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Ο κομισάριος και ο γιόγκι
Ο Άρθουρ Καίστλερ χώρισε αυτόν τον τόμο σε τρία μέρη: "Περιπλανήσεις", "Παραινέσεις", "Διερευνήσεις". Στα πρώτα δύο μέρη συγκέντρωσε τα σημαντικότερα δοκίμια του για τη λογοτεχνία, την πολιτική και τα προβλήματα της εποχής μας. Τα δοκίμια, που αντιπροσωπεύουν μια περίοδο τριών ετών, δημοσιεύτηκαν για πρώτη φορά σε έντυπα τόσο ποικίλα όπως τα Horizon, Harper's, Tribune, Observer, κ.ά. Το τρίτο μέρος, οι "Διερευνήσεις", γράφτηκε ειδικά για αυτόν τον τόμο και δεν είχε εκδοθεί προηγουμένως. Περιλαμβάνει μια καλά στοιχειοθετημένη επισκόπηση του σοβιετικού πειράματος και τα συμπεράσματα που μπορούν να εξαχθούν από αυτό.
Η αξία αυτών των συμπερασμάτων από έναν τόσο διακεκριμένο συγγραφέα της Αριστεράς, δύσκολα μπορεί να αμφισβητηθεί. Καταφέρνουν, επίσης, να ξεδιαλύνουν μεγάλο μέρος της συγκεχυμένης σκέψης των περασμένων ετών.
Η αξία αυτών των συμπερασμάτων από έναν τόσο διακεκριμένο συγγραφέα της Αριστεράς, δύσκολα μπορεί να αμφισβητηθεί. Καταφέρνουν, επίσης, να ξεδιαλύνουν μεγάλο μέρος της συγκεχυμένης σκέψης των περασμένων ετών.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
11 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Koestler
152 books945 followers
Darkness at Noon
(1940), novel of Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, portrays his disillusionment with Communism; his nonfiction works include
The Sleepwalkers
(1959) and
The Ghost in the Machine
(1967).
Arthur Koestler CBE [*Kösztler Artúr] was a prolific writer of essays, novels and autobiographies.
He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest but, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. His early career was in journalism. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany but, disillusioned, he resigned from it in 1938 and in 1940 published a devastating anti-Communist novel, Darkness at Noon, which propelled him to instant international fame.
Over the next forty-three years he espoused many causes, wrote novels and biographies, and numerous essays. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious and valuable Sonning Prize "For outstanding contribution to European culture", and in 1972 he was made a "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE).
In 1976 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and three years later with leukaemia in its terminal stages. He committed suicide in 1983 in London.
Arthur Koestler CBE [*Kösztler Artúr] was a prolific writer of essays, novels and autobiographies.
He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest but, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. His early career was in journalism. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany but, disillusioned, he resigned from it in 1938 and in 1940 published a devastating anti-Communist novel, Darkness at Noon, which propelled him to instant international fame.
Over the next forty-three years he espoused many causes, wrote novels and biographies, and numerous essays. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious and valuable Sonning Prize "For outstanding contribution to European culture", and in 1972 he was made a "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE).
In 1976 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and three years later with leukaemia in its terminal stages. He committed suicide in 1983 in London.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 30, 2022
Arthur Koestler was the greatest agent provocateur of the twentieth century: ex-Communist, ex-Zionist, explosive. Even at the hour of his death he chose to snub the world in exiting by way of euthanasia. (Koestler had been a leading member of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society.) The Second World War and its aftermath provided the fodder and the fire for this dynamic collection of essays: "In this war we are fighting a lie in the name of a half-truth". In the title essay he warns us that the world, East and West, has now been divided between two warring camps, "the yogi and the commissar". The yogi, religious or secular, engages in navel-gazing, in the name of some Grand Truth, to the point of narcissism and irresponsibility. The Commissar, regardless of his politics, or even being apolitical, tries to tell everybody else what to do all the time in the name of some Grand Truth. Actually, it is possible to be both at the same time, as anyone familiar with the American New Left of the Sixties could tell you. Koestler wants for himself and his readers a happy medium yet concedes this is hard to find in a world at conflict. (Please bear in mind that at the time of publication Koestler helped edit ENCOUNTER magazine; a CIA-front publication.) Other pieces condemn the withdrawal of the intelligentsia from politics; an ironic pose, since many of his critics on the left bashed Koestler for becoming like "the yogi" from the Fifties until his self-chosen death. Agree or disagree, you may find your place in the spectrum that runs from the yogi to the commissar.
