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Le Mauvais Démiurge
Il n'est nul moyen de concilier l'idée d'un dieu honorable avec l'évidente omniprésence du mal. Dans les commencements, quelque chose d'innommable a dû se passer, qui a vicié l'existence pour toujours. Nous ne pouvons admettre que le dieu bon, le « Père », ait trempé dans le scandale de la création. La bonté ne crée pas, elle manque d'imagination ; or il en faut pour fabriquer un monde, si bâclé soit-il. La vérité est que nous sommes sortis des mains d'un dieu maudit, auquel nous nous agrippons avec nos misères et nos tares : rien ne nous flatte tant que de pouvoir placer la source de notre indignité dans les agissements d'un créateur pervers. Nous singeons sa déplorable inaptitude à demeurer en soi-même, nous perpétuons son oeuvre, car procréer, c'est se rendre complice d'un forfait originel. Tout engendrement est suspect ; les anges par bonheur y sont impropres, la propagation de la vie étant réservée aux déchus.
Le mauvais démiurge n'est cependant pas un livre essentiellement sombre. Il finit en tout cas sur une note sereine : « Nous sommes au fond d'un enfer dont chaque instant est un miracle. »
Le mauvais démiurge n'est cependant pas un livre essentiellement sombre. Il finit en tout cas sur une note sereine : « Nous sommes au fond d'un enfer dont chaque instant est un miracle. »
179 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1969
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About the author
Emil M. Cioran
170 books4,311 followersBorn in 1911 in Rășinari, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, raised under the rule of a father who was a Romanian Orthodox priest and a mother who was prone to depression, Emil Cioran wrote his first five books in Romanian. Some of these are collections of brief essays (one or two pages, on average); others are collections of aphorisms. Suffering from insomnia since his adolescent years in Sibiu, the young Cioran studied philosophy in the “little Paris” of Bucarest.
A prolific publicist, he became a well-known figure, along with Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noïca, and his future close friend Eugene Ionesco (with whom he shared the Royal Foundation’s Young Writers Prize in 1934 for his first book, On the Heights of Despair).
Influenced by the German romantics, by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Lebensphilosophie of Schelling and Bergson, by certain Russian writers, including Chestov, Rozanov, and Dostoyevsky, and by the Romanian poet Eminescu, Cioran wrote lyrical and expansive meditations that were often metaphysical in nature and whose recurrent themes were death, despair, solitude, history, music, saintliness and the mystics (cf. Tears and Saints, 1937) – all of which are themes that one finds again in his French writings. In his highly controversial book, The Transfiguration of Romania (1937), Cioran, who was at that time close to the Romanian fascists, violently criticized his country and his compatriots on the basis of a contrast between such “little nations” as Romania, which were contemptible from the perspective of universal history and great nations, such as France or Germany, which took their destiny into their own hands.
After spending two years in Germany, Cioran arrived in Paris in 1936. He continued to write in Romanian until the early 1940s (he wrote his last article in Romanian in 1943, which is also the year in which he began writing in French). The break with Romanian became definitive in 1946, when, in the course of translating Mallarmé, he suddenly decided to give up his native tongue since no one spoke it in Paris. He then began writing in French a book that, thanks to numerous intensive revisions, would eventually become the impressive 'A Short History of Decay' (1949) -- the first of a series of ten books in which Cioran would continue to explore his perennial obsessions, with a growing detachment that allies him equally with the Greek sophists, the French moralists, and the oriental sages. He wrote existential vituperations and other destructive reflections in a classical French style that he felt was diametrically opposed to the looseness of his native Romanian; he described it as being like a “straight-jacket” that required him to control his temperamental excesses and his lyrical flights. The books in which he expressed his radical disillusionment appeared, with decreasing frequency, over a period of more than three decades, during which time he shared his solitude with his companion Simone Boué in a miniscule garret in the center of Paris, where he lived as a spectator more and more turned in on himself and maintaining an ever greater distance from a world that he rejected as much on the historical level (History and Utopia, 1960) as on the ontological (The Fall into Time, 1964), raising his misanthropy to heights of subtlety (The Trouble with being Born, 1973), while also allowing to appear from time to time a humanism composed of irony, bitterness, and preciosity (Exercices d’admiration, 1986, and the posthumously published Notebooks).
Denied the right to return to Romania during the years of the communist regime, and attracting international attention only late in his career, Cioran died in Paris in 1995.
Nicolas Cavaillès
Translated by Thomas Cousineau
A prolific publicist, he became a well-known figure, along with Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noïca, and his future close friend Eugene Ionesco (with whom he shared the Royal Foundation’s Young Writers Prize in 1934 for his first book, On the Heights of Despair).
Influenced by the German romantics, by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Lebensphilosophie of Schelling and Bergson, by certain Russian writers, including Chestov, Rozanov, and Dostoyevsky, and by the Romanian poet Eminescu, Cioran wrote lyrical and expansive meditations that were often metaphysical in nature and whose recurrent themes were death, despair, solitude, history, music, saintliness and the mystics (cf. Tears and Saints, 1937) – all of which are themes that one finds again in his French writings. In his highly controversial book, The Transfiguration of Romania (1937), Cioran, who was at that time close to the Romanian fascists, violently criticized his country and his compatriots on the basis of a contrast between such “little nations” as Romania, which were contemptible from the perspective of universal history and great nations, such as France or Germany, which took their destiny into their own hands.
After spending two years in Germany, Cioran arrived in Paris in 1936. He continued to write in Romanian until the early 1940s (he wrote his last article in Romanian in 1943, which is also the year in which he began writing in French). The break with Romanian became definitive in 1946, when, in the course of translating Mallarmé, he suddenly decided to give up his native tongue since no one spoke it in Paris. He then began writing in French a book that, thanks to numerous intensive revisions, would eventually become the impressive 'A Short History of Decay' (1949) -- the first of a series of ten books in which Cioran would continue to explore his perennial obsessions, with a growing detachment that allies him equally with the Greek sophists, the French moralists, and the oriental sages. He wrote existential vituperations and other destructive reflections in a classical French style that he felt was diametrically opposed to the looseness of his native Romanian; he described it as being like a “straight-jacket” that required him to control his temperamental excesses and his lyrical flights. The books in which he expressed his radical disillusionment appeared, with decreasing frequency, over a period of more than three decades, during which time he shared his solitude with his companion Simone Boué in a miniscule garret in the center of Paris, where he lived as a spectator more and more turned in on himself and maintaining an ever greater distance from a world that he rejected as much on the historical level (History and Utopia, 1960) as on the ontological (The Fall into Time, 1964), raising his misanthropy to heights of subtlety (The Trouble with being Born, 1973), while also allowing to appear from time to time a humanism composed of irony, bitterness, and preciosity (Exercices d’admiration, 1986, and the posthumously published Notebooks).
Denied the right to return to Romania during the years of the communist regime, and attracting international attention only late in his career, Cioran died in Paris in 1995.
Nicolas Cavaillès
Translated by Thomas Cousineau
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January 16, 2022
Lowering Cultural Sea Levels
One might suspect Cioran of being a modern Gnostic given his persistent references to worldly horrors, both human and natural, his understanding of suicide, and his rather dim view of human ‘fleshiness’. But he is not. For Cioran, Gnosticism is merely another form of wishful fantasy. As he takes great pains to point out, Gnosticism is a great way to avoid our responsibilities, which is even a worse flaw than believing we have any. It gives us the excuse we need for our vices and deficiencies. “The Demiurge is the most useful god who ever was. If he were not under our hand, where would our bile be poured out?”
Gnosticism is one of the first Christian heresies (also popular as such in the other monotheisms of Islam and Judaism). It asserts that the universe was created by a god-like cosmic force, the Demiurge, which separated the souls of human beings from the presence of the official, supreme God and entrapped them in material filth. Gnosticism arises periodically in various forms, especially among intellectuals, as an explanation for the patent extent of evil in the world. Whether perceived as poetry, philosophy, or ontology, Cioran finds such thoughts offensive.
For Cioran, Gnosticism is not some abstract metaphysical theory. Or at least that isn’t what worries him. Gnosticism is an ethic, a code of behaviour, which justifies hatred: “Each and every form of hate tends as a last resort toward him [the Demiurge]. Since we all believe that our merits are misunderstood or flouted, how admit that so general an iniquity could be the doing of mere man?” Gnosticism is bad because it promotes the doing of bad things to each other as well as to whatever else exists on the planet.
Western religion has absorbed a great deal of Gnostic tradition despite its heretical designation. Christianity (as well as Islam and Judaism), for example, denies that evil exists except as an absence of God, a lack 0f the good. What appears as evil is merely a vacuum waiting to be filled by the knowledge of the true God... and by more believers who will spread his fame. Hence the command to “go forth and multiply and replenish the earth,” to fill the world with the consciousness of God and his infinite goodness. This is more than the blind leading the blind; it is the blind making others blind for their own good.
The effect of this command is to deputise each one of us as an official part-time demiurge. We all are authorised the power of creation, the power, no the duty, to procreate, to replicate ourselves at all costs until we destroy all other forms of life. Genetic defectives, sociopaths, abusers, those unable to provide the essentials of life, ill-equipped and ill-trained adolescents, dynasty builders, we are all enticed to reproduce, not only by nature but also by this cultural imperative. According to Cioran, “Parents—genitors—are provocateurs or mad.” The downward trends in world fertility rates suggests that many people are agreeing with Cioran’s diagnosis, not because sex is evil but because having children is mostly selfish and stupid.
