Homo Faber Quotes

Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.

The ideals of homo faber, the fabricator of the world, which are permanence, stability, and durability, have been sacrificed to abundance, the ideal of the animal laborans.

I called her a sentimentalist and artsy-craftsy. She called me Homo Faber.

She thought it stupid of a woman to want to be understood by a man; the man (said Hanna) wants the woman to be a mystery, so that he can be inspired and excited by his own incomprehension.

Everything happened exactly as I had intended it shouldn’t.

Ich kann es nicht ausstehen, wenn man mir sagt, was ich zu empfinden habe; dann komme ich mir, obschon ich sehe, wovon die Rede ist, wie ein Blinder vor.

Thought and cognition are not the same. Thought, the source of art works, is manifest without transformation or transfiguration in all great philosophy, whereas the chief manifestation of the cognitive processes, by which we acquire and store up knowledge, is the sciences. Cognition always pursues a definite aim, which can be set by practical considerations as well as by “idle curiosity”; but once this aim is reached, the cognitive process has come to an end. Thought, on the contrary, has neither an end nor an aim outside itself, and it does not even produce results; not only the utilitarian philosophy of homo faber but also the men of action and the lovers of results in the sciences have never tired of pointing out how entirely “useless” thought is—as useless, indeed, as the works of art it inspires.

The main thing is to stand up to the light, to joy (like our child) in the knowledge that I shall be extinguished in the light over gorse, asphalt, and sea, to stand up to time, or rather to eternity in the instant. To be eternal means to have existed.

Come,” she said. “We’re married, Walter, married. Don’t touch me.

Being alone is the only possible condition for me, since I don't want to make a woman unhappy, and women have a tendency to become unhappy. Being alone isn't always fun, you can't always be in form. Moreover, I have learned from experience that once you are not in form women don't remain in form either; as soon as they are bored they start complaining you've no feeling.

(...)– aber vor allem: standhalten, dem Licht, der Freude (wie unser Kind als es sang) im Wissen, dass ich erlösche im Licht über Ginster, Asphalt und Meer, standhalten der Zeit, beziehungsweise Ewigkeit im Augenblick. Ewig sein: gewesen sein.

Gefühle am Morgen, das erträgt kein Mann. Dann lieber Geschirr waschen!

Do you know,” she said, “that was the Ludovisi Altar we liked so much this morning. It’s madly famous!” I let her give me a lecture.

I had said what I never meant to say, but what has been said cannot be unsaid, I enjoyed our silence, I was completely sober again, but all the same I had no idea what I was thinking, probably nothing.

Was mir auf die Nerven ging: die Molche in jedem Tümpel, in jeder Eintagspfütze ein Gewimmel von Molchen - überhaupt diese Fortpflanzerei überall, es stinkt nach Fruchtbarkeit, nach blühender Verwesung. Wo man hinspuckt, keimt es!

Hanna had Communist leanings, which I couldn’t bear, and on the other a tendency to mysticism, or to put it less kindly, hysteria

Conversation was hardly possible; I had forgotten that anyone could be so young.

the streamers and the couples busily engaged in bursting one another’s balloons.

As long as God is a man, not a couple, the life of a woman, according to Hanna,is bound to remain as it is now, namely wretched, with woman as the proletarian of Creation, however smartly dressed.

Ich finde sie lustig, ihre heutigen Tänze, lustig zum Schauen, diese existentialistische Hopserei, wo jeder für sich allein tanzt, seine eignen Faxen schwingt, verwickelt in die eignen Beine, geschüttelt wie von einem Schüttelfrost, alles etwas epileptisch, aber lustig, sehr temperamentvoll, muß ich sagen, aber ich kann das nicht.

It is not only the weary Homo faber, who objectifies the world in the 'doing' mode, who must vacate his place on the logical stage; the time has also come for Homo religiosus, who turns to the world above in surreal rites, to bid a deserved farewell. Together, workers and believers come into a new category. It is time to reveal humans as the beings who result from repetition. Just as the nineteenth century stood cognitively under the sign of production and the twentieth under that of reflexivity, the future should present itself under the sign of the exercise.

