Interview with Arne Naess

Part 9 - BEAUTIFUL ACTIONS

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

In 1938 I started living here, I hoped I would live here quite a lot and I numbered the days I was here. And now we are four thousand, one hundred and fourteen days. It's number one, four thousand one hundred and fourteen today. That's between eleven and twelve years. So I hope that I will experience the twelfth year here. Twelve multiplied by 365. Well, I'm now 83 and I see that I may be not able to have lived here twelve years, but at least I have lived here more than eleven years, counting the days. And I'm counting the days, there are 4114, today. That's not yet twelve.

But are you already sad, that you probably in the future won't come up here? That you cannot make it?

I could be carried up here, easily. Carried up here, when I can't walk up here. So that's no problem, but it's a problem whether I can be here really enjoying the view and enjoying the place as I can now. And when I am past that stage, it makes no meaning to carry me up here. [laughs].

Do you feel sad about that the hut is living longer than you are?

No, I couldn't be sad about that. I think it is extremely nice for me to know that there are people who say: 'We should, must see to it, in all next century, there would be Tvergastein, and there would people here, living according to the rules of Tvergastein. There are certain non-sensical rules, certainly, and we disobey those nonsense. But most of the rules would be kept alive here, at this place, all next century. That's the opinion of good people here, in Norway.

Do you think the mountain will miss you?

Slightly, yes.
Tvergastein is about 1500 feet above treeline, 500 meters. A little more than about 500 meters above the treeline. So eh, in, in, in the Alps it would be very much above 2500 metres high. But it's actually only 1505! Because of the 60 degrees north, north of the Equator, so the climate at Tvergastein is purely Arctic climate. At 1500 metres, 60 degrees north, this is Arctic. It is the same latitude as Greenland, south of Greenland. So, it's not easy to understand for people in the Italian Alps, for instance, if they hear here it's 1500 metres: but that's a nice place with a lot of people living there in small villages. But there is no village here, that would be completely [laughs] impossible to think of.
Well, even you, who are now interviewing me, would think it is, this place is just as another nice place just above the treeline in the Alps, because we had some tremendous weather, sun and sun and sun, only sun, and moderate winds. But eh... it's very few times, maybe less than five or six times, that you had had so many days with such weather like this! And it is only the middle of the summer possible.
Perhaps people coming from other countries, visiting Tvergastein, think that there are many huts, privately owned, on this level. But there is nobody else, it's the highest privately owned hut. What you have higher is meteorological stations, et cetera. But the highest hut in the Nordic countries of Europe, nothing like it.
And there is good reason for it, because, because of the climate, I mean, why should you have an Arctic climate, I mean, you get...
But it is Hallingskarvet I'm for. It is not the Arctic climate, it is Hallingskarvet. I'm obeying, obeying the urge of Hallingskarvet to come!
As I was ten years old it was more spontaneous experience of Hallingskarvet as a God-like being. Certainly, a God-like being would ask you to come nearer, to stay.

You could not resist.

No, that was out of the question. I would have to go and I am only glad that I didn't place the hut on the summit of Hallingskarvet! I don't think Hallingskarvet would like that anyhow, but I had the idea to have been still higher on the mountain. That was a bad idea. It was part of my sport, sportive ego, probably, that it was necessary to climb with your hands, in order to reach the cottage.

The good thing was that you wouldn't have any filmteam there! We couldn't make it up there!

[laughs] That would be a good thing, and the first twenty years no journalists or no filming permitted to come up there. No journalists, no, no. pff.

This place can also be very silent. Is the silence important to you?

Oh yes, if you get the silence, it makes you, if you were to sit down here, and there is not much wind. And you listen, then you may listen to the silence. But because of the water, it's not a typical question of silence. But if you place yourself where there is no water rushing, and you, you see the silence is very important in the mountain, the silence.
I prefer to get away from people, and sometimes away from here to get down to people.
Here you have endless movement in the water, endless variety of movement. And the light, endless. You can sit here and look at this... The longer time you use, the more it says. Communicating, more and more. You have all sorts of waves. Tiny, tiny ones and then little bigger, and little bigger. And movement this direction, that direction and it's flowing. Infinite complexity.

