Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
perdurable.
While Bahnsen does not figure in the following pages, I should say that
his negative spirit
Mientras Bahnsen no figura en las siguientes pginas, no obstante,
debera decir que su espritu pesimista
is nonetheless present in this work, the brunt of which is concerned with
how blind we
est presente en este trabajo, en el impacto de lo que concierne a cun
ciegos estamos
are to the horrors of our existence as well as how adept we have become
at sloughing
our lives is all in our heads. As with many propositions that shoot for
loftiness (To be or
not to be), this one may be mulled over but not usefully argued. The
few who have gone
to the pains of doing so might as well have not existed. History proves
that people will
change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship
to how they
style their hair. An exception to this rule, probably the only one, is that
humanity has
never seriously doubted its good opinion of itself or the value of its
existence. Should
dissenters, with special reference to those who are not giddy about
being members of the
human race. The second rule should be: if you must open your mouth,
steer away from
argumentation. Money and love may make the world go round, but
logical disputation
with that world cannot get it to budge. In the words of British author and
Christian
apologist G. K. Chesterton, You can only find truth with logic if you have
already found
truth without it. (Example: every debate over the existence of God is
won by His
defenders.) And if your truth is not the same as that of Chesterton and
his like, you might
as well pack it up and go home. It will blow up in your face the second it
is heard by
those who have already found a truth that is not yours, which in my case
will be all but a
few fellow miserablists. Still, for those who would lob a bomb at received
illusions,
this unruly fusion of the rational and the irrational, I will borrow heavily
from a
11
prefabricated thesis of another foreign philosopher, one who anticipated
my complaints
before I was born . . . and wished I had not been. For the time being, I
would like return
horror. Being self-conscious and being nothing should rule out each
other. Instead they
something, not nothing. The suicidal will tell you they are something but
wish they were
nothing. What almost no one will tell you is that they know they are
nothingliving
suffer the illusion that they are something. They believe this is how it is
with everyone
that all of us are living the same paradox, the same horror. They also
believe we will do
anything to keep this knowledge out of our heads because if we did not,
how could we go
on living? And why would we replenish the world with more selfconscious nothings,
more puppets?
can come to life, hop up like a human being, know things that we know
and perhaps other
puppet exists, but it cannot know how or why it exists. It is a knownothing. And still it
may have something to tell us about the natural and the supernatural.
Effigies of ourselves made by our own hands and minds, puppets were
created to be
actors in a world of their own, one that exists inside of ours and reflects
back upon it.
But puppets have nothing to hide. They are more than willing to betray a
secret too
terrible for us to know. Our lives are full of baffling questions that
virtuosos of
speculation trifle with and the rest of us forget about. Naked apes or
embodied angels we
about and think what we choose. Puppets are not like that. They have
nothing in their
heads. They are unreal. When they are in motion, we know they are
moved by an outside
force. When they speak, their voices come from elsewhere. Their orders
come from
somewhere behind and beyond them. And were they ever to become
aware of that fact,
When we are through playing with puppets, we put them away. They are
only objects
like a corpse in a casket. The dead do not return except in horror stories
and nightmares.
12
Ghosts and such are faulty transmissions from haunted minds. If they
were not, our world
are full of illusions; things, including human things, are frequently not
what they seem.
Nevertheless, one thing we know for sure: the difference between what
it natural and
all appearances, thank God and nature, there is nothing to worry about.
Almost everyone
believes we are natural beings whose lives have an inborn value. No one
can prove that
our existence is a paradox and a horror. Everything is all right with the world.