Interview about "Ich Will"

Here's a recent interview I had the pleasure of giving to Niika Nenn from "Wolf on Water Publishing"

NN:    What inspired you to write Ich Will?

I did my Undergraduate degree in philosophy in Romania, at the University of Bucharest. I didn’t have to pay for school, because post-secondary education was still funded by the government. In addition, my parents supported me throughout. This gave me the opportunity to dedicate almost exclusively to studying and not worry too much about anything else. When I came to Canada in 2004, one of the things that shocked me most was youngsters struggling to pay for school. Many were working sordid jobs like McDonald’s to pay for tuition and housing. This made me think: what if I had studied here, instead of Bucharest? And, what if my parents hadn’t had money to support me? I think in this alternative reality I would have been more hateful of the rich and of society in general. This gave rise to Adrian Norton, the main character of “Ich Will”.

Most people, when faced with adversity, try to adapt. They promptly give up on themselves and do what society expects of them. In the case of post-secondary education, students forget about what really interests them and they get a degree in accounting or business, something which sells in “the real world” and gets them a job. But this is because in present day capitalism, education is no longer a good in itself but an instrument for making profit. Universities are administered as corporations. A degree is a good to be bought on the market, and its value is determined by how much money it makes for you in return.

However, while most youngsters are eager to adapt to a rotten system, Adrian decides to stand his ground and stick to his guns. He is strong willed and stubborn. He knows he’s passionate about books and philosophy and doesn’t want to give it up without a fight. I wanted a character with a lot to lose and a strong desire to win at all cost. Like, if a highly talented beautiful girl gets raped, falls into a spiral of depression, and commits suicide, we feel deeply shaken and sad. But if an old comatose female patient gets raped and dies, we don’t know exactly what to feel. Was her death an event? Was her being alive a fact? That’s why I can’t write about ordinary people.

When faced with looming adversity, we also tend to project ourselves into the future. This defense mechanism is made explicit and ironized by Friedrich Nietzsche. It is pervasive in western culture, especially in the Christian illusion of an afterlife. It also invades the way we plan our careers. The average person has no qualms about working a mind-numbing, alienating job for their entire life just to save money for retirement. It doesn’t cross their mind that the last year on the job may also coincide with the first stage of dementia. By the time they go on their long awaited golden age vacation they will have been so flagellated their own shadow would make them faint. Nietzsche’s Myth of the Eternal Return is an antidote to all such cowardly projections of the self. He says that this life, each and every moment of it, will repeat for all eternity. Every day is judgment day. Eternity exists in every detail, every scene, every character. Adrian comes in contact with Nietzsche’s idea and decides to save his soul, his present self. He hears Nietzsche’s wake-up call clearly. He realizes that he is encircled by alien forces bent on ripping him apart and that he has to either fight or self-destruct. He decides to take a stand. As the tension between Adrian and his social environment intensifies, blood begins to spray like from a fountain.

NN: Philosophy is prevalent in the novel. Which philosophers do you find most influenced this work?

Other than Nietzsche, Romanian nihilist philosopher Emil Cioran influenced “Ich Will”. Cioran grew up in Romania but moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his career and wrote in French. Throughout his life Cioran suffered from insomnia and this affliction is a theme of his writing. Basically, he argues that sleep makes life bearable and creates the illusion of meaning. Cioran thought of himself as the only lucid thinker, the only philosopher who can stare into the abyss without blinking. A lover of libraries and brothels, he dedicated himself to challenging God and the entire universe in a most beautiful literary style.

Cioran’s life-long struggle with insomnia reminded me of other mental mechanisms designed by evolution to make life bearable. Three of these are forgetting, repressing, and self-deception. With regards to forgetting, it’s strange how many of us remember adolescence as an idyllic time, but we know, deep down, that back then we were confused and miserable. In effect, I wanted Adrian Norton’s thinking to be like Cioran’s; that is, free from the Maya veil created by adaptive cognitive tools. When something bothers Adrian, for instance, he remembers it vividly. When his mind designs a story meant to hide an ugly truth, he throws away the narrative veil and examines the repulsive truth with a magnifying glass. In consequence, Adrian’s project of redeeming himself in the face of Eternal Recurrence becomes more urgent and dramatic than that of someone with a normal psychology.

NN: What do you think Ich Will has to offer the youth of today?

