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A dyed-in-the-wool positivist is a tiresome adversary; as tiresome as and perhaps more disagreeable than a dyed-in-the-wool materialist, because unlike the latter he will never oppose something head-on. The Viennese are subtle. A divine breath, ruah, a logical positivist will say, of course, of course, let’s agree to denote it “R,” could you set up a practical demonstration? How would you set about showing it? The entity, the equation, the proof. And psychoanalysis (Popper versus Freud?) cannot be refuted and therefore does not belong to scientific knowledge. Ite missa est, to the positivist.

You may, if you like, the positivist would say, deal in metaphorical reconstructions. Man, at a certain stage, needs metaphors and legends. Matter itself was a necessary myth to put an end to God.

We work, the positivist would say, in a nonlegendary circle; a circle of claims that can be attested and refuted.

However many things—and however much of what matters—lie outside this circle. This circle, which will expand and consolidate its empire (there are many discoveries yet to be made about hormones, about neurotransmitters). But one thing remains inviolate in the expanding sphere of the natural sciences, which has to do with the kingdom of the intersubjective. Friendship, affection, love (this was your last objection and it is the only one that I accept). Love definitively articulated by Plato in unforgettable phrases. Love that one can generalize as liking, which would allow one to include the sincere astonishment that seized Schopenhauer, that honest philosopher, when he found himself in the presence of phenomena that contradicted his theories, an astonishment he sets down in his book: “It is surprising to see these people run to greet each other, though they have never met, just as though they were old friends.”*

This will probably not lead to a theory of the rights of man but may shed some light on the strange phenomenon of which I have an experimental knowledge, as a novelist, which is that people who are complete atheists and who are therefore convinced of their complete ontological solitude, of their absolute, irremediable mortality, still go on believing in love, or at least behave as though they believe.

And go on believing in moral law and go on behaving according to its tenets.

Dostoyevsky’s “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted,” though a priori convincing, proves experimentally to be false.

All in all, modern phenomena (since God is not long dead) but unquestionably interesting—and maybe it means revisiting Kant. Or studying a little sociology. At this point, I confess, I don’t know any more.

That’s the good thing about letters, when you don’t know any more, you pass the hot potato. It’s a sort of three-card monte for two.

*BCBG, an acronym of “bon chic, bon genre,” refers to well-heeled middle-class ethics and aesthetics; it is equivalent to the American “preppy.”

†Fabrice Hadjadj (born 1971) is a French writer and philosopher, who was raised Jewish, became an atheist, and later converted to Catholicism.

*Lines from the poem “La Mort des Pauvres,” in Les Fleurs du Mal.

*Ernest Renan (1823–1892) was a French philosopher and writer, best known for historical works on early Christianity.

*The full quote, from Schopenhauer’s Counsels and Maxims: Our Relation to Others, reads, “It is really quite curious to see how two such men, especially if they are morally and intellectually of an inferior type, will recognize each other at first sight; with what zeal they will strive to become intimate; how affably and cheerily they will run to greet each other, just as though they were old friends.”

April 17, 2008

That’s rich.

Apparently, you actually understood that I have what you call “faith.”

Dear Michel, not at all.

Of course, that’s not what it’s about.

It clearly can’t come down to that for me either.

In order to clear up the misunderstanding, I will also have to go back to my early years, first readings, first turmoils, primal family and school scenes, A to Z, all of which,