The Night of the Gods: Phillip Marlowe, Science, and the Heideggerian Poet

Crime novels are often seen as low-brow fiction. The author can entertain with murders and murderers as a puzzle which is eventually solved, and the reader puts the book down with nothing but the thrills to show for it. But the best crime novels also teach us things about the world and our perspective of it.

In Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms Franco Moretti describes the role of the detective in classical crime fiction, “Since Poe, detectives have reflected a scientific ideal: the detective discovers the causal links between events: to unravel the mystery is to trace them back to a law.” (144) The criminal is the exception to society, the outsider. “His defeat is the victory and the purge of a society no longer conceived of as a contract between independent entities, but rather as an organism or social body” (135). Thus it is the role of the detective to conquer over and purge society of the undesired criminal element. 

Sherlock Holmes does this by a scientific work of tracing clues of an act to find the cause of the act. The crime of the criminal consists in acting as an individual. The criminal breaks the laws of society, yet his very act of law-breaking is involuntarily entangled in greater laws of physics and human behaviour. It is this reality which makes the science of Sherlock Holmes possible. Though the criminal seeks to hide in the mass, he leaves clues of his individuality on the machinery and accessories he attempts to hide behind, which makes detection possible.

Such is the case in “A Case of Identity”, where the perpetrator is detected by the typewriter he uses. Thus the role of Sherlock Holmes in society is to be the counterweight to the criminals, which restores the balance of society and perpetuates the status quo. The greater laws of science and human behaviour enable Holmes to reduce the meaning of an entire plot to a conclusion, a simple unified meaning. In Sherlock Holmes, “God”, a single organizing principle, is present. His world is ordered and makes sense. There all answers can be found for someone who knows how to read the signs.                                                                                           

Hard-boiled detective fiction shows us a very different reality. In Raymond Chandler’s “Red Wind” we are introduced into a dark malevolent world of chaos:                                        

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen" (134). 

What is the role of detective Marlowe in this hostile environment? In the midst of corrupt police, unfaithful spouses and a world on the brink of anarchy, Marlowe clearly emerges as the hero of the story. Yet in what actions or attributes does his heroism lie? He cannot be as Holmes the doctor purging society of its undesired elements; such a purge in Marlowe’s society would mean genocide. He cannot hope to restore any semblance of order or civility, since these virtues seem to have been lost long ago. Marlowe’s society is one where God is absent. There is no unifying principle which orders and makes sense of events and experiences, and society seems to be a matter of egocentric entities fighting against each other in a world of chance. Raymond Chandler himself describes his idea of Marlowe as a hero. In “The Simple Art of Murder” Raymond Chandler writes, “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.” (991-992) What makes him the best man in his world?

In order to find that out we cannot simply look at his actions, but rather we ask: What is the motivation behind Marlowe’s work? In “Red Wind” he rejects any price for his services, although he risks getting killed for them several times. In other stories he does take payment for his work, but it seems unlikely that he does his job simply for money. As he says in “Red Wind”, “I’m not in this for money” (157). All we learn from Chandler in “The Simple Art of Murder” is, “the story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth.” Except for searching for the perpetrator of the individual crimes in the stories, there seems to be a deeper search which permeates Marlowe’s being.                                                                                                              

Marlowe appears as the Heideggerian poet; the hero of the night of the Gods. The world described in “Red Wind” seems familiar to the world Heidegger describes in the essay “What Are Poets For?” from Poetry, Language, Thought: “At this night’s midnight, the destitution of the time is greatest. Then the destitute time is no longer able even to experience its own destitution” (90-91). The world is marked by the “default of God”: The absence of a God who gathers a people to himself. Here I will take God to mean the gathering or unifying principle which orders the world. This world, which Heidegger says is without ground (without a foundation) hangs in the abyss. So the question is, why does someone like Marlowe, who by the author’s own description is the best man in his world, spend his time in the most depraved and sordid surroundings? Why does he deal with the very darkest sides of society? Maybe Heidegger’s poet can give us a clue. “In the age of the world’s night, the abyss of the world must be experienced and endured. But for this it is necessary that there be those who reach into the abyss” (90). What is the purpose of reaching into the abyss? According to Heidegger, once the world has entered into the night of the gods there can be no salvation in the sudden return of the gods or by the appearance of a new god. There can be no “back to normal” without people experiencing what Heidegger calls “a turn” rather than a return. As Heidegger points out, “The salvation must come from where there is a turn with mortals in their nature” (115-116), and “there is a turn with mortals when these find the way to their own nature. That nature lies in this, that mortals reach into the abyss sooner than the heavenly powers” (91).

