Thomas Merton, The Behavior of Titans (New York: A New Directions Book, 1961).
St. Justin Martyr refers to Herakleitos, along with Socrates, as a “Saint” of pre-Christian paganism…the logos of Herakleitos seems to have much in common with the Tao of Lao-tse as well as with the Word of St. John. (Thomas Merton)
Fools, when they do hear, are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present. (Herakleitos)
He that is awake lights up from sleeping. (Herakleitos)
There is a kind of self-fulfillment that fulfills nothing but your illusory self. (Br. Steindl-Rast)
I have recently been rereading the rather informed and amusing The Way it Wasn’t: From the Files of James Laughlin (2006). Laughlin was the energy and inspiration behind A New Directions Book Press, and he published many of Thomas Merton’s books. Laughlin has a few tantalizing tidbits about Merton in The Way it Wasn’t. It was Laughlin that published Merton’s The Behavior of Titans in 1961, and to this Perennial relevant and compact missive (50 years later) we now turn.
The Behavior of Titans is divided into 3 parts with two sections in each part. Part I: ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Atlas and the Fat Man’ have decided theological and political leanings. Part II: ‘Letter to an Innocent Bystander’ and ‘A Signed Confession of Crimes Against the State’ are definitely political. Part III: Herakleitos the Obscure’ and ‘The Legacy of Herakleitos’ are discerningly philosophical and contemplative.
‘Prometheus’ is Merton turning to the complex nature of the Classical Greek tradition for insight and wisdom. The figure of Prometheus in ancient thought brings to the fore a mixed message. What is the message and why is Hesiod’s read of Prometheus different from Aeschylus and what difference does it make? Merton sees in the different interpretations of Prometheus by Aeschylus and Hesiod polarized notions of God and how the Greeks (and us) often interpret the nature of God. It is these two faces of Prometheus that intrigued Merton. Zeus was the high and ultimate God in Greek myth. But, who was Zeus? Hesiod portrayed Zeus as a stern and wrathful being who demanded obedience and punished those who disobeyed with anger and vengeance. Humans feared and trembled before Zeus, and Zeus brooked no opposition or questions. The Zeus of Hesiod ordered the cosmos and all were expected to comply. Needless to say, humans felt like docile pawns and deprived of much. Prometheus dared to question Hesiod’s Zeus and invade the sacred realm in search of fire (that Zeus kept from humans).
Zeus discovered the plot of Prometheus, captured him and punished him in a vicious and violent manner. When the earth and ocean (Hera, Demeter, Athena) opposed Zeus, he also turned on them. Prometheus, like Demeter, Hera and Athena felt that they had to challenge and steal their freedom and identity from Zeus (inner fire of life). Zeus was the enemy of the longing of the soul for meaning and purpose. Such was the Zeus of Hesiod. The Prometheus of Aeschylus stands in stark contrast to the Prometheus of Hesiod. Prometheus becomes a Christ-like figure who embodies our very longings for our true identity. Prometheus is the hero not the villain in Aeschylus. We do not need to fear and cringe before this Prometheus-Christ figure----he is willing to suffer to bring us the fire of our eternal being. The image of Zeus remains the problem, of course, but when Prometheus is seen as the giver of light, life and fire who will be freed by Herakles (son of the earth), we come to see that the deeper we probe into the gifts of Nature, the closer we come to receiving our eternal identity. Much hinges on how God is interpreted. Do we see God as the Zeus of Hesiod who punishes Prometheus (us) for reaching out for the fire of life, or do we see the Prometheus-Christ-Nature metaphor as a gift offered to us of our new and eternal being? The same sort of question can be asked about the God (Jehovah, Elohim, El-Shaddai) of the Hebrew canon. There is tender mercy, long suffering patience, gentleness, kindness and mercy, and there is the Zeus like command-obedience, war-god, violent and brutal to those that dare to question or oppose the divine injunctions. Whose god do we see and why?
‘Atlas and the Fat Man’ builds on, in significant ways, ‘Prometheus’. The Prometheus of Aeschylus was the giver of life and a faithful child of the Earth and the Ocean. There is a primitive and primordial depth to Nature that we can only know by being still, listening, heeding and hearing. We allow these ancient truths to enter the soul and skin and make us anew. But, humans often are driven to shape and remake, purge and pollute, convert Nature into an image of their distorted and egoistic will to power. Atlas, for Merton, represents the force of Nature that holds all things together. The Fat Man is bloated humankind (number 666) who naively and falsely assumes, through the force of will and technology, Nature can be tamed, controlled and domesticated to serve such inflated and unrealistic expectations. Merton in this short story was ahead of his time with his view of Nature and the Fat Man. We are slowly catching up to what Merton saw all so clearly in the 1950s. The Fat Man has created a global web of control that is meant to serve and suit his questionable longings. Atlas will, though, let it be known that the Fat Man might think he controls and dominates Nature, but this is just a silly illusion. When Atlas choses to rise and shake shoulders and arms, legs and feet, the Fat Man will know he knows not.
