Hope and History

Citation preview

Hope and History JOSEF PIEPER

HERDER AND HERDER

i969 HERDER AND HERDER 232 Madison Avenue, New York 10016

Original edition: Hoffnung und Geschichte, Kosel-Verlag, Munich, i967 Translated by Richard and Clara Winston

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-87764 © i969 by Burns & Oates, Ltd. Manufactured in the United States

Le seul avenir est notre objet

—Pascal: Pensees

Contents I. What does Hope Mean ? “For the first time”: the new urgency of the question. “The deceived wiser than the undeceived.” Kant: “What may I hope for?” Exegesis of linguistic usage. The “steep good” that is not at our disposal. The One Object of the hope. “Fundamental hope” and “everyday hopes.” Disappointment makes the hope possible.

The hoper,

and he alone,

anticipates

nothing.

II. What is History ? Historical and unhistorical happenings. Freedom and decision. The hope of martyrs. Teilhard de Chardin and the confusion of evolution with history. Test case: evil. The temptation to be resigned in the face of history. Not “jungle” but mystery. The limits of prognosis. Historical future and prophecy.

III. Progress and Evolution The arguments of the idealistic philosophy of pro¬ gress (Kant). Dubious visions of the future. Vain naming of the elements; loss of overlapping structure of meaning. The “angle” of evolutionism (Konrad Lorenz). “God has handed over the world to their discretion.” Teilhard de Chardin on the final state of the earth: two mutually exclusive models. “Strike in the noosphere” and “ecstasy in discord”. Beyond the idea of evolution, and the greatness in Teilhard de Chardin.

7

CONTENTS

IV. Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem?

61

Ernst Bloch and his encyclopedia of the images of hope. But what is missing? The misunderstood supraworldliness of God. Realization of hope by “socialist change”? Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem. The suppression of death. Expectation of the Golden Age as “pie in the sky”. The unanswered question of legitimation (“How do you know that?”). Success of “plans” worse than their failure?

V. The Great Banquet

77

The demand imposed by belief in revealed historical prophecy. Eschatology and apocalypticism. Every¬ thing false if the underlying belief is wrong. No continual progress towards perfection. “Passing from time to eternity” (Kant). Not simply the “victory of reason”. “The lie has been made the world order” (Kafka). The last word of the apocalyptic prophecy: New Heaven, New Earth. The “Great Banquet” and spes implicita. The indefinableness of what is hoped for.

Notes

qc

8

QUI MAGNI AD CONVIVII SPEM ALACRIUS NOS PRAECURRIT DILECTO FILIO PIAM IN MEMORIAM

What does Hope Mean? In

the last decade of the eighteenth century, the decade

of the French Revolution, that is, someone raised and attempted to answer the question: Whether the Human Race is Continually Advancing towards the Better. This someone was Immanuel Kant.1 Kant considers the thesis very much in terms of prin¬ ciple. He allows himself no preconceptions; or so it seems, at any rate. Regarded in purely abstract terms, he says, there are three possible ways to answer the question. First, “continual ascent”; second, “continual decline”; third, continuance on more or less the same level, remaining at the same stage. Of these three possible answers, Kant eliminates one immediately, from the start, without dis¬ cussion: the second. To be sure, “retrogression to the worse” (as he expresses it) is a theoretic possibility, but in concreto it does not exist; to Kant it is simply incon-

HOPE

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HISTORY

ceivable. Why? His statement on the matter runs as follows: “Deterioration cannot continue indefinitely in the human race; for when that process reached a certain pitch the race would annihilate itself.” In the Kantian view the self-destruction of the human species cannot even be considered by a realistic historical thinker; such a thing can never happen. Now in regard to this point a fundamental change has occurred meanwhile, although only in the very recent past. Fifty or even thirty years ago men could think they were right to share Immanuel Kant’s conviction on this score. Since Hiroshima that is no longer possible. Since then the idea that mankind might annihilate itself is not only merely conceivable, no longer something arguable; it has become acute. When we look back on Immanuel Kant’s position, we cannot help recalling Kierkegaard’s bitter maxim that the deceived are wiser than the undeceived. Perhaps, too, it may seem unfair to quarrel with a man of the eighteenth century from the superior standpoint of the “deceived” and to criticize Kant, say, for a lack of insight or precision in method. The self-extermination of man did actually lie beyond the bounds of any real possibility in the eighteenth century. From a purely technical point of view, it could not be accomplished. Then was not Kant right after all, on the basis of his historical assumptions? I would say: he had good reasons, but he was not right. After all, the nature of historical man has not changed

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

since his day—indeed, not even since Adam (or since Cain)! No doubt it was easier for Kant than for us today to cherish illusions about the potentialities hidden in his¬ torical man, the things man is capable of; but it remains an illusion, an error, all the same. Nowadays other errors about man probably come easy to us; but at least we are immune to this particular Kantian error. We would simply not have the temerity, if confronted with the three possi¬ bilities for the course of history as formulated by Kant, to exclude the negative one a priori. This has been confirmed countless times in the topical, historical, philosophical and sociological writings of the past few decades, and wherever anyone attempts to assess our present world situation. “Man’s existence now, and for the first time, is threatened”—these are the opening words of a paper delivered at the scholarly international London symposium (of 1962) on the future of man2—a future which in most other respects the participants tended to view optimistically. And of course the most startling fact is precisely the technical one: that man can achieve self-annihilation by the weapons he himself has created. The fact can no longer be set aside. Robert Oppenheimer says: “No world has ever faced a possibility of destruc¬ tion—in a relevant sense annihilation—comparable to that which we face, nor a process of decision-making even remotely like that which is involved in this.”3 Another well founded diagnosis of our historical situa¬ tion is contained in the sentence: “We are the first men

15

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HISTORY

who control the apocalypse.” It is, of course, rather dubi¬ ous phraseology to say that men “control the apocalypse”;4 but the meaning behind these words is perfectly clear, I should think. At any rate here is another reminder that anyone investigating the historical future of man cannot exclude the possibility of total catastrophe. This in itself intensifies the difficulties of the investigation, since the investigator can no longer indulge himself in what we might call “academic” unconcern—as though there were plenty of time to think the problem out first, from the ground up, and only then approach the matter of solutions. “These are not long-term problems”—this was said re¬ peatedly at the above-mentioned London symposium.5 Konrad Lorenz remarks that one can scarcely prophesy “a long life” for man, not if one observes him “as he stands today, in his hand the hydrogen bomb with which his reason has presented him, in his heart . . . the aggressive instinct which said reason is unable to dominate”. In¬ cidentally, this statement comes from a book whose title is The Hopes of Our Time.6 Here, then, almost like a challenge, we encounter one of the two key words which we have linked together, the theme of our discussion being “hope and history”. What¬ ever else may be implied by this formulation, it is at any rate clear from the start what enormous relevance the mere association of these two concepts has in the present situation. Here, too, we might say “for the first time”. Never before, it would seem, has the question of the mean16

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

ing and the ground for man’s hope been asked with such acute urgency. Still, what exactly is the question ? Under¬ standably we cannot say more about it until we have somewhat clarified what we mean here by “hope” and what by “history”. What, then, is hope? Ernst Bloch’s great book, Das Prinzip Hoffnung7 (“The Principle of Hope”) starts out with the challenging thesis that “in philosophy hitherto” the theme of hope is scarcely discussed at all. Hope, he says, “has not been given any place in the history of the sciences”; it is “as unexplored as the Antarctic”. Ernst Bloch was therefore going to try to “bring philosophy” to this undiscovered country. One might counter that long ago Immanuel Kant8 had given the theme its due. Among the four basic questions to which, as he phrased it, “the field of philosophy can be brought”, he included the question: “What may I hope for?” However, Kant ex¬ plained, this question is treated by religion. There is, in¬ cidentally, a grain of irony in the fact that this is pre¬ cisely the objection raised against Ernst Bloch by orthodox Marxism (which he himself claims to represent). The con¬ demnation that Leipzig Communist Party critics have passed on the work of Ernst Bloch may be summed up in a single sentence: “The philosophy of hope is religion”9 and Marxism can have no “place for any religious prob¬ lems”.10 It would appear, then, that the concept of hope, since it inevitably involves the religious dimension, is