Can you maybe relate the fact that you have been professor for so many years, and at one point you got interested in the ecological problem.

Eh, as I have told, I had a peculiar relation to small animals. And eh, I had also relation to, I think, the ocean and the mountains. But what's going on in me was something more complicated. For instance, the meaning of life, ordinary life, which is really, certainly you can have, if you are not too unlucky. I had no kind of hope that there would be a different kind of policy towards free nature.
In 1940's I was, I said yes to be in the nature protection kind of institution. It was called the tourists' institution. And it has to do with the Norwegian tourists, and they had about 100.000 members. But there was no kind of real effort to protect what's left of non-dominated nature. Nature not dominated by people. They thought that tourists should go everywhere they wish to go and that we should have houses or huts anywhere. But that was in 1940's. And 1950, there was no reason to have any hope.
But then came something tremendous. And, by chance, it came from United States [laughs]. The biologist Rachel Carson, she wrote a book, that was not unique at all, Silent Spring, talking about pesticides; first of all against destroying the soil, but also that we were destroying life along the shores, for instance. She was specialist on life along the shores. Andthen came the big firms of chemistry, were supplying all the chemicals used in agriculture: together with the Department of Agriculture, those two tremendously powerful institutions came together, when they heard about the book, before it was published and started a campaign against her. Saying: this was completely unscientific and it was a hysterical woman talking about things she didn't know anything about, and so on. So those two institutions started then a campaign against her, even before the book. And it then led to be a tremendous shaking of the people in the United States, seeing things from her point of view. So she got admirers. And people, even in the chemical industry and in the Department of Agriculture, wrote to her: 'We are all for what you are saying, but don't use our names. We can forget about our job if we support you. But we are just behind you. Ah, go on! Go on!' And she really was able to carry on this polemics.
And then you get, got in the early seventies - this was '63 -, early seventies, you got very good kind of protection through laws. Good laws about protecting species that was threatened and eh... Fabulous laws, that you cannot place a factory anywhere you like. You have to have, to, to explain what is going on then in, in the environment, what you call the environment. So, for some years, United States was top. The top level of protection.

When you heard from her, you were an ordinary professor in Oslo?

I had a friend in Norwegian, who is, who is now professor of Ethics, who told me a little about Rachel Carson in 1966, '67. Four years after, the book. And then from that time on, I saw life, the life, that it was possible, through political means, social and political means, to change policies towards nature. And then I jumped into that instead of having living as I wished to live. I wished to get away from writing so much. But this made me, then, very active from about 1970, very active. And I wrote then several hundred articles, and also a couple of books.
So, it meant that instead of getting rid of academia, and all this, pfff, writing and polemics, and so on, I continued.

But you are one of the most famous professors in philosophy of Norway, you gave up that position.

I gave up that position in 1969. And I planned in 1965 to leave in order what I say to function as much as I would live. I mean, if you are a professor for long time and head of the department and, pfff, all this things, then your mind suffers very much from it, I think [clicks].

In what sense?

You are then forced to place your problems in certain ways, you have to meet a lot of people. You have to be in all kinds of meetings. So I had to be two days, every week, in the city. I had all my lectures and meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I can get away into the mountains. But I have to go back again into the city. And I placed the examinations early in the year, in the, in the spring time, in order to get away. But it didn't help very much. And I always gave more lectures than was required of me, in order to prove that I am not skipping my responsibilities at all. I do more than the others. I work more than write text books without any kind of free time, and so on.
So, it was complicated, life, being a professor, very bad life, I think. You get accustomed to certain ways of thinking, and, no-no.

What did you teach?

