 
                         20051119.00

     The question is simply stated: Does suffering make a
better person?  For the drill sergeant, the  answer is
obvious: A better soldier is a better person.  Basic training
makes a better soldier.  Basic training causes suffering.
Therefore suffering makes you a better person, q.e.d.

     To the rest of us, the answer, to the extent that it may
be found at all, requires many words.  An obvious point of
departure, eschewing the drill sergeant's definition, is to
ask: a) What is a better person?  b) What is suffering?

     The question, "What is a better person?"  may be
addressed in at least three perspectives.  Most obvious,
though perhaps in our culture not the most immediate, is the
religious one: A better person is (s)he who does justly,
loves mercy and who walks humbly with her (his) god. (Micah
6:8) Or (in the New Testament) a better person is he, she who
imitates the Good Samaritan in doing good works (Catholic) or
who is "saved" by "faith" (Protestant).  The question may
then be rephrased: Will suffering make you Good Samaritan?
Possibly, I'm not sure.  Will suffering save you?  Make it
more likely that you will be saved?  Increase the statistical
probability of your being saved?  Is suffering, to indulge in
the most modern parlance, a risk factor for your being saved?
or for that matter, is suffering a risk factor for your being
able to walk humbly with your god?  (whatever that means).
Probably under some circumstances; again I wouldn't make a
dogmatic assertion.

     The answer that may be gleaned from the Book of Job is
ambiguous.  Job was "a good person" to begin with.  That is
why he was put to the test.  Job's suffering was
demonstration and corroboration of the circumstance that he
was a "good person."  I read no evidence that his suffering
"made him a better person."  At minimum, the clear inference
is that suffering was not necessary to make a good person of
Job, hence, as Job was everyman, not of anyone else.

     The answer of conventional (Christian) theology if not
unequivocally in the affirmative, at least gives food for
thought.  Saint Paul's observation (Acts 14:22) "that we must
through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God" is
interpreted as by Buechner:

     Wir haben der Schmerzen nicht zu viel,
     wir haben ihrer zu wenig,
     denn durch den Schmerz gehen wir zu Gott ein.

     It is not that our pains are too numerous,
     we haven't enough of them,
     for through pain that we enter into the Kingdom of God.


     I read the Book of Job as anticipating these doctrines,
albeit in a very simple and naive childlike way. Job's
"salvation" which ensues upon his unwavering faith in -
loyalty to - god, is the restoration of his family and
wealth, his rehabilitation in a wholly secular environment.

     Was Job's ultimate happiness the consequence of his
suffering?  If so, did that happiness mean that he had become
a better person?  Is a better person a happier person?  To
what extent is suffering a prerequisite to happiness?  What
is suffering?  Is there a difference between suffering and
unhappiness?  Can one be happy in ones suffering?  Is the
sentiment "Ich bin vergnuegt in meinem Leiden."  (I am merry
in my suffering.)  anything more than a baroque affectation?
Is living in Cockaigne the end of suffering?  Is the denizen
of Cockaigne a better person?  Is the praise of suffering
making a virtue of necessity, of inevitability?

     How is "suffering" to be defined?  Language confuses and
fails us.  Is suffering, in the sense of passion, being
passive, being inactive?  Is suffering synonymous with pain?
Is the measure of suffering the number of root canal
treatments you have experienced without the benefits of
procaine?  Is suffering synonyomus with unhappiness?  Was the
poet lying or teasing when he wrote: Ich bin vernuegt in
meinem Leiden.  Is it possible to be blissful while one is
suffering, or does the blessing only occur when the suffering
has ended?