November 12, 2025
I bought this book, a first edition, for the ridiculously low price of 2 Euros (reduced from 15). And then I found a London bus ticket from the forties in it which is worth about 20 Euros. Buying books can make you rich.
But how is the book? Truly excellent. We have here a collection of essays written between 1941 and 1944. In the preface he says that from his childhood days he “had never ceased to marvel each year at the fool I had been the year before.” And indeed the final essay is the most brillant. He was at the top of his wits at the time he was writing them. (Unfortunately even for him there was a time when each year he became more stupid, resulting e.g. in. the horrible The Roots of Coincidence)
The first essay about the Yogi and the Commissar contains reflections on the different ways to view the universe. “On one end of the spectrum obviously the infra-red end, we would see the Commissar. He believes in Change from Without. He believes that all the past of humanity including constipation and the Oedious complex, can and will be cured by Revolution.” And he will justify the use of all means, including violence and treachery. On the other end of the spectrum “where the waves become so short and of such high-frequency [...] crouches the Yogi. (Koestler loves metaphors. And mostly he is using them well.) “He believes that the End is unpredictable and that the Means alone count. He rejects violence under any circumstances.” There must be a middle way. We live, he says elsewhere, on a tragic plane and a trivial plane, switching back and forth between them.
The last essay called The Yogi and the Commissar II is about free will and determinism (but also destiny) and should be required reading for everybody talking about free will (I am talking about you, Sabine Hossenfelder).
Maybe the most important essays, though, are the ones about his time in the concentration camp Le Vernet (The Scum of the Earth) and the one entitled On Disbelieving Atrocities where he talks about his (and other Screamers) efforts to convince people in England and America of the Nazi killing of European Jews. And theses are not rumours, he is presenting photographs and real numbers (three million dead) at the time. And he says that while the audiences are listening to him he seems to reach them. But soon after the talk everything is forgotten. This is how he summarises: “A dog run over by a car upsets our emotional balance and digestion; three million Jews killed in Poland cause but a moderate uneasiness.”
All of the essays are excellent, but some have lost some of their relevance. I was not particularly interested in his reminiscences of Richard Hillary and his observations about the Soviet Union as brilliant as they are, do not help us in understanding Russia today.
Some quotes.
With this book, by the way, Koestler joins the club of writers of whom I have read ten books or more.
9/10
But how is the book? Truly excellent. We have here a collection of essays written between 1941 and 1944. In the preface he says that from his childhood days he “had never ceased to marvel each year at the fool I had been the year before.” And indeed the final essay is the most brillant. He was at the top of his wits at the time he was writing them. (Unfortunately even for him there was a time when each year he became more stupid, resulting e.g. in. the horrible The Roots of Coincidence)
The first essay about the Yogi and the Commissar contains reflections on the different ways to view the universe. “On one end of the spectrum obviously the infra-red end, we would see the Commissar. He believes in Change from Without. He believes that all the past of humanity including constipation and the Oedious complex, can and will be cured by Revolution.” And he will justify the use of all means, including violence and treachery. On the other end of the spectrum “where the waves become so short and of such high-frequency [...] crouches the Yogi. (Koestler loves metaphors. And mostly he is using them well.) “He believes that the End is unpredictable and that the Means alone count. He rejects violence under any circumstances.” There must be a middle way. We live, he says elsewhere, on a tragic plane and a trivial plane, switching back and forth between them.
The last essay called The Yogi and the Commissar II is about free will and determinism (but also destiny) and should be required reading for everybody talking about free will (I am talking about you, Sabine Hossenfelder).
