It matters just as much
The lack of permanence in the world, at least, is difficult to dispute. There are no counterexamples; this universe itself seems opposed to the notion, given that the laws of thermodynamics seem to guarantee an end state at equilibrium,1 the past unascertainable—true permanence in this world is essentially restricted to unit.
Permanence as a concept is eminently conceivable and deeply attractive; yet no amount of human effort can achieve it. Perhaps it is natural, then, that our literature and mythology so often place it strictly under the purview of the divine, or at least mystical. This is as much true in the Gilgamesh as in classical and Abrahamic mythologies: eternal, permanent life is granted to Utnapishtim and his wife only by the grace of the god Enlil; the secret plant which restores youth is a mystery of the gods; man is allotted death, but life remains in the gods’ own keeping.
Yet in this world, there does not appear to be permanence, even from the gods, so it might follow that there is, ultimately, no meaning in anything—if all will end in time in uniform insignificance anyway.
Still, people do “get up and go about their business”. If there is no meaning, must there not be at least some driving force, some reason to continue?
Some, perhaps, have never truly believed in the fundamental impermanence of the world. Afterlives, after all—particularly those in which one’s lot is determined by judgment of one’s actions in life—are a recurring theme in the world’s mythologies. By introducing an independent measure of meaning, the transience of this life becomes irrelevant: it matters just as much as the next life matters. Whether in a system of reincarnation, as in the dharmic tradition, or of eternal afterlives, as in the Abrahamic tradition, the work of the present life is in anticipation of the life yet to come.
But for the others—even if for no other reason, even if there truly is not meaning to life, people do and will continue for a long time to get up and act. The tyranny of natural selection assures it, because impermanence means, in the end, everyone dies.
Even if impermanence makes everything hold no meaning, action is no less meaningful than inaction, and no action any more or less than any other. So, perhaps, when everyone is dead, some may have left offspring—offspring which, as in any other sustainable self-replicating system, have derived their traits from their parents, and thus have likely inherited some tendency to produce offspring. Once the initial generations have died off, only the offspring remain; those which could not (or would not) reproduce become lost forever to the impermanence of the world.
Thus, even if the amount of meaning is exactly the same, whether or not we act, there should be, in all possible worlds, far fewer people who do go on with their lives than who do not. Since our ability to observe the world is predicated on our presence in it, there is consequently an anthropic bias favouring a world in which most humans actually do get out of bed in the morning.
Still, we all will die. We will have mattered.
Eventually, we will not matter; just as we ourselves cannot achieve permanence, neither can our influence: as time goes on, we are forgotten, and our actions become inconsequential.
But as impermanent as they are, the actions have a persistence without well-defined limit. The effects of self-replication in particular, for example, extend indefinitely and are distinctly inherent to all life: even if they are not meaningful, they at least remain; each individual has been born to a lineage which, in every generation, reproduced.
The sole motive (if it can be called that) life has or needs is its own propagation. Life may not have a meaning, but neither does it need one: most of us will get up in the morning and go about our business anyway.
Some won’t. It matters just as much.
Alternatively the universe could expand quickly enough that equilibrium is never reached, but then the energy density becomes ultimately low enough no structure exists.↩
Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat
While, it is true, “Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat” (“Unhappy (unfortunate) the land that has need of heroes”)1 appears in Bertolt Brecht’s Lebens des Galilei (Life of the Galilei), it is necessary to note that it is, in said play, Galileo Galilei’s rejection of an Andrea Sarti’s “Unglücklich das Land, das keine Helden hat” (“Unhappy (unfortunate) the land that has not any heroes”). Taken together, the implication is that the land in need of heroes is unhappy not for lack of heroes—the absence of heroes is not cause for unhappiness—but for the same reason that heroes are needed.
What, specifically, the term “hero” denotes varies from person to person; but typically, the actions considered heroic are those which correct a situation which is horrific or unpleasant. The need for heroes, then, implies the existence of such an unfortunate situation; that the land in an unhappy situation might possibly be an unhappy land, of course, is, if not tautological, at least not difficult to believe. Broadly speaking, heroes right wrongs; righting wrongs is the common trait which distinguishes the heroes from others of their kind. There is some fuzziness in the case where one makes an attempt and fails—heroic effort does also tend to be considered heroic2; and what is wrong and how it can become right depends on the judge’s sense of morals and ethics (to which we might attribute the individual differences in what actions are considered heroic).
The heroic journey3, I would say, like the hero itself, is defined by conflicts and confrontations. There is, preexisting, a problem. In lengthier works of fiction, it generally a complex problem with many parts, so that there is a sense of continuity and progression in the resolution of the parts; in life, on the contrary, acts of heroism tend to be disconnected, discrete entities, only occasionally involving the same person or people. (Of course, there is variation: episodic works, such as the Lazarillo4, for example, follow the latter model, and, say, long-term, large-scale political schemes often follow the former.)
As something of an aside, the hero’s underlying basis of conflict perhaps contributes to a lack of women as hero(in)es: patriarchal societies tend to associate, not only conflict, but also the resolution to address it and the importance which follows, with the masculine. While I do not recognise a distinction between manners by which the actions of men and women ought to be judged—in principle, I don’t recognise gender as a valid reason to distinguish in general—most societies, both historical and actual, are patriarchal (albeit to varying degrees).
And if, as a society, the qualities of a hero are considered appropriate for man and not for woman, then naturally a hero cannot be a woman: a story with a woman as hero would then be a bad story, a woman with the heroic qualities would be a wrong person, standing against the values of the society, and thus more suitable as villain than hero. Heroism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder: female heroes actually aren’t rare by count; they lack importance and sympathy. If, rather, we recognise the qualities which make the hero to be present in all genders—and reserve judgment—then we can recognise women and men as heroes.
But I consider the emphasis on conflict to be a fundamental problem with heroism in principle. Heroes glorify the conflict, the struggle between an ideal and the contrary situation. If heroes are considered models of virtue, for people to look up to and emulate, then heroes are also a source of implicit beliefs, in ideals and in struggle; and while the former belief, in ideals, is invaluably valuable—it cannot outweigh the latter. The nature of heroism requires the dismal condition as a given. To admire the hero is to assume the dismal and contrary, the unfortunate and unhappy, the unpleasant and horrific; the glory of the hero’s triumph illuminates the wrong as it shines on the righting.
In a better world, heroes would not be necessary; perhaps this unhappy, unfortunate world needs its heroes. But even so, the harm in heroism remains: heroes perpetuate complacency; so long as there are heroes, they bear the responsibility of changing the world for the better. So, to be sure, a world without heroes might fall into despair; but a world with heroes can never shed its despair, either.
I will often translate (or retranslate, as in this case) quotes, titles, and other such fairly conservatively. This may occasionally come out silly, but I dislike information-lossy translation.↩
This sentiment might be exclusive to cultures which value effort as much as or more than success; one can imagine that a culture which does not emphasize effort as much might simply consider the attempt a failure.↩
I don’t subscribe to Campbell’s monomyth pattern, as I find it rather ethnocentric yet so broad as to hold little meaning.↩
Full: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (The life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of his fortunes and adversities).↩
I am not a cat.
I have a name. I’ve quite a good idea where I was born.
(n.b. This is an allusion to 吾輩は猫である (I am a Cat). The blog’s title refers to The Cat in the Hat. This has apparently been unclear.)