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The Human Evasion

by Celia Green

Foreword by R H Ward

Chapter 1 -- SanityChapter 2 -- The Characteristics of SanityChapter 3 -- The Genesis of SanityChapter 4 -- The Society of the SaneChapter 5 -- How To Write Sane BooksChapter 6 -- The Sane Person Talks of ExistenceChapter 7 -- The Sane Person Talks of GodChapter 8 -- The Religion of EvasionChapter 9 -- The Philosophy of EvasionChapter 10 - The Science of EvasionChapter 11 - The Alternative to Sanity: What Would It Be Like?Chapter 12 - ChristChapter 13 - NietzscheChapter 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 because we 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-glassed himself;

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 becomepart of holy writ: a gospel according to Celia Green. Which kind of 'insane' statement

belongs to the book's own kind of truth.

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 arenot 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 sight

unrelated. 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 tomean 'everything that exists'. This is, of course, a highly idiosyncratic use of the word. I

am aware that it is commonly used by sane people to mean 'everything that human beingsunderstand 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 anthropocentricmeaning. 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 inthe Universe, and all relationships underlying them, regardless of whether or not thesethings 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 wouldinclude the reason 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 runningaway from reality. You ought to be getting out and meeting people.' (An interest in any

aspect of reality requiring concentrated attention in solitude is considered a particularlydangerous 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 toemerge of the way in which the sane mind has allocated to all crucial words meaningswhich make 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 anypossible 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 mayremember, 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 Flatland in 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 ofhigher 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 amalpha 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 meand 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 liveand 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 whichsays, 'In the beginning was the word and the word is mine and the word was made byme.' 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 wordsthere 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 suspectthey 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 thetimes 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 forthe transcendent, but it hasn't been serious. In fact many people have found that a liberaluse of 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. Are people, 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 seldomasked? 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 emotionalimpact 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 uswhy 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, and

interested 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 God and 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 ofhistory? 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, has it 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.

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 manifoldburdens 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 more interested in this blossom than in anything that

may happen to me after I am dead.... I am not a pessimist, I permit nophilosophic 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 beheld 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 ofthe '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 theone hand by the conflict between the wish for rest and the dread of fresh

suffering that further life brings 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 isagain 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 saneperson this establishes his claim to possess great 'emotional stability'.

Seeing things in perspective usually means that you stand at a certain distance away fromthe objects of observation. The 'perspective' in which a sane person lives depends on

avoiding this 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 aboutthe universe, because he cannot see that it is there.

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 'Itried 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 toexercise any perceptible influence as motives in the life of the individual. At this stage in

our argument we 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 sanepsychology 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 founderof 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 - whichdoes 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 anythingshould 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 anyexact 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 positive approach toMental 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 ismeant 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, 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 mentallyhealthy 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 already understands. 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 dealwith 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 reciprocityappears. '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 hehas 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 toan end. It should also be 'lasting'. Obviously if the friendship depended on community of

purpose, it might be outgrown.

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 tokeep 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 another warm 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 notexpect 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 mad but 'mentally ill' or even 'mentally

unwell'. It implies that the human mind grows naturally and by biological necessity intothe 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

course of 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 talkabout 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.

[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 dealswith 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 mature person 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 much the more dangerous of the two, so the young who cannot at once be made

mature are steered into the pursuit of purposeless excitement. 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 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 presumedthat 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 'After all, it happens to everybody', or 'It shouldn't be allowed. It's their fault'.

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 itcannot 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 is probably 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 lessprobably) 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 only in 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 impotentfury 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 surprising that 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 try to make a door

open by willpower alone, or try to arrive home quickly without traversing the intervening

space and navigating such obstacles as 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 try to achieveexceptional 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 unstable structure in sanepsychology -- 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, compensation is a

stable psychological position in sane psychology.

The replacement of aspiration by compensation is 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 adjust to 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

limitations is 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 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 difficult to get on with

people. Social problems are difficult. 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 atwhich human relationships became the central thing in life, there was usually a stage at

which classics was no 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 people are 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

never disproportionate) 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 fail in 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 believethat 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-analysisis, 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 describethe child as having a muddle-headed belief in its own omnipotence. This is, of course,

less justifiable than a desire for omnipotence. Sane people cannot distinguish very easilybetween different attitudes 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. Intrue 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 myrights').

