it in infers, in a parallel manner, that Cain had a
says
justify
God. Augustine
all
lifestyle. Yet
the text
Cain
and
imputed to Cain,
execution.
is his
sacrifice said
supposed
Similarly, Cain is
to
the desire for a name, or out of the wish to build a worldly city without God.
The text
would seem
was
suggest
being killed,
and
to protect
him; further,
is
hidden from God's face, and God does not contradict Cain on this point. How, if God will then, could we expect Cain to build anything but a "worldly
city,"
not
heavenly
that
ground,"
Again, the rabbis rage against Cain for is, tilling it, but say nothing against Moses who
one?
prescribes
govern
Israel's
settled agricultural
life. If Israel is
not wicked
12
Interpretation
of
its
own
to till,
"rebel"
why is Cain's motive so disreputable? Again, in multiplying upon the earth, but that is
to
they
were commanded
do in Genesis 1.
Why is
their attempt at
obedience
lashed
forge interpreted
Finally, why is Tubal-Cain's invention by the desire to make swords rather than
the vengeful
ploughshares?
was
Lamech, but
one cannot
simply impute such emotions to a son. After all, no one else in the Cain line is said to be violent, and Tubal-Cain's siblings all invent useful or pleasant arts,
not violent ones.
interpreters,
though not
a close
clearly justified
by
completely reading of the details of Genesis 1-11. The motives their families are not so clearly evil as supposed. There
and misunderstood rather
is
evidence that
than evil.
no wicked motives or
overtly
evil actions.
The
Babel-builders, however wrong their project may be, say nothing at all about defying God. Further, if Nimrod cannot be connected with the Babel project of
Genesis 1 1
There is
,
a negative
interpretation
of
Babel
Nimrod.
theo-
much
we are
to articulate a coherent
logico-political teaching
city
as presented
in Genesis 1-11.
essay will be a preliminary attempt to give the outlines of the doctrine of Genesis 1-11 on the place of the city in the political life of mankind. I wish to argue that Genesis 1-11 wants us to see the city, and, more
remainder of this
The
broadly
speaking, human
political
effort, in
The line
of
interpretation
which
body am building
who
of traditional
I follow here comes, oddly enough, from the more unorthodox moments. For I
themselves are
Eugene Combs, Kenneth Post, and Robert Sacks, indebted to Midrashic sources such as the Genesis Rabbah.
one sees
hints here
and
there
of a a
different
account of
by less pietistic, more acute of politically way reading Scripture. Combs, Post, and Sacks have devel oped these hints and systematized them to an extent; I wish to pursue their
an account which can
life,
be brought to light
ideas
further.6
What I
will
strive to establish
is
an
interpretation
rabbis,
of
of
Genesis
which, against
Augustine
and
Calvin
and
many
of the
earthly
a
city
as
legitimate human
response
to the problem
justice
order,
response which
God is willing
Cain. The
circumstances, is
so well
bless.
I begin
with classification of
Cain
as
"bad
guy"
The
established that
City
in Genesis
13
it
seems
impious to
Cain's
question
God's
refusal
to gaze
upon
sacrifice
it, but it must be questioned. First, is, from Cain's point of view, arbi attention to it, as God does not say.
much
He has
worked
worked
hard to
produce
Further, he,
not
than
Abel,
Did
subdue
(Gen. 1),
to till the garden (Gen. 2)? Did not God tell Adam that
would work
upon expulsion
from Eden he
Cain felt
the
can see
slighted.
He is, in
a way,
why loses
injustice, his
at
rage
is
natural.
This does
not
justify
the murder
follows, but it
so perverse as
least
explains
and
Cain's
emotional
state,
which
is
not
nearly Cain's
Augustine
Calvin
supply
Further,
the
rabbis
themselves
motives.
Cain
saw
of vegetation.
would
Might he
not
have
concluded
vol.
being
be
even
1,
pp.
not need
jealousy;
God.
he killed Abel in
Even if this
wicked. what sin
rabbinic speculation
is discounted, it is
Cain is
God
warns
him
"sin,"
about
ever give
is,
nor
does God
it is true (4.7), but God does not explain Cain any instructions about how to live. In
until
fact, God
Cain
says
Genesis 9. That
can rule
nothing to anyone about how to live is, God seems to be waiting to see if
after
the
Flood, in
himself. If
be
his desire, this may be possible. If not, then perhaps the human able to live without law. The fact that Cain is not punished by
given will
God,
and
any laws before the Flood, suggests that God live like. The violent world presumed by
that God's policy of nonpunishment and
wisest.
suggests
noninstruction
not proved
to be the
a
Man
needs
law.
We
Cain does
sorry for it afterward. He engages remaining days in nonviolent ways, wandering, In this
respect
bad deed, but only one, and he seems to be in no more malicious activity and spends his
building
city,
Cain
contrasts
favorably
great
with
proudly boasts of his killings. Cain says that his sin is too
will
kill him; that is, he assumes, with Hobbes, that everyone is a poten try tial murderer and that there is no safety in the state of nature. Further, he fears
to
he
will
while
God
promises
to protect Cain
from
he
never reassures
Cain
about
his continuing
presence.
protective sign
take
it that
way.
14
Interpretation
from his
presence
go out
(4.16)
to
of
Nod ("wandering").
Believing
that he
is
no
mark, is it any
wonder
interest to God, and not trusting in God's that Cain builds a city to protect himself? Is the defen
longer
of not a natural course
sive arrangement of a
city
for
men who
believe they
are
in
but that
of
Similarly, it is hard
"inauguration,"
does anything shameful, except for Lamech. Cain's lends his name to the first city. bad
overtones
"Inauguration"
does
not
have
in Hebrew,
as
shown against
good ones
(Friedman,
of a new
n.
1,
pp. of
"inauguration"
way
Jacques Ellul; 11, 49-61). The founding of life, one which may prove to
It begins
as
something better. And, indeed, the descendants of Enoch, who invent arts which make life more convenient, suggest that this is the case. Even Calvin, who was
hostile to Cain, granted the goodness fact that one of the arts invented, that
prove the text condemns arts
of of
forging,
does
not
weapons,
and
(tentmaking
sic)
are
My
and
whitewash
Cain
or
Lamech,
killers,
therefore we
have to do I
unto others
before they do it unto us!), appears as an unsavory in Genesis 6. So there are dark spots in the Cain
that the association of the city with violence,
insist, however,
that urban
life, in any
ambiguous as a
Genesis 4, is not put in such a way as to force the of its aspects, must be rejected. The city moral and political possibility; neither God nor the
flesh"
judges it.
confirmed
This is
becomes
taking
place
in
cities.
makes
line,
Cain's
eastern
wickedness
as such.
is
more
general, and
life
In
fact, it
could
be
contended that
laws
which
by the fact that God gave the first laws after the if to try to avert a repetition of the same wickedness. If we now turn to the cities of Genesis 10, we discover that they emerge in the context of obedience to God's intentions. That context is provided Gene
Flood (Genesis 9.1-7),
as
to be confirmed
by
sis
9. We
recall
Adam to be
replenish
The
similar
City
in Genesis
15
It is
as
instructions in language that is very strongly reminiscent of Genesis 1. if we are watching a new creation; the race of Adam is being given a
second chance at life. This time, however, something is added: God gives the first laws, those restraining murder and improper diet (9.1-7). The new begin ning, the new creation as it were, will have a legal dimension absent from the
old, which
relied
too much on
we are
goodness.
In this
new
creation,
sons of
Noah
are obedient
in the way
be: they
"overspread"
overspreading,
is, they occupy it as they were meant to. Genesis 10 documents this family by family, naming the lands and peoples descending from and Japheth. Since, in this overspreading, families (mishpahoth) Shem, Ham,
(9.19),
that
populated not merely by individuals but by descent speaking a common tongue and occupy ing a traditional land. The familial basis of nations seems to offer the possibility of internal concord within each nation. It also helps maintain concord between
earth
becomes
peoples of common
nations,
and
since
they
Thus,
Shem, Ham,
among
Japheth
separate
violence, amicably
dividing
the world
Abraham
and
and seems an
improvement
on
between Cain
nation,
Abel. Thus,
an
by
the
new political
seems to
be
improvement
which
had
no such structure
discernible. God's
command and
In this
context of obedience to
family
solidarity, the
city
arises.
The first
cities are
or comes
in Shinar, in the east; these Nimrod either builds group arises in the east as well, either built by
or
Nimrod in
said to
dom,"
Asshur,
built
by Asshur,
cities
a son of
Shem. Nimrod is
word
"kingdom"
in the first
in Shinar. The
"king
occurring in Genesis for the first time, suggests in which one will rule over many. If this automatically
and
a new political
ordering
tyranny
to
modem
ears,
very
common
in
ancient
times,
matically have assumed such a rule to be evil. The Bible acknowledges that good kings can exist, both over Israel and over other nations (cf. Abimelech in
must
not
was
One
of
tribal or
monarchical nature.
whenever
the tribal or
them, whether of The Bible may be suggesting that kingship arises national structures are felt to be inadequate to enforce the
the barest minimum for a decent social
reason
Noachide
laws,
which are
life.
that
statement
and
Augustine
saw this as
indicating
was
savagery
and oppression.
There is
another
9,
which echoed
Genesis 1 generally,
a slight modification to
Genesis 1
16
Interpretation
God does
dread"
made.
"dominion"
"fear
and
animals,
beings. Genesis 1
allows
implicitly
9
to
him to be
person
carnivorous.
can one
fault Nimrod? He is
person said
the
first
in the text
said
that
is,
the first
have taken
advantage of
the
new
given.
first hunter, but his literally and hence the most striking excellence,
the
order of creation.
at
hunting
makes
example of
being
"mighty"
hunter, may
remind us of
the wicked
men
by
neither
hunting
hunting,
basis to
nor
of an adjective alone.
city building. Their sins cannot be imputed to him on the strength Thus, from the above discussion, one must conclude that
cannot
as
such,
condemn
be evil, and that Nimrod's hunting is not in itself a his cities. I would suggest, in fact, that the rule of a hunter may
symbolize the
improvements
elements
harsh
(men
killing
animals,
men
ruling men), but it is perhaps less harsh than the pre-Flood world, in which other forms of suffering must have been prevalent (starvation after crop failure, vulnerability to
random
killing). The
likely
may not be pretty, but it is less it has possibilities for something desperate;
new order
builders
of
any motive of vanity to Nimrod. did the mighty men of old (6.4) or the Babel (1 1.4). Nimrod does not name any cities after himself or after
not attribute as
"name"
does
his son, as did Cain (4.17). Nimrod became famous, and so did his empire, but it is others who note his greatness on the earth (10.8) and before the Lord
(10.9). Nimrod does
not
boast
about
himself,
and
as
and
his city
compare
favorably
with
the Cain
line
and
its city
and the
Babel-builders
their city.
hitherto
obtain
multiple vengeance driven by unre (mamlakhah) introduces into the world more stable and orderly. One can grant that a king may become a one must also grant that a king can establish the rule of law, which consisted
rule
in
Nimrod's
would
teaching
at
that the
rise
of
Nimrod
possibility
is
new
and,
least
some of
legitimately
source,
at
by kings; kings
law. Kings
be God's
recommended
least
not
for his
nowhere
indicates that
kingship
is
an
illegitimate
permis-
by
God's
The
sion a ect
City
in Genesis
17
mighty hunter, turns his prowess toward the ruling of peoples. His proj may be ambiguous, like Cain's, but it is not to be so lightly condemned as it
the rabbis,
is
by
Calvin,
and
Augustine.
Finally, I
certain
Regarding
this story, I
think,
are
there
is
a a
antiurban exegesis.
case of
Babel is
not
exactly
typical city,
in the
Babel there
features
grant.
builders
my discussion
by
showing exactly in
what
respects
Babel-builders
are
by
I
legitimate. At this
and
will
draw
heavily
upon
the
work
of
Eugene
Combs
Kenneth Post
by
people of
Babel do
to
not wish
to be
"scattered"
upon
They
want
live,
of
super-city
with
together, speaking one language, in one place, in a its top in the heavens. This desire runs counter to God's
all and
commandments of
want
Genesis 1
to
build upward,
settled on
Genesis 9 that they should fill the earth. They one spot; God wants them to move outward,
aim
spreading
master
to many spots.
They
wants
them to
they
are a of
There is
"scattering"
"overspreading"
of
Genesis 10 if
and the
Noah,"
of
perhaps educated
(11.5),
that
is,
is,
the
descendants
of
Adam,
who
have
not
the
Flood,
to obey
God.
They
"scattered,"
therefore are
in
The
with
sin of the
Babel-builders, if it
and
was a
storming heaven
defying
God. Rather, it
adventure of
fear
of
being
a
inward-looking
attitude, is
perhaps
reminiscent
Cain's Yet
motives.
He, too,
be
something, and
city in the
east where
he
could
graphic cohesion?
a noble aspiration?
Would Do
normally
call
we
we not often
say that
world would
be
better
off
if there
were
only
one great
people,
united
brotherly
love, instead
of a multitude of
warring
of the
nations?
What is wrong
as
with
Combs
and
Post
point
out, the
language
of mutual
Post,
p.
428). No
one
people
(which is why I
would
con-
18
tend
Interpretation
Nimrod had nothing to do
work
with
of
Genesis imposed
con
11); they
on
is
not
by
organization
is in
10,
the
according according to
the
to
"nations,"
which
are
"kingdoms"
connected with
essentially families writ large, and powerful cities. The forms of govern
men"
11,
the "sons of
will
founding
"nations,"
of
that
is,
separate
peoples, because
they
are
"one
speech"
to
rule over
they do not need a monarch them because they have already imposed a unity of purpose on
and wish
to
remain
themselves.
Why
Genesis think
such a project
bad?
peaceful and
nonviolent, so that
become
nations
Why
not
leave the
entire
human
race
in
one construc
tive unity?
which so
I think is the
one
correct
utterly
that there
and
arising
a
different
ways of
is
risk that
by
it,
may be
and the ual
or
ends.
exists should
If the only state, and the only people, become corrupt, and if every individ
that state that
will
is
so
thoroughly
committed
to the
own
common ends of
its
evil
cannot
be
perceived even
by
its
to
be irreparable.
would
God, having
unable
promised never
destroy
Flood,
its
be
to
stop
from retaining
all
members
in
thrall for
Therefore, God cannot allow it to be The Babel-builders, then, are not malicious. They do not wish to God. In fact, they do not even mention him. It is true that they wish
eternity.
built.7
overthrow
"name,"
and that
this may indicate worldly pride, but that does not necessarily
imply
rebellion against
God. Cain may have been proud of his city, but he was not God in naming it after his son. It is more likely that the Babel-
"name"
for their
and to give
it,
as
it were,
they dream,
necessarily an improper desire; God, in if taking into account the desire of the Babel-builders, will in the very next story in the Bible promise to make great the name of a certain nation, the nation sired by Abraham. Abraham will continue in the tradition of obedience
a not
Further, wanting
as
is
fact,
established
by
the "sons of
Noah"
of
Genesis 10,
his
people
limitations
of
of
by
the
Babel-builders
will not
or reputation
earn,
however,
be for
The
martial
City
in Genesis
19
valor, or for
building
great
purity,
Israel
blessing
for
all
Genesis 1-11
would seem
is
not evil.
The
mo
mixed,
best, but
death;
was
being
scattered.
If these
people
strayed, it
due to
knowing
God wanted, or not trusting enough in God's promises to obey his wishes. And in one case, in Genesis 10, we find that cities are built by a masterly figure, whose claim to leadership might be said to be indirectly authorized by God himself, in the bequest
epitome of evil and order of animal
not the
explicitly
a political
in the
new
is
being
properly
populated
by
the
sons of
Noah.
In
Israel,
which
do
benefit
of
God's direct
rule and
teaching, the
by
Nimrod is
essential.
Although the
political order
is less than
in that it
force, it is
can
only in
coexist
some
kind
arts,
law,
and
human
decency
"Enoch,"
Nimrod's
"inauguration"
of something new: a social order in which justice can have a foothold. The traditional pious exegesis of Genesis fails to understand that
merely human
are achieve
political
orderings, flawed
and susceptible
to abuse as
they
are,
by
which
justice
upon
the earth.
NOTES
1. There
built the
city.
The
arguments
for this
for arguing that it was Enoch, Cain's son, who in Isaac Friedman's thesis, "Piety and
Four"
Civilization: An Analysis
of the
City
in Genesis
results
1979),
Cain
pp.
44-48. One
separated
could use
Friedman's
can
be
from
the
argument, as
city of Enoch, if one wished to put the city in a better light. But I do I do not believe that Genesis wishes us to understand Cain as funda
stained
mentally evil or ungodly. The city is not bad as some of the rabbis and Christian
by
its
association with
not so
2. Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, trans. Gerald Friedlander (New York: Hermon Press, 1970), pp. 150 51, 158. 3. Genesis Rabbah, trans. Jacob Neusner, 2 vols. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), vol. 1, p. 242. 4. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. Rev. John
trans.
King (Edinburgh, 1847), pp. 196-98. Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1972), XV.7. (Title henceforth: City of
5. Isaac Abravanel, Commentary on the Pentateuch (selections), trans. Robert Sacks, in Ralph and Muhsin Mahdi, eds., Medieval Political Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
p.
God.)
Lemer
1978),
256.
20
Interpretation
6. Eugene Combs and Kenneth Post, The Foundations of Political Order in Genesis and the Chandogya Upanisad (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987); Eugene Combs, "Has YHWH cursed the Ground? Perplexity of Interpretation in Genesis in Lyle Eslinger and Glen Taylor,
1-5,"
Memory of Peter C. Craigie (Sheffield, MA: JSOT Press, 1988); Robert Sacks, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). As I have been deeply engaged with this material for a number of
eds., Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other
Studies in
years, it is no longer
possible for me to tell reliably which ideas were originally mine and which theirs; hence, I am going to dispense for the most part with notes, except when I can clearly recall a specific indebtedness. But I give here a very firm acknowledgment that many of my specific sug gestions must have come from them, and that my general line of approach is completely theirs. I add that Combs and Post would probably transfer much credit for their ideas to Sacks, whose 1990
in typescript form
much
Strauss,
whose
"Jerusalem
and
Strauss,
which
who
essay was seminal for them. Sacks in turn acknowledges his immense debt to Leo introduced him to Genesis, and undoubtedly to the rabbinic tradition of interpretation
shows
writings of
up in Sacks's work. In a general way, I too have been influenced by the various Strauss on the Bible and wish to acknowledge it fully, even though Strauss is not cited
in this essay because he does not deal with the specific passages I am working on here. 6. Due to space limitations, I have only scratched the surface of the Combs-Post account of the Babel story. Readers who wish to think about its depths more fully should read the chapter on Genesis 1 1 (pp.
ment of of
405-39) in
the Babel story of comparable length and depth. I add that, in my necessary simplification
the Combs-Post
of the
Babel story
which
discussion, I have doubtless been influenced by another very rich interpretation in some respects resembles it, C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength.
The Book
Translation
of
and
Job
Commentary
on
Chapters 39 through 42
Robert D. Sacks
St. John's
College, Santa Fe
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
1 "Do
you
know
the
when
mountain goat
to
drop?1
and
have
hind writhing in the dance of birth?2 2 Can you the months they fulfill? and do you know the season for them to deliver, 3 when to give birth to their young, and thus to end their they couch and split
you watched
number3 open4
travail?
4 Their her
children
more.5
wild.
They
return unto
no
"Who6
ass7
off
to be
free?8
And
who
has
the untamed
off
jenny, 6
whose
home I have
at the
made the
in the
salt
lands? 7 He laughs
shout,9
bustling
hills
as
of the
8 but
roams the
his pasture, he
every
green
thing is his
crib?
plow
to search
out.10
wild ox agree
up the valleys
great.
hitch him up with a rope and hold him to the furrow? Will he behind you? 11 Would you rely upon him? Remember, his
you
strength
Could
your
toils?
12 Would
you
trust him to
bring
in the
barn?"
13 "An
ostrich
plumage of a
stork,12
whimsically flaps her wings as if she had the pinions and 14 but leaves her eggs on the ground for the dust to keep
a
them warm. 15
foot
can crush
them,
or that a wild
beast
children
roughly, as if
they
in
all
vain.
You see,
she
has
no
fear 17
her to forget
wings as
if
on
high,
and
laughs
at a
passing
and
its
19 "Did
you give
to the horse
20 Can
you make
him
leap
his
snort
breeds
in his is
not
strength as
he
goes out to
22 He laughs
fear
and
dismayed,
appeared
nor
is he turned
commentary
3,
in Volume 25
of
Interpretation.
interpretation, Fall
22
back
Interpretation
by
He
edge of sword.
23 A
by
the
flashing
into the
javelin. 24 With
he
gouges
pays no
homage to trumpet's
'Huzzah'
! He
smells the
he
cries
captains and
the
shoutings!"
26 "Is it
by
its
wings out
to
building
its
nest on
high? 28 He dwells
upon the
rock.17
He takes up his lodging on the highest 29 From there he searches out his prey. His
swill
it from afar, 30
and
his fledglings
death defiles, he is
there."18
Comments
1. Job has
entered
what we
have
come
to
call
Jackal.
beasts:
rock-goat and
jenny
wild ox ostrich
The
and eagle
is
tame species or
made
is itself
have
tame,
although
almost as side.
if
we were
in Hebrew they have totally different names. It is to leam what each would be when viewed from the other but
absolute veil
They
between the
world of man
beyond 39:18
man. and
See
notes to
26.
2. The
and
single
Hebrew
word
hul,
which
by
the phrase
of our
"writhe,"
very
will
complex word.
Indeed,
much
understanding
of the
Book
of
Job
within the
complexity
As far
as one can
tell, it originally
meant
"to
whirl."
Hos. 1 1 :6
The bars
sword shall
"whirl
and
down"
of their
gates,
2Sam. 3:28
are of
Afterward,
forever
Ner.
guiltless
May
my kingdom before the LORD for the blood of Abner the son it whirl down upon the head of Joab, and upon all his
when
devour them in their fortresses. David heard of it, he said, "I and
father's
house."
23
"to
dance."
Sometimes it is
and exultation:
used
in
perfectly
wonderful
be full
of
joy
Psa. 149:3
Let them
timbrel and
praise
his
name with
to
him
with
lyre!
But
hand,
first reading
feel
foreboding
thought
thickening
the air.
Exod. 15:20
Then Miriam,
in her hand;
Aaron,
her
took a timbrel
dancing.
Exod. 32:19
And
as soon as
Moses'
he
dancing,
hands
anger
and
camp and saw the calf and the he threw the tables out of his
and
broke
them at the
of the mountain.
The Book
rule, only to
the book
Judges, that book which begins see them dashed, ends in fright and
of a
with such
self-
thing
king.
Judg. 21:20
wait
And they commanded the Benjaminites, saying, "Go and lie in in the vineyards, and watch; if the daughters of Shiloh come out
win
to dance
the
dances,
each man
his
wife
Shiloh,
and go
to the land of
Benjamin. And
to us,
we will
when
fathers
or their
brothers
come to complain
did
not take
say to them, Grant them graciously to us; because we for each man of them his wife in battle, neither did you
give
be
guilty.
And the
to their number,
according
whom
they
they
inheritance,
towns,
and
dwelt in
them.
Then, too, it
Psa. 29:8
comes
to mean "to
tremble,"
or
"to
quake":
The
voice of the
LORD
LORD
shakes
Deut. 2:25
This
day
will
begin to
put
the
dread
and
fear
heaven,
anguish
who shall
hear the
report of
tremble and
be in
because
of you.
It
"anguish"
often means
and
"pain":
Isa. 23:5
Jer. 51:29
When the
report about
report comes
to
Egypt, they
will
be in
Tyre.
trembles and writhes
The land
purposes
24
Interpretation
against
without
to make the
land
of
Babylon
desolation,
or even a mortal
injury:
The battle hard found him;
and
ISam. 31:3.
pressed
upon
Saul,
he
was
badly
wounded
by
the archers.
But,
birth":
as
in
our
case, it
"to be in
labor,"
and
hence "to
give
Deu. 32:18
the
You God He
the
Rock
that
begot you,
and you
forgot
birth.
your vindication as
Ps. 37:6
will
bring
was
forth
the
light,
in
the noonday.
Ps. 51:5
Behold, I
conceive me.
and
sin
did my
mother
Prov. 25:23
The
north wind
and a
backbiting
looks.
Isa. 13:8
and
will one
they
will
and
agony
be in
anguish
in
travail.
They
look
another; their
faces
be
aflame.
"pain"
"anguish"
and
can
also
"to
prosper":
Psa. 10:5
His
are on
high,
out of
his
sight; as for
his foes, he
We
a man
can now
begin to
"Gird
your
loins like is
put
(gebher)."
There is
the signet
to
the
clay to
make a
thing
Here there is
no
by a curse or the result of having taken a bite of the apple. Job, in visiting the day of birth, was revisiting the day of his own birth. To venture beyond the realm of man and to see each thing as having its own
pain of was caused signet means to come to
birth
terms with the unity of all these things we must look at:
opposing feelings.
There is
Jer. 23:19
Behold,
tempest; it
gone
forth,
whirling
burst
upon the
of the wicked.
Note the
phrase
"a whirling
word
tempest."
If the
as we
words and
ideas
the
were
intended
pas-
by
naturally
they do for
may
reader who
knows the
"whirlwind,"
English-speaking
in this
also recognize
25
shift we
role of
the
feminine. It is the whirling, dancing, pain-ridden, speaks to Job. She, for the Hebrew word for tempest is
see that pain
and
birthing
a
tempest that
Job
joy
and
birth
are
so
distinguished in
speech.
are
Isaiah:
pain came upon
she was
she was
delivered
of a son.
a nurturing god rather than a constructing god, fostering in each life to own its signet, number and season as well as pleasure being according and pain are an integral part of the way in which things come to be what they
If God is
are,
they
are.
This, then, is
land?
in this
untrodden
4. In using such a harsh word, the Voice is beginning to open Job to different kind of order. From the point of view of human justice there is no
priori reason
a a
why birth
our
should entail
so much
pain,
and
in terms
of
human
justice it
a world
Here,
perhaps
with
beyond
world, an order
for the first time, we can begin to see its own necessities which seems to be
see that without such a
totally indifferent to our sense of order. Yet we can all world, the joys of our world could never come to be.
5. The Voice here
as reminds
own
hard
and as
final
as the separation of
death,
and
understanding
the
of
the
one
may lead us in coming to terms with the other. 6. The question is, of course, rhetorical, since,
the wild ass
wild ass
unlike
donkey
and the
burro,
has
never
known
either
burden
or rein.
7. The
mentioned several
before. Job
already had
Job 6:5
some care
Will the
bray
when
there
is
grass?
Eliphaz had
Job 11:12
none:
Hollow
a man
man will
become thoughtful
when
('adam).
But
quite
even
Job,
while
he
compassion, did
not
have the
respect
Job 24:5
They
labors
of
snatching up
dawn.
8. To
word
understand used
this passage,
it
would
be best to begin
by
is
in
other
Biblical
contexts:
26
Interpretation
Exod. 21:2
When
you
buy
Hebrew slave, he
in
free, for
nothing. and
But if the
slave
plainly says, "I love my master, my wife, go out free. When a man strikes the
. .
eye of
my his slave,
children;
will not
male or eye's
female,
sake.
and
destroys it, he
a
shall
let the
slave go
Deut. 15:12
If
your
brother,
Hebrew man,
or a
Hebrew woman, is
sold
to
let him
ISam. 17:25
go
free from
men of
And the
come up?
you seen
has him
Surely king
this the
he has
up
to
daughter,
"Is
not
and make
Isa. 58:6
fast that I
of
oppressed go
free,
Jer. 34:9
and to
yoke?"
that
male and
.
female,
At the
who
free
fellow Hebrew
has
him
But
your
fathers did
you
not
listen to
me or
incline their
but then
my
back his
female slaves,
and you
had
set
them
into
subjection to
brought
once said
nearly the
same thing:
Job 3:18-19
There driver's
prisoners are
wholly
at ease
for they do
not even
hear the
of
voice.
Small
and
his lord.
And there
are other
show
his
concern.
Job 7:2
Like his
a slave
he
yearns
for
like
hireling
he
waits
for
wages.
It is true that,
"servant,"
since the
with
language does
not
distinguish between
"slave"
and
Job, along
a slave or servant:
Job 19:16
to
gave no
answer,
I curry
They
with
were servants or
slaves, that
was
were
treated
kindness:
justly
and
27
man
I felt
contempt
for the
cause of one of
my servants,
what would
or maid when
when
they brought
complaint against
me,
I do
God
rose up?
within
that slavery
unpleasant,
both for
moved
for
others.
There
suffering it caused, and many of them devoted their lives to alleviating that suffering. But the discovery of the notion that slavery is wrong as such, regardless of whether there is pain and suffering involved or not, requires a certain admiration for the wild ass. To put it other
who were
deeply
by
the
pain and
wise, it requires something like the concept of a signet. It is through seeing the
wild ass as
having
life
of
its own, roaming the hills as his pasture, that its us. That is not to say that such ideas cannot find
world
but,
as
we shall
see, it will be a
long
answer
can
do
none of
yet
he did have
ox, five hundred of them, and he did "hitch But to "trust them to bring in the
up
and
grain"
Human
art
is only the
vaguest
image
of the world
which
farm.
"trust."
with
the exception of
39:24, in
God
speaks of
contrast
put no trust
in His
servants and to
a
His
angels
lays
charge of
folly,
what of
those who
dwell in
house
of clay, whose
foundation
is but dust?
or
Job 15:15
He
clean
in His
Holy
Ones
heavens
are not
in His
Because
trusted to
each
thing is
what
it is beyond the
in
sphere of
man, each
thing
can
be
be
what
it is. Job
world
which all
rather
than watched.
ance
The
farm,
in
unrecorded
generations."
it may seem, has kept itself in bal legitimate claim to be much older than
or
each
thing is
when
prior
what
is known:
Lev. 11:13
And these
shall not
you shall
be eaten, they
osprey,
the
...
Ps. 104:16
LORD
28
Interpretation
Lebanon
stork
which
he
planted.
