The Cult of Suffering
More random excerpts for now. This is from "The artist as an exemplary sufferer," Susan Sontag's essay on Italian writer Cesare Pavese.
"Everyone knows that we have a different, much more emphatic view of love between the sexes than the ancient Greeks and the Orientals, and that the modern view of love is an extension of the spirit of Christianity, in however attenuated and secularized a form. But the cult of love is not, as Rougemont claims, a Christian heresy. Christianity is, from its inception (Paul), the romantic religion. The cult of love in the West is an aspect of the cult of suffering - suffering as the supreme token of seriousness (the paradigm of the Cross). We do not find among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and the Orientals the same value placed on love because we do not find there the same positive value placed on suffering. Suffering was not the hallmark of seriousness; rather, seriousness was measured by one's ability to evade or transcend the penalty the suffering, by one's ability to achieve tranquility and equilibrium. In contrast, the sensibility we have inherited identifies spirituality and seriousness with turbulence, suffering, passion. For two thousand years, among Christians and Jews, it has been spiritually fashionable to be in pain. This is not love which we overvalue, but suffering - more precisely, the spiritual merits and benefits of suffering.
The modern contribution to this Christian sensibility has been to discover the making of works of art and the venture of sexual love as the two most exquisite sources of suffering. It is this that we look for in a writer's diary, and which Pavese provides in disquieting abundance."
7 comments:
I had read Sontag's essay on Pavese and last year decided to read him. i got his selected works and read one novel....don't even remember the name now....frankly got bored. i intend to try again in the future.
re this excerpt....the whole notion of this suffering comes from the historical appreciation of the events of Christ's life and if i am permitted, to fetishize his suffering, on the cross etc. it is a symbolic marriage of greek thought into christian sensibility which has little to do with Jewish values pre-holocaust. it finds expression later through Freud as psychic pus and took on the form of psychoanalysis, of hidden desires and unconscious guilt. somehow i find this whole area of thinking quite boring.
life and action in the Islamic belief system is more positive and direct with man in direct link and subservience to God without guilt, unconscious desires, motives etc. there are no sufferings to suffer for now. but then these are merely ways of understanding.
i might have digressed.
in the past, you have accused me of being sensitive re the oriental attitude of western writers. i don't mind it.
Reading this excerpt again, i find what Sontag writes ridiculous. deconstructing it, it means love is an alien thing for the "others"
"We do not find among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and the Orientals the same value placed on love because we do not find there the same positive value placed on suffering". this is the quote.
can anything be more vain? can an American writer be more extravagantly superfluous? in one sentence, she has lumped and destroyed the historical sensibility of entire people......the very notion of love with suffering is common to us all.....in Hindu civilization, suffering with love as i understand from the epic literatures and elsewhere too. what about the majnun...laila....and others.....
in christianity per se, not the roman christianity, Christ was not born to redeem anyone.....this whole concept of redeeming things, of being born without grace, in sin is a jolt to aesthetic sensibility.
a hundred years of modern literature and still this Sontagian senselessness. pardon me, this excerpt on second reading is what Contrapuntal reading teaches. this piece is a form of myth making, a revolting form of self perpetuating suffering.
do excuse me though. i used to admire Sontag.....but in the end.......what small fish her writing is......
or else, i have completely misunderstood it.
I am never comfortable with these cultural labels and their associations. What I found of interest in the passage is that some cultures value equanimity and peace with seriousness and spirituality and some others value unrest and pain as marks of authentic and spiritual existence. And in this sense an artist and a poet becomes somewhat of a religious Christ-like figure (an exemplary sufferer) in his suffering.
I do think in hindu/islamic/buddhist cultures there is more stress on equanimity, peace and detachment and that this cult of suffering is not so widespread in their literature or philosophy. Suffering is something that must be avoided through rigorous detachment from wordly matters...quite the opposite of "Suffering is the origin of all consciousness" as Dostoevsky (a very Christian writer) said.
picking: the notion of rigorous detachment from worldly affairs stems from the notion that suffering is essentially part of our life or as in buddhist terms: "we are born into a world filled with suffering" which essentially goes with that Dostoevsky (Christian) quote.
yes but eastern philosophies do stress on ways to *avoid* the suffering... it doesn't fetishize it like for example the suffering of Christ is done in Christianity. Dostoevsky on the other extreme says that without pain there will be no self-knowledge and that suffering holds the key to self-consciousness. this is a complex topic and i am obviously not well-read in this religious, philosophical matters. from the life of many modern artists one seems to get this idea that peace and equanimity are somehow "boring" aesthetically and only unrest and pain can inspire. there is probably some truth in this and that is what Sontag talks about in this essay.
There is no emphasis on detachment in Islam...action is essential. Islam they say is the desert....man on his own with a direct attachment so to say with God. predestination has been debated amongst islamic philosphers and some have gone on to say that one can go about and change everything destined.....if someone believes in that.
May be it is present in the mystical traditions within Islam. Anyway when people say Eastern religions they generally don't really include Islam in it...
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