Janus (15 page)
Authors: Arthur Koestler
* See, for instance, 'William James's The Varieties of ReligiousIrrational beliefs are saturated with emotion; they are
Experience, still a classic in this field. A more recent
treatment is offered by Sir Alister Hardy in The Divine Flame
and The Biology of God.
felt
to be true.
Believing has been described as 'knowing with one's viscera'. And visceral
knowledge, whether innate or acquired, is mediated by the 'old brain'.
We often describe our affect-charged judgements -- mistakenly --
as 'instinctive reactions'. They are not. But they have the same elemental,
reason-defying, old-brain power as true instincts. At this point the
psychological considerations of the present chapter lead straight back
to the neurophysiological theories discussed in the
Prologue
. The schizophysiology of the brain provides
an essential clue to the streak of insanity running though the history
of man.
Our cherished beliefs are of course neither exclusive products of
the human neocortex, nor of the 'old brain' which we share with the
lower mammals, but of their combined activities. Their degree of
irrationality varies according to which level dominates and to what
extent. Between the theoretical extremes of 'pure logic' and 'blind
passion' there are many levels of mental activity, as we find them in
primitives at various stages of development, in children at various ages,
and in adults in various states of consciousness (lucid, daydreaming,
dreaming, hallucinating, etc.). Each of these types of mental activity
is governed by its own 'rules of the game' which reflects the complex
interactions of the old and new structures in the brain. For interact
they must all the time -- even if their coordination is inadequate, and
deficient in the effective controls which lend stability to a well-ordered
holarchy. Thus even abstract verbal symbols become imbued with emotive
values and visceral reactions -- as the psycho-galvanic lie-detector so
dramatically shows. And that applies even more, of course, to doctrines
and ideologies amplified by the group-mind. Unfortunately we cannot
apply a lie-detector to measure the irrationality of its beliefs, nor
its explosive and devastating potential.
V
AN ALTERNATIVE TO DESPAIR
1
As long as we believed that our species was potentially immortal, with an
astronomical lifespan before it, we could afford to wait patiently for
that evolutionary change in human nature which, gradually or suddenly,
would make love and sweet reason prevail. But man's biological evolution
came to a virtual standstill in Cro-Magnon days, 50,000 to 100,000 years
ago. We cannot wait another 100,000 years for the unlikely chance mutation
which will put things right; we can only hope to survive by inventing
techniques which supplant biological evolution. That is to say, we must
search for a cure for the schizophysiology endemic in our nature, which
led into the situation in which we find ourselves. If we fail to find
that cure, the old paranoid streak in man, combined with his new powers
of destruction, must sooner or later lead to his extinction. But I also
believe that the cure is not far beyond the reach of contemporary biology;
and that with the proper concentration of efforts it might enable man
to win the race for survival.
I am aware that this sounds over-optimistic, in contrast to the pessimistic
views expressed in previous chapters, of the prospects ahead of us.
Yet I do not think that these fears are exaggerated, and I do not think
that the hope for a rescue is entirely utopian. It is not inspired by
science fiction, but based on the recent spectacular advances in
neuro-chemistry and related fields. They do not yet provide a cure for
the mental disorder of our species, but they indicate the area of research
that may eventually produce the remedy hopefully invoked in the
Prologue
:
that combination of benevolent hormones or enzymes which would resolve the
conflict between the old and recent structures in the brain, by providing
the neocortex with the power of hierarchic control over the archaic
lower centres, and thus catalyse the transition from maniac to man.
Yet I have learned from painful experience that any proposal which
involves 'tampering with human nature' is bound to provoke strong
emotional resistances. These are partly based on ignorance and prejudice,
but partly on a justified revulsion against further intrusions into the
privacy and sanctity of the individual by social engineering, character
engineering, various forms of brain-washing, and other threatening
aspects of overt or covert totalitarianism. It hardly needs saying that
I share this loathing for a nightmare in whose shadow most of nay life
was spent. But on the other hand it has to be realized that ever since
the first cave-dweller wrapped his shivering frame into the hide of a
dead animal, man has been, for better or worse, creating for himself an
artificial environment and an artificial mode of existence without which
he no longer can survive. There is no turning back on housing, clothing,
artificial heating, cooked food; nor on spectacles, hearing aids, forceps,
artificial limbs, anaesthetics, antiseptics, prophylactics, vaccines and
so forth. We start tampering with human nature almost from the moment a
baby is born, by the universal practice of dropping a solution of silver
nitrate into its eyes as a protection against
ophthalmia neonatorum
,
a form of conjunctivitis often leading to blindness, caused by bacilli
which lurk in the mother's genital tract. This is followed later by
preventive vaccinations, compulsory in most civilized countries, against
smallpox and other infectious diseases. To appreciate the value of these
tamperings with the course of nature, let us remember that the epidemics
of smallpox among American Indians were one of the main reasons why they
lost their lands to the white man. It also decimated the population of
Europe in the beginning of the seventeenth century -- its ravages only
equalled, perhaps symbolically, by the massacres, in the name of true
religion, of the Thirty Years War.
A less well-known form of tampering, pertinent to our subject, is the
prevention of goitre and the variety of cretinism associated with it. When
I was a child, the number of people in Alpine mountain valleys with
monstrous swellings in the front of their necks, and of cretinous children
in their families was quite frightening. On recent trips, revisiting the
same regions half a century later, I cannot remember having come across
a single cretinous child. Thanks to the progress of biochemistry, it has
been discovered that this type of cretinism was caused by a malfunction of
the thyroid gland. This in turn was due to the shortage of iodine in the
nutrients of the mountainous areas affected. Without sufficient iodine,
the gland is unable to synthesize the required quantities of thyroid
hormones, with tragic consequences for the mind. Thus iodine in small
quantities was added by the health authorities to the common table salt,
and goitrous cretinism in Europe became virtually a thing of the past.
