© 2015 Edward Moore
The Arabian Nights -- or the Thousand and One Nights as it is also called -- is so ingrained in the popular consciousness that even the semi- or sub-literate among us know at least a bit about Ali Babba, Aladdin, Sindbad and, of course, Scheherazade. While a few of the tales comprising the Nights are highly entertaining, the majority are absurd, "loathsome and insipid" (in the words of the tenth-century bibliographer Ibn al-Nadim). Properly edited, they make good fodder for Disney films. That's about it. I will open myself to the charge of a smug "high brow" attitude towards literature and, perhaps, to the graver charge of Eurocentrism, by pronouncing my judgment that these tales are unworthy diversions from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, et cetera. The literature of personood -- which I have spent my entire career defending against those academics for whom "multiculturalism" means every culture but the Western -- begins with Chaucer's wife of Bath, achieves unmatched depth of expression in Shakespeare's Hamlet, and rises to the precarious height of world-defying (anti-) heroism in Milton's Satan. A tradition that has always opposed the "tyranny of the majority," finding it "an opiate ... that preys upon the vital forces" of personal will, as Walter Bagehot put it ("The People of the Arabian Nights," in The National Review 9 [July 1859] p. 56), is maintained by individual writers who speak their "latent conviction" in order that it may become the "universal sense" (Emerson, Self-Reliance). In the Western tradition (of which, more below) the focus of the great works has always been on persons: the Faustian spirit, the yearning for the infinite, that drives the person to either excel gloriously or to fail heroically. An authentic scribe of personhood does not require a twenty-two page introduction, as a popular translation of the Arabian Nights includes. I sat down to read this introduction in the quiet dark of early morning, as the rain beat wildly against my windows. By the time the rain ceased and the gray light revealed the distant river and the whirling seagulls, I found myself reflecting not upon the exotic tales of Scheherazade but on a topic that I thought I had laid to rest many years ago, when I was a doctoral student: the ancient (and dead) religion of Mani, or Manichaeism.
I admit to getting irritated rather easily by odd, dubious, or absurd statements. One will discover a goldmine of the absurd in the writings of academics who have been immersed in postmodernism and the language of cultural and critical theory. I know this well, for I was once a po-mo artist. But I have long since outgrown that formative stage. Originality and the concerns of personhood demanded a maturation of style and conception. As I was skipping lightly this morning over Mushin al-Musawi's Introduction to The Arabian Nights (New York: Barnes and Noble Classics 2007) -- and ignoring several jarring po-mo glitches -- I was brought to a coffee-snorting halt by this sasquatch of a sentence:
[E]arly European translations of the Nights were not foreign to the Manichean tendency to study the other and reach for its [sic] exoticism, to view it [sic] in relation to the so-called European tradition and to simultaneously appropriate its habitat [sic] for the sake of self-fulfillment against imaginary deprivations. (p. xxii)
My apologies for the several [sic]s; I know it is distracting, but I am not sure if al-Musawi is using "the other" as an impersonal pronoun, referring to Islam, or to Muslims. In the sentences immediately following, he writes "Muslims or Islam." I find it rude, in any case, to use "other" for any referent, despite the fact that so many po-mo pundits love to toss that word around, especially if the "other" can be shown to require "liberation" or, better yet, "empowerment." I was going to add another [sic] after "so-called European tradition," but I think I can handle that perhaps unintentional insult by reminding Mr. al-Musawi -- and anyone else who cares to read -- that the tradition of personalism began in the West. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as complex as it is, gave birth to the concept of the person, hupostasis, as a unique, unrepeatable entity, possessing dignity and equality before human and divine law. One need not be a Christian to see the value in this. I am an atheist, but I am more than willing to tip my hat to Christianity for giving to homo sapiens this invaluable conceptual gift. Now, to Manichaeism. I have studied that religion deeply, and cannot for the life of me figure out what Mr. al-Musawi means. But I shall try to unravel this mystery; for it is a dreary day, tiny rivulets wend their way down my balcony to the empty street below, and a slate-gray sky lowers upon my house. A perfect atmosphere for an academic mystery. I shall now light a pipe (actually, a cigar) and begin.
