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Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Afterlife, American History, Bixby Letter, founding fathers, friendship, John Adams, Kazuo Ishiguro, loss, Mortality, mourning, Noam Chomsky, personal letter, Ravelstein, Saul Bellow, Thomas Jefferson
Monticello, November 13, 1818.
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding.
Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.
Th. Jefferson
__________
Thomas Jefferson’s letter to his friend and political rival John Adams, upon hearing that Adams’s wife Abigail had died. You can find it along with more the best letters in American history in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence.
I finished graduate school at Georgetown a week and a half ago, and have now found myself, for the second time in a year, living in my childhood home, as a graduate, idling away a brief but ambiguous stretch of days before moving on to the “next stage” of life. Twelve months ago, I had just finished four undergraduate years at the University of Virginia, and had lugged home a bag of dirty clothes to wash and suitcase of books to read.
One of those books is Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein, which I inhaled last July and have since picked up off the shelf and re-read in the past week. The novel (Bellow’s final book, published when he was eighty-five) is a roman à clef and thinly disguised paean to his friend and colleague Allan Bloom. Bellow speaks through the narrator, Chick, as he recounts his long friendship and final months with the renowned academic Abe Ravelstein (re: Bloom) as well as the erotic and intellectual conversations they rehearse as the undercurrent of impending mortality slowly submerges their long-developing friendship. Bellow gives voice to these anxieties with a quivering, careful solemnity that I haven’t encountered elsewhere. His text simultaneously affirms Martin Amis’s claim that Ravelstein is a masterpiece without analogue, while flouting Kazuo Ishiguro’s suggestion that no great novels are written by writers who have matured beyond the class of quinquagenarian.
Bellow’s voice is inflected with the ambiguities and uncertainties of one who is aware of his limited earthly future yet wary of traditional immortality narratives. Chick defers to Ravelstein’s afterlife-agnosticism for much of the book, until its final scenes, wherein the two old pals are overwhelmed by a sensation that Ravelstein’s deathbed is not — and perhaps cannot — be their final meeting place. This impulse is rendered and pondered beautifully by Bellow:
“I wonder if anyone believes the grave is all there is… This is the involuntary and normal, the secret, esoteric, confidence of the man of flesh and blood. The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.”
By the tone of his letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, who was an absolutely determined skeptic for his entire adult life, seems to have embraced some loose version of Bellowian death-survival. The body decays, Jefferson certainly knew that, but as it is eventually cast off, does the spark of consciousness continue to flicker elsewhere? Jefferson may not have really thought that — he may have merely been bowing to the grief of his good friend — or perhaps, like Bellow, he didn’t just want to believe it, he had to.
As a side note: Last summer, in the throes of obsession with Ravelstein, I sent the above quotation to Noam Chomsky, to which I attached the question, “So Bellow intuited that life may go on after death — can you sympathize with, or make sense of, such a view?”
Chomsky’s response was typical in its sobering candor: “Bellow is clearly wrong in saying we all believe it. I can sympathize with a young mother who hopes fervently to see her dying child in heaven, but not with someone like Bellow who chooses the same illusions.”
I didn’t push Chomsky to amend his answer in light of Bellow’s crucial use of the word “involuntary,” though I perhaps should have (or may even in the future). The whole point of the quote — and the related speculation about Jefferson’s view of the afterlife — is to suggest that there is something reflexive, something automatic about the human belief in immortality.
Finally, returning to Jefferson’s letter: does anyone know if his apposition of “loved and lost” in this context inspired Abraham Lincoln’s use of those same two words in his famous Bixby Letter?
Carl said:
In our “mind of minds,” how could we believe in any afterlife for our physical consciousness? I think we lie to ourselves and others too easily
The idea of immortality, especially that with mind toward “heaven” or “hell,” is insanity, but it is useful in convincing us, despite all of the evidence, that this life is important. It’s interesting when you read Christ’s words on the topic, it seems clear that he was referring in form of parable to our lives right here on earth. Man has made a mess of that either to achieve power over other men or to relieve the natural despair of the hopelessness of our earthly existence.
Having said that, I had to put one of my dogs down a couple weeks ago, and I had no choice but to believe in a heaven for dogs because otherwise, I seemingly would not have survived the grief of his leaving us.
Also, it seems clear to me that our “soul” might survive to a varying extent based on how we’ve influenced those who survive us. It’s been 22 years, but my mother’s soul is still with me, and I’m sure I passed some of that on to others. I’m not sure how much that happens with animals amongst themselves, but I feel as though I carry remnants of dogs that have been a part of my life
jrbenjamin said:
These issues are incredibly tender ones, and I shudder at trying to refute your points, but I feel I must at least raise questions about them.
First, I would think “physical consciousness” to be a contradiction in terms. Consciousness may survive, but it obviously would do so in a non-physical form. It’s clear that our physical, corporeal forms disintegrate and return to dust; what is unclear is whether consciousness itself is dependent on that physical system.
Second, I’m not so sure that a belief in the afterlife would make one value life on earth more. It seems just as plausible — and in fact even more likely — that if I were to have a firm belief that this life were merely a prelude to another, then I would not value it so much as I would if I thought it to be my only go around.
