the human evasion - celia green

8/7/2019 The Human Evasion - Celia Green

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The Human Evasion

by Celia Green

Foreword by R H Ward

Chapter 1 -- Sanity

Chapter 2 -- The Characteristics of Sanity

Chapter 3 -- The Genesis of Sanity

Chapter 4 -- The Society of the Sane

Chapter 5 -- How To Write Sane Books

Chapter 6 -- The Sane Person Talks of Existence

Chapter 7 -- The Sane Person Talks of God

Chapter 8 -- The Religion of Evasion

Chapter 9 -- The Philosophy of EvasionChapter 10 -The Science of Evasion

Chapter 11 -The Alternative to Sanity: What Would It Be Like?

Chapter 12 -Christ

Chapter 13 -Nietzsche

Chapter 14 -Why The World Will Remain Sane

An Open Letter to Young People

FOREWORD

One way of seeing reality is to see the appearances we usually take for it inside-out, back-to-

front or looking-glass fashion. This is very difficult to do, considering how habituated we are to

those appearances. It is also very difficult to be witty about vital and essential matters, though

that is one of the best hopes we have of seeing them objectively, which is about the only hope

we have of seeing them at all. Miss Green has achieved the looking-glass vision and the wit.

Many, therefore, will call her too clever by half, forgetting that one of the things she is saying

is that we are not half clever enough, for the very reason that we lack her witty vision becausewe wear the blinkers of our belief in appearances. So anyone who reads this book (as

opposed to merely reading its words) must be prepared to be profoundly disturbed, upset and

in fact looking-glassedhimself; which will be greatly to his advantage, if he can stand it. Few

books, long or short, are great ones; this book is short and among those few. One day,

perhaps, it will become part of holy writ: a gospel according to Celia Green. Which kind of

'insane' statement belongs to the book's own kind of truth.
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R. H. WARD

Chapter 1

SANITY

On the face of it, there is something rather strange about human psychology.

Human beings live in a state of mind called 'sanity' on a small planet in space. They are not

quite sure whether the space around them is infinite or not (either way it is unthinkable). If

they think about time, they find it inconceivable that it had a beginning. It is also inconceivable

that it did not have a beginning. Thoughts of this kind are not disturbing to 'sanity', which is

obviously a remarkable phenomenon and deserving more recognition.

Now sanity possesses a constellation of defining characteristics which are at first sightunrelated. In this it resembles other, more widely accepted, psychological syndromes. A

person with an anal fixation, for example, is likely to be obsessional, obstinate, miserly,

punctilious, and interested in small bright objects. A sane person believes firmly in the

uselessness of thinking about what he does not understand, and is pathologically interested

in other people. These two symptoms, at first sight independent, are actually inextricably

related. In fact they are merely different aspects of that peculiar reaction to reality which we

shall call the human evasion.

As I shall be using the word 'reality' again I should make it plain at once that I use it to mean

'everything that exists'. This is, of course, a highly idiosyncratic use of the word. I am awarethat it is commonly used by sane people to mean 'everything that human beings understand

about', or even 'human beings'. This illustrates the interesting habit, on the part of the sane, of

investing any potentially dangerous word with a strong anthropocentric meaning. Let us

therefore consider the use of 'reality' a little longer.

It is first necessary to consider what might be meant by the word 'reality' if it were usually

used to mean 'everything that exists'. It would have to include all processes and events in the

Universe, and all relationships underlying them, regardless of whether or not these things

were perceptible or even conceivable by the human mind. It would also include the fact that

anything exists at all -- i.e. that there is something and not nothing. And it would include thereason for the fact that anything exists at all, although it is most improbable that this reason is

conceivable, or that 'reason' is a particularly good name for it.

In fact it is quite obvious that to most people 'reality' does not mean anything like this.

Particular attention should be drawn to the phrase 'running away from reality' in which 'reality'

is almost always synonymous with 'human beings and their affairs'. For example: 'It isn't right

to spend so much time with those stuffy old astronomy books. It's running away from reality.


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You ought to be getting out and meeting people.' (An interest in any aspect of reality requiring

concentrated attention in solitude is considered a particularly dangerous symptom.) This

usage leads to the interesting result that if anyone does take any interest in reality he is

almost certain to be told that he is running away from it.

Although so far we have given only one illustration, some impression may already begin to

emerge of the way in which the sane mind has allocated to all crucial words meanings whichmake it virtually impossible to state, let alone to defend, any position other than that of sanity.

In fact by now this is the chief means employed by sanity to defend itself from any possible

attack. Formerly it found it necessary to claim a certain interest in 'reality' in the sense of 'that

which exists'. There were religions, and systems of metaphysics, you may remember, which

professed a certain interest in the creation of the world, and the purpose of life, and the

destiny of the individual.

Now no such disguises are necessary.

I am reminded of a book called Flatlandin which an imaginary two-dimensional world isdescribed. Towards the end of the book a non-dimensional being is encountered -- a point in

space. The observers listen to what it is saying (but of course, since they are of higher

dimensionality than its own, the point being cannot observe them in any way). What it is

saying to itself, in a scarcely audible tinkling voice, is something like this: 'I am alpha and

omega, the beginning and the end. I am that which is and I am all in all to myself. There is

nothing other than me, I am everything and all of everything is all of me and all of me is all of

everything...'

The human race has taken to producing similar noises. Perhaps we would not be surprised at

the sociologists murmuring to themselves from time to time, 'in society we live and move and

have our being', as they scurry from communal centre to therapeutic group, but these days

everyone is at it.

The philosophers have discarded metaphysics and have a tinkling song of their own which

says, 'In the beginning was the word and the word is mine and the word was made by me.'

This is rather a strong position in its way, because if you try to criticize it they will point out

that you can only do so in words, and they have already annexed all the words there are on

behalf of humanity. (And the meaning of the words is the meaning humanity gave them, and

they shall have no meaning beside it.)

The theologians are finding theology rather an embarrassment, and one can only suspect

they would be happier without it. Their tradition does make it a little more difficult for them to

put God in his proper place, but all things considered, they're keeping up with the times pretty

well. Sartre said 'Hell is other people'; the up-to-date theologian says 'God is other people'.

It might have been thought that the 'existentialists' would make some sort of a stand for the

transcendent, but it hasn't been serious. In fact many people have found that a liberal use of


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existentialist language, loosely applied, has been extremely helpful in stimulating an

obsessional interest in human society. (This interest is variously known as 'commitment',

'involvement', and 'the life of encounter'.)

The questions which remain are these. Arepeople, in fact, matters of ultimate concern to

other people? And still more, can they be sources of 'ultimate solution' to them? If they are

not, what psychological force is at work to ensure that these questions are so seldom asked?Why, if you ask a question about man and the universe, are you given an answer about 'man

in society'?

Chapter 2

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SANITY

Sanity may be described as the conscientious denial of reality. That is to say, the facts of the

situation (apart from a few which are judged to be harmless) have no emotional impact to a

sane mind.

For example, it is a salient feature of our position that we are in a state of total uncertainty.

Possibly the universe started with a 'big bang' a few aeons ago, or perhaps something even

more incredible happened. In any case, there is no reason known to us why everything

should not stop existing at any moment. I realize that to my sane readers I shall appear to be

making an empty academic point. That is precisely what is so remarkable about sanity.

The sane person prides himself on his ability to be unaffected by important facts, andinterested in unimportant ones. He refers to this as having a sense of perspective, or keeping

things 'in proportion'.

