Remember Raphael’s School of Athens painting, of Plato-Aristotle; one pointing to the heavens and one towards the earth? Now consider these two successful revolutionaries of the 20th century; Lenin and Khomeini. Lenin would always be depicted in paintings gazing up into the horizons (the heavens) chin up, with absolute certainty in his eyes. A depiction of Lenin gazing downwards is always off. Unnatural of his person. Khomeini’s depiction is the opposite; gentle, effortless, earthward gaze, with a stoic facial expression. Any depiction of him with a ‘Lenin-esque’ gaze is terribly off and loos too cartoonish. Isn’t this an unexpected flip, considering the interpretation of the Plato-Aristotle painting? I don’t believe it is. In fact, it is more accurate of reality than the Plato-Aristotle painting. I’ll explain.. (Re-posted).

Heraclitus said “the way up and the way down are one and the same”. This is how I interpret these paintings. The Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and the monotheistic mystical revolutionary, embodied by Khomeinist Islamic revolution unite at the point of the event. They both submit to immutable ’laws’ and ‘essences’ beyond their own subjectivity, as a consequence of a holy unity they achieved with those realities. The materialist starts from below, the arena of matter and phenomena that are cognized, rationalized, and in a strict sense, generalized as theories (and laws) of the material world. The mystic starts from above, but in the sense of descent only after a necessary initial ascension. Such ascent also demands a unity with what is below, in the recognition of divine immanence, manifested by the general laws of existence that can only be cognized from below. Therefore both the materialist and the mystic do not simply wish; they abide. The difference is not in the Event (the revolution, the struggle), but in the motive; one to realize the human “essence” as a self-reflection of the cosmos in its material unfolding and the other to realize the human essence as a reflection of a transcendent essence beyond the cosmos while being subject to it. Lenin aspired for man to ascend by the material laws he embodied, Khomeini aspired for the transcendent essence he embodied to descend upon man for his ascent. Thus Lenin looks up into the horizon as the destination and Khomeini looks down as the destination of the essence he embodied. But one necessary terminal point is—in either case—reached; the Event, the revolution. The way up and the way down are one and the same. Because the history of man is the history of convergence towards the event.