Of the Sublime

For the edification of my readers (if indeed there are any), below is the latest epistle from Squire Darlington.

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March 27, 1755
Sir,

I was much taken with yours of March 26th, wherein you kindly communicated to your Readers the Thoughts of Mr. FRAZER and Herr WITTGENSTEIN on the primitive Rites of the Savages. It soon struck me that when Wittgenstein speaks of “the Croud of Thoughts which get stuck in the Door,” what he really speaks of is what LONGINUS call’d the Sublime. (By his name, I presume that Frazer is a Scotchman, so it surpizes me little that he shou’d demonstrate his ignorance of this Subject, the heavy Souls of that People being ill-equipp’d for such an elevated Subject.)

LONGINUS describ’d the Sublime as a certain elevation or loftiness of Thought or Language. We can extend this, for the Sublime can also make itself felt in the plastick Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, as also Musick, and most importantly, in that Work of GOD the Supream Artist, which is Nature.

Mr. ADDISON in his Spectator No. 279 [January 19, 1712 — Ed.], speaking of Epick Poetry, tells us that it is not sufficient for “an Epick Poem to be fill’d with such Thoughts as are natural, unless it abound also with such as are sublime.” Though the Natural may charm us, the Sublime astonishes us, with conceptions almost too great to be contain’d within the narrow Compass of the Mind of Man.

Mr. Addison further informs us that of all our English Poets, it is MILTON who hath best mined this Vein of Invention, and I must agree, for there is much in the Paradise Lost which astonishes, as for example when the flight of Satan is described in the following Lines:

… At last his Sail-broad Vannes
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak
Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League
As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides
Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuitie: all unawares
Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of som tumultuous cloud
Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him
As many miles aloft.
[Paradise Lost, II. 927-938 — Ed.]

There are many such Passages in Milton. What astonishes us in this, besides the Strength of the Forces buffeting Satan, is the very Vastness of the Spaces depicted, indeed so vast are they that in the attempt to traverse them, the Mind spends itself in vain.

Besides Vastness, we may also be astonish’d by Disorder, especially the disorder of Nature, where it signifieth an Order, but one of a higher kind, which only the Mind of the DEITY can fully comprehend. In the Face of it, mere mortal Man becomes lost in the attempt to understand. Consider my Lord SHAFTESBURY’s Description of the Arctick zones: “How deep the Horrors of the Night, and how uncomfortable even the Light of Day! The freezing Winds employ their fiercest Breath, yet are not spent with blowing. The Sea, which elsewhere is scarce confin’d within its Limits, lies here immur’d in Walls of Chrystal” (Characteristicks, Vol. II, p. 383). We see here the horrid disorder of a Nature manifestly unfit for the abodes of Man, and served to us in Numbers which themselves exemplify the very Sublime they describe.

The Picture my Lord draws for us is reminiscent of that drawn by the ingenious Mr. PHILIPS in his Epistle to Lord DORSET from Copenhagen, where he writes of how the Lands in those Parts

By snow disguis’d, in bright confusion ly,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye
* * *
The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the moon in icy valleys howl.
* * *
There solid billows of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise.
[Ambrose Philips, Pastorals, Epistles, Odes, and Other Original Poems (1748), pp. 64-65 — Ed.]

Here we find that the two Ideas of Nature’s disorder and vastness combine to cause astonishment in the Reader. It is a short Step from Astonishment to Fear. As my particular friend in Ireland, Mr. BURKE, hath told me, the Sublime takes most firm root in that which terrifies us. Thus, says he, nothing so much stirs us to intimations of the Sublime as Scenes of Darkness and Mystery.

Yet, methinks there is at bottom a strange Paradox here, for Mr. DENNIS, in his Grounds of Criticism in Poetry [London, 1704 — Ed.], gives us to know that the Sublime is “an invincible force which commits a pleasing Rape upon the very Soul of the Reader” (p. 79). Although I must apologize to Readers of the Fair Sex for such an indelicate Metaphor, nevertheless, the Paradox it presents is this: If the Sublime astonishes and terrifies us, wherefore are we also delighted by it?

