Let me sketch out the meaning of “world-historical.” It is more capacious than “great.” Virginia Woolf is widely-regarded as a great writer, perhaps even as a great person, certainly a great woman. But is she world-historical? Greatness can also be attributed to Vincent van Gogh, as a painter, person and man; but is he of world-historical importance? Mohandas Gandhi is world-historical. His life represents enormous achievement. His actions exemplified enlightened self-interest, if not (at times) altruism, and he intended larger aims throughout–independence, compassion, truthfulness, self-reliance, justice. Are Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. world-historical? Arguably. When we move from political activism or philanthropy to art or thought, it seems harder to be inclusive. What about Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance? While he was one of the most penetrating, gifted and relentless philosophers ever to have lived, it is not clear that he is world-historical. Michelangelo, yes. He was a superb architect, as well as a painter and sculptor without peer. That would be enough, but he happened also to write brilliant sonnets and defy papal authority. Leonardo da Vinci? Yes. Beethoven; but Mozart or Bach? Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Freud. Chomsky?

It is provocative to look at borderline cases: Sartre. Russell. Einstein. Hitler.

In literature, certain figures are evidently world-historical: Shakespeare, Dante. Not Chaucer. Not even Montaigne. Perhaps not Joyce or Proust–it may be too early to tell.

What about a person like Marshall McLuhan? Or Linus Pauling? Alfred Nobel? Robert Oppenheimer?

Homeric heroes wished for greatness, to be remembered throughout history, to attain spiritual, if not bodily, immortality. They wished for historical resonance within their culture. But in the nineteenth century, in a philosopher and historian of Hegel’s erudition and scope, the world becomes the stage on which human events are played out–the backdrop is no longer just the culture that one belongs to. History had, by Hegel’s time, claimed the planet, absorbing–inscribing, colonizing–all the present-day continents of the globe; hence the term “world-historical.”

Is being “world-historical” the same as being influential? Not quite, perhaps. The events of Columbus’ life had a vast influence that we still feel today, but is he personally a world-historical figure? No. We think of Copernicus and Kepler in the same way. Galileo was a near miss and if he had not recanted but accepted torture and death, he would be near the level of a Socrates. Being world-historical can be murder.

What about Picasso? Great, possibly a genius, but world-historical? Neither Mussolini nor Franco is, but surely Stalin and probably Mao. Being “world-historical” is not the same as being “beneficial on a large scale.”  Nevertheless, not Lenin, but definitely Marx and Darwin.

Walter Kaufmann has used the word “paradigmatic” to speak of certain human beings who have profoundly extended the parameters of what it means to be human. Possibly a list of paradigmatic individuals overlaps with that of world-historical persons. To the names above would have to be added the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mohammed. But not Lao Tsu or Zarathustra, not having quite the scale of influence of the previous four. Surely there is no larger category than being world-historical or paradigmatic, and these terms must be reserved for almost radically singular accomplishment. Indeed, paradoxically, the only thing these individuals may have in common is extreme uniqueness.

If we categorized based on world-historical benevolence and destructiveness, we would invite further controversy. The argument would be based even more transparently and vulnerably on personal values. For example, the Buddha might be at the head of my list; but Jesus yours. Then we would have to discuss the consequences of the religions that formed around them. It might be hard to find an event under Buddhism that matches the bloodiness of the Crusades or the Inquisition. To take another case, historians have argued whether Stalin or Hitler was the more cruel and influential leader. What about ranking Mohammed and Confucius: which one has brought about more good? Muslims may argue the case more fervently than Chinese; but is passionate, sometimes militant, faith worth more than a harmonious, but at times painfully well-ordered, society? Then, what about Michelangelo compared to Leonardo? The former may be the most extraordinary artist who ever lived, but the latter embodied the phrase “Renaissance man” like no other human being, and was visionary in both art and science. The serenity of his character was also a striking contrast to Michelangelo’s hot-headedness. Yet one could, from another angle, refer to Leonardo’s ineffectual sophistication and Michelangelo’s raw authenticity. In the end, I may have to give preference to the bastard son from Vinci: his far-reaching contributions in numerous fields surpass even the work of the supreme artist. Even as I write this, though, I pause: what about the Sistine Chapel frescoes, the Pièta, the David? It may be more fruitful to discuss than to decide.

