Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics

Thoughts

Scientia + Fides =› Sapientia

Americans live so much of their inner lives ‘in the mind’, with rational, “common sense” thinking; with their full center of consciousness inside of their skulls, that it is (unconsciously) assumed that such a condition and manner of inner being is, as if, transnationally, transculturally and trans-historically inherent and “natural” to the human being as such. Even for those who would not concur with some high appraisal of the capacity and “supremacy of the mind”, either for reasons of religious belief, or some contrasting psychological interpretation of the human being, the preponderance of their inner life is still mostly lived, in thinking, in the rational mind. [187] Indeed, many “Westerners” — be they North American, Western European, or Russian — might ask what else they might do; how else they might be!

What we are considering here, is not whether one holds a materialistic, humanistic-anthropocentric, religious-theocentric or spiritual conception of life, world and man. But whether, holding any of these “belief-systems”, one does so predominately, with the rational-intellectual-thinking mind. It is the psychology, the mentality — the manner of inner being — which is here essential, and in question; not the contents of the “belief-system”, be it a spiritual, anthropological or material one. For what Kireyevsky and kindred spirits were, in this regard, challenging, was not so much the philosophy or “belief-system”, held by some Western individual or other, but rather how it was held — the mode, the mentality, the psychology of the individual who “believed it”, most often, with the rational mind. It was the predominance of the rational, conscious, thinking mind over the other sensibilities, forces, feelings, aspects, etc, of the human soul (psyche) and heart, which Kireyevsky, Khomyakov, Dostoyevsky, Vladimir Soloviev, et al, were challenging of the “Westerners”, be they European or Russian. Some special inwardness, in these and other Russians — and sensitive Europeans — found such “Westerners” to be incomplete, partial human beings; with an absence, rather than presence of soul. And, since “Westerners” were considered in comparison to the profound “vertical” conception and wisdom of life and man, which constituted the ideal core of Holy Russia, their incompleteness as human beings was viewed as being part and parcel of a secular-tending culture and civilization. Such a critique would obviously include, those philosophies and psychologies of man, be they from the Renaissance or the “Age of Reason”, which conceived man’s inner life to be centered, if not, at its best, limited, to the mind; with the outer life limited to the earthly “horizontal”. The “Slavophile” critique of Western Man can only be truly understood by recognizing that “vertical”, spiritual, Orthodox conception and comprehension of man, society and life which was the inner life which made Russia Holy.

The meaning of what Kireyevsky and others said, and are saying, to the “Westerner” — whether they be in nineteenth Berlin, Paris, London, Boston, or Moscow; оr in the late twentieth century, in the Soviet Union, or in some comfortable, academic American position, etc., etc., — is that the entire human soul, the whole inner life of man, with all its forces, feelings, capacities and aspects (especially the human heart) are requisite, not only for individual psychic as well as social health, but also for true knowledge and wisdom. (But not, and here is the deepest key — and the profound depth, in which they disagreed with Francis Bacon [188] — with the unredeemed, “fallen” condition of Man.)

In the conception of man borne by the Orthodox Church — and bespoken as well by prominent nineteenth century Russians — faith (fides in Latin) is not some religious intellectual “belief-system” of ideas, to which one gives (questioning or unquestioning) intellectual assent. It is rather conceived (cf. e.g. Kireyevsky or V. Soloviev [189]) as a living, inner presence, in and of the human heart and soul, toward aspects of life, meaning and being, which are beyond the common knowledge and experience, of the rational, earthly mind. Scientia is able to understand and manipulate the matters of the material world. It can also, especially when added to a scepticism of the heart, subjugate fides into an inner serfdom. Fides, by itself alone, may perhaps yield an innocent’s peace, a mystic’s otherworldliness or a holy foolishness. [190] But fides alone, can be overpowered by the practical realities of matter and scientia. Yet only both, scientia and fides - and fides as a vital soul presence [191] — can lead to illuminatory sapientia. In other words, the ennobled mind, a purified heart, the redeemed soul — and a repentant will — are requisite for real human knowledge and wisdom. The West’s scientia must be completed, indeed, redeemed from its one-sidedness. This, the Occident’s East, in Russia and Eastern Europe, could do by contributing a soul wholeness and a vertical conception of man. The Christian East’s fides must be incarnated into the realities of earthly life; this the accomplished West can do.

