What best characterizes modernity is the revenge of the common man on the man of genius. In all spheres, it is his interests that predominate; wherever one turns one’s eyes, it is his face that stands out. The victory is complete. And precisely from this stems the suffocation of culture and high aspirations, which now find an almost invincible hostility to germinate. The common man does not tolerate them, and knocks on doors as a missionary in order to indoctrinate. Perhaps never has it been so difficult and so necessary an effort to ignore him and not allow oneself to be contaminated.
Category: Notes
The Pontiffs of Human Lucidity
Few works elicit such hearty laughter as those of these “men of science” like Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso, who arrogate to themselves the role of pontiffs of human lucidity and supreme judges of mental sanity. Finally, one should admire them for their audacity in packing the greatest geniuses of human history, from Mozart to Shakespeare, and calling them all degenerate lunatics. They are the real fathers of modern psychiatry, which has in the jester the perfect model of mental sanity. An ordinary man can easily identify the original as sick, but it takes a visionary to see in creativity itself a mental disorder. Like talented clowns, these men deserve from us nothing but effusive applause and enormous gratitude.
The Philosopher Who Cannot Teach…
The philosopher who cannot teach something valuable in a simple way to an ordinary man should retire. Perhaps in no other field is clarity a more necessary quality, and a more evident manifestation of mastery over the subject matter. There are many forgivable sins, and many defects that even scratch the thought of a philosopher; but from the moment that discourse, through him, makes the subject more confusing, the best he would do is to return quietly to his studies, if not abandon them forever and seek a new occupation.
It Is Possible to Draw Parallels…
It is possible to draw parallels between coetaneous lives and identify, in the vast majority of cases, decisive periods that occurred at very close ages in which similar themes emerged. It is necessary to see and compare them over and over again. This evident and verifiable fact is perhaps the strongest argument of those who assert that there is a correlation between time and individual existences, especially since it is noted that many of the themes which stand out do not occur as a result of convention or something induced by the environment: one notices, over and over again, periods when genius seems to manifest, and periods when luck seems to decide. From the moment one acquires enough courage to assume it, one can no longer bear the absence of the why…