Part 6 - TOTAL VIEW

Tvergastein, Hardangervidda, Norway, June 1995
Interviewer: Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Producties
This interview was made for the documentary film The Call of the Mountain.

Arne, you interpret Kierkegaard as saying that you are always responsible to develop a total view, can you explain that?

I don't think that is typical for Kierkegaard, because he was so much against Hegel and a system, what he called a system. But I think that, at every moment, according to Kierkegaard, you are totally responsible in relation to what you believe. The value priorities that, whatever you do, whatever you eat, where-ever you are, the terrible condition of humans are such that you are responsible for your choice. And I interpret him to say that... but if you have a system, so that you say: 'According to my general view, I have to go to the left now, not to the right', you have to, three times do this and find out whether you really... are you really... accept what your system says? And then you get into a situation where you say: 'No, I go to the right. I will not go to the left.' And then, of course, you are going against your verbalized kind of value hierarchy. And you then try to find out where it went wrong, where in your total network of your opinions, you were wrong. Because, after all, your, your spontaneous reaction for or against is very important. So, even if you have a tremendously well worked out, verbalized total view, it's after all something secondary in relation to the personality. You as a person are always above the system.

What is a total view?

Well, it's a view that has certain value priorities for your life, and, more generally, also has hypotheses about who you are, what country you are in and what social and political situation. So it is both descriptive, it's describing the main features of the world. And value priorities, so that you are more, you have more obligations to your own children, than to the children of others and so on. So you have more or less fundamental views, views, and today that's more important than ever, because there is such a cynicism and that's used by what is called the post... post-modernism. That search for truth and validity on a large scale is out. That's old-fashioned, and now you have cultural conversation and small narratives, and this great movement, like peace-movement and this movement... is too big for us. We just have small conversations and narratives to each other.

Is their a difference between scepticism and nihilism?

Yes, sure, I mean scepticism, you may have ten ways of using the term but, one use that goes back to Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher, such that you say that you have no guarantee that you have the truth in your hands, so to say. Fallibility is such that you never have a guarantee to have the truth in your hands. That scepticism is very different from nihilism, saying: We cannot reach any truth and we cannot reach any truth. And there are no values in any universal sense, just for instance your desires at the moment. So it's extremely different from nihilism. You are, you are... according to this kind of scepticism, which I find very much... I think is very much good in it. Hmm.
I have published a book on a very special sort of scepticism. And some people think that this leads to a kind of nihilism. But that's not the case. It's just a kind of belief in general fallibility, that you have never a guarantee to be completely in truth of what you say. You're no guarantee. So anything can happen. You have no guarantee in this about the future, and also about the future of your own self; what will be your opinion tomorrow. And you are liable to be mistaken about your past, as I am when I write self-biography, there may be a lot of errors. And if I say, 'Oh yes, I'm mistaken, this is... was, this... it was like that!' Next day you may say: 'Oh no, I was not mistaken!' And that is typical then for human beings, that you have this fallibility. And it asks for open mind, completely open mind, at the same time as you must be strong in your action. So your act... you are responsibility, to act and go into the centre of conflict which you think are important, at the same time as you are aware that you are been mistaken all the way!

What is nihilism to you?

Nihilism will say that there are no opinions any better than any other opinion, and so you can just do what you like, so to say. There are no values which are such that you ought to follow this and realize those values. And that's... nobody probably has completely consistence there, but also in the old Greek culture you had a couple of philosophers who were like that.
There might also be another form of nihilism, in the post-modern age, of people saying that 'God is silent', the spiritual vacuum of this time.
I think I should add, that today, there is a wave in philosophy, and I think there are more and more waves. In this century you have had so many waves of philosophy, where it is in to have such-and-such opinion, as today, it is in to have a kind of, so-called postmodernism. That the search for truth is over. Any kind of vary serious great movement like peace movement, ecology movement, is out. What, what we are going to have is locally, to have small narratives to talk to each other. Cultural conversation, narratives of a smaller kind, and don't have this arrogance to try to erect consistent views of reality and so on. That is out.
Fortunately, this will not last long, I think, and you come back to serious questions which are more or less global, but always you act locally, that's natural you do, and you know your power is tremendously small towards others, but we are back again, the next century, to have total views which are more or less fragmentary, but we are serious people.

