So clearly, from my last post, you can tell I have sympathy for a definition of reason which is more social, less individualistic. Interestingly, a friend of mine pointed out that, in his experience, when good reasoning happens on an individual level, it mimics the argumentative format that Sperber and Mercier theorized. So when my friend does sit by himself, trying to reason things out, he almost imagines other interlocutors poking holes in his arguments, asking questions, taking his ideas apart; and then he either defends his theories against their counterpoints, or tries another strategy altogether. While this might all take place in his head, it is clearly modeled on real social interactions.
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| El sueño de la razón produce monstruos, Francisco Goya, Museo del Prado. |
But really, this is a post about Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, I swear.
To recap: we have, in the fourth section/journey of the book, the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms are talking horses, while the Yahoos are apparently human, but lacking in linguistic capabilities. Gulliver's first encounter with the Yahoos disturbs him, to say the least:
At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of the same kind sitting in trees. Their shape was very singular and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a thicket to observe them better...Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs and the fore-parts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies were bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus; which, I presume, nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground; for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet...The females were not so large as the males; they had long lank hair on their heads, but none on their faces, nor any thing more than a sort of down on the rest of their bodies, except about the anus, and pudenda. Their dugs hung between their fore-feet, and often reached almost to the ground as they walked. The hair of both sexes was of several colours, brown, red, black, and yellow. Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy (Swift 207).
And later,
By what I could discover, the Yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all animals, their capacities never reaching higher than to draw or carry burdens. Yet I am of opinion this defect ariseth chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition. For they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel. *ahem* It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity (Swift 249).
Contrast this with Gulliver's descriptions of the Houyhnhnms, whose very name, albeit in their own language, means "perfection of nature":
As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their grand maxim is to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it. Neither is reason among them a point problematical as with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the questions; but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and interest. I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain, and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms (Swift 251).
And just one more very important example:
If they can avoid casualties, they die only of old age, and are buried in the obscurest places that can be found, their friends and relations expressing neither joy nor grief at their departure...I remember my master having once made an appointment with a friend and his family to come to his house upon some affair of importance, on the day fixed the mistress and her two children came very late; she made two excuses, first for her husband, who, as she said, happened that very morning to shnuwnh [that is, die]...Her excuse for not coming sooner was that her husband dying late in the morning, she was a good while consulting her servants about a convenient place where his body should be laid; and I observed she behaved herself at our house as cheerfully as the rest, and she died about three months after (Swift 258).
Okay, now it's going to maybe feel like this is a u-turn, but bear with me.
I'm currently reading a book by the late neurosurgeon Leonard Shlain, entitled The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. I could say many, many things both inspired and enraged by Shlain's various assertions, but here is not the place to get into the pros and cons of his premise. He does, however, use an image I currently cannot get out of my head, and I couldn't figure out how to perfectly replicate it without just quoting it outright. Shlain describes how the Israelites, while Moses was away conversing with Yahweh, built the golden calf. Moses comes down off Mount Sinai to discover them worshipping the idol:
Enraged that his feckless charges had reverted to the worship of an image — a practice that Yahweh had expressly forbidden — Moses raised his arm as if to strike, and the stone tablets clattered to the ground and shattered. Furious, Moses destroyed the golden calf, rebuked Aaron, and reprimanded the people. When the Hebrews' first written words confronted their last image, the resulting collision destroyed them both. The allegorical conflict between word and image could not have been more dramatically expressed (Shlain 100).
Here is my idea: When we combine the supposedly "Cartesian" (but really Platonic and everything after) version of ourselves as individually rational, with our desirous, needy animal nature, we get...well, a destructive collision called Lemuel Gulliver. Or called Terra Leigh Bell. Or called Friedrich Nietzsche or Richard Wagner or pick a name from your contacts list.
Shlain's image gave me this idea not only because it demonstrates the way two different human aspects can explosively destroy one another, but it made me realize the moment when the two aspects were created as two different aspects. Note that Moses catches the Hebrews worshipping an image, "a practice that Yahweh had expressly forbidden," but the Hebrew people didn't know that yet because they hadn't read the bloody Ten Commandments yet, had they? I don't have the energy to get into a discussion of the history of Judaism, but my point is that the Law itself created the divide between word and image, between abstract juridical theory, and the almost desperate need humans have of envisionable deities and powers.
