The Limits of Ideology: Koestlers

Darkness at Noon (Io

David Lewis Schaefer

IN PART I OF this study I traced the reflections of the protagonist of Arthur

Koestlers novel of the Soviet purge trials,
the imprisoned revolutionary leader N. S.
Rubashov, from the time of his arrest up to
his decision to offer his interrogator
Gletkin the confession he demands. In the
third chapter of the novel, The Third
Hearing, Rubashovs resolve to conform
to the demands of the party, despite his
deepening reservations about its principles, is subjected to a severer test.
Ivanov, who shared Rubashovs background in the revolutionary intelligentsia, has been replaced as interrogator by
his more brutal underling Gletkin. (Apparently because of doubts about the
depth of his own loyalty to the party dictator, No. 1, Ivanov himself will later be
executed.) In dealing with Gletkin,
Rubashov is forced to face the utmost consequences of his own logic. Rubashov
perceives Gletkin as a Neanderthaler: a
representative of the generation which
had started to think after the flood (the
Revolution). It had no traditions and no
memories to bind it to the old, vanished
world. But if the liberation of mankind requires the suppression of vain conceptions of honour and the hypocritical
decency of the old world if true honor,
as Rubashov has resolved, is indeed to
serve without vanity - then the generation of Gletkin, this barbarian of the new

10

age, had right on its side (147,149-50,

152). Rubashovs shift in attitude regarding his own relation to the party is
reflected in a shift in pronouns: whereas in
his initial conversation with lvanov he had
addressed the latter, as representative of
the state and party, as you, and charged
that the party had killed the we that
bound it to him and to the masses, he now
regards Cletkin as an instrument that
we leaders of the Revolution created to
achieve our purposes (64-68,150).
The problem is that Gletkin, however
useful he may be as a means to the
Revolutionary governments consolidation of power, hardly seems promising as
a harbinger of the elevated type of
humanity that is supposed to result from
the Revolution. Reflecting the materialistic foundation of Marxist theory rather
than the transcendence of materialism
that it promises ultimately to bring about,
Gletkin views human beings in purely corporal terms. Echoing Rubashovs diary, he
holds that the subjective good faith of an
individuals motives is of no significance;
what counts is only the objective effects
of his actions. The seeming heroism of
some mens actions - including his own
- is purely the product of their having a
stronger physical constitution than others.
But since no human being can resist an
unlimited amount of physical pressure,
the triumph of the party is assured so long

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as it is prepared to apply the requisite

amount of force. Gletkins sole deference
to the fact of mens having minds is his
acknowledgment of the need to use fraud
as well as force in dealing with them: the
masses must be manipulated with lying
propaganda as well as threatened by force
to induce them to carry out the partys dictates, since they lack the intelligence to
understand the rational ground of their
duty. Supremely confident of the rightness
of the partys end, Gletkin acts on the principle that that end justifies the means all means, without exception to its accomplishment (82, 183-4, 189, 192-3).
The gap between the intellectual
revolutionary Rubashov a n d his
Neanderthal descendant is such that
they each understand Rubashovs confession in different ways. Rubashov had
already decided to capitulate as the
result of the reflections that Ivanov
stimulated in him; he argues with Ivanov
only over the details of his confession: i.e.,
he wishes to confess only to having
adopted an objectively harmful and
counter-revolutionary attitude, rather
than admitting to the trumped-up charges
of treasonable acts with which Gletkin
confronts him (153). Stubbornly resisting
the temptation to sign at once and spare
himself the continuation of his ordeal,
Rubashov nonetheless ends by conceding
to Gletkin on all but one point of the
accusation. For Gletkin, his success in
obtaining the confession is simply the
product of having applied the requisite
degree of physical pressure. And indeed,
Rubashov appears to be more susceptible
to the influence of Gletkins methods than
he himself - having withstood actual torture during his German imprisonment would have anticipated. But the root of his
capitulation to Gletkins charges is that he
has become totally demoralized: shortly
after the interrogation has begun,
Rubashov already admits to himself that
Gletkin was right not to believe him;
Gletkins personality subsequently
gained such power over him that even
his triumphs were turned into defeats.
Revolutionaryethics prove in the end, it
Modern Age

