The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (New York Review Books Classics)

by Leys, Simon

  To reach the truth of the past, historians must overcome specific obstacles: they have to gather information that is not always readily available. In this sense, they must master the methods of a specialised discipline. But to understand the truth of the present time, right in front of us, is not the preserve of historians; it is our common task. How do we usually cope with it? Not too well, it seems.

  Let us consider just two examples—still quite close to us, and of colossal dimensions. The twentieth century was a hideous century, filled with horrors on a gigantic scale. In sheer magnitude, the terror perpetrated by modern totalitarianisms was unprecedented. It developed essentially in two varieties: Stalinist and Hitlerian.

  When we read the writings of Soviet and East European dissidents and exiles, we are struck by one recurrent theme: their amazement, indignation and anger in the face of the stupidity, ignorance and indifference of Western opinion and especially of the Western intelligentsia, which remained largely incapable of registering the reality of their predicament. And yet the Western countries were spending huge resources, both to gather intelligence and to develop scholarly research on the communist world—all to very little avail. Robert Conquest, one of the very few Sovietologists who was clear-sighted from the start, experienced acute frustration in his attempts to share and communicate his knowledge. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, his publisher proposed to reissue a collection of his earlier essays and asked him what title he would suggest. Conquest thought for one second and said, “How about I Told You So, You Fucking Fools?”

  Interestingly enough, the name of one writer appears again and again in the writings of the dissidents from the communist world—they pay homage to him as the only author who fully perceived the concrete reality of their condition, down to its very sounds and smells—and this is George Orwell. Aleksandr Nekrich summed up this view: “Orwell is the only Western writer who really understood the essential nature of the Soviet world.” Czesław Miłosz and many others made similar assessments. And yet, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a work of fiction—an imaginary projection set in the future of England.

  The Western incapacity to grasp the Soviet reality and all its Asian variants was not a failure of information (which was always plentiful); it was a failure of imagination.

  The horrors of the Nazi regime have long been fully documented: the criminals have been defeated and sentenced; the victims, survivors, witnesses have spoken; the historians have gathered evidence and passed judgement. Full light has been cast upon this entire era. The records fill entire libraries.

  In all this huge literature, however, I would wish to single out one small book, extraordinary because of its very ordinariness: the pre-war memoir of a young Berliner, Raimund Pretzel, who chose to leave his country in 1938 on purely moral grounds. Written under the pen-name of Sebastian Haffner, it carries a fittingly modest and unassuming title: Geschichte eines Deutschen (Story of a German), which was badly translated for the English edition as Defying Hitler. It was published posthumously only a few years ago by the author’s son, who discovered the manuscript in his father’s papers.

  The author was a well-educated young man; the son of a magistrate, he himself was entering that same career; his future prospects were secure; he loved his friends, his city, his culture, his language. Yet, like all his compatriots, he witnessed Hitler’s ascent. He had no privileged information; simply, like any other intellectual, he read the newspapers, followed the news, discussed current affairs with friends and colleagues. He clearly felt that, together with the rest of the country, he was being progressively sucked into a poisonous swamp. To ensure a reasonably smooth and trouble-free existence, small compromises were constantly required—nothing difficult nor particularly dramatic; everyone else, to a various extent, was similarly involved. Yet the sum total of these fairly banal, daily surrenders eroded the integrity of each individual. Haffner himself was never forced into participating in any extreme situation, was never confronted with atrocities, never personally witnessed dramatic events or political crimes. Simply, he found himself softly enveloped into the all-pervasive moral degradation of an entire society. Experiencing nothing more than what all his compatriots were experiencing, he faced the inescapable truth. Since he was lucky enough to have no family responsibilities, he was free to abandon his beloved surroundings and to forsake the chance of a brilliant career: he went into voluntary exile, first to France and then England—to save his soul. His short (unfinished), clear-sighted and sober memoir raises one terrifying question: all that Haffner knew at the time, many millions of people around him knew equally well. Why was there only one Haffner?

  Earlier on, I suggested that artists and creative writers actually develop alternative modes of access to truth—all the short-cuts afforded by inspired imagination. Please do not misunderstand me: if I suggest that there are alternative approaches to truth, I do not mean that there are alternative truths. Truth is not relative; by nature it is within the reach of everyone, it is plain and obvious—sometimes even painfully so. Haffner’s example illustrates it well.

  At the time of the Dreyfus Affair—the most shameful miscarriage of justice in French modern history—one of the eminent personalities who came to Dreyfus’s defence was a most unlikely figure. Maréchal Lyautey, being an aristocrat, monarchist, Catholic, third-generation military man, seemed naturally to belong to the other side—the side of rightist, anti-Semitic, clerical, militaro-chauvinistic bigots. He became a supporter of Dreyfus (who was falsely convicted of the crime of treason) for only one reason: he himself had integrity. The pro-Dreyfus committee gathered to discuss what to call itself; most members suggested the name Alliance for Justice. “No,” said Lyautey. “We must call it Alliance for Truth.” And he was right, for one can honestly hesitate on what is just (since justice must always take into account complex and contradictory factors), but one cannot hesitate on what is true.