     What does it mean, to become "a better person"?  What is
a "good person"?  The cultural perspective purports to
describe the definition, implicit or explicit, in the history
of a given society, i.e. a definable group of people.  My
teacher Werner Jaeger's learned treatise, "Paideia, the
Ideals of Greek Culture," is one such attempt.  The trouble
with Jaeger's Paideia is that it subordinates the individual
to society.  Paideia means discipline; and an ultimate form
of discipline is the crucifixion.  The limitation of Jaeger's
work, and indeed of the mentality of his profession is the
absence of irony; the lack of humor; the insistence on the
thesis and the denial of the antithesis.  In general, unless
historical-cultural estimates such as Jaeger's remain
superficial, they become snagged in the profound
contradictions implicit in recorded events, e.g.  the
implicit paradox between the Mosaic denial of god's
definability, and the intricacy and obtrusiveness of Mosaic
prescriptions for the religious life.

     To the extent that the definition of a "good person" or
a "better person" is made by society, there is no more
accessible authority than judicial codes and decisions.  It
is remarkable that in this regard also the laws are not taken
seriously. While one might look to the lawyer for information
concerning the "right thing" to do, no one looks to his
lawyer for instruction concerning the right way to live, or
for advice on how to become a better person.  Alternatively,
one might consider the ubiquitous promotions of the
advertising industry as documentation of the quality of the
life to which a "good person" might aspire.

     I have quaint memories of my senior year at Germantown
Friends School and an English assignment by Harry
Domincovich, our very genial and gifted English teacher, to
compose an essay describing ones view of "the good life."  It
was perhaps a reflection on my protracted exposure to the
relative asceticism of Lutheran orthodoxy, that the idea of
selecting one or another lifestyle as a pattern for ones own
life seemed incongruous to me.  The good life, to my
subconscious, although I could not have expressed it at the
time, was the Nachfolge, the Imitatio Christi.  But I soon
caught on. I remember vaguely my classmates' comic book
fantasies of life on paradisical South Sea islands. I myself
came up with the phrase, ad astra per aspera.  I should
undoubtedly have been taken aback with second thoughts had I
known that I was journeying in the company of all the people
of Kansas.  (ad astra per aspera is the motto of that state,
though more to my taste than the vindictive sic semper
tyrannis of Virginia) I thought I found this sentiment
corroborated in the life of Beethoven, his loneliness, his
deafness and his paroxysms of despair.  My essay, which I
titled "The Suffering of Beethoven", I was subsequently
invited to read as salutatorian at the commencement
ceremonies.  It was only much later that I began to suspect
that the Stoic authors some of whom lived their lives in the
shadow of imperial Rome, might have expressed sentiments
similar to mine.

     I suppose, in a way I was whistling in the dark. When
one is young, it seems natural that ones goal should be ones
prospective productivity and/or creativity, not necessarily
defined by the size of the brokerage accounts on which one
retires at age 65, or by the number of books one has
published, or the number of professional papers, or by the
prizes and accolades and honorary degrees one has
accumulated, or by "ones place in history", or by length of
ones New York Times obituary.  Is suffering helpful to ones
productivity?  It clearly is, I think, provided it is of just
the right amount and not (too) destructive.  A little
disappointment here and there doesn't hurt.

     As one gets older, ones perspective changes.  The grapes
of achievement begin to seem not so sweet; in the end,
perhaps, totally sour.  Then one consoles oneself, naively
and crudely, with the anticipation of endless comfortable
retirement perhaps in close proximity to the Floridian
fountain of youth.  or as Newburgh Hamilton prescribed for
Haendel's Semele

     Endless pleasure, endless love,
     Semele enjoys above!
     On her bosom Jove reclining,
     Useless now his thunder lies;
     To her arms his bolts resigning,
     And his lightning to her eyes.

A feminist's dream come true!

     When one understands that everlasting happiness, at
least on earth, is impossible, ones goal becomes a blissful
death "selig zu sterben".  If you care to consider how a
blissful death is interpreted in our society, take a look at
Five Wishes.

     I think that suffering in one form or another is
unavoidable. The task is to confront it and to deal with it
constructively.  I am suspicious of challenges to seek it for
its own sake.  It helps to accept suffering at all levels. In
early childhood, quite simply, not to be a cry baby. But some
people, like myself, never learn.
                          * * * * *
Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
