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- Oct 10 2:15 AM
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CH 48 PART TWO: HORSE, CARRIAGE AND DRIVERChapter 48: From the authorPART TWOBeelzebub's Tales
to His GrandsonCARRIAGE, HORSE AND DRIVERA man as a whole, with all
his distinct and separately
functioning localizations,
that is to say, his independently
formed and educated "personalities,"
is almost exactly comparable to that
equipage for transporting a passenger
which consists of a carriage, a horse,
and a coachman.It must be remarked, to begin
with, that the difference between
a real man and a pseudo man, that
is, between a man who has his own
"I" and one who has not, is
indicated in this analogy by
the passenger sitting in the
carriage. In the first case,
that of the real man, the
passenger is the owner of
the carriage, and in the
second case, he is merely
the first chance passer-by
who, like the fare in a
"hackney carriage," is
continually changing.The body of a man, with
all its motor-reflex manifestations,
corresponds simply to the carriage
itself, all the functionings and
manifestations of feeling of a
man correspond to the horse
harnessed to the carriage
and drawing it, the
coachman sitting on
the box and directing
the horse corresponds
to what in a man people
usually call "consciousness"
or "thought", and finally, the
passenger sitting in the carriage
and giving orders to the coachman
is what is called "I."EDUCATION, THE
FUNDAMENTAL EVILThe fundamental evil among
contemporary people is that,
owing to the rooted and widespread
abnormal methods of education of
the rising generation, this
fourth personality, which
should be present in
everybody on reaching
responsible age, is
entirely lacking in
them, and almost all
of them consist only
of three of the enumerated
parts, which, moreover, are
formed arbitrarily of themselves
and anyhow. In other words, almost
every contemporary man of
responsible age consists
of neither more nor less
than a "hackney carriage,"
and what is more, a broken-
down carriage that has long
ago seen its day, a crock of
a horse, and on the box, a
tatterdemalion, half-asleep,
half-drunk coachman, whose
time designated by Mother
Nature for self-perfection
passes in fantastic daydreams
while he waits on a corner for
any old chance passenger. The
first one who happens along
hires him and dismisses him
just as he pleases, and not
only him but also all the
parts subordinate to
him.Pursuing this analogy between
a typical contemporary man with
his thoughts, feelings, and body,
and a hackney carriage with its
horse and coachman, we can
clearly see that in each of
the parts composing these two
organizations there must have
been formed and must exist its
own separate needs, habits,
tastes, and so on, proper
to it alone because,
according to the
different nature
of their origin
and the diverse
conditions of their
formation, and also
the varying possibilities
put into them, there must
inevitably have been formed
in each of these parts its
own psyche, its own
notions, its own
subjective supports,
its own viewpoints,
and so on.The whole sum of the
manifestations of human
thought, with all the
inherencies proper to
its functioning and
with all its specific
characteristics, corresponds
in almost every respect to the
essence and manifestations of
a typical hired coachman.Like all hired coachmen in
general, he is a certain type
called "cabby." He is not entirely
illiterate because, owing to the
laws existing in his country for
the "general compulsory teaching"
of the three Rs, he was obliged
in his childhood to put in an
occasional appearance at what
is called the "parish school."Although he himself is a
country boy and has remained
as ignorant as his fellow rustics,
yet rubbing shoulders, thanks to
his profession, with people of
various positions and education
and picking up from them, a bit
here and a bit there, a lot of
expressions for various
notions, he has now
come to look down
with contempt upon
everything smacking
of the country, indignantly
dismissing it all as
"ignorance."In short, this is a
type to whom one could
apply perfectly the adage:"Too good for the crows,
but the peacocks won't
have him."He considers himself competent
even in questions of religion,
politics, and sociology, with
his equals he likes to argue,
those whom he regards as his
inferiors he likes to teach,
with his superiors he is a
servile flatterer, he stands
before them, as is said,
"cap in hand."One of his greatest weaknesses
is dangling after the neighborhood
cooks and housemaids, but best of
all he likes to put away a good
square meal and to gulp down
another glass or two, and
then, fully satiated,
drowsily to daydream.To gratify these weaknesses
of his he regularly steals
part of the money his
employer gives him to
buy fodder for the
horse.Like every "cabby" he
works only "under the
lash," and if occasionally
he does a job without being
made to, it is always in the
hope of a tip.The desire for tips has
gradually taught him to
detect certain weaknesses
in the people he deals with
and to take advantage of them,
he has automatically learned to
be cunning, to flatter, "to
stroke people the right
way," as they say, and
in general, to lie.On every convenient occasion
when he has a free moment, he
slips into a saloon or a bar
where, over a glass of beer,
he daydreams for hours at a
time, or talks with a type
like himself, or just
reads the paper.He tries to look imposing,
wears a beard, and if he
is thin, pads himself
out to appear more
important.As regards the feeling-
localization in a man, the
totality of its manifestations
and the whole system of its
functioning correspond
perfectly to the horse
of the "hackney
carriage" in
our analogy.Incidentally, this comparison
