Page 32 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
otherwise, ye fools? An Apollo capable of dominating a Dionysus and capable of sharing his temple! I do not want to extirpate the passions, like Christianity, but to tame them.106 Yes, in these bleak times of asphyxia, where the tyranny of the majority, hypocrisy, phariseeism and science’s superficial optimism are rampant, we have to liberate our energies to dominate them. I prophesize.
But what?
A future in which there is a super-abundance of life, where life becomes an art.
Nietzsche! Aren’t you taking things to a repellent extreme, perhaps? Is your mirror right? Don’t forget that tragedy can be sordid and give raise not to the Superman, but to the infrahuman.
Ì Simmel to Hume and Nietzsche. Culture is tragic. The tragedy of culture consists in the permanent conflict between individual spontaneity that tends to overstep all social boundaries, and the cultural limitations imposed by it. There is no culture without spontaneous individual activity; however, this activity dissolves the culture that produced it. Hence, culture is the product of spontaneity and obstacle to spontaneity.107
Ì Aristotle to Hume. Here, I shall repeat myself again! I often found that the tragic hero is neither eminently good nor just, but that his misfortune is brought by error or frailty [hammartia], not vice or depravity.108
Ì Kierkegaard to Hume. It is nothing else but guilt and more guilt! Guilt and only guilt is the foundation of morals. The modern tragic hero despairs corroded by guilt and an Attic reversal. The difference today is that in Attic tragedy, action is so crucial that actors are subordinated to it. Remember Aristotle? In modern tragedy, actors are so crucial that action subordinates to them. Situation and character, more than action, are what determines modern tragedy. The tragic hero is different from the criminal too or the believer. My tragic hero is tragic through his own volition, never having the possibility to make the leap that converts him from criminal to the knight of faith. This is why Abraham could never be a tragic hero. The tragic heroe renounces himself to express the universal;
106 My own interpretation based on my studies on Nietzsche.
107 Brown, Richard. Postmodern Representations, Truth Power and Mimesis in the Human Sciences and Public Culture. Illinois: Illinois University Press, 1995.
108 Aristotle. Poetics. Section 13.
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