I've often wondered what people mean when they talk about an experience. I'm a technologist and accustomed to seeing things as they are. I see everything they are talking about very clearly; after all, I'm not blind. I see the moon over the Tamaulipas desert--it is more distinct than at other times, perhaps, but still a calculable mass circling around our planet, an example of gravitation, interesting, but in what way an experience? I see the jagged rocks, standing out black against the moonlight; perhaps they do look like the jagged backs of prehistoric monsters, but I know they are rocks, stone, probably volcanic, one should have to examine them to be sure of this. Why should I feel afraid? There aren't any prehistoric monsters any more. Why should I imagine them? I'm sorry, but I don't see any stone angels either; nor demons; I see what I see--the usual shapes due to erosion and also my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts. Why get womanish? I don't see any Flood either, but sand lit up by the moon and made undulating, like water, by the wind, which doesn't surprise me; I don't find it fantastic, but perfectly explicable. I don't know what the souls of the damned look like; perhaps like black agaves in the desert at night. What I see are agaves, a plant that blossoms once only and dies. Furthermore, I know (however I may look at the moment) that I am not the last or the first man on earth; and I can't be moved by the mere idea that I am the last man, because it isn't true. Why get hysterical? Mountains are mountains, even if in a certain light they may look like something else, but it is the Sierra Madre Oriental, and we are not standing in a kingdom of the dead, but in the Tamaulipas desert, Mexico, about sixty miles from the nearest road, which is unpleasant, but in what way an experience? Nor can I bring myself to hear something resembling eternity; I don't hear anything, apart from the trickle of sand at every step. Why should I experience what isn't there?

When I woke Herbert, he sprang to his feet. What was the matter? When he saw that nothing was the matter, he started snoring again—to avoid being bored.

How many of the people I meet are interested in whether I’m enjoying myself, in my feelings at all?

Я не признаю самоубийства. Оно ведь не меняет того факта, что ты жил на земле, а в ту минуту я желал лишь одного — никогда не существовать...

Хората ме уморяват, дори мъжете.

The wish to walk on earth—there beneath the last firs standing in the sunshine, to smell their resin and listen to the water, which is probably roaring, to drink water.

One of the obvious danger signs that we may be on our way to bring into existence the ideal of the animal laborans is the extent to which our whole economy has become a waste economy, in which things must be almost as quickly devoured and discarded as they have appeared in the world, if the process itself is not to come to a sudden catastrophic end. But if the ideal were already in existence and we were truly nothing but members of a consumers’ society, we would no longer live in a world at all but simply be driven by a process in whose ever-recurring cycles things appear and disappear, manifest themselves and vanish, never to last long enough to surround the life process in their midst. The world, the man-made home erected on earth and made of the material which earthly nature delivers into human hands, consists not of things that are consumed but of things that are used. If nature and the earth generally constitute the condition of human life, then the world and the things of the world constitute the condition under which this specifically human life can be at home on earth. Nature seen through the eyes of the animal laborans is the great provider of all “good things,” which belong equally to all her children, who “take [them] out of [her] hands” and “mix with” them in labor and consumption.86 The same nature seen through the eyes of homo faber, the builder of the world, “furnishes only the almost worthless materials as in themselves,” whose whole value lies in the work performed upon them.87 Without taking things out of nature’s hands and consuming them, and without defending himself against the natural processes of growth and decay, the animal laborans could never survive. But without being at home in the midst of things whose durability makes them fit for use and for erecting a world whose very permanence stands in direct contrast to life, this life would never be human.

I stand still so as not to hear steps in my apartment, steps that are after all only my own. The whole thing isn’t tragic, merely tiresome. You can’t wish yourself good night . . . Is that a reason for marrying?

The suspicion that something is structurally wrong with the vision of homo faber is common to a growing minority in capitalist, communist, and "underdeveloped" countries alike. This suspicion is the shared characteristic of a new elite. To it belong people of all classes, incomes, faiths, and civilizations. They have become wary of the myths of the majority: of scientific utopias, of ideological diabolism, and of the expectation of the distribution of goods and services with some degree of equality. They share with the majority the awareness that most new policies adopted by broad consensus consistently lead to results which are glaringly opposed to their stated aims. Yet whereas the Promethean majority of would-be spacemen still evades the structural issue, the emergent minority is critical of the scientific deus ex machina, the ideological panacea, and the hunt for devils and witches. This minority begins to formulate its suspicion that our constant deceptions tie us to contemporary institutions as the chains bound Prometheus to his rock. Hopeful trust and classical irony must conspire to expose the Promethean fallacy.