I was a mere twenty-four years-old when I discovered ancient Gnosticism, in the unlikeliest place: a collection of essays by the French philosopher and novelist Georges Bataille. The title of the essay was "Base Materialism and Gnosticism" which, I later found out, was a very poor explication of Gnosticism; indeed, it was a highly creative eisegesis. But it drew me in, and I was soon laboring over the actual Gnostic texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, and reading contemporary scholarship by the best in the field -- an august company which it took me six years of intense research, writing, lecturing, and publishing to join. While the Manichaeans did not hold any special interest for me -- I was rather drawn to the philosophical Gnostics, like Valentinus and Basilides -- I recall being fascinated by the Manichaean notion of the "redeemer redeemed." Mani, the founder of the religion and acknowledged by his followers as a redeemer himself, taught the following (quoted from my own article on "Gnosticism" for The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2004]):
The Manichaean cosmology began with two opposed first principles, as in Zoroastrianism: the God of Light, and the Ruler of Darkness. This Darkness, being of a chaotic nature, assails the “Kingdom of Light” in an attempt to overthrow or perhaps assimilate it. The “King of the Paradise of Light,” then, goes on the defensive, as it were, and brings forth Wisdom, who in her turn gives birth to the Primal Man, also called Ohrmazd (or Ahura-Mazda). This Primal Man possesses a pentadic soul, consisting of fire, water, wind, light, and ether. Armored with this soul, the Primal Man descends into the Realm of Darkness to battle with its Ruler. Surprisingly, the Primal Man is defeated, and his soul scattered throughout the Realm of Darkness. However, the Manichaeans understood this as a plan on the part of the Ruler of Light to sow the seeds of resistance within the Darkness, making possible the eventual overthrow of the chaotic realm. To this end, a second “Living Spirit” is brought forth, who was also called Mithra. This being, and his partner, “Light-Adamas,” set in motion the history of salvation by putting forth the “call” within the realm of darkness, which recalls the scattered particles of light (from the vanquished soul of Ohrmazd). These scattered particles “answer” Mithra, and the result is the formation of the heavens and earth, the stars and planets, and finally, the establishment of the twelve signs of the zodiac and the ordered revolution of the cosmic sphere, through which, by a gradual process, the scattered particles of light will eventually be returned to the Realm of Light. The Manichaeans believed that these particles ascend to the moon, and that when the moon is full, it empties these particles into the sun, from whence they ascend to the “new Aeon,” also identified with Mithra, the “Living Spirit”. This process will continue throughout the ages of the world, until all the particles eventually reach their proper home and the salvation of the godhead is complete.
As I read this passage, I recall vividly the day I wrote it. I had spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon in the reading room of the Columbia University library, desperately trying to arrive -- in true essentialist fashion -- at a rigorous and precise definition of Manichaeism. It wasn't happening. So, annoyed, I took a cab down to NYU and sat in the park, sipping from a bottle of gin and waiting for the flash of noetic light that would illuminate the required definition and permit me to finish the article on Gnosticism, the deadline for which was rapidly approaching. As the sun began sinking -- literally and figuratively -- I had a eureka moment. Instead of a definition of Manichaeism, why not tell the story of Manichaeism? When I got back to my apartment, I looked over what I had written so far -- on Basilides and Valentinus, the Sethians -- and realized that it was all wrong! Definitions do not capture the multifloriate nature of beautiful things; and Gnosticism, for all its strangeness, is beautiful. So I scrapped that draft and began anew. I told the story of Gnosticism. Little did I know that I was effectively pigeonholing myself, and that the next decade of my academic life would be devoted to the Gnostics.
To study the other and reach for her exoticism. At age twenty-five, dreams of being a renowned scholar of Gnosticism, speaking at Columbia or, better yet, Oxford ... Also dreams of a better significant other (there, I used the word), or perhaps not "better" just more attuned to the realm of peer-reviewed journals and conferences, one who is, yes, more "exotic" if by exotic is meant one who can speak of bygone ages in dead languages while waiting for her Big Mac. I finally did meet the exotic one, and we answered to one another. We agreed on much, but not everything -- which is good, for total agreement quenches passion. She found the Gnostics to be too pessimistic for her taste; I did not agree. Just because one finds little value in this realm of change and decay does not mean that one is a pessimist. In fact, the Gnostics had a spiritually effulgent vision of a life beyond this one. Being an atheist, I cannot take them literally, but I do find comfort in the idea that every intellectually vibrant person adds value to this world, by the simple fact of his or her existence. In Manichaeism, the scattered particles of the fallen godhead must be returned to the realm of light. Yet, unlike the philosophical schools of Gnosticism, the religion of Mani gives no pride of place to human beings; human agency is confined to aiding the scattered particles in their return journey. Here is the final part of my Manichaeism story, composed with the aid of a bottle of Bordeaux on May 19, 2004:
It should be clear from this brief exposition that humanity as such does not hold the prime place in the salvific drama of Manichaeism, but rather a part of the godhead itself—that is, the scattered soul of Ohrmazd. The purpose of humanity in this scheme is to aid the particles of light in their ascent to the godhead. Of course, these particles dwell within every living thing, and so the salvation of these particles is the salvation of humanity, but only by default, as it were; humanity does not hold a privileged position in Manichaeism, as it does in the Western or strictly Christian Gnostic schools. This belief led the Manichaeans to establish strict dietary and purity laws, and even to require selected members of their church to provide meals for the “Elect,” so that the latter would not become defiled by harming anything containing light particles.