Maybe the most important essays, though, are the ones about his time in the concentration camp Le Vernet (The Scum of the Earth) and the one entitled On Disbelieving Atrocities where he talks about his (and other Screamers) efforts to convince people in England and America of the Nazi killing of European Jews. And theses are not rumours, he is presenting photographs and real numbers (three million dead) at the time. And he says that while the audiences are listening to him he seems to reach them. But soon after the talk everything is forgotten. This is how he summarises: “A dog run over by a car upsets our emotional balance and digestion; three million Jews killed in Poland cause but a moderate uneasiness.”
All of the essays are excellent, but some have lost some of their relevance. I was not particularly interested in his reminiscences of Richard Hillary and his observations about the Soviet Union as brilliant as they are, do not help us in understanding Russia today.
Some quotes.
In reality both knowing and believing have varying degrees of intensity. I know there was a man called Spartacus who led the Roman slaves into revolt; but my belief in his one-time existence is much paler that is that of, say, Lenin.
Let us be frank; and while we rejoice over the victory of our arms, let us recognize the defeat of our aims.
Up to this day we all hold beliefs that are not only incompatible with observable facts, but with facts actually observed by us.
However, Oedispus-like the individual atom behaved, fair-sized atom crowds behaved in strictly predictable way.
It all boils down to this: microscopic events cannot be adequately described to explained in the terms of tropic experience of space, time and causation.
Freud knew the limits office method – so did Marx. But Freudians and Marxists don’t.
I pardon my rusty razor, but I throw it on the rubbish-heap.
Beneath the Cassandra-voice of reason there is another smug and smiling voice in us, which whispers us in our ear the gentle lie that we shall never die, and that tomorrow will be like yesterday. It is time we learnt to distrust that voice.
With this book, by the way, Koestler joins the club of writers of whom I have read ten books or more.
9/10
June 17, 2019
This was my first introduction to Koestler's writings and we have remained friends to this day.
As these essays were written during WW2, many have lost their relevance today and are merely historically interesting, or interesting for readers who just happen to like Koestler's writing style (incredibly sophisticated considering he'd just started writing in English a few years before, his previous books having been written in German and French!) and in depth analyses of the world's great social, political and economic issues. In my opinion, though, much of this book is still worth reading for the perennial insights he has to offer on the development of political systems, as well as the human split between emotion and reason, a theme which he followed up in greater detail in the Ghost in the Machine and other works. In short, the Yogi is the symbol chosen by him for social systems that attempt to change mankind from within (e.g., the enforced 'spirituality' of the Inquisition), while the Commissar represents those that attempt the same from the outside (e.g. Fascism and Communism).
As these essays were written during WW2, many have lost their relevance today and are merely historically interesting, or interesting for readers who just happen to like Koestler's writing style (incredibly sophisticated considering he'd just started writing in English a few years before, his previous books having been written in German and French!) and in depth analyses of the world's great social, political and economic issues. In my opinion, though, much of this book is still worth reading for the perennial insights he has to offer on the development of political systems, as well as the human split between emotion and reason, a theme which he followed up in greater detail in the Ghost in the Machine and other works. In short, the Yogi is the symbol chosen by him for social systems that attempt to change mankind from within (e.g., the enforced 'spirituality' of the Inquisition), while the Commissar represents those that attempt the same from the outside (e.g. Fascism and Communism).
September 27, 2018
Ένα θαυμάσιο βιβλίο και μια άθλια έκδοση. Μια Επανάσταση και η διάψευσή της.
https://pepperlines.blogspot.com/2018...
https://pepperlines.blogspot.com/2018...
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November 3, 2022As Koestler admits in the preface, this is a hodgepodge of articles, written in English (his first) and published in a variety of liberal papers & mags on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 40’s. Otherwise an essay about the Soviet Union was written specifically for the book. The success of ‘Darkness at Noon’ published in ‘39, meant that by 1940 for the first time in his life he was financially solvent and had an opportunity to take stock. ‘The Yogi & The Commissar’ is the result of that stock taking.