“Ich Will” is a call to arms, a battle cry. The youth today feel, deep inside, that they are being cheated by a perverse and oppressive social system; that their social environment doesn’t even give them the chance to develop an identity, to form a soul. They don’t have the tools to articulate their problems and express themselves. Among other things, this is because education has become a commodity. Capitalism commodities everything, it’s a grinder that sucks absolute values and turns them into goods for sale on the market. This is a system rooted in our atavistic fear of being free, the unconscious desire to balance this impotence by oppressing others, and a collective primal compulsion towards mass-suicide.

“Ich Will” is a close look at the way capitalist society tries to discipline and domesticate Adrian Norton. It advocates the idea that Adrian is morally justified in resisting systemic violence as a form of self-defence. There’s nothing wrong with fighting violence with violence. On the contrary, it’s strange when being repeatedly disrespected doesn’t give rise to any instinctive response, like in the case of a comatose patient. Then the organism is not healthy. But this sort of passivity is to be expected in a society which mangles and brutalizes its youth. Adrian was lucky enough to escape this spiritual holocaust and attain self-knowledge. He’s prepared to defend what he holds sacred and enact his own justice. In this sense he’s exemplary.

Some of the scenes in “Ich Will” may offend some readers’ moral sense but this is partly because our western society has a hypocritical and narrow perspective on violence. We ostracize physical violence but we turn a blind eye to psychological violence or systemic societal brutality. Let’s say John is a teenager who loves poetry and wants to go to a summer camp for young poets. Charles Bukowsky, his favourite writer, will be there, running poetry workshops. John is so excited about the prospect of learning from his idol Bukowsky that he tells one of his friends, more or less jokingly, “Oh man, I’d give my left arm to go to the poetry camp.” John’s parents, however, don’t let him go because they think that poetry is a waste of time and time is money. The point is: isn’t this act of refusal the same, or even worse, than ripping John’s arm off? But our reaction to John’s parents ripping their kid’s arm out of its socket is much stronger than to them not letting him go to a camp. However, this gut reaction is misleading, the simple product of our evolutionary make-up, since John himself perceives the second act as being more savage.

NN: What are you working on next?

I’m working on a novel with the working title Odin Down South. While the story of “Ich Will” takes place in Canada, Odin Down South happens in Romania of the early ’90s, after the fall of Ceausescu’s communist regime and the invasion of American-style capitalism. It’s about a group of rebellious teenagers who realize that God is dead while discovering the mind-altering effects of hard-liquor and extreme metal imported from the West.

It is commonplace in our culture that adults are judgmental and repulsed by angry teenagers and their erratic behavior. In most documentaries about adolescents there’s some narcotized soccer-mom complaining about her kid playing video games all day and saying “Whatever” when she tries to reach out. Odin Down South is based on a reversed perspective. It is the rebellious teenagers who try to struggle out of the various forms of putrefaction and decay they find around them. It is about their judgment of adulthood. The novel is a metaphysical journey, under the guiding light of primal aggression and disgust, into the rotten core of what we call “being alive”.

For my Legionaries

I'm reading Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's "For my Legionaries (the Iron Guard)". Codreanu's strong personality, moral integrity, mysticism and spirit of sacrifice are mesmerizing. Blinded by decades of communist and then "free-market" capitalist propaganda, many generations of Romanians had only a distorted idea of the leader of the Iron Guard. However, now that his writings are widely available, Romanians and people around the world are free to open their eyes, wash the mud off their faces, bask in the Capitan's spiritual glory and follow into his footsteps up the hidden, steep mountain path. In our age of unfettered, decadent capitalism Codreanu's writings point the way towards a unified, organized resistance and meaningful counterattack. His example, as well as that of other leading Romanian intellectuals like Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, and Nae Ionescu provides a invaluable source of inspiration for everyone who struggles against the capitalist hydra. 

 

Dostoyevsky begot God by repeatedly striking his pen against his temple. God crawled out of the writer's head wound. Then God knew the Holy Spirit and they begot Jesus and his brother, The Captain. Once the Pharisees and Sadducees heard of the new leaders they ordered them killed. Their spirits were already tainted by murders and plunder and they didn't want Jesus and his follower to reveal their corruption and decay. Knowing they are in danger, Jesus and the Captain retreated deep into in the forested Carpathian Mountains and they prayed to a cross made of swords. There they found one of the painted monasteries built by Stefan the Great. They spoke with the saints and angels on the walls, and Archangel Michael himself flew out of the stone to know them better. But, underneath their calm, peaceful voices were bitter screams of pain and agony coming from the stones, and curses and gritting of teeth. Jesus and the Captain knew that Romanian peasants had been buried into those walls by the Pharisees and Sadducees who meant to silence them: wipe them from the face of the earth and burn their memory. The two leaders closed their eyes and prayed. The voices from the walls rose steadily as the saints and angles turned into warriors with painted faces and weapons at the ready. The church itself grew and began pulsating like a woman's ripened womb. Rivulets of blood poured from its foundations, gripping the earth like a red dead hand. Jesus and the Captain followed the blood and its whispers.

