Suchergebnisse

In this article, the author examines the relationship between power, time, and human reality. Using a novel by the Bosnian writer Meša Selimović as a case study, the author tests two metaphysical claims: power submits to power only, and the passage of time empties the significance of each and every human activity. The author finds that Selimović's novel confirms both. The conclusion is profoundly pessimistic. The lives of human beings are doubly unhappy: they are spent in protracted struggles for resources and recognition that yield power, and also even the accomplishments of the victorious in these struggles will be erased by the passage of time. However, the understanding of the second claim might retroactively ameliorate the conditions of human life. Yet as evidenced by Selimović's novel, in the world dominated by power, this does not happen. The case of Šehaga Sočo shows that even the one whose personal experience convinced him of the meaninglessness of it all is unable to break out of the cycle of rivalry and revenge. At his deathbed, he orders the death of his rivals, though he knows that to him dying, it makes no difference whether they live or die. Why not opt for forgiveness? Because, as Selimović emphasizes, power's insistence on self-perpetuation is illogical, and it is logic that tells us not to engage in meaningless tasks. In other words, human reason is powerless to provide us with a more tolerant world.

How should one live in order to live well? What are the defining
characteristics of the good life? These questions - the perennial concern of
classical scholars - have in the last 25 years become the subject of debates
in contemporary social and political theory as well. Foucault (1986), Taylor
(1989), Kekes (1995), Cottingham (1998) and Nehamas (1998) have all stressed
the importance of the ?art of living? or ?caring for the self? in light of
contemporary political and economic developments. This article, as my
contribution to the debate, offers the analysis of two models of the ?good
life?: the one as presented by Plato and embodied in the literary character
of Socrates, and the other as presented by Nikos Kazantzakis and embodied in
the literary figure of Zorba. In general terms, Socrates advocates the rule
of reason and the denigration and submission of the bodily Eros, while Zorba
remains suspicious of the mind - ?a careful little shopkeeper? - and stresses
the significance of bodily experiences as ways of linking oneself with the
rest of the universe. Hence in the article I formulate an ethic of sensual
Eros by focusing on Zorba?s way of life and contrast it to the Socratic
ethics. I conclude that the concern and respect for the body, for the house
in which Eros dwells, is the necessary a priori for the living of the good
life. This way of life is not one that rejects reason altogether, but what it
does reject is the desire of reason to monopolize the individual?s life
processes.

Filip Kovacevic is a professor at the University of Montenegro.