HOPE

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HISTORY

bound to become a controversial subject. Even historical interpretation seems to stumble into this fundamental controversiality. Thus, for example, the Protestant theolo¬ gian Hans Conzelmann asserts: “The entire verbal com¬ plex ‘hope’ is without religious connotations in Greek culture”11—a statement which, I should say, is patently false even in regard to Plato12 alone. At any rate, however, hope is something that can be en¬ countered and grasped in our experience; obviously no man can keep from hoping. And consequently one who considers existence as a whole, the philosopher, that is, cannot abstain from considering hope as a phenomenon and attempting to investigate it. And, of course, he must do so in a philosophical way, that is to say, from every conceivable point of view. Once again, then: what is hope ? What do people mean when they speak of hope and of hoping? Let us first turn our attention to that, to determining what is meant by the word in the living language, as it is ordinarily used. In¬ cidentally, as we shall see, such exegesis of linguistic usage is far from a matter to be dealt with offhandedly; and the results may be quite surprising. But above all, how else would we arrive at a fairly binding definition ? How else are we going to say what is meant by “hope”? Arbitrary definitions help us not at all, no matter how exact they may seem at first glance—as, for example, the famous defini¬ tion in Spinoza’s Ethics: “Hope is a joy not constant, arising from the idea of something . . . about the issue of 18

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

which we . . . doubt.”13 Does this touch on the decisive aspect of hope ? Simple commonsense, at any rate, would not recognize the ordinary notion of “hope” in this. For example, Spinoza says not a word about expectation, which in common usage is obviously regarded as an essential component of hope. We can, of course, expect something without ever want¬ ing to say that we hope for it. Irrelevant matters, too, and even horrors are “expected”. But we speak of hope only when what we expect is good for us. The idea of “good” may be taken in a very broad sense (good weather; good that you’ve come). It stands here in its old meaning of everything that we desire.14 Desire, longing, craving, wishes, hunger and thirst must be involved; otherwise we are not talking about hope. We can, to be sure, also long for and wish for something which at the same time we know shall never be ours—something, that is, that we precisely do not hope for. Hope, on the other hand, in¬ cludes confidence; it is inconceivable without a certainty of some kind, although what kind is difficult to define. There is, granted, also such a thing as a vain hope; there are hopes that are disappointed and which ultimately dissipate. But for the person hoping, while and as long as he is hoping, to accept the vanity of his hopes is an unthinkable idea. We do not hope for the impossible when it is sensed to be impossible, let alone recognized as impossible. In such cases no one uses the word hope. What is hoped for is something welcome, desirable, *9

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

beloved, something good which it is really possible for the hoper to obtain. That is why there can be no hope without an element of joy. Perhaps it is going to far to say that gladness is an indispensable part of the concept of hope; but it is at any rate a constant concomitant of hope— because hope is directed towards partaking of something good, something loved, and because joy by its nature is the answer to the attainment of what we love.15 Thus, the primary definition in Hoffmeister’s philosophical diction¬ ary,16 that hope is “joyous expectation”, strikes to the heart of the matter. But all this does not exhaust what is meant by the con¬ cept of hope—meant, we must remember, in the living language as everyone uses it. Something desired and longed for may be expected with joy and confidence— and yet possibly no one would call such expectation “hope”; no one would even think of applying the word. For example, it is possible to quote with overflowing heart Joseph von Eichendorff’s line, “Come, silent night, thou comfort of the world”. But does anyone “hope for” the coming of night? No one would speak that way. We do not hope for something that will inevitably happen in any case, nor for something that we are convinced will inevit¬ ably happen. There are, incidentally, some rather far-reaching con¬ clusions to be drawn from that fact. For example, one who declared the coming of a classless society to be a matter of inescapable natural law would thereby be saying that such 20

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

a society cannot be an object of man’s hope. But it is still too soon to go to this point. We are still trying to discover the elements of the concept of “hope” which are implicit in the living language. Not only do we not speak of hope when something will certainly come about anyhow; we also do not hope for things which can be easily obtained, can be had gratis, so to speak. We may indeed hope to secure something gratis and without going to any trouble; but we speak in such terms only when we are in some doubt that we will be able to secure it gratis. The ancients spoke of bonum arduumf1 only a “steep” good is hoped for, that is, something that does not already lie within reach of the outstretched hand; something that might still be denied to us, although we do not really doubt that we will obtain it. Another element in the concept of “hope” now quickly comes into view. Something hoped for is, in the strict sense, not at the disposal of the hoper. No one says he hopes for a thing that he can make or bring about himself. To see this we need only make a random inquiry into everyday usage. “I hope we’ll have fair weather tomor¬ row”; “I hope the train will arrive on time”; “let us hope we keep well”. People hope there will not be another world war; they hope for a good harvest, for their children to thrive, for a long life, and so on. The common element in all these everyday phrases is perfectly clear; the thing hoped for is always of such a nature that the hoper has no power over it. Perhaps he can do a little something to help 21

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

it along, but he is impotent to sway the decision. He can¬ not simply accomplish, produce, engender, make or create what he hopes for. If that were not the case, no sensible person would talk of hope. When the artist sets about translating his conception into a physical work of stone, or even of verse, and when he says he hopes he will succeed, he expresses quite accurately the idea that this success does not depend on himself alone. And when a cabinetmaker expresses his hope that he will be able to deliver the desk we have ordered on time, he is again implying that he is dependent on a variety of circumstances and on other people who are not altogether at his disposal. On the other hand, if this same cabinetmaker were to assure me, after we had thoroughly discussed the sketch, that he con¬ fidently hopes the desk will turn out just as we have agreed —in that case I would rightly be suspicious and wonder whether I should not have given the job to someone else: because no one uses the word hope in regard to things he himself can really handle. An anxious father can certainly lecture his son in high school by saying: I hope you will work harder from now on; but if the boy should answer : I hope so too—we would be inclined to call him “fresh”. All of which, taken together, signifies something very serious and fraught with consequences. Gabriel Marcel18 has formulated the matter thus: “The only genuine hope is that which is directed towards something not dependent on ourselves.”

22

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

But language, the language not only spoken but im¬ mediately grasped by everyone, on the basis of which alone a thing strikes us as truth because we recognize it as some¬ thing we have “always known”—language, I say, is ready to provide us with other insights which at first we would scarcely expect. In Plato’s Symposium19 Diotima speaks of the oddity in linguistic usage that although there are many persons who “make” things and many kinds of “made works”, there is only one person who is absolutely termed the “maker”, namely the poietes, the poet. Similarly there are many kinds of love : love of country, of parents, of friends, and so on; nevertheless, when we speak simply of “the lovers” without more closely defin¬ ing the term, we never mean those who love their country or their parents, but only lovers in the erotic sense. A similar oddity, it seems to me, can be found in the linguis¬ tic area surrounding hope. A thousand different things, from good vacation weather to peace in the world can be the objects of men’s hopes; and so they are. Nevertheless, there again seems to be only a single object of hope which makes man into a hoper per se. Probably the thing can be somewhat clarified if we express it in the form of a negation: There are a thousand hopes that man can abandon and lose without thereby becoming absolutely “hopeless”; but there is a single hope, the hope for one thing, whose loss would signify that a person no longer had any hope whatsoever and was absolutely “without hope”. The question is, what the object of this one hope is. 23

HOPE

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HISTORY

What must one have abandoned or dismissed hope for so that he could be properly said to have lost all hope, is now absolutely and entirely without hope ? That is a question which, I believe, cannot be adequately answered or even investigated until we have considered a distinction for which neither German nor English seems to have the terms—whereas French has two different words for hope, espoir and esperance. The nuances here are hard to grasp; among other things, each of these words has a different relationship to the plural. Espoir tends towards the plural, towards the “thousand things” which can be hoped for; whereas esperance rather seems to ex¬ clude the plural. In fact Paul Ludwig Landsberg in his un¬ fortunately almost forgotten little book on “the experience of death” (Die Erfahrung des Todes20) has proposed that in order to describe the matter with greater clarity we ought to make a distinction between “hopes” and “hope”. The importance and fruitfulness of this distinction has been properly brought to light only recently as a result of the findings of medical anthropobiology in the past few years. I am referring chiefly to the phenomenological analyses of the Heidelberg physician Herbert Pliigge,21 who in his clinic has made very detailed studies of the psychological situation of people for whom hope had be¬ come a problem in a unique way—the psychological situa¬ tion of persons incurably ill, and of those who have attempted to take their own lives. This approach, initially purely empirical, again revealed the dual aspect of hope; 24

