Justice &the Four of Swords

part II:

G.F Marlier* Steinbeck* Plato* Weil* Lao Tzu (Tr. Mitchell)*

« Anyone who loves is mad » Grace Marlier

I will propose that this statement is true, if we take « madness

» to mean the conventional definition of the term madness; i.e.

irrationality, inexplicable behavior (inexplicable, or at least not

explicable coherently, by the normal standards of most humans). I

define « sanity », it’s opposite, as the ability to

make rational decisions that will lead to some probable benefit for

yourself, either directly or indirectly.

To further explain what I mean by the conventional definition, or

common perception, of madness and it’s opposite, I wish to share with

you the following

quotation, from the novel Cannery row, by John Steinbeck :

« Once when Doc was at the University of Chicago he had love trouble and he had worked too hard. He thought it would be nice to take a very long walk. He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida. He walked among farmers and mountain people, among the swamp people and fishermen. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country. Because he loved true things he tried to explain. He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, and there was no other way to do it, save on foot. And people didn’t like him for telling the truth. They scowled, or shook and tapped their heads, they laughed as though they knew it was a lie, and they appreciated a liar. And some, afraid for their daughters or their pigs, told him to move on, to get going, just not to stop near their place if he knew what was good for him. So he stopped trying to tell the truth. He said he was doing it on a bet- that he stood to win a hundred dollars. Everyone liked him then and believed him. They asked him in to dinner and gave him a bed and they put lunches up for him and wished him good luck and thought he was a hell of a fine fellow. ». I propose in contrast to this very terrestrial picture of a being,

great by conventional standards, who is understood, respected and liked

because he has

the good sense, or is perceived to have the good sense to act in a way

that will bring some tangible profit to himself, the following

definition of the greatest

being (a god)- a description that may be found in the Phaedrus of Plato

(247E):

« Now a god’s mind is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as the mind of any soul that is concerned to take in what is appropriate to it, and so it is

delighted at last to be seeing what is real and watching what is true, feeding on all this and feeling wonderful, until the circular motion brings it around to where it started. On the way around, it has a view of Justice as it is. It has a view of self-control; it has a view of knowledge- not the knowledge that is close to change that becomes different as it knows the different things which we consider real down here. No, it is the knowledge of what really is what it is. And when the soul has seen all the things as they are and feasted on them, It sinks back inside heaven and goes home. ». We must define love as a phenomena distinct from many other things

which are commonly referred to by the word « love ». Love must be

distinguished, for example, from aesthetic admiration, from fidelity,

flattery, and the rendering of services to another. It is equally

important to define love as distinct from Lust.

The property that distinguishes love from other attitudes or emotions

is the «madness » of it (« madness » by conventional standards). In

true love there is no « normal », « sane » rationale. There is no

motivating expectation of reward (as there is, for example, in lust, or

in fidelity, which usually expects fidelity in return), There is just,

as Plato says, the delight to be « seeing what is real and watching

what is true », to have « a view of justice as it is », and to have a

view of « the knowledge of what really is what it is ».

Two things that are necessary in order to aspire to, and possibly

succeed in acting out of love, defined as I am defining it, are

detachment (by being «attached to something », one takes it as an

addition to oneself, and is thus enriched), and a desire to act in

accordance with justice as the motivation for one’s actions.

Detachment

As Simone Weil says in her book gravity and grace;

« The belief in the existence of other human beings, as such, is love » (« la croyance a l’existence d’autres etres humains comme tels est Amour ») And, to expand on this theme and connect it with that of detachment

versus attachment:

« Attachment is a maker of illusions, and whoever desires what is real, must be detached. As soon as one realizes that something is real, one may no longer have an attachment to it. Attachment is nothing other than the insufficiency in the sense of reality. One is attached to the possession of a thing because one believes that if one ceases to possess it, it will cease to be. Many people do not feel with their whole soul that there is a difference between the annihilation of a city and their own irremediable exile from that city » (« L’attachement est fabricateur d’illusions, et quiconque veut le reel doit etre detache. des qu’on sait que quelquechose est reel, on ne peut pas y etre attache.

L’attachement n’est pas autre chose que l’insuffisance dans le sentiment de la realite. on est attache a la possession d’une chose parce qu’on croit que si on cesse de la posseder, elle cesse d’etre. beaucoup de gens ne sentent pas avec toute leur ame qu’il y a une difference du tout au tout entre l’aneantissement d’une ville et leur exil irremediable hors de cette ville. ») One prerequisite to love is to harbor no illusions about that which is

loved. One must believe in the existence of the other « as such », not

as the figment, even in part, of one’s own imagination, in order to

justly claim love for the other. Because attachment is « a maker of

illusions »(for starters, the illusion that something/someone ceases to

exist when they cease to be attached to you), one cannot believe in the

existence of the other « as such » if one is attached to

that other. Thus, Love for someone to whom one feels attached is

impossible, illusory. This contradicts one very common (mis)conception

of love : The « I’ll stand by you, never let you go », « I ain’t too

proud to beg (you to not leave me)», « I got you, babe », « I’d die

without your love » etcetera model, to be more specific).

Justice As Weil says, in the same book:

« To feel a pure gratitude (the case of friendship being put aside)I need to think that someone is treating me well, not out of pity, or out of sympathy, or on a whim, as a favor or to reward some privilege, nor either because of a natural effect of temperament, but out of a desire to do what justice requires one to do. And so one who treats me thus believes that all those who are in my situation should be treated thus by all those who are in his position. » («Pour eprouver une gratitude pure (le cas de l’amitie etant mis a part), j’ai besoin de penser qu’on me traite bien, non par pitie, ou par sympathie, ou par caprice, a titre de faveur ou de privilege, ni non plus par un effet naturel de temperament, mais par desir de faire ce que la justice exige. donc celui qui me traite ainsi souhaite que tous ceux qui sont dans ma situation soient traites ainsi par tous ceux qui sont dans la sienne. »). Examples given here of things that may be confused with the motivation

to treat someone well (treat someone with love, as indicated by the «

case of friendship» being put aside), are pity, sympathy, whim, as a

favor or to reward privilege, or by a natural effect of temperament.

All of these are false sources that lead to imitations of love, and not

to love itself.

The true source of an act of love is this: The desire to do what

justice requires be done in relations with « the other », whoever that

« other » may be, in a given circumstance.

The person who acts truly out of love acts thus because he wants his

actions to conform to the exigencies of Justice (the perfect justice

that Plato’s god orbiting earth in his chariot « has a view of », not

the justice of human legislation, which is changeable and flawed). It

is not with an eye to personal gain that he acts thus, it is rather in

accordance with a transcendent law, and in many cases those who do act

on this motivation are viewed as insane.

Conclusion The real question is not about the nature of love; it is about the

nature of truth. For if truth is taken to be one thing, and then it’s

opposite, the world is turned inside out in every sense. I would like

to close with a quotation from Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the

Tao Te Ching of Lao-Tzu, which illustrates this idea:

The path into the light seems dark the path forward seems to go back the direct path seems long true power seems weak true purity seems tarnished true steadfastness seems changeable true clarity seems obscure the greatest art seems unsophisticated the greatest love seems indifferent the greatest wisdom seems childish.