Mathematically speaking, the probable (that in 6,000,000,000 throws with a regular six-sided die the die will come up proximately 1 ,000,000,000 times) and the improbable (that in six throws with the same die the one will come approximately up six times) are not different in kind, but only in frequency, whereby the more frequent appears a priori more probable. But the occasional occurrence of the improbable does not imply the intervention of a higher power, something in the nature of a miracle, as the layman is so ready to assume. The term "probability" includes improbability at the extreme limits of probability, and when the improbable does occur this is no cause for surprise, bewilderment or mystification. Cf. Ernst Mally's Probability and Law, Hans Reichenbach The theory Probability, Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, von Mises' Probability, Statistics and Truth

As far as I am concerned, I value scientific knowledge and technical competence as much as intuitive vision. I believe that it is of man’s essence to create materially and morally, to fabricate things and to fabricate himself. Homo faber is the definition I propose. Homo sapiens, born of the reflection Homo faber makes on the subject of his fabrication, seems to me to be just as worthy of esteem as long as he resolves by pure intelligence those problems which depend upon it alone. One philosopher may be mistaken in the choice of these problems, but another philosopher will correct him; both will have worked to the best of their ability; both can merit our gratitude and admiration. Homo faber, Homo sapiens, I pay my respects to both, for they tend to merge. The only one to which I am antipathetic is Homo loquax whose thought, when he does think, is only a reflection upon his talk.

Entre as principais características da era moderna, desde o seu início até ao nosso tempo, encontramos as atitudes típicas do homo faber: a instrumentalização do mundo, a confiança nas ferramentas e na produtividade do fazedor de objectos artificiais; a confiança no carácter global da categoria meios e fins e a convicção de que qualquer assunto pode ser resolvido e qualquer motivação humana reduzida ao princípio da utilidade; a soberania que vê todas as coisas dadas como matéria-prima e toda a natureza como «um imenso tecido do qual podemos cortar qualquer pedaço e tornar a coser como quisermos», equacionamento da inteligência com a engenhosidade, ou seja, o desprezo por qualquer pensamento que não possa ser considerado como «primeiro passo... para a fabricação de objectos artificiais, principalmente de instrumentos para fabricar outros instrumentos e permitir a infinita variedade da sua fabricação» e, finalmente, o modo natural de identificar a fabricação com a acção.

Аз не мога през цялото време да изпитвам чувства. Да бъда сам, за мене това е единствената възможна форма на съществуване, понеже нямам никакво желание да правя една жена нещастна, а жените проявяват тази склонност – да стават нещастни. Признавам – да бъдеш сам е не винаги весело, човек не винаги е във форма. Впрочем, от опит зная, че щом ние не сме във форма, и жените загубват формата си; а щом ги обземе скука – започват обвиненията в липса на чувства. В такъв случай, честно казано, предпочитам да случая сам.

при всех весьма значимых различиях наши мировоззрения базируются на общем принципе: обе идеологии по характеру детерминистские. Но у вас расовый детерминизм, а у нас — экономический, но детерминизм. И вы, и мы верим, что человек не выбирает судьбу, она навязана природой или историей, и делаем отсюда вывод, что существуют объективные враги, что отдельные категории людей могут и должны быть истреблены на законном основании, просто потому, что они таковы, а не из-за их поступков или мыслей. И тут разница только в том, кого мы зачисляем в категорию врагов: у вас — евреи, цыгане, поляки и, насколько мне известно, душевнобольные, у нас — кулаки, буржуазия, партийные уклонисты. Но, в сущности, речь об одном и том же: и вы, и мы отвергаем homo economicus, то есть капиталиста, эгоиста, индивидуалиста, одержимого иллюзиями о свободе, нам предпочтителен homo faber. Или, говоря по-английски, not a self-made man but a made man, [ведь коммуниста, собственно, как и вашего прекрасного национал-социалиста, надо выращивать, обучать и формировать. И человек сформированный оправдывает безжалостное уничтожение тех, кто не обучаем, оправдывает НКВД и гестапо, садовников общества, с корнем вырывающих сорняки и ставящих подпорки полезным растениям.

Das Wahrscheinliche (dass bei 6 000 000 000 Würfen mit einem regelmäßigen Sechserwürfel annähernd 1 000 000 000 Einser vorkommen) und das Unwahrscheinliche (dass bei 6 Würfen mit demselben Würfel einmal 6 Einser vorkommen) unterscheiden sich nicht dem Wesen nach, sondern nur Häufigkeit nach, wobei das Häufigere von vornherein als glaubwürdiger erscheint. Es ist aber, wenn einmal das Unwahrscheinliche eintritt, nichts Höheres dabei, keinerlei Wunder oder Derartiges, wie es der Laie so gerne haben möchte. Indem wir vom Wahrscheinlichen sprechen, ist ja das Unwahrscheinliche immer schon inbegriffen und zwar als Grenzfall des Möglichen, und wenn es einmal eintritt, das Unwahrscheinliche, so besteht für unsereinen keinerlei Grund zur Verwunderung, zur Erschütterung, zur Mystifikation.

