Anne Prescott beat me to posting something about the
need to appreciate the tragic aspect of existence in life, history and
literature. It is something I have been thinking about for many months, with
others, in light of some scattered remarks in Eric Voegelin's writings.
Preferring Machiavelli to the 16thC
anti-colonialist Francisco de Vitoria, Voegelin wrote, "The idea that in a
conflict both sides can be equally right or wrong, or rather that the strife of
existence is fundamentally beyond right or wrong, is for [Vitoria] unbearable.
His victor cannot bow before the vanquished, respecting the mystery of rise and
fall in which the roles might be reversed; he must defile the enemy and execute
him as a criminal." One might ask if Spenser had this same
attitude toward the Irish, and if today's hawks in the US have it. Or
if the incredibly angry, anti-war, anti-Bush factions have it. Not that it's an easy thing--it sounds crazy to "bow" before an enemy one
is convinced is monstrous.
While I am inclined to appreciate the tragic dimensions of the
present conflict in Iraq, I feel this sentiment is rather meaningless when
so many people, including our leadership, have no sense of the tragic. So there
is the double tragedy--that two sides can be equally right and wrong and that so
few are capable of grasping that.
Voegelin also observed that the lack of "a tragedy of high
rank" has not been produced in American literature because we lack the European
sense of the tragic which comes from a long history of fighting and compromise.
-Dan Knauss