Self-Reliance, Sobornost,

Whatever the differences and similarities were, and are, as to the details of die inner alchemy of man towards some “self-renovation”, completion, sapientia, or deification; for the American Emerson, and the early Russian Slavophiles, there is one essential and profound distinction which seems essentially and pivotally characteristic for each of these peoples. And that concerns the understanding and evaluation of the individual, in relation to the community, the society in which they live. If there would have been little disputation by Emerson with Kireyevsky’s goal of the “integral personality”; their recognition and appraisal of the individual stands in deep contrast. Yet, in Kireyevsky’s and Khomyakov’s highest conception of the individual vis-a-vis the community, lies a profoundly encouraging and enlightening complementarity to Emerson’s conception of the individual as a “sovereign state”.

Kireyevsky returned from Central Europe, as did a number of Russians, with experience of the isolation of the individual in the societies of the West He, and others, attributed this to the predominance of “rationalism”, in the inner life of the individual; as an organizing principle in society (“not community” [192]); and, in complement to the primarily secular emphasis and interest in the life of “this world”, as the basis for a philosophy of man, society, civilization, nature, etc. Kireyevsky could hardly be accepting of a Jefferson; as he found even Schleiermacher incomplete.

Kireyevsky came to herald the idea of the Russian “obschina” and “mir” [193], and the deep soul which was common to all mankind, in regard to the realities of life, in this world, and the next The “obschina” was a small peasant community conceived to be “organically” ordered according to age-old customs, traditions, and religious Orthodoxy; it was not at all, some rationally organized society. It was, ideally, a community of shared land and property, customs, ways and manners, etc; in other words, a communal brotherhood. It was governed by the “mir”, a group of elders who settled controversies for the benefit of the entire community according to age-old customs, etc. Thousands of such communities were imagined to make Russia into one great community, one great “mir”. And it was this conception of community, and the whole, healthy individual in the community, which Kireyevsky embraced of Russia’s life and history, in order to describe a healthier individual and social order, than he had experienced in Central Europe. Community — organic, customary, traditional community — came to be contrasted to the rational individual and the rationally organized societies in the West Emerson had rejected common society in his embrace of the noble individual. And though both Kireyevsky and Emerson rejected a mundane, secular conception of man and society, for a “vertical” one; Kiryevsky called for a higher community.

What is very interesting to consider in this regard, is the early Slavophile Alexsei S. Khomyakov’s idea of “sobornost”; which he developed in contrast to the secular individualism of the West, as well as the Papal conceptions of the Church. It could be said that “sobornost” is the idea of community, developed to its greatest spiritual heights.

The “quintessential American” Emerson had written to himself: “Alone is Heaven”. Near in time, but far away in geographical distance, culture and setting, Khomyakov wrote quite otherwise:

For Khomyakov, clearly, the individual can only live fully, as a member of the community. The isolated individual is only a fragment of himself, and the community. As Andrzej Walicki describes it, for Khomyakov: “An individual can comprehend the truth only insofar as he is united to the church in loving fellowship and thus becomes an organ of a consciousness transcending the individual (sobornost’ soznaniia).” [197]

The spiritual community: “sobornost”, is an idea closely kin to the idea of the inner, invisible church: the “ecclesia spiritualis” [198] (to use a Latin expression for it). One might describe it as a Russian community of Philadelphie [199] Pentecost. Indeed, Khomyakov’s idea of sobornost was directly influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as his own competent studies in the Bible (especially Saint Paul [200]) and the early Church Fathers. The “sobornost” community was held by Khomyakov not merely to exist at any one current historical time, based on a heritage of doctrine and lore. Rather this community, the ecclesia was thought to extend through time; the inner spiritual life maintaining a continuity of consciousness, which came from the ancient past and extended into the future, in a moving presence.

Such ideas stand in great contradiction to the ‘wisdom’ of Emerson. This is evident enough by comparing them to Emerson’s ideas quoted in earlier sections. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string” [201], is a well-known phrase which Emerson wrote in his characteristic essay “Self-Reliance”. Emerson’s view of society — which is often quoted from his essay “Self-Reliance” — is dramatically, deeply different to that of his Russian contemporary Khomyakov:

As Emerson viewed ancient wisdom, tradition, the continuity of ü past, he wrote in the same essay:

The strong contrast of Emerson’s “self-reliance” to Khomyakov’s “sobornost” is obvious [204]. Below, we shall see how they are kin.

