The Age of Defeat

1. The Modern Malady: Insignificance and the Vanishing Hero

The present-day avoidance of the belief that we are the highest in the universe is the reason that we have not the courage to work in order to justify that title, that the duties springing from it seem too laborious, and that we would rather abdicate our position and our rights than realize them in all their consequences.

A pervasive sense of insignificance. Modern society is plagued by a deep-seated feeling of insignificance, which manifests as a "vanishing hero" in literature and a general sense of futility in everyday life. This isn't merely a literary trend but an attitude permeating society, where individuals are overwhelmed by their own smallness when contrasted with the vastness of their fellows or the universe. This "insignificance premise" leads to a lack of courage to pursue grander purposes, making the duties associated with a higher human stature seem too arduous.

The "unheroic hypothesis." Contemporary writing often reflects this societal malaise, focusing on the "ordinary man" and his mundane problems, seemingly incapable of portraying anything beyond the most common states of mind. This literary trend is a direct mirror of a world where individuals increasingly deny their potential for greatness, preferring to abdicate their inherent rights and positions rather than striving to realize their full consequences. The problem extends beyond economics, touching upon the metaphysical challenges of the individual in the 20th century.

A call for re-evaluation. The author argues that this self-depreciation is a "dubious realism" that prevents individuals from attempting anything extraordinary. It fosters a belief that "genius" is an exclusive, inborn trait rather than a quality anyone might develop. This attitude, observed by De Tocqueville in American society, results in a loss of the vital drive that stems from self-belief, creating a void between minute, clear ideas and vague, general ones, with nothing in between.

2. The Rise of Other-Direction: Conformity in Affluent Societies

The conclusion would seem to be that too much security has the effect of slackening the vital tension and weakening the urge to live: a conclusion confirmed by Galbraith, who reports that after the RAF bombing raids on Hamburg in 1943 — raids in which between sixty thousand and a hundred thousand people were killed and half the city was burned to the ground — Hamburg's war production rose.

The consumer fallacy and its discontents. Affluent societies, driven by the "dependence effect" (Galbraith), prioritize ever-increasing production and consumption, persuading individuals to spend on things they don't truly need. This economic philosophy, while aiming for a higher standard of living, paradoxically leads to a "moral dyspepsia" and a slackening of the vital tension necessary for human flourishing. Examples like high suicide rates in secure welfare states (Denmark, Sweden) suggest that excessive security can weaken the urge to live.

Inner-direction vs. other-direction. Sociologists David Riesman and William H. Whyte highlight a fundamental shift in character from "inner-directed" (pioneer, self-disciplined, goal-oriented) to "other-directed" (concerned with external validation, security, and "what the neighbors think"). Whyte's The Organization Man reveals how large organizations impose an ethic of conformity that employees not only accept but "swallow and like it." This pervasive attitude prioritizes society over the individual, leading to a "planing-down process" where individuality is suppressed.

The "Found Generation" and the "Fight Against Genius." This other-directed mentality is evident in Riesman's "Found Generation" of college students, who prioritize security, stable jobs in big organizations, and conventional family life over adventure, politics, or religion. This conformity extends to the workplace, where Whyte notes a "Fight Against Genius," with organizations distrusting "lone wolf" scientists and valuing teamwork over individual enterprise. Even religious revivals, like those of Billy Graham or Jehovah's Witnesses, appeal to authority and a lack of inner-direction, reflecting a broader societal trend towards external validation.

3. Literature's Mirror: Defeated Protagonists and Social Dominance

Modern American drama provides complete corroboration of Riesman's theories. Its major figure, Eugene O'Neill, has written constantly of defeat.

Society as hero or villain. Modern American literature, and increasingly English literature, strongly corroborates the sociological analyses of other-direction and insignificance. It presents two main tendencies: "Society as Hero," where characters conform and serve the organization, or "Society as Villain," where individuals are inevitably defeated and crushed by societal forces. In either case, the individual is reduced to a cipher, lacking genuine agency or heroic stature.

Examples of literary defeat.

