The „big question“: about the aesthetical education of mankind

Maybe what I perceived to be such a success – that I was finally able to read Shakespeare - had made me overconfident because I decided to try my reading on a philosophical text for a change: “Über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen” (“About the aesthetical education of mankind”) by Friedrich Schiller. I had written a paper about it at uni, roughly twenty-five years ago, about which I remembered zilch. But a sentence from this text had popped up repeatedly when I was thinking about the “big question” – which might be put in many different ways, even, in my case, as simple as that: WHAT IS READING? And this sentence had haunted me already for some time.

The sentence – which to my astonishment I had remembered correctly from twenty-five years ago – was: “Der Mensch (…) ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt.” It doesn’t translate well, and I know I should write this part of my blog in German, but somehow I didn’t want to because everything that led to it “was” already in English. (By the way, in case anyone ever feels the inclination to comment on my blog: it doesn’t have to be in English!) And when I started to “translate” Schiller into English I found that there was even a big advantage. Because, at least philosophically, English is the language of practical good sense, and something you cannot really express in English might in fact be bollocks – or my own inability might be at fault, of course. In this case it is probably neither, just a rare instance of a sentence being simple and beautiful in German whereas it is clumsy and pedantic in English:

“A human being is only entirely human when he/she is playing.”

I’d never thought though that reading a philosophical treatise like this might be fun, and maybe it is not the right word for it. But it got much more exciting than I had expected. The first exciting thing that happened was totally unexpected and kind of disagreeable. Because the first impression I got reading the preliminary remarks became stronger and stronger and came to swallow up everything else until I came upon the expression “den gemeinen Charakter, den das Bedürfnis der Geschlechtsliebe aufdrückte, durch Sittlichkeit auslöscht und durch Schönheit veredelt” = “(to) delete(!) the common character which the natural sex drive gave to sexual love by “Sittlichkeit” (how the hell do you even translate this!) and to refine it by beauty”. (Horrible, though very “literal” translation!) And then I thought: No, I don’t really want to read this! And this was the moment I consciously realized how much fascism took root in idealist transcendental philosophy.

And I didn’t really want to think that because I knew there was a reason for me to read that text. And I even knew I was distorting it by letting one impression become predominant and taint all the rest. Then I stopped reading and started thinking about if I was right. I knew I was, but didn’t remember to have heard this opinion expressed before. But then I got ammunition from a totally unexpected quarter by accidentally listening to a radio feature about “Gulliver’s Travels”. Which brought to my attention that already Kant’s and Schiller’s “contemporaries” noticed this – even if they didn’t know about fascism yet. I had read “Gulliver’s Travels” in a children’s book version, and I even remembered I had disliked it, but they never got to the part about the fascist horses and the poor “yahoos”. Probably because it had ceased to be fun some time before that.

Of course I knew that Schiller himself would never have agreed with any kind of political fascism, on the contrary! Because his central political theme is freedom, and – which was the other distinct impression I got from that text already in the beginning - there is a strong dynamic quality, like an undercurrent, toward setting free the human being he is talking about from the moral and natural “necessities” which obstruct this freedom. And this is probably what made me read on. In the end I was even grateful that I had been able to pin down the “fascist” tendency of transcendental idealism in that way because it made me see with what I agreed and with what I disagreed in Schiller’s text so very clearly.

And this - knowing with what I agreed or disagreed - was the next thing I realized I had to deal with. And which makes a philosophical text much tougher reading than a fictional text. Even though I was surprised how “readable” I found it. Being a great writer, Schiller knows exactly how to “hit” the point, and it isn’t hard work to follow his argument most of the time. But, reading a philosophical text, you have to make up your mind about the “method” a writer used and actively use it yourself. And you have to make up your mind about if you agree or disagree with what he wrote, and why.

The good thing about method was that I had obviously read more of Kant than I remembered. In fact I didn’t remember anything, apart from the “categorical imperative” which I might have read about elsewhere. But the fact that I understood the method of thinking, the nature of Kantian concepts, and the basic preliminaries of transcendental philosophy so well told me that I must have read a great deal of original text. I think I probably read at least the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” completely. Which doesn’t mean that I “agreed” with it, or that I really understood how it is supposed to “generate” truth. But I knew it didn’t matter if I “believed” in it, and that I had to suspend my doubts about method because this is transcendental philosophy, and if I didn’t agree with the way it works I wouldn’t get anything useful out of that text.