The highest ideal of man, for Khomyakov, was for the individuals of a community — in freedom, love and truth — to have their guiding spiritual representatives, let god speak through each of them, in a communal relationship. One isolated individual alone could, at best, be a partial, incomplete human being, with a limited knowledge of Truth, and a single inadequate voice for God. It was the spiritual community — those members of any entire society who are the true men and women of God — which was to constitute a chorus, a polyphony, a polyloguy of God’s Truth. As Khomyakov wrote:

Clearly, for Khomyakov, individual or collective man, whether European, American or Russian, could function in the mundane world with the “lower intellect”; but the spiritual life in community only lives in the highest aspects of human nature, communally enjoined.

Both Khomyakov and Emerson [206] strongly rejected the individual, social, and spiritual condition of the “egotistical soul”, which lived exclusively in the secular, mundane world by way of the rational “lower intellect”. Yet, while Khomyakov spoke unambiguously of the communal individual, be that of the earthly “obschina” or “mir”, or the spiritual “sobornost”; Emerson, just as firmly rejecting the common condition of man, called for the sovereign individual to stand alone before society, culture, history and God. In other words, for Khomyakov, the condition of the “impoverished and egotistical soul”, living in the “lower intellect”, is relieved by participation in the higher inner life, which can only be achieved in “a friendly communion of thinking beings”. But for Emerson, this condition is to be relieved by the solitary individual alone, reaching independently, for the higher inner life. They both conceive of an escape from the mundane condition of the “impoverished and egotistical soul”, into the “higher intellect” (Razum, Reason). But for the Russian Khomyakov, this can only be accomplished communally; whereas for Emerson, it is the solitary individual who must do this.

The American Scholar is, as “Man-Thinking” in America, to take such an independent stance before the world. And in the “Address to the Divinity Class”, Emerson told the students of divinity, not to be preachers of tradition, but to be “new-born bards[s] of the Holy Ghost”. [207] The individual is to have a solitary relation to the higher inner life and the world of God; to be a “soliloquist” of God. This is a spiritual soliloquy for Emerson; for Khomyakov, it is a spiritual polyloguy that is essential.

Here we have come to the deep kinship of the anthropologies, the “an-throposophies” of Emerson and Khomyakov. The spirit of God, the “Holy Spirit” (pneuma, spiritus) of God in Man, must — to both of these men — speak to, in and through Man. Yet in Emerson, the enthusiastic (en+theos) individual must speak, as an independent, solitary, sovereign individual, to mankind. As cited above from Emerson’s Divinity School Address at Harvard:

For Khomyakov, no single, isolated individual is even capable, in separation from other devoted sons and daughter of God, to be but a broken, fragmentary portion of the Truth-in-sobornost As a study of the Slavophile idea of the person and society has it:

The Slavophile theologian Khomyakov defined “true Christianity” as “not an institution, not a doctrine”, but as a supraindividual spiritual togetherness (sobornost), the “living organism of truth and love”. The precondition of such a community of supra-individual consciousness is the in viable continuity of the Christian Church tradition, which presupposes a rejection of the autonomy of the individual reason. [209]

The contrast and kinship here, is fundamental, and profound; revealing quite different spiritual paths, contrary historical directions and unique struggles, to come to an understanding of the relation of man to God, society, life and world. And is perhaps — as I hope now to clearly explain — potentially much more than historically interesting.

…and Spiritual Nationality

It is in die spiritual heights, in the highest aspects of Man, as conceived by Emerson and Khomyakov, that there is to be found the great kinship of their thought. Their evaluation of the individual human being, within the social order, reveals a deep contrast. Yet both base their thought on an idea of Man which has, essentially, the same spiritual source. So here we have, two leading representatives, from each of these separate and distinct cultures; who, wholly unknown to each other, become — contemporaneously — the voices of those conceptions of Man which each nation came to consider as most characteristic and unique of itself. And yet, in regard to their spiritual conceptions of Man, it could truthfully be said, that Emerson, Khomyakov, and Kireyevsky, are kin; related members of a common community; citizens of the same “spiritual nation” (natio [210]). For, however much they may have differed biographically, and as Russians and Americans; in their philosophies of life, man and world, they commonly participate, essentially, in the origin and injunction of the highest conception of Man in the Western tradition: that in which Man comes originally from God, and can be a representative of God’s spirit (pneuma, spiritus) on Earth. Though in America, with Emerson, it is the enthusiastic (en-thusiasm) individual that is central; and in Russia, for Khomyakov and Kireyevsky, it is the enthusiastic, inspired community, which is so seen. In both countries, for those people in each nation who would orient and guide their lives by the spiritual, the “vertical” life in man, both have in common, as it were, the heritage of “the First Adam”, and the challenge of the Last. And in this way, they are not only kin in origin; but also in seeking the same destination, of spiritual citizenship — one which, ultimately, is that of the same otherworldly city. [211]