The Supreme God is now all but gone as more than a symbol of various global faith-tribes in all the monotheistic religions. So our demiurgic power and authority is effectively unconstrained by any reference to absolute good. Heaven and hell are sterile metaphors. This is frightening, more frightening than the former religious doctrines. To combat this fear we have switched our allegiance elsewhere. “In the eyes of the ancients, the more gods you recognize, the better you serve divinity, whereof they are but the aspects, the faces.” The great advantages of polytheism are tolerance and, as in the American Constitution, the separation of powers. But we’re no longer accustomed to this kind of regime. We prefer our gods with single names and singularly impressive strengths. So our history has lasting consequences.
“Under the regime of several gods, fervor is shared. When it is addressed to one god alone it is concentrated, exacerbated, and ends by turning into aggression, into faith.” We have learned faith and we intend to practise it with new gods, or rather with one new God that each 0f us constructs. Theology has replaced mythology, with disastrous ethical consequences. We are forced to choose our god - Christian or Muslim, capitalist or socialist, communist or fascist, black, brown or white. These are clear choices supplied ready cut and packaged, with prices attached. As Cioran quips laconically, “We do not beseech a nuance.” As the conservatives like to remind us all: ‘We need boundaries.’
“There is an underlying polytheism in liberal democracy (call it an unconscious polytheism); conversely, every authoritarian regime partakes of a disguised monotheism.” As long as no one takes their religion as more than a mark of solidarity, no one notices the presumption. This is why evangelical Christianity, Islam, or even Judaism as ‘faiths’ are so dangerous in a democratic society. Their truths are non-negotiable; their people are united in resistance to those not their people. So “as soon as a divinity, or a doctrine, claims supremacy, freedom is threatened.” Nineteenth century Protestants were correct: the Catholic Church did indeed desire the subversion of American freedom. But so did those Protestants; and they still do.
There are no longer any false gods, merely diverse and contradictory interpretations of the same God. This subtilely but decisively is destroying politics around the world. What remains is a sort of hostile nihilism expressed perfectly by Trump and Putin and Modi and their cronies. Cioran got it exactly correct: “We denounce the coexistence of truths because we are no longer satisfied with the dearth each one affords.” Today, it is the Christians who have slid into Gnosticism. They feel they are surrounded by evil and untruth and must escape at all costs. The planet and its people are collateral damage.
The alliance between dictatorial rulers and ‘strong faith’ is not accidental. Since the ascendancy of Christianity in the Western Roman Empire and Islam in the Eastern, it has always been so. Quite apart from its political impact, this alliance has also been disastrous aesthetically. “Nothing more odious than the tone of those who are defending a cause, one compromised in appearance, winning in fact; who cannot contain their delight at the idea of their triumph nor help turning their very terrors into so many threats.” Hatred is an aesthetic, one which monotheism promotes consistently. It is through this aesthetic not political debate that racism, misogyny, and violence proliferate.
Cioran doesn’t so much deconstruct individual ideas as point out the questionable foundational presumptions of the entire edifice of European thought. A large part of this foundation is religious; and although generally forgotten and ignored, it lies there mouldering and rotting until it can no longer support the weight we culturally load onto it. Like the wooden piles that support the canal houses in Amsterdam, the foundation crumbles when exposed to the air. In this sense Cioran moves counter to perhaps the most visible symbol of our present; he lowers cultural sea levels.
One might suspect Cioran of being a modern Gnostic given his persistent references to worldly horrors, both human and natural, his understanding of suicide, and his rather dim view of human ‘fleshiness’. But he is not. For Cioran, Gnosticism is merely another form of wishful fantasy. As he takes great pains to point out, Gnosticism is a great way to avoid our responsibilities, which is even a worse flaw than believing we have any. It gives us the excuse we need for our vices and deficiencies. “The Demiurge is the most useful god who ever was. If he were not under our hand, where would our bile be poured out?”
Gnosticism is one of the first Christian heresies (also popular as such in the other monotheisms of Islam and Judaism). It asserts that the universe was created by a god-like cosmic force, the Demiurge, which separated the souls of human beings from the presence of the official, supreme God and entrapped them in material filth. Gnosticism arises periodically in various forms, especially among intellectuals, as an explanation for the patent extent of evil in the world. Whether perceived as poetry, philosophy, or ontology, Cioran finds such thoughts offensive.
For Cioran, Gnosticism is not some abstract metaphysical theory. Or at least that isn’t what worries him. Gnosticism is an ethic, a code of behaviour, which justifies hatred: “Each and every form of hate tends as a last resort toward him [the Demiurge]. Since we all believe that our merits are misunderstood or flouted, how admit that so general an iniquity could be the doing of mere man?” Gnosticism is bad because it promotes the doing of bad things to each other as well as to whatever else exists on the planet.
Western religion has absorbed a great deal of Gnostic tradition despite its heretical designation. Christianity (as well as Islam and Judaism), for example, denies that evil exists except as an absence of God, a lack 0f the good. What appears as evil is merely a vacuum waiting to be filled by the knowledge of the true God... and by more believers who will spread his fame. Hence the command to “go forth and multiply and replenish the earth,” to fill the world with the consciousness of God and his infinite goodness. This is more than the blind leading the blind; it is the blind making others blind for their own good.
The effect of this command is to deputise each one of us as an official part-time demiurge. We all are authorised the power of creation, the power, no the duty, to procreate, to replicate ourselves at all costs until we destroy all other forms of life. Genetic defectives, sociopaths, abusers, those unable to provide the essentials of life, ill-equipped and ill-trained adolescents, dynasty builders, we are all enticed to reproduce, not only by nature but also by this cultural imperative. According to Cioran, “Parents—genitors—are provocateurs or mad.” The downward trends in world fertility rates suggests that many people are agreeing with Cioran’s diagnosis, not because sex is evil but because having children is mostly selfish and stupid.
The Supreme God is now all but gone as more than a symbol of various global faith-tribes in all the monotheistic religions. So our demiurgic power and authority is effectively unconstrained by any reference to absolute good. Heaven and hell are sterile metaphors. This is frightening, more frightening than the former religious doctrines. To combat this fear we have switched our allegiance elsewhere. “In the eyes of the ancients, the more gods you recognize, the better you serve divinity, whereof they are but the aspects, the faces.” The great advantages of polytheism are tolerance and, as in the American Constitution, the separation of powers. But we’re no longer accustomed to this kind of regime. We prefer our gods with single names and singularly impressive strengths. So our history has lasting consequences.
“Under the regime of several gods, fervor is shared. When it is addressed to one god alone it is concentrated, exacerbated, and ends by turning into aggression, into faith.” We have learned faith and we intend to practise it with new gods, or rather with one new God that each 0f us constructs. Theology has replaced mythology, with disastrous ethical consequences. We are forced to choose our god - Christian or Muslim, capitalist or socialist, communist or fascist, black, brown or white. These are clear choices supplied ready cut and packaged, with prices attached. As Cioran quips laconically, “We do not beseech a nuance.” As the conservatives like to remind us all: ‘We need boundaries.’
“There is an underlying polytheism in liberal democracy (call it an unconscious polytheism); conversely, every authoritarian regime partakes of a disguised monotheism.” As long as no one takes their religion as more than a mark of solidarity, no one notices the presumption. This is why evangelical Christianity, Islam, or even Judaism as ‘faiths’ are so dangerous in a democratic society. Their truths are non-negotiable; their people are united in resistance to those not their people. So “as soon as a divinity, or a doctrine, claims supremacy, freedom is threatened.” Nineteenth century Protestants were correct: the Catholic Church did indeed desire the subversion of American freedom. But so did those Protestants; and they still do.
There are no longer any false gods, merely diverse and contradictory interpretations of the same God. This subtilely but decisively is destroying politics around the world. What remains is a sort of hostile nihilism expressed perfectly by Trump and Putin and Modi and their cronies. Cioran got it exactly correct: “We denounce the coexistence of truths because we are no longer satisfied with the dearth each one affords.” Today, it is the Christians who have slid into Gnosticism. They feel they are surrounded by evil and untruth and must escape at all costs. The planet and its people are collateral damage.
The alliance between dictatorial rulers and ‘strong faith’ is not accidental. Since the ascendancy of Christianity in the Western Roman Empire and Islam in the Eastern, it has always been so. Quite apart from its political impact, this alliance has also been disastrous aesthetically. “Nothing more odious than the tone of those who are defending a cause, one compromised in appearance, winning in fact; who cannot contain their delight at the idea of their triumph nor help turning their very terrors into so many threats.” Hatred is an aesthetic, one which monotheism promotes consistently. It is through this aesthetic not political debate that racism, misogyny, and violence proliferate.
Cioran doesn’t so much deconstruct individual ideas as point out the questionable foundational presumptions of the entire edifice of European thought. A large part of this foundation is religious; and although generally forgotten and ignored, it lies there mouldering and rotting until it can no longer support the weight we culturally load onto it. Like the wooden piles that support the canal houses in Amsterdam, the foundation crumbles when exposed to the air. In this sense Cioran moves counter to perhaps the most visible symbol of our present; he lowers cultural sea levels.
September 6, 2016
A man does not kill himself, as is commonly supposed, in a fit of madness but rather in a fit of unendurable lucidity, in a paroxysm which may, if so desired, be identified with madness; for an excessive perspicacity, carried to the limit and of which one longs to be rid at all costs, exceeds the context of reason.Good day sunshine...
The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.
The flesh spreads, further and further, like a gangrene upon the surface of the globe. It cannot impose limits upon itself, it continues to be rife despite its rebuffs, it takes its defeats for conquests, it has never learned anything. It belongs above all to the realm of the Creator, and it is indeed in the flesh that He has projected His maleficent instincts.
Always to have lived with the nostalgia to coincide with something, but not really knowing with what—it is easy to shift from unbelief to belief, or conversely. But what is there to convert to, and what is there to abjure, in a state of chronic lucidity?
In order to conceive, and to steep ourselves in, unreality, we must have it constantly present to our minds. The day we feel it, see it, everything becomes unreal, except that unreality which alone makes existence tolerable.
Madness is perhaps merely an affliction which no longer develops.
March 25, 2019
Cioran cümlelerle ateş ediyor...
February 2, 2019
A căuta un sens vreunui lucru ţine nu atât de naivitate, cât de masochism.
Am în comun cu Diavolul posomorala, sunt ca şi el un melancolic prin decret divin.
Anxiosul îşi construieşte spaimele, apoi se cuibăreşte în ele: un pensionar al vertijului.
Am în comun cu Diavolul posomorala, sunt ca şi el un melancolic prin decret divin.
Anxiosul îşi construieşte spaimele, apoi se cuibăreşte în ele: un pensionar al vertijului.
August 10, 2016
EM Corian, the Romanian Philosopher, is perhaps the most pessimistic writer who lures the reader with his iconoclastic thoughts about everything- life, Gods, religion, society and culture. His writings is like that of someone possessed; subversive, demoniacal, anti-inspirational, feverish and finally enchanting. This book is replete with so many lyrical aphorisms that one stays excited and wonder whether is it is a rare combo of art and philosophy. Yet, many of his aphorisms, like that of epitaphs, aim for timelessness. He is like a mad man who seeks objectivity, such is Cioran’s self-contradictory assessment and one can sense his delirious fervor in all his books. How can one resist laughing and at the same time admiring on a famous quote like, “Reality gives me asthma”.
In his lifetime, Cioran , who later chose to write his works in French, was acclaimed by St John Perse as “the greatest French writer to honor our language since the death of Paul Valéry”, a master of French prose and a modern Socrates, and “the most distinguished figure in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein” (Susan Sontag). When he died in Paris in 1995, he was honored with a standing ovation in the Assemblée Nationale that described him as one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century.
The book The New Gods , beautifully translated by Richard Howard, explores humanity’s attachment to gods, death, fear, and infirmity, in essays that vary widely in form and approach. The very first line in the chapter “Demiurge” itself reflects Cioran’s deepening pessimism about man’s capacity to do anything good :-
“With the exception of some aberrant cases, man does not incline to the good: what god would impel him to do so? Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.”
He then makes a challenging statement that our Lord had no hand in creation.
“It is difficult, it is impossible to believe that the Good Lord—“Our Father”—had a hand in the scandal of creation. Everything suggests that He took no part in it, that it proceeds from a god without scruples, a feculent god. Goodness does not create, lacking imagination; it takes imagination to put together a world, however botched. At the very least, there must be a mixture of good and evil in order to produce an action or a work.” “Creation is in fact a fault, man’s famous sin thereby appearing as a minor version of a much graver one. What are we guilty of, except of having followed, more or less slavishly, the Creator’s example? Easy to recognize in ourselves the fatality which was His: not for nothing have we issued from the hands of a wicked and woebegone god, a god accursed”
In the next chapter “New Gods”, he says that “Man can breathe only in the shadow of eroded divinities.” In his opinion, “The beginnings of a religion (like the beginnings of anything) are always suspect. They alone, though, possess some reality, they alone are true; true and abominable.” Cioran lashes trenchantly against Christianity’s early coercion for conversion:-“But what sort of frenzy was it in which the citizen participated when he became a convert? Not so well prepared as the others, he possessed but one recourse: to hate himself. Without this deviation of hatred, at first atypical, subsequently contagious, Christianity would have remained no more than a sect, limited to a foreign clientele, actually capable of no more than painlessly trading in the old gods for a nailed corpse.”
Cioran, though a Christian, is more tolerant to Judaism and quotes the Roman Emperor Julian:- “Judaism regarded them all as false except one, its own. “Their only error,” Julian says of the Jews, “is that even as they seek to satisfy their god, they do not serve the others at the same time.” Yet he praises them for their repugnance to follow the fashion with regard to religion. “I shun innovation in all things, and especially in that which concerns the gods”—an admission which has discredited him and which is used to brand him as a “reactionary.” But what “progress,” one wonders, does Christianity represent in relation to paganism? There is no “qualitative leap” from one god to another, nor from one civilization to another, any more than from one language to another.”
In “Paleontology” Cioran describes a visit to a Natural History museum ( I think it must be the one in London as he speaks of Minerals section as well) , finding the relatively pedestrian destination rife with decay, death, and human weakness. The unwanted attention given to skeletons makes him nervous. He writes:- “Nowhere is one better served with respect to the past. Here the possible seems inconceivable or cracked. One gets the impression that the flesh was eclipsed upon its advent, that in fact it never existed at all, that it could not have been fastened to bones so stately, so imbued with themselves. The flesh appears as an imposture, a fraud, a disguise which masks nothing. Was this all it was? And if it is worth no more, how does it manage to inspire me with repulsion or with terror?”
The chapter on “Encounters with Suicides” is fascinating for its surreal meditation. Cioran occupies a position of extreme solitude in French intellectual life. Like his fellow Romanian, the playwright Eugene Ionesco, who also lives in Paris, he is fascinated by death, although Mr. Ionesco flees it in a panic while Mr.Cioran woos it with honeyed words and knowing smiles . Cioran explores suicide in impressionistic bursts and think of suicide as “the abyss without vertigo. He finds in suicide "the intoxication of feeling pulverized by your own consciousness" -- and yet, ""without the notion of suicide one would kill oneself on the spot." We are jolted when he says “Whoever hasn’t died young deserves death”. He is seduced by the possibility of conceiving a thought -- ""just one, but one that would tear the universe to pieces."" But it is the empty mind, the psyche detached from all idols, that liberates ("a triumphal stupor"): "Health consists in exercise and vacuity, in muscles and meditation; in no case in thought. “But we must beware void's mimic, Nothingness. Like Nietzsche, Cioran writes ironically, poetically, of death and drive ("Terrifying happiness. Veins in which thousands of planets distend"). He is not without humor: ""Fear of an imminent collapse of the brain counts for a great deal in the need to pray."
The last section, “Strangled Thoughts” is one where Cioran is at his best in the form of the aphorism. I wish to quote liberally from this section as well as some of the preceding ones to give an impression about the treasure trove of ideas the book contains :
At this very moment, almost everywhere, thousands and thousands are dying, while, clutching my pen, I vainly search for a word to annotate their agony.
Each moment’s tug of war between nostalgia for the deluge and intoxication with routine.
What is called “strength of mind” is the courage not to imagine our fate otherwise.
First duty, on getting up in the morning: to blush for yourself.
Refinement is the sign of deficient vitality, in art, in love, and in everything.
Endless brooding over a question undermines you as much as a dull pain.
Each being is a broken hymn.
The only man who knows what it feels like to be accursed is the man who knows he would have that feeling in the middle of paradise.
Everything, in the end, comes down to desire or to the absence of desire. The rest is nuance.
Sickness gives flavor to want, it intensifies, it picks up poverty.
There is only one sign that indicates we have understood everything: tears without cause.
What they ask you for is actions, proofs, works, and all you can produce are transformed tears.
What is commonly called “being expressive” is being prolix.
On the spiritual level, all pain is an opportunity; on the spiritual level alone.
The only true solitude is where we brood upon the urgency of a prayer—a prayer posterior to God and to faith itself.
Frivolous, disconnected, an amateur at everything, I shall have known thoroughly only the disadvantage of having been born.
We would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.
Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence.
So simple a fact as looking at a knife and realizing that it depends only on yourself to make a certain use of it gives you a sensation of sovereignty which can turn to megalomania.
Sleep would be good for something if each time we dropped off we tried to see ourselves die; after a few years’ training, death would lose all its prestige and would seem no more than a formality or a pinprick.
To look for a meaning in anything is less the act of a naif than of a masochist.
Eat nothing you have not sown and harvested with your own hand”—this recommendation of Vedic wisdom is so legitimate and so convincing that, in one’s rage over being unable to abide by it, one would like to let oneself starve to death.
So long as you envy another’s success, even if it is a god’s, you are a vile slave like everyone else.
We may be sure that the twenty-first century, more advanced than ours, will regard Hitler and Stalin as choirboys.
Death is the aroma of existence. Death alone lends savor to the moments, alone combats their insipidity. We owe death almost everything. This debt of recognition which we now and then consent to pay is what is most comforting here on earth.
Wisdom disguises our wounds: it teaches us how to bleed in secret.
