Freedom, Fame, Lying And Betrayal

Essays On Everyday Life

Leszek Kolakowski

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429711183
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Ciencias sociales
• Categoría: Sociología

Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski is renowned worldwide for wrestling with serious philosophical conundrums with dazzling elegance. In this new book, he turns his characteristic wit to important themes of ordinary life, from the need for freedom to the wheel of fortune, from the nature of God to the ambiguities of betrayal. Extremely lucid and l

1
On Power

A former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, when asked in a television interview whether he would like to be Prime Minister, replied, with some surprise, that surely everyone would like to be Prime Minister. This was, in turn, a matter of some astonishment to me, for I am by no means convinced that everyone would like to be Prime Minister; on the contrary, I am sure that there are a great many people who have never harboured such a dream, not because they feel that their chances of fulfilling such an ambition are slim, but simply because they think it must be a dreadful kind of job to have to do: endless headaches, huge responsibilities, and the knowledge that whatever you do you will be a permanent target of attacks and ridicule, and the worst intentions will be imputed to you.

Is it true, then, that 'everyone wants power"? The answer depends on how broadly we understand the term. In its broadest sense, 'power' is everything that allows us to influence our surroundings, human or natural, in a desired direction; when we have done this, we are said to have 'mastered' them. When a child takes its first steps, or stands up by itself for the first time, it gains a degree of power over its own body, and is visibly pleased by this; and in general it would be true to say that we would all prefer to have more rather than less mastery over our bodies and those parts of them, like muscles and joints, which can be controlled. Similarly, when we learn a new language, or chess, or swimming, or a branch of mathematics that is new to us, we are acquiring skills whereby we are able to 'master' a new area of culture.

Such a broad understanding of 'power' has been the basis of theories concluding that ail human activity is inspired by the desire for power in its various forms; according to such theories, all our efforts are nothing but expressions of a striving for power, the wellspring of human energy. People seek wealth because wealth gives them power not only over things but also to a certain (often considerable) extent over other people. Even sex may be explained in terms of power: either we want to possess the other person's body, and through it the actual person, or we think that by possessing it we are excluding others from possession; either way we have the satisfaction of feeling that we are wielding power over somone. Sex is of course one of nature's pre-human inventions; and according to such theories the desire for power is an instinct present throughout the natural world, whatever the culturally influenced forms it may assume in human society.

It is even possible, with a bit of effort, to explain acts of altruism in terms of power: when we act kindly towards other people, we are motivated, whether we know it or not, by a desire to exercise a measure of control over their lives, for our act of kindness puts them partially in our power. There is no area of our lives that is not motivated by the search for power; there is nothing else, and to say otherwise is self-deception. So the theory goes.

Theories of this type, while they have a superficial plausibility, in fact explain very little. Any theory that attempts to explain all human behaviour in terms of a single type of motivation, or claims that all social life is inspired by a single motivating force, can be defended. This very fact, however, shows that all such theories are in the end no more than philosophical constructs, and therefore of little use. To say, for example, that a person's motives are the same whether he sacrifices himself for his fellow-man or tortures him, does not get us very far forward, for it amounts to saying that there are no valid principles whereby we might judge or indeed even distinguish between such actions: their essence, however different it may seem, is exactly the same. Such theories do, however, have their uses: wrongs committed will not weigh quite so heavily on one's conscience if one can say to oneself that everyone else, at heart, is just as bad.

Certain currents in Christian thought, once powerful although all but obsolete today, could lead us to a similar kind of temptation: if we are told that without divine grace we shall always do evil, whatever we do, while with it we shall necessarily do only good, then it matters little whether we help our fellow man or torture him; without divine grace we shall be banished to hell either way. This has been the fate of all pagans, however noble.

Proponents of such theories always search for a single master-key which could open all doors. But there is no such thing as one satisfactory explanation for everything, and there is no such key. Culture develops and grows because people are inspired by different things and motivated by new needs; old needs shed their dependence on their previous functions and become autonomous parts of the culture.

While theories claiming that all our actions are inspired essentially by a desire for power are naive and of little explanatory value, it is nevertheless true that power itself remains a good that is highly sought-after. When we talk about power we generally intend it in a narrower sense than the one we have been discussing: as the means available to an individual or a collective entity to influence others and control their behaviour, by force or by the threat of force. Power in this sense requires some organized means of coercion, and nowadays this means a state.

