BERGSON, POLITICS, AND RELIGION

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-5256-3

Contents

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….viiAbbreviations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………ixIntroduction: Bergson, Politics, and Religion Alexandre Lefebvre and Melanie White…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………11 The Closed and the Open in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion: A Distinction That Changes Everything Frédéric Worms……………………………………………………………………252 Bergson, the Void, and the Politics of Life Suzanne Guerlac……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………403 Equally Circular: Bergson and the Vague Inventions of Politics John Mullarkey……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………614 The Art of the Future Claire Colebrook………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………755 Bergson as Philosopher of War and Theorist of the Political Philippe Soulez……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..996 Anarchy and Analogy: The Violence of Language in Bergson and Sorel Hisashi Fujita………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1267 Asceticism and Sexuality: “Cheating Nature” in Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Leonard Lawlor…………………………………………………………………………………….1448 Creative Freedom: Henri Bergson and Democratic Theory Paulina Ochoa Espejo………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1599 Bergson’s Critique of Practical Reason Carl Power…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….17410 Bergson and Human Rights Alexandre Lefebvre…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………19311 Bergson and Judaism Vladimir Jankélévitch………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….21712 Bergson and Nietzsche on Religion: Critique, Immanence, and Affirmation Keith Ansell-Pearson and Jim Urpeth………………………………………………………………………………………..24613 Assurance and Confidence in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion: A Sociological Interpretation of the Distinction between Static Religion and Dynamic Religion Frédéric Keck…………………26514 Tuning into Other Worlds: Henri Bergson and the Radio Reception Theory of Consciousness G. William Barnard…………………………………………………………………………………………28115 James, Bergson, and an Open Universe Paola Marrati…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..299Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….313Contributors……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….325Index……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..327

Chapter One

The Closed and the Open in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

A DISTINCTION THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

Frédéric Worms Translated by Alexandre Lefebvre and Perri Ravon

It may appear presumptuous to maintain, as I will do here, that a distinction—especially one set out in a philosophy book—could change everything, that is, even change everything in our lives. I must therefore immediately make clear that it is not the book itself that changes everything; Bergson, in publishing The Two Sources of Morality and Religion in 1932, would certainly not have made such a claim!

If there is something that changes everything, as Bergson does in fact claim and as I also believe is the case, it is not his book of philosophy, nor even a distinction inside that book, even one between the “closed” and the “open,” if by that one means that the book creates the distinction out of thin air. If something changes everything, it is the distinction between open and closed moralities, religions, and societies inasmuch as this distinction effectively exists: one effectively appears, observable and active. If something changes everything, it is the difference between the closed and the open, not as it appears in a book but first of all in life and in human history, to the point of becoming, perhaps today more than ever, its primary and ultimate source of orientation.

But this does not mean that a book of philosophy, or philosophy itself, is good for nothing and changes nothing—quite the contrary! For if the distinction appears in history, and even if as soon as it appears we immediately sense its full significance, this does not mean that we find it explicitly set out there alongside its criteria, that it is demonstrably established as primary, and that it does not also run into concurrent forces that cloud its effect. The role of philosophy and the philosopher may well be secondary compared to those who bring this distinction to life in history, but it is no less an essential one: in setting out and establishing this distinction in its specificity and scope, it also contributes to its practical effect. This is, without a doubt, Bergson’s goal in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, right down to its title. The book will change something, while establishing that a distinction changes everything.

This certainly explains, in any case, why the distinction between the “closed” and the “open” by itself commands the whole of Bergson’s Two Sources.

Once again, perhaps more than ever, a fundamental “intuition” is expressed through a distinction that in turn governs a whole field of experience, according to Bergson; an intuition to be grasped both at the most intimate level and in the widest variety of its effects and consequences. Such was the case (in his earlier works) with duration and space, with memory and perception, and with life and matter. The distinction between the closed and the open will also express an intuition and a simple act that goes even beyond philosophy this time, and, through philosophy, it will resonate throughout the field of morality, religion, and society.

But if this is the task of philosophy and of writing Two Sources, it is also the task of understanding or reading it. This is therefore my goal here: to grasp the meaning or structure of the whole book based on the distinction—it being understood that the one expresses the other.

In order to do this, I will begin from the end of the work. Indeed, it is at the end of the book, more specifically at the beginning of its fourth and last chapter, just when he draws out the consequences of the theory of morality and religion he has just presented, that Bergson brings it back, explicitly and in its entirety, to the difference between the “closed” and the “open.”

Taking this indication as my guide, we will proceed in four stages:

* We will start from the beginning of the fourth chapter, in order to understand how Bergson subsumes the whole book under this difference.

* We will then return to morality and to religion, respectively, which were presented in the three previous chapters; that is, I will return to the moral criterion of the difference between the closed and the open and then to the religious expansion or deepening of this difference.

* We will then be able to go back to the fourth chapter in order to understand what this distinction changes in practice, in our lives and history, both in 1932 for Bergson and also for us today.

