The Mask Part 8: Good and Bad

The Mask:
Introduction: Masks and Masking
Part 1: The Metaphor
Part 2: The Mask that Fits
Part 3: Ontology
Part 4: Masquerade of the Gods
Part 5: Mask of Sanity
Part 6: The Material Mask

Part 7: Revealing and Concealing

It occurred to me the other evening while enjoying my New Years Eve celebration that I have completely forgotten to discuss the most iconic set of masks in human history: the classic image of comedy and tragedy, the mask that laughs and the one that frowns. To the Greeks there were three types of plays: tragedy, comedy, and satire. Aristotle felt that all Greeks should attend theater as a civic duty, but should primarily go to see tragedies, occasionally see comedies, and rarely, if ever see satires. Ignoring satire (what most Greeks considered to be a very barbaric play type, as the word comes from satyr), we will look at how tragedy and comedy reinforce the concepts of the mask as fuzzy logic, and ultimately lead up to the question of whether or not the mask is a good or a bad thing.

There are only a handful of examples of ancient Greek masks, all of which are on pottery. No actual masks survive. The earliest example of tragedy and comedy masks come from ancient Rome, in particular a theater in Ostia, in which three (two comedy and one tragedy) are carved on blocks of stone, and a mosaic at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. Comedy and tragedies are reflections of each other, companions, if you will, in the dynamic of human nature and civic life. As Aristotle deems a proper citizen should do, everyone should attend theater as a civic duty. This wasn't just entertainment, theater also illustrated life lessons, important philosophies, ideology of what it is to be a Greek, illustrations of civic life, as well as accompanied by public service announcements. The theater originally evolved from sacrificial rites, particularly around the mystery cult of Dionysus. The word "tragedy" comes from tragos, meaning "goat," and ode, meaning "song." It is the sacrificial goat, which is torn apart like Dionysus was, but also related to the satyr, which was a sort of barbaric goat-man. To witness a tragedy, to see human suffering, was a catharsis of sorts. It is much like the Romans found relief by witnessing the horrors of the Colosseum, and we do today by watching horrors of world events unfold in the news and petty human suffering in reality television (panem circensesque - bread and circuses).

The theater illustrated something about ourselves, and these were done via the masks worn by actors. There was something divine about the theater, the masks, actors, and plays. The term deus ex machina, Latin meaning "the gods out of the machine," or in Greek apo mekhanes theos, comes from Greek theater. The gods we brought on stage via a crane that would lower them onto the stage, as if from the heavens, and fly them around. While its literal translation is "god from the machine," the more proper translations of the Greek suggests that it means "the god of our making." Like Latin (i.e. face - facere, actor - agere/actor), in Greek many words have multiple meanings that are not reflected well in our common derivatives of these words. Mekhane (machine, crane) is related to poiesis (poetry, to make, fabrication) and techne (craft). To Heidegger these words were all related to the idea of revealing and yielding truth. Techne was a revealing, by technique or production we are not just making something, the thing is revealing itself to us through our making. The word legein, or logos (logic, truth) is rooted in apophainesthai, "to bring forth into appearance." The Greek word for revealing is aletheia, has only one close Latin equivalent, veritas (truth). Is it any wonder that Heidegger talks extensively about these things when he discusses the essence of technology and our relationship to it?

Enough with the etymology. The point is that to the Greeks there was a correspondence between the theater, the gods, the actors, masks, and making these things. The masks and the actors were, in a sense, the gods. They didn't just pretend to be the gods on stage, they were the gods, embodiment of the divinity when they wore the masks and acted on stage. Jung makes a similar point about this when we spent years researching primitive African tribes. In Man and His Symbols Jung illustrates that a man wearing a lion mask doesn't think he's pretending to be a lion, he believes he is a lion.

This brings us back to our fuzzy logic: there is the mask as an object, and what the mask does. Since I began this study it has been about understanding the essence of the mask, and in the last post I concluded that the essence of the mask isn't about the mask as an idea - that is the mask as an object or a metaphor, or what the mask conceals or reveals - its essence is that it conceals and reveals. It is about what the mask does, not what it is. The mask is a face (facere) that is made to reveal truth (aletheia, veritas) by concealing. So now for the biggest question of them all: is the mask good or bad?

The last post illustrated that it isn't really respectful at all the wonder of the mask to fit it into such binary terms like good and bad. But this is where fuzzy logic can help us once again if we were to try (a sort of contradiction unto itself to use fuzzy logic and categorization of binary terms simultaneously). So let's ask a different question: which is better, comedy or tragedy? Aristotle thought tragedy was far superior to comedy, at least as far as what survives of Poetics (Aristotle does say that he will discuss more on comedy in Poetics, but never does, and has often been concluded that the portion on comedy was lost). But Aristophanes felt comedy told more about human life and nature than tragedy. It has been an age old question as to whether Jesus Christ laughed or not. This is one thing that separates the monastic orders of the Benedictines and the Franciscans (that and the poverty of Christ), the former believing laughter is close to sin and makes a mockery of all things, the latter believing there is truth in laughter. But what did the Greeks feel about these two play types? Besides comedies being usually depicted in a poor part of town or out at a villa (out in the country at a farm), and tragedies usually took place in a palace or town center, there is one other difference that should be obvious. In tragedies everyone dies at the end. In comedies everyone gets married. To the Greeks there was little difference between marriage and death (just ask Spartan men, or Athenian warriors or philosophers).

