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April 13, 2009

Our sense of dignity and our pride would have us believe that we are autonomous. Everything that leaves us is by our own choosing, bearing the stamp of our self. Every act, word, and breath leaves a trail of merit or demerit, stretching back to the origin deep within us.

A strong notion of ownership is, however, confused. Such possession is impossible. Such autonomy is beyond us. Do not stick doggedly to it. For how does the path reach ourselves when the origin of the object (the act, word, or breath) is in a mood, a sickness, or some other disturbance? Where is the glory for the thing said when it was the result of constipation, a cold, or a scarcely noticeable itch? How much of what we do is the consequence of something we had no part in bringing about?

The Stoics understood this problem and a visual is attributed to them as an apology for their disavowal of free will. Thinking everything a man does is determined by some other force (i.e., Nature), they still felt a need for responsibility. How could a man ever be responsible when he is not autonomous? How can we blame the machine for turning out bolts when it is simply a bolt-making machine?

If we construe responsibility in terms of causality, the need can be provided for. In this sense, we can blame a waterwheel for contents downstream, not because the waterwheel freely chose to turn, but because its boards touched the water and thereby had a hand in moving it along.

This picture, where a man can be condemned for being a man--where his responsibility is borne out of that very place where he is not responsible at all (his facticity, his existence)--warrants despair. But does not the alternative, that of radical responsibility--where a man is always a step beyond his circumstances and picks everything--warrant as much despair? Does it not warrant more? For in the former case, a person is responsible because she was born, whereas in the latter case, a person is responsible because she chose to be born, chooses to live, and ultimately chooses to die?

Finding ourselves somewhere in the middle of these interpretations, how can we avoid the fission of helplessness and the fusion of vanity? By adhering to the humility that arises from ignorance, by learning from the odd situation we find ourselves in--that we cannot with any great certitude judge our own case. To live as though you were being judged, that you are to be praised or blamed, that the path leads from your acts, words, and breath to your self whilst never being sure that it does in the given moment. In this tension we are most at home, muddled beings that we are.