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PARTISAN REVIEW
perdi tion, we can, by embracing this line of thought, take one more step
towards the truth of our condition in venerating the loved one in this way
(even if previous ages have not been entirely unaware of this truth). Hence
the human race has, in this scheme, the ability to create the infinite using
the finite, the absolute using the relative, the eternal using the transitory–
to transform the chance event of an encounter into something that
becomes a life's necessity. This is why we do not lie when we declare that
"I shall always love you," even though most of the time this prediction
proves false; these words are the manifestation of our will to see the
absolute, expressed within the framework of our gray existence.
But is the loved one, the unique and irreplaceable one, sufficient for us
in all circumstances? This may reasonably be doubted. The irreducibleness
of the individual, and of love, may illuminate the private world, but they
are of scant service in the public sphere, the political world, a sphere whose
values cannot be reduced exclusively to those of human rights. Hannah
Arendt asserts that in ancient Greek culture "whoever had only a private
life ... was not entirely human." The cornerstone of political life, though,
is neither love nor the individual (from a political standpoint, individuals
are not unique, but become equivalent and interchangeable), but rather the
common good. Is this then a new absolute value, comparable
to
that of the
individual-and therefore its rival? In the past it was possible to believe in
an absolute political good, but the result was always disastrous. OUf ideal is
not a perfect world, but only a better one. We refuse to impose a uniform
notion of the good on everyone, though we can still agree on what con–
stitutes its opposite, and strive to attenuate that. We are aware that a society
is made up of divergent forces, and hence that the search for the common
good involves cooperation and compromise, coalitions and concessions. In
other words, poli tical life in a democracy, in practice, knows only relative
values. This distinguishes it from private life, which is dominated by an
absolute: the irreducible human individual.
Rousseau, that tragic thinker of modernity, well understood that "the
more one increases his attachments, the more he multiplies his pains"
(Emile,
V.). What, then, is to be done? Certain sages have believed them–
selves to have discovered remedies for this solution. The Stoics recommend
avoidance of excessive attachments, and that we seek enrichment within
ourselves. Augustine, at the death of his closest friend, did not yet know
God's love; after discovering it, he writes: "Miserable is every soul fettered
by the love of perishable things-he is torn in pieces when he loses them."
(Corifessiol1s,
IV. 6) Only the love of God is proof against suffering, for God
is inw10rtal and infallible. But is it not too high a price to pay to renounce
worldly love in order to protect oneself against the unhappiness that awaits
us? Dido, in the
Aeneid,
undergoes unbearable suffering at the departure of
