Let us think of some of the things that are likely to happen in our time to inhabitants of Europe or China. Suppose you are a Jew, and your family has been massacred. Suppose you are an underground worker against the Nazis, and your wife has been shot because you could not be caught. Suppose your husband, for some purely imaginary crime, has been sent to forced labour in the Arctic, and has died of cruelty and starvation. Suppose your daughter has been raped and then killed by enemy soldiers. Ought you, in these circumstances, to preserve a philosophic calm?
If you follow Christ's teaching, you will say
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I have known
Quakers who could have said this sincerely and profoundly, and whom I admired
because they could. But before giving admiration one must be very sure that the
misfortune is felt as deeply as it should be. One cannot accept the attitude of
some among the Stoics, who said, "What does it matter to me if my family
suffer? I can still be virtuous." The Christian principle, "Love your
enemies," is good, but the Stoic principle, "Be indifferent to your
friends," is bad. And the Christian principle does not inculcate calm, but
an ardent love even towards the worst of men. There is nothing to be said
against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practise
sincerely.
The primitive reaction to such disasters is revenge. When
Macduff learns that his wife and children have been killed by Macbeth, he
resolves to kill the tyrant himself. This reaction is still admired by most
people, when the injury is great, and such as to arouse moral horror in
disinterested people. Nor can it be wholly condemned, for it is one of the
forces generating punishment, and punishment is sometimes necessary. Moreover,
from the point of view of mental health, the impulse to revenge is likely to be
so strong that, if it is allowed no outlet, a man's whole outlook on life may
become distorted and more or less insane. This is not true universally, but it
is true in a large percentage of cases. But on the other side it must be said
that revenge is a very dangerous motive. In so far as society admits it, it
allows a man to be the judge in his own case, which is exactly what the law
tries to prevent. Moreover it is usually an excessive motive; it seeks to
inflict more punishment than is desirable. Torture, for example, should not be
punished by torture, but the man maddened by lust for vengeance will think a
painless death too good for the object of his hate. Moreover--and it is here
that Spinoza is in the right--a life dominated by a single passion is a narrow
life, incompatible with every kind of wisdom. Revenge as such is therefore not
the best reaction to injury.
… when it is your lot to have to endure something that is
(or seems to you) worse than the ordinary lot of mankind, Spinoza's principle
of thinking about the whole, or at any rate about larger matters than your own
grief, is a useful one. There are even times when it is comforting to reflect
that human life, with all that it contains of evil and suffering, is an
infinitesimal part of the life of the universe. Such reflections may not
suffice to constitute a religion, but in a painful world they are a help towards
sanity and an antidote to the paralysis of utter despair.[1]
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy
(1946)[2]
[1] Here
we can compare Spinoza (1632-77), who lived in Amsterdam and later the Hague,
with Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote Praise of Folly in 1509: “To sum
up, if you could look down from the moon, as Menippus once did, on the
countless hordes of mortals, you’d think you saw a swarm of flies or gnats
quarrelling amongst themselves, fighting, plotting, stealing, playing, making
love, being born, growing old and dying.
It’s hard to believe how much trouble and tragedy this tiny little
creature can stir up, shortlived as he is, for sometimes a brief war or an
outbreak of plague can carry off and destroy many thousands at once.” Erasmus, Praise
of Folly, tr. Betty Radice (Toronto: Penguin, 1971), p. 143.
[2]
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2004),
pp. 529,530. Also available digitally online.
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