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Czeslaw Milosz
1911–2004
Dissimulation
as
a
form
of
art,
deceit
as
a
way
of
life,
theatrical
artifice
and
‘presentations
of
self’
so
interwoven
with
everyday
thought
and
feeling
that
even
close
friends,
in
private,
could
hardly
tell
what
each
of
them
truly
believed.
This
was
Ketman.
Milosz
had
found
its
description,
he
wrote,
“in
a
book
by
Gobineau
entitled
Religions
and
Philosophies
of
Central
Asia.”
The
author
(a
dangerous
writer,
Milosz
warns
in
passing)
had
spent
many
years
in
Persia
and
discovered
there
the
rules
whereby
those
who
know
the
truth—in
this
case
the
truths
of
Avicenna,
which
had
to
be
concealed
from
vengeful
Shiite
mullahs—manage
to
intellectually
survive
alongside
those
of
great
power,
malice,
and
dogmatic
certainty.
And
this
was
also
exactly
the
strategy
required
for
a
poet,
a
scientist,
a
teacher,
a
philosopher,
to
survive
under
the
power
and
malice
and
dogmatic
certainties
of
communism
in
Poland.
As
Milosz
explained
in
The
Captive
Mind,
all
of
them
became
full-time
actors,
and
good
ones
too:
“after
long
acquaintance
with
his
role,
a
man
grows
into
it
so
closely
that
he
can
no
longer
differentiate
his
true
self
from
the
self
he
simulates,
so
that
even
the
most
intimate
of
individuals
speak
to
each
other
in
Party
slogans.”
(Note:
a
discussion
of
acting
and
social
life,
On the Way to the Pig Festival,
can
be
found
at
Encounter
Essays.)
Ketman
taught
that
“He
who
is
in
possession
of
truth
must
not
expose
his
person,
his
relatives
or
his
reputation
to
the
blindness,
the
folly,
the
perversity
of
those
whom
it
has
pleased
God
to
place
and
maintain
in
error”.
So
one
should
keep
silent
about
one’s
true
convictions
if
possible.
Nevertheless
(writes
Gobineau),
there
are
occasions
when
silence
no
longer
suffices,
when
it
may
pass
as
an
avowal.
Then
one
must
not
hesitate.
Not
only
must
one
deny
one’s
true
opinion,
but
one
is
commanded
to
resort
to
all
ruses
in
order
to
deceive
one’s
adversary.
One
makes
all
the
protestations
of
faith
that
can
please
him,
one
performs
all
the
rites
one
recognizes
to
be
the
most
vain,
one
falsifies
one’s
own
books,
one
exhausts
all
possible
means
of
deceit…
Ketman
fills
the
man
who
practices
it
with
pride.
Thanks
to
it,
a
believer
raises
himself
to
a
permanent
state
of
superiority
over
the
man
he
deceives,
be
he
a
minister
of
state
or
a
powerful
king;
to
him
who
uses
Ketman,
the
other
is
a
miserable
blind
man
whom
one
shuts
off
from
the
true
path
whose
existence
he
does
not
suspect;
while
you,
tattered
and
dying
of
hunger,
trembling
externally
at
the
feet
of
duped
force,
your
eyes
are
filled
with
light,
you
walk
in
brightness
before
your
enemies.
It
is
an
unintelligent
being
that
you
make
sport
of;
it
is
a
dangerous
beast
that
you
disarm.
What
a
wealth
of
pleasures!
Some
think
George
Orwell
provided
the
key
to
understanding
totalitarianism.
But
if
you
want
to
understand
the
mental
contortions
needed
to
adapt
and
survive
under
communism
(or
about
the
lies
and
compromises
required
in
many
PC
humanities
departments
today),
the
poet
and
amateur
psychologist
Czeslaw
Milosz
is
a
subtler
guide.
An
example
of
his
later
work
is
presented
below.
this world
It
appears
that
it
was
all
a
misunderstanding.
What
was
only
a
trial
run
was
taken
seriously.
The
rivers
will
return
to
their
beginnings.
The
wind
will
cease
in
its
turning
about.
Trees
instead
of
budding
will
tend
to
their
oots.
Old
men
will
chase
a
ball,
a
glance
in
the
mirror—
They
are
children
again.
The
dead
will
wake
up,
not
comprehending.
Till
everything
that
happened
has
unhappened.
What
a
relief!
Breathe
freely,
you
who
suffered
much.
November 2004
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