childhood & philosophy
a journal of the international council of
philosophical inquiry with children
Nasruddin
Hodja, a master of the negative way
Oscar Brenifier
Abstract
Traditionally, the negative way
is a process by which the mental process ties to reach truth about its object
through negation of what it is not rather than through affirmation of what it
is. In dialectics, the negative moment is one where we examine critically a
proposition though the affirmation of its contrary. But in philosophy as a
pedagogy or as a practice, there is a tradition, like with Socrates, the cynics
or the Zen master, which are more concerned about interrupting the mental
process and obtaining silence than explaining. Philosophy has here little to do
with “science”, and more with an ascetic conception of “being”, where one shows
the absurdity of speech, common or erudite. Consciousness therefore becomes the
condition and substance of truth, in a sort of antiphilosophy.
The XIV century Turkish figure
Nasruddin Hodja has a lot do with this tradition. Although he inscribes himself
in the Sufi current, he is primarily known through his numerous, outrageous and
funny stories, very popular all around the
Key words
negative – antiphilosophy – philosophical
practice – pedagogy – absurdity – consciousness
A -
The negative way
In the beginning of the Hippias
minor dialogue, a discussion sets in between Hippias and Socrates, on the
question of who is the best man in the Iliad, between Odysseus (Ulysses) and
Achilles. The debate centers on the issue of lying, and Hippias claims that
Achilles is a better man because he does not lie, contrary to Odysseus, who is
the most cunning and doe not hesitate to hold a false discourse. At a certain
point, Socrates shows that Achilles makes as well statements which are not
true, but Hippias then uses as a defense of his hero the fact he does not lie
consciously: he just changed his mind, but he is very sincere. A debate
Socrates concludes by claiming that Odysseus is better than Achilles, since
when he lies, he very well knows that he is lying, so he knows the truth more
than Achilles.
We would like to use this
example of a classical philosophical text to introduce what we can call the
“via negativa” – negative path - of philosophical practice. We call it “via negativa”
just like the traditional concept of “via negativa” used in particular in
theology which is commonly used to determine for example the nature of God
though the denial of what he is not. Thus Socrates defends lying in order to
defend the truth, with the same irony that he claims his own ignorance in order
to teach. And what is here used in a more conceptual and rational way is
encountered as well in more playful way by the clown, the actor, the novelist,
the caricaturist, the humorist, etc. All these very common modes of expression
describe or stage certain schemes, behaviors, characters and situations, as a
way to denounce them and obviously prone the opposite of what they represent.
Thus the pretentious, the selfish, the hypocrite, the ambitious or any other
typical defect will be presented in such a ridiculous, gross or exaggerated
fashion, that this scenic posture will evidently criticize the ones who are
affected by these defaults in order to encourage the quality opposite to it. Or
at minimum, it represents a “Know thyself” injunction.
An interesting aspect of this
scheme is the large proportion of “unsaid” in those modalities of expression,
which leave tremendous room to ambiguity, and as the same time a lot of space
for freedom, since it does not saturate meaning, since it permits multiple
representation and interpretation. The emergence of the comedy in renaissance
1 - Philosophy as science
But negative theology is
mystical and comedy is a mere show, when philosophy is supposed be of a rather scientific
order: it should found itself on reason, on logic, on demonstration, draw a
system, therefore ambiguity, innuendos, allusions, exaggeration and other such
“literary tricks” are not exactly welcome. We can here just remember the Hegel
lectures on Plato, where the mere fact that Plato tells a story like the
Allegory of the cave signifies that at this time he is not producing a
philosophical discourse. Philosophy can only be rational and scientific, and
this Hegelian heritage will definitely model the face of philosophy. Therefore
the image of the philosopher, as the nature of his productions, tends to be
wise and direct, more than foolish and indirect. After all, in a culture
founded within the matrix of Christian values, let us not forget that the “oblique”
is the devil, for the devil is crafty. In French, the word “malin” means smart
or shrewd, but it refers as well to the devil, since it comes come “malus”:
bad. The English word “devious” has something of that order, since what is not
straight seems suspicious, and what is deviant is devilish.
To be moral therefore mean to
say the truth, to say things the way they are, and to behave according to
established standards of the good and the recommendable. In fact, in the
mentioned Plato dialogue, Hippias shows a rather often occulted but fundamental
aspect of the sophist: the sophist is the one who knows, he says the truth, he
is the specialist of the good, the technician of knowledge, the keeper of
rightness and morality. Calicles claiming that one has to follow his impulses
and desires and Gorgias reducing speech to mere rhetoric is only an attempt by
Socrates to show the fundamental immorality of such a position. Since, as
Pascal said, true morality laughs at morality. And knowledge is in itself immoral,
for its pretensions and hypocrisy, its fundamental negligence of virtue, its
disdain for the good, and moreover its ignorance of being, its absence of
being. The rational and moral speech is merely the discourse of convenience and
convention, of good conscience, the philosophical correctness that Nietzsche
criticizes as the “small reason”, in opposition to the “great reason” of life,
or when he denounces the illusory concept of human conscience. For even though
this trend of negative philosophy is not the hegemonic one and is even contrary
to it, it maintains itself as the regular
“other” of philosophy: its enemy brother, its shadow and
denigrator.