While now, and certainly for much time to come, the identity and “nationality” (natio, nasci nat — be born) of the majority of each countries’ populace shall remain earthly, “horizontal”; those who rise up to complete the highest spiritual, the highest “vertical” call, extant in both of their lands, thereby seek a birth, a nationality, a citizenship, which transcends the earthly — being born of spirit into a higher community. Such “otherworldly” citizenship certainly requires real inner renunciation and redemption; and, as such, shall remain, unpopular in thought, and rare in deed. Nonetheless, such constitutes the highest ideals towards which each nation, in their respective spiritual histories — and highest “national” identities — would have men and women strive. [212]

In regards to the spiritual life of the individual in the American Dream, as this was conceived and expressed by James Truslow Adams, he wrote:

And in regard to Russia, Vladimir S. Soloviev said it simply:

And while all of this is, and shall be, seldom enough; it is only when individuals and communities, of Americans and Russians (and other nationalities), consciously recognize, and realize, their essential, common, spiritual heritage — back historically to their deepest common spiritual sources [215] -, and lineage — through deep Christianity, and all the deeper currents of the philosophia perennis [216] -, as well as their shared potential spiritual nationality, that a future spiritual convergence [217] shall begin to be possible.

Such ideas and ideals, in our secular, “horizontal” time, are rarely known, poorly recognized, and seldom clearly voiced; especially since they ultimately require a birth, a “nationalism,” — indeed, rather, a laborious rebirth, a self-wrought renascence (re-nasci, rebirth), to a “nationality” (natio, birth) which is, essentially, “not of this world”. This is a “vertical”, not a “horizontal” citizenship; not an earthly, but a spiritual nationality.

If “the quintessential American” Emerson be true, in America, this higher spiritual nationality must occur in the sovereign individual. In Russia, through the voice of the Slavophile Khomyakov, this can only occur in a community of individuals. But for both, it is a higher, “vertical”, spiritual nationality. (Perhaps, in the greater scale of time, this will seem less “dreamy” a conception.)

Egoism, Communism and Philadelphia

For those whose hearts and minds are satisfied with an earthly, material, or simply skeptical, agnostic view and explanation of the meaning of life, man, civilization and world; the ideas of this work, while perhaps interesting to historical curiosity, are essentially useless, and fictional. This essay was written for others. For those souls who yearn for, sincerely seek toward, believe in, or — perhaps even — know, of the inner “vertical”, spiritual life of Man; and who want clearer understanding of the world in which we live.

Once, at the conclusion of a private lecture on this theme in Moscow, the author was asked by a learned, astute member of those gathered, to what degree the ‘noble individuality’ which Emerson had summoned, had been realized amongst the people in America. The heart and soul, the mind and spirit of men and women of Mankind, are the arena for a spiritual struggle. And the blood and gore of human history makes unquestionably clear, that this inner war is not confined to soul and spirit: “man’s inhumanity to man”. Is the idea of a sovereign, noble individual — as “American Scholar” or “holy bard” — who faces God, life and world, in strength and solitude, a common idea, ideal, and condition in the United States of America? The answer is similar as to whether the highest ideals of human brotherhood, collectivism and communism have been realized in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Yet there still remains — in spite of the answers here — at the spiritual-intellectual core of each nation’s attempt to understand itself (and their relation to human history, civilization, culture, life, etc.), their respective ideals of man, which lead out of the “horizontal” into the “vertical”. Selfish egoism must be viewed in contrast to the ennobled, benevolent, spiritual individual; state communism should be considered in contrast to the ideal of spiritual community: sobornost. When the necessary renunciative inner attitude; when the needed suffering and the willingness to sacrifice; when the requisite love; when these are clearly recognized, understandingly accepted, and soulfully embraced by many more of mankind than a few; then indeed, general history may make some truthful record of a real period of earthly “philadelphia”…(Perhaps one might describe such a possible time, using Russian terms, as a period of the “conscious ‘mir’”.) When many more sovereign individuals strive more for God, Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom and Purity, than for “land and money, place and name”. [218] When many strive inwardly, for communities of spirit, to be the voice and life of God in mankind… As Dostoyevsky described it in The Brothers Karamazov,

“It’s a spiritual, psychological process”. The individual and the community are both, essentially and ultimately, dependent on the inner life and activity of men and women of Mankind. At worst, the solitary individual may strive exclusively for the satisfaction of his own merely personal earthly, “horizontal” desires, needs, interests, whims, etc… At best the solitary individual may strive and suffer for Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom; for self-perfection; social justice; God, etc… In between, there is, of course, much variation; including the “horizontal” humanist, who may struggle, strive and suffer for noble causes of benefit to man and world. In what way, into what relationship, to what degree these two opposed strivings are realized in the individual, depends ultimately on the inner life of that single being. The highest goal conceived, is deification: the realization of the highest potential aspects of the human soul and spirit — even if this be in struggle with the wild beast [220] in human nature. The worst realization of individualism is the completely selfish egoist, who lives totally for his own exclusive self-satisfaction, with no benevolent inner or outer concern or care for the internal or external life and well-being of others. Human history provides enough examples of both the best and the worst in humanity, and of course all in-between.

