Reality and contemplation.

ONE CHARACTERISTIC of American civilization--notably in the present era--is the unqualified respect for reality. Reality--things as they are, actual occurrences--contrast with ideas, dreams, illusions, intangible values and experiences. Students at colleges and universities flock to departments of engineering, business administration, economics, the various sciences, rather than to philosophy or literature. The former deal with real life and lead to real careers, as measured by remuneration in real money. The assorted natural sciences, as well as medicine, also deal with real things, and the concrete nature of their subject matter, even if often hidden to the human eye, is guaranteed by human instruments, such as the microscope. Different is the case of philosophy that has occasionally been ridiculed as a chase after illusions, a search in a dark room after a black cat, which is not there. Literature, too, which occasionally provides entertainment, is ephemeral, elusive, a mere play with words, the latter being--entre nous--not much more than hot air.

Significantly, when defenders of traditional liberal education try to justify the study of literature, philosophy, even classics (taught largely in translation), their argument focuses on the potential economic--that is to say, real--rewards of such education; they point to the alleged job opportunities in various corporations for liberal arts graduates.

Curiously enough, and seemingly contradicting our argument, the billions of dollars--very real money--spent on the space station circling the earth offer no real benefit. To be sure, attempts have been made to justify the colossal venture by linking it to projects of potential scientific and economic benefits. Yet these are considered to be all but imaginary in the opinion of experts. Thus, contemporary America may well make its bet on a phantom, which actually offers no more than a vicarious thrill to the earth bound masses. Yet, significantly, an essential element in this extremely complex, scientifically designed and executed entertainment is its real nature. The station is real, the shuttle is real, the expense is real, and the danger is real. The outer-space ventures are not mere philosophical speculations or literary excursions.

For entertainment, any kind of entertainment, must be real, or at least as realistically presented as possible. The monsters of the movies have to frighten the audience--if possible, to leave the screen and to assail the onlookers. The image must strive to resemble, or even exceed, reality: the performers more beautiful than actual humanity, the cruelty more revolting than in most people's experience, the riches more abundant, the adventure more thrilling. Yet, while exaggeration is permitted, the trend is to relate it to reality. Being like real remains the standard compliment. It is no accident that we speak now of "virtual reality" as a superlative mark of excellence in presenting a situation to the recipient of a message, whether real or imaginary in substance.

This adoration of reality has its implications for the perception of the past, that is to say, for the historical imagination. For, clearly, one requires imagination for the perception of history. When absorbing current events, one faces only a short interval between the occurrence and the public awareness of it, an interval which has been steadily decreasing with the development of the electronic media of communication. The medium of journalism which depended on dispatching a witness report to the editorial office, and subsequent printing and distribution of papers, has given way to radio and satellite-connected television, so that we can often witness the events as they occur, or, as this is phrased today, "in real time." This, alas, does not apply to past events that occurred months, years, decades, or centuries ago. How can these be presented as real?

They can and have been made virtually real, through a variety of means. The professional historian concentrates on a minute examination of documents, and, when remoter periods are concerned, on reports of earlier historiographers and historians, and corroborative archeological evidence. For the general reader the vivid, though not necessarily correct, story of a popularizer of history offers a living picture of the past. Historical biographies, of varying degree of reliability, by focussing on a prominent individual, lend the past a degree of reality, by allowing the reader to identify with a concrete historical hero of one sort or another.

In the wide and rich plethora of historical writing, certain aspects of the past and some kinds of personalities have a greater appeal to the reader than other. By and large, political history, which includes military events, and the story of the major personalities involved in them, claims the foremost place in public attention. Major wars, such as the Napoleonic campaigns and the two World Wars, as well as bloody revolutions, especially conflicts in which one's own nation was involved, get the most attention. Political and military figures (Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Washington, Bismarck, Churchill) have brought the past close to many a reader.

The preference for the military and the diplomatic, or political, is not accidental. For one thing, the events concerned are often dramatic, and the personalities involved are forceful and colorful. Then political action deals with the expression of power and the collision of armed forces, and, whether we like it or not, embody reality in its most intense form. And reality must be respected. Even if a Napoleon or a Genghis Khan has been long dead, the real events associated with them are so intense that they can be easily resurrected from oblivion. If political events are closer in time, or if their links with the present are evident, they gain the aura of reality to a higher degree. Columbus gets extra points, because America, with its global position and significance, is an undisputed reality.

Yet this line of argument can be countered by a different thesis. History, the events of the past, can not only be viewed from the political perspective, but also judged by the mark they have left on the following generations, and which they may leave on the future generations of humanity. In other words, it is not just the event of the past (weighty as it may have been), it is not the generals and the statesmen (influential as they happened to be), it is not the reality of force and power that constitute the foremost and deepest meaning of history. What is of most significance are the events and personalities that, in a manner of speaking, transcended history, or, as some people would put it, approached immortality. Their duration is not measured by the number of references in encyclopedias or on the Internet, or in the volumes of books devoted to them. Their significance is determined by their consistent appeal and intense meaning to individuals of various generations and through many countries and nations.

