On the questions and struggles of everyday life and the people who live them. Interview with Jacob Needleman

Q. In the first lines of The Heart of Philosophy you say that everybody is a philosopher. When did you discover that you could be a professional philosopher?

a. When I was in the university I wanted to be a scientist, a doctor. I took courses in science. But I took courses in philosophy too. There, I started reading great philosphers like Plato and Kierkegaard. While I was reading these philosophers, I realized that this was my passion. They were talking about questions that I always was deeply concerned about when I was younger. Big questions about the meaning of life, soul, God. The science I was studying seemed to be just technical. I realized that the reason I was studying science was because I wanted to understand truth, and not just solve equations or produce new inventions. The science that I was being taught did not give enough place to the feeling of wonder. That is what real philosophy touches directly. So I decided to concentrate on philosophy.

Q. What science you were studying ?

a. Genetics.

Q. Going from genetics to philosophy was a drastic change, don’t you think?

a. It should not have been a drastic change. Many people go into science because of the feeling of wonder, not just for practical reasons. There is something inside every human being, some yearning, some wish, some sense of things that one cannot understand. That is why I say we all are philosophers, we all have that striving in us.

Q. Which philosophers have been your teachers, beside Plato, of course?

a. Sören Kierkegaard, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benedict Spinoza, Immanuel Kant.

  Q. And which philosophers from the 1960s up to now?

a. I do not think there are any great philosophers now. Philosophy has tended to become more deconstructionist, more analytical or cynical, more relativistic. In the USA philosophy is becoming very cynical about the possibility of knowing, of really having knowledge of the truth; philosophy is becoming more like a purely academic discipline, not too much touching the sense of man’s universal questions. In Europe, except for Levinas who was a French philosopher who learned from Heidegger, but he also tried to go beyond Heidegger, I must say that there are no great philosophers after Heidegger. The great thinkers now are not strictly speaking philosophers; they come from places that are not exactly philosophy. They speak from within spiritual teachings like Eastern religions or the mystical teachings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I do not think that professional philosophy is very deep at the moment.

Q. Why did you decide to write Money and the Meaning of Life?

a. For many years I studied the different religious teachings of the world. I have come to the conclusion that there is a wisdom that exists, that is common to all the great spiritual teachings, East and West. For years, in all the books I have written, I have been trying to look at what you may call the primordial wisdom which is the root of every great religion, to see how it can throw light on the problems of contemporary people. I am trying to make a bridge between the wisdom of the ages and the problems of the present. I have written books about psychiatry, medicine, science, education. But I realized that one of the biggest problems in everybody’s life is money; everybody is driven crazy by the problem of money. The question was, how can the great wisdom of the past help us face the problem of money. It took me years to write this book. Nobody had ever written about money in this way. I was trying and trying. It took me two years to get even the first sentence.

Q. Was it, as Bertrand Russell says, that you just thought of one thing and let the unconscious do the job?

a. It was not as peaceful as that sounds. Maybe, to some extent, the process was going on in spite of myself. It is like writing a song. I write my books a little bit like some people write music. If I hit the first note, I try to hear what the next note should be, and then go on like that. Some people have the whole thing in mind. I do not; I have a feeling, then, I want to hear the first note, then the second note.

Q. After you write the first sentence, do you go through the whole book in order?

a. First I write a chapter, then another chapter. I have to see what the next note should be and then come to a point where comes a complete line or set of notes. Then I have to stop to listen for the next note.

Q. When you publish a new book, do you feel afraid of not meeting the expectations of people who have already read your previous books?

a. I used to feel that more than I do now. I used to be concerned with people saying, "I like your first book better." It does not bother me any more. I just write the best book I can each time. I try to play the melody, sing and listen to the song the best I can. When you start in the academic world you have to publish in order to get promoted. Years ago, as a young professor, I said, "I do not want to write only for academic people, I do not care what they think." So, I tried to write books that can reach the people, not just professors. I decided to express something to ordinary people. So far, I am very pleased that I am reaching the people.

Q. What about Money and the Meaning of Life?

a. I am surprised and very happy with the way it touches people. Sometimes, when I read my own writing, I think, "Did I write that? That is an interesting book, I would like to read it!"

Q. It seems that you did a nice exercise of remembering your past in Money and the Meaning of Life. Are the episodes real?

a. Absolutely. The Paul Meyer character, my childhood friend, is absolutely true. William Cordell and the woman, Alyssa, are based on true characters; they are real people. The thing with the gold actually happened, but I fictionalized it. [it refers to Needleman’s rejection of half a million dollars that William Cordell offered him.] I like to write a book like a novelist.

