Know thyself how? In battle. Unamuno, Life 6.5
Unamuno
discusses the war between faith and reason as a foundation for life.
Humanity requires us to have both of these qualities, which cannot
exist except in opposition to one another. Here we see some insight
into why Unamuno regards our situation as basically tragic.
Podrá
decirse, sí, que muerto el perro se acabó la rabia, y que después
que me muera no me atormentará ya esta hambre de no morir, y que el
miedo a la muerte, o mejor dicho, a la nada, es un miedo irracional,
pero... Sí, pero ... Eppur si muove! (†)
Y seguirá moviéndose. ¡Como que es la fuente de todo
movimiento!
Mas
no creo esté del todo en lo cierto el hermano Kierkegaard, porque el
mismo pensador abstracto, o pensador de abstracciones, piensa para
existir, para no dejar de existir, o tal vez piensa para
olvidar que tendrá que dejar de existir. Tal es el fondo de la
pasión del pensamiento abstracto. Y acaso Hegel se interesaba tan
infinitamente como Kierkegaard en su propia, concreta y singular
existencia, aunque para mantener el decoro profesional de filósofo
del Estado lo ocultase. Exigencias del cargo.
La
fe en la inmortalidad es irracional. Y, sin embargo, fe, vida y razón
se necesitan mutuamente. Ese anhelo vital no es propiamente problema,
no puede tomar estado lógico, no puede formularse en proposiciones
racionalmente discutibles, pero se nos plantea, como se nos plantea
el hambre. Tampoco un lobo que se echa sobre su presa para devorarla,
o sobre la loba para fecundarla, puede plantearse racionalmente y
como problema lógico su empuje. Razón y fe son dos enemigos que no
pueden sostenerse el uno sin el otro. Lo irracional pide ser
racionalizado, y la razón sólo puede operar sobre lo irracional.
Tienen que apoyarse uno en otro y asociarse. Pero asociarse en lucha,
ya que la lucha es un modo de asociación.
En
el mundo de los vivientes, la lucha por la vida,
the
struggle for life (‡),
establece una asociación, y estrechísima, no ya entre los que se
unen para combatir a otro, sino entre los que se combaten mutuamente.
¿Y hay, acaso, asociación más íntima que la que se traba entre el
animal que se come a otro y éste que es por él comido, entre el
devorador y el devorado? Y si esto se ve claro en la lucha de los
individuos entre sí, más claro aun se ve en la de los pueblos. La
guerra ha sido siempre el más completo factor de progreso, más aún
que el comercio. Por la guerra es como aprenden a conocerse y, como
consecuencia de ello, a quererse vencedores y vencidos.
Of
course we can say that the death of a mad dog puts an end to his
rabies, that when I am dead my hunger not to die will torment me no
more, and so my fear of death—or more accurately, my fear of
nothingness—becomes irrational. Still, even so: “It does
move!” And it will continue to do so, as it is the fount and source
of all movement!
I
am not in full agreement with brother Kierkegaard, though, as even
the abstract thinker, the human who thinks of and in abstractions,
does this thinking in order to exist—in order to avoid the
end of his existence, or perhaps to forget that he will eventually
have to cease existing. This is the fundamental passion that
motivates abstract thought. Perhaps Hegel was just as infinitely
interested as Kierkegaard in his own concrete and singular existence,
though he might hide this interest to maintain the professional
decorum of a state philosopher. Public position is regularly
accompanied by such burdens.
Faith
in immortality is irrational. Nevertheless, faith, life, and reason
all require one another. The desire for life is not really a problem,
in the usual sense: it cannot assume a logical position, nor can it
be formulated in propositions rationally arguable. It presents itself
to us directly, the same way hunger does: the wolf that leaps upon
its prey, to feast, or upon its mate, to make pups, cannot debate its
impulses in terms of any logical problem. Reason and faith are two
enemies who cannot stand without each other. Each requires the
support and association of the other to subsist as something distinct
in itself. Their association is a war, as it happens: war makes
sides.
In
the world of the living, the struggle for life establishes an
exceedingly close association not just between those who unite
against a common foe, but between foes who fight each other. Is there
any animal association more intimate than the one that develops
between predator and prey, between the eater and the eaten? If this
association appears clearly in the case of individuals, it seems even
more evident in the struggle of populations. War has always been the
most effective driver of progress, even more than commerce. For war
is how folk learn to know one another, and in consequence how to
desire the conditions that make them victors and vanquished.
---
(†)
This phrase was attributed to Galileo as early as 1757, supposedly
uttered by the astronomer after his formal declaration that the
church was right to make the earth immovable.
(‡)
A reference to the full English title of Charles Darwin's On
the Origin of Species.