Breakdown or Breakthrough?

         



The lecturer addressing the crowded room peered over his half-moon specs and cast a quick look at his notes. "'Is Religious Belief a form of Mental Illness?' ...and that was the title of a proposed lecture to be delivered by William James in Edinburgh in 1891. Of course, needless to say, the elders of this lecture series stopped William James from giving the lecture...So James then..."

Listening to this I was sitting in the Bertrand Russell library just off a small square on the boundary of Bloomsbury and Holborn. Through the window I could see the Square laid out with Russell's statue at its centre. I couldn’t discern the face on the statue from this distance but I assumed the old goat would be staring logically out.  

The Lecturer’s voice continued to drift over, “You see James had...a peculiar theory of emotion. Most of you. will probably know this...you see according to James, we don't smile because we feel happy or cry because we feel sad. The physical reaction happens first, and it's more correct to say, in James’ view we feel happy because we smile, or we feel sad because we cry...”                                                  

Actually I did know that. What does this say, I looked at the handout. ‘... according to some sources the body of Oliver Cromwell and two other regicides was placed in a pit on the site of the Square.’  Steeped in history then. "...now the James' brothers, William and his brother, the more famous novelist, Henry, had, shall we say, an interesting education. For their eccentric father took them on jaunts all over Europe...you could almost call it a Hotel education, rather than Home education." These clever clogs aside brought appreciative chuckles from the earnest assembled. For this was a philosophy lecture with an audience who were epistemically  hungry. I don't know if they were all philosophers manqué, I just knew that I was. Why was I here then?  Well, I was here for company, if you want me to be honest. 

Now I noticed the man to my right. He was dressed entirely in black apart from a grey muffler round his neck. He seemed to be the only one in the room who looked anything like a philosopher.                             "So you see these so called 'new atheists' were in abundance a hundred years ago." The nodding affirmation from the gathered appeared to give the lecturer the impetus to make further sorties against the latest wave of 'new atheists'.

I have to be honest as the lecture proceeded; I was more taken by the restlessness of our friend in black to my right. I don't know; I just felt that he might be seeking what I was. And what was that? Well, I was bored by the symmetry of this lecture. A philosopher philosophising, I wanted asymmetry. Do you know what I mean?  I didn't want drab liberal platitudes, I wanted illiberal pyrotechnics.  

This lecturer was an accomplished man, no doubt, but that doesn't make him a good speaker and after a somewhat laboured voyage round William James our lecturer then deemed it was time to take questions. These enquiries were dealt with patiently and within the philosophical catchment area. Each questions was rewarded with a Pavlovian pellet, '...interesting question'; 'that's a good question'; this mutual back slapping just irritated me further.

Then there was a shuffling of the chair to my right. The man in black was holding his hand up. As the lecturer continued to ignore him our would be questioner was becoming visibly more restless. I looked at him, he looked like an educated man, a man of refined bearing. But desperate to say something. What is that need in people? To be heard; to give their side of the story. The urgency for you to know what I feel. I have it myself. Don’t you|?  Yes, to let them know exactly how you feel inside. To lay out your very viscera on the table in words. But why is it so fucking important?  Did you know you can drive people practically insane by cutting them off just as they start speaking?  Just an aside.

Why doesn’t the Lecture pick him out, he has had his hand up for yonks. Anyway, the need for me it was...what was it that need to be filled? Call it what you will, anxiety, stress, depression, well, it was all of them I suppose. You know those behavioural constructs that cause peopleto go off the rails. Only from time to time, I want to stress that.  There I have been honest with you. I have had my dysfunctional moments from time to time. Haven’t you? But I am alright now. I assure you.

“Now that is a very good question...what I would like to say on that is....”  Another good question, Jesus, any bad ones, Mr Lecturer. Our friend in black is fairly hopping on his chair, like some desperate school kid, ‘Me Sir, Me sir, Please Sir.’  What is that need? ...anyway isn’t it true that each and every person during their walk through life experiences these inner turmoil’s from time to time. Just part of the fabric of our lives. Doesn’t make us mentally ill, does it?  I feel you are backing off.

Look at him, desperate to get his question in. Still I can empathise with someone like that I mean we are both sentient beings aren’t we? What is it that lies deep in his soul, what pus is seeping from his psychic wound?  And he thinks he will get rid of it by being heard, by the herd. Yes the herd, but there is safety in the herd, isn’t there?  Look at all these people in this room; it's group therapy isn’t it?

Anyway, if you stop and think about it, it’s all group therapy. Yes, you can generalise. Each of us has been raised in group environments either through our families, schools, organized activities, or work. These are the environments in which we grow and develop as human being. Well, it’s true isn’t it. You are not listening, are you?  Group therapy provides a place where you come together with others to share problems or concerns, to better understand your own situation, and to learn from and with each other. There, doesn’t that sound Christain?

Group therapy that’s what I regard this lecture to be, I mean to be with like-minded people, cost-effective too. I tried the private route, psychiatrists, counsellors, paying someone to listen to you. How sicko is that?  Anyway, I can get all the affiliation, cohesiveness, social support I want at places like this.

You live longer if you join a group, did you know that? And if you believe in God you live longer. More asides - but  those are the statistics. Still there are contradictions, William James had a long life and all these new atheists seem to be in full bloom. 

Look at all these people, quite a few of them have their hands up. If our man in black jumps around anymore he will be up on the chair. Still it must be encouraging to discover that others have similar needs. I know you are too polite to ask but if you must know I have had problems establishing and maintaining close and gratifying relationships. Haven’t you? Well, I am just trying to be honest with you.

Look at him jumping out of his bloody skin.

