In recent years we have seen a strong reactionary trend, in almost every aspect of our cultural lives, including religion. Along with that has come an increase in interest in a religious consciousness which relies on wish-fulfillment rather than any sort of consistent world view. It is a response, I think, to fear of possible meaninglessness. Modern thought has called into question the answers of the past without putting something really useful to human beings in their place. The religions that describe the way to salvation as the path of unquestioning faith are the only ones gaining significantly in membership, while all the others which try to deal with modern scientific thought in any way other than to reject it, are losing ground or at least clinging to mere stability, looking behind them to find a soft place to fall. The discovery that the earth is a small place, after all, in the vastness of the universe, that human beings are merely the latest stage in an evolutionary process, and that their actions are often clearly outside of any divine control has raised unanswerable questions of human purpose in the universe, and with those questions raised also the fear of slipping into nihilism which is always present for those who look seriously and carefully at problems of meaning.
The great success of those who create havens from thought with simplistic or authoritarian answers is probably caused by the fact that we have come so close to nihilism in modern thought, and nihilism is one of the most fearful things there can be. There is something within us that insists that we must have more reason for being than simply that we evolved. If there is none, why should we not agree with the dragon in Grendel that the only thing worth doing is to "get gold and sit on it." The issue of meaning vs. nihilism must be addressed by serious thinkers, but the fear of it is so great that it is seldom confronted fully. Only the Existentialists of all philosophers have really looked it in the face. They embraced meaninglessness and came out the other side bearing meaning as a pearl of great price. Ultimately, they say, life has no inherent meaning, but we can make meaning for ourselves, and that is what we must do. The alternative is suicide, or it might as well be.
Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre have become basic texts for modern theologians - Kierkegaard for the conservatives with his essentially conservative "leap of faith", and Camus and Sartre for the more liberal. I wonder sometimes, though, whether the liberal leap of faith, the pearl of great price, meaning, is not merely a pragmatic response to the fear of nihilism. Because we cannot bear the notion that our life has no purpose, we pragmatically choose to say, "Though life has no meaning, by my living intentionally, passionately, in search of the highest, I give it - I assign it - meaning." On what grounds? Simply because we cannot bear it otherwise? Why is it so unbearable to us to say that we live because we were born and we will die when our time comes because all living things do?
Some of us, of course, do say precisely that: that religious speculation and the search for meaning aren't worth the candle. We say it, but we don't live that way. We may simply assume meaning without worrying about it, or we may have given up the search, considering it rather sophomoric to keep looking for something that we know we won't find. Nevertheless, very few of us live as if life really has no meaning at all. Without meaning and purpose, there is no point in achievement, in ethical considerations, or in anything at all except getting what pleasure we can today, as tomorrow we may die. Yet we behave as if our lives - as if all life - was important. We choose to live uprightly, as if it matters. Why is it necessary to assign life meaning; why is it unbearable without it; why live as if it were meaningful? In effect, why bother?
Until the existentialists came along, philosophies and religions wrestled with the question of life's meaning, but they had no doubt that purpose and meaning existed. They just weren't sure what it was. Religions, of course, generally assigned it to God. God knew why human beings existed, having created them, and it was up to them to fulfill whatever purpose God had in doing it. Philosophies had a little more trouble, because whether or not they took some kind of divine element into account, their focus was to explain the purpose rather than to celebrate it or submit to it.
It's interesting that no matter how else they differed, nearly every philosophy came up with the same answer. Since the conquest of the western world by the Christian faith, it was required that one assume God. Modern thought, relying on certain findings of science, has freed philosophy from that assumption, and in certain ways it has returned to some of the speculations of the time of Plato, in the golden age of Greek philosophy, and his descendents. One of those schools was called the Cynics. The word cynic which we use today to describe one who finds only base motivations and flawed morality, who believes in nothing and jeers at everything comes from that school. They've gotten a bum rap. They denied anything supernatural, but like all the other philosophical schools, they did believe in something and it was the same thing the others believed in and that religions believe in - the one thing that the definition of cynic today denies them - they believed in virtue. They were probably the first humanists, as we define humanism, and they had much in common with modern atheistic existentialism. At the same time that they flourished other schools taught other reasons for the same conclusion. Epicureans taught that virtue was the highest pleasure; Stoics taught that virtue was the proper response to suffering; Cynics that virtue was simply the human response, the human purpose in a non-supernatural universe. The purpose and meaning of human life is virtue. To the existentialists, as well, virtue is the response to meaninglessness.
The discussion that the poor monster Grendel has with the dragon in John Gardner's book Grendel , the story of Beowulf from the monster's point of view, shows how the modern idea of cynicism deals with the same issues. The dragon is the ultimate cynic, as we now define cynicism, for he believes that even virtue is pointless. He is a perfect example of Oscar Wilde's definition, one who knows the worth of everything and the value of nothing. To do good is no better and no worse than to do evil. He advises Grendel to seek out gold and sit on it, but his own treasure has only worth to him without value, because he himself does nothing with it but sit on it. Why should he do anything else? Whatever is done is equally pointless.
