an impulse so irresistible it seems like a reflex, I disobey.
Incapable of taking orders, I take no pleasure in giving orders. It is something I do reluctantly, only for brief periods and only when it is absolutely necessary.
Given all of this, it is not difficult to imagine what kind of soldier I would make. I have no doubts, dear Bernard-Henri, that in the event of war (and I think this is what one must envisage as the last resort when discussing commitment), I would fight little and badly. I would throw a few punches or fire a few shots depending on the context (ideally, the whole thing would be played out on a computer screen); and pretty quickly I would start wondering what I was doing there; the vague thrill of combat (I am, I suppose, capable of secreting a little adrenaline) would wear off. And, at the first opportunity, I would quite simply
do a runner
. I would join the vast throng of those who fought little and badly; of those who waited, without quite daring to say as much, for everyone else to
stop their fucking nonsense
. Of those who do not care about the fate of democracy, of Free France, of Chechnya or the Basque country; about those who succumb, as de Gaulle rightly said, to the spell of the “terrifying emptiness of general renouncement.” I am one of those. Of those whom nothing general and universal (nor specific and domestic) can really move. Of the vast troop of people who endure history, interestingthemselves only in that which directly concerns them and those close to them.
I find it extremely unpleasant that choosing to take the standpoint of selfishness and cowardice may, in the eyes of my contemporaries, make me
more likeable
than you who advocate heroism; but I know my peers and that is precisely what will happen.
I’d like to speak on behalf of a superior heroism, that of the Dalai Lama, say. In the writings of a Tibetan monk I was struck by the thought experiment he describes, where he imagines lying down on a railway line just before a train comes. The monk, he says, understands the phenomenon of his body being cut to pieces, and envisages it calmly as a representation of his spirit. This guy wasn’t joking; this was how far he’d got.
I haven’t got that far and in practice I speak on behalf of nothing very much. Of some vague concept of progress, maybe, which to my mind is scientific or technical. A vestige of the seriousness I had in childhood, continued through my studies, that means that I consider war (civil or religious, of independence or of conquest) as so much
waste of time
. The important thing, surely, is to invent the steam engine, develop industrialized production, control the weather. It is more than a vestige, in fact; this is how I was brought up, I can’t help it.
So, there are the good students who go home after class and do their math homework for the next day; and the bad, the morons, who hang around the streets looking to play some mean trick, to start a fight.
Later, there will be honest engineers who build railway viaducts and office buildings; and bloodthirsty clowns whoseize on any pretext, ideological or religious, in order to destroy them.
Is this, then, the core of my beliefs? Is it as simplistic as this? Sadly, I fear it is. I have always felt the deepest mistrust for those who
take up arms
in the name of whatever cause. I have always felt there was something deeply unwholesome about warmongers, troublemakers, rabble-rousers. What is a war or a revolution, in the end, but a hobby fueled by spite, a bloody, cruel sport?
I have infinitely sympathized with, felt, and finally embraced the maxim by old Goethe: “Better an injustice than disorder.”
Above all, I have been fascinated by the phrase, so mysterious in its generality, from Auguste Comte, “Progress is nothing other than the development of order.”
Are we going to have to resort to philosophy for the rest of our exchanges? It bothers me that I still don’t have access to my books. Go on,
Incapable of taking orders, I take no pleasure in giving orders. It is something I do reluctantly, only for brief periods and only when it is absolutely necessary.
Given all of this, it is not difficult to imagine what kind of soldier I would make. I have no doubts, dear Bernard-Henri, that in the event of war (and I think this is what one must envisage as the last resort when discussing commitment), I would fight little and badly. I would throw a few punches or fire a few shots depending on the context (ideally, the whole thing would be played out on a computer screen); and pretty quickly I would start wondering what I was doing there; the vague thrill of combat (I am, I suppose, capable of secreting a little adrenaline) would wear off. And, at the first opportunity, I would quite simply
do a runner
. I would join the vast throng of those who fought little and badly; of those who waited, without quite daring to say as much, for everyone else to
stop their fucking nonsense
. Of those who do not care about the fate of democracy, of Free France, of Chechnya or the Basque country; about those who succumb, as de Gaulle rightly said, to the spell of the “terrifying emptiness of general renouncement.” I am one of those. Of those whom nothing general and universal (nor specific and domestic) can really move. Of the vast troop of people who endure history, interestingthemselves only in that which directly concerns them and those close to them.
I find it extremely unpleasant that choosing to take the standpoint of selfishness and cowardice may, in the eyes of my contemporaries, make me
more likeable
than you who advocate heroism; but I know my peers and that is precisely what will happen.
I’d like to speak on behalf of a superior heroism, that of the Dalai Lama, say. In the writings of a Tibetan monk I was struck by the thought experiment he describes, where he imagines lying down on a railway line just before a train comes. The monk, he says, understands the phenomenon of his body being cut to pieces, and envisages it calmly as a representation of his spirit. This guy wasn’t joking; this was how far he’d got.
I haven’t got that far and in practice I speak on behalf of nothing very much. Of some vague concept of progress, maybe, which to my mind is scientific or technical. A vestige of the seriousness I had in childhood, continued through my studies, that means that I consider war (civil or religious, of independence or of conquest) as so much
waste of time
. The important thing, surely, is to invent the steam engine, develop industrialized production, control the weather. It is more than a vestige, in fact; this is how I was brought up, I can’t help it.
So, there are the good students who go home after class and do their math homework for the next day; and the bad, the morons, who hang around the streets looking to play some mean trick, to start a fight.
Later, there will be honest engineers who build railway viaducts and office buildings; and bloodthirsty clowns whoseize on any pretext, ideological or religious, in order to destroy them.
Is this, then, the core of my beliefs? Is it as simplistic as this? Sadly, I fear it is. I have always felt the deepest mistrust for those who
take up arms
in the name of whatever cause. I have always felt there was something deeply unwholesome about warmongers, troublemakers, rabble-rousers. What is a war or a revolution, in the end, but a hobby fueled by spite, a bloody, cruel sport?
I have infinitely sympathized with, felt, and finally embraced the maxim by old Goethe: “Better an injustice than disorder.”
Above all, I have been fascinated by the phrase, so mysterious in its generality, from Auguste Comte, “Progress is nothing other than the development of order.”
Are we going to have to resort to philosophy for the rest of our exchanges? It bothers me that I still don’t have access to my books. Go on,
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