Jer. 8:7
Even the
swallow, and
and
the turtledove,
people
crane
keep
LORD.
behold,
two
women
wind was
wings
earth and
It is
probable
intended
or
double irony,
since
bird
means
something like
of the
"piety"
"loving by
care."
13. Part
irony
as
horses.
must
most
difficult
of
far;
at
least it is the
can
most
write about.
Who
charmed
by
the
and
foolish
antics of
beast. Yet
horrified
know that if
judgment
have to be
Our
have to
her for
child abuse.
worlds are
met
beginning
since we
first
him.
as
the
field
at
questions
why the human soul should find itself so moved by the of a beast that could mean to it nothing other than its
for
such a
and why the author should wish to arouse in Job an admiration beast. Does this not mean raising the very passions in Job that Elihu, when
he
warned
Job
not
to leave his
warm
den
of
pathways which
lure
men
City
its
problematic character.
with
lowest in
man
have
a certain
kinship
home
the
lands
that
If Job is to
return
of
may find its proper place. 16. The hawk, too, had been domesticated. There is an early bas relief from Khorsabad showing a falconer bearing a hawk on his wrist.
character that each
17. The
imagery
is
not uncommon
in the
Bible, but
greatly
changed:
Isa. 33:15
He
who walks
righteously
and speaks
uprightly,
who
despises the
gain of stops
oppression,
ears
his
looking
upon
his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from evil, he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense
who shakes
29
be the fortresses
of
him, his
of
water
be
sure. and
Jer. 48:28
Jer. 49:16
Moab! Be
nests
you
heart,
the
you
you who
dwell in
of
as the eagle's,
bring
clefts will
says the
LORD.
you who
your
Obad. 1:3
live in the
"Who
of the
rock,
me
dwelling
set
say in
heart,
bring
down to the is
Though
bring
down,
LORD.
18. The
ostrich.
sixth as
beast,
the
hawk, is
in the
not
Job,
we
shall
see
next
charming as his sister bird the chapter, has been defeated. Elihu's
so
implicit
is
enough of a man
(gebher)
to
face the
world of
nature seems
to be
vindicated.
The
sight of
him. The
cold and
longterm planning that led up to the We do not, however, know whether Job
or
it the
horrified be
he did
a
not
see,
to
of
life
life
about
precisely because he did see that the hawk, in returning to flow off into death, did for its children all that the charm
to do.
the ostrich
was unable
CHAPTER FORTY
answered
Job
and said:
would
2 "Should
convict
a man of
discipline
God
must give an an
3 Then Job
can
answered
my hand upon my mouth. 5 I have spoken once, but I have no answer; twice, but I cannot 6 And the LORD answered Job out of the Tempest and said: 7 "Gird up your
I
answer
You? I
lay
continue."1
loins like
Would
might
a man
(gebher)2: I
will question
you shatter
be
right?
my judgment? Would you condemn me in 9 Have you an arm like God's, and can you thunder in
that you
a voice
such as
His?3
splendor.
10 "Go ahead, deck yourself out in majesty and dignity. Put on glory and 11 Let fly the outbursts of your anger. Look upon every man of
him. 12 Look down the
I
upon everyone of majestic pride and
bring
hand
him low
and tread
guilty.
13
Bury
their faces in
would
obscurity.
14 Then
you.4
even
for
have
saved
30
Interpretation
Behemoth5
whom
made
along
with you.
He
eats
fodder just like the cattle, 16 but just look at the is in the muscles of his belly. 17 He can stretch out his
sinews of
strength
might
The
and
his thighs
are
are all
of
brass,
his limbs
Maker
like
rods of
19 He is the first
of
God's
ways.7
Only his
come
can approach
him
with a sword.
20 "The
there to
mountains yield
him produce,
under
beasts
of
the
field
play.8
21 He lies down
the
lotuses, hiding
in the
reeds and
the
brook in
river
he is unalarmed,
confident
that the
Jordan
will
mouth.
24 Can he be taken
by
25
jaw
"Can"
you
haul in the
Leviathan12
with a
fishhook? Can
through
you press
down his
his tongue
with a
with
you put a
barb? 27 Will he
always
softly?
28 Will he
you
make a covenant
his nose,
or pierce
speak to you
servant?13
29 "Can
ladies?14
play
you
with
him like
bird hold
or tie of
him
on a
string for
your
young
30 Or 31 Can
can the
dealers
get
him
and trade
market?
with
32
Merely
place
your
upon
harpoons, or his head with fishing his head, and you will remember
war no
Comments
no answer. He has been numbed as if stung by the Socratic sting fish. Once Job thought that he knew what justice was, but he did not. Now ray he neither knows nor believes that he knows. The sight of the six beasts has
1 Job has
.
convinced
was
right,
beyond
man
is
no place
for
a man.
his warning was just. The world Job has been converted from the Brother of
and that
'Thou
Father'
art
my
right
and
call out
and
recantation
to the
maggots."
2. If Job's
this
not
point.
had been
what
here
at
There
would
have been
no need to continue.
will
go. Again it says, "gird up your loins like a man (gebher)"; and his teaching is not a but an 3. God's argument is, I believe, somewhat more specific than one might at first take it to be. "Have you an arm like God's, and can you thunder in a voice
let Job
"telling,"
again
"asking."
His?"
such as
God
seems to
base His
argument on
always recognized
God's
greater power.
Indeed,
Job 9:19
If trial be
by
and
if
by
court of
law,
my
case?
31
had
justice was, he
of
also thought
that he
become
clear that
last two chapters, however, it has justice was defective in that he had
problem of
to address the
sphere of
human justice
prob
journey
lem deal
4.
These do
cosmos,
to be the
and
Job has
yet much to
for
in
which
human
action no
longer
seems
Its
vast
forces
are so wide
his
anger ever
sweeping that no decking would ever be be felt, and it will take Job a time to see
within
the sphere of
human
action.
behemoth
5. The
word
is
feminine
noun
behemah,
We have
which means
already
seen
Job 12:7
beasts
and
they
will show
you;
Why
none
are we considered
beasts
in
your eyes?
in the
made
whom
along
eats
It is
being
lous
nor mythical. of
It
of mythic proportion.
iron."
"His bones
are
ducts
brass,
and
his limbs
like
rods of
The
visible universe
is
much
larger than any man knows and of which he is unaware. Man is 7. Compare
Ps. 111:10
did
the
that is visible.
The fear
of the
LORD is
the
beginning
of wisdom; a good
understanding have
ever!
it. His
praise endures
for
Prov. 1:7
The fear
wisdom and
of the
LORD is the
beginning
of
instruction.
of wisdom
Prov. 4:7
The
get,
get
beginning
insight.
Prov. 8:12
. .
I,
his
wisdom, dwell
in prudence,
and
I find knowledge
of
and
discretion.
of
The LORD
acts of old.
created me at the
beginning
8.
"laugh"
or
32
9.
Interpretation
'Ashaq
kind.
is usually translated
"oppress."
as
It
occurs rather
frequently in
of
the
Bible
and with
always
implies injustice
the
gravest
Job 10:3
Lev. 19:13
Does it
contempt
seem good to
that
You have
for
You hired
him. The
wages of a
servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
in
leaving
the
feeling
he has
room
that he shares a
never seen.
world with a
living being
at ease
This
grand
beast is
in the land
Jackal.
for the pounding, tyrannizing river, making it his drinking foun tain. He is passively ferocious yet actively gentle and seems to rule by laughter.
He finds
Thus,
note on role
we must now
begin
a rather and
long
and, I
fear,
somewhat
boring
books
foot
the subject of
of
"laughter"
"play."
subject plays a
of
in the Book
with
Job
which
in the
other
the
Bible,
no
is, however,
of
looking
inquiry
be
"mocking"
It
must
remembered
"laughter."
Joy
and
happiness
The first
was
Abraham:
and
Gen. 17:17
his face
laughed,
a
and said to
himself,
Shall
be born to
a man who
is
a
hundred
years old?
Sarah,
But from the
Gen. 17:18
is ninety
years old,
bear
child?"
next verses
it becomes
clear
said to God, "O that Ishmael might live in thy God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
sight!"
And Abraham
Sarah's laughter
Gen. 18:12
came next:
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have my husband is old, shall I have
pleasure?"
grown
old, and
But had her laughter been goodnatured, that she had laughed.
Gen. 18:13 The LORD
said to
a
she would
have felt
no need
to
deny
and
say,
old?'
am
33
appointed time
will return to
and
Sarah
shall
have
son."
But Sarah
denied,
you
laugh"; for
did
Then
came the
taunting laughter
So Lot
of the sons-in-law of
Lot:
who were to
Gen. 19:14
marry his
daughters, "Up,
destroy
Sarah:
Gen. 21:6
city."
the
But he
seemed to
be jesting.
made a
laughingstock
of
me; every
one
hears
will
laugh
me."
at
Next there
came
Ishmael:
But Sarah
saw the son of
with
Gen. 21:9
to
whom she
had borne
Abraham, playing
her
Isaac.
It is hard to have any idea of what Ishmael consequences were disastrous. Foolish Isaac's innocent play
Gen. 26:8
also
was
betrayed him.
a
long
his
wife.
The
next
word are
usually
even
translated
by
the word
"insult":
Gen. 39:14
she called
"See, he
me to
has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us; he with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; Gen. 39:17
and she told whom you
in to
lie
him the
same
in to
me to
insult me;
Then
Exod. 32:6
and
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, up to
play.
said to
people,
whom you
brought up
out of the
corrupted
themselves;
Next
34
Interpretation
Judg. 16:25
And
when
their
hearts
were
merry,
they
said, "Call
Samson,
that
he may make sport for So they called Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them. They made him stand between the
us."
pillars;
Next
came
laughter
led to
a revolution:
ISam. 18:7
And the
women
sang to
and
one another as
they
made
merry, "Saul
thousands."
has
slain
his thousands,
David his
ten
Joab
and
Abner play
rough:
2Sam. 2:14
And Abner
us."
said to
Joab, "Let
the young
play before
over
and
by
Then they arose and passed number, twelve for Benjamin and Ishbosheth the son of Saul, David. And in his
each caught
arise."
his
opponent
by
the
head,
is
and thrust
his
sword
opponent's side; so
at
Gibeon.
There is laughter
no question
was
from the
next
too
great.
2Sam. 6:5
And David
the LORD
house
of
Israel
were
with all
their might,
they
threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD
kindled
against
Uzzah;
and
God
smote
put
forth
and
God.
The
be
said
for Michal:
2Sam. 6:21
And David
me above your prince over
said to
Michal, "It
was
who chose
people of the
will
be
in
your
eyes; but
by
have spoken,
by
them I shall
be held in
honor."
Then
come
mocking
and
scorning
couriers went
2Chron. 30:10
So the
Ephraim
and
Manasseh,
from city to city through the country of and as far as Zebulun; but they laughed
35
laughing
He
at the
bad is
laughter:
Ps. 2:4
Ps. 37:13
who sits
day
is
Ps. 52:5-6
But God
will
break
you
tear you
tent; he will uproot you from the land The righteous shall see, and fear, and shall laugh
your
from
of the at
living. Selah.
saying,
all the
him,
Ps. 59:8
at
quotations
of
Proverbs, however,
closer to what we
finds
another strain.
of
There only do
find something
Job.
Prov. 1:26
Prov. 8:12
.
I
you,
also will
laugh
at your
calamity; I
I,
find knowledge
and
discretion.
beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.
It is like
sport to a
then I was
wise conduct
is
pleasure
to a man of understanding.
joy
is
grief.
firebrands,
arrows,
and
death, is
the
man who
neighbor and
joking!"
Prov. 29:9
If
a wise man
and
an argument with a
fool,
the
fool only
rages and
laughs,
Prov. 31:10
. . .
there
is
no quiet.
jewels.
Strength
and
dignity
her clothing,
laughs
at the time
to come.
Ecclesiastes
also
has
a rather
dim
view of
laughter.
it?"
Eccles. 2:2
said of
laughter, "It is
mad,"
and of pleasure,
"What
use
is
Eccles. 3:4
to
laugh;
dance;
Sorrow is better than laughter, for
Eccles. 7:3
Eccles. 7:6
the
by
heart is
made glad. as
For
under a
fools;
is
vanity.
Eccles. 10:19
Bread is
for laughter,
life,
and
money
answers everything.
Jeremiah is
not quite
"laughter"
of
his day:
36
Interpretation
Jer. 15:17
not sit in the company of merrymakers, nor did I rejoice; I sat because thy hand was upon me, for thou hadst filled me with indignation.
I did
alone,
Jer. 48:26
magnified
himself
against
the
LORD;
Moab
shall wallow
not
in his vomit,
him
and
he too
shall
be held in
Israel
derision to
you?
wail!
derision
horror to
all
that are
round about
and
feels
mocked
Jer. 20:7
stronger all
O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art than I, and thou hast prevailed. I have become a laughingstock
the
day; every
But he
also
has
another notion of
laughter.
and your wounds
Jer. 30:17
the
For I
will restore
health to you,
will
heal,
says
LORD, because they have called you an outcast: 'It is Zion, for whom no one Thus says the LORD: Behold, I will restore the
cares!'
fortunes
the
of
the tents of
Jacob,
and
have
compassion on
his dwellings;
and
where
city it
shall
be
rebuilt upon
its mound,
I
used to
be. Out
thanksgiving,
and
multiply them,
and
they
be
be few; I
will make
them
honored,
they
shall not
It is
reserved
for
is
not a
way
of
meeting
what
is before us,
however.
There
are also such
Ps. 126:1
Song
of
Ascents. When
who
the
LORD
restored the
fortunes filled
said
of
Zion,
the
we were
like those
and our
dream. Then
with
laughter,
Zech. 8:4
sit
joy;
then
they
among
things for
them."
Thus in the
says the
LORD
of
hosts: Old
streets of
Jerusalem,
shall
city
be full
boys
and girls
Outside follows:
Lam. 1:7
of the
Book
of
Job there
are
only
handful left.
They
read
as
Jerusalem
remembers
in the days
of
her
affliction and
bitterness
37
the
foe
none to
help her,
burden
of their
day
says
long.
the Lord GOD: "You shall drink your sister's cup
and
Thus
which
is
deep
large;
you shall
be laughed
at and
held in derision,
for it
Hab. 1:10
they
make sport.
They
laugh
at
heap
up
It
might
be
noted
Testament
also
imply
in passing that the six references to laughter in the New only scoffing (cf. Mat. 9:24, Mark 5:40, Luke 6:21, 25, laughter in the Book
of
Job is Eliphaz:
be
you will
have
no
it comes; but
of the
laugh. Have
no
FEAR in
beasts
and
the earth,
for
you
have
the
field,
the
beasts
of the
fields
will
bring
His laughter is
rocks and the
you peace.
rooted
of
beasts
"covenant"
he
will
so
have
also
grim side of
now
joke to my friends,
a
'Call
answer'
and
now
joke,
Job 30:1
they have
would
turned me
fathers I
have felt
my sheep dogs.
But there
of
laughter,
the
a side which
had
always
been
a part
Job and, if
to judge
by
different from the others, even before his real thought had started:
Job 29:24 I joked
them them a
many quotations given above, made him all his trouble, and perhaps even before
with
bit
so that
my kindness
no self-confidence.
The
much
subject was
and
bound to
come
play
Job 39:7-8
hills
as
his pasture,
and
every
green
thing
is his to
search out.
38
Interpretation
Job 39:18 its
wings on
high,
and
laughs
at a
passing horse
and
Job 39:22
Job 40:20
He laughs
The
play.
at
fear
and
is
not
dismayed,
nor
is he
turned
back
by
beasts
come
there to
Job 40:29
Job 41:21
you play with him like ladies? young He laughs to the sound
Can
or
tie him on a
string for
your
of the
javelin.
ceases to
be
better time
a
or a
luxury
with
indulged in
by
is
way
of
living
kindness
whelm them
self-confidence."
some connection of
between Job's
new
laughter
and
his
Identity
really
the signets. At
one
first,
this relation
is
seems to
Dane."
be
more a
It is in comedy tragedy that people seem more plastic, continually changing their clothing, their iden tity, and even their sex. Imagine Oedipus being mistaken for a long-lost twin
than of comedy. "It
is I, Hamlet, the
who asks:
"Who is it that
upon
can
Lear's
and
why
must
things
which can so
be taken for
by Rosalind,
who
is
is
being
start
Chapter Forty-one
at this point.
3:8
and
Eliphaz
once
had
not come
to be the conquerer
Job 5:22
but
laugh. Have
no
FEAR
of
have
in the
field,
but it
and the
beasts
of the
fields
will
bring
you peace.
dream: "Will he
be
your
eternal
To
conquer rather
it more succinctly, Job has come to learn from nature, but not to it. To that extent, he has come to have its ways impressed upon him than impressing his ways upon it, and one of the things he learned, as we
put
have
from the ostrich, is the importance of freedom understanding of the signets. On this question, compare:
seen
as
it follows from
an
Gen. 1 :26
and
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
of the
39
So God
created man
in his
created
him;
male and
female he
fruitful
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fill the earth and subdue it; and have fish
of the sea and over the
dominion every
birds
living thing
earth."
It
should
be
noted that
both words,
"subdue"
"dominate,"
and
are quite
defi
Lev. 25:46
You may bequeath them to your possession for ever; you may make brethren the
another,
people of
inherit
as a
them, but
Israel
dominion,
with
harshness.
"subdue"
In addition, the
word
for
also
has
final
ity.
Josh. 18:1
Then the
Israel
assembled at subdued
Shiloh,
Jer. 34: 1 1
and set
up
the tent of
lay
before them.
But female
afterward slaves
they turned around and took back the male they had set free, and subdued them as slaves.
is
not a world
and
14. The
world about use
world
beyond
can
man
in
play; it is only
in
which
he
learn
about play.
The
charm of
us
it
innocent jesting, but the beyond is not ours. We cannot divide it up and as we will. To see it is to see it as a thing for itself, not as a thing for us.
ways
15. In many
Isa. 2: 1
this
the
famous
passage
from Isaiah:
The
word which
Isaiah the
son of
Amoz
saw
concerning Judah
of the
and
Jerusalem. It house
of
shall come
mountain of
the
be
established as the
highest
mountains,
and
and shall
be
hills;
the
flow to it,
many
of the
peoples shall
come,
and say:
of
"Come, let
of
us go
LORD,
to the
house
God
Jacob;
For
that
may
walk
in his
paths."
out
to the mountain
the
law,
judge
their swords
decide for many peoples; and they shall into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
sword against nation, neither shall
lift up
they leam
war
any
more.
But it is
not
is
no promise of a great
an act
day
to come one
day
40
Interpretation
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
1 "Thus, him? 2 No
would stand
restitution?4
[all]
one
expectation'
is
an
illusion.2
Do
up.
sight of
is
so
brutal3
as to rouse
him
Now,
who
is
before Is
not
me?
3 Who
confronts me and
[demands that] I
everything
outer
under the
heavens
his
mine?5
will not
be
silent about
him,
or
his frame. 5
7 But his
can unveil
his
garment,
or come
doors6
of
his face
his teeth
by
terror!
is the
strength of
seal,10
each
touching
clings"
one
to his brother.
They
Out
clutch'2
be
10 "Lights flash
of
his
sneeze.
His
his
mouth comes a
flaming
from
torch as sparks of
a stream or
boiling
13 His breath in
ignites the
coals and
flames
come out of
his
mouth.
14 His
strength resides
his neck, and terror dances before him. 15 Festoons of flesh, fused all together, lie on him cast as metal and do not 16 His heart is cast hard as stone,
quaver.13
17 "When he
sion.
rises
They
spear,
in
confu
18 No
javelin,
nor
lance. 19
He
Iron he
put
counts as
21
laughs to the
22 "His
the
mud15
underparts are
jagged leaves
shards.
He
sprawls
himself
out
implacable
on
23
deep
will
to seethe
a
like
a cauldron.
He
his
be
ointment16
24
and
headed. 25 No
without
one of the
dust
shining wake till the abyss seems all hoaryhave dominion over him, for he was made to
dread.18
26 He
sees
king
sons of
pride.'"9
Comments
1. tohalto is from the
much versed root
root yhl
reader not
in Hebrew,
"to
or so
believe,
is
hwl
or
hyl,
which was
discussed in
carried
the note to
with
wait,"
times,
word
mean
but
along
it
a sense of
dread,
whereas this
implies hope
might also of
It
the
be
Book
Job:
Job 6:11
What
end that
strength
have I, that I
should wait
in expectations? What is my
should
prolong my life?
41
slay
will
me.
I have
no
higher
expectations.
None
Job 14:14
of
If
a man
(gebher) dies,
he
come
back to life
again?
Job 29:21
my service I have waited in expectation for my release to come. Men would hear me and wait in expectation, falling silent to hear
counsel.
my
They
waited
for
me
in
expectation as
mouths
opened wide as
if to
catch the
good
rain.
waited
expectation
for
Job 32:11
light, but there came only a murk. I have waited in expectation for your
while you searched
words and
listened for
your
Job 32:16
understanding I waited in
and could no
expectation
reply.
for something to say. till they had finished speaking, till they
stood
longer
expectations:
day,
He
the Lord
with
his
strong
sword shall
Leviathan the
shall
flying
serpent: and
Ps. 74:14
the
You
crushed the as
slay the crocodile that is in the sea. head of the Leviathan and gave it to the
people of
island
Those
food.
Job 3:8
who
determined to
lay
open
the
Leviathan
it.
If abandoning
that the
"expectation"
means
day
Leviathan
will
account of the
Leviathan:
There
go the ships, the
Ps. 104:26
Leviathan
They
Job 40:29
serve
You
and
You
with.
Can
with
him like
bird
or
tie him
string for
your
yhl.
interplay between hwl and denying us the second. The first has replaced the second. That is to say, that it is by giving up the yhl and recognizing that the world beyond man and its denizens have a legitimate being for themselves, apart from their being for us, that we begin to see our own legitimate being as it is implied in the notion of the hwl.
The Voice has introduced
us to the
first
while
Since the
relation to
abandonment of
expectation,
YaChaL, insofar
as
it deals
with our
imply
the abandonment of
hope
QaWah,
which
deals
remind ourselves of
Job's hopes
Who
will see
as well:
Job 6:8-9
grant
to it that my request comes to light; that God hopes? Would that God were pleased to crush me, loose my his hand and cut me off!
42
Interpretation
Job 14:18-22
A
mountain place.
has fallen
The
waters
dislodged
from its
torrents
have
worn
the
have
You
washed
of
overpowered
man,
and
he has
and sent
him
off.
His his
honored but he
unaware. away.
knew
it.
They
with
were
in disgrace, but he
and
His
body
surrounds
him
pain,
spirit
is
eaten
Job 17:13-15
If I
in darkness;
'Mother*
out
my
couch
Father'
and
then
is my hope?
3. Job has
nonhuman.
passed
through that
veil
which
separates
the human
from the
of
His
journey
had begun
fear:
Job 30:29
I became
a
and so
and
friend
to the ostrich.
But the forces pulling him back into the land of the Jackal had, in already begun. Back in Verse 21 of that same chapter, Job had said:
Job 30:21-22 You have turned brutal
persecute me. and with the might of
fact,
me
up
be tossed
about
wreckage.
The
word,
word
'akf'zar,
occurs
which
I have translated
"brutal,"
as
is
not a
very
common
and
it
Lam. 4:3
breast
but the
daughter
of
my
people
in
the
wilderness.
The
"brutal"
word
seems, then, to
imply
the attempt or
desire to be
or
be
human. But to
see that
"[all]
expec
tation
is
illusion,"
an
is to
may admire, and in which he for itself, apart from the needs
only lead
one
him
up."
4. The
comes the
root of
complete."
From it
Hebrew
So
for
"peace."
Neh. 6:15
finished (shlm)
on the
twenty-fifth
day
the month
Elul,
Then the
within
fifty-two days.
to mean "to pay [a
word comes
debt]":
43
She
and
God,
and
pay
debts
oil
rest."
where
the word
a
for debt is
related to a word
To pay
off."
debt, then, is
to "make
whole,"
in"
what one
has "lifted
has been
accustomed to gore
shall
in the
and the
in, he
pay
ox
for ox,
dead beast
shall
be his.
The
again. crime
goal of this
kind
of
justice is to
make
To the
is
punished
for
what
harm he has
caused others.
as
it is
contained in the notion of shlm. If, however, winnowing is the prime anal ogy of cosmic justice, then punishment for cosmic crimes can only be punished in terms of the harm man has caused to himself. In that sense, it does not
strictly make sense to "demand exact 5. "Is not everything under the heavens human justice. It leaves
always room
restitution."
mine?"
insures
of a of
be
grass even
note
"where
no man
saw
6. In the
embodied
to Job 31:34 we
door."
importance
in his "open
finally
closed to man.
outside only.
defend,"
root mgn,
mean
normally In
either of
means
"to
shield."
by
all
to
his
the
scales.
case, it
means
that the
spoke
Leviathan,
of.
unlike
kind
He
impenetrable be hurt
Satan
He
cannot
be disturbed
by
others.
cannot
by
No
one can
touch
him. Therefore he
cannot
learn from
learn to know
himself.
8. The I
can remainder of this chapter
is clearly
how the
quite
dense,
and
be
reader or
to myself. It might
help,
in the
however,
to begin
by looking
to
see
word sgr
("closed") is
used
Job 3:9-10
of
May
it
doors Him
my mother's belly but hid my eyes from toil. If He should pass by and separate or close up,
and what
back?
He tears down
can never
be
rebuilt.
He
closes
in
on a man
and
Job 16:1 1
of
on me and casts me
guilty
44
Interpretation
One
cannot
up, while
noticing that the Leviathan finds his strength in Job's strength lay in his willingness to stand in the open
help
being
not.
closed
entranceway.
open to what
is
most
Job's
skin."
first
came to
light
he had
no
This
was
the vulnerability that let in pain and anguish. But it also left him open to
feeling and then seeing a world beyond his world. Job has seen the Leviathan, but has the Leviathan seen Job? His closedness would seem to say No.
9.
ness. off.
"tight,"
sar.
The Leviathan's
be Job's
old
foe
narrow
For Job it
feeling
of walls
his
beginning
10.
ing
What gave anything its being by mak it intelligible to another, has, for the Leviathan, become that which seals it
hotam
for Job,
"signet."
away from all other beings, making it unknown and unintelligible to 11. dabhaq, For us it is ugly, shameful, or constrictive:
"stick."
all others.
Job 19:20
Job 31:7
My
bones
stick
(dbq)
to
If my step has
wandered
after
my
(dbq)
to my
hand,
At best, it
restrains speech:
Job 29:10
The
voice of
hushed,
(dbq)
to
their palate,
For the
world
beyond man, it is
to
another thing:
Job 38:38
and
liquify
the
dust
and cast
it into
congealed
(dbq)
clods?
seems to
be
yet another.
one clings of
Festoons
and
on
him
cast as metal
do
not quaver.
see
word
looks
to men:
wise
dashes headlong.
are
But if they
bound in fetters
and trapped
in
cords of affliction,
But, in
the world
beyond man,
also consider:
Job 38:30
clutches to
as
stone,
and the
face
of
the
deep
Again,
the list
is
45
Job,
Do I have flesh
of
bronze?
For
man
to
be
made of
flesh is to be
able to
feel
pain:
Job 19:22
Why
flesh?
do
you pursue me
satisfaction out of
my
Not to feel
Job 10:4
pain
is
not
to understand pain;
Have You
eyes of
flesh?
feeling
to understand the
importance, by seeing
ourselves
willing to
is important:
For
Job 13:14
what reason
and
my life in
my hands?
flower 14.
The way his flesh lies makes it appear to be open to the other, but, like a carved in stone, the festoons of flesh cast like iron remain for ever, but
forever in itself.
Nothing
can
be for him
what
makes no
stubble."
indifference he
uses
him is
awesome.
The lights
which
flash
at
his
sneeze
to see
see
To
appreciate
by, by only him. are for themselves and not as are for us, to things as they they the grass which grew where no man was, Job was forced to quit the
nor
to read
world of man
for
a world unstifled
by
human
need and
that world only man, the stranger, through his weakness and otherness could
Only
fuller understanding
of
human
need. an old
15. Once
Parmenides
asked a
anything in itself apart from what bit absurd. Has mud anything better to do than to be
young Socrates if he thought mud was it is for us. The question would seem to be a
made
into
a mud
pie,
or a
brick,
or a
house? And
we all
asking its permission. Nonetheless, we can almost feel the jagged shards cutting gashes into the ground. In this imagery we see the great destruction to others implied in his
16. Or
simple
being.
"perfume"
Exod. 30:25
blended
by
the perfumer; a
holy
46
Interpretation
Whoever
ISam. 8:13 He bakers.
compounds
outsider shall
will
be
cut off
puts
any
of
it
on an
Song
of
Sol. 5:13
His
cheeks are
like beds
of spices,
myrrh.
lips
are
lilies, distilling
liquid
17.
first it burst
38:8
Who
closed
up the
sea
when
out of
the womb
The sea,
which
long
in
our
had
instru
ment of
his innocent
18. The
word which
I have translated
"dread"
as
is
very
obscure
word, and
in fact
appears
in only
in the
whole of
Biblical literature.
Ironically,
Gen. 9:2
on
all
and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on every the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.
Panic
made
to
be
dread."
without correction
intentionally
so, as a
to
human
understanding is to be of any ultimate relevance, man cannot be master of the visible universe. It is only in seeing a thing outside of himself as a being in itself, that man can begin to regard himself as a self.
sphere of
19. in
shahas.
The
not
very
clear.
It only
appears
Job 28:7-9
The
eye of the
falcon has it
it,
nor
have the
over.
The lion
can
bear it
no witness, mountains
but
man
has
put
and overturned
its
by
the root.
In Aramaic, the
means
shahsa'
word
means
"a
lion,"
while
in Ethiopian the
elevated,"
root
"to be
insolent."
root comes
the word
root means
or
"to be
from
which
man"
"a
rank."
man of
Thus,
there
king
since
over
beasts
is disagreement among translators as to whether the Leviathan is or over men. The ambiguity may not be totally unintentional,
that such a
it is
not so clear
distinction is
that
is
king
This
beast,
above and
beneath
all malice or
47
by
being. In him
we recognize our
limitations
hence
see our
definition.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
1 Then Job
that no
without
design'
answered
can
can
do
be
withheld
one that
hides
knowledge? I have
spoken though
not understood.