Thus, Pericles may be remembered by being associated with the flowering of Greek art in the fifth century B.C., as a tourist looks at the Acropolis or at the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. Yet, it is Pheidias who remains as the creator of beauty, while Pericles stays as a politician. With all the praise that historians have lavished on Pericles, his political leadership is not above controversy, and anyway is relegated to the shadowy past, while Socrates, as presented in Plato's dialogues, comes to life with all his intellectual vigor, when encountered by philosophy students in our time, or any time.

The chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah are recorded in the Bible--often with laconic conciseness. They can evoke sympathy or censure when their deeds and misfortunes are elaborated by the ancient chronicler. Yet, the records and their lives and actions are water under the bridge. The passionate and sublime prophecies of their contemporaries, like Amos, Isaiah or Jeremiah, on the other hand, even though addressed to their own generation, resonate to this date. They come alive and retain their appeal to us with timeless vitality.

It is not the military escapades of Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia, that retain their hold on the emotions of the descendants of his subjects. By contrast, the compositions of Mozart bring joy and aesthetic gratification to listeners of every race and country to date. Napoleon's memory may still glisten at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the renown of his victories is recorded by the names of major avenues in the city of lights. Nevertheless, it is Beethoven's symphonies that remain alive on each occasion they are played. Napoleon himself justly praised Goethe, whose Faust, to quote his most prominent work, speaks to us above and beyond the Napoleonic gloire. Verdi's operas can move an audience to tears now, as they did when first performed. They are not dated and they do not age, as do ltalian political and military heroes of the Risorgimento and subsequent times, whether deemed virtuous or otherwise. Leonardo's Mona Lisa retains her smile and beauty and dignity, while the condottieri, like dried flowers, are folded away in history books.

In all these examples, which can be multiplied ad lib, it is the word, the form, the imprint of beauty, that is relevant, important, meaningful, while the concrete and real, and all too often cruel, occurrences and events disappear into the thin air of the past. The relationship between the real and the ephemeral is reversed: what was real withers away; what seems elusive and intangible becomes real. Or to put it in other words: contemplation--contemplation of art, music, literature, ideas--supersedes reality. Reality--concrete and tangible reality--slips through our consciousness like sand through our fingers, while the objects of contemplative experience retain their essence and remain imperishable, and thus, in a way, benefit their creators.

This rather startling conclusion for the contemporary believers in reality can be formulated in a different way. It may be suggested that the issue revolves round the notion of reality, that the question depends on what is considered real.

While the common notion of reality is based on identifying it with what is perceived by the senses--primarily by vision and touch--or even by various instruments that penetrate some recesses of reality and that elude the senses (though the instruments, in the last resort, have to show us their findings), there is another, contradictory approach. It has its roots in Plato's philosophy, though it reappears, in one form or other, in the approach of other thinkers.

To expound this approach in a simple way, let us take the example of geometry. The definition of a circle is a line on one plane all of whose points are equidistant from one point, which forms the center of the circle. When we draw a circle with compasses, we actually apply the abstract notion to the actual drawing. Yet, it can be argued that the drawn circle is less than perfect, for the curved line can be thin on one side and thicker on another. The sharp point fixing the center on paper may move ever so little and thus compromise the precision of the operation. But all this does not impair the basic definition and notion of what is a circle. Even if it cannot be drawn in a perfect way, the definition remains intact. Indeed, the abstract definition, which draws the circle in our mind, is the real circle, whereas the drawn examples of circles are approximations of the perfect idea. Similarly the idea of a straight line as the shortest connection between two points assumes that the line has no width, and any visual presentation of the line is an oblong, even if its short sides are merely a fraction of a millimeter. Thus, the idea is real, whereas the visible or tangible representations of the idea are only imperfect imitations of the logical reality.

Needless to say, what is true of the line or the circle equally applies to other geometrical figures and to the various theorems based on the figures or dealing with them. It is the mental contemplation of various logical constructs--which are clear, consistent, immutable--that offers us insight into reality. Mere sense perceptions--focussing on a specific circle, one out of a myriad--is by its very nature limited, biassed, and occasionally misleading.

The fiercest proponent of such views was Plato, who extended this approach beyond the realm of geometry and applied it to human perception and knowledge at large. His conclusion is that sense-perception can be deceptive, and that knowledge can be attained only through abstract exploration. "Then knowledge does not consist in impressions of sense, but in reasoning about them; in that only, and not in the mere impressions, truth and being can be attained" (Theaetetus, 186). This is the way to reach for the absolute, permanent, and real entities--exemplified by the abstract geometrical figures. There is a world of such entities, which some may call abstract and see them as mere reflections of the mind, but which are viewed by Plato as real. In other words, Plato reverses the common notions. Sense-perceptions may be misleading; they hover between reality and illusion. Logical concepts are real and are worthy of human interest and understanding. Thus, reflection, theoretical reflection, becomes the preferred way of the philosopher, who seeks truth and represents the highest aspirations of humanity.

