What makes the Germanic genius so curious is its extreme perfectionism, present from the highest to the lowest manifestations of the spirit. This causes, above all, a contrast of enormous dimensions between individuals of different inclinations, so that it is surprising to note that in Germanic countries, as in others, there are neighbors on the doorstep and there is social interaction. Perhaps misanthropy has never been practiced with such devotion elsewhere, and perhaps there is no people with a greater number of notable misanthropes — not to mention geniuses…
Tag: behavior
Patriotism and Anti-Patriotism
If one thing is certain, it is that patriotism and anti-patriotism go beyond the realm of rationality and are based above all on temperament, which is shaped primarily by experience. In short, a patriot is someone whose sense of belonging manifests itself, while an anti-patriot is someone who feels out of place. They are different psychological attitudes, based on different sensations, and that is all they are: psychological attitudes arising from sensations.
The Practical Man and the Thinking Man
Thomas Bernhard, in Extinction, makes a very sharp reflection on what can be called the practical man and the thinking man. According to his reasoning, the practical man hates idleness and usually identifies it with the thinking man. However, the practical man, unaccustomed to thought, only conceives of action as practical action, and therefore cannot understand the absence of practical action as anything other than idleness. But the truth is that idleness does not exist for the thinking man, because it is precisely under the appearance of idleness that he experiences his states of greatest excitement. This, however, is far beyond the comprehension of the practical man. The curious thing about all this is that, in fact, it is precisely the practical man who slips into the idleness that he hates so much: incapable of thinking, only for him does the absence of practical action mean genuine and absolute inaction.
The Problem With Utilitarian Man
The problem with utilitarian man is that he believes that everything is necessarily for sale, just waiting to be negotiated. That is why he ends up, sooner or later, breaking his face when he comes up against his will against a nature that does not share his convictions. So he lashes out, wages war and sometimes insults what he does not understand; in all cases, however, whether he thinks he is triumphant or not, he is forced to swallow his own smallness.