So there was just no use in picking a fight here. And the first nice experience I actually had reading Schiller’s treatise was that I discovered how “basic” its basic preliminaries are, and that I could put up with them as well. (Maybe these are the moments I had loved reading philosophy for because, understanding the basic preliminaries of a philosophical system, and what they are used for, I experienced this (very short) moment when I actually felt I understood “everything”. As this might be the closest I will ever get to the experience of wielding absolute power …) Because, to understand transcendental philosophy in the first place, all you need is to grasp the concept that a human being is a being that is able to think AND feel, to receive impressions AND to produce concepts. And that is in fact so basic that it appears ridiculous even to mention it. But it is not, as it is the reason that transcendental philosophy had to be “invented”, as neither simple metaphysics nor crude empirism would ever be able to deduce anything meaningful about human nature. And I realized that I totally agreed with this.

What I totally disagreed with – and here the revelation about the “fascist” nature of the system of transcendental philosophy became a big help – is the hierarchy of concepts within the system, its “absolutist” structure. Maybe for me to determine the validity and usefulness of a philosophical system means to dig up the part where the “metaphysical crap” is buried. Of course in Kant’s opinion there is none because he thought that he deduced everything from “necessary” concepts about the nature of perception. I cannot judge if this is even true, but I don’t believe that you can “honestly” deduce from basic preliminaries about perception which concepts are “nothwendig” (necessary) and more important, and which are “accidental”. Maybe you can, but I had a strong hunch that this is somehow the place where the “interface” with some kind of outdated metaphysical system has to be. At least it was here that my continual struggle with Schiller’s text took place. But as he uses the transcendental method mostly to “transcend” these opposites and somehow close the breach between them dynamically, creating a new state of affairs, I felt that I was winning most of the time. Even if sometimes it felt a bit like winning by unfair means. And just when he had convinced me once again of the beautiful face of human nature under “idealist” rule one of these sentences popped up that made me detect the ugly skull underneath. Perfectly hideous example:

“Darinn also besteht das eigentliche Kunstgeheimnis des Meisters, dass er den Stoff durch die Form vertilgt; und je imposanter, anmaßender, verführerischer der Stoff an sich selbst ist, (…) oder je mehr der Betrachter geneigt ist, sich selbst mit dem Stoff einzulassen, desto triumphirender ist die Kunst, welche jenen zurückzwingt und über diesen die Herrschaft behauptet.“

(„This is the secret of the true artist: that he eradicates matter through form, and the more imposing, presumptuous, tempting the matter is in itself (…) or the more the audience is tempted to get involved with it, the more triumphant becomes the kind of art that reigns them in and establishes its rule over the latter.”)

Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant!? Does he really think if the natural sex drive is finally “deleted” and the “material” fun of the artistic performance successfully “eradicted” any human being which is not yet transformed into a transcendental concept will get anything out of the action? I wonder … Maybe I haven’t really understood all the other stuff he wrote before that!? - This was the kind of “philosophical” struggle I had with Schiller because I found the hierarchy offensive. But there is so much in his text to contradict this “absolutist” notion that I got over it every time I read something like this.

So it was tough reading until I finally came to the really meaty part, which was of course the one about PLAYING. When he introduces his new concept of “Spieltrieb” (= the natural inclination or “drive” to play) which is supposed to “mediate” between the realm of “life” and the realm of “ideas”, finally transforming the individuals into the HUMAN BEINGS they should be. And the first example he comes up with to show how this “Spieltrieb” is supposed to work I loved that much that I forgave everything I had hated – or would still come to hate - about his text on the spot. Because this example is actually about love! - And this was when something happened to me for the second time within the last two years which had never happened before in this way. The other example is already “hidden” somewhere within this blog, but this time it was with somebody from over two hundred years ago!!! It was as if our two minds had just clashed. As if somebody thought in the same way, or had exactly the same experience, about something really important that I have had. Because he says that the two “failed” instances of love are when you are either drawn sexually toward somebody you have to despise, or that you are compelled by circumstance to hate somebody you hold in high esteem. And not because of the failed relationship with this other person in the first place, but because of the fact that it makes YOU a failure as a human being!