I encourage you to read Sam Harris’s short exposition on this question here: (https://jrbenjamin.com/2012/10/26/if-were-going-to-waste-our-time-like-that/)
Third, interesting take on Jesus’s words on this topic. What chapters and verses are you specifically referring to? My understanding is that Jewish narratives of the afterlife are quite vague and more centered on this life; Christ, it seems to me, was more intent on telling people that the afterlife is real and in another realm (“My kingdom is not of this world”; “My Father’s house has many rooms”; “…treasures in heaven…”) And Paul echoed this (“No eye has seen, no ear has heard…”)
Fourth, I understand the grief at losing a dog. I had to put my old dog down several years ago, and it was an emotionally wrenching experience that I still look back on. Still, I don’t delude myself into believing there is a heaven for him. Neither do I say he is just rotting in the ground.
Wouldn’t you agree that humility and intellectual honesty would compel you to accept the unsettling fact that we just don’t know what happens to conscious creatures — especially those we love and even perhaps ourselves — once they die? I don’t know where my dog “is” now, because I can’t know where he “is” now.
Finally, I like that conception of soul that you describe: the love we give to others and the sharing we do with them.
Thank you very much for reading and for your insightful comments. I wish you the best.
Carl said:
My comment was not well done. You are right that these are tender issues, and while we may feel comfortable in certain inner beliefs, no one knows about any of this stuff, and I did not intend to come across as if I know.
With physical consciousness, I was implying, as is indicated with concepts of heaven and hell, of an entity that is aware of itself being contained in a certain environment, and being conscious of its former life as the cause of this certain condition, or at least being conscious of its history in some way. And with some thought, this second entity is eternal. Without that, we’re talking more about reincarnation or transformation of energy as opposed to an afterlife.
I’m not sure it’s too controversial to say that much of religion, whether Christian or other, has been created to comfort people and in some respects to control people, and the evidence of human design is obviously clear in most religions.
At a certain age, when the possibilities of great achievements have all but disappeared, I think that is when most people need the motivation found in preparing oneself for the entrance exam for the afterlife. Without that, how would we go through the normal drudgery of everyday life knowing that it is all for naught and we’ll end in dust? But what also seems evident to me, it’s the survivors who need the idea of an afterlife more than the person who is headed for the end.
Having said that I really don’t have much of a clue about this stuff so should probably refrain from commenting. 🙂
Carl said:
Also, I love the stuff from Sam Harris. It seems that the older you get, the more concerned you get with how you spend your time and your energy. I try to think about how I spend my time every day, but I don’t do well at it. Partly what he refers to is that for most of us, it’s the relationships we have with friends and family that matter most if not entirely, which makes things terrible for an isolationist like myself who nevertheless loves the people in his life.
jjhiii24 said:
Regarding these “tender issues,” (what a lovely phrase to describe them) it is very reassuring to me to read such a civil and gracious exchange on what are clearly potentially contentious subjects. If only more people would approach these ideas with such grace and diplomacy!
I was delighted to notice your attention to my writing on consciousness, and spent nearly an hour perusing the selections here. I’m obviously going to have to spend more time reviewing your blog, but in this case, I feel strongly that I might be able to help clarify the issues surrounding our “mind-of-minds,” and the nature of consciousness as it relates to life and death and what occurs in between.
There are many sources these days for anyone interested in learning more about the fundamental aspects of consciousness, and an equal number of advocates and skeptics for every variation of theory being proposed by any number of theorists, but what is most satisfying about all of it, is precisely the point you made, i.e., “we just don’t know what happens.” All we can really do, is contemplate, investigate, and extrapolate based on the most current wisdom.
To acknowledge that we don’t have the answer, is the beginning of wisdom.
Thanks so much for your kind attention and I look forward to further conversations about all this.
Regards….John H.
sheafferhistorian said:
Considering all the loss (at a young age) Jefferson endured, people underestimate his capacity for feeling.
jrbenjamin said:
I agree with your psychological assessment. That he could empathize with such clarity is the amazing thing. The loss of his wife Martha certainly had a massive impact on his emotional life, to the point that he was nearly driven to suicide. So he had lived through the school of affliction his fair share.
deborahbrasket said:
I’m very skeptical of what “Science” knows about anything at this point, but especially of what it knows about the mind and consciousness and the thing that sages through the ages have referred to as “soul” or “spirit.” That individual consciousness would just disappear when life leaves the body seems almost more fantastical than if it should continue in some form.
Look at what happens when we turn out the lights at night–consciousness continues to spin out a type of “reality” at least to the one “awake” in the dream, seemingly conscious and aware of himself and others and a world around him. This waking dream we all seem to be part of seems no more real at times than the one I left when the alarm when off.
And when we look at the “new science” and quantum physics, it appears we know less about how this world is fabricated than we had thought, but what it does seem to indicate is that consciousness plays a much larger role in reality than mere physical particles (if the two can be separated!).
I guess all this rambling goes to say I think when it comes to facing our eventual deaths, scientists can tell us nothing of importance, but the great shock of contemplating a blank slate in place of continuing consciousness may be such an affront to reason that it kick-starts a higher sense of perception or intuition, where the continuation of a person’s spirit or soul, or even that of a dog, does not seem so unreasonable after all. Hence Jefferson’s and Bellow’s musings on death.
Carl said:
I appreciate your musings, and I agree that the more we know, the more mystery there is. I don’t think anyone can know, but some of us desperately want some evidence for fear of making up these pathways merely for convenience of our psyche.
deborahbrasket said:
I can relate to that.
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