Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia (1514)
Kenneth Clark writes: "In the Middle Ages melancholia meant a simple combination of sloth, boredom and despondency that must have been common in an illiterate society.... This figure is humanity at its most evolved, with wings to carry her upwards. She holds in her hands the compasses, symbols of measurement by which science will conquer the world. Around her are all the emblems of constructive action: a saw, a plane, pincers, scales, a hammer, a melting pot, and two elements in solid geometry, a polyhedron and sphere. Yet all these aids to construction are discarded and she sits there brooding on the futility of human effort. Her obsessive stare reflects some deep psychic disturbance. ...Here, in Dürer's prophetic vision, is one more way in which civilisation can be destroyed, from within." (Civilisation: A Personal View, Harper & Row, 1969, pp. 152, 155.)
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There was a time—it must have been when I was younger—when I was often wrong about global affairs but rarely in doubt. Things were simpler back then. I took a stand opposed to most everything supported by the Republican Party, and took a stand in favor of most everything supported by the Democratic Party.
Now our nation has more guns than people, and our campaign expenditures have no limits. Global issues—from pandemic to immigration, from global warming to ocean pollution—are paralyzing partisan politics, both national and international. I find myself asking "What would Greta do?" I don't understand filibusters or cryptocurrencies. I feel threatened by fear and despair.
Yet I am convinced that the false confidence I once had and today's threat of despair both betray spiritual attitudes appropriate to religious life.
Here I am a Christian indebted to the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
In his Ethics (1677) Spinoza inquires into differences between fear and despair, and into differences between hope and confidence. In both cases, he writes, the differences depend upon the presence or absence of certainty. [Footnote 1]
Spinoza defines confidence as "a positive feeling arising from certainty concerning some desired outcome." Remove the certainty, he writes, and confidence becomes hope.
Despair, he writes, is "a negative feeling arising from certainty concerning some undesired outcome." Remove the certainty, and despair becomes fear.
Spinoza believes that as finite creatures we can never be certain of outcomes. Therefore, confidence and despair—both presupposing certainty—are unrealistic states of mind.
In contrast, hope and fear—both admitting uncertainty—are realistic states of mind.
I take heart from Spinoza's description of hope and fear as realistic, as opposed to unrealistic confidence and despair.
In traditional Christian lists, hope is named as a virtue, but confidence is not. In traditional Christian lists despair is named as a vice, but fear is not.
Celebrating the story of Christ's coming into history, Christians can therefore sing "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight" Hopes and fears are realistic. We can live with them. Not so with presumptuous confidence and existential despair.
In his mid-18th century poem "Eloisa to Abelard,"Alexander Pope describes melancholic despair:
Melancholy sits, and round her throws
A death-like silence and dread repose...."
"Death-like silence and dread repose...." The contagious symptoms of despair are silence and inactivity. It follows that the remedies for despair are speaking out and taking actions. How are we to accomplish this?
A paramount way is by means of our voluntary associations.
The French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and in 1824 and 1840 published a monumental two-volume report he titled Democracy in America. In the United States he was exceptionally struck by what he calls "intellectual and moral associations":
Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations...religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes..., to found hospitals, prisons, and schools.... Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America. ...We have hardly ever seen anything of the kind. [Footnote 2]
In a 2021 fact sheet titled Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the United States, our US State Department echoes de Tocqueville:
NGOs represent virtually every conceivable ideology, political cause, religion, social issue, and interest group.... Indeed, NGOs exist to represent virtually every cause imaginable.
Then this dumbfounding State Department disclosure:
Approximately 1.5 million NGOs operate in the United States. (My emphasis.)
No excuses: we can pick as we wish!
For years I have admired and supported the Friends Committee on National Legislation. FCNL is an NGO composed of two distinct organizations: a lobbying organization and a charitable organization.
Here are FCNL words of self-definition:
We seek a world free of war and the threat of war.
We seek a society with equity and justice for all.
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled.
We seek an earth restored.
The FCNL website offers specific educational and service opportunities in great number and variety:
Census accuracy and inclusivity / Deportations / Discrepancies of wealth / Economic justice / Environment and energy / Gun violence and prevention / Hunger at home and abroad / Immigrants and refugees / Involvement of religious congregations / Justice reform / Letters and visits to Senators and Representatives / Local lobbying / Middle East peace and justice / Native American justice / Nuclear weapons / Shutting down the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility / An annual Lobby Weekend of Advocacy and Action in Washington DC / Threats to our democracy / US poverty alleviation / US militarism and wars / Elections and voting / Youth participation / and more.
FCNL is an NGO that particularly impresses me. Other citizens will of course choose differently. But none of us can complain of a lack of options.
So, Melancholy! Lift your scowling face from your fist. Put to use the instruments of knowledge that surround you. Keep hope alive by joining NGOs where members make donations, share hopes and fears, speak out, and take actions.
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Postscript: Professor James Luther Adams (1901–1994), one of the preeminent Christian social ethicists of the 20th century, took pleasure in quoting Christ's words in Matthew 7:16 and 20: "You will know them by their fruits." Then he would parody with a twinkle: "You will know them by their groups."
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Footnote 1. Ethics, Part II, Prop. XLIX, Note. Ethics, Part III, Prop. XVIII, Note II. Ethics, Props. XIV–XV, Explanation.
Footnote 2. Democracy in America, Volume 2, Section 2, Chapter 5.