There is
beyond me, a world full of that I had never known. 4 Now listen and I will speak; I shall question you, and you will inform me. 5 I had hear;3 heard of You as ears can but now my eyes have seen You. 6 Wherefore I
world
have both
for4
dust
and
ashes."5
And6
it
was
so, that
after
Job,
you,
that
and
"My
anger
fumes
against
friends: for
you
have
thing
that
is right,
rams,
has my
servant
Job. 8 Therefore,
and offer
bulls
and seven
Job, my bear8 Job shall pray for you; for I will deal with you after your folly, in that you have
and go to servant servant
up for
yourselves a
thing
that
has."
and
Bildad the
Shuhite
and
Zophar
the
went and did according as the LORD commanded them, the LORD Job.9 bore up the countenance of 10 And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his
friends,
and
had,
twice over.
his brothers
with which
sisters'0
and
and all of
his friends
him.12
came over to
supped"
and
him.
They
12
consoled
him
and showed
him
compas
for
all
the evils
the LORD
had brought
upon
Each
one gave a of
Qesitahn
and the
his 13
the
all
life
even more
thousand camels, one thousand head of cattle, and one thousand she
and
he
also
had
daughters.'5
14 The first he
called
by
name of
Jamimah,16
the second to be
Keziah,17
Keren-Hapuch.18
15 In
could not
daughters,
knew his
and their
beautiful'9
than Job's
brothers.20
their
another one
forty
years after
sons and
his
son's
sons, and
died,
generations.
17 And
so
Job
Comments 1 It is terribly
how
translate this word. Gener
mezimah.
unclear
one should
evil or wicked
intent:
48
Interpretation
Job 21:27 Ps. 10:2
Oh, I know
devised In
thinking, the
machination you
have
against me.
hotly
let them be
caught
in
In the Book
cretion":
of
Proverbs, however, it
something
more
like "dis
Prov. 8:12
I,
on
wisdom, dwell
in prudence,
and
I find knowledge
and
discretion.
Jeremiah,
wicked:
the other
hand,
uses
it to describe God's
plans
against
the
Jer. 30:24
The fierce
anger of
the LORD
will not
turn
back
until
he has
intents
of
his
mind.
The
sage
occurs
in the
passive
in
Gen. 1 1 :6
And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do;
nothing
that
they
propose to
do
can
be
withheld
from
them."
would seem or
to preclude
finds in Proverbs
in the
neither case
is anything
Perhaps Job
being
difficult to
accept.
however,
be
accepted as
long
as
it is known to be
without malice or
2. "There is
are]
wonders
a world
full
wonders,"
of
literally, "[There
beyond
'em'
me."
3. Literally, "I had heard of You by rumor of the cf. 28:22. 4. 'al ken as wenihamti 'al 'epher we'phar. This is clearly a critical contested passage. I also think that it has been much abused.
ear,"
and
King
least
abhor
on
dust
and
ashes."
about the
same,
except that
King
James
at
"myself in
ashes."
italics, indicating
that there
is nothing
corre
sponding to it in the Hebrew text. Greenberg has "Therefore, I recant and re lent, being but dust and Greenberg is more in line with the original
punctuation which puts the major
as the
stop
first
King
James
would require.
ashes."
The Cambridge Bible translates: "Therefore I melt away; I repent in dust Their reasoning is somewhat complicated. The root m's had
and
already
-49
in Job 7:5:
ooze."
"My
also
skin
and
begins to
ooze,"
where
it
"to
It is
snail which
dissolves into
and nms
slime."
the
roots mss
do
mean
"to
melt,"
The
the
root m
's
fundamentally
Again,
means
"to
despise"
"reject."
or
feeling
that God has when people offer Him sacrifices that have no to translate it as
"recant,"
meaning to them.
require
as
Greenberg does,
and
would
understood
in the text,
there seems
"to feel
deep
compassion."
sorrow or
word, if one
feels
sorrow
for something that one has done, one feels remorse, feel sorrow or compassion for the suffering of
anything like
"on"
imply
does
guilt or self-recrimination.
"upon."
'al;
and
mean
or
When
King
James trans
on
ashes,"
one assumes
ashes,"
but,
far
as
I have been
able to
in English
vernacular
is
by
no means as
they mean "while sitting tell, the inference which is automatic in Hebrew.
that
dust
so clear
word
find
following
for."
wenihamti,
however,
As far
em'
they simply
'em'
"I feel
is concerned, normally as 'el, "I have comtempt for as 'eth or strange to let the 'al do for both.
as
. .
have
expected
but it
would not
be
so
ashes,"
and
is,
of
course, a
common
Biblical
phrase
in
all
its
mortality.
Job 30:19
It throws
me
into the
mire and
and ashes.
Also
see
Gen. 18:27
the
upon myself
to speak to
Lord, I
who am
but dust
ashes."
and
at
home
now.
He is
of
at
home in
He
very large
world
in
for
more
than a
hill
beans. He is
value.
also at
home in
very
each and and
in
is
of
infinite
can
be
at
home in
only because he is at home in the other. He also knows that that large woolly world has in it a kind of love and a kind of laughter which only he
his fellows 6.
can establish
in the
Linguistically
One, back
to the
everyday language of Dick and Jane. This return by an author who knows the names of Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar is, by the way, one more reason for
believing
tion.
that the book was conceived of as a whole, and that the linguistic
and
flight from
back to the
mundane was a
integral
part of
50
Interpretation
1. Again there has been
a switch middle
in the texture
section with
of the
tortuous
syntax of the
long
its
obscure
The
that
to a fairytale
world.
All
of
by
the
language
ordinary everyday
adult
human
speech.
could not
have seen, but that seeing took place in a foreign land in act, Job of the wide world is again Job the servant
which
of
the
LORD, living in a nutshell. He who has seen the Leviathan will say a prayer for as they bring their bulls and their rams to be sacrificed. The world of
out to
be
a world
devoid
of all meaningful
human action,
and
Job
His
each one on a
different
with
day,
to their three
drink
them.
It
might
be
worth
other
Biblical
character
to use the
was
phrase
"brothers
and
with all
it implies,
Rahab:
my father them,
and
Joshua 2:13
and
belong
to
deliver
11. The
nation now
word
so often meant
death, destruction,
interact:
devour
even
and
resig
holds
Job 5:5
hungry
shall
taking
out
under
thirsty
shall go
panting
after their
wealth.
Can egg
what white
is tasteless be
does the
slime of
and all
a rotten
thing
like
a piece of
clothing
. .
eaten.
the tents of
skin will
bribery
eaten
are a
consuming fire.
will consume
His
be
his
members.
He
will
be
consumed
by
an unblown
fire
ill
his soul,
never
having
eaten of
together
they lie in
the
dust,
saying, "Has
consumed
not our
their remains
by
fire?"
then
let
me sow,
but
51
be
all
How
widow's
could
from the
poor or
drain
a
with
the
Job 31:39
sharing it had grown with me for a father? fatherless, they up claims that I have eaten its produce without payment and
eye,
or even eat a crust of
when
bread alone,
not
life
of
its owners,
whom
Job 40:15-16 He
made
along
with you.
fodder just like the cattle, but look at the loins. His might is in the muscles of his belly.
strength
in his
Now,
12.
at
book,
after
character and
become
an act of simple
can
Job 2: 1 1
Now
when
had
come upon
him, they
the
from his
own place
Eliphaz the
Temanite, Bildad
show
Shuhite,
and
They
him
conferred and to
to
come
together to console
him
compassion.
What
before has
now
become
actual.
The
recognition of
compassion that
Job
gained
sphere
human
sphere.
13.
Gen. 33:19 Joshua 24:32 And from the
The bones
sons of
piece of
he had
pitched
his tent.
Joseph
at
Egypt
were
buried
Shechem, in
sons of an
Shechem for
of
inheritance
of the
descendants
14.
Job 1:3 He head
owned seven thousand
of
cattle, five hundred she asses and was the head of a very large
was the
estate.
He
richest
man
('ish) in
the
East
15. We
remember:
Job 1:18-19
While he
was yet
talking,
were
in
and
said; "Your
daughters
eating
and
drinking
wine
in the house
their oldest
brother,
when a
mighty
wind came
in from the
on
the
four
corners of the
52
Interpretation
the
young
people.
They
are
dead,
and
alone
have
escaped
to tell
thee."
Then
all of
his brothers
came over
his house
him.
They
consoled
him
compassion
for
him.
The Book
rection.
of
Job does
deus
of
death
are,
including
the
being
his
It is
a new
Job. We
remember
to
his friends:
his
his day.
Job 3:1
Then, Job
opened
"cassia,"
is
fragrant bark
of a tree
that can be
pow
dered like
Ps. 45:8
in
cooking.
Your
your
fragrant
From
ivory
palaces stringed
instruments
make you
glad;
18. keren happuli1: the first two ful. Then, too, the very fact that them a certain being and hence a The
pukh
names are
the
clearly intended to be very beauti daughters are mentioned by name gives But
what of
certain nobility.
this
name?
second
word,
means
"antimony":
for house
IChron 29:2
So I have
the gold
the
provided
the
of
as
was able,
of silver, and of
bronze,
the
iron,
stones,
stones,
and marble.
In
ancient times
it
was ground
into
powder,
by
As
such
it became, in the
prophets, sym
bolic
of
feminine
corruption:
2Kings 9:30
Jer. 4:30
came to
of
it;
her head, and looked out of the window. And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, that you
and adorned
53
us
look
at the
first word,
qeren.
It
"horn,"
means means so
and
together the
more
means
"the Horn
Mascara,"
of
but
qeren
much
than
A horn
contained
kings
of
Israel:
ISam. 16:1
Saul,
rejected and
being king
to
Israel? Fill
your
go; I
provided
for
myself a
king
of
among his
ISam. 16:13
brothers;
and
the Spirit
of
the LORD
mightily
upon
David
from that
1 Kings 1:39
day
Ramah.
tent,
and
horn
of oil
from
the
Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet; said, "Long live King
Solomon!"
But,
to
begin
at
the
beginning,
firstling
them
living
horns
animal:
Deut. 33:17
ox;
His
and
his homs
are the
of a wild
with
he
them, to the
ends of
Ephraim,
thousands
of
Manasseh.
But the
"to
shine":
Exod. 34:30
the
And
when
Aaron
Israel
saw
Moses, behold,
Moses'
his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. The people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of
skin of
face shone; he
and
went
and
Moses
until
in to
speak with
him.
hence,
light";
rays
Hab. 3:4
His brightness
there
was
and
he
veiled
his
power.
The homs
of an animal
are
his
strength and
his defense.
They
give
him
formidable look:
adversaries of will
ISam. 2:10
The
them
the
LORD
shall
be broken
will
to pieces; against
he
thunder
ends of the of
earth; he
anointed.
his king,
his
And
so
it
comes
for
human being:
heart
exults in the LORD; my derides my enemies, because I
ISam. 2:1
Hannah horn
said,
"My
exalted
in the LORD.
salvation.
My
mouth
rejoice
in thy
54
Interpretation
Ps. 75:4 up Ps. 89:17
I say
your
to the
horn;"
boastful, "Do
glory
boast,"
not
"Do
not
lift
For thou
exalted.
art the
of their strength;
by thy
favor
our
horn
is
This is
what
Job had in
I have
the
mind when
he
said:
Job 16:15
my
skin.
dust.
will
bring
There I
will make a
horn
to sprout
prepared a
Ps. 148:14
people, praise
all
his
saints,
for
Israel
to
As I
once
before had
occasion to
in
And
on
shall
it,
take part
of
the
of
overlay it with bronze. the bull and put it upon the blood
you shall
horns
1 Kings 2:28
of
the
finger,
Joab
pour out at
the
base
of the altar.
When the
although
news came to
supported
Adonijah
he had
not supported
Absalom
Joab fled to
LORD
and caught
hold
of the
horns
of the altar.
And,
of
Joshua 6:5
And
you
when
they
make a
long
blast
horn,
as soon as
hear the
sound of the
trumpet, then
city
will
and the
IChron. 15:28
So
all
man straight
before him.
LORD
with
the
hom, trumpets,
cymbals,
and made
loud
music on
harps
and
lyres.
Linguistically, too,
the phrase
"hom
mascara"
of
works
well, because it
eas and
ily blends
"the hom
"hom
oil"
of
my
salvation":
2Sam. 22:3
of
My God,
my rock, in
whom
I take refuge, my
horn
savest
stronghold and
55
put
by
word queren
("hom")
to the
pukh
in
force
to
fully
robbed
the word of
its
sting.
is
no
longer
sufficient
conjure
up a degrading image of womankind. 19. As is the case in the dialogues of Plato, there is
also good.
a prima
facie
assumption
That
statement
is
by
no means
intended to
imply
Plato
was unaware of
Meno
Alcibiades.
also complicated
The Biblical
The
view of
beauty
since
is
and,
so as
to not mislead
however, in
have to be
Song
its
of
Songs,
it is
a subject
in itself
which would
understood on
own
The
subject
first
beginning
we are
shown the
difficulties involved:
When he
know that Egyptians
me,
saw
Gen. 12:11
beautiful to
they
will
they
kill
but they
let
you
live.
And
when
the princes of
woman was
Pharaoh into
her, they
praised
taken
Pharaoh's house.
with great plagues
Pharaoh
wife.
and
his house
because
of
Sarai, Abram's
beauty
almost
of an
innocent,
though
Gen. 20:2
said of
king
a
of
Sarah his wife, "She is my Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God
sister."
And
to
came
Abimelech in
dream
by
him, "Behold,
you are a a
dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is Now Abimelech had not approached her; so he said, man's
wife."
"Lord, Although it is
wilt thou
slay
an
innocent
people?
clear
beauty
to
Leah's
soft eyes:
Gen. 29:16
Leah,
Rachel. Leah's
soft, but
Rachel
was
beautiful
and
and
he said, "I
daughter
Rachel,"
But it is
is to think.
has
a child:
saw
that
Leah
was
hated, he
opened
her womb;
conceived and
bore
56
Interpretation
called upon
his
name
Reuben; for
she said,
She my affliction; surely now my husband will love conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Because the LORD has
heard that I his
name
am
hated, he has
Simon.
But Rachel
always thinks
in terms
of
battle
and victory:
When Rachel
sister;
saw
that she
bore Jacob
me
her
to
Jacob, "Give
children,
and
die!"
shall
has
also
heard my
Then Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed"; so she called his name Naphtali.
When
she
finally
does have
another:
a son of
her own,
gratitude,
but
with a
demand for
Gen. 30:24
his
name
Joseph,
saying,
"May
son!"
Her demand
was
met, but
at a
very
heavy
price:
Gen. 35:16
and when
they
distance from Ephrath, Rachel travailed, in her hard labor, the have
son.'
and she
midwife said to as
her, "Fear
called
not; for
another
And
her
soul was
departing
his
(for
name
died),
she called
his
name
on the
way to Ephrath
is, Bethlehem).
her
Nor is it
charm:
Gen. 31:32
it."
"Any
find
live. In the
presence of our
kinsmen
not
I have that is yours, and take know that Rachel had stolen them. So Laban
point out what
went
and
two maidservants,
but he did
into Leah's tent, and into the tent of the not find them. And he went out of
Leah's tent, and entered Rachel's. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle, and sat upon
all about the tent, but did not find them. And she her father, "Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon So he searched, but did not find the household gods. said to
me."
them.
Laban felt
57
soft-
telling
of all
is the
ultimate
superiority
of
Leah's
spoken son
Judah
magician,
Joseph,
in
6:11.
was
Joseph himself
beautiful, but
all that
again
it led to
grave problems.
Gen. 39:6
So he left
no concern
and
having
him he had
was
he
ate.
Now Joseph
handsome (beautiful) and good-looking. And after a time his wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, "Lie with
master's
me."
Then
Gen. 41:2
and
fat,
and
up the
there came up out of fed in the reed grass. they first seven fat cows,
.
behold,
the
. .
Nile
seven cows
beautiful
and
On the
other
hand
beauty
as a
fictional
goal
is
at times
implicitly
praised:
Num. 35:33
You
shall not
which you
pollutes the
land,
the
[beautification]
in it,
except
can
for him
the
land, for
it.
blood that is
by
the blood of
who shed
There is
law:
and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife,
Deut. 21:11
you
have
but it
must
be
read
in the light
of
Cozbi.
David
was
beautiful:
brought him in. Now he
he."
ISam. 16:12
and
was
and was
him; for
when
this
is
ISam. 17:42
And
the
Philistine looked,
a youth,
David, he disdained
appearance.
him; for he
He
charm
was
but
ruddy
beautiful in
to
allow oneself
is to
miss
a great
deal
of the
Bible. Nonetheless,
totally
forget his
There
to Bath Shibah.
Abigail:
ISam. 25:3
Now the
Nabal,
his
wife
Abigail. The
58
Interpretation
Tamar
was a wonderful
beauty
caused
her disaster:
2Sam. 13:1
Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister, whose name So Tamar; and after a time Amnon, David's son, loved her. Amnon lay down, and pretended to be ill; and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, "Pray let my sister Tamar come and
Now
was
make a couple of cakes
But
and said
when she
in my sight, that I may eat from her brought them near him to eat, he took hold
sister."
hand."
of
her,
with
listen to her.
me, my
than she,
But he
would not
he forced her,
and
lay
Her brother
was not so
wonderful, but
as well:
2Sam. 14:25
Now in
all
Israel there
be
praised
beauty
head
as
Absalom; from
the sole of
.
crown of cut
there was no
blemish in him.
every
And
when
he
the
year
he
the
used
to cut
of
it;
when
was
heavy
meet
on
him, he
it), he
weighed weight.
hair
hundred
the
shekels
by
the
king's
And Absalom
was
servants of
David. Absalom he
riding
his mule,
and
branches
was
of a great
oak,
his head
and
and
left
hanging
between heaven
him
went on.
2Sam. 18:10
And
it,
and told
hanging
in
an oak.
On
the other
treacherously against his life (and there is nothing hidden from Joab said, "I king), then you yourself would have stood
not waste time
like this
you."
with
hand,
alive
Absalom,
while
he
was still
in the
surrounded
And ten young men, Joab's armor-bearers, Absalom and struck him, and killed him.
oak.
For the
understand
sake of completeness
story, though I do
not
its importance:
2Sam. 14:27
There
were
name was
Tamar;
one
daughter
whose
Next
came poor
Abishag:
1 Kings 1:3
of
So they sought for a beautiful maiden throughout all the territory Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the
maiden was
king. The
very
beautiful;
the
and she
nurse
and ministered to
him; but
king
knew her
59
beauty
did
not
help her,
and
there is little
reason
to believe she
to
bring
king
with
her
royal
crown, in
she was
fair
to behold.
Esther's
beauty
saved
her people,
Esther 2:7
uncle,
and
He had brought up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his for she had neither father nor mother; the maiden was beautiful
lovely,
as
and when
her father
and
her
mother
died, Mordecai
adopted
her
his
own
daughter.
but it is The
kind
way
has become
by
for themselves:
is
Ps. 45:2
You
beautiful
poured
upon your
lips;
therefore
for
ever.
Ps. 48:2
the
joy
of all
the earth,
Prov. 6:25
far north, the city of the great King. Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
her eyelashes;
and
and
do
not
capture
you with
Prov. 31:30
Charm is deceitful,
LORD is to be
beauty is
vain, but a
woman who
fears the
praised.
Eccles. 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Eccles. 5:18
Behold,
and
what
I have
seen to
be
good and
to be
beautiful is to
eat
drink
and
find
enjoyment of
in
under
few days
his life
God has
given
him, for
of a
this
is his lot.
of perfume
Isa. 3:24
Instead
girdle,
a
there will
be rottenness;
and
instead
hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth; instead of beauty, shame. Your eyes will see the king in his beauty; they will behold a land
rope; and instead of
well-set
what
do
dress in
Your
beautify
In
vain you
beautify
yourself.
Jer. 10:3
lovers despise you; they seek your life. for the customs of the peoples are false. A tree from the forest is
cut
down,
it it
by
the
hands
of a craftsman.
Men
beautify
so that
with
hammer
and nails
cannot move.
Jer. 11:15
house,
when she
has done
vile
60
Interpretation
deeds? Can
vows and sacrificial
flesh
avert your
you
green olive
beautiful
will set
Lam. 2:15
with goodly fruit"; but with the roar of a great tempest he fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and
at the
daughter
the
beautiful
and
raiment was of
silk, and
grew
embroidered
fine flour
came
and
honey
and oil.
You
to regal estate.
of your
your renown
because
beauty, for it
upon
I had bestowed
your
trusted
in
beauty,
harlot because
of your
.
renown, and
lavished
your
harlotries
your
on
any passer-by
at the
head
of
every
street you
yourself
built
lofty
beauty, offering
made
harlotry."
Ezek. 27:4
any passer-by, and multiplying your Your borders are in the heart of the seas; your builders beauty.
.
to
perfect your
The
men of
men of
Arvad Gamad
and
Helech
were upon
about, and
were
in
your
towers;
made
they hung
Ezek. 28:15 You
they
perfect your
beauty.
were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, iniquity was found in you. Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: "You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty
till
Your heart
was proud
because
of your
beauty;
I
you corrupted
your wisdom
for the
I Ezek. 31:7
exposed you
eyes on
It
was
its
roots went
beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for down to abundant waters. The cedars in the garden of
God
trees
it,
nor the
fir trees
equal
its boughs;
the plane
garden of
of
nothing compared with its branches; no tree in the God was like it in beauty. I made it beautiful in the mass
and all the trees of
Eden
envied
it,
that were
in
the
garden of
says the
and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was its height, I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves, I have cast it out.
towered
proud of
Ezek. 33:32
And, lo,
beautiful
you
like
love
songs with a
what
say, but
they
will not
that
thirst.
day
the
beautiful
of
The LORD
hosts
will protect
them,
they
shall
devour
and
61
and
they
shall
be full like
the
altar.
On that
of
day
for they
are the
flock
his
people; for like the jewels of a Yea, how good and how fair it
men
they
shall shine on
his land.
young
be! Grain
flourish,
20. Perhaps the best way of understanding the significance of what has curred is to compare it to the case of the daughters of Zelophehad:
Num. 26:33 Now Zelophehad the
and the names of the son of
oc
Hepher had
of
no sons,
were
but daughters:
daughters
Tirzah.
Zelophehad
Mahlah, Noah,
son of
Hoglah, Milcah,
Num. 27:1 Then drew
son of
and
daughters
of
Zelophehad the
Hepher,
of
Gilead,
Machir,
son of
Manasseh, from
the
families
were:
Manasseh the
Joseph. The
names of
his daughters
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all
the congregation, at the door of the tent
of
company
sons.
tance only
would not
The first thing to note is that the daughters of Zelophehad received an inheri because their father had no son. Had there been a son, the daughters
have
received an
dowry.
The text
continues:
Num. 27:4a
Why
family,
father be
taken
The
main argument
here
concerns
the
preservation of
father,
whereas
in the Book
of
the daugh
ters.
Thus,
Num. 27:4b
Give to
father's brothers.
so
cannot
convey the
same sense of
equality that
one
feels
strongly in the
verse
Job 42:15b
and their
father
gave them an
inheritance
alongside their
brothers.
It
should also
be
noted that
it
was
Job's
own
decision to
change
his will,
given what
he had
seen
in the Tempest:
case of
Num. 27:5
the
LORD
said to
Zelophelad
62
Interpretation
possession of an
the
inheritance
of their
inheritance among their father's brothers and cause father to pass to them. And you shall say to the
a man
people of
Israel, 'If
dies,
and
has
his inheritance to
you shall give
pass to
daughter,
then
In the
case of
Zelophehad, however,
The heads
of the
fathers'
Num. 36:1
houses
of
of the
families
of the
of the sons of
fathers'
Gilead the
the sons
Manasseh,
houses
houses
of
and spoke
before Moses
and
before the
leaders,
the
heads
fathers'
of the
of the people of
give
Israel; they
the
by
lot to the
people of
Israel;
and of
LORD to
give the
inheritance
of the people of
daughters. But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes Israel then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance
which
of our
fathers,
so
inheritance
of the tribe to
they belong;
it
inheritance. And
their
when will
be taken away from the lot of our the jubilee of the people of Israel comes, then
will
inheritance
be
added to the
inheritance
of
they belong;
the tribe
and their
inheritance
will
be taken from
inheritance
Israel
of
fathers."
of our
And Moses
according to the word of the LORD, saying, "The tribe of the sons Joseph is right, This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters
of
of
Zelophehad, 'Let
within
them marry
whom
they
think
best;
The
only,
they
shall
marry
inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one for every one of the people of Israel shall cleave to
inheritance
of
possesses an
fathers. And every daughter who of the people of Israel shall be her father,
so that of
family
of the tribe of
inheritance
no
of
inheritance
the tribes
shall
for
each
of
the people of
shall cleave to
its
own
inheritance.' "
The daughters
Zelophehad did
as the
LORD
commanded
the
Moses; for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father's
are
brothers. These
LORD
commanded
by Moses
at
to the people
of Israel in the
plains
of
Moab
by
the Jordan
Jericho.
Although the
genuine concern
words
whom
they
think
best"
clearly
own
show
for the
inheritance is
Husbands
are
immediately
out to
found for
tribe,
inheritance turns
be little
63
or
about
husbands
as
can
see, that
that
Job has
hold
a
property.
Could this be
world
part of a
legacy
that Job
very large
and
The way
by
gave
understanding
of worlds.
of
by
the
beginning
The
was a need
"unjust."
One
said
while
friendship,
Human sociality
way to
plant
it requires means nothing more than that by day in the evening they talk. Of what do they speak? Of the com, the way to go out on the hunt, the way to bake bread, the
and all
way to These
some
bury
the
dead,
be
and of the
ways, there
would
no
us."
Without these
would must
be
no
life.
ways must
be taught
they
must
be learned.
They
be taught,
by
the
fathers
and some
by
is the
learn
them.
But
shared unless
they
first
a
things"
holds
Without
whole,
men are
empty
and
life is
without
taste.
for clarity that came about when his world began to fall asunder led Job to the need for autonomous understanding, and hence to ultimately questions concerning those accounts of "the first
The
need
things."
Out
Tempest
came
the
notion of
seal upon
they
were
in them
under
from human
need.
This
led to
a shift
in Job's
standing
of and
needs of man
may better be
served
being
open
they
grow of
themselves than
by by
seeing them as being directed towards those needs. This insight, in turn, led, as we have seen, to the emergence of the nurturing and swaddling God as distin
guished
and
constructing God. A
small change
in
last
will
Drama, Narrative,
Plato's Charmides
Andrew Reece
Earlham College
and
Socratic Eros in
Plato's Charmides is
the
reader multiple
an evocative and
highly
of
nuanced
dialogue, offering
of possible
to
themes
for
consideration and a
variety
inter
pretative approaches.
open
Plato's
composition
immediately
an
corresponding points of entry into the work. First, the Charmides is aporetic, definitional dialogue, a dramatized discussion in which Socrates
three
and
his interlocutors
term, in this
attempt
satisfactory definition
(first
posed at
of a
"sound-mindedness,"
moral
case sophrosyne
or "self-
control").
By leaving
sophrosyne?"
159a)
unanswered at
does, 175a-c)
and
by
which the
Second,
the Charmides
is
a narrated
only
as a participant
in the discus
on the next
sion
day.1
but In
also as a reporter of
the proceedings to
gives
an unnamed
friend
so
his
readers
the opportunity to as
and to evaluate
Socrates'
own
commentary
on
the
previous
day's
events.
Third,
dramatic setting demands that we pay close attention to details of characterization, locale, and time. Most studies of the Charmides have focused
particular
on
the definitions of
intriguing
175a). I
introduction
"knowledge
of
(166e-
propose
here to
by
responding to
cratic eros.
Socrates'
narrative and
overall
dramatic frame, in
the
order
to
usually discussed
with reference to
Charmides, So
Socrates tell the
Charmides'
Plato story
of
dialogue
by having
Charmides
story that
has
an erotic encounter.
he
met
cousin
Critias the
come
Potidaea
stamping into the wrestling school (palaistra) of Taureas and met several of his acquaintances, to whom he gave a report of the fighting. After spending an
wandered undetermined time on this
and was
happy
to
be
able return to
usual
in Athens. He
conversation
happenings in the
interpretation, Fall
philosophical
community, asking
any
66
Interpretation
men who
young
their
had
for
their wisdom or
for
one
beauty
(153a-d). It is
about
breath both
echoi
"what's going
should
have
asked
in
philosophy"
philosophias
hopos
Plato has
already
juxtaposition
of themes
palaistra,
Athenian
males would
by
lectually by
Lysis, in
palaistra
We
beginning
of the
which
by
looking
author
ones"
Ctesippus try to entice Socrates into a new telling him that they and "a great many other young men good (203b).2 wile away their time there in discussion Already our
Hippothales
and
has
established a
and philoso
phy, the desire for wisdom, though the nature of that link is not
clear.
immediately
No
sooner
had he
young men,
all of
continues
throng
was
of them
whom,
lovers (erastai)
of
cousin
by
best-looking
in his
Char
mides
himself
entered, to the
present, in
of
cluding Socrates,
this youth:
who confides
to his anonymous
companion
his impression
My friend,
am no good at measuring.
am
simply
and
blank
it
comes to
beautiful young men. Nearly all men at that Charmides seemed just then remarkably tall
Charmides'
age seem
beautiful to
But still,
beautiful.
(154b-c)
youngest
arrival
had
like
him "as if he
statue"
(hosper
154c). Plato's
images here is
is
suggestive.
What I have
a white
translated as "I am
measuring-line."
ruler"
literally
. .
"I
am
simply
eimi pros
was colloquial
for "I
distinctions in
Presumably
the expression
derived this
meaning from the fact that a line coated with visible measuring marks on limestone or marble,
while
so
it is
an appropriate
image here
Socrates is
looking
be
an agalma,
perhaps of stone.