I met an elderly couple originally from Fulham in the park a few weeks back. We talked about politics and they told me that for many years they’d been members of the CPGB. Ours is a god forsaken reactionary little town so I was rather taken aback. This chance encounter led me to pick up a copy of Koestler’s biography and that in turn led me to ‘The Yogi &..’
Even from a very short conversation their disillusionment with politics was self-evident and left me wondering about their journey from the high ideals of a radical youth to the reluctant acknowledgment of the truth about Soviet communism. What was the final nail in their communist coffin? It can’t have been Budapest ‘56. Prague ‘68 maybe? Or do they, like Koestler did in ‘44, still cling to a progressive ideology of some kind? Hopefully I’ll run into them again so I can ask.
‘Darkness At Noon’ aside, Michael Scammell’s biography cites Koestler’s autobiographical books as being amongst his best and by chance I already had two of the three he identifies. ‘Spanish Testament’ about the 6 months he spent in one of Franco’s Spanish jails waiting to be summarily executed and ‘Scum Of The Earth’ detailing his experiences in a Vichy France prison camp for undesirables. As a Jewish Communist he fitted that description perfectly. ‘The Yogi & The Commissar’ completes this autobiographical trilogy and with WWII moving towards an Allied victory and his renouncement of the Soviet Union it comprehensively summarises his state of mind at the end of that tumultuous era.
Beginning with the eponymous article ‘The Yogi &..’ he explores the conflict arising from two approaches to achieving a better world. The yogi who looks for the key within and the commissar who looks without. For the former the means are sacrosanct for the latter they can be justified by the end. An idea that was also at the centre of his novel ‘Darkness’.
I don’t pretend to understand everything that Koestler writes, at times he verges upon (dare I say it?) self indulgence. But his sincerity is very real and his frustration at his inability to reconcile these two extremes is palpable.
The extended essay on the Soviet Union was written at a time when Stalin was even being lauded by the likes of ultra conservative politician, media mogul and hereditary peer Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook. The Red Army’s inexorable sweep west had yet to become the iron curtain and yet that’s exactly what Koestler foresees. His dissenting voice in the wilderness misconstrued not only by the left but also the right.
Having “listened” to Koestler describe the 1930s & 40’s I was left contemplating the similarities between the proxy war currently being fought in the Ukraine and the Spanish Civil War in which Koestler cut his teeth as a writer. It wasn’t a nice thought.
I’ll be reading ‘Spanish Testament’ soon to complete the trio and having another go at ‘Darkness At Noon’. But first some of Alan Bennett’s diaries are in order. I need to cheer myself up a bit.
I met an elderly couple originally from Fulham in the park a few weeks back. We talked about politics and they told me that for many years they’d been members of the CPGB. Ours is a god forsaken reactionary little town so I was rather taken aback. This chance encounter led me to pick up a copy of Koestler’s biography and that in turn led me to ‘The Yogi &..’
Even from a very short conversation their disillusionment with politics was self-evident and left me wondering about their journey from the high ideals of a radical youth to the reluctant acknowledgment of the truth about Soviet communism. What was the final nail in their communist coffin? It can’t have been Budapest ‘56. Prague ‘68 maybe? Or do they, like Koestler did in ‘44, still cling to a progressive ideology of some kind? Hopefully I’ll run into them again so I can ask.
‘Darkness At Noon’ aside, Michael Scammell’s biography cites Koestler’s autobiographical books as being amongst his best and by chance I already had two of the three he identifies. ‘Spanish Testament’ about the 6 months he spent in one of Franco’s Spanish jails waiting to be summarily executed and ‘Scum Of The Earth’ detailing his experiences in a Vichy France prison camp for undesirables. As a Jewish Communist he fitted that description perfectly. ‘The Yogi & The Commissar’ completes this autobiographical trilogy and with WWII moving towards an Allied victory and his renouncement of the Soviet Union it comprehensively summarises his state of mind at the end of that tumultuous era.
