HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS

Saul Bellow, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction, edited by Benjamin Taylor (New York: Viking, 2015) (From "The Civilized Barbarian Reader" (1987): "I meant [Herzog] to show how little strength 'higher education' had to offer a troubled man. In the end he is aware that the has had no education in the conduct of life. [] Herzog's confusion is barbarous. [] But there is one point at which, assisted by his comic sense, he is able to hold fast  In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves--to that part of us which is conscious of a higher consciousness by means of which we make final judgments and put everything together." "The independence of this consciousness, which has the strength to be immune to the noise of history and the destruction of our immediate surroundings, is what the life struggle is all about. The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas that frequently deny its very existence and that indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether." Id. at 351, 355. Also, see Martin Amis, "Something to Remember Him By," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 5/3/2015.).