2 - Antiphilosophy
This minority current of
philosophy, this antiphilosophy, which pretends to show and shock more than it
pretends to tell and explain, is already very present and visible within
philosophy itself, for example in the character of Socrates, and its
devastating irony, this form of speech that says the contrary of what it says.
What a historical joke we have there in Socrates, that we can recognize as the
founding figure of philosophy, its hero and martyr, with someone that preaches
the false to know the true, and even worse, someone that shows that we are
condemned to falsehood since truth cannot be known. He had necessarily to be
killed, he who preached an antilogic, for example in the Parmenides dialogue
where every proposition and its contrary is both tenable and untenable. If the
false is true and the true is false, we don’t know anymore where we stand, we
don’t know anymore if we exist: the carpet has been pulled from under our feet.
But what amazing freedom is given to us: the right to think the unthinkable,
all the way into absurdity. Nevertheless, the agonistic dimension of this otherness,
the crossing over on the other side of the mirror, the fragmented “this
sidedness” of reality which refuses the establishment of any system, of any
conceptual and ethical map, is unbearable for both the common man and the
knowledgeable man, since both compose, as raw or cultured as they are, the
hierarchy of self evidence and good horse sense, a worldview where coherency
has to be granted.
The cynic, with its total lack
of respect for anything and anyone, provides in this context an interesting
historical example: it is the rare case of a philosophical school whose name is
used as well as a moral condemnation. Alongside with nihilism, although someone
like Nietzsche will try to show that contrary to the appearance, the nihilist
are not the ones who appear so to the superficial understanding. And what both cynicism and nihilism indicate,
what they have in common with the Socratic method, is their power of denial,
their heavy dose of contempt. It is not so much here the place to learn, but
the place to unlearn. One should not teach principles, but on the contrary
corrode those principles in order to think. Knowledge is here largely conceived
in opposition to thinking, the former conceived here as a possession of fixed
ideas that crystallizes, rigidifies and sterilizes mental processes. So the
main task of the teacher, if teacher be, is to untie or break the knots that
knowledge represents, a knowledge that is characterized as opinion - be it
common opinion or educated opinion, as Socrates distinguishes - in order to
free the mind and allow thinking. Just like in eastern practices such as Zen,
what is needed is to short circuit the usual paths of thoughts, seize them
through some shock effect, by mean of some conceptual paradox, critical
analysis or some strange behavior, which should hopefully produce some
illumination. And when the mind will wake up to itself, it will know where to
go, since mind is naturally inclined to think, unless it is hindered in its
proper activity.
3 - Dialectics
“It is not doubt which makes
one crazy, it is certitude” says Nietzsche. Even though the Nietzschean abrupt
interpellation is definitely not the Socratic laborious questioning, they both
agree on this idea that one’s mind should not be jailed within its own
thoughts. The thoughts we entertain necessarily stop us from having other
thoughts, especially if those thoughts are the kind of general principles that
determine what is acceptable and what is not. This has an echo in Heidegger,
when he writes: “What gives the most to think in our time which gives us a lot
to think is that we do not think yet.”
So we have to become a stranger to ourselves in order to think, we have
to alienate ourselves in order to be. And those hypotheses are at the heart of
the philosophical function as we see it: they found our philosophical practice.
Therefore negativity becomes a major part of our activity, of the activity we
invite our interlocutor to get involved in. The work of negativity, in a more
conceptual way, as Hegel and others define it, is the work of criticism, the
crucial step that allows and conditions dialectical thinking. This is what the
German philosopher defines as the moment following “A is A”, when “A is not A”.
But the other form of negativity that concerns us here is more linked toward
open-ended dialectics, when the synthetic moment that traces the path to the
absolute is not definable, not even searched for. This is what we find in
Heraclites, in Socrates, Kant and others: the aporetic perspective, the
antinomy, the open ended tension that leads to the gap, to the abyss, leaving
us with a intuitive and strong presence of the absolute, but an unspeakable
one, the thought that Plato calls the unhypothetical, the unconditioned that
conditions the conditioned, the indescribable vanishing point from which
perspective every point can be described.