The instant I read this a lot of things happened which made my encounter with Schiller’s text become very dynamic, and, in my appreciation, finally successful. Whereas before that I had struggled with it on the barren heath of philosophy and political thinking utterly alone, suddenly another text was drawn in and changed the landscape completely. In fact there were two of them. One I had been writing myself “with my own life” over some time, but had somehow “extricated” only recently through another text: “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller which I certainly have mentioned already to have seen in the cinema. I cannot really use this experience to explain anything here because I still refuse to read it. So I cannot go back to the text to verify what my experience had been about, which is a real pity. Especially because, in this case, I had the unique experience of comparing my reading of a text from roughly twenty years ago, when I saw the film, with the recent one: when I saw the production from the Old Vic in the cinema. Which issues I had with this text already then, and how they – and I myself – were changed! - That I remembered that much about it is an indication that the film must already have made a big impression on me – which was still nothing compared to the recent experience. Because this was the only performance ever that made me feel like shit for three days after I had seen it – although I hadn’t even seen it in the theatre! - until I could finally sit down and write something about it. And this was of course BECAUSE it was so good! I don’t even have a totally convincing theory why this happened, but maybe I don’t want to. Some texts just appear to accumulate truth “with age”. And I think this is great!

The kind of truth I came upon was exactly the same I found in Schiller’s text in a totally different disguise. And this is the first thing about playing that I deduced – not directly from Schiller’s text but indirectly through this experience: that you can never look TRUTH directly in the eye because you couldn’t bear it. At least not any important truth ABOUT YOURSELF like this one. In this case it was that you have to take the only real opportunity for love life may offer you, even though it will almost certainly destroy you. Because, if you don’t, you will be a failure as a human being, even though you may have done “the right thing” in any other respect. At least this was the one thing I understood that had been so tough for me. And it is the only relevant issue in this context anyway because it is what “surfaced” when I read Schiller’s example. And, through the interference of this other text, it made me instantly understand the most important thing about playing the way Schiller understands it: that it is not just “nice” and makes you somehow “better” because it makes you feel better and “kills” time. It is really necessary because you may have a chance to get at YOUR OWN TRUTH without having your fingers burned every time you come too close. As you usually get your fingers burned just once.

And this is something Schiller wrote about as well. I know that I tried to “stay with” the text and did my best to read closely along the lines. But from this instant the two other texts came in all the time like scavengers, tearing parts from Schiller’s orderly treatise and feeding them to me. But this was what I wanted them to do, of course. There are always different methods for me, with different texts, to make the most of them. And this was obviously the one here. I tried nonetheless, not least to make the “method” work, to apply order, form, and structure to my reading, to “eradicate” the “matter” that had no business to be there, stay as close to the text as I could. And there is this important passage when he says that if you are playing with something dangerous and disagreeable it doesn’t hurt you “for real”, and if you are playing with something really desirable you don’t want it “for real”. And that this is the best way, or even the only way, you can have this experience. Which is obviously true …

Or is it? - I really don’t think that Schiller as a dramatic writer would have agreed completely with Schiller as a philosopher. At least I doubt it when I am thinking about his plays which I have always held in high esteem. Because they have real dramatic and tragic potential which might have tempted actors at the time to cross the line and actually get their fingers burned, to a certain degree. And I just cannot imagine that Schiller wouldn’t have liked to see this. Maybe I am wrong, but I’ll try to explain what I mean. Because it is always a very fine line, and it is never completely without risk to experiment with it. – And I didn’t “experiment” then, I really got my fingers burned, although I don’t want to admit it. I think there is a part I am prepared to admit and another which I don’t want to. I even realized just now that I don’t WANT them to release the production from the Old Vic on dvd – even though they filmed it really beautifully – because then I would have to buy it. And I cannot imagine watching it again. And there must be a reason for that. So, according to Schiller, I did something wrong?