Q. The first time you met Bill Cordell you could easily see his life and character "in his face, his posture, his name." What messages did you receive from Cordell’s physical presence to have an immediate knowledge of his personality? Please describe how you discovered the sad little child, Paul Meyer, within Bill Cordell’s self-pity

a. It is hard to say; there is no method; it is not scientific; it is something in the intuition. You feel something in a person in what they irradiate, what they emanate, a kind of quality. I could feel "I know this man, I know his kind of suffering. Sometimes a man who meets a person will feel that he has no weight or has a great deal of weight. Bill Cordell had no presence, he had very little weight. With almost everybody you meet you feel a quality. It is very important to see that when two people meet, immediately something does or does not respond. It is something behind the person. We perceive this by a feeling in our own body. We can have knowledge through feelings. Knowledge is not only in the head but also in the heart. And also you can feel "this person is authentic and this person is not." I realized that money for him was a drug, cutting him off from others, like a person that drinks too much.

 Q. In Money and the Meaning of Life there is a story, the fisherman story, that resembles Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe. Her bad mood was proverbial. Is that a message for married philosophers?

a. Socrates had a wife, a difficult wife apparently, but most people’s wives are difficult at certain moments. Xenophon says that a disciple asked Socrates, "If you are such a great judge of the character of people, how could you have married such a terrible woman." He answered, "I always felt I wanted to have good relationships with people. I married her because I knew if I could have a good relationship with this person, I could have a good relationship with anyone." When a young man asked him if he should get married, Socrates answered, "By all means get married. If you have a good wife you will be happy, but if you have a bad wife you will be a philosopher." I am a professional philosopher, but I have a good wife.

Q. How you work with difficulties in your relationship?

a. It is part of the art of living. Every good love, every good relationship has difficulties; nothing goes easy for us. Money is not easy, to write is not easy . . . to love is not easy. I just published a book about love. It fits to this question. Love may start by being automatic, it happens by itself, it is attraction, pleasure, happiness. But at a certain point love becomes work, you have to struggle.

Q. It is not easy to understand your books Money and the Meaning of Life or On Love if the reader does not have a clear idea of "inner" and "outer" world. What do they mean?

a. There are moments in your life, very painful moments, or very joyful moments, when you feel you are completely there; you are present; you exist, you are conscious, you are aware in yourself. Suddenly, time is different, you are aware of yourself in a very powerful open way. Some people call this a spiritual experience, but it does not have to involve God. There are just moments when you are there. That is a moment of great inner awareness too. In that moment you exist consciously as a human being, with feeling, with sensitivity, with power, with humility, your body is more alive, quiet, more relaxed, your are open to love, to compassion. Some times when someone close to you dies, then you are in grief, but you also are very open to people, you are not petty, you are not irritated. Those are moments when you see we have something inside of us. It is a moment when you can see a real possibility, a real power that is in us. In such moments we are more human, we are closer to what a human being should be. Can we keep that? Could we have that? But there is also the part of us that deals with the world of money, our obligations and actions, that is, the outer world. Those are the two worlds: the inner world, which is world of a new kind of consciousness, and the outer world which is the world of obligations —I have to take care of my family, to take care of my body, to have my pleasures—. But, usually we sacrifice or lose our inner world when we go out. The question is, Can we make a relationship with those two worlds to adjust together? It’s what brings me the meaning of life. Money is the means of organizing life in the outer world. Nowadays, money is the principal means of organizing and structuring the outer world. We have to understand money. That is what Money and the Meaning of Life is about.

 Q. Did you refer to Donald Trump’s story to illustrate how a person dedicates his whole life to the outer world?

a. Donald Trump is the extra-clear example. Most people, most of us, are like that. Our culture, at least in the USA, has no respect for the inner world. People running away from their own inner world do not have any idea about it. I have asked many people who are very successful in business, How much money is enough? They have more money than they can ever spend in a hundred life times. They just look at me and say, "I never thought of it, I do not know, I never asked that question." That is part of the problem.

Q. In Das Kapital, Marx tries to describe the capitalist personality. He says that a capitalist is an attitude, a way of life. Do you agree with Marx?

a. Economics is about people’s well-being. Economics is really foolish when it leaves these things out, when it does not take the whole human being into account. So, philosophy is very foolish if it does not take money and the material world into account. Marx, a very brilliant thinker about the outer world, made a mistake when he stated that the human problem can be corrected by improvements in the outer world. In the long run, the inner world has to change in some way; otherwise, the outer world just moves things around. If the inner world stays the same, it only brings temporary relief.

 Q. How do you relate your idea of power in the inner and outer world with Galbraith’s sources of power: persuasion, organization, physical force, economics (money).

a. Real power is moral power. Somebody can be powerful physically, but he has no power over himself. Somebody can have a lot of money, but he is very weak inside. He is a slave to his desires, fears, ambitions. That is not power to me; real power is inner power. Galbraith talks about outer power; money is a source of outer power. To me, real power is inner power.

Q. What is moral power?

a. Moral power means you are aware of your conscience; in the conscience you know yourself so you can be aware always in your conscience. Your ego does not overpower you. When the ego is powerful, the human being is weak. If vanity is powerful, I am not powerful, my vanity is powerful. Many powerful men are inside very weak, like Hitler. Inside they are full of fear. Plato writes about that in The Republic. He says that the most outwardly powerful man can be the weakest inside.

 Q. But most people create a functional moral, a distortion of values to reach a certain goal. What do you think about it?

a. We, all of us, are like that sometimes. People, when they are not in touch with their conscience or are so attached to their own view, can become very ugly. The worst crimes in the world could be committed and make a caricature of morality. Some historical examples are the crusades and the inquisition.

