The Ontological War

The following excerpt from an autobiographical sketch by DH Lawrence is probably my favorite passage of any I have ever read. Lawrence was sometimes described as “maladjusted,” but what this passage actually shows, at least to the ontologically insightful, is that he was sensitive enough to know that human existence is unacceptably wrong and needs to change.

But something is wrong, either with me or with the world, or with both of us. I have gone far and met many people, of all sorts and all conditions, and many whom I have genuinely liked and esteemed.

People, personally, have nearly always been friendly. Of critics we will not speak, they are a different fauna from people. And I have wanted to feel truly friendly with some, at least, of my fellow-men.

Yet I have never quite succeeded. Whether I get on in the world is a question; but I certainly don’t get on very well with the world. And whether I am a worldly success or not I really don’t know. But I feel, somehow, not much of a human success.

By which I mean that I don’t feel there is any very cordial or fundamental contact between me and society, or me and other people. There is a breach….

It is since coming back from America that I ask myself seriously: Why is there so little contact between myself and the people whom I know? Why has the contact no vital meaning?

And if I write the question down, and try to write the answer down, it is because I feel it is a question that troubles many men.

(“Autobiographical Sketch,” Assorted Articles in Phoenix II (1978: Penguin Books))

Lawrence thought the root problem was the class system that existed in England, but the problem is actually our alienation from who we truly are, which results in our also being alienated from each other and from the natural world (reality).

Several ontological insights and socialself misconceptions immediately come to mind while reading Lawrence’s thoughts about himself, his relationships with others, and the life in his time. In the future, I’ll have posts on most of these subjects.

• Our alienation should “trouble many men,” but, sadly, it doesn’t.
• “But something is wrong”: this represents a beginning awareness of true life, and not an acknowledgement of mental illness.
• Worldly success for Lawrence, as for all increasing realself people, is having realself-to-realself relationships and living realself life in the realself world. Living one’s life as a socialself will never be acceptable.
• No “cordial or fundamental contact”: by this, Lawrence meant that he had no realself-to-realself relationships, since for him socialself-to-socialself relationships didn’t count.
• “… if I write the question down, and try to write the answer down, it is because I feel it is a question that troubles many men”: with this observation Lawrence moves to the top of the list of real, adult, thoughtful men–it doesn’t get much better than this.
• Lawrence’s problem was not, as some believe, his failure to adjust, but his deeper awareness of alienated life and his rejection of it. (He did fail to adapt to socialself life, but that life is alienated and so adjusting to it can never be normal, healthy, or right.)
• This passage has examples of both good alienation and bad alienation.
• This passage is definitely one of the more noticeable places (i.e., “degrees of being” or “ontological states”) where psychology and psychiatry clearly end and realself being and realself life begin.
• Most people fail ontologically, give up, and then fool themselves into believing that socialself-to-socialself relationships are vital and fundamental contact. What these relationships actually amount to, though, is just an adding on of more and more layers of alienation, to the extent where one completely forgets that one is alienated because one has completely put out of one’s mind who and what one is alienated from: one’s own realself, the realself in others, and the realself world.
• Why is there so “little contact” and “no vital meaning”? Those questions are one of the reasons for this blog.

* See this Glossary page for the meanings of terms such as “ontological,” “ontological states,” “increasing realself person,” “realself life,” and “socialself-to-socialself”.