Obviously, our species does not possess the biological equipment needed
to live in environments with iodine-poor soil, or to cope with the
micro-organisms of malaria and smallpox. Nor does it possess instinctual
safeguards against excessive breeding: ethologists tell us that every
animal species they have studied -- from flower beetles through rabbits
to baboons -- is equipped with such instinctual controls, which inhibit
excessive breeding and keep the population density in a given territory
fairly constant, even when food is plentiful. When the density reaches
a critical limit, crowding produces stress which affects the hormonal
balance and interferes with lifespan and reproductive behaviour. Thus
there is a kind of feedback mechanism which adjusts the rate of breeding
and keeps the population at a more or less stable level. The population of
a given species in a given territory behaves in fact as a self-regulating
social holon.
But in this respect, too, man is a biological freak, who, somewhere
along the way, lost this instinctual control-mechanism. It seems almost
as if in human populations the ecological rule were reversed: the more
crowded they are in slums, ghettoes and poverty-stricken areas,
the faster they breed. What prevented the population from exploding
much earlier in history was not the kind of automatic feedback control
which we observe in animals, but the death-harvest of wars, epidemics,
pestilence and infant mortality. These were factors beyond the control of
the masses; but nevertheless conscious attempts to regulate the birthrate
through contraception and infanticide are on record from the very dawn
of history. (The oldest recipes to prevent conception are contained
in the so-called Petri Papyrus, dating from about 1850 B.C.) Birth
control though infanticide was also common from ancient Sparta to quite
recently among Eskimos. Compared to these cruel methods, the modern
ways of directly 'tampering with Nature' by intra-uterine coils and
oral contraceptives are certainly preferable. Yet they interfere in a
radical and permanent manner with the vital physiological processes of
the oestrous cycle. Applied on a world-wide scale they would amount to
the equivalent of an artificially induced adaptive mutation.
There is no end to the list of beneficial 'tamperings with human nature',
compared to which the abuses and occasional follies of medicine and
psychiatry shrink to relative insignificance. What the sum total of these
tamperings amounts to is in fact
correcting
human nature, which without
these correctives would in its biological aspect hardly be viable, and
which in its social aspect, after countless disasters, is heading for
the ultimate catastrophe. Having conquered the worst of the infectious
diseases which assail the body of man, the time has come to look for
methods to immunize him against the infectious delusions which from
time immemorial have assailed the group-mind and made a blood-bath of
his history. Neuropharmacology has given us lethal nerve-gases, drugs
for brain-washing, others to induce hallucinations and delusions at
will. It can and will be put to benevolent use. Let me quote a single
example of the type of research pointing in that direction:
In 1961 the University of California San Francisco Medical Centre
organized an international symposium on Control of the Mind. At the
first session, Professor Holger Hyden of Gothenburg University made
headlines in the Press with his paper -- 'Biochemical Aspects of Brain
Activity'. Hyden is one of the leading authorities in that field. The
passage which created the sensation is quoted below (the reference to
me is explained by the fact that I was a participant at the symposium):
In considering the problem of control of the mind, the data give riseThe last sentence is formulated with caution, but the implications
to the following question: would it be possible to change the
fundamentals of emotion by inducing molecular changes in the
biologically active substances in the brain? The RNA*, in particular,
is the main target for such a speculation, since a molecular change
of the RNA may lead to a change in the proteins being formed. One
may phrase the question in different words to modify the emphasis:
do the experimental data presented here provide means to modify
the mental state by specifically induced chemical changes? Results
pointing in that direction have been obtained; this work was carried
out using a substance called tricyano-aminopropene.
* Ribonucleic acid, a key substance in the genetic apparatus.
... The application of a substance changing the rate of
production and composition of RNA and provoking enzyme changes
in the functional units of the central nervous system has both
negative and positive aspects. There is now evidence that the
administration of tricyano-aminopropene is followed by an increased
suggestibility in man. This being the case, a defined change of such
a functionally important substance as the RNA in the brain could
be used for conditioning. The author is not referring specifically
to tricyano-aminopropene, but to any substance inducing changes
of biologically important molecules in the neurons and the glia
and affecting the mental state in a negative direction. It is not
difficult to imagine the possible uses to which a government in
a police-controlled state could put this substance. For a time
they would subject the population to hard conditions. Suddenly
the hardship would be removed, and at the same time, the substance
would be added to the tap water and the mass-communications media
turned on. This method would be much cheaper, and would create
more intriguing possibilities than to let Ivanov treat Rubashov
individually for a long time, as Koestler described in his book.
On the other hand, a counter-measure against the effect of a substance
such as tricyano-aminopropene is not difficult to imagine either. [1]
are clear. However shocking this may sound, if our sick species is to
be saved, salvation will come, not from UNO resolutions and diplomatic
summits, but from the biological laboratories. It stands to reason that
a biological malfunction needs a biological corrective.
2
It would be naive to expect that drugs can present the mind with gratis
gifts, and put into it something which is not already there. Neither mystic
insights, nor philosophical wisdom, nor creative power can be provided by
pill or injection. The biochemist cannot
add
to the faculties of the
brain -- but he can
eliminate
obstructions and blockages which impede
their proper use. He cannot put additional circuits into the brain,
but he can improve coordination between existing ones and enhance the
power of the neocortex -- the apex of the hierarchy -- over the lower,
emotion-bound levels and the blind passions engendered by them. Our
present tranquillizers, barbiturates, stimulants, anti-depressants and
combinations thereof are merely a first step towards more sophisticated
aids to promote a balanced state of mind, immune against the sirens'
song, the barking of demagogues and false Messiahs. Not the Pop-Nirvana
procured by LSD or the
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