Everything blurs and fades in human beings except the look in their eyes and the voice: without these, we could recognize no one after a few years.
Nothing gives us a better conscience than to fall asleep with the clear view of one of our defects, which till then we hadn’t dared admit, we hadn’t even suspected.
Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.
Awakening is independent of intellectual capacities: a genius can be a dunce, spiritually speaking. Moreover, knowledge as such gets one no further. An illiterate can possess “the eye of understanding” and thereby find himself above and beyond any scholar.
I love Cioran’s howling pessimism and he teaches us to doubt than devour everything that we come across in life. He is a rare distillation of all the philosophers- Pascal, Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld and Schopenhauer – who preceded him. The New Gods reaffirms Cioran’s belief in “lucid despair,” and his own signature mixture of pessimism and scepticism in language that never fails to be a pleasure.
Let me conclude with his lovely message :-“ For a man to whom freedom and vertigo are equivalent, a faith, wherever it comes from, even if it were antireligious, is a salutary shackle, a desired, a dreamed-of chain whose function will be to constrain curiosity and fever, to suspend the anguish of the indefinite.” I must frame this somewhere.
In his lifetime, Cioran , who later chose to write his works in French, was acclaimed by St John Perse as “the greatest French writer to honor our language since the death of Paul Valéry”, a master of French prose and a modern Socrates, and “the most distinguished figure in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein” (Susan Sontag). When he died in Paris in 1995, he was honored with a standing ovation in the Assemblée Nationale that described him as one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century.
The book The New Gods , beautifully translated by Richard Howard, explores humanity’s attachment to gods, death, fear, and infirmity, in essays that vary widely in form and approach. The very first line in the chapter “Demiurge” itself reflects Cioran’s deepening pessimism about man’s capacity to do anything good :-
“With the exception of some aberrant cases, man does not incline to the good: what god would impel him to do so? Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.”
He then makes a challenging statement that our Lord had no hand in creation.
“It is difficult, it is impossible to believe that the Good Lord—“Our Father”—had a hand in the scandal of creation. Everything suggests that He took no part in it, that it proceeds from a god without scruples, a feculent god. Goodness does not create, lacking imagination; it takes imagination to put together a world, however botched. At the very least, there must be a mixture of good and evil in order to produce an action or a work.” “Creation is in fact a fault, man’s famous sin thereby appearing as a minor version of a much graver one. What are we guilty of, except of having followed, more or less slavishly, the Creator’s example? Easy to recognize in ourselves the fatality which was His: not for nothing have we issued from the hands of a wicked and woebegone god, a god accursed”
In the next chapter “New Gods”, he says that “Man can breathe only in the shadow of eroded divinities.” In his opinion, “The beginnings of a religion (like the beginnings of anything) are always suspect. They alone, though, possess some reality, they alone are true; true and abominable.” Cioran lashes trenchantly against Christianity’s early coercion for conversion:-“But what sort of frenzy was it in which the citizen participated when he became a convert? Not so well prepared as the others, he possessed but one recourse: to hate himself. Without this deviation of hatred, at first atypical, subsequently contagious, Christianity would have remained no more than a sect, limited to a foreign clientele, actually capable of no more than painlessly trading in the old gods for a nailed corpse.”
Cioran, though a Christian, is more tolerant to Judaism and quotes the Roman Emperor Julian:- “Judaism regarded them all as false except one, its own. “Their only error,” Julian says of the Jews, “is that even as they seek to satisfy their god, they do not serve the others at the same time.” Yet he praises them for their repugnance to follow the fashion with regard to religion. “I shun innovation in all things, and especially in that which concerns the gods”—an admission which has discredited him and which is used to brand him as a “reactionary.” But what “progress,” one wonders, does Christianity represent in relation to paganism? There is no “qualitative leap” from one god to another, nor from one civilization to another, any more than from one language to another.”
In “Paleontology” Cioran describes a visit to a Natural History museum ( I think it must be the one in London as he speaks of Minerals section as well) , finding the relatively pedestrian destination rife with decay, death, and human weakness. The unwanted attention given to skeletons makes him nervous. He writes:- “Nowhere is one better served with respect to the past. Here the possible seems inconceivable or cracked. One gets the impression that the flesh was eclipsed upon its advent, that in fact it never existed at all, that it could not have been fastened to bones so stately, so imbued with themselves. The flesh appears as an imposture, a fraud, a disguise which masks nothing. Was this all it was? And if it is worth no more, how does it manage to inspire me with repulsion or with terror?”
The chapter on “Encounters with Suicides” is fascinating for its surreal meditation. Cioran occupies a position of extreme solitude in French intellectual life. Like his fellow Romanian, the playwright Eugene Ionesco, who also lives in Paris, he is fascinated by death, although Mr. Ionesco flees it in a panic while Mr.Cioran woos it with honeyed words and knowing smiles . Cioran explores suicide in impressionistic bursts and think of suicide as “the abyss without vertigo. He finds in suicide "the intoxication of feeling pulverized by your own consciousness" -- and yet, ""without the notion of suicide one would kill oneself on the spot." We are jolted when he says “Whoever hasn’t died young deserves death”. He is seduced by the possibility of conceiving a thought -- ""just one, but one that would tear the universe to pieces."" But it is the empty mind, the psyche detached from all idols, that liberates ("a triumphal stupor"): "Health consists in exercise and vacuity, in muscles and meditation; in no case in thought. “But we must beware void's mimic, Nothingness. Like Nietzsche, Cioran writes ironically, poetically, of death and drive ("Terrifying happiness. Veins in which thousands of planets distend"). He is not without humor: ""Fear of an imminent collapse of the brain counts for a great deal in the need to pray."
The last section, “Strangled Thoughts” is one where Cioran is at his best in the form of the aphorism. I wish to quote liberally from this section as well as some of the preceding ones to give an impression about the treasure trove of ideas the book contains :
At this very moment, almost everywhere, thousands and thousands are dying, while, clutching my pen, I vainly search for a word to annotate their agony.
Each moment’s tug of war between nostalgia for the deluge and intoxication with routine.
What is called “strength of mind” is the courage not to imagine our fate otherwise.
First duty, on getting up in the morning: to blush for yourself.
Refinement is the sign of deficient vitality, in art, in love, and in everything.
Endless brooding over a question undermines you as much as a dull pain.
Each being is a broken hymn.
The only man who knows what it feels like to be accursed is the man who knows he would have that feeling in the middle of paradise.
Everything, in the end, comes down to desire or to the absence of desire. The rest is nuance.
Sickness gives flavor to want, it intensifies, it picks up poverty.
There is only one sign that indicates we have understood everything: tears without cause.
What they ask you for is actions, proofs, works, and all you can produce are transformed tears.
What is commonly called “being expressive” is being prolix.
On the spiritual level, all pain is an opportunity; on the spiritual level alone.
The only true solitude is where we brood upon the urgency of a prayer—a prayer posterior to God and to faith itself.
Frivolous, disconnected, an amateur at everything, I shall have known thoroughly only the disadvantage of having been born.
We would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.
Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence.
So simple a fact as looking at a knife and realizing that it depends only on yourself to make a certain use of it gives you a sensation of sovereignty which can turn to megalomania.
Sleep would be good for something if each time we dropped off we tried to see ourselves die; after a few years’ training, death would lose all its prestige and would seem no more than a formality or a pinprick.
To look for a meaning in anything is less the act of a naif than of a masochist.
Eat nothing you have not sown and harvested with your own hand”—this recommendation of Vedic wisdom is so legitimate and so convincing that, in one’s rage over being unable to abide by it, one would like to let oneself starve to death.
So long as you envy another’s success, even if it is a god’s, you are a vile slave like everyone else.
We may be sure that the twenty-first century, more advanced than ours, will regard Hitler and Stalin as choirboys.
Death is the aroma of existence. Death alone lends savor to the moments, alone combats their insipidity. We owe death almost everything. This debt of recognition which we now and then consent to pay is what is most comforting here on earth.
Wisdom disguises our wounds: it teaches us how to bleed in secret.
Everything blurs and fades in human beings except the look in their eyes and the voice: without these, we could recognize no one after a few years.
Nothing gives us a better conscience than to fall asleep with the clear view of one of our defects, which till then we hadn’t dared admit, we hadn’t even suspected.
Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.
Awakening is independent of intellectual capacities: a genius can be a dunce, spiritually speaking. Moreover, knowledge as such gets one no further. An illiterate can possess “the eye of understanding” and thereby find himself above and beyond any scholar.
I love Cioran’s howling pessimism and he teaches us to doubt than devour everything that we come across in life. He is a rare distillation of all the philosophers- Pascal, Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld and Schopenhauer – who preceded him. The New Gods reaffirms Cioran’s belief in “lucid despair,” and his own signature mixture of pessimism and scepticism in language that never fails to be a pleasure.
Let me conclude with his lovely message :-“ For a man to whom freedom and vertigo are equivalent, a faith, wherever it comes from, even if it were antireligious, is a salutary shackle, a desired, a dreamed-of chain whose function will be to constrain curiosity and fever, to suspend the anguish of the indefinite.” I must frame this somewhere.
March 30, 2018
Blaivinantis pesimizmas.
May 5, 2025
Meilleur excipit du monde, et citation qui résume le mieux cette vie qui n'est pas réalité : "Nous sommes tous au fond d'un enfer dont chaque instant est un miracle."