Socrates
his friend
Chaerephon,
Charmides'
and added that his body singularly fine (pankalos) that it could easily cause one to forget the young man's face altogether (154d). There was, then, something unreal about attractiveness. He was like a sculpted image, with a superhuman
Charmides'
handsome face
beauty,
whose admirers
temporarily forgot
and a
ual with a
distinctive face
Charmides'
beauty
was
that they were looking at an individ distinctive identity. The very magnitude of this distinguishing feature to his other admirers, but the
Drama, Narrative,
metrically inept
companion
and
67
Socrates,
narrative
even while
in the him.
was
admitting his wonderment, reminds his qua beautiful now seem much
he
Charmides'
the same to
Socrates
at
indeed
needed to see
cousin
thing,"
body,
noble
least
until
he had
Critias'
assurance that
his
obvious
soul"
stimulating qualities, "one other little (154d-e).4 When Critias had answered that
Charmides'
indeed
"undressing"
prevent
call
Critias,
of
Charmides'
guardian, to
Socrates'
example
explicit, Plato
ironically
heightens the
erotic
ambience.
An
in
a palaistra
(and it
was
have
paidagogoi attend
their sons
approaching a youth could easily be partly for this reason that fathers would in such settings, to shield the boys from
Charmides'
possible seduction.
See Symp. 183c-d, Lys. 223a; Dover 1978, pp. 82-83.). By soul, telling Critias just before that he was interested above all in Socrates turned the banter of the older men away from their carnal appreciation
of the youth.
At the
same
time,
by having
the
Socrates
bring
of wres
tling-school protocol,
Plato
makes
reader aware
Happily
Critias
good
terms that
they
could collaborate
in
ruse
to draw
for headaches, the malady about which Charmides had recently been complaining. It may be that Critias suggested this scheme because it seemed to him a less erotically
Charmides to them.
They
pretended
cure
charged
scenario
from
Charmides'
soul and
(as
McAvoy 1996,
came.
pp.
83-84,
suggests).
Charmides
Socrates
continues
men
pushing his
ap sitting in the palaistra, with every room on the bench for Charmides next
that
Charmides'
to himself. He eventually
mides'
Critias,
and
Char
Socrates into
dither:
At this point, my friend, I lost my bearings (eporoun), and my previous confidence in my ability to speak with him easily was knocked out of me. When Critias told him that I
was the one who
me
right in the
eyes with an
indescribable look
asking
I
me a question.
Everyone in the
longer
in
friend,
of
inside his
fire, I
was no
within
to matters
love.
Speaking
of a
gave the a
following
be
advice to someone:
Take
meat.
care not to go as a
lion
and
snatched
up like
a piece of
68
I
Interpretation
thought that
myself cure
had been
captured
by
when
he
asked
me
if I knew the
to
answer
that I
did. (155d-e)
The Charmides is
which
is
all we
only source for this Cydias fragment (Page 1962, 714), citation of Cydias is significant have from the poet.
our
Socrates'
of
Socratic
eros
to
review what we
have learned
with
in this dialogue, but before elaborating its so far from the time Socrates
Charmides.
Sophrosyne,
has
ual not yet
Charmides,
from
sex
been
restraint
indulgence,
was a
enough
to see that
Socrates'
typical understanding of the word's meaning, it is easy ability to overcome his immediate lust for Char
mides
introduces
one possible
definition
of the term
dramatically.5
Furthermore,
dialogue
some
immediately following
of
have
reminded
Plato's
and
original readers
exceptional courage
in that battle,
audience
familiar
courage
with
it certainly springs to the mind of a later the Symposium, in which Alcibiades praises Socrates
sophrosyne
both for
and
for
makes
connection
between
in
other
combination, if
ally
exclusive
(North 1966,
"oddness,"
p.
a rare creature
(Alcibiades
not alto
remarks on gether
his
atopia, at Symp.
221d),
and perhaps
it is
surprising that
we should
find
complementing one another in his character. We might see from Plato of the unity of virtue, but more particularly we have
notion
geous
of
exhibits
itself in
can
actions.
Laches
agree
that one
speak
easily Though
of courage
indulgence (191d).
an elenctic
investigation
begun,
in
such a
explicit:
quences
way that it poses What is sophrosyne? (159a), and another is implicit: What conse for our understanding of sophrosyne and of this dialogue follow from
question
meaning of sophrosyne has not yet Plato to frame the upcoming discussion two questions for us rather than one. One question is
help
the
fact that Socrates apparently possesses the virtue? The first Charmides. The second leads us back into Socratic eros. Diotima's lecture to Socrates in the Symposium is, important texts on the theme of eros, and it can
of that
drives
a consideration
of
most
she has explained to Socrates that is ultimately a longing for immortality through procreation (201c-208e), Diotima explains that while those who want to gain a kind of physical immor
eros
ing
theme in the
Charmides. After
tality
family,
those who
are more
inclined to leave
an intel-
Drama, Narrative,
lectual
or spiritual
and
69
legacy hope
lover
to produce
who
wisdom
(phronesis)
and excellence
a man
a suitable wife to
bear his
goes out to
a good match.
both
far"
beauty
are
and wisdom
(204b),
and
and since
the greatest
kinds
"by
justice
(dikaiosyne)
of
at
and sophron:
If
be
pregnant
in his
of
[dikaiosyne
and
sophrosyne]
enough
he is
he
will
desire both
man
impregnate
father be
a
birth himself.
Surely
hoping
to
child]
to find
some specimen of
beauty
with whom
to reproduce; certainly
will
he
would never
anything
ugly.
Therefore he
attracted to
and will
if he
beautiful,
like He
this
be very much drawn to this combination. In he will be well-supplied with words about
(arete),
he
activities
will pursue.
try
to teach the
other.
sorts of
Returning
the
to the
Charmides,
at
we observe
setting
and action
that when
Socrates
palaistra
he had
sophrosyne
in his soul,
least if
inward
say,
pregnant
tual
lover
when
he
went out
merely acting like Diotima's spiri to the palaistra, hoping to find young men who
could
were
both kalos
and
wise,
who
be taught
impregnated
with
soph
It became quickly obvious that Charmides met the first qualification. For the second, Socrates felt that he needed to speak with Charmides face to
rosyne.
Critias'
assurance that
his
cousin's
soul was
If the Socrates
of
even should
out
here), Socrates
with
beauty
and
begun his
when
beauty
Soc
men met
more or
(as the blank ruler) confesses to his friend that he finds all young less equal in beauty, he implies that either at the moment he
shortly "Charmides
or
Charmides
universal.
thereafter
seemed
he had already
started
just then
(tote)
ful to young We
me,"
beauty
of all
men
(154b-c).
to
quotation of
return
Cydias,
who
had
warned the
lover that
would
one could
be
by
as a
fawn
70
be
Interpretation
reduced to a chunk of meat
by
lion. This is
a remarkable
passage
for
several
reasons,
immediately
to mind.
First, Socrates,
with
who
had been observing the behavior of amusement, reveals to his confidant that the
actually foreshadows the
sent
Charmides'
swarm of
lovers
detached
sudden
proximity
aporia.
This
physiological
loss
in
which the
dialogue
concludes.
In both cases,
beneficial
element.
The bewilderment
greater
engendered
by
the
Socratic
elenchus
ideally
spurs the
of
interlocutors to
and
self-awareness, the
lack
knowledge,
him to
finally
renewed reflection.
Sim
sus
ilarly,
Socrates'
sexual arousal
a new awareness of
his
ceptibility to
advice.
Cydias'
The
second
striking
point about
the passage
not
is that
turn a
opportunity for detached introspection indicates that shown in his control of his desire, consists in part in his intellectual
Socrates'
Socrates'
having
greater
of
this line
sexual
appetite.6
a metaphor
have been familiar to his readers, but it seems surprising that Socrates should choose (or perhaps construe) a version of the predator-prey image in which the
lover
(erastes) figures
as the
lion.7
as the
fawn
and
the
object of
figures
We
might expect
that the
image
prey
lighting
upon
the metaphor comparing an erotic pursuit to a beast its quarry, or as a hunter tracking game, does indeed give of the hunter and the eromenos the part of the hunted. For
of
example, there
c-d:
seems to
be
Theognis 1278
A
a
lion, with trust in my strength, I caught a fawn in my claws, right out from under hind, but did not drink its blood. (Cited as an image for erotic capture by Dover 1978, p. 58.)
his first
speech
Concluding
motives of
in the Phaedrus, in
singing, "As
which
he denounces the
selfish
lovers
boys"
he
admits
he has
done, 241e),
fond
of
lambs, just
so
do
lovers love
165).
Socrates'
(241d). Such
hunting
(Dover, 1978,
an
pp.
citation of the
inversion
the expected
im
age, has
not always
been
recognized as such.
stretches the
Charmides
text enough
tional arrangement:
Drama, Narrative,
I thought how fair youth, he devoured
appetite.8
and
71
well
Cydias
warns someone
"not to
bring
by
him,"
by
a sort of wild-beast
lion, who, perceiving his craving for Charmides, is aware that he poses some danger to the younger man (Nussbaum 1986, p. 92, also reads the text in this way). He then realizes the
version we can still as
In this
imagine Socrates
the
saliency
would-be
of
by
Cydias. But
what
Cydias had
advised
the
lover
lion"
fair
youth was
actually "take
me
care not to go as a
fawn
before
be devoured:
eulabeisthai
katenanta leontos
seem
Socrates'
nebron
elthonta moiran
haireisthai kreon
[my
emphases].
Thus there
to me to be
use of
at
least two
more
likely
readings.
this
inverted image is
to suppose that
by
his lust
for Charmides, so that the lion in the poem stands for carnal desire, not for an individual whose beauty incites it. Another reading, and I think the one that
most
simply
accommodates the
as a simple rever
sal of roles.
contrived to make
and and
Charmides striking up
so
very
much
like
lover
looking
over a
a conversation with
him, he
must mean us
to go along
with
the
game,
eromenos.
If
we
do,
we will
be inclined to
fawn to felt
refer to
Socrates
and
Charmides,
respectively.
myself
by
beast like
that,"
he
most
likely
means
Charmides became, only if a with the power to momentarily, lion, pursue, catch, and devour (McAvoy 1996, p. 90, also interprets the quotation in this sense).
while
If
Socrates'
we understand
quotation of
Plato is here
whom
foreshadowing
approached as
Cydias in this sense, we can see that dialogue, in which Charmides, a lover might approach his beloved,
pursuer.
and
become the
their attempt to
discussion. Critias
and
and
force to
make
Socrates
submit
to
replies
in kind
then,"
no one will
be
able
Charmides, "don't
(176a-d). If
Charmides'
either."
you resist me
won't resist
we continue
to
follow the
erotic subtext of
can view
again,"
realization of
his desire to be
Socrates,
which
in
the nominally
advances
relationship
not
only
enjoys
his lover's
but
72
Interpretation
merged. met
become
should
says that
in
He
an
ideal relationship
eros
be
by
cautions
desires
couple
relationship
should
be kept in
check so that
the
may enjoy
together, but he
does
desires
relationship
eros
of their souls
(255a-256e;
and
and anteros of
in the Phaedrus
Symposium,
Socrates'
Alcibiades
corresponding only in Alcibiades himself, but also in Euthydemus and our very Charmides (222a-b). The Charmides dramatizes the title character's expe Socratic
eros
eros aroused a
rience of
(just
as the
Alcibiades I dramatizes
Alcibiades'
own
first
feelings
roles
Socrates'
quotation of
Cydias
encapsulates
this reversal of
in
Continuing
told
with
Charmides
and the
his
leaf
had to be
concurrently with a charm (epode, 155e). This cure he Thracian doctor working under the patronage of the god
a
malady
of the
head
the
body
could
only be
or
the entire
body
charm
A Zalmoxian
physician would
charm,
which
itself
he
beautiful
words
(logoi
kaloi),
to the
With this
present and as a
into
to be
in it (engenomenes kai parouses), bringing the soul to a healthy state consequently expediting bodily health (156d-157c). In setting himself up practitioner of Zalmoxian medicine Socrates promised to impart sophrosyne
to
Charmides
by
means of
kaloi logoi.
It
was
Socrates'
naturally
prove to
be
an elenchus.
soul would
Socrates had
him.
Critias had
quickened
a
his
expectation
by assuring Socrates
moreover,
came
that
Charmides
would
be willing to have
Socrates'
discussion
of
and was,
philosophos
(154e-155a).
on
Charmides'
description
Zalmoxian therapy
and
from
He was looking body (step 1) but realized in time that its beauty was not (step 2). His focus shifted (not without difficulty) to
up.
Diotima's ladder
Charmides'
(step
3).
With
some confidence
in that
soul's
made a proposal
This
would
Socrates in effect receptivity join him in constructing a kalos logos. step, as Diotima defines it:
to sophrosyne,
Then [the in
a
lover]
beauty
in
souls
is
beauty
in his soul, even if he has little to show on the that will be enough: the lover surface, will fall in love with him and care for him (210b-c)9 and give birth to the kinds of logoi that make young men better.
someone suitable
body. If
is
Drama, Narrative,
The first logoi that
would ensue would
and
73
(to
be
conversations about
beauty
kalon)
of customs or
laws
(nomoi)
(epitedeumata)
their
Socrates, Charmides,
and
Critias begin
discussion
by
considering
likely
in practice,
like walking
and
talking
with
deliberate,
showing modesty
generally,
(160d-161b), keeping
good things
doing
(163e-164d).
They
consider
kalon only in the first of these activities, seeking to evaluate the others on the basis of their goodness and societal benefits. In other dialogues, however, Soc
rates argues
for
the
identity
of to
kalon
e.g.
and goodness
(to agathon,
e.g.
Phil.
Rep. 457b); their investigation still fo 64e) cuses on the quality of admirability in various practices. Now the third concep tion of sophrosyne, "doing one's (to ta heautou prattein), expanded as a
and usefulness
(to ophelimon,
own"
every member of a city, is accepted by Socrates and his interlocutors in the Republic as a definition for justice (433a). Indeed the Re
principle
followed
by
public
is
discussion
Critias'
definition in the
things"
of sophrosyne as
"doing
speakers
sequences of
dialogue ultimately to a consideration of the social con sophrosyne construed in various ways (171d-173d). What Socra
present
sophrosyne
could
be
said perhaps
more
naturally
of
dikaiosyne:
A house city
run
in
certainly be
run
well, as
would a
everything
else controlled
by
sophrosyne.
(17 le)
Socrates,
level
again,
expands
his logos
nomoi.
about an
individual
soul
(Charmides')
to the
of
of a
logos
about
It has been
observed
sophrosyne and
rates'
dikaiosyne
often
apparent possession of
overlap in Plato, and it may well be that Soc sophrosyne in the Charmides implies his concomi
so
tant possession of
dikaiosyne,
by
Diotiman lover. (On the similarity in meaning Plato's dialogues, see Larson 1951).
diakaiosyne in
Socrates
mate
also prompted
on
Critias to
elevate
Diotima's ladder:
made
an appreciation of
the
beauty
of
knowledge
the
observation about
being
tance
governed
Critias'
accep
of
of
"knowledge
of
and of
consideration of sophrosyne as a
form
episteme
with
gignoskein
statement
know
ing
it
oneself
heauton, 165b)
kind
remains and
his
agreement with
Socrates that
point
be
some
of episteme
on, the
discussion
possible
Charmides
an
fixed for
benefits for
individual
a polis of a
knowledge
of
knowledge
74
Interpretation
and the various epistemai.
itself
beauty in its
of
most
and
coax
(210d). The
near as
contemplation of
the
he
beauty beauty
of the epistemai
by
the contemplation of
pose the charm of
knowledge here
reminds us of the
com
comprise the
therapy, as well as the philosophoi logoi that Socratic lover's discourse in the Phaedrus (257b). In the Charm
can
Zalmoxis'
Charmides
tes'
only be the elenchus. Sadly for Socrates, as it turned out, ideal youth with whom to give birth to such discourse.
discussion before the topic
of episteme came up.
He dropped
Socra
ascent could go no
further
with
him.10
By
show
Charmides
"about"
with
frequent
refer
ence to other
dialogues, especially
the
to
topic, here
eros, can reinforce the understanding of that topic we achieve through the other
dialogues. I do
go
not mean
imply
that Plato
intended his
original audience to
after
kinds
of point-to-point comparisons
first reading the Symposium to find the I have been making. Rather, I am con Plato had developed have
an
vinced
idea
of philo
sophical
love that he
wanted to express
acted
in the
guise
of an
actions of a
philosopher-
lover
might
be
expressed
posium
reaches no
proaches
such
question of whether
Plato had in
mind a
theory
of
he
wrote the
Charmides. If he
had
I
such a
necessarily have allowed that Socrates had in Plato did not choose to introduce the theory and, vision, any case,
would not
had, he
drama
earlier
"proleptic"
reading
some years now
of
Plato's
dialogues Plato
by
Kahn has
early dialogues or dialogues in Kahn's terms) partly in order to prepare his readers for the fuller, more dogmatic treatment that his middle dialogues like the Re public would give to the ideas presented with less elaboration in the earlier
"threshold"
argued that
Charmides
("premiddle"
works.
According
to
Kahn's theory
of
of aporetic
dia
logues like the Charmides, Laches, Lysis, and Euthydemus would tions to the reader that could only be answered by a consideration
writings with reference
suggest ques
of these
early
dialogues (the Symposium, Phaedo, and Republic. Kahn 1996, pp. 56-70, 148291; 1988, pp. 541-49). As an example, he shows that the notion of the knowl-
Drama, Narrative,
edge of good and
and
75
in the
Charmides
of
and
for
the
Euthydemus
only becomes
pp.
in the Laches, has in common with the political art wisdom in the Lysis a possible political dimension
understandable to
which
fully
Plato's
readers after
they have
met pp.
the
dialectically
for
of
203-9; 1988,
principles
542-46). One
of
which one
finds
elegant support
is the
point that
the aporetic
works
middle
dialogues,
while
the middle
help
opposing view, see the critique of Kahn 1988 by Griswold 1988, Although the specific details of his interpretation would perhaps
to the
550-51.)
kind
kind
of
reading I have been pursuing here, I would suggest dramatic prolepsis at work in the Charmides, by which
of
ac
Plato's
and
more
Socratic
eros
in the Phaedrus
NOTES
character
other dialogues in which Socrates narrates directly (as opposed to narrating to another in the dialogue, as in the Protagoras and Euthydemus) are the Lysis and the Republic, but in those works he does not, as here, address his remarks to a specific second-person listener. 2. Cf. the Symposium, in which Alcibiades tells the assembled guests that one of his early
1. The
with Socrates included a bit of wrestling. Alcibiades, who by this time was entirely smitten See Socrates, proposed this activity in the belief that "surely something would come out of also Dover 1978, pp. 54-55. 3. Plutarch, for example, makes the comment that "a chatterbox [adoleschos] is simply a white
it."
"dates"
with
conversations,"
measuring-line about
such a
person,
since
he
can speak
possible sexual
meaning that the topic of a discussion makes no difference to endlessly on any theme (Mor. 513f)innuendo of "one little see McAvoy 1996, p. 73 n. 25.
thing,"
observation
has been
p.
by Mahoney (1996,
puts
6. Bruell
was aware of
was part of
this point
of
made by North (1966, p. 154), Hyland (1981, p. 27) and, more 184), McAvoy (1996, p. 82), and Kahn (1996, pp. 187-88). well: "Socrates was not simply outside of himself; he also thought, he stood
himself
him
how he
in
relation
his
awareness of all
to
resist what
had been
an
concern
"
for
p.
(1977,
mention
from
what
poem that differed parenthetically the possibility that Plato puts a spin on its author intended because the quotation alone does not indicate that Cydias had in mind :
Cydias'
fawn
:
:: eromenos : erastes.
If Plato's
from
Cydias the
lion
fawn
have been
an even
8. Jowett 1961,
the passage
in the reading than the one I propose Plato meant to elicit. 102. Donald Watt's translation (1987, pp. 179-80) captures the ambiguity of but seems to indicate Charmides as the referent for the lion: "When speaking of a
p.
handsome boy, [Cydias] said, by way of advice to presence of a lion and be snatched as a portion
creature."
of
caught
by
said
Kahn
(1996,
p.
187)
It
ambiguity
care
the text:
a
handsome
boy
'to take
lest, like
"[Cydias]
for the
beast.'
seemed to me that
I had fallen
sort."
this
76
Interpretation
9. Kahn (1996, p. 270) also has the Symposium and
in these
men philosophical noticed the connection
shared
by
the
lovers
natural
described in
Socrates'
to recognize
with
logoi
implicit
reference to
conversations
handsome
like Meno,
Socrates loves to
or
like Charmides
Plato
and
to
beautiful
Menexenus."
and also
intended his
to the
Charmides
ruling
and
Athens
therefore also
"self-control,"
REFERENCES
and
Self-Knowledge: An Interpretation
of
Plato's
Interpretation 6: 141-203.
Plato."
Dover, K. 1978. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Journal of Philosophy 85: 550-51. Griswold, C. 1988. "Unifying Ancient Philosophy 5: Halperin, D. 1985. "Platonic Eros and What Men Call
Love."
161-204.
1986. "Plato
and
Erotic
Reciprocity."
Classical
Antiquity
5: 60-80.
University
Press.
and
Jowett, B.,
trans. 1961.
Charmides. In E. Hamilton
Dialogues of Plato. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 99-122. Kahn, C. 1988. "Plato's Charmides and the Proleptic Reading of Socratic
Journal of Philosophy 85: 541-49. 1996. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.
University
sophrosyn
and
American Jour
South
Dialogues
and
with
Plato
Printing
Publishing. Pp.
63-103.
North, H. 1966. Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nussbaum, M. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press.
Page, D. L. 1962. Potae Melici Graeci. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Watt, D., trans. 1987. Charmides. In T. J. Saunders, ed., Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues.
Liberty
and
Revolution in Burke's
University
of Chicago
INTRODUCTION
Two
of
during
Burke's life
were the
American
French Revolutions. He
them have
wrote
judgements
thought
support
formed judgements
far
on
his
condemnation of
his
as to attribute
Burke's
of
apparent
lack
of principle
his love
of
lucre. He
wrote
the
following
Burke in
Capital: "The
romantic
sycophant
who
in the pay
of the
laudator temporis
acti against
pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy, was an out-and-out
bourgeois.'"
any essential difference between the two revolu tions, because he thought both were part of an historical movement towards
not see
Marx did
freedom. Burke's
apparent
inconsistency
was
also
criticized
by Paine,
because he
revolutions
failed to grasp the consistency of Burke's judgement because he failed to grasp the reasons for Burke's support of the Americans. He did not support the Amer ican Revolution because it
He defended it
ent
protected
on prudential about
grounds,
if
one
is to
make sense of
his differ
judgements
his
Revolutions,
and
one must ex as
plain
peculiar
defense
understanding
of
justice
liberty
they
relate
to
prudence.2
Burke's defense
opposition to the
of the
influence
American Revolution is properly seen in light of his of theory or abstract ideas on political life. He was
the American Revolution because their
of
against
Parliament
during
indignation,
He op
spirited saw the
aristo-
justified
by
legal doctrine
sovereignty, was
becoming
of
a tyranny.
leading
ness
anarchy and a subsequent military despotism. Public had decayed in both instances into hatred and revenge. Burke
them to
threat of
selfishness of
the
bourgeoisie
and
from
interpretation, Fall
78
Interpretation
privilege, than from
self-righteous
cratic
authority
fueled
by
ideas.
Burke's defense
ciation of and
theory
requires an appre
his
art.
He did
His
speeches
letters
are
informed
by
the
immediacy
of
of events.
Yet, in
order
to persuade
his
meaning
To
whole.
Burke's
rhetoric and
reasoning
appreciate
justice
must
his
thought and
his
peculiar
genius,
one
learn to
life in his
issues
of
his time. In
doing
so,
one gains
the
distance
faced
philosophy
The
without
by
theory is
a poor guide
principle.3
for
political
life
because justice
however
much
be
made
into
a consistent
This
means that
guardian of
freedom, he
also
famous for arguing that policy needs to be guided by prudence, rather than law, as he is for being a defender of constitutional government. Justice has two different aspects, and it is no small
thought that
part of the art of the statesman to
keep
them
justice
of
law
consists
from corrupting one another. The whereas the justice of war consists in
treat its citizens equitably, while
partiality to
whom
must
those same citizens must treat as enemies the rebels and foreigners against
political association
is
constituted
by
both the
on
aspect of
law
and
because it is threatened
a
two different
and
fronts. The
the
law is
against
defense
against
internal tyranny,
love
of
country is
defense
political asso
is necessarily a mixture of the general and the particular, because it must regulate both the relation between citizens as well as the relation between citi
ciation
zens, rebels,
and
foreigners.
The Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777) is an excellent portrayal of how Burke understood the conflicting aspects of justice and how he managed those
conflicts
in the defense
of political
discussion
about
Britain's
partial suspension of
the
habeas
to
being
a civil
one, there is
strong
of
as
British,
fight the
to
rebels
using the
an
rebels
are not
only thought
of as
disobedient
want to
Parliament
and unfaithful
to En
defeat the Americans, but punishment, Parliament must use the form
simply
suspend
to punish
of
law to
execute
the
habeas
corpus
in
order to
and unenforced
law is
not a
law. It is
and the
British have
of
Bristol
79
the
bounds be
of
the
bounds force
of what^can
its justice, any more than its justice ought to overreach be enforced. In order to maintain the integrity of law,
realm of war and
there needs to
as
the realm of
law,
the
required
is
of an extent
required
for justice
under
law. Britain's combination, or rather confusion, of the realm of policy is very disturbing to Burke, and he
the
foresees
attempt
grave consequences
of
Parliament's
as an
instrument
of war
Of
most
all
wars, Burke thought that civil wars were the worst, because
and piety.
they
are
destructive to justice
wars strike
Civil
deepest
of all
into the
They
vitiate their
politics;
they
corrupt
their morals,
they
for
equity
and
justice.
By teaching
us to consider our
fellow-citizens in
us.
hostile light,
of
the whole
body
of our nation
affection and
new
kindred,
189)4
we agreed,
incentives to hatred
country is
dissolved. (P.
of
a vengefulness that
is
not excused
by
war.
of murderous
hatred dominates
in its
and
in its
object
and patriotism
require a
bond
of
love that is
accompanied
by
feeling
simply negative and destructive. By the of law into the British destroy honest patriotism war, bringing generality with hate; and by bringing the partiality of war into law, they dissolve alto
of the common
idea
good;
they
are not
gether an
feeling
and
idea
among the British accompanies the extremes of Burke foresees the savagery
as of tyrannical
barbarism
hate
tyranny
and
servility.
despondency
law.
well suited to
The theme
of
of
its
audience.
The Sheriffs
Bristol have
are sworn
has become
melancholy because the law to which they instrument of crime and tyranny. Their cynicism and
177).5 melancholy are not, however, devoid of hope; they wish for peace (p. They have lost confidence in justice, but they have not lost their humanity. Their problem is how to restore peace without the sword of justice, and this is
where
Burke
steps
in to
make their
desire for
just
humane
Ameri
and pious
hope. Burke
puts
his
case
for
reconciliation with
he did
earlier with
Taxation. He
reasons,
for pursuing
peace.
He in
effect
helps to
articulating the issues, proposing a policy, and making a show of face of popular and Parliamentary hostility. His opposition to the
party is
80
Interpretation
defense
of
expressed as a
justice
against tyranny.
The letter
of
as a whole
teaches
by
law
and
by
supporting the
belief in it.
The Letter
about
of shows that
Americans
owed
less to ideas
effects
democracy
to his
opposition
to the
fanatic
theory
on political
life
and
his desire to
protect political
liberty. It is in this
that one
opposition to the
fanatic
of
effects of
theory
and
his defense
the two
of prudence
Burke's
reflections on
revolutions.
The
partial suspension of
objects:
"The first, to
enable administration
to confine, as
long
as
it
shall think
. .
that act
the act
The second purpose of qualify by the name of pirates. is to detain in England for trial those who shall commit high treason in
is
pleased to
America"
argues
ways:
first, by confusing
by
be
denying the accused a fair trial; third, by treating fourth, by treating innocent citizens inequitably.
traced to the all-consuming anger of Parliament.
inconsistently;
and
All four
corruptions can
The
partial
suspension
determines
as
pirates those
American
commanders
of
enemy
by confounding
(death),
infamous action, and, therewith, the distinction itself of American rebels as pirates was made with the
add
intention
allow
of
insulting
them, to
infamy
love
of
liberty
or to
formidable
enemy.
demned;
contrary,
image
of
death
horrifies
the
British, but,
to the
they
rejoice at
it. Hatred determines the crime, rather than the moral This habit of indulging their hatred threatens the morals of
of
American
disturbing
and
state of the
English
soul.
Their hatred is
not entertain
accompanied
by
pitiless-
ness and
deaths
god,
of an
angry
is
the
British
to be the pirates,
because,
than
law, they
take
American
themselves,
rather
giving it to
treasury (p.
179).
of
Bristol
81
lower
than the
By
moral qualities of
allowing their indignation to dictate the order of crimes, rather than the the crime, Parliament replaces justice with force and will. It
is particularly important to understand that the blurring of the distinction be tween treason and piracy is only possible at the expense of love of country.
Parliament denies
a place
for
patriotism
in the
moral order
itself in
god
and a
tyrant
in
so
far
as
is the only claim to authority; it acts like both a its actions are not justified by country. This
insolent
men as
some
only reflected in its characterization of American naval pirates, but also in its description of American soldiers in general. After
strength not
is
American
should
defeats,
the British
more
insult them
order
by
as
if
In
they
is
have killed
British in
to prove themselves
virtuous.
the absence of justice, manly defiance becomes the only virtue. This manliness
untempered whether
by justifications
and
fears; it
and
expresses
of
itself in
simple
or the
domina
of
tion,
it be the imprisonment
killing
enemies,
taking
completely
lacking
habeas
in the British.
corpus
The
is "to detain
(p. 180).
high treason in
America"
bring
possibly be just, because the accused cannot possibly forward witnesses to defend himself. The accused is, therefore, tried ac
cording to form, but not according to justice. This attempt to punish the Ameri cans through the law brings the law into disrepute, because the legal process
appears to
be nothing more than a cover for the arbitrary will of Parliament. Not only does the trial of Americans in England corrupt justice, but it does
produce punished
not even
What
example
can
an
American
in England
serve the
Americans
at
home? The
unjust pun
ishments only
pride and execution
serve to
increase American
vigilance.
