Hi-ho, Hi-ho...

Noël Coward, the English playwright, once said that “Work is much more fun than fun.”  I think in the perfect world, it’s possible, but I’m not sure that many of us live within a perfect world.  Most of us are given a life, we choose a path and we make the most of what we can.  But work?  My efforts at defining my work are complicated by two things – one, many people (most within the profession) label it a “calling” which adds a religious component with which I’m not always comfortable; two, a great many of people have little to no respect for it, which allows many people to feel free to comment on how they think it should best be done.  Which, in the end, still leaves me still pondering how to view work?  There are three major ways one can do so. 

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw work, partially, as one’s salvation – the means by which to break through difficulties and emerge stronger in the end.  A later German philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, spoke more plainly when he said that he was not sure why we are here on earth but he was certain it was not to enjoy ourselves.  This type of approach is often characterized by one who buries themselves within their work.  However, this can be damaging.  It does not bode well for one with a family, friends or any semblance of “life.”  It is also potentially damaging to one’s identity.  The one who defines themselves by their work are in a precarious position when something happens to that work.  What happens to one’s identity?  Does the work go on?  Does the true acolyte of Nietzsche say that a “job” is not as important as the “work?”    

Cannot the notion of work be condensed to the Aristotelian idea of contributing to society and having nothing to do with our personal lives?  The best life is not an actualization of oneself but wrapped in the duty one performs to the society as a whole.  It is a reaffirmation of the notion that our lives are not for ourselves but for others.  This is a self-sacrificing way to view one’s labor and there are certainly noble and amazing individuals whose work was their service to others.  Yet, like the one who buries themselves in work, do not the words of Epicurus remind us of a danger?  One looks upon the example of Mother Teresa or Gandhi.  Can one live a life if they do not experience it?  That is not to say that those two heroic figures did not know life but is it an example for others to follow?  I would say that the person who is absorbed by their work and the one who is absorbed by the needs of others run the same risk, however noble the latter is.   

Or, we could look at work as merely a method by which to enjoy life.  By “enjoy”, I don’t mean some sort of Aristippus notion of pleasure but merely to take part in the wonders of life.  The work is only a means to an end.  One works to enjoy life – work during the week to camp or hike or relax on the weekend.  Yet, this taken to its logical conclusion could lead to a life without work.  I think it is a legitimate idea to consider whether a life without work would be a moral life.  On some level, this is a selfish approach to one’s life and can one truly be moral and not consider the needs of others?  I would imagine that adherents of the first two concepts would not have much respect for a follower of the third.  Certainly, Wittgenstein would suggest that such a life is a wasted one.  The fact that God gives us talents and skills are not there for arbitrary reasons. 

Most Americans’ viewpoint of work is based on a Puritan concept of the importance of a work ethic, but the Christian concept of work only discusses the need for it and not the way it should be approached.  Gandhi viewed all work as noble and the nobility of work is its own reward to both the individual and the society.  After this little exercise, I’m not sure I’m closer to understanding the nature of work than I was earlier.  Like most things, there is a value in each approach but also a danger.  Perhaps, one needs to take the dedication of the first approach, the awareness of the second and the balance of the third.  By doing so (and this certainly is no easy task), perhaps we grow closer to a true answer to our question and an understanding of ourselves. 

Struggling with Happiness

Last weekend, the German newspaper Die Zeit published a special edition to its Sunday paper on trying to define what makes a good or happy life.  Within the collection of articles, each contributing thinker attempted an answer to this age-old question.  The philosophers ranged from Martin Seel of the University of Frankfurt to author Sudhir Kakar to Michael Sandel of Harvard University.  Each article, focusing on a different concept of happiness or fullness of life (justice, love, freedom), sought to answer the question through its own paradigm.  However, the people featured in Die Zeit are not indicative of philosophers of old, who for the most part, tended to be much more scattered towards the question. 

So we start, as writings like this often do, with Socrates, the Greek giant of philosophical musings.  As he is the influence of all major Greek thinkers that followed, it makes sense to focus on the great one himself.  Socrates' student, Plato, felt that Socrates only saw happiness as possible when one focused on self-actualization or the improvement of oneself for its own sake.  Once this internal "beauty" is held, then none of the temptations of life can persuade one away from true happiness of the soul and spirit.  The Roman philosopher Cicero concurred but went further to say that the beauty we find with other people, in the form of friendship or love, is the highest form of happiness and the sign of a treasured and good life. 