Such a paradox should enlighten us on the duality of comedy and tragedy, good and bad. Watching a tragedy was cathartic, a means of salvation (i.e. health and sanity). So watching a comedy was like laughing at tragedy; death and fun. They were two ways of finding the same thing: catharsis through death, and laughter in marriage. We must keep in mind we are dealing with some fairly primitive cultures here, no matter how advanced they were. We have a hard time letting go of our modern Western ideals, which relies heavily on categorization and binary answers. But unlike Eastern cults, which rely heavily on paradox, neither-either, both-nor, the Greeks went further and used both binary categorization and paradox simultaneously (probably the biggest paradox of them all). What mattered to the Epicureans was not what is true, but what is truth. Big difference there.

So what about good and bad? Well there is three parts to good and bad. There is good, there is good bad, and bad bad. Good is simply a good thing. Good bad is a bad thing that clearly presents itself as a bad thing, which is a good thing because it in no way tries to conceal its bad nature. A bad bad is a bad thing that tries to masquerade as a good thing, when it is not, which is a bad thing. (Corinthians II 11:14: "And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" a bad bad).  It's very elementary, but that's what makes it sort of hard to wrap yourself around. A mask that clearly manifests itself as a mask is a good thing (a good bad). It's only when the mask tries to present itself as a true face and not a mask is when we have a bad bad. This the truth of the mask in the Epicurean sense of the truth. The mask cannot be good because it isn't the true face of the actor. Nonetheless it is a good thing because it isn't trying to be good. 

This is how the actor can be the actor and the god at the same time by wearing a mask. The actor is not a god, but the actor is a god by not trying be a god when he/she wears a mask. The actor is the idea of the god when wearing a mask, but still an actor. It isn't about what is true, but what is truth. That it is an actor wearing a mask is true, but that is not as important as the truth that the actor wears a mask. In a way this has been our other primary question: which is more important, the mask or the actor? Is the person who walks into his/her boss's office more important than how that person presents his/herself to their boss in the image of the company? If you walk into an interview dress in raggedy blue jeans, a Judas Priest shirt on, with double-0 gauge nose ring, and dirty hair, is that superior to dressing in a fine suit? Though this person may like wearing old blue jeans, listening to heavy metal, and tattoos and piercings, and this person may be a good person and extraordinarily qualified for the position, nonetheless their mask is not appropriate to the stage. What is true is inferior to what is truth. The suit is a mask, but it is a good bad, regardless of who the actor is in this setting. The mask is a good thing because it isn't try to be good, instead it is clearly saying, "I am a mask! I am a lie!" I am a lie is the paradox that constitutes the mask. It is what it is because it isn't what it's supposed to be. It is a face because it is a mask, but it is a mask because it isn't a face.

This concludes my little mask series. I would like to reiterate some things as a summation and conclusion. The mask is a metaphor for our faces, and faces are tangible notions that we can attach to abstract ideas. The mask expresses (signifier) those things that cannot express themselves due to their abstract nature (signified). This being so, the mask is not our face, but it is a reflection, an imprint of our faces. What is concealed by the mask is revealed by it being able to fit our faces. It is not the truth, but it reflects the truth. This is how the mask reveals by concealing, and conceals by revealing. It is "the lie that tells the truth." The truth is expressed by a lie, because the truth cannot express itself on its own terms. The mask being a tangible concept for abstract notions is how we engage certain ideas such as dreams, gods, fear, and ourselves. The self is probably one of the most abstract ideas we have ever created, and the way we approach ourselves is by identities that we define for ourselves. The mask is a means to approach ourselves, discover and define ourselves. It always leads back to us. To engage the mask is also to engage what supposedly lies behind it, which is always some idea we are not privileged to witness. Because we cannot access this idea behind the mask, we are really searching for the essence of the masks a person wears; which ones, when and where, how do they use it, et cetera. Because of this the essence of the mask (persona) has little to do with the mask itself or what is behind it, but rather the actions done by and with the mask. It is more important to understand that the mask conceals and reveals, rather than what it is concealing or revealing. The importance lies in the difference between the authenticity of ideas and that of action. If we are not privileged to the ideas, then we must face the actions of masking to gain the truth. There is a wonderful quote from Nietzsche I think is fitting for the conclusion of the mask, identity, the essence of it, and how it defines:

"All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity."

Michelangelo Buonarroti's death mask: