The difference of indifference
Mihnea Tanasescu

Is indifference a valid attitude to have or are we already too immersed into our own selves to accept such a suggestion? Or, if the question was not heretical enough, is indifference a valid human ecological perspective? I assume the orthodox mind will violently react to such a question and call in its defense an apparently tautological statement: indifference doesn't make a difference. Hence, it is not valid as a perspective that seeks to integrate itself with the world and understand its complexities. This sort of reaction bases itself on a powerful social aura surrounding the notion of indifference. In the age of the individual we can no longer allow ourselves to think of such concepts. We are to be engaged in the world, action is our religion, the fetish for movement is a generalized disease that has transformed itself into canon. The notion of indifference is understood as going against movement, as being essentially unproductive and removed. But maybe we haven't allowed ourselves to examine this concept so as to find that indifference does make a difference: it allows for spontaneous difference which our fetish for action tends to fence off. It does in fact engage with the complexities of the world just as much as caring does. The difference lies in the outcome.

Rejecting a narrow view of indifference, can we come to see something else in this attitude besides the 'I just don't care?' In order to do this, we have to look at what indifference presupposes depending on its types. The 'I just don't care' attitude presupposes a certain disengagement from the world in the sense of a removal of consciousness from the objects of the world. I say it is a removal of consciousness because 'a prior lack of care' cannot allow consciousness to actually apprehend the being of things. Fundamentally not caring comes dangerously close to complete alienation. The individual finds itself in the incapacity to feel, precisely because of the severance of consciousness. The act of acting does not even come into question in this particular kind of indifference. The act is something that comes after apperception and feeling. When both these lack, acting becomes alien. There is little doubt that there is little in common between this kind of indifference and human ecology. The presuppositions of such an attitude are too symptomatic of a lack of curiosity and understanding to be human ecological.

Yet there is a different kind of indifference that does not share the same presuppositions, but rather different ones. The main presupposition of this second kind of indifference is the existence of limitationswithin the human possibilities for action. In critically engaging with the world, we realize the infinite complexity of everything that is. We also realize that within this web of complexities, we are but a very little part. From this viewpoint, the enthusiasm of revolutionaries and activists seems silly. It is as if a single leaf on a tree suddenly began to see itself as the center and meaning of the tree, consequently making itself responsible for the tree. In engaging with the world in this fashion, we readily assume a position of caregivers. We embody a motherly archetype when we relate ourselves to the world by making ourselves responsible for it. In becoming caregivers, we also create an imperative for action and betterment. With these two imperatives comes a great feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of responsible being in the world which is symptomatic of the great arrogance of our species. We readily see ourselves as capable of solving problems, rearranging ecosystems and reintroducing species, without realizing that what we are doing is giving expression to our obsessive will to power. We try and make things as we think they should be, without ever being suspicious of our own competence in this area. When it comes to making things better or simply to making things what they should be, nobody is competent. God himself could not accomplish such a task. If we are to dwell a little bit on the impotence of God, we see that the almighty himself is characterized by indifference. From the privileged heavenly viewpoint God can perceive all complexities at once and realize the astonishing dynamic at work within the world. And yet he is indifferent. Much in the same way that the Tao is indifferent. He is indifferent because the role of puppeteer does not honor him, or any one of us for that mater. God fills himself with awareness, but a type of awareness that does not call for immediate action, but rather for further keen observation and sheer enjoyment of the spectacle of life. God's indifference extends beyond action and betterment into morals. God is also morally indifferent, how could he be otherwise? What kind of God would lower himself to the status of moral being?

But what kind of God am I talking about? Certainly not the Christian God; the religious myths of the Christian tradition would contradict every single characteristic that I assign to God. I am talking of a different kind of God, that could be best described by hinting towards the Taoist tradition. It is the spirit that holds everything together, that gives every single thing its suchness. It is a support, not a personified agent that acts in the world according to moral principles of action. As a support, it is indifferent to both morals and action. It conceals itself, it dwells within the primordial emptiness, merely allowing everything to be, not prescribing ways of being. This is the omniscient God that denies omnipotence.