appears, to give the individual a far less

reliable basis for resistance than does the
rigid code of honour that Rubashov envies in the monarchist prisoner No. 402:
once the revolutionarys faith in the
rightness of his cause has been shaken in
the slightest degree (as, given the manifest
blemishes of that cause once it has
achieved power, must happen to any nonNeanderthal believer who experiences life
under a revolutionary regime), all the
stops to his complete self-degradation melt
away. To identify honor with social utility
is to accept the obligation to grovel in the
dust whenever the party should demand
it (103. 156, 185, 190, 195).
Yet there is another cause of Rubashovs
capitulation to Gletkin besides the latters
methods and Rubashovs adherence to
party doctrine, albeit one of which
Rubashov himself seems unconscious during the interrogation. That cause is his
awareness of his real guilt in regard to
those he had formerly betrayed in service
to the party: Richard, Little Loewy,
Arlova, and others. As Rubashov reflects
in the last chapter, following his public
confession, those who willingly let
themselves be sacrificed as scapegoats
by the party as he had done were too
deeply entangled in their own past, caught
in the web they had spun themselves, according to the laws of their own twisted
ethics and twisted logic; they were all guilty, although not of those deeds of which
they accused themselves; even the best
had each an Arlova on his conscience. In
this sense, Rubashovs execution will constitute the long-postponed closing of his
account with those he had betrayed
(205). There follows the third decisive moment of epiphany in the novel: for the first
time Rubashov consciously taps the word
I on a wall of his cell - albeit a wall adjoining an empty cell. That action signifies
the commencement of Rubashovs final
confrontation - a confrontation not with
an interrogator separate from himself, but
with the silent partner that had dogged
him since the beginning of his imprisonment, only to be shunted aside: what the
party dismisses as a grammatical fiction,

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his own self (205-6).

From the partys perspective, the
recognition of the reality of individual selfconsciousness constitutes a fundamental
obstacle both theoretically and practically.
Theoretically, such recognition appears
incompatible with the doctrine that
human history is subject to regular laws
that can be comprehended with the same
certitude as the laws of mechanics, since
the human individual does not experience
himself as merely a bundle of externally
moved molecules. The realm of individual
experience is a realm of unpredictably
variable, hence historically insignificant,
idiosyncrasy - typified early in the novel
by the habit of nail-biting Rubashov
remembers in the executed second prime
minister, or by his own habit of rubbing
his pince-nez on his sleeve (10, 89). Practically, the tendency of the individual to
attribute absolute significance to his own
self-consciousness threatens the equation by which the party justifies the imposition of enormous suffering on
multitudes of individuals as a means to the
future elevation of mankind. That equation presupposes an organic unity of the
human race, such that the loss of one part
will be more than counterbalanced by the
gain to the rest. The partys definition of
the individual was: a multitude of one
million divided by one million (208). But
again, this is not how the individual actually experiences his own existence or
perceives the existence of others to whom
he feels personalties. One need not be a
radical individualist to affirm that the particular human being is more than a fraction of a social whole; indeed, it seems
that the attribution of a special value to
other specific individuals - ones friends
and family - is the psychological precondition for learning to subordinate narrow
self-interest to the good of a larger community.
It cannot be assumed, of course, that the
way in which an individuals naive selfconsciousness induces him to perceive his
own existence or that of others is objectively sound. Quite the contrary: it is
evidently natural to human beings to ex12

aggerate their individual merit and

significance in the overall scheme of
things. This was the rock on which
Rubashovs previous attempts to articulate
the theoretical significance of his silent
partner foundered: he was unable to
discover a logical answer to Ivanovs
argument that the individual must be
sacrificed to the good of the social whole,
just as a battalion commander rightly
sacrifices a patrolling party to save the
regiment. As Rubashov pointed out, this
analogy is derived from the abnormal circumstances of war. But he could not
refute Ivanovs rejoinder that the modern
world has been permanently in an abnormal state since the invention of the
steam engine and that wars and revolutions are just the visible expressions of this
state. In other words, the conflict of interest among individuals and groups that
makes itself manifest in wartime is equally
present, albeit in disguised form, in the
peaceful situation in which the ruling
class of a country exploits the populace.
Hence - until or unless some means can
be discovered of overcoming the situation
in which mens self-interests are necessarily set at odds - the true rules of politics
are those of war. If there are indeed, as
Ivanov contends, only two conceptions
of human ethics, the Christiadhumane
and the realistic, set at opposite poles
and incommensurable with each other,
and if the Christian/humane policy is
necessarily self-defeating given the world
as it is, the responsible individual has no
choice but to favor the realistic ethic,
while practicing it in the service of an
ideology that promises scientifically to
create a world in which human relations
can become genuinely humane (127-8).
What enables Rubashov finally to see
beyond Ivanovs argument, in the last
chapter, is his sudden recognition of the
link between the grammatical fiction
and another phenomenon that he finds
himself able to experience through his
self-consciousness: what he terms, following the greatest and soberest of modern
psychologists, the oceanic sense. I
Rubashov equates this sense with the state