Beginning with the eponymous article ‘The Yogi &..’ he explores the conflict arising from two approaches to achieving a better world. The yogi who looks for the key within and the commissar who looks without. For the former the means are sacrosanct for the latter they can be justified by the end. An idea that was also at the centre of his novel ‘Darkness’.
I don’t pretend to understand everything that Koestler writes, at times he verges upon (dare I say it?) self indulgence. But his sincerity is very real and his frustration at his inability to reconcile these two extremes is palpable.
The extended essay on the Soviet Union was written at a time when Stalin was even being lauded by the likes of ultra conservative politician, media mogul and hereditary peer Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook. The Red Army’s inexorable sweep west had yet to become the iron curtain and yet that’s exactly what Koestler foresees. His dissenting voice in the wilderness misconstrued not only by the left but also the right.
Having “listened” to Koestler describe the 1930s & 40’s I was left contemplating the similarities between the proxy war currently being fought in the Ukraine and the Spanish Civil War in which Koestler cut his teeth as a writer. It wasn’t a nice thought.
I’ll be reading ‘Spanish Testament’ soon to complete the trio and having another go at ‘Darkness At Noon’. But first some of Alan Bennett’s diaries are in order. I need to cheer myself up a bit.
December 6, 2019
Just read the main essay. Kinda amusing the way he describes the general thought on a spectrum. Might seem obvious but worth a read!
January 22, 2015
Arthur Koestler's essays in this collection were published in 1945, most of them having been written during World War II. A quick glance reveals that though the context has drastically changed since then, the book still has a large number of insights to offer. As someone who has worn his heart on the left for most of his life, this turned out to be doubly rewarding.
Koestler believes that human history has produced two kinds of responses to its condition. The Yogi believes that change can be brought about only by changing man from within, the revolutionary (or the "Commissar") believes that it can only be brought about from without. The French Revolution established the Commissar Age which culminated in the Russian Revolution. It's failure in the rest of Europe leads Koestler to believe that the pendulum had begun to the swerve towards the Yogic end since the 1930s.
He co-relates the perceived change with the new developments in physics that is prescient of New Age writers like Frijtof Capra and who became popular during the 1990s, the decade when the original Commissar State- the Soviet Union fell under its own weight.
Some of the essays in the collection are clearly dated. The ones that I found most engaging were in the first section of the book called "Meanderings", particularly the title essay "Yogi and the Commissar", "The Reader's Dilemma" and "The Intelligentsia." The others are more contextual and I skipped that held no interest for me. I would suggest any potential reader to do so, as reading it end to end might not be always easy or fruitful reading.
Koestler believes that human history has produced two kinds of responses to its condition. The Yogi believes that change can be brought about only by changing man from within, the revolutionary (or the "Commissar") believes that it can only be brought about from without. The French Revolution established the Commissar Age which culminated in the Russian Revolution. It's failure in the rest of Europe leads Koestler to believe that the pendulum had begun to the swerve towards the Yogic end since the 1930s.
He co-relates the perceived change with the new developments in physics that is prescient of New Age writers like Frijtof Capra and who became popular during the 1990s, the decade when the original Commissar State- the Soviet Union fell under its own weight.
Some of the essays in the collection are clearly dated. The ones that I found most engaging were in the first section of the book called "Meanderings", particularly the title essay "Yogi and the Commissar", "The Reader's Dilemma" and "The Intelligentsia." The others are more contextual and I skipped that held no interest for me. I would suggest any potential reader to do so, as reading it end to end might not be always easy or fruitful reading.
March 21, 2020
Enjoyable as a historical document with some original and enjoyable insights into the socialist movement of the 1930s and 40s. Much like George Orwell, Koestler was a left intellectual committed in theory to the triumph of socialism but completely cast adrift by the behaviour of the Soviet Union in practice. Unlike Orwell, however, he was a legitimate Communist in his time, and his insights are backed up genuine involvement in the communist movement, rather than occasional revolutionary tourism. Particularly illuminating are the title essay, his psycho-analysis of the interwar Intelligensia and "Scum of the Earth", which documents his time in a French concentration camp as a refugee from the fallen Spanish Republic.
