The following post by Austin Benedetto, an undergraduate student at Northwestern University, is another in the series of posts highlighting exemplary work by undergraduates with interests in Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought. The NURPRT Forum welcomes any undergraduate student to submit academic writing related to these fields to be considered for publication.
Introduction
“[C]hance, the very name of which we are urged to shrink from as from a metaphysical pestilence, means only the negative fact that no part of the world, however big, can claim to control absolutely the destinies of the whole.”[1]
-William James
Tempus fugit. Time flies. It is a saying that has survived through various ages and languages. There is even a Batman villain named after the adage. Most obviously, this proverb points to the fleeting nature of life. Time is the scarcest resource we have; consequently, the way that we conceptualize and value time has a profound impact on our decisions.
These days, many are obsessed with self-actualization. This fixation often manifests in the attempt “to become one’s best self.” This, to me, has always been a strange idea. What, after all, is a best self? It would seem impossible to measure. At any given moment, there is only one “you.” And so the question naturally arises: to whom are we comparing ourselves? In sports, we can compare players to determine who is the best player—or “self”—since they compete according to the same rules. Yet, in the game of life, each self would seem far too particular and individual to apply a universal criterion of evaluation. In the least, we should proceed with caution before wielding such standards.
The idea of a perfect or best self, identity, or form can be traced back to Plato, but its seminal modern translation appears in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The renowned, twentieth-century psychologist, Abraham Maslow, describes self-actualization as the “tendency to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”[2] According to this logic, a mother should strive to be the ideal mother. Behind each person’s aspirations lies an abstract, perfect form to be pursued. Yet Maslow’s thinking misses the idea of trade-offs. Since time is limited, we cannot achieve everything of which we are capable. We must make choices and sacrifices.
Other modern thinkers, like Jordan Peterson, stress the small, daily steps that one must take for self-improvement. His famous example is a custodial one. Peterson believes that it is possible to create some sense of personal order through the mundane activity of tidying up one’s room. What Peterson fails to mention is the opportunity cost associated with this seemingly benign habit. By making my bed, I lose five minutes that I could have spent reading. This is not to say that hygiene and order should be avoided; it is to point out the cost associated with such an action. Perhaps spending those five minutes reading would have led to a more perfect version of myself.
Arguments like those advanced by Maslow and Peterson implicitly rely on a utopian conception of time. They presume that there is an optimal, future self towards which we should strive. Whereas Plato sought the ideal of a revealed and stable Good, modern humans pursue a far more fragile ideal: their own, freely chosen, good. Nevertheless, both frameworks assume a teleological view of the self. There is an end we are trying to reach. We may not reach this superlative state, but, so the argument goes, we should at least give it our best shot.
Another widespread, modern conception of the self is that of the deterministic or naturalistic person. It is the view that we are nothing more than automata bound to the laws of nature. Everything we do, to borrow the term of the Russian physiologist Ivan Sechenov, is solely a reflex of the brain. In this framework, there is no creativity—just preprogrammed response. Only one outcome transpires at any given moment. This idea finds its apotheosis in the 4D or block universe theory, where all events (future, past, and present) coincide. Time is no longer open and fluid; instead, it is reduced to a mere coordinate within a cubic matrix that purports to contain, map, and measure all phenomena. Kurt Vonnegut imagines how this god-like vision might play out in his Tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse Five:
“I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”
“You sound to me as though you don’t believe in free will,” said Billy Pilgrim.[3]
Nietzsche touts a similar idea in his concept of “eternal recurrence.” Everything we do will happen again and again ad infinitum. Time, according to Nietzsche, is a permanent loop that we must constantly re-live. Nietzsche’s solution to this endless recurrence is amor fati. Since everything is fated, the best we can do, he argues, is to “love our fate” by accepting everything as it is. But so long as there are better ways to respond to our destiny than others, fate-loving is inconsistent with the determinist principles that supposedly informed its recommendation in the first place. Choice exists, and Nietzsche’s argument fails on its own terms.
Trade-offs
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”[4]
-Thomas Sowell
What “best-self” philosophy overlooks is that life consists of trade-offs. As finite creatures, it would seem impossible to become “everything that one is capable of becoming.” We must make decisions and forego some good things for others. The philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, can help bring clarity to the idea of trade-offs. He does so in a way that explores the nature of freedom, which takes seriously the common wisdom that you cannot have things both ways.