J'ai trouvé cet essai / recueil philosophique / journal de pensées absolument INCROYABLE. Je l'ai trouvé très simple à parcourir, les phrases très faciles à digérer et comprendre, mais je pense que c'est parce que je suis quelqu'un qui questionne constamment cette réalité, qui a déjà mesuré la possibilité que toute cette vie n'est pas réelle et que le dieu / les dieux / le créateur / les créateurs sont des sombres merdes, ou tout du moins des incapables qui ont raté leur création, et que donc ils sont mauvais - mot qui peut être compris de deux façons, ça tombe bien ;) Je me suis également déjà intéressée aux Gnostiques et aux Cathares, à la question du suicide d'un point de vue spirituel, de la réincarnation, de pourquoi on chercherait à se réincarner, à la question de la liberté / de l'esclavage de l'humain, etc. C'est pourquoi j'imagine que ce livre ne serait pas facile d'accès (incompréhensible même, peut-être ?) pour quiconque n'a jamais sérieusement pensé à toutes ces choses, et surtout qui n'a jamais essayé, ne serait-ce qu'un instant, de concevoir et accepter que rien n'est réel et que tout ceci n'est que spectacle et charlatanisme.
J'ajouterai que je suis absolument fascinée par le fait qu'un Roumain ait pu autant critiquer la religion chrétienne et faire des comparaisons avec le Bouddhisme. Etant moitié-Roumaine, il m'est difficile d'imaginer quelqu'un de son époque penser ainsi, être aussi ouvert. Mais quel résultat ! D'ailleurs, ce qu'il dit de l'établissement du christianisme et du passage entre polythéisme et monothéisme est très intéressant - il y a eu des choses auxquelles je n'avais jamais pensé ! Et je pense beaucoup lol.
Ca fait toujours plaisir de lire quelqu'un qui, à mes yeux, n'est pas naïf ou dans le déni face à monde qui est à la fois si beau et si immonde, qui accepte ces dures vérités que sont mes (nos) croyances et presque certitudes. Peut-être me lancerai-je un jour dans son emblématique De l'inconvénient d'être né. Je pense qu'il y aura des parallèles ou répétitions avec une de ses premières parties qui évoque l'ineptie de faire venir des prisonniers (= faire naître des enfants) sur Terre. Une partie qui m'a bien sûr beaucoup parlé.
Vraiment un des essais les plus intéressants que j'ai lus de ma vie, et ça tombe bien que je ne l'ai jamais lu avant car il y a quelques années, je n'aurais pas vraiment compris le propos et l'intérêt, cela est certain.
J'ai trouvé cet essai / recueil philosophique / journal de pensées absolument INCROYABLE. Je l'ai trouvé très simple à parcourir, les phrases très faciles à digérer et comprendre, mais je pense que c'est parce que je suis quelqu'un qui questionne constamment cette réalité, qui a déjà mesuré la possibilité que toute cette vie n'est pas réelle et que le dieu / les dieux / le créateur / les créateurs sont des sombres merdes, ou tout du moins des incapables qui ont raté leur création, et que donc ils sont mauvais - mot qui peut être compris de deux façons, ça tombe bien ;) Je me suis également déjà intéressée aux Gnostiques et aux Cathares, à la question du suicide d'un point de vue spirituel, de la réincarnation, de pourquoi on chercherait à se réincarner, à la question de la liberté / de l'esclavage de l'humain, etc. C'est pourquoi j'imagine que ce livre ne serait pas facile d'accès (incompréhensible même, peut-être ?) pour quiconque n'a jamais sérieusement pensé à toutes ces choses, et surtout qui n'a jamais essayé, ne serait-ce qu'un instant, de concevoir et accepter que rien n'est réel et que tout ceci n'est que spectacle et charlatanisme.
J'ajouterai que je suis absolument fascinée par le fait qu'un Roumain ait pu autant critiquer la religion chrétienne et faire des comparaisons avec le Bouddhisme. Etant moitié-Roumaine, il m'est difficile d'imaginer quelqu'un de son époque penser ainsi, être aussi ouvert. Mais quel résultat ! D'ailleurs, ce qu'il dit de l'établissement du christianisme et du passage entre polythéisme et monothéisme est très intéressant - il y a eu des choses auxquelles je n'avais jamais pensé ! Et je pense beaucoup lol.
Ca fait toujours plaisir de lire quelqu'un qui, à mes yeux, n'est pas naïf ou dans le déni face à monde qui est à la fois si beau et si immonde, qui accepte ces dures vérités que sont mes (nos) croyances et presque certitudes. Peut-être me lancerai-je un jour dans son emblématique De l'inconvénient d'être né. Je pense qu'il y aura des parallèles ou répétitions avec une de ses premières parties qui évoque l'ineptie de faire venir des prisonniers (= faire naître des enfants) sur Terre. Une partie qui m'a bien sûr beaucoup parlé.
Vraiment un des essais les plus intéressants que j'ai lus de ma vie, et ça tombe bien que je ne l'ai jamais lu avant car il y a quelques années, je n'aurais pas vraiment compris le propos et l'intérêt, cela est certain.
November 3, 2020
cum să crezi și să te nimicești?
October 17, 2008
In light of current events I lost the excitement that this book had for me.
This line towards the end of the book sort of neatly sums up my current feelings on the book:
"In theory, it matters little to me whether I live as whether I die; in practice, I am lacerated by every anxiety which opens an abyss between life and death."
This line towards the end of the book sort of neatly sums up my current feelings on the book:
"In theory, it matters little to me whether I live as whether I die; in practice, I am lacerated by every anxiety which opens an abyss between life and death."
September 1, 2024
"Siamo tutti in fondo a un inferno, dove ogni attimo è un miracolo." (p. 161)
April 30, 2021
Neki moj prvi, jedini i površni dodir sa Sioranom beše negde pred kraj srednje škole i ni tada nije na mene ostavio ni prejaki, ni pozitivni utisak. Već tada je moja duša tražila nešto drugačije od beskrajnog pojeftinjenja Bodlera i Ničea.
"Zl idemijurg" mi je dopao šaka sa namerom da samog sebe isprovociram, recimo iz istog razloga tinja željada se vratim Hegelu - čitati ono što je sa druge strane mojih (ne)ubeđenja. Ipak, iako je to tek donekle uspelo, na moje veliko iznenađenje - Sioran je zapravo suštinski jedan kroz jedan mislilac kakvog i inače čitam, duboko zaronjen u ekstatičnu tradiciju budizma.
Prve dve glave - naslovna i "Novi bogovi" malo šta kvalitetno nude osim, pa zaista tako moram reći, ciničnog zajebavanja sa lešinom hrišćanskog sveta i hrišćanske ideje. Koliko je to nepotrebno, čini se u par navrata da je i sam Sioaran svestan, ali kao da to radi zato što to njegova publika i očekuje od njega. Nema šta, čak i u prevodu se oseti njegov britak izraz, humor je tu, apsurd, zaista leži reč i ponoviću je - zajebancija. Samo ćemo istaće upravo naslovnu priču i koketiranje sa raznim idejama hrišćanske gnoze (manihejci ili kasniji jeretici bogumili/katari...) i upravo razmišljanja na temu nemarnog, nesposobnog ili istinski zlog Tvorca, istaknućemo odmah to zato što je ključno za nastavak, a tvorac je zao zato što je svet zao, priroda, život.
Tek od treće glave stvar postaje sočna. Ne znam dokle je to bila namera, koliko ova knjiga nameru ima, no deluje kao da odavde Sioran nudi rešenje za problem sa početka - svet je zao sam po sebi, čak i sada kada smo dokazali da nema tvorca. Ekstatička iskustva do kojih dolazi budističkim učenjima i meditacijom. No, i pored očiglednog razumevanja, kao i samih ličnih iskustava ekstaze, one Siorana nisu promenile.
Nažalost, on nije razumeo neke stvari. Najpre, budinu pouku je stavio kao vrhunski izraz, maltene samim tim zato što je došla nakon sankhje i vedante ili tao-a. Možda iluzija progresa i nije bila presudna, koliko istorijska uslovljenost samog Siorana. Nije razumeo ili nije imao hrabrosti da zaista tim putem krene do kraja, da pojmi - nije problem svet, nego njegov svet, svet 20. veka. I pored sve priče o slobodi - postavljajući naivno "individualnu" slobodu naspram one koju opet nije mogao ni da pojmi - univerzalne. Nije video u sebi evropski demon slobode. Nije u sebi video dovoljno jasno demona racionalizma i zato i nije mogao dalje. Budina pouka mu se učinila najracionalnijnom, najliberalnijom, pa je nju ugradio u svoje već formirane zablude, umesto da ekstatično znanje posluži za destrukciju tih zabluda. Nije sebi dozvolio da se makne od onog klinca što se rastužio što nema sifilis, jer ko ne crkne od sifilisa, taj se nije ima zašta ni roditi.