This Paradox Mr. Burke promises me to resolve in a Book he intends to publish shortly on the Topick of the Beautiful and the Sublime, which I eagerly anticipate.

I remain, Sir,
Your humble Servant, etc.

Jos. Darlington, Esq.
Darlington Close,
Horton-cum-Studley, Oxfordshire.

Wittgenstein' s Remarks on Frazer's "Golden Bough"

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”. A. C. Miles (trans.) (Retford, Nottinghamshire: Brynmill Press, 1979).

Sir James George Frazer published his masterwork The Golden Bough in 1890. It was a work of comparative anthropology, the aim of which was to explain primitive myth, magic, and ritual. I admit that, having read Frazer, I found myself less than enlightened. Apparently I was not alone.

During the month of June 1931 the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was also reading Frazer and was also not feeling enlightened. He decided to jot down some notes, about ten manuscript pages’ worth. These notes didn’t see the light of day until almost thirty years after his death, when they were published by one of his literary executors, Rush Rhees. In my opinion, these intellectual scraps are a greater testament to Wittgenstein’s genius than almost any of his more canonical writings. He finds much in Frazer’s work that is mistaken, and some things he finds plain absurd, but he takes these lemons and manages to make lemonade from them.

Generally, Wittgenstein’s main complaint about Frazer’s explanations of “primitive” myth and ritual is that Frazer seems to characterize such phenomena as so many examples of mistaken belief, of bad science. In other words, primitive peoples are picturesque, but essentially stupid. Wittgenstein disagrees with this view, and the general tendency of his remarks is to close the gap between ourselves and the so-called “primitives”. He uses a two-pronged strategy to bring the two sides of the gap closer together, by showing 1. that the “primitives” aren’t that primitive, and 2. that we moderns are more primitive than we would like to believe.

1. The Primitive is Modern

Wittgenstein opens this line of argument by noting how implausible it is to believe that primitives do all the things they do out of sheer mistakenness, out of stupidity. How could an entire people be stupid and still manage to survive? “The same savage who, apparently in order to kill his enemy, sticks his knife through a picture of him, really does build his hut of wood and cuts his arrow with skill and not in effigy” (p. 4). And if, as Frazer claims, a rain dance seems effective because sooner or later it will rain, then “it is queer that people do not notice sooner that it does rain sooner or later anyway” (p. 2).

2. The Modern is Primitive

“Burning in effigy. Kissing the picture of a loved one. This is obviously not based on a belief that it will have a definite effect on the object which the picture represents. It aims at some satisfaction and it achieves it. Or rather, it does not aim at anything; we act in this way and then feel satisfied” (p. 4). When we moderns kiss a picture of a loved one, which is relevantly analogous to the primitive practices which fascinated Frazer, do we do it because we believe this will have some effect on the loved-one? I should think not. It is not an attempt to manipulate causal processes. Rather, it is an expression of a desire; it is a gesture. Here I believe Wittgenstein had in mind the eighteenth century German writer G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799), who wrote about how “when at skittles you try to assist the ball by moving your head, shoulders, arms and legs after it has left your hands: it is more a desire to influence than actual influence” (Aphorisms, Notebook J, #119).

Here is another of Wittgenstein’s examples (p. 10): “I wish to say: nothing shows our kinship to those savages better than the fact that Frazer has at hand a word as familiar as ‘ghost’ or ‘shade’ to describe the way these people look at things.” In other words, when describing “magical” practices, we find ourselves resorting to words of our own language which themselves are magical. The fact that our language has such words standing ready for duty ought to make us wonder whether we are all that far removed from the “savage”. And when we take the trouble to examine our language, we will find many other examples. Why, for example, do we continue to speak of the sun’s “rising” and “setting”, when strictly speaking the sun does not move at all? As Wittgenstein puts it, “a whole mythology is deposited in our language” (ibid.).