This general frame work might
sound strange to the “reasonable”, “rational”, “down to earth” or “horse sense”
practical person, for whom this looks irrational, unpractical, mysterious or even
mystical. But it is indeed a very simple principle: it is more or less the
reminiscence theory of Plato that operates. Everyone knows everything already,
but one has to remember, a reminiscence that is the job of the philosopher in
each one of us. We don’t know because we forget, and especially because we
don’t want to know, we prefer not to know. So there is no use explaining
something to someone when he does not want to know. There is only to attract
his attention to his own attitude through some device that will surprise or
seize him, and he will know by himself, unless the will to know is very
profound.
4 - Methods
The way Socrates operated this
cognitive shock was through questioning, provoking the interlocutor into
discovering his own incoherency and ignorance, a process which allowed the
person to give birth to new concepts: maïeutics. For Heraclites, the struggle
of contraries engenders being, so the emergence of those contraries allowed us
to think and to be. For the cynics, man is so deeply entrenched in conventions
that the only way to get him to think is to behave in the most abrupt fashion
toward him: by fornicating in public, eating with the hands, going around naked
or living in barrel, by pretending men are not men, etc. All these theatrics
should affect the individual mind more than any speech should do. In the
To conclude this rather long
preamble, let us add a few words on our own practice, in order to establish
briefly how it inscribes itself in this current of “negative way”. Our
postulate is that most questions we ask ourselves, most problem that haunt us,
have their solution in our own selves, at least more than anywhere else. Thus
our main task, with the person we engage in a philosophical dialogue with, is
to become conscious of herself. First by asking her to be conscious of her own
question: through analysis, conceptualization, explanation, and other forms of
deepening the signification and implications of it. Second through inviting
this person to observe carefully her own thought and behaviors and pass
judgments on herself. Thirdly by periodically asking to take the counterpoint
of her own ideas and dwelling in depth this counter perspective. Fourthly to
accept and enjoy the “unthinkable” that she has necessarily produced in the
process, which most likely deal in a profound fashion to her own problem or
question. But this particular way of working implies much resistance from our
interlocutor, often stunned at her own ideas, and we therefore have to devise a
battery of “tricks” in order to accomplish the described task and overcome the
intense desire to tell oneself lies and stories of delusion, to avoid the
denial. Some observers watching this
practice criticize the fact that we work very closely with the words, just like
if the words had a reality of their own. And we agree with this observation,
since this is the way for us to talk about a practice. The words are not any
more what we want, but they constitute an objective substance that oblige us to
confront a “material” reality, what specifies a practice and distinguishes it
from theory. The harsh relationship to the words makes the being visible,
including its own tremendous capacity of self-denial capacity. Therefore we
show and act, rather that say and describe, even though our work constitute
primarily of words and ideas.
B - The case of Nasruddin Hodja
There are different reasons why
among a number of case studies of the negative way or antiphilosophy
figureheads we chose Nasruddin Hodja. The first reason is that he did not exist
as an actual person, and one of the requirements or our practice is precisely
to develop the capacity of the person not to exist. Nasruddin is a myth more
than anything else, even though in the city of
The second reason we chose him
is the popular aspect of his person and what is told about him, for the nature
of the tales that are told easily make him a folk hero, if only because they
are funny and lively, and therefore efficient and pedagogical. Out of those
stories, each listener will hear and understand what he can, with his own
means, a phenomenon that is interesting to watch when one tells those different
tales to different public. The reactions to the different contexts, to the
degrees of subtleties, to concreteness or absurdity, will reveal more than many
words who the listener is and how he thinks. Even the incomprehension of the
story will be useful, since it will send back each one to his own ignorance or
blindness.
The third reason is the width
of the field covered by those stories, precisely because they represent a
tradition more than a particular author. Questions of ethics, of logic, of
attitudes, existential issues, sociological issues, marital issues, political
issues, metaphysical issues, the list is long that can be drawn of the type of
far ranging problems or paradoxes posed to the person that comes in contact
with this body of critical knowledge. The apparent lightness of many of them
reveal and hide a profound understanding of the reality of being, even if one
can easily remain on a superficial external apprehension of them. But if the
“classical” philosopher will claim than the conceptualization and analysis –
like the one we indulge in – is necessary in order to constitute
philosophizing, one can as well respond that this formalization of the content
can accomplish a sterilizing function and give the illusion of knowledge. But
let’s leave for another occasion the debate about the nature and form of
philosophy. Although one hint that can be useful as a contextual information,
is the close relationship of Nasruddin to the Sufi tradition, the latter which
helped transmit the stories of Nasruddin, contemporary and neighbor of the
great mystique poet Rumi.