‘Letter to an Innocent Bystander’ and ‘A Signed Confession of Crimes against the State’ are illuminating missives about the reasons for cynicism, scepticism and withdrawal by the intellectual class from the hard political questions of the time. When the Fat Man faces no opposition or questioning, and Atlas has not yet risen to bring down the Fat Man, there can be much tragedy and suffering. Those who see all too clearly what is going on often retreat from the fray. Yeats summed it up well: ‘the best lack all conviction and the worst (Fat Man) are full of passionate intensity’. Merton was deeply concerned that those with insight and wisdom need not and should not turn aside from the hard and demanding issues of their age. Such a retreat yet furthers the ambitions of the Fat Man. The dilemma, though, for those who see what must be seen is to know how to act with wisdom in the service of Atlas-Prometheus-Christ. What is the nature of the inner and interior life that makes for the best form of receptivity to the living Spirit?
Who are those who have dared to question and doubt the dominance of a frantic activism and brittle rationalism? How do we, in the modern and postmodern age, reverse centuries of a shallow way of knowing and being and return to a more contemplative and meditative way of living from the depths of the soul and for society. The final section doffs the cap to one of the finest of the Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, Herakleitos, as one who was awake and not absent when present.
Both ‘Herakleitos: A Study’ and ‘the Legacy of Herakleitos’ have a Heideggerian feel to them. Heidegger turned to the wisdom of the Pre-Socratics and their attentive atunement to the dynamic nature of reality. The etymology of Herakleitos is most instructive. Hera was the leading female goddess of the Greek pantheon, and ‘kleitos’ is the Greek word that means to ‘be called’. HeraKleitis, therefore, was called by Hera to articulate what it meant to be truly open to the Divine. Merton compares, in this final section, the wisdom tradition of both Proverbs and the apocryphal book, Wisdom, with the calling of Herakleitos. It is significant that both wisdom (Sophia) and Hera are females, and it is they who walk the committed and open into the fullness of the Divine life. Merton was about to do his doctoral studies on G.M. Hopkins before becoming a Cistercian monk, and Hopkins poetry is infused with the philosophy of Herakleitos. Again, we return to the metaphor of fire. Why fire? Fire is energy, and, at its best, it burns dross from gold. And, it is to the gold of our new and Divine being that both Herakleitos, Hopkins and Merton point. Merton quoted from Hopkins as he concludes the article: ‘Million fuelled, nature’s bonfire burns on….world’s wildfire leaves but ash…..I am all at once what Christ is….immortal diamond’. The dominant symbol that Herakleitos is known for is fire. It is fire that brings forth the ‘immortal diamond within that is our divinization. The burning, of course, is painful, but the pure and cleansed diamond shines forth the multileveled beauty of eternity. The final section, ‘The Legacy of Herakleitos’ threads together the many wise insights of Herakleitos in an aphoristic manner---well worth the meditative read and reread.
We live in an age and ethos driven by false notions of the self that lead from one illusion to another. How do we find the ‘immortal diamond’ within and allow such a diamond to shine forth? Merton has offered us a variety of titans in The Behavior of Titans. There are titans such as Hesiod-Homer’s Zeus-Prometheus, the Fat Man, indulgent and cynical intellectuals and mediocre people are present but absent. There are titans such as the Prometheus of Aeschylus, Atlas, Hera and Herakleitos that can massage our soul into health and healing. Much hinges on the titan we choose to hear, heed and follow.
Ron Dart
To Mr Dart and Mr Jersak:
Thank you very much for your replies! It has encouraged me to continue reading this website and has revealed to me that Red Toryism is not just limited to English Canada.
Idrian
Posted by: Idrian B | August 31, 2011 at 11:39 AM
Dear Idrian,
You might be interested to know that Grant’s father wrote an excellent book on the French, Canada and Quebec, and the BC public educational system would not allow it to be used in schools. Grant tended to be quite worried about the way English speaking Canada had capitulated to the modern liberal ethos, whereas Grant saw in the more conservative (conservative in the deeper sense of the word) pre-60s Quebec the last hold out against liberal modernity. I co-edited a book a few years ago for University of Toronto Press called, ‘Athens and Jerusalem: George Grant’s Theology, Philosophy, and Politics’. The tome has 2 good articles in it on Grant and Quebec: ‘Grant and Quebec’ and ‘Echoes of George Grant in Late Boomer Critiques of Post-Quiet Revolution Quebec’. I’m sure you’d find both articles informed and instructive.
Ron Dart
Posted by: Ron Dart | August 29, 2011 at 10:34 PM
Thanks for this comment, Idrian. I will press Prof Dart to respond as well, but I would just say for now that the Conservatism of George Grant, for example, would definitely include a solid backstory in, and dependence on, Quebec.
If you visit http://www. theowlgeorgegrant.blogspot.com, the third item down is a classic interview with Grant, in which he says that Canada (and its conservative tradition) 'cannot be thought' apart from Quebec.
We would welcome further comments from you on this from a Quebecer's point of view. Thank you!
Posted by: Brad Jersak | August 29, 2011 at 05:32 AM
Hello Mr Dart. I am a regular visitor to this site from Surrey, BC. Although I do not agree or believe all of what is said here (or rather have a difficult time in accepting them), I have to say that this site is different from other sites that I've visited. Maybe it is the "holiness" or "spirituality" of it. Anyway, I want to ask if this site, this journal has links or relations to any organisation or journal in Quebec. I think, I guess that for this website - or the cause of true, genuine conservatism or Toryism - to even be spread and made known to Canadians, Quebec conservatism and its nature & history must be taken into account and looked at. May our God bless this journal and all those involved in it.
Posted by: Idrian B. | August 29, 2011 at 12:58 AM