Explanation vs. Interpretation

According to Wittgenstein, Frazer’s whole intellectual endeavour is misguided. When faced with practices that are prima facie bewildering and astonishing, Frazer looks to find an explanation for them. He begins from a premise that seems respectable enough in itself, which is the assumption that the primitives themselves are aiming at some purpose. To put it in the jargon of the modern philosophers of mind, the actions of the natives are intentional.

If they have a purpose, then in that barest of senses the actions are rational. The reason that they seem incomprehensible to us, then, is that the primitives have mistaken beliefs about causality: they mistakenly believe that dancing around in a certain way will cause rain to fall. If they only had better knowledge of how things work, they would not need to resort to strange ritual and magical practices. Thus, according to Frazer, primitives are simply very bad scientists.

Wittgenstein sees this attempt to explain what the primitives are doing as mistaken from the very beginning. Their actions are not attempts to manipulate causal processes, and so neither are they based on mistaken beliefs. Rather, we should see their actions as a kind of language, but a language of gestures rather than of words. Ritual is not about doing something; it is about saying something.

I think Wittgenstein would also want to add that this gesture-language is one that is particularly adapted to its subject matter. There are some things which are too grand, too sublime, or just simply too much to be adequately expressed in words, “the crush of thoughts that do not get out because they all try to push forward and are wedged in the door” (p. 3).

Where primitives burn a human being in effigy, Frazer wants to see something sinister in it. He sees it as the survival of some earlier ritual where a real person was burned, in order to placate the gods. Wittgenstein on the other hand sees it for what it is: burning in effigy. We are tempted to see something terrible in it, because the gesture expresses some idea that is terrible, perhaps something about death. And the gesture is lent a certain terribleness by its surroundings: the darkness of night, the occasion of a funeral, whatever.

Often what such a ritual says is “this is what took place here; laugh if you can” (p. 3).

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The edition of this book I have cited is, to the best of my knowledge, out of print. However, the full text can be found in a collection of Wittgenstein’s writings called Philosophical Occasions: 1912-1951 (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993).

Joseph Tainter, "The Collapse of Complex Societies"

I recently decided to re-read my all-time favourite books to see which ones have stood the test of time. I know that some of them have, since I've been re-reading them periodically for years. In any case, I've decided to post reviews of the best of them on The Spectacled Avenger, starting with this one.

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Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

This book has had a disproportionate effect on my thinking on just about everything, from politics to economics to history to art and architecture. A warning, though: it can make for inexpressibly discouraging reading. A few years ago I lent my copy to my friend Julian. I never got it back. After seeing it sitting outside in his backyard, its spine cracked open, its pages dog-eared and rain-soaked, my wife kindly purchased another copy for me.

In this masterpiece, Tainter, an anthropologist by profession (though his book is published in a series entitled New Studies in Archaeology), decides to embark on an ambitious intellectual mission, which is to formulate a general theory that will help to explain the collapse of complex societies. In this process, he develops what can only be described as a natural history (or perhaps the better term is natural pathology) of civilizations, one which seems depressingly inexorable.

Definition of “Complex Society”

Before doing so, Tainter must spend a few chapters rolling up his sleeves and getting down to theoretical brass tacks. First, he must decide what he means by “complexity”. He admits that there is much controversy here, and so any definition must be approximate only — as anyone familiar with the archaeological controversy surrounding the term “civilization” will know. For him, complex societies are “large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class-structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all” (p. 38). To this, he would also add a tendency towards administrative centralization. Furthermore, says Tainter, such societies are, in the context of the vast sweep of human history, an anomaly rather than the norm.

What is just as interesting, he characterizes the development of complexity as an exercise in progressive problem-solving: when a society is faced with a problem or threat, its tendency is to solve it by investing in complexity. For example, when the population of Rome grew, and the water of the Tiber river was becoming too polluted for human use, massive aqueducts were built to pipe water to the city across vast distances, a project which itself required a new bureaucracy to administer. Similarly, the Roman territorial expansion was made possible by — and at the same time necessitated — military conquest. An expanding population required an expanding resource base. When a new people was conquered, the Romans appropriated their accumulated surpluses, but once these had been spent, the new territories still had to be administered, necessitating an expanding bureaucracy and large standing armies, requiring a further expansion of the resource base, requiring new conquest and appropriation, and so on. What may begin as the solution to a problem, brings with it new problems that require solving.