                                                            

What is the role of the poet in such a time? Heidegger remarks, “It is a necessary part of the poet’s nature that, before he can be truly a poet in such an age, the time’s destitution must have made the whole being and vocation of the poet a poetic question for him” (92). Although Marlowe needs money to live, he is not in his job for money. As Heidegger goes on to say, “Poets are the mortals who...sense the trace of the fugitive gods, stay on the gods’ tracks, and so trace for their kindred mortals the way towards the turning” (92). Marlowe is on a hunt which very much differs from Sherlock Holmes'. Rather than doing a scientific work by tracing causal links between events back to a law, Marlowe is on an ontological discovery into the very abyss of human society and human nature. This is not a journey for weak minds. As Heidegger puts it, “Are there mortals who reach sooner into the abyss of the destitute and its destituteness? These, the most mortal among mortals, would be the most daring, the most ventured” (116). “He who is more venturesome than that ground ventures to where all ground breaks off – into the abyss. . . .Those men who are . . . more venturesome must also will more strongly” (116). 

It is a journey full of uncertainty into the darkness. “He among mortals who must, sooner than other mortals and otherwise than they, reach into the abyss, comes to know the marks that the abyss remarks. For the poet, these are the traces of the fugitive gods.” (91) Unlike Holmes, Marlowe is on a mission where there may not even be an answer. As Heidegger remarks,                              

“Traces are often inconspicuous, and are always the legacy of a directive that is barely divined. To be a poet in a destitute age means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world’s night utters the holy. That is why, in Holderlin’s language, the world’s night is the holy night” (92).

The nature of Marlowe’s search resembles a scene in “Red Wind” where he opens up the door to a dark room, “I went into near darkness. Street light filtered in and touched a high spot here and there . . . There was a queer smell in the air” (148). Entering into near darkness Marlowe can detect traces of things. These traces may lead him to conclusions, but it is hard to know if those conclusions are right. Similarly, the chess problem Marlowe has set out on the table remains unsolved throughout the entire story. There is no eureka-moment where everything becomes clear. There are hints and clues, but no final solution. According to Heidegger, this is how the search for Being must be in an age marked by the “default of God”:                                   

“The closer the world’s night draws toward midnight, the more exclusively does the destitute prevail, in such a way that it withdraws its very nature and presence. Not only is the holy lost as the track toward the godhead; even the traces leading to that lost track are well-nigh obliterated. The more obscure the traces become the less can a single mortal, reaching into the abyss, attend there to intimations and signs. It is then all the more strictly true that each man gets farthest if he goes only as far as he can go along the way allotted to him” (92).                                                                                                              

In an age of chaos, it is not possible to have the certainty of Sherlock Holmes. It may be impossible to solve the entire riddle, or make out clear shapes of meaning in the darkness. Yet it is this very darkness, the very destituteness of the world and the default of the gods, which renders mortals able to reach into the abyss sooner than the heavenly powers, and thereby find a way to their own nature.                                                                                                                           

Yet there is an element in hard-boiled detective fiction that makes Heidegger’s theory an incomplete description of Marlowe’s search. Heidegger envisions altruistic poets who “trace for their kindred mortals the way towards the turning,” yet there is no indication in Chandler that Marlowe thought much about a “turning” or any kind of revolution in public consciousness. In “On Raymond Chandler” Jameson quotes Chandler writing, “My theory was that the readers just thought they cared about nothing but the action; that really, although they didn’t know it, the thing they cared about, and that I cared about, was the creation of emotion through dialogue and description” (122-123). In other words, where Heidegger sees the ontological discovery as a means to an end, Chandler (and by association Marlowe) seems to see the discovery or search as an end in itself. Instead of focusing on the action leading to a certain revelatory end, Chandler gives us the experience of a good man in a destitute world “in search of a hidden truth.”