I don’t deny that it was more than a coincidence which made things turn out as they did, it was a whole train of coincidences. But what has providence to do with it? I don’t need any mystical explanation for the occurrence of the improbable; mathematics explains it adequately, as far as I’m concerned. Mathematically speaking, the probable (that in 6,000,000,000 throws with a regular six-sided die the one will come up approximately 1,000,000,000 times) and the improbable (that in six throws with the same die the one will come up six times) are not different in kind, but only in frequency, whereby the more frequent appears a priori more probable. But the occasional occurrence of the improbable does not imply the intervention of a higher power, something in the nature of a miracle, as the layman is so ready to assume. The term probability includes improbability at the extreme limits of probability, and when the improbable does occur this is no cause for surprise, bewilderment or mystification.

Llego, pues, a la conclusión de que un príncipe, cuando es apreciado por el pueblo, debe cuidarse muy poco de las conspiraciones; pero que debe temer todo y a todos cuando lo tienen por enemigo y es aborrecido por él. Los Estados bien organizados y los príncipes sabios siempre han procurado no exasperar a los nobles y, a la vez, tener satisfecho y contento al pueblo. Es este uno de los puntos a que más debe atender un príncipe. (p. 33) Sólo quien sea capaz de cortar, como suele decirse, un cabello en el aire, podrá hallar alguna diferencia entre “excusa” y “justificación”. (p. 50) Sucede lo que los médicos dicen del tísico: que al principio su mal es difícil de conocer, pero fácil de curar, mientras que, con el transcurso del tiempo, al no haber sido conocido ni atajado, se vuelve fácil de conocer, pero difícil de curar. (p. 4) Como quiera que haya sido, lo cierto es que nadie probablemente ha sido, tanto como Maquiavelo, signo de contradicción. Nadie ha tenido tan varia y tempestuosa fortuna, como suelen decir los italianos; y vale recordar algunas por lo menos de sus más sonadas peripecias. (p. 11) Maquiavelo puede pasar casi como un santo. Que una u otra vez sacrificó en los altares de Afrodita (de la Pandemia siempre, porque fue varón a carta cabal), parece ser lo más probable pero fueron pasiones o pasioncillas que no alteraron la paz de su hogar, ni sobrepusieron en modo alguno (la carta a Vettori lo está diciendo) a su labor intelectual. (p. 25) … y si no perseveró más en el género dramático -un entretenimiento para él, en fin de cuentas- fue por la simple razón de que lo que ante todo le absorbía era el homo politicus, o como él decía, el ragionar dello stato, y en esto hubo de consumirse lo mejor de su energía espiritual. (p. 11) En la concepción de Maquiavelo, el Príncipe es el Estado… En cuanto al pueblo, es algo que no ha podido definirse jamás. Como entidad política, es una entidad puramente abstracta. No se sabe exactamente ni dónde comienza ni dónde acaba. El adjetivo de soberano aplicado al pueblo es una farsa trágica… Al pueblo no le queda ni un monosílabo para afirmar y obedecer. (p. 15) En los Discursos sobre Tito Livio abundan declaraciones semejantes. “Hay que partir del presupuesto de que los hombres son todos perversos (tutti gli uomini rei), y que siempre que se les presente ocasión, harán uso de la malignidad de su ánimo… Los hombres no obran jamás el bien, a no ser por necesidad”. (p. 32) La libertad, por tanto, es para Maquiavelo el supremo bien a cuya consecución debe ordenarse la comunidad política, y por esta consideración censura severamente a Julio César, por haber sido el exterminador de las libertades públicas y, en suma, de la República romana. (p. 28) Ha de notarse, pues, que a los hombres hay que conquistarlos o eliminarlos, porque si se vengan de las ofensas leves, de las graves no pueden; así que la ofensa que se haga al hombre debe ser tal, que le resulte imposible vengarse. (p. 3) … no sin haberle colgado previamente una inscripción según la cual Maquiavelo habría sido un hombre astuto y pérfido, coadjutor de los demonios e incomparable artífice de maquinaciones diabólicas: “Homo vafer ac subdolus, diabolicarum cogitationum faber optimus, cacodaemonis auxiliator”. (p. 12) Quien confía en el pueblo edifica sobre arena. (se me olvidó colocar la página) Y Traiano Boccalini, por su parte, decía lo siguiente: “No vemos por qué ha de condenarse la lectura de Maquiavelo, cuando se recomienda la lectura de la Historia”. (p. 38) … en esto acabó por convertirse, según dice Macaulay, el odiado político florentino. (p. 13)

What I heard was the usual story: marriage, a child (which I didn’t quite catch, obviously, otherwise I shouldn’t have asked again later on), then the war, a prison camp, return to Düsseldorf and so on; it shook me to think how time passes, how we grow older.

Not being shaved gives me the feeling I’m some sort of plant and I keep involuntarily feeling my chin.