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

alongside what are normally called hopes there unexpec¬ tedly comes to light “a different hope”22 (Pliigge’s account sounds a note, we feel, of the discoverer’s surprise). Pliigge calls this “different hope” the “fundamental” or “genuine” hope—as opposed to “ordinary” or “everyday” hopes (plural!) which are directed towards “future things per¬ taining to the world”, towards an “object belonging to the world”, towards something that is to be bestowed upon us from outside, whether that is a piece of information, a success, a utilitarian article or even physical health. “Fun¬ damental” hope, on the other hand, apparently has no such object actually existing in the world. We cannot point our finger to anything definite and concrete, rather towards something “indefinite”, “nebulous”, “without contour”, “nameless”—for which reason it is very much more difficult to describe fundamental hope at all.23 Gabriel Marcel likewise distinguishes (he too!) between “ ‘I hope. . . .’ the absolute statement, and ‘I hope that . . .’ ”24 Marcel almost seems to suggest that there is no object at all for this “absolute” hope; that at any rate it inclines to transcend all “particular objects” and does not really become comprehensible until we no longer try to pin it down.25 But of course there can be no doubt that there is “something hoped for”, something however of an entirely different nature from all objective goods and all imaginable changes in the external world. Pliigge says, interpreting his case histories, that fundamental hope (singular!) is not directed towards anything a person can 25

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HISTORY

“have” but rather has to do with what a person “is”, with the selfness of the human being. He tentatively character¬ izes the aim of such hope as “self-realization in the future” and as “salvation of the person”.26 The truly thought-provoking aspect of Pliigge’s results —and what at first strikes us as strange—seems to me his observation that true hope unfolds and raises its head at the very moment of disappointment, when “hopes” collapse and lose their meaning. Only then, says Pliigge, is “fun¬ damental hope . . . most convincingly revealed”. Dis¬ appointment ("Ent-tauschung”) literally opens the way for “purging of all illusory hopes”; “out of the loss of common, everyday hope true hope arises”.27 “Disappointment”, then, is to be taken here as libera¬ tion from an illusion. The illusion, the perhaps inescapable self-delusion, consists in our imagining that the acquisition of certain goods in the world of objects, including physical health, constitutes salvation for our existence, or is at least a necessary component of it. Disillusionment, on the other hand, abruptly teaches us what we have possibly already divined: that true salvation not only consists in something else entirely, but that we ourselves hope from the very bottom of our souls for this “something else”, hope for it with a far more vital and truly invincible force, and always have hoped for it. Disappointment, then, represents far more than the correction of an erroneous opinion. It represents liberation in a sense going far beyond the realm 26

WHAT

DOES

HOPE

MEAN?

of cognition. Pliigge says that possibly the experience of ultimate incurability enables the patient to experience free¬ dom from the imprisonment of illness. Such freedom “could not be attained before the collapse”.28 There are many indications that these findings apply not only to the situation we have been considering, that of the incurably ill patient. After all, as far as the “fatal out¬ come” is concerned, we are all without exception in the same position. That profound disillusionment, the disap¬ pointment of a hope which was directed towards some¬ thing obtainable within the world, possibly conceals within it the chance that hope per se—without resignation —can now turn towards its true object, that a process of liberation will take place and a far wider breathing space within existence will be thrown open for the first time. Especially in disappointment, and perhaps only in it, a summons reaches us to enter into this ampler area of existence : the area of hope per se. To be sure, no one is compelled to obey this summons. No one “must” hope. We can refuse; we can give up fundamental hope, or dismiss it. Nevertheless, strictly speaking, fundamental hope cannot be disappointed. Rather, by its nature it is just as unshakable as existence itself.29 Disappointment rests on experience; disappoint¬ ment arises when a hope is shattered, has proved vain, has not been fulfilled. But this very experience of non-fulfil¬ ment cannot take place at all in respect to the fundamental, 27

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HISTORY

existential hope.30 Why not? Because the point of time at which the true result of life is revealed continues to lie in the future for exactly as long as that life lasts. At no moment of existence, not even on the threshold of death, can man say: Now I am no longer on my way; fulfilment no longer lies ahead of me. The despairing man who re¬ jects fundamental hope and therefore is simply “without hope” (even though he may, at least on the surface, hope for a thousand and one things—which remain without any ultimate importance)—the despairing man is, strictly speaking, not disappointed. It is not that he has experi¬ enced non-fulfilment; he anticipates it. Despair is antici¬ pation of non-fulfilment.31 Naturally, anticipation of ful¬ filment also exists; but it too contradicts the reality of this viatoric existence of ours. The hoper, and he alone, anticipates nothing; he holds himself in readiness for a fulfilment still to come, although he is aware that he knows neither its dimensions nor its time. If, now that we have come round to our point of begin¬ ning again, we think back upon the phrase “hope and history”, it would seem that the questions posed by it should run as follows: Is man’s hope at all of such nature that it can be satisfied within the area of history? But nothing important can be said about this question until we understand clearly what we mean by “history”.

28

II What is History? “History

in the wider sense,” says the Encyclopaedia

Britannica, “is all that has happened.” But there is also a stricter sense of history, which means that there are also unhistorical happenings. Lightning striking, a landslide, the flowing of water, the tides of the sea—everywhere things “happen” which are not strictly historical events. The germination, growth, flowering and fruiting of plants seem somewhat closer to what is properly historical, and even more so that an animal is born, grows to maturity, seeks its prey and perhaps itself becomes the prey of a more powerful predator. Wherever we speak of “becoming” we might also with some justification speak of “history”. It does not run contrary to linguistic usage to call the “origin of species”, the rise of life, or even the genesis of the entire universe “natural history” and the “history of the cosmos”. Nevertheless, in all such usages the word “his29

HOPE

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HISTORY

tory” is not being used quite in the meaning that makes an event the object of the historian’s interest, the proper sub¬ ject of historical research. It has been said that an episode, say a lightning flash, becomes “historical” in the exact sense of the word insofar as it has “reference to man”.1 Nevertheless, not everything that happens to us, and not even everything we do, is eo ipso history. Birth, growing up, ageing, dying—these physiological events are not our “history”, if we wish to be precise. And even those objec¬ tive happenings of our life—gain or loss of property, health, beauty, our innate portion of intelligence, tempera¬ ment, constitution, or the fact that certain persons cross our paths, a teacher, an adversary, someone we love—in themselves these incidents and encounters do not consti¬ tute our history. What matters is what we ourselves make of all of them. Only both together determine the full measure of what has really happened. It is, then, the interlocking of what fate brings our way and our own personal actions in response that truly make for our “history”, in the total, real, precise sense of the word. In other words, an event becomes historical when the specifi¬ cally human element operates in it: freedom, responsi¬ bility, decision, and thus also the possibility of error and guilt. Precisely this element, on the other hand, is the reason for the essential singularity and uniqueness of true historical happening, and above all for the fact that a historical event can in no way be calculated in advance and deduced from what has already happened. 30

WHAT

IS

HISTORY?