The forth reason is the
terribly provocative personality of this living myth. At a moment where political
or philosophical correctness tries to promote ethics and “good behavior” to
varnish the civilized brutality of our society, Nasruddin can be very useful,
since he is endowed with about all major defaults of character. He is a liar, a
coward, a thief, a hypocrite, he is selfish, gross, abusive, lazy, stingy,
unreliable and impious, but especially he is an idiot and a fool, and a very
accomplished one. But he generously offers all those grotesque traits of
character to the reader, who will see himself just like in a mirror, more
visible in its exaggerated deformity. He invites us to examine, accept and
enjoy the absurdity of our self, the nothingness of our personal being, as a
way to free our own mind and existence from all those pretensions that are geared
at giving us a good conscience, but that do more to induce personal and social
compulsive lies that anything else. His way of being deals a terrible and
appropriate blow to the idolatry of the individual self, so characteristic or
our occidental modern culture, to our factitious and permanent search for
identity and happiness. Through his atrocious “small lies”, Nasruddin helps us
set up in broad daylight the “big lie”. And little by little, we would like to
take the place of his best and eternal friend: his donkey.
But for now let us cut short
the rationalization of our own choice in order to comment and analyze some key
stories of Nasruddin Hodja, from which we can get a sense of the significance
of his philosophical content and the implications for life and
understanding. We cannot deal in such a
short article with all the themes dealt with in the numerous stories, but we
will give some insight on some of important themes. As well, we will add some
hints on the way that those stories can help in the teaching of philosophical
practice, in the philosophical guidance or consulting work.
As a little philosophical
reading exercise or meditation, we suggest to our reader, after reading each
little story, to attempt producing his own analysis before reading ours, in
order to appreciate the difference of interpretation, and we ask him to not
hesitate send us his own so we can as well benefit from it.
1 - Teaching
The preacher
Nasruddin on a trip stops by a small
town where the imam just died. Hearing he is a preacher, a group of faithful
comes to get him in order to give the Friday sermon. But Nasruddin does not
really want to do it, he feels tired and protests. But the people insist and he
finally accepts. Once on the pulpit, he asks “Dear brothers, do you know what I
will talk about?” And everybody answer in one voice: “Yes!” So Nasruddin
answers: “Well then, there is no use for me to stay here!” and he leaves. But
the people, frustrated of the good word, fetch him once more in spite of his
resistance, and when he asks again the question “ Do you know what I will talk
about?” everyone answers “No!”. To this, Nasruddin answers with a tone of
anger: “Then what I am doing with such a bunch of infidels and pagans !”, and
he leaves in a huff. But another time again, the faithful, somewhat irritated
fetch him, in spite of his protests, and he comes back. Everybody is ready for
his terrible question. “Well, do you know what I will talk about? asks he for
the third time. “Yes!” shouts half the crowd. “No!” shouts the other half of
the crowd. So Nasruddin answers: “Well I propose that the ones who know explain
everything to the ones who don’t know!” and he leaves.
The preacher is a very
interesting story that poses the paradox of teaching in a Socratic way. The
postulate of it is that a teacher can only teach what the students already
know, implying for example that it is not worth teaching someone if the ideas
involved do not speak already to him, and if it does, he can teach himself. For
this reason, the students actually do not need a teacher, as tries to show
Nasruddin when by three times he leaves the assembly. And the only way the
group can teach itself is through discussion, a sort of mutual teaching, where
each student is a teacher. The lazy teacher, or foolish teacher, is therefore a
good teacher: he gets the students to be active and “force” them to mobilize
their own knowledge and be creative, therefore practicing Socratic maïeutics.
And of course he does not explain this to his students: he expects them to
figure it out, because he trusts them, even though he treats them in an
apparently “rude” way, which can hurt their “feelings”. And he should not be
worried that they merely stay at the level of appearance: his laziness. That is
the risk to take. No teaching, even the “best”, guarantees understanding
anyhow, especially when there are long explanations.
In our work as a philosopher,
many interlocutors will act as the faithful and expect from us the good word,
if not the truth itself, especially when they have difficulties they want to
resolve, or simply because they want to be charmed by a “beautiful speech”. And
they will be very unhappy if they do not get what they want, not understanding
that the “man of knowledge” does not do his duty. But our work here is to teach
them to trust themselves, not by explaining this to them, which would prolong
an infantile relationship to the authority, but by posing a paradox that will
make them become conscious - by themselves - of their own heteronomy, the
statute of minority that they impose on their own self. This situation is even more acute when
someone is looking for “motherly” consolation, asking for a soft touch that
will make them feel better: for those, such a behavior is actually intolerable,
it will make them feel rejected, and maybe rightly so. Nasruddin’s practice is
pitiless, a lack of mercy that might just have its own legitimacy. It might
make one angry, but on the long run, it might make him think in a more profound
way.