of the horse with the composition
of human feeling will help to show
particularly clearly the error and
one-sidedness of the contemporary
education inflicted on the rising
generation.The horse, owing to the negligence
of those around it during its early
years, and to its constant solitude,
is as if locked up within itself,
in other words, its "inner life"
is driven inside and for
external manifestations
it has nothing but
inertia.Thanks to the abnormal
conditions around it, the
horse has never received
any special education
but has been molded
solely under the
influence of
constant
thrashings
and vile abuse.It has always been kept
tied up, and for food,
instead of oats and hay
it has only been given
straw, which is
utterly worthless
for its real needs.Never having seen in any
of the manifestations toward
it the least love or friendliness,
the horse is now ready to surrender
itself completely to anybody
who gives it the slightest
caress.In consequence of all this,
the inclinations of the horse,
thus deprived of all interests
and aspirations, must inevitably
concentrate on food, drink, and
the automatic yearning for the
opposite sex, hence it
invariably veers in the
direction where it can get
any of these and if, for example,
it catches sight of a place where
even once or twice it gratified
one of these needs, it waits
for the chance to run off in
that direction.It must be added that
although the coachman
has a very feeble
understanding of
his duties, he can
nevertheless, even
though only a little,
think logically, and,
remembering tomorrow,
he does occasionally—-
either from the fear of
losing his job or the
desire of receiving a
reward—-show an
interest in doing
something or other
for his employer
without being
forced to. But
the horse, in the
absence of a special
education adapted to
its nature, has not
received at the proper
time any data at all for
manifesting the aspirations
requisite for responsible
existence, and of course
it fails to understand—-
indeed it cannot be
expected to
understand—-
why it should
do anything. It
therefore carries
out its obligations
with complete indifference
and only from fear of
further beatings.As for the carriage, which
in our analogy stands for
the body considered
separately from the
other independently
formed parts of the
common presence of a
man, its situation is
even worse.This carriage, like most
other carriages, is made
out of various materials
and, furthermore, is of a
very complicated
construction.It was designed, as
is evident to any sane-
thinking man, to carry
all kinds of loads,
and not for the
purpose for which
it is used by
contemporary
people, that
is, only to
carry passengers.The chief cause of the many
misunderstandings connected
with it springs from the fact
that those who invented the
system of this carriage
intended it for travel
on byroads, and therefore
certain inner details of
its general construction
were designed with this
in view.For example, the principle of
its greasing, which is one of
the chief needs of an equipage
made of such different materials,
was so devised that the grease
should spread over all the
metal parts from the jolting
inevitable on such roads,
whereas now, this carriage,
designed for traveling on
byroads, is usually
stationed on a rack
in the city and travels
on smooth, level, paved
streets.In the absence of any
shocks whatsoever while
rolling along such roads,
the greasing of all its parts
does not take place uniformly,
and consequently some of them
are bound to rust and cease to
perform the functions intended
for them.A carriage goes easily, as a
rule, if its moving parts are
properly greased. With too little
grease, these parts get overheated
and finally red-hot, and thus the
other parts get spoiled, however,
if there is too much grease on
some part, the general
functioning of the
carriage is impaired,
and in either case it
becomes more difficult
for the horse to pull it.The contemporary coachman,
our cabby, has no inkling
of the need for greasing
the carriage, and even if
he does grease it, he does
so without proper knowledge,
only on hearsay, blindly
following the directions
of the first comer.So, when this carriage, now
more or less adapted for travel
on smooth roads, has for some
reason or other to go along a
byroad, something always
happens to it either a
nut gives way, or a bolt
gets bent, or something or
other gets loose, and so these
expeditions rarely end without
more or less considerable
repairs.In any case, it has become
more and more risky to use
this carriage for its intended
purpose. And once repairs are
begun, you have to take the
carriage all to pieces,
examine all its parts
one by one and, as is
always done in such cases,
"kerosene" them, clean them,
and then put them together
again, and frequently it
becomes obvious that you
have to change a part
immediately and without
fail. This is all very
well if the part
happens to be
inexpensive, but
it may turn out that
the repair is more costly
than a new carriage.And so, all that has been
said about the separate parts
of that vehicle which, taken
as a whole, constitutes a
"hackney carriage" is
fully applicable to the
general organization of
the common presence of
a man.In view of the lack
among contemporary people
of any knowledge or ability
to prepare the rising
generation for
responsible
existence in
an appropriate
way, by educating
all the separate parts
composing their common
presence, every person
of today is a confused
and extremely ludicrous
"something" which, again
using our analogy, presents
the following picture.A carriage of the latest
model, just out of the
factory, varnished by
genuine German craftsmen
from the town of Barmen,
and harnessed to the
kind of horse which
in the region of
Transcaucasia is
called a "dglozidzi."
