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XIII. A Dialogue With Students (1968) Heinrich Blücher Several weeks ago I assigned to you a paper to write for me concerning the political crisis of our time. We only chose politics, because it is the most dangerous factor in our life and in our world. We have used it, so to speak, to plunge into the middle of our troubles, but also, because all of you wanted me to give you a say, so this paper is only an opportunity for you to speak up and make a statement about this course and about this situation. Much has been said up to this point. Please, take your own stand. Do you agree, or do you disagree? You are not political scientists, because no scientific knowledge is necessary here. Your only guide shall be common sense so please keep this aim in mind. As for the necessary mid-term marks, don't worry about them. If you feel unjustly graded by me attribute it to my ignorance, because I am still very much an ignorant man. This paper will only keep me up a bit on how you have been doing so consider these marks to be only preliminary. You will have your chance again at the end of the term. So today, we are in the mid-term, very much in the middle of our problems and our conflicts. Our problems, which at worst can be scientifically solved, our conflicts, which are much harder to solve. Now I want to give you all a little time to think so that in a while everybody will be able to tell me the difference between a problem and a conflict. What is the difference between a problem and a conflict? No answer! A problem is, in a way, a scientific thing. In that sense we have no problems, because anything that can become a problem for us is capable of a solution. We may not know what the solution is but one thing is certain. A solution is there. Conflicts are an entirely different question. We cannot approach a conflict the way we approach a problem, because a conflict involves opposing forces of human will and not just natural or objective things that have an inherent order to them. There is a very wonder[ful] problem that has recently been solved, and I am going to tell you about it, because it illustrates what I have just said. The man who solved this problem is Piet Hein, a Dane, and he was a friend of Niels Bohr, he was a friend of Einstein, but he himself is not a real scientist. He is an engineer, not a scientist, and he occupied himself with the following question. If opposites cannot be united, as science suggests, and as all experience shows, then when is it possible to mediate them? He took, as his point of departure, a very famous problem in the history of mathematics, the problem of squaring the circle. Why can't we square the circle? What is a circle and what is a square and where do they lie? They are just ideas, ideas which our mind produces and with whose help we are able to rule and imitate nature. In this we have succeeded quite well, especially in physics, and now of course in biochemistry, because these ideas are also tools, and if we create a system of tools, such as the square and the circle (which we may take to be ideal figures, and which we can suppose to be opposites) then it seems almost reasonable to try to unify them. Now we know that the circle cannot be squared. For hundreds of years mathematicians tried until finally, in the nineteenth century, the German mathematician Lindemann proved that this was impossible, so finally there was peace in mathematics in Germany. Then there comes this guy, Piet Hein, and he asks himself a question which can only be called the reciprocal. He says "we cannot square the circle, that much is true, but how about constructing a figure which is neither circular, nor rectangular, in other words, can we mediate the conflict between the two"? For all of human history every one of us has lived under the rule of the circle and the rectangle. The best example of this can be found in architecture. Here we find two things. The first, is the mile high skyscraper, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, which is, so to speak, the pinnacle of rectangular thinking. It hasn't been built yet but someday it will be. The second, is the geodesic dome of Fuller which is the complete, the extreme expression, of the idea of the circle. We have seen them built by the thousands and they are all very impressive. These two examples represent, formally, in our mathematical thinking, the pinnacle of both sides of our contradiction. Now we have this engineer who constructs a figure which is neither. He undertook this problem, because he was asked to design a freeway for driving in Denmark which would represent the easiest and simplest possible course. It has been built in the meantime, and he has given it a name. He calls it the super-ellipse and when I first saw a picture of it before me I thought my God it reminds me of nothing so much as a perfect piece of music. In a way, it is a perfect piece of music, because it seems to be contra-mathematical. It is a kind of zero. If you look at it sharply from a certain angle, it seems to be quadrangular. Then, if you shift your angle, and look at it again, it seems to be a perfect ellipse. It is both, and it is neither. In Denmark they have started to build tables according to this curve and it turns out that they are able to sit fifteen percent more people around it than another table of comparable surface area. Not only that, just for fun, he takes this idea one step further. He designs what he calls the perfect egg. Now this is a funny egg. Do you remember the egg of Columbus, the egg that was supposed to stand on its