Resposible, thoughtful dropping out

Ziolkowski writes in his preface to the 1989 edition of The Glass Bead Game that the book is about leaving the ivory tower and taking up one’s duties with respect to his society. Ziolkowski’s being in favor of such a solution is very commendable for an academic; if not exactly unusual: academics often worry about being cut off from the world, and therefore irrelevant.

But his premise that

The Glass Bead Game makes it clear that Hesse advocates thoughtful commitment over self-indulgent solipsism, responsible action over mindless revolt

seems a little far fetched; perhaps an instance of the writer being carried away by his own rhetorical flourish. After all, it’s hard to see anything in the book as a matter of a mindless revolt; one should probably say that the Glass Bead Game represents rather a thoughtful retirement from the world.

But then – does it? The Glass Bead Game is a society with its own (pretty strict) rules. If joining this society represents some kind of dropping out from the society at large, it certainly is not a case of dropping out of society per se. One simply exchanges his duties with respect to the broader society for those with respect to the smaller one. There is no similarity at all between the Glass Bead Players and the Egyptian anchorites – mysanthropes dwelling in abandoned tombs in the desert -- the absolute drop outs par excellence.

“Dropping out” was a key word in a certain very important letter which I received from a friend many years ago. In it, he advocated dropping out as a moral duty. (Unsurprisingly, he himself promptly thereafter disappeared). What the friend wrote was: if our actions as a society are damaging to the planet, to our traditional way of living, to our values, to us as individuals, toour ability to attain happiness, then the only decent thing one can do is refuse to participate. It would be difficult to call that solipsism, even if it is, at bottom, self indulgent.