Apparently he wanted everything neatly stowed in the realm of art where there is a straight hierarchy, and the rebellious “matter”, like “real” feelings, is conveniently “eradicated”. Yeah, just imagine what will be left of a play by Schiller if you take this literally! - Of course there cannot be “real” fear, or “real” discomfort, because you cannot play with it. But I don’t know. At least it might be that I am trying to do this intentionally … cross the line? That this might even be the whole point of playing? At least when you take playing as seriously as Schiller obviously wanted it to be. On the other hand, it has to be “safe”. When you “wake up” you have to be safe again. And of course the main difference compared to “real life” is that it is YOU who decides what you let the text “do” to you. Maybe if you are good you know how far you can go, maybe you know from experience. But then you’ll never experience something new. I am really fumbling here. Fumbling for the line … And I REALLY don’t know. I know that there is, somewhere in there, the most important thing, and why is it so important?

There are two examples for this kind of thing I remember from actors who have done something really extraordinary. One is from Cate Blanchet about playing the “heroine” in “Blue Jasmine”. She said that this took her far outside her “comfort zone”, but added immediately that somehow she always ends up there. Well, this may be why she became a great actress: because she can tell the difference when she is THERE, and then she knows that she has got it “right”? - The other one is from Richard Armitage about playing John Proctor, which, in my opinion, was still a big step from everything else he had done before. He said that he had wanted to play this character because he didn’t know if he could do it, and that, even at the stage of actual performance, there were still lines he found difficult to say. So, now you can take this seriously or not. I decided to take it seriously, probably because of the experience I had already had myself. And I imagine that these lines, every time he said them, somehow were the proof that he could do it, and that, every time, he knew that he had been able to cross the line. And that what he was doing was RELEVANT.

And the greatest thing about reading Schiller’s text finally became that I fully understood his concept of “serious” playing by making a point against him. Because I was reading this, obviously, thinking I understood already what he meant and was trying to “test” it. And then something different came to light and made me understand it somehow “deeper” and more clearly. And, which is another great point about philosophical texts when you get “deeper”: made me realize I STILL DON’T understand it! But I certainly understand better now what I am trying to do, and this was probably the whole point of it. By establishing where “the line” is, and why I am always trying to cross it. Why I never feel I have done something worthwhile without doing this.

In any case I have a definite criterion for exclusion now to judge, for example, why I like certain films so much more than others, and want to see them again, whereas I am often bored with films that critics think are great, and forget them the instant I have seen them. It isn’t just subjective, and it doesn’t have to do with “matter”, not in the first place. It doesn’t even have to do with how good or “innovative” the storytelling or the photography is – although the attempt at serious playing might be mainly in the filming as such. It has to do with this kind of experience I described. – The most common “error” of filmmakers – and of course film critics and Oscar juries! - is, in my opinion, that people think when they have made a film about a serious matter, or a “serious” book or whatever, they have already done something significant. Well, in a way they have because it will certainly sell, or get you a nomination. But the photography and the acting might be as great as it can be: I don’t even “see” it if I cannot see this kind of thing happen. The kind of thing which Schiller considers to be the act that turns “playing” into art, and which, in my opinion, is this: searching for the “line” and trying to cross it. Searching for the part of your story, character, or whatever, you don’t yet understand … Searching for this kind of experience.

And, the most important thing for me of course: It is something anybody can do. And, as I said, it is called READING. Because reading is, or can be, a form of “serious” playing. I am fully aware that this is a constant provocation because reading for most people is kind of an anaesthetic, some way of “shutting out the world”. And so I thought as well for a long time. Now I cannot even do this kind of reading anymore, maybe I haven’t been that good at it for a long time already, because, when this happens to me, I instantly “leave” the book and am wandering off into my own world. But, as I know now what can make the attempts at serious playing by other people – writers, actors, singers and so on - so significant for me, and makes me enjoy them so much, I feel even more of an obligation to be a great reader. (Even knowing that this makes a difference only for me, of course! It takes hundreds of thousands of great readers to buy the “right” books or dvds, or go to the theatre, to encourage artists to keep up the good work. But I am somehow confident that they must be “out there” somewhere … In a way, though I shall never “meet” them, I HAVE to believe this.) And this is, in the first place, what Schiller – like any “real” artist! – wanted people to be. But not only for him, to have an audience and somehow “sell” what he was doing. (Of course, today this has to be an important issue, but at the time you couldn’t even make a living from your art as such. At least not as a writer.) He wanted it because he thought he was doing something significant, and if other people would really understand it this would improve THEM. Not “just like that”, because they would have understood the moral implications or whatever of his plays, but because he would have enabled them to MAKE A MOVE within themselves toward something new.

