On the Notion of "The Deep" and "Depth"

Abstract: I provide some minor reflections on the concept of the “deep” and “depth,” both in philosophical and political terms.

On the nature of individuals as “deep,” or as people possessing “depth”: the contradictory, binary structure of the concept has always fascinated me. On the one hand, there is one tradition that takes the metaphor of “depth” as representative of a particularly substantial and expansive intelligence, hemmed by forms of introspection and self-reflection; we speak of people as “deep” as a measurement of (usually) positive characteristics, qualities (usually) sought after/prized in both platonic and romantic relations. Those labelled “deep” (usually) possess, if not relevant knowledge in a general sense, interesting and provocative perspectives, tinged with a particular brand of constructive and even (at times) charismatic self-consciousness; originality, too, is privileged under this aegis. In this light, our intellectual tradition prizes “depth of reading/thought/analysis” over more “surface” engagements; the whole business of “close reading” responds specifically to critiques concerning “horizontal” and therefore “superficial” evaluations. It is here the story begins to fray a bit, and I am reminded of a host of adaptations of this general logic: the indictment against American undergraduate education I once heard Stephen Elkin observe, that it is “an ocean, 3-inches deep”; I think of John Nash’s beautiful obituary in Time, which looked at the three kinds of genius—the third of which, Nash’s type, parachute deep into the darkness, far beyond the horizon of our understanding, and fight their way back to the light; I think of Corinthians, 13:12, Lovejoy’s notion of otherworldliness, and the entirety of the Platonic project that rejects the sensory as illusion, and assigns true form/meaning to the “depth” of the airy eidos, how mere apprehension does not necessitate comprehension, how much of human life is lived on the illusory “surface”  according to Kleist, how it is only with and through knowledge that we tear away the veil and peer into the depths—and how this peering, this will to peer (I think both of Panofsky on perspective, and more importantly: Nietzsche, who himself announced the origins of western depth to lie squarely with the Jewish invention of the soul—that is, depth was created as an act of power), is weaved into the western telos, how it has engendered both myth[1] and science[2], and therefore the dual axioms of enchantment and disenchantment that so concerned Weber.[3] I think of its relation to wonder and the aesthetic of the sublime[4]; I think of Kracauer and how he was able to overturn this discourse, drawing our attention to the significance of “surface culture” as reflective of subliminal collective depths, the fomenting meaning-aspirations of a society; I think of Freud and the hierarchical nature of the conscience; I think of liminal figures like Ahab, who aimed to “strike through the mask/wall,” or Kurtz, whose journey into the darkness proved ineffably irredeemable; and on this last figure, I am reminded of whole genres of horror based around this core thematic: Lovecraft on eldritch truth particularly stands out. In fact, figures like Ahab and Kurtz stand as important sentinels of the western conscience, and bridge the gap between Goethe’s notion of “striving” (Strebung) and its darker emissary, the possibility of “the fall”: Lucifer and Faust the primary models, Thomas Mann drawing up the rear-guard and marking its greatest limit to date with Leverkuhn.

And so it is that Kurtz and Ahab and Leverkuhn, their mystic magnetism washed aside, are fundamentally cautionary tales: here we pivot to the other side of the “deep,” its link to obsession and madness, the dangerous “beyond”.[5] We see that moving from the surface and journeying too deep, or venturing into the deep and resting there for too long, leads not to insight, but to blindness and corruption. The deep thus assumes the form of “the abyss”: we here encounter Nietzsche’s staring into the abyss for instance, as it speaks to the often ocularcentric presence of light, shadow and darkness as the principal elements of sensory experience viz. the “deep,” and provides him with the theoretical fulcrum to divide the figure of the “last man” from the ubermensch: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the whole index of “monsters/nightmares/terrors of the deep”; the deep as aesthetic category—what color is the deep?—that assumes Melville’s “white” or the chiaroscuro blacks of a Rembrandt sketch; Dante, and the physicalization of the compartmentalized worldview of the inferno[6], where one literally travels downward to reach hell, upward to find heaven[7]; the whole matrix between depth, intellectualism, and depression—how the compliment he/she is just “so nice” is often a euphemism for: he/she possesses little depth. I also must recall, from popular culture, the deep’s association more generally with darkness, evil, the unknown, the nefarious and the furtive: the deep is where things hide, concealed[8], dormant or asleep. And, of course, the deepest of the deep, the Marianas Trench of the soul: the wicked, tortured, nether-zone of Tartarus, a prison populated by old and undead gods.

