Emile Cioran - from History and Utopia [1960]
The very notion of an ideal city is a torment to reason, an enterprise that does honor to the heart and disqualifies the intellect.
[from the essay Mechanism of Utopia]
In many of his works the French/Rumanian philosopher Emile Cioran (1911-1995) warns against the dangers of utopias. They may seem harmless and many will even attribute positive qualifications to them. However, utopias are an insult for the intellect as mankind is incapable of retaining their neutral status. 'In itself, every idea is neutral, or should be; but man animates ideas, projects his flames and flaws into them; impure, transformed into beliefs, ideas take their place in time, takes shape as events: the trajectory is complete, from logic to epilepsy...whence the birth of ideologies, doctrines, deadly games', as he writes at the beginning of Genealogy of Fanaticism, the first essay in his main work A short history of decay. Man suffers from 'a refusal to look reality in the face', he says in the same book, and man has 'a mortal thirst for fictions.'
'Human kind/ cannot bear very much reality' said T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets. Reality is too bleak, too frightening and most of all in the end we understand it is impossible to use it towards our own advantage. Better to twist reality, to let ourselves be deceived by the promise of utopia, to keep on dreaming of an ideal even though that idea will be shattered if we dare to give ourselves one look at history. In spite of the millions of victims Communism has caused in the 20th century - in spite of all his hideous crimes Hitler only occupies third spot in the list of 20th century mass murders, the top of the list is for Mao and Stalin - it is easier to blind ourselves and to continue dreaming of an ideal world. In spite of all the evidence that shows we have to look Islamist militancy in its ugly face to be able to conquer it, it is easier to blame ourselves, the horrible West: we have too much freedom, we treat women and homosexuals as equals. The sheer disgrace!
A mortal thirst for fictions...
The very notion of an ideal city is a torment to reason, an enterprise that does honor to the heart and disqualifies the intellect.
[from the essay Mechanism of Utopia]
In many of his works the French/Rumanian philosopher Emile Cioran (1911-1995) warns against the dangers of utopias. They may seem harmless and many will even attribute positive qualifications to them. However, utopias are an insult for the intellect as mankind is incapable of retaining their neutral status. 'In itself, every idea is neutral, or should be; but man animates ideas, projects his flames and flaws into them; impure, transformed into beliefs, ideas take their place in time, takes shape as events: the trajectory is complete, from logic to epilepsy...whence the birth of ideologies, doctrines, deadly games', as he writes at the beginning of Genealogy of Fanaticism, the first essay in his main work A short history of decay. Man suffers from 'a refusal to look reality in the face', he says in the same book, and man has 'a mortal thirst for fictions.'
'Human kind/ cannot bear very much reality' said T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets. Reality is too bleak, too frightening and most of all in the end we understand it is impossible to use it towards our own advantage. Better to twist reality, to let ourselves be deceived by the promise of utopia, to keep on dreaming of an ideal even though that idea will be shattered if we dare to give ourselves one look at history. In spite of the millions of victims Communism has caused in the 20th century - in spite of all his hideous crimes Hitler only occupies third spot in the list of 20th century mass murders, the top of the list is for Mao and Stalin - it is easier to blind ourselves and to continue dreaming of an ideal world. In spite of all the evidence that shows we have to look Islamist militancy in its ugly face to be able to conquer it, it is easier to blame ourselves, the horrible West: we have too much freedom, we treat women and homosexuals as equals. The sheer disgrace!
A mortal thirst for fictions...
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