  Which brings me to my conclusion. My conclusion is in fact my unspoken starting point. When I was first invited to speak on the subject of truth, it was a few days before Easter. During the successive days of the Christian Holy Week, we read in church the four Gospel narratives of the last two days in the life of Christ. These narratives each contain a passage on the trial of Jesus in front of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate; the concept of truth appears there in a brief dialogue between judge and accused. It is a well-known passage; at that time, it struck me in a very special way.

  The high priests and the Sanhedrin had arrested Jesus, and they interrogated him. In conclusion, they decided that he should be put to death for blasphemy. But they were now colonial subjects of the Roman empire: they had lost the power to pronounce and carry out death sentences. Only the Roman governor possessed such authority.

  Thus they bring Jesus to Pilate. Pilate finds himself in a predicament. First, there is the problem inherent to his position: he is both head of the executive and head of the judiciary. As supreme ruler, he is concerned with issues of public order and security; as supreme judge, he should ensure that the demands of justice are being met. Then there is his own personal situation: the Jews naturally see him for what he is—an odious foreign oppressor. And he distrusts and dislikes these quarrelsome and incomprehensible natives who give him endless trouble. During his tenure, twice already there have been severe disturbances; the governor handled them badly—he was even denounced in Rome. He cannot afford another incident. And this time, he fears a trap.

  The Jewish leaders present themselves as loyal subjects of Caesar. They accuse Jesus of being a rebel, a political agitator who tells the people not to pay taxes and who challenges Caesar’s authority by claiming that he himself is a king. Now, if Pilate does not condemn him, Pilate himself would be disloyal to Caesar.

  Pilate interrogates Jesus. Naturally, he finds Jesus’ notion of a spiritual kingdom quite fanciful, but it seems also harmless enough. The accused appears to be neither violent nor fanatic; he has poise; he is articulate. Pilate is im
pressed by his calm dignity, and it quickly becomes obvious to him that Jesus is entirely innocent of all the crimes of which he has been accused. Pilate repeats it several times: “I can find no fault in this man.” But the mob demands his death, and the Gospel adds that, hearing their shouts, “Pilate was more afraid than ever.” Pilate is scared: he does not want to have, once again, a riot on his hands. Should this happen, it would be the end of his career.

  In the course of his interrogation, as Pilate questions Jesus on his activities, Jesus replies: “What I came into the world for, is to bear witness of the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth, listens to my voice.” To which Pilate retorts: “The truth! But what is the truth?” He is an educated and sophisticated Roman; he has seen the world and read the philosophers; unlike this simple man, this provincial carpenter from Galilee, he knows that there are many gods and many creeds under the sun . . .

  However, beware! Whenever people wonder “What is the truth?” usually it is because the truth is just under their noses—but it would be very inconvenient to acknowledge it. And thus, against his own better judgement, Pilate yields to the will of the crowd and lets Jesus be crucified.

  Pilate’s problem was not how to ascertain Jesus’ innocence. This was easy enough: it was obvious. No, the real problem was that, in the end—like all of us, most of the time—he found it more expedient to wash his hands of the truth.

  Part II

  LITERATURE

  THE PRINCE DE LIGNE, OR THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY INCARNATE*

  THE PRINCE de Ligne did not have a very high opinion of literary life in our Belgian provinces. Aware of the poverty and isolation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (of whom he was a wholehearted admirer), he had visited him in order to offer him a refuge on his estate; when Jean-Jacques did not respond to this invitation, the Prince renewed his initiative, writing Rousseau a letter that has remained famous: “Consider my proposals. No one reads in my country; you will be neither admired nor persecuted.”[1] So the Prince would no doubt be pleasantly surprised to know that, two hundred and fifty years later, here in Belgium, there is not only a witty and cultivated woman to celebrate his genius but also a Royal Academy of Literature to republish her exquisite book. Towards the end of his life, during his Viennese exile, he had already been overjoyed by the anthology of his writings compiled and presented by Madame de Staël (whose sometimes muddle-headed ideas he had once gently mocked). Women, and not only literate and intellectual women, were always full of kindness for him.

  “The Prince de Ligne is the eighteenth century incarnate.” Thus Paul Morand. So accurate is this characterisation that in his old age, which is to say during the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century, the Prince cut the figure of the last survivor of a bygone age. Today, by contrast, it is precisely to that anachronistic aspect that we feel the closest.

  Ligne shares a good many traits with Mozart, apropos of whom George Bernard Shaw made a comment that it may be useful to quote here. Mozart’s greatness, Shaw argued, lay not in innovation, but on the contrary in his success in bringing a tradition to an unsurpassable perfection: “Many Mozart worshippers cannot bear to be told that their hero was not the founder of a dynasty. But in art the highest success is to be the last of your race, not the first. Anybody, almost, can make a beginning: the difficulty is to make an end, to do what cannot be bettered.”

