628
Our species’ dualism baffles all corners of perception, undermines theories and
catechisms with the gusto of an avalanche. What could we have possibly been thinking, to have divorced a universality of calm tenderness, embracing instead the sheer
Hells we have imposed? All go by the names of evolution, purpose, destiny, and
self-deification.
The mess is unprecedented. The anti-natalism expressed in Sophocles’ Oedipus
at Colonus—Chorus: “not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best”—as described
by David Benatar,
4
counters a dominant pulse in spite of its pursuits of philosophy
in Paris, or architectural serenity in Bruges, musical genius in Vienna and great
poetry in Bengal. That our genesis truly belies a seemingly uncalculated mistake,
which every other species has called it out for what it is. But we tremble intellectually upon the moral high grounds that have always been our collective excuse and
fallback.
Yet, our mistakes are self-evident, but for the true narcissism our personal agendas have perpetually unleashed upon the world. An indomitable throw-weight that
is not, in any way, a vouchsafed part of the biosphere, but a kind of colossal seizure
4 See “Can it be better to never have been born? A philosopher argues against procreation,” by
David Benatar, CuencaHighLife, “Opinions,” November 14, 2017, https://cuencahighlife.com/
can-it-be-better-to-have-never-been-born-a-philosopher-argues-against-procreation/,
Accessed
June 21, 2020.
Fig. 67.1 Samual Beckett
(1906–1989) in 1977,
photo by Roger Pic,
Bibliothèque nationale de
France. (Public Domain)
67 True Narcissism
Our species’ dualism baffles all corners of perception, undermines theories and
catechisms with the gusto of an avalanche. What could we have possibly been thinking, to have divorced a universality of calm tenderness, embracing instead the sheer
Hells we have imposed? All go by the names of evolution, purpose, destiny, and
self-deification.
The mess is unprecedented. The anti-natalism expressed in Sophocles’ Oedipus
at Colonus—Chorus: “not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best”—as described
by David Benatar,
4
counters a dominant pulse in spite of its pursuits of philosophy
in Paris, or architectural serenity in Bruges, musical genius in Vienna and great
poetry in Bengal. That our genesis truly belies a seemingly uncalculated mistake,
which every other species has called it out for what it is. But we tremble intellectually upon the moral high grounds that have always been our collective excuse and
fallback.
Yet, our mistakes are self-evident, but for the true narcissism our personal agendas have perpetually unleashed upon the world. An indomitable throw-weight that
is not, in any way, a vouchsafed part of the biosphere, but a kind of colossal seizure
4 See “Can it be better to never have been born? A philosopher argues against procreation,” by
David Benatar, CuencaHighLife, “Opinions,” November 14, 2017, https://cuencahighlife.com/
can-it-be-better-to-have-never-been-born-a-philosopher-argues-against-procreation/,
Accessed
June 21, 2020.
Fig. 67.1 Samual Beckett
(1906–1989) in 1977,
photo by Roger Pic,
Bibliothèque nationale de
France. (Public Domain)
67 True Narcissism