I thought every every eh, branch of philosophy. I was considered to be, in the first years, to be a positivist, in a sense. But really, I was not a physician because I liked the way Spinoza was thinking: the grand total view that humans beings, with this capacity here, ah! So they have the obligation to find out where they are, who they are, and what is to be done [clicks]. Three things. That's my first article, when I left school. Nineteen years old. And eh, so the great philosophers are those who take up every branch: the philosophy of mind of course, the theory of knowledge, what is knowledge, what is truth, and so on. And you have social philosophy and you have political philosophy and you have aesthetics and you have ethics. So you have more than five branches of philosophy. And the total view means you have certain value priorities, and you have certain hypotheses who you are, what kind of reality, and what kind of cosmos are you put into, so to say. And what, what's to be done in your life, which is: bang, bang! You are born, bang! and you die, bang! Not more than one second, and what is worthwhile, within this time? Bang, bang. From nothing to nothing.
Of course, I felt that ordinary life couldn't satisfy me, so the only thing would be to be a kind of philosopher. But then I was academic philosopher until about '65, 1965. From that time I would say: 'I am not a professor of philosophy, I am a philosopher.' That's to say: when certain... when people like to hear my opinion on something, I have to tell my opinion, but without any kind of arrogance.
So they started: 'How do you solve the problem of death?' And I say this: 'It's not a problem, because then you must have a question mark, what is your question? What's the problem?' and so on. I had to be a little more precise. But then I had to answer questions about the life and death and eh, anything. And, as of course saying: 'If you wish to listen to me, this is what I have. If you don't want to listen to me, never mind!'

You were among quite some noted philosophers in Vienna.

Hm-mm. That's what they call the logical positivists. And because there was so little known about philosophy in Norway, they thought it was the same as something like positivism, which is very flat kind of philosophy, really. So, but eh, I was hang up in questions of how to pose your question precisely. And eh, I distinguished talking from thinking. And it was painful to think! [laughs]. And you could give lectures and everything like this – wa-wa-wa - talking without really having an intended meaning. That you don't mean really any definite. You just talk. You say: 'Well, this boat is very big with 100.000 ton', and, and eh, if you ask what you mean by 100..., by tons, 'Well, I don't know. It's the weight; no. It's a big boat, natural, big boat - how many tons, I don't know.' I didn't have any kind of thought, in order to talk, so to sayIt is a big boat and you say: 100.000 tons.
So, I thought then, I knew if you agree about something, you must prove that is same thing you mean by those words you agree about. Whereas, that's quite hypothetical. Probably we never agree about the same thing. And maybe never disagree about exactly the same thing. We talk. We talk and talk and we say we meet so-and-so place and by chance we meet there, and that's OK. Sometimes we don't meet because: 'Oh, you meant so, oh yes!'
So, I would try to take hold of the students, and then shaking them like this! [laughs]. Thousands of students. And I was the only professor of philosophy. So I had a great power over the students. And because I was so young, 27 years old, full professor of 27 years old, because I was so young, they didn't really, couldn't really dislike my terrible ways of thinking. Because we going slalom together, we were climbing together, we have boxing together! Everything together with the students! But then I, pfff. At the exams, they are rushhh, like this, hundreds of them just flunking there, hundreds of flunking, like this.

Can you still maybe try to tell a bit about this time in Vienna, the people who influenced you?

Oh yes, they are, I found that, they were this philosophers called Carnap, and philosopher called Neurath. And then in the background was Wittgenstein. I get, got a lot against him, because he, he won through magnetism, more than thinking, I think. But Carnap and I, and what I liked so much was that they were trying to help each other within philosophy, whereas mostly philosophers like to disagree and don't think that you understand me, and on. They had a formula: when others would say: 'I disagree,' they said: 'Maybe what you say is, eh, it's not quite a fortunate way. Maybe it's not a lucky way of saying what you mean there. Do you, could you say it this way?' And then the other will say: 'Yeah, yes! yes! Aha, then perhaps we agree, yes.' So, you invited the other in the sense, to, to listen to another way of formulating a think, a thought. So you try to find out what the other really meant. And try to see it best. You would say: 'Perhaps you mean so-and-so, and that was, that's an intelligent way.' And instead of saying: 'Well, you mean probably this; and this is false!'

Is there a relationship between your being, at a young age, in this Vienna circle, and the awareness in the sixties of the ecological crisis or were it completely different worlds for you?