Thus the sane, adult person wants (or tries to want) to have what it can have and to dowhat it can do, and exercises a good deal of ingenuity in attempts to want not to havewhat 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 happyhimself, 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 I enjoy it like this?'

This does not make our hypothesis about the development of the human evasion any lessprobable. Our argument is that a sane person's life has been spent in an increasingly

successful attempt not to find finiteness intolerable. Thus if he makes assertions of thiskind, he is telling us only that he has succeeded.

After all, it is accepted in psycho-analysis that one of the objects of a psychologicalreaction to an unacceptable fact is, eventually, to conceal the true origin and purpose ofthis reaction.

The sane adult will, of course, object that what happens when one comes up against one'slimitations is not that one is reminded of the possibility of permanent finiteness. It is

certain that the limits of one's capabilities are defined by what one can and cannotachieve.

The very young child reacts emotionally as if it believed that limitation is only potential; itdoes not yet identify itself with its limitations. In this its emotions are in accordance withthe 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 quitedifferent may be achieved 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 startexisting 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 claimedthat very much is known about the psychological factors that restrict or permitachievement, 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 abilitiesradically changed.

Initially, then, the child is merely horrified at the prospect that a single failure may containsome implication of permanent restriction; some barrier set forever between him and thepossibility 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 tohave 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 fromabsolute failure (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.

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 different ambition

from the first one, on the grounds that it will be just as useful to society, or it may be thesubstitution of social approval per se for 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 theexams, 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 itcombines the idea of finality of failure with the offer of social approval. What it is reallysaying 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 right

about the thing; or that somehow everything felt wrong at school in some indefinable waythat 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 dothings. (If he does start reflecting on the effect of circumstances upon him he will mostlikely be told he is 'making excuses'.)

The denial of psychological reality is very important to sanity. It cannot afford to admit theexistence 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 withaspirations 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 modernpsychology; it is about as unfashionable as witchcraft. If the subconscious mind isconsidered 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 willtend 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

Society begins to appear much less unreasonable when one realizes its true function. It isthere 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 sanityarises 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 otherpurpose -- 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. (Ofcourse, 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 qualifiesmagnificently 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 isan 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 amaware 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 againstreality -- it is difficult to give examples but it may be presumed that geniuses who are at allworthy of the name preserve a small degree of this.

However, since all emotion must be directed towards people, it is obvious that the onlyform 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 inother ways. So the usual way in which aggression is displaced onto other people is in theform of a desire that they should be limited. This, after all, is very logical. If the true

source of your anger is that you are limited yourself, and you wish to displace this angeronto 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 oranother. ('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 hislimitations.' '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 they have all the advantages.')

This means that society is 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 isno need to revenge himself upon them. If he were ever to admit that they were notresponsible for his finite predicament, he would have to direct his hatred against the finite

predicament itself, and this would be frustrating. It is this frustration that the humanevasion exists to evade.

Any attempt to do something involves the possibility of failure and may remind you ofreality. For this reason the sane society discriminates against purposeful action in favour

of pleasure-seeking action. The only purposes readily recognized as legitimate by thesane mind are those necessitated by the pursuit of pleasure. E.g. pleasure seeking cannotefficiently be carried on unless the individual is kept alive and moderately healthy.

Therefore his physical needs are regarded as important and ambulances are providedwith 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 purpose repels 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 toodifficult 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 thateven sane people notice it. And so, from time to time, there is a war. This is intended todivert 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 somethingdiscreditable of that kind.

In wartime, rather more purposeful activity than usual is permissible. Even sane peoplerelax 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 aboutsomething connected with other people, and may be regarded as an assertion of thebelief that the thing that matters most is politics.

And yet it might seem that war was going rather far. It does contain a very considerablerisk 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 theirminds 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, andthat there are risks and uncertainty.

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 donot 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 inexistence 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 startsattacking finiteness in every conceivable 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'thappen; it is contrary to human rights; we are appalled at the evil in the heart of man.