Another, more practical, aspect of depth is its political salience. I here think of Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life: the idea is that, within the right political contexts, depth is seen as a deficit. Sophia Rosenfeld explores this line of thought further in her analysis of “common sense” as a political modality/rhetorical toolset. This follows in the general degradation of the genteel American tradition: the affirmation of the “male” as the rough-riding Jacksonian vs. the effeminacy of a John Adams or Henry James. Figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson only serve as further exemplars of the effectiveness—or lack thereof—of depth. I think, too, of Eric Hoffer’s notion of “men of action” and the “active” phase of a mass movement—Hoffer even refers to this phase as creatively and intellectually “sterile.” The juxtaposition in question is an old one: it pits theory/thought (Socrates as the exemplar) against action/virtu (Borgia, Napoleon, etc.—the pantheon of Machiavellian princes). The idea here is that the man of great political action is not necessarily a man of great depth—in fact, being seen as deep/possessing the iconography of depth may act as a corrosive political hindrance. Frederick the Great’s notion that it is history/historians that will justify and redeem action speaks to this political dimension. Especially in the context of American politics, a savvy politician is always keen never to seem too smart—lest they lose the support/admiration of their constituents and receive the skepticism and caution of their colleagues. “Act first, think later”—an oddly effective, if not at times self-destructive, political mandate.

If I had to distill a conclusion from these two general types of looking at the deep, it might be something like: “visit the deep as often, and linger there as long, as one can—but visit and linger no more, or longer, than this. Respect the deep; fear the deep.” Here especially, the necessity of regimes of attention matched and corralled by prudent moderation: what would an “ethics of depth” look like, and how would we consider this as separate from “deep ethics”? We might add to this by identifying a serious and lasting deficit in western thought: that we lack adequate tools/means/avenues that both lead one to an appropriate level of depth and promise to bring one back to the surface; in short, we need a far more thorough and sustained analysis on how to get to the deep, how to explore the depths properly, and how to resurface safely. Descend too quickly, and you merely sink; ascend too fast, and the nitrogen of abstraction threatens to pop the veins. Here, conditions such as bathophobia and thalassaphobia provide fertile grounds for study, and ought to be connected to Onians research on water/liquid in the genealogy/etymology of European thought. Further consideration ought to be given to the deep’s relation to conversion and personal transformation: that it seems like the possibility of converting another hinges on a specific movement between surface and depth, a certain manner in bringing depth to the fore, and so forth.[9] Bachelard’s statements on the poetic moment, especially verticality, offers further insight. Pragmatism and the deep: is “leading one to the deep” analogous to, or a form of, “making another trip”? In the background lingers the whole problem of paideia: Augustine’s version of education, which is really just discipline, we might critique on pragmatic grounds, insofar as it works only on the skin of the body and hence the surface of the soul. Or, a better, more directly Catholic question: how does suffering relate to the “deep”?

On the political level, I am reminded of Thucydides on the “Athenian question” and the problem of expansion, or a legal theorist like Aziz Rana and his idea of American Settlerism: that is, there exists a basic dialectic, much like in the consciousness of individuals, between the deepening of a human community and the need for that community to expand outward. Or: the more inward a subject or community gazes, the more outward must it conquer; the search inward therefore necessitates its outward counterpart.[10] We find here nearly an economic, organic principle: depth and expansion are really two sides of the same coin, really two symptoms of a single drive.[11]

The real significance of the question therefore emerges: how does the will to dominate the external world relate to the will to dominate/transcend oneself?

[1] See Adorno and Horkheimer.

[2] See Peirce, Bacon.

[3] This might begin to make intelligible the ethics of awareness/attention we find in an essay like David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” or Nightingale’s essay on re-enchantment.

[4] See Longinus, Shaftesbury, Addison, Burke.

[5] See Foucault on the history of madness.

[6] See Auerbach and Peter Brown.

[7] See Milton: “Long is the way…”

[8] See Heidegger on Parmenides and unconcealment.

[9] See Wittgenstein, Cavell; James; William Conolly.

[10] Nietzsche here on the idea of cruelty is significant: anger is leashed upon the world when it is no longer leashed upon the self. Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche’s latent Cartesian commitments, especially in the will-to-mastery, is here also significant.

[11] See Voegelin and Borochov on this point.