In ways similar to the individual, and also present in human history, a community can live with great truth, purity and nobility; or it can also degrade into some immoral, oppressive or anonymous collection. It is certainly true, that “no man is an island, entire of himself” [221]; men and women of mankind all exist, both in their inner and outer lives, as individuals, and as participants in human community. But real community, true brotherhood cannot be externally compelled, or contrived. For in this way, it would not come from the inner being of men and women of humanity, which it by nature must; but would come from outside of man, making it, in fact, in-human. Certainly wretched caricatures of true human community — external, enforced “communities” — have been required by those who rule. Nonetheless, its true realization lies only in the heart, soul and act, of men and women of Mankind. In the late 20th century, much of Mankind is now painfully less naive, as to the reality and meaning of earthly, “horizontal”, enforced communism. Questions perhaps remain, whether mankind has fully completed its experiments with “vertical”, spiritual “communism” — spiritual community.

Sovereign, spiritual individuality is the burden and challenge of those who would strive (by cultural injunction, or personal necessity) to realize this in their lives. [222] Spiritual community can also only be made actual, by those who would so strive for the “vertical”, the veridical, the spiritual in their hearts and minds, that they engage each other in true spiritual community. (The most sublime human realization here — and perhaps the highest goal and ideal of human community — is the ecclesia spiritualis in Pentecostal enthusiasm. One might describe it as “conscious sobornost”.) But would a sovereign, spiritual individuality, want to remain alone? Can a spiritual community be realized, if each member is inadequately developed as an individual?

Emerson recognized the “philadelphic” problem of the aloneness of the sovereign individual. And it is interesting to consider his thoughts towards some resolution here; especially, when, from our point of view, we consider how they relate to the spirit, soul and history of Russia. Emerson:

This “tragic” aloneness of true, inner nobility, which Emerson saw, was so unbridgeable to his experience and mind, that even the Civil War in the United States — which was fought over the question of an ancient social relation of man to man — was a “relief” to Emerson.

The relief with which Emerson welcomed the [Civil] war exemplified drastically the difficulty of discovering communities worthy of transcendent men. So long as Emerson still began with the ideal of the radically free individual, only something as apocalyptic and in its own way transcendent as war, could be a satisfactory symbol of community. [224]

This indicates a virtual plea for human brotherhood. A “religion of love”, or war, were the extremes necessary, to Emerson’s mind, to bring sovereign, solitary individuals into deep, true, noble purposeful human community. But do we not hear a response in Russia, to this Emersonian “anguish” — concerning some real “philadelphia” — in that famous speech of Dostoyevsky, at the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, in 1880?

A “fragment” by Kireyevsky — though it cannot be accepted without an inclusion of the “vertical” — addresses itself to this problem of the individuality and the community:

An exclusive striving for individuality, in contrast to the collective-even in the “vertical” — could lead to spiritual and psychic isolation, social malaise, anarchy of self and society. (Such an exclusive striving, in the “horizontal”, would lead, also, to the degradation of social morality and culture, and towards the hedonization of civilization.) The exclusive emphasis on the collective may — and history reveals this — lead to the desecration and deadening of the individual, as well as psychic and social totalitarianism.

The U.S A. and the U.S.S.R. (as well as all the world’s nations) face the problems and questions of the relation of the individual and the community (society); though of course they face them from differing directions. In both countries, however, the common primary direction of striving seems to be for the realization of “the good life”, of and for individual and collective man, in the earthly-“horizontal” [227]. The “vertical” by nature requires struggle, renunciation, suffering, pain and sacrifice; which — since they were, are and shall remain, unpopular pastimes — make great demands of the very best of us. The countering, contrasting, transmutation and subjugation of egoism and (forced) communism, by and for some real achievement of philadelphic relations, in America, Russia, or elsewhere, shall depend, essentially, on the willed inner life of men and women of Man, as individuals, and as members of the human community. [228]