{"id":9073,"date":"2025-04-21T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T06:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/FronterasCTR\/?p=9073"},"modified":"2025-03-27T11:54:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T10:54:43","slug":"dag-hammarskjold-the-epoche-of-solitary-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/FronterasCTR\/?p=9073","title":{"rendered":"Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld, the epoch\u00e8 of solitary meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Virgilio Cesarone, D\u2019Annunzio University]\u00a0Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld, UN Secretary General who died in 1961, tried to work towards a conciliation for peace by virtue of personal isolation through a suspension of specific political militancy. The intention of this contribution is to allow the \u201cpolitical\u201d virtue of the epoch\u00e8<\/em> to emerge, as it can be understood from his written legacy, and consequently his political action. The parallelism between the phenomenological attitude and that proper to Hammarskj\u00f6ld\u2019s meditations must be stripped of all the gnoseological peculiarities belonging to the modern subject. If, in fact, the epoch\u00e8 of Husserlian is a return of all the primordial contents of consciousness to an identical subject of knowledge, in Hammarskj\u00f6ld, the \u2018subject\u2019 is the one who seeks the originality of giving oneself to consciousness in listening to one\u2019s own freedom, which is not the arbitrariness of the ability to \u201cdo\u201d, but the attention, with respect to what the world offers us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The figure of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld, who died tragically in 1961 after what was considered an assassination attempt while working for peace on the African continent, still awaits due prominence in the field of philosophical-religious studies. The writings to which attention should be paid, apart from the speeches given in the course of his public duties, are collected in a Diary, written from 1925 to 1961, and entrusted to his friend Leif Belfrage for possible future publication; a \u201cwhite book\u201d, in his own words, as a testimony of \u201cnegotiations\u201d with himself and with God (Hammarskj\u00f6ld, 1983, p. V).<\/p>\n

In reading these intense pages of notes, verses and aphorisms, one has the impression of being confronted with a veritable \u2018political theology\u2019. Such a definition does not seem inappropriate, if not provocative, in this context. At first glance, the syntagm \u2018political theology\u2019 expresses an intertwining of theology and politics that can take on two distinct meanings. In the sphere of political and legal theories, it can be understood as a doctrine aimed at legitimising a particular political order on the basis of a sacral or theological reference, or as a research methodology aimed at identifying the links between these two spheres (Carl Schmitt).<\/p>\n

In the field of theological disciplines, political theology can instead be understood as what revelation has to say about the political (Jacques Maritain), or the political dimension inherent in the Gospel proclamation itself (Johann Baptist Metz and J\u00fcrgen Moltmann). Certainly the declination that had the most success in the 20th<\/sup> century was the one formulated by Carl Schmitt in his 1921 work, in which, with respect to any form of rational architecture of the construction of state sovereignty, he vigorously asserts ex abrupto<\/em> in the first line of his treatise: \u201cSovereign is he who decides on the state of exception\u201d (Schmitt, 1998, p. 33), decreeing the abyss of the personal will as the crucial moment for the institution of any form of state power.<\/p>\n

If, however, we must immediately distance ourselves from the Schmittian model, in order to understand what we mean by political theology when we speak of Hammarskj\u00f6ld (unless we use it as a contrastive heuristic concept), we must make clear a common element that all the various interpretations (Esposito, 2013; Borghesi, 2013; Cacciari, 2013; De Vitiis, 2014) of political theology bring with them, consisting in the implicit affirmation of the unavoidability of political theology itself. It, in fact, belongs to our being in history, re-proposing a metaphysical question, which is that of the relationship between eternity and history, between the one and the many. In this sense, political theology cannot be considered exclusively a question concerning a second philosophy, a political philosophy or a philosophy of law, but is fully part of the so-called first philosophy. Political theology, therefore, operates hermeneutically insofar as it is established on the basis of the self-representation that historical man has of himself in the confrontation with tradition in view of the future.<\/p>\n

Assuming this determination, it will no longer be difficult to accept the definition of political theology in order to understand the intertwining of spiritual life and political commitment that materialised in the public conduct of Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld. The meditations contained in his diary, in fact, restore the ground, the humus one might say, used first by the Vice-Minister of the Royal House of Sweden and then by the Secretary General of the UN to clarify the relationship of his own person to what history presented him with as a continuous occasion of testing, of tentatio<\/em> (Heidegger, 1995) we might say. So our proposal is to first of all explicate the way in which Hammarskj\u00f6ld manages to reach that fertile ground within himself, a harbinger of an opening towards new horizons of understanding; secondly, we will try to outline what results they achieve.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

… can Hammarskj\u00f6ld be considered a mystic? In his valuable commentary on the diaries, theologian and Church of Sweden bishop Gustaf Aul\u00e9n believes that it would be inappropriate to liken him to the mystics of the medieval tradition, even though we can find linguistic and expressive affinities. This is mainly because Hammarskj\u00f6ld understood himself from his relationship with Christ, seeking to make his life an imitatio<\/em>, in the sense of following Christ in the way of sacrifice. He did not see himself as anything other than a disciple of Christ. We can therefore say that if Hammarskj\u00f6ld is to be considered a mystic, his mysticism takes on a form of its own with similarities and differences compared to other figures recognised as mystics, especially considering two aspects, that concerning religion and that concerning responsibility towards others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

