Burckhardt asks, in his Reflections on History, what would result from the unexpected “popularization” of science that took place in the 19th century. Here we are… The science that Burckhardt was referring to is no longer the same. It was degraded from the moment it let itself be stripped of its noble purpose and allowed to be applied to vile interests. It has been distorted into a kind of authority that goes against the humility characteristic of truly scientific research, profaned as a political instrument, servile to the dictatorship of money, and can no longer be looked upon with the admiration of other days. The scientific arena itself, even if we insulate it from external influences, is corroded by conflicts of interest comparable to those in politics. For that matter, what has not become corrupted after the “popular” ascension? Even Burckhardt, with his noble and radical abhorrence of the money-making culture and the budding plutocracy, would be amazed to see how dangerous it has become today to ignore the social and economic impacts of possible scientific research. The summary: nothing resists “popularization”.
Category: Notes
There Should Be a Name for the Feeling of Affection….
There should be a name for the feeling of affection towards one’s own land that differentiates it from this despicable patriotism that does nothing but castrates the mind from equanimous judgment. The dictionary itself would do well to point out xenophobia as a possible synonym for patriotism, in view of the use that has been made of this unfortunate word. What a disappointment! To open history books and come across infamous adulators of tyranny and power, to find unacceptable justifications for every kind of crime, to come across the attachment to stupidity, the unswerving refusal to admit any virtue that does not flatter the “patriotic” pride… It is worth subscribing to what Cioran said: “Un homme qui se respecte n’a pas de patrie.”
A Love Disappointment Affects, More Often Than Not…
A love disappointment affects, more often than not, a superficial and less noble layer of the individual. It hurts, but it is the physical pain of the wounded animal. Generally, it does not shake the concept of love in the disappointed soul: it is possible to find someone else. Disappointment, however, when it comes from a friend to whom friendship in the only sense in which this word should be used, which elevates the souls involved and ennobles the race, is like a stab wound of very harsh philosophical and moral consequences. Unlike the common love betrayal, it is not pride that is wounded, but the higher part of nature that asked for nothing and received meanness in exchange for generosity. It is something that fills the soul with grief. It destroys the concept one has of others; it weakens the ability to trust; it undermines, in advance, the disposition for future relationships… Such nonsense! As if this word, just like the other, was not already corrupted…
The Drama of D. Pedro II Is the Drama of a Camões
D. Pedro II, this man whose life contains a moving tragedy, a tragedy that became even more accentuated after his death, was not capable of putting it in a fair measure in the few verses he composed. They are weak verses, almost innocuous for someone who does not know his biography. But someone who knows it, and imagines the state of atrocious sadness in which they were written, the immeasurable grief of the man whose virtue was paid for with the most revolting injustice on the eve of his death, this person will forgive the aesthetic defects and will sincerely sympathize with the author’s misery. But here lie two moral problems that are hard to admit: the first, that art is indifferent to the sincerity of the author—in art, the most skillful may surpass the most sincere, even if his art amounts to a complete falsification of himself;—the second, that the moral elevation contained in the work matters little, as does the character of what it evokes. It is regrettable… The drama of D, Pedro II is the drama of a Camões, but of a Camões wronged in life and not rewarded by history, that cursed insensitive in which were deposited the last hopes of the noble soul corroded by grief. Would it be different if the verses were better? How useless to answer it…