Is it true that we all want power in this sense? Certainly, we would all like other people to behave in ways we deem appropriate, which is to say in ways that are beneficial to us, or in accordance with our own sense of justice. It does not follow from this, however, that we would all like to be king. As Pascal said, only a king deprived of his throne is unhappy because he is not king.

We know that power corrupts – not always, but often enough. We also know that people who have enjoyed a substantial measure of power for a significant amount of time often come to feel that they have some kind of natural right to it, just as monarchs once believed that they ruled by divine right. When such people lose their power for one reason or another, they see their loss not merely as a misfortune but as a castastrophe of cosmic proportions. Finally, we know that the struggle for power has been the principal source of wars and other ills that beset the world.

The existence of all these evils connected with power has naturally given rise to a variety of childish anarchist Utopias, according to which the only cure for the world's ills is to eliminate power altogether. In the more extreme of these, 'power' is understood in its broadest sense, so that, for instance, the power of parents over their children is considered by its very nature to be a horrible tyranny, to be abolished as soon as possible. It follows that when we teach our children their native language, for example, we are actually exercising a dreadful kind of tyranny: by virtue of the power we wield over them, we are imposing our wishes on them by force, and depriving them of their liberty. It would be best, according to such theories, to leave them in an animal state in which they could invent their own language, customs and culture.

Less absurd varieties of anarchism, however, aim to abolish only political power; the theory is that if all governments, administrations and courts were to disappear, humanity would live in a natural state of peace and brotherhood. Fortunately, it is not possible to bring about an anarchist revolution whenever one feels like it, merely by deciding to do so: anarchy comes about only when all organs and institutions of power collapse and there is no one left in control. The results of such a situation are inevitable: some force which seeks absolute power for itself (and there is no lack of such) will profit from the general mayhem to impose its own despotic order. The most spectacular example of this was of course the Russian Revolution, when a despotic bolshevik regime took power as a result of general anarchy. In practice, anarchy is the handmaiden of tyranny.

Power cannot be abolished, it can only be made better or worse by substituting one sort of government for another. Nor, unfortunately, is it true that we would all live in peaceful brotherhood if only political power were abolished. It is not accident but human nature itself that makes our interests diverge and conflict; there is a measure of aggression in us all, and there is no limit to our needs and desires. It is fairly plain, therefore, that if the institutions of political power were miraculously to vanish, the result would be not universal brotherhood but universal slaughter.

There has never been, nor will there be, a 'government of the people' in the literal sense; apart from anything else, it would not be technically feasible. There can only be certain safeguards whereby the people can keep an eye on what the government is doing and replace it with another if it so chooses. Of course, once a government is in power, we are subject to a variety of restraints, and in a number of important areas the choices are not ours to make: we cannot choose, for example, whether or not to send our children to school, pay our taxes, take a driving test if we wish to drive, and so on. The controls set up by a people to oversee its government are not infallible; a democratically elected government can also be corrupt, and its decisions often contrary to the wishes of the majority; no government can satisfy everyone; and so on. All these are things we know very well. The means by which a people exercises control over its government are never perfect, but the most effective way mankind has so far invented to avoid tyranny is precisely to go on strengthening the instruments of social control over governments and restricting the range of government powers to the bare minimum necessary to maintain social order: the regulation of all areas of our lives, after all, is what totalitarian power is all about.

We may, then, and indeed we should, treat the organs of political power with suspicion, control them closely and if need be (and the need is always there) complain about them; we should not, however, complain of the very existence of power and its institutions, unless we can invent a different world – something many have tried, but none successfully.

2
On Fame

Fame, we all know, is among the things people most desire. This is so obviously true that there is no need to go into why it should be so – why fame is so famously desirable. It is enough to say that to be famous, for whatever reason, is to affirm oneself and confirm one's own existence, and self-affirmation seems to be a natural human need.

The thirst for fame, however, is not universal, in spite of the fact that in our own civilization fame is a goal obsessively pursued. Some ancient philosophers (famous ones, naturally), especially the Stoics and the Epicureans, even taught that fame was something to be avoided, and advised us to live in hiding and count the blessings of being unknown. Fame doubtless does have its bothersome aspects, although the famous people who complain of its being a terrible burden to them generally lack credibility, because at the same time they do their best to get themselves on television and their names into the newspapers. There are many people, however, who genuinely do not seek fame – either because they lack confidence and do not like being in the limelight, or perhaps because they have a low opinion of themselves.

