When all seems to be in crisis in people’s lives their most instant reaction is to panic. With the world seemingly not bettering and continuing to regress, we are not keen to see our lives as a part of a bigger plan. We don’t believe in the good in the world. This all can be consoling; it can make consolation. This is the idea that there is a point to our existence and therefore our tragedy and suffering. Michael Ignatieff touches on this subject, as well as the importance of meditation in his new essays.
Ignatieff is a Booker prize-winning novelist, academic, and erstwhile politician. In his essays, he delves into the concept of solace and how it transcends centuries back. He also notes how we may be able to find it in a more worldly society. He explains, “The challenge of consolation in our times is to endure tragedy, even when we cannot hope to find a meaning for it, and to continue living in hope.”
This book is not self-help. It is rather a mode of meditation on the nature of comfort. It is explored through a series of portraits of artists, writers, and thinkers who have been through turbulent times and still sought out consolation.
To understand consolation it is necessary to begin with the moments it is impossible.
Michael Ignatieff
Ignatieff states that he is not fond of modern-day therapy and medication. He states that health professionals “treat our suffering as an illness from which we need to recover. Yet when suffering becomes understood as an illness with a cure, something is lost.”
He wishes to tackle human suffering through studying philosophy and implementing it into his teachings of how to understand suffering. He looks at Roman philosopher Cicero who preached stoicism and self-control. He also considers the art of El Greco, the music of Gustav Mahler, the letters of St. Paul, and the political convictions of Karl Marx.
It is significant that this book was started before the pandemic. It could be of use to those who feel anxious during these times, and almost helpless at the state of the world three years later. There are lessons to be taken in these essays from those who faced enormous hardship and emerged with a greater understanding of the world.
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