Ivy was a model, she chose her clothes to match the color of the car, I think, and the color of the car to match her lipstick or the other way around, I’m not sure which it was.

the Indians were far too gentle, too peaceable, positively childlike. They squatted for whole evenings in their white straw hats on the earth, motionless as toadstools, content without light, silent. The sun and moon were enough light for them, an effeminate race, eerie but innocuous.

At times he got on my nerves, like all artists who think themselves loftier or more profound beings simply because they don’t know what electricity is.

A race like these Mayas, who hadn’t discovered the wheel and built pyramids and temples in the jungle, where everything becomes smothered in moss and crumbles with damp—what for?

I believe Ivy wanted me to hate myself and seduced me merely to make me hate myself, and that was her joy, to humiliate me, the only joy I could give her.

Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!

Hanna had no use for statistics, I soon realized that. She let me deliver a whole lecture—in the bathroom—about statistics, and at the end all she said was: “Your bath is getting cold.

My work?” she said. “You can see for yourself, patching up fragments. That is supposed to have been a vase. From Crete. I stick the past together.

Why should I be melancholy? England wasn’t in sight yet.

We talked about constellations—the usual thing, when two people haven’t yet discovered which one knows less about the stars than the other; the rest is romantic fantasy, which I can’t bear.

Caresses in the evening, yes, but I can’t stand caresses in the morning, and frankly more than three or four days with one woman has always been for me the beginning of dissimulation, no man can stand feelings in the morning. I’d rather wash dishes! Sabeth laughed.

a woman with time on her hands in the morning, a woman who wanders about before she is dressed, for example, rearranging flowers in a vase and talking about love and marriage, is something no man can stand, I believe, unless he dissembles.

The very sight of a double room, unless it’s in a hotel I can leave again soon, a double room as a permanent arrangement, sets me thinking about the Foreign Legion

I can’t have feelings all the time. Being alone is the only possible condition for me, since I don’t want to make a woman unhappy, and women have a tendency to become unhappy. Being alone isn’t always fun, you can’t always be in form.

My life was in her hands .

War against puerperal fever. Caesarean operations. Incubators for premature births. We take life more seriously than in earlier times.

What’s the difference between contraception and abortion? Both are expressions of the human will not to have children.

How many children are really wanted? The fact that the woman would rather have it once it’s there is a different matter, an automatic reaction of the instincts, she forgets she tried to avoid it and added to this is the feeling of power over the man, motherhood as an economic weapon in the hands of the woman.

Children are something we want or don’t want.

There is no physical injury, unless the abortion is carried out by a quack; if there is any psychological injury it is only because the person in question is dominated by moral or religious ideas.

To be consistent, those who argue that abortion is “unnatural” would have to say: no penicillin, no lightning rods, no eyeglasses, no DDT, no radar and so on.

Boys!” she said. “You can’t imagine what they’re like—they think you’re their mother, and that’s frightful!

In Florence I rebelled and told her that frankly I thought her Fra Angelico rather mawkish. Then I corrected myself and said “naive.” She didn’t deny it, on the contrary, she was delighted; it couldn’t be naïve enough for her. What I enjoyed was campari!

I really began to feel that the young were beyond me. I often appeared to myself a deceiver. Why? I didn’t want to undermine her belief that Tivoli surpassed anything I had ever seen anywhere and that an afternoon in Tivoli, for example, was happiness squared; but I just couldn’t feel that way about it.

on the one hand she had boundless trust in me, merely because I was thirty years older, a childish trust, and on the other hand no respect at all. I was vexed to find I expected respect.

In general, only the future counted for her, and to a slight extent the present; but she had no interest at all in past experiences, like all young people.

I took pleasure in every moment that was in any real sense pleasurable. I didn’t turn somersaults, I didn’t sing, but there were certain things that I, too, enjoyed.

Our journey wasn’t easy, though often curious: I bored her with my experience of life, she made me old by waiting from morning to evening, wherever we were, for my enthusiasm . . .

I confessed I knew nothing about art—she based her view on a saying of her mother’s that anyone can respond to a work of art except the cultured philistine. “That’s very kind of your mother!” I said.

I can’t bear being told what I ought to feel; although I can see the subject under discussion, I feel like a blind man.

I waited, my hand around the stem, to clink glasses; I wasn’t in the least interested in Herr Piper, a man who lived in East Germany out of conviction

I ordered another half-bottle of Orvieto Abbocato, and then we talked about all sorts of things, about artichokes, Catholicism, cassata, the Sleeping Erinys, travel, the poverty of our time, and the best way to the Via Appia

She was seriously disappointed, a child I was treating like a woman, or a woman I was treating like a child, I didn’t know myself which it was.