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which the mystics called ecstasy and

saints contemplation; it is a condition in
which

reflections in rational rather than mystical

terms.
In death, Rubashov observes, the
metaphysical became real to him (207).
ones personality dissolved as a grain of
The imminent prospect of death, in other
salt in the sea; but at the same time the
words,
compels him to face questions that
infinite sea seemed to be contained in
lie
beyond
the realm of modern,
the grain of salt. The grain could no
mechanistic physics and of the Marxist aplonger be localized in time and space. It
plication of this determinism to human
was a state in which thought lost its
life. The reason the party disapproves of
direction and started to circle, like the
such
speculations, as he remarks to
compass needle at the magnetic pole;
himself, is that in order truly to dedicate
until finally it cut loose from its axis and
oneself to the class struggle, one must
traveled freely in space, like a bunch of
have both legs firmly planted on the
light in the night; and until it seemed
earth.
Only on the assumption that mens
that all thoughts and all sensations,
earthly
well-being is all that matters can
even pain and joy itself, were only the
the
entire
subjugation of the individual to
spectrum lines of the same ray of light,
the
collectivity,
and the elimination of all
disintegrating in the prism of conrestraints on the collectivitys treatment of
sciousness [207].
the individual, be justified: the goal of constructing an earthly paradise totally supIn view of the lyrical language of this
plants the religious hope of salvation in an
passage and Rubashovs explicit comafterlife. But the ineluctably private
parison of the oceanic sense to a state of
character of death challenges the supposimystical ecstasy, it might seem easy to
tion that the individual is simply a part of
dismiss it, as Merleau-Ponty does, as
the collectivity. At the same time it calls
evidence of the ex-Communist Koestlers
into question the assumption that an
having withdraw[n] from the world and
earthly paradise, even if it could be
succumbed to the temptations of religiosachieved, would constitute a true solution
ity and escapism.Z Yet in The Yogi and
of the human problem. For forty years
the Commissar, a work published five
[Rubashov] had fought against economic
years later in which Koestler further
fatality. It was the central ill of humanity,
develops the theme of the oceanic sense,
the cancer which was eating into its enhe warns against the danger of quietism,
trails. It was there that one must operate;
escapism, of sinning by omission to
the rest of the healing process would
which a mere concentration on passive
follow (208).But it is almost impossible to
contemplation might lead, describing
maintain this perspective while squarely
Candhis recommendation of nonfacing the personal prospect of death. (As
resistance to Japanese conquest and its
Koestler quotes the query of Andr6
attendant horrors as an inverted
Malraux at a Communist writers conMachiavellianism no more adequate than
the original form of that d ~ c t r i n e . ~ gress, following hours of speeches about
the brave new world in construction:
Koestler explicitly distinguishes his posiAnd what about the man who is run
tion, as Merleau-Ponty notes, from a
over by a tram-car? 7 5
theological 0ne.4 Moreover, in Darkness
at Noon itself, Rubashovs experience of
To be aware that communism could not
the oceanic state leads him not to a
solve all human problems, while contrary
religious conversion, but to a wish that he
to the wholesale dedication that the movehad studied astronomy, as he had intendment demands of its members, does not in
ed to do in his youth, in order better to
itself refute the claim that the movement,
if successful, will bring about a substantial
comprehend the infinite (207-8,
improvement in the human condition. But
212-13). It behooves us, therefore, to atthe awareness that the oceanic sense
tempt to understand Rubashovs final

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gives to Rubashov of the limits of the partys goal provokes him, in turn, to
recognize the absurdity of the reasoning
on which it is founded. He notes the contradiction inherent in Marxism between
the doctrine of economic determinism and
the demand that men should spontaneously revolt against the economic clockwork that supposedly binds them; between the partys denial of the individuals
free will and its speaking pathetically of
guilt and treachery on the part of its
members. The partys practical recognition of the individuals power to choose
despite his economic circumstances
undermines its denial that men will be
able to choose rightly or live well until
their economic circumstances have been
radically transformed.6 To the contrary,
the doctrine of economic determinism actually serves as a device by which its
adherents conceal from others and from
themselves the self-interested and often
shameful motives that underlie their conduct. Koestler underlines this point by a
scene which he juxtaposes with
Rubashovs reflections in the last chapter:
the porter of Rubashovs old residence,
listening to his daughter reading an account of the trial, at first scolds her for
believing in the validity of Rubashovs
confession, but then stops himself with the
recollection that by remaining alive, he
himself stands in the way of his daughters
desire for an apartment for herself and her
fiand. Anything might come of it, once
she had it in her mind that she wanted the
room for herself and her husband. The
partys policy of punishing people on the
basis of other individuals accusations of
disloyalty, and of inciting children to denounce their own parents, attacks the
very foundations of individual morality
(199,201). There is no reason for believing
that by such devices the party is actually
moving humanity closer to the attainment
of utopia.
Rubashovs reflections on the consequences to which the party ideology had
led cause him to question the adequacy of
reason itself as a guide: his previous
adherence to the party had followed the

