The Will to Power as a Determinant for the Future of Mankind: David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” (Part 3)
The mirror chapter “Sloosha's
Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After” paints an utmost pessimistic future for mankind:
warfare has decimated most of the world’s population, but destruction will not
simply end there. If history is anything to go by, the cycle of bloodshed and
butchery will continue turning for as long as the earth is still orbiting the
sun. Meronym claims that “fleas ain’t so easy to rid,” referring to humans’
thirst for blood. This claim is proved to be true as we reach the end of the
chapter and travel back in time via the second halves of each of the five
story-lines. The impression the reader gets while doing so is one of a
never-ending cycle. There are instances of déjà vu, of faintly familiar
recollections. The reader has been there
before.
Another aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy,
one related to the will to power, now comes into play: eternal recurrence. This
concept is not unknown to those well-versed in Hindu or Buddhist teachings.
Time is, contrary to Western thinking, not linear but circular. It is also
infinite. This infinity suggests that the universe we think we are the centre
of also recurs infinitely – both across time and space. If the universe does
indeed repeat itself interminably, there are repercussions: all that we do –
loving, hating, warring, talking, writing, politicising, murdering, lying,
exploiting, abusing – will never reach a definitive end. All our actions – in
all kinds of configurations – will replicate themselves over and over and over
– with no possible end in sight.
This is a terrifying idea to
Nietzsche, who labels it “the heaviest weight” mankind can bear. The knowledge
of “eternal recurrence” can have a paralysing effect on Man’s psyche – unless
he embraces it with something called amor
fati, or “love of fate,” which will reconcile him with the impossible
weight (suffering and loss). Nietzsche proclaims in The Gay Science (1882) that he does not “want to wage war against
what is ugly.” He wishes to be a “Yes-sayer” someday to the tragedies of life
(sec. 276). Amor fati is an
acceptance of the crooked and the trying. The sufferer does not only bear the
weight; he learns to love it.
It is with this understanding that
we shall further examine Cloud Atlas.
The novel itself is a chamber of
endless reflections and echoes. Everywhere you turn, you encounter similar
sights and sounds. There is a handful of motifs the reader is constantly reminded
of: the act of writing, the act of reading, the composition called Cloud Atlas Sextet, the appearance of
the comet-shaped birthmark on the protagonists’ bodies (reinforcing the notion
of reincarnation), the mentioning of a past character by a character in the
present, the number six, mortal danger, the will to power – to name but a few.
Somni-451, towards the end of the
first section of her story, introduces the idea of recurrence when relating to
her viewing experience of a “picaresque” (film) entitled The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. She had never seen a
“picaresque” and was thus duly impressed:
Time is what stops
history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears. Film
gives those lost worlds a brief resurrection. Those since-fallen buildings,
those long decayed faces, they engrossed me. We were as you are, they said. The
present doesn’t matter. My fifty minutes in front of the cinema screen with
Hae-Joo were an xercise in happiness. (244)
Although Somni-451 may not be entirely
sensitive to the significance of her words, the reader knows that her happiness
is derived from a new awareness: that the present does not matter and in fact
does not exist. That is because time is circular. The past is the present and
the present is the future. The civilisations that have gone before are not
truly gone; they can be resurrected (a figure of speech – since something that
has never been gone needn’t be resurrected), and their revival will remind us
that they were as we are, that their history is also our own.
The idea of “timelessness” appears
again – this time emphatically so – in the second half of “Half Lives – The
First Luisa Rey Mystery,” in a particularly challenging passage. Isaac Sachs,
one of Seaboard Corporation’s mercenaries, waxes philosophical and writes the
following conundrums in his notebook:
·
The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to
lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power
seeks + is the right to ‘landscape’ the virtual past. (He who pays the historian
calls the tune.)
·
Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future, too. We imagine how
next week, next year or 2225 will shape up – a virtual future, constructed by
wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual
future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse
our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual
future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no
good to anyone.
…
·
One model of time: an infinite matrioshka doll of painted
moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of ‘shells’ (previous
presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual
past. The doll of ‘now’ likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I
call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future. (408-9)
The first proposition presents a
world view that is effortlessly recognisable. Those living in the “present” are
predisposed to shaping the “virtual past” (not
the “actual past”) to their advantage. Their will (to power) legitimises this,
and the “virtual past” is employed to perpetuate the “mythologies” that keep
their world spinning. Power therefore has the “right to ‘landscape’ the virtual
past.” In the world of non-fiction, we have witnessed how despots and dictators
altered history to suit their personal agendas. He who controls history (which
has a direct impact on the “present” for time runs in a circle) controls the
people.
The second proposition is a logical
continuation of the first, postulating that a “virtual future” will be willed
into existence once a “virtual past” has been secured. But this “virtual
future” does not stand alone; it forms a part of the “actual future” and may
have a direct influence on it. What is ironic about this equation is that the
“virtual future,” regardless of its intentions and plans, will be subjugated by
the “actual future,” which will come into being no matter what we have devised
for it. This suggests we cannot mold the future according to our “wishes,
prophecies + daydreams.” It only seems
that we can because we can have no access to the “actual future,” just as we
can have no access to the “actual past.” The key word here is “actual.” Man
cannot deal adequately with anything that is actual because of his inclination
(or power) to (re-)invent.
The third proposition requires a
leap of faith. The past and the future are both referred to as “nests of
presents,” indicating that there is no such thing as the “past” or the
“future.” The “past” is “a nest of previous presents”; the “future” is “a nest
of presents yet to be.” To simplify matters, the present embodies both the past
and the future. This may seem to contradict what Somni-451 says above (“The present doesn’t matter”), but it
does not have to. If the present is the same as the past and the future, it can
be reduced to redundancy. Time is then rendered “timeless,” thus in complete
accord with the proposition that time is circular and repeats itself into
infinity.
Mitchell,
David. Cloud Atlas. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 2004.
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