They were obviously Americans, I could hear their voices as the party wandered around our tomb; to judge by the voices, they might have been stenographers from Cleveland. “Oh, isn’t it lovely?” “Oh, is this the Campagna?” “Oh, how lovely it is here!

The ladies’ mauve-dyed hair interspersed with the bald patches of the gentlemen, who had taken off their panama hats—they must have broken out of an old-age home, I thought, but I didn’t say it.

A középszerű ember számára újabban a homo faber nevet találták ki. Homo faber annyit jelent, mint mesterkedő ember. Ez az, akiről Plótinosz azt mondja, hogy komolyabb pályára alkalmatlan. Ha valaki ezt az embert meg akarja érteni, a héber hagyományhoz kell fordulnia. Ez a hagyomány azt tanítja, hogy az alkotás csak akkor tökéletes, ha négy fokozaton halad át. Az alkotás a potenciák (acilut) szférájában születik, mint lehetőség és gondolat. Innen a virtuális világba lép át (beríja), ez a realizálás első lépcsője. Ezután meg kell formálni (jecíra), végül pedig fizikailag el kell készíteni (asszíja). A homo faber csupán és csakis ebben az utolsó, negyedik körben él. Csak azzal foglalkozik, amit kézzel és fizikailag meg kell csinálni. Amit általában ma találmánynak neveznek, az ilyen korcs alkotás, amely a szellemi fázisokat nem érinti, ezért olyan ügyefogyott csinálmány. Ezért a gépek legnagyobb része furcsa és groteszk. A gép nem azért készült, hogy örökké tartó öröm (joy for ever) tárgya legyen, mint a művészi alkotás. Minden gép gnómszerű, mert csupán fabrikáció. A homo faber ilyen pancsoló ember. A gép működése ijesztő, ugyanakkor komikus. A gép buta. Alig van nevetségesebb, mint az örökké ismétlődő mozdulatokat nézni, ahogy ontja magából a bádogelefántot. Mivel minden dolog nemcsak önmaga, hanem ugyanakkor jelképe és jele valami másnak is, fel kell tenni a kérdést, hogy a gép minek a jelképe? A gép a racionális funkció jelképe, annak a bizonyos spirituális minimum alatt levő emberi képességnek, amelyről az imént volt szó, hogy ez a középszerűség, vagyis a tehetségtelenség. Mivel a gép csak a csinálás körében mozog, csak olyasvalamit csinál, ami csinálható, ezenfelül semmit. Ezért minden technikai alkotás csak csinálmány, mint a hanglemez, a fénykép és a reprodukció. A gép nem alkot, hanem ismétel. Ez az, ami benne olyan hallatlanul komikus, mert az élet mindent tud, kivéve egyet, ismételni. A gép időn kívül áll. Nincs metafizikája. És ha valaki azt kérdezné, mi ennek a metafizikátlanságnak a metafizikája, azt kellene válaszolni, hogy itt az időtől való félelem jelenik meg. Az embernek sikerült valamit alkotnia, aminek az elmúlásról nincs tudata. Ez az alkotás azonban, sajnos, idióta, és nem tud egyebet, mint időtlen időkig ugyanazt mondani. Ami nem ismeri a halált, az nem él. A gépnek nincs bűntudata, nincs lelkiismerete, nincs vallása. A technika, mondjuk, az ineptia mysterii. Ezért végeredményben okkult jelenség. A gépet az ember azért kedveli, mert engedelmes. A gép előnye az ember fölött, hogy nincs szabadságigénye. A diktátor eszményképe a gép.

El hombre es religioso por naturaleza, es homo religiosus como es homo sapiens y homo faber. El hombre lleva dentro de si una sed del infinito, una nostalgia de la eternidad, una búsqueda de la belleza, un deseo de amor, una necesidad de luz y de verdad, que lo empujan hacia el Absoluto; el hombre lleva dentro el deseo de Dios

Homo sapiens,” “homo faber” … yes, but, first of all, “homo adorans.

Zu den glücklichsten Minuten, die ich kenne, gehört die Minute, wenn ich eine Gesellschaft verlassen habe, wenn ich in meinem Wagen sitze, die Türe zuschlage und das Schlüsselchen stecke, Radio andrehe, meine Zigarette anzünde mit dem Glüher, dann schalte, Fuß auf Gas; Menschen sind eine Anstrengung für mich, auch Männer. Was die Stimmung betrifft, so mache ich mir nichts draus, wie gesagt. Manchmal wird man weich, aber man fängt sich wieder. Ermüdungserscheinungen! Wie beim Stahl, Gefühle, so habe ich festgestellt, sind Ermüdungserscheinungen, nichts weiter, jedenfalls bei mir. Man macht schlapp! Dann hilft es auch nichts, Briefe zu schreiben, um nicht allein zu sein. Es ändert nichts; nachher hört man doch nur seine eignen Schritte in der leeren Wohnung.