It is only the
perverse
hate
that
of a tyrant
will
be
retaliated
not
hesitate to
precedent
point out
of the
in
King Henry
war,
which are
victory, peace,
both.
and
The
proper place
for the
punishments
is in America,
English be
victorious.
Parliament
its
proper
is blinded
by
its
own
indignation.
of a
The
mere
ship (only
where
them down
and then
in the hold
tossing
them in
forma trial, ought to evoke feelings of horror jail, they Britain are only hardened by the punishments; (pp. 181-82). Yet the English in
will await a pro
they have lost all feelings of pity and humanity for their fellow Englishmen in America, and Burke suggests that this pitilessness will become a permanent part of the British character, that they will become savage.
82
Interpretation
The
punitive
hate
of
Parliament
even extends
to the
exchange of prisoners.
At the
end of the
American
of
to the
yet
reasoning
in their hands (p. 182). But, this action, like the deter pirates, corrupts justice because according the action the earlier prisoners should have been punished,
naval men as
they
were allowed
to go
free. It
hardly
seems
just,
never mind
possible, to
punish
The
The
ing
prisoners
is to
make
therefore not
to
upon circumstance.
respect
much
and
guilty
with
are treated.
issue
parliament
is incapable
of such
prudence,
because it is
The empty
prisoners are
formality
of
legal
inconsistent treatment
of
not,
however,
by breaking
draws
law,
that it
be
The
partial suspension
in the differ
ent realms
and, therefore, openly denies some men their rights while protecting
186). The
unequal
treats the guilty unequally, but the distinction between men in the realms treats the innocent differently. This offense to threat to political liberty. Burke says
general venoms equity.
justice is the
as
act's
can
most
dangerous is
a
that,
far
as
he
tell,
liberty
principle; the
limiting
qualification, instead of
of
taking
it to
a greater requires
liberty is really
requires the
Liberty
a common good
belief in
What
not
habeas
corpus
truly dangerous is
would
its
corruption of
corruption of manners.
The law
be
of no
effect most
if it
were opposed
feelings
and
ideas
of the people.
Burke finds it
disturbing
far from
being
the
opposed to manners,
accords with them and moves them partial suspension codifies their
further in the
and
same
hatred
affection
between
the
British
and the
dissolves
by dissolving
shared
belief in
fates? How
fates
when the
law
separates of
those who are under it? This cynicism with respect to the
has the
effect of
disaffecting
decent
citizens
from
politics altogether.
suspension
destroys
public spiritedness
by destroying
the public.
Apathy is
the
accompanying
obverse of
no place
for decent
political attachments.
of
Bristol
83
By
past
of
liberty
they
and tyranny, Burke asks the British to look between the people and their representatives.
He
reminds
are
threatened
by
by
the rebels.
He
wants
liberty. He
even wishes
they
are
Burke's letter
indifferent to its injustice only because they do not suffer from it. attempts to moderate the extremes of hate and apathy by encour
and
justice. He first
reminds the
British
a representative of the
traditionalists, in
love
of country.
prejudices which
supported
They have
victory
of
German
are
mercenaries and to
concerned with
herald the
German generals,
with
less it
British
virtue and
glory than
doing
enemies
(pp. 189-90).
might
says that
be
of some consolation
was enlightened
of their old
if the
reason of the
British
in
their past
connected
to
lack
causes them to
live in the
pre
sent; it
blinds
Since British
spiritedness
of
Americans,
and moral
Burke
speaks to the
consciences.
British
of
as
individual
citizens with
individual interests
One
destroy,
have
with
doses
of
fear,
the
confidence
fueling
their
hatred (recent
that
victories
they have not increased their authority, despite American defeats. The British have spread devastation but have only the ground they encamp on and no more.
made the reminds them
Having
specter of
British doubt the certainty of victory, Burke raises the the unknown. He reminds them that the war has taken on a magni
made the
by
it
or
feared it. In
sheriffs that
order
to give
privy biting information concerning the real threat foreign powers posed to Brit in the last year. He even uses images to induce doubt and fear; he says
unknown a
he
was
that the
mazes
way ahead is intricate, dark, and full of perplexed and treacherous (p. 191). The British must doubt themselves, if only through fear, be
can
fore they
be
enlightened.
The
specter of
foreign
powers
is
meant
to re
kinship
which
and the
love
of country.
light
of
the dangers
fury
appears
both
ridiculous and
irresponsible.
84
Interpretation
It is
The
and
no excuse poorest
for
presumptuous
ignorance,
that
it is directed
by
insolent
passion.
being
justice
cannot
oppression, is
in the
eyes of
God
and man.
But I
conceive
any
existence under
of
its
wisdom
tolerates
all sorts of
things) that is
more
truly
odious and
disgusting
than an
impotent,
military skill,
without a consciousness of
other qualification
for
power
which
but his servility to it, bloated with pride and he is not to fight, contending for a violent
(P.
dominion in
which
he
cannot
191)
Burke
to
shatters the
upon
illusion
of
Parliament's
bear
its
strength.
Being
godlike authority by bringing reason limited in its strength, Parliament needs wis
dom be
and
justice.
of uncertain
In light
victory
and certain
understood as
Burke
reinterprets this
partaking famous
of
death, manliness and cowardice judgement, rather than simply force and
in light
of the real situation
must will.
pair
facing
the Brit
being
blood
pays
the
forfeit
of
[their]
rashness.
No desolate
widow weeps
tears
blood
over
[their]
ignorance"
of the
being
real
magnanimity.
They
they
for
their private
and
they
mortgage
exult
exploit,
when
from the
arms of
foreign
soldiers.
pride of a
coward,
Besides
laying
of
foundation for
on
shame and
love
of
discussion
interests, Burke
must
discuss
to increase their wealth, rather than to punish and to subjugate. He also tells
them that
they
can at
best hope
them, but they will thing In light of this hopeless prospect, the taxes,
closest
least the
to
save
their reputation
not
to look
weak and
foolish in frustration
and
defeat.
By
reducing British hopes to the salvation of their reputation, Burke has for his plan. He has been building towards an explicit for
reconciliation
but
fear
of
could only make it once he had tamed indigna humiliation upon which he builds places the recent are not proofs of allows
in
a new
light.
They
(he
British
invincibility
draw the He
but
of good
fortune. Burke
suggests
his
audience to
conclusion
for
themselves)
that the
British
they
are ahead.
states to the
of
Bristol
85
British, (1774),
remains
as
he
stated earlier
on
American Taxation
and, to
in
a position of strength
is
magnanimous
the glory
Parliament,
the
power
under
will be popularly recognized as such. But Parliament illusion that it is omnipotent and believes that any limit
placed on
its
is necessarily
The
of
argument
for
itself
directly
to the accusation
treason,
as
it is
asserted
Burke
This is his
moves to
first
statement about
British
guilt.
He is
cautious
in his blame; he
wards ate
it slowly by first arguing that the Americans cannot be peace. The British have broken so many promises that it
expect to
expected would
to initi
absurd
be
be trusted; they must earn that trust, and Burke shows As things stand, the Americans must trust in themselves, to risk
with
defeat
break this
whom
circle of
hate
distrust,
The way to form and strengthen the peace party is not through parliamentary debate. Burke has absented himself from Parliament, because his objections to its
policies
obstinacy.
Honesty
him to
take his case to those decent citizens in whom there still exist
justice
and pity.
In taking his case for reconciliation to the public (the letter is meant for circula tion) Burke is able to exploit the division between the people and their repre
sentatives,
cynicism. a
widespread
hate
and
will
only
in
a peace
party that
Without the
Englishmen,
peace
for the
the
war
in
England, both
addresses
Burke is faced
dangerous
himself
dividing and conquering a nation unified in its hatred. He directly to the unanimity by which Parliament justifies its by first drawing the distinction between agreement and truth.
above the voices of
many, he
must
invoke
a truth
beyond the
source and
collective
or conventional of
reason as the
foundation
his
policy.
Burke's
not
criticisms of
disputing
their right to
trying
to make
unanimity are not direct criticisms of the people. He is be heard but is rather competing for their ear. He is the people doubt Parliament and, therewith, themselves, by
pointing to the
arbitrariness of
Parliament's American
policy.
Just
a short
time
86
ago
Interpretation
Parliament unanimously opposed the war and was willing to negotiate a peace, because the British had suffered defeats. Now, having recently tasted victory, Parliament is unanimously in support of the war. Burke paints a picture
and cowardly in defeat and confident and insolent Parliament lacks the gravity and constancy of reason and character; its passions and mind are enslaved to the prevailing fortune it meets. It rides the
of
in
victory.
waves
of chance
neither
be
admired
by
those who
love
followed
by
its policy cannot but induce doubts that the lukewarm from the majority
While Burke dares British
politicians.
to separate
British
nation
can accuse
aggrandizement.
He implies that Parliament is waging the war for its own Burke tries to awaken within the breasts of the British their
minds towards
jealous love
British
of
government.
He is thereby
war and
for
reconciliation
GOOD GOVERNMENT
In the Letter
to the
and
ity
of
Parliament
Sheriffs of Bristol we see Burke attack the ruling author defend the colonists, because Parliament has given itself
claims the right
over to
to tax the
Americans,
even though
right of
they have no representation, because Parliament claims to have the sovereignty. Burke recognizes Parliament's sovereignty only because it
its
power
has
exercised
for
long
Parliamentary
of obedience
not
justified
by
an abstract
by
habits
Parliament
rules
for the
He does
have
respected
because
of
best,
attend to public
opinion,
rather
beg
not
will
only the invidious branch of taxation that legislative rights can be exercised, be
governed.
That
general
is
theory
to entertain
Without this, it may be the mind, but it is nothing in the direction of affairs. (P. 207)
omnipotence.
legislative
The
not
its
possible, so
as
have
variability be appealed to
of public
opinion,
when public
of
Bristol
87
The
kind
of grievance
committee,
and
it
must
have the
to
appropriate offices
for the
appropriate complaints.
Thus it
is
wise not
destroy
case
the
convocation of
offices,
just in
they
are needed
the veto
power of with
his policy
reconciliation,
one sees
that
he flatters hopes to
put pressure
on
and
its legislation,
the monarchy;
they embody
than parlia
ment,
Burke is
that, because
of
the fixed
sentiments and
beliefs
Burke
religion.
The
voice of
and
his friends is
are
a weak
minority, but it
which
gains might
strength
through the
institutions in
so
public opinion
is
be heard.
the charac
understand
ter of those over which it governs. If Parliament had listened to and had studied
the
Americans, it
free
would
are averse
other than a
one.
Freedom
then be
understood as
the
Americans. Freedom is
not an abstract
is
sover of
eignty; freedom
others.
is
feeling
felt
by
rules
to various
not
degrees
paying
depending
in
on
the people
being
ruled
The British
make a
studying the
are not
particular
circumstances prudence
they
must
decision.
They
practicing
(the
god of
thinking in
terms of an abstract
for the
character of
the factions.
ought not
Burke's defense
of
American freedoms,
and even
independence,
to
be mistaken, as it was by the New Whigs, as a defense of freedom in general. He condemned the French Revolution in no uncertain terms, not because of a perverse humor, but because of a consistent opposition to the influence of ab
stract
theory
on political
susceptible government
to the ex
tremes
of theory.
In light
freedom,
of
all
becomes
such
tyranny
as
and usurpation
in
an extreme
form,
doing
politics.
Reason
cannot
tolerate
an
demands
gated.
compromise
By
theory
require
tions for
injustice,
law. Compromise
If the in the
the
and
reform,
however,
but
with
is
blame those
ment
for
party
Parlia
to
case of the
American Revolution
god of
be
prudent enough
satisfy
complaint.
The
(prudence) is
needed
to
secure the
blessing
of
88
thus,
Interpretation
one must understand the
demands
of each
faction
and what
is
needed
to
satisfy them. In abstract theory, Burke sees fanaticism leading to the practical both anarchy and tyranny. Yet Burke's criticisms of abstract theory
ously
not
effects of
are obvi
directed
in
general
cisms of religious
fanaticism
are
directed
does
his criticism,
do the
doctrines
of
favorably
the
without representation
does
not
deny
the
legitimacy
It is
to exist or
legitimacy
not a principle
that is destructive
hate; it implicitly
legitimate
The rights
other
possibility
of
legitimate authority
as well as
hand,
of
principles of
destruction that
sovereignty of parliament are, on the are bom more from vengeance than an
government.
idea
the
common good or of
legitimate
while
of
the antitheological
of a
god.6
ire
of an
atheist,
the latter
has its
in the
wrath
sovereignty fortify puni hate because they make authority absolute while denying the opposition the right to exist. The French revolutionaries made their anger absolute by claiming
principles of and serve
General
freedom
to
tive
to speak
for the
rights of
man;
they
claimed
denying
claimed
the church, the aristocracy, and the monarchy the status and rights
they
made
themselves absolute
by
claiming
they denied
General theories
passions, bom
of
sovereignty
to
fortify
Moments
authority lived, rather than cod ified, because they only extend and exacerbate the evils of civil war. Burke considered civil war as an evil worse than national wars because the
and self-righteous rebellion ought violence of civil war
to be short
is
untempered
by
a concern
for the
common good.
He
of civil war
are
and are
defiant
of past
of mission that
is
lacking
in
Burke's
between the
replacing
hatred by lending fortify historical meaning to killing the enemy. These feelings and ideas of significance drown out the feelings of pity and horror that are the humane emotions evoked by slaughter. One of Burke's rhetorical goals in the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol and the Reflections on the Revolution in France
and encourage murderous cosmic and world
of
Bristol
89
the
and
feelings
of
pity, guilt,
horror,
and affection
by describing
suffering
crimes of
innocence
their persecutors.
The Reflections, in particular, is helpful for understanding Burke's opposi tion to abstraction, and especially to science. It is a stage upon which Burke brings before the
racy, and the
tence.
eyes each of the revolution's victims
monarchy.7
He
gives
them human
feeling
justifies their
exis
He
beneficence
Burke
also
with which
they
were painted.
righting
wrong
and to
bringing
freedom
and
leading
revolution reflect
their
individual
low
motives.
He
tionaries slandered,
broke faith,
fact, he
never
argues that
revolutionary idealism
than a platform
and
in effect, though
in theory,
pocket-
anything
more
by
which
their exclusion
from title
honor,
could and
satisfy their
books
by
confiscating
church
property
speculating
it.
By looking
into
the actions and motives of the principles of the revolution, Burke removes the
claim
to justice
with which
they
excused their
faithlessness,
confiscations,
and
executions.
law
as necessities
for
free
people. might
Some
Burke
of
being
fact
reductionistic
and opportunistic.
The
laws
cannot
be
reduced to mo
tives; Burke is
new
fully
aware of this
is
being
used
places the
discussion
of their science of
legislation
the quasi
tragedy in
Their
he had
principles of
crimes are
dience then,
to
law
by
breaking
of
it and,
the
by
restoring
by demonstrating
and
science of politics
is destined to defeat
doom because it
requirements of
life.8
The incommensurateness
of
theory
and
politics
comes
into focus
most
clearly in the revolution's activity of legislation. The legislator must whole; he must have an understanding of the ends of government and
each of the parts contribute to that end.
order a of
how
case
in
a philo
sophic revolution,
because the
for knowl
duties. Burke
first law
of
revolutionary
legislation is to
their
own
destroy
revolutionaries treat
country in the
way
as would a
foreign
conqueror.
They destroy
90
the
Interpretation
beliefs
and
habits that
nothing.
united
them as a people;
they do
the
not seek
to reform
and
wisdom of
their new
Burke
struction. almost
disposition towards de
that
They have
the taste of
Paris,
which
means
exclusively
on satire.
Your legislators
seem to
have
and
buffooneries
satirists;
who would
themselves be
if they
were
of their own
descriptions.
It is
who are
habitually
and
employed
in
finding
and
displaying faults,
for
the work of
reformation:
because
good, but
things.
by By hating
habit they
only unfurnished with patterns of the fair to take no delight in the contemplation of those
come to
they from
love
men too
little.9
The
critical
negativity that
stems
love
of
ridicule is
compounded
by
the
detachment
These
and abstractness of
philosophers are
fanatics: independent
tractable, they
of
any
interest,
which
if it
operated
are carried
away
with such
headlong
race
they
.
would sacrifice
the whole
human
Nothing
can
be
conceived more
hard than
metaphysician
they
a period
do
long
and,
are ready to declare that they for the good they pursue.
. . .
Their
them.
humanity
(Pp.
is
at their
horizon
always
flies before
520-21)
defects
must
of
Hate
cient
they
are
defi
must
have
of
in his
soul.
Philosophy
not place
be
so
his fellow human beings; yet he must not spectacle of injustice that he hopes to bring
The legislator is
neither
philosopher,
God,
nor
fanatic
visionary.
He is
lion
contains
evil,
and that
breaking
make
seamstress, he
patches.10
Burke's understanding
legislator is
inextricably
connected to
his
understanding of the nature of politics. The ancient sceptics had no public spir itedness because they thought the law was conventional; the modem atheists are
revolutionaries
that politics
politics.
because they think politics can be made can be made fully rational, but that does not
the conflict between politics and
mind when
rational."
Burke denies
cause
him to despise
the
By showing
theory, he teaches
limits
of
he
speaks of the
thorough-
of
Bristol
91
new republic
in France
and
have their
Reduction
their sciences.
substance
Chemistry
and
(matter)
its
own
geometry can only recognize the categories of quantity, but these are the two categories over which
a
man
has
no control.
Legislation is
deliberative
p.
and
recognize recognize
and the peculiarity of the political But chemistry and geometry are material and simple. Chemistry reduces human beings to their lowest common element, while geometry reduces them to number and shape. At best, chemistry and geometry can produce a
association.
301). In
must
must
division
and
of
uses
its
materialism to oppose
groupings
authority,
an
un
by
numerical
from
chemists would
all of
Europe into
laboratory
using
men
like
and
reaction
of
by
a principle of order.
Nothing
can come
Geometry, like
promises
proportion.12
politics,
The
is not, however,
a mathematical
order; its
rela
accidents
boundaries
and
formed
by
interest
rather
than
symmetry,
they
interests. The
number
dividing
ask
and,
therefore,
up France create districts according to for loyalty to a measuring stick. decent morality his
rhetoric and
Burke
were threatened
by
the
to show
In confronting the French Revolution Burke himself was forced to put forward the first principles under which morality and prudence live. His attempt to restore the political perspective from that of abstract rights
and science
of wants.
begins
with
the
end of government
is the
satisfaction
Government is independence
not made
in
virtue of natural
rights,
which
of
it;
and exist
in
much greater
clearness,
and
may in
and
do
exist
in total degree
much greater
92
Interpretation
of abstract perfection: a
but their
abstract perfection
is
their
practical
defect.
By
having right to everything they want everything. Government is human wisdom to provide for human wants. (P. 370)
Burke did
of not
a contrivance of
be the
sole
judge
oneself,
or to an equal share
in
government.
mental end
he derived
a new
standing of ancestral authority. He begins where other modern theorists but he combines the fundamental good with the old order. Burke
opposed abstract was against
began,
theory in
because he
temper
ment
the idea of
wanted
to
it
from both
If Parlia
had
the Americans
and
by
repealing the tax, then all the political the Americans would never have been un
by
its
own
Ideological
differences,
or rather conflicts
people as
naturally
as
do
particular situations
which
live
Parliament.
of
Thus he
amongst
argues
that
"unsuspecting
which all
confidence
is the true
rest"
centre
gravity
mankind, about
(p. 215).
Unsuspecting
confidence
look
after
is simply trust that the government will not be oppressive and will interests.13 The British drove the Americans to rebellion by not one's Burke is willing to strip Parliament
of the power
looking
Unsuspecting
interests
look
after public
actions of
Parliament
and
solely for
themselves.
man
is
threat to
leveling
made
destroys trust in
government as
civic virtue
is
have
been
believe in
virtue and
is
not
innate to like to
(p. 222). He
the opportunistic reasons that lie behind the opinion that all
excuse themselves
is
selfishness;
in
or
scrutiny
and
to cure
apathy
jealousy
is
of one's own
belief in
government
it is
conducive to resignation.
corrupt
is
a servile
belief, be
would
government
if he thought the
be
no pressures placed on
keep
it
responsible to the
public.
If there
are
to be compromise and
freedom,
be
moral
of
Bristol
93
is
rare
and weak,
not want
but that belief in its possibility better insures the people to become misanthropists who turn their
on political
by
brutality
of
are
though
people
dis
must,
degree
of public
spiritedness, just
the aristocrats
for
Unsuspecting
blind faith
or
apathy, but
trust that
is
called to account
and office.
from time
yet
does
authority
Burke
preferred
unsuspecting
were no such
they
The
are
that each man be the judge of the means to his own preservation and
and
happiness authority
men.
of the people
wants.
They
competent
by
their
not possess
demagogues,
who
ity
They easily misled by blame everything on the inequality of property and of author to remedy all ills by bringing both under the rule of equality.
satisfy those grievances.
natural
function
to be a brake on the
The
who
rule;
but,
should
exception of a preferred
military dictatorship),
they
are
the rule of gentlemen not only because of their education and expe
also
rience but
sidered
because
of
of their virtue.
an
Perhaps
most
important,
however, is
gentlemen
have
defending
satisfaction of wants
partisanship
patriotism.
Every
edge that
French Revolution's
it
was
claim
to
be
defending
fails
to acknowl
with which
they
Even the
liberation does
the fact
that the French would not recognize the claim of an Englishman to an equal
share of
French land. If be
a nation
and
is to be
more than a
band
of
robbers, it must
means
justify
justice
that
equality
The
understood as qualified
by
country.
The
people are
the product
its
sovereign.14
any basis in one's but also ennobling; they provide only necessary Burke's attempt to found attachments and authority
attachments without status of
morality in
prescription.
Some have
so much
94
Interpretation
a
ancestral with
the good.
not
think that the British constitution was the best form of government
origins and
because it
was
his
own.
To the contrary, he
thought it was the best form of government precisely because it came into being through a series of accidents over a long period of time. The origins are inferior
not exist
independent
of the pro
by
is
which
it
came
constitution
is
mind,
tion
or even an proven
idea that
be
conceived
greatest
independent
Prescrip
beneficence,
satisfies
and
its
benefits
are
the
constitution.
Prescription
Burke's ideas
a matter of
is
leading
to
is the
does for
politics what
result of
variety
of needs and
desires. He
economics.15
however, viewed by its beneficiaries as a series of accidents grounded in man's desires, rather, it is viewed as an unintelligible and superhuman force. Provi dence appears godlike in its mysterious dispensation, force, and beneficence. It
is something to be
Although He
respected.
It
body
continuity
and
its
citi
destiny.
brings
degree
of
believed that
rational.
history
could
that
it
could
be
The British
constitution
defends the equity of the law and recognizes how important it is to the common good, but he never allows the idea of impartiality or universality to dominate
politics.
He
was too
impressed
with
the
particularity of politics and its need for law and its form. History is so far from
being rational that it is turned to in order to support attachments that are threat ened by reason. Burke never lost sight of the conflict between the particular and
the universal.
CONCLUSION
The
spirit of equitable
justice that is
corpus
offended and
dissolved
by
the
partial
suspension of the
habeas
of
tyranny
and
cynical
despair.
Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination and to lose the relish
of
honest
equality.
It is impossible that
we should remain
long
in
a situation
which
breeds
dispositions
and
in the
against
Those ingenuous
feeling
fortified
things,
in the
shape of
disgrace,
of
Bristol
95
finding
they
honor,
to be grown
in disrepute,
disheartened
and
disgusted. (P.
223)
By fighting
prudent
a war with
with
laws
and
fected justice
hatefulness
and expediency.
It
would
have been
suspend
universally.
The
suspension would
if it
were abused at
home. The
partial
suspension, on
hand,
contains
its
abuses within
it. Prudence
makes the
former feasible,
Furthermore,
country
a universal
liberty
and
by
awakening
Burke
himself. He
age
gives an account of
himself
as a representative
in
order to encour
the belief in virtue and the love of liberty. He does not court power the prevailing opinions of the people; he
will not sacrifice
by
flattering
ment
his judge
what
he
tative.
So,
although
Burke
the need to
work with
it, he
to
recognize virtue.
only because they have elected him, but because he loves virtue and country more than himself. The greatest fault of the partial suspension of the habeas corpus is that it
He is
not one of
they
can
trust
him,
not
leads to tyranny and misanthropy by destroying an idea and a feeling of the common good. Burke constantly encouraged prudence in the governing, espe cially in the great, in order to guard against their authoritativeness and brutality; and he encouraged the people towards a measured jealousy of their liberty so
that
they
would not
become
Burke himself is be
an example of judge of
yond the
salutary hopes to
virtue,
which
which
he lends
credence.
He is
ment and
goes
well
beyond the
himself
as
virtuous representative.
Unlike Parliament, he is
in his
self-right
eous
wrath, but
rather
in his beneficence
Burke did
not
citizen and of
life
of
the
theory, he
apathy
sought
to preserve the perspective and attachments of political life. In to preserve prudence and public spiritedness from cynical
politics was not that of a suspect
particular, he
and
sought
visionary, a
God,
so
or a misanthropist.
but
its
be
executed with
seen past
that
NOTES
1. Karl Marx, Capital I (Moscow, 1954) p. 260. C. B. Macpherson (Burke [New York: Hill and so far as Macpherson saw in Burke a bourgeois capitalist above all
96
else.
Interpretation
Paine thought that
all
hereditary
government was
ings of Thomas Paine [New York: Citadel Press, sympathize with Burke's ideas of prescription.
tyranny (Thomas Paine, The Complete Writ 1945], vol. 1, p. 364) and thus he could not
For Burke's
vol.
2,
p.
279;
vol.
6,
p.
31;
vol.
8,
p.
University of New York Press, 1994]) argues that Burke's understanding of change was not informed by conservative opinions, but by thoughtful considerations about the protection of liberty,
although ment.
cautious
for
not
advocating
vol.
a more
participatory form
vol.
of govern
3. Works,
101.
vol.
2,
pp.
3,
pp.
15-16, 431-32;
7,
pp.
94,
W.
4. All
references
by
to the
ed.
Jackson Bate (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1960). 5. The mind and the disposition of the Sheriffs clearly character Burke writes A Vindication of Natural Society.
in
whose
French Revolution is
Melody [Sinclair: Stevenson, 1992]) argues that Burke's decisively determined by the fact that he was an Irish
Burke fails to
appreciate
Catholic. This
abound
psychological account of
in the Reflections.
and the
1993])
Discourse of Vmue [Tuscaloosa: University of Burke as one would read a drama or look at a
Stephen White (Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics [Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994]) argument, but I think he emphasizes the aesthetic aspect of Burke's politics at the his
political thought. attempt
ultimate
criticize
criticisms of
best regimes. remarkably similar to Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's, Phaleas', and Aristotle criticizes Plato for trying to make the city a unity, Phaleas for advocating equality of property, and Hippodamus for his ambition and simplicity. The faults of Hippodamus are the most
and to
attention to the
importance
of
Hippo
calling him the first political scientist, and by looking at the man, rather than his ideas Hippodamus was ambitious, adorned himself with expensive ornaments and long hair, wore
by
cheap
whole.
in both the
not
Hippodamus did
his
ambitious
dress according to the different seasons, but according to his fancy. In desire to know nature as a whole, he failed to understand the unique nature of
on the
politics.
Revolution in France
1984),
pp.
282-83,
was
to the
11. Works,
vol.
2,
pp.
be legitimate according to the laws 287-300, 382-84; vol. 3, pp. 164, 350-52.
his
regime on the number
12. Hippodamus
models
three. There
are
three
classes of
citizens,
rulers would
the classes
not
(artisans, farmers,
artisans
he did
give the
any property,
he
made
farmers
by
own property.
Furthermore, he denied
dictatorship. In
from
looking
to the
number three
He knew
nothing about the influence of force and interest. He he thought he was the first person ever to propose died in battle,
even though
far
removed
public assistance
it
was a
law in Athens
anything
about
many other cities. Nor did Hippodamus know He thought that instead of voting innocent or guilty, jurors
and
of
Bristol
97
be
able
to
vote
in
shades of
authoritative verdict
impossible. He
was
susceptible of of
law is
undermined
by
the
habit
changing it,
habits
of
obedience, not
as opposed
Montesquieu. In the Spirit of the Laws, trans. Nugent (New York: Hafner Press, 1949), p. 77), Montesquieu argues that the opinion of one's own security is the end of the law. Like Burke, he
opposed a universal
understanding
of
justice, because he
impossible,
and
actually increased the harshness of tyranny where it threatened authority but could not Melissa S. Williams ("Burkean Descriptions and And Political Representation: A Canadian Journal of Political
representation can still serve
overcome
it.
Reappraisal,"
the
ruling majority and 14. Works, vol. 1, pp. 348, 470; vol. 2, pp. 294-95, 331-33; vol. 6, p. 29. 15. Harvey Mansfield (Statesmanship and Party Government [Chicago: University
p.
Science, March 1996) argues that Burke's understanding of virtual contemporary democracy by establishing confidence or trust between those who have been traditionally excluded from government.
of
Chicago
Press, 1965],
sanship.
224)
a
argues
thereby
corrects parti
There is
very interesting and illuminating controversy between the natural law interpreta Straussian interpretation of Burke as a precursor to Hegel. Stanlis (Edmund
Burke [New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991], p.237), Frohnen (Virtue and the Prom ise of Conservatism [Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993], pp.149-52), and Canavan (Ed
mund argue
Burke: Prescription
that Burke
and
is
a natural
Providence [Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1987], pp. 151-53) law theorist in the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. Canavan, in Strauss concerning Burke's understanding of providence. According to
and
find
standard
of
of
solves
problem
While Burke is
and political
abstract
doctrine, he is
his
providential god.
Strauss
claims
understanding of prescription undermines the idea of noble defeat. Strauss has in mind the realm of thought, rather than action, for men of action are often, and even expected, to hope against all odds in the heat of battle. The problem is that Burke's idea of fate could lead to or
encourage philistinism outside of the
that Burke's
because it
mind of a standard
dominant. Canavan is
natural
right is
an
indepen
dent
principle that
used as a standard
for
political
16. Mansfield's
analysis of the
difference between
helps to
clar of
ify
Burke's
relation
to political life
pp.9-10).