Consider the wife of the Bishop of Woolwich. She says - I have sometimes been asked

recently: 'What effect has Honest to Godand all the reaction to it had on your children?'[1]

That is to say, what effect has it had on her children that their father has written a book about

the nature of reality which has attracted a great deal of attention. Have they become

interested in their father's importance as a possible influence on the course of history? Have

they started to take themselves seriously and determined to influence their generation? Or

have they begun to take a precocious interest in theology, whether agreeing or disagreeing

with their father? The Bishop's wife assures us that none of these unpleasant things have

happened. What effect, then, hasit had? 'The simple answer is -- practically none at all,' she

says. 'Life goes on much as it did before.' The vital questions continue to be 'Do you have to

go out tonight?', 'What can I wear for the party?', and 'What's for supper?''

This ability to keep things 'in perspective', or upside down, is beautifully exemplified by certain

remarks made by the aging Freud.
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Seventy years have taught me to accept life with a cheerful humility....

Perhaps the gods are kind to us in making life more disagreeable as we grow

older. In the end death seems less intolerable than the manifold burdens we

carry.... I do not rebel against the universal order.... (Asked whether it meant

nothing to him that his name should live) Nothing whatsoever.... I am far moreinterested in this blossom than in anything that may happen to me after I am

dead.... I am not a pessimist, I permit no philosophic reflections to spoil my

enjoyment of the simple things of life.[2]

To appreciate the full force of these remarks one must realize that Freud had already had five

operations for cancer of the jaw, and was in more or less continuous pain. (It may be held that

when Freud looked at a blossom and found it more interesting than pain and death and fame,

this was because he was overcome by the astonishing fact that the blossom existed at all. But

if this were so, I think he would scarcely refer to it as one of the 'simple' things of life.)

He was not entirely immune from reminders of his finite condition, as is shown by other

statements which he made at various times.

... there is deep inside a pessimistic conviction that the end of my life is near. That

feeds on the torments from my scar which never cease. [3]

When you at a youthful 54 cannot avoid often thinking of death you cannot be

astonished that at the age of 80 1/2 I fret whether I shall reach the age of my father

and brother or further still into my mother's age, tormented on the one hand by the

conflict between the wish for rest and the dread of fresh suffering that further lifebrings and on the other hand anticipation of the pain of separation from everything

to which I am still attached.[4] The radium has once more begun to eat in, with pain

and toxic effects, and my world is again what it was before -- a little island of pain

floating on a sea of indifference.[5]

However, in spite of all this he didn't lose interest in trivia, and in the eyes of any sane person

this establishes his claim to possess great 'emotional stability'.

Seeing things in perspective usually means that you stand at a certain distance away from the

objects of observation. The 'perspective' in which a sane person lives depends on avoidingthis manoeuvre. You have to hold a flower very close to your eyes if it is to blot out the sky.

The sane person holds his life in front of his face like someone with short sight reading a

newspaper with rather small print. It follows that he cannot have emotions about the universe,

because he cannot see that it is there.
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This is a salient feature of sanity -- it does not include emotions about the universe. Some

sane readers may object: 'Once I was excited about anti-particles for several hours'. or 'I tried

out solipsism for three whole days'.

So, if it is insisted upon, we may qualify this statement as follows: Sanity may occasionally

allow transitory emotions about the universe or reality, but it does not allow them to exercise

any perceptible influence as motives in the life of the individual. At this stage in our argumentwe must regard it as an open question whether this is an accidental by-product of sanity, or

whether it is the deliberate but unstated objective at which all sane psychology is aimed.

I must explain what I mean by an emotion about the universe -- since this is an unfamiliar and

bizarre phenomenon -- so let me give an example. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the founder of

linguistic philosophy, which has made so great a contribution to intellectual sanity in this

century, was himself not quite so sane as he would have liked. Indeed, it may be argued that

linguistic philosophy was itself the product of his strenuous attempts to remain sane enough.

A case of an irritated oyster producing a pearl -- the sane may reply - which does not detract

from the value of the pearl. Possibly.

But it is undeniable that Wittgenstein did occasionally have emotions about the universe. So

his biographer records: 'I believe that a certain feeling of amazement that anything should

exist at all, was sometimes experienced by Wittgenstein.... Whether this feeling has anything

to do with religion is not clear to me.'[6]

Notice in passing the fastidiousness with which his biographer hastens to disclaim any exact

comprehension of this feeling. ('I believe the lower classes eat fish and chips from

newspaper. Whether this practice has anything to do with nutrition is not clear to me.')

What more can be said of the sane person? He is ubiquitous, and so his characteristics are

invisible. There is nothing to compare him with.

But let us consider the picture given in a jolly little booklet called 'A positiveapproach to

Mental Health'.[7] (The cover is adorned with a picture of a happy fakir sitting beside an

abandoned bed of nails.)

'How does the person who is enjoying good mental health think and act?' the booklet asks,

and proceeds to inform us, among other things, that 'He gets satisfaction from simple, every-

day pleasures.' Freud, you see, certainly qualified.

'He has emotions', the booklet also informs us, 'like anyone else.' However, they are 'in

proportion' and he is not 'crushed' by them. I think by now we have established what is meant

by keeping things 'in proportion' -- i.e. you have most of your emotions about unimportant

things. The booklet does not state this explicitly, but it certainly does not state anything to the

contrary. It might, for example, be said that 'the mature man is not unduly interested in

matters of purely local significance, such as the state of affairs on this particular planet,
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because he realizes that they are of little ultimate significance.' You will observe how

outlandish that sounds.

The booklet becomes a little lightheaded when it comes to the matter of the mentally healthy

person's interest in facts. 'He's open-minded about new experiences and new ideas.' A more

accurate statement might be 'A mentally healthy person has made a value judgement in

advance that no idea or experience can be qualitatively more important than those he alreadyunderstands. He is able to rely on his defense mechanisms and can listen with a bland

expression to people with unpleasant ideas.'

How does the mentally healthy person feel about his limitations? 'He feels able to deal with

most situations that come his way.... He tries for goals he thinks he can achieve through his

own abilities; he doesn't want the moon on a silver platter.' That is to say, he has so arranged

his life that he doesn't try to do anything that doesn't seem pretty easy. 'If he can't change

something he doesn't like, he adjusts to it.' 'He knows he has shortcomings and can accept

them without getting upset.' That is, he has ways of pretending he does not mind about

anything he cannot alter easily.

And how does he feel about other people? Here a slightly threatening note of reciprocity

appears. 'He is tolerant of others shortcomings just as he is of his own. He doesn't expect

others to be perfect, either.' 'He expects to like and trust other people and assumes that they

will like him.... He doesn't try to push other people around and doesn't expect to be pushed

around himself.' Let us just imagine what might have been said instead -- I know it will sound

like the wildest fantasy. 'He regrets his own shortcomings and is always willing to admire

people with greater virtues and capacities than his own. He wishes to help other people,

particularly those with higher aims and a more intense sense of purpose than he has himself.

He does not expect to be liked in return for his help.'

We have established that the mentally healthy person isn't going to let his life, with all its

content of simple pleasures, be pushed around by anyone.

This, if you give it a moment's thought, ensures that all his relationships must be

characterized by mutual purposelessness. If you once admit a purpose to the situation, it may

make differential demands on different people.

Nevertheless, the sane person 'is capable of loving other people and thinking about their

interests and well-being. He has friendships that are satisfying and lasting. He can identify

himself with a group, feel that he is part of it, and has a sense of responsibility to his

neighbours and fellow men.'

Notice that a friendship should be satisfying -- i.e. it is an end in itself, and not a means to an

end. It should also be 'lasting'. Obviously if the friendship depended on community of

purpose, it might be outgrown.


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So it is plain that people constitute a rather large part of the mentally healthy person's world,

but that all associations of persons have to be characterized by a mutual sacrifice of

purposiveness.

I am reminded of the porcupines of Schopenhauer. They wanted to huddle together to keep

one another warm, but found that their spines pricked one another. If they kept too far apart,

they became cold again. So they established a distance at which they could keep one anotherwarm without actually making contact with one another's spines. 'This distance was

henceforward known as decency and good manners.'