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November 21, 2020“Why would the NBA take $500 million dollars-plus from a country that is engaging in ethnic cleansing?” Megyn Kelly perguntou a Mark Cuban, um dos donos da NBA.
“So basically, you’re saying nobody should do business with China ever,” Mark Cuban repondeu.
“Why won’t you just answer my question?”
“Because they are a customer,” disse o dono dos MAVs. “They are a customer of ours, and guess what, Megyn? I’m OK with doing business with China. And so we have to pick our battles. I wish we could solve all the world’s problems. But we can’t.”
Desde que ouvi essa entrevista, lembro desse livro. Enquanto esperava mulher e sogra escolher vestidos e olhar vitrines num shopping a caminho de Porto de Galinhas; no meu conforto e bem estar, puxei meu kindle e li o trecho que segue abaixo. Se a vitória na WWII foi a base da Nova Ordem Mundial, a inabilidade do "Mundo Livre" de lidar com a China é a maior hipocrisia dos nossos tempos, a prova de sua falência moral. A ruína física seguirá por consequência.
--------------
Thus we all live in a state of split consciousness. There is a tragic plane and a trivial plane, which contain. two mutually incompatible kinds of experienced knowledge. Their climate and language are as different as Church Latin from business slang. These limitations of awareness account for the limitations of enlightenment by propaganda. People go to cinemas, they see films of Nazi tortures, of mass-shootings, of underground conspiracy and self-sacrifice. They sigh, they shake their heads, some have a good cry. But they do not connect it with the realities of their normal plane of existence. It is Romance, it is Art, it is Those Higher Things, it is Church Latin. It does not click with reality. We live in a society of the Jekyll and Hyde pattern, magnified into gigantic proportions.
This was, however, not always the case to the same extent. There were periods and movements in history-in Athens, in the early Renaissance, during the first years of the Russian Revolution-when at least certain representative layers of society had attained a relatively high level of mental integration; times, when people seemed to rub their eyes and come awake, when their cosmic awareness seemed to expand, when they were “contemporaries” in a much broader and fuller sense; when the trivial and the cosmic planes seemed on the point of fusing. And there were periods of disintegration and dissociation. But never before, not even during the spectacular decay of Rome and Byzantium, was split thinking so palpably evident, such a uniform mass-disease; never did human psychology reach such a height of phoneyness. Our awareness seems to shrink in direct ratio as communications expand; the world is open to us as never before, and we walk about as prisoners, each in his private portable cage.
And meanwhile the watch goes on ticking. What can the screamers do but go on screaming, until they get blue in the face? I know one who used to tour this country addressing meetings, at an average of ten a week. He is a well-known London publisher. Before each meeting he used to lock himself up in a room, close his eyes, and imagine in detail, for twenty minutes, that he was one of the people in Poland who were killed. One day he tried to feel what it was like to be suffocated by chloride gas in a death-train; the other he had to dig his grave with two hundred others and then face a machine gun, which, of course, is rather unprecise and capricious in its aiming. Then he walked out to the platform and talked. He kept going for a full year before he collapsed with a nervous breakdown. He had a great command of his audiences and perhaps he has done some good, perhaps he brought the two planes, divided by miles of distance, an inch closer to each other. I think one should imitate this example. Two minutes of this kind of exercise per day, with closed eyes, after reading the morning paper, are at present more necessary to us than physical jerks and breathing the Yogi way. It might even be a substitute for going to church. For as long as there are people on the road and victims in the thicket, divided by dream barriers, this will remain a phoney civilisation.
“So basically, you’re saying nobody should do business with China ever,” Mark Cuban repondeu.
“Why won’t you just answer my question?”
“Because they are a customer,” disse o dono dos MAVs. “They are a customer of ours, and guess what, Megyn? I’m OK with doing business with China. And so we have to pick our battles. I wish we could solve all the world’s problems. But we can’t.”