Chandler, Raymond. “Red Wind” in Penzler 134-160

---. “The Simple Art of Murder” in Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings, New       York: The Library of America. 1995. Print.

Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought, New York: Perennial. 2001. Print.

Jameson, Frederic. “On Raymond Chandler” in Most and Stowe 122-148

Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms, London         and New York: Verso. 1997. Print.

Most, Glenn W. and Stowe, William W. ed. The Poetics of Murder: Detective Fiction and Literary Theory, San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic Publishers. 1983. Print.

Penzler, Otto, ed. The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, New York: Vintage Books. 2007. Print

The Orator and the Mechanic: Images of Rhetorical Practice in De Oratore

What do you need to know to change the world?

I am not the only one who has asked that question; it has been the central quandary for many philosophers, politicians, reformers, and preachers for most of the recorded history of thought. As Richard Weaver writes, we are all "born into history, with an endowment of passion and a sense of the ought. There is ever some discrepancy . . . between the situation man is in and the situation he would like to realize. His life is therefore characterized by movement towards goals." We want to make the world better, and make life richer, fuller, and more worth living. How do we do that?

Well, one central element is that we cannot do it alone; we need help from others. In order to help, they have to be persuaded through words that the endeavor is worth it. That is why Weaver goes on to claim, "It is largely the power of rhetoric which influences and governs that movement" towards goals. So what do you need to know to get others to enlist in such a cause? Is it enough to know which buttons to press, how do make people feel certain emotions or get certain desires? Will marketing and style do? What about the larger ideas about human nature and what builds and moves societies, what some people may call philosophy, what about them?

Marcus Tullius Cicero plays out this dispute elegantly in his dialogue between Crassus and Antonius in De Oratore. At the outset of De Oratore, Cicero references an important disagreement with his brother Quintus on the nature of eloquence: Cicero espouses that "eloquence is dependent upon the trained skill of highly educated men" whereas Quintus says "it must be separated from the refinements of learning and made to depend on a sort of natural talent and . . . practice" (290). These competing views (high education vs. practice) are then fully played out in the ensuing dialogue between Crassus and Antonius, yet they are not as far apart as they seem. The central argument is based on different perspectives of a similar idea: Crassus is normative and describes a "lofty ideal" of the Orator (320), whereas Antonius is descriptive and performs the Socratic work of defining and delimiting the strict boundaries of oratory (311). As such, it is logical that their definitions of the issue will be conflicting, with Crassus pursuing the greatest eloquence and Antonius cutting the craft of the orator to its barest minimum. What we see playing out in the dialogue is an artful display of an argument on the stasis of definition, where Cicero is able to instruct us about the nature of eloquence and oratory, and their roles in society from both idealistic and descriptive perspectives.

One of the main disagreements is about what and how much the orator needs to study in order to become an orator. Antonius limits the sphere of an orator to the law courts and public debates (311), and claims that although the orator may "taste" much which belongs to other fields of knowledge, he does not need to acquire it as his own (312). Philosophy in general is especially useless, since such ideas and precepts espoused by the likes of Plato are too far removed from reality to be of any utility (320). The one possible exception here is Aristotle, whose theory may be useful to more advanced students of rhetoric (326) but not to novices. What an orator needs is to be attuned to "the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and hopes of his fellow-citizens and of any men whom on any issue he would fain win over by his word" (313) since the oratory needs to be adapted to the ears of the audience (326).