Q. I know you teach a course on "philosophy of money and work" to students in international business. What it is about?

a. In this course I try to present something deep and big about the human condition, not just about making money.

Q. What is your most recent book about?

a. I just finished writing it. The title is Time and the Soul. It is the first draft; I do not know if it is going to go this way or not. It is about time; time is terribly stressful, there is nothing we can do. People have been driven crazy by time. The only way to face the problem of time is to deepen the search for yourself. Nowadays, the problem is nobody has any time anymore. Most middle class people in the "affluent society" have a terrible sense of always being too busy, of having too much to do; everything is scheduled, planned; everything is going fast. In America, almost everybody, even children, are feeling the stress of pressure of time. It is like a time famine. Everybody has things, but nobody has time. It is a poverty of time. Human time is time just to be, to exist, to be present, to feel the sense of space, life, perception and relaxation. The way I face the problem of time has to come inside, and I try to discover or make some kind of contact with the sense of I am. This I am is a self presence inside. In moments of love, joy or wonder, we discover that time stops or goes slowly. This feeling is because the real self inside has appeared leaving another kind of time, sometimes called eternity; it is a different quality of time.

Q. In your book Money and the Meaning of Life (1994: 15) you state: "A superficial understanding of the place of money in a spiritual life, and of its relation with religion through occasional and impersonal giving, is no longer much help. Without a long work on oneself, it is impossible in contemporary conditions to be generous and free in regard to the force of money . . . To use the force of money in uniting human beings in service to the highest." Would you say that an educational model for entrepreneurs is close to that description?

a. Yes. What I refer here is not only for entrepreneurs, but it is also for everybody in our society. Our habits with money are very deeply engraved in this culture. To use money for human purposes requires a long struggle with oneself to come to see one’s true nature and to face one’s weaknesses and contradictions. You cannot just be innerly free with money because it is supposed be a good thing to do. Our habits with money are deep down. It requires a lot of struggle, engagement with the question of money. It is like you cannot say to a person just "love you neighbor." He has to struggle to be able to love another person, particularly one’s neighbor. Our problem with money is very deep; it requires a deep inner struggle. This is not just a question for entrepreneurs, but for every man and woman in the society.

 Q. In the book The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, there is a story that teaches that things that somebody possesses have to make sense for both the owner and the thing being owned or possessed. The story is about the little prince who meets a business man who is very busy counting stars. It seems that this idea is useful to educate an entrepreneur. What good does business do for the things it deals with? What is the virtue of private property in general?

a. There is no simple answer to that. The people who work for the boss, in a certain sense, are owned by him; they are paid and under his control. If he takes care of people, he will have a better business in the long run; but if he is not good to people, if he tries to force them, to exploit them, in the long run, he will lose. In an ideal capitalist society, the business that survives longer is only the one that takes care of the employees. Most bosses are not like that, but most bosses do not survive; their business goes down. On the other hand, what good does anybody do for the things in the world? The sense of quality is pretty missing nowadays. We do not really care for things, like this cup of coffee we are drinking. People just look at the use of it: to drink coffee. There is a movement that goes back to crafts production, based on making things carefully. But nowadays most people do not really care for or appreciate the quality of things we consume. In general, man is here to give careful attention to the world and take care of it.

Q. Does the Socrates’ entry at the end of The Heart of the Philosophy suggest the need of a guide to find the way in our lives, like Virgil in Dante’s Divine Comedy?

a. Yes. At a certain point we need a real guide; we cannot do it all by ourselves.

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• In this section the style of the interview changes. Based on A Little Book on Love, the interviewer presents the following statement to get Needleman’s comments on specific issues: "We must learn the art of living recognizing our human condi-tion, accepting and forgiving our sins and trying not to offend God. In this way, we should not try to reduce our imperfections to zero, but just to control them to facilitate our commun-ion with other people. As far as other people also share the same human condition, our imperfections may facilitate understanding among men." This argument is broken down in three parts and a preliminary conclusion to have Needleman’s comments step by step.

• Even Solomon the Wise, having his kingdom at stake, could not control the temptation of "knowing" foreign women (the queen of Sheba, among others).
• Ecclesiastes says that even wisdom is vanity, a sin.
• Sins are part of our ordinary life. Shakespeare illustrates the human flaw:

Hamlet. Act III, Scene I

  —Interviewer. It is clear that we are not justifying human imperfections. We are aware that beyond certain limits they reduce our inner worth. In A Little Book on Love (1996: 50) you wrote, "At the core of the great spiritual traditions of the world, however, we are advised not to seek to destroy these emotional reactions [pride, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony, envy, sloth], but to allow their existence within the light of our free awareness." Do you mean that, if we fight every day against our imperfections, we are condemned to a never-ending defeat?

  Third. Not to offend God

Therefore, we have a twofold conclusion.

Gorgias (written circa 380 B.C.)

Plato

Adam Smith

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• Also inspired by A Little Book on Love