The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa (28 page)

“I was assailed by doubts, and you can see why.... I’m a materialist, I thought. This is the only life I have, so why should I worry about social inequalities and changing how people think when I could enjoy myself and have a lot more fun if I didn’t worry about such things? Why should someone who only has this life, who doesn’t believe in eternal life, who accepts no law except Nature, who opposes the state because it isn’t natural, marriage because it isn’t natural, money because it isn’t natural, and all social fictions because they aren’t natural—why the devil should such a person advocate altruism and self-sacrifice for others, or for humanity, when altruism and self-sacrifice are likewise unnatural? Yes, the same logic that shows me that a man isn’t born to be married, or to be Portuguese, or to be rich or poor, also shows me that he’s not born to be public spirited, that he’s born only to be himself, and thus the opposite of public spirited and altruistic, and thus completely selfish.

“I debated the matter within myself. You’re forgetting, said one part of me to the other, that we’re born into the human species, which means we have a duty to defend the welfare of all men. But was the notion of ‘duty’ natural? Where did this notion come from? If it obliges
me to sacrifice my own well-being, my own comfort, my survival instinct, and my other natural instincts, then doesn’t it have the very same effect as any of the social fictions?

“This notion that we have a duty to look out for other humans can only be considered natural if it somehow rewards the individual self, since then, when all is said and done, it won’t really go against our natural selfishness, even though it may do so in principle. To simply deny ourselves pleasure is unnatural, but to deny ourselves one pleasure for the sake of another is a different matter, for it’s part of the natural order to choose between two things when we can’t naturally have both. So what selfish, or natural, reward would I get by devoting myself to the cause of a free society and mankind’s future happiness? Only the awareness of having done my duty, of having worked toward a worthy goal. This, however, is not a pleasure per se but a pleasure (if really it is) born of a fiction, like the pleasure of being extremely rich or of being born into good social circumstances.

“I confess, my friend, that I had some moments of serious doubt. I felt unfaithful to my creed, as if I’d betrayed it. But I soon got over this hump. The notion of justice is inside me, I thought. I naturally felt it. I felt a duty that went beyond my concern for my own fate. And so I went forward on my chosen path.”

“Your decision doesn’t seem to me to show a clear-thinking mind at work. You didn’t solve the logical problem. You went forward on a purely sentimental impulse.”

“Quite right. But I’m telling my personal story of how I became an anarchist and have remained one to this day. To do that, I’m laying out the various problems and hesitations I felt, and explaining how I overcame them. At this point in my story, you’re right, I overcame the logical problem with sentimentality rather than with reason. But you’ll see how this logically unresolved problem was completely and definitively cleared up once I gained a full understanding of the anarchist doctrine.”

“Interesting....”

“It is indeed.... Now let me go on with my story. I dealt with this problem as best I could at the time, as I’ve explained. And then another, no less troublesome problem popped up in my mind.

“Okay, I thought, I’m willing to sacrifice myself without any personal reward, or, in other words, with no truly
natural
reward. But suppose the future society doesn’t turn out as I hope? Suppose a free society never materializes? Then what the hell am I sacrificing myself for? To sacrifice myself for an idea without receiving any personal reward for my efforts was one thing, but to sacrifice myself and
not have the slightest guarantee that the idea I’m working for will ever become a reality
was something else again.... Well, I’ll tell you up front that I dealt with this problem in the same sentimental way I’d dealt with the other, but I must also say that, just as with the other problem, this one was logically and automatically resolved once I reached the stage of full awareness in my anarchism. You’ll see. ... At the time this second problem occurred to me, I got around it with an empty phrase or two: I’m doing my duty for the future; it’s up to the future to do its duty for me.’ Or something to that effect.

“I explained this conclusion, or rather, these conclusions, to my comrades, and they all agreed with me. They all agreed that we needed to go forward and do everything we could for a free society. Actually, several of the more intelligent fellows were a bit taken aback by my explanation, not because they didn’t agree, but because they’d never seen these matters set forth so clearly, nor realized how complex they were. But in the end everyone agreed. We were all going to work for the great social revolution, for a free society, regardless of whether the future would vindicate our efforts! We formed a group of like-minded people and began a fervent campaign to spread our ideas as best we could, given our limitations. Amid various hardships, entanglements, and even persecutions we carried on, working for the anarchist ideal.”

Here the banker paused for rather a long time, but he didn’t relight his cigar, which had gone out again. Suddenly, he cracked a slight smile and looked at me intently, as if he were now arriving at the crucial point. He went on, speaking in a clearer and more emphatic voice.

“And then,” he said, “something new occurred. By ‘then’ I mean after a few months of campaigning for our cause, when I began to notice a new complication, much more serious than the others.

“You remember, don’t you, what I lucidly, logically concluded would be the best course of action for anarchists? ... A course, or courses, that would help destroy social fictions without, at the same time, hindering either the creation of future freedom or the limited freedom of those currently oppressed by social fictions; a course that would, if possible, create something of that future freedom....

“Well, having established those principles, I never lost sight of them. And after a few months of our efforts, I discovered something. Our anarchist group, which wasn’t large—I think there were about forty of us—was beginning to breed tyranny.”

“To breed tyranny? How so?”