The attitude of the mentally healthy person towards other people might be stated as follows:

'He expects to derive warmth from his proximity to other people. He does not expect to derive

anything else, and is willing to let other people derive warmth from him so long as they, too,

abandon their prickly claims to possess needs of any other kind.'

Before we leave this little booklet, let us consider that brilliant expression 'mental health'. It is,

of course, a social euphemism of the same genre as 'rodent operative' and 'cleansing official'.It saves sane people from embarrassment by permitting them to say that their confined and

extraordinary relatives are not madbut 'mentally ill' or even 'mentally unwell'. It implies that

the human mind grows naturallyand by biological necessityinto the image and likeness of the

Human Evasion, as the human body grows to a certain specified kind of shape. It implies that

any deviation from the Human Evasion is the same kind of thing as a tumour or a running

sore. It sanctifies the statistical norm. 'Mental disease', the booklet says, 'doesn't indicate lack

of brain power but rather a malfunctioning of the brain and emotions. The individual just

doesn't respond to various situations the way a normal person would' (my italics).

What can we add to this picture of the sane? One sane opinion. '... if I could spend the courseof everlasting time in a paradise of varied loveliness, I do not fancy my felicity would be

greatly impaired if the last secret of the universe were withheld from me.' [8]

This opinion was held by a Gifford Lecturer in the 1930s. His lectures were entitled 'The

Human Situation', and they are a marvel of sanity from beginning to end. But they are

outdated in one respect. We do not talk any more about 'the human situation'. The phrase

implies that humans can be seen in relation to something other than humans. What we talk

about now is sociology. Everyone is very proud of this fact. It is the quintessence of sanity.

[1] John A.T. Robinson, The New Reformation, S.C.M. Paperback,

1965, p.123.

[2] Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, Vol. III,

The Hogarth Press, 1957. p.133.

[3] Ibid., Vol. III, pp.70-71.

[4] Ibid., Vol. III, p.226.


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[5] Ibid., Vol. III, p.258.

[6] Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press

Paperback, 1958, p.70.

[7] Richard Christner, Published by the National Association for

Mental Health, 1965.

[8] MacNeile Dixon, The Human Situation, Edward Arnold and Co.,

1937, p.14.

Chapter 3

THE GENESIS OF SANITY

It is fashionable to locate the origins of psychological attitudes very early in life. The taste for

doing so is not, perhaps, entirely unmotivated.

It is obviously fairly agreeable to regard one's psychology as the result of conditioning rather

than of choice. It is relaxing; one has nothing to blame oneself for; one cannot be expected to

change. It is, of course, possible that the infant mind is capable of significant emotional

decisions, but this possibility is never discussed.

However, a perfectly satisfactory beginning may indeed be postulated for sanity, and this

does not interfere at all with standard theories of psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis deals with

that part of a person's psychology which has become fixated on other people; so it may well

describe what happens to the child in so far as that child becomes sane.

It is well known that the younger people are, the less sane they are likely to be. This has lead

to the heavily-loaded social usage of the term maturity. It is an unquestionable pro-word.

Roughly speaking, the matureperson is characterized by willingness to accept substitutes,

compromises, and delays, particularly if these are caused by the structure of society.

Young people are usually immature, that is to say, they wish their lives to contain excitement

and purpose. It is recognized (at least subconsciously) by sane people that the latter is muchthe more dangerous of the two, so the young who cannot at once be made mature are

steered into the pursuit of purposelessexcitement. This is actually not very exciting, and is

well on the way to an acceptable kind of sanity, as it leads to the idea of 'excitement' being

degraded to that of 'pleasure'.

Adolescents are known to think about metaphysics more than most people; thus thinking

about metaphysics becomes associated with the negative concept 'immaturity'. If someone


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thinks about metaphysical problems at a later age, they are said to show signs of 'delayed

adolescence'.

Now let us go back to the very beginning of the 'maturation' process. It is to be presumed that

a baby which is being born experiences helplessness as helplessness. That is to say, it

experiences the painful and incomprehensible process without any of those reflections which

are such a miraculous source of comfort to the sane -- such as 'It will soon be over', or 'Afterall, it happens to everybody', or 'It shouldn't be allowed. It's theirfault'.

The infant may be presumed to find its condition intolerable -- because it is out of control of it.

At this point of its life, what it minds about is that it cannot control reality, not that it cannot

control people.

Now so long as one is finite -- i.e. one's knowledge and powers are limited -situations may

always arise which one cannot control. But it is very hard for an adult human to feel any

emotion about his limitations vis-a-vis impersonal reality. What emotion arises in you when

you think that you would be quite unable to lift Mount Everest? On the other hand, it isprobably quite easy to feel some emotion at the thought that so-and-so is an inch taller than

you are, or can always beat you at badminton. You may also (though less probably) still be

able to feel a pang of jealousy or regret that you are not Nijinsky or Shakespeare or Einstein.

Obviously a process of psychological development takes place which ensures (so far as

possible) that the limitations of the individual will be experienced onlyin comparisons with

other people. Now it is obvious that the emotion which accompanies the original experience of

helplessness is very strong. If you can recall any experience of impotent fury or horror in early

childhood you may get some idea of this. This gives some clue to the strength of the human

evasion. If people are to take the force of all this displaced emotion, it is scarcely surprisingthat they should be the object of such exclusive attention.

At first very young children are not immune from a feeling of helplessness per se. But it may

be presumed that the part of their environment which is most readily manipulable is soon

seen to be other people. The younger the child, the truer this is. Its own physical and mental

grasp of the situation is greatly exceeded by that of adult humans -- particularly its mother --

who can affect the situation in its favour if they feel inclined to do so.

It is very painful to try to do something and to fail. The retrospective attempt to reject the

combination of trying and failure is well known in social life. 'I didn't really care about the

game today.' 'Actually I was thinking that even if I was elected it was time I resigned to spend

more time on my other interests.' Therefore, by the time it has reached adulthood, the sane

person has evolved ways of relinquishing the attempt in favour of some compensatory aim, in

any situation in which it does not feel almost certain to succeed. For example, as a mature

adult, you cannot even try (with any emotional involvement in the act of trying) to jump over a

house. By the same taken, you cannot tryto make a door open by willpower alone, or tryto

arrive home quickly without traversing the intervening space and navigating such obstacles as


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stairs, walls, gates, etc., in the approved fashion. Your immediate sensation if you attempted

to try, would be an overwhelming sense of impossibility.

It is (philosophically or factually speaking) the case that no future event can be demonstrated

to be impossible. If something has happened once, this may be said to show it is possible. If it

has never happened this does not show that it can never do so. But as has pointed out,

reflections of this kind although true, have no emotional impact to a sane person.

As already mentioned, you may still (in rare circumstances) be able to tryto achieve

exceptional things in some socially recognized and strictly limited field. I.e. you may still be

able to try and equal Nijinsky, Shakespeare, etc.

But it is far more likely that you have acquired some compensatory attitude towards any such

symbols of outstandingness. It can give a very pleasant sense of gentle superiority to discuss

Beethoven's deafness, and Shakespeare's Oedipus Complex, and Nietzsche's lack of

success with women, in a more or less informed manner. Thus MacNeile Dixon:

So with the famous monarchs of the mind. They terrify you with their authority....How royal is their gesture, how incomparable their technique!

There is, however, no need for alarm. Pluck up your heart, approach a little nearer,

and what do you find; that they have human wishes and weaknesses like yourself.