THE CLOSED AND THE OPEN: THE CONCLUSION AND OPENING OF TWO SOURCES

It is only at the beginning of the fourth and last chapter of Two Sources, titled “Final Remarks: Mechanics and Mysticism,” that one fully grasps the scope of the difference between the closed and the open that has been established in the three previous chapters.

More specifically, here Bergson explicitly entrusts it with a double role. It must first sum up everything that came before. As the first sentence of chapter 4 states: “One of the results of our analysis has been to draw a sharp distinction, in the sphere of society, between the closed and the open” (TS 266/1201). It is therefore both morality and religion that are taken up anew here. Thus, with respect to closure: “This religion, which we called static, and this obligation, which is tantamount to a pressure, are the very substance of closed society” (TS 266-67/1202). But this is not enough.

This distinction must also open up new perspectives that form the true object of Bergson’s last chapter, which is thus not only conclusive, or rather not only “final” (to take up the first part of its title), but also itself remains open. That is why what are here described as final are just “remarks,” an unusual term for Bergson: it is an invitation to go further. Or more precisely still, here is what the new problem is from the perspective of this fundamental difference: “Now, is the distinction between the closed and the open, which is necessary to resolve or remove theoretical problems, able to help us practically” (TS 271/1206)?

It is of course important to underline the urgency of this “now,” which is not simply a logical step to one consequence among others. What must “now” be faced are the practical problems of the present moment, in 1932 as the “us” also emphasizes. But this may seem surprising all the same. While it is true, with regard to morality and then religion, that Bergson has been addressing theoretical problems—the criterion of morality, the principle of religion—we were hardly removed from practical concerns. On the contrary, Bergson had dismissively criticized all theoretical morality; he even defined “complete mysticism” as the transition from contemplation (or ecstasy) to action. How then do we make sense of the fact that this practical dimension remains in a sense wholly untouched, at least for “us,” on the threshold of these “Final Remarks”? How do we make sense of the fact that, of everything that came before, all that apparently remains is the distinction between “the closed and the open” as twin guiding threads, conclusive from a theoretical perspective but still “prospective” from a practical one? This is the double question that ought to be answered.

To do this I will first have to reconstruct Bergson’s trajectory, in other words, retrace the steps that lead to this conclusion, before trying to understand what it also opens up for our action.

Before proceeding we shall make one last preliminary remark in order to avoid a serious misinterpretation regarding Bergson’s fourth chapter itself. It concerns its title, the first part of which I have already discussed but whose second part must also be analyzed in order to rule out a potential misunderstanding and, more importantly, to elicit a new positive guideline for our inquiry. What, in effect, after the indication of “Final Remarks,” does the phrase “Mechanics and Mysticism” mean? Let me immediately stress, before demonstrating it later on, that the distinction between mechanics and mysticism in no way overlaps the distinction between the closed and the open! It is not the case, in other words, that mechanics would be “closed” and mysticism “open.” On the contrary, the entire goal of Bergson’s chapter is to show how “mechanics” or technology “calls on” a form of mysticism and how mysticism “demands” a form of mechanics. They can, indeed must, proceed in the same direction, even if there is risk or danger that precisely consists in the possibility of them being separated! Everything that is at stake in this chapter lies within this. Mechanics and machines are described there as the stage reached by a humanity that has always, for Bergson, been defined by technical ability and intelligence—homo faber—but that “now” finds itself, more than ever, torn between the closed and the open! This then is the significance of the practical utility for “us,” “now.” The closed and the open can and must assist the direction we give to this modern, super-powerful technology, which can either lead to unheard of destruction on the side of closure or turn more strongly than ever toward openness.

Bergson therefore in no way condemns us to a terrible choice between a purely warlike “mechanization” and an ecstatic “mysticism” without any technical support! We can leave that to others. The freedom of humanity, “now,” requires this new alliance between mechanics and mysticism, one beyond the dark, doubly closed one made by war, where technological power serves not mysticism but myth, mythology, ideology, and “fabulation.” To get there, however, the distinction between the closed and the open first has to, as we shall see, run through the morality and religion of Bergson’s previous chapters. To these, therefore, we must return.

A MORAL CRITERION

It is once again with a consummate writerly art and sense of “the composition of a book” that Bergson introduces the distinction between the closed and the open in the first chapter of Two Sources: it is a genuine coup de théâtre, or burst of thunder, heralded moreover by the witches of Macbeth!