Considering lesser figures is surely as rewarding as debating larger ones, as long as the match is fairly even. Russell versus Sartre. Einstein versus Newton. King versus Mandela. What results is an exploration of ethics and “self-actualization” (Abraham Maslow’s term). At stake is the personal question, “How best shall I live?” as well as the even harder question, “How best should human beings live?” Along the way, we may gain an understanding of the expressive power and moral stature of which human beings are capable; and be inspired by the scope of human dignity.

Does the absence of meaning have to do with–among many other things–living in a rented suite, in a one-bedroom apartment, and not living with anyone–a roommate, family member, or lover? I can’t remember feeling this sense of wasted action while living at my parents’ house. There was always social and cultural significance there. In my late teens, I became agnostic, so then there was no metaphysical horizon of significance–at my parents’ house or anywhere. However, at present, since accepting spirituality seven years ago, I’m used to living with the possibility both of there being a God and there not being one, so now there is possible metaphysical resonance to every action–and possibly only a physical dimension.

As with believing in God, living with family members or a partner provides the sense of a witness to one’s life. A sibling or lover observes what one is doing and sometimes comments on it. “Why do you put that there?” a sister might ask. A partner may say, “I love the way you fold your T-shirts.” In a similar manner, fiction allows us to witness others’ lives–and so observe our own as if we were living in a fiction. Novels and stories give significance to these details of our lives–including the smallest actions. Stories let us believe they are important.

To come at the opening questions a different way: What is it about rented space that sucks significance from certain actions especially? Perhaps it is the transience of renting, which becomes a metaphor for the transience of life. In rented space we are reminded of mortality. Living in a high-rise, I also think of earthquakes more often than I did when I lived in a house, which felt safer because closer to the ground: another reason for the feeling of mortality, passage through time, relative insignificance. Then there is the boxiness of a typical 1970s one-bedroom apartment. There is only one adjoining room (not counting kitchen and bathroom, both of which are small and functional).

How would rented space signify (resonate or vibrate) differently in a more social context, with family members or with a lover? Many people live alone these days and television becomes a way of filling their spaces with meaning, which is generated by the other humans onscreen, particularly the sounds they produce, which then resound through the viewer’s living space, making him feel less isolated. A pet has a similar role. Its being and randomness help fill the space. As well, the pet depends on you: an indoor cat would die without its owner providing food, so the owner has ultimate, godlike (if you like, metaphysical) significance for that animal. With TV and pets, there is another consciousness to distract one; the possibility of escape and relief from one’s own actions; the resonance of another consciousness in relation to which one’s behaviour acquires significance. Those people’s lives on TV have meaning, therefore mine does too–a techno-Cartesian logic: they act, therefore I am. The cat needs me–my actions give meaning to both of our lives. Taking off one set of clothes and putting on another (in the process of settling in for the night) is part of the movement from outside space to inner that involves getting comfortable. These actions can be perceived as self-indulgent, not necessary, and are witnessed only by me, therefore perhaps short of meaning. Other indoor actions are either communicative (talking on the phone, reading, listening to music) or functional (preparing food, taking a shower). Changing clothes is neither a functional necessity nor communicative. And in my case, changing (as it’s poignantly called) involves a slowness, neatness, silence and seeming arbitrariness that those other behaviours don’t involve. There is a ritual to this transition, but it seems a ritual drained of meaning because unobserved by anyone but me. Also, there is more of a technique or structure to the other activities I mentioned: this is the way one showers; the way one prepares food; the way one talks to this friend; the way one reads.