You may discover that Kant smoked, played billiards and had a fancy for candied

fruit. The discovery at once renders him less awe-inspiring.[1]

This kind of approach is not only useful for eliminating a sense of inferiority, it also makes it

much easier to ignore anything Kant, Nietzsche, Hume, etc., may have said about reality.Now although the ambitions of the adult are already restricted to narrowly defined types of

social recognition, even this form of aspiration is a strictly unstablestructure in sane

psychology -- i.e. if it is displaced slightly from its equilibrium it will tend to fall further away

from that position, and not return to it. On the other hand, compensationis

a stablepsychological position in sane psychology.

The replacement of aspirationby compensationis perhaps most clearly seen among college

students. They frequently arrive at university with immature desires for greatness and an

exceptionally significant way of life.

Not infrequently, also, this leads to emotional conflicts and disappointments of one kind and

another. They adjustto their problems with startling rapidity. The solution which occurs to

nearly all of them, and is suggested to them by psychological advisers, etc., if it does not

occur to them spontaneously, is to accept their limitations. The acceptance of limitationsis

accompanied by a marked increase in the valuation placed on other people.

'I used to be quite self-sufficient and thought I wanted to be nothing but an intellectual. I lived

for my work, and of course maths/classics/anything you like is the nearest thing there is to


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heaven. But it would be selfish to live like that. I see now you've got to take an interest in life

-- I mean, you have to live with other people. It's difficultto get on with people. Social

problems aredifficult. The other is easy. It's running away from reality.'

What is usually omitted from this exposition by the patient is that between the period at which

classics (or whatever it may have been) was 'nearly heaven' and the period at which human

relationships became the central thing in life, there was usually a stage at which classics wasno longer particularly easy.

It is a simple law of human psychology, therefore, that as soon as conflict arises, it will be

eliminated by some compensatory manoeuvre in which other peopleare the central pivot. The

process of becoming thoroughly sane depends on repeated manoeuvres of this kind.

This process may be presumed to have started in earliest infancy, when it was much more

rewarding to aim at responses from one's mother than at controlling the environment directly.

Here began the child's lifelong efforts to limit its trying to regions in which it could succeed.

This process, of necessity, remained imperfect in early life, as moderate (though neverdisproportionate) efforts to learn things must be sanctioned in the young.

These efforts are almost at once heavily conditioned by social acceptability, though this is not

yet the exclusive criterion. It is possible to find people who remember, as children, having

tried (or attempted to try) to walk away from the stairs into the air instead of going on down

them one by one. But even then they found it impossible to try very hard.

Why is it so painful to failin something you have tried to do? In the case of the young child it

is evidently because it reminds it of its limited powers, which suggests the possibility of

permanent finiteness.

It is bad enough to be finite at present; it is intolerable to believe that one will always be so. If

one tries and fails it proves that one's trying is insufficient. Better therefore to believe that one

doesn't want to try-- at least at present.

This view of the matter is not so far removed from that of orthodox psycho-analysis, which

does, after a fashion, recognize the child's desire for omnipotence. Psycho-analysis is,

however, most concerned with what happens once human persons, such as the child's father,

have become partial symbols of omnipotence. There is also a tendency to describe the child

as having a muddle-headed beliefin its own omnipotence. This is, of course, less justifiable

than a desirefor omnipotence. Sane people cannot distinguish very easily between differentattitudes of this kind.

Of course in the child and adolescent there are still remains of the belief that one will, at some

judiciously selected time in the future, attempt altogether more ambitious things. In true

adulthood this idea has disappeared (or becomes transformed into some such form as 'it

would make all the difference if people were only decent to me and gave me my rights').


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Thus the sane, adult person wants (or tries to want) to have what it can have and to do what it

can do, and exercises a good deal of ingenuity in attempts to want not to have what it cannot

get.

One or two points must be made in parentheses. The sane person will not, of course, admit

that the prospect of being permanently finite is intolerable.

Even if he looks so miserable that he cannot with any conviction claim to be happy himself, he

will utter constant affirmations that 'most people are perfectly all right and quite happy as they

are.' 'Why should I mind about being finite? Suppose Ienjoyit like this?'

This does not make our hypothesis about the development of the human evasion any less

probable. Our argument is that a sane person's life has been spent in an increasingly

successful attempt notto find finiteness intolerable. Thus if he makes assertions of this kind,

he is telling us only that he has succeeded.

After all, it is accepted in psycho-analysis that one of the objects of a psychological reaction to

an unacceptable fact is, eventually, to conceal the true origin and purpose of this reaction.

The sane adult will, of course, object that what happens when one comes up against one's

limitations is not that one is reminded of the possibilityof permanent finiteness. It

is certainthat the limits of one's capabilities are defined by what one can and cannot achieve.

The very young child reacts emotionally as if it believed that limitation is only potential; it does

not yet identify itself with its limitations. In this its emotions are in accordance with the most

abstract philosophy; whatever may be achieved in certain circumstances on one occasion or

even on a great many occasions, it may still be the case that something quite different may beachieved on a future occasion. In the most abstract sense, this might simply happen in the

way that everything might stop existing at any moment or start existing according to different

laws. This, I know, is the sort of consideration that has no force at all to a sane adult. But

even within the normal world-view, it cannot be claimed that very much is known about the

psychological factors that restrict or permit achievement, and the possibility cannot be ruled

out that if someone adopted a different kind of psychological attitude from any they had had

before, they might find their abilities radically changed.

Initially, then, the child is merely horrified at the prospect that a single failure may contain

some implication of permanent restriction; some barrier set forever between him and the

possibility of omnipotence. It is a matter of social conditioning that he increasingly learns that

he is regarded by others as defined by his failures, so that any single one comes to have the

force of a permanent measurement of what he unchangeably is.

This process is accompanied by a continuous shifting of the idea of failure away

from absolutefailure (i.e. failure to fulfil one's own will) toward 'failure by comparison with

other people'. To the mature adult only the latter is of any interest.


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The child is trained, then, to react to failure not only by regarding his limitations as final, but by

substituting something more readily obtainable for what he originally wanted. The substitution

is usually eased by a shift of emphasis from what the individual himself wants, to what other

people want from him. It may be the substitution of a differentambition from the first one, on

the grounds that it will be just as useful to society, or it may be the substitution of social

approval per sefor any ambition at all.Consider some well-known gambits. 'Never mind, darling. Even if you fail your exams, you

know we'll still love you.' If the person concerned is actually worried about the exams, there is

an obvious motivation for attempting to find this comforting. 'Well, we know you did your best,

and that's what counts.' The latter is particularly subtle, since it combines the idea of finalityof

failure with the offer of social approval. What it is really saying is: 'Provided you accept that

you couldn't possibly have done better, and you really are worse than all the other boys, you

may have our affection as a good boy who tries.'

Now the child may well have an obscure feeling that in some way he wasn't

feeling rightabout the thing; or that somehow everything felt wrongat school in some

indefinable way that made it quite certain that he couldn't do that kind of thing there. But his

mind must be distracted from any attempt to work out how one does make oneself feel right to

do things. (If he does start reflecting on the effect of circumstances upon him he will most

likely be told he is 'making excuses'.)

The denial of psychological reality is very important to sanity. It cannot afford to admit the

existence of a psychology of achievement, still less to understand it. However, one of the few

pieces of psychology that is understood by sanity is how to make young humans with

aspirations feel discredited and absurd. Any aspiration bears an uncomfortable resemblance

to a desire not to be finite at all. Inspiration is of little interest to modern psychology; it is about

as unfashionable as witchcraft. If the subconscious mind is considered at all, it is considered

solely as a repository of associations of ideas about parts of the body and members of one's

family.

Of course there is a kind of non-aspiring psychology of success which is understood by

sanity. It is roughly as follows: the most stable, least excitable, most normal, people will tend

to be most consistently successful.

Even if this seems to be supported by observation, it must be borne in mind that these are the

conditions for success (of a moderate kind) in a society composed of sane people.