Completely different worlds until this Rachel Carson. I didn't think that anything could be done as an individual. Except saying, I wrote an article saying: 'Nature is vanishing', or something like that.
Then I had to go into the ecology. So therefore, it took a long time before I started on that, a long time. And before that, I wrote many books and in many fields, and eh, I had a peculiar admiration of exact science, at the same time, as I thought that if you are mathematician or a physicist, you, if you, and if you go ask exactly what you mean and ask what, on what basis you make physics, or make eh mathematics, you get into metaphysics and get into philosophy. So if you dig deep enough, wherever you start, if you start: 'What time is it?' And you say: 'It's half past eight.' You can start: 'Well, what you mean by that?' And you get into problem of time. So wherever you start, you say: 'Why? I don't catch what you thought there and what you, exact question.' You can start anywhere, and you go deep: you get into philosophy [clicks].

With this digging deep, how you also came to the concept of deep ecology?

Absolutely, exactly. What distinguishes supporters of the deep ecology movement from other in the, activists in the ecology movement, is that the supporters of the deep ecology movement have, as a kind of starting point or motivation, a kind of life philosophy. So it's... they go into themselves: 'What are meaningful for me and what make me feel as I feel I am', what they feel that 'what I am hangs together with nature.' So when you protect nature, you protect yourself, in this way. And it's no reason that everybody should try to be a supporter of deep ecology movement. And we have lot of people doing research on the climate, on the ozone layer, and so on. Who would neglect totally the philosophy, and we couldn't do the same job. So we have cooperation between activists in the deep ecology movement and activists who say: 'Philosophy? No, that's not for me. It's not necessary. And we have to win this and we have to overcome the ecological crisis through science and through behaving differently and to have some different priorities of value within the society but, we need not go deeper. That you lose yourself in questions that cannot be solved.' All right. That's fine with me. But, the plus with the minority who are activist in deep ecology movement is that they will do everything out of inclination, whereas those who are not deep ecology supporters, they do things for, out of duty. We must not behave as we do because it is bad for yourself and for the children and grandchildren, and so on. So, it's more... so we can be more radical in our views, because we are not afraid of being hurt, because it would be a fantastic for us, to see things being protected. We would be so glad, even if you have no cars, not to much to eat, and everything. We would be glad if you could protect nature.

Is that the distinction Kant makes?

Ah. And there, of course, I have been lucky to find a distinction in a really very great philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He distinguishes in a early work, that is not known, mostly, among professors of philosophy. He makes the distinction between moral actions and beautiful actions [laughs]. And the act is only moral, if it is completely motivated by a respect for the moral laws. The, some eternal laws of morality. You act, only motivated to see, moral law teaches you to do so and not so-and-so, I do it. Then you act morally.
But then, especially among women, he says, they are often inclined to care for others and to other things, do other things which they should do, according to moral law. But they do it through inclination! They feel, feel like it. 'Wouldn't you like me to do this for you. Wouldn't you like...' And they are inclined to do things for other people and so on. And for animals. They are more inclined than men. So he said: 'If they do what the moral law requires of you, but through inclination. Then you act beautifully.' And then, as I talk in my lecture, saying: 'You wouldn't mind, if you only act beautifully and not morally.' And they would say: 'Oh yes! Act beautifully. For me, that I would like more, to be able to say: I acted beautifully.' Good for you. Because if you get into such situations, then you get into such development, then you protect, whatever you see of life. And you protect through inclination. Then you act beautifully! Whereas if you protect because of the moral law, then you do not act beautifully, but you act morally. And they said: 'Well, I like to think of myself as acting beautifully.'
And that's promising for the protection of the planet, that more and more people are led into situations that they do things out of inclination. Because a force, human force of inclination, is so tremendously bigger than the force, the motivation, to act morally. We of course do that sometimes, but we try to avoid saying: 'This is a moral law, we should do it.' We try to get away with it, as we live. Whereas inclination, yes!

Is there a way to nourish inclination?

