From: slider@anashram.com

quotes:

Wilson’s thesis seems at first to be straightforward – that modernity has given rise to a new type of person. This person cannot believe in the
dogmas and assumptions of everyone around them and cannot share with
others the kind of lukewarm, pragmatic faith that is the mainstream. The
mass growth of society has meant that the Outsider feels both relentlessly crowded by others and acutely alone, cut off from the enthusiasms and certitudes of the crowd. They are, in other words, alienated. This is all familiar territory, well-covered by the Romantics and the early
Modernists. What distinguishes the ‘outsider type’, according to Wilson,
is that they do not want to be outsiders, but yearn for some great
synthesis of Being in which they can live fully, create, as it were, their
own religion, in which they live in contact with the god inside them. But
first they must go through nihilism, despair, a feeling that nothing is
worth doing or committing to. They also tend to be misanthropic, feeling fascinated and appalled by the base ordinariness of most of human life and
most people. Wilson argues that they must pass through these stages, as
they must also pass through a period of withdrawal from society, and a
life of extremes – extreme asceticism, extreme indulgence, extreme
inertia, extreme derangement of the senses.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, as opposed the middle of the
last one, these ideas do not seem fresh. Instead, they are the
commonplaces of almost all post-Romantic intellectual and artistic
movements – the old ways are dead, ‘make it new’. The artist must live differently to the mass-produced, standardised way of the mainstream.
Wilson summarises his points thus:

The Outsider wants to cease to be an Outsider.

He wants to be ‘balanced’.

He would like to achieve a vividness of sense perception ([T.E] Lawrence,
Van Gogh, Hemingway).

He would like to understand the human soul and its workings (Barbusse and
Mitya Karamazov).

He would like to escape triviality forever, and be ‘possessed’ by a Will
to power, to more life.

Above all, he would like to know how to express himself, because that is
the means by which he can get to know himself and his unknown
possibilities (202).

This is all intoxicating stuff, and to anyone with a sympathy for Romantic
and some of the more optimistic Modernist ideals, almost self-evident.
Wilson uses a wide and fascinating cast of figures to illustrate his
thesis: William Blake, T.E. Lawrence; Van Gogh; Hemingway; William Blake; Dostoevsky; Nietzsche; Kierkegaard; Nijinsky; Hesse. He traces through the lives and work of each of these men a desire to be ‘awake’ and in full possession of their capacities, not just now and then, but all the time.
There is in each of these men, Wilson argues, a rejection of dullness and routine and an embrace of authenticity, of being at one’s nerve-ends as a
way of life. The problem is, of course, that the human body and mind is
not composed to withstand this kind of intensity, which is why so many ‘bright stars’ burn out. As Nietzsche wrote, “I am one of those machines that sometimes explode.” Almost all of his cast of Outsiders go mad and/or lose their creativity.

And this is where some problems arise. One is that the first part of
Wilson’s thesis is coupled with a second – that this problem can be solved by an evolution to a higher consciousness. Wilson proposes a synthesis of
body, emotions, and intellect, all resolved at some higher, more developed level of human life than we currently possess, but which Wilson seems to
think is achievable – at least for a select minority. To this end, Wilson proposes a withdrawal from society and living through extreme practices of asceticism and Dionysian excess as necessary for the Outsider to achieve
his aims. But Blake’s poetics of affirmation and connection with others
would seem to question this. Wilson also misreads some elements of existentialist philosophy to support his thesis. Camus’ The Outsider can
be read as an endorsement of Wilson’s model of aloof authenticity.
However, The Plague, a novel Camus published after The Outsider, has at
its core an unflinching commitment to portray the venality of many people.
But there is also a tremendous affirming force at the heart of this novel, which validates the attempt to live authentically while in the midst of
strife and triviality. His hero does not withdraw from others and lives moderately in all respects – but he is an outsider. Camus seems to accept that the yearning that possesses the Outsider is impossible to quench, but
that the human task is to attempt to quench it, knowing that each of those
who take on the challenge will fail.

What Wilson is proposing is not unlike some forms of Zen Buddhism and the credo of the Beat poets, who were writing at the same time as he. However,
the pursuit of ecstasy and the creative dynamo in these writers was done through an ever-more intense engagement with the substance of life – even
its ‘trivial’ parts. The point was to transform the ordinary into the sublime by efforts of attention.

Wilson shares some of the ‘Beat’ tendencies; however, his argument is structured around the possibility for some complete, absolute solution to
the Outsider’s problems, rather than, at best, moments of transcendent clarity. He believes in permanent escape from “the prison” and pities “the
City-men on the train” for whom escape is not desired because “they think they are the prison” (155). Wilson’s distaste for ordinary, imperfect life seems at times to be a flight from reality, rather than fully entering it.

A critique of the conformity and mechanisation of modernity and
mass-society is common to Beat poetry, existential thought and literature,
and the writings of Theodore Rozack and Herbert Marcuse. They also share
with Wilson a focus on ecstatic experience. Wilson therefore, was writing
in the same key when he says, “this way of life is not freedom”, by which he means bored, routinised, standardised existence.

The oddest part of Wilson’s argument comes towards the end when he
proposes a method for achieving liberation from alienation. He advocates a spiritual advancement which will allow us to become ‘pure mind’ and escape the earth-bound triviality that comprises much of life. He proposes a
program based on a science-fiction story in which ‘super-intelligent’ babies are detected early and educated to live at the focussed,
unconstrained level all the time. These people, called ‘men-plus’ will
then lead us into an era of magnificent existential bliss. This theory is outlined in the notes to the 2001 edition (316). I wonder who is meant to
clean up afterwards when this ‘superhumanized’ existence is achieved? I have more time for Jack Kornfield’s approach in his Buddhist writings.

https://diamondsharp.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/review-the-outsider-colin-wilson-1956-london-phoenix-2001/

### - well worth reading the full above review, and the book itself which
is available free in pdf format from many online libraries...

ok, tea-break's over peeps - back under ya's all go!

and good luck haha :)

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