MATERIALISM, A FABLE
FOR A LONG time, everything went beautifully. No one had any complaints about the present state—we are speaking here of the state of the world, of Nature—and why would they? Nature, before it achieved consciousness of its tragic condition, about which more below, carried on in peace and deep contentment; it could have kept on doing so without end, as far as it was concerned. And wherever poets and philosophers stood up and plucked their lutes or opened their big mouths, they did nothing more passionately or with more conviction than praise the beauty and (despite everything they could see and feel in their own lives) harmony of the world.
And Nature herself knew how things were, namely good. Eternal wisdom had laid the measures of the earth, sunk its foundations, laid its cornerstone. Ancient wisdom made the turtles bury their eggs in the hot sand where the sun would incubate them. Truth, precise knowledge, and primordial power taught the mountain goats when they should go breed on the cliffs and when the hinds were with child.
Among human beings, we mustn’t neglect to mention, there were some dissenting voices. For example, in ancient Greece, during the time of Socrates (another real dissenter), there lived a certain Democritus, a prosperous man, a clever and idle mind, and incidentally a bon vivant as well. One day, when he didn’t know what he should do to pass the time, he counted up his money and said to himself, “Let’s take a trip. What do you think of Egypt, Democritus my old friend?”
This speech was irresistible and he set off on a tour, spending seven long years in Egypt. No one knows what exactly he did there, or what sorts of people the carefree fellow consorted with. The only certainty is that he returned with empty pockets and a theory. We must be allowed to reserve judgment about whether said theory was the only thing he had spent all his money on. Democritus’s contemporaries were certainly skeptical on this point, in any case, and didn’t want to hear a thing about his theory, only about the other things he had done in Egypt, and he told them about those things too, and it must have been a bright and pleasing tale he told, and afterward he lived on in Greece until his death at a great old age, in his ninetieth year, it was said, an exemplary figure in the opinion of his friends. However, we do not want to conceal from our readers what his theory looked like—a theory that perhaps contributed to the extension of his happy life.
There is actually nothing much to say about the world, the grinning wise man proclaimed—at least not much worth telling or knowing if we have our own interests at heart. The most important things in the world are the atoms. That’s right, atoms. They are the most important and, when you come right down to it, the only things. They exist in monstrously large number and fill infinite space. Their unimaginably massive quantity fills space to such an extent that there is no room left for emptiness. (Or for other things, as we will soon hear.) Who and what these “atoms” are can be stated in an instant: They are the smallest structures, indivisible particles, entirely alike, without the particular qualities we ascribe to natural things—heat, cold, color, etc. There is nothing hot and nothing cold, nothing bitter and nothing sweet, and iron and water are one and the same. It’s true, iron and water are one and the same for enlightened beings, because the same atoms are behind them both. What makes atoms different, or rather seem different, has to do with the speed with which they fall through space. Because in so doing, in their plummeting through enormous space, the atoms coalesce, form eddies and currents. Rotations arise. The theory recalls the Kant-Laplace theory of the origin of the world.
And so it leads to this visible, audible, tangible world of ours, with all its astonishing colorful variety. There are no miracles, only mechanics, strict regularity, calculability.
So much for Democritus, who some say came from Miletus, others say came from Abdera—the latter a city on the coast of Thrace, long since reduced to rubble, whose air, proverbially, caused stupidity.
•
The revelations of Democritus passed over the surface of the world without leaving a trace. Nature, in its innocence, continued to enjoy carrying on in the same cheerful childlike way as before. The plants, unconcerned with atoms—these dark fiends in their bellies—continued to burrow the fibers of their roots into the earth and happily draw up from it what tasted good to and agreed with them; they grew narrow and then ever broader leaves, took in one mixture of gases and breathed out another, without paying even the slightest attention to the highly complex chemical reactions taking place and, in point of fact, constituting it. They sluggishly let the sun shine on them and drank in the warm light as a child does sweet milk at its mother’s breast.
Later they even unfolded flowers and scattered seeds, and these were the only tasks the plants performed, with all of their passion, and could have performed for another hundred thousand years, and each generation passed on its blessing to the next. And when the grass fulfilled its biblical fate and withered, it had no objections, since it had done what it needed to do. The straw, the wheat, the rye and barley and oats let the human beings sow them year in and year out, and meekly let themselves be reaped. Mighty oaks, beech, and firs endured without complaint the appearance of woodcutters, cutting them down with their hatchets and turning the wood they had brought forth for entirely different purposes into planks and beams, so that the strong trees, after their death, underwent a metamorphosis into huts, and boats, into cabinets, doors, tables, chairs, and stairs, or reappeared as walking sticks, but without pain, without resistance or complaint.
And no different, no less happy, ever satisfied and steadfast, was the behavior of the animals of land, sea, and air. They too, trusting in the mysterious wisdom and power behind them, lived their lives brightly, cheerfully, and, if you will, unthinkingly—come what may. For the animals, including beetles, ants, and bees, did not lag behind the plants in their celebrations of life, and with dreamlike extravagance they cast child after child into the world regardless of whether or not there was any room for them.
Everything occurred in this way: Happy in its own skin, content, and securely protected.