rules of logical calculation; from

premises of unimpeachable truth the
party had arrived at a result which was
completely absurd; looking back over
his past, it seemed to him now that for forty years he had been running amuck the running-amuck of pure reason (209).
But perhaps it is not really reason that has
led the party and Rubashov astray, but a
modern exaggeration of the practical
power of reason, rationalism; and a debased view of the nature of the human
good, utilitarianism. The doctrine of
reason that Rubashov now calls into
question is one that invites mankind to
sail without ethical ballast; te., to
tear along straight towards the goal they
have set without the old bonds . . . the
steadying brakes of Thou shalt not and
Thou mayst not (209). This doctrine, as
elucidated previously by Ivanov, sanctions
the treatment of men as if they were purely objects of experimentation; it acts on
credit, relying on the ultimate sanction of
future historical success to justify its
disregard of conventional morality or
human decency. But there is nothing in
the nature of reason itself that sanctions
such an attitude and policy. At most, it can
be said that reason, in what may be
denoted its pure, Socratic form, calls into question all conventional rules of
morality and demands that the good and
the just be understood in the light of the
nature of things rather than of traditional
authority. But to leap from this inherently
skeptical attitude to a dogmatic conclusion
that sanctions the absolute reign of an
enlightened few over the rest of
humanity is an act of faith rather than
reason: it presupposes a certitude about
the course of history and the nature of the
human good akin to the dogmatism of the
political and religious authorities whom
Socrates challenged, rather than anything
inherent in philosophy itself. As
Rubashov acknowledged earlier in the
novel, the divergent results to which the
partys supposedly certain promises gave
rise among different interpreters made it
necessary to recur to faith, but a faith of
a particular kind: No. 1s victory over his

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rivals was due to his having more faith in

himself than others did in their own
selves (81).In the end, it would appear, the
partys doctrine of man as species-being
reduces itself in practice to the reign of
pure subjectivity, a quasi-Nietzschean
struggle among different individuals wills
to power issuing in the most absolute
triumph of the strongest among them. Nor
can it even be said, ultimately, that the
victor is truly distinguished by a faith in
himself: the final image Rubashov retains
of No. 1 is one of melancholy cynicism
(194).
It is difficult to say, at least on the basis
of Darkness at Noon alone, how far
Koestler himself would share the distinction that has been drawn here between
reason and rationalism - in other words,
how far Koestler is aware of the fundamental differences between classical
and modern political philosophy. But
without regard to that issue, it would a p
pear that Koestler at any rate has a considerable insight into the root difficulty of
modern political philosophy that has given
rise to the crisis of modernity in our century. It is surely significant that while the
name of Marx never appears in Darkness
at Noon, there are several citations of or
allusions to Machiavelli, beginning with
the opening quotation and including
passages from Rubashovs diary at the
outset of the second and third chapters
(78, 122, 134). Indeed, it may be said that
what Koestler described as the central
theme of the novel - the relation between ends and means, or between
morality and expediency - makes the
book as a whole an extended response to,
and critique of, Machiavellis teaching. By
presenting his critique of Marxist theory
and practice in terms of a meditation on
Machiavelli, Koestler apparently wished
to indicate his belief that Machiavellis
thought is a more profound and fundamental source than Marxs of the
phenomenon of twentieth-century
totalitarianism. Machiavelli was the first
philosopher to teach not merely that
mens political well-being sometimes requires the violation of conventional
Modern Age

morality, but that virtue itself should be redefined in terms of its conduciveness to
political ends, so that morality is seen
purely as a variable means to political
goods, rather than being itself a fundamental element of the human good? It
was Machiavelli who initiated the enterprise of liberating men from the restraint
of ethical ballast, so that they might pursue the goal more directly and achieve
it more securely. And it was Machiavelli,
long before Marx, who endeavored to
plant mens legs firmly. . . on the earth,
that is, to suppress the transcendent
aspirations that diverted men from the
singleminded pursuit of their earthly wellbeing.9
Koestler is well aware that Machiavelli is
hardly the originator of political cynicism
or of the practice of justifying amoral
means by the promise of future goods to
be achieved as a result. He makes this
point explicitly by drawing comparisons
between the practices of the party and the
excesses of the medieval Church prefacing the second chapter with a quotation from a fifteenth-century bishop justifying the use by the Church of every
means, however immoral, of preserving
herself, and demanding the utter sacrifice
of the individual to the common good;
elsewhere comparing party doctrine to a
catechism and No. 1s authority to that
of Christ (29-30, 48-49, 78, 80, 122).
Modern political ideology ultimately a p
pears, however, to represent a far greater
danger to humanity than did fanatical
Christianity, inasmuch as it denies as a
matter of doctrine, rather than merely
violating in practice, the principle that the
individual human being possesses a
special dignity requiring that he be treated
as more than a mere instrument. It is in
fact in Christian doctrine that Koestler
finds the most rhetorically effective antidote to Machiavellian ideology; hence the
recurrent Christian symbolism and imagery that he attaches to the figure of
Rubashov.
It would be a gross, if understandable,
misinterpretation of Machiavelli to view
him as a purposeful advocate of tyranny