• The Caine Mutiny (Wouk): Students sided with the neurotic Captain Queeg (representing the organization) over the rebellious officer Maryk, illustrating a preference for obedience over individual judgment.
• From Here to Eternity (Jones): The protagonist, Prewett, loves the army despite its brutality, accepting its power to rob men of individuality.
• Eugene O'Neill (The Hairy Ape, The Iceman Cometh): His plays consistently portray bewildered characters driven by passions, leading to despair and defeat, with the individual always crushed by society.
• Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman): Depicts the tragic defeat of an "organization man" consumed by the American success legend, offering an emotional protest but no constructive alternative for individualism.

The "cult of the ordinary chap." English writers like Kingsley Amis and John Wain, often labeled "Angry Young Men," also contribute to this trend. Their protagonists, while displaying a veneer of rebelliousness, ultimately embody the "ordinary chap" who refuses to "fit in" but lacks a clear direction or purpose beyond dissatisfaction. Even John Braine's Room at the Top, while reviving a romantic ambition, ends with a sense of tragedy and loss, highlighting the difficulty of achieving genuine inner-direction in a conformist world.

4. The Hero's Evolution: From External Deeds to Internal Conflict

The hero of the twentieth century would need to be something of a metaphysician.

Redefining heroism. The traditional hero, characterized by simple physical courage or faith, is outdated in the complex 20th century. True heroism is an "appetite for freedom, a desire to live more intensely," but its realization now demands intelligence, self-knowledge, and imagination, rather than just brute strength or external adventure. The shift from primitive societies, where opportunities for heroism were inherent in daily life, to complex, peaceful ones necessitates an internal quest for meaning and expansion.

The self-divided hero emerges. This evolution is evident in literature. While Shakespeare's Henry V was a patriotic throwback, his greatest characters like Hamlet and Lear are "self-divided men," anticipating the internal struggles of later heroes. Cervantes' Don Quixote marked the death knell of the old, simple hero, introducing the "ordinary chap" who seeks only comfort and stability. The romantic revival of the hero, seen in Schiller's Karl Moor, quickly ran into the problem that "freedom needs to be closely combined with discipline if it is not to degenerate into drifting."

Faust: The archetype of internal struggle. Goethe's Faust becomes the quintessential self-divided hero, torn between an internal world of new sensitivity and an external world where he is a misfit. His initial despair stems from the inability of external knowledge to satisfy his "immortal longings." This internal conflict, the tension between feeling like a god one day and an insect the next, becomes the defining characteristic of the modern hero, who must learn to heal this self-division before re-engaging with the world.

5. Faust's Missed Insight: The Unexplored Path of Subjectivity

Faust realizes, in a flash of intuition, that truth is subjectivity; that it is no use looking for it in the outside world; that it is contained within himself, in his memories, in the subconscious power house he carries inside him.

The revelation of inner truth. At the brink of suicide, Faust experiences a profound intuition upon hearing the Easter bells: truth resides not in external knowledge or the world, but within himself, in his memories and subconscious power. This "flash of intuition" is a moment of exquisite pleasure, where he ceases to feel "mediocre, accidental, mortal," and experiences an absurd, paradoxical feeling of immortality. This insight points to subjectivity as the key to intensifying the desire to live and escaping nihilism.

Faust's philosophical failure. Despite this profound revelation, Faust quickly forgets it, abandoning himself to Mephistopheles and seeking "direct experience" in the external world through hedonism, love affairs, and public works. This external pursuit, however, proves to be an evasion, leading to anticlimax and a failure to resolve his inner tensions. Goethe, while creating an artistic success, portrays a philosophical failure, as Faust never truly grasps the implications of his initial inner revelation.

Proust's successful exploration. In contrast to Faust, Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu meticulously explores the implications of this inner revelation. Marcel undertakes a careful discipline to recover his past, demonstrating that turning inwards and confronting interior problems is not merely an escape but a necessary step towards healing self-division. The true hero, therefore, must not only turn inwards but also come to terms with these internal problems before turning outwards again, equipped with a newfound self-knowledge and purpose.

6. The Deception of Realism: When Art Becomes a "Confidence Trick"

At its center, there must be a completely personal statement of its author's attitude to life and to freedom. This attitude will manifest itself in the author's attitude towards the hero.

Realism's false objectivity. The "realism" championed by writers like Zola, which purports to be a scientific observation and documentation of social facts, often masks a deeper subjective failure. While appearing objective, such writing can become a "literary confidence trick," where a selected range of human experience (often sordidness and misery) is presented as universally representative. This approach aims to manipulate the reader into accepting the author's predetermined values or "patent remedies."