At this point it is necessary to say a word about the differ¬ ence between history and evolution. It seems to me that current discussions of the matter are threatening to blur this extremely important distinction. At a lecture I delivered in Paris in 19511 had, it appears, the honour of having Pierre Teilhard de Chardin among my listeners. Unfortunately I learned this only ten years later, after his death. Along with this, however, I also discovered that he had passionately rejected the thesis of my lecture. My subject was: “The hope of the martyrs”, I’Esperance des Martyrs. The lecture was given during the Semaine des Intellectuels, whose theme that year was: Espoir humain et esperance chretienne.21 had endeavoured to make clear that there was no point in speaking seriously about hope unless there is hope for the martyr, that is, for one whose expectations within this world, whose very prospect of simple survival in the struggle for the realiza¬ tion of justice, have been entirely erased and who there¬ fore, to the superficial view, finds himself in an absolutely desperate situation: in the death cell, the concentration camp, stripped of rights, rendered ridiculous, left alone, exposed to the contempt of the privileged. Incidentally— as Erik Peterson has pointed out3—it nowhere stands written that the martyr, from the point of view of Christendom, necessarily and reassuringly has to be an exception, to be found only here and there under very exceptional adverse circumstances. This, too, I did not 3i

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forbear to mention. But my real thesis was, as I have said: We can hardly speak of hope if none exists for the martyr. Teilhard vehemently disagreed with this defeatist way of posing the question, with this “Christianity of escape”, as he puts it. I had not mentioned the central question which should precede all others, he objected: the question of whether “man, considered objectively, seen biocosmically (biocosmiquement) and outside all sentimentality, philosophy and mysticism, is right to hope. Purely empiri¬ cally (experimentalement), hie et nunc, when we are dealing with man, are we dealing with a child, a youth, an adult—or, perhaps, with a candidate for senility? To put it in other terms: viewed from the evolutionary per¬ spective, what in the year 1951 is the probable human potential? To my last breath I shall shout it to all the deaf ears of pseudo-existentialists and pseudo-Christians: That is the whole question (toute la question est la)." Thus Teilhard de Chardin (in a letter which his biographer, Claude Cuenot, cites4). What he is asserting is this: Re¬ garded in terms of evolutionary potential, mankind is objectively young and therefore full of vigour for the future—and hence we have reason to hope. Now exactly this is what I call the confounding of history and evolution. Of course the matter is rather com¬ plicated; but it is worthwhile lingering over it for a moment. In scarcely any other context, it seems to me, can the distinctively historical element be so clearly grasped as in the contrast with the concept of evolution. 32

WHAT

IS

HISTORY?

Naturally there can be no objection to the point that man ought not to be regarded outside the evolution of the cosmos as a whole, which has been proceeding for millions upon millions of years. On the contrary, he holds a unique place in that evolution. According to everything we know, he could not have appeared on earth any sooner, or any later, than he actually did. Perhaps, too, it can be argued that the process of evolution did not come to a stop when it produced man. At any rate, it is proper to call man a “phenomenon of evolution”; he is, as Teilhard says “pri¬ marily a cosmic phenomenon”, un phenomene cosmique . . . d’abord.5 If by evolution we mean the development of latent poten¬ tiality, it certainly exists within the specifically human realm. Even the life of the mind has a largely evolutionary character. When prehistoric man reached out for the forces of nature, when he first took into his service one of the energies of the material universe, fire or water power, say —already in these beginnings there was present the latent potentiality which has consistently “evolved”—almost automatically and over man’s head—as far as mastery of atomic energy. And there is not the slightest reason to doubt that mankind will continue to develop and perfect all its achievements in this field, and will do so indefinitely. As far as this potentiality for progress is concerned, we can be quite reassured and look towards the future with con¬ fidence. But at this point I come to a halt—for there certainly is 33

HOPE

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plenty of good reason not to be confident at all, in view of the perfection of atomic weapons, for example. With them, something new has entered the game, something that can¬ not be simply embraced within the categories of evolution. The cause of our uneasiness is not any doubt about the evolutionary potential of technological intelligence; we have not the slightest doubt about that. What troubles us is rather something entirely different: anxiety over what man, as a being making his own decisions in freedom and responsibility, is going to do with the tremendous power that has been placed at his disposal. What is he actually going to use it for ? Here, it seems to me, the difference between evolution and history becomes plain as day. In Teilhard de Chardin’s major work on The Phenomenon of Man6 there is a sen¬ tence that links both aspects: “If mankind takes advantage of the immense duration it has before it, it has enormous possibilities before it.” Yes indeed, the potential of the enorme duree and of the possibilites immenses (mankind is still young!)—that is the evolutionary aspect. But the “if”, the uncertainty as to whether these possibilities will actually be utilized—that is the historical aspect. What is really happening, however, and what will happen in the future is not decided in the field of evolution, but in the field of history. And only this concerns us directly; this alone affects our actual existence. The question of man¬ kind’s genetic potential does not rob us of any sleep, but the question of the historical future does. The Future of 34

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Man—such is the title of an essay by the American evolu¬ tionist Hermann J. Muller,7 who received the Nobel Prize for his researches in human genetics. And this essay, which describes the “future victory of man over external and internal nature” likewise concludes with an “if” : “Thus we see the future for man of his own making, if only he will have it so.”8 But if man will not, everything will turn out differently. This opposite outcome, and incidentally the mere fact that man tries by planning deliberately to direct evolutionary forces, are clearly no longer evolution pure and simple, but—history. To history, however, optimism no longer applies so freely—that optimism which may not be an absolute corollary of evolutionary thinking, but certainly is its natural concomitant—“natural” because evolution eo ipso signifies ascent, unfolding, progress. Thus it is simply a fallacy, it seems to me, to say: Glance at evolution all the way up to man; see how it has moved unswervingly along its path—and it will be evident that human history cannot come to a catastrophic end. To be blunt, it is Teilhard de Chardin who says something of this sort.9 But that is a totally insupportable argument; it does not comfort us. Once again the basic difference between evolution and his¬ tory has been ignored. It is in the nature of history to be founded on freedom and decision. Hence there can be evil as well as good in history, whereas it would of course be nonsensical to speak 35

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in such terms of evolution. In this sense Konrad Lorenz was right to entitle his book “On So-called Evil” (English title: On Aggression), although he meant something dif¬ ferent. Freedom is, naturally, not simply and primarily freedom to commit evil and destruction; that, too, has been said before, and often reiterated, by Immanuel Kant. “The history of nature begins with the good, for this his¬ tory is the work of God; the history of freedom begins with evil, for this history is the work of man.” This sen¬ tence is to be found in his essay on The Presumable Begin¬ ning of Human History.101 regard the equation “freedom —work of man—evil” as an untenable simplification, and therefore false. Nevertheless, the possibility of guilt is in¬ deed inherent in the “history of freedom”; and it is this “work of man” which we call “history” in the strict sense. Thus the problem of evil, of negation, of guilt is a kind of criterion, a test revealing whether or not the distinctive element in the phenomenon known as “history” has come to light. If political despotism can be called an “occasional aber¬ ration”11 (along with the busbies of British soldiers and the wasp waist in women’s fashions), something more danger¬ ous is afoot than a making light of the problem of evil in history. Rather, we must ask ourselves: has evil as a, phenomenon even been recognized and called by its name P Teilhard de Chardin, in an outline of his thought12 (dating from 1948), attempted to explain the existence of evil as a “statistical necessity”. Wherever a large number of indi36

WHAT

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HISTORY ?

viduals set about organizing into a unity, he says, infrac¬ tions of order are bound to occur at a certain rate. Teilhard gives the example of the post office: when letters are dispatched en masse, certain errors regularly crop up: in¬ correct amount of postage, incomplete addresses, and so on. Such a view is perfectly consistent from the standpoint of evolutionary thinking. But we must once again ask: does it in any way come to grips with the phenomenon under discussion ? I would say it does not. There are of course superior laws which also govern the wholly individual doings of men and consequently lend themselves to statistical interpretation. What I would assert is rather the following: in the midst of cosmic evolution, which also permeates the situation of man; in the midst of “natural history”, which applies to man as well; alongside of and outside of the variety of other developments (whose direction and duration are more or less predeterminable) in science as well as in the arts, in the technical control and utilization of natural energies—aside from all these things and in the midst of them (here is my thesis) there are completely different events which fall outside of any pat¬ tern. These are “historical” events in the strict sense; they emerge from and are shaped by man’s free decision and therefore partake of the nature of human acts of will. It follows, then, that this kind of event is not predictable and calculable on the basis of evolutionary or historical laws. Above all this means that, beyond the mere fact of its ex¬ istence, such an event has the additional quality of some37