I keep mentioning Plato because I don't like for us to think of the problems of modernity as recent seedings; this problem is old, by our standards. Human beings have believed themselves divided ever since they became aware that they could be divided. We've conceived of ourselves as "having" (note the division already in our language) a thinking, intellectual aspect which can and will come to the most accurate conclusions possible if given the chance, and another aspect which is, as Swift puts it, "mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and interest."
I won't get into why I truly believe that humanity is doomed; it seems fairly obvious that our belief in the salvific power of war and technology hasn't done much more than create an unsustainable population just waiting to be wiped out by the next Black Death. Or nuclear/chemical/biological warfare. Or zombies.
What I will say is I think that I'm not entirely imagining these connections and implications in Swift's work. Obviously I'm taking it in my own direction, but note what happens when Gulliver tries to emulate the Houyhnhnms, his paragons of abstract reasoning. Remember that the Houyhnhnms don't grieve when one of their own dies, even if it be a husband or wife or parent or child. First off, I think it's questionable that Swift even meant this as a sincere ideal. It sounds like another one of his ways of demonstrating the folly of an ideal, by making Gulliver set up something clearly preposterous as good and meet for humans.
But secondly, and perhaps more darkly, observe the kind of person — either human or equine — that Lemuel Gulliver has become by the time he is forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnms. In preparation for his departure,
I finished a sort of Indian canoe, but much larger, covering it with the skins of Yahoos well stitched together, with hempen threads of my own making. My sail was likewise composed of the skins of the same animal; but I made use of the youngest I could get, the older being too tough and thick (Swift 265).
That's right folks; in that pretty picture from last time, that sail is stitched together with the skins of "Yahoo" infants. Since Gulliver accepts (though with chagrin) that he is himself a Yahoo, I think we could accurately say that the sail is made from the skins of human infants. Gulliver has so much lost empathy for the animal-like beings he resembles most physically, and he has aspired so much to become one of the rational animals he resembles most spiritually, that he now feels comfortable using dead babies to make his sail, and "stopping all the chinks [of the canoe] with Yahoos' tallow" (Swift 265).
Lemuel Gulliver is the collision we get when we combine the rationale with the mortale. Homo est animal rationale, mortale, et risus capax. Man is an animal rational, mortal, and capable of laughter. It's nice of Swift to remember the Laughter part, because sometimes the Creepy gets a bit much. Or wait; that Laughter makes the Creepy that much creepier, doesn't it now?
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Penguin Books, 2010. Print.
Shlain, Leonard. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: the Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin/Compass, 1998. Print.
To recap: we have, in the fourth section/journey of the book, the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms are talking horses, while the Yahoos are apparently human, but lacking in linguistic capabilities. Gulliver's first encounter with the Yahoos disturbs him, to say the least:
At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of the same kind sitting in trees. Their shape was very singular and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a thicket to observe them better...Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs and the fore-parts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies were bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus; which, I presume, nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground; for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet...The females were not so large as the males; they had long lank hair on their heads, but none on their faces, nor any thing more than a sort of down on the rest of their bodies, except about the anus, and pudenda. Their dugs hung between their fore-feet, and often reached almost to the ground as they walked. The hair of both sexes was of several colours, brown, red, black, and yellow. Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy (Swift 207).
And later,
By what I could discover, the Yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all animals, their capacities never reaching higher than to draw or carry burdens. Yet I am of opinion this defect ariseth chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition. For they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel. *ahem* It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity (Swift 249).
Contrast this with Gulliver's descriptions of the Houyhnhnms, whose very name, albeit in their own language, means "perfection of nature":
As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their grand maxim is to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it. Neither is reason among them a point problematical as with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the questions; but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and interest. I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain, and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms (Swift 251).
And just one more very important example:
If they can avoid casualties, they die only of old age, and are buried in the obscurest places that can be found, their friends and relations expressing neither joy nor grief at their departure...I remember my master having once made an appointment with a friend and his family to come to his house upon some affair of importance, on the day fixed the mistress and her two children came very late; she made two excuses, first for her husband, who, as she said, happened that very morning to shnuwnh [that is, die]...Her excuse for not coming sooner was that her husband dying late in the morning, she was a good while consulting her servants about a convenient place where his body should be laid; and I observed she behaved herself at our house as cheerfully as the rest, and she died about three months after (Swift 258).
Okay, now it's going to maybe feel like this is a u-turn, but bear with me.