Definition of “Collapse”

With the concept of a complex society in hand, we must move on to a working definition of what we mean by the “collapse” of such a society. For Tainter, put in its simplest terms, collapse represents a relatively rapid transition from a higher to a lower level of complexity. If the transition is long and drawn out, then it is not so much a collapse as a decline. Collapse proper occurs in the space of a few decades or less.

Tainter then goes on to canvas the various theories that have been offered to explain the collapses of various societies, varying from the plausible (resource depletion) to the plain woolly (mystical factors such as cultural debasement or loss of virtue). Marshalling a large array of historical examples of collapse, he points out the inadequacy of these rival theories to provide a general explanation of the phenomenon.

Tainter’s Thesis

Eventually, in chapter four, Tainter lays out his theory of collapse, which is based on the concept of diminishing marginal returns. Basically, collapse is the eventual result of diminishing marginal returns on investment in complexity. Each increase in societal complexity requires a greater investment of energy and resources, while the returns on such investment diminish. After some point, as more and more resources are eaten up simply in maintaining the current level of complexity, society has fewer resources left to deal with any new problems that inevitably arise. Collapse swiftly follows.

Tainter applies his theory to various historical examples of collapse and finds, predictably, that the theory has explanatory power. We can see this if we return to our Roman example. As Rome expands, her new territories lie ever further out from the administrative centre. This leads to what economists call increased transaction costs: communications from centre to periphery become lengthy and prone to inaccuracy, affecting administrative efficiency; whatever wealth new provinces produce must be carted across increasing distances, so that transportation costs eat into the spoils that would otherwise accrue to the imperial centre; an expanded imperial frontier means a greater land distance that must be protected, in addition to new cities that must be garrisoned. All of this requires ever greater taxation, to the point that it is no longer worthwhile to bother farming the land in many provinces. With abandonment of lands, the tax base shrinks at the same time that the need for revenue increases. Collapses ensues. Whereas early in her history the relatively backward (and less complex) city of Rome managed to conquer such heavyweights as Carthage and Macedonia, by the end, a large and unwieldy (and very complex) Roman Empire became incapable of adequately defending itself against the most motley and disorganized of barbarians. And this, despite the fact that its soldiers were better equipped, and its officers better trained, than they had ever been.

Does this sound uncomfortably familiar? The US was once able to defeat both Germany’s Third Reich and the Japanese Empire on two different fronts at the same time. She now seems incapable of prevailing over ragtag tribalists in the mountains of Afghanistan, despite spending as much on her military as the rest of the world’s nations combined spend on theirs. Indeed, the concluding chapter of Tainter’s book consists of projections for the future, which are not encouraging, to say the least.

Tainter’s Legacy

Although the book is twenty years old now, it maintains its relevance. For one thing, it has spawned a minor genre, the most prominent recent additions to which include Jarred Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Richard Wright’s A Short History of Progress, and Thomas Homer-Dixon’s The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization.

Recently, the magazine New Scientist (April 2, 2008) published a retrospective look at Tainter’s thesis (see http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826501.500-why-the-demise-of-civilisation-may-be-inevitable.html?full=true). After interviewing researchers in various disciplines, the consensus was that Tainter’s thesis still holds water, and if anything, is even more relevant now. Homer-Dixon, in a Globe and Mail op-ed piece entitled “Prepare Today for Tomorrow’s Breakdown” (May 14, 2006), praises Tainter’s theory despite a couple of gaps in it (which I believe Homer-Dixon could have filled in rather self-evidently if he had taken the time).