2 - Truth
The key
Late at night, Nasruddin and
his neighbor come home from a feast. While trying to open his door, Nasruddin
drops his key on the sidewalk. Hearing this, his friend comes to help him find
it. But Nasruddin leaves him in the dark and start searching in the middle of
the street, where beams a beautiful moonshine. His neighbor, surprised, asks
him: “Why are you looking for your key over there? You lost it over here!”. To
which Nasruddin answers: “Do as you wish! I prefer to search where there is
light!”.
This story is very famous in
various forms under different climates. It has sometimes lost some of its
strength and significance by loosing the context, when it is known for example
as the story of a drunken man. The fact it comes from Nasruddin, known as wise
even though foolish in appearance, invites the listener not just to laugh at
the silliness, but to search deeper, behind the surface. And indeed this story
about light and dark, the key and the opening, deals directly with the question
of truth. For often, when he is in need, man prefers to look where he thinks
the desired object is, instead of where he has a better chance of finding it.
But the paradox would be too simple, if it was not that as well we can affirm
that man, just like Nasruddin, searches for truth where it more comfortable,
where he prefers it to be, even though he has no chance to find it in this very
place. So Nasruddin, depending on the interpretation, is behaving in the
correct way – although appearing foolish - or he is behaving in an outright
foolish way. But maybe in this incertitude lays the crux of the matter: truth
maybe necessary of a paradoxical nature, and we never know what is light and
what is darkness since both are as blinding one as the other.
In our practice, we have
noticed that incertitude is one of the most unbearable situation the human mind
knows. We want to know “for sure”. Many ideas come to us, and because we feel
uncertain, we claim we don’t know, or even that we can’t know, a certitude from
which comes despair. But we prefer this certitude of ignorance, including the
profound sense of impotence and the resentment that comes with it, to the
incertitude of knowing, to the anguish of indetermination. Thus to avoid this problem,
most of us will cling to certain ideas or principles, that we will repeat
forever like some incantatory mantra, and whenever we will be asked to look
elsewhere and envisage different ideas, we will forcefully refuse to relinquish
what we consider “our ideas” like a snail so attached to his shelter that he
will shrivel up inside his shell whenever anything strange or new seems to
threaten him. Our main task as a philosopher is to invite our interlocutor to
allow himself to think bold and daring thoughts, thoughts which are bold and
daring merely because we are not used to think them. We call this “thinking the
unthinkable”. And once these thoughts appear, the problem is to hear them,
accept them and even enjoy them, for even if those thoughts come from itself,
the individual mind wiggles and giggles in order to avoid those ideas and
reject them, because our own thoughts, like unwanted children, make us feel
uncomfortable.
3 – Choice
The two wives
Nasruddin has two wives, his older
wife Khadidja and her young cousin, but both quarrel a lot to know which one
their husband loves best. They regularly ask him which one he prefers, but
Nasruddin, who likes peace in the household and does not want to risk himself
in such a dangerous endeavor, cautiously prefers to avoid answering their
questions, answering that he loves both. But one day, the two women,
tenaciously try to corner him and ask him the following question: “Suppose that
the three of us are in boat and both of us fall in the water. Which one do you
help first?” Nasruddin hesitates then answers: “Well Khadidja, I think that at
your age, you must know a little bit how to swim!”
Once again, this story captures
a number of different issues. In appearance, Nasruddin is a coward, lying in
order to avoid problems, since we “discover” he actually prefers his younger
wife, choosing the “newer” being a classical choice, like children do. And a
most common way to lie is to deny having preferences, refusing to recognize our
own tendencies and subjectivity, thus avoiding making decisions by claiming a
certain neutrality in order to detain everything at the same time. Choosing is
full of consequences, and any particular choice implies the finitude of self.
Hence Nasruddin is very human again by claiming he has no preference. At the
same time, the parallel issue is the one of recognition, for if we don’t like
to choose, at least not in a conscious way, on the reverse not only do we like
to be chosen, but also we want at all cost to be chosen, one way or another,
like the wives of the story. To be the elected one is to be special, it gives
importance to our self and meaning to our life. Otherwise, we blend in the
generality of humanity, feeling utmost loneliness, a perspective that is equivalent
to a symbolic death. To be loved, or its equivalent, to be the first, or to be
the only one, remains therefore a major existential issue. But although
Nasruddin acts as a coward by not answering, as a liar for not admitting his
choice, as a macho for not taking in account the sensitivity of his wives and
as a brute for answering the way he does, he actually points out in a profound
way to the resolution of the problem raised: autonomy – knowing how to swim -
is here the key concept. Indeed, being “older”, Khadidja should know better
than look for outside recognition. She should have less worries about other’s
opinion of her, be more distant about the perception of her self, and deal with
reality in a more autonomous way.