Crassus, on the other hand, argues that an orator should seek after knowledge widely, since eloquence without it is empty (292) and cannot achieve excellence (294). Especially philosophy which deals with human life and manners must be mastered by the orator (299). Nor is oratory restricted to law courts and public debates. Oratory brings people together, creates and sustains civilization, law, and order, and brings pleasure and safety: "the wise control of the complete orator is that which chiefly upholds . . . the safety of countless individuals and of the entire State" (293-294). It is also the general art to which every specialist must come in order to convince people and gain consensus and support for any cooperative venture (298). As he concludes towards the end: "an orator cannot have sufficient cogency and weight if he lacks the vigor that public speaking demands, and cannot be adequately polished and profound if he lacks width of culture" (339). As for rhetoric, the education of the orator, they both agree that it is not an art in the strict "Greek" sense, but that it still has utility and value (309). The Isocratean tradition is clearly the most useful to rhetorical novices, but Aristotle and some other philosophers may have occasional helpful points to offer (338).

In my opinion both perspectives have value: Antonius' "mechanistic" perspective is helpful in order to settle the boundaries of rhetoric as an academic field, and Crassus' views show the potential reach of oratory which "embraces the origin and operation and developments of all things" (338). Oratory, as Crassus defines it, is the only way leadership can be practiced in a democratic society, and it is often the only way people can change the course of the world.

"Seeking Light for Ourselves in the Darkness": Isocrates' Evolutionary Philosophy of Knowledge

What does it mean to be a man or woman of principle? Most would agree that it means one lives ones life after a set of beliefs which operate as an anchor to make sure that one does not simply follow that which is convenient, popular, or easy at any given time. Yet being a person of principle is not the same as being rigid or being unable to take uncertain conditions into consideration. Most of the decisions we have to take in our everyday lives involve a greater or lesser degree of uncertainty as to what the outcomes will be. How then, can we make a decision when we don't have all the data? This is where two of the great thinkers of the ancient world offered radically different approaches: Plato advocated that we search for the transcendent true principles by the method of dialectic, whereas Isocrates recommended that we conjecture to find the best course of action by the method of rhetoric.

In his Antidosis, Isocrates claims that the ability of speech is the basis of human superiority over animals: “we are inferior to many in swiftness and in strength . . . but because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other . . . not only have we escaped the life of the wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts . . . there is no institution devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to establish” (75). Notice that he writes about the development of man through speech as a progressive history with words such as “escaped,” “come together,” “founded cities,” “made laws” and “invented arts,” showing clearly that the construct of human civilization was not a finished building, but was rather a product of laying brick by brick over many  years. In the same way, Isocrates sees the development of the human mind as a work in progress facilitated by speech, “With this faculty we both contend against others on matters which are open to dispute and seek light for ourselves on things which are unknown” (75). Rather than Plato’s immortal soul which merely seeks to remember what it already knows (Phaedrus 66), we here see a universe of uncertainty, where man seeks illumination for himself through speech in the midst of the great unknown. It is in these divergent ideas of the world we must situate the writings of Plato and Isocrates if we are to understand why they espouse such different views on rhetoric and philosophy. For Plato, philosophy is a process of uncovering universal truth which is accessible in a transparent universe; for Isocrates, it is a process of conjecture and good judgment which is the best man can hope to achieve in a world when we have to act in the present without any real knowledge about the future.

Isocrates knows that his assumptions about the world are the foundations of his argument, therefore he sets out to establish these early on in Against the Sophists, “For I think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from this prescience that Homer . . . has pictured even the gods at times debating among themselves about the future” (72; Jaeger 129). In such an environment it seems clear that mankind cannot demand perfect knowledge or perfect definitions. Rather, mankind have to make do with what they have, gradually improving the construct from a tent, to a hut, to a house. Indeed, Isocrates even argues that our ideas about social values were not established prior to language, but rather established by language: “For this it is which has laid down laws concerning things just and unjust, and things honourable and base:  and if it were not for these ordinances we should not be able to live with one another. It is by this also that we confute the bad and extol the good” (Antidosis 75). The conclusion therefore becomes obvious: Since man cannot know about the future, the man is wise “who is able by his powers of conjecture to arrive generally at the best course, and I hold that man to be a philosopher who occupies himself with the studies from which he will most quickly gain that kind of insight” (77). Bereft of truth, all man can hope for is the development of character and judgment. In consequence, this becomes the focus of Isocrates’ educational project, with rhetoric as the natural center of the practical arts. As Jaeger states, "he has made a virtue of necessity" (137). Isocrates, unlike the speechwriters, was not lacking a transcendent ideal for his philosophy. He found it in Panhellenism, which could only be brought to pass through unity and cohesion, making this the aim of his rhetoric (Jaeger 126).