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or totalitarianism. Indeed, the major

political motive underlying his thought a p
pears to have been a desire to liberate
mankind from Christian tyranny analogous to Koestlers own wish to combat
secular totalitarianism. But this does not
invalidate Koestlers claim that modern
totalitarianism has its origin i n
Machiavellis thought. The root difficulty
of Machiavellianism, as Koestler articulates it, lies in its endeavor to cut man
off from any link with the eternal, with the
result that the worth and the very being of
the individual are entirely temporalized.
Marxist historicism is the natural, if
unintended, product of the Machiavellian
logic of consequences: the most brutal
treatment of living individuals can always
be justified by the promise that it will
some day give rise to a greater good for
humanity. Recurrent reference in
Darkness at Noon is made to the arbitrarily temporal character of the partys
morality: acts that would seem honorable
or morally obligatory in themselves are
blamed and punished because they occurred at the wrong time; the partys
substitute for the promise of personal immortality is the pledge that the truth about
individuals that it presently suppresses will
be revealed in the sometime future when
it can do no more harm (134-38, 144,
156, 194).1 This is illustrated most
pathetically in the case of Rip Van
Winkle, an erstwhile revolutionary jailed
for twenty years in a foreign country who
eagerly migrated to the homeland of the
Revolution upon his release, only to be
jailed once more, but still without losing
his hope that one day we will get
there; he is compared to last years
moth which has miraculously and uselessly survived its appointed life-term, to r e a p
pear at the wrong season before falling to
dust (108, 138).
From a purely political point of view, it
would appear to be unnecessary to revert
to a concept like the oceanic sense in
order to articulate what is wrong with
communism. Sheer common sense ought
to have induced any reasonably wellinformed Western observer to see through
16

the claims of the Stalinist regime by the

time of the purges, as Koestler
demonstrates in his essay on Soviet Myth
and Reality in The Yogi and the Commissar. If political men were simply rational, that same common sense might be
expected by now to have immunized
Western intellectuals against the claim
that despite the evils to which communism
has thus far given rise, an authentically
Marxist regime will some day be the
means of mankinds liberation. But just
as Western sympathizers continued to accept or concoct justifications for the
purges, up until or even (in some cases)
long after the Nazi-Soviet pact, so many
intellectuals today continue to be tempted
by Marxism. Koestler explains this temptation in The Yogi and the Commissar by
reference to the psychological need men
have for some sense of contact with the
Absolute: a need which Christianity had
once satisfied, but which has been
neglected by the rationalism that in
modern times has cut men off from the
belief in personal immortality and in a
higher reality. Communism, with its purportedly comprehensive explanation and
its promise of a collective future utopia, to
be achieved by present acts of collective
self-sacrifice, offers to its disciples what
looks like a fulfilling substitute for that
belief. Hence the Soviet Union became,
for its Western sympathizers, the new
Opium for the People12 (or perhaps
more accurately, in Raymond Arons
phrase, the opium of the intellectuals). In
his autobiography Koestler attests to the
power that Marxism has had for idealistic
intellectuals by remarking of his period as
a party member, Never before nor after
had life been so brimful of meaning as during these seven years. They had the
superiority of a beautiful error over a
shabby truth.13
Darkness at Noon raises, but does not
answer, the question of how thinking men
can discover an alternative to the
beautiful error, with all its ugly consequences, that will have more beauty and
satisfy the needs of mans soul more fully
than the merely shabby truth of liberal,

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capitalistic individualism. The closest that

Rubashov comes to articulating such an
alternative is his vision of a new movement that might someday arise, its
members wear[ing] monks cowls, and
preach[ing] that only purity of means can
justify the ends:
Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is
wrong which says that a man is the
quotient of one million divided by one
million, and will introduce a new kind
of arithmetic based on multiplication:
on the joining of a million individuals to
form a new entity which, no longer an
amorphous mass, will develop a consciousness and an individuality of its
own, with an oceanic feeling increased a millionfold, in unlimited yet
self-contained space [2 111.

It is difficult to know how seriously to

take this vision as a positive expression of
Koestlers own thought; if it points in any
specific direction, it would seem to be
toward a religious revival of some sort. In
The Yogi and the Commissar, Koestler
describes the alternative to Commissar
ethics, which seeks to change men from
without by transforming their institutions
and justifies the use of all means by this
end, as the ethics of the Yogi, who
believes that the End is unpredictable
and that the Means alone count; that
nothing can be improved by exterior
organisation and everything by the individual effort from within; and that
each individual is alone, but attached to
the all-one by an invisible umbilical cord.
Neither extreme, taken by itself, has
proved successful in improving the lot of
the mass of mankind: the former
culminates in the Moscow Purges, the latter in Candhis policy of nonresistance to
evil. Yet it has never proved possible to
synthesize the saint and revolutionary;
apparently the two elements do not mix,
and this may be one of the reasons why
we have made such a mess of our
History.l4 Thus, although the modern
Western movements of secular social
reform brought more tangible improvements in the lot of the common peoModern Age

