“It is the
tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in
tradition . . . the hermeneutical problem.” - Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method
To begin, cynicism schematically (Foucault’s outline) in its
historical and ongoing form of philosophical practice can be condensed as
follows: First, it is a form of what
could be called political boldness.
While this occurs in our society, it is often misinformed. A second form is
called Socratic irony.[3] This
is an apropos response to the previous form and the das Man. A third form shows up distinct from the former two, called
cynic scandal. It entails “getting
people to condemn, reject, despise, and insult the very manifestation of what
they accept, or claim to accept at the level of principles.” Perhaps this shows
up in how one might face one’s angst or discontent when presented with the
image or reality of what they accept and value in thought, while at the same
time reject and despise it in their current life and society. A case in point
is the formation of a counter narrative, which can have a scandalous quality to
it. It is this form that comes close to the idea of Gentle Cynicism where the truth
is told by the very way in which one interprets and lives; its cultivated countering
practices may well derive from traditions that have gotten lost along the way
(via Enlightenment, Modernity). Traditions are rich living (master) traditions whether
wisdom, philosophical, religious, that, when vital, embody continuities of
conflict. One who lives authentically and counter culturally displays its goods
and risks it among the inauthentic modalities of das Man.[4]
It is the spirit of GC that taps into the rich traditions and
human need to investigate and transcend conventional scripting that holds so
many blind and dumb, and to challenge orthodox leanings that stifle human
flourishing.
At the heart of the cynic life is parrhesia, the act of truth telling. Parrhesia in its nominal form
is translated (Latin) "free speech"; in ancient Greek it conveyed the
meaning “to speak freely", "to speak boldly", or with "boldness".
By implication among the genuine cynic it came to describe a range of speech
practice, not only freedom of speech, but the obligation to speak the truth for
the common good, even at personal risk.[5]
Thomas Merton in The
New Man wrote, “Parrhesia is the fully mature condition of one who has been
questioned by God and has thereby become, in the fullest and most spiritual
sense, a man.”[6]
Foucault describes this mature condition thus: first, there is a manifestation
of a fundamental bond between the truth spoken and the thought of the person
who speaks; second, there becomes a challenge to the bond between two in dialog
(the person who speaks the truth and the person to whom this truth is
addressed). Hence, this distinct feature of parrhesia involves courage, e.g.,
consisting possibly in the parrhesiast
taking the risk of severing the relationship to the other person which was
precisely what made his discourse possible. In a way, the parrhesiast always risks undermining the relationship which is the
condition of possibility of his discourse. This can be witnessed in parrhesia as spiritual guidance, which
can only exist if there is friendship, and where the employment of truth in
this spiritual guidance is precisely in danger of bringing into question and
breaking the relationship of friendship which made this discourse of truth
possible (classic examples Jung with Freud, Jesus with the establishment of
Judaism; Martin Luther with the Corrupt Roman Church; individuals during the
Civil Rights era).
In the Nicomachean
Ethics, Aristotle also laid stress on the connection between parrhesia and courage when he linked
what he called megalopsukhia (greatness
of soul) to the practice of parrhesia.
Parrhesia is not a skill; it is a
stance, a way of being which is akin to a virtue, a mode of action. Parrhesia involves ways of acting, means
brought together with a view to an end, and in this respect it has something to
do with technique, but it is also a role which is useful, valuable, and
indispensable for the city (organization, culture) and for individuals. Parrhesia should be regarded as a
modality of truth-telling, rather than [as a] technique [like] rhetoric.[7]
Foucault provides a helpful contrasting with four basic modalities
of truth-telling from Antiquity, which helps to put parrhesia in an applicable, ethical space.
Prophecy - The
prophet’s truth-telling, his veridiction, is that the prophet’s posture, one
of mediation. The prophet, by definition, does not speak in his own name; it is
fate that has a modality of
veridiction found in prophecy. He speaks for another voice; his mouth serves as
intermediary for a voice which speaks from elsewhere. Chris Hedges is a
post-modern example, one of the most important reporters who for some time has
been responding (truth-telling) to what he characterizes as our collapsing
corporate empire.[8]
Wisdom – Wisdom was
very important in Antiquity, doubtless even more important for ancient philosophy
than prophetic truth-telling. The sage
manifests his mode of being wise in what he or she says and, to that extent,
although having a certain intermediary function between timeless, traditional
wisdom and the audience addressed, unlike the prophet, he or she is not just a
mouthpiece. Here one may consider the influential sages and philosophers
who have helped carve new paths for thinking and being, Eastern and Western. My own life has been deeply enriched from reading
the wisdom of such sages as Stanley Hauerwas, Paul Ricoeur, Thomas Merton,
Parker Palmer, Marilynne Robinson. See modern examples in Krista Tippett’s
journal article on Einstein.[9]
Tekhne - A third modality of truth-telling which is that of the
professor, the technician, [the teacher]. The prophet, the sage, the person who
teaches [tekhne]—these characters
(the doctor of X, the musician, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the teacher of
armed combat, the gymnastics teacher), frequently mentioned by Plato in his
Socratic and other dialogues, possess a knowledge characterized as tekhne,
know-how, that is to say, entailing particular items of knowledge, but taking
shape in a practice and involving, for their apprenticeship, not only a
theoretical knowledge, but a whole exercise (a whole askesis or melete).