Finally, there is something about my particular bedroom that takes meaning away. Perhaps because nothing is on the walls. I haven’t been able to give more cultural meaning to my bedroom by putting things on the wall for any length of time, and it feels like sacred, but also empty, space. That literal blankness of the walls leaves cultural meaning out, but also provides a sanctum, a vacuum in which to leave ordinary life. But perhaps what I want, being in my bedroom, is precisely a reminder of ordinary life–mundane, familiar significance and comfort. Perhaps sparsity, austerity and an aura of holy nothingness is too high a price to pay for peace of mind. It provides calm but dissolves culture and meaning. Artifacts, decoration, can give meaning to the space without another living consciousness inhabiting it. But what are those artifacts to be? By choosing none, perhaps I overvalue, oversignify, the bedroom space. Yet just choosing any would be an act of disrespect against myself. Do I want stimulating images in a place of rest? It’s a fine line. The process of choosing, of deliberating on how to decorate and visually signify my bedroom–the place where I change–continues. So does my understanding of the process of changing itself. Gradually, in the weeks since writing this piece, re-reading and revising it, more conscious now of whenever I’m changing for the night, this process has acquired a value it never had. Perhaps this articulation of the feelings involved in changing has been part of a ritual of witnessing that I needed in order to appreciate the action–one way I could revalue it alone (without acquiring a roommate): literally by coming to terms with it.  Perhaps.

Seeing a new translation remaindered at my neighborhood Book Warehouse, I picked up (the freshly entitled) The Way by Swann’s with exquisite excitement.  Would I this time, finally, penetrate through to the Proust I have not been able to find for fifteen years, the Proust of the first encounter?  So far, again, the quest has been fruitless.  Perhaps it is because we vitally cherish the memory of the best of a novel that we are frustrated when it presents itself with greater banality than we remembered it ever having.  We recall most vividly the thrill of the peaks of the work, but have forgotten laboring over many foothills to get there.  It is like a past romance for which we have tremendous affection and nostalgia; we forget that the feeling we have for the whole is made up of its essence, a condensation of days, perhaps weeks and months, of forgettable mundanity, without which, however, that distillation could not have been formed. 

Over the years, I have sought to return to that lost way by numerous paths: the first page of the book; the first page of the second section, of this section’s second part, of the third section; and by dipping into passages according to the brief descriptions (with their accompanying page numbers) provided in the editors’ “Synopsis” (or quasi-index).  Nothing–or almost nothing: occasionally a faint whiff of that fragrance, of past–but not entirely lost–time.

It was the same with my attempt to reread To the Lighthouse.  Certainly I have my favorite section of that novel (Part One, Section Eleven), which I return to periodically, enraptured, astonished, bewildered, inspired.  But that’s all I have.  Starting from the beginning of the novel has repeatedly led to dead-ends.

So I grieve this lost Proust: the unique extreme of pleasure, delight, awe, satisfaction, mental extension and spiritual liberation that came from the first reading.  It may never return; I have to accept that.  All I have now are shards, when once I had the whole stained-glass window.  Still I try and will keep trying.  Because even to glimpse those colours is to expand being.

The perspective in the film moves from the human scale of Alexandria in 391 A.D. to the planetary, literally the universal.  The effect is to enable us to see how ridiculous and egotistical we are.  There is only one Earth.  Let us try to understand it as a whole.  Let us not force a pure and perfect idea–my God or yours; the supposed absolute ideality of the circle–on the real movements of bodies in space; let us not impose unities where there are none.  In this film, more clearly than any other I have seen, it becomes apparent how man’s interpretation of the Other–God or gods, the mysteries of the universe–serve individual men, which is to say, individual egos.  It is not God or love, truth or justice that is being served.  These are, after all, inventions of the human mind.  If we posit an Other to the Universe, what shall it be?  How can we know it?  And does it not contradict the very idea of a Uni Verse–One Song?  How can there be an Other to what is?  Surely, it is not. 