[1] Ibid., p.16.

Chapter 4

THE SOCIETY OF THE SANE


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Society begins to appear much less unreasonable when one realizes its true function. It is

there to help everyone to keep their minds off reality. This follows automatically from the fact

that it is an association of sane people, and it has already been shown that sanity arises from

the continual insertion of 'other people' into any space into which a metaphysical problem

might intrude.It is therefore quite irrelevant to criticize society as though it were there for some other

purpose -- to keep everyone alive and well-fed in an efficient manner, say. Some degree of

inefficiency is essential to create interesting opportunities for emotional reaction. (Of course,

criticizing society, though irrelevant, is undeniably of value as an emotional distraction for

sane people.)

Incidentally, it should be noticed that 'keeping everyone alive and well-fed' is the highest

social aim which the sane mind can accept without reservation or discomfort. This is because

everyone is capable of eating -- and so are animals and plants -- so this qualifies

magnificently as a 'real' piece of 'real life'. There are other reasons in its favour as well, of

course, such as the fact that well-fed people do not usually become more single-minded,

purposeful, or interested in metaphysics.

It has been seen that the object of a sane upbringing is increasingly to direct all emotion

towards objects which involve other people. Now basically the situation of being finite is an

infinitely frustrating one, which would be expected to arouse sensations of desperation and

aggression -- as indeed it may sometimes be seen to do in very young children. I am aware

that I must be careful, in using the word aggression, to state that I do not mean aggression

directed towards people. What I mean is an impersonal drive directed against reality -- it is

difficult to give examples but it may be presumed that geniuses who are at all worthy of the

name preserve a small degree of this.

However, since allemotion must be directed towards people, it is obvious that the only form

of aggression which a sane person can understand is aggression against people, which is

probably better described as sadism or cruelty.

Now it is obvious that the open expression of cruelty towards other people would have a

destructive effect upon society, apart from being unprofitable to the human evasion in other

ways. So the usual way in which aggression is displaced onto other people is in the form of a

desire that they should be limited. This, after all, is very logical. If the true source of youranger is that you are limited yourself, and you wish to displace this anger onto some other

person, what could be more natural than that you should wish them to be limited as well.

This desire is usually expressed in the form of a desire for social justice, in one form or

another. ('In this life you have to learn that you can't have it all your own way.' 'Well he can't

expect to be treated as an exception for ever.' 'It's time he learnt to accept his limitations.'


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'Don't you think you should try to think more what other people want? We all have to do things

we don't like.' 'Why should theyhave all the advantages.')

This means that societyis not only the chief source of compensation to a sane person, but his

chief instrument of revenge against other people. It is useless to point out that there is no

need to revenge himself upon them. If he were ever to admit that they were not responsible

for his finite predicament, he would have to direct his hatred against the finite predicamentitself, and this would be frustrating. It is this frustration that the human evasion exists to

evade.

Any attempt to dosomething involves the possibility of failure and may remind you of reality.

For this reason the sane society discriminates against purposefulaction in favour of pleasure-

seekingaction. The only purposes readily recognized as legitimate by the sane mind are

those necessitated by the pursuit of pleasure. E.g. pleasure seeking cannot efficiently be

carried on unless the individual is kept alive and moderately healthy. Therefore his physical

needs are regarded as important and ambulances are provided with noisy bells. There is no

corresponding necessity that he should fill, say, his intellectual potentialities. In fact the

attempt to do so is likely to appear unduly purposeful.

It is obvious in any number of ways that a sense of purposerepels rather than attracts

assistance. You have only to consider the immediate sympathy that would be aroused in a

sane mind by the complaint of some child that it was being driven to work at things far too

difficult for its capacities, compared with the distrust and reserve with which it would view

complaints by the child that it was not being allowed to work hard enough.

To the sane mind, even aggression against people is infinitely better than aggression against

infinity. And it is the chief defect of sane society that it is boring. It is so boring that even sanepeople notice it. And so, from time to time, there is a war. This is intended to divert people's

minds before they become so bored that they take to some impersonal kind of aggressive

activity -- such as research, or asceticism, or inspiration, or something discreditable of that

kind.

In wartime, rather more purposeful activity than usual is permissible. Even sane people relax

their normal beliefs that nothing matters very much, and some time next week is soon enough

for anything. This is regarded as justified because the war is always about something

connected with other people, and may be regarded as an assertion of the belief that the thing

that matters most is politics.

And yet it might seem that war was going rather far. It does contain a very considerable risk of

contact with reality. It is difficult to pretend that people never die, or that they only die in

soothing situations with up-to-date medical care and loving relatives to keep their minds

occupied with family news. War is full of reminders that things happen, and that space and

time are real, and that before the bomb blows up is not the same as after, and that there are

risks and uncertainty.


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How then can a sane society run the risks of allowing its population to have experiences of

this kind, even occasionally? I think if you ask this question it is simply because you do not

appreciate the robustness of sanity. If you shut people up in a prison camp, and torture them

for a few years, they will not come out saying: 'I am a finite animal in existence and it is

beyond endurance. How can I go on living in a body that can be tormented in these ways? I

demand that human society stops all it is doing and starts attacking finiteness in everyconceivable way....'

Instead, they will come out saying: 'It is terrible that other people should let wars happen, in

which it is possible to be so degraded and reminded of one's limitations. It shouldn't happen; it

is contrary to human rights; we are appalledat the evil in the heart of man. Meanwhile we

demand reparation from society -- employment, and housing, and disablement allowances...'

Society, they say, exists to safeguard the rights of the individual. If this is so, the primary right

of a human being is evidently to live unrealistically.It has been pointed out that by the time a person is fully mature he will not, in normal

circumstances, be made aware of his finiteness except in comparisons with other people.

It is not possible to ensure this absolutely. But it is possible to limit the loopholes to those of

physical accident, illness and death. Human beings regard it as a sacred duty to be

particularly untruthful about these things -- particularly to the afflicted person and to any

young person who may be around. For example, the following account of the death of

Madame Curie may well seem rather touching to a sane person.

Then began the harrowing struggle which goes by the name of 'an easy death' - in which thebody which refuses to perish asserts itself in wild determination. Eve at her mother's side was

engaged in another struggle; in the brain of Mme Curie, still very lucid, the great idea of death

had not penetrated. The miracle must be preserved, to save Marie from an immense pain that

could not be appeased by resignation. Above all, the physical suffering had to be attenuated;

the body reassured at the same time as the soul. No difficult treatments, no tardy blood

transfusions, impressive and useless. No family reunion hastily called at the bedside of a

woman who, seeing her relatives assembled, would be suddenly struck to the heart with an

atrocious certainty.

I shall always cherish the names of those who helped my mother in those days of horror. Dr.Toben, director of the sanatorium, and Dr. Pierre Lowsy brought Marie all their knowledge.

The life of the sanatorium seemed suspended, stricken with immobility by the dreadful fact:

Mme Curie was about to die. The house was all respect, silence and fervor. The two doctors

alternated in Marie's room. They supported and solaced her. They also took care of Eve,

helped her to struggle and to tell lies, and, even without her asking them, they promised to lull

Marie's last sufferings by soporifics and injections.


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On the morning of July third, for the last time Mme Curie could read the thermometer held in

her shaking hand and distinguish the fall in fever which always precedes the end. She smiled

with joy. And as Eve assured her that this was the sign of her cure, and that she was going to

be well now, she said, looking at the open window, turning hopefully towards the sun and the

motionless mountains: 'It wasn't the medicines that made me better. It was the pure air, the

altitude...'[1]It may be remarked that although the vulnerability of the human body makes it possible even

for a fully-matured human being to be reminded of his limitations, no power on earth can

remind him of the transcendent, in any shape or form. His reactions to pain, danger and death

are limited to fear, depression, anxiety and commonsense. They do not include liberation,

elation, or an interest in infinity. That is to say, the impact of reality has been rendered entirely

negative.