Meanwhile we demand reparation from society -- employment, and housing, anddisablement 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 beparticularly untruthful about these things -- particularly to the afflicted person and to anyyoung 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

the body which refuses to perish asserts itself in wild determination. Eve at her mother'sside was engaged in another struggle; in the brain of Mme Curie, still very lucid, the greatidea 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 sufferinghad 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 hastilycalled 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 thedreadful 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 alsotook care of Eve, helped her to struggle and to tell lies, and, even without her askingthem, they promised to lull Marie's last sufferings by soporifics and injections.

On the morning of July third, for the last time Mme Curie could read the thermometerheld 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 thatshe 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 mebetter. 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 earthcan 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 includeliberation, 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 withpseudo-purposes, guaranteed purposeless. (Or, alternatively, with pseudo-frustrations,

guaranteed permanent.) There are two main kinds of pseudo-purpose or -frustration; theyare 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 asufficiently large number of people is involved, they feel sure that the outcome will beharmless 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 ofprogress. In fact, the history of the human race is only comprehensible as the record of aspecies 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.

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 manypeople 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 mostsuccessful 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) meansthe whole of human reality, the structure, the meaning and the aim of existence.'[1]

It is tolerably clear that at least when Tillich first uses 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.The meaning 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' doesmean 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 ofexistence'. What is to be understood by this? The 'aim of existence' seems at first sight to

be clear, unless 'existence' has made an unannounced change of meaning since it was firstused. 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 doesmean 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 atthe 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.'

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 simpleand roughly as follows.

There are a number of words and phrases which may mean something about existence orsomething 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 'thedepth 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 becreated 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, itis best to use a series of phrases in apposition (as in the example just considered: 'thewhole 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 actuallygenerating ambiguity (on the principle of summation of uncertainty already mentioned).

The device of apposition itself introduces an additional modicum of doubt, since if youappose 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 whetherthey 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 inphrases like 'human reality' and 'ultimate concern', and the word 'meaning' should be

softened into 'meaning and coherence'. (The word 'meaning' might be regarded asinformationally sufficient; however, the addition of 'coherence' contributes a useful implicit

suggestion that 'meaning' must hang together in a way that is recognizable and ratheragreeable 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 ofthe phrase. So this phrase would seem to mean 'human living and the 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 coherenceof life which they seek to encompass and the sense of a transcendent source

of meaning by which alone confidence in the meaningfulness of life andexistence 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 thehuman 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 beaffected by any consideration whatever', or perhaps 'directly related to the reason for

existence', it is difficult to see why a 'transcendent source of meaning' should be expectedto 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 confidentlyaccept 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 ahuman 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 must be onethat 'gives a meaning to life'. In fact, anyone sufficiently unusual to think occasionally abouttranscendence 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 itinvalidates all subordinate meanings. This, after all, is what 'transcendent' means -- thatwhich 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 religionsare 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 tomaintain confidence that life is meaningful.'

As this is patently absurd, I assume that he is not in fact using the word 'transcendent' in atranscendent sense. It is much more likely that when he talks of a 'transcendent source ofmeaning' 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 ofmodern secularism there are feelings after the meaningfulness of human

existence, recognition of supreme obligations in human relations, gropingsafter 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 Providence point. And if these words do not have much

meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of theground and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously withoutreservation 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 6

THE SANE PERSON TALKS OF EXISTENCE

When the sane person talks about life he sometimes mentions the Outside, but here asplendid confusion can be created from the simple fact that other people are, in a certain

sense, outside relative to the individual. And so it is possible to find passages like thefollowing:

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 areprepared to face the possibility of being members of one another in a world

which, as mathematicians already know, is first and foremost one ofrelationships, and which now, as a great mathematician, Hermann Weyl, has

dramatically put it, is being made by modern science itself 'to appear moreand 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 aperson may be interested in human relationships without the slightest attraction towardsmathematical ones, and vice versa.

A distinction may be made, though it is a difficult one for a sane mind to grasp, betweenthe idea of a world 'pointing beyond itself' to mathematical abstractions, and one 'pointing

beyond itself' to human mutuality and cohesion.

