Modern Democracies

Modern democracies have brought together all the most devious means ever invented by the human mind and have materialized a supreme and unprecedented ode to hypocrisy. This much-acclaimed system, whose criticism is inadmissible and may earn a place in jail, boils down to a tyranny that only grows stronger as the years go by. A tyranny, therefore, a legitimate system, but oppressive, unjust and cruel. The individual, who has absolutely no part in it, has to swallow it and finance it, even in the face of unacceptable abuses and absurdities, watching, gagged and with his hands tied, the perpetuation of a will that can be manipulated and is effectively manipulated by scoundrels, a will contrary to his interests. For everything that once seemed unattainable to the most shameless of tyrants, today there are sure means of execution, and so it seems that souls, more than ever, are submitted and unable to react.

Having a “Cause” and Wanting to Impose It

There is a remarkable difference between having a “cause” and wanting to impose it on the rest of men. It is possible to say, at first, that this difference is character. But it can also be said that the more the feeling inspired by the “cause” is true, the more its “benefits” are clear in the mind of the one who has it, the more will be the natural impulse to want other men to have it too, or to “enjoy” it. Here, then, we come to the imposition. There is no way to interpret it, regardless of how it is practiced, or how it is founded, if not as a primary violation, a direct attack on the freedom of the individual. The imposition will never be noble, and after the tyranny has been perpetrated, those who have suffered it can no longer be called free men.

At the Same Time that Prudence…

At the same time that prudence demands attention to the future, peace refuses to appear in the mental room where it is present. The future, coldly analyzed, is the end and the possibility of the end. In a lower instance, it is the present uncertainty materializing into a nightmare. For there to be peace, there must be no apprehension, and apprehension can hardly be avoided when one glimpses tomorrow. In part, the tranquility of the Buddhist who has nothing and fears nothing is understandable; but unless there is a total break with attachments, something almost fanciful, it does not seem possible to be so and not also be irresponsible.

The Modern Obsession With Sexuality

The modern obsession with sexuality, which considers it a matter of first importance and cannot bear half a dozen words that do not highlight its primordial character in the human being, only validates the old, very unpleasant and unpopular affirmations of numerous thinkers over the centuries who have noted the greater distance between the superior man and the common man than between the latter and a dog.. There is, to put it like Pessoa, a difference in quality, an inevitable repulsion, and to the former the concerns of the second will always seem contemptible and degrading.