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thing for which “responsibility” must be taken. Hence it can be “good” or “evil”. The interplay of forces is enormously complicated. Purely natural happenings collaborate, in a variety of ways and under a variety of conditions, with free human actions —by way of a vast number of intermediate stages. The dynamics of these combinations are governed by far too many variables and unknowns, so it seems. Anyone try¬ ing to analyze the interrelationships, to gain some deeper insight into the structure of the whole, or even a more pre¬ cise idea of what actually is happening, must soon be tempted to give up. It seems simpler to resign oneself, to declare that the question of what is happening “in truth” here and now is just as unanswerable as the question of the ultimate “meaning” of history. Nor is this so surprising. On the contrary, it would be surprising if discovering the chemical composition of a hormone or answering some other scientific question were not easier than forming an accurate picture of man and of any phenomenon of human existence. That must necessarily be incomparably more difficult. In America I once heard the magnificent dictum : to understand the atom is child’s play compared with understanding child’s play. Strangely enough, incidentally, those who are most un¬ yielding in their position that it is not for us to know the true nature of historical process, of the events unfolding before our own eyes, are not the empiricists engaged in historical research but the theologians. “What . . . hap38

WHAT

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HISTORY?

pens in truth . . . cannot be read from history itself”;13 “history fundamentally conceals its meaning; its way of accomplishing its end is wrapped in mystery”;14 it cannot “itself savour” its own “eternal content”;15 world history is not itself the Last Judgment”;16 history is “given to us only as a fragment” and this fragment “cannot be comp¬ lemented by any individual”;17 “we cannot know which of the forces of history ultimately works in behalf of the Kingdom”.18 These are all the pronouncements of modern theologians: Heinrich Schlier, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar. They one and all protest against the claim that the meaning of history and the true significance of any given events can be comprehended in any summary formula—whether this formula is theologi¬ cal or evolutionary or sociological and whether it is based upon idealism or materialism. Yet it is plain that none of these writers holds that history is in itself something obs¬ cure, confused, a “jungle”. On the other hand, the word “jungle” is fairly common in modern sociology; one sociologist19 says that the seeker after some ultimate orien¬ tation on the course of history can “unfortunately” no longer make use of the “tricks of the older sociology”; that nowadays he can no longer “ascend a mountain or even a hill of insight”. Rather, the moment he begins to consider larger questions he realizes that he is “in the midst of a jungle”. Such self-imposed restraint is, I think, in fact the only proper course to take, from the sociologist’s viewpoint; even in the past he never could pretend to set 39

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foot on a mountain or a hill of insight. The historical viewpoint of present-day theology simi¬ larly renounces any claim to be situated on such a moun¬ tain. Nevertheless, the remarks just quoted are not simply expressions of resignation. They are obviously challenging two divergent sets of assumptions. On the one hand, as we have already pointed out, they deny that the course of history could yield any kind of structural formula that would explain things, not just the past but the future also (and, after all, do there not exist philosophical theories of history which make this claim?). On the other hand, the theological thesis is directed against the despairing con¬ cept of historical absurdity put forward by the nihilistic type of existentialism, which asserts the absolute meaning¬ lessness of the historical process and immures man within the given situation at any given time, within the “jungle” of his arbitrary and accidental dynamics. To be sure, theology speaks of the mystery of history; but mystery is not the same as “jungle”. Moreover, the other funda¬ mental ideas of theology, such as “last judgment”, “etern¬ ity”, “kingdom”, represent the antithesis of resignation. Theology opens out the area of empirically accessible his¬ tory into a realm of supra-empirical reality; or more pre¬ cisely, it holds that the history we can experience acquires its meaning—which we cannot immediately experience— by fitting into a more comprehensive universal context which is the proper place of such concepts as “eternity”, “kingdom” and “last judgment”. By thus guiding the 40

WHAT

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gaze of men who are directly involved in history as it happens to something beyond the empirical realm, theo¬ logy enables men to understand their role in that empirical realm, even though it cannot tell them what in truth is happening here and now. Granted, such a theological conception does not solve the riddle of what is concretely happening in history. The principal thing about such a conception is, it seems to me, primarily the fact that it exists. It is, to my mind, important that such ideas are seriously held, that such intellectual structures are erected at all. The real significance of all this comes to light as soon as the question of the historical future is posed. For the future remains a special kind of riddle. The future resists all prefiguring, all prognosis, pre¬ cisely in regard to the strand of strictly “historical” matter in it. Here again the abyss between history and evolution gapes wide. Anyone familiar with the “evolutionary potential” in a specific case may very well be able to pre¬ dict a future development. And perhaps it is really possible to determine on a scientific basis whether mankind as a species, “viewed biocosmically”, biocosmiquement, is still quite young. But on what basis can we possibly discover whether humanity, even if still “young” in an evolution¬ ary sense, will or will not destroy itself? Freedom and decision are involved here; or, in other words, history in the exact sense of the word is involved—unless we go so 4i

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far as to brand man’s self-extermination by means of atomic energy as an organic evolutionary “mistake” on a par with the evolutionary mistakes of certain prehistoric animal species which led to their extinction—for example, the “excessive enlargement of an organ, in this case the cerebrum”. (This idea, which to me seems totally absurd, has actually been advocated by an important German evolutionist.) At any rate, as far as the historical future is concerned all methods of prediction fail—and will continue to fail however much the procedures of statistical prognosis are perfected with the aid of computers. Sensible forecasters are well aware of this. For example, Wilhelm Fucks, whose much-discussed Formeln zur Macht20 has been fre¬ quently misunderstood, has said of his own theses that “all calculations” would be “voided” if a world war should break out and be waged with the weapons at present available. I myself once formulated the following example: Un¬ doubtedly it could have been predicted a few years in advance, on the basis of statistics and with a high degree of precision, how many fatal traffic accidents there would be in the city of Danzig in April 1945. But that the city of Danzig itself would scarcely exist at this time, and that there would be no traffic in its streets at all—this could not be known in advance, or at any rate not on the basis of statistics.21 Pascal, in his Pensees, offers a highly significant although 42

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at first glance rather puzzling aphorism on this matter; we can understand it only when we consider the year it was written. The aphorism runs: “Would one who en¬ joyed the friendship of the King of England, the King of Poland and the Queen of Sweden ever have believed that he could be without a refuge and without an asylum in the world?”22 The date of these words was 1656. That year the King of Poland, John Casimir II, was deposed; two years before, Queen Christina of Sweden had abdicated at the age of twenty-eight; as for the King of England, only seven years before, Oliver Cromwell had had Charles I beheaded. Thus a person who had relied on their friend¬ ship would be completely without protectors. Yet how highly improbable this was. No biological or historical law could ever have suggested such a situation; and even the most astute political observer would have been unable to foresee these events—because all three had their origin in men’s decisions; because, in other words, they were his¬ torical events in the strictest meaning of the word. The truly historical event, concrete in every respect (who, ex¬ actly? where, exactly? when, exactly?—these questions alone interest the person affected)—history in that sense cannot be at all prognosticated. Inherent in the concept of prognosis is the assumption that the probable future can be deduced from “clues” in the past, above all in the recent past, which we call the “present”. The art of the forecaster consists precisely in discovering and interpreting within the existing stock of 43

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events, within the history that has already taken place, those hints of what is to come which are hidden from the average intellect. And if the forecaster afterwards shows his cards, there will be the precise factors that led him to the conclusion that things would turn out as they have. But since the authentic historical event cannot be deduced from the existing stock; because per definitionem free, spon¬ taneous decision is involved, so that even the most probable events need not necessarily take place, and the most im¬ probable ones can take place—for that reason, to repeat, prognosis can never deal with historical events. And if what lies in the historical future is to be predictable at all, it can only be made so by a form of prediction which would differ from prognosis in not requiring clues in the past. In saying this I have already virtually formulated a defini¬ tion : die definition of prophecy. The question is, then, whether credible prophetic state¬ ments about the historical future of man can exist. If they cannot, then no valid assertion can be made on how human history will continue, let alone how it will end.