        "This is my blood," Jesus said.

        "These are the songs and poems of the stillborns," the Captain added.

     Looking ahead towards the green valley and the mountain crests, Jesus replied: "Let's hope someone will hear the tears of the forgotten saints."

 

Emil Cioran on Corneliu Zelea Codreanu:

"Before Corneliu Codreanu, Romania was but an inhabited Sahara...I had only a few conversations with Corneliu Codreanu. From the first moment I realized that I was talking to a man in a country of human dregs... The Captain was not "smart," the Captain was profound... He didn't want to improve our miserable condition, but rather to introduce the absolute in the daily existence of Romania. Not the revolution of a moment in history, but of history itself. Thus the Legion was not only meant to recreate Romania, but also to redeem its past, to make amends for its secular absence, to recover, through inspired and unique madness, all the time that has been wasted...In a nation of servants, he introduced honor ...In absolute terms, if I had had to choose between Romania and the Captain, I would not have hesitated a second... With the exception of Jesus, no one else has managed to live after death the way he did."

Emil Cioran, The Inner Profile of the Captain, December Issue of Glasul Stramosesc, 1940.  

Flesh Eaters and George Bacovia

I just finished reading Flesh Eaters by Joe Mckinney. It starts with a huge hurricane which causes the flood of the city of Houston and, as if this wasn't bad enough, a virus breaks out, turning the dead into zombies starving for flesh. The story focuses on a family's struggle to get out of the ruined city: Eleanor Norton, a police woman, her husband Jim and their daughter Madison. The scale of the novel is much smaller than Zombie Apocalypse, which covers the whole territory of the United States. But its being small scale makes it better. After all, Joe Mckinney is no Stephen King and The Stand still stands unchallenged. One of the characters I found interesting is Brent Shaw. Captain Mark Shaw is the commander in charge of dealing with the crisis. Brent, one of Mark’s sons, is an alcoholic unable to come to grips with the devastation affecting the city. Paralyzed by the situation, Brent decides to strangle his own consciousness with hard liquor. I think Mckinney does a good job of creating a bleak atmosphere of doom and helplessness. However, he does not escape the cliché of a family struggling through adversity and coming together stronger than ever. In this respect I prefer the nihilism of Brian Keene, whose characters are trapped in hopeless circles of despair and rarely find a way out. After all, the very idea of struggling in such mind-boggling circumstances is quite embarrassing and vulgar. Now that I think about it, struggling in general is quite pathetic. This is partly why I liked Brent Shaw, because he decided to follow the more authentic path of half-assed self-destruction.
The dark atmosphere of the novel combined with the flood and the multitudes of zombies crawling out of ruined buildings remained me of the emptiness and cruel monotonicity of the universe created by the Romanian symbolist poet George Bacovia (1881-1957)

Here are two famous poems which came to my mind:

Lacustrine

So many nights I've heard the rain,
Have heard matter weeping ...
I am alone, my mind is drawn
Towards lacustrine dwellings.

As though I slept on wet boards,
A wave will slap me in the back -
I start from sleep, and it seems
I haven't drawn the bridge from the bank.

A void of history extends,
I find myself in the same times ...
And sense how through so much rain
The heavy timber stilts are tumbling.

So many nights I've heard the rain,
Always starting, always waiting ...
I am alone, my mind is drawn
Towards lacustrine dwellings ...

Final Poem

I must drink, to forget what nobody knows
Hidden in the deep cellar, without saying a word
Alone to smoke there unknown by anyone
Otherwise, it's hard on earth ...

On the street life shouts, and death,
And may the poets weep over their vain poem ...
I know ...
But the terrible hunger is no joke, no dream -
Lead, and storm, waste,
Finis ...
Contemporary history ...
It's time ... all my nerves want you ...
O, come at once, magnificent future.

I must leave, to forget what nobody knows
Upset by bourgeois crimes, without saying a word
Alone to lose myself in the world unknown by anyone
Otherwise, it's hard on earth ...

Zombies' rights?

Should we have moral obligations towards zombies? Intuitively, if a toothless, completely senile old woman with vacant eyes threatens to eat your brains, it's not okay to beat her to a pulp with a baseball bat. But if the same old bag turns into a zombie and attacks you, you're permitted, even encouraged, to beat her or burn her or do whatever you want to her (or it). But it seems that there's no ethical difference between the cases. Let's call the first woman Demented Jane and the second Zombie Jane.

