Bulgarian historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist (1939-2017)
Wars are motivated by the need to seize the wealth of our neighbours, to wield power, to protect ourselves from real or imagined threats: in short they have, as we have seen, political, social, economic or demographic causes. There is no need to refer to Islam or the clash of civilizations to explain why the Afghans or the Iraqis resist the western military forces occupying their countries. Nor to speak of anti-Jewish sentiment or anti-Semitism to understand the reasons why the Palestinians are not overjoyed by the Israeli occupation of their lands.
The decision to use torture as a terror of retribution gives an inner satisfaction to the person who practises it, even if this is difficult for him to accept openly. Having been injured and humiliated by aggression, he can now humiliate in his turn those whom he considers to be his aggressors, and rediscover his self-esteem. As an ex-soldier of the Algerian War explains, forty years after the events: ‘You could feel a certain form of jubilation while being present at such extreme scenes . . . Doing to a body whatever you feel like doing to it.’ Reducing the other to a state of complete impotence gives you a feeling of supreme power. This feeling is one which torture gives you more than murder does, since the latter does not last: once dead, the other becomes an inert object and no longer produces that jubilation which stems from fully triumphing over the will of another, without his ceasing to exist.
In Socrates' time, an orator was accustomed to ask his audience which genre or mode of expression was preferred: myth i.e., narrative — or logical argumentation? In the age of the book, this decision cannot be left to the audience: the choice must be made in order for the book to exist and one merely imagines (or hopes for) an audience that will have given one answer rather than the other; one also tries to listen to the answer suggested or imposed by the subject itself.
Nobody is entirely satisfied with the condition in which he or she lives: we often have the impression that these conditions are getting worse. Whose fault is this? It is tempting to seek a simple answer and an easily identifiable guilty person or group: it is this temptation that produces populist movements and parties.
Para dar cuenta de las diferencias existentes en la realidad, hay que distinguir por lo menos tres ejes, en los que se puede situar la problemática de la alteridad. Primero hay un juicio de valor (un plano axiológico): el otro es bueno o malo, lo quiero o no lo quiero, o bien, como se prefiere decir en esa época, es mi igual o es inferior a mí (ya que por lo general, y eso es obvio, yo soy bueno, y me estimo...). En segundo lugar, está la acción de acercamiento o de alejamiento en relación con el otro (un plano praxeológico): adopto los valores del otro, me identifico con él; o asimilo al otro a mí, le impongo mi propia imagen; entre la sumisión al otro y la sumisión del otro hay un tercer punto, que es la neutralidad, o indiferencia. En tercer lugar, conozco o ignoro la identidad del otro (éste sería un plano epistémico); evidentemente no hay aquí ningún absoluto, sino una gradación infinita entre los estados de conocimiento menos o más elevados
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Pourquoi j’aime la littérature… parce qu’elle m’aide à vivre. … Plus dense, plus éloquente que la vie quotidienne mais non radicalement différente, la littérature élargit notre univers, nous incite à imaginer d’autres manières de la concevoir et de l’organiser. Loin d’être un simple agrément, une distraction réservée aux personnes éduquées, elle permet à chacun de mieux répondre à sa vocation d’être humain.