Old article from 2012.

1. Fanaticism

First of all, let’s go back to a question that has troubled me for many years: Should I be blamed for doing bad things with good intentions? A grander example can be the Czech president in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" who lamented "our intentions are good" (to this effect) in the face of the country's chaos. More subtle examples can be seen everywhere: "I This is for your own good!" - This sentence is definitely not uncommon. If it weren't for the forced interference of many parents, their children would have another life. After reading the first chapter of "Summary of Disintegration", "The Genealogy of Fanaticism", it was like an enlightenment. It turns out that the key to this problem is not whether the criterion is the result or the motivation, but that there is a problem with "good intentions" itself. The author of this book, Cioran, believes in nihilism and answers the question from this perspective.

In Cioran’s view, faith is the product of fanaticism, and people have instinctive superstition. “Once a person loses the ability to remain indifferent, he becomes a potential murderer; once his thoughts become God, the consequences are immeasurable. "People can kill people for their beliefs, whether their beliefs come from reason, country, class or racial concepts, and the extreme behaviors they produce are in the same vein as the Inquisition.

"Once people refuse to admit that ideas and concepts are interchangeable, bloodshed will occur... A sharp knife stands under a firm determination; eyes full of passion foreshadow murder." Believe in ideals and pursue truth. , love the creed, and fanaticism comes from this. He believed that "a kind of joking wisdom is always softer than a kind of holiness that breaks out." People use a noble reason for their actions and force others to accept it. Since then, everyone has become a reformer, thinking To save others.

A typical idealist is Cioran's enemy: "I only need to hear a person talk about ideals, the future, and philosophy sincerely, and listen to him talk about 'we' with a confident tone. His reference to 'others' and his role as their spokesperson - was enough to identify him as my enemy." Such people were in his view potential tyrants. "All faiths promote some form of tyranny, which becomes particularly terrifying because their leaders are 'pure people.'" What is truly terrifying is not the bad guys in the general sense, but those who are full of ideals and want to change the world. people.

"A fanatic cannot be bribed; if he can kill for an idea, he can also be killed for this idea; in both cases, Whether he is a tyrant or a martyr, he is still a devil."

There are many examples in history, and it is difficult to list them. The education we have always received is that ideals drive the development of history. Great men all have lofty ideals, and dying for a lofty belief is sacred. Cioran tells us that all fanatical ideals and beliefs are the source of evil. Stay indifferent so as not to harm others or yourself. You can decide for yourself what is right or wrong. I am mainly recommending and not making too many comments. I just read the first article today, and I hope I can stick with it and deconstruct more stereotypes.

2. Poetry, Life and Death

At the beginning, Cioran was explaining the root of corruption: innocence will be corrupted by interactions with people. "If we say that every word we say is winning a victory against nothingness, it will only make us more strongly subject to its dominance. People die according to the number of words they throw around...speak People have no secrets. And we all speak." Since dialogue can lead to corruption, people should listen to their own silence, "singing the harmonies that only their own regrets can hear." But in fact, "he becomes. He has become a mouthpiece of the universe, always speaking in the name of others, and his 'I' loves plural pronouns. However, those who speak in their name are always fake. Anyone who makes the same excuse is a liar. Only the artist's lie is not complete, because he only invents himself."

He then began to talk about poetry, these paragraphs are in square brackets. In brackets, it probably doesn't quite fit with the title of the article, "Interpreting the Fall," and it was added as an extra section at the end. "The plural concepts implied by 'people' and famously by 'we' constitute a shelter for the comfort of false existence. Only the poet can bear the 'I', only he speaks in his own name, only he has the right to do so . If poetry is tainted by language or theory, it will be nondescript: 'Mission' will suffocate singing, and concepts will hinder flying." Analyzing it, Xiao Ran does not believe in communication, and believes that people are only true to themselves, philosophy and prophecy. (Whether it is religious, moral or political) is "false authenticity" to him, because it is full of "people" and "we" and is the pinnacle of speaking for others.

"Definition is the lie of abstract thought, greatness is the nonsense of volunteerism: there is always a definition on the cornerstone of a temple, and a call must gather a group of people in it. Help believers. This is how all education begins. "What's interesting is that there is an article "In the Cemetery of Definition" that specifically talks about definitions. Cioran regarded definition as a destructive thing: "But to experience a thing by a definition, no matter how arbitrary the definition, is to reject the thing, to make it boring and redundant, to annihilate it .

"It's like naming something and labeling a person, so you no longer think about its inner nature. "The spirit wastes itself on the things it names and defines." The living part of the spirit is To erase it is to enter this "cemetery of definitions"

It is precisely because definition is a dead and destructive thing that poetry becomes so valuable: "So how can people not yearn for poetry? It, like life, has excuses for not having to prove anything. "This conclusion points out a simple fact: poetry is a useless thing. The poet creates poetry in silence with himself, not to prove anything. Writing poetry with a certain purpose will not work, Xiao Ran For example, Shelley's "generous" side makes most of his works obsolete (except in English literary history classes, who would know that he wrote many political poems?), while Shakespeare is still remembered for his "uselessness" .