In order effectively to distract people from reality, society has to provide them with pseudo-purposes, guaranteed purposeless. (Or, alternatively, with pseudo-frustrations, guaranteed

permanent.) There are two main kinds of pseudo-purpose or -frustration; they are known as

'earning a living' and 'bringing up a family'. They both provide a person with a cast-iron alibi

for not doing anything he wants with his life. (He does not, of course, want to be free to do

what he wants, so this is all right.)

Sane people regard an apparently purposeful activity as disinfected by numbers -- i.e. if a

sufficiently large number of people is involved, they feel sure that the outcome will be

harmless to sanity, no matter how frenzied the labours may seem to be. The most large-scale

examples are war and politics.

Into these activities, people allow themselves to enter with almost single-minded devotion.

Both war and politics have played a particularly helpful part in retarding the march of

progress. In fact, the history of the human race is only comprehensible as the record of a

species trying not to gain control of its environment.

[1] Eve Curie, Madame Curie, Garden City Publishing Co. Inc.,

1900, pp397-398.

Chapter 5

HOW TO WRITE SANE BOOKS

It will be convenient to have a name for that part of reality which is not emotionally regarded

as 'real' by the sane person. We shall call it the Outside.


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The Outside consists of everything that appears inconceivable to the human mind. In fact

everything is inconceivable to the human mind (if only because it exists) but not many people

notice this.

In religious and philosophical writings it is often difficult to eliminate all reference to the

Outside. There are a number of ways of dealing with this problem. One of the most successful

is to generate a distinctive kind of ambiguity about the meanings of crucial words.

Consider the following passage in which the words 'being' and 'existence' are used. 'The term

'being' in this context does not designate existence in time and space.... (It) means the whole

of human reality, the structure, the meaning and the aim of existence.'[1]

It is tolerably clear that at least when Tillich firstuses the word 'existence' he means by it what

I also mean when I use the word. It seems that what we both mean by 'existing' is 'being

there'.

However, Tillich then explicitly repudiates this sense and goes on to define the word 'being' in

a second sense. The term 'being' means the whole of human reality, Tillich says. Themeaning of this phrase is not obvious.

Perhaps Tillich means the sum total of the mental content of all humans -illusions and all?

What humans think is real? Or that part of reality which is accessible to the human mind?

The last seems to be the best we can do. So let us suppose that 'human reality' does mean

that part of the mental content -- actual or potential -- of humans which is actually in

accordance with what exists.

'Human reality' is then placed in apposition with 'the structure, the meaning and the aim of

existence'. What is to be understood by this? The 'aim of existence' seems at first sight to beclear, unless 'existence' has made an unannounced change of meaning since it was first

used. It would seem that this phrase must mean 'the purpose for which everything exists'.

But this is difficult, because 'the aim of existence' is in apposition with 'human reality' which

certainly does not include the purpose of existence.

This leads us to a distinct suspicion that when Tillich talks of 'the structure, meaning and aim

of existence' he does not mean 'existence' at all, but 'human life' instead. If he does mean

this, there seems no reason why he should say so -- except that it would rob what he is

saying of a status it does not possess. And if he does mean this, we have arrived at the

following definition of the word 'being' -- 'whatever happens to be realistic in the mental

content of humans; the structure, the meaning and the aim of human life'.

In fact, we may suggest this paraphrase of what Tillich is saying: 'When we talk of 'being' we

do not mean the Outside. We mean the Inside.'


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This example illustrates a standard procedure for appearing to take the Outside into

consideration without actually doing so. The rules for this kind of writing are very simple and

roughly as follows.

There are a number of words and phrases which may mean something about existence or

something about humans. For example: 'existence', 'depth', 'ground of being', 'ultimate

concern', 'meaning', etc. Whenever what you really mean is 'human relationships' or 'day-to-day living' you should replace it by some existential-sounding combination, such as 'the depth

of being'. It is a good idea to use compound phrases ('the depth of historical existence', 'the

ultimate ground of meaning') as a considerable degree of obscurity can be created by

summating the uncertainty of a number of uncertain terms.

It is usual to define these terms as little as possible. But if you wish to appear to do so, it is

best to use a series of phrases in apposition (as in the example just considered: 'the whole of

human reality, the structure, the meaning and the aim of existence'). This gives a very good

effect of struggling to define something difficult with precision while actually generating

ambiguity (on the principle of summation of uncertainty already mentioned). The device of

apposition itself introduces an additional modicum of doubt, since if you appose two such

phrases as 'the depth of meaning' and 'the inmost structure of reality' no one will be sure

whether the two phrases are ways of saying the same thing, or whether they are intended to

complement one another.

Other verbal devices may be used for placing together in the closest possible proximity

'human' words and 'Outside' words. Words like 'ultimate' and 'reality' should be used in

phrases like 'human reality' and 'ultimate concern', and the word 'meaning' should be softened

into 'meaning and coherence'. (The word 'meaning' might be regarded as informationally

sufficient; however, the addition of 'coherence' contributes a useful implicit suggestion that

'meaning' must hang together in a way that is recognizable and rather agreeable to humans.)

To illustrate these instructions, consider the typical phrase 'life and existence'. Now the word

'existence' may mean 'human life', but if it does it is adding nothing to the meaning of the

phrase. So this phrase would seem to mean 'human living andthe fact that things are there' --

which seems a strange combination to discuss in the same breath.

Another example of the way in which abstract words such as 'transcendent', 'meaning',

'existence' should be combined with human words such as 'life' and 'confidence':

High religions are ... distinguished by the extent of the unity and coherence of life

which they seek to encompass and the sense of a transcendent source of meaning

by which alone confidence in the meaningfulness of life and existence can be

maintained.[2]

May I suggest a paraphrase, which I think does not reduce the informational content. 'High

religions are distinguished by making the whole of human life feel meaningful to the human


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being.' As human life already feels meaningful to sane human beings, this would appear to let

anything or nothing qualify as a 'high religion'.

It is true that my paraphrase reduces Niebuhr's meaning if he is using the word 'transcendent'

in a transcendent sense. If so, what he is saying becomes more complex, but questionable.

Assuming 'transcendent' to mean 'possessing a validity which cannot be affected by any

consideration whatever', or perhaps 'directly related to the reason for existence', it is difficultto see why a 'transcendent source of meaning' should be expected to maintain anyone's

'confidence in the meaningfulness of life'. For this to be true, we should have to accept the

psychological supposition that people can only confidently accept transcendent meanings as

meaningful. What is more, we should also have to accept that a transcendent source of

meaning would have the characteristic of making a human being confident about the meaning

of his life. It is an interesting sidelight on human psychology that it should be so often

assumed that a transcendent purpose mustbe one that 'gives a meaning to life'. In fact,

anyone sufficiently unusual to think occasionally about transcendence finds that it makes his

life feel intolerably meaningless. (This is why people do not go on doing it.)

If we assume that Niebuhr is using the word 'transcendent' in one of the senses defined

above, the most obvious characteristic of a transcendent meaning would seem to be that it

invalidates all subordinate meanings. This, after all, is what 'transcendent' means -- that which

invalidates, but cannot itself be invalidated. So if Niebuhr is really using the word

'transcendent' to mean that which transcends, what he is saying becomes: 'High religions are

distinguished by making the whole of life meaningful by reference to something which makes

the whole of life meaningless, which is the only way in which it is possible to maintain

confidence that life is meaningful.'

As this is patently absurd, I assume that he is not in fact using the word 'transcendent' in a

transcendent sense. It is much more likely that when he talks of a 'transcendent source of

meaning' he means 'anything which is capable of making the whole of human life seem

meaningful to a large number of people'.