This passage also illustrates the habit of talking about human relationships as terrifying,

difficult, dangerous, and the like. Conversely, any outlook not constantly preoccupiedwith human interactions is -- though never described -- implied to be excessivelyconducive of feelings of safety, ease and comfort.

There is no particular reason why these implications should correspond with thepsychological facts. As we have already mentioned, 'sanity' shows many of the

characteristics of recognized psychological syndromes. All psychological syndromes are

ways of defending the individual from intolerable stress, and can only achieve thisobjective by concealing their true purpose. So one does not expect a high degree of

objectivity in the statements of -- say -- a paranoid about his condition. In fact, one



expects a characteristic kind of inversion on certain crucial points. (Pride replacing guilt,superiority concealing inferiority, and so on.)

Now if 'sanity' is a device for protecting the individual from the impact of facts, in thesame way that paranoia is a device for protecting the individual from feelings of

humiliation, it is obviously under the same kind of necessity to conceal its true terms ofreference.

So it is scarcely surprising that sane people should have an unfounded belief that they are

adopting a difficult and strenuous attitude.

But what are the psychological facts? Is it actually the case that when people adopt a less

anthropocentric outlook they find themselves overwhelmed by sensations of ease andself-aggrandizement? We cannot expect to find very much evidence either way, becausepeople do not often adopt such an outlook, but such evidence as there is suggests that

they actually feel alone and defenseless, not to say frightened.

In general I dreaded to be left alone. I remember wondering how other

people could live, how I myself had ever lived, so unconscious of that pit ofinsecurity beneath the surface of life. My mother in particular, a very cheerful

person, seemed to me a perfect paradox in her unconsciousness of danger,which you may well believe I was very careful not to disturb by revelationsof my own state of mind.[2]

I shall never forget that night of December in which the veil that concealedfrom me my own incredulity was torn. I hear again my steps in that narrow

naked chamber where long after the hour of sleep had come I had the habitof walking up and down. I see again that moon, half-veiled by clouds, whichnow and again illuminated the frigid window-panes. The hours of the night

flowed on and I did not note their passage. Anxiously I followed mythoughts, as from layer to layer they descended towards the foundation of

my consciousness, and scattering one by one all the illusions which until thenhad screened its windings from my view, made them every moment more

clearly visible. Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailorclings to the fragments of his vessel; vainly, frightened at the unknown void in

which I was about to float, I turned with them towards my childhood, myfamily, my country, all that was dear and sacred to me: the inflexible currentof my thought was too strong -- parents, family, memory, beliefs, it forced

me to let go of everything. The investigation went on more obstinate andmore severe as it drew near its term, and did not stop until the end was

reached. I knew then that in the depth of my mind nothing was left thatstood erect.

The moment was a frightful one; and when towards morning I threw myselfexhausted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life, so smiling and so full,

go out like a fire, and before me another life opened, somber andunpeopled, where in future I must live alone, alone with my fatal thoughtwhich had exiled me thither, and which I was tempted to curse. The dayswhich followed this discovery were the saddest of my life.[3]



It is true that when people talk about life they do sometimes admit that being finite israther awful. Sometimes they cannot even manage to say this without mentioning 'otherpeople' in every sentence. The following passage from Erich Fromm is interesting because

it illustrates several kinds of question-begging simultaneously.

There is another element ... which makes the need to 'belong' so compelling:the fact of subjective self-consciousness ... its existence confronts man witha problem which is essentially human: by being aware of himself as distinctfrom nature and other people, by being aware -- even very dimly -- of

death, sickness, ageing, he necessarily feels his insignificance and smallnessin comparison with the universe and all others who are not 'he'.

Unless he belonged somewhere, unless his life had some meaning anddirection, he would feel like a particle of dust and be overwhelmed by his

individual insignificance ... he would be filled with doubt, and this doubteventually would paralyse his ability to act -- that is, to live.[4]

The first thing to notice is that Fromm implies (even before he has stated the problem) thatwhat a person needs is 'to belong'. When he does state the problem he states twoproblems at once as if they were the same. (To feel insignificant and small in comparison

with the universe is actually different from feeling those things in comparison with otherpeople.) Fromm calls this problem (or problems) 'essentially human' -- a reassuringdescription. He continues by implying that it is right and proper for a person to feel that hedoes 'belong', and that his life does have 'meaning and direction'. This will prevent himfrom feeling like a particle of dust: if he did, he would be paralysed. This last is, of course,

an unverified assumption.