“Simple.... Some people took charge, obliging the rest of us to follow. Some imposed their will, forcing the rest of us to do what they wanted. Some used cunning and trickery to drag others down paths they didn’t want to go. I’m not saying this happened in serious matters; it didn’t. But the fact is that it happened every single day, not only in matters related to our campaign to promote anarchism but in everyday matters of life. Almost imperceptibly, some became leaders, while others became followers. Some became leaders by imposition, others by their shrewd behavior. This was observable in the tiniest things. For instance: Two fellows would walk down the street together. At the end of the street, one needed to turn right, and the other left; each had a good reason for going in his particular direction. But the one who needed to go left said to the other, ‘Come along with me,’ to which the other truthfully answered, ‘I can’t, pal, I need to go the other way’ for this or that reason. But in the end, against his will and his own interest, he would go along with the fellow who needed to go left. Sometimes this happened through arm twisting, sometimes through mere insistence or some other cause. But it was never because of a logical reason. This domination and subordination always had something spontaneous about it, as if it were instinctive. And as in this simple case, so in all cases, from the least to the most important ones. Do you see my point?”

“I see it, but what’s so strange about it? It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“Perhaps. I’ll get to that. For now I merely wish to point out that this goes
completely against anarchist doctrine
. Note that this occurred in a small group, with no real influence or importance, a group that wasn’t responsible for solving any large issue or making any major decision. And note that it was a group of people who had joined together specifically to promote the anarchist cause—to do everything in their power to oppose social fictions and to create, as far as possible, the freedom of the future. Are you with me on these two points?”

“Yes.”

“Now consider what this means.... A small group of sincere people (and I can assure you that we were all sincere), formed expressly to work for the cause of freedom, had achieved, after a few months, just one unequivocal, concrete result:
the creation of tyranny in its midst.
And consider what sort of tyranny.... Not a tyranny which, though regrettable, had derived from social fictions and would therefore be excusable up to a point—less so, of course, in those who were fighting those fictions, yet we couldn’t be blamed for not entirely escaping their influence, since we were living in a society that was founded on them. But it wasn’t this kind of tyranny. Those who took charge and forced others to follow them didn’t do so on the basis of their wealth or their social rank or some other fictitious, unjustly assumed authority. Their actions were founded on something other than social fictions. And so their tyranny, having nothing to do with social fictions, was a
new tyranny
. Not only that, it was a tyranny inflicted on people who were already being oppressed by social fictions. And to top it off, it was a tyranny inflicted by people whose sincere goal was none other than to destroy tyranny and create freedom.

“Now transfer this situation to a much larger, much more powerful group that deals with important issues and makes crucial decisions. Imagine that group directing all its efforts, like our group, toward the formation of a free society. And now tell me if, through that jumble of criss-crossing tyrannies, you can see in the future anything that remotely resembles a free society or a humanity worthy of the name.”

“Interesting point....”

“Isn’t it? And there are various related phenomena that are no less interesting. The tyranny of helping, for example....”

“The
what?”

“The tyranny of helping. Instead of trying to dominate or impose their will on others, some people in our group, quite to the contrary, did everything they could to help others. It seems like the contrary, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. It’s another version of the same new tyranny. It’s every bit as opposed to anarchist principles.”

“Come now—that’s absurd!”

“Listen. When we help someone, we treat him as if he were incompetent; if he’s not incompetent, either we help make him that way, which is tyranny, or we suppose he’s that way, which is contempt. In the former case, we restrict his freedom. In the latter case we assume, at least unconsciously, that he’s contemptible and unworthy or incapable of freedom.

“Going back to my own group, you can see how critical a point we’d reached. It was one thing to work for the ideal future society without expecting it to ever thank us and without even being certain that this society would materialize. But it was quite another to work for the freedom of the future and have no results to show other than the creation of tyranny, and not just any tyranny but a brand-new form of it: the tyranny that we, the oppressed, were inflicting on one another. This was too much to swallow.

“I started thinking. There had to be a mistake, some kind of oversight. Our goals were good and our ideas rang true, so was the problem in our method? It must have been, but where on earth was the mistake? I thought so hard my mind went dizzy. Then one day out of the blue, as always happens in these things, I hit on the solution. It was the red-letter day of my anarchist theories, the day when I discovered the anarchist method, if I may so call it.”

He looked at me for a second without actually looking, and then continued in the same tone of voice.

“I thought: Here we have this new tyranny that doesn’t derive from social fictions. So where does it come from? Might it derive from natural qualities? If so, then we can kiss the free society good-bye! If a society based exclusively on natural human qualities, meaning those we get from Nature when we’re born and over which we have no control—if
a society based only on these qualities would be an amalgam of tyrannies, then who’s going to lift a finger to bring it about? Between one tyranny and another, better to stick with the one we know, which we’re at least used to and therefore don’t feel as keenly as we would a new tyranny, particularly one that comes directly from Nature, such that all revolt against it would be useless, like rebelling against death, or against being born short instead of tall. And as I’ve already proven, if for some reason the anarchist society cannot be achieved, then the next most natural society we can have—and should have—is bourgeois society.

“But had this tyranny among us really derived from natural qualities? What sort of qualities are natural? Well, there’s the degree of intelligence, imagination, willpower, and so forth, that each man is born with—all of this in the mental sphere, of course, since we’re not concerned here with natural physical qualities. Now if one man orders around another, and there’s no influence of social fictions at work, then it must be because he’s superior in one or another natural quality. He dominates the other through the use of his natural qualities. But we must still consider whether this use of natural qualities is legitimate. Is it, in other words,
natural?

“What’s the natural use of our natural qualities? To serve the natural aims of our personality. Is dominating someone else a natural aim of our personality? It is in one particular case: when that someone may be considered our enemy. For the anarchist, any representative of social fictions and their tyranny is clearly an enemy; all other men, because they’re people just like him, are natural comrades. As we’ve seen, the tyranny that we created was inflicted on natural comrades, on people just like us—on people, in fact, who were our comrades twice over, since they shared the same ideal. And so our tyranny, which did not derive from social fictions, likewise did not derive from natural qualities. It derived from a mistaken application, a perversion, of natural qualities. And what was at the root of that perversion?