In his essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Berlin distinguishes between negative and positive liberty. Negative freedom is “simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others.”[5] In other words, a person is free in the negative sense when one lives unimpeded by the wills and desires of everyone else. This definition of liberty presumes that every self or person is partially determined by his or her surroundings. But it also presupposes that, in order to flourish, the self must achieve greater freedom from these constraints.
The concept of negative liberty, though, is not maximizable in practice. As Berlin notes, “men are largely interdependent, and no man’s activity is so completely private as to never obstruct the lives of others in any way.”[6] Arguably the most famous religious sage in all of world literature, Father Zosima of The Brothers Karamazov, would seem to agree. He claims “…in truth we are each responsible to all for all, it’s only that men don’t know this.”[7] The upshot is that most devotees of negative liberty acknowledge the reality of inter-human trade-offs despite wishing them gone in the same breath. The majority of law-school graduates, I assume, would prefer to pursue a job opening without competing against—or being obstructed by—their peers. But often it is the case that a firm has a single position to fill. In short, our actions invariably affect others and often preclude them.
Berlin’s concept of positive liberty, on the other hand, is more difficult to comprehend. It loosely derives “from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master.”[8] A desire for positive freedom rests on the premise that the rational “self ‘at its best,’” can control its “‘lower’ nature.”[9] The assumption is that the real, rational, or actualized self is in combat with its false, irrational, and untrained desires. The task of the enlightened person then is to “realize” that everything is transient and uncontrollable except for one’s mental responses. The recent revival of Stoicism attests to the staying power of this vision of freedom. As Marcus Aurelius advises: “It’s all in how you perceive it. You’re in control. You can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point.”[10] Whether or not one subscribes to a stoic outlook, positive freedom tends to make man the master of meaning.
One could also define negative liberty as freedom from coercion and positive liberty as the freedom to pursue a goal. However, this second definition of liberty—the freedom to—brings back many of the problems associated with self-actualization. If positive freedom is coupled with a “rationalist” metaphysic, as was the case with the Jacobins or Bolsheviks, then there are historical grounds for concern. Both political parties believed that the discovery and implementation of a wholly rational and predictable system of truth and law would lead to perfect, self-actualized societies of well-integrated individuals. As Lenin would have it, morality is “entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat’s class struggle.”[11] Positive freedom, at least in its rationalist permutation, presupposes that history and moral action can blend into a single, utopian whole. Berlin further explains this viewpoint:
“[F]or two truths cannot be logically incompatible; therefore a just order must in principle be discoverable – an order of which rules make possible correct solutions to all possible problems that could arise in it.”[12]
Berlin calls this way of thinking “one belief.” Its adherents assume “there is a final solution.”[13] He points to the deadly consequences of such thinking (e.g., Soviet Russia) while exposing a yet more fundamental flaw with one-believers. To assume that there is a singular “solution,” and that all reality flows—naturally and necessarily—towards this goal, implies, in effect, that we can and will have everything that we could ever want. But Berlin insists to the contrary: “that we cannot have everything is a necessary, not a contingent truth.”[14] Every law or system a society enacts means that it must forego another possible arrangement. Do we value freedom or safety? Both seem like worthy goals, but they are not necessarily compatible. Someone’s positive freedom to steal or kill may come at the expense of someone else’s negative freedom from coercion. One person’s freedom can mean another’s demise.
Sideshadowing and Surprise
“[P]ossibility is for the self what oxygen is for breathing.”[15]
-Kierkegaard
If trade-offs define the limits of freedom, then how do we become more aware of the role that these constraints play in everyday life? Berlin’s abstract argument does not make this very clear. Fortunately, Gary Saul Morson’s concept of sideshadowing can bring Berlin’s thinking down to size. Morson does so by calling us to be more conscious of those choices that occur in situations so familiar and quotidian that we forget the fact that things could be otherwise, that we are actively making decisions, and that there are tradeoffs always and everywhere.
But why is this awareness so important? Perhaps the most pressing reason is as follows: if only one thing can transpire at any given moment, as determinism assumes, then there is no such thing as moral responsibility. Such a worldview presumes that no one can be at fault because everything has been fated by the law-governed movement of minuscule physical entities, like atoms or quarks. Of course, as of now, it is impossible to calculate or forecast all future actions and developments, but some believe that the emergence of an all-encompassing formula is only a matter of time.
If this deterministic model were to be discovered, there would be immense consequences for our use of language. When we assign guilt or blame, we do so under the assumption that a person could have performed a morally superior action in a given situation. In doing so, we create a counterfactual by which to judge such an action. Think of a kid who screams at his mom for telling him to get off his video game and go outside. His response seems disproportionate to such a reasonable and meager request and therefore inappropriate. But it is also important to recognize that his retaliation is unwarranted only because we assume that he is capable of heeding his mother’s request in the first place. He can, in fact, do something other than play video games. It is because humans face tradeoffs and alternatives through their choices that one can say that human activity carries moral value.