Baština je antropocentrična na način koji čoveku 20. i 21. veka nikako ne može biti blizak. Ne da je čovek vbrhunac kreacije, čovek je zapravo i više od toga. I tu dolazimo do vrhunskog neshvatanja, doduše, možda, samo možda i svesne ironije samog autora. Ekstaza nije destrukcija iluzija, oh jeste i to, ali se tu proces promene, buđenja ne okončava. "Ovaj događaj koji nije događaj ima tri momenta. Prvi je: sedim na obali reke i vidim da ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Drugi je - nema drveta i nema ptice, nema vetra i nema reke i nema obale, ne sedim nigde i ne vidim ništa, jer nema pogleda, i nema mene koji bi video. Treći momenat - sedim na obali reke i vidim kako ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Ništa se nije zbilo." Ovaj citat je vedantski opis buđenja. I dobro šta se tu zapravo dogodilo? Prvo stanje je jasno - to je svet kakav nam je dat, to su objekti koji se strimuju u naš mozak. To su sve redom strani objekti, verovali mi u današnje doba da oni imaju ili nemaju neku svoju esenciju nije ni bitno, mi ih vidimo, osećamo, pojmimo kao drvo, plažu, more i nas same (naše JA) koji opet te objekte percepiramo. To je taj individualni svet, svet liberalne demokratije Siorana, na sve strane vidimo individalne objekte. Drugi pokret je destrukcija svega toga, to je ekstaza, to je iskustvo koje je temelj svih baština i izvorište svih, ma kolko degradiranih, religijskih ideja - svih! Ne strah od smrti i groma, ne potreba za onostranim zakonom i disciplinovanjem svetine - ne, sva ta racionalistička tumačenja su šuplja. Živo iskustvo, ovde i sada, stapanja sa božanskim. To je rastakanje objekata onakvih kakvim su nam se činili - odvojenim od nas, odvojenim od Jednog. To je vedantsko čitanje ekstaze, budističko je sasvim suprotno, iako je iskustvo istovetno. Sve je prazno. Objekti su prazni. Svi. Samo trenutni splet uzroka i posledica, koji su takođe prazni. Kao što je i praznina prazna (shunyata shunyata). Da sada ne širimo priču, suština je u trećem koraku: "sedim na obali reke i vidim kako ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Ništa se nije zbilo". I jeste i nije se desilo. Drvo, grane, vetar, plaža, pesak... sve je tu. No to nisu ono isto drvo i pesak i vetar i ja - to su nanovo izgrađeni objekti koji su sada samo naličja Jednog (Brahman), njegov nerazdvojni deo, koji više nemaju svoj individualitet, svoju esenciju, već ljubav, toplotu, lepotu oživljenog Jedinstva. U drugom slučaju, to su novi objekti koji su prazni, prolazni, slobodni. I tu dolazimo do stvari - eklstaza ima magijsku, alhemijsku, zapravo ima ni manje ni više nego tvoračku vrednost. Čovek u ekstazi postaje demijurg. Ne zamarajući se teologijo, mistikom, kosmogonijom te tvrdnje, raciom iza nje, kompletna ekstaza prosto podrazumeva takav kvalitet. Čovek menja svoj svet, idealno on ga vraća u univerzalno božansko stanje, podiže ga. No, čini se da kakve su ti misli, takav ti je Tvorac. Sioran ni uz sve svoje ekstaze nije mogao promeniti svoj svet. Nije mogao da prihvati da čovek jeste mera svih stvari, ali nije mogao da prihvati da je mera jedna jedina, a da su ostalo greške. Voleo je i previše svoj individualitet i svoju slobodu u robiji - ideju ljudske nevažnosti i slučajnog postojanja, što se možda tako i očitava u fizici sveta, no u svetoj metafizici nema nikakvu težinu. Ekstaza nije mogla da ga promeni, ni njega, ni njegov svet, jer je mrak našao spas u krivljenju budinog učenja. Zaboravljajući, ignorišući, ne bivajući svestan, posebno mahajanskog, insistiranja na oslobađanju drugog, je isto što i propustiti ono najlepše u budističkoj baštini, ono zbog čega ona i jeste blago, a ne sebičan, opori degenerativ. To što je sve prazno, znači slobodu, ali tek um istreniran, usredsređen na samilost, empatiju, ljubav, lepotu, pomoć drugima i unutar budističkog čitanja ekstaze i njenog delovanaj može doći do iste tačke kao u drugim baštinama, bez toga, upravo zakopan svojim mrakom on postaje Zli Demijurg.
Biti zli demijurg je u 19. veku i imalo nekog šmeka - Bodler, Niče su velikani, genijalci, siloviti, gromoviti su prasak koji najavljuje sumrak. Za njima su usledili buljuci Bukovskih, Siorana i sličnih, opet sa nekom vrednošću. No, ubrzo smo došli do toga da je sada "oboleli ludak od sifilisa" svaki Aca Lukas, neki unakaženi treper, neka devojka usta punih slobode i emancipacije i sintetičkih droga. Biti zao, biti ružan, prljav, mračan, pogan, amoralan, promiskuitetan odavno već nije zabava za intelektualce na granici trulog novog sveta, već je postala sadašnjica svakojakog, ubogog mediokriteta. Siorana danas može čitati silikonska nada u "Zvezdama granda", nasnifana padavičarka, klošar št odiluje marihuanu klincima u kraju i ništa u toj slici ne bi bilo deplasirano.
"Zl idemijurg" mi je dopao šaka sa namerom da samog sebe isprovociram, recimo iz istog razloga tinja željada se vratim Hegelu - čitati ono što je sa druge strane mojih (ne)ubeđenja. Ipak, iako je to tek donekle uspelo, na moje veliko iznenađenje - Sioran je zapravo suštinski jedan kroz jedan mislilac kakvog i inače čitam, duboko zaronjen u ekstatičnu tradiciju budizma.
Prve dve glave - naslovna i "Novi bogovi" malo šta kvalitetno nude osim, pa zaista tako moram reći, ciničnog zajebavanja sa lešinom hrišćanskog sveta i hrišćanske ideje. Koliko je to nepotrebno, čini se u par navrata da je i sam Sioaran svestan, ali kao da to radi zato što to njegova publika i očekuje od njega. Nema šta, čak i u prevodu se oseti njegov britak izraz, humor je tu, apsurd, zaista leži reč i ponoviću je - zajebancija. Samo ćemo istaće upravo naslovnu priču i koketiranje sa raznim idejama hrišćanske gnoze (manihejci ili kasniji jeretici bogumili/katari...) i upravo razmišljanja na temu nemarnog, nesposobnog ili istinski zlog Tvorca, istaknućemo odmah to zato što je ključno za nastavak, a tvorac je zao zato što je svet zao, priroda, život.
Tek od treće glave stvar postaje sočna. Ne znam dokle je to bila namera, koliko ova knjiga nameru ima, no deluje kao da odavde Sioran nudi rešenje za problem sa početka - svet je zao sam po sebi, čak i sada kada smo dokazali da nema tvorca. Ekstatička iskustva do kojih dolazi budističkim učenjima i meditacijom. No, i pored očiglednog razumevanja, kao i samih ličnih iskustava ekstaze, one Siorana nisu promenile.
Nažalost, on nije razumeo neke stvari. Najpre, budinu pouku je stavio kao vrhunski izraz, maltene samim tim zato što je došla nakon sankhje i vedante ili tao-a. Možda iluzija progresa i nije bila presudna, koliko istorijska uslovljenost samog Siorana. Nije razumeo ili nije imao hrabrosti da zaista tim putem krene do kraja, da pojmi - nije problem svet, nego njegov svet, svet 20. veka. I pored sve priče o slobodi - postavljajući naivno "individualnu" slobodu naspram one koju opet nije mogao ni da pojmi - univerzalne. Nije video u sebi evropski demon slobode. Nije u sebi video dovoljno jasno demona racionalizma i zato i nije mogao dalje. Budina pouka mu se učinila najracionalnijnom, najliberalnijom, pa je nju ugradio u svoje već formirane zablude, umesto da ekstatično znanje posluži za destrukciju tih zabluda. Nije sebi dozvolio da se makne od onog klinca što se rastužio što nema sifilis, jer ko ne crkne od sifilisa, taj se nije ima zašta ni roditi.
