NOTHINGNESS DRESSED UP: FRATERNITY STRIPPED BARE THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN A NIHILISTIC CULTURE

José Ignacio González Faus, s.j.

1. FROM METAPHYSICAL NIHILISM TO THE BANALITY OF EVIL: OUR TRAJECTORY ...... 3 1.1. The nightmare of an orphaned world ...... 4 1.2. From nightmare to reality: three possible reactions ...... 4 1.3. The clairvoyance of Nietzsche ...... 5 1.4. Analgesics against Nietzsche ...... 6 1.5. Provisional conclusions ...... 7 2. OUR SITUATION: DECAFFEINATED NIHILISM ...... 9 2.1. «The culture of forgetfulness» ...... 11 2.2. Selfish and selective utilization of the Holocaust ...... 12 2.3. Removing the “saints” from the altars ...... 13 2.4. Liquid modernity and the banality of evil ...... 14 2.5. «Instrumental reason» ...... 16 2.6. The imperative to be happy ...... 17 2.7. Conclusion ...... 19 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN TIMES OF NIHILISM ...... 20 3.1. A culture of the memoria passionis ...... 20 3.2. Victims, yes - victimism, no ...... 22 3.3. Recovering the witnesses ...... 23 3.4. The seriousness of authentic evil ...... 24 3.5. Critique of fragmentary reason ...... 25 3.6. Meaning in the face of happiness ...... 27 CONCLUSION ...... 29 NOTES ...... 30 How is it possible the true happiness has become so scarce in our civilization, which nonetheless has raised humankind far above all the hopes and expectations of earlier generations? Have we not overcome in ourselves the old Adam a thousand times and more? Do we not resemble God more than we do him? Do not our ears hear, thanks to telephonic devices, the sounds that are emitted on the most remote continents? Do not our eyes see, thanks to the telescope, the universe with its myriad of stars, and do they