There are various similarities between God's viewpoint and the human ecological perspective. The most striking one is perhaps the ability to comprehend dynamic systems. The human ecological perspective is one that tries to bring together opposing discourses or systems in order to show their compatibility, or at least their possible relations. This, in a sense, is playing God. When we look at the complexities around us and try to grasp them all at once, we are substituting ourselves for the almighty. We are ourselves reaching for the privileged God-like position. But as soon as we set foot within this perspective, we become normative. We do the exact opposite of what is required from a God-like view: we preach and act. We try to convert omniscience into omnipotence, a dangerous step that brings us from a contemplative state into an active one. In trying to grasp everything at once, the human ecological perspective has to make two distinct steps. The first step is the reaching towards omniscience, the desire to hold everything together at once, to comprehend. The second step is where the break with the divine happens, namely in the desire for omnipotence. This second step represents the intrusion of the ego within knowledge. It is an imperative of consciousness that asks for action and care. It is a bringing forth of the ego on the plane of knowledge that makes of the human ecological perspective just another ego-driven perspective. The ego cannot merely observe and let be, by its very nature it has to make its mark, to re-arrange according to its own preferences.

This second kind of indifference takes the ego as its enemy. This indifference is not indifference towards the world, quite the opposite. It is indifference towards the actions of the ego in the world. It bases itself on the limitation of the ego, not of the full person. It doubts the possibility of positive change as long as it all starts with an imperative will to power. This kind of indifference is very close to a mystical approach to the world. The mystic comprehends all too well the complexities of everything and chooses to anchor himself in the moving spirit, letting himself be moved by it. The mystic does not fight for the betterment of his mountain. It is not his mountain. The mountain has a life of its own separate from human beings, a life that is independent of humanity and its ills. The mystic celebrates this independence of things by letting them be, by not giving in to the pressures of the ego.

This kind of approach has become foreign to us in the West. But yet it speaks to us as an approach coming from a deeper part of ourselves. It is a view that arises over and beyond the ego, a view that truly sets humanity in its own place, within nature, as an integral part of it, not as its gardener. In the time of the individual, we each feel a duty to change the world. 'To change the world' has become a commonplace advice, it has entered the repertoire of our speech as a self-evident imperative. Nobody doubts either the possibility or the desirability of such a change. And nobody seems to be suspicious of the origins of such an imperative. The ego does not want to simply change the world, but to re-make the world in its own image. The ego follows the pattern of the traditional creator God and wants to substitute itself for this almighty creator. We each feel that we posses the key to the problems of the world, only to discover that we merely posses an ego that plays a game of Lego with the world. It is as if the world was a giant puzzle and everybody thought that they had the right combination. When in fact I am a piece of the puzzle as much as everything else, I cannot extract myself into a vacuum from which everything can be manipulated. I am an animal in the world and I want to remain an animal in the world. If I can transcend anything at all, I want to transcend my own ego blindness and tap into the spiritual that allows everything to be. The human ecological perspective offers a possible path towards the realization of interconnectedness. It also offers a possibility to see ourselves as part of everything else. Does it have to also allow the ego to re-arrange? Or should it rather retreat into observation and contemplation? I would suggest that the difference that human ecology can make comes with this special kind of indifference we have been discussing. If it chooses to take the normative path, it does not distinguish itself from the myriad of perspectives that compel the ego to action. If it truly wants to live the outcome of its teachings, it will have to retreat, to become ashamed of its own knowledge and of the possibility for action. It will have to become indifferent towards the ego and suggest self-change rather than world-change. Human ecology becomes the perspective of informed indifference, of retreat towards the self coming out of love of the world. There is a choice to be made between ego-love and world-love. It would be ironic for human ecology to take the path of the ego. As an element of difference, it would be better off remaining indifferent.