The medieval period and its philosophy was dominated by religious thinking.  St. Augustine of Hippo suggested that the happiness of life lies in how close to God we grow.  Anselm of Canterbury connected the pursuit and obtaining of happiness to be a condition of free will as he expounded upon the ideas of Augustine.  In later medieval philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas followed a more Aristotelian attitude by suggesting the ultimate end of life's ambition is happiness but unlike Aristotle and drawing closer to Augustine, Aquinas felt that closeness to God was a key to happiness.  Even for those who do not believe in God, they who Aquinas admitted would throw a wrench into his theory, still seek happiness.  God exists for them whether they want Him to or not.   

After the ideas of the ancients and the theologians of the Middle Ages, things turn a little dark.  A pessimism looms large in later writings, beginning with and epitomized by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.  Schopenhauer suggested that life was pain and suffering and he saw the efforts of man, ultimately, to be futile.  Much later in life, he would gravitate towards Buddhism and champion the idea of asceticism in the hopes of ridding suffering.  Happiness was not a great consideration for Schopenhauer, who influenced so many...like Friedrich Nietzsche.  Nietzsche too thought happiness to be an insignificant and futile goal but did offer a suggestion.  He said that he sought not happiness but he sought only his work.  To Nietzsche, there was a way out and that was enduring the suffering, not necessarily the escape from it.  By embracing and accepting it, it is possible to reveal the true nature within and in the process, persevere.

While these ideas are much repeated and studied (and rightfully so), I tend to disagree and suggest that happiness, without the paralyzing affect of contentment, is possible.  It speaks more to the idea of one's clarity.  Clarity would include a person who was brought up and educated under a certain narrative, one which organizes their life and structures their national purpose and one within which they live.  The clarity is also seen in the purposefulness one approaches their job and their lives.    A person of faith will have an easier time not just understanding their role in life but also face the unknown after life with greater comfort.  It is seen in an individual who knows their place within the family and the community.  This idea is best summed up by Albert Camus, who said, "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads."  There is an organization who has created a "happiness index" as a way of measuring which countries have the largest and smallest amount of happy people.  It seems silly but it would be interesting to see if my clarity thesis holds.

Of course, it has been suggested that simply giving into our base instincts can be the only way to create true happiness.  Aristippus of Cyrene said that happiness lies within hedonism.  Some have suggested that man was made and designed to hunt, kill and fornicate indiscriminately - none of which is socially allowable in the way it was meant.  There are those that live that life, or try to, but I think I shall stick to the notion of clarity.  I've seen people that seek a guiltless society but what makes us human and what makes us better than animals is our understanding, deep inside, of what should be.  This is not really a question that can be answered and there is so much I've left out from the minds of men like Leo Tolstoy or Sigmund Freud or the Dalai Lama.  It must be left to you, I'm afraid, to figure out your own path of happiness.  I think I've found it.     

The Struggle Over Legacies

Two-hundred years ago this week, in Leipzig, Germany, Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born.  Over his career, he became an unparalleled composer and conductor famous for his operas.  His music is known by aficionados and novices alike.  He died in February of 1883, a complete half a century prior to 1933.  In the small village of Röcken, Germany in October of 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born.  Over his career, he broke new ground as a philosopher as well as a critic and his works are as famous and as likely to be known by the uninitiated as any other philosopher in world history.  He died in August of 1900, three decades prior to 1933.  Even though both men lived and worked decades prior to that year, marked by the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, the two men are forever and seemingly unbreakably linked to the worst excesses and ideology of the Nazis.  The question is, should they? 

In Israel, Wagner is persona non grata and understandably so.  The music of Wagner has come to epitomize the Nazis through Hitler’s love for the composer.  For Jews, there will never be a separation no matter how benign an individual performance of Tristan und Isolde or Der Ring des Nibelungen can be.  Wagner has been accused of being anti-Semitic and there is certainly evidence enough to prove that accusation.  The 1850 piece On Jewishness in Music was an opening salvo of Wagner’s declaration of disdain for Jews.  As with many people of the day, there was a historic strain of anti-Semitism and Wagner was a product of his day.  To suggest, however, that he would have been a Nazi is more of a stretch.   

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf about a childhood experience of seeing Lohengrin, its transformative powers and many modern observers have made connections and judgments that simply do not hold water.  Still today, the very nature of playing Wagner can cause a row.  In Israel, Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim planned to play a Wagner piece as part of an encore in 2001 – one he would ask the audience about first and allow those who did not want to hear to leave.  It did not matter as the very thought that it could happen forced Mr. Barenboim to back off.  That might sound reasonable given the setting but elsewhere?  In Düsseldorf during a production of Tannhaüser, scenes of the concentration camps accompanied by Wagner in the background led to loud boos.  While the majority of Germans associate Wagner with Hitler, Der Spiegel asked if Germans could enjoy any aspect of its culture anymore.       

For Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential modern thinkers, the connection between his writings and the Nazi ideology was first drawn from the actions of his sister, who along with her husband, helped establish a German colony in Paraguay with the intent of creating a perfect society.  During the latter years of her life, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche supported the Nazis until her death in 1935.  She also edited and rewrote many of her brother’s works to reinforce Nazi ideology.  Therein lays the philosopher’s crime – oddball family members.  That is not to say that Nietzsche himself was not anti-Semitic (though there is much evidence to suggest anti-Semitism and not) but to suggest he was a Nazi because of how Hitler and his henchmen used notions like suffering and the übermensch (Superman) is no proof. 

Hitler’s love of Nietzsche stemmed from a love of the philosopher’s concept of Superman – a fully-realized man free from the constraints of a corrupt society (western European) and a corrupt moral code (Christianity).  In Nietzsche’s Man and Superman, the Nazis perverted his ideas, ignoring much of what would rebuke the fascist ideology.  Many modern scholars are working hard to re-introduce the German’s thoughts and ideas, unedited from the re-fashioning of his sister.  This is a hard road, however.  Those not familiar with the man and his work will miss the affirmation of man’s ability to endure, to rise above those things that hold individuals back and reveal true character.  I’ve stood at his grave in Röcken and visited Weimar to visit his archives where his sister hosted and swayed Adolf Hitler.  Still, he has been read by many world leaders and ordinary folks seeking to better understand his ideas and his concept of human nature.  Hitler was just one of them – and he misunderstood what he read.

In history, I teach my students not to judge historical figures based on present moralities and if anything, Wagner and Nietzsche suffer from a lack of adhering to this paradigm.  Should Jews get past Wagner and take him at face value?  Because there is such a connection between the man and the philosophy, perhaps the onus is on others to listen to the music and better understand the musicality.  Should people read Nietzsche for themselves to determine the real meaning and ideas behind the man?  Sure though I’m not sure it will happen.  He needs to be read in his entirety but few have a desire to do so.  As a result, connections, especially historical connections, become a tricky thing.  Most are based on assumptions and that is fraught with danger.      

The Importance of Suffering

You want, if possible – and there is no more insane “if possible” – to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it – that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible – that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? - Friedrich Nietzsche

I was watching the World Series tonight and thinking on the concept of suffering. In the 7th inning, as the Texas Rangers jumped out to a 7:4 lead, the camera panned to shots of the Cardinal faithful. They were hanging on to the last vestiges of hope – a fervent wish that their team would somehow, someway triumph. Afterwards, I saw the Rangers’ fans, with the look of utter shock and dismay, desperately seeking an answer to two blown leads and ultimately, a loss. I asked myself, where is the constructive benefit of that suffering to those fans?

As a teacher, I’m in a strange position. My job is to push my students beyond their preconceived limits to reach new heights. In order to do this, there is a certain amount of suffering that comes into play. Every year, I have those students who relish in the suffering and come through at the end. Then, I have those students who are repelled by any difficulty in their studies, but search it constantly, even contrive it, in their daily lives. I’m left with a group of students who live on drama and suffering, not as a tool to overcome it but as a way of wallowing in it. Seldom is the suffering over anything of importance, certainly not in the long run.

I’m charged with trying to teach the importance of suffering as a way of enduring, as Nietzsche would later explain. My subject is history and its greatest value is placing our lives in context. However, if I cannot convince students to endure a bit of suffering that some perceive in studying history, they can never appreciate nor fully understand what could exist on the other side of effort and stress. Without going through the distress of pushing through a difficult historical or mathematical concept, they will never truly value its importance. For Nietzsche, the suffering creates a moment of clarity and one that defines character.

Suffering and its importance is seen beyond Western ideals and more than the musings of controversial German philosophers. The humanity of Jesus was tied to his suffering – his time spent in the desert was meant to be a trial, a test. His ability to endure the suffering, the temptation was a part of his identity and his connection to man. Suffering also connects us to our fellow man. Can we truly be a sympathetic people without having a frame of reference with regard to other’s tribulations? To the Buddhists, there is a belief that the idea of suffering is one to overcome in order to achieve happiness. The ability to endure and to overcome suffering is the path towards enlightenment.

And so, my thoughts return to those fans. If they are true fans and not bandwagoners, they know the history of their team. The Cardinal fan understands what it means to see their team struggle, scrimp and scratch their way to a World Series – the ultimate baseball prize. For the Ranger fan, they know the decades of futility and unfulfilled hope. They know their history and they know suffering. For the Cardinal fan, they know the reward such suffering can bring. The Ranger fan is yet to know but is there not a lesson from which everyone can learn? Tomorrow, my students will talk about it but will they truly understand it? We, as adults, have an obligation to impress upon our young the lesson of Nietzsche – the notion of suffering and the character it creates.