Nothing to Be Frightened Of (14 page)

Religion tends to authoritarianism as capitalism tends to monopoly. And if you think popes seem a sitting—or enthroned—target, consider someone as unpopish as one of their notorious enemies: Robespierre. The Incorruptible One first came to national prominence in 1789 with an attack on the luxury and worldliness of the Catholic Church. In a speech to the Estates General, he urged the priesthood to reacquaint itself with the austerity and virtue of early Christendom by the obvious means of selling all its property and distributing the proceeds to the poor. The Revolution, he implied, would be happy to help if the Church proved reluctant.

Most of the Revolutionary leaders were atheists or serious agnostics; and the new state quickly disposed of the Catholic God and his local representatives. Robespierre, however, was the exception, a Deist who thought atheism in a public man little short of lunacy. His theological and political terminologies were intermingled. In a grand phrase, he declared that “atheism is aristocratic”; whereas the concept of a Supreme Being who watches over human innocence and protects our virtue—and, presumably, smiles as unvirtuous heads are lopped—was “democratic through and through.” Robespierre even quoted (seriously) Voltaire ’s (ironic) dictum that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” From all this, you might imagine that when the Revolution introduced an up-to-date belief system, it might avoid the extremism of the one it replaced; might be rational, pragmatic, even liberal. But what did the invention of a shiny new Supreme Being lead to? At the start of the Revolution, Robespierre presided over the slaughter of priests; by its end, he was presiding over the slaughter of atheists.

Chapter 24

In my early twenties, I read a lot of Somerset Maugham. I admired the lucid pessimism and ranging geography of his stories and novels; also, his sane reflections on art and life in such books as
The Summing Up
and
A Writer’s Notebook.
I enjoyed being prodded and startled by his truth-telling and sophisticated cynicism. I didn’t envy the writer his money, his smoking jackets or his Riviera house (though I wouldn’t have minded his art collection); but I did envy him his knowledge of the world. I knew so little about it myself, and was ashamed of my ignorance. In my second term at Oxford, I had decided to give up modern languages for the more “serious” study of philosophy and psychology. My French tutor, a benign Mallarmé scholar, courteously asked my reasons. I gave him two. The first was prosaic (literally so—the weekly grind of turning chunks of English prose into French and vice versa), the second more overwhelming. How, I asked him, could I possibly be expected to have any understanding of, or sensible opinions about, a play like
Phèdre
when I had only the remotest experience of the volcanic emotions depicted in it? He gave me a wry, donnish smile: “Well, which of us can ever say that we have?”

At this time, I kept a box of green index cards, onto which I copied epigrams, witticisms, scraps of dialogue, and pieces of wisdom worth preserving. Some of them strike me now as the meretricious generalizations that youth endorses (but then they would); though they do include this, from a French source: “The advice of the old is like the winter sun: it sheds light but does not warm us.” Given that I have reached my advice-giving years, I think this may be profoundly true. And there were two pieces of Maugham’s wisdom that echoed with me for years, probably because I kept arguing with them. The first was the claim that “Beauty is a bore.” The second, from chapter 77 of
The Summing Up
(a green index card informs me), ran: “The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.” I cannot remember my response to this at the time, though I suspect it might have been: Speak for yourself, old man.

Maugham was an agnostic who thought that the best frame of mind in which to conduct life was one of humorous resignation. In
The Summing Up
he runs through the various unpersuasive arguments—from prime cause, from design, from perfection—which have convinced others of God’s reality. More plausible than these, to his mind, was the long unfashionable argument
e consensu gentium
, “from general agreement.” Since the beginning of human time, the vast majority of people, including the greatest and wisest of them, from vastly divergent cultures, have all entertained some kind of belief in a God. How could such a widespread instinct exist without the possibility of its being satisfied?

For all his practical wisdom and knowledge of the world—and for all his fame and his money—Maugham failed to hold on to the spirit of humorous resignation. His old age contained little serenity: all was vindictiveness, monkey glands, and hostile will-making. His body was kept going in vigour and lust while his heart grew harder and his mind began to slip; he declined into an empty rich man. Had he wished to write a codicil to his own (wintry, unwarming) advice, it might have been: the additional tragedy of life is that we do not perish at the right time.

While Maugham was still lucid, however, he arranged a meeting of which, alas, no detailed minutes, or even the sketchiest outline, survive. During the era of piety, princes and rich burghers used to summon priest and prelate to reassure them of the certainty of heaven and the rewards their prayers and monetary offerings had ensured. The agnostic Maugham now did the opposite: he summoned A. J. Ayer, the most intellectually and socially fashionable philosopher of the day, to reassure him that death was indeed final, and that nothing, and nothingness, followed it. The need for such reassurance might be explained by a passage in
The Summing Up.
There Maugham relates how, as a young man, he lost his belief in God, but nonetheless retained for a while an instinctive fear of hell, which it took him another metaphysical shrug to dislodge. Perhaps he was still looking over his shoulder.