De vera religione<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cThe lovers of God have no religion but God alone\u201d (Hammarskj\u00f6ld, 1983, p. 86). These words, transcribed in the diary, are by Gialal al-Din Rumi, a 13th century Persian mystic poet. They indicate, as do some passages from the presentation of the Room of Stillness, Hammarskj\u00f6ld\u2019s desire to conceive of religion not as a stronghold, a place that ensures a view from above and thus a supremacy over everything around us, a fortress impregnable from attacks from outside. Religion, on the other hand, must be the possibility of being able to find a dimension for the relationship with God. Faith, experienced as exclusivity, as certainty of oneself and one\u2019s convictions, jeopardises the very possibility of an encounter with God. The following passage attests to precisely this position:<\/p>\n

There is a pride of faith, more unforgivable and dangerous than the pride of the intellect. It reveals a split personality in which faith is \u201cobserved\u201d and appraised, thus negating that unity born of a dying-unto-self, which is the definition of faith. To \u201cvalue\u201d faith is to turn it into a metaphysical magic, the advantages of which ought to be reserved for a spiritual elite (Hammarskj\u00f6ld, 1983, p. 89).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hybris of the certainty of one\u2019s own capacity for self-ascertainment of truth, the result of modernity\u2019s desire to make the subject master of the universe, can be overcome by that of faith. We can see here a critique of all the fundamentalisms that would poison relations between peoples in the following decades. Religion, therefore, must be the place of faith, which can only be the annihilation of the ego, or, as St John of the Cross put it, found several times in the diaries:<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith is the marriage of God and the Soul\u201d (St. John of the Cross<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Faith is<\/em>: it cannot, therefore, be comprehended, far less identified with, the formulae in which we paraphrase what is.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u201cen una noche oscura\u201d The Dark Night of the Soul \u2013 so dark that we may not even look for faith. The night in Gethsemane when the last friends left you have fallen asleep, all the others are seeking your downfall, and God is silent<\/em>, as the marriage is consummated (Hammarskj\u00f6ld, 1983, p. 81).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This union with God, represented by faith, cannot find categories ready to explain it, let alone assurances. The configuration of faith sketched out by Hammarskj\u00f6ld in his diaries leads above all to the rejection of a reification of God, with the consequent danger of setting oneself up as the master of his figure. The decisive influence of Meister Eckhart, who wrote: \u201cThey say that knowledge opens up the passage through truth and goodness, projects itself onto pure being and grasps God in his nakedness, as he is without a name\u201d, can be seen in this aspect.\u00a0 The following passage from the diaries shows an intimate proximity to the Lese- and Lebemeister:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how, then, am I to love God?\u201d \u201cYou must love Him as if He were a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-Substance: love Him simply as the One, the pure and absolute Unity in which is no trace of Duality. And into this One, we must let ourselves fall continually from being into non-being. God helps us to do this\u201d (Hammarskj\u00f6ld, 1983, p. 92).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Undoubtedly the echoes of the words of the great Dominican mystic resonate in many passages of the diaries, but if we must find an analogy with a contemporary, it is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is precisely in this attitude that we can discover a basic affinity with what the Protestant theologian, condemned to death for his knowledge of the conspiracy against Hitler and hanged in 1945, wrote. Bonhoeffer was a contemporary of Hammarskj\u00f6ld, not only because he was born only six months after the Swedish diplomat, but also because of the profound assonance found between the V\u00e4gm\u00e4rken<\/em> and the writings collected after his execution under the title Widerstand und<\/em> Ergebung<\/em>. We can only mention a few of these aspects here: first of all, the common view of faith in God as openness to the world, and not as closure in one\u2019s own (false) certainties. Bonhoeffer\u2019s famous expression, according to which it is necessary to separate oneself from the conception of a \u2018stopgap\u2019 God, is closely linked to the need to interpret faith \u2018worldly\u2019, i.e. to abandon the individualistic and egocentric conception of faith that creates a religion based on isolating piety. God\u2019s encounter with men takes place jenseits<\/em>, beyond our grasp, he is beyond, or, as Hammarskj\u00f6ld writes, the other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Responsibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Within these coordinates, the authentic dimension for living the faith can only be that of responsibility, that is, the dimension proper to faith can only be declined as action in the world for the sake of the world. Let us start from what Bonhoeffer (2015) wrote on this subject:<\/p>\n

Who remains steadfast? Only he who does not have as his ultimate criterion his own reason, his own principle, his own conscience, his own freedom, his own virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action, in faith and in exclusive bondage to God: the responsible man, whose life does not want to be anything other than a response to God\u2019s question and call. Where are these responsible men? (p. 62)<\/p>\n

Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld could be the embodied answer to this last question from Bonhoeffer. He, in fact, while cherishing his own spiritual life, looking within himself through silence and prayer, acted with lucidity and decision to place himself at the service of peace. There is no room in Hammarskj\u00f6ld\u2019s attitude towards his task for vacuous fatalism: \u2018destiny is what we do\u2019. These words, spoken at a press conference at the New York airport, are a call to responsibility that offers no recourse to ideologies, sociologies, economic theories or religious faiths that might diminish our responsibility for what happens. Hammarskj\u00f6ld, in an important speech at Cambridge University in 1958, said: \u201cIt is easy to shift responsibility onto others or, perhaps, to look for explanations in some law of history. It is less easy to look for the reasons within ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

If then, faith is nothing other than the union of the soul with God, by virtue of this faith, for Hammarskj\u00f6ld, one must descend into prayer, into one\u2019s inner self, to encounter the Other. All are alone in respect and in the light of union, alone before God. Hence the awareness that every act is a continuous creative act, marked by responsibility to others, but nevertheless aware that the power one has is the power that created man.<\/p>\n

*Extracto del art\u00edculo publicado por Virgilio Cesarone en <\/em>Raz\u00f3n y Fe, n\u00ba 1465, accesible en este enlace<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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