It is interesting to observe the phenomenon underway in higher education. At the same speed that universities are becoming diploma factories and, in the case of the humanities, tools of political indoctrination, the demand for independent professors, who teach what they want, what they are passionate about and consider fundamental, without worrying about guidelines outlined by any authority whatsoever, nor about dwelling on what others say is important, is increasing. Thus, we clearly distinguish two groups: those thirsty for diplomas, and those thirsty for learning. It is hard to assume that the day will come when pitiful courses like these humanities ones will be universally regarded as obsolete, but it seems inevitable that in the near future someone will catch on to such a trend and found a major educational institution that will bring together such teachers and such students, an institution that will rescue the purpose of education and, whether it provides diplomas or not, will behave in the way they all should behave.
Category: Notes
The Assault on Freedom of Thought
It is an unmistakable trait of tyrannical epochs to attack the freedom of thought, which manifests itself in the detestable form of censorship. This delirium of subjecting souls to uniformity has fortunately never been realized, although the violence employed to achieve it has always achieved patent results. Ideological censorship is a crime, unjustifiable from any point of view; it is a disgrace in every century and a condemnation of the very values on which it thinks it stands. That is why today’s attempt to bend authors of the past to the despicable ideology that has dominated Western thought by subjugating universities and the media will be a permanent blemish. Only incurable scoundrels find anything remotely reasonable in censoring those who, dead, cannot defend themselves; in adulterating their words, falsifying them, and selling as theirs lines that they never wrote. Beyond that, there is nothing to be said.
Perhaps Nothing Would Be as Beneficial…
Perhaps nothing would be as beneficial to modern philosophy as inserting literary exercises in the curricula of universities; that is, encouraging aspiring philosophers to write short stories, short poems perhaps, forcing them to transform philosophy into literature. Obviously, such an exercise would be a direct confrontation with what is today considered the only acceptable way to do philosophy. And that is why it would be so beneficial. It is not a matter of selling ideas through art, something abominable, but of clarifying the concrete role of philosophy, that is, inserting it in concrete questions, showing that there is a fundamental connection between it and life, the former not being reduced to a game of abstract constructions, a useless game for those who seek answers to real questions. Without a doubt, this would be a very useful exercise for students.
The intellectual trajectory of Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse’s intellectual trajectory is admirable. The “posthumous writings of Joseph Knecht”, especially “The Three Lives”, are like a synthesis of a lifetime dedicated to study, of a long immersion in the highest philosophies of the East and the West; a synthesis of the great religions and the great understandings of reality, starting from the simplest to the most complex elements, from practical morals to abstractions of thought. And to see such lines coming from the author of Demian… Not a few have tried to harmonize East and West in the last century; but very few have done it with the beauty achieved by Hesse.