One cold, pure February night

With regard to the culminating role Australia has had to play in synthesising the understanding of the human condition, it may seem extraordinarily coincidental, or plagiarism, that these Australians—Hope, Paterson, Lawson, Tacey and Charlesworth and, to an extent Seymour—could have experienced such an identical awareness of this breakthrough occurring here. However all they were doing was tapping into the deeper awareness about the real nature of the human journey that is buried within us all. Below the superficial chatter and deliberately created distracting mess and confusion of our evasive world we all know that it is the issue of the human condition that is the real problem on Earth, and that only an exceptional innocent Page 494 of
Print Edition can synthesise the reconciling, liberating understanding of this condition. Further we know within our deeper selves who is, and what countries are, relatively innocent and therefore where in the world the answers about our divisive nature are going to emerge.

For those who might not believe what I have just said I will quote an extract from the writings of the French unevasive thinker or prophet, Albert Camus, that clearly reveals this deeper knowledge. In this remarkable piece Camus acknowledges that innocence has to lead humanity home to the state of freedom from the human condition. He talks of the ‘whiteness and its sap’ needed to ‘stand up to’ all the fraudulent evasion and denial that has accumulated on Earth, and he recognises that this innocence is going to come from fresh, sheltered realms that still survive on the periphery of the great, evasive, artificial, intellectual establishments.

Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for literature, wrote these words in 1940 in an essay titled The Almond Trees:

‘All we then need to know is what we want. And what indeed we want is never again to bow down before the sword, never more to declare force to be in the right when it is not serving the mind.

This, it is true, is an endless task. But we are here to pursue it. I do not have enough faith in reason to subscribe to a belief in progress, or to any philosophy of History. But I do at least believe that men have never ceased to grow in the knowledge of their destiny. We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as men is to find those few first principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But tasks are called superhuman when men take a long time to complete them, that is all.

Let us then know our aims, standing steadfast on the mind, even if force dons the mask of ideas or of comfort to lure us from our task. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is ending. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if this world were to collapse, it will not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy”, Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable idea. There are many things today deserving of that kick.

Page 495 of
Print Edition When I lived in Algiers, I would wait patiently all winter because I knew that in the course of one night, one cold, pure February night, the almond trees of the Vallée des Consuls would be covered with white flowers. I was then filled with delight as I saw this fragile snow stand up to all the rain and resist the wind from the sea. Yet every year it lasted, just long enough to prepare the fruit.

This is not a symbol. We shall not win our happiness with symbols. We shall need something more weighty. All I mean is that sometimes, when life weighs too heavily in this Europe still overflowing with its misery, I turn towards those shining lands where so much strength is still untouched. I know them too well not to realize that they are the chosen lands where courage and contemplation can live in harmony. The contemplation of their example then teaches me that if we would save the mind we must pass over its power to groan and exalt its strength and wonder. This world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness. Let us not contribute to it. It is vain to weep over the mind, it is enough to labour for it.

But where are the conquering virtues of the mind? This same Nietzsche listed them as the mortal enemies of the spirit of heaviness. For him they are the strength of character, taste, the “world”, classical happiness, severe pride, the cold frugality of the wise. These virtues, more than ever, are necessary today, and each can choose the one that suits him best. Before the vastness of the undertaking, let no one in any case forget strength of character. I do not mean the one accompanied on electoral platforms by frowns and threats. But the one that, through the virtue of its whiteness and its sap, stands up to all the winds from the sea. It is that which, in the winter for the world, will prepare the fruit’ (Summer, 1954, pp.33–35 of 87).

To examine what Camus has said, he began by stating that the fundamental priority and responsibility of humanity is to solve the human condition, liberate the human mind from its underlying upset and by so doing replace the need for ‘force’ to control our upset, troubled natures with the ability to explain, understand and pacify the upset. He acknowledged the human condition, ‘we live in contradiction’, and that we have to live in denial of this condition, ‘we must refuse this contradiction’. He also acknowledged the reality of the current extremely upset, depressed human state, ‘nations poisoned by the misery of this century…[a world] utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness’. He then went on to emphasise the need for the clarifying, first principle reconciling biological explanation to ‘overcome our condition’, saying we need ‘to find those Page 496 of
Print Edition first few principles’ that will ‘stitch up what has been torn apart’.

Significantly, Camus acknowledges that these answers are not going to come from the ivory towers of intellectualdom, but from outlying realms where there is still sufficient innocence, ‘strength still untouched’, ‘whiteness and its sap’, to overcome all the evasion, denial and dishonesty, to ‘stand up to all the winds from the sea’, and find the reconciling understanding of the human condition, ‘prepare the fruit’. Importantly, in terms of what I have been saying about where the answers about ourselves would emerge, Camus says, ‘I turn towards those shining lands where so much strength is still untouched. I know them too well not to realize that they are the chosen lands where courage and contemplation can live in harmony.’