Tag: politics

The Lesson of Odysseus – The Essential Political Problem


11.02.2018

Today, I want to write a short note about a perennial political problem which I see as troubling every culture in history. Every culture has had to respond to this political problem which is why I see it as the essential one. This problem has catastrophic effects and has enabled every form of injustice, despotism and evil in the world of mankind. The problem is that of the individual that separates himself or herself from the political realm and fails to uphold their obligations to the rest of the human race. This individual retreats into the domestic realm, like a caterpillar in its cocoon, closed off from reality and society.

The issue is addressed in the story of the feigned madness of Odysseus, one of the episodes in the story of the Greek and Trojan war. The context of the madness is important. Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world and there was much rivalry between different suitors as to who would marry her:

The gathered Suitors of Helen represented all of the most powerful kingdoms of Ancient Greece and many were regarded as the best warriors of the day.

Each Suitor brought with them gifts, but Tyndareus quickly realised he was in an impossible position for choosing one suitor over the others would lead to bloodshed between them, and a great deal of animosity between the different Greek states. (http://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/the-oath-of-tyndareus.h… )

The intense rivalry for Helen’s affections therefore transcended the domestic sphere of marriage and courtship and had entered the field of politics. It could lead to war between competing states.

The story goes on:

Odysseus told Tyndareus that the king should extract from each suitor an oath that they would protect and defend whichever Suitor of Helen was chosen. No hero of note would break such an oath, and even if someone did, then they would have to face the force of the other Suitors who were bound to protect Helen’s husband.

Tyndareus put forth Odysseus’ plan, and each Suitor took the Oath of Tyndareus, with the sacred promise, and the oath was bound when Tyndareus sacrificed a horse (http://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/the-oath-of-tyndareus.h… ).

Odysseus, as one of the suitors, had promised himself politically to Menelaus. This was an obligation between political parties, not just individuals, as the suitors of Helen had to be suitably powerful. The reason that all had sworn the oath was to preserve peace and the honour and integrity of each of the suitors so that none would feel dishonoured.

The feigned madness of Odysseus is set against the background of this political promise and is presented as Odysseus’s dereliction of duty. As is outlined in Cambridge University’s Classical Tales on the internet:

The famous incident of the feigned madness of Odysseus is not mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. Its fullest classical treatment is given by the Roman author Hyginus (1st-2nd century AD) in his mythological handbook Fabulae (ch.95): 
“Odysseus had received an oracle warning him that if he went to Troy, he would return home after twenty years, alone, destitute and having lost his men. And so when he found out that an embassy was on the way to him, he pretended to be crazy by putting on a felt hat [i.e. looking like a peasant] and yoking a horse and a bull together to a plough…[their different strides would make ploughing almost impossible]. When Palamedes saw him, he sensed that he was faking it, so he took Odysseus’ son Telemachus from the cradle and put him in front of the plough, saying “Put aside your trickery and join the others…”. [Odysseus of course stopped the plough from cutting his son so revealing his sanity]. Odysseus promised he would go to Troy.” (http://classictales.educ.cam.ac.uk/…/ep…/weblinks/index.html )

One can note from this description of the madness how it symbolised a retreat into the domestic realm away from the political realm. Firstly, Odysseus puts on a felt hat to look like a peasant. A peasant seems like the radical alternative to a noble and honourable, prestigious and politically powerfully agent. The peasant is only involved in the agricultural economy, not in questions of politics. A peasant is not a warrior, but a worker. Indeed, the feigned madness of Odysseus emphasised that he was not even a fit peasant and a fit worker since he made ploughing impossible in coupling the two different animals to a plough.

While the details may differ, the story of Odysseus’s feigned madness shows the common strategy that all people have used since time immemorial to duck their obligations to society and others. They see themselves as “common people” that are unconcerned with politics even though we all have rights and responsibilities towards humanity and the planet. Odysseus’s actions are an attempt to slide out of the duty to maintain peace and to uphold the honour and integrity of each individual, as well as the sacred institution of marriage. Such people as Odysseus say that they are entitled to a “normal” existence and no obligations to others. They think and believe that the domestic sphere is not political, a realm removed, a realm that can never be infiltrated by politics. They know that fighting is hard and takes time and effort and they wish to have no part of it. They think that others can fight all the battles and wars of this existence. They don’t want to put their lives on the line for others or to contribute to the ideals of honour and justice which are the highest values of any society. These entitled individuals, like our contemporary Englishmen, who feed like voracious animals off the resources of the whole planet and the naked poor, while paying a small and contemptuous pittance for the pleasure of it, believe that they are immune from the claims and entitlements of society and others. They do not believe in self-denial and sacrifice, hardship and suffering. They believe that they are exempt from suffering and the chain of being.