(Harvey Mansfield,
case of the
University
Presumptive
virtue rests on
about
justice. When
questioned, as in the
French
Revolution,
defend the
presumptions against
man of actual
according
to the actual, rather than the presumptive, uses his understanding to support men of
Works,
vol.
1,
pp.
Interpreting
of
the Will to
writings of
they
discovery
of what
is is
what
seems
with some
plausibility be
of whose con
compared stitution
Henry
is
fissure in
what appears to
is keen
enough
to spot the
of
into
deeper
world that
is
sealed
acter of philosophical
readers of
his books
. . .
might
writing led Nietzsche to give voice to the wish that be possessed of the philological equivalent of "the
work
his
gratitude
to
do"
and to
interpretation"
(Daybreak,
"deepest,"
Evil, 27)
seems to
have
considered
his
a work that
dramatizes the
interpret
upon
the things
themselves.1
As
readers of the
book, therefore,
consideration that a
drama is
action,
and
that
in its
composition
complementary, but
are
inseparably
It is
joined. It is generally
recognized
that
Zarathustra
things is the
to
power.
less commonly observed that the in two waves. The first crests at the end of
Song,"
Part One
origin
and
falls
decisively
in the "Night
to break
and
in "On
of
Self-Overcoming"
thought
the eternal
and
return as
Riddle"
and
"The Vision
wave
the
and
finally
in "The
Convalescent."
In the first
Zarathustra's
to
unsuccessful attempt
to transmit
and
forces him
will to
reflect upon
this
teaching
incoherent. In
teaching regarding
calls
the
power not
whom
he
"the
wisest."
In
interpretation, Fall
100
Interpretation
to
response
test"
"wisest,"
a man called
Truthsayer,
Zarathustra's
The
Truth-
teaching further
ecy"
than Zarathustra
the essential
has himself
and reveals
to him in a "proph
(Weissagung)
sayer's
mind
incoherence
still nested at
its
core.
insights
the
articulate the
kernel
of what comes
return.2
to fruition in Zarathustra's
as
thought of the
a
eternal
Zarathustra in
takes as
final way the false character of his supposed wisdom which its first principle the doctrine of the will to power. It, therefore, demon
strates the
false
character of that
doctrine Four
a
as such and,
of
accordingly,
no mention
is
made
of
it in Parts Three
read not
and
the
work. of
Thus
when
Nietzsche's
utterances
Zarathustra is
through which
simply
as
collection
Zarathustrian
Nietzsche
gives voice to
understood
his
own
may be
deeds that
sur
it
and
of what
its necessary place within a sequential order of presentation, much passes for the core of Nietzsche's philosophy, e.g., the will to power
proves to
doctrine,
like the
be merely
are
precursor of
Heideggerian
existentialism or
German Idealism to
philosophy to its
portrait of a
genuine core:
Socratic
or
sceptical philosopher
Socratic
sense.3
At the opening of the work it is made clear that Zarathustra not only takes himself to be wise, but as such to be more than human. Overburdened by its
superfluity, he
and
wishes to
"go
down"
to
again."
men
in
order
to distribute his
wisdom
means
"to be
again,"
man
since more
man
by
his lack
of wisdom or
ignorance.4
If Zarathustra is
human, however, he is not a god: part of his wisdom is his knowledge that "god is He is, therefore, the superman. Zarathustra will relinquish his
than
superhuman status
by
men and
distributing
man
his
wisdom
to them. This
under persuading live. Zarathustra relinquishes his superhuman status may then only ultimately to renew or reconfirm it. If it is primarily the fact that he is wise rather than ignorant that accounts for his superhuman condition, then the
to
to go
renewal of
find its
source
in the
confirmation of
his
wisdom.
It
seems
that
Zarathustra
to
will
his
wisdom
through
its distribution. As it is
attempt
presented
in "Zarathustra's
Prologue,"
distribute his
wisdom to men
is
an utter
failure.
Appealing directly to the multitude, he is met with incredulity, ridicule and hatred. According to one auditor of his speeches he is lucky to have escaped
with
Prologue,"
of
this
failure Zarathustra
upon a novel
strat-
prudently
further
such
direct
fastens
-101
he
beginning by transmitting
his
wisdom
to a cadre of
handpicked disciples who, acting in the light of its truth, will then turn their efforts to shaping humanity in such a way -as to prepare it to embrace Zara thustra's teaching and its final end, the life of the superman ("Zarathustra's
Prologue,"
9). Zarathustra
proceeds with
As the
his
attempt
to initiate
character of
his
alleged wisdom
becomes
of
knowledge
principle
"all
including
is the
the
being
of
his
of this
wisdom
will to
is the
things,
including
his
Zarathustra's
presented
argument
of
his first
principle as of
in the
the
beginning
must
attempt
wisdom
being
Afterworldsmen."
Here he
that if
be
made
to speak. But
being, he
The understanding and interpretation of interpret the speeches of that one being among
speaking believe it
being
not
possible
to
gain an
immediate
access to
since
being
is
human beings,
which
those speeches are first and foremost concerned to articulate not what is
being,
em
but
rather what
In that
speech of
Part One in
he
"will to
and
One
Zarathustra
makes
the
claim
all men's
lips
are
laws
of various
peoples:
and evil
and
Germans
all speak
differently
and are
formed
by
nities,
all of
of good and
them, despite their variety, agree in articulating an understanding evil as identical to virtue and vice. That is to say, the good for man
is
understood
by
the law to be
Behind the
creator.
law,
however,
activity
stands the
legislator or,
as
Zarathustra
calls
him,
the
It is the
being
thustra,
legislator
or creator
victory
or power over
itself,
the people,
in
accordance with
its
law,
calls
"praiseworthy,
its
things."
holy,"
or power over
neighbors
meaning
various
creation
of all
victory "the high, the first, the measure and the What Zarathustra believes he has discovered through his
good and
it to
gain
it
calls
at
to
power.
102
We
Interpretation
see
that, according
in
what
to
Zarathustra,
man the
speaking
linked to
their root
man
the political
being
and that
both
aspects of man's
he
political and
aspects of claim.
human beings
seems
necessarily
is,
perhaps,
Zarathustra
link, but
identity
between them, however, insofar as he takes the paradigmatically human speech to be the authoritative speeches of the law. The only thing that seems to fracture
identity is the variety of such speeches or the multiplicity Zarathustra himself has taken these laws and their multiplicity as the
this
of
laws.
to an
key
understanding
of the and
human
human
as the
key
to an understand
ing
of
being
in the light
the potentially
infinite
this
peoples and
laws has
plastic or
concluded that
to power,
is
indefinitely being
of
infinitely
is simply
a reflection of
the essential
being
of all
beings.5
wisdom as more
nite
laws, as an expression of the indefi Zarathustra human, indicates, believes, that "humanity it plasticity self or in the proper sense does not in fact exist. Zarathustra, however, believes
of peoples and of the possible
it
to produce or create
humanity
itself
on
transforming his transcendent or superhuman wisdom into a novel and comprehensive moral law, a law that is, as it were, divine. The indefinite or
through
plurality of peoples can be given definition if Zarathustra how impose a finitude upon this plurality and then bind this finite
unlimited peoples together
can some
number of
into
a genuine whole
by directing
each and
every
one of them
to a single
humanity itself,
that he
cities of men.
goal, the
It is
with
this end
in
view
mountain solitude
at one and
new
tion
of
wisdom and
the promulgation of a
law,
it were,
directed to producing a determinate number of subordinate legislations or, in Zarathustra's own words, to creating creators. At the close of Part One, in his farewell speech to his disciples Zarathustra looks forward to
a superlegislation
future in which his friends, longer disciples, but rather fellow creators, will have become the founders of a finite number of novel peoples and will themselves form what Zarathustra calls "a new chosen ("On the Giving 2), standing above and ruling a humanity they have helped to fashion. This new "light to the will itself recognize Zarathustra as the source of its light and, therefore, first
no
people"
Virtue,"
nations"
among its brotherhood of equals. As both the laws of his fellow creators and his own law of laws will be the first to have been constructed on the foundation of
a
full
law
as rooted
in the
to power, their
legislation
will also
articulated
in
the
103
the
will
be
legislation in
natural
law. Through it
the rational animal will have been seamlessly joined and the law and
made one.
humanity being
If he is itself into
successful
for
the
in his endeavor, Zarathustra will, while bringing humanity first time, simultaneously confirm the truth of his wis
condition.
create
dom and, therefore, the authenticity of his superhuman if he is indeed able to make another like himself or
confirm
That is to say,
will
creators, this
his
beings
indefinitely
since
plastic, and the perfection of his wisdom will coincide with its successful trans
mission or with
the successful
legislation
have been
of
of
his law
of
laws. But
Zara
these
thustra
identifies the
have
happiness, by
and made
of
same means
his happiness
made
("Zarathustra's
Prologue,"
1).
a
He
will
his knowledge is
being
perfectly legal
a
himself
blissful horizon
divinity
of
who
philosopher-king
will
kings. The
of
his knowledge
have become
of
horizon
the
step from be
true
and
mankind prepared
advent as the
divinity
with calls
or the
highest
embodiment of the
his fellow
creators
Noon."
things, in celebrating the feast of this new epiphany or, as he At the moment of the Great Noon man will no
principle of all
join
longer is the
between
animal and
and
"all
of
dead"
and that
Zarathustra himself
living
and
incarnate truth
Giving
man
Virtue,"
3). In acknowledging the transcendant superiority kind will at the same time acknowledge the justice of the
Zarathustra
new
down,
rule of
a certain
form
of
inequality,
It
fails is
the question.
saying that Zarathustra fails in this endeavor. How he We can answer this question if we recall that Zarathustra's like himself is incumbent
upon the successful
transmis to
his
wisdom or
teaching
teaching is
is
engineered
freedom
to the activity of
comprehensive:
creation.
it
requires not
only
that
the understanding of
they liberate themselves from their former prejudices or good and evil instilled in their minds by the old law, but
teaching
as
from Zarathustra's
speech of command
own
teaching, it
and
as well.
Accordingly, in
of that
the final
a
offers as the
last injunction
themselves"
teaching
that
reject
"find
in
order
they
may ultimately become his equals, friends and fellow creators ("On the Giving Virtue," 3). If Zarathustra's disciples are to fulfill this command to freedom it
would seem that
they
must proceed
in
they may
either reject
teach-
his teaching
while
lacking
a sufficient
understanding
of
104
Interpretation
so
ing
The
that,
on the
basis
of their own or
for themselves;
of
latter,
of
course, appears
independent inquiries, they may appropri they may reject it in full awareness of its truth. to be absurd. Neverthless, it is precisely what
made clear at the awakes at
Zarathustra demands
Two. In "The Child
which a child
opening
within
of
Part in
with
Zarathustra
from
a nightmare
he
sees
and asks
him to look
mask
himself
it. What
and grotesque
of a
devil."6
Zarathustra
his teaching has been distorted signifying that have grown ashamed of their his disciples consequently
that
by his
adher
to it. This
abstracts
child of
reveal
to
to Zarathustra
something
about
on
author of
that teaching.
Nonetheless,
rushes
his teaching, but about himself as the the basis of his inadequate understand
mountain retreat
ing
of the
dream, Zarathustra
and
to
rejoin
his disciples
practiced upon
reject
his
teaching in
they
distorted form it
rather
lacking
its truth;
must reject
in full
awareness of what
it is they
are rejecting.
By
his
"enemies,"
Zarathustra
seems to
at
Consequently, he
henceforth they
now
bids
last sufficiently prepared his friends for this rejection. them to become his enemies and suggests that from
another."
"divinely
At the
same
or
moment,
however,
of
with
"Tarantula"
"preacher
equality,"
victory
over
he bites him
of
and
infects him
as equal
revenge.
his
venom.
The
venom of the
justice
ity
at the center of
which, as
of
is that Zarathustra's
attempt to
make
at
like himself, to
create
his
equals
in the form
of
its
the
that Zarathustra
identifies
manifests
teaching
of the preachers of
sickness"
calls
"the turning
and
he
madness,"
in
other
teaching he believes
to be a path to
will
instead
prove
way to enslavement and self-enslavement. That Zarathustra is himself aware the implications of his encounter with the Tarantula is made clear in the first
three songs which punctuate the close of the
Song."
of
first half
his
of
offers a portrait of
own
activity
of creation
in its fulfillment
cisely the
demonstrates that
it is
this
supposed to effect:
of mind
disciples
a more than
will
activity far from producing in his and will, the distribution of his
author.
teaching
an all too
"The Night
of a
expresses an
intense desire
105
that
(Begierde)
ate another
It thus
reveals
Zarathustra's
like
himself, has
its
motive not
wisdom and
thereby his
superhuman
is,
to establish a community of
and reciprocity.
friendship
and
love
read
on a
basis
of perfect
of
equality
Song"
is
in
the
light
"On the
Tarantulas"
it becomes
that Zarathustra's
equality in love relations indicates that his longing for love has been infected with the desire for justice as understood by the preachers
insistence
upon absolute
of
equality and, therefore, that his understanding of the just political order is incoherent insofar as the essential character of its ruling peak would of neces
this ruling peak itself, the com incoherent in its own terms, and this is men, munity is now apparent to Zarathustra, for he has come to perceive that the teaching he took to be the proper means to establish this perfectly reciprocal love must
sity
violate of
its fundamental
principle.
Moreover,
fellow
instead
result
in
equally unsatisfactory situations. On the one hand, disciples and, therefore, prove incapable either of
or even of
they may
reject their
properly receiving the gifts of his love. On the other hand, dependent position as disciples and attempt to become in their
own
autonomous creators
right,
that
transform themselves
able neither to
cannot
enemies of
his love
nor
but
efforts to
free
themselves
by becoming
however, is
under
in pursuing
the
following
reflection.
Creation,
as
Zarathustra
setting up only law ("On the Way of the Creator"). In order for Zarathustra's disciples to become fellow creators, therefore, they must liberate
above oneself as one's
it, is perfectly
self-sufficient self-legislation or
dependency
disciples'
to the will of an
Thus
teaching,
which reveals
Zarathustra to be
own supposed
they
his teaching as an external determination upon their wills. If they are to become his equals in creation they must reject that teaching in full awareness of its truth. But precisely in such rejection they obey the final command of, and adhere to and fulfill this teaching. In attempting to liberate their wills from
subordination so all
to the
will of another
they
subordinate themselves
to the
will of
Zarathustra. And in creating while rejecting the true teaching of creation they are determined not by the truth of the will alone, but by the falsehood of their
willful
disciples'
attempts
to achieve an equality
inferiority
and
to him in terms of
both
will
knowledge
and
his
will
properly receiving returning his love, but infe who will always fall short of his own perfection. It
106
Interpretation
be impossible for Zarathustra to
create another
proves to proves to
be impossible
love.7
to be free or to will a
Consequently, Zarathustra's attempt to combine jus perfectly reciprocal tice and love, rather than confirming his happiness or bliss, will produce in his relations to his recalcitrantly inferior disciples the sad passions of envy, spite,
and the
desire for
revenge
within
his
soul.
As "The Night
Song"
predicts,
way to an in its turn to a envy of those to whom he distributes such gifts and this envy spiteful desire to afflict them with the pain of the longing that he himself expe
unsatisfied
Zarathustra's
longing
will give
riences:
he
by
withholding his
gifts
from them
and
thereby making
his
superfluity. self-sufficient a
them
aware of
in
relation
to
He
to shame.
and
effort
to unite
to
freedom
with
friendship
justice
love he
will succumb
desire to
punish
inferiority longing
and
incapacity
within
of which
he is
Thus
time
desire for
soul.
revenge,
will supplant
the
for love
his
be
at the same
its
undoing.
As he
puts
it in "The Night Song": "my happiness in giving died in tired of itself in its
overflow."
sought to confirm
own terms. wisdom.
with
his
wisdom.
Yet that
thus
be impossible in its
of
This
impossibility
law,
Zarathustra's
his
wisdom was to
be identical
its
promulgation as will
is the
to power and
its
of
love, it
is his
seems
to follow that
central to the
incoherence
Zarathustra's
wisdom
assumption
as the former finds its source perfectly in and is ultimately identical to the self-legislating will. ("On the Giving Vir 1). compatible with the moral
law insofar
tue,"
By
false
terized
"The Dance
Song"
of
aware of the
charac
character of
his
by
bombast
he
to accompany the
Cupido,"
his
speech
is
no
longer
girls"
portrays
himself
as
by
the names
of
Life
and
Wisdom.8
ignorance
what after
by
In this song he makes manifest his knowledge of his own describing how he falls into perplexity when trying to fathom
"thirsts"
he takes to be Life's boundless depths and, consequently, how he the seductive and veiled figure of Lady Wisdom who persistently
In
an extended series of questions at the end of
eludes
speech
his he
this
he In
no
longer knows
where
he is
or
how to
go
forward; he is in
useful
a state of aporia.
review
this aporia it is
to
the progress of
following
Zarathustra
terms. Through
wished to
pro-
his legislation
107
to the
is,
and
himself. He
that good to
be
coinci
dent
the overcoming
would
of
human
rational and
the political
levels: ignorance
political orders
be
replaced
by
knowledge
transitory
its ruling
by
one that
is
comprehensive and
and that
had
as
peak
the
as the
rocal
loving community of creator-wise men. His understanding of the good overcoming of need thus divided into the beautiful as the perfectly recip love of the wise for the wise and the just as the structure of an overarch
final
political order.
ing
and
The
be
made
his
creatures.
But
Zarathustra's understanding came to ruin when he realized that friendship or love in the highest sense is incompatible with the justice of the political realm,
or
that love is incompatible with the self-legislating freedom of the will, and that, therefore, the rule of the creator over his creatures to the advantage of both is impossible. What Nietzsche suggests in "The Dance is that the inco
Song"
herence human
need as
of
Zarathustra's
away from
an
understanding
of
the
good as the
knowledge
in
wisdom and
self-contradictory
nature of
Zarathustra's
Gay Science, 381). That is to say, the morally or legally determined under
and pursuit of wis
philosophy.9
standing of the good points to the life devoted to the love dom in erotic community through speech: it points to
In
significant contrast
word
"philoso
por
phy"
of
his
unsatisfied
ongoing
suit,
pursuit of
Wisdom Zarathustra
comes close of a
to the
desirability
life informed
of the
knowledge
sustain
good,
in his
his newly won awareness of his the ignorance because he finds perplexity into which he has been thrown he
misses
painful
beyond
endurance.
As he
"The Dance
Song,"
he
cannot understand
his life to be
worth
living
if he
cannot
believe himself to be
Song"
beginning, he has identified perfect happiness with the and the two wisdom. Accordingly, in "The Grave
attempts
follow he
of
by jettisoning both
his
understanding
understanding
and
the
political
beautiful as the loving community of the believes to be a new extramoral account what he instead wise, elaborating of the beautiful, in which the just is included as false appearance, and the good.
of the rational good, the
In
doing
so
he
considers
himself to have
stepped
of
the
false horizon
now
of
the
is, all human community established upon the basis of the law, and to have ascended to the naked truth of things. He
man as political and man as rational and
only
genuine good
is
a transpolitical good.
Thus if in Part
108
One
Interpretation
and
the
first half
of
attempted
knowledge
pretends
within
the cave of
law, in
Two he
to have liberated himself entirely from the cave of the law and to
have
for
ascended
evil
what
into
stands
beyond
good and
in the
moral
Zarathustra
exchanges
he
understands
to
be
thereby
permits
himself to
the
persist
Nevertheless,
fundamental doctrine
ple of
both his He
original and
his
revised
his
"The Grave
Song"
opens as
Zarathustra
the Grave
youth.
order to
lay
lost loves
of
his
In
loved
dead,"
it becomes
clear that
longing
for
mutual
love
lay
a nostalgic
desire to
in the
he knew but
all too
briefly
sunnier
minds"
mentation,
"enemies"
an
he
pretends
his
youthful
love in the
"rabble"
efforts of
his
destroy
are those
whom
or the great
majority fountain
have his it
"poisoned"
the
(Borne)
by bringing
youthful
loves to
a premature terminus
presence of
other words,
was
the
lingering
he
the low or the vulgar within the souls of those whom Zarathustra
youth
loved in his
that
brought the
association
between them to
an end: even
in
the
highest form
of
intercourse between human beings, and his revulsion before and the low extinguished his love. As is his habit,
and
difficulties
or
not upon
his
own
dis
longing
on the
for
"purity"
"cleanliness"
perfection and
(Reinheit [see
upon
Mountainside"
and
"On the
Rabble"]), but
of
itself
personified as a malevolent
host
vulgarity him in
his
endeavors.
It
distribution
Zarathustra's
in his
love that he
experienced
of
to
"spiritual"
dominance
polluted the
responsible
for
having
fountain
his
youth
joy
in
and
having
he
loved best
spite, and
by infecting them with the vulgar or base passions of, e.g., envy, the longing for revenge. His creation was supposed to guarantee both
"eternity"
of
bility
and
his his
actual enjoyment of
will.
control of
The failure
of
109
this unification of
love
disgust
and
seems
of
to
be this disgust
youthful enemy.
and
premature
deaths
his
being
aware of
own worst
It is only
over
after
he has
of
whipped
himself up into
perpetrated
indignation
the
"murder"
by
lets
as
his perplexity and once again fastens upon the will to power doctrine the means to his salvation and the foundation of his knowledge. In doing so
go of
rest
he lays to
as the as
and resurrects
will
highest
The
will
to power
doctrine, however,
after
to serve
rein
the cornerstone of
his
wisdom
only
having
been extensively
terpreted
in the light
speech
of
In the
immediately following
articulates
"The Grave
Song"
("On Self-Overcom
to power doctrine.
ing")
Zarathustra
his
No longer addressing himself to his disciples, but to those whom he calls "you he now embraces precisely the unlimited character of the will and the
wisest,"
indefinite plurality
or virtue and all
of
its
creations that
he originally
sought
to limit. As a conse
good and evil
teaching concerning
limited
and
any
particular
teaching
now
being,
must
be
to the status
of a
transitory
and so
false
fabrication infinite
of the will
to
power.
or unlimited
character,
destroy
ster
such self-created
only perpetually create, but perpetually limitations upon its own activity. It is a protean mon
must not
that
hides its
essential
indeterminacy
in the
ceaseless production of
false in his
Zarathustra thus
replaces
his dogmatic
moral wis
dom
with an amoral skeptical wisdom that nevertheless remains grounded of the will
fundamental dogma
but
wonder
teaching
does
not
impli
as
itself in its
being. Be that
this revised
understanding
that in
secret
"self-overcoming"
and claims
doing
life itself
revealed
its
itself
again,"
how
I love it
rooted
I have to
it
and
my love: thus my
win will
have
it."
Life,
in the infinite
power of
itself in
an
infinite
becoming.10
At the
end of
The
greatest
good, he says
is, "the
good."
creative
It is
identical
to the
creation of values as an
ongoing activity
or
to the ever-renewed
110
Interpretation
of
fabrication
transitory
But the
destruction
of values as
its
Accordingly, Zarathustra is
understanding
and a
now able
to distinguish between a
of good and
(false)
evil. entails
moral
(true)
extramoral
understanding
He
good, the
creation of
values, necessarily
the greatest evil, the destruction of values, it follows that the genuine
of the good as
understanding
moral
inseparable from
evil
is incompatible
virtue and
with
the
understanding
identical to
vice,
for, from
opposites.
the
false
perspective of
the
moral
law,
immiscible
that
examination of
the laws
the various peoples, ascended from the plurality of accounts of moral virtue
morality.
He
now understands
himself to have
ascended and
from the
plurality
distinct from
the source
its
plurality.
It is,
of
understands
it,
has
compelled
him to distinguish
the
the good
from
virtue,
which
he has
come
to
identify
of a
with
beautiful.
If the
legislation
morality, the
false
char
acter of which
is
fully
recognized
by
forth
renounce
any desire to
its creator, then Zarathustra must hence his disciples and mankind his
wisdom.
Consequently, he
no
longer
considers honesty to be the best policy and turns to concealment and prudential irony in the presentation of his thought: at the opening of his speech "On the
Sublime,"
he describes himself
depths."
as
"still
sea"
whose calls
riddling
surface
hides
"impenetrable
of the
or as
he
it there,
will's
"sublime"
character
good,
must veil
self-concealing
above
cre
beautiful
moral
ideals,
or
itself
stands
the gloomy
seriousness of those
as a
form
of artful play.
As
he
puts
it
at the end of
behind the
serious or
heroic
moral
virtue of
he
now calls
the
"superhero.""
de
Zarathustra's
of
new paradigm of
the
Gay
Science
when
he
speaks
"the ideal
hitherto If the
called
holy,
good
untouchable,
Zarathustra,"
2).
is
extra-moral and
in
charac
beautiful
concealing
falsehood, it follows
minds and wills of now resigns
liberates his
will
imposes his
creation.
self-sufficient
freedom
will and
-111
his
longing
for love
such
or
for
genuine
community
are a
with another
like
himself
and
denies that
love
and
happiness.12
renounced
condition of
still wishes to employ the promulgation of he has created, his old moral teaching, as a means not only to realizing the freedom of his will, but ultimately to the generation, in some indefinite future, of another like himself. He will attempt to direct the sense with another
human being, he
values
the admittedly
political
community, the
realm of
ing
the
and
falsehood,
truth.
In
other
gives
dren."
up As he
the men of the present and turns his attention to producing "chil
proclaims
Education,"
children's
land,
seek and
to
seek."
He
will produce
his
"children"
or reproduce
men within men will
his
own
activity
in
of
another
highest
of a new
will
ultimately
provide
for
being
of a new
riddling surface of the regnant Zarathustrian teaching, think through, Zarathustra himself has done, its fundamental incoherence, demolish it,
Zarathustra
of attempts
Zarathustra, therefore,
now wishes
to
the
beautiful
a means
to
"procreation"
("On Immaculate
Knowledge")
or the
activity in the person of another. As in the case of sexual intercourse, the beautiful becomes a kind of rase through which the 206a- 207a). The reproduction of the good is guaranteed (cf. Plato, Symposium
reproduction of
his
own
good,
however, is
now
understood
by
and
of one
human
self-sufficient
knowledge
freedom
of the
will of
solitary creator of values. As we have already observed, one fers his revised account of the will to
of
the
"wisest"
to
whom
Zarathustra
of
power responds
test"
"word,"
as
he
calls
subtlety, and, in
new
doing
so,
comes to understand
the implications
self.
Zarathustra's
such a
lead the
reader
by initially
teaching better than Zarathustra does him presenting the words of the Truthsayer in
to infer that
they
sayer comes
Truthsayer."
transcend
understanding
must of not
the just
political
order
by
his
own
necessity fail. It
creating
on a
will
fail because
each of
help
The
reason
for this
112*
Interpretation
as
decline is
sibility
perfect of
follows. It is only by thinking through the incoherence and impos Zarathustra's beautiful and false account of the best regime and its
one
justice that
may
ascend
direcdy
of
the politi
cal realm
successor must
destroy
cannot
in
order to clear
if he
attains
in his best
creation of values:
regime
he
found his
own
teaching
on an
account of the
that he
at
have
has himself demolished. Consequently, his its core an account of the just political regime
cave of the political realm and
that
is
on a
lower
plane
be
from the
beliefs
ation
that
Zarathustra's
account of the
best
regime
had
opened up.
of
Zarathustra's his
successor
reproduction of
own activity:
his
own
Third,
as
it
were,
lower level
and not
only in terms
of
creation, but in
Thus,
the
high
point of
Zarathustra's best
moral
teaching,
self-overcoming that begins from the which has at its center his account
he
to be the
in
speech of the
political order or
in the
realization
in deed
"rabble."13
point of
this
process
of
of will
the vanity of
consequently succumb to the belief that "everything is empty, everything is one, everything That is to say, the Truthsayer foresees that Zarathustra will engender not a second Zarathustra, but rather a
all efforts of creation and
was."
climate
in
which
"the best
grow
tired of their
works"
"harvested"
after
having
predominate or the multitude of vulgar
"rotten
fruit"
swamps"
over to the
ignorant
by
the
"prophecy"
of
the Truthsayer.
During his
draw the
col
in
which
he
seems to
appro
prophecy.
and grave-watchman
on
the hill
and
fortress
of
guardian of other
"overcome"
that lies in
as
coffins around
him. In
reproducing the life of the creator Zarathustrian tradition must finally result in an
the will.
Nevertheless,
to how the
difficulty
be
resolved:
black
coffin appears
dead, bursts
open,
images
of resurrected
seems to
foreseen,
the
future
continues
way
1 13
to hold out the promise of a reprisal or recapitulation of the high point of the
activity
of the
will
that Zarathustra's
when
own
creation
represents.
Zarathustra,
of
therefore,
recovers
he
appears
to
significance
his
that
dream,
process of
decline in the
creations of
the
will
implies
a similar
finitude in
regard
to the
kinds
of politi
be,
all of them
fall
under one or
infinite the variety of particular peoples may another of a strictly limited number of possible
regimes
(see
note
initially encouraging to Zarathustra be his understanding of the will as self-overcoming, it finite process of decline in political orders must inevita
bly
be followed
by
an
opposing process of renewal. If, then, the series of tradi follow in their decline and renewal a necessary and
need
course, Zarathustra
only
will
in
order
the
final
cause of the
becoming
of
Machiavelli, Dis
courses on
his
inevitable in this way he would reproduce the highest good. Zarathustra traces this circular
at
trajectory
will as
willing
following
teaching
in
"The
of
Truthsayer"
("On
Redemption")
in
he
speaks of
his
own
the
liberator
and then
follows
which we or
return once
itself in willing not-willing. From this low point, however, more to Zarathustra's own teaching that "the will is a height from
which we
creator"
began. The
suggestion
that Zarathustra
immediately following
seems
this account
backwards"
to refer,
at
least
at this
point,
not
decline
of the will
Willing
is the be
"sea"
in
which
Zarathustra be
He apparently shares his new insight with the Truthsayer at the dinner party to which he invites him immediately following his recovery. Much as we would like to know how the
the Truthsayer
"drowned."
will
Truthsayer
posed
responds
to Zarathustra's ostensible
solution
to the problem
he has
they
by
the
speech of
Part Three
realize
entitled
and the
Riddle,"
Zarathustra has
the
come
to
his
revised ac
highest
good
his understanding
The latter according to
will
infinite
in its
proposition
analysis
the
political things
which the
of peoples
implied
is the
Yet, if any
one
necessity fall
under one of a
regime,
114-
Interpretation
his doctrine that
at the core of all
being
is
an
Accordingly, he
finite
finite
same.
regimes
implies
being
must give
rise to the
. . .
eternal return of
.
the
As he
says
"My
day-wisdom
mocks all
'infinite
worlds.'