Desde que ouvi essa entrevista, lembro desse livro. Enquanto esperava mulher e sogra escolher vestidos e olhar vitrines num shopping a caminho de Porto de Galinhas; no meu conforto e bem estar, puxei meu kindle e li o trecho que segue abaixo. Se a vitória na WWII foi a base da Nova Ordem Mundial, a inabilidade do "Mundo Livre" de lidar com a China é a maior hipocrisia dos nossos tempos, a prova de sua falência moral. A ruína física seguirá por consequência.
--------------
Thus we all live in a state of split consciousness. There is a tragic plane and a trivial plane, which contain. two mutually incompatible kinds of experienced knowledge. Their climate and language are as different as Church Latin from business slang. These limitations of awareness account for the limitations of enlightenment by propaganda. People go to cinemas, they see films of Nazi tortures, of mass-shootings, of underground conspiracy and self-sacrifice. They sigh, they shake their heads, some have a good cry. But they do not connect it with the realities of their normal plane of existence. It is Romance, it is Art, it is Those Higher Things, it is Church Latin. It does not click with reality. We live in a society of the Jekyll and Hyde pattern, magnified into gigantic proportions.
This was, however, not always the case to the same extent. There were periods and movements in history-in Athens, in the early Renaissance, during the first years of the Russian Revolution-when at least certain representative layers of society had attained a relatively high level of mental integration; times, when people seemed to rub their eyes and come awake, when their cosmic awareness seemed to expand, when they were “contemporaries” in a much broader and fuller sense; when the trivial and the cosmic planes seemed on the point of fusing. And there were periods of disintegration and dissociation. But never before, not even during the spectacular decay of Rome and Byzantium, was split thinking so palpably evident, such a uniform mass-disease; never did human psychology reach such a height of phoneyness. Our awareness seems to shrink in direct ratio as communications expand; the world is open to us as never before, and we walk about as prisoners, each in his private portable cage.
And meanwhile the watch goes on ticking. What can the screamers do but go on screaming, until they get blue in the face? I know one who used to tour this country addressing meetings, at an average of ten a week. He is a well-known London publisher. Before each meeting he used to lock himself up in a room, close his eyes, and imagine in detail, for twenty minutes, that he was one of the people in Poland who were killed. One day he tried to feel what it was like to be suffocated by chloride gas in a death-train; the other he had to dig his grave with two hundred others and then face a machine gun, which, of course, is rather unprecise and capricious in its aiming. Then he walked out to the platform and talked. He kept going for a full year before he collapsed with a nervous breakdown. He had a great command of his audiences and perhaps he has done some good, perhaps he brought the two planes, divided by miles of distance, an inch closer to each other. I think one should imitate this example. Two minutes of this kind of exercise per day, with closed eyes, after reading the morning paper, are at present more necessary to us than physical jerks and breathing the Yogi way. It might even be a substitute for going to church. For as long as there are people on the road and victims in the thicket, divided by dream barriers, this will remain a phoney civilisation.
December 23, 2023
Arthur Koestler was a reformed communist. Once disabused of his notions that dictators could create a utopian state, Koestler set to inform others of the deception he once embraced. This exposé was for me a tough read and I slogged through it with little comprehension of the first quarter of the novel. The middle was, for me, more comprehensible and the later portion brought clarity to Koestler's powerful debasement of communism's tyranny.
September 25, 2024
If anyone would like to take a peek into what it is like to live in a world that no longer encourages independent thinking or expression, is led by people more interested in themselves over those that placed them in leadership roles, and openly encourages oppression and violence . . . This book is for you. If you are already depressed with current events, you may be cheered by the challenge of seeking the pearls of wisdom within the pages as well.
November 22, 2021
Excellent
November 9, 2024
Some insightful writings on the issues and characters of the time.
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January 29, 2017My diary records that it was dire but my personal tutor made me read it for a tutorial.
January 7, 2015
Some articles are a bit out-of-date but still impressive!
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