The Yogi and The Commissar by Arthur Koestler

I first encountered Arthur Koestler in college, in a local anthology of creative nonfiction where he is quoted on something about the “politics of creativity.” Right then I’ve already found the guy’s ideas brilliant, but it took me a good six years to finally purchase my first Koestler book, The Yogi and the Commissar.

Divided into three parts, this collection of essays written in the 1940s discusses literature and maps out the socio-political terrain of its time. The third part, “Explorations,” specifically lays down a “well-documented survey of the Soviet experiment with the conclusions to be derived from it.”

Koestler isn’t merely a lurker, or perhaps a dabbler in these affairs. Born in Budapest with Hungarian-Austrian roots, he studied science, engineering and psychology and, not unlike the many intellectuals of his time, joined the Communist party in 1931. Disillusioned during the height of the Stalinist purges, he left the party, was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, and eventually joined the British Army. His novel Darkness At Noon, set during the Moscow show trials, is said to provide a searing examination of socialism and masterfully reflect the dialectics he had written about for the better part of his life.

Then my friend and the diligent MA student Jake, after I shared with him the good news of my latest paperback acquisition, dished an intriguing – if not outright shocking – tidbit about Koestler: Arthur and his wife simultaneously committed suicide, he sick with leukemia and decisive about having that final control over his body.

In his preface, Koestler shares having violently disagreed with some of his writings in the past, considering them produced during a “state of profound ignorance.” In the very same book, however, he shows a brand of sobriety and straight, lucid thinking that even “accomplished” literary and political thinkers of our time usually fail to exhibit. Every piece brims with simplicity in style, even in its intellectual rigor. It maintains a strong conviction against rabid linguistic modes that often obscures the content (Smoke and mirrors, to put it bluntly).

I’ve seen academic grandstanding of many forms in the university. An esteemed professor, for instance, would totally have her papers orphaned without quotes from Zizek, Williams, Neo-Marxists, and many sorts of well-meaning intellectuals. Even the most deeply engaged in my crowd would ask, “So did she say a meaningful bit that is hers alone?” Koestler chooses to do away from this deceptive track and gets right down to business, presenting clean metaphors and exhortations that encourage a serious rethinking of a number of canonical literary works and accepted ways of appraising literary merit and political relations (or lack thereof) in a given text.

For posterity’s sake, I’d like to provide excerpts from the first chapter, “Meanderings.”

Defining the Commissar:

“…believes in Change from Without. He believes that all the pests of humanity, including constipation and the Oedipus complex, can and will be cured by Revolution… a radical reorganization of the system of production and distribution of goods; that this end justifies the means, including violence, ruse, treachery and poison…” (p. 9)

Defining the Yogi:

“He believes that the End is unpredictable and that the Means alone count… He believes that logical reasoning gradually loses its compass value as the mind approaches the magnetic pole of Truth or the Absolute, which alone matters.” (p. 10)

On the new outbreak he calls the French ‘Flu:

“If an English poet dares to use words like ‘my fatherland’, ‘my soul’, ‘my heart’, etc, he is done for; if a French one dispenses musical platitude about la Patrie, la France, mon cæur and mon âme, the patient begins to quiver with admiration.” (p. 21)

On well-applauded literary works with covert shortcomings:

“But there is a black market in literature, on which human sacrifice, struggle and despair are commercialized, and the spirit is turned into hooch.” (p. 27)

On novelists and ‘temptations’ such as staying in their ivory tower or doing excessive reportage:

“To yield does not necessarily involve artistic failure; but I do believe that there is a main road leading from Ulenspiegel and Don Quixote to War and Peace, The Magic Mountain, and Fontamara. And I also believe that Tristram Shandy, and Wuthering Heights, Swann’s Way, and The Waves, are masterpieces at dead ends.” (p. 31)

On professional book reviewers in newspapers and journals:

“Of course, one can’t have a fixed yard-stick to measure literary merit, nor a thermometer for emotional heat; but one does expect a critic to have a sense of proportion as to the importance of the work reviewed.” (p. 38)

On Left intellectuals during the ’30s:

“In the thirties Left intellectuals tried to masquerade as proletarians; it was a farce. They tried to write down ‘to the masses’; and it was a failure. They derided the highbrows; it was self-derision. It’s no good trying to jump over the wall; our task is to abolish it… It is, I believe, the main and ultimate task of Socialism.” (p.40)

On ‘the popular game of highbrow-bating’:

“It is a Fascist diversion; our way is to attack the wall. As long as it stands, democracy is a sham.” (p.41)

On reading:

“Never, never read with clenched teeth for reading’s sake. For what, after all, is the aim of literature and art – if not to imbue the world with feeling and meaning, to broaden and deepen our understanding of ourselves and the things around us?” (p.42)

On the ‘highbrow’ in art and literature:

“Watch carefully what you do with your resentment – it is the only historical asset of the poor; without it they would still live in serfdom. The others would like to deflect it into the wrong direction, against ‘cleverness’, culture, art; to make you spit on those values of which they deprive you. It is a subtle maneuver of diversion; the Nazis were not the first and not the last to succeed with it. Don’t fall into that trap. Your opponent is not the highbrow, but the rich.” (p.42)

On the intelligentsia and neurosis:

“…the relation between intelligentsia and neurosis is not accidental, but functional. To think and behave independently puts one automatically into opposition to the majority whose thinking and behaviour is dependent on traditional patterns: and to belong to a minority is in itself a neurosis-forming situation. From the nonconformist to the crank there is only one step; and the hostile pressure of society provides the push.” (p. 80)

“But even for the ‘real’ intelligentsia, neurosis is an almost inevitable correlate. Take sex, for example. On the one hand we know all about the anachronistic nature of our sex-regulating institutions, their thwarting influence, and the constant barrage of unhappiness they shower on society. On the other hand, individual experiments of  ‘free companionship’, marriages with mutual freedom, etc. etc., all end in pitiful failure; the very term ‘free love’ has already an embarrassingly Edwardian taint. Reasonable arrangements in an unreasonable society cannot succeed.” (p.81)

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