ple in 150 years than a thousand and

five hundred years of Christianity, this
applies only to material reality; in the
psychological sphere, the cumulative effect of these reforms has been a loss of
faith and consequently popular frustration and disill~sionment.~~
Koestler
himself concludes that to recover the lost
half of our personalities, mans wholeness
and holiness, we must learn the art and
science of contemplation. Since this activity survives only in the East, it must
be learned from its Oriental practitioners;
Koestler looks towards the day when contemplation might be taught in schools instead of religious dogma. Not to produce
cranks: but to re-form mans integrity.16
If Oriental meditation is Koestlers
ultimate remedy for the evils of our age,
this is somewhat disappointing. At any
rate, little in our experience in the recent
popularity of Oriental cults among
Western youth gives ground for hoping
that they will be the means of restoring
ethical integrity and strength of purpose
to our civilization. Aside from other difficulties, Oriental religious thought is
essentially apolitical, and is so opposed to
the emphasis on material gain and
political liberty to which modern regimes
are committed that it is difficult to imagine
their serving to restore the ethical balance
of these regimes while avoiding the decay
into Gandhian passivity.
But perhaps Koestler is wrong to dismiss
the possibility of a viable, authentically
Western form of contemplation. That the
pursuit of wisdom for its own sake has
been largely supplanted, in modern times,
by the quest for knowledge as power
does not in itself demonstrate that
philosophy in its original sense is now impossible. However much the nature of the
genuinely contemplative life may have
been blurred by modern thought, classical
philosophy remains far closer to us than
does Oriental mysticism. And owing to the
essentially active conception of contemplation in Western philosophy, it may
be argued that the opposition between
reform from within and without is far
less in this tradition than in Oriental

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thought. Works such as Platos Laws and

Aristotles Politics demonstrate the
possibility of reconciling a recognition of
the supremacy of the contemplative life
with a proper regard for the ways in
which institutional changes may improve
the lot of the nonphilosophic multitude.
From a certain point of view, therefore,
Koestlers critique of modern ideology in
Darkness at Noon may be taken as an invitation to return to the classical sources
of the Western philosophic tradition. It is
characteristic of classical political
philosophy that - in contrast with the
modern, Machiavellian endeavor to root
man entirely in the earth and therefore
to divert him from facing squarely the implications of his mortality - it seeks to
confront the human situation with fully
open eyes, in the light of whatever can be
known of what is trans-temporal.
Philosophizing, as described by Socrates
in Platos Phaedo, means learning how to
die. He certainly did not mean by this
that it entails succumbing to mysticism or
trusting in revelation. It does entail,
however, that the phenomenon that
Koestler calls the oceanic sense - an
awareness that man, by virtue of his intellect, transcends the merely material
realm and is compelled, by that faculty, to
seek a higher meaning in his life than the
mere satisfaction of his bodily needs cannot be dismissed out of hand, as the
epistemology of modern science would
have it, as something inherently irrational. (For this reason, despite - or
rather, because of - its skeptical
character, classical philosophy does not
share the militantly antireligious character
of the secular ideologies of our age.)
Rubashov/Koestlers discovery that the
oceanic sense and the contemplation it inspires furnish the deepest ground for calling into question the modern, utilitarian
reduction of the individual human being
to an instrument for satisfying the collective needs of the multitude is strikingly
reminiscent of the argument by which
Aristotle, in book 7 of the Politics, refutes
in advance (as it were) the Machiavellian
account of virtue. In contrast to
18

Machiavelli, Aristotle holds that virtue or

human excellence, properly understood,
is itself the core of human well-being and
the true end of the political community not merely a means to the attainment of
the citys purposes. Yet he admits that
despite the lip service that political communities pay to virtue, their practice
seems to belie their speech: the virtue and
justice that are popularly praised resemble
the proverbial honor among thieves, a
means by which the unity of the city is
promoted so that it may more successfully
practice injustice against other cities. This
fact would appear to justify Machiavellis
charge that the classical conception of a
city truly devoted to virtue is merely an
imaginary republic without practical
relevance, and the Florentines consequent reduction of virtue to political utility
as constituting the effectual truth of the
matter.lE But in one respect, as Aristotle
indicates, the nature of human virtue
resists this Machiavellian reduction.- If, as
Aristotle holds, the most humanly satisfying as well as noble and virtuous way of
life is that of the philosopher, it cannot be
said t h a t virtue is merely a means to the
citys ends, or to the individuals acquisition of external goods (such as wealth and
honor), for which one is dependent on
other men.lg
Because the wisdom for which the
philosopher strives is pursued for its own
sake, not as a means to some further end,
and because the philosophers life comes
closest to embodying the self-sufficiency
that all men seek, Aristotle represents
philosophy as the ultimate justification of
the political community itself. By contrast,
the Machiavellian teaching entails a
depreciation of the significance of the
philosophic pursuit, in apparent contradiction of Machiavellis own way of life as
well as that of Aristotle.20But it cannot be
said that the Machiavellian reduction of
virtue to utility literally reflects the entire
truth, because the truth cannot be equated
with what is effectual in the majority of
men. Despite the fact that most men act as
if the acquisition of external goods were
the chief goal of human life, their opinion