Zola's personal paradox. Zola, the great preacher of realism, provides a striking example. His early novels, filled with sexual violence and sordid tragedies, seem devoid of wish fulfillment. However, his later life revealed a personal transformation: after falling in love and taking a mistress at fifty, the sexual violence abruptly disappeared from his novels, replaced by idyllic love stories. This suggests that the earlier "realism" was, in fact, a form of wish fulfillment, masking his own subjective lack of strength and inner-direction.

The "gullibility of the audience." Writers like Graham Greene and D. H. Lawrence also employ this technique, emphasizing human sin, weakness, or triviality to make readers receptive to their respective "remedies" (Catholicism, sex). This method relies on the "gullibility of the audience," which is a direct result of other-direction. Without a strong subjective core or a sense of freedom, an author's work, no matter how imposing its realistic facade, becomes "broken-backed," failing to offer an authentic statement about life.

7. Existentialism's Core: Freedom, Nothingness, and the Burden of Choice

Man knows his consciousness as a nothingness.

The vacuum of self. Sartre's existentialism, a philosophy of inner-direction, posits that "man knows his consciousness as a nothingness." This means that individuals rarely perceive a solid, "real" self, but rather experience themselves as a changing mirage, a "vacuum in his social environment," defined by how others perceive them. This "nothingness" is the core of inauthentic existence, where one is robbed of subjectivity and exists primarily as an object for others.

The inescapable freedom. Despite this "nothingness," Sartre insists that "man is free." This freedom is not an absence of limitations but a constant capacity for choice, unchained by past actions or external dictates. To surrender this freedom is to live inauthentically, whether by obeying perceived divine laws, being enslaved by one's past (e.g., a coward always being a coward), or through "self-deception" (mauvaise-foi). Orestes in Les Mouches embodies this defiance, asserting his freedom even when it means eternal pursuit by the Furies.

"Hell is other people." Sartre's famous dictum from Huis Clos encapsulates the torment of other-direction: an eternity of triviality and boredom, where individuals are condemned to be defined and consumed by the perceptions and demands of others. Freedom, in this context, is any intense emotion or act that restores a man's subjectivity, uniting his whole being in one apprehension. The challenge lies in grasping this freedom intuitively, overcoming the self-division caused by routine and external pressures.

8. Camus's Affirmation: Living Without Appeal in an Absurd World

I do not want to believe that death opens out into another life. For me it is a closed door ... a horrible and dirty adventure. All the solutions that are offered to me try to rob man of the weight of his own life.

The weight of physical reality. Albert Camus, unlike Sartre, grounds his existentialism in a profound love of physical life, rejecting any "hereafters" or myths that would "rob man of the weight of his own life." This "living without appeal" demands that the world and human existence yield their own realities, without recourse to external justifications. His early essays, L'Envers et L'Endroit and Noces, celebrate this intense physical affirmation, contrasting sharply with Sartre's sense of physical disgust.

Happiness in absurdity. Camus confronts the "monstrous absurdity" of the world, famously comparing man's fate to Sisyphus, condemned to eternal, futile labor. Yet, he concludes, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." In L'Etranger, Meursault finds happiness and freedom in the face of death, recognizing the universe's utter indifference. This is a gospel of complete inner-direction, asserting that man's freedom is indestructible, regardless of external circumstances or happiness.

Rebellion and limits. In La Peste, Camus shifts focus to human solidarity in the face of collective suffering, symbolizing man's shared predicament. His later work, L'Homme Révolté, explores various forms of rebellion, arguing that true rebellion must retain integrity and recognize limits, aligning with classicism against romanticism. While Camus's integrity and focus on the individual are undeniable, his emphasis on the "ordinary chap" and a certain stoic negativity, despite his affirmations, present limitations in fully embracing a positive, heroic vision.

9. The Impasse of French Existentialism: A Call for Positive Vision

The problem, then, will be to create a new positive existentialism. It would not be accurate to say that this would have to begin where Sartre and Camus left off, for both have been committed for some time to the direction that appears to have led to an impasse; a new existentialism would have to begin further back, utilizing only their psychological method.