Fame, as we know, often – but not always – brings wealth. It brings wealth to people in certain professions: actors and film directors, rock singers, sportsmen, and so on. Most people who seek fame, however, do so not for the benefits it brings but for its own sake – mindful, perhaps, of the immortal example of Herostrates, who is said to have burnt down the temple of Diana for the sole reason that he wanted to achieve fame (a purpose in which, it must be said, he succeeded admirably, for here we are still talking about him centuries later). Even today we see loutish youths, barely in their teens, committing hideous crimes of the kind they see on television with the sole aim of becoming famous. At the other end of the scale there are people who already possess the things that sometimes result from fame, such as great wealth, and yet prefer to avoid fame itself and remain unknown. In general, however, fame is considered desirable in itself, and not merely as a means of obtaining other desirable goods.

Fame, by its very nature, is given to few: its rarity is part of its definition. It has been said (by Andy Warhol, who was famous) that one day we shall all have our fifteen minutes of fame; this, however, is nonsense. It is nonsense for two reasons: first, because a simple calculation will show that the process of giving each one of us his fifteen minutes of fame, perhaps on some kind of international television channel, would take, given the current world population, something in the region of 200,000 years, even if that channel broadcast around the clock and showed nothing but successive aspirants to their fifteen minutes of fame, and was watched around the clock by the entire population of the world; and second, because in a situation of such absurd equality no one would be famous at all. Fame must be rare, and this is why it is inevitable that only a very few of those who dream of fame will see their dream fulfilled, and most will be bitterly disillusioned. They will have wasted much time and effort, for making the achievement of fame one's life's goal is a time-consuming business. There are, of course, many goods that people seek but rarely attain, and yet think worth the effort of seeking in spite of the improbability of attaining them. Millions of people, for instance, play the lottery, even though they know that their chances of winning the jackpot are slim. But playing the lottery is cheap (unless it is done compulsively) and involves little time or effort, while aspiring to fame involves a great deal, usually wasted.

There are many degrees of fame, so many that it is impossible to determine precisely who is really famous and who is not. If we disregard those who are famous by virtue of their office, like presidents and prime ministers of world powers, kings and popes, we can say that nowadays fame is usually proportionate to the length and frequency of people's appearances on film and television. In America everyone knows the names and faces of news-readers and popular television show hosts. We can all recognize Jack Nicholson and (more recently) Emma Thompson; we have all heard of Antonioni and Wajda. We know the names of some scientists from the first half of the century, like Einstein, Planck, Bohr or Marie Curie-Sklodowska; but how many of us who are not chemists or physicists could name the Nobel Prize laureates of the last forty years in physics or chemistry? We do not know their names; sometimes we do not even know how they have distinguished themselves, or in exactly what field. We just assume that they must be illustrious and distinguished. But they are not famous, because so few of us have heard of them.

Reflections of this kind can give rise to the silly supposition that fame is somehow 'unjustly' distributed. The supposition is silly because we do not know what a 'just' distribution of fame would look like, nor how we should go about organizing such a distribution. It is true that, as things are, some barely literate boxing champion can be famous throughout the world while a great scholar or scientist who genuinely works for the benefit of mankind, a medical researcher, say, is known only to a handful of people; but why should there be anything wrong in this? Why should fame be the just reward for great intellectual achievements but not for feats of sportsmanship or for hosting a television show? Fame is often a question of sheer luck: even a lottery winner can be famous for a short time, through no effort or merit of his own. Quite often, too, we ourselves, as an audience, can make someone famous: we can establish the fame of an actress, for example, by going to see the films in which she is playing. Many people – Xanthippe, Theo van Gogh, Pontius Pilate-acquire fame simply because they are in some way connected with famous people. And why should they not? There is no sense in complaining about the 'unjust' distribution of fame, for fame is not, and is not supposed to be, a reward for goodness, wisdom, courage or any other virtue; it simply isn't, and it never will be.

This is all to the good. For if our lives were not in large degree unpredictable and governed by chance, they would be very boring indeed, and this in spite of the fact that chance generally does not act in our favour. The universe is not arranged on a basis of just rewards, and we cannot even conceive of what it would mean to say that it could be arranged differently from the way in which it is. Perhaps in heaven fame and glory are awarded according to different rules; perhaps there the famous, those who are elevated to the highest level, will be people no one on earth has heard of. It is safe to assume, however, that those who feverishly pursue fame on earth, consume...