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is erroneous, and the citys public

teaching, which encourages men to pursue virtue rather than gain, comes closer
to the truth. Thus for Aristotle, as for
Rubashov/Koestler, the awareness of
mans capacity, through contemplation, to
transcend the political community serves
as a kind of vindication of the traditional
moral teaching of the city (as opposed to
its practice). If the philosophic capacity
that all men share in some degree constitutes the truest essence of humanity,21
and if by means of this capacity the individual transcends, in some sense, his
particularity, then the individual human
being cannot properly be reduced to the
quotient of one million divided by one
million. Thus there exists an objective
foundation for the sense of dignity and
consequently of honor that enables No.
402, unlike Rubashov, successfully to
resist his captors: mans honor is not
reducible to his utility. And an objective,
transhistorical ground exists for condemning the treatment that the fictional
Rubashov meted out to Arlova, Richard,
and Little Loewy and that the too-real
Stalin inflicted on so many millions.
The modern enterprise as Koestler
depicts it originates in idealism and
culminates, if unchecked, in unmitigated
brutality. Central to the process by which
the practitioners of the latter justify it is
the claim of Ivanov-reminiscent of Max
Webers distinction between the ethic of
responsibility and the ethic of absolute
ideals-that there exists no mean between a humane ethic and a cynically
realistic one, and that would-be
adherents of the former are inevitably
driven in practice to follow the latter. But
this claim is misleading; it reflects the
fanatics disposition to view all compromises with his ideals as equally immoral, and hence to erode the moral
distinctions that are central to the
maintenance of a civilized political life.22
No doubt there are occasions-such as
Ivanovs example of the battalion commanders sacrificing a patrolling party to
save the regiment-when the good of the
individual must be entirely disregarded for
Modern Age

the sake of the whole. But fortunately for

mankind, as Rubashov observes, such
cases reflect abnormal circumstances,
rather than the typical situation in a
civilized political society. Only on the
nonsensical assumption that all deprivations of income, status, or power constitute acts of war, or that life in civil
society is essentially indistinguishable
from a Hobbesian state of nature, can it be
said that humaneness is necessarily selfdefeating. The paradox of the human
situation, as Koestler observes in The Yogi
and the Commissar, is that man is an individual whole which has to function as a
social part.23 The political problem requires that individualitybe tempered by
a recognition of mans obligations to his
fellows. But it also requires a recognition
of the sense in which the nature of the individual transcends the political dimension. Ultimately the excesses both of individualism and of totalitarianism that
characterize our time may derive from the
attempt to deny the significance, or the
existence, of something like the oceanic
sense-or from the attempt to derive,
from the world of practical action, a fulfillment of that sense that is attainable only
through contemplation. And perhaps the
highest justification of liberal society,
despite the sometimes shabby aspects of
modern popular culture, is the legal
freedom and the opportunity it provides to
engage in philosophic contemplation to
those who would take advantage of this
opport~nity.~~
There is a final lesson to be learned, in
this regard, from classical philosophy,
which is also suggested by Koestlers
novel: the necessity of a disjunction between the realms of philosophic contemplation and practical politics, or between theory and practice. The classical
philosophers already knew what Darkness
at Noon conveys: that the term militant
philosophers (as the Revolutions leaders
described themselves) is a contradiction in
terms; that the demand that all thoughts
become deeds (47) necessarily leads to
the corruption of thought as well as of
politics; that the power of irrational pas-

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sions in most men makes it impossible to

govern them purely by reason, and that
anyone who professes to do so is
necessarily an impostor. While the
philosopher privately questions all traditional beliefs, he appreciates the need for
political life to be fortified and moderated
by what Koestler terms ethical ballast;

and for morality, in turn, to be seen as

having a transcendental ground, if it is to
be effectually operative in the lives of
most men. The faith in history is far
more removed from reason than faith
in God, inasmuch as it serves to suppress mans awareness of his own limitations.

The reference is to Freud see The Yogi and

the Commissar,p. 9; for the source, Civilization
and its Discontents, in James Strachey, ed., The
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works o f Sigmund Freud (London, 1961), vol.
21: I, pp. 64-65, 72. Freud, however, attributes
the concept to his friend, the novelist and student of Indian thought Romain Rolland, who
cited the experience of it as an objection to
Freuds explanation of the true source of
religious sentiments. Freud himself remains
unconvinced of Rollands view of its
significance. 2Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Humanism and Terror, trans. John ONeill
(Boston, 1969), pp. 163-64. 3Arthur Koestler,
The Yogi and the Commissar(New York, 1945),
pp. 6, 243-44. 4Merleau-Ponty, p. 163. SThe
Yogi and the Commissar, p. 122. The same
point is illustrated more forcefully in Milton
Himmelfarbs version, according to which
Malraux ceased to be a socialist once he realized that socialism would not end traffic accidents or unrequited love. Two Cheers for
Hedonism, Commentary, vol. 39, no. 4 (April,
1965), p. 62. T f . The Yogi and the Commissar,
pp. 218-19: [Olld Karl Marx . . . taught that
mans mental make-up is a product of his environment, yet showered invectives on
everybody who, in obedience to his environmental conditioning, couldnt help
disagreeing with him. This dogmatism masquerading as skepticism is exemplified in
Engelss renunciation of all attempts to impose
on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate, and forever immutable ethical
law in the light of the indubitable progress
that is yet to be made towards the future
classless society. On Morality (excerpt from
Anti-Duhring), in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The
Marx-EngelsReader, 2nd ed. (New York, 1978),
pp. 726-27. T f . Clifford Orwin, Machiavellis
Unchristian Charity, American Political
Science Review, vol. 72, no. 4 (December 1978),
pp. 1218-19; Leo Strauss, Thoughts on
Machiavelli (Glencoe, Ill., 1958), pp. 257-59. Cf.