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 whofeel worthless relative to other people often 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 is an Outside'. On account of their sane upbringing theyfeel 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. Ofcourse 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 wouldsay 'There is an Outside' is driven to express himself at enormous length, in all butunreadable books.)

Existentialists admit that there are certain states of consciousness in which ideas about

death, existence, isolation, responsibility, urgency and so forth may have some emotionalsignificance. But these are rare and transitory.

The weakness of the existentialists' case is that they do not distinguish sufficiently betweena 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 ofuncertainty would find it difficult to perceive it with any vividness, or to eliminate otheremotional attitudes which he saw to be incompatible with it.

Having accepted that one may, at certain times, become startlingly aware of certainthings, 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 inconstant awareness of these things, with all the modifications that would entail. But this isa problem in psychology; it must be asked what forces are at work to prevent thisawareness, 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 werealize that we are talking about states of consciousness, it becomes clear that theprocedure being recommended is this: 'If you should chance to have a flash of awarenessof 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 areyou to do to overcome your sense of meaninglessness?' There is a simple answer. 'Theawareness will pass. You can forget it easily and go on living as before. But since youwant to convince yourself that you are doing something about this flash of awareness youhave had, you are recommended to return to your former way of life, but more thoroughly

and deliberately than before. Commit yourself to doing just the kind of thing which makesfurther flashes of awareness unlikely.'

Here, of course, we are encountering one of those linguistic swerves away from the pointso characteristic of the evasive mind. 'Authentic being' may be used to refer to a state ofdishonesty towards the facts of existence, or to a state of dishonesty towards other

people. It is even true that the two things may be to some extent interconnected, since aperson suffering from the human evasion is clearly not able to be honest towards anyone,if only because he is constantly trying to force them to shield him from reality, including thereality of his own perceptions and desires.

It should come as no surprise that existentialist writers are unable to distinguish clearlybetween 'mauvaise foi' towards existence and 'mauvaise foi' towards people.

And so this kind of thing is written:

Dasein, everyday life, is destructible, and we should not even desire itsindefinite continuation. But Existenz, authentic selfhood, can be entered into

now and its meaning is imperishable. Only by facing death realistically do webecome formed, decisive, resolute, and reconciled to finitude. The threat ofmissing true selfhood is worse than the unavoidable fact of physicaldisintegration. And the reality of the latter makes me alert to the former. It isbecause I am going to die as a biological organism that I may miss true self-

hood. Because I do not have forever, the question hangs over everymoment: 'Are you living, feeling, realizing, choosing yourself or some feeblecaricature of what you could be?' One who has lived for ends-in-themselvesand who has entered into existential communication with others knows thatwhat is important in his life and in the life of his friend cannot be annihilated

by death.[5]



What can be said of the statement that we can enter 'authentic' selfhood 'now'? Existentialflashes are not easily had to order. It is not even easy, by trying, to realize vividly the fact

that you are going to die.

Even more dubious is the assertion that once you have entered this state 'its meaning isimperishable'. Can this mean 'you will be able to remain in constant awareness of theunknowability of existence', or even 'once you have been fully aware of existence yourpsychology will never be the same again'? Such psychological evidence we have would

seem to indicate that existential awareness is usually momentary, and its permanent effectson a sane person are nil.

Our existentialist now tells us that 'only by facing death realistically do we become ...reconciled to finitude'. To be aware of one's finiteness is one thing; to be reconciled to it isquite another. Nearly everyone seems to manage to be reconciled without being aware; I

should have thought it probable that anyone who was fully aware of it would find itintolerable.

[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 Religious

Experience, 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 andmorality. 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 twoconcepts are not, however, the same, and any relationship between them would have tobe carefully established.