I leave the reader to appreciate the following without further explanation:

God made the world, and is never absent from it. So, within the mind of modern

secularism there are feelings after the meaningfulness of human existence,

recognition of supreme obligations in human relations, gropings after an undefined

'otherness'.[3]

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what

the word means, and it is that to which the words Kingdom of Godand Divine

Providencepoint. And if these words do not have much meaning for you, translate

them, and speak of the depth of history, of the ground and aim of our social life,


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and of what you take seriously without reservation in your moral and political

activities. Perhaps you should call this depth hope, simply hope. [4]

[1] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. I, p.17.

[2] R. Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, Meridian

Books, 1956, p.17.

[3] Archbishop of Canterbury, Sunday Times, December 20, 1964.

[4] Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, Penguin Books,

1949, p.65.

Chapter 6THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF EXISTENCE

When the sane person talks about life he sometimes mentions the Outside, but here a

splendid confusion can be created from the simple fact that other peopleare, in a certain

sense, outsiderelative to the individual. And so it is possible to find passages like the

following:

And what, too, would our reactions to (ESP) tell us about ourselves? That we feel

safer living in splendid isolation, a huis clos? Or that we are prepared to face thepossibility of being members of one another in a world which, as mathematicians

already know, is first and foremost one of relationships, and which now, as a great

mathematician, Hermann Weyl, has dramatically put it, is being made by modern

science itself 'to appear more and more as an open one... pointing beyond itself.' [1]

This, incidentally, provides a particularly ostentatious example of the use which is constantly

made by sane people of words with two possible meanings.

Here the word 'relationship' is used to assimilate the two concepts 'human relationship' and

'mathematical relationship'. A little analytical thought should convince the reader that a personmay be interested in human relationships without the slightest attraction towards

mathematical ones, and vice versa.

A distinction may be made, though it is a difficult one for a sane mind to grasp, between the

idea of a world 'pointing beyond itself' to mathematical abstractions, and one 'pointing beyond

itself' to human mutuality and cohesion.
http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html#5.4http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html#6.1http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html#5.4http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html#6.1


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There is no evidence that people who feel like particles of dust relative to the

universebecome paralysed and inactive, although it is a fact of clinical psychology that

people who feel worthless relative to other peopleoften spend a good deal of time in bed.

Virtually all categories of modern thinkers unite in chanting 'There is no Outside'. The

existentialists, alone, say 'There isan Outside'. On account of their sane upbringing they feel

that this is a difficult thing to say and they say it with a kind of metaphysical stutter, inventing

new words profusely in their desperation to make themselves understood. Of course in a

sense they are right in supposing that it is difficult; no sane person is likely to understand it.

But the difficulty is emotional, not philosophical.

(Incidentally, how well the human evasion has arranged matters when anyone who would say

'There is an Outside' is driven to express himself at enormous length, in all but unreadable

books.)

Existentialists admit that there are certain states of consciousness in which ideas aboutdeath, existence, isolation, responsibility, urgency and so forth may have some emotional

significance. But these are rare and transitory.

The weakness of the existentialists' case is that they do not distinguish sufficiently between a

philosophical attitude and a psychological one. A sane person may be made to admit, as a

philosophical point, that everything is fundamentally uncertain, but this will not give it any

power as a motive force in his life. Even a person who wished to realize the fact of uncertainty

would find it difficult to perceive it with any vividness, or to eliminate other emotional attitudes

which he saw to be incompatible with it.

Having accepted that one may, at certain times, become startlingly aware of certain things,

the existentialist argument usually goes on to talk of 'authentic' and 'inauthentic' being. If what

is meant by 'inauthentic being' is living without awareness of these things, then obviously

everyone is very inauthentic indeed. 'Authentic being' would mean to live in constant

awareness of these things, with all the modifications that would entail. But this is a problem in

psychology; it must be asked what forces are at work to prevent this awareness, whether it is

possible to defeat them, and how. It is particularly useless to give prescriptions for 'authentic

being' by involvement or commitment in the world. If we realize that we are talking about

states of consciousness, it becomes clear that the procedure being recommended is this: 'If

you should chance to have a flash of awareness of things of which you are not usually aware,

you will realize that your life is full of things which seem meaningless to you so long as you

are in this state of awareness. What are you to do to overcome your sense of

meaninglessness?' There is a simple answer. 'The awareness will pass. You can forget it

easily and go on living as before. But since you want to convince yourself that you are doing

something about this flash of awareness you have had, you are recommended to return to


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[1] Rosalind Heywood, The Infinite Hive, Chatto and Windus,

1964, p.224.

[2] Quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience,

Random House, 1902, p.158.

[3] Th. Jouffroy, quoted in William James, Varieties of ReligiousExperience, Random House, 1902, p.173.

[4] Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom, Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1942, pp.16-17.

[5] David E. Roberts (on Karl Jaspers), Existentialism and Religious

Belief, Oxford University Press, New York, 1957, p.248.

Chapter 7

THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF GOD

The human race has always been unable to distinguish clearly between metaphysics and

morality. Thus the word 'God' can be used to mean 'origin of existence' or it can be used to

mean 'intelligent being interested in the social behaviour of humans'. These two concepts are

not, however, the same, and any relationship between them would have to be carefully

established.

In the same way 'religion' could mean two different things. It might mean something like 'a

person's attitude to the Outside in general, and the fact of existence in particular'. As it

happens, it does not mean this, and no one expects it to. It is actually used to mean 'a

person's attitude towards social interactions with other people, with some reference to a

supposed intelligent being who is interested in these interactions'. The last clause is

dispensable. Most people would have little hesitation in accepting as 'religious' someone who

showed the required behaviour patterns, whether he said he believed in a God or not.

It is usually impossible to make sense of passages in which the word God appears at all

often. Consider, for example, this description by Erich Fromm of an up-to-date, sensible kind

of religious person.

The truly religious person, if he follows the essence of the monotheistic idea, does

not pray for anything, does not expect anything from God; he does not love God as

a child loves his father or his mother; he has acquired the humility of sensing his

limitations, to the degree of knowing that he knows nothing about God. God

becomes for him a symbol in which man, at an earlier stage of his evolution, has


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expressed the totality of that which man is striving for, the realm of the spiritual

world, of love, truth and justice. He ... considers all of his life only valuable

inasmuch as it gives him the chance to arrive at an ever fuller unfolding of his

human powers -- as the only reality that matters, as the only object of 'ultimate

concern'; and eventually, he does not speak about God -- nor even mention his

name. To love God, if he were going to use this word, would mean, then to long forthe attainment of the full capacity to love, for the realization of that which 'God'

stands for in oneself. [1]

Let us see what becomes of this passage if it is rewritten with the term 'God' understood to

mean 'reason for existence' throughout.

'The truly religious person, if he accepts the idea of a single overriding cause which originated

all that exists, does not expect this cause to be directly related to what goes on in his own life,

and does not expect it to do anything for him. He does not ask it for anything and does not

expect to enter into a security-giving personal relationship with it. He realizes that he is a finitebeing, and that the reason for existence is inconceivable to him. He realizes that he is one of

a certain race of animals which has evolved on a certain planet of a certain star in a certain

galaxy, and that as they evolved these animals formulate certain ideals at which to aim. The

reason for existence becomes to him a symbol for the security and consistency which his race

of animals would like to have. He considers his life only valuable inasmuch as he considers it

valuable. He regards what interests him as the only reality that matters, and the only object of

any importance to the overriding cause which originated all that exists. Eventually he does not

ask any questions about the reason for existence -- nor even refer to it in passing. To desire

the knowledge of the reason for existence would mean to him, then, to long for the attainmentof the full capacity to have an intense interest in the welfare of other members of his species.