Not only does adopting determinism have dangerous moral implications, but it also arises from a false view of science. The determinist outlook stresses harmony while ignoring diversity. In physics, different theories or explanatory systems are invoked to explain phenomena, but their assumptions are not necessarily reconcilable. Thus, one might go so far as to say that those who preach determinism suffer from the same affliction as Marxists: an inordinate desire for unity. They wish to generate a complete system that will rid the world of its uncertainty and chaotic trade-offs.
To defend their position against this retort, determinists will often point to the increasing frequency with which people appeal to science in order to explain nature. There can be no doubt that the predictive power of science has improved vastly. Still, it would be equally false to presuppose, as determinists often do, that apologists for free will, or libertarians, believe that the universe is fundamentally random and chaotic. Instead, libertarians presume that the given state of the universe allows for more than one outcome to be possible.
Morson, who writes extensively on this predicament in Narrative and Freedom, explains how possibilities and trade-offs are effectively invisible to everyday perception: “almost by definition, unrealized possibilities even if they exist, leave no traces.”[16] The task of free-will sentinels is difficult. It is far simpler to explain, in retrospect, that X caused Y than to say that X led to Y but could have also led to Z. It is virtually impossible to prove Z because it never materialized; we can only ever perceive and thus prove Y. Nevertheless, Morson urges us to adopt a “pluralistic restless universe in which no single point of view can ever take the whole scene.”[17]
To a world ensnared by scientific thought, Morson’s statements may seem counterintuitive. And the fact that Morson assumes that fictional literature can serve as a reliable ground from which to make judgments about the nature of reality may seem all the more foolish. Nevertheless, Morson insists that there is no better avenue by which to explore daily, lived existence than realist novels. In realistic fiction, authors make use of a specific literary technique that Morson refers to as “sideshadowing.” To sideshadow is to display “two or more alternative presents,” through which “the actual and the possible are made simultaneously visible.”[18] Such a technique presumes that events do not coincide. One event is actualized, while the others remain possible. A greater awareness of hypothetical time, Morson contends, can make us more aware of the “haze of possibilities [that] surrounds each actuality.”[19]
Time no longer is understood in a strictly linear mode but rather as a field of potential trade-offs. As Morson writes, “sideshadowing invites us into [a] peculiar middle realm.”[20] This middle realm denies reductive or homogenizing explanations. A literary technique, as it turns out, can function as a prophetic summons. It beckons us to visualize uncertainty and the costs associated with our decisions. To return to our vocational example, we can now say that it is sideshadowing that reveals not just the job we accept but also the alternative jobs we decline. We become aware of the trade-offs that are latent in all our decisions. People, released from the prison of totalizing actuality, begin to recognize that things could have been different.
Morson provides a concrete example from literature to illustrate his point. In current copies of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, there is a chapter, censored in the original publication, now inserted into the appendix. This appended passage portrays Stavrogin, the protagonist with a propensity for stunts that forsake and mock the religious order, presenting the local bishop with a document that elucidates his crimes. Ostensibly, this is a moment of genuine penitence, but the narrator implies Stavrogin’s confession may be just another one of his jokes at the expense of everything conventional, especially traditional morality. Despite such skepticism, the narrator admits that he cannot bring “forth any proofs” concerning the authenticity of Stavrogin’s intentions in producing the document. He is forced to concede that “most likely, the truth must be sought somewhere in the middle.”[21] There is no clear solution.
This uncertainty will unsettle many readers, and likely for two reasons. The first is structural: is this appendix supposed to be read within the plot? Or, should it be read as a sideshadow, as something that might have occurred but did not? Dostoevsky provides no conclusive guidance. The second concerns Stavrogin’s aims. Assuming this chapter is integral to the plot, it remains unclear whether Stavrogin is willing to make amends. Both dilemmas push us into a middle ground that seems as unrealistic as it is uncomfortable. But this uncertainty is all too realistic, even opportune. Consider, for example, how difficult it is to discern the motivations of any apologetic utterance. It is possible that someone really is sorry for what they have done to me. Yet it is also possible that they may be trying to get back on my good side. My claim is that the uncertainty that informs such an apology, or, for that matter, any particular action, is an opportunity to confront the consequences of a world in which there is freedom and possibility. It is through careful observation of particularities that we create a narrative filled with value and meaning, because attention so refined will also make us aware of a situation’s possibilities and trade-offs.
