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In last year's epic From Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun wrote that the failure of western culture was not a failure of mind, or strength, but a failure of nerve. While discussing the literature and theatre of the Absurd, Barzun explained how existential thought broke the connection between man and anything "outside of life." According to Barzun, existentialists viewed life as "our life" and, as such, took its measure only against "ourself." However, claiming that man's experience within the cosmos is absurd, pointless, and ironic, as the Absurdists did, is not what marked their break with earlier philosophers. Rather, it was their submission to the absurd. In contrast to right philosophy, Absurdists "set off . . . no rebellion against the absurdity of the Absurd." "[E]arlier philosophies used life as the very source of sanity; it was the measure of rightness, not vulnerable to corruption. The distinction was implicit between Life and our life at the moment; and the new thought, the new art showed what Life demanded. Even the Stoics, who did not dance with joy at the idea of being alive, left life and the cosmos their validity. The Absurd marks a failure of nerve." Though Barzun's insight pierces to the heart of the predicament of western culture, as presented it is somewhat obtuse. A failure of nerve to do what? And why was it a failure of nerve? To use Barzun's terms, the caretakers of Western tradition began to submit to "our life" as opposed to "Life." By failing to maintain the "distinction .. . . between Life and our life"-by denying "the cosmos [its] validity"-the "new thought" ceased to measure itself against reality. In that vein, Hannah Arendt once described totalitarianism as an "experiment against reality" that grew out of a society in which people thought "that everything was possible and nothing was true." In this, Arendt described more than just totalitarianism, accurately portraying a wide array of 19th and 20th Century movements loosely held together with the term postmodern. In fact, others have pointed out that it is in the undercutting of reality that "the deep affinity, the holding hands under the table," between postmodern intellectuals and totalitarian regimes becomes apparent. But, experimenting against reality, replacing "Life" with an illusion, is a dangerous thing to do. G.K. Chesterton said that men "who cannot believe their senses . . . are . . . insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives." As was his style, Chesterton put his finger on the essence of the thing-men ignore reality at their own peril. In his new book Experiments Against Reality, subtitled The Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age, culture critic Roger Kimball takes Arendt's observations as his jump-off point, and, in a series of essays effectively catalogues and critiques the various "experiments against reality" of the past two hundred years. Bringing a cutting intellect and an unrelenting style to bear on his subjects, Kimball traces the history of postmodern thought from philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche to artists like Wallace Stevens and Robert Musil to the 20th Century's intellectual elite.
Approximate Word count = 2108
Approximate Pages = 8.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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