That’s right: money degrades existence and dulls when put in the foreground. The generation of volunteer slaves is among the stupidest of all times. Devoting the bulk of life, the bulk of spirit and energy to material accumulation is simply infamous. But here comes the disturbing question: how to dose, limit the effort, prevent degradation and, while retaining independence, not be completely crushed by the environment?
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The orthodox qualify as a mercenary who believes in the hope of eternal reward. As for practical life, it is a gross error to believe in any kind of meritocracy working, when in practical terms the existence itself contains a striking injustice. To put the motivation in the hope of a certain payment is a childish, fragile, if not vanity inducing attitude. To work hard daily, despite the future: this is the distinction of that which rises above a commercial relationship.
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Very interesting essay, as always, in the case of this plume. To Tolstoy, the work of art is a means of transmitting feelings, that is to say: regardless of the qualitative character of the feeling expressed,—which can be good, bad, strong, weak…—the artistic work fulfills its role as long as this feeling communicated by the artist is experienced by those who come in contact with it. And the master, without evasions, carries out the consequences of this proposition, judging the various aesthetic theories over time and citing numerous artists as examples of great, bad, true, and false art. Essentially, he says, art is not a search for “beauty”,—nor any other abstraction,—but an instrument that enables the artist to transmit that which extrapolates the rational argument, to transmit personal feelings experienced by the author. Art, thus, establishes a link between the artist and the common man, justifying its noble role in society since it allows anyone to have experiences that would not be possible by any other means. Tolstoy also judges the art of his time mostly corrupted and risks some comments about the “art of the future”. The essay dates from 1898, the master passed away in 1910: he spared himself from witnessing how unfortunately all his predictions would fall by the wayside…
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I read a hundred pages of Heidegger and throw the volume into space. Unbearable! A hundred sterile pages wrapped in the most abstract language of the universe, a hundred pages of rhetoric that seems deep, but clouds the thought, deceives by pretending to approach the last truths by being nothing but hollow and evasive. Terrible, terrible… But how pleasant it was to interrupt the linguistic cheating! to say no to the falsification of philosophy! Forgive me, idolaters, but I only see value in philosophy useful to someone who, in desperation, puts the barrel of a gun against a temple. Although, in truth, one Heidegger page is enough for anyone to pull the trigger…
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