In the story quoted above, Odysseus is brought to his senses by one thing and one thing only. He is confronted with the destruction of his son and his lineage who is put in front of the plough. And this is the response that every culture has given to the selfish individual who won’t upload the sacred ideals and values of his society, the selfish cocooned individual that won’t suffer to maintain honour and the peace. They are told what the future will be if they do not contribute: the extinction of their line and their way of life, the death of the future. For the political sphere insists that the domestic sphere is inseparable from it: this is why Odysseus is confronted by a political actor with the death and destruction of his baby. Odysseus’s duty as a parent is inseparable from his duty as a political actor.

In the Ancient Greek story, which is, after all, a work of the imagination, Odysseus heeds the response of his society and, indeed, his betters. However, the contemporary man or woman neither cares for the future nor for his line. This individual still believes in the separation of the domestic and the political sphere. This individual does not believe that politics is everywhere. One sees such individuals on social media. They proclaim that they are tired of politics and want to retreat into the fields of art and literature, film and music. They find politics boring without stopping to think that the world trade which supports their leech-like existence is premised on the domination of the strong over the weak, those that have over those that don’t. Such noxious individuals don’t care about global problems like climate change and pollution which are the direct result of their excessive consumption and their evil practices in relation to the earth’s resources or the effect that they will have on their children. Such individuals do not feign the madness of Odysseus: they are truly mad. How does one put the child in front of the plough for these people? This is the perennial and the essential political problem.

Abstract Love vs. Situated and Local Love

25.09.2018

The choice between abstract love and situated and local love is evident in a quote by E. M. Forster –

“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

Let us characterise abstract love. Abstract love is love of the country in the above quote or the supporting of “causes”, which are “public”, or, rather, “publicly accepted”. A “cause” can be defined as either a “charitable undertaking” or “a principle or movement militantly defended or supported” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online). Abstract love supports “principles” rather than human beings (the opposition is between friends and the abstract entities of country and cause). The country is an imaginary entity which is also largely publicly supported in the idea of abstract love. A country is largely an idea. It only has status as a piece of fiction. There is no such thing as a country. There is just a varied collection of people in a geographical space, who all live varied kinds of lives, not some kind of unchanging, abstract entity. Abstract love says that you should love all these people that you don’t know for whatever reason because of the abstract idea of a country and for abstract principles. Think about that in detail. There are no intimate human relationships required, no close contact with the recipients. In abstract love, the love that is most supported is the love of the stranger, of the anonymous. In abstract love, there is a morality which is that you should love a fictional idea more than you love those close to you: politicians tell you to love the country. This is felt like a compulsion by Forster who has to resist it strongly. What is the object of love in abstract love, the idea of the politicians? The country is seen as something larger than a single human being, as more universal. There is an idea of the larger versus the smaller, or the general versus the particular. The country is public, the individual is private. The country is emblematic of “good” group membership, community, etc. Love of the country is therefore contrasted to the love of the individual human being who just stands for personal love.

Let us now characterise situated and local love. In this form of love, you support individuals who you love. You know them. The reason that you love them is that you know them. You don’t love strangers and help them: it is those close to you that you love. This love is entirely intimate. It is situated because you just happened to be somehow connected to the person by complete chance. It is not about principles, it is about your own situated love. Biographical details are more important in this form of love than principles and sharing publicly accepted group affiliations. This love relies on an idea of the domestic sphere rather than the private sphere: you love those close to you, not those that political figures tell you to, as in the case of the country. It is about what you yourself choose to support as an individual. In situated and local love, you are not a removed and detached “objective” thinker with ideals of “universality” (abstract love pretends it is this – it is not, as you will know if you meet any nationalists). You are subjective. You favour the particular over the general, the smaller over the larger – the individual over the nation state. That is, you choose your own private group of membership (in friends) over what is publicly accepted as the main form of membership (nationality).

I have already said which love I choose. Why did I choose the smaller over the larger, the particularistic over the general? Because who else is going to help the poor members of my family in India? I have noted that they are systematically oppressed. Yet, for all the talk about altruism and abstract love, they have no support.

You might say that the abstract thinkers are in the minority and that is the problem with the world. After all, there is no one helping the people that are starving. But there is a morality to local and situated love. This is that you should tend to your own garden first before you start addressing other issues. First of all, my mother helps her family. Then, if she can, she helps people from our socially disadvantaged community on the basis of group identity. My mother is particularistic, not abstract and general. It is the same with the rest of our family. According to lovers of abstraction, this is seen as self-serving, selfish, etc. It is seen as a bad form of group identity and belonging (i.e. tribalism). It is seen as the inferior form of loving since it is situated. But the strength of situated and local love is that it is from insiders and local: who else is going to help anyone in that community that is outside that community? How many thousands of years of oppression have my people faced? No one helped us except our own. That is reality: people are selfish.