"Dzi" is a horse, "dgloz"
was the name of a certain
Armenian expert in the art
of buying and skinning
utterly worthless
horses.On the box of this stylish
carriage sits an unshaven,
unkempt, sleepy coachman,
dressed in a shabby frock
coat, which he has retrieved
from the rubbish bin where it
had been thrown out as useless
by Maggie, the kitchenmaid. On
his head reposes a brand-new
top hat, an exact replica of
Rockefeller's, and in his
buttonhole is displayed a
giant chrysanthemum.Contemporary man inevitably
presents such a ludicrous
picture, because from the
day of his arising these
three parts formed in him—-
which though of diverse origin
and having properties of diverse
quality should nevertheless, for
pursuing a single aim during his
responsible existence, represent
together his "entire whole"—-begin,
so to say, to "live" and to become
fixed in their specific
manifestations separately
from one another, never
having been trained to
give the required
automatic reciprocal
support and help or
to understand
one another even
approximately. Thus
later, when there is
a need for concerted
manifestations, these
concerted manifestations
do not appear.EDUCATIONTo be sure, thanks to
what is called the "system
of education of the rising
generation," completely fixed
at the present time in the life
of man, and which consists simply
and solely in drumming into the
pupils, by means of constant
repetition to the point of
stupefaction, numerous
almost empty words and
expressions, and in
training them to
recognize merely
by the difference
in their sounds the
reality these words
and expressions are
supposed to signify,
the coachman is still
able to explain after
a fashion the various
desires he feels (though
only to types like himself),
and he is sometimes even able,
at least approximately, to
understand others.This coachman-cabby of
ours, gossiping with other
coachmen while waiting for
a fare, and sometimes, as
is said, "flirting" in the
doorways with
the local maids,
even picks up
various forms
of what is called
"civility."In accordance with the
external conditions of
the life of coachmen in
general, he also gradually
automatizes himself to
distinguish one street
from another and, for
instance, to calculate
how, when a street is
closed for repairs,
to get to the required
destination fromanother direction.But as for the horse,
even though the maleficent
contemporary invention called
"education" does not extend to
its formation, and in consequence
its inherited possibilities are
not atrophied, yet because of
the fact that it has been
formed under the abnormal
conditions of the
established process
of ordinary existence,
and that it grows up
ignored by everybody,
like an orphan, and
moreover an ill-treated
orphan, it neither acquires
anything corresponding to the
psyche of the coachman nor
learns anything of what he
knows, and hence it
remains ignorant of
the forms of
reciprocal
relationship
which have become
habitual for the coachman,
and no contact is made
between them for
understanding
each other.It may happen, however, that
in its locked-in life the horse
comes to learn some form of
relationship with the
coachman and even,
perhaps, is not
unfamiliar with
some sort of "language",
but the trouble is that
the coachman
does not know
this or even
suspect that
such a thing
is possible.
Apart from the
fact that, in these
abnormal conditions,
no data have been formed
between the horse and the
coachman to allow them to
understand each other
automatically, even a
little, there are many
other outer causes,
independent of them,
which deprive them of
the possibility of
fulfilling together
that single purpose
for which they were
both destined.Just as the separate
independent parts of
a "hackney carriage"
are connected, namely,
the carriage to the
horse by the shafts
and the horse to the
coachman by the reins,
so also are the separate
parts of the general organization
of a man connected with each other:
the body is connected to the
feeling-organization by the
blood, and the feeling-
organization with that
of the thought or
consciousness by
what is called
"hanbledzoïn,"
namely, by that
substance which
arises in the common
presence of a man from
all intentionally made
being-efforts.The deplorable system of
education existing at the
present time has led to the
coachman's ceasing to have
any effect whatever on his
horse, at best he can
arouse in its
consciousness
by means of the
reins just three
ideas—-right, left,
and stop.Strictly speaking, he cannot
always do even this, because
the reins are generally made
of materials that react to
atmospheric phenomena for
example, in a pouring rain
they swell and lengthen,
and in heat, the
contrary, thus
having a varying
effect upon the
horse's automatized
sensitivity of
perception.The same thing proceeds in
the general organization of
the ordinary man whenever
from some impression or
other the "density and
tempo of the hanbledzoïn"
change in him so that his
thinking loses all
possibility of
affecting his
feeling-organization.And so, to sum up everything
that has been said, we must
willy-nilly acknowledge
that every man should
strive to have his own
"I," otherwise he will
never represent anything
more than a "hackney carriage"
which any passing fare can sit
in and dispose of just as he
pleases.Gurdjieffcontinued in PART THREE