According to Lawrence, the mistake made by those who claim to love humanity lies in their moral insistence on the fact, rather than in their feeling of being at one with their fellow men and women.
And although some may care a little too earnestly about the suffering of unseen strangers, Lawrence concedes that we are physically - if remotely - connected to all people everywhere and that mankind is thus ultimately one flesh:
"In some way or other, the cotton workers of Carolina, or the rice-growers of China are connected with me and, to a faint yet real degree, part of me. The vibration of life which they give off reaches me, touches me and affects me [...] For we are all more or less connected, all more or less in touch: all humanity."
"In some way or other, the cotton workers of Carolina, or the rice-growers of China are connected with me and, to a faint yet real degree, part of me. The vibration of life which they give off reaches me, touches me and affects me [...] For we are all more or less connected, all more or less in touch: all humanity."
This libidinal humanism - if we may call it such - is central to Lawrence's politics of desire. And it is intended to be in stark contrast to the "nasty pronounced benevolence" which is only a disguised form of "self-assertion and bullying", that he often associates (fairly or otherwise) with Whitman.
Lord deliver us, says Lawrence, from this latter form of (ideal) humanism and from all falsification of feeling: "Insist on loving humanity, and sure as fate you'll come to hate everybody."
Lord deliver us, says Lawrence, from this latter form of (ideal) humanism and from all falsification of feeling: "Insist on loving humanity, and sure as fate you'll come to hate everybody."
I think there's something in this suggestion that every time you force your own feelings or attempt to force those of another, you are likely to produce the opposite effect to the one hoped for. And we would do well to consider this today of all days, as we remember again the time when, in the name of Love, Europe rushed into four years of mechanical slaughter and self-sacrifice.
See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Nobody Loves Me', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 311-20.
For a related post to this one on Lawrence's humanism, human exceptionalism, and belief in a common ancestor, click here.
For a related post to this one on Lawrence's humanism, human exceptionalism, and belief in a common ancestor, click here.
While I like this idea of universal material/molecular intervolvement ('actio in distans'), it also needs a psychic component - and even, I would argue, a metaphysical extension to account for how (as this writer has experienced) we can for example dream telepathically and precognitively of others from whom we are (seemingly) separated by great distances of time and space. Let us not, moreover, confine ourselves to geocentric limitations. We are stardust. ('EVERY NIGHT I TELL MYSELF/I AM THE COSMOS . . .')
ReplyDeleteThe tipping point (if tipping point it be) between Lawrentian libidinal humanism and Whitmanian idealism, as Stephen presents it, is surely in need of being critically analysed. Is all 'love of humanity' laden with resentment, built upon a bloodless abstraction? Could not (for a mystic, a schizophrenic, or a poet) an inter-corporeal aesthetics of collective pathos generate a kind of species-wide amorous deliquescence, whose bliss would be indistinguishable from such 'Christian' com/passion?
Answers on a postcard to TTA . . .
That's precisely the problem: the moment you try to add a psycho-metaphysical component you fall back into the kind of transcendental idealism Lawrence associates with Walt Whitman and vehemently rejects.
DeleteBut my supposed 'problem' (with DHL) is that I don't necessarily share his problem (which, I think, he shares with Nietzsche) i.e. how to face down his own latent romanticism. Hence, I'm not 'falling back' into anything; I'm where I always was. As one of the best hypothetical imperatives (or heuristic concepts) we have, the psyche isn't some sanctified idea(l); it's a living myth. As Cocteau said, we need to see the metaphysical as just an extension of the physical (or, better, the physical as a condensation/temporary stabilisation of the metaphysical).
ReplyDelete