Grendel is the innocent, the one who needs to believe that there is a reason for things being as they are, and that a good one. He keeps asking why, the ultimate religious question. He has listened to the shaper, the Dane's harper singing myths and legends which he wants to believe, even the ones about him which he knows from his own experience are not true. He wants to believe that some intelligence created both him and the Danes and that there is some ultimate purpose in their conflict.
The dragon has an interesting point of view for a cynic and nihilist. He believes that strength, wisdom and power can be developed; he believes that people, even violent Grendel, can do good. He does not deny that virtue exists. He just doesn't see any point to it. It doesn't matter to him, to Grendel, or to the Danes whether they develop or are destroyed. Ultimately they will be gone with hardly a ripple in the fabric of the universe, and that too will end at last. The dragon sees the future as well as the past and the present and knows that in the end there is nothing.
The dragon gives Grendel a couple of options. He can be a force for good by continuing to terrorize the Danes, and in their need to overcome him enabling them to grow and change and become greater than they were, giving them the pain and suffering that they need to work against in order to define themselves. Or he can devote himself to good works, try to change the world, attempt to alter the future. Equally pointless. Better to seek gold and sit on it as he does, though that is pointless too.
Poor Grendel. He asks the dragon for meaning, and is told that the assignment of meaning is a lie. He can no longer believe the harper, no matter how much he wants to. He, like others, cannot bear meaninglessness, and his response is anger and a reign of terror against the Danes in his hopelessness and loss of faith.
According to ancient myth it's always dangerous to take treasure from a dragon. Though it is of no real value to them, as they refuse to use it, they know each bit of it by heart. Should the smallest coin be missing they will know. They have no need to follow, however, because it exercises a hold on the thief. Dragon's treasure leads to dragonish thought, to avarice, to despair. The one who takes it must return for more. Grendel did not physically return, but he never escaped. He took only conversation, but that conversation held him in thrall.
The most famous Beowulf scholar is not famous for that scholarship but for the works of fantasy which fruited from those seeds. J.R.R. Tolkien also wrote about a dragon and its treasure. The dragon, Smaug, appears in his first book of fantasy, The Hobbit, which he wrote many years before he wrote the trilogy which became a cult idol, The Lord of the Rings. Smaug, like the dragon in Grendel was wise and clever and evil, and had amassed a great treasure. His visitor was Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, who stole a golden cup. It, too, held him in thrall, and when the hoard was opened he stole again, this time the most valuable bit of treasure there, the Arkenstone of Thrain, a precious stone whose intrinsic value was as great as all of the rest of the treasure combined, and whose value to his companions the dwarves was much greater because of its religious significance. The hobbit, however, was stronger than Grendel. He voluntarily gave up his treasure in order to do great good, to turn enemies into allies, though he could merely have turned away and retained more wealth than he could ever have used.
I began this morning by saying that Existentialism, although it has become the basis for most modern philosophical and religious thought that is not tied to fantasy or authority, does not give sufficient grounds for the meaning that it assigns to life - that only its pragmatic need for meaning keeps it from descending into nihilism. Yet I believe that there is evidence for such transcendent meaning, existent beyond our need for it, and Bilbo's adventure is a symbol for me of that evidence. The Arkenstone was worth more than anyone could have paid for it, he owed the others nothing, and yet he overcame his greed and gave it up for the greater good.
That, of course, is not only fiction but fantasy, but there have been examples of such sacrifice in real life. People even give their lives to save others, they sacrifice fortune and honor for causes that they think are right. Pragmatically, it makes little sense for Bilbo to have done as he did, but it often makes little personal sense to do the right things - as we understand what is right - and yet we keep trying to do them. Quite often rather than virtue being its own reward there is no reward at all, yet the upright life is a goal we often strive to attain. Small children, even if they have no other moral opinions, have a strong sense of justice. Though they will seldom draw your attention to it except when things seem to be working in their disfavor, it's there, and an appeal to justice on a concrete level is a primary moral control.
Neither Grendel nor we can honestly refute the truth of what the dragon said to him. The universe is as it is: beautiful and hideous, cruel and kind. the wind is neither tempered to the shorn lamb nor chilled for the one still wrapped in wool. The evil are punished as often as the good are rewarded, and we have about a 50-50 chance of either, except when human beings take a hand. Yet we continue to try, and we value what we perceive as virtue. It is, as the Existentialists argue, that striving to serve our highest ideals which creates meaning. Yet, I don't entirely believe that meaning is nonexistent without our creation. Meaninglessness is also a human creation, the consequence of fear and greed and of the self-love which denies justice to others.
Why should we continue to struggle for the good? There is no guarantee that we will gain it, but we don't give up, which is how we succeed where Grendel failed. Camus's image was that of the myth of Sisyphus, where Sisyphus continues throughout eternity to roll a huge rock up a hill, only to have it roll back again. It is the struggle, however hopeless, to overcome evil and suffering and to create goodness that gives meaning to the universe and to life. It is more than that without assigned meaning we cannot bear our lives. The meaning is inherent in the universe and in us, though paradoxically, it is our actions that create it for us. We may fail, but unless we fail utterly, we will continue with Sisyphus in the uphill climb, and even in the inevitable fall we will find the meaning that is there.