Since Cioran said that life does not need to prove anything, let’s take a look at his views on life and death - these two topics are always inextricably linked. Death is precise. Because everyone is bound to die, and "life accumulates invalid secrets again and again, monopolizing the world's meaninglessness. As a result, it arouses more fear than death: it is the real unknown." "Life cannot have any goal or meaning:" Give life a definite goal: life will immediately lose its charm. The uncertainty of its purpose raises it above death—while the slightest precision can reduce it to the banality of the grave. "Fighting death is ultimately ineffective, and digging for the meaning of life will only lead to a void." Life is born in madness and disintegrates in boredom. ”

Originally I wanted to write a few more sentences in this part, but my train of thought was interrupted and I ended it hastily. Because "Summary of Disintegration" is a book of philosophical essays, and the chapters are scattered, I will not write them one by one. Notes.

3. Pain

Everyone complains about their pain, but we also know that pain that can be expressed is not real pain. This is how Xiao Ran described it. : “If the pain a man endures has a definite quality, he has no right to complain; after all, he has something to do. Those who suffer greatly never grow weary: their sickness takes possession of them as remorse nourishes the sinner. "Here, he regarded boredom as the greatest pain.

He hypothesized that if Sunday afternoons were extended to a month, people would fall into incomprehensible pain: "In the endless Sundays, there is The suffering is clearly evident. Sometimes people can forget themselves in something, but how can they forget themselves in the world? This impossibility is the definition of pain. "Staying busy can avoid realizing that the world is so empty, and the pain caused by the long vacation is simply unbearable.

So can pain be divided into different levels? In another article, he denied this One point: "People have always been in pain, but pain can be 'sublime', 'just' or 'absurd' due to the overall vision maintained by the philosophy of the time. Unfortunately, everything that breathes has the same warp and weft, but the form of its existence is changing; and these different forms construct a series of stubborn appearances, inducing every life to think that it is the first. Such a painful person. This self-conscious pride prompted him to fall in love with his own pain and endure it. In such a world full of pain, every pain is exclusive to oneself, completely ignoring the existence of other pains. "The title of the article is also very interesting: "Adjective Hegemony". What people think of as difference and creation is just changing the adjective.

Since everyone is suffering, how to judge whose suffering is more serious? What? Xiao Ran wrote that he met an old lady in the hospital who kept complaining about her physical illness, as if "her illness was the only master of time and space." Such excessive concern for himself made him determined to "from now on Give up my pain." We all have this experience more or less. It is one thing to hear others complain, but another thing to actually encounter them: "Others' pain can be explained in our eyes. can be overcome; we think that the reason why they suffer is because they do not have enough will, courage, or are not clear enough. From our point of view, every kind of pain, except our own, is reasonable or ridiculously simple."

Even the pain we experience is always present at this moment and at that moment. The pain is the heaviest. Like an exam, the one that comes next is always the most stressful and difficult. Looking back after the exam, many people feel like it was written in "Little Reunion" and would rather fight than fight. I wish to take the exam. If I hear the news that the city gate has been breached after the exam, I will probably not feel relieved.

Xiao Han used an interesting phrase: "The pain of standing up straight." , what people do is to change themselves, but our essence cannot be changed, which is probably the source of pain. He also quoted this sentence: "Existence equals pain." People can realize their own misfortune, so, "You." "The pain is like fate, without a goal" and can only "be willing to accept the invasion of pain."

Cioran himself also has a deep understanding of pain. His thoughts, according to the translator's preface, are "The sequelae of suffering from insomnia in his early years." He was unable to control his insomnia and was forced to face the emptiness of life soberly and question his own existence.

4. Loneliness

"Loneliness - The Split of the Soul", from this title we can see Cioran's views on loneliness, "A lonely world faces a lonely heart" The souls are destined to be separated from each other and to irritate each other in the confrontation. "When loneliness is too strong, people become heretics, and loneliness is equivalent to rebellion.

In another article, he wrote, "The truly lonely person is not the one who has been abandoned, but the one who is suffering in the crowd and playing an irredeemable comedy actor. He is in the city. Jishang drags himself across the desert, showing his talent as a smiling leper. "Pain can free us from our connection with things, but it can only free us from our attachment to ourselves and our inescapable sense of individuality." The sense of individuality is "the ultimate basis of loneliness." Therefore, "loneliness is magnified into the essence." However, it is against the rules to talk about loneliness too much. The so-called civilization is "people do not show their sores to others" and abide by the rules of the world. If "everyone allows his loneliness to develop freely, God will have to re-create the world, because the existence of the world depends entirely on our education and our fear of ourselves..."

Loneliness comes from existence Each individual is lonely in different ways and degrees. The loneliest one is the traitor, "because he pushed his individuality to the extreme." Therefore, "Judas is the loneliest person in the history of Christianity," but "he is not lonely. The loneliest ever”. His betrayal was very specific, betraying a god, but there was a more complex way of betrayal that was not directed at specific people or things: “Abandoning everything, but not knowing what everything means; being isolated in the environment where he belongs; By a metaphysical separation, we reject what shapes us, surrounds us, and supports us."

This most profound betrayal is betrayal of existence, resisting everything but no one knows it. What will be his punishment?