The limits of negative critique. While French existentialism, particularly Sartre's and Camus's, has brilliantly dissected human psychology, self-deception, and inauthentic existence, it has largely remained a negative critique. It has rescued religious concepts like pride and sin from superstition but has failed to rehabilitate the positive aspects of religion or offer convincing solutions for "salvation" or human purpose. This critical analysis, while invaluable for clearing the ground, halts before reaching a point of synthesis.

Sartre's political detour. Sartre's post-war commitment to political action and the working-class movement, while stemming from a desire for sincerity, arguably weakened his philosophical and creative output. His belief that philosophy must continually ally itself with action led to a de-emphasis on the creative drives and a focus on "talk" over the "action" of great art. This shift resulted in his later novels being competent but pedestrian, failing to fulfill the Dostoevskian promise of his earlier psychological explorations.

Camus's stoic dilemma. Camus, while remaining closer to existentialism's core by focusing on man's position in the universe, also faces an impasse. His profound awareness of human suffering and the world's absurdity, coupled with his atheism, leaves him in a position akin to Ivan Karamazov. Despite his affirmations of life, he often leaves the impression of being a negative writer, lacking the temperament for mystical insights or a vision that fully compensates for nihilism. Both thinkers, by remaining too cautious or too committed to particularity, fail to speak authoritatively of human purpose beyond an "irrational urge to live."

10. Reclaiming the Hero: The Mystical Revolt and the Absurd Man

If there is any reality that must be faced without alternative, then man is damned. His hope lies in his ultimate and indestructible freedom, a freedom that implies that he always has the choice of realities because he is the final reality.

Beyond stoicism: The absurd good news. To overcome the limitations of negative existentialism, a new, positive, and mystical revolt is needed, one that embraces the "absurd" not as malicious futility but as "absurd good news." This perspective recognizes that man's ultimate hope lies in his "indestructible freedom," the capacity to choose his realities because he is the final reality. This dualism of man, simultaneously great and miserable, god and worm, allows for a constant pivot between acceptance of defeat and belief in the absurd.

The hero as the absurd man. The hero, in this new framework, is the "absurd man" – one who can perform a "conjuring trick" by emptying his hands yet still possessing everything, directing his desire towards the unattainable. This concept is embodied by figures like Captain Ahab, whose indomitable obsession and absurd courage defy the notion that "you can't win." English writers like Blake, Whitman, Yeats, and Shaw, and even Joyce Cary's Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth, offer glimpses of this "two-fold vision" – a simultaneous awareness of misery and visionary affirmation.

The power house of will. This mystical existentialism is rooted in the recognition of an "irrational urge" that underlies conscious reason, a "power house of will and subconscious drive" within all men. This life urge, independent of human values, can be concentrated to ecstasy by adversity and revealed as indestructible by the threat of extinction. It is a reassertion of a Platonic idealism, a pure need for life beyond objects, as expressed in Blake's "Go, love without the help of anything on earth."

11. The Writer's Ultimate Task: To Ignite Purpose and Combat Laziness

The first step of a new existentialism is bound to be the negative one of attacking Freudianism, Marxism, Logical Positivism, and any other "ism" that fosters the insignificance fallacy and distracts attention from the need for creative effort.

A revolution in thought. The writer's responsibility in the modern age is paramount: to initiate a revolution in thought that combats the "insignificance neurosis" from within. This requires a conscious rejection of the "unheroic hypothesis" and a deliberate attempt to replace worn-out concepts with a new, positive existentialism. This new philosophy must emphasize the primacy of the will, the importance of the individual, and the final unpredictability and freedom of every human being, regardless of conditioning.

Attacking the "isms" of laziness. To foster creative effort, the new existentialism must first dismantle the intellectual frameworks that promote the "insignificance fallacy" and provide excuses for laziness and hypochondria. This includes:

• Freudianism: Explaining away complexes, stifling imaginative creation.
• Marxism: Materialism that denies individual will and purpose.
• Logical Positivism: A "sniping kind of criticism" that lacks creative thinking.
• Any other "ism" that distracts from the need for individual creative effort.

The hero as a beacon of purpose. The ultimate goal is to create heroes who live constantly out of a sense of their own freedom, whose commitment to the world is nourished by their inwardness, and whose inwardness is strengthened by society's reflection. Such heroes, closer in conception to Stendhal's Sorel or Balzac's Rastignac, would possess a vision extending beyond environmental particularities, making the "noise of the power house" audible and inspiring a renewed sense of purpose in humanity.