Baština je antropocentrična na način koji čoveku 20. i 21. veka nikako ne može biti blizak. Ne da je čovek vbrhunac kreacije, čovek je zapravo i više od toga. I tu dolazimo do vrhunskog neshvatanja, doduše, možda, samo možda i svesne ironije samog autora. Ekstaza nije destrukcija iluzija, oh jeste i to, ali se tu proces promene, buđenja ne okončava. "Ovaj događaj koji nije događaj ima tri momenta. Prvi je: sedim na obali reke i vidim da ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Drugi je - nema drveta i nema ptice, nema vetra i nema reke i nema obale, ne sedim nigde i ne vidim ništa, jer nema pogleda, i nema mene koji bi video. Treći momenat - sedim na obali reke i vidim kako ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Ništa se nije zbilo." Ovaj citat je vedantski opis buđenja. I dobro šta se tu zapravo dogodilo? Prvo stanje je jasno - to je svet kakav nam je dat, to su objekti koji se strimuju u naš mozak. To su sve redom strani objekti, verovali mi u današnje doba da oni imaju ili nemaju neku svoju esenciju nije ni bitno, mi ih vidimo, osećamo, pojmimo kao drvo, plažu, more i nas same (naše JA) koji opet te objekte percepiramo. To je taj individualni svet, svet liberalne demokratije Siorana, na sve strane vidimo individalne objekte. Drugi pokret je destrukcija svega toga, to je ekstaza, to je iskustvo koje je temelj svih baština i izvorište svih, ma kolko degradiranih, religijskih ideja - svih! Ne strah od smrti i groma, ne potreba za onostranim zakonom i disciplinovanjem svetine - ne, sva ta racionalistička tumačenja su šuplja. Živo iskustvo, ovde i sada, stapanja sa božanskim. To je rastakanje objekata onakvih kakvim su nam se činili - odvojenim od nas, odvojenim od Jednog. To je vedantsko čitanje ekstaze, budističko je sasvim suprotno, iako je iskustvo istovetno. Sve je prazno. Objekti su prazni. Svi. Samo trenutni splet uzroka i posledica, koji su takođe prazni. Kao što je i praznina prazna (shunyata shunyata). Da sada ne širimo priču, suština je u trećem koraku: "sedim na obali reke i vidim kako ptica čuči na grani vrbe, a granu ljulja vetar. Ništa se nije zbilo". I jeste i nije se desilo. Drvo, grane, vetar, plaža, pesak... sve je tu. No to nisu ono isto drvo i pesak i vetar i ja - to su nanovo izgrađeni objekti koji su sada samo naličja Jednog (Brahman), njegov nerazdvojni deo, koji više nemaju svoj individualitet, svoju esenciju, već ljubav, toplotu, lepotu oživljenog Jedinstva. U drugom slučaju, to su novi objekti koji su prazni, prolazni, slobodni. I tu dolazimo do stvari - eklstaza ima magijsku, alhemijsku, zapravo ima ni manje ni više nego tvoračku vrednost. Čovek u ekstazi postaje demijurg. Ne zamarajući se teologijo, mistikom, kosmogonijom te tvrdnje, raciom iza nje, kompletna ekstaza prosto podrazumeva takav kvalitet. Čovek menja svoj svet, idealno on ga vraća u univerzalno božansko stanje, podiže ga. No, čini se da kakve su ti misli, takav ti je Tvorac. Sioran ni uz sve svoje ekstaze nije mogao promeniti svoj svet. Nije mogao da prihvati da čovek jeste mera svih stvari, ali nije mogao da prihvati da je mera jedna jedina, a da su ostalo greške. Voleo je i previše svoj individualitet i svoju slobodu u robiji - ideju ljudske nevažnosti i slučajnog postojanja, što se možda tako i očitava u fizici sveta, no u svetoj metafizici nema nikakvu težinu. Ekstaza nije mogla da ga promeni, ni njega, ni njegov svet, jer je mrak našao spas u krivljenju budinog učenja. Zaboravljajući, ignorišući, ne bivajući svestan, posebno mahajanskog, insistiranja na oslobađanju drugog, je isto što i propustiti ono najlepše u budističkoj baštini, ono zbog čega ona i jeste blago, a ne sebičan, opori degenerativ. To što je sve prazno, znači slobodu, ali tek um istreniran, usredsređen na samilost, empatiju, ljubav, lepotu, pomoć drugima i unutar budističkog čitanja ekstaze i njenog delovanaj može doći do iste tačke kao u drugim baštinama, bez toga, upravo zakopan svojim mrakom on postaje Zli Demijurg.
Biti zli demijurg je u 19. veku i imalo nekog šmeka - Bodler, Niče su velikani, genijalci, siloviti, gromoviti su prasak koji najavljuje sumrak. Za njima su usledili buljuci Bukovskih, Siorana i sličnih, opet sa nekom vrednošću. No, ubrzo smo došli do toga da je sada "oboleli ludak od sifilisa" svaki Aca Lukas, neki unakaženi treper, neka devojka usta punih slobode i emancipacije i sintetičkih droga. Biti zao, biti ružan, prljav, mračan, pogan, amoralan, promiskuitetan odavno već nije zabava za intelektualce na granici trulog novog sveta, već je postala sadašnjica svakojakog, ubogog mediokriteta. Siorana danas može čitati silikonska nada u "Zvezdama granda", nasnifana padavičarka, klošar št odiluje marihuanu klincima u kraju i ništa u toj slici ne bi bilo deplasirano.
January 29, 2013
At present, to think of this book is to give myself a screaming headache. I certainly hope to provide a more coherent review someday, but that day is not today and is not likely any time in the immediate future. It is not quite like any book I've ever read before, I can confidently state that. But whether the author is simply a raving maniac or a deeply profound thinker? I can't confidently agree with either assertion. Nor can I disagree with either. And, curiously, I can't help but think Cioran would disagree with either or both labels.
So: This book is seriously fucked up. In the same way a Molotov Cocktail dropped on your head would be. Yet it manages to grab your attention and hold it...in the same way a Molotov Cocktail dropped on your head would. Which doubtless makes absolutely no sense. Unless you read the book. At which point I would submit my little conceit would make sense, at least arguably. Cheers.
So: This book is seriously fucked up. In the same way a Molotov Cocktail dropped on your head would be. Yet it manages to grab your attention and hold it...in the same way a Molotov Cocktail dropped on your head would. Which doubtless makes absolutely no sense. Unless you read the book. At which point I would submit my little conceit would make sense, at least arguably. Cheers.
January 6, 2019
"It is during our insomnias that pain fulfills its mission, that it materializes, blossoms. Then pain is as limitless as the night, which it imitates."
"After certain nights, we should change names, since we are also no longer the same man."
"Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again."
"There are nights when the future cancels out, when only
one of all its moments subsists, the one we shall choose in
order to exist no longer. "
"After certain nights, we should change names, since we are also no longer the same man."
"Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again."
"There are nights when the future cancels out, when only
one of all its moments subsists, the one we shall choose in
order to exist no longer. "
December 21, 2012
Un Cioran clasic, chiar dacă surprinzător de budist. Surpinzător? Nimic n-ar trebui să surpindă la acest deziluzionat, poate doar optimismul și credința în ziua de mâine. Atunci l-am atinge ușor de umăr și l-am întreba: „Ce-i cu tine, Emil, te-ai îmbolnăvit?” Mântuit prin ultima frază: „Suntem cu toții pe fundul unui iad unde fiece clipă e un miracol.”
May 12, 2025
„Până la urmă, totul se reduce la dorință sau la absența dorinței. Restul e nuanță.“
Incredibil de nepotrivit să citești Cioran în perioada alegerilor, dar mi-a plăcut enorm. Nu știu cum a reușit dânsul să trăiască cu așa gânduri.
Incredibil de nepotrivit să citești Cioran în perioada alegerilor, dar mi-a plăcut enorm. Nu știu cum a reușit dânsul să trăiască cu așa gânduri.
March 7, 2023
Într-un anume fel, cărțile lui Cioran se leagă între ele.
May 16, 2018
Contează doar acele momente când dorința de a rămâne singur cu tine însuți este atât de vie, că mai curând ți-ai zbura creierii decât să schimbi o vorbă cu cineva.
April 28, 2024
The titular essay is one of Cioran's best, and the aphorisms here are strong. A necessary book.
February 22, 2014
This book presents a philosophy resembling nihilism, with the added thought that "one" (the non-self) should *embrace* the void/nothingness.
The first third of the book is absolutely superb, not that a typical person would agree with much of it, but that it gets you to think about things in a different way. It is not likely to dissuade anyone from their views, in my estimation, but it is good at getting one to explore different modes of thinking.
The middle third attempts to sell the reader on suicide. Anyone who is depressed should probably skim over this section, or just skip the book completely. It is actually pretty well argued, although, as you can see, I did not embrace it.
The last third of the book is what kept this from being a four-star book. The last third is just utter trash. The author attempts to write in a Proverbs style, and ends up saying some of the stupidest imaginable things, with the stupid far outweighing the relatively few worthwhile insights. It is hard to believe that the author of the first two-thirds of the book also wrote the last third.
I had one of the author's books on back order, but cancelled the order after I finished reading this book. If you find this in the library sometime when you are browsing around, you might want to scan the first third. Otherwise, I think your money and time could be better spent.
The first third of the book is absolutely superb, not that a typical person would agree with much of it, but that it gets you to think about things in a different way. It is not likely to dissuade anyone from their views, in my estimation, but it is good at getting one to explore different modes of thinking.
The middle third attempts to sell the reader on suicide. Anyone who is depressed should probably skim over this section, or just skip the book completely. It is actually pretty well argued, although, as you can see, I did not embrace it.
The last third of the book is what kept this from being a four-star book. The last third is just utter trash. The author attempts to write in a Proverbs style, and ends up saying some of the stupidest imaginable things, with the stupid far outweighing the relatively few worthwhile insights. It is hard to believe that the author of the first two-thirds of the book also wrote the last third.
I had one of the author's books on back order, but cancelled the order after I finished reading this book. If you find this in the library sometime when you are browsing around, you might want to scan the first third. Otherwise, I think your money and time could be better spent.
December 11, 2019
Ne zaman bir cioran okuması yapsam deliliğin dünyaya en iyi itiraz biçimi olduğuna inancım güçleniyor.
December 28, 2024
Pe departe cea mai nihilistă lucrare citită de la el până acum. Dacă totuși ești în depresie și vrei să te sinucizi, posibil să te răzgândești pe parcursul lecturii, că te convinge de futilitatea actului.