Solange Gott ein Mann ist, nicht ein Paar, kann das Leben einer Frau, nur so bleiben wie es heute ist, nämlich erbärmlich, die Frau als Proletarier der Schöpfung, wenn auch noch so elegant verkleidet.

Zu den glücklichsten Minuten, die ich kenne, gehört die Minute, [...] Menschen sind eine Anstrengung für mich, auch Männer. Was die Stimmung betrifft, so mache ich mir nichts draus, wie gesagt. Manchmal wird man weich, aber man fängt sich wieder. Ermüdungserscheinungen! Wie beim Stahl, Gefühle, so habe ich festgestellt, sind Ermüdungserscheinungen, nichts weiter, jedenfalls bei mir. Man macht schlapp! Dann hilft es auch nichts, Briefe zu schreiben, um nicht allein zu sein. Es ändert nichts; nachher hört man doch nur seine eignen Schritte in der leeren Wohnung.

Ненавистта ми към самия мен! (Ако можеше да се започне животът отначало!)

Като всеки истински мъж аз живея с работата си. Нещо повече, нямам нужда от нищо друго и смятам за щастие факта, че живея сам – по ме мнение това е единствената възможна форма на съществуване за един мъж; за мене е истинско наслаждение да се събуждам сам, без да е необходимо веднага да започвам разговор. Коя жена може да разбере това? Дори въпросът как съм спал ми е досаден, понеже в мислите си аз съм отишъл напред, навикнал да мисля за нещата, които ми предстоят, а не за вече отминалите, да живея с проектите си… Всякакви там нежности по вечерно време, това все още върви, но нежности сутрин – благодаря, просто не съм в състояние да ги понасям; и повече от три или четири дни прекарани заедно с една жена, за мене винаги са, признавам си, начало на лицемерието. Чувства сутрин – това един мъж трудно понася. Тогава по-добре да иде да мие чинии!

Стоя прав с чаша в ръка, пълна с джин, който не обичам, и пия; не помръдвам от мястото си, за да не чувам стъпки в жилището си – своите собствени стъпки. Всичко това съвсем не е трагично, а просто тягостно – не можеш сам да си пожелаеш „лека нощ“.

En algunos de estos casos, los individuos erotizan otros aspectos de su vida: se libidiniza la profesión, el éxito, la imagen empresarial o profesional, la posesión de dinero, y se relega o relativiza el plano amoroso. El homo faber ha triunfado sobre el dios Eros.

It is always the moralists who do the most harm.

They attest not only to certain conceptual origins but to a certain mode of thinking: analogical thinking. This chapter has in fact shown the latter to be the fundamental modus operandi of early Homo faber. It has shown how thinking is modeled on the body, how the body functions as a semantic template in the development of fundamental new practices, how, in effect, analogical thinking is rooted in the body. Some final words may be said about the nature of this mode of thinking. In analogical thinking, there is a transfer of meaning from one framework to another, or at the simplest level, from one thing to another. Two otherwise unrelated items or phenomena are perceptually conjoined-thus

Es ist aber, wenn einmal das Unwahrscheinliche eintritt, nichts Höheres dabei, keinerlei Wunder oder Derartiges, wie es der Laie so gerne haben möchte. Indem wir vom Wahrscheinlichen sprechen, ist ja das Unwahrscheinliche immer schon inbegriffen und zwar als Grenzfall des Möglichen, und wenn es einmal eintritt, das Unwahrscheinliche, so besteht gür unserein keinerlei Grund zur Verwunderung, zur Erschütterung, zur Mystifikation.

Homo sapiens,” “homo faber” … yes, but, first of all, “homo adorans.” The first, the basic definition of man is that he is the priest.

It was no chance mistake, but a mistake that is part of me(?), like my profession, like the rest of my life. My mistake lay in the fact that we technologists try to live without death. Her own words: ‘You don’t treat life as form, but as a mere addition sum, hence you have no relationship to time, because you have no relationship to death.’ Life is form in time.

Arrangements in case of death: all written evidence such as reports, letters, loose-leaf notebooks, are to be destroyed, none of it is true. To be alive: to be in the light. Driving donkeys around somewhere (like that old man in Corinth)—that’s all our job amounts to! The main thing is to stand up to the light, to joy (like our child) in the knowledge that I shall be extinguished in the light over gorse, asphalt, and sea, to stand up to time, or rather to eternity in the instant. To be eternal means to have existed.

she sacrificed her whole life to her child. She worked in Paris, later in London, East Berlin, Athens. She fled with her child. Where there was no German-language school, she taught her child herself and, at the age of forty, took up the violin again, so that she could accompany her child. Nothing was too much for Hanna, where the child was concerned.