Aristotle was less radical than his teacher and gave more consideration to human perceptions, emotions, and experience. He too thought that, above all human activities and involvements, the noblest to which men can aspire is contemplation--thinking for the sake of thinking, or for satisfying the curiosity of the intellect and the soul. "For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also the most continuous" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1177a).

It is noteworthy that the trust in the reality of the purely intelligible or the spiritual, in contrast with the perceptive and material, could serve as the foundation of a philosophical system some two millennia later, as witnessed in the approach of Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century. Having doubted the reliability of the senses and decided to build a system on the solid grounds of certainty, he reached the conclusion that even if he doubted the reality of everything, the very thought of doubting guaranteed the reality of his existence. Hence his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am." Once thought was enthroned as the cornerstone of reality. Descartes proceeded to prove the existence of God, which led him to trust in the reality of the material and the spiritual world. Whatever the verdict on the Cartesian system, the fundamental reliance on the reality of thought reflects a notable philosophical approach.

It may be worth mentioning that the spiritual is perceived as real in the Israelite religious view. Thus, the prophet proclaims, in the name of God, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). Significantly, the proclamation is made in the name of the "Lord of hosts," apparently recalling a notion of God as the leader of armies. Even so, the power of God is expressed not in a tangible and crude form of force, but through His spirit. The implication seems to be that the religious-moral element is more powerful, more real, than military might.

Do the Platonic, Aristotelian. Cartesian, and Biblical notions resolve the issue of the ultimate reality once and for all? Do the purely intellectual, spiritual, and religious assertions conclusively repudiate the beliefs of the experiential and materialistic philosophies of antiquity and of the modern age, as well as the reliance of the common sense? Can we ignore the impact of material surroundings, of biological determination, of upsurge of crude and ruthless violence in international relations and on the domestic scene? Can we discard engineering and economics and social control? Can we discount reality, as most people see it, in the name of the philosophical speculations and religious beliefs?

The answer of most people to these questions would probably be "No." This does not mean that they would reject the significance of the spiritual--whether bound with religion or philosophical speculation. They would, however, insist on the reality of the tangible and the concrete, the material factors and the political and military forces. They may pay more lip service to the immaterial, but will not be induced to ignore the concrete environment that they experience and that affects their life--both for good and for ill.

It is not our purpose to embark on a laborious and perhaps elusive endeavor of determining where the line between the spiritual and the material runs, what is the relationship between the two domains, or, for that matter, which of them is more real. Indeed, we have raised the issue with a more limited and more practical aim in mind. Our purpose is to urge the reader to re-examine his or her unquestioned respect for reality--reality in the accepted sense--and acknowledge the intrinsic worth of the allegedly unreal things in life.

First, we have to question the implicit equation of "real" with "good." Much of what is real is far from being good. Sickness, violence, deception, exploitation, recklessness may be all too real in the life of man and in human relations. Yet, being real in no way makes them good or tolerable. The notion that "Whatever is, is right"--with all due respect for Alexander Pope--is wrong. Whatever is must be taken into consideration by man, but it has to be judged as good or bad, as the case may be.

Then, we have to realize that the capacity and the proclivity for contemplation deserve much more consideration and encouragement than they usually enjoy. To be sure, contemplative activity has to be expanded beyond its meaning in Plato's and in Aristotle's philosophy. It has to encompass not only intellectual pursuits, but also aesthetic enjoyment-fore-mostly of literature and music.

Moreover, the intellectual activity should not be limited to solving practical problems, but include the nourishing of intellectual curiosity. And the quest for beauty must not be equated with fleeting distraction and mere entertainment. There are many levels of enjoying a book, a drama, or even a poem, and the level of such enjoyment is closely linked with the kind of book one reads or rereads. The same is true of musical composition, and here too the composition affects the level of satisfaction that may be derived from it.

It has also to be kept in mind that our contemplative activity is often directed at a complex object. A literary work--such as Hamlet or War and Peace, to suggest some obvious examples--involves intellectual reflection and aesthetic enjoyment at the same time. An opera usually presents a dramatic encounter intertwined with sublime music. A beautiful poem may contain philosophical reflection, which stirs the mind of the reader and offers a harmonious flow of words and images.

Let us revert to the issue of this essay and sum up our conclusion. While we cannot ignore earthly reality in politics, in social relations, in the basic needs of man, we have to appreciate the ethereal reality of reflection and beauty. The immortality of sorts which we accord to great writers, composers, artists, testifies to the human penchant for spiritual creations and spiritual life. These comprise a part of human needs and human fulfillment, just as the material conditions remain a basic element of human existence. As we all too often, overwhelmed by material needs and concerns, forget about the importance and worth of the spiritual, and even judge the latter by the yardsticks of the former, we need to be reminded of the intrinsic value, independence, and essential purity of the quest for the lofty and the sublime in its spectrum of manifestation. For, in the last resort, it forms a significant part of the reality which man is capable of reaching.

MORDECAI ROSHWALD taught for twenty-five years at the University of Minnesota. A new edition of Level Seven, a book of fiction, will be published this year by the University of Wisconsin Press.