|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Jewish and Gentile Experience of the Holocaust: A Personal Perspective
| Article
# : |
20146 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1992 |
8,399 Words |
| Author
: |
Aleksandras Shtromas
|
In Two Sources of Morality and Religion, a book published in 1932, the great French philosopher Henri Bergson notes that human psychology is based on an instinctive division by each individual of the rest of humanity into two basic categories, those of "us" and "them." Throughout history, he maintains, the concepts of "us" is permanently expanding as ever-larger groups of people are encompassed in it: Family and clan consciousness have grown into the tribal one, and the tribal consciousness has extended into national consciousness; now various kinds of supranational consciousness are also starting to gain momentum.
To Bergson such a permanent expansion of the concept of "us" is the only measure of human progress. Bergson is, the only measure of human progress. Bergson is, however, not sure whether this progress will ultimately lead to the total elimination of the concept of "them", to the "them" being dissolved altogether in the "us" embracing all mankind. He wonders whether we humans will be abele to have enough spiritual resources to overcome our natural divisive instincts and to reach the level of consciousness that could produce a world where there will really be "neither Greek nor Hebrew." If, against all odds, we humans will be able to reach that level of global consciousness and thus become one species under God, we will be saved, he believes; but if not, then we will fail our test before God Who gave us the gift of free will and, most probably, by violently annihilating each other in various bloody confrontations and conflicts, will follow the way of the dinosaurs to extinction.
Bergson's book reflects, no doubt, the world in which it was written, a world increasingly dominated by militant ideologies, communist and fascist alike, which, by unashamedly exploiting the mass psychology of "us" versus "them," saw the solution of mankind's problems in the elimination of the various vile and vicious "them" who, allegedly, block the way to a harmonious, decent, and happy existence, and who even threaten the very survival of the innocent and virtuous "us," be they (these "us") the working people or the racially pure and organically consolidated territorial folks of the world.
As the Spanish follower of Bergson Jose Ortega y Gasset remarks in his 1929 book The Revolt of the Masses, only now in the twentieth century are we able fully to appreciate the truth of Nietzsche's dictum that mediocrity is death, for it is the mediocrities, people unable to produce any innovative and constructive ideas, who, in a desperate attempt at realizing their frustrated will to power, conceive and propel ideologies the only goal of
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