With this framework, it also becomes clear why sophists and so-called philosophers are worthy of censure (Isocrates mixed the terms, but for clarity I will use Plato's nomenclature): Philosophers seek that which they cannot gain, and therefore they waste the time and talents of their students on hair-splitting, “they pretend to have knowledge of the future but are incapable either of saying anything pertinent or of giving any counsel regarding the present” (73). Sophists, on the other hand, “have no interest whatever in the truth” (73), and as such end up completely without morals or character, subjected to the moment rather than any transcendent ideal, as well as being poor teachers without rigor in their teachings.

If, on the other hand, we believe like Plato that absolute universal truths are attainable, it makes sense that we should first seek out this foundation before we start to construct our lives. Thus, just as a doctor must know how the body works before he starts an operation, so we must know the nature of virtue, beauty, and that which is good before we can know how we should live our lives. Plato sees the philosopher as someone building a house who first digs down to the solid bedrock in order to have a solid foundation, Isocrates sees him as a person on a thin raft of principles which is floating over the liquid foundation of speech, and out of driftwood and other sparse materials this man must try to construct a boat. Jaeger mentions that most unlike the alphabet are "the fluid and manifold situations of human life" (134), which is the realm of rhetoric.

Here is one example of how the complexity of human interactions and human relationships makes knowledge more fluid: 

These two perspectives may be reflected in their divergent views on the good life. Plato’s Socrates observes the world with curiosity, yet with what sometimes seems like a calm detachment. Isocrates criticizes this “isolation” and claims that “men who want to do some good in the world must banish utterly from their interests all vain speculations and activities which have no bearing on our lives” (76). The philosophy of Isocrates is situated in the politics of everyday life, whereas the philosophy of Plato is situated in the eternal idea-world, where everyday life is an unpleasant and unreal intrusion on the purer things of the soul. 

In the end, Plato became the father of western philosophy, whereas Isocrates became the father of western education. I believe both approaches have their place in the world we live in. We have to learn how to think and search to find true answers, but when we still end up with an incomplete understanding we need to be able to work with what we have. After all, whoever found a way to gather reliable data about the future?

The Defining Moment

One of the most famous debunkings of rhetoric is found in Plato's Gorgias, and it is one philosophers like to ask me about. However, as I hope to show you, Plato doesn't debunk rhetoric in this dialogue, he simply chastices Gorgias and his followers for how they use rhetoric. But in order to win the debate, Plato uses tricks of definition, where he pretty much sets up artificial boundaries for what an art is and makes sure to place rhetoric firmly on the outside of it. Here's an example of how you can do this: "You claim to be a Christian. Christians generally believe in x, y, and z. You do not believe in z, therefore you are not a Christian but a heretic." The one who pushes for a definition obviously here has the greater power. In politics this same power-play can be seen when a Republican is accused of being a RINO (Republican in name only) which is very hard to refute since the one who makes the accusation also has the power to define what it means to be a "true Republican." The same power of definition is used by the left to label someone as "racist," "out of touch" or "Wall Street puppet."Here is an example of someone who definitely wants that power.