How thin the zone of life really is, a few hundred yards, then the atmosphere already becomes too thin, too cold, it’s really an oasis that man inhabits, the green floor of the valley, its narrow branches, then the end of the oasis, it is as though the forests have been cut off (at six thousand feet in this part of the world, at twelve thousand feet in Mexico), for a while there are still flocks and herds grazing at the limits of possible life, flowers—I can’t see them, but I know they are there—colorful and sweet-scented, but tiny, insects, then only scree, then snow

Then writing letters doesn’t help you to feel less lonely either. It doesn’t make any difference; afterwards you still hear your own footsteps in the empty at. The radio announcers boosting dog food, baking powder or what have you, and then suddenly falling silent after wishing you good-bye ‘till tomorrow morning at 6 o’clock’. And now it’s only two o’clock.

Then writing letters doesn’t help you to feel less lonely either. It doesn’t make any difference; afterwards you still hear your own footsteps in the empty flat. The radio announcers boosting dog food, baking powder or what have you, and then suddenly falling silent after wishing you good-bye ‘till tomorrow morning at 6 o’clock’. And now it’s only two o’clock.

The man hears only himself, according to Hanna, therefore the life of a woman who wants to be understood by a man must inevitably be ruined. According to Hanna. The man sees himself as master of the world and the woman only as his mirror. The master is not compelled to learn the language of the oppressed; the woman is compelled, though it does her no good, to learn the language of the master, she merely learns a language that always puts her in the wrong.

Jeg lengtet etter elektrisk strøm…

Un exemple de symbolisme, à première vue arbitraire et excessif mais en fin de compte plausible, est le hadîth qui voue les peintres et les sculpteurs au fond de l’enfer. On objectera évidemment que les arts plastiques sont naturels à l’homme, qu’ils existent partout et qu’ils peuvent avoir une fonction sacrale, – c’est là même leur raison d’être la plus profonde, – ce qui est vrai, mais passe à côté de l’intention essentielle du hadîth. C’est-à-dire que le sens littéral de la sentence, par sa violence même, représente une « guerre préventive » contre l’abus ultime de l’intelligence humaine, à savoir le naturalisme sous toutes ses formes : naturalisme artistique d’une part et naturalisme philosophique et scientiste d’autre part ; donc imitation exacte, extériorisante et « accidentalisante » des apparences, et recours à la seule logique, à la seule raison, coupée de ses racines. L’homme est homo sapiens et homo faber : il est un penseur et par là même aussi un producteur, un artisan, un artiste ; or, il est une phase finale de ces développements qui lui est interdite, – elle est préfigurée par le fruit défendu du Paradis, – une phase donc qu’il ne doit jamais atteindre, de même que l’homme peut se faire roi ou empereur mais non pas Dieu ; en anathématisant les créateurs d’images, le Prophète entend prévenir la subversion finale. Selon la conception musulmane, il n’y a qu’un seul péché qui mène au fond de l’enfer, – c’est-à-dire qui ne sera jamais pardonné , – et c’est le fait d’associer d’autres divinités au Dieu unique ; si l’Islam place les dits créateurs dans la géhenne, c’est qu’il semble assimiler fort paradoxalement les arts plastiques à ce même péché gravissime, et cette disproportion prouve précisément qu’il a en vu, non les arts dans leur état normal, – bien qu’il les interdise assurément, – mais la raison pour laquelle il les interdit ; à savoir la subversion naturaliste dont les arts plastiques sont, pour la sensibilité sémitique, les symboles et les préfigurations (1). Cet exemple, auquel nous nous sommes arrêté un peu longuement, peut montrer comment les formulations excessives peuvent véhiculer des intentions d’autant plus profondes, ce qui nous ramène une fois de plus au principe credo quia absurdum [je le crois parce que c'est absurde]. (1) En condamnant les images, l’Islam – bienheureusement « stérile » – refuse en même temps le « culturisme » qui est la plaie de l’Occident, à savoir les torrents de créations artistiques et littéraires, qui gonflent les âmes et distraient de la « seule chose nécessaire ».

Human beings differ from other animals because they are sufficiently intelligent to wish that they could stop working and reasoning – and free enough to toil harder than other creatures to pursue both these aims in order to eventually enjoy free time. It follows that Homo faber and Homo sapiens are only contingent consequences of the truly essential Homo ludens. The fact that philosophers do not typically endorse this view only clarifies why they rarely qualify as champions of common sense…

«Hvor var dere i Roma?» spør hun. Jeg avga rapport.