Various belief-systems have acknowledged Otherness, mystery, wonder in a plurality of gods–we call such belief “pantheism”: there is a god of rivers, of oceans, of trees.  Each animal is a spirit.  Every thing is alive.  Twentieth-century science–the currently dominant secular knowledge-seeking paradigm on the planet–has asserted the presence of energy in atoms.  Every thing is composed of atoms.  If we equate aliveness with energy, all matter is then alive.  That is a big “if” for a lot of people.  How can you say I am alive in the same sense that a table is alive?  We share certain qualities–namely that we are both composed of atoms, which have protons, neutrons, electrons, orbitals, valences.  Through most of human history, we have emphasized our differences from various others–slaves, women, people of other races and religions, animals, plants, material objects.  It is time to see that on the microscopic and macroscopic levels, there is an exceptional degree of unity.  It is time to soften our hearts and relax our insistence that our beliefs are the best ones–even for ourselves!  ”Agora” helps us see that this openness–to questioning, to believing in philosophy, while it may lead to tragedy or catastrophe–is the noblest, most dignified way that a human can choose to conduct her life.

There are scenes in the movie that are very disturbing for their brutality and very moving for their poignancy.  Sometimes these are the same scenes because the period was rich with a syncretism that speaks immediately to us.  There was the inheritance of ancient Greek astronomy and philosophy, as well as its pagan gods; the power of Roman authority (and its fascinating and dumbfounding later concession to Christianity); the force of the Judaic presence and tradition; and the rise of Christianity, a religion that appealed to human weakness–individual fallibility and a projected saviour’s capacity to forgive any wrongdoing, resulting in the possibility of being born again in this life, and then again of achieving eternal bliss after this merely sensual existence, this “vale of tears.”   Evidently, a tempting proposition.  All these epistemic systems are present in the world today–ancient Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish–and more.  What is no longer present is the library of Alexandria–destroyed by Christian fervour, which extinguished with stunning instantaneity the knowledge of hundreds of years, the work of some of the most gifted and educated minds that the species has ever produced.  It is no wonder that Friedrich Nietzsche felt such contempt for Christianity, which he described as the religion of the weak.   There was only one Christian, Nietzsche maintained, and he died on the cross.  Christianity did start as a religion of the poor and the ignorant.  It has, however, produced incredibly beautiful art in its two-thousand year history; unfortunately, this art–with the notable exception of cathedrals–would likely have been created without the religion.  Michelangelo would still have sculpted; Bach would still have composed.  And there would have been much less blood shed.  All of the western religions have blood on their hands, of course; I do not mean to indict Christianity alone.  Would we have been better off without the western religions–or religions altogether?  That I cannot say.   Perhaps.  It is like asking if we would be better off without countries.  Clearly both structures, religions and nation-states, have served the human hunger for power and hierarchy.  Our species, being what it is, has needed these structures until this point in our history.  But now, I believe, it is time to recognize a more fundamental unity: on the biological (including the genetic), chemical and physical levels, clearly we humans are mind-bogglingly similar.  We are also overwhelmingly similar to plants and animals.  We have posited our differences from–and superiority to–these beings in order to dominate them with a clear conscience, but we go on fooling ourselves at grave and ultimate risk to our own species, as well as to all the others that we share this planet with.  It is time for us to act and to intend while keeping an understanding of this fundamental unity of all beings, of all things, in mind (as well as in heart, spirit, and body) in all the choices that we make.

But what are the limitations of such a spirit?  One can only speculate at the extent of his solitude and perhaps loneliness–the extent of his alienation from other people–such that he would be willing to dissect and draw so many corpses–be willing to spend so much time alone.

Still, one is grateful and inspired.  I have heard it said that there are Renaissance Men, and then there is Leonardo da Vinci.  We were blessed to have his work in Vancouver.