Ayer and his wife, the novelist Dee Wells, arrived at the Villa Mauresque in April 1961 for this oddest, and most poignant, of freebies. If this were a short story or a play, the two principals might begin by sounding one another out, and seeking to establish the rules of the encounter; then the narrative would build towards a set piece in Maugham’s study, probably after dinner on the second evening. Brandy glasses would be filled, swirled, and sniffed; we might equip Maugham with a cigar, Ayer with a pack of French cigarettes rolled in yellow paper. The novelist would list the reasons why he long ago ceased to believe in God; the philosopher would endorse their correctness. The novelist might sentimentally raise the argument
e consensu gentium
; the philosopher would smilingly dismantle it. The novelist might wonder whether, even without God, there might not still, paradoxically, be hell; the philosopher—reflecting to himself that this fear might be a sign of vestigial homosexual guilt—would put him right. The brandy glasses would be refilled, and then, to make his presentation complete (and justify his air ticket) the philosopher would outline the latest and most logical proofs of the nonexistence of God and the finiteness of life. The novelist would rise a little unsteadily, brush some ash off his smoking jacket, and suggest they rejoin the ladies. In company again, Maugham would pronounce himself profoundly satisfied, and become jolly, almost skittish, for the rest of the evening; the Ayers might exchange knowing glances.

(A professional philosopher, considering this imaginary scene, might protest at the writer’s gross vulgarization of Ayer’s actual position. The Wykeham Professor regarded all religious language as essentially unverifiable; so for him the statement “There is no God” was as meaningless as the statement “God exists”—neither being susceptible to philosophical proof. In reply, the writer might plead literary necessity; and also counter that since Ayer was here talking to a layman and benefactor, he might have held back on technicality.)

But since this is life, or rather the remnants of it that become available to biographers, we have no evidence of such a private audience. Perhaps there was just a brisk, convivial reassurance over the breakfast table. This might make for a better short story (though not play): the Great Matter dismissed in a few phrases during a clatter of knives, with perhaps the counterpoint of a parallel discussion about social arrangements for the day: who wanted to go shopping in Nice, and where exactly along the Grande Corniche Maugham’s Rolls-Royce should transport them for lunch. But in any event, the required exchange somehow took place, Ayer and his wife returned to London, while Maugham, after this rare secular shriving, proceeded towards his death.

Chapter 25

A few years ago, I translated the notebook Alphonse Daudet began keeping when he realized his syphilis had reached its tertiary stage, and would inevitably bring his death. At one point in the text he starts bidding goodbye to those he loves: “Farewell wife, children, family, the things of my heart . . .” And then he adds: “Farewell me, cherished me, now so hazy, so indistinct.” I wonder if we can somehow farewell ourselves in advance. Can we lose, or at least thin, this resilient sense of specialness until there is less of it to disappear, less of it to miss? The paradox being, of course, that it is this very “me” which is in charge of thinning itself. Just as the brain is the only instrument that we have to investigate the workings of the brain. Just as the theory of the Death of the Author was inevitably pronounced by . . . an Author.

Lose, or at least thin, the “me.” Two stratagems suggest themselves. First, to ask how much, in the scale of things, that “me” is worth. Why should the universe possibly need its continuing existence? This “me” has already been indulged with several decades of life, and in most cases will have reproduced itself; how can it be of sufficient importance to justify any more years? Further, consider how boring that “me” would become, to both me and others, if it went on and on and on (see Bernard Shaw, author of
Back to Methuselah
; also see Bernard Shaw, old man, incorrigible poseur and tedious self-publicist). Second stratagem: see the death of “me” through the eyes of others. Not those who will mourn and miss you, or those who might hear of your death and raise a momentary glass; or even those who might say “Good!” or “Never liked him anyway” or “
Terribly
overrated.” Rather, see the death of “me” from the point of view of those who have never heard of you—which is, after all, almost everybody. Unknown person dies: not many mourn. That is our certain obituary in the eyes of the rest of the world. So who are we to indulge our egotism and make a fuss?

Such wintry wisdom may briefly convince. I almost persuaded myself for the time I was writing the paragraph above. Except that the indifference of the world has rarely reduced anyone’s egotism. Except that the universe’s judgement of our value rarely accords with our own. Except that we find it difficult to believe that, if we went on living, we would bore ourselves and others (there are so many foreign languages and musical instruments to learn, so many careers to try out and countries to live in and people to love, and after that we can always fall back on tango and
langlauf
and the art of watercolour . . .). And the other snag is that merely to consider your own individuality, which you are mourning in advance, is to reinforce the sense of that individuality; the process is one of digging yourself into an ever larger hole that will eventually become your grave. The very art I practise also runs counter to the idea of a calm farewell to a thinned self. Whatever the writer’s aesthetic—from subjective and autobiographical to objective and author-concealing—the self must be strengthened and defined in order to produce the work. So you could say that by writing this sentence I am making it just a little harder for myself to die.

Or you could say: Oh, get on with it then—fuck off and die anyway, and take your noxious arty self with you. It is the last Christmas before my sixtieth birthday, and a few weeks ago the website
belief.net
(“Meet Christian singles in your area”; “Health and Happiness Tips Daily in Your Inbox”) has asked Richard Dawkins—or, as the site’s subscribers have nicknamed him, “Mister Meaninglessness”—about the despair aroused in some by the implications of Darwinism. He replies: “If it’s true that it causes people to feel despair, that’s tough. The universe doesn’t owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn’t owe us a nice warm feeling inside. If it’s true, it’s true, and you’d better live with it.” Fuck off and die, indeed. Of course, Dawkins is right in his argument. But Robespierre was also right: atheism is aristocratic. And the lordly tone recalls the punitive hardliners of old Christianity. The universe isn’t arranged by God for your comfort. You don’t like it? Tough. You—unbaptized soul—get off to limbo. You—blaspheming masturbator—straight to hell, do not pass Go, and no Get Out of Jail card for you, ever. You—Catholic husband—this way; you lot—apostate children and wife who lodged with the atheist Ayer—that way. Naught for your comfort. Jules Renard imagined just such a parade-ground God, who would keep reminding those who finally made it to heaven: “You aren’t here to have
fun
, you know.”