44

Ill Progress and Evolution The attempt has been made many times over to form a picture of historical man’s future without resorting to prophecy. Kant, for example, explicitly claims that he “can pre¬ dict” the progress of humanity towards the better life “even without the spirit of the seer”.1 Teilhard de Char¬ din, too, ventures to speak of a possible “final state of the earth” purely “coldly and logically”, froidement et logiquement, and “in no way apocalyptically”.2 And clearly the docta spes of which Ernst Bloch speaks has no connec¬ tion with the prophetic books of Scripture; rather, he defines it as “hope understood in dialectical-materialistic .

M 3

terms .

Incidentally, each of these three writers serves, in a sense, as representative of a school. We would do well to take 45

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careful measure of the conceptions of the future put for¬ ward by the idealistic philosophy of progress, by evolution¬ ary cosmology, and by a very special brand of mystical, eschatological Marxism—though it will soon be evident that none of these labels exactly applies. What differentiates Immanuel Kant from those who credulously hold to the religion of progress and see no problems therein is precisely his sensitivity to the counter¬ arguments. May not “eternal peace” be merely a sweet dream of philosophers ?4 Could it not happen, grotesquely, that the human race might “die out from sheer improve¬ ment”?5 Is it likely that anything “perfectly straight can be carpentered out of such crooked lumber as that of which man is made”?6 Because he asks such questions, his own conception acquires additional weight and persuasive¬ ness, although not necessarily any greater cogency. And certainly Kant’s view is complicated by his use of concepts and ideas that clearly derive from the tradition of the Christian religion, but which he employs in wholly untheological meanings. Thus, for example, he speaks of the “Kingdom of God on earth” as the “ultimate destiny of man”; but by “Kingdom of God” he means something very strange indeed. If, he says, the religion of Reason should supplant the religion of the Church, with the recog¬ nition and sanction of the state somewhere in the world (obviously this remark refers to Revolutionary France; Kant was writing this in 1792), then “one might rightly 46

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say that the Kingdom of God has come to us”.7 (Here, we are tempted to ask, is not a concept which should throw wide the gates of human thought being misused to close them prematurely?) But wild and outlandish though this version of the Kingdom of God is, I still do not think it represents an outright rejection of the pre-philosophical, the sacred tradition. Rather, what emerges is a typical inner debate : the attempt, in spite of principled rational¬ ism, to keep the superrational dimension of historical exist¬ ence at least within sight. Such contradictions are not so rare in Kant. When, for example, in his later anthropo¬ logical lectures he says of the “Education of the Human Race as a Whole” that man can expect such education “only from Providence, i.e. from a wisdom which is not his own, but is nevertheless the impotent idea (impotent through his own fault) of his own reason”—he is making, I think, a clearly theological statement. And quite fre¬ quently Kant seems to be prevented by what Thomas Mann9 has called “religious shame” even from using such words as “Providence”, though that is what he means. Thus he sometimes finds the word “nature” “more appro¬ priate for the limitations of human reason . . . and more modest than the expression ‘Providence’, with which we arrogantly don Icarian wings in order to approach closer to the secret of its unfathomable intentions”.10 In saying this he is again undoubtedly much closer to the spirit of Christian theology of history than, say, Hegel, who— arguing explicitly against Kant on this point—boldly 47

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asserts that “the key to world history has been given to us”11 and that Christianity possesses “a definite knowledge of Providence and its plan”.12 It has been necessary to speak a little of these intricacies of the Kantian conception, lest we find his doctrine of progress too shallow. That doctrine, after all, underlies his conception of the historical future as well as of the end of history. In any case, when he undertakes to give a strict and forthright answer (“What is it we want to know here?”13), he clearly affirms that the human race is indeed constantly progressing towards the better. But how does he justify this view? In his opinion, it can only be justified by experience. It must therefore be possible, he argues, to discover in empirical history an “event” which points to the presence in man of a power making for progress, and points to this so compellingly that “progress towards the better must be concluded as an inevitable consequence”.14 And Kant holds that such an event can actually be cited. At first we imagine that he is once again referring to the French Revolution. But what Kant means this time is not the Revolution itself, but rather, as he puts it, the “sym¬ pathy” bordering “on enthusiasm” which the Revolution arouses “in the hearts of all onlookers”.15 How then, we ask ourselves, does this conform to the standards of the sought-for “event”? Kant answers as follows: This uni¬ versal sympathy testifies to a spontaneous characteristic of the human race as a whole ... a moral trait with which mankind is at least endowed . . . which not only permits 48

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us to hope for progress towards the better, but is in itself an example of such progress. All very well, but how does the argument continue? The fact is, it does not continue! Strange to say, Kant seems to think that his argument is complete. He does, to be sure, offer one point more, when he describes the object of this universal “sympathy” : it is directed towards the desire for a constitution which will not be “bellicose”, in other words, for a republican cons¬ titution. But the argument as such is over. Reduced to a brief statement, it runs: the human race as a whole has decided for what is morally right in a representative case —and therefore the race is advancing. Kant merely sets forth his formal conclusion: “I now assert that even with¬ out the spirit of a seer I am able to predict the progress of the human race towards the better, a progress which can never again be entirely reversed.”16 It is hard to believe this of the critical thinker who has marked out and pushed back the boundaries of human knowledge. And then, to boot, he adds that he is not making this statement merely to reassure people, but that “in spite of all sceptics even the strictest theory must admit the proposition that the human race has always been progressing towards the better and will continue to do so henceforth.”17 Can it be that Kant is thinking of progress in respect to some subtle moral qualities which are scarcely visible in what we commonly call “history” ? No, he is referring to concrete, political history in which future progress will be 49

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manifested. For example: “Violence on the part of those in power will gradually diminish, obedience to the laws will increase”; above all men “will by degrees be forced to make war more humane, then more rare, and finally to abolish aggressive war entirely”.18 And so on. For wit¬ nesses of two world wars, it is scarcely necessary to point out the bankruptcy of this line of argument. And I fear that the Kantian view of the “end” of his¬ tory within time will not impress us either as especially convincing. It is apparent, he says first of all,19 that “in the advances of the human race the cultivation of the talents, of skill and of taste . . . outstrips the development of morality”; but some day “the moral endowment of mankind” will overtake this lead. To translate this state¬ ment into practical terms, Kant means that for a time, quite naturally, the achievements of civilization, such as the conquest of nature, are not subject to ethical control. To be even more specific, it is perfectly in the order of things that for a while mankind will know how to handle the technical aspects of atomic energy without as yet be¬ ing capable of applying it meaningfully. Of course Kant could not have envisioned these extreme possibilities in the conquest of nature; yet only such possibilities test the force of his argument. May it be that thus far the time margin is too short? “These are not long-term problems.” Kant is confident. But what is his confidence founded on? He gives two reasons. First, the “empirical proofs of the superiority of morality in our age, in comparison to all 50

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previous ages”20 (once again the reference to the French Revolution is clear). The second reason is mentioned casually enough in parentheses, but it is clearly enun¬ ciated : that we should be able to “hope for” the victory of man’s moral endowment “under a wise ruler of the universe”.21 I would not venture to decide to which of these two reasons Kant ascribes the greater force—although I think I hear a faintly ironical note in his speaking of the first argument, namely “faith in virtue”, as “heroic”.22 His conception of the end, too, is hedged round by all sorts of stipulations. Thus he declares that it should be “possible to nourish the hope that the Day of Judgment come rather with an ascension of Elijah . . . than with ... a descent into hell as the prelude to the end of all things on earth.”23 We may wonder that Kant calls the end thus conceived a “natural” end—expressly distinguishing it from a “super¬ natural” and “antinatural” end, possibilities that he also mentions (purely hypothetically, as if he did not really consider them at all probable). On the other hand, the impressiveness of the Kantian conception of the historical future consists in its containing nearly all the elements of the great traditional eschatology. At least all these elements are mentioned: time and etern¬ ity; Kingdom of God and Providence; the self-imposed burden of human existence;25 there is even talk of the New Heaven and the New Earth,26 and likewise, if only in the abstract, of the prospect of a final historical catas51