But some say, we are now realizing the consequences of what Nietzsche said, that ‘God is dead.'

Well, God is not dead in the sense that we are still... have priorities of value, and you have certain values which are just absolute for us, such that against torture, for instance. If you are against torture, in principle and in practice, we have... what Gandhi would say, we are not Godless. We are not... we may be atheists, but not Godless. And that is a big distinction for a Gandhian and others who have... Gandhi thinks of himself as an orthodox Hindu, but he has great respect for militant atheists. 'Oh yes, that's alright. If you have a value that religion is bad and you have thought about it and you act against it, this is correct of you to do.' So you see, you may have definite values of such a kind, that you are not Godless. But you may say: 'No, no. A Christian God, no thank you.'

Still there is, I think, still quite a lot of spiritual suffering at this time. People not finding a place to belong.

[sigh] Great spiritual suffering, I think, yes. And that's good in a sense; that you... that those are mistaken, I think, who say: We are... now, in the future, never come back to anything like definite views of life, and definite views of greater and lesser values. That's all there, at the moment, as it was one hundred years ago, and one thousand years ago. It's all there.

Where? Where is it?

In the minds of people, they still find something value-less and other things valuable. They find something meaningful and other things not meaningful and they are willing to die for certain things, they think are valuable, just as we think going to die as a thousand years ago.

Do You yourself don't have the feeling that there is a spiritual void or vacuum?

Some people of course have a background and a upbringing through that they get into terrible depression with the feeling of void, and nothing is worth anything and so on, and they're suicidal. Thousands of people are suicidal, thousands of people who rather die than live... go on living. And in some cases, we should be helping them, I think, to get rid of their life.
But that has been like that in old times, also in the Middle Ages, where people were supposed always to be Catholics, and so on. That's of course nonsense. So that's... We have to pay for having this mind and this kind of possible... potentiality of reflecting all the time. It costs, being a human being. It costs very much; for some people it's an awful thing.

Can you explain that a bit more?

Well, the brain and the entire human mind is such that you see alternatives which seem not to be open to animals - other than human beings. We can see completely different possibilities for yourself and for everything. And your instinctual life is... has much less to say than with a fly, or a pig, or something. So, this means that this freedom of choice is tremendous, area of freedom makes that you get completely, maybe completely blocked in your... you get, you don't know what to do, what to do with yourself. So many young people say: 'I don't know what to do with myself, I don't know.' So, it costs, and it has always cost, I think, and will always cost. So it pays, and therefore I would never say that life, being alive, is wonderful. But I will just say that life as a phenomenon, the development of life in six hundred million years is wonderful and fantastic and unbelievable.

Some people, like the Swedish film maker Bergman, they speak about the silence of God.

Of course, if you have been brought up with a definite kind of God, as believe in God, a definite kind, then you get into trouble very much easier, than if... like myself, I had a mother who said: 'Oh people, I would like to be like my friend who is believer in God and next life, I wish I could.' But then she would laugh and say: 'I can't do that.' So, with a mother who was like that and with a suspicious about every teacher at the school, you don't get into having a very strong belief that there is definite kind of God, with definite kind of goals for you. And it then breaks down, for instance, a Jewish philosopher said to me: 'How can you be that sceptical? And we have such joy as a Jew.' The Jewish scepticism is one anxiety and frustration, 'Oh, I am doubting, oh, I am doubting. What shall I do? My God, I am doubting.' Whereas a Hellenic scepticism of Pyrrho, that was a joyful scepticism, saying: 'We don't know much, we don't know. We will follow our spontaneous impulses as long as they are not too bad for other people.' And they were sceptical, not as anti... not as a mortal kind of doubt, 'Oh my God, I doubt!'... 

But even people with a Christian or another religious background may say that this world is falling to pieces. This view that with this threat of atomic war or the ecological crisis, that they feel that God is silent, God is not taking care anymore.