'Where force
(Kraft) is,
there number
politi
becomes
master:
cal problem
has
certain
jus
tice and its relation to the beautiful and the good points to the problem of the
order of the whole.
The truth
to have
discovered, however,
seems
fundamentally
teaching
first
concerning the freedom of the will, namely, that the liberation through acts of creation or by becoming
cause:
truly
autonomous
recurrence
if the
cosmological
order
is defined
a
by
necessary
of all
be
first
be
no genuine
liberty
in this
sense.
Zarathustra's
Riddle"
insight is
or
and the
by
"dwarf"
the "mind of
of wisdom!
fall!"
who mocks
yourself
you stone him, saying, "O Zarathustra high, but every stone that is thrown
.
must
past and
Accordingly,
one
when
Zarathustra
asks
him
whether
future that
stretch out
"contradict"
moment
in contrary directions from the gateway of the another eternally, the dwarf replies with the cos
"all
circle."
truth
Zarathustra, however,
implies the
in
is known and,
therefore, in which it may be willed. In a last-ditch attempt to salvage the freedom of the will that he understands to be the highest good, he therefore
makes a virtue out of
becomes,
its
to
In
first
cause of
it
wills
its
own will or
becomes
self-caused.
Thus, according
the
Zarathustra's
current
understanding, his
attempt to
becoming
of
the political
community in the
reproduction of the
employ highest
good requires
as to reproduce
it in the
or
things, since if he cannot will the past in such a future as his own creation, then he must submit to
secondary
cause within the nexus of causes
being
will
merely
dependent
deter
By
causal principle of a
wholeness and
just
in the riddle
relations of
its
parts
insofar
prevails within
it.
That there
are problems
lurking
Zarathustra's
presented
by
-115
and
the
Riddle"
where
Zarathustra
"heavy
black
snake"
his throat
and
there
is to bite
rises
head is
it far
away.
When the
no
does this he
up
one
laughing
day?"
and
longer
man."
Zarathustra
"parable"
and a
Convalescent"
and asks
"who it is that
must come
In "The
it is
Zarathustra himself
picture that
insofar
as
he is
a ruler and
legislator
and
his
into
animals paint of
"snake"
it,
that
has
crawled
nauseating to Zarathustra
when
he
activity in the
person of
per
recurrence of
the bad in the form of the lowest and smallest sort of the rabble. The presence of the low not only persists
of
in,
freedom
will
at
its
peak.
Thus Zarathustra
explains
that "the
small
disgust
at man
into my
throat."
That "the
eternally
existence."
Moreover, he
of all a
be indistinguishable from
of necessity: as and
thoroughgoing determinism
choke.16
dominion
would
be profitable,
knowledge
would
Thus,
precisely
the
what would
be
required
for the
to
attain
activity impure community of the highest with the lowest and the complete passivity of the will in submitting to a blind and inalterable "fate."17 In the thought of the eternal return the doctrine of the will to power as necessarily
entail
self-sufficient
and
the
first
and
final
cause of all
knowing
animals
and all
being
is
decisively
refuted
by
"destiny"
is to become
this doc
the teacher of the eternal return, Zarathustra trine and in fact describes himself as
it.18
does
this
promulgate
"monster"
having
he is
from him,
that
is,
as
having
repudiated
He does
so
encountered
to trans
creators
embodied
in his
attempt to reproduce
freedom
of the will
be identical
the
its thoroughgoing
"tyrant-madness"
self-enslavement. of
It
is,
of
sickness"
therefore,
the
will
"turning
revenge that
and unfulfillable
sense"
in
the
of
(Beyond Good
Evil, 21). At
equality
the bottom
will
Zarathustra's
attempt to
bring
all
lies the
same passion
116
to
Interpretation
all things under the
bring
political
sway of the rabble. Far from having escaped the its justice, Zarathustra's revised version of the will
an expression of the most
to power doctrine
passion.
is simply
fundamental
political
The
self-refutation of
Zarathustra's doctrine
of the will
to power in the
thought of the eternal return of the same thus proves to be the refutation of the
fundamental
ration
finds its
origin and
inspi
in Kant, namely, that the will is the primary phenomenon and its freedom being." the core of what it is to be a human Nietzsche's demonstration of the incoherent foundations
of
"German
and
Idealism"
is in
and
the service of a
primary Platonic
figure
political presentation of the life of philosophy in the his Zarathustra is ultimately directed to showing that the principle of the political realm, the will and its desire for and i.e.,
of
"justice"
"freedom,"
with
the
principle of
of
parts of
Zarathustra
as
it
Nietzsche's
attempts to
author
ity
may be
characterized as
found
is truly just by structuring it in accordance with the true being. In doing so he unfolds an account of being or an ontol
ogy in which the highest good and the beautiful are one and the same. In Part Two he attempts to employ the becoming of the political community, the char acter of which he takes to be essentially indeterminate or fluid, as a means
through which to realize the the political community and
account of
highest good, a good that lies beyond the justice of its moral law. In doing so he offers a teleological
the beautiful and the good are
wherein
becoming
in
which
fundamentally
is
developed, Zarathustra's understanding of the starting point and end of the po litical realm is shown to imply a complementary cosmology or an account of
the
will
being
of
becoming
according to
final
cause.
character of grounded
in
double causality
of
cosmological order, of
not
be given, is
in
but is ine
knowing
will.20
freedom his
of mind are
incompatible
his
"wisdom,"
with
of the
Through the
refutation of own
Zarathustra discovers
thinking is
not
its inten
need,
but,
on
the one
hand,
love
and,
of
as on
hand,
In
other
philosophy in the
midst of
-117
beautiful
to the
whole of
justly
ordered
ness
totality
is
be
absent
from
This
discovery
human
the
or political a
things, but
by
Zarathustra's
the
speech and
thought with
community based not upon the mutual possession, but the mutual pursuit of wisdom. The Truthsayer is obviously neither a disciple of Zarathustra's teaching nor a creature of his will. He is simply the most thought
Truthsayer,
ful
man
upon
in his
wanderings.
As
such
he is the
closest
thing
NOTES
of
speeches of the
Truthsayer
June 21, 1888; also see Ecce Homo, Preface, 4. are behind Zarathustra's thought of the eternal
return
is
in "On the
Convalescent."
read with
Plato
and
of
his Socrates in
mind
is
made clear
in the very
famous images
of
human beings
Virtue"
as
believing they
and
know New
what
is
they do not. See "On Cf. Beyond Good and Evil, 202.
good and evil when
the
Chairs
of
and
Tables."
5. Zarathustra
well
arrives at
be the
case that
the
is potentially
strictly
the various
infinite, it is
limited kinds
of
nevertheless also
laws
all
fall
under a
number of
kinds
or species of regime.
rooted
In neglecting to
perform an analysis of
aspect of
his understanding of man, and therefore of being, in that irrational. In Part Three, Zarathustra, after
having
covered quite a
bit
of ground
in his thinking,
belatedly
offers
("despotism"),
Tablets,''
6. Zarathustra's
mind of
is the "mind
heaviness"
of
("On
Reading
revenge"
mind of
("On Redemption").
7. Zarathustra's
teaching is
and
attempt to command
belief in his teaching and his divinity. 8. One of the most striking signs of Zarathustra's transformation is his temporarily abandoning The god in question his doctrine that "god is for a declaration that he is "god's
himself
basis
of their
dead"
advocate."
turns out to
be Cupido
or
Eros.
9. Of course, if the refutation of Zarathustra's claim to wisdom points to philosophy as the human good, it also points to the partial obstruction that the political community and its justice pose
to the acquisition of that good. It
points to the
Socrates'
Second
Sailing
Song"
(Chicago:
distinction between the necessary and the good. Cf. University of Chicago Press), p. 153.
stands
of
claim to
in
stark contrast
and
to the portrait he
ignorant lover
Life
Wisdom.
appears to offer a
twofold presentation of
Zarathustra's
"wisdom"
Nietzsche
of philosophy.
On the
simplest
level,
of
this
In the
original
dogmatic
and
and
legislative
version
characterized as
follows.
parodies
"wisdom,"
Nietzsche
philosophical
version
writing
its
artful completeness or
finitude. In its
he
parodies
infinitude
of philosophical speaks
inquiry
as of
fundamental
(Beyond Good
and
Evil, 23). He
explicitly
Zarathustra
as
118
Interpretation
preface
parody in the
"'Incipit
to
The
Gay Science,
where
he
last
aphorism of
the
latter work,
an aphorism
it
virtually identical to the opening of Zarathustra: take caution! Something this doubtful-undoubting book
There is no doubt. paradigmatically bad and mischievous declares itself: incipit parodia Heidegger's understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy as essentially tragic in character measures the depth
of
his
misunderstanding.
See his Nietzsche, Vol. II, The Eternal Recurrence of the Same, Row, 1984), pp. 28-31. His odd lack of a
give an adequate
comic made
interpretation
of
Nietzsche's
of
thought.
wonders whether
in the way
of
Wanderer'
and
Will."
is the im "On
see
"On the
Poets,''
Great
Events,"
"The
Truthsayer."
renunciation
is the
negative reflection of
Peter's thrice-repeated
renunciation of
immediately
13. What the preceding argument seems to show is that a solution to this problem of reproduc tion cannot be found on the level of political legislation, but only on that of philosophical writing. Nietzsche's "On
publication of
Truthsayer."
represents
his
14. "The
speech
Self-Overcoming."
The Truthsayer has simply drawn these conclusions from Zarathustra's There Zarathustra indicated that although moralistic human beings
procreation or
may believe
amoral secret
all
willing to be directed to
a
"a
goal"
or
"something
higher,"
Life's be
is
self-overcoming
weaker steals.
.
lacking
.
any final
end the
direction
of which can
just
as well
down
as up:
"The
into the
power."
steals the
of the mob
reference
to "shallow
swamps"
is
meant
is
made clear
in "On Old
to
and
New
Tablets,"
1 1.
seems
discover
number or
that
they fall
within a
determinate
number of
360-425
and
or
Zarathustra,"
16. In his
"Irony
and
Robert Pippin de
Chicago
of
ed.
Michael Gillespie
Tracy Strong
(Chicago: in
University
with
of
Press, 1988),
what
53-54. Unfortunately, he then goes on to Zarathustra concludes from this self-refutation that is
pp.
"historicist"
offer a
not
interpretation
accordance
Nietzsche's "the
philosophical
intention,
which
is unchanging in the
nature of things or
fundamental
problems": see
Beyond Good
and
and
incom
of
patible combination of
freedom
is that
the relation
community and philosophy: the political community, the realm of ignorance and falsehood, turns out to be a necessary precondition for the life that is preeminently free because it is devoted to the pursuit of truth. As Nietzsche's Zarathustra makes clear, the
political
between the
philosopher's
must
include
an
examination of the
false
appearances of the
political realm.
17. In the
words of
dictory: I
myself am phie
myself cause
Karl Lowith, it would require "something double, divided and self-contra for all eternity the fatality of all existence and its eternal return and: I
world"
only one conditioned fatality in all the circling of the natural der Ewigen Wiederkunft des Gleichen [Berlin: Kohlhammer, 1935],
to articulate
p.
overcoming of need, his revised wisdom in which mind and the unconditional freedom and self-suffi ciency of the will were to be perfectly combined, reproduces at its peak the contradiction that stands at the center of the traditional morality he had hoped man-god decisively to transcend: is, as man, in community with the lowest of the low and submits to suffering the greatest of passions and, as god, is the perfectly active and self-sufficient creator of the whole of from
understanding the freedom of the
an of
second attempt
of the good
in terms
the
Jesus'
being
out of the
infinite
power of
his
will.
It
should come as no
places eternal
and
Evil dedicated to
of
an elaboration of
in the
context of the
third part
essen
This fifty-sixth
aphorism concludes
by
suggesting
circulus vitiosus
deus
119
per and
one of the
few
commentators on
Nietzsche's
work who
Nietzsche
on
clearly Truth
to treat
which
Nietzsche's
are
arguments
213-27. Unfortunately, she for that doctrine in abstraction from the contexts of the
works
in
each work
squared
found and, therefore, from the complex motion of the larger argument that in its entirety unfolds. This leads her to attribute to Nietzsche an attitude that cannot be
they
with
his
own
definition,
sceptical
in
character and so
insistence that he is, above all, a philosopher free of all attachment to moral
asserts the cosmological
and that
philosophy is,
by
"convictions"
("Antichrist,"
to
(see Clark,
p.
comes closer
treatment of
Nietzsche's
differing
(see Clark,
p.
264).
repudiate
the
doctrines
of the
however,
one can
legitimately
wishes
observing that according to his own testimony Nietzsche was the practitioner of an art writing (see Beyond Good and Evil, 27, 29, 30, 40, 283-85, 289, and The Gay Science, 381) that is directed to (a) overtly appealing to while at the same time covertly undermining the dominant prejudices of his time, (b) proffering a morality while simultaneously demonstrating that the genuine life of philosophy is in the deepest tension with the moral law, and
question
by
of esoteric
"philosophical"
(c) providing
of
teaching
him
to
the pursuit of philosophy and points the way to the transcendence of that
teaching in
the direction
fitting
philosophy in the proper sense. Within Thus Spoke Zarathustra the animals of Zarathustra are the spokesmen for the doctrine of the eternal return in that the eagle and the serpent represent
pride and
Zarathustra's
godlike
his prudence,
and
responsibility for the whole of things turns Nietzsche according to the dictates of prudence in the 19. "Kant depths felt
of
by
the
presentation of
his thought.
too
too
soul
by
Rousseau, he
harboured in
of
his
the
of that moral
fanaticism
disciple
Rousseau
and confessed
et
de la justice
de la
himself to be, namely, Robespierre, 'de fonder sur la terre l'empire de la sagesse, (Speech of 7 June, 1794)": Daybreak, Preface, 3.
vertu'
understands a
things to be
demonstration
the
impossibility
the
is
grounded
upon the
in his understanding of the general character of causal accounts: they belief in the causality of the will: see Beyond Good and Evil, 36 and 87.
the ill-constituted.
Song,"
21. "All
Song,"
eternal
For
all
desire
wants
also
Dancing
4;
Sunrise."
and
Convalescent"
Socrates'
3; Dithyrambs of Dionysus, "Fame and Second Sailing, pp. 152 and 192.
characterizes world
following
that
community in speech and thought in the lies before me like a garden. How lovely it is
words and sounds exist: are words and sounds not rainbows and
bridges
of appearance
soul
(Schein)
between
for every
is an afterworld. Between the most alike appearance (Schein) lies most Within the wholeness of this community Zarathustra seems gap is the most difficult to beautiful and within the genuineness of its community the truth truth of the to discover the finally
of the
just.
bumped into Zarathustra him: he simply
Need,"
Having
pears
by
his
attachment to
will not
leave Zarathustra he
and
In Part Four
of the work
in "The
Cry
of
in
which
so close as
he reap to be able to
to
you."
merely by looking into each other's faces. This closeness is confirmed Zarathustra declares to the Truthsayer that "whatever in my cave belongs to me also belongs where he reminds Zarathustra of We last hear from the Truthsayer in "The Last
Supper,"
of
bodily
need:
he insists
on a meal
before
indulging
in
speeches.
Review Essays
Heidegger,
University
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
Frank Schalow
of New Orleans
John D.
Press, 1993), xi + 234 pp., $15.95 paper. Berel Lang, Heidegger's Silence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996),
xii
Tom
Rockmore, Heidegger's Philosophy and Nazism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), xi + 382 pp., $47.50 Hans Sluga, Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), x + 285 pp., $33.50 cloth,
$15.50
paper.
Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Pol University Press, 1995), xii + 263 pp., $49.50 cloth,
$14.95
paper.
Julian Young, Heidegger, Philosophy, and Nazism (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1997), xv + 232 pp., $49.95. Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger's Confrontation
ogy, Politics, Art (Bloomington: Indiana
with
Modernity: Technol
xxvii
+ 306
pp.,
$19.95
paper.
published
his book
detailing
Heidegger's involvement in
National Socialism (1987), a wave of books have appeared which develop this theme. One might expect that this trend of Heidegger criticism would produce
such
dark
revelations about
as to
dampen
all enthusiasm
these works
reverse effect of
interest in his
for his
"apologetics,"
spawning
actions
philosophical
vision.
Indeed,
this century
comes to a close,
greater notoriety.
never received
Precisely for
has
never
criticism of
will
Heidegger's
thought
been
more urgent.
In this essay, I
develop
to
un-
such an approach
by
examining
a wide spectrum of
which seek
interpretation, Fall
122
Interpretation
his fascist ties. In the process, I
will point
to a theme
which remains dormant throughout the majority of those analyses, namely, the interconnection between Heidegger's concept of freedom and the example of
his
politics.
We
can appreciate a
by
lary
treatment of
freedom,
the scope
clear.
When
scholars
analyze
Heidegger's philosophy,
however, they
a conclusion
often
subordinate
their explication of
his
concept of
freedom to
already
the
drawn
about
his
politics.
In
order
must examine
different interpretive
the polity
ger's
sion
in Heidegger's
and
thought.
Among
first
the
various
books addressing
Heideg
Nazism
politics,
we must
consider
political views.
Farias'
attempt
ontology and his reactionary outstanding example, which follows on the heels of to re-examine Heidegger's involvement in National Socialism,
of
One
such
with
spirit
of
an
of
criticism
of
Heidegger
arises
ex
his presuppositions, which is exemplified in John Caputo's Demythologizing Heidegger. Unlike Zimmerman, Caputo develops "deconamination
structive"
strategies as practiced
by
including
Ju-
Levinas, Lyotard,
of
and
Derrida,
we will
his brand
excludes, e.g.,
daeo-Christianity. As
bridge between
reject
discover, Caputo's
forms
an
important
Heideggerian fence
his philosophy because of his politics. Although Farias champions this position,
world comes
English-speaking
and
Philosophy
Hans Sluga
criticism,
which
also exemplifies
historical."
in Heidegger's Crisis, that may be described This fact-gathering enterprise is crucial in order to
embraced
National Socialism
horrors
of
Auschwitz
and that
of
his
his
contin
to National
ways of
different
Socialism. Given this historical archaeology, we can making inferences from Heidegger the man-politician
and vice versa. of
to Heidegger the
intellectual-thinker
darkest implications
Not surprisingly,
politics.
several
books
paint the
Heideggerian
Among
these
books is Richard Wolin's The Politics of Being, along with the literature detail ing the atrocities of the Holocaust, including Berel Lang's Heidegger's Silence. Wherever the
terpret
criticism of
Heidegger becomes
which
most
severe,
his thought in
such
democratic
become
Julian
inevitable. One
point
example,
implements
his
an
"analytic"
method to refute
by
point the
damning
evidence
him, is
Heidegger,
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
also
123
Young's Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism. We Thiele's Timely Meditations. This work stands
motifs of
must apart
by
reinterpreting the
which undercuts
key
the
Heidegger's thought in
he
order
to outline a politics
Nazi
ideology
initially
embraces.
II.
Even
been
prior
to
Farias'
book,
of
most proponents
with
of
aware of
National Socialism
and
he became
rector of the
power.
University
overall
Freiburg
in 1933
supported
Hitler's rise to
the phi
Yet the
story"
has been to
separate
Heidegger
losopher from Heidegger the politician, thereby creating a buffer between the brilliance of his ontological insights and whatever myopia he may have shown
in his
political
judgment. The
Farias'
effect of
revelations,
however,
of
was
to tear
away this buffer and foreclose the all too convenient option
insulating
surrounding his life in Germany. As poignant as revelations were, they would not have had the impact they did upon many Anglo-American scholars if a transition were not already under way to engage Heidegger's thought with an area of philoso
catastrophic events
Farias'
historical
phy he seemingly ignored: namely, ethics. If the inquiry into being is to have its root in the historical situation of human beings, then any such investigation must speak to those ethical dilemmas which distinguish perhaps the most turbu lent
period
in
world
and
to recognize in the
1980's, it is just
as
necessary to
of
approach
philosophy
meaning
being. This
work,
which
shift
in the
emphasis on
Heidegger scholarship not only parallels for hearing the troubling allegations
Farias'
but, indeed,
raises.
he
If
being,
of ethics and
politics,
must
help
inquiry.
While
in capturing the interest of many importance been etched in Heidegger's thought with its had scholars, already the publication of his magnum opus, Being and Time (1927). In this work, he
this correlation may have been slow
in ontological inquiry only by participat in being's disclosure; hence, philosophy originates from the concrete situa ing tion in which the inquirer places him- or herself in question and owns up to his
emphasizes that a thinker can engage
or
her
unique existence as a
finite it
self.
The thinker's
commitment
to authentic
existence
fosters
between
phy of human
can secure a
action.
sanctuary for truth apart from its exemplification in the realm As Herbert Marcuse argues in a famous letter to his teacher:
124
'.
.
Interpretation
.
we cannot make
the
philosopher and
the
human be
being
be
were
Martin Heidegger
it
philosopher can
then
will
openly
admit
his
error.
But he
cannot
that made terror part of everyday life really tied to the concept of spirit and freedom (Quoted in Kettering and Neske, pp. xxiii-ix)
Jews,
into its
opposite.'
bloody
In Heidegger's Confrontation
with
em
braces this
statement as the
question
he
why
what
is,
ism
and seduced
press
him into the misunderstanding that Nazi ideology could ex the political implications of his thought? To answer this question,
considers
Zimmerman
in Ger
many
concern
on
West"
to Jiinger's
forces
of
industrialization
as a
and
Heidegger's interpretation
history
descent into
nihilism, the
which unique
forgetting
of
being,
The
inquiry by
he
configuration, of
"enframing,"
the process of
aspects of
issues simultaneously and distinguish their As course, is "the question concerning all domination over exerts control and technology
technology."
nature, granting
humanity
its
will on
the diver
which surround
Heidegger's involve
most
basic
global
problem
Because
of
its
solicits
from
equally
radical responses
this
potential
both Western
epochal challenge. The audacity of the politi decision became the corollary to the philosopher's attempt at original thinking. "Heidegger claimed that only authentic thinking and poetry could
mons
cians'
save
Germany
in its hour
of crisis.
By
'thinking,'
he did
calculation,
awesome and
dreadful presencing
need to
day, let
things,"
face the
crisis of
not
Heidegger
verted
went
astray
by
underestimating how
leaders
be
sub
by
the powers of
technology
they
seek to
harness, i.e.,
spearhead
ing
states:
Heidegger,
Unfortunately,
what
the
Polity,
the
and
National Socialism
'dark'
125
by
'unrestrained'
and
being of entities, but instead blood and instinct, frenzy and violence, domination humanity and nature. As reactionary modernists, the Nazis united instinct with technology in a way which led to unparalleled devastation. (P. 84)
In the end, Heidegger may flawed realm of politics could
cal vision person of
kind
of
hubris in
it is
one
believing
that the
leader its
with
hubris
to trace
origin.
According
Heidegger's hero
sense of
combines a nostalgia
"destiny"
(Geschick)
as reflected
in Schelling's thought.
The self-mythifying Heidegger believed that he had been destined to proclaim the saving vision of his hero, Holderlin, and that he himself was thus the worldhistorical figure
who would transform the
'destiny'
fate
of the
[emphasis on] the The grandson of the linking him with Holderlin. man born in a manger in Holderlin's beloved Swabian countryside knew that he
was
destined to
must exhibit
is,
transmitting
one's
heri
tage to
future
generations. elements of
must
vehicle
incompatible
harmony
revered
and
strife,
tist's ex-centricity
convention and
be
in
contrast
key
in
But the
question
becomes
whether
of
begetting creativity from chaos, harmony from strife, tion can provide even the barest recipe for politics.
Once
and
destiny
from destruc
having
understood
tractive,
his
why Heidegger found National Socialism to be at these revelations leave us as scholars. Not
surprisingly,
gerians"
between the
Heideggerians"
"left-wing Heideg
employ deconstractive tactics to expose incongruities within the Heideggerian text (Schurmann, p. 127). For those who still espouse Heideg
gerian at the
increasingly
evident
lies
any future appropriation of his philosophy. On the one hand, Zimmerman pinpoints the dissonance between Heidegger's grasp of the Westem crisis and the prospect of action.
translating
On the
other
hand,
a new
opportunity
Heidegger's
short
fall
between
theory
Going forward,
a
lenge is to
possibility
dialogue
which examines
of politics
in the contemporary
world.
126
Interpretation
past
decade,
there
major
breakthroughs
which
dramatically
changed
Heidegger's involve
second pertains
to the
discovery
of
Heideg
ger's thought
uncovers an and
in the early 1920's; in his youthful "hermeneutics of he ethos which includes motifs from primordial Christianity, e.g, love
otherwise
absent
facticity,"
community,
in his
stark
concept
of
Dasein. In
a
De-
mythologizing
which plays against
these two
developments in
way
the callousness of
to totalitarian politics.
from
which a new
According
commitment
to
parallels
his
heroism, all of which stem from Hellenic the Holocaust, the scandalous comparison
culture
. . .
baffling
silence about
to modem agri
pain
insensitive to
'factical'
and
concrete
human
with which
virtues amounts to
dismissing
categories of
tenderness, charity,
religious orientation of
solicitousness about
Heidegger's early thought, "he the flesh in the biblical narratives (p.
. .
72).
The deconstruction
unfold
of
Heidegger's thought
to
the
key
motifs of
But
an appropriation of
"myth"
Greco-Germanic
arises and
his ontology, including care, truth, and temporality. Heidegger's thought cannot occur without undoing the of a privileged origin from which Western philosophy
"homecoming"
(Holderlin). In his
'being' "
Karl Lowith,
who rebuked
(Lowith,
become
68).
Only by
possible
a shepherd, thinker, and sayer of Heideggerian thought of this tendency does it purging to cultivate another ethos whose roots spring from the Judaeo-
people's
not
deterrent in preventing the atrocities of National Socialism. As Caputo indicates, Heidegger abandoned his early theological ori
entation
in favor
of
Holderlin's
to express
mythic-poetic
of other
vision
of
"piety"
traditions,
forum in
which
various criticisms of
his
to
heed the
the
and
the
persecuted
"justice"
(Lyotard),
in
must emerge
"singular,"
to the
suffering
"truth"
of the
of
individual,
to the radically
to the generic
being's
claim upon
Heidegger,
III.
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
127
Heidegger's
in
a single attempt
to counter
by
"Heideggerians"
Nazism, Rockmore
schol
ars proceed
less
as
disciples
in
steeped
histo
"guilt"
rians;
and cial
their strategy is to uncover unusual facts about Heidegger the person and
story"
detective story assessing his As Rockmore states, the time has come to combat the "offi that Heidegger briefly flirted with National Socialism in 1933 only
an ultimate
1934,
and
that, despite
a
man, these
have
is
no
bearing
on our assessment of
'official'
view students.
only
by
Heidegger but
by
some of
his
closest
It is the
between Heidegger's
political"
or no
important, link
(p. 74).
Socialism"
Rockmore's overarching thesis is that Heidegger's thought is "intrinsically (p. 54). Rockmore thereby closes the loophole by which Heidegger's
seek an escape of
defenders
his thought in
over against
from confronting his Nazism, namely, maintaining the its contamination by his behavior from 1933
Interview"
a narrower
in 1966. Rockmore, however, construes the term sense to mean the implementation of a kind of ideol
rather
ogy
aligned with
Heidegger's thought,
princi
maintains
that the
key
motifs of
"conscience,"
Heidegger's philosophy (e.g., the "destiny") are adaptable to Nazism and only Nazism. Thus Rock
philosophy"
"resoluteness,"
Nazism
was
based in his
in suggesting that Heidegger's "turn to (p. 54). This is a different position than
maintaining that Heidegger outlines the ontological presuppositions of the polis and hence his thought can be interpreted as implicating various political
stances.
Because Rockmore
way, he
couches
thentic philosophy
and
his
leadership
his
as rector of the
political
decision
and the
of
1933, being's
transmis
its
destiny
most
to
a chosen
intellectual
German
people's emergence
as a vanguard of world
history. Yet
even given
tions,
ties
the
element
compelling question which Rockmore poses is whether some in Heidegger's philosophy prohibited him from recognizing the atroci
the banner of National
perpetuated under
Socialism.
128
Interpretation
to
According
dient
Rockmore, Heidegger
speaking
ingre
of authentic existence
he had
a built-
in
be
excuse
for
not
forces
of totalitarianism.
But it may
more accurate
political
develop
ments
only
on a macro power
level
proper
to thought and
not on
conflicting
interests. The
"tragic
question then
nance occur?
And
a
destiny
includes
in the
purest of
of strife and
reconciliation,
of
illumination
and
blindness,
freedom
and necessity.
While
lines, the Holocaust may be of such a singular darkness, unlike the nihilism Nietzsche envisioned,
gories of
cate
are
of the
degree to he
Heidegger
never saw
right.
Lang
points
to
double fault
by
which
the Jews
during
and
then, in
con
"Jewish
question"
Holocaust
Rockmore, Lang
ger
history (pp. 5-8). In agreeing with that it is necessary to "see a connection in Heideg
act of
human
occasional"
sense
Lang's
the
is
What
stands out
is his
question
for
which even
not
way have a
of
focusing
simple answer:
How
in
the
history
of
philosophy when his indifference to the plight of humanity appears so obvious? The irony is that "Heidegger attempts to break the very notion of the limits of
thinking
but in
thought"
ignoring
the "Jewish
question"
continues to
"settle for
(pp. 100-101).
Yet Heidegger
of
Nazism. What
shared with
only German intellectual to align with the dark it about not only Heidegger, but the intellectual others, which made the politics of National Socialism attrac
develop
on such a
broad
This is the
question
Hans Sluga
raises.
