-Caveat Lector-
http://www.steamshovelpress.com/fromeditor15.html
FROM THE EDITOR
Koestler Coincidences and Palestinian Suicide Bombs
by Kenn Thomas
Arthur Koestler uses synchronicity to communicate with me from beyond
the grave. It has happened more than once, but this latest series of
coincidences connected to his ideas helped me frame this editorial about the
recent suicide bombings in Palestine.
It began with the rejection of an article I wrote about the conspiracy
theory of evolution reported in Koestler's book, "The Case of the Midwife
Toad." After putting some effort into it, using hard-to-find sources on
Soviet genetics, the weasels who asked me to do it said they were not going
to use it. I decided to put it in the new issue of Steamshovel -- which
should be at the printer as you read these words -- but was angry enough at
the pseuds who rejected it that I had Koestler on the brain for a few days.
Then I went to the Octopus list for a quick read. This discussion list
began as a means to keep up with events surrounding the Danny Casolaro case,
but had long since strayed from that purpose. I no longer subscribe, but
occasionally still check it. True to form, the list contained a message
concerning Koestler, who really has no connection to Casolaro that I have
ever been able to discern. The message concerned Koestler's book "The
Thirteenth Tribe," about the eastern European empire of Khazaria and the
implications of its role in Jewish history--"the bulk of modern Jewry is not
of Palestinian, but of Caucasian origin."
Although the topic began to turn my attention to the current Middle
Eastern strife, I was more concerned that the person who posted it implied
that Koestler might have been killed as part of some Zionist plot. "At the
height of the controversy [concerning the Khazars, although "The Thirteenth
Tribe" was published in 1976] in 1983, the lifeless bodies of Arthur
Koestler and his wife were found in their London home. Despite significant
inconsistencies, the police ruled their death a suicide..."
I wrote in response:
"Arthur Koestler was a great parapolitical scholar. For instance, in
the next issue of Steamshovel Press, I have an article about his scholarship
on a conspiracy that forever clouded the debate about evolution. He and his
wife did commit suicide, however. The idea of voluntary 'self-deliverance'
(suicide) was very important to him and when the illnesses of age began to
overtake him, he opted for designing his own passing away. Recently,
Koestler has been the victim of some terrible historical revision (he was
falsely accused of rape by a recent biographer), and to suggest a conspiracy
of murder in his death does a similar disservice. The validity of Koestler's
suicide note and the circumstances of his passing have not been disputed in
anything I've read about him. I am certain he would find it important that
you not misrepresent his commitment to the important issue of taking control
over one's last moments. It surely was as important to him as his
scholarship concerning the Khazars that you cite."
So now I was not only oriented toward the Mideast, but also toward the
topic of suicide. It was only a coincidence, of course, that I was fuming
about my rejected Koestler article when I ran into this Koestler post, which
also took a bit of aggravation to get straight. It didn't become a
synchronicity*, until some other remarks made by Koestler literally fell
into my lap as I lifted a box of newsclippings down from a shelf in the
archives.
The newsclipping collection belonged to anti-nuclear activists whose
papers I was arranging at my day job. The Koestler newsclipping is undated,
although an accompanying reprint cartoon has a 1955 date, and says only that
they are remarks made by Koestler in Copenhagen. As far as I can recall,
they are not reproduced in any of his books.
The title: "Can Man Be Saved From Himself? Evolutionary Flaw May
Explain Our Self-Destructive Devotion To Cause." Koestler makes the point
that in trying to understand human stupidity and violence "we usually get
the dusty answer that all evil stems from the selfish, greedy, aggressive
tendencies in human nature. That has been offered to us for the past 3000
years by Hebrew prophets, Indian sages, Christian moralists and contemporary
psychoanalysts; but, speaking in all humility, I find this answer
unconvincing and unsupported by the historical record."
"What the record indicates is that the major disasters in our history,
individual aggressiveness for selfish motives played an almost negligible
part compared to unselfish loyalty and devotion to tribe, nation, religion
or political ideology. Tribal wars, national wars, civil wars, religious
wars, world wars are waged in the purported interest of the community, not
of the individual, to decide issues that are far removed from the personal
self-interest of the combatants."
The words returned my attention to the suicide bombings. In the latest
issue of Time, psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj notes that "Since the establishment
of Israel in 1948 and the resultant uprooting of Palestinians, a deep-seated
feeling of shame has taken root in the Arab psyche. Shame is the most
painful emotion in the Arab culture, producing the feeling that one is
unworthy to live. The honorable Arab is the one who refuses to suffer shame
and dies in dignity." I do not usually put any stock into anything I might
read in Time, and nothing else really recommends this editorial, which
simply restates the obvious things about the cycle of revenge in the
Mideast. It does make Koestler's point, however, that the suicide bombings
reflect Palestinian devotion to its failing cause more than the pro-active
destruction of its enemy Israel. Eyad Sarraj also notes the Koran approves
of all this, just as the Bible approves of Israel's actions and Christian
America's support. Koestler: "Only in homo sapiens did the cohesive forces
within the group develop into fanatical loyalty to tribe, totem and its
later symbolic equivalents; and only in our species did the repellant forces
between groups develop into intra-specific warfare. The number of victims of
individual crimes committed in any period of history is insignificant
compared to the masses cheerfully sacrificed ad majorem gloriam, in blind
devotion to the true religion, dynasty or political system."
Koestler suggests that this excessive devotion is an evolutionary
flaw, based on the protracted helplessness of the human infant or the
dependence of primate ancestors on co-operation "when they took from the
forest to the plains and turned into carnivorous hunters or prey bigger and
faster than themselves."
As I said, Koestler clearly was speaking directly to me from the
synchronistic spot his words occupied on my lap. He summarized with an
admonition that bothers me more than the anger and frustration that everyone
must feel about the clash of religious cultures in that backward land
(exacerbated, of course, by the selfish, greedy, aggressive tendencies of
transnational corporate oil/weapons power), especially considering its
nuclear potential:
"Evolution proceeds by trial and error, so we ought not to be
surprised if it turned out that there is some construction fault in the
circuitry that we carry inside our skulls, which would explain the unholy
mess we have made of our history."
*An appendix to "The Case of the Midwife Toad" records the origin of
the concept of synchronicity, which means a series of coincidences that seem
to have meaning; the existence of that appendix is the first coincidence in
this series.
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