According to the popular mantra of encouragement, you should just get up again if you have been blown away: It is not the fall that is a shame, but the fact that you stay where you are. Everyone has heard this often before, it is the western world hit of spontaneous self-healing, an exercise through willpower alone. That fits in with the modern praise of resilience, of making something out of it and of constant self-improvement even under adverse circumstances.
But what about those situations in which this is not possible? In which the shock, pain and grief are so great that they exceed human powers? What about a fatal diagnosis, with yourself or with close relatives, with accidents, crimes or other strokes of fate? Only those who cultivate a completely naive view of the world will deny that there are experiences in which a simple return to life before is impossible. What do you say then?
The Canadian historian of ideas Michael Ignatieff found himself in such a situation when he was visiting a friend whose wife had recently passed away. He brought him cake, looked for good words, but the friend was haunted by a thought that he wanted his opinion on: “If only I could be sure to see you again!” Ignatieff was now in a bind, because anyone who, like most of his contemporaries today, no longer believes in heaven and hell, cannot easily assure them. What do you say then? How do you comfort?
Today’s philosophers and coaches no longer want to console, but rather praise and enable happiness and success
Ignatieff found the beginning of an answer when he attended a choir concert in Utrecht at which psalms were sung. These old texts, their language and the music gave him a feeling of security and comfort, he could cry. But what exactly was the consolation? Not in an intellectual sense, but also not in a religious promise, after all, the Psalms have long been part of a universal culture of comfort.
Ignatieff set out to study the discipline of giving consolation. It has been forgotten because today’s philosophers or coaches want to praise happiness and success and make it possible to contribute to the success of life through good advice – and not think about what to say or do when words are missing. But of course that was a central component of human experience for many centuries: Child mortality alone was so great until well into the 20th century that hardly any family, hardly any adult, was spared the immense pain of losing a child.
The Canadian examines all of this, puts it back in his own words, and unfortunately the problems start here: Michael Ignatieff is the Swiss Army Knife among contemporary authors. Until last summer he was president of the Central European University, before that he was a top politician in Canada, a professor at Harvard and a documentary filmmaker for the BBC. He has written novels and non-fiction books, articles and much more. He has a lot to offer, the intellectual and columnist all-rounder with a respectable work, but something is missing.
This book on Consolation also gets a lot right: The important people appear, Ignatieff strives for balance, a humanistic liberalism and always has the very best of intentions – but to be honest, the compendium reads a bit boring. The experiences of suffering and affliction through the centuries are moving, for example the description of the grief of the great Cicero. Even if Ignatieff criticizes the concept of masculinity in ancient Rome with today’s standards – it seems as if this culture and feelings are remote and closed to him.
Michael Ignatieff: About the consolation in dark times. Ullstein, Berlin 2021. 352 pages, 24 euros.
Even when he talks about Michel de Montaigne, he rarely leaves the comfort zone of what everyone already thinks about this author and his work. It cannot be seen that the topic, the philosopher and his “essays” are important to him. There is hardly a spark for readers. One reads chapter after chapter like a manual of occidental consolation, it is like jumping over the surface of rocks lying deep in the water. Without the joy of splashing, but always keeping a close eye on the bank. The message is to remember that even when fate has knocked us down, we are in company, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
The result is a book that is safe to give to people who feel alone in the experience of loss. This tape is used if one does not want any of the usual advisors and does not see grief as a mental health disorder to be treated. Then this compendium may serve as a kind of introduction to Western thought, and you won’t go wrong.