...in serving be free.
-- Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, p.74
Freedom, then.
I held out writing this one to finish reading Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game and Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. One of their major themes is freedom, or more accurately, the paradox thereof.
Let's put aside free will aside for a moment. Let's deal with the more general concept of freedom first. The paradox, in Christian context, is this: We often speak of being liberated from the slavery of sin. But Paul called himself the slave (doulos) of Christ (Rom. 1:1). Certainly, no man can serve two masters (Mt. 6:24). Though the latter's context is about serving God or Mammon, we can see that we are under the slavery of sin or God, never neither. Some questions: Is there, then, true freedom? If the said true freedom means being free from sin and God, does that mean necessarily a good thing? Do we really want such true freedom?
What does freedom really mean? I find it necessary to quote at length (emphasis mine):
After the principal's address, while everyone was on the way to the bravely bedecked dining hall, Knecht approached the Master with a question, "The principal," he said, "told us how things are outside of Castalia, in the ordinary schools and colleges. He said that the students at the universities study for 'free' professions. If I understood him rightly, these are professions we do not even have here in Castalia. What is the meaning of that? Why are just those professions called 'free'? And why should we Castalians be excluded from them?"
The Magister Musicae drew the young man aside and stood with him under one of the giant trees. An almost sly smile puckered the skin around his eyes into little wrinkles as he replied: "Your name is Knecht, my friend, and perhaps for that reason the word 'free' is so alluring for you. But do not take it too seriously in this case. When the non-Castalians speak of the free professions, the word may sound very serious and even inspiring. But when we use it, we intend it ironically. Freedom exists in those professions only to the extent that the student chooses the profession himself. That produces an appearance of freedom, although in most cases the choice is made less by the student than by his family, and many a father would sooner bite off his tongue than really allow his son free choice. But perhaps that is a slander; let us drop this objection. Let us say that the freedom exists, but it is limited to the one unique act of choosing the profession. Afterward all freedom is over. When he begins his studies at the university, the doctor, lawyer, or engineer is forced into an extremely rigid curriculum which ends with a series of examinations. If he passes them, he receives his license and can thereafter pursue his profession in seeming freedom. But in doing so he becomes the slave of base powers; he is dependent on success, on money, on his ambition, his hunger for fame, on whether or not people like him. He must submit to elections, must earn money, must take part in the ruthless competition of castes, families, political parties, newspapers. In return he has the freedom to become successful and well-to-do, and to be hated by the unsuccessful, or vice versa. For the elite pupil and later member of the Order, everything is the other way around. He does not 'choose' any profession. He does not imagine that he is a better judge of his own talents than are his teachers. He accepts the place and the function within the hierarchy that his superiors choose for him–if, that is, the matter is not reversed and the qualities, gifts and faults of the pupil compel the teachers to send him to one place or another. In the midst of this seeming unfreedom every electus enjoys the greates imaginable freedom after his early courses. Whereas the man in the 'free' professions must submit to a narrow and rigid course of studies with rigid examinations in order to train for his future career, the electus, as soon as he begins studying independently, enjoys so much freedom that there are many who all their lives choose the most abstruse and frequently almost foolish studies, and may continue without hindrance as long as their conduct does not degenerate, The natural teacher is employed as teacher, the natural educator as educator, the natural translator as translator; each, as if of his own accord, finds his way to the place in which he can serve, and in serving be free. Moreover, for the rest of his life he is saved from that 'freedom' of career which means such terrible slavery. He knows nothing of the struggle for money, fame, rank; he recognizes no parties, no dichotomy, between the individual and the office, between what is private and what is public; he feels no dependence upon success. Now do you see, my son, that when we speak of the free professions, the word 'free' is meant rather humorously."
-- Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, pp.73-74
Leverkühn suffers from the excessive freedom of post-Romantic subjectivity, which paradoxically has at this stage in musical history itself become an oppressive convention; and from a hyper-intelligent technical grasp which allows him instantly to see through every musical trick used by other composers – or hinself. What he craves is a compelling new order that will lift the paradoxical burden of freedom, and a new primitive simplicity that will be a refuge from his own sophistication.
-- T. J. Reed, Introduction, Doctor Faustus, p.ix
Germany is free, in so far as one may apply to a land prostrate and proscribed.
-- Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, p.518
You can't miss the unmistakably contemptuous and Aristotelian-golden-mean tone everytime freedom is mentioned. Too much freedom can't be good. Freedom may just be an illusion of it.
The first passage may sound socialistic. Let's not go into that, but you can watch this TEDTalk instead where the speaker talks, among other things, of freedom of choice in once-socialist countries.
I should just conclude this post in thoughtful tone with my opinion on free will and predestination:
Some might argue that predestination precludes free will; it is deteministic. This is not necessarily the case. It just happens that God has free will, too. You are free to choose, so is He. Men try all the time to turn the tides of history; if God chooses to dip His finger in the flow of Time, how would you argue that He can't?
No comments:
Post a Comment