The way to nourish inclination is most obvious when you have to do with children. Because you just lead children in free nature, and you bend down to look at a tiny flower, for instance. You bend all the way down. And the child will say: 'What are you seeing there? There is nothing to be seen there.' And you say: 'Look at this, and, and then you don't trample on it. You say: look at it, and so, and you show your inclination, to see the beauty and to see the marvel of life. Then children are easily, easily get to be inclined to behave properly.
Also, for instance, if you have a lot of insects in the window. You may have very big windows in summertime and a lot of different kinds of insects down on the [short?]. Then the parents give them some poison and they like to psss, psss, psss, psss - to kill the insects, you see. But I have the opportunity to say: 'Very amusing, but it's very amusing also to try to catch them and don't hurt them and take them all the way out! They don't find the way out, because then the get, they have to go into darkness, and that's against their instinct, they go try the window.' [knocks on window] And so, the small children were trying to help the insects out, you see. Eh, eh, I say: 'They like to go out, you see! Just as you would like to get out, they would.' And they identify with these insects. And that takes no time for children. So, if the parents behave properly, it's no, no difficulty to get children...
But when you are already fifteen years old, that's different. Then, of course, it's much more difficult to get people to see my point, and eh, but eh, at the moment there are plans to have real biology and ecology teaching in high schools and universities.

The learning of a new way of perception is more important than moralism.

Absolutely. I would say that to see the world in a certain way, that's important. And that is in philosophy called ontology: what's real. What's there, what's real. To see the reality of life and... is much more important than getting rules how to behave. So I'm for what I call, then, gestalt ontology. That's to say, the world is made of gestalts and eh, that's, that's reality we have. And there are certain ways of experiencing gestalts, which you have to train yourself in. And if, and then, you get [sufficient?] training, you widen yourself, more and more. And I speak about Self with a capital 'S'. And there is no limit, for me, but some people seem to relate to, more or less, everything, in a way of identification. Buddhists, for instance. I don't, I'm not able to do that. But eh, it's a question, quite a lot of training. And a few people like to train themselves. [laughs]

You once identified very strongly with one of the tiniest creatures, eh?

I found that I'm on par with, or even more powerful, than a shrimp. Because: if a shrimp is here, and I'm here. I can take the hand and it will go like this. But then I have my other hand behind the shrimp. And it will go straight into my hand. So, my power is evidently, as a human being, is fantastic power. And I, I repeat it over the radio many times, that you are much, much powerful than you think. You think you are just an ordinary, ordinary man or woman. No-no, you are extraordinary. Every human being is completely extraordinary. Nobody is like the other, and the relation between you and Michelangelo and Einstein and so on, the similarity there is so great, compared to a shrimp, for instance. So, you should compare yourself with a shrimp - and with Einstein, and you see you are just as great as Einstein, practically.

What I meant is that you, what I referred to is when you looked through a microscope, you identified too.

Well, identify with all life, I, there is at least one microscopic being with whom I identified clearly and that's a microscopic being that is in-between being an animal and being a plant. And the name is Eutreptiela gymnastica. Eutreptiela, that's the genus, genus, and gymnastica is the species. And it's moving [imitates movement], like this, a ballet. And eh, that's how I would like to move! So I see it as something similar to me, but eh, maybe not experiencing anything. Or if there is any experience, it's in a tiny drop and a drop is then drying out and you see this wonderful being get disturbed in her movement and gradually stiffening. So, I have a feeling of identification with this, And there is a lot, billions of them, in the water, outside southern Norway and they are not popular among the fishermen.

But you also identified with the death struggle of a flea.

[sigh] Oh, this is a story. On this table I was working and then I had a lemen [lemming], what you call it in English. Lemen?

A small animal.

Yaah. What is called eh, lemming?

Lemming.

Lemming, yes. And there, I had a lemming, at that time. And then a flea from the lemming landed on the glass under the microscope. And there it was in the drop. And things were happening in that drop, which I, as an amateur chemist, like to study. And suddenly, there was a flea there. And I couldn't save it. Impossible because the adherent, certain forces on the surface of the tiny drop. So, so there is no chance. And it lasted about ten minutes, the death struggle of the flea. [laughs] I sometimes talk about that, because one cannot avoid, seeing one's self. They have six eh, limbs, and every limb was doing things which we do when we are suffering. You see. The movements were as we would do. So it's illustrate what I call identification.

What is identification?