A frequent reason why one looks
for the philosopher’s company is the seaming meaningless of one’s life. This
absence of significance is often due to the feeling a lack of recognition: by
the parents, the children, the mate, society, working place, peers, with the
consequence of lack of recognition by one self. Many questions that will be
asked, many issues that will be raised, have this situation as a background or
as the only reason. At the same time, the reverse can be said, that the reason
we look for recognition is that we don’t accept or love our own self. And this
is generally the case because we have a number of entrenched ideas about what
we should be and what we are not. The role of the philosopher in all this is
first to dedramatize the issue, but bringing in the reality principle in order
to deflate the balloon, so actual thinking can take place in all sobriety.
Especially since in general those issues, when one comes to discuss them, have
taken quite an obsessive turn in the mind of their beholder. We are what we
are, and life is not what our desires and fears make out of it. We know how to
swim, don’t we? We just forget that we know, and that is reason often we are
capable to drown ourselves in a glass of water. And like a drowning person who
refuses to be helped, whom motivated by panic even threatens and molests the
helping hand, the needy mind will throw every stick and stones at her disposal
to everyone around in order not to think, before admitting that this was
nothing but a big “schwarmereï”, as Hegel calls it. The hustling and bustling
of whirling emotions that looks like thoughts, but actually completely hinder
any actual thinking. Therefore, how can the philosopher on those premises avoid
being straightforward and rude? If in order to think one has to stop thinking –
an excellent guiding principle - any indulging in a “nice discussion” might
only reinforce the non-thinking. The reality principle is then an excellent
master and guide.
4 – Morality and logic
The rooster
A couple of young men, known pranksters,
wanted to play a trick on Nasruddin at the public bath. They each take one egg,
hide it, and then propose to Nasruddin a wager. Each one will try to lay an
egg, and the one who cannot will have to undress in front of everyone.
Nasruddin accepts, and the two start wiggling their ass, clucking like hens,
and finally drop their egg. Seeing this, Nasruddin lets down his towel, and
visibly animated by an intense physical desire starts pursuing the two “hens”.
The two young men, scared and scandalized at this sight, start screaming. “
Nasruddin! What are you doing? Have you gone crazy?” “Well my little chicks,
calm down!” answers the Hodja. “How can you lay an egg again if you don’t let
the rooster climb on you?”
A major theme covered by this
story is actually a very common one in the Nasruddin story: the question of
logic, of consistency and coherency, of sense, up to its limits, the
confrontation to the absurd, to the senseless. A confrontation of meaning to
meaninglessness, which explains why in so many of those stories, Nasruddin has
all the appearance of a lunatic, of a fool, of an insane person. What is
happening here? Two persons want to be smart, smarter than a third one, and the
gain they get is that by making the latter a fool, they will prove their
smartness to themselves and everyone. But the trap closes down on them, since
Nasruddin takes their “game” even further, to such an extremity that they
recoil and shriek: they fear for themselves and rules of morality are being
breached. Who knows what can then happen! The reaction of the “master” is to
teach not with words and explanations but with actions, unwholesome actions,
with theatrics, for this will speak more, in a more striking and efficient way.
In this case Nasruddin runs after his “students” in order to sodomize them in
public. They thought he would be scared of exposing his nudity, and he exposes
even more of himself, thus exposing them! We are here at the heart of
antiphilosophy. Nasruddin shows rather than demonstrate. The immorality or
foolishness of the pranksters initiative is not denounced by some kind of
lecture or rational discourse, but by setting a course even more foolish or
immoral, although some “open minded” modern readers might have a hard time with
this aspect of things… Ironically, there is a pharisaic dimension to these two
young men, very typical of immoral behavior: who, more than the immoral is more
willing to denounce immorality, as they do here? Is it not a nice and easy way
to pretend or regain certain “virginity”? Or simply because one is scared of
pursuing or just envisaging the consequences of one’s actions. “This goes too
far!” they will say: they are shocked! Just like if they were not already well
engaged in this path. Nasruddin here is a teacher of the cynic kind, who wants
to act as a mirror, by putting into light and amplifying a certain way of
thinking. True morality laughs at morality.
The philosophical consultant
has for major obstacle in his work what many a philosopher has called “good
conscience”, although this “good conscience” has a mirror image: “bad
conscience”. Moral conscience – a fundamental faculty - is often contrary to
consciousness, although funnily in a number of Latin languages the word is the
same. Since there is a “bad” judgment put on some of our thoughts and actions,
we don’t want to see them for what they are. We want to feel good, we want to
enjoy the feeling that we are on the right side of things, with the “good
guys”, when the “bad guys” are way on the other side. As a result of this
pressure, be it of personal origin, familial or social, the subject does not
dare think what he thinks, does not want to recognize his own thoughts, or will
refuse to pass judgment on them. There is a powerful form of self-denegation, a
denial of one’s own thinking or desires, just to conform to some established
principles or values. Nasruddin is here useful, since he invites us to freedom
of thought and action, he incites us to abandon at least momentarily any fear
of the “others”, their glare and their judgments. If one wants to please the
others, look moral or intelligent, the chances are he will think and act stupid
and immoral, even if the “others” grant him the expected award. Convention is a pact where by everyone agrees
to act and think in the same way in order to congratulate each other. In order
to think freely, the question is not simply to denounce systematically the
conventions: this could amount to a mere reactive adolescent behavior. It is
necessary to examine them, recognize their statute, evaluate them, their pros
and cons, and determine with a “free” mind if they are worth abiding by. But
unless one is capable in some way to break the law, the law is only a reign of
terror, since no law, moral or legal can pretend to any kind of absolute.
