Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler (September 5, 1905 - March 3, 1983) was a journalist, novelist, political activist, and social philosopher. He was the author of many popular books including Arrow in the Blue, (Volume I of his autobiography), The Yogi and the Commissar (a collection of essays, many dealing with Communism), The Sleepwalkers, The Act of Creation, and The Thirteenth Tribe. His most famous work is Darkness at Noon, a novel about the Purges of the Soviet state during the Stalin era.

Work

Although Darkness at Noon was a worldwide best seller, much of Koestler's work was in advance of mainstream views. He was a multidisciplinary thinker and did not merely arrive at different answers to common questions, but asked questions that others were not even asking.

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The result of this originality is an uneven set of ideas and conclusions. Some of them, such as his work on creativity (Insight and Outlook, Act of Creation) and the history of science (The Sleepwalkers), can be appreciated as brilliant, and challenge us to readjust our thinking in order to grasp their importance. Some of his other theories, pertaining to extra-sensory perception, euthanasia, and the racial origin of Ashkenazi Jews like himself, are more controversial. But taken as a whole, his writings are well worth serious consideration.

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Koestler and Judaism

Although a lifelong atheist, Koestler's family background was Jewish. Notably, one of his biographers, David Cesarani has picked up on this, and has claimed Koestler deliberately disowned his Jewish geneology .

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Koestler's book The Thirteenth Tribe advanced the controversial thesis that European, or Ashkenazi Jews, are not descended from the Israelites of antiquity, but from a group of Khazars, a people in the Caucasus who converted to Judaism in the 8th century and were later forced to move westwards into current Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Koestler stated that part of his intent in writing the book was to defuse anti-Semitism by undermining the identification of European Jews with the Jews of the Bible, rendering anti-Semitic epithets such as "Christ killer" inapplicable. Ironically, Koestler's thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not Semitic has become an important claim of many anti-Semitic groups. Some Palestinian advocates have adopted this thesis quite eagerly, since they believe identifying most Jews as non-Semitic would seriously undermine their historical claims to the land of Israel. The main thesis of The Thirteenth Tribe has since been debunked by genetic testing; while there has been mixing with various European populations by Ashkenazi Jews over the centuries, there remains a clearly identifiable Middle Eastern genetic element in virtually all Ashkenazim.

Related Topics:
The Thirteenth Tribe - Ashkenazi - Khazars - Caucasus - Judaism - 8th century - Russia - Ukraine - Poland - Anti-Semitism - Palestinian - Land of Israel

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Koestler's own view of Israel was that it would never be destroyed, short of a second Shoah. He supported the statehood of Israel, but opposed the idea of a diaspora Jewish culture. In an interview in the London Jewish Chronicle, about the time of Israel's statehood, Koestler asserted that all Jews should either migrate to Israel or else assimilate completely into their local cultures.

Related Topics:
Israel - Shoah

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Koestler went to Palestine for a period, and lived on a kibbutz. His experiences there were to form the basis of the unfinished Thieves in the Night. Always the controversialist, Koestler proposed ditching the Hebrew alphabet for the Roman.

Related Topics:
Kibbutz - Hebrew alphabet - Roman

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Koestler and science

Koestler wrote many books on science, and scientific practice. In the words of one cynic, "Koestler loved science, but science didn't love him back". His critiques of science were often reminiscent of post-modernism's views towards science, and often alienated much of the scientific community, such as Koestler's The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971: about the biologist Paul Kammerer, who researched Lamarckian inheritance)

Related Topics:
Post-modernism's - Paul Kammerer - Lamarckian inheritance

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The subject of mysticism was implicit in his works and carried tremendous weight in his personal life. This was confirmed when he left a substantial part of his estate to establish the Koestler Institute in the University of Edinburgh dedicated to the study of parapsychological phenomena. His work The Roots of Coincidence also discusses Paul Kammerer, this time in the context of a quantum theory of coincidence or synchronicity, along with the theories of Carl Jung. More controversially he also studied levitation and telepathy.

Related Topics:
Mysticism - University of Edinburgh - Parapsychological - Synchronicity - Carl Jung - Levitation - Telepathy

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