Some years ago I saw an interview with the folksinger Odetta who, when
asked for her influences, responded by saying she preferred to think
of it as those who had provided encouragement. Otto Rank himself, as a
chapter epigraph for his book "Art and Artist" chose these words from
Goethe: "Not in that he leaves something behind him, but in that he
works and enjoys and stirs others to work and enjoyment, does man's
importance lie."
The theme of The Mighty Quinn is "a pessimism of the intellect and
optimism of the will," a hope expressed on behalf of mankind - just
through the sufferings of World War I - by Antomio Gramsci, an Italian
political philosopher. Using the work of Kurt Godel and Otto Rank in
support of this theme -to provide its elements - is an innovation.
Esther Menaker refers to Heisenberg and Einstein and their
achievements in the realm of discoveries of decidability early on in
her book "Otto Rank: A Rediscovered Legacy," and put them metaphorical
steps away from Godel, but she doesn't go as far as Godel in linkage.
Another close-run thing is discussed at sufficient length within the
The Mighty Quinn.
There are certainly other ways this theme has been stated without the
support of the work of Godel and Rank. Verlyn Klinkenborg, an
editorial writer for The New York Times, is responsible for one: "Man
suffers far more capably than he reasons." Ludwig Wittgenstein came up
with yet another. In his Wittgenstein biography, "The Duty Of Genius,"
Ray Monk reported that his subject "...often remarked that the problem
of writing good philosophy and of thinking well about philosophical
problems was one of the will more than of the intellect - the will to
resist the temptation to misunderstand, the will to resist
superficiality."
Many years ago John Keats put it in a way that nicely parallels (if I
may say so) the theme of The Mighty Quinn. Keats' formulation has come
to be known by the phrase "Negative Capability," and runs "a state of
being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable
reaching after fact and reason." This book could be said to seek to
have a "negative" influence - that and the studious avoidance of a
one-party state.
Bob Dylan's work has always been hugely encouraging to me, and of the
considerable work inspired by his work, I owe a significant debt to
those of Paul Williams and Greil Marcus. (Marcus' book about the
Basement Tapes, originally titled "Invisible Republic," has given me a
central notion very valuable to my book's project of democratic
advocacy - what the regime in Burma is busy crushing is an invisible
republic.) Marcus' liner notes to the official release of The Basement
Tapes speak of a sense of "mystery" - that mystery is the
incompleteness Godel proved, and what Rank knew as the irrational.
Paul Williams phrase "purposefulness and a freedom from purpose" can
be found on page 229 of his book "Bob Dylan Performing Artist
1960-1973 The Early Years." Williams' phrase is a simpler version of
Gramsci's, and points to an even simpler one: freedom.
The peace process in Northern Ireland was informed by Gramsci's
notion, and the substance added to it by The Mighty Quinn can only
increase its effectiveness. In a comment published in June 10, 1996
issue of The New Yorker, Bernard Avishai asked, "What is democracy
itself if not a peace process?" Democracy is a peace process; in fact,
democracy is the optimal outcome of any peace process.
If I were to be asked "how did this - the joining of the work of Godel
and Rank - happen to you?" I would first mention Anatole Broyard's
two-day review of Ernest Beckers' "The Denial Of Death." I first read
of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's
Rainbow," but without apparent effect. One day, as I was leaving a
bookstore, a book with the title "The Illusion Of Technique" caught my
eye. Thinking that a Rankian idea, I bought it and soon found myself
reading about "discoveries of decidability" - "These 'limitative
theorems' should be called 'liberating theorems'", as William Barrett
wrote of achievements such as Godel's. There should be a place for
serendipity in any vision of freedom.
"We must try harder to
understand than to explain. The way forward is not in the mere
construction of universal systematic solutions, to be applied to
reality from the outside; it is also in seeking to get to the heart of
reality through personal experience.... Human uniqueness, human action
and the human spirit must be rehabilitated."
-Vaclav Havel
"I know my head is my worst enemy
Swallowed too much of it and started to believe
I know my heart is my worst enemy
Swallowed too much of it and started to believe."
-Sleater-Kinney, "Living In Exile"
Images -- Photo of
protestors from negative99.com,
Photo of jukeboxes from
www.jukeboxservices.co.uk