tip. Well this man designed an egg, in three dimensions, that really can stand on its tip. It really sustains itself. It has become something of an intellectual game in Europe. If you roll the egg over on a table, it will stand up after an even number of rolls but on an uneven number it will not. It seems like a joke, but the thing itself is not a joke, because this idea could only come alive, could only come into existence, through the mind of a man who was not afraid to interfere with science by thinking philosophically. By saying, as Socrates might have said, yes, we cannot unite opposites, but let us try to mediate between them. Let us try to create something that is neither, and yet which is still perfect. I have given this to you only as an illustration of the extent to which science is beginning to lean on philosophy again in order to become more sure of its own results. But now my friends, it is your turn. You have some questions for me. No --- don't be so silent. Bring something. Not everyone has the same ideas. Question: Last week you mentioned something about the family unit. You said that a parent should be his child's best friend. I would like you to clarify that because I disagree with you! Answer: Yes, sure, I saw it already on your face when I said it. I meant only that the older man, be he parent or otherwise, has one basic obligation to the young, and that is to be their friends. To look out for their problems and for the challenges they get in life so that, with the experience that can only come out of age, he can help them to meet those challenges successfully. If he can do that, if he can help to guide them, then he will show himself to be a real friend in the highest sense, because a friend is by definition, a guide and a helper. He should not only think about himself. Rather, he should take the whole of his experience so that this boy or that girl can be guided and helped by it, because without that help we are all lost in this world. One of the greatest poems ever written in the twentieth century, by Bertolt Brecht, says exactly that, because every creature needs help from all creatures. This is really what is meant when you speak of the coming community of man. If a father can tell himself that he has really done what is best to help his son or his daughter, that he has acted in their interests, then he has no regrets, and they will appreciate it. Because this understanding takes great patience and we are all so impatient today, which makes it all the more important. It is a tremendous force, this patience, and it is even necessary for a teacher, because any teacher who does not face the problems his students must face as if he were young isn't really worth his salt, regardless of whatever knowledge he has, and the giving of this guidance and help is what Socrates called friendship. Student: In other words a friend is more of a guide. Answer: Right, right, and he is also a critic but a real critic, because he shows so much concern. Student: And that is why Socrates called his students companions rather than students. Answer: Exactly, because friendship means love without eros. The eros is overcome. It was there in the beginning, but it has been overcome and it doesn't count any more. What counts now is the mutual insight of two personalities who recognize and respect each other as such; who in effect can say to each other "I guarantee you the development of your personality and you guarantee me the development of mine". That is the basis of all real community thinking and such a community can only start with friends, in the relation of the elder with the younger. Question: Socrates keeps serving as a point of reference for the individual and yet you were very critical of Kierkegaard's notion of inwardness and accused it of being merely an escape. Can you comment on this apparent conflict? Answer: I cannot really speak about Kierkegaard yet. We will have to wait until we come to that book I assigned to you by Jaspers, where he discusses the breakdown of metaphysics, not only in Kierkegaard, but in Marx and Hegel as well. We will first have to analyze this before I can answer your question. Question: Can you actually say that Socrates was right in choosing death rather than continuing to try to live under the conditions that had been given to him? Isn't it idealistic for one to say that he would prefer to die rather than to live under laws that he doesn't agree with? Answer: No, because you see, Socrates didn't make any decision for death. He never meant or said that. He only meant and said life has been made impossible for me. They ask me either to stop philosophizing in the streets, or to go and escape into exile. I cannot go into exile, because if the Athenians cannot tolerate me, if they cannot guarantee me my life and my specific occupation, then it can be guaranteed to nobody, and that means it is time for me to die. That is no decision for death. Student: But it seems to be idealistic in terms of the fact that he didn't try to continue to live under those conditions? Answer: My dear friend, he was a Greek, and his action was a Greek action. The Greeks had a word for a life lover. By that I mean somebody who loves life at any price. They said a man who loves life at any price is a slave and not a free man. Life under certain conditions; namely, the conditions of slavery, cannot be accepted and should not be accepted. One has to live and one has to die, but a slave is one who prefers life to any other thing regardless of the conditions under which it is given. It is this fact that lies at the basis of Socrates action. |