Tainter has done some interesting recent work on climate change as a contributing factor in the Roman collapse. Basically, the Roman expansion is correlated with a period of warmer temperatures called the “Roman Warm Period”. This enabled the Romans to expand into northern Europe, bringing with them Mediterranean agriculture. Huge, sprawling plantations of olives and grapes, essentially Roman agribusiness, worked by armies of slaves, replaced smaller-scale but more diversified native agriculture. Such diversification meant that if one crop failed, farmers had others to resort to for survival. Roman monoculture was not so resilient: when the Roman Warm Period ended, and cooler temperatures became the norm, disaster struck in many areas of the Western Roman Empire. You can read all about it in a paper he co-authored with Carole L. Crumley: “Climate, Complexity, and Problem Solving in the Roman Empire,” in Robert Costanza et al. (eds.), Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).

The Meaning of Battlestar Galactica

In some ways I was a rather strange child, certainly strange for a boy. For example, I absolutely hated comic books, and I still do. I was always slightly embarrassed for their creators. They had pretensions to grandeur, to the sublime, to the epic, while in reality, their work never seemed to rise above the puerile. I have had many grownup friends who are still comic book aficionados, and they invariably try to convince me that comics are different now. For one thing, they are no longer called “comic books”. They are now called “graphic novels” (sure, and Tony Soprano is in the waste disposal business). For another, the characters are more complex, more morally ambivalent now. Fine, but if that’s the case, why do they still feel the need to parade around in absurd costumes? Only little boys and fetishists can be impressed by capes, masks and tall boots. Then they try tell me how much deeper the stories are now, how they have so much more to say about the human condition, or about human nature. And still, I have yet to see a comic book story that hasn’t already been told — and told better — by Homer or Sophocles. In a sense, comics do tell us something about human nature, namely how far it has degenerated, how its leaden wings can no longer be uplifted by culture.

In general, my attitude has been much the same towards science fiction as towards comics. I could sometimes appreciate its attempts — however clumsy — to use the future to tell us something about our present. After all, when a technological society needs a mirror held up to it, Homer can sometimes seem an unsatisfactory hairdresser. Unfortunately, the characters in science fiction were usually so papery thin it even seemed silly to refer to them as such. Of late, there has been an exception that proves the rule. Two nights ago I watched the final episode of the television series Battlestar Galactica (I mean the new re-make, not the 1970s original).

I admit to being very impressed overall by BSG. Interestingly though, my satisfaction has almost nothing to do with technology. The creators have charmingly opted to make certain things low-tech: the Galactica has no networked computers. The telephones are all landlines and have a comforting little buzz when they ring, instead of the annoying chirp (or worse, the Kanye West ring tone) of a cell phone. They listen to music on what look like cassette tapes. The aging Battlestar creaks and groans, its lights flicker. Although there is just enough futuristic flash to impress us, it is not used as a crutch. Instead, BSG impresses us with its attempts to grapple with abiding philosophical problems. I would like to examine three of these.

1. Who Are We?

The human race has been almost entirely wiped out in a nuclear attack by the Cylons, a race of robots, built by humans, who have rebelled against their masters. This occurs some forty years after a previous war between the two races which ended in a truce; nothing had been heard from the Cylons since then, until their sudden sneak attack. The small fleet of human survivors must flee into the depths of space to escape them.

It is soon discovered that during their years of silence, the Cylons have evolved, or rather, they have evolved themselves. They have now taken on a form externally indistinguishable from humans. Furthermore, they have infiltrated the human fleet, making it difficult to visually distinguish human from Cylon. As the series continues, it becomes difficult to distinguish them in other ways as well: Cylons fall in love; they do things that are less than rational, indicating free will of some kind; they experience anger, indecision, remorse, jealousy.

And most importantly, Cylons look for meaning in their lives. At first, the most prominent thing that separated Cylon from human was that the former had “resurrection technology”, meaning that they did not die. But this caused them just as much anxiety about life’s meaning as the fact of death does for humans. And eventually, even this difference is erased, for when their resurrection technology is destroyed, Cylons too learn what it means to cease to exist, and to mourn the passing of the dead.