—But lying in wait in the background was Democritus, the sinister man from Miletus, or Abdera.
•
And as time went on and people poked their noses into more and more of the world and grew cleverer and cleverer, they also realized that they had been sleeping until then, and they saw for the first time what life really was. Electrons, waves, vibrations in the ether: These formed the world. These were the true reality. These were real. We scatter feelings, thoughts, and ideas over these facts. We even imagine we act.
This great, stunning truth appeared among human beings and spread among them like wildfire.
And when, unavoidably, it spread to Nature too, to the plants and animals and elements, a great sadness commenced among them. They were shocked and shattered, overcome with fear, dread, horror.
Anyone who wonders how this happened—how the news reached Nature, and how it could have such an effect—should keep in mind that humanity enjoys great respect in Nature and, one might say, is considered its head. Various acts of carelessness had occurred. Professors had discussed the new theory at home, in the presence of their dogs; other dogs had escaped the labs where they had been subjected to various painful experiments in connection with the teachings; guinea pigs, vaccinated and unvaccinated, got away and told their speciesmates—and anyone else who was interested—what they had experienced. Among the white mice and the flies used for genetic experiments, the new teachings were soon on everyone’s lips.
From the dogs the information reached the cats, in the course of their usual quarrels, and from the cats, during various hunts for birds they wanted to stun, to the birds. (The news turned out to be excellent bait from the cats’ point of view: quite a number of birds were immediately paralyzed with amazement upon hearing it, so that their heads could be bitten off without any trouble.) The birds, born reporters, then carried the news far and wide, into the surrounding area and foreign lands.
•
What did they hear, what terrible news was conveyed to them then, vouched for by the authority of humankind? That they had not lived. They had only imagined it. Now it was known who actually lived. The mice and dogs could show the wounds from which the new teachings had been drawn on their own bodies, but as for who actually lived, the dogs and white mice and guinea pigs couldn’t say—the names were frightfully difficult, enigmatic, even most humans couldn’t pronounce them. The professors who had discovered the doctrines often stood up in front of a black board with a piece of chalk and wrote lots of numbers on it with letters in between and the whole thing was the name of the creature that actually lives. Basically there was nothing to say. It all happened between these numbers and letters. It was proven in test tubes and on blackboards. If you picked up a stone and asked it “What will you do when I let go of you?,” it can’t, if it’s honest, answer anything but “Fall, according to the equation d = 1/2 gt2.” Is that living? Is that a life? You have to admit, it was an unacceptable situation.
It was no different among the plants. Things here were more complicated, and that was an excuse to some extent. But they too realized: It was all a scam, false pretenses so that you would play along and stick it out, or actually who knows why. When carbon dioxide says A, chlorophyll says B. A dog wouldn’t want to live like that.
The venerable cow in her stall, nourisher of us all, the matron, what about her? She chewed her hay and let herself be milked. What was that if you called it by its real names? Manufacture, continuous production, fueling, carburetion, combustion, conversion, synthesis, dross, expulsion of dross, product. And this monotonous stupor was what we had thought was existence, life. This was what we identified ourselves with. Moreover, though it’s horrible to think about: We had actually thought it was fun. What a scam.
•
Depression and disappointment are expressed differently in Nature than among humankind, who always have crying, sobbing, and shrieking at their disposal. Nature, with few exceptions, was fundamentally set up for happiness. Now there was a great lamentation. I admit it: When I see how a materialist looks, I’m glad I’m not stuck in his skin.
On a country road leading to Maastricht, Holland, I once saw a strange motion on the ground: several stones, pebbles really, revolving around each other in perplexity, with the help of a surface wind they had entrusted themselves to. They were in complete despair. The surface wind stuck with them and helped them turn so that they could give suitable expression to their condition. It did not believe the story they were telling, it did not even understand it, because it, the wind, naturally felt free and untethered. The new revelation did not concern it, it thought, because it knew nothing of the necessary and sufficient conditions of its existence—warmth, cold, and their effects on air currents. It would be stripped of its criminal indifference soon enough.
Not far away, in a fallow field behind a windmill, a head-size stone with sharp edges had to be held in place by several of its friends, bricks and pebbles. It wanted to do something (no one knew what). It cried out in despair, it couldn’t stand it anymore. To spend its whole life like that: heavy, heavy, nothing but heavy, and unable to do what it wanted. Yes, well, what did it want to do? its friendly neighbor stones asked. It didn’t even know that, it admitted, and its ravings grew even worse. It was unbearable, it said, it had to put an end to it.
A boulder on the Finsteraarhorn in the Swiss Alps sat mightily enthroned above a mountainside. It had peered out so majestically into the distance that an observation tower had been built on it. It plummeted into the depths and shattered. When others told it that it wouldn’t escape its afflictions that way, the unhappy creature said that this was enough. There was more to come.
I traveled to an Indian jungle and witnessed the following event: A hyena was creeping along, looking for an audience. She ran into a tiger and communicated the situation to him. He held his nose, thinking this was one of the foul-smelling offerings that the lady usually aired. Then he started to pay attention, and had her stand downwind and repeat what she had to say. He scratched the back of his neck with his right back paw, stood thoughtfully with head lowered, yawned, and sauntered off.