Everything had effectively moved at the speed of light up to that point. Without any preamble, Bergson had moved from the fact of “obligation” to the immediate location of its double social principle, indeed vital principle, in a “virtual instinct” required by life to counterbalance the disorder introduced by human freedom. “Morality” seemed thereby to be given a foundation: a biological foundation, to be sure, but nevertheless one that is universal, omnipresent, and in any case in every society. Bergson even insists on this point: “What is natural is in great measure overlaid by what is acquired; but it endures, almost unchangeable, throughout the centuries…. To it we must revert … to explain what we have called obligation as a whole. Our civilized communities, however different they may be from the society to which we were primarily destined by nature, exhibit indeed, with respect to that society, a fundamental resemblance” (TS 29-30/999-1000). The logical conclusion then is that the principle of obligation does not change with history; it is the same everywhere. Its necessity and universality are thus confirmed; there is no distinction to be drawn between “primitive” and “civilized”; on the essential point, they are alike, equivalent. Yes, but the “resemblance” the paragraph concludes with is not the one you would expect. The “whole” of obligation is transformed with extreme abruptness into a wholly different thing in the next sentence!

Here is the resemblance between these “natural” human societies, whatever their place in history: “For they too are closed societies” (TS 30/1000).

Why does the “whole” of obligation turn into closure, totality into limitation? Why is this fact fundamental, so fundamental that it actually calls for a whole other morality, one that is not only universal this time in virtue of its (vital) foundation but also in virtue of its object, in virtue of those for whom it is valid or to whom it speaks. What is it that immediately proves this difference?

What immediately proves it to us, according to Bergson, is a simple fact that turns everything on its head, the reversal of values precisely heralded by the witches of Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” This fact is war: “we need only think what happens in time of war.” And what effectively happens during a war? This: “Murder and pillage and perfidy, cheating and lying become not only lawful, they are actually praiseworthy” (TS 31/1000). If such a reversal of values is possible, it nonetheless has a simple explanation according to Bergson, summed up in the term “closure.”

Certainly morality has not lost its validity; it simply reveals that it was only valid for the members of a given society to the exclusion of others: it reveals their limits or closure through its own. Such is the very simple and literal definition of closed societies: “They may be very vast … [but] their essential characteristic is none the less to include at any moment a certain number of individuals, and exclude others” (TS 31/1000; translation modified).

What could be simpler? A closed society is one that does not include everyone, that marks a spatial limit, a frontier, an exclusion. But this spatial closure is immediately moral. Where the society stops so too does its morality. This closure, therefore, is not just a simple fact but also a serious problem. It is not simply a case of Pascalian relativism: “Truth this side of the Pyrenees, lies on the other”; it is even more serious: “Thou shalt not kill on this side of the Pyrenees, thou shalt kill on the other side.” The boundary does not represent a relative difference but an absolute change: not truth here and lies there, but a prohibition here and an obligation there not only to lie but also to steal and kill. These are not two relative truths, but two absolute imperatives that contradict each other. And the boundary can fall within the same territory as soon as it isolates groups and identities. In short this fact revealed by another fact—the closure revealed by war—is not just one aspect among others of societies that hitherto considered themselves “moral,” or of the “whole” of obligation that seemed so self-assured: it radically upsets them. Everything is thus clear-cut.

But we need to go a step further. It is obvious that this closure is not directly conscious of itself or at least not conscious of itself as “immoral.” On the contrary, there is a sense in which we can only perceive, articulate, and, in any case, denounce this closure from another point of view, one that defines or rather calls for another morality! It is only from the perspective of this other morality, whose object is what Bergson calls here straightaway “man as man,” or “the whole of humanity,” that closure can be taken as a limit—not only a factual and spatial one but moral and absolute (TS 87/1048). Thus, it is not only closure that is revealed but also, by the same stroke or with the same indignation, the openness that is radically opposed to it.

We mustn’t believe, however, as Bergson immediately stresses, that the difference between the two is not absolute. If the closed only appears as closed from the point of view of the open, it doesn’t mean there is not what Bergson calls here a “difference of kind and not simply degree” between them (TS 32/1002)! Quite on the contrary: in the very feeling revealed to us by the fact of war, or our indignation before it, an absolute leap is revealed. And immediately the move from a closed society to an open society, from a limited society to a limitless society, cannot appear as a simple expansion, because it would then have to include that extreme, and also immediate, figure of closure: the enemy. The fact of war alone already prohibits us from conceiving the passage from closed to open as a simple expansion.

But Bergson has to insist on this point, and us with him: “Between the society in which we live and humanity in general there is, we repeat, the same contrast as between the closed and the open; the difference between the two objects is one of kind and not simply one of degree” (TS 32/1002).

Even the image of closed and open, with their suggestive spatial force, leaves no room for doubt: it is all or nothing. We can invoke another figure here who, like Pascal, hovers behind the scenes throughout this admirable book. It is the same here as in Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of the Inequality of Men, where he imagines “the first man who, having enclosed a piece of land,” invented property. With a single enclosure, all is closed. For Bergson too, this is how history can radically shift. The same principle is at play here, but it also runs in the opposite direction. For Rousseau, we move from a hypothetically open origin (the so-called state of nature) to an enclosure that inaugurates history. For Bergson, we move from a factually closed origin to an openness that demands effort and action but that similarly represents the real start of history or, in other words, the only thing that is truly new under the sun.

(Continues…)

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