Dope

Pilate (continued)


Niall Ferguson, the conservative historian, pens an article in the NYT Magazine this Sunday that nicely sums up the conventions of the moment among the trans-Atlantic belligerants. He goes back and forth with the parallel between the British Empire and the U.S -- too much of a historian to find analogies unembarrassing, but too much of a belligerant to fresist it:

"Let's look again at that parallel between the U.S. and the British Empire. Terrorism is a global phenomenon and so, necessarily, is the war against it. One consequence of 9/11 was to shatter forever the illusion that Americans could retreat to enjoy the fruits of their productivity behind a missile defense shield. For terrorism breeds in precisely the rogue states and strife-torn war zones that some Republicans before 9/11 thought we could walk away from. Intervention to impose the rule of law on such seedbeds of terror is far from an unrealistic project. That was precisely what the Victorians excelled at."

The rule of law (which was not, of course, any kind of motive for the expansion of the British Empire -- it is the kind of phrase much favored by those who have put a suitable generation or two between themselves and the pirates who seized the properties they now complacently fold into the law of contracts) was the kind of thing Fitzjames Stephen brooded on, no doubt in a Mr. Rochester way. Law, of course, gives you a rather grimmer idea of human action than economics or logic does -- the latter two being more Mill's specialties. The tone of Stephen's dissent from Mill in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity is shot through with a sense that human beings are essentially difficult. Especially if you meet them out there, doing the rounds in some godforsaken part of Southern India, rather than confine your encounters to the pleasanter purlieus of Chelsea.

Being a religious man -- or, rather, a man attached to the guarding of the Christian religion, and the preservation of all its old ferocities, regardless of his personal appraisal of the plausibility of Christian evidences -- Stephen attacks Mill's libertarianism on two fronts: one is that, frankly, Mill undervalues the role of coercion in human society, and hence would impose limits on the State's coercive power that would countermine the State's great role -- that of disciplining the mass. The other is that Mill's libertarianism is, ultimately, a hedonism contrary in all its parts to Christian doctrine. Even if one feels, reading Stephen's tract, that Stephen, post Cambridge, was that Victorian thing, an agnostic with Calvinist leanings, one also feels that Stephen believes -- as did Nietzsche, at times -- that the disbelief of the rulers in the established creed is no reason not to enforce belief in that creed, by all means necessary. This belief also shows up in one of the great nineteenth century texts -- the Grand Inquisitor section of The Brothers Karamazov. Stephen's intro graf certainly intones Dostoevskian themes:

"The object of this work is to examine the doctrines which are rather hinted at than expressed by the phrase "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." This phrase has been the motto of more than one Republic. It is indeed something more than a motto. It is the creed of a religion, less definite than any one of the forms of Christianity, which are in part its rivals, in part its antagonists, and in part its associates, but not on that account the less powerful. It is, on the contrary, one of the most penetrating influences of the day. It shows itself now and then in definite forms, of which Positivism is the one best known to our generation, but its special manifestations give no adequate measure of its depth or width. It penetrates other creeds. It has often transformed Christianity into a system of optimism, which has in some cases retained and in others rejected Christian phraseology."

You can feel the black leather gloves being put on with that phrase, "transformed Christianity into a system of optimism..." As if a creed with a tortured man/god spilling his blood at the center of it promised us a lifetime of teacups and edifiying lectures! Stephen wasn't having any of that nonsense: religion is about the last things, and in that bleak and all consuming light, happiness shrivels up like a dead cockroach.

We mention the Grand Inquisitor with intent -- for part of Stephen's work does, indeed, touch on the same territory treated, much differently, by Dostoevsky. Remember the way Ivan Karamazov's "poem" starts. Jesus comes back to Earth. It is in the time of the great heresy hunts in Spain. Jesus has just raised a dead child when the Grand Inquisitor comes into sight:


"There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before, when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Church -- at this moment he is wearing his coarse, old, monk's cassock. At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants and slaves and the 'holy guard.' He stops at the sight of the crowd and watches it from a distance. He sees everything; he sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick grey brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power, so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead him away. The crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the old Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on' The guards lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison- in the ancient palace of the Holy, inquisition and shut him in it. The day passes and is followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. The air is 'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks."'Is it Thou? Thou?' but receiving no answer, he adds at once. 'Don't answer."

Well, Stephen does not intend to reach these depths -- he would no doubt find them rather repulsive. Yet his book does contain a disquisition on Pilate that is certainly worthy of the Grand Inquisitor -- transposing some of the elements.

TBC