I'm currently reading a book by the late neurosurgeon Leonard Shlain, entitled The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. I could say many, many things both inspired and enraged by Shlain's various assertions, but here is not the place to get into the pros and cons of his premise. He does, however, use an image I currently cannot get out of my head, and I couldn't figure out how to perfectly replicate it without just quoting it outright. Shlain describes how the Israelites, while Moses was away conversing with Yahweh, built the golden calf. Moses comes down off Mount Sinai to discover them worshipping the idol:
Enraged that his feckless charges had reverted to the worship of an image — a practice that Yahweh had expressly forbidden — Moses raised his arm as if to strike, and the stone tablets clattered to the ground and shattered. Furious, Moses destroyed the golden calf, rebuked Aaron, and reprimanded the people. When the Hebrews' first written words confronted their last image, the resulting collision destroyed them both. The allegorical conflict between word and image could not have been more dramatically expressed (Shlain 100).
Here is my idea: When we combine the supposedly "Cartesian" (but really Platonic and everything after) version of ourselves as individually rational, with our desirous, needy animal nature, we get...well, a destructive collision called Lemuel Gulliver. Or called Terra Leigh Bell. Or called Friedrich Nietzsche or Richard Wagner or pick a name from your contacts list.
Shlain's image gave me this idea not only because it demonstrates the way two different human aspects can explosively destroy one another, but it made me realize the moment when the two aspects were created as two different aspects. Note that Moses catches the Hebrews worshipping an image, "a practice that Yahweh had expressly forbidden," but the Hebrew people didn't know that yet because they hadn't read the bloody Ten Commandments yet, had they? I don't have the energy to get into a discussion of the history of Judaism, but my point is that the Law itself created the divide between word and image, between abstract juridical theory, and the almost desperate need humans have of envisionable deities and powers.
I keep mentioning Plato because I don't like for us to think of the problems of modernity as recent seedings; this problem is old, by our standards. Human beings have believed themselves divided ever since they became aware that they could be divided. We've conceived of ourselves as "having" (note the division already in our language) a thinking, intellectual aspect which can and will come to the most accurate conclusions possible if given the chance, and another aspect which is, as Swift puts it, "mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and interest."
I won't get into why I truly believe that humanity is doomed; it seems fairly obvious that our belief in the salvific power of war and technology hasn't done much more than create an unsustainable population just waiting to be wiped out by the next Black Death. Or nuclear/chemical/biological warfare. Or zombies.
What I will say is I think that I'm not entirely imagining these connections and implications in Swift's work. Obviously I'm taking it in my own direction, but note what happens when Gulliver tries to emulate the Houyhnhnms, his paragons of abstract reasoning. Remember that the Houyhnhnms don't grieve when one of their own dies, even if it be a husband or wife or parent or child. First off, I think it's questionable that Swift even meant this as a sincere ideal. It sounds like another one of his ways of demonstrating the folly of an ideal, by making Gulliver set up something clearly preposterous as good and meet for humans.
But secondly, and perhaps more darkly, observe the kind of person — either human or equine — that Lemuel Gulliver has become by the time he is forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnms. In preparation for his departure,
I finished a sort of Indian canoe, but much larger, covering it with the skins of Yahoos well stitched together, with hempen threads of my own making. My sail was likewise composed of the skins of the same animal; but I made use of the youngest I could get, the older being too tough and thick (Swift 265).
That's right folks; in that pretty picture from last time, that sail is stitched together with the skins of "Yahoo" infants. Since Gulliver accepts (though with chagrin) that he is himself a Yahoo, I think we could accurately say that the sail is made from the skins of human infants. Gulliver has so much lost empathy for the animal-like beings he resembles most physically, and he has aspired so much to become one of the rational animals he resembles most spiritually, that he now feels comfortable using dead babies to make his sail, and "stopping all the chinks [of the canoe] with Yahoos' tallow" (Swift 265).
Lemuel Gulliver is the collision we get when we combine the rationale with the mortale. Homo est animal rationale, mortale, et risus capax. Man is an animal rational, mortal, and capable of laughter. It's nice of Swift to remember the Laughter part, because sometimes the Creepy gets a bit much. Or wait; that Laughter makes the Creepy that much creepier, doesn't it now?
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Penguin Books, 2010. Print.
Shlain, Leonard. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: the Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin/Compass, 1998. Print.
Oh, Mr. Swift. Why are dead babies such a favorite punchline with him?
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