I recall a quiet sense of fulfillment when I typed those final lines. In those days, it was self-fulfillment, and when my archontic consort sat on my lap, reading over my work, I accepted that true fulfillment comes through another person. I sent my article to the editor, satisfied, and went to the kitchen to prepare a fish curry.
I mention the fish curry because the culturally sensitive, anti-imperialistic significant female person with whom I was sharing my life at that time expressed her dismay over my enjoyment of Indian food and utter lack of interest in Indian culture. When I responded with the remark that my own cultural heritage (Western, European) offers more than enough intellectual, moral, ethic, and aesthetic stimulation for a single lifetime, I was told that I am a cultural chauvinist. To this day, I have never ceased to "own" that label. I feel that it is important for those of us who still love the West and its contributions to world culture to maintain our middle ground between the self-hating heirs of European civilization and the outright racists. The former are those who enter a liberal arts program and study only the works of "marginalized" persons to the utter neglect of the Western canon (which is quite fluid in any case); the latter are those who demand the expulsion of Muslims, for example, from European nations and use chillingly Nazi-style sloganeering to make their point. These latter folk, these Huns, can be left to civil authorities; they should not be given a voice in the academic -- or any other -- realm. The former, however, are a real threat to the Western tradition of open, critical investigation. I recall my undergraduate days at NYU, and the several comparative literature classes I took: a negative critique of a work by a person of a marginalized or colonized culture was not tolerated. A careful critical exegesis of a novel or poem, if it did not result in a highly sympathetic or, preferably, a trumpet-blowing celebration of not only the writer but the culture that the writer was representing, was ignored or -- worse -- used as an excuse to brand the exegete with the career-destroying label racist. In this spirit Mr. al-Musawi agrees with the nineteenth-century essayist Leigh Hunt that the Arabian Nights should "be kept away from dissection and exacting scholarship" (p. xxii). Fear, of course, is the motivating force behind this opinion; fear that this glorious production of Eastern civilization might be found lacking, or not up to the standards established by the best European writers. Edward Said, in his influential study Orientalism, cries out against any European appropriation of Eastern culture, for even the most positive reasons, as imperialism. What is to me such an obvious pissing on cherished Western ideals -- that not subjecting the works of marginalized or colonized writers and artists to the same rigorous critique to which Western writers and artists are subjected is to fall prey to a reverse colonization, similar to the acrobatics that occur when one wishes not to offend by putting away the alcohol at a dinner party or permitting a woman to wear a head scarf in an open, liberal society -- is to many evidence of a morally and ethically advanced mind. In this age of bombings, beheadings, kidnappings in which the West responds by bombing, kidnapping and, if not beheading, certainly torturing in other more "scientific" ways, no one can claim a moral high ground. Yet in the walls of academia, when one discusses the Arabian Nights or Manichaeism one should be permitted to pass a judgment.
* * * * *
After sleeping on it, I still don't understand what Mr. al-Musawi meant in his Manichaeism comment. Is Western imperialism driven by a sense of duty, to return the "scattered particles" of Eastern humanity to the light -- or Enlightenment -- of Western civilization? Neo-cons have assured us that the people whose nations we are bombing are (literally) dying for democracy. But only the most moonshine-addled gun-loving praiser of the lord believes that steaming pile of logorrhea. The rest of us know that it is about empire. Anyway, today being a Saturday, I awoke to the strains of Schubert's Trout Quintet, and just as the ecstatic piano run of the fourth movement was giving way to the gentle morgenstimmung of the cello, I was sipping coffee and re-reading Mr. al-Musawi. Defeated in my effort to uncover his meaning, I wrote up the final reflections, a victim of my own logo-centrism.