And even though he doesn’t elaborate explicitly on the example about love anywhere else in his treatise, I don’t think that it was “just and example” for him. Especially when I am reading his closing remarks about “den geselligen Charakter” (the social character) of art, beauty, and “serious” playing: that they should create a domain where people that are separated by social barriers should be able to meet and exercise their human right to play. Where everybody should have the opportunity to improve themselves as a human being. – And if you are aiming high – which Schiller does, of course, and for what I probably liked him at the time: without love there is no human being. And one of the most interesting things Schiller wrote is that all the attempts of the kind he described are somehow “failed” attempts – in his book because it isn’t possible to reach the “ideal” when you are operating “in this earthly world”. Perfection can only be achieved in the world of concepts. But to aim high is still worth everything, and this is even the only thing you can try to do. So there is no “ideal” state of love anyway. But the attempt to love in the only way you can is worth it because it is the only thing that makes you REAL as a human being.

So, now I have probably written something I don’t understand yet. Pretty! Maybe it is crap, maybe it will be something I can “work” with. And it has to be the closing remark because this has already become far too long. Although I have only elaborated on very few of Schiller’s interesting issues. My first reading was much closer to the text, and I found a lot more interesting issues about playing, but somehow the two other texts “jammed” my immediate communication with Schiller most of the time. (Arthur Miller was a very strong presence!) But, as all writers should know: This is what people do with your text! They “write” their own version. And this is even what they SHOULD do because it is the only way to know if they really understand some of it. And to improve themselves.

The most important issue left over from Schiller’s text is that the question how the “Spieltrieb” is actually supposed to work – how EXACTLY it is supposed to make people “better” – remains unanswered. And this was one of the questions I was chiefly interested in. I don’t think that Schiller really answered this question because he thought he already answered it “technically”. But what makes sense within the system of transcendental philosophy doesn’t necessarily make sense to me – at least not without “tangible” proof. Maybe this is in fact the toughest question, and maybe there will be a sequel. I just have a feeling this would be a more fitting theme for the thesis I am never going to write.

There is something, though, I cannot leave out because, when I just went over my notes about “The Crucible”, I read this remark by Richard Armitage about playing John Proctor, and I couldn’t believe it:

“It had been one of these roles I had always coveted and known I would play eventually, and by playing it I would be changed as a person.”

Because this was exactly what I SAW when he entered the stage, even before he opened his mouth to say his first sentence. It is a pity I don’t remember when I first transformed this disconcerting impression into a thought, but I remember exactly how I “translated” it: There isn’t just a different actor, but a different person! (It might have been after I had read this, but I don’t think so.) In any case it kind of spares me the thesis and all my clumsy follow-up remarks about how I might not know about serious playing making you a “better” person, but that it certainly can make you a DIFFERENT person.

And I cannot leave this either without trying to translate Schiller’s closing remarks about his “Staat des schönen Scheins” (which I don’t know how to translate). His (un)political “utopia”, in any case, the place where serious playing for everybody would be possible. Because I loved them, and they amazed me, almost as much as the example which – inadvertently - became the centre of my reading:

“… where no mindless mimicking of strange customs but their own beautiful nature rules people’s behaviour, where people go through the most complicated affairs with daring simplicity and calm innocence, and neither find it necessary to hurt other people’s freedom to obtain their own, nor to cast their own dignity away to please others.”

(Synopsis: …where people can be themselves and live their own truth, and therefore have no need to appear clever, bully others, or do stupid things that are beneath them, to get other people’s approval.)

Well, that might be exactly the “place” where I (and probably Arthur Miller?) would have wanted to live!