Of course, people must go on acting in the face of uncertainty. Lest we become Don Quixote and confuse hypotheticals with actuality, it is important to acknowledge this fact. The concrete, tangible world of facts and real achievements—actuality—should have priority in our reflections on the nature of time and who we are as human beings. But this does not mean we need to ignore the role that sideshadows play in our thoughts and behavior. I believe that Morson is correct to claim that “we understand where we are by understanding where else we might have been.”[22] This where else is the trade-off made manifest and visible. The shadows of time represent an alternative path that we leave behind when we choose to take a particular action. It is the trade-off, the fact that there is a cost or loss associated with every act, which makes choice meaningful. And our decisions are meaningful because they give us a qualified ground or standard by which to evaluate our actions. The sideshadows or foregone potentiality of an event provide the context for its meaning. If actuality was determined, all decisions and choices would be not only meaningless but nonsensical. It is through seeing where else we might have been that our current position acquires significance. The fact that there is never just one choice to make augments our sense of time and thereby our sense of personal responsibility.
By considering these other possibilities, time begins to “move not from point to point but from ‘smudge to smudge.’”[23] These smudges include both actuality and its sideshadows, the mixture and consistency of which are never fully knowable. We cannot see every option at any given moment. There is no birds eye view. Yet, the awareness of each smudge brings a fullness to time and the self that allows us to see and understand a bit more about where and who we are.
The nature of the self that is presupposed by these smudges is best summed up by the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. The self, he says, is governed by “surprisingness.” This is the idea that we are never completely bound by what came before: we can genuinely choose to do something unexpected. Every instant brings with it a potential trade off, a sideshadow of actuality, even if it is as simple as settling on the object and direction of our attention. This idea does not deny that environment and genetics may limit our decision-making capabilities, but it accounts for the fact that, every now and then, real innovation occurs.
Consider the implausibility of this statement: “from the Big Bang, the corporation Apple in 2007 was fated to create the iPhone.” It would be more reasonable to make a more modest claim. Humans have the capacity to surprise and create something new. To acknowledge that there are limits or trade-offs is also to recognize that we have the ability to surprise and decide—and it is in these counterfactual sideshadows where creativity and value-making lies.
Ultimately, sideshadows and their resulting trade-offs help us recognize that “man is free and therefore can violate any regulating framework that might be thrust upon him.”[24] In the spirit of Morson, I do not wish to conclude by putting forth an ultimate theory of the self. Instead, my intention is to point towards the importance of surprise. The sideshadows of our actions remind us that trade-offs characterize the self. Human activity does not involve obedience to static ideals but an ongoing negotiation with possibility. To recognize this is not just to see more clearly where we might have been, but to comprehend where we are—and where we might still go.
Image: Nikolai Ge, What is Truth? 1890
[1] William James, The Will to Believe, And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm#P153.
[2] Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954): 92.
[3] Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Slaughterhouse-Five (St Albans: Panther Books, 1972): https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/slaughterhouse-five.pdf.
[4] As cited in Anna K. Reynolds, “Thomas Sowell Speaks the Truth: There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Inspire Virtue (2022): https://inspirevirtue.com/thomas-sowell-speaks-the-truth-there-are-no-solutions-only-trade-offs/.
[5] Isaiah Berlin, Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 169.
[6] Berlin, Liberty, 171.
[7] Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Translated by Constance Garnett (New York: The Lowell Press, 2009): 376.
[8] Berlin, Liberty, 178.
[9] Berlin, Liberty, 179.
[10] As cited in Katherine Rose, “Thinking Carefully: Marcus Aurelius on How to Control the Mind.” The Inward Turn (2021): https://theinwardturn.com/marcus-aurelius-on-learning-to-focus-the-mind/.
[11] V.I. Lenin, The Tasks of Youth Leagues. Transcribed by Colin S. Cowell. Marxists Internet Archive (October 1920): www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/02.htm.
[12] Berlin, Liberty, 212.
[13] Berlin, Liberty, 212.
[14] Berlin, Liberty, 215.
[15] Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling and the Sickness unto Death, Translated by Walter Lowrie (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2013): 34.
[16] Gary Saul Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994): 84.
[17] As cited Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 86.
[18] Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 118.
[19] Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 118.
[20] Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 119.
[21] As cited in Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 131.
[22] Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 148.
[23] Morson, Narrative and Freedom, 124.
[24] As cited in Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990): 265.