also, with Gletkins reflections on the power of

force to reshape men (discussed supra),
Machiavelli, Discourses on Liuy, I, xvii-xviii;
Strauss, pp. 252-53. gSee, e.g., Machiavelli,
Discourses on Livy, trans. L. J. Walker (Harmondsworth, England, 1970), II, xii, 306-07
(the story of Antaeus); Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr.,
Machiaoellis New Modes and Orders (Ithaca,
N.Y., 1979), pp. 222-23; Strauss, Thoughts on
Machiaoelli, pp. 207-08, 295. For the Marxian
radicalization of this enterprise, see Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy o f
Right: Introduction, in Tucker, ed., The MarxEngels Reader, pp. 53-65. IOHere, as elsewhere,
Merleau-Pontys apologetics for Stalinism may
be cited to demonstrate that Koestler is not
merely attacking a straw man: [O]ncehe has
been arrested, Rubashov the opposition
member becomes in truth a traitor. By the fact
of having been beaten, the opposition confesses its inability to establish a new revolutionary leadership. Historically, it amounts to
nothing more than an attempt against the only
possible revolutionary leadership and thus it
becomes counterrevolutionary and
treasonable. The results of the attempt work
back upon its origins and reveal its total
significance. Humanism and Terror, pp. 8-9
(emphasis in original). The trials remain on a
subjective level and never approach what is
called true justice, objective and timeless,
because they bear upon facts still open toward
the future, which consequently are not yet
univocal and only acquire a definitively
crimina[ character when they are oiewed from
the perspectioe on the future held by the men
in power. (Ibid., p. 27 [emphasis in original]).
For the Machiavellian roots of this teaching of
the temporal variability of the good, see The
Prince, chaps. 24-25; Strauss, p. 295. The
Yogi and the Commissar, pp. 131-92. 121bid.,
pp. 118-25. I3Arthur Koestler, The Invisible
Writing (New York, 1954), p. 392. I4The Yogi
and the Commissar, pp. 3-5. Vbid., p. 120.
Vbid., p. 246. I 7 l explore the difference be-

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tween classical and modern political

philosophy in this regard in To Philosophize
Is to Learn How to Die: Montaigne vs.
Socrates, in The Independent Journal of
Philosophy, vol. 5 (forthcoming). sAristotle,
Politics, bk. 7, 1-2; Machiavelli, The Prince,
chap. 15; cf. Strauss, pp. 253-56. lSPolitics,bk.
7, 2-3; Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 10, 7-8. 2oCf.
the dismissal of the political significance of the
few in The Prince, chap. 18, thus justifying the
unmitigated use of political deceit: [Flor the
vulgar are always taken in by the appearance
and the outcome of a thing, and in this world
there is no one but the vulgar. The few have no
place . . . (trans. Leo Paul de Alvarez [Dallas,
Tex., 19801, p. 108), with Machiavellis account
of his philosophic activity in the letter to Vettori of December 10, 1513 in Allan Gilbert, ed.
and trans., The Letters of Machiavelli (New
York, 1961), p. 142. Cf. also Strauss, Thoughts
on Machiavelli, pp. 294-98. 21Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics, 1178a, 2-8. 22Koestler
terms this the fallacy of the false equation in
a 1948 essay, The Seven Deadly Fallacies,

Modern Age

reprinted in The Trail of the Dinosaur (New

York, 1955). The tendency is manifest
throughout Merleau-Pontys Humanism and
Terror, as in the claim that all law is violence
@. xxxvi) and the justification of Revolutionary terror on the ground that the
unemployment that bourgeois society
tolerates is also a form of violence @. 107).
Cf., on Weber, Leo Strauss, Natural Right and
History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 64-74. 23TheYogi
and the Commissar, p. 246. Z4An adequate
evaluation of Machiavellis thought would have
to take into account his enormous contribution
(by way of his influence on such thinkers as
Locke and Montesquieu) to the development of
the modern liberal regime, engendering not
only liberty, but the elevation in the material
well-being of the common people that Koestler
acknowledges. Koestlers critique of
Machiavellianism raises important questions
about the sufficiency of that doctrine as a moral
foundation for liberal society; but it should not
cause Machiavellis profundity or the breadth of
his practical achievement to be obscured.

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