In modern times, the expert has become all too familiar and
relied upon and supplanted by technology and the utterly insatiable need for
data and research based evidence. While
important in the stream of human development and culture, we do well to view tekhne in its proper place. Heidegger in
“The Question Concerning Technology” warned,
Everywhere
[in Europe] we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately
affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way
when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which
today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence
of technology.[10]
Today, it would seem that we cannot exist without the aid of
technology and experts’ research verifying this and that in every realm of
concern (anxiety).[11]
Then there is Parrhesia.
Ethos has its veridiction in the
speech of the parrhesiast and the “game
of parrhesia.” In parrhesia “one speaks one's mind in a
situation where the stakes are high.” The game is the interaction or dialogue
(dialectic) between the speaker and the listener(s) which is intended to lessen
the risk; the inherent risk being when the dialogue stretches the limits of the
participants. Edward McGushin explains,
A subject
appears for herself when she is called to act and insofar as she can
posit herself by taking a position within, and with respect to, the
theater of action. The call issues from a dramatic scene—a possibility for
meaningful action . . . parrhesia is essentially a “modality of veridiction.”
[Foucault] Parrhesia has to do with who one is. [12]
Foucault associates each of the four modalities with
distinct domains: fate or destiny for the prophet; being or ontology for the
sage; the arts and tekhne for
the teacher; and ethos for the parrhesiast. He further suggests that these models of parrhesia are
not mutually exclusive, but can coexist and comingle—it is here that his models
give historical insight. The GC seeks to hold these modalities in their natural
tension while truth-telling from one’s own being in the world.
[1]
Michel Foucault, The Courage of the Truth
(The Government of Self and Others II) LECTURES AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
[2]
Parrhesia is the act of truth telling is at the heart of the
life of cynic. Parrhesia in its
nominal form is translated (from Latin) "free speech". In ancient
Greek its meanings conveys the meaning “to speak freely", "to speak
boldly", or "boldness." (Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon) By implication among the true cynic it
came to describe a range of speech practice, not only freedom of speech, but
the obligation to speak the truth for the common good, even at personal risk.
[3] This consists
in telling people, and getting others gradually to recognize, that they do not
really know what they say and think they know.
[4] Ultimately
or purely, this may well speak to the individualization process playing out
robustly, for as Jung explains, “The more he is the pure I, the more he divides
himself from the collective man, who he is, and even comes into opposition to
this.” [C.G. Jung, Letters II /
7.1.1955 to Upton Sinclair / p. 437] However, more broadly (world disclosive)
is the tradition socially embodied and always in hermeneutical flux.
[5] Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English
Lexicon.
[6]
Thomas Merton, The New Man
[7] Foucault,
14
[8]
See https://www.pinterest.com/seidj/prophetic-voices/ for other examples (some
of which may well be sages).
[10]
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays; Trasl. William Lovitt (New York: Harper, 1977)
, 4. Heidegger recognized that ‘Aristotelian phenomenology’ suggests three
fundamental movements of life including póiesis, práxis, theoría and that these
have three corresponding dispositions:
téchne, phrónesis and sophía. Heidegger considers these as modalities of Being
inherent in the structure of ‘Dasein’ as being-in-the-world that is
situated within the context of concern and care.
[11]
Pablo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed clearly saw science and technology as an evolving
tool that in the spirit of capitalism undermine democracy by development and
use of powerful instruments for oppressive purposes: “the maintenance of the
oppressive order through manipulation and repression.” The oppressed, as
objects, as "things," have no purposes except those their oppressors
prescribe for them.
[12]
Edward F. McGushin, Foucault’s Askesis:
an Introduction to the Philosophical Life (Northwestern University Press,
2007), 7.
Image: Brandon Kidwell, http://www.brandonkidwell.com/conceptual/
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