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trophe which he calls, actually using the ancient term, the “dominion of the Antichrist”.27 The trouble, however, and the dreary aspect of his reasoning, is that the compre¬ hensive intellectual structure, in which alone these elem¬ ents could each have their meaningful place, has long since lost its organizing force. Kant still has a glimmering of it; that is evident, it seems to me, in the strained, almost desperate quality of his reflections on history, as well as in his ironic scepticism about his own argument. In postKantian historical thinking the breakdown of this “per¬ plexing” structure proceeds with a dire consistency—for a variety of reasons, among which is certainly the increasing rigidity and sterility of tradition. The outcome, at any rate, cannot be altered by the best intentions on the part of in¬ dividuals, any more than it can be explained by the wicked¬ ness of individual thinkers. In this situation, plain resignation, a declaration of ignorance and forthright silence seem the most honest answer to the question of where, ultimately, this whole thing that we call “man’s history” is tending—provided, however, this silence does not imply that we may not meaningfully speculate about anything beyond the empiri¬ cally graspable. But keeping the questions alive, with a completely open mind, and at the same time resisting the temptation to provide a hasty and all-too-conclusive answer —this, as I have said, would seem to me not the worst of answers to the enigma of history. It is at any rate incom¬ parably more acceptable than any of the possible solutions 52

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—sometimes put forward as the solution—which have been proposed from a specialists: angle. Evolutionary research is one such angle. Viewed as a whole, of course, we can only speak of the science of evolution with respect and admiration. Its findings have fundamentally corrected, widened and deepened our en¬ tire view of the world. Man, too, can no longer be con¬ ceived of except as a being with his own immutable place in the cosmogenesis and one who partakes of the evolution¬ ary impetus of the whole of Creation. On the other hand, when Adolf Portmann warns28 that we must not think of evolution itself as “an event whose principle has been understood” I feel we must heartily concur. Above all, however, the evolutionistic approach to the subject of “history” remains a special perspective from which, as we have already pointed out, the full reality of man acting in history cannot even be seen. Hence we should be most mistrustful of any attempt to interpret the historical problems of the present with the intellectual tools of evolutionary theory, let alone to found a “profes¬ sion of hope” upon that theory. “Avowal of hope”—that is the heading of the last chapter in Konrad Lorenz’s much-discussed book, On Aggression. We cannot but feel great admiration for the infinitely rich empirical studies of Konrad Lorenz, the behavioural scientist. His masterly descriptions hold us spellbound and make us feel as though we were ourselves participating in his wholly original 53

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observations. Our astonishment is all the greater, therefore, when we hear what the author has to say about the pros¬ pects for our overcoming our historical perils, and what his optimism is founded on. As Lorenz sees it, the situation of contemporary man is determined primarily by two elements: the actual avail¬ ability of nuclear weapons of annihilation, and the “aggressive instinct”, which apparently cannot be con¬ trolled rationally. In this situation, he argues, “what is ‘undeniably’ needed is an ‘inhibiting mechanism’ to pre¬ vent aggression [not] only between those who know each other and are friends . . . Love and friendship should embrace all humanity.”29 But “made as we are” we cannot abide by this injunction to embrace all men in our love. This “make-up” of ours, however, can very well be changed, though not by ourselves. By whom, then? By evolution. “Evolution can do it.”30 “The great construc¬ tors can,”31 the “constructors” of specific change, that is: “Selection and mutation.”32 And now Lorenz comes to his “avowal of hope”; “I believe they will do so”; “I believe that this, in the not too distant future, will endow our descendants with the faculty of fulfilling the greatest and most beautiful of all commandments.”33 We are being told, then, that present-day man can hope to be saved from the suicidal situation of the atomic age not by any action of his own, but solely by a genetic change in his physical constitution which may come about in the course of further evolution—a change which perhaps will 54

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make him into a different being! I think one would rather go along with the Marxists34 or with the biblical saying that God has handed the world over to the dis¬ cretion of men:

tradidit mundum diputationi eorum

(Eccl. 3.11). But that such a fantastic and basically desper¬ ate thought can be conceived at all, can sail under the flag of hope, and can be seriously discussed—this fact alone suggests our abysmal perplexity in the face of our own historical future. Significant as such statements are as symptoms, they do not in themselves make us a whit the wiser. We turn there¬ fore with all the livelier curiosity to Teilhard de Chardin, who in his magnum opus on The Phenomenon of Man deals explicitly not only with the future of man, but also with his end and the ultimate state of the earth, la Terre Finale.55 He promises to speak of it “in no way apocalypti¬ cally”, though this is surely not to say that he has no inter¬ est in the tidings of the Apocalypse. The earmark of Teilhard’s thought consists, it seems to me, in the fact that technical knowledge and spirituality are not separate realms in his mind, as is often the case among scholarly priests. His religious meditations incorporate his scientific knowledge; when he speaks at a wedding he speaks of the “God of evolution”, or when a friend’s son comes to him with problems of faith, he answers him—walking through Paris in pouring rain from nine until midnight—by speak¬ ing “of the active role of Christ in cosmic evolution”.36 55

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Reduced to its barest outlines, Teilhard de Chardin’s world-view is approximately as follows: The substance of the world, growing both in complexity and consciousness, is concentrating, condensing, more and more tightly. Man is the spearhead of this process: man considered also as a social being who seems to be capable of collective reflec¬ tion. The goal of that reflection, the omega point of reason, is becoming identical with the universal cosmic Christ. In Christ the whole of evolution is ultimately revealed as a process of union with God.37 Cosmogenesis aims, by way of biogenesis and noogenesis, at Christogenesis,38 at an incarnation of Christ which in fact assumes that “the mystical Christ has not yet attained his full growth”.39 We, however, are concerned with only a partial aspect of this world-view. This is a conception embracing mil¬ lions of years and we are considering only a tiny segment of it when we ask how the final phase of the history of mankind on this earth would be represented in Teilhard de Chardin’s scheme. The answer we receive is somewhat surprising.40 It seems that two pictures are equally possible, although one is almost absolutely opposed to the other. The first picture, in Teilhard de Chardin’s words, would take the following form: In the final state of the earth evil, le Mai, will recede to a minimum; there will be no fear of hunger and disease in their worse manifestations, for science will have overcome them. Worsted by the general direction of nature and the good sense of humanity, par le sens de la Terre et le sens humain, hatred and dissension 56

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will also have melted away under the ever warmer rays of Omega. A certain unanimity will prevail throughout the realm of the spirit. The ultimate convergence will take place in a condition of extreme tension, to be sure, but nevertheless in peace. This, then, is the first hypothesis; it is formulated in¬ cidentally in phrases which I find of rather staggering vagueness. But Teilhard says of this picture that it is the expression of hopes for whose achievement no effort would be too great and that, moreover, these hopes “would” assuredly harmonize perfectly with “theory”. The hypo¬ thetical tone is truly astonishing. For by theory he cannot very well mean anything but his own evolutionistic con¬ cept. The second picture would obviously not fit nearly so well into that theory, although it too is possible in reality, not just as an intellectual construct. Here is the alternate version of the end of history. Along with the increase in the good, evil would likewise increase, in the end becom¬ ing dominant and taking on a new shape. The energy of mankind would be split; acceptance and rejection of Omega would stand opposed; an internal schism of con¬ sciousness would grow worse and worse. An implacable conflict would divide the realm of the spirit into two zones, each of which would form around a “contrary pole of worship”. To one’s surprise, Teilhard offers further arguments for this second hypothesis, and remarks that it conforms 57