Și a tot.
Ultima parte, Gânduri sugrumate, este efectiv o colecție de aforisme, poate mai bune de refolosit în narațiuni coezive, decât contemplate ca a tare.
Și a tot.
Ultima parte, Gânduri sugrumate, este efectiv o colecție de aforisme, poate mai bune de refolosit în narațiuni coezive, decât contemplate ca a tare.
May 28, 2019
Intensa e bellissima analisi della condizione umana da parte di un pensatore purtroppo ancora troppo poco studiato nelle nostre scuole. Una visione pessimistica e disfattista sul mondo, sulle leggi che ne regolano la vita e la morte, e sull'esistenza -o inesistenza- del nostro Creatore.
not-finished
October 15, 2017È la seconda volta che provo a leggerlo, ma non fa proprio per me. Lo metto via definitivamente.
September 25, 2019
Cioran es mi pastor, nada me faltará. Nada más que decir. Me asusta un poco encontrar tantas semejanzas en su pensamiento con el mío.
July 26, 2022
"The New Gods" consists of a diverse set of essays and aphorisms, but many of Cioran’s cherished themes run throughout the book. The opening essays, “The Demiurge” and “The New Gods,” could be called pieces of speculative theology. The first recounts the alternative creation story put forth by the Gnostics, namely that the creator of the material world followed a logic of evil and imperfection. The second is a genealogy of religious fanaticism and has us linger on the pivotal moment when Christianity violently detaches itself from and subsequently suppresses pagan religions. Contra Tertullian, “the soul is naturally pagan,” Cioran writes in a Nietzschean mode, invoking the echo of our natural dispersal of energies in a polytheistic cosmology. Christianity once had the vitality to fight this battle, but has for quite some time now settled into the worst form of religious mediocrity. Lest these reflections remain on a level of abstraction, or needlessly luxuriate in the most pessimistic consequences to be drawn from human history, he brings us right into the secular present:
In an age when, lacking religious conflicts, we witness ideological ones, the question raised for us is indeed the one which haunted waning antiquity: how to renounce so many gods for just one? — with this corrective, nonetheless, that the sacrifice demanded of us is located on a lower level, no longer that of gods but that of opinions. As soon as a divinity, or a doctrine, claims supremacy, freedom is threatened. If we see a supreme value in toleration, then everything which does it violence is to be considered a crime . . .
As interesting as these initial essays are, Cioran is at his best in the form of the aphorism. “The aphorism,” he has said, “is scorned by ‘serious’ people, and the professors look down upon it. . . . I can put two aphorisms that are contradictory right next to each other. Aphorisms are also momentary truths. They’re not decrees. And I could tell you in nearly every case why I wrote this or that phrase, and when. They’re always set in motion by an encounter, an incident, a fit of temper, but they all have a cause. They’re not at all gratuitous.”Some readers might challenge this final point, as there is surely some gratuity in the “Encounters with Suicide” and “Strangled Thoughts” sections. (To take a representative example from each: “You haven’t seen to the bottom of a thing if you haven’t considered it in the light of prostration.” “Chatter: any conversation with someone who has not suffered.”) But the overall effect of Cioran’s prose is to trouble and unsettle the dogmas that so often collapse our writing and thinking into paeans to banality: that more democracy is transparently good, that childhood is a reserve of innocence and goodness (Cioran quotes Calvin here, for whom children are “little lumps of filth”), or that we can definitively prove the superiority of interest over indifference.
The aphorisms in this book are not as dark as one might expect from Cioran but there is a distinct sharp tinge to it that screams of being written by Cioran in his lucid moments.
In an age when, lacking religious conflicts, we witness ideological ones, the question raised for us is indeed the one which haunted waning antiquity: how to renounce so many gods for just one? — with this corrective, nonetheless, that the sacrifice demanded of us is located on a lower level, no longer that of gods but that of opinions. As soon as a divinity, or a doctrine, claims supremacy, freedom is threatened. If we see a supreme value in toleration, then everything which does it violence is to be considered a crime . . .
As interesting as these initial essays are, Cioran is at his best in the form of the aphorism. “The aphorism,” he has said, “is scorned by ‘serious’ people, and the professors look down upon it. . . . I can put two aphorisms that are contradictory right next to each other. Aphorisms are also momentary truths. They’re not decrees. And I could tell you in nearly every case why I wrote this or that phrase, and when. They’re always set in motion by an encounter, an incident, a fit of temper, but they all have a cause. They’re not at all gratuitous.”Some readers might challenge this final point, as there is surely some gratuity in the “Encounters with Suicide” and “Strangled Thoughts” sections. (To take a representative example from each: “You haven’t seen to the bottom of a thing if you haven’t considered it in the light of prostration.” “Chatter: any conversation with someone who has not suffered.”) But the overall effect of Cioran’s prose is to trouble and unsettle the dogmas that so often collapse our writing and thinking into paeans to banality: that more democracy is transparently good, that childhood is a reserve of innocence and goodness (Cioran quotes Calvin here, for whom children are “little lumps of filth”), or that we can definitively prove the superiority of interest over indifference.
The aphorisms in this book are not as dark as one might expect from Cioran but there is a distinct sharp tinge to it that screams of being written by Cioran in his lucid moments.
November 29, 2022
O carte reușită și cu de toate din agenda lui Cioran:
De la one-linere faine ("Spiritul sfârtecat de luciditate.", "E pălăvrăgeală orice discuție cu cel care n-a suferit", "Nu ai pătruns esența unui lucru dacă nu l-ai privit în lumina deznădejdii"),
anecdote (”Încotro să fugi? Nu mai există nici un ungher unde să poți urî această lume cu profesionalism”,”Când îmi petrec zile în șir cu texte ce tratează doar despre seninătate, contemplație și renunțare, mă apucă pofta să ies în stradă și să turtesc mutra primului ins care-mi iese în cale”),
ceva heartwarming (”Un câine începu să latre, apoi, gudurându-se, se luă după mine. Nimeni nu-și poate imagina - dacă n-a simțit-o el însuși - mângâierea pe care ne-o aduce un animal ce vine să ne țină companie atunci când zeii ne-au întors spatele”),
până la o doză de antinatalism (”Această incapacitate de a rămâne în sine, pe care Creatorul avea s-o ilustreze într-un mod atât de nefericit, am moștenit-o noi toți: a procrea înseamnă a continua în alt chip și la altă scară lucrarea care-i poartă numele, înseamnă a pune, printr-o jalnică maimuțăreală, încă o cărămidă la „creația” lui.”)
și ceva de contemplat: (”Dar tot voluptatea ne face să înțelegem în ce măsură plăcerea este iluzorie”, ”Nu există adevăr decât în efortul fizic și contemplare; restul este accidental, inutil, nesănătos. Sănătatea stă în activitatea fizică și în vacuitate, în mușchi și în meditație; în nici un caz în gândire. A medita înseamnă să te cufunzi într-o idee și să te pierzi în ea; a gândi înseamnă să sari de la o idee la alta, să te complaci în cantitate, să acumulezi nimicuri, să urmărești concept după concept, țel după țel. A medita și a gândi sunt două activități divergente, incompatibile chiar.”
De la one-linere faine ("Spiritul sfârtecat de luciditate.", "E pălăvrăgeală orice discuție cu cel care n-a suferit", "Nu ai pătruns esența unui lucru dacă nu l-ai privit în lumina deznădejdii"),
anecdote (”Încotro să fugi? Nu mai există nici un ungher unde să poți urî această lume cu profesionalism”,”Când îmi petrec zile în șir cu texte ce tratează doar despre seninătate, contemplație și renunțare, mă apucă pofta să ies în stradă și să turtesc mutra primului ins care-mi iese în cale”),
ceva heartwarming (”Un câine începu să latre, apoi, gudurându-se, se luă după mine. Nimeni nu-și poate imagina - dacă n-a simțit-o el însuși - mângâierea pe care ne-o aduce un animal ce vine să ne țină companie atunci când zeii ne-au întors spatele”),
până la o doză de antinatalism (”Această incapacitate de a rămâne în sine, pe care Creatorul avea s-o ilustreze într-un mod atât de nefericit, am moștenit-o noi toți: a procrea înseamnă a continua în alt chip și la altă scară lucrarea care-i poartă numele, înseamnă a pune, printr-o jalnică maimuțăreală, încă o cărămidă la „creația” lui.”)
și ceva de contemplat: (”Dar tot voluptatea ne face să înțelegem în ce măsură plăcerea este iluzorie”, ”Nu există adevăr decât în efortul fizic și contemplare; restul este accidental, inutil, nesănătos. Sănătatea stă în activitatea fizică și în vacuitate, în mușchi și în meditație; în nici un caz în gândire. A medita înseamnă să te cufunzi într-o idee și să te pierzi în ea; a gândi înseamnă să sari de la o idee la alta, să te complaci în cantitate, să acumulezi nimicuri, să urmărești concept după concept, țel după țel. A medita și a gândi sunt două activități divergente, incompatibile chiar.”
December 19, 2022
"Bisognerebbe dirsi e ripetersi che tutto quanto ci allieta o affligge corrisponde a niente, che tutto è perfettamente derisorio e vano... Ebbene, ogni giorno me lo dico e me lo ripeto, eppure continuo ad allietarmi e ad affliggermi."
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