One prominent ethical view, Kantianism, is centered around the ideas of rationality, autonomy and freedom. Ethical norms are justified rationally and understanding them requires the capacity to reason. These norms are meant to direct our will and promote good will. But, without entering into details, we can already see that this view doesn't really apply to our puzzling case.  Neither Demented Jane nor Zombie Jane enjoy conscious cognition. Their minds are rotten, the light of reason forever extinguished. They have neither good will nor bad will, but lack the very capacity to will anything. It would be strange to say that Zombie Jane wills brains; she desires or wants brains in the way an animal wants to eat and reproduce.  

Moreover, the Kantian can't even begin to account for our strong intuition that attacking the old woman is wrong, since she enjoys no autonomy, rationality or freedom. Similarly, it can't explain our sense that we have moral obligations towards non-human animals or the mentally disabled. Since the cultivation of good will is the purpose of ethical norms, these norms can't apply to creatures incapable of good will. 

Another popular ethical view, utilitarianism, links the morality of an action to the amount of pleasure and pain it creates. Roughly, a right action leads to pleasure or happiness and diminishes pain. So, it's not okay to beat up Demented Jane because this leads to pain and suffering, but Zombie Jane doesn't feel pain so it might be okay to beat her up. Plus, Zombie Jane's bite could infect you, which is bad. So, it makes sense to avoid the agony of becoming infected by beating Zombie Jane to death.

However, we can easily describe the example in such a way that these differences disappear. What if Demented Jane is so messed up that she doesn't feel physical pain. Pain, after all, is the result of neurons firing in the brain in a certain pattern. We can easily imagine that Demented Jane's nervous system is so ruined that her pain centers aren't firing in response to physical damage.  In addition, we can imagine that Zombie Jane isn't infectious or that maybe we wear a suit which protects us from the virus. Then still, our persisting intuition is that we shouldn't beat up Demented Jane and we are permitted to mistreat Zombie Jane. 

Someone may object that even if Zombie Jane can't spread the infection, she's still a rotting body. Such decomposition presents health risks in its own right. So maybe keeping Zombie Jane away with a stick and then burning her with a flame thrower is the only prudent thing to do. In response to this critical point we can further change the example. What if Demented Jane starts decomposing? It may be physically impossible that someone is alive and yet decomposing but here we're talking about zombies so such physical constraints are irrelevant. Let's suppose that Demented Jane starts rotting before she actually dies. She maintains some feeble brain activity and some small degree of awareness but her skin turns blue and she begins to bloat and worms crawl out of her mouth when she speaks. I think our reaction in this case would be to put her away in a sealed room rather than destroy her. Similarly, if a group of people present a health risk for us we quarantine them, we don't exterminate them. Why shouldn't we do the same in the case of Zombie Jane?

                                                                                                            

In contrast to Kantianism and utilitarianism, virtue ethicists judge the moral worth of an action by reference to the moral virtues or vices it displays. In our case, caring for Demented Jane may be a sign of virtues like respect or compassion for her as a person.  But we don't have to exercise compassion with respect to zombies because they aren't people. This approach, however, begs the question. Why shouldn't a virtuous person care for both Demented Jane and Zombie Jane? After all, aren't Zombie Jane and Demented Jane the same person? They share the same body. Plus, neither of them shares the memories of Younger Jane. So, demented Jane has no more psychological continuity with Young Jane than Zombie Jane does.

Finally, it might be objected: "But Zombie Jane is dead while demented Jane is still alive. Demented Jane's heart is still beating and she still has some brain activity. But Zombie Jane has neither of those. We have no obligations towards the dead." This is a fair objection, but we can tweak our example so that the intuitions animating it lose their force. Again, we can bracket the laws of nature and imagine that demented Jane's heart stops beating but she still registers some brain activity. Is she alive then? Or, what if she enjoys a moment of lucidly while the electroencephalograph detects no brain activity? She may passionately talk about her past while there are no medical signs of her being alive. After all, these physical criteria for distinguishing the dead from the living are the product of procedural definitions. They are nothing more than conventions used in order to better apply criminal laws. But we don't want our ethics based on such arbitrary conventions.

So, all in all, the issue of zombie rights is connected with a network of other problems about the limits of personhood, what makes us human and the murky distinction between being alive and being dead. While the issue of the moral rights of animals might have seemed crazy at first, now we are more aware and sensitive towards it. Will the same happen to the rights of zombies?