Well, if you read a lot of history, you see how terrible things have happened then, how, how the world has gone to pieces, when there were very... this great distance between the cultures, geographically et cetera. Like the American Indians, the last Indian for instance, who was a free Indian, were caught in 19 so-and-so, a long time ago. His world, he said, is gone to pieces. He was very depressed. He was taken very good care of, the last free Indian. Ishi, was his name. And he said: 'My world is gone, completely.'
So, in olden time, this was olden time, and this diversity of cultures... sometimes your world simply go to pieces. And today, I don't see any sign that the world is going to pieces, and I don't think the atomic wars could, could destroy more than 95 percent of humanity. And then you have five percent and that's enormous number of humans.

But before the Middle Ages, we used to live in an enchanted world, now we live in an age of the disenchantment of nature.

They talk about disenchantment of nature, but that's talking... that's talk. There are great problems ahead and there is no certainty about things going towards catastrophe. There is no good signs, that we will, in the next century, overcome the ecological crisis. We don't know much, so we just go ahead. You do this now, you try to do this, and this, and this, and there is no reason to stop and say: 'We are helpless', or, the... These doomsday preachers are just doing harm. We are just going to go on and trying to protect our own life and the life of others.

But you might argue that there is still a huge difference, for instance, between a Sami person, who lives in an enchanted world who feels the connection to... whatever, and us, who have to relearn it. We have to be educated. We have moved beyond the split.

It turns out that people lived all their life in cities, and if they had then, by chance, getting into free nature, it doesn't take long time before they're just as protective minded, just as eager to protect free nature and others. So human beings are such that they seem to be completely stuck in one kind of way of living, and one that seem to have vital needs of such-and-such-and-such things, and they get, by chance, pushed into some other reality. Ha. And they are there, adapting to a new kind of reality. So, it's frightening, but it also is a very good thing. It is frightening for many people that humans are so able to be... to get into be a torturer or to be a saint.
And if we were young, let's say two hundred years, not only five or ten years, we would probably show very, very different kinds of characters, developments. With this, a long youth. So I'm a great believer in equanimity, that you will have, inside yourself somewhere, a trust; trust, not believe of a very dogmatic kind of anything, but a trust. And that is typical of some of the sceptics.
The, the... where the... now, we are suddenly drowning in a flood coming through the house here, or not coming, that's... I don't know... There may be a tremendous big stone on the way down. And hitting us within two seconds, we are all just out of here; you are, some of you. Just saying: 'Goodbye life and eh...' That's... that shouldn't disturb you much. And not that the possibility, that we have wars of such-and-such terrible kind, and two hundred... million species are going extinct or four million species are going extinct. You go on. You just try to help what you think is worth to help, and keep quiet inside here.

But that is on the individual level, but a Sami person belongs to a culture where there is no split between what we call nature, wilderness, and spirituality. It is all a whole.

It is amusing to see that among supporters of deep ecology, of the deep ecology movement, it's amusing to see that they have such a high estimation of any culture that is not industrial. The Indians... and they think that every old culture was better than what we have now. But if you read carefully about the social reality in certain cultures, it is so much worse than we have.

Yeah, but that is not what I mean. I mean is that if we use the word or the concept of nature, it means that we have grown apart of nature.

I don't think we have grown apart of nature, and you don't think that every non-industrial civilization had consistently better relationships to the nature. But what's so terrible today is our power to destroy. They didn't have much power to destroy, and that's the main reason they didn't destroy much, I think. That they didn't have this terrific power. So, now the terrific power is in hands of adolescents, we may say. But that's also an exaggeration. I think that there is hope for the twenty-second century. That we are on the way of decreasing the unsustainability of life. There is a fair chance [smiles]. And we just go on and do what we think is the right thing to do.

I like to return to the subject of 'total views'. Maybe you can tell about your own total view.

