It can be admitted without much difficulty that a dog is capable of thinking. However, a dog certainly does not believe. I say this and I notice a human differential. A differential that I cannot summarize as a blessing or weakness: belief elevates the human being above all other animals to the same extent that it makes him susceptible to error and evil. If I have great esteem for skeptics, I realize that they lack something. Sometimes it seems necessary to embrace a weakness to transcend the mediocrity of the concrete…
Tag: philosophy
Nietzsche Symbolizes Freedom of Spirit
It is very difficult to recognize the autonomy of those who seem unscathed by Nietzsche’s outbursts. They like to stone him, take him out of context, detach him from the nobility of character that is peculiar to him. Nietzsche symbolizes freedom of spirit, power, intellectual courage. To undermine him seems to me, above all, to undermine these three very noble qualities.
The Modern Monster
Mário Ferreira dos Santos, about Nietzsche, in free translation:
He was the adversary of the State, the modern monster, the Moloch of our days, the devourer of men and consciences, the most brutal creation of human weakness and who will end up totally tiring it, to the point of one day abhorring all forms of oppression, and destroying them with an impetus that will make the pages of history tremble. It will not be easy to understand this for the man of today, this captive who licks his shackles, this “Haustier,” this domesticated animal who has grown accustomed to worshipping the monster of which he speaks.
The note is dated 1957. What to say? A little over half a century, and we can verify the accuracy of Mario’s brilliant observation. The collapse of the modern state is inevitable, however… the “captive who licks the shackles” continues, passive, to lick them, in a state of admirable unconsciousness in which he does not show the slightest sign of exhaustion. The situation has only worsened: the monster has grown, its dominion has expanded, and it no longer has any shame. The question, however, remains unanswered: until when? On the one hand, the reaction is inevitable; on the other, awakening seems distant. What is clear is that, as Mário predicted, the day will come when the “devourer of men and consciences” will be faced with a violent and extraordinary explosion, coming from an apparently perpetual lethargy.
A Parallel Life
The 21st-century artist, or rather the one thirsting for high culture, needs a kind of parallel life, a detachment from the milieu so that he can walk alone. High culture repels modern daily life, the milieu is harmful, hostile, and there is nothing one can do to absorb it but lock oneself in isolation. To do otherwise is to become contaminated and lose the capacity for distinction, rotting away as did culture itself. If, on the one hand, such a contrast can show a gradual loss of the role, or perhaps the influence of high culture in society, on the other hand, on an individual level, decisions remain easy.