At first, humans could at least identify themselves through their difference from, and opposition to, the Other. But by the end of the series, one wonders if there is any meaningful difference at all between the two races. Two uncomfortable questions arise: Are Cylons really just humans after all? Or conversely, are humans really just fancy machines?

2. Is Survival Enough?

Immediately following the holocaust, the human survivors are in shock. Everything everyone once knew is gone, including friends, loved ones, homes, their entire way of life. There is anger too, but humanity is not in a position to launch a credible counter-attack against the enemy, so wreaking revenge is not an option. The only thing they have at the moment is that they are alive. Commander Adama wisely realizes that this will not be enough to keep them going in the long run. They must have something to survive for. So, in essence, what Adama offers them is a “meta-narrative”, an over-arching story or narrative that can lend a sense of purpose to people’s lives. As Plato would put it, Adama offers them a “noble lie”. He gives them a legend, supposedly drawn from sacred scriptures, about a lost thirteenth tribe of humans that settled a planet called “Earth”, a story which Adama himself does not really believe. If they can just find Earth, all will be well, he tells them. Now the people have something to work towards, the possibility of finding a new home, and this goal is given extra meaning by its association with the gods, with the sacred. Instead of aimless wandering, humanity has a mission. (I cannot help but wonder if the show’s writers are saying in some veiled way that religion itself is a noble lie?)

3. Are We Worthy of Survival?

In his work The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote something to the effect that ethics is not about achieving happiness; ethics is about becoming worthy of happiness. Battlestar Galactica has something similar to say about survival: It is not enough merely to survive, not even if we are lucky enough to have a meta-narrative that gives us something towards which to strive. We must also be worthy of surviving. To go on living without being able to look oneself in the mirror is a kind of torture. And if we are mean or vicious creatures, the universe as a whole would be better off without such meanness or viciousness existing in it.

Throughout the series, there are various grave temptations to do things that we all know are fundamentally wrong, at least in normal circumstances. There are incidents where the possibility of torturing a Cylon is very tantalizing, or where military goals can be achieved only by knowingly and consciously killing one’s own civilians. There is even a point where human victory can be secured by the complete annihilation of the enemy — in effect, genocide. The temptations to wrongdoing come from the high stakes involved: the very survival of humanity as a species. Thus, if we could torture a Cylon prisoner in order to extract information that might secure the fragile future survival of humanity, should we not do it? In ethics, this is traditionally known as the problem of “dirty hands”, the problem posed by doing evil that good may come of it. Before we decide, we must answer a further question that several of the characters in the show repeatedly had to ask themselves: “If I do this thing, if I torture this Cylon who in most relevant respects seems much like myself, our species will survive. But, can we still call the species that survives human?” If we define the term “human” not biologically, but rather by a certain set of shared values that civilized peoples claim to share, then the answer must be “No”. As my favourite philosopher, Lord Shaftesbury, put it, “the least step into villainy or baseness changes the character and value of a life” (it is no accident that Shaftesbury was a powerful influence on Kant). Defiling one’s deepest moral commitments is, or ought to be, too high a price to pay for survival.

These are observations that seem especially pertinent in an age when many things, many evil things — torture, “waterboarding”, “extraordinary rendition”, “shock and awe” bombing of cities, secret detention without due process of law, you name it — are done by supposedly civilized peoples in the name of security.

The Answers?

In conclusion, Battlestar Galactica’s achievement is to get us to wrestle with some profound philosophical themes which we, as humans, have a duty to ponder at least once in our lives. It dares us to ask three questions about ourselves: Who are we? Why are we here? Are we worthy of being here?

Of course, people who aren’t philosophers like to be served answers with their questions. But with questions like these, any answer will seem too unnourishing, too much like the proverbial parsley on the side of the plate. Nonetheless, here are the tentative answers I have settled on: To the first, I answer, “We are what we value.” To the second, “We are here to serve those values.” To the third, “Our worthiness depends on what we have done to make ourselves worthy.”

So say we all.