I have, I think, a total view, but only fragments are verbalized, and that holds good for other people, those who are not professor in philosophy, they don't have all this time to reflect.
But things happened to me, for instance, when I was sixteen years, out in the highest mountains in Norway, when I got into a hut, a tourist hut, I was always sitting with a... some thick, very technical book of some kind. And a professor of palaeontology of the worlds before our own time, six hundred million years of development of life. He saw me sitting there and started, starting discussing with me and told me about... of there was a world of development before humans.
And from that time, certainly, I got the feeling, a feeling of time in terms of millions of years. So I didn't understand why people were so upset by things and I didn't... I hadn't... couldn't see how any human being could feel small and helpless because, compared to this form of beings, even a dinosaur will have a fantastic power in their minds, or capacities, unbelievable power. So, I was then having a total view, where you do not live in this century but you live in a time that is covering hundreds of millions of years. And I feel the Ice Age just as yesterday, where the ice was covering this, here. Just as yesterday, and therefore, my total view is, is of a kind were you, yourself are tiny, tiny being in a fantastic world, but you are also a fantastic being, you yourself are a fantastic being. And whether you get to be socially successful or not is absolutely un... of very little interest whatsoever, as long as you can have a little food. Just a little money, you do not need... then you can have a fabulous life. So... 

It makes you feel humble, and at the same time great.

We are tiny and, compared to this cosmos... but we are proud beings, tremendously proud beings, being humans, ahaa! 'You should be tremendously proud of yourself.'
But not compared to others, that you are better in playing the piano or better in so-and-so, you may be very bad in everything.
I had a friend who never succeeded in any kind of thing. He tried to be artist, he tried to go to the theatre, he tried botany, he never succeeded in anything, but he was such a marvellous person!
His achievements were: ha, so small, but it was so nice to be together with him because he had so many interests - none of them make... they didn't make headway, any of them. I am sorry he died long ago. So, that's what... success, he was, for me, such a fantastic successful human being! And we need many more of them! And he was also invited very much by people, because he had always nice things to say. 'I could sing some song for you!' And then he sang moderately good, but with tremendous enthusiasm! That's the kind of person I like.

You just talked about going to the mountain and reading this book. It was another experience you had in the mountains when you went as a boy of eleven, to Jotunheimen. When you came to meet mountain people.

Ahh! Yes, speaking about what I really admire... Against the wishes of my mother, who was asking 'No, no, no, no', I went alone to the area of high mountains, when I was fourteen years. And when I got up there, no hut was open yet. But there was an old man who was shovelling snow all day and he told me, alright, you can stay with me in a shack, a tiny, tiny, very cold room. And when he, when it got dark, he was taking his violin, and play. [sound of stamping foot] And was doing this, with his feet, and then he said: 'You have to do that also.' And I tried, you see. But, the rhythm! I was quite good at that time, with a difficult rhythm of Chopin, a certain classical... But his rhythm, I couldn't follow. And he didn't like that. What we eat was porridge. Old, old porridge, cold. So, but he had this, playing the violin, and his outlook - completely sovereign, I mean. And then, early morning, he went out shovelling all day again. For me, he was ninety years old. Probably he was sixty.
But I saw this and that made me politically... in my political philosophy and social philosophy, turning towards the left in politics without being a socialist. I was voting left and left... leftist views, never being a socialist. Because, they had so many meetings, ha. I didn't... This kind of life, as socialist, was impossible for me.

But what was the old man doing in the mountains?

He was hired to shovel snow, this old man. he was hired to shovel snow. And he was a peasant, poor peasant from neighbourhood, but city people, owning a hotel, a big... made him go up there, two weeks before the tourists would come, and make headway, getting away this snow.

Did he make a sad impression on you or... 

No, I mean, this old man, of course I say, you understand, that he was very joyful. he had nothing to complain about. He didn't complain at all. This was alright. He had some money for doing this job and that money would help him for months, in his life.

How did then your political development, how did this experience develop your personal development?

When I often have told about this old man, it's because I saw myself as a son of an upper middle-class family, with a lot of money and a lot of education, all this. And I compared myself with this fellow and I thought that such people must be taken care of, if they really get old and cannot do any shovelling anymore. So we must have a welfare society. We must have a society that resemble that of the socialist, without being socialist. Because I make a tremendous difference between private initiative and personal initiative. And I am so much for personal initiative. But whether it's private or not private, is for me uninteresting, completely uninteresting. A university may be fabulous, being a state university, because of the personal initiative. So the political philosophy, which is a very important part of philosophy. There, I have then a paradoxical situation, that I am politically active, without being a politician. [smiles] I speak good... I speak well about politicians, because it is so easy to be making fun of them and... as they do now, in United States and in Norway. And I am voting left, without being socialist, et cetera.

© Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Producties

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