Talks with T. G. Masaryk Book

Another 'serendipitous simultaneous read' review: Gandhi's Autobiography and Capek's Conversations with T.G. Masaryk. In a nutshell, purchase and draw frequently on Capek/Masaryk; skim Gandhi. (note: same review at both locations)

Timothy Snyder, in his introduction to his conversations with Tony Judt published as Thinking the Twentieth Century, mentioned the similarity of his project to what he considers an outstanding example of reported conversations with an eminent man: Karel Capek's Conversations with T G Masaryk. I had never heard of Masaryk, but I acquired a used copy of the work and coincidentally started another book from my long-term project, Philip Ward's 500 book lifetime reading program. The Ward book was Gandhi's An Autobiography; The Story of my Experiments with Truth. As I got into these autobiographies, I realized that these two men had the goal of liberating their countries from imperialism, lived overlapping and sometimes similar lives, but could not have had more different personalities or ways of talking about themselves. Yet the Czech Republic (or former Czechoslovakia, to be precise) and India would probably never have come into being as soon as they did, as peacefully (India itself, before partition), without these two men.

Masaryk (1850-1937) was born into a lower class family of mixed ethnicity: his father was a Slovak coachman, his mother a Czech. Masaryk ended up a university professor in Prague and the first President of Czechoslovakia. Gandhi (1869-1948) was born into the merchant caste, and trained as a lawyer. He ended up penniless, living on fruits and nuts, but also the leader of the movements that improved the status of Indians in South Africa and led to Indian independence. They both had to deal with prejudices among the groups they were leading. Based on my understanding of Masaryk's remarks, Czechs would not have worked to pull the Slovaks with them from under the Austro-Hungarian empire without Masaryk's working against perceived prejudices. Gandhi worked to undo the caste system and build solidarity between Hindus and Muslims, with limited success, but sufficient for his short term needs. Both studied in the capitals of the Empire and acquired the status and the tools they used to undermine the system. They saw the imperialist at home: Masaryk in Vienna, Gandhi in London. Later in life, both put aside their basic pacifism to support a war effort.

Most fundamentally, they were totally committed to what they saw as the truth. Capek writes of Masaryk's slow, deliberative manner of speech, often interrupted by silence for the thinking process:
As I see it, everything he says belongs to one of two basic categories. The first consists of the certainties, firm principles, and truths he has settled upon These he expresses forcefully, with uncommon terseness and brachylogical concision, emphasizing his point with a clenches fist or an energetically raised finger. The second consists of meditations, probings, the endless road to knowledge, endless criticism and self-criticism. And I can't tell which is more characteristic: the clear-cut, steadfast certainty of a man of firm knowledge and beliefs or the never-ending pursuit of truth.

For Gandhi,
truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God…I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest…But as long as I have not realized this Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile be my beacon, my shield and buckler…I have gone forward according to my light…If anything that I write in these pages should strike the reader as being touched with pride, then he must take it that there is something wrong with my quest, and that my glimpses are no more than mirage.

And there is the problem, for me. Gandhi's 'relative truth' is propounded with so much arrogance and disregard for the people around him that I ended up intensely disliking the man, as distinct from the leader. So much of the book is taken up with his dietary experiments and other ascetic gyrations that its message is undermined. He refers the reader to another book to learn about the Satyagraha (devotion to the truth) movement in South Africa, which was a great disappointment. So much of what's here strikes me as self-justification for irrelevant, annoying or harmful activities.

He harangued everyone about their diets and went on endless dietary restrictions himself, denied recommended medical care to himself and family members, kept his children out of school and excuses himself for neglecting the education that he meant to give them himself and that would have given them an options for choosing their own way in life, and essentially announced to his wife that he was choosing celibacy for the rest of his life at a fairly young age. (He says she didn't object. Perhaps because she was fed up listening to him bemoan his lustfulness every time he satisfied it? The difference between their wives is a chasm; Masaryk married a cultured American pianist who was studying in Prague, while Gandhi was married by his family to an uneducated child when he was about thirteen.)

On the other hand, Masaryk's humanitarian conversation engenders admiration. He spoke, carefully, through his lectures, journalism, and service as a legislator, and party member. Teaching someone to read and write, imparting general knowledge, and going over what others know is a very different matter from assuming responsibility for the actions of a person who listens to you and takes you as an example, acts in accordance with what you say. As a teacher or writer you are responsible for that person's life.

He was a man of deep faith in God, but not committed to a religion.

Both men agree, though, as Masaryk says I believe that each of us is led by Providence, though how I cannot say.

Both books cover a lot of politics. However, Masaryk discusses the factions and parties involved on the side of independence a lot more than Gandhi does. They are instructive in getting things done without violence. Certainly it is worth understanding how Gandhi came to his nonviolent approach, how he persuaded others to use it, and also his cagy tactics. Both men cultivated foreign and domestic contacts outside their own circles, which came in handy when it came time to end WWI and break up the Austrian Empire, and also to secure Anglo support for Gandhi's projects in South Africa and India. It is also interesting that despite their deep religious faiths they found a necessity to support certain wars (Gandhi led a non-combatant unit in the Boer War and argued for Indian participation on the side of Britain during WWII). Masaryk personally went to Russian and built up a fighting corps of Czech prisoners of war to fight against the Germans. He spent WWI locked outside of Prague and separated from his wife, working tirelessly in the war effort and for eventual independence.

I could quote Masaryk again and again. I am finding that re-reading my marked passages for the review makes it clear that I will keep this one handy. Much of the credit has to go to Capek for collecting and shaping the remarks, and to Michael Henry Heim for a masterful translation. The introduction by Capek, which is a character portrait of Masaryk, is one of the finest descriptions of the soul of man that I have ever read.

Because that is what it all boils down to: for Masaryk, speaking means speaking truth. And believe me, the very style of truth'the way it is expressed'differs from the style of half-truths, lies or ignorance. Truth has nothing to hide or veil with words…When Masaryk speaks, he reports on what he is thinking: he is sober, concrete, and as succinct as possible; he refuses to let the words carry him away…
Masaryk's thought follows its own path, it has its own cadence, you might say, to which it almost invariably returns. Every one of his talks eventually led to politics or God, to current events or eternity…For Masaryk, religion consists first and foremost of humanity, loving your neighbor, serving your fellow man, but politics consists of making humanity and love a reality. It is only a short step from one to the other.