In Heidegger's Crisis,
Sluga
tional
more
reconstructs the
historical
rise
of
Na
and
Socialism. He
emphasizes
of
cal action.
Germany
show that
as a catalyst of politi
not
develop
a single
in
a political
transform the
fragmented tradition
of the German Volk and its uncertain future into a vision of destiny. Ironically, philosophy assumes such a leadership role as com pensation for a floundering economic and political life characterizing Germany
Heidegger,
in the 1930's. Given this
philosophy
politics
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
the
129
a
condition of social
instability,
link between
destiny
and
becomes
Indeed,
which
philosophy
prefigures
cumbed.
While Heidegger may have embraced Nazi ideology, he nevertheless upheld Greek view of politics as involving the determination of the polis as a
"site"
(topos). dient in In
a
According
an overall where
to
Sluga,
formed
one
important ingre
Gestalt
took shape
in National Socialism.
action,
setting
institutions
the
decline,
an opportunism
"timely,"
forged
inevitably
The
action must as a
be
but in
among
order not
to appear arbitrary it
must project
"common
of
descent"
all of
its
proponents
hierarchy
among its
members as well
excluding those who do not belong, a process occurs. "Politics is thereby always a process of
ticular priorities
of self-legitimation
self-legitimation
necessarily
which par
in
for
be
justified"
(p.
of
an
his
or
her time.
Philosophy
cannot
then
be
to the
rather a philosopher
may inculcate
to
show
within
his
or
her
enterprise a
questioning
distinction in
that a philosopher
harbors in
into the
political
beliefs he
she
upholds.
be translated into any specific may For example, Heidegger understood the
not
Greek
human
concern
for the
good with an
occasion to
act,
historical
compass of
being's
mani
festation. And
ger's
while one
may try
vision, it may be
possible
Heideg develop other inferences about the polity ideology of fascism. To preserve the question of
to extract totalitarian elements to
from
to be
one of
Sluga's
careful analysis.
IV.
There
are
many different
philosophers
to
whom we might
turn to provide
insight into
and
Plato
and
Hegel, Mill
and
Kant, Arendt
that he quali
not obvious
fies
as one of these
of
thinkers.
not
Because fascism is
so
tenets
Western democracy, it is
uncovers
especially
provocative
to claim that
polis:
ontology
some of the
basic
components
integral to any
freedom,
law, for
130
Interpretation
formal
which concepts whose
motifs as stances
meaning
can
in
Heidegger first
articulated
of a
"Heideggerian
politics."
happens
when a philosopher
the enlightenment tradition of political checks and balances and seeks to recre
ate
of
the polis ex
nihilo
from
"decision"
a single of
(Entscheidung). The
analogue
abruptness
Heidegger's
political
decision
in his
concept of most ob
resoluteness
way
of
in
demands, in
order
that one
Ac
singular character as to render cording to Wolin, however, resolve is of such a indeterminate any prescription of the good within that decision (pp. 35 ff.). The
indeterminacy
port
of
Heidegger's
concept of authentic
selfhood
implies that
one
the inhumane
ideology
of
the
lack
in Heidegger's
which
Wolin
a problem
to the prospect of
on
developing
experience.
Heideggerian
be developed
concrete, factic
plane, how
But
once
having
a
developed
concepts on an ontological
be
readjusted
so that action
becomes
locus
language
and
of thought provides a
sanctuary
addresses
of
freedom? In Heidegger
Being
this problem
by
of
suggesting that praxis constitutes the domain for Heidegger's thought; hence only praxis can illustrate
in
divesting
and
itself
of all rational
unfolds at such a
(arche)
must
An "anarchic
praxis"
the
forefront
that
between
being
thought, in
way
thinking
and
be informed
by
simply
offers
steps
toward
Anarchic be
praxis
"will be di
opposed to the
Fiihrerprinzip; it
would
a type of action
irrecon
(p.
standard"
we accept
We
must recall
that
Schurmann
Farias'
published
years
before the
gers ger's
publication of
book;
addresses the
dan
Heideg
for it
primary.
As
our
discussion
of the previous
Heidegger,
books
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
131
indicates,
on
the ensuing
decade
defending
every
a political
movement
pushes
philosophy to its
surprising that the pendulum would swing in the other direc defense of Heidegger would emerge. In Heidegger, Philosophy, and
Nazism Julian
as well
Young
counters
as
Lyotard, Lacoue-Labarthe
Derrida.
philosopher
Young
refutation claims
proceeds
of
like
"analytic"
an
to provide a point
and
Heidegger's
opponents.
Against Rockmore
was
National Socialism
adopted a almost
far from
momentous which
Germany
and
for
Hugo
Wolin, Young
maintains
of
not antisemitic
toward many
his Jewish
students
was skeptical of
any
attempt
to apply bio
"superior"
"blood-line"
to designate a
people as
or
(p. 41).
which claims
In
ogy,
way
is
couched more
in the language
of
logic than in
phenomenol
Young
as
nection
Nazism. The
inferring
a con
itself
out on two
fronts
harbors
concepts which
"positively
Nazism
National Socialism
or
his thought
"negatively implicates
(p. 79). On the first promoting
selfhood as
to provide grounds
for its
rejection"
responsibility
in
totalitarianism.
is contrary to the demand toward conformity On the second front, Young argues that Heideg for the other, for his
or
her
own
integrity, in
regime.
way
which condemns
under a
fascist for
Young
in
a
concludes missed
that
Being
Time harbors
an ethic of respect
critics"
persons
way
by
Heidegger's
" 'decisionist'
(p. 104).
not answer
Young
all of
Heidegger's
critics
which,
if it does
one-sidedness.
Young, Fred
ger"
Dallmayr
crystallizes a perspective
that there
According
to
Dallmayr, Heidegger's
of
injustice
sights
into the
nature
ironic way of re-examining his texts to discover in of justice. By drawing upon Heidegger's eclectic interests
an
in Anaximander
stood anew as a
and
Schelling, Dallmayr
suggests that
justice
can
be
"juncture"
(Fuge)
or measure which
care"
disposes
us
"to let
be
Young's
"letting
be"
holds
key
for
developing
further
exploration of
freedom may be
132
Interpretation
in
order to
required
omission which
Lang identifies,
"tolerance"
namely, that
(pp. 48-49).
can also
Heidegger's texts
be directed
against
him, they
Heideg
him
either
may not be sufficient evidence in its own for his Nazi allegiance or subsequent silence be taken
which can alien
it. A
still more unorthodox approach must motifs within a political context order
transpose
Heideggerian
presumably
to them, e.g.,
harbors
Heidegger's
critics
have
democracy
includes its
own presupposi
tions which, if
government as
fully
we
articulated, may
exhibit shortcomings
in
our system of
know it. Of in
Heidegger's
insights into
politics
a positive
In Timely Meditations, Thiele raises the question which would losophy within a practical context, although in a way which can
assumptions about of
to the
naive
contemporary democracy. If
an
our
democratic
system on
is
tional concepts
must
be
light
the opera
Thus,
facets
as as
Thiele indi
understanding may
freedom
"letting
be."
Correlatively,
we
this "disclosive
evoke other
of the
liberties
assume,
including
"right"
as a constitutional
resetting the parameters of free speech which we accept (pp. 81-83). As Thiele emphasizes, the key to devel
oping a democracy lies in safeguarding maximum participation among its mem bers. In this way a community develops. What Heidegger recognizes, however, is that the power which permits political participation, namely, language, simul
taneously allows for the cultivation of individuality with a communal setting, that is, the self's unique way of dwelling with others. Language is not simply
an
instrument
of verbal
each of us
to submit to it as a
place of
as
members of a
and
thereby
engage
in dialogue
"word"
first inserts
us
into the
speakers)
space within
of
in
way
which
gathers
together each of us
(as
community (The Human Condition, p. 198). the between logos and community, language and dwell By tracing synergy Thiele develops a "postmodern Yet this perspective remains ing,
the nexus of
politics."
it
can
develop
liberal
thinkers'
criticism of
Heidegger's language
political views.
critical
which
fulcrum in for
exhibits the
disclosive
other
truth,
Heideg
is
synonymous with
freedom. In
words, there is
a more primordial
connection
"free"
between freedom
and speech
"speech"
qualifies the
"right"
not a
by
which one
activity of individual
in
democratic
or
sense.
Free
speech
is
asserts
his
her
Heidegger,
another
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
133
participate
through which contrary voices can in serving the good of the community as a whole. "The justly hal lowed right to free speech might be grounded not only in the speaker's preroga
tive to utter opinions and
"openness"
beliefs, but
as
also on the
listener's
duty
to remain open
and
to,
even solicitous
harbor"
"letting
be"
can admit
participants,
will which
it
become
a self-indulgent expression of
is
rooted
in
Through his
predicated upon
clever
extrapolations, Thiele
shows
how
the spirit of
dwelling
in Heidegger's
sense.
. . .
journey
Disclosive freedom
attempt
democracy
as
Heideg help of a
Kantian framework
(Sherover,
5-12, 60-63).
While
criticisms, there is
the
Heideg
in
Is there
in Heidegger's thought
which
thereby
suggest
that
his
philosophy may
which
his
own
fascist
ideology
condemns? on
human
must
freedom, Heidegger
take the
argues that
his
exchange
philosophers
form
of
Auseinandersetzung
to "set
apart"
(Vom
Wesen,
p.
292). Literally,
Auseinandersetzung
Heidegger,
means
or
"place in
on such
opposition."
According
to
philosophical exchange
thrives
is
at stake
namely,
inviting
not
contrariness
is
contrary response from the other. The arbitrary, but like philosophical dialogue
a
greater
itself. As Heidegger
in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology, philosophical inquiry is a "work of human (p. 16). But freedom takes shapes within a forum of
exchange which safeguards the voice of the other.
While
philosophical
inquiry
depends
upon
Auseinandersetzung,
is
a
because
there
forum in
reserved
for it itself
at
within
comes
conflict with
the
point where
its
commitment a
to
of
yields to an
ideology
was see
prominent
censorship
censorship.
(For
discussion
and
its
connection with
the
persecution of the
Jews,
it
Sluga,
86-100.)
is iconoclastic, controversial, where freedom of speech assumes Heidegger discounts
when
Since
by
its
the
greatest
rectoral address
can
"academic
freedom"
spirited, philosophy
flourish only
it is
134
Interpretation
to the challenge of freedom.
reawakened
challenge not
by
accepting the
elitism
responds
to this
contrary,
by
re
locating
ticity
itself
within
eloquently suggest, philosophy can then flourish through the "tradition [which] is a delivering into been" the freedom of discussion (die Freiheit des Gesprdches) with what has
of each citizen
rooted.
is
As Heidegger's
so
pp.
33, 35).
politics would then a
Heideggerian
could
become
possible at which
the time
freedom
be translated into
"multivocality"
facilitates
than we
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: World Publishing, 1962. John. "Truth and Power: Martin Heidegger, 'The Essence of and the SelfBailiff,
Truth,'
Assertion
of the
German
University."
Man
and
Being Possibility of Political Philosophy. 1981. University Press, Bourdieu, Pierre. The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. Trans. Peter Collier. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Brainard, Marcus (ed.). "Heidegger and the
and and the
Political."
Time
Journal 14,
no.
2, 15,
no.
1 (1991): 1-611.
Dallmayr, Fred. The Other Heidegger. Ithaca, NY: Cornell David, Pascal. "A Philosophical Confrontation with the
(1995): 191-204. de Beistegui, Miguel. Heidegger
and
University Press,
1993.
Political."
Heidegger Studies 1 1
the
and
Temple
University Press,
1989.
Heidegger."
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Fritsche, Johannes. "On Brinks and Bridges in Journal 18, no. 1 (1995): 111-86. Heidegger, Martin. Die Grundprobleme de Phanomenologie, GA 24. Frankfurt am Main:
Vittorio
Klostermann, 1975.
menschlichen
University Press,
1958.
and Gunther Neske. Martin Heidegger and National Socialism. Trans. Lisa Harries. New York: Paragon Press, 1990. Heidegger Studies 5 (1989): 138-48. Kovacs, George. "On Heidegger's Lowith, Karl. Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism. Ed. Richard Wolin. Trans.
Kettering, Emil,
Silence."
Gary
University Press,
and
1995. "jews.
"
the
University
of
Heidegger,
the
Polity,
and
National Socialism
the
135
Milchman, Alan, and Alan Rosenberg, eds. Heidegger and lands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1996.
"Resoluteness
Ambiguity."
and
and
no.
ed.
Heidegger
University Press,
Quarterly
Origins."
and
Dialogues
with
by
and
University
of
Chicago H.
Press, 1992.
Richardson, William J. "Heidegger's Truth
eds. and
In A. Dallery, C. Scott,
and
Danger. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992). Pp. 11-24. Roberts, Riidiger. Martin Heidegger Between Good and Evil. Trans. Ewald Osers. Safranski, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
and
Ethics
on
Free
Speech."
Philosophical Writings, 1,
no.
4 (1997):
Concerning Heidegger's Involvement in National Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 24, no. 2 (1993): 121-39. "Revisiting Anarchy: Toward a Critical Appropriation of Schumann's Philosophy Today 41, no. 4 (1997): 554-62. Schurmann, Reiner. Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy. Trans. Christine-Marie Gros. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Thought."
"A Question
Socialism."
Scott, Charles. On
ington: Indiana
30-35.
the
Advantages
and
Disadvantages of Ethics
and
Politics. Bloom
University Press,
Nazi."
1996.
Wolin, Richard. The Politics of Being. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Zimmerman, Michael E. "The Thorn in Heidegger's Side: The Question of National Philosophical Forum 20, no. 4 (1989): 340-55.
Socialism."
Whose Pluralism?
Bruce W. Ballard
Stephens College
Conscience
Francis Canavan, The Pluralist Game: Pluralism, Liberalism and (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), xi +
Michael
the
Moral
$22.95.
of
+
417 pp.,
Typical liberal
fairness, inclusiveness
and
which
they do not, indeed could not, possess. Like other pluralisms, must and do include and exclude according to criteria which
commitments,
and
fact is
damaging
consider question
the particular forms of life and thought liberalism excludes. Thus the
is
what
it excludes, why it excludes, and whether it is transparent to itself about its exclusivity. While some liberals have become more conscious of the partic
ularities and continue
limits
of
Liberalism),
others
with
little to
rightly
of
called
for their
communitarian chal
lengers
but
alternative scenarios.
Three
recent works
do both. Within
sketches
larger
pictures
his
of
Professor insightful
Political Science
of
at
Fordham University,
penetrating
and
analysis
States in his
pluralism
between 1963
and
Game. He successfully exhibits important contradictions of American liberal in theory and practice while sketching an alternative vision of politics and morality drawn primarily from classical and religious communitarian
sources.
Harvard
political scientist
Michael Sandel
his in-depth
philosophical critique of
liberalism
and offers a
fullblown
republican alternative
in his long-awaited
interpretation, Fall
second
138
of
a
Interpretation
Public Philosophy. His
an updated critique of
of
liberalism
as a public
philosophy, in
Rawls in Political Liberalism, surely ranks cluding the best among very contemporary treatments. His identification and recovery of a republican strand in American history and politics recasts the question of
pluralism
discussion
for
public
discussion.
of
the Institute
for Advanced
work
Study
in
Princeton,
attempts
in
support of a
still supports an
aug
liberalism,
and
aspects of
his
to the critiques
Sandel
Canavan
provide.
All three
volumes
survey
a wide range of
renewal of
not
limited
to,
pluralism and
toleration, the
Naturally, it
challenges to
would
be
impossible to
sion and
cover
by focussing
its pluralism,
on
dimensions:
authors'
liberalism
and
how
and
why
ing
pluralism as
it does. As
might
each approach ends up defining and limit be expected, the background philosophizing
which
leads
each author to
his
limits
of pluralism varies
in cogency and completeness. In Canavan's account, the purported neutrality and inclusiveness of the lib eral pluralist state in matters of religion and morality is bogus, indeed impossi
ble. Law
society. separate religion from morality and morality from politics are misleading. The categories overlap. By seeking the lowest common denominator agreeable to the many and making law and policy accordingly, the state in fact establishes secular individualism as ultimate, ex
and
is
good
for
cluding the
over the
strongly
identify
themselves in terms of
religious commitments.
Canavan
cites a number of
last thirty
perceives,
norms
by
privileging
the autonomous
individual,
the state
"necessarily
sets
for
a whole
society, creates
an environment on social
in
which everyone
has to
live,
influence
has
institutions"
soulcraft whether
it
Increased
West
secularization
had
circum
scribed earlier
American
pluralism.
lost unity of shared. Earlier American pluralism, however conflictual, had at least been more intelligible because the majority held a common biblically based faith and mo
reflects a
The lost unity of moral perspective in the biblical religion which Jews and Christians had
rality.
Those
did
so against
this
biblically
informed background, whether or not they were consciously aware of its func tion. In Canavan's account, the dissolution of this unity "left millions of other
Whose Pluralism?
Americans 65-66).
Canavan
particular. with
-139
the
feeling
that
they
in their
land"
own
(pp.
sees a
drift toward
secular state
private
As the
increasingly
took
over various
functions, it displaced
institutions.
By increased federal
private religious at
for
public
education,
schools, hospi
their
to flesh out religious community life. So liberal pluralism again turns out not to
be neutral, but hostile toward conditions which make for thriving community. A main means by which liberal pluralism attempts neutrality is by taking
controversial choice.
what
leaving
them to individual
But again,
to public
Canavan notes, what shall be left to private choice and judgment is itself a political decision. It can only be made on the
basis
of an antecedent moral of
judgment, but
creasingly typical
acceptable
American
judgments necessarily
un
to many.
neutral and
Apparently
fail to
democratic
yet
values such as
liberty
and
equality
also
resolve pluralist
conflict,
they have
come to
define the
range of
controversy between contemporary liberals and conservatives. Understood in individualist terms, such values quickly reduce to discussions of rights. This
reduction
is itself
the
incessantly
of a
reiterated
in
Again for
lack
commonly
and
acceptable moral or
liberty
equality
either argu
rights
We
and
are nevertheless
"diversity."
remain
unresolvable.
pluralism
being
urged
be
cause
ual
it is
liberalism, individ
determined
by
ideal
liberalism
free
market, but without developing the point at any length. He does note that argu ments in favor of abortion which treat a mother's womb as private property
from
which
the unborn
"tenant"
may be
evicted at will
of
capitalist ownership.
Certainly
and
American liberal
pluralism
is
hardly
neutral as
capitalism
any
Given his A
would
presumably
commend cooperatives
in
passing.
liberalism
long
way toward he
treatment. The
fur
Yet
of the three
volumes,
Sandel's
140
Interpretation
of the
relationship between economy and community flourishing. But Canavan's identification of the affinity between liberalism and capitalism development
by
itself nicely divides so-called economic ism) from the socially moral conservatism
supports.
conservatism
(economic libertarian
the biblical religion
congruent with
Canavan
even more
desperate for
pluralist
pluralist
and neutral
inclusiveness has to
or groups which
views of
individuals
celebrating
pluralism.
One
can
but be
reminded
here
of
other
forms
of
scepticism, so Canavan is
again on
target
when
rary plurality as a dilemma rather than a cause celebre. That current liberal pluralism is in fact quite intolerant of strongly committed positions (particularly
again underlines its own very inconsistent nonneutrality. Given his very critical assessment of the recent drift of affairs, we might have expected a note of despair in Canavan's conclusion, but Canavan con
"divisive"
religious)
as
by urging orthodox Catholics (Canavan is Catholic), Protestants and devout Jews, to join in the struggle, both
cludes
with conservative
intellectually
reasserting for private
and
legislatively,
mon gious
to
help
by
a com reli
biblically
creating
accords
"secondary"
or
defining
role
community,
If
anything, the
state
should reduce
its direct
such groups
is
not
primarily
protection of the
individual
or
state,
but
a situation
in
which
individuals
Here
as members of various
communities can
who provides
pursue essential
human
goods.
again
it is Michael Sandel
the more detailed philosophical explanation of the nature of the relation tween self-identity and
be
pic
community
which would
help
motivate
Canavan's
ture.
On the
other
hand,
com
mends will
likely
reject
his
pluralism.
Canavan argues, public policy his critics have to argue why their moral
as
But
biblical tradition
of
to American cultural
a problem poses a
different kind
of
by
more
in-depth
argument and
Sandel
In Sandel's account, two main forms of contemporary social anguish demon strate the failure of the liberal project in America: fear that the moral fabric of
Whose Pluralism?
141
family, community,
with regard
and national
life is unraveling and fear about lost individual life-goveming forces. Liberal ideals of neutrality
citizens,
rights apart
to moral
freedom
as the
of
its
own
and
problems.
Through
detailed historical
account of
American
public
ders to the contemporary scene, Sandel recovers an alternative and republican way of genuine self-government from which liberalism can be seen as a de
cline.
neutral
ideal
of
liberalism is
not
timelessly
natural.
Ancient
also
had
been
longstanding
in its citizens, and this goal has American public policy, as Sandel documents Failure
by
identify
necessary for
self-government
helps
account
for
lost
control. of citizens
is
seen
primarily
as nega
They
need protection
from the
in
order to pursue
their
private ends.
ing
of
Again, for Sandel and the republican tradition, this asocial render human good is misleading. People are born for citizenship. They natu
common affairs. whole and good
of
They
find there
fulfillment
are
deprived
do
govern.
As identification
more alien
in the
whole
decline
and citizens
become
to each other, motivation for the mutual respect liberalism calls for
is
also undermined.
As in Liberalism
and
Sandel
emphasizes
the mislead
ing
and
alienating idea
of
choose
its
Choice longer
of one's respect
ends
becomes
views
kind
of end
in itself. Consequently,
others'
based
have
chosen them.
explicit or use
in
by deliberating
but simply for the fact that sovereign individuals As Sandel notes, popular psychology manuals make this promoting a virtual religion of the self in which there is no incentive
on their content,
with others about what
is true any
or good.
But the
by
prior moral
definition is
an
abstraction which
of
is falsified
by
cannot
moral experience.
Kantian
versions obliga
phenomena of
family
tions, religious duties, or even citizen obligation, since these all require description of the self. The minimalist political liberalism Rawls now
explicitly
calls upon citizens
a thick argues
to
bracket thick
and
for the
deliberation
decision-making. Sandel
why
identity-making
142
when
Interpretation
it
comes to questions of
cooperation
that a practical
interest
in
social
and mutual
does
not
other moral
He
notes
determine
moral ment
case
passing
judgment
in the
on the practice
(p. 20).
Suspending
moral
name of
toleration
does
example of
human life
abortion,
beginning
would
"bracketed"
at conception and
they
in
effect
"bracket"
be countenancing murder. In principle, prochoice their views for public purposes, but legal abor Sandel
cites a provocative and against
tion
in
effect
simply
telling
on the of the
bracketing
from Lincoln
Douglas heart
issue
of slavery.
matter
of
by emphasizing that whether or competing views is true. The argument for liberalism from
is
self-defeating.
not we should
bracket depends
on which
relativism
is
no
help
either.
As Sandel
correctly argues, to
relative
say that we should all respect each other because the truth is
If "all truth is
relative"
at
least
is
not
follow. We
might
just
as well
say that
all
views
equally worthy
of
disrespect it
How
since none
is true. Or
we could relativize
the
value of
respect, seeing
and
why
would
among other possibilities. Sandel limit pluralism differently than liberalism? His
of self-fulfillment
ideal
in
communal
deliberation
is
and
de
certainly
sets a
different
of
parameter which
sion
of pluralism. and
His
alternative
version
the self,
thickly
commitments
unabashedly by family relations, community, moral, and religious leads him to reject forms of pluralism primarily based upon, and
and a
di
law have
"choice"
virtue-based
way
of
understanding
role-
which
brings
good
to moral
accountability
form
and aims at
the
family
as a
for its
By
raising the
economy
best
serve republi
shows a
it, Sandel
advocate
ends
rationality
decision. So Sandel
pluralism,"
up
ing
what
he terms
"mutual
appreciation goods
they
express,
not
their simple
capacity to
choose
something
Whose Pluralism?
143
a
Altogether, Sandel's
order.
program and
its
for
tall
Sandel himself
chapter.
in
his final
further
But further
rejects the
In the
arguments
Sandel
moralism of
qualification.
Yet he had
acknowledged and
of
of ethical
rejects
truth when
it
came to the
the
from marching in Skokie, it could as easily have banned King and his fol lowers, Sandel replies, "The answer may be simpler than liberal political theory permits: the Nazis promote genocide and hate, while Martin Luther King
sought civil
rights
consists
in the
content
of
the
speech, in the
nature of
(p. 90).
before marching
handed
out.
There way
would
or
be
no
foregone in
deliberation
one
the
other.
deliberation
questions
can
be philosophically shallow,
and
partisan
way
to
which
ignores
of truth
rationality, or even
malicious.
To
with a
return
Sandel's
abortion
example, why
should
murder?
porate goods
Sandel enumerates,
and which
community which realizes the very cor is convinced of the truth of its
"common"
beliefs
with
public
deliberation sup In a
those who
such a
community lack
of criteria
which needs
national republican
community defense
religion
for
"narrowness"
"fundamentalism"
in
in
order
own
illustrate them.
be
added
Sandel
the
here that, in general, the substantive conclusions rights for blacks and protection against harassment of
to proceed from a
Jews in Skokie do
seem
biblically
older
informed
moral sensi
bility. Arguably, the same could be said about his ily law. That is, Sandel may depend more on an
substantive positions on
fam
American
consensus of
biblical morality
recognizes.
than
his
of
open-ended republican
The hope
substantive
calls
it,
be
Canavan
suggests.
Michael Walzer
agrees that
liberal
pluralism as
it
does
need to
increasing fragmentation
of
both
personal and
group
notes the
insufficiency
of appeals problems
contemporary
These
problems
vary
depending
144
Interpretation
societies, so Walzer develops a suggestive
regimes
and useful
typology
of
five tolerance
analysis
historical
examples.
This
highlights the
social
bly
shape
in
particular societies.
kind
of
hyperindividualism
cele
brated in
postmodern conceptions of
citizenship.
and
Canavan, Walzer
here in the
secondary
associations.
Yet
by keeping
to the
larger liberal
pluralist
Walzer's
Americans
have is
nor need
anything in
but
toleration
more
like
a restatement
key
to
its
resolution.
acknowledges
that liberalism is
its own, with early roots in Protestant and English history. Yet his recognition that liberalism is one tradition among others does not lead Walzer to offer a philosophical defense of it. In the face of contempo
ticular political culture of
rary
critiques
like
those of
and
others, this is
an
weakens
Walzer's
same
proposals
for American
which
ad
hoc quality
agendas
be
leaguered Just
Unjust Wars.
attempts
While Walzer
everyone's
rejects
by
groups
with
moral
to "control
behavior
of
in the
name of a
supposedly
common
(Judeo-Christian,
is right
say) tradition,
and
'family
values'
(p. 70), Walzer largely responds by simply asserting his own secu lar liberal dogmatism. Religious parties, for example, ought to be barred from running in elections, according to Walzer. To the fears
state-mandated versions of tolerance education
error,"
wrong"
the public
"toler may Walzer responds that, "one hopes that they are justified schools will have exactly the effects that orthodox
make their children
. . .
(p. 77). Naturally, Walzer is willing for these orthodox parents to their children to private schools (if they can afford it), but is unwilling to
them of taxation
fear"
relieve would
for
state
education.
politics
be
and social
are we of
political
fragmentation? We farious
a population. as an
harbor
republican
hopes,
since
we
United States
In his typology of toleration regimes, Walzer identifies the immigrant society rather than a nation-state with republican
foundations like France, so the unity which comes from that richer foundation for citizenship is unavailable to us. (It would be intriguing to see a published debate between Sandel
and
Walzer
over
Whose Pluralism?
what remains
"intolerant."
145
be
of a
biblically
informed liberal
moral
consensus,
since
that would
Within the
cannot
confines of the
position
we
do
seriously
ethics.
But
reading
Sandel,
have less
to assert
alternatives
for liberalism
are either
to lack
transparency
its
own particu
lar
value-structure or see
it
without philosophical
it is difficult to
overcome
how Walzer's slightly revised liberal pluralism could either the problems Canavan and Sandel elaborate or provide genuine hope
for
revived public
life.
VERLAG
J. B. METZLER
LEO STRAUSS
COLLECTED WRITINGS
IN SIX VOLUMES
Edited
by Heinrich
Meier
ISBN 3-476-01222-0
This
the
include
all of
Strauss's
and
will
publications and
through 1937 in
original
previously unknown writings and letters. It study of Strauss's philosophy in the future.
Volume 1: Die Religionskritik Spinozas 1996. XIV, 434 pp.,
cloth with
und zugehorige
dust jacket, DM 90
Die Zur
Contains the
critical editions of
Religionskritik Spinozas
(1930),
Cohens
Wissenschaft Spinozas
Das
(1924),
Bibelwissenschaft Spinozas
marginalia
(1926),
from Strauss's
personal copies of
these writings
are published
Volume 2: Philosophie
1997. XXXIV,
Gesetz
Friihe Schriften
-
(subscription: DM 78,-).
1921 to
Contains the
29
et
essays
from the
years
1937,
are published
time:
Philosophie
und Gesetz
Der
(1935),
la
science politique
de Mai'monide
de
Farabi
Maimunis
(1937),
Abravanel's Philosophical
(1936), Tendency
Eine
der Ansicht
Das
Political Teaching
(1937),
Erkenntnisproblem in der
(1929),
The
Religiose
(1932),
Konspektivismus
and more.
marginalia
from Strauss's personal copies of these writings are published here for the first time.
politische other
Volume 3:
Hobbes'
Wissenschaft
und zugehorige
Briefe
politische
Contains, among
Wissenschaft
writings,
with
critical editions of
(1935) along
Die
the
variants of
length
manuscript
Religionskritik des
Hobbes
(ca. 1933-1935),
and others
published
In addition,
numerous
previously
Karl
unknown
in the
original
languages (German
English).
Studien
zum
theologisch-politischen Problem
of
the essay
The
German translations.
Contains the German translation along with the correspondence between Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojeve (1932-1965) in the original languages (German and English), published here for the first
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Die
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contains
Strauss's
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The
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bibliography
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Please
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"This is
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we
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Examining
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This
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editor of
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