It is just that you see yourself in somebody else. You see a similar being as yourself. Similar, even if there's tremendously differences also. But if you identify yourself and you do something for your own sake, you are also prepared to do something for this - whatever you identify with - you are prepared to do for their sake. Whereas, with this spoon [picks up spoon], I would clean the spoon for my sake but I wouldn't do anything for the, the, for the spoon, for itself. I don't see it has a self, as I have. So, that's different... But if I think that the spoon is alive, somehow, then of course, it started moving.

When it's alive, you recognize the resemblance.

Yaah, there are certain characteristics, such that I would say: Oh! This is a living being. And exactly what they are, I couldn't tell. But certainly, most eh... If you pick up something like this, it fragments [picks up tiny bread crust], it's kind of fragment, that's not a living being. But a fly, of course, is obviously trying to get out. Trying to get out. It is so obvious it has interest to get out. Living. But eh, bacteria also yes, but eh, another thing is, if there are molecules that just are able to multiply, then I wouldn't call it... I don't have the feeling. So there would be questions in-between, like, just like between green and yellow you have hundreds of shades, which you would, well, green or yellow, I don't have names for all this shades. The same.

A rock is maybe somewhere in-between.

A rock? A rock I don't see as alive. But a mountain! [clicks]

If you go back to this critical period in the late sixties, you had a special experience in the Sonora desert, with Jon Wetlesen. You once wrote or said in an interview that you realized that the concept of human rights, that it could also be applied to nature. That you could extend the idea of rights.

My colleague, professor Johan Wetlesen, he was not any professor at that time. We were together in Sonoran Desert and eh, he was much in favour of human rights and I was, then, in favour of rights of animals and living beings in general. And he agreed that one could eh, just generalize the rights philosophy, the philosophy of rights, generalize the rules, and you get rights for animals. But eh, some people, and also Johan Wetlesen hesitate, because they think that if you have no obligations, you have no rights. But I say, you can have rights without obligations. Like babies, for instance, you have a lot of rights. And people who are disturbed mentally, completely disturbed mentally, no obligations and you have rights. So, it's a kind of caring - not only caring for other beings, but also attributing rights to other beings.
That's done in modern what you call eco-philosophy of the radical kind. Like deep ecology. What's different is that your obligations are tremendous towards fellow humans. Your obligations towards your own children, is so fantastically much greater than the children of other people, but still quite big. And your obligation to hungry children in Africa or somewhere, are certainly very great, your obligations towards fellow human beings… because they are so near to yourself and you know exactly what you can do for them, or more or less exactly. Whereas, many animals, mostly we just know that they care to be alive, but human beings, we know very much what it means to suffer. So, your obligations are tremendous there. So, I think it's good for supporters of the deep ecology movement also to show their concern for fellow humans by eh, supporting institutions like eh, 'Save the children', like Amnesty International or other great institutions for helping fellow humans who are immensely, immensely greater problems, have immensely greater problems than you have. So to do that. And that's good, because otherwise, you get this stupid argument that deep ecology supporters care more for animals than for humans, which is very wrong, I think, to say.

Why is that wrong, why is that a misconception?

Because in the daily life of supporters of the deep ecology movement, from day to day, have to do with other fellow humans. And you have, if you have a lot of obligations then you, you agree completely that you have those obligations. If you go have an expedition, animals in Africa, you have very great obligations to your fellow beings in that expedition. More than for the tigers and lions et cetera, and eh... and eh, so, humans are al, always there, in the surround, and you have to care for them. But, and, but what you spend financially, worldwide, on fellow humans is so big that if one percent of that would be, would be used to help non-human beings, living, then it would be a colossal help for non-human beings. If only one percent were set aside for non-human...

You once put it this way, that if there are human rights, then there are also animal rights. Of a wolf or a sheep.

Yes, that's right. The term "right", that has to do with academic philosophy. In academic philosophy, there is a lot of polemics going on whether [mumbles] where they want to clarify the concept of rights. The existence of rights. Therefore, I sometimes say: 'If you are among those who talk about rights of humans, how can you avoid talking about rights of animals?' And if they say: 'Well, they don't have obligations.' I say: 'Well, some, some animals really have obligations to protect us, for instance dogs. But even if they have no obligations, why can't they have rights?' And then they have no good answers.

END

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