I
Sartre discusses a psychological phenomenon he calls “bad faith” in his 1943 Being and Nothingness. Bad faith is similar to what we sometimes call “self-deception,” but Sartre needs a new name in order to make his point that strictly speaking (on his theory) it is impossible for one to literally “deceive oneself.” After all, he argues, there is only one “self” and deception requires two selves, the one who is deceiving and the one who is deceived.
The significance of this discussion in his work is that he is intent on closing all loopholes on personal responsibility, and “self-deception,” if it were possible, would be such a loophole: we can’t blame so-and-so, he didn’t know the truth of the situation; yes, of course he had access to all relevant information, but he was deceiving himself.
Rubbish, says Sartre, if he had all the relevant information, he knew, and he was therefore responsible for his act and its consequences!
Yet, at the same time, there is a puzzle about the peculiar state of mind we call self-deception. It may be true, as Sartre says, that the “self-deceived” is not really deceived at all and knows the truth, but the degree of self-awareness seems very different from the case in which a person is willfully lying to others. The willful liar seems to know the truth in a way different from the way in which the self-deceived person knows it.
Sartre gives the example of a woman who accepts an invitation for an evening out from a man whose every action and utterance makes totally clear what his intentions are. The woman, in her self representation, sees herself as “not that sort at all,” and understand his interest in her as completely proper and focused entirely on her “personality.” As the evening progresses, it would be clear to any objective observer that his intended destination for the two of them is his bed, but she seems totally unaware of all of his signals. Her mental set becomes obvious when he takes her hand, the first physical contact of the evening. He is looking for information from this contact. If she takes her hand away, he will take this as a signal that his intentions are not hers. If she returns the pressure of his hand, he will take this as a signal to proceed. She does neither, she allows her hand to remain in his, but without the slightest sign of life. The hand is like an inanimate object detached from her body. She continues to chat as if it weren’t there at all. Of course, she does wind up in the bed. But in the morning, and in time to come, it will always seem to her as if the whole thing had happened to someone, or something, else. For her psychological comfort, she dis-associates herself from the body that was engaged in the unacceptable behavior. That wasn’t the real me, she thinks, it was only my body.
Sartre gives this as an instance of bad faith. He has a theory of how this is possible and why we do it, but for my purposes it suffices to focus on the phenomenon, which is I think is quite real and which I think most people will readily recognize. And rather than get involved in the fancy language so loved by continental philosophers, I’ll just describe this as a partially successful refusal to know.
II
Yes, it is possible to refuse to know, though that sounds counter-intuitive at first glance. The refusal usually occurs in a context that requires drawing a conclusion from a set of indications, where that conclusion is too frightening or objectionable to accept. The simplest example is that of the stock horror movie scene where the beautiful young heroine finds herself (as she always does) in a darkened environment and hears a noise behind her. Is it the monster? Of course it is. But does she run? No, she either ignores it or gives it a benevolent interpretation. Why? Because she has no recourse for the awful truth. She chooses to believe an unlikely narrative because the likely one is too horrible for her to tolerate.
So, does she know the truth? Yes, but does she choose to think it? No. We have a choice in what we focus our thoughts on just as we have choice in what we look at. Metaphorically, the person in bad faith chooses to look at the story most acceptable rather than the story most likely.
III
I began with remarks on bad faith because I think we live in a time when our politics, whether in academe or in the centers of power or in the minds of the voters, is governed by bad faith. This is a theme I have been returning to again and again in writing about the modern Left, namely its insistence on the denial of the obvious. While the reasons for the Left’s insistence on marketing the counter-intuitive as the truth vary, I suspect that the machinery of bad faith is responsible for there being such a large population willing to buy their nonsense.
Obama and his surrogates tell us that we shouldn’t “jump to any conclusions” respecting Nadir Hasan’s murders, by which they mean, don’t conclude that that loathsome piece of crap is a muslim terrorist. And a lot of people nod sagely and say, yes, that makes sense, let’s not ‘rush to judgment.’ Perhaps they are just made uncomfortable with the possible mass response, a rational and appropriate one, to our population of “peaceful Muslim neighbors” (whose mosques are recruiting stations for terrorists and sources of funding for acts of terror). All of them? you ask. I don’t know, but it sure seems someone ought be asking in a pretty aggressive way by now. But .. but … but … Yeah, I know – But, but, but.
None of this is new. There was the pacifist movement in the West before and during World War II. Had we listened to the pacifists, we’d probably all be speaking German (or Japanese) and eating decaying sauerkraut or moldy rice in our slave labor camps. Examples of refusal to know can be multiplied endlessly, it seems to be the mind-set of an increasingly weak West, a West whose source of strength, its inherited culture and religion has been systematically attacked and undermined. Culture and religion are the will to survive of a people; once those are gone, the will to defend a way of life goes with them.
The bad, bad news is that we don’t live in a civilized world in which differences are resolved successfully by means of rule-governed talk. The world has never been that way and will likely never become that way.
There are cultures and leaderships that will use force against us.
We can’t buy them off permanently, they just use the time to strengthen themselves.
We can’t threaten them with destruction because most of them don’t either believe it or don’t care.
We can’t starve them into submission because there are others who will feed them (the South Americans, the Russians, and the Chinese).
We can’t pretend that they’re not there like the girls in the horror movie.
This is indeed bad news, but it will be even worse news if we refuse to know it.
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