  * * *

  Gay and lively, always effervescent and unable to stay still, Ligne was ever on the move, traveling on horseback, by carriage, barge, galley or sleigh; he spent his life rushing from one end of Europe to the other. His prose has a breathless allegro quality that echoes this rollicking mobility. Despite the trials of life, the death of a beloved son, the failure of a military career brilliantly initiated only to be prematurely wrecked by a conspiracy of mediocrities—there was a deep source of joy and a grace in him that never ran dry. He was disarmingly thoughtless, yet astonishing in his psychological insight. His overdeveloped sensitivity tended easily to be concealed behind the mask of a buffoon; he never missed the chance to make a bad pun, for instance, or to play a practical joke. In this way he put idiots off the scent, but in the end they would get their own back. Wagner rebuked Mozart for a “lack of seriousness”;[2] a similar reproach took its toll on Ligne: no sooner was he no longer dealing with the great intelligence of a Maria-Theresa of Austria or a Joseph II in Vienna, or of Catherine the Great in Russia, his own “lack of seriousness” concealed his genius from mediocre sovereigns who no longer dared employ him, thus condemning him to a premature semi-retirement.

  But parallels with Mozart, no matter how illuminating, should not be overdone.[3] We must not forget, above all, that Ligne, as Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Lord of Baudour, Chevalier of the Golden Fleece, Grandee of Spain, Seneschal of Hainaut, and Field-Marshal of the Imperial Armies, was first and foremost an aristocrat who assumed his high birth (going back to Charlemagne!) completely, and remained ever aware of the demanding ethic that it required of him. He wrote on this subject, defining nobility as “the obligation to do nothing ignoble,” and it was by this yardstick that he measured and lucidly assessed his peers. At the same time he treated his subjects and subordinates with a courtesy that came from the heart: “I have made emperors and empresses wait for me, but never a soldier.” So his vassals, like the simple troopers of his Ligne-Infanterie regiment with whom he shared the dangers and miseries of campaigning, made no mistake when they demonstrated such a fierce loyalty.

  Like every true aristocrat, Ligne was basically a man without a profession. If he was a man of war, and indeed he was, as we shall see in a moment, it was by nature rather than by occupation. (Could one ever say of a poet, or a monk, that they practiced their calling professionally?) In the worlds of letters and of the arts (including the designing of gardens), Ligne was an amateur in the deepest, most complete and most fruitful sense of the word; free from considerations of utility, he pursued such disciplines for his own satisfaction, following his whims and at his leisure, with grace, nonchalance and detachment, ever guided by sudden inspiration. At bottom there is only one art that matters, and that is the art of life. Hired artisans can achieve great technical mastery, but they have no access to higher values of this kind, the pursuit of which embodies an exquisite inexpertness beyond the reach of the professional’s virtuosity.

  * * *

  I am drawing here on the aesthetic discourse of traditional Chinese scholars, of which of course Ligne knew absolutely nothing; but had he encountered that approach, it would surely not have disconcerted him. After all, it was he who, apropos of the Ottoman Empire, addressed “observers, travellers, spectators” in the following terms: “Instead of thinking trivial thoughts about the nations of Europe, which are all for the most part alike, meditate rather on everything having to do with Asia if you would discover new, beautiful, great, noble, and very often reasonable things.”

  This open-mindedness made Ligne into one of the very first, and greatest, of truly modern Europeans. His Belgian birth predisposed him in this respect[4]: he described himself as a “Flemish gentleman” but “a Walloon in the army,”[5] and wrote that “I like my standing as a foreigner everywhere, French in Austria, Austrian in France, both of them in Russia. This is the way to succeed everywhere,” for “one loses esteem in a country that one dwells in all the time.” (This is profoundly true; Pascal had said roughly the same thing, in different words.)

  Two passions, as noted earlier, dominated the life of the Prince de Ligne: he loved war and he loved women.

  * * *

  Warfare was the sole function of Ligne’s caste, its very raison d’être, its honour and duty. For Ligne valour was the cardinal virtue, he preferred a country full of bandits to one full of petty criminals, for bandits at least display courage when they risk their lives in the exercise of their skills. War was the chief occupation of Ligne’s life, and was accordingly the subject of a good portion of the thirty-four volumes of his collected works (Mélanges militaires,
littéraires et sentimentaires [Military, Literary and Sentimental Miscellany]). An anecdote will serve to illustrate the odd intimacy that the Prince entertained with his military vocation. He cherished his son Charles more than any other being in the world, but no sooner was the boy of an age to ride a horse than he led him into action: “I set in motion a small vanguard engagement with the Prussians, and, charging on horseback alongside him I took his little hand in mine as we galloped, and when I had the first shot fired told him: ‘how fine it would be, my Charles, should we suffer a slight wound together.’” (Eventually, some twenty years later, when Charles was thirty-three, he was decapitated by a French cannonball. At the news of his son’s death the Prince passed out. He remained unconsolable.) [6]

  * * *

  As for women, the catalogue of his conquests (by no means all glorious) is longer and more varied that Don Giovanni’s as sung by Leporello: his immense range extended from prostitutes to crowned heads. What kind of hunger drove him in this regard? He was, so to speak, in love with love: “In love only the beginning is delightful. I am not surprised that we get so much pleasure from beginning over and over again.”