He trotted into his den. His wife (he had a wife and seven cubs) was amazed to see him home so early (it was seven thirty in the morning, she had woken him up at six), and empty-handed too. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well, or maybe the vulture had crossed his path from right to left—the tiger was superstitious.
But he just growled angrily and retreated to his corner. Something must have happened to him, but what? And what was that suspicious smell on him? Hyena. That old gossipmonger. She’d give her a piece of her mind. What had that poisonous tattletale been telling him now, and was it about her? She needed to teach her a lesson. Mrs. Tiger picked up her shawl and set off at once.
Meanwhile he lay in his nook and listened gloomily to the squeaking of his seven hungry brats.
“The lot of them,” he thought. “Born dumb and stay dumb their whole life. Why are they mewling? What’s the point of getting worked up? They’re hungry. Well, they only think they’re hungry. It’s not about them at all. It’s a feeling, a sensation, all superstructure. If I brought them some meat they’d think they were full. It’s just hydrochloric acid reacting in their stomachs. What does hydrochloric acid have to do with them? Are we put on earth to do our hydrochloric acid’s bidding? Let it take care of its own reactions.”
The hyena had told him about hydrochloric acid too, and about hydrogen, but he hadn’t understood that part.
“Hydro-this, hydro-that,” he lamented, “it’s a hydra. Now acid, yes, it’s all acid. Leaves a sour taste in your mouth, life does.”
His wife came back, smelling of hyena, and started scolding before she was through the door. “What are you doing talking to that old pig? The nonsense she picks up. You should get us some food.”
Then the tiger stood up, conscious of his familial dignity, and slapped her open snout with the back of his right front paw. He spanked the seven squealing pests with his left paw and tail and crept out. They thought he was just being friendly and that he’d be back soon.
He growled. “It’s all superstructure in this house.” They didn’t understand him.
As soon as he was out of sight and smell, he sat down by a tree and meditated.
“It is sobering,” the tiger said to himself, “what the hyena told me. Very sobering. That hyena is getting worse and worse. Now it’s not enough for her to stink on her own, she has to spread bad news from elsewhere too. But she’s right. Everything we do is meaningless. How could I have been so blind. It’s chemical reactions and reflexes wherever you look. Ideas, thoughts, dreams, wishes—all superstructure. As soon as I see an antelope I jump after it: a simple mechanical reflex, just arbitrary, and so fast I don’t even have time to think about it. That’s how I’m built. What a world. I started a family and brought seven rascals into the world for this. It’s sobering all right. What a waste of time.”
He had a stretch, gloomily. An antelope bounding by heard him declaim, “Treachery, thy name is Nature.”
When he caught sight of the antelope, he felt a movement inside himself, the tensing of muscles to spring, and said, “Aha, there you have it. The test case. Reflexes, nothing but reflexes. I can see through that trick, my friend.”
And he swore: “No more meat. Never again. Not even antelope.”
And he crept off into the bushes and ate some roots. He turned vegetarian. Then, because he didn’t know how to nibble roots and got a mouth full of sand, he drank something and sat down in a cornfield. The antelopes ran away and watched him from afar, in disbelief. The bloodthirsty tiger was gnawing corncobs. They were amazed. They thought it must be a trap. They still didn’t know.
Then some of the nimblest antelopes screwed up their courage and dared to approach him. They prowled around him. And when he didn’t do anything, they gave him a good, ripe corncob, since he was so bad at choosing them
for himself. He thanked them gloomily and ate. They couldn’t believe their eyes. He touched their tender feelings. They could also see, after a few days, that his fur was unkempt, he was emaciated, his gaze was dull. Stomach trouble? Diet? Domestic discord?
Then he spoke to them: “Everything is reflexes. It’s not worth it. We’ve been lied to. We are not what we seem. No one is who he thinks he is. Water isn’t the substance it takes itself to be, it’s just a mix of various elements in a ratio of four to one.”
He hung his head. The antelopes were speechless with shock. They had just drunk some water and not noticed anything special about it.
The tiger: “Wherever you look: empirical facts. No trace of will. The name is everything, feelings are just smoke and mirrors.”
This is how the antelopes heard the news. To them it put its best face forward—the tiger was leaving them alone. Repeated conversations with him, in which he behaved like a penitent, a sad sage, eventually made them realize that they too were affected. Again and again the tiger murmured over and over, “It’s sobering. It’s very sobering.” And since the antelopes’ strong suit was more their legs than their brains, his melancholy depressed them too, so they took to their heels and brought what the tiger had said about water to the spring. They made no headway. The spring burbled and burbled—no one could understand what it said, but it was, as always, nice to hear— and it tasted the same as always, the news didn’t cloud or spoil it.
The antelopes, born letter-carriers, circulated the tiger’s maxims farther and met the rhinoceros and the crocodile by the river. Both were deeply interested in the news, especially since it came from the tiger. But they were slow to understand it, thanking the antelopes with a grunt. They were also, clearly, much too busy with their own affairs—the rhinoceros with producing children, the crocodile with sleeping.