Therefore one should learn to respect the law, learn to violate the law, and
especially learn when either is appropriate and necessary. At least in the
perspective of philosophical counseling as we see it.
As for logic, the interesting
point is that logic, often perceived as a constraint that “limits” our
thinking, is here used as a crucial tool in order to become conscious of one’s
own thinking. For indeed, as Nasruddin did, if we prolong the “logical” course
of any perspective, we will have a good insight into its value or significance.
As absurd as the ideas are, we will be able to think them instead of shutting
our eyes in order to protect our good intentions, through pseudo-reasonable
rationalizations. But we have to transgress certain well-established
principles, for example the prohibition to exaggerate. The “logical”
projections of our own ideas, however absurd they seem, is always a liberating
and enlightening thought experiment, a simple procedure very useful for the
philosophy practitioner. This is what the two young men should understand from
their teacher.
5 - Fault
The turban
Nasruddin while on a trip stops
late at night at the inn. There is only one room left, with two beds, one of
which is already occupied. No problem, says our man. Just wake me up at dawn: I
have to leave early. And don’t make the mistake, I am the one with the turban,
adds he, while taking it off and putting it on the chair next to the bed.
At daybreak he rushes out and leaves
on his donkey. At midday, seeing a fountain he wants to quench his thirst.
While bending over, the water mirrors him, and he notices his head is bare.
“What an imbecile this innkeeper! exclaims he, irritated, I told him
explicitly: the one with the turban. And he woke up the wrong person!”
“I am fine and the world is
wrong”. Or “It’s their fault”, is a recurrent theme in the Nasruddin corpus, to
shed light on a typical human mental habit. Especially when this takes place in
the context of intense activity, when the busy little beings we are have no
time to think, take no time to think. The “other” is the easy way out, like
little children “He made me do it!”. Other form, very classical, the Cassandra
syndrome: “I told them and they did not listen to me!”. Once again, the form of
the “argument” or its internal localized “logic” is very coherent. After all,
Nasruddin did tell the innkeeper to wake up a man with a turban, and he did
not: he woke up a bare headed man… You really cannot trust anyone. What is at
stake here, beside the question of avoiding personal responsibility and taking
the time and liberty to think? It is once more the problem of universality, of
objectivity, of reason, of reality. The tendency for each one of us is to
produce a speech that fits us, that makes us feel comfortable. This usual
speech, we don’t even have to think about it, it comes naturally, as a defense
mechanism, as a sort of conatus of our ego who wants to survive and protect
itself: we are ready to think and say just about anything in order to
rationalize our little self and the image it projects. And if someone dares
attempt to interrupt it, either we claim his speech makes no sense, or we just
send him back to his own reduced subjectivity, which is not more legitimate than
ours: it is just his opinion. His against ours.
The insight or help Nasruddin
provides here to the philosophy practitioner is the understanding of the gap or
discrepancy between any “particular reason” and the wider ranging reason which
Descartes claims is “the most widely shared thing in the world”. When someone
comes to meet the philosopher, he outlines a “home made” rationality, a sort of
personal architecture that he inhabits, in which he might just be a blind
prisoner. So the role of the counselor here is to invite his interlocutor to
momentarily step out of himself, by proposing to conceive some other imaginary
self which would think otherwise, or that would have to entertain a discussion
with the neighbor, with the common man, with a group or persons. At that point,
it can be hoped that the guest will glimpse the arbitrariness or foolishness of
his own path, the limitedness of it. And if for some reason, which may seem
legitimate or not for the practitioner, the interlocutor wants to maintain his
position, he will do it we a more conscious mind, and that is the whole point.
The requirement here is therefore to dedouble ourself, as Hegel invites us to
do, as a condition for consciousness: in order to think, we have to see ourself
thinking. The mind has to become and object to itself, on which it can act. It
has to dare see itself thinking, in particular in all those little
ratiocinations it knows so well how to concoct. And the role of the philosopher
is here nothing but to create the conditions of this visibility.
