The Globalization of Literature: The Exile of the World-Citizen

Nietzsche once declared the death of God.
Let us today proclaim instead: the death of Man.
 
Perhaps this writing cannot begin without such a proclamation. First let me say: what an impossibly tolerant creature is Man! When he declares his own death sentence, not even the faintest tremor shakes his chest. In truth, the other name for this excessive tolerance is a living hell. A heart with no plan for terrible vengeance. To declare that one is alive—that itself is a sin. From where does this infinite endurance arrive? What helpless resilience! In enduring, enduring, we have all become martyrs.
 
Albert Camus once remarked about martyrs: when we speak of martyrdom, we must remember only three roads lie open before them. One: to be forgotten by mankind. Two: to be mocked in jest. Three: to be devoured and exploited. Therefore, better than becoming a martyr is to rub mustard oil upon one’s nose and fall asleep in peace.
 
But who imparted this supreme wisdom to us? Ah, how fertile was that great intellect who once declared: life is only one—time as such does not exist. Every time is present time, and every human being is kin. For the truly wise, the imaginary boundaries of nation-states are nothing. The whole world is but a single undivided state. In that sense, the true homeland of the learned.
 
In the author’s consciousness, this fragile age is marked by three beliefs. The pledge of the honest writer. Perhaps the age of heroes has drifted far to the other shore of desolation. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, Kafka, Jack London, Flaubert—already in their times the tragic death of the “hero” had occurred. The death of life’s single-perspective explanation. In the twentieth century, the age of villains, literature itself longed, while reality brought forth Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Lenin. A new aesthetic language became imperative. Thus arose the surrealism of Salvador Dalí, the cubism of Picasso with its fractured tri-dimensional reality, and the postmodern centrality/marginality of Derrida and Saussure. Thus began the postmodern epoch of art: Derrida–Foucault–Saussure’s canvas of crushed purposelessness.
 
The spiral narrative of life, the spellbound human enslaved by the democratic dictatorships of capitalism, prey to its rapacious desires—it was declared: the state is the market. Man is but the customer. Art is merchandise. The purpose of life is profit. Production the driving force. Institution rose up to assume the role of God. And in this new society, man’s human feelings had no market price. Ethics and morality went into exile. Yes, morality survived—but renamed “corporate ethics.” Its gospel: loot and devour, anyhow, anywhere, by any means. The doctrine of Chaos Theory was enthroned: its mantra, purposelessness and disorder.
 
Literature fell into dire straits. Once it bore a purpose—through precise analysis of society it repeatedly reminded humanity of the signs of justice and morality. It composed the historical documents of its age. But history—so it was realized in the twentieth century—was one-sided. History was the story of kings and their courtiers, not the record of human soil. Not the voice of ordinary people. Literature, however, inscribed the true realities of life—the joys and sorrows of common existence. Thus, in postmodernism, literature and art gained more importance than history. New studies of subaltern classes arose, alongside a reasoned connection between science/technology and literature. Borges’ tales became the sites where world-famous scientists found inspiration for their laboratories.
 
To this was added economics. In the twenty-first century, literature became in large measure dependent upon economics. And this market-bias created within literature a visible division. Many writers became millionaires. Among the billion-dollar earners stands J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter. In other words, the market had entered literature itself. Like every other market, in the market of letters too arose a special demand—for “market writers.” Profit-driven literature gained patronage, and those who were planners of literature-as-sociology became divided into two factions: so-called “market literature” and so-called “true literature.” I use “so-called” because there exists no authentic certificate of proof.
 
The claim is this: globalization of literature has brought about the death of human literature, and in its place has emerged the literature of entertainment. Indeed, at the beginning, the role of art and literature was largely entertainment. Ancient literature was mostly entertainment and religious instruction. But after the Renaissance this character shifted. The difference between Homer’s Iliad, Chaucer’s Beowulf, Voltaire’s Candide, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, and Jack London’s Call of the Wild is not merely temporal—it is the document of literature’s transformation.
 
And so it seems today: has the honest writer been exiled in the age of cinematic literature? That literature which numbs the nerves but cannot awaken them? Thus, in this sense, the exile of the world-citizen. For literature no longer speaks of the citizen’s life; it recounts now the tales of fantasy worlds, much like the Iliad and Odyssey.
 
Yet literature’s values have always retained some pathway. Epochs changed. Human methods of living and purpose transformed. The familiar structures of thought grew ever more complex. Therefore the creation of new values in post-globalization literature became necessary.
 
In the twenty-first century, astrophysicists declared: the entire universe arose from nothing. The great black holes of the cosmos, forming over billions of years, from which billions of stars are born, themselves originate from the void. Thus life arises from matter, and matter itself from emptiness. In a single phrase: from Nothing emerged the world. The aesthetic implication of this: the universe has no past. It is without history. And since black holes and constellations themselves dissolve back into space, the world has no future either. Which means ultimately: our minuscule human civilization has no purpose at all. For that which has neither past nor future—how shall we perceive its destiny? From Nothing it came, and to Nothing it shall return. Therefore life is only existential. The present alone is singular, indivisible.
 
If this scientific truth is taken as inspiration for human creativity, then which path shall modern aesthetics choose? If life has no goal, only present being—what then shall be the purpose of literature and art? Here one recalls Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre confined human existence between two boundaries: birth and death. Individual purpose may vary, but civilization’s aim is confined to existence itself. The humanists called this purpose “welfare”—human welfare.
 
In the twenty-first century this word expanded further. Environmentalists, animal lovers named it welfare of life, more broadly—welfare of the world. Yet interpretations of welfare vary by thinker. Hence there is no unity. Market-lovers pursue the welfare of markets. State-lovers, the welfare of states. Religious devotees, the welfare of religion. Linguists, the welfare of language. Civilization is diverse, therefore these various welfares clash, become rivals to one another.
 
Postmodernist Jean-François Lyotard even declared: in a world of many nations, many species, many religions, many languages, many cultures—there can be no universal welfare. Dictatorship may be harmful to America, yet beneficial to Cuba. Capitalism may be welfare for America, yet harmful for Asia. That is but one example—hundreds more could be offered.
 
In the age of globalization, the ideals and cultures of powerful advanced communities devour the underdeveloped and marginal. And in defense of the ideals of the underdeveloped, no honest writers or artists arise. Because market economy has turned them into mouthpieces of the dominant civilizations. It is not that strong honest writers do not exist—but they incline excessively toward morality, erecting an impregnable armor around themselves to escape the grasp of the market. In their universality they see all humanity as one, without distinctions of race, religion, language. But in today’s circumstances, such vision is impractical. That universality cannot establish inner kinship with the specific struggles of the marginalized.
 
Thus the marginalized, unable to locate their identity within such universalism, withdraw into fundamentalist sectarian perspectives. Here arises the gravest catastrophe—the catastrophe of universal humanity. Away from the commercial groups hostile to the soil’s truth, today’s writers live in exile within narrow territories. Their sincerity for welfare is unflawed—but it is not adequate for the age.
 
Oscar Wilde once remarked: “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.” The market-writer’s sincerity is scant. The honest writer’s sincerity is excessive. Neither is truly needed by society.
 
Three thousand years ago, Gautama Buddha sought the Middle Path. In the twenty-first century too, the only way for the honest writer—the world-citizen—to undertake the vow of welfare is the Middle Path. A path exceedingly difficult. As if midway between secularism and fundamentalism.
 
The final question remains: who will step forth to tie the bell around the cat’s neck? We already know the fate of martyrs. And yet—it is they whom we need the most today.