The Human Evasion

The Human Evasion
by Celia Green

FOREWORD

One way of seeing reality is to see the appearances we usually take for it inside-out, back-to-front or looking-glass fashion. This is very difficult to do, considering how habituated we are to those appearances. It is also very difficult to be witty about vital and essential matters, though that is one of the best hopes we have of seeing them objectively, which is about the only hope we have of seeing them at all. Miss Green has achieved the looking-glass vision and the wit. Many, therefore, will call her too clever by half, forgetting that one of the things she is saying is that we are not half clever enough, for the very reason that we lack her witty vision because we wear the blinkers of our belief in appearances. So anyone who reads this book (as opposed to merely reading its words) must be prepared to be profoundly disturbed, upset and in fact looking-glassed himself; which will be greatly to his advantage, if he can stand it. Few books, long or short, are great ones; this book is short and among those few. One day, perhaps, it will become part of holy writ: a gospel according to Celia Green. Which kind of 'insane' statement belongs to the book's own kind of truth.

R. H. WARD


snip

Now no such disguises are necessary.

I am reminded of a book called Flatland in which an imaginary two-dimensional world is described. Towards the end of the book a non-dimensional being is encountered -- a point in space. The observers listen to what it is saying (but of course, since they are of higher dimensionality than its own, the point being cannot observe them in any way). What it is saying to itself, in a scarcely audible tinkling voice, is something like this: 'I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. I am that which is and I am all in all to myself. There is nothing other than me, I am everything and all of everything is all of me and all of me is all of everything...'

The human race has taken to producing similar noises. Perhaps we would not be surprised at the sociologists murmuring to themselves from time to time, 'in society we live and move and have our being', as they scurry from communal centre to therapeutic group, but these days everyone is at it.

The philosophers have discarded metaphysics and have a tinkling song of their own which says, 'In the beginning was the word and the word is mine and the word was made by me.' This is rather a strong position in its way, because if you try to criticize it they will point out that you can only do so in words, and they have already annexed all the words there are on behalf of humanity. (And the meaning of the words is the meaning humanity gave them, and they shall have no meaning beside it.)

The theologians are finding theology rather an embarrassment, and one can only suspect they would be happier without it. Their tradition does make it a little more difficult for them to put God in his proper place, but all things considered, they're keeping up with the times pretty well. Sartre said 'Hell is other people'; the up-to-date theologian says 'God is other people'.

It might have been thought that the 'existentialists' would make some sort of a stand for the transcendent, but it hasn't been serious. In fact many people have found that a liberal use of existentialist language, loosely applied, has been extremely helpful in stimulating an obsessional interest in human society. (This interest is variously known as 'commitment', 'involvement', and 'the life of encounter'.)

The questions which remain are these. Are people, in fact, matters of ultimate concern to other people? And still more, can they be sources of 'ultimate solution' to them? If they are not, what psychological force is at work to ensure that these questions are so seldom asked? Why, if you ask a question about man and the universe, are you given an answer about 'man in society'?


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Chapter 2
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SANITY


Sanity may be described as the conscientious denial of reality. That is to say, the facts of the situation (apart from a few which are judged to be harmless) have no emotional impact to a sane mind.

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