C -
The Punch line
There is general paradox in the
character of Nasruddin. He is terrible with us, he is devastating and pitiless
with our egos, but we love him for it. In a period where reigns philosophical
correctness, where we are supposed to be so nice and make everyone happy, when
there is so much discourse on ethics probably because there is so little
ethics, Nasruddin does not try to “value” the individual and make him feel
good. To philosophize is for him to show the nothingness of the particular
being, so egocentric and blind. But then, why do we accept from him the kind of
terrible criticisms we would not accept even from our best friend? One reason might be that he is actually pitiless
for himself as well, which makes him our own brother, our better self. A
brother that sacrifices himself to show us how foolish we are, who laughs at
himself in order to laugh at us, a thwarted and funny kind of compassion. As a
sort of inverted Christ like figure, who goes one step further that Socrates on
the irony, as a good humored cynic, he takes on his own back all the stupidity,
lies and mediocrity of the human species. But we should beware of making a
martyr out of Nasruddin, for he would laugh at us for such a silly and sentimental
idea. Just one more trick we invent to feel good! At the same time, let us
entertain silly ideas about him. For it seems to us that the Nasruddinian
perspective is not so much that men won’t be fools anymore, but that they will
know a little bit they are great fools. The question here is not to cure, if
only because there is no way to cure, or because there is nothing to cure...
There is nothing left to do but
to watch the wonderful spectacle of the pathology, and to enjoy it as a Punch
and Judy show, as grand theatre. Let us be entertained by this comedy of
errors, let us laugh at the human drama. Much to do about nothing. That would
be an excellent title. So let’s keep on being foolish and enjoy it. Maybe
something will come out of all this joke and laughter.
-------------------
Some extra stories (to be
spread throughout the introduction)
The toothache
Nasruddin suffers atrociously
from a toothache. But being rather soft, he is too scared to go the barber that
would take care of him.
A neighbor, impressed by his
red and inflated mouth asks him to open his mouth.
“By Allah! What an abscess! If
your tooth was in my mouth, I would have it pulled out right away.”
“ So would I!” answers
Nasruddin.
The guest
Once more, Nasruddin has managed
to enter a feast where he was not invited. But this time, the host has noticed
his presence.
“What are you doing here, Nasruddin? As far as
I know I did not invite you!”
“Well, Omar, it is not because
you fail on your essential duties that it will deter me from the right
path!”
The poet
A man of the town who indulges
in poetic pretensions asks Nasruddin to listen to some of his poems. After
patiently listening the long declamation, Nasruddin renders a very frank
judgment: the work is turgid, pompous and vain. At those words, the author
becomes red with anger, and for five good minutes, he insults Nasruddin,
throwing at him all the possible names.
When the man calms down,
Nasruddin comments: “Your poetry is atrocious, but your prose is really excellent!”
Ignorance
A man was jealous of
Nasruddin’s reputation as a man of knowledge. In order to challenge him and
proves he is much wiser, he sends a list of forty very difficult questions. The
Hodja takes them, and one by one, answers “I don’t know”. His wife Khadidja, a
practical woman, seeing this, tells him: “Since you cannot answer any of them,
why don’t you write just once “I don’t know”, instead of repeating all the
time.” To which Nasruddin answers: “Oh ungrateful woman! Don’ you see this poor
man has spent all his efforts trying to spread his knowledge for me. The least
I can do, with my answers, by sheer politeness is to spread my ignorance for
him.
A good deal
Nasruddin has a job helping
people cross the river on his back. Five blind men hire him and ask for the
price. “Five coins” says he. He carries four of them on the other shore without
any problem, but the fifth one is heavier and our man is getting tired. The
blind man falls, gets carried away by the stream, and drowns. The others had
heard his screams and ask if there is any problem. “Not at all! answers
Nasruddin, on the contrary you have now a much better deal: it will cost you
only four coins!”
The first one
In the middle of the afternoon,
when everyone is taking a nap behind closed shutters, Nasruddin stays in the
middle of the town square under a terrible sun. A neighbor sees him and asks
him what he is doing there, risking a sunstroke when nothing is going on around
there. Nasruddin answers: “Yes, but in case something happens, I want to be the
first one!”
Words
Ali wants to borrow Nasruddin’s
donkey. “My donkey is not here”, answers
Nasruddin. But Ali hears from behind the house the bray of the donkey. Ali gets
mad: “What kind of friend are you, you who claim your donkey is not there when
it is in your garden!”. Nasruddin answers: “And you, what kind of friend are
you, who prefer to believe my donkey than believe me!”.
Bibliography
Heidegger: What is called thinking? Translated by J. Glenn Gray,
Maunoury, Jean-Louis. Sublimes
paroles et idioties de Nasr Eddin Hodja.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce
homo. traduction, introduction, notes et index de Eric Blondel.