"There is a man back here wanting to ask a question"  I heard myself calling out and  then slumped back into my chair feeling such an intervention  had branded me as something akin to a football hooligan who should be dispatched to the philosophical purlieus

I waited, maybe he had nothing to say and I had been duped by appearances, like the phenomenologist who believes that something inheres in the entity. But I was right the man did have something to say. For he started by defending these 'new atheists' for; ”...at least they are not vacillating in that cover your back, pseudo humility way: You know how they speak ‘Now I realise what I am going to say could be proved wrong but..."    As he spoke he kept darting looks out to the square as if seeking guidance from Russell's statue.
"Yes, but what is your question?" asked the lecturer...there was definitely a chill in relations tone to that.

"Forget criticism of the new atheists like Dawkins, what you should be rebutting is Stephen Hawking's comment on philosophy
"I'm sorry, remind me of what that was?" the Lecturer politely requested as if jollying this upstart along. "We are post philosophy; all we require now is physics." Or words to that effect.                                                                                                                     

Our lecturer, paused, for this was indeed a recalcitrant pupil. "It seems to me you are seeking a truth of some kind...."  This was like someone putting their hand in a hornets' nest, for our man in black appeared to get more agitated than ever,  "...well this is typical of analytic philosophy, branding, naming, the ad hominen argument"                

"Just a moment...just a moment," said our now heated looking lecturer.

"No, let me finish... I am neither seeking truth, nor am I debating ethics, morality, or God I am just asking you to address Hawking's comment on philosophy. And by the way if I were you, I am talking to all of you,  I would get yoursleves down to the betting shop and lay a wager they will find life on other planets in ten, 20, 30 years and what price philosophy then?

“Oh really, and what kind of life do you think it will be?”                                                               

“Well it won’t be Hollywood, the facile Spielberg anthromorphism of people with big heads who speed along the M25 dicing with teenagers in their souped up cars.”

"Well, what it will be?"

"I don’t know Amoebas, that life isn’t it, they need to regulate their behaviour, you know, ingest?”

"Well, thank you for your contribution, there's a man over there, yes, what is your question?"

Then the man in black sat down and I watched as he gathered his tartan bound pocket notebook and mobile telephone and walked out of the room. An existential thing to do. And as if having no choice in the matter I quietly followed our questioner out of the Bertrand Russell library pitying the cleaners who have to dust this fusty enormity.

Once outside I looked for the man in black but he was nowhere to be seen, pity. Then I noticed him in the square standing in the drizzle under Russell's statue, talking frantically on his mobile.  For a moment the fancy danced across my mind that he was in communication with Russell himself, but I quickly squashed such thoughts. You know, as people do when visited by anything outside the realms of 'common sense'.

I started walking into the Square and towards Russell's statue but as I got closer to the man in black my courage seemed to desert me, yet I heard him heatedly say as his eyes seemed to beseech the heavens,  "...you must understand, I need you to understand that..."

By then my discretion had driven me out of ear shot.  But I knew what I was going to say to him, "Hello, my name is Philip and I liked your question...I know you didn't get much of a response..." But when I turned he had gone. I cursed myself for my lack of courage, and tried to console myself with all that with all that aphoristic shite of  'he who hesitates'  Ah well.

But at the corner of Holborn and the Aldwych the man in black rushed past me and veered across the road missing buses and taxis by millimetres. Maybe he was meeting someone in that latte emporium, where I knew the philosophy group gathered after such lectures. I could see the dray horse parked outside the cafeteria, with its load of beer kegs behind it on the cart. I thought this quaint mode of transport employed to haul kegs for some local brewery had died out. At this point if our man in black had gone directly into the cafeteria I would have followed him, but he hesitated by the horse, stood looking at it for a while and then started stroking its ear. A few tourists' passersby stopped and started snapping and he stood there accommodatingly, or rather madly I thought, as the tourists snapped away.
So I stood there just looking. Was this man having a breakdown or a breakthrough?

And then, maybe it was the horse, but I was thinking of Nietzsche's breakdown. What was that with him was it a breakdown or breakthrough? Was it similar to Artaud's and perhaps Van Gogh’s? Did their unbounded psychic energies overwhelm their egos? Or were they just thoughtful explorers into domains that had not found linguistic and cultural matrixes to contain them?  Were these people sane or driven mad by their inability to communicate. Were they breaking though rather than breaking down?  I can really identify with them; with their desperate need to communicate...communicate what? Well, I don't know, one's essence, I suppose. But surely they were mad? I mean Nietzsche had syphilis. Or was his syphilisy just a story, it certainly had legs.  Didn't Thomas Mann use it in his Dr Faustus as '...Nietzsche wandered into a brothel, and once he realized where he was, walked over to the piano, played a single chord, and then left.'  Makes him sound like Clint Eastwood.

I must have done all this thinking I don't know for how long. I kind of realised my mind was running, but when I came out of the fug of my thinking I was peering down at the pavement and when I looked up the man was no longer standing by the horse. Disorientated, was I disiorentated? A kind of ontological vertigo. Thinking too hard, that's it. Just be patient with me for a moment while I gather....

“Hello,”  Someone had tapped me on the elbow.

 “What, yes?"

It was the man in black. "Oh hello my name is James...James Hogan...I just wanted to thank you for helping me to get my question in at the philosophy lecture.”

"Question?”

“Look, look I hope you don’t find this rude, but I caught sight of you from the other side of the road and and...can I help...  In...in...anyway?

"What, help?"

“Well., I am sorry, but you just...seem a bit confused, I mean can I get you a taxi... or, if you tell me what number bus you take...”

“Well yes, I am feeling a bit..eh...a taxi yes...most kind.”