Fate and More

I wonder what knowledge is of most worth? I have somewhere written: in Ralph Waldo Emerson there is a fine mixture of idealism and pragmatism. Fate, Emerson says in his essay by that name, “is what must be overcome.” Fate is the name we give to whatever obstructs us. Fate is what humans cannot change: “The book of Nature is the book of Fate,” Emerson writes. Nature is the shape of things that must be and to which we are to some degree subservient: Emerson uses the examples of the sheathed snake, the locomotive that works effectively on tracks but is of service nowhere else, or skates that slide along on ice but on dry ground “are but fetters.” Of course, modern science is busy at work trying to outdo Nature, but science, too, like the locomotive, has its limits that must be overcome. It seems that no sooner than one health crisis passes than another appears, and that with every technological advance that seem to improve our lot comes disadvantages that must be confronted and overcome. I think here of the uses of social media that change the opportunities and nature of personal communication and relationships.
     But Fate is also “the name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.” And so Fate here must be overcome, and accomplished not by brute force because Nature cannot be defeated, but by the activity of thought: “Intellect annuls Fate.” Consistent with his Divinity School Address, Emerson says that a thinking man is always free and therefore, though subject to Fate, always by his intellect able to overcome it. The world cannot be bent to suit the individual, but the individual can meet the world and make it available. “Thought dissolves the material universe by carrying the mind up into a sphere where all is plastic. Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character.” I have thought so for a time and prefer books and journals to standing weights always.
     Emerson acknowledges that intellect alone is insufficient without will—the willingness to act. Without will, Emerson accuses, we are cowards-- though Lord Jim jumps into the life boat, he abandons the ship and those yet aboard. Acting by cowardly impulse and not by will, Jim says, “I had jumped . . . it seems . . . I knew nothing till I looked up . . . I wish I could die.” He knew not what he did. Emerson prefigures this idea that appears in Camus’ The Plague. Rieux writes, “But what does that mean--’plague’? Just life, no more than that” (307).  A very pessimistic view, perhaps, but one where the human possibility for good is great. As Dylan would say, “It’s just life and life only!” But life must be action: Dylan cautions that “He not busy being born is busy dying!” For both Emerson and Camus that decision to act—to exercise the will—is a moral act. Emerson says, “All insight is useless without will,” the courage to act. The idealist in Emerson trusts that the act will transform evil into good, or at least, ease the suffering of others until facts are well considered and causes understood. And Camus’ Father Paneloux demands, “My brothers, each one of us must be one who stays!” We cannot abandon our responsibility: we have obligations. And Dr. Rieux “resolved to compile this chronicle,” so that he “should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”  The intuive act is followed by its narrative and a truth appears. Perhaps this is how we learn. Perhaps this knowledge of most worth might be the space of our classrooms: by the direction of our will to bear witness to the plague-stricken people, to act in the service of the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our midst.