In the same way 'religion' could mean two different things. It might mean something like 'aperson'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 'aperson's attitude towards social interactions with other people, with some reference to asupposed intelligent being who is interested in these interactions'. The last clause is

dispensable. Most people would have little hesitation in accepting as 'religious' someonewho 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 alloften. Consider, for example, this description by Erich Fromm of an up-to-date, sensiblekind 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 notlove God as a child loves his father or his mother; he has acquired thehumility of sensing his limitations, to the degree of knowing that he knowsnothing about God. God becomes for him a symbol in which man, at an

earlier stage of his evolution, has expressed the totality of that which man isstriving 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 toarrive at an ever fuller unfolding of his human powers -- as the only realitythat 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 hewere going to use this word, would mean, then to long for the attainment ofthe full capacity to love, for the realization of that which 'God' stands for inoneself. [1]

Let us see what becomes of this passage if it is rewritten with the term 'God' understoodto mean 'reason for existence' throughout.

'The truly religious person, if he accepts the idea of a single overriding cause whichoriginated all that exists, does not expect this cause to be directly related to what goes onin 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 finite being, and that the reason for existence is inconceivable tohim. He realizes that he is one of a certain race of animals which has evolved on a certainplanet of a certain star in a certain galaxy, and that as they evolved these animalsformulate 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. Heconsiders his life only valuable inasmuch as he considers it valuable. He regards whatinterests him as the only reality that matters, and the only object of any importance to theoverriding 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 knowledgeof the reason for existence would mean to him, then, to long for the attainment of the fullcapacity to have an intense interest in the welfare of other members of his species. This isthe 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' fromany 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 todo with anything human beings do not understand about -- that is, it has nothing to dowith the Outside.

Fromm's treatment of the idea of God depends on never defining it. A further advancehas 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 isvery human. He speaks for his time; not only for the Christianity of his time but for humanpsychology as it stands facing the unknown -- or rather, with its back to it.

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 painswere taken to disguise the fact. When people talked about 'God' they used to pretendthat what they said had something to do with questions about the meaning of existenceand the purpose of life.

The splendid discovery made by the Bishop of Woolwich is that the human race is

completely uninterested in such questions, but now it is all right to say so. Man has 'comeof age'.

It is not very easy to understand what the Bishop of Woolwich is saying, but it is easier ifyou start by ascribing a zero value to the term 'God'. What I mean is that you need toleave 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 earnestlyto assert that God is not Out There.

But the signs are that we are reaching the point at which the wholeconception of a God 'out there' ... is itself becoming more of a hindrance

than a help ... Suppose belief in God does not, indeed cannot, mean beingpersuaded of the 'existence' of some entity, even a supreme entity, whichmight or might not be there, like life on Mars? ... Suppose that all suchatheism 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. Doesthis mean nothing is Out There? Or nothing of any significance is Out There? A littlereflection 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 wehave mentioned, we define the Outside as 'that which falls outside the comprehension ofthe human race'. Now whatever else God might be supposed to be, one would imaginethat he, she or it was unquestionably 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 tobe, and our expectation of life is increasing. We can make aeroplanes and controlmalaria. 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 'acause' it is difficult to reject the hypothesis that 'there is always room for a cause we donot know about.' If, however, you talk of God as a 'designer', you are obviously bringing

in all those anthropomorphic associations which make the idea of God ludicrous. This iswhere apposition is so useful.

But the Bishop's main reason for supposing that God is not Outside is that we are none ofus interested in an Outside, and we are interested in other people.

The world is not asking 'How can I find a gracious God?' It is asking 'Howcan I find a gracious neighbour?'[4]

So if 'God' is to be of any interest, it must mean something about human relationships.(Just what about human relationships it could mean is never clear. The Bishop's onlyelucidation 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, forexample.

When Tillich speaks of God in 'depth', he is not speaking of another Beingat all. He is speaking of 'the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground ofall 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 WriteSane Books' are used in those two sentences.)

Tillich maintains that God is the 'ultimate concern' of every man. I think all moderntheologians 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, inthis democratic age, the latter procedure is usually followed. (There is only one of Godwhereas there are a number of human beings; it would obviously be undemocratic to takeGod as a standard.) I am happy to see the old opposition between God and man has allbut vanished from modern theology. 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 andthe glory of man, although different, actually coincide. There is no