On Reading The Feast of the Goat
This book is one of the most powerful expositions of power and its ways to grace the world of literature. It remedies one of the greatest lacunae of history - the ability to feel and honestly discard objectivity as and when humanity demands it.
Reading The Feast of the Goat, 2000, gave me a sense of déjà vu, for the last very many years of my life is spent understanding power. Throughout my journey, I indeed meet many souls consumed with the desire for power. Even I can’t claim that I am entirely unperturbed by its trappings. Just that I am unsure to commit myself to that enterprise. It is tiring, testing and potentially robs one of his/her own agency. Unsurprisingly, it is something that I utterly despise. Not just that I am devoted to freedom, but my understanding of power tells me that it cannot be won without first sacrificing a set of things I hold dear - unabashed freedom, ruthless self expression (along with a free inquiry into self and its unmet needs) and a genuine contempt for hierarchies that are built into human interactions. But this article is not about my lack of merit in the pursuit for power. Rather, it exemplifies my predilection towards documenting power.
And oh boy, The Feast of the Goat is a wonderful opportunity to see a master at work! It addresses one big lacunae of history - that it should be objective. As a votary of science, I have nothing against objectivity. But, I maintain that so called “objective inquiry” is not the only way towards truth. In fact, it can actively undermine the pursuit for truth if one is to pursue it strictly with an aim of establishing truth via evidence. Now, my words can be greatly misread, but this is a risk worth taking. To understand this, we should take a step back and look at the nature of Truth.
Truth is almost always seen as a “value” or “attribute” to a certain object - which could be a statement or a feeling or an experience - necessarily tied to how humans perceive their existence. But that alone is not the utility of Truth. Truth is a resource too. Its utility doesn’t exhaust when we have conclusively established something as true or false. That exercise merely sets a transient value over truth. From there, truth assumes a pedagogical character. This truth teaches us as to what is the right way to do something. On top of that, it teaches us the cost of doing things wrongly. It acts as a compass that takes our shared humanity towards a better shore. In a nutshell, truth can ameliorate the human condition.
If that is how we understand truth, we start to see the lacunae of objectivity in establishing truth. From this vantage point, truth is no longer a value that need to be assigned. This shouldn’t be confused with the inherent and intrinsic value of truth. I don’t object to that; rather, we are seeking to expand the meaning of truth. Given the immense value of truth to humanity, it only helps to expand its horizons. That truth will improve our material conditions is a promise that holds true even when we try to extend it to designing and running a polity.
Truth, or rather the quest for it is a mirror that polities hold to themselves. It is an inescapable consequence of existence. No matter how far you run, truth will always keep up with you. This is not a metaphysical offshoot to our argument, rather it is the material core of the polities that we see around us. Those who administer shall know the truth - the reality. Without truth, it is impossible to govern; and even the nastiest tyrant would seek it for the simple reason that without truth, he/she shall drift rudderless to the oblivion. And if they have won the power after so much struggle, they are keenly aware of the avenues that squander power. And hence, information is the currency through which power operates. And what defines the value of information? It’s the proximity to the truth! They need truth to sustain their systems of power - which includes, but not limited to, their government.
All these are common place knowledge of course; but what most sane people miss is how powerful is the desire of morons to corrupt truth. This is not because tyrants hate truth; rather they are enticed by it. Still, they are forced to corrupt the truth of others because they cannot govern forever, without seeking to control truth. But forever, demands that the engine of government is intimately tied to the truth of the moment. To the detriment of the tyrant, it is only a matter of time before this truth escapes his/her system and wreaks havoc over the imagination of the larger populace.
Again, it is important to understand how the corruption of a truth by the tyrant hastens his downfall. Cementing control demands that he shall work towards maximizing government; and in the process he can’t avoid the immediate consequence of touching more and more of his subjects. And as the touch points expands, there is a demand for more government from those of his constituents who stands to benefit from the “rule”. They may be an intransigent minority, but they continue to thrive as the dictatorship grows. Here. again the growth of the system only demands that the heart of the government moves closer to the truth, or it risks collapse or being captured by a rival force. This generates more demand for truth, that the government seeks to address through directed inquiries, which it believes that it can control. Call it Glasnost or whatever else, a dictatorial system that is around for long enough develops a fascination for truth and openness and a large portion of its subjects starts seeking truth as a means to solve their otherwise material problems. Even when the elites and their sponsor (oh yes, they are almost extinct - to be replaced by hybrid elites who seek legitimacy through populist demagogues), are terrified of truth, the system as a whole evolves towards a mode that promotes truth seeking behavior.
The perceived corruption of truth creates a suffocating vacuum, which in turn foment more and more inquiries. This, ultimately brings ruin to the dictators. Merely knowing this prognosis can save no dictator. And history brings testimony to that. They are destined to act on their insecurities, believing that more truth will let their intellectual faculties solve a difficult sociopoliticoeconomical problem, only to find that truth only hastens their demise - and it will never aid their scheme for tyranny. Simply because tyranny demands conditions that negate the existence of truth.
How can you conjure up the orgies of violence without falsehoods? How can you convince a human being to oppress other without making him believe in stuff antithetical to the truth? Violence can come only come from a place where truth is invisible. And that is the contradiction of dictatorships - a system that so maniacally chase truth can only be sustained by an annihilation of truth. That is a condition that none of the manmade systems of governance can address!
But all these contraindications towards a successful dictatorship surfaces only when the system has seen sufficient amount of rote. A smart state machinery, led by an autocratic oligarchy could still find ways to postpone the inevitable. Unlike the grand visions of an autocrat, these systems are surprisingly adept at keeping the gains of their kleptocracies - the reason being their opportune willingness to reject truth. Kleptocracies are seldom brought down by openness. It requires parallel systems that match them in tact and deceit - a vanguard party; Trotskian Red Army; or a khaki clad perpetually complaining lot. They all looks at themselves as revolutionaries for a reason. They are ready to compromise with the truth. It is only when they are tainted by the machinations of power that they learn about the virtues of truth and are consequently hypnotized by the quest for it. Almost always, the revolutionaries meet the oligarchs at the battlefield. Their success is entirely dependent on the amount of tact and deceit that they can orchestrate against the compulsion for seeking truth.
I would like to juxtapose these systems against the dictator of Marques, Llosa and Fuentes, because I strongly believe that the inheritors of their tinpot dictators are truly worthy successors to the long lists of various categories of tyrants from our shared past. The fantasies of these tyrants sought to control the very nature of truth because of their extremely smart personas, and not because they were wanton idiots. I love reading them for this very reason. And the purpose of this essay is to stray away from history and seek truth from various planes that couldn’t be bothered to get tied with the exacting requirements of objectivity. It is common knowledge that truth (or rather the lack of it) shares a tenuous relationship with politics.
Demanding objectivity when talking about great abusers of power and our shared social milieu is almost a crime for this very reason. This is not to justify lying about them, for that will defeat our objectives too. Rather, this is a clear proclamation that to get to the truth of such people, we will have to abandon objectivity in favor of humanity and the pressing necessity to audit every statement against the highest rigors of history. History is sometimes too important to be left to historians, for we carry the histories within our present selves.
So it is only fair that a writer sets out to exposing the private lives of dictators and icons with a sense of stupendous curiosity. What drives them is a desire to bent whatever literature that is handed over to them - grammar, spelling, formats - whatever it is - to paint a terrifying mental picture of the dictator in question. And that is the sheer joy of reading them.
I am sharing the list of books I am presently reading towards this end.