This is the realization of that part of one's psychology for which the words 'reason for

existence' stand.'

Modern thinkers are at last feeling free to divorce the ideas of 'God' and 'religion' from any

direct connection with the fact that things exist. Some go further. Not only has 'God' nothing in

particular to do with the origin of existence, but also it has nothing whatever to do with

anything human beings do not understand about -- that is, it has nothing to do with the

Outside.

Fromm's treatment of the idea of God depends on never defining it. A further advance has

been made by the Bishop of Woolwich, who admittedly does not define it either, but says

explicitly that it isn't there.

What is of interest about the Bishop of Woolwich is not that he is supposed to be a Christian

(which is a matter of definition), but that he is human. One might say that he is veryhuman.

He speaks for his time; not only for the Christianity of his time but for human psychology as it

stands facing the unknown -- or rather, with its back to it.


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I do not mean to be unduly condemnatory of human beings for standing in this position. It is

the done thing. In fact, it has always been the done thing, although formerly some pains were

taken to disguise the fact. When people talked about 'God' they used to pretend that what

they said had something to do with questions about the meaning of existence and the

purpose of life.

The splendid discovery made by the Bishop of Woolwich is that the human race is completelyuninterested in such questions, but now it is all right to say so. Man has 'come of age'.

It is not very easy to understand what the Bishop of Woolwich is saying, but it is easier if you

start by ascribing a zero value to the term 'God'. What I mean is that you need to leave a sort

of blank hole in every sentence in which the word 'God' appears. It is never defined, and so it

is semantically redundant.

However, though he does not say who or what God is, the Bishop wants most earnestly to

assert that God is not Out There.

But the signs are that we are reaching the point at which the whole conception of aGod 'out there' ... is itself becoming more of a hindrance than a help ... Suppose

belief in God does not, indeed cannot, mean being persuaded of the 'existence' of

some entity, even a supreme entity, which might or might not be there, like life on

Mars? ... Suppose that all such atheism does is to destroy an idol, and that we can

and must go on without a God 'out there' at all?[2]

What can we make of these statements? Something (unspecified) is not Out There. Does this

mean nothingis Out There? Or nothing of any significance is Out There? A little reflection

convinces the questing mind that what the Bishop really means is 'There is noOut There.'To make this a little more grammatical, let us rephrase it as 'There is no Outside'. As we have

mentioned, we define the Outside as 'that which falls outside the comprehension of the

human race'. Now whatever else God might be supposed to be, one would imagine that he,

she or it wasunquestionably Outside.

But the Bishop has two reasons for supposing that God is not Outside.

One of them is that the Inside is getting bigger. We are better at science than we used to be,

and our expectation of life is increasing. We can make aeroplanes and control malaria. We do

not know what everything is existing for, but neither do we care.God is an 'x' in the equation whom we cannot get on without, a cause, controller or

designer whom we are bound to posit or allow room for -- this hypothesis seems to

men today more and more superfluous.[3]

Note, incidentally, a nice piece of sane writing. If you talk of 'God' impersonally as 'a cause' it

is difficult to reject the hypothesis that 'there is always room for a cause we do not know

about.' If, however, you talk of God as a 'designer', you are obviously bringing in all those
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anthropomorphic associations which make the idea of God ludicrous. This is where apposition

is so useful.

But the Bishop's main reason for supposing that God is not Outside is that we are none of us

interested in an Outside, and we areinterested in other people.

The world is not asking 'How can I find a gracious God?' It isasking 'How can I find

a gracious neighbour?'[4]

So if 'God' is to be of any interest, it must mean something about human relationships.

(Just whatabout human relationships it could mean is never clear. The Bishop's only

elucidation takes the form of periodically intoning such words as 'depth' and 'ultimacy'.)

Of course, the Bishop is not alone in all this. He quotes extensively from Tillich, for example.

When Tillich speaks of God in 'depth', he is not speaking of another Being at all.

He is speaking of 'the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being', of

our ultimate concern, of what we take seriously without reservation.[5]

(I leave the reader to work out how many of the techniques described in 'How to Write Sane

Books' are used in those two sentences.)

Tillich maintains that God is the 'ultimate concern' of every man. I think all modern theologians

would agree. However, the question is whether you take 'God' as defining 'man's ultimate

concern', or take 'man's ultimate concern' as defining 'God'. Naturally, in this democratic age,

the latter procedure is usually followed. (There is only one of God whereas there are a

number of human beings; it would obviously be undemocratic to take God as a standard.) I

am happy to see the old opposition between God and man has all but vanished from moderntheology. There is now the most extraordinary sympathy, not to say identity, of outlook.

We must -- even if it seems 'dangerous' -- affirm that the glory of God and the glory

of man, although different, actually coincide. There is no other glory of God (this is

a free decision of his will) than that which comes about in man's existence. And

there is no other glory of man than that which he may and can have in glorifying

God. Likewise God's beatitude coincides with man's happiness. Man's happiness is

to make God's beatitude appear in his life, and God's beatitude consists in giving

himself to man in the form of human happiness.[6]

So far we have only considered the modern kind of theologian, who does not believe in God.

This should not be taken to imply that the human evasion has only just started to operate in

this area.

Even when people believed in God you may remember that there was a certain difficulty in

driving any metaphysical argument with them beyond a certain point. They would suddenly

round on you, with or without a sweet smile, and say, 'Ah, but the important thing is that God
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is a person.' This effectively prevented any further discussion of his possible existence or

attributes, particularly as the concepts 'person' and 'personality' appeared to defy analysis.

It is, of course, entirely compatible with the human evasion that it should suddenly interpose

the 'personal' and the reason for existence -- by whatever name it calls it. It is no less

compatible with it that the people who disbelieve in God should do so on the grounds that he

was a personalGod. 'It is evident', they say, 'that when people believed in God they werethinking of something like a human being with whom one could have emotional interactions.

This is Freudian. It is obvious that there is no Outside because when people thought there

was, they treated it like a person. I am well-adjusted and do not need a God to have

emotional interactions with. I can have them with other people. Consequently there is no

Outside.'

[1] Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, Allen and Unwin Paperback,

1957, p.54.

[2] John A. T. Robinson, Honest to God, S. C. M. Paperback,1963, pp.15-17.

[3] John A. T. Robinson, The New Reformation, S.C.M. Paperback,

1965, p.108.

[4] Ibid., p.33.

[5] John A.T. Robinson, Honest to God, S.C.M. Paperback, 1963,

p.46.

[6] Karl Barth, The Faith of the Church, Collins Fontana Books,1958, p.13.

Chapter 8

THE RELIGION OF EVASION

The basic tenet of sane theology is that the chief barrier between man and God is constitutedby pride-- that is, self-sufficiency and ambition, which prevent him from recognizing his true

place in the scheme of things. And we are enjoined to be humble -- that is, to accept our

place in the scheme of things and adopt an attitude of unassuming trustfulness.

This is remarkably like the standard prescription for preserving the human evasion, especially

as it is usually accompanied by exhortations to take a particularly thorough interest in our

fellow humans.


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Now it might actually be true that a man was prevented from perceiving very much of reality

(or from perceiving anything very interesting about it) by his satisfaction with himself as he is.

But if we tried to say anything about this in ordinary language the most extraordinary results

would ensue. We should have to say, for example, that the essence of humility was to

recognize one's desire to be God.

This follows from the fact that if you define 'pride' as 'what makes people feel they can

manage all right as they are', 'anti-pride' or 'humility' should be 'what makes people aware that

being as they are is unsatisfactory'.

The idea of anyone desiring to be God is very shocking to a sane mind which, with its usual

facility for confusing the issue, makes no distinction between 'desiring to be God' and

'imagining oneself already to be God'. Now what would actually happen to someone who

desired to

the human evasion - celia green

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