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

rather better “to the traditional apocalypses”. Here, then, he himself has used the taboo word “Apocalypse”, although in giving it in plural form he gives it a dubious, disparaging and relativizing cast. At the same time, this gloomy picture of the historical denouement accords so ill with his own evolutionistic “theory” that we must ask whether the one does not completely exclude the other. Surely the second picture, if it represents a real possibility, simply overturns his whole conception. To be sure Teilhard’s interpretation of the present era of mankind, whose nihilistic aspects can scarcely have escaped him (he speaks of this in a section headed “re¬ quirements of the future”41)—already contains an idea which seems hardly compatible with his total evolution¬ istic conception. He speaks of an already imminent threat of a “strike” in the noosphere. By this he means some¬ thing much more fundamental and radical than the technical possibility of man’s exterminating himself by the use of atomic weapons—of which, amazingly enough, there is no mention anywhere in Teilhard’s works, as far as I see. Rather, the danger which is growing “under our modern disquiet” consists, he says, in the fact that “the elements of the world should refuse to serve the world— because they think; or more precisely that the world should refuse itself when perceiving itself through re¬ flection.”42 Whatever we may think of this truly crushing insight, it would at any rate seem that a “strike” of this kind cannot very well be classed as an evolutionary pheno58

PROGRESS

AND

EVOLUTION

menon. Yet Teilhard thinks it can: he assigns this act of self-negation, performed with the utmost alertness of the reflecting mind, to the realm of disease, almost of biology itself; he speaks of an “organic crisis in evolution”.43 But this line can hardly be maintained, I would say, in regard to the “paroxysm” of evil44 and the “ecstasy in . . . discord”45 which, as Teilhard says, may be expected in the final age. Incidentally, this aspect can be found through¬ out all his writings—although this is scarcely mentioned in the public discussion of Teilhard’s work, which seems bent on representing him—a thinker who cannot be re¬ duced to a formula—as an uncritical enthusiast about the future. Actually, a brief piece of his written in Tientsin in 1924 already speaks of the profound schism by which mankind will be rent in the Last Days. Some, he said, will strain every nerve to achieve full domination of the world all the more; others will ardently await the doom of the world in order to be taken into God along with Christ.46 This extremest form of negation, this fundamental schism of the realm of spirit, cannot possibly, as I see it, belong among the mere “mistakes” which, Teilhard says, noogenesis will produce as “by-products” {sous produits) of its course.47 In brief, all of this simply and ultimately destroys the categories of the evolutionistic world-view. What is admirable about Teilhard de Chardin, beyond all the logical discrepancies, seems to me this : that he can stand aside from his own system to unabashedly discuss and conjure up before our eyes that future which can be 59

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

extrapolated from the realities of man as an historical be¬ ing. He flatly declares that without exception evil has regularly increased in the same proportion as good, at least in the past.48 He refuses to conceal this possibility for the sake of “theory”, or to prettify it in the name of ideology. Rather, he makes himself and his reader look squarely at it, even if reason, seeking some solution, falls silent in total dismay when faced with it. When, however, Teilhard speaks of the first-mentioned eschatological hypothesis, which seems so much more com¬ patible with his theory, and says of it that it is also the expression of human hope—the question arises whether the other, less optimistic picture of the end of history may not likewise be able to evoke some hope. At the beginning of our discussion we asked : Is man’s hope of such nature that it can be satisfied within the area of history ? Now the question takes another form: Is the history of man perhaps of such nature that it gives him no grounds for hope ?

60

IV Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem?

The most forceful statements on the theme of “hope”, the broadest as well as the deepest analysis in contemporary writing, is undoubtedly to be found in the work of Ernst Bloch. The subject which has engaged his intense interest for nearly fifty years of literary activity is expressed in the title of his early book, Geist der Utopie (“Spirit of Uto¬ pia”), written in 1918. In the author’s note to the 1963 re¬ issue of this book he explicitly affirms the continuity of his subject-matter through all the works published in the interval, up to the voluminous and conclusive book he wrote in exile, Das Prinzip Hoffnung (“The Principle of Hope”). The identity and unity of this underlying idea, however, produces anything but monotony. We need only skim the table of contents in his book on hope, and leaf casually through its pages to notice the unexpected and almost overwhelming variety and abundance of concrete 61

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

detail he discusses: the fantasies of children playing hideand-seek, the new dress in a lighted shop window, the happy ending of entertainment movies, Mozart operas, social utopias from Plato to Marx, the wishful architecture of fairy-tales, the celestial rose of Dante’s Commedia\ Mignon’s nostalgic song, Don Quixote, the Bach fugue, Lao-tse, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed—all the way to Marxism’s acclaim of the realm of freedom. The whole, moreover, is written in a totally jargon-free, humanly direct language inspired by passionate concern with the subject. From the first moment on (and especially in the first moment) the reader is fascinated by the sonority and polyphony of Bloch’s diction; this is not the kind of prose one is accustomed to find in philosophical writings. That very fact, to be sure, suggests the reverse of the medal. It is definitely not easy to discover what, on the whole and in detail, is really being asserted. This difficulty even affects the principal ideas, including that of “hope” itself. “Weaving music in the tunnel of the soul”—Ernst Bloch uses this phrase from Hegel to characterize in retrospect his own early work.1 It is, however, equally apt for the major book on hope which he wrote late in life. In it, by way of defining the object of hope, he offers a list of other things which to him are more or less synonyms: “Happiness, freedom, non-alienation, Golden Age, land of milk and honey, the eternal feminine, the trumpet signal in Fidelio, the Christlike aspect of the coming Resurrection Day.”2 Yes, Bloch’s language is indeed as “dream-coloured” as it 62

“UBI

LENIN,

IBI

JERUSALEM?”

has been termed. But because of this highly praised quality, it becomes almost impossible to couch his funda¬ mental ideas in the form of a summary, and to discuss them critically. Nevertheless I must make the attempt. Bloch likes to refer to his opus as an “encyclopedia”, a comprehensive account of the images of man’s hopes, an effort to formulate just what is hoped for in human hopes. This is in fact the most persuasive aspect of his under¬ taking, and at the same time the one that raises fewest problems. Let us therefore consider it first. Bloch himself says that he is concerned with interpreting “the dreams of the better life”.3 What, then, do men mean by “the better life”, or as Bloch rings changes on the phrase, the “perfect”4 life, the “full”5 life and “full existence”.6 They mean:

“the world without disappointment”;7

“reaching home”;8 a “joy like no other that has ever been”;9

“all needs being met”;10

“peace,

freedom,

bread”;11 “heaven on earth”;12 “the world as man’s home¬ land”;13 “the world becoming like a house”;14 “restora¬ tion of man”;15 a world in which “man is a man to men”16 and not a wolf; regnum humanum;17 “enlightened man at one with an enlightened world.”18 As I have said, this encyclopedic inventory is the least questionable aspect of Bloch. Nevertheless, there are a few doubts here, too. We need only look at the obvious omis¬ sions or emphases. The last-named item, for example (“en¬ lightened man at one with an enlightened world”)—this, says Bloch, is “the most hoped for of all that men hope, 63

HOPE

AND

HISTORY

called the highest good”;19 it is the “all” which in the past was conceived “mythologically as heaven”.20 Natur¬ ally, man’s coming into his own and his harmony with a perfected world can be interpreted in a variety of ways. I myself could easily understand this phraseology as a des¬ cription of Eternal Bliss; I could say the same about the other, somewhat unusual, tag about “all needs being met”. Why not? But Bloch is determined to rule out any such interpretation; his inventory itself is limited to those as¬ pects of hopes that are, as he puts it, “non-illusory”.21 To be sure, he does not hesitate to speak on occasion of the “kingdom of heaven” and “attaining bliss”;22 but he means exclusively “heaven on earth”.23 He even, like Kant, speaks of the “kingdom of God”, but of a “kingdom of God—without God”.24 The biblical concept of the “kingdom” is another of his basic and recurrent concepts; but “the utopia of the kingdom” is “based on the assump¬ tion that no God remains in the heavens, since there is none there and never was”.25 “The world has no be¬ yond”;26 and “the fixed point high above [is] precisely the falsehood”.27 Although this last is quite correctly directed against the Enlightenment’s Deistic notion of an “extramundane God” which the mainstream of Occiden¬ tal theology28 rejects just as forcibly as Ernst Bloch— nevertheless this consistently asserted atheism of course applies to any possible conception of deity. What, then, is the situation? Questions arise with the very first step: the endeavour to draw up a comprehensive 64