Socrates displays the rhetorical power of definition as he consistently challenges the explanations made by Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles about rhetoric until the definition is narrow and yet ambiguous enough for him to attack and discredit what Gorgias is practicing. Socrates sets some of the conditions for this victory early on, as he asks Gorgias to give brief answers, thereby of a necessity forcing oversimplified explanations to some complex questions. But the main condition for Socrates winning is that he is able to compare the work of the rhetorician to the arts of production, such as doctor, money-maker, and trainer, thereby forcing Gorgias to situate rhetoric within a category where it does not belong. This is then easily refutable, allowing Socrates to define rhetoric according to his preferences.

            The key passage which decides this outcome is on page 90, where Socrates challenges rhetoric by comparing it to medicine, training, and money-making and asks, “what is this thing that you say is the greatest good for men, and that you claim to produce?” Gorgias answers, “the ability to persuade” (91) and, when challenged further, that it is “the kind of persuasion . . . which you find in the law courts and in any public gatherings . . . and it deals with what is just and unjust” (92). After a few more questions, Socrates sums this point up: “Thus rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief . . . in the matter of right and wrong” (92). Rhetoric must now 1. Produce the guaranteed outcome of persuasion like a sculptor produces a sculpture, and 2. Deal specifically with the subject matter of justice. These few lines have set the main tendencies in motion that will bring this dialogue to its now almost inevitable conclusion. The strongest defense Gorgias can muster comes on page 93 where he claims that rhetoric is a “neutral” art such as “boxing, wrestling, or fighting in armor,” and as such merely increases faculties innate in humans which can be used for good or evil. However, Gorgias has already undermined this point by claiming to produce persuasion about what is just or unjust. This clearly has ethical implications, which Socrates pursues until Gorgias submits that someone who produces persuasion about what is just or unjust first needs to know about the subject matter and be a just man himself. This then leads to the absurd conclusion that no unjust man could ever become a rhetorician or do rhetoric. 

 

Rhetoric as a producer of persuasion concerning justice is the most essential definition which Socrates is able to use in his favor. If rhetoric is able to produce persuasion about just and unjust, then this can be censured since it would seem to overrule judgment. Consequently, this definition is the first thing Aristotle refutes in his Rhetoric. Instead of accepting Socrates’ idea that all arts must only deal with one specific subject matter, Aristotle compares rhetoric with the art of dialectic: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic. For both treat of such things as are in a way common for all to grasp and belong to no delimited science” (66). Rhetoric and dialectic are both general arts practiced by all people to some degree, and they can be improved by instruction and practice although they are used in many areas towards many separate outcomes. He also rejects the notion that all arts must produce something and that rhetoric is the production of persuasion: “Its function is not persuasion. It is rather the detection of the persuasive aspects of each matter and this is in line with all other skills” (69-70). In the same way, probably referring back to Gorgias, he claims medicine is not the ability to produce health but rather the art of knowing what may help someone feel better and what may not, and administer accordingly.

As the argument stands, without the help of Aristotle, Gorgias can no longer argue the case that rhetoric is a neutral art which simply increases abilities. Polus and Callicles go on to defend rhetoric by appealing to the power it brings as something inherently good for individuals, but none of these are difficult to refute on ethical grounds. Because rhetoric was defined as persuasion about what is just or unjust, Socrates correctly points out that this is really the realm of justice, and that in claiming to be about justice, without the knowledge of it, rhetoric is an impostor with form but without sound content. Thus, the only use Socrates initially assigns to it is that of flattery: tempting men to give in to the basest parts of their nature and seeking more to please than to edify.

                 

However, Socrates seems to imply later on that it is the contemporary use rather than the nature of rhetoric which he has most distain for. He says man should “be the first accuser either of himself or of his relations, and [should] employ his rhetoric for the purpose of so exposing their iniquities that they may be relieved of that greatest evil, injustice” (109), and repeats the point at the end: “Rhetoric is to be used for this purpose always, of pointing to what is just” (138). In essence he agrees that rhetoric is neutral and can be used for either good or evil. 

So remember, the next time you hear someone being called something: "Who defined what that term means in this context?" and "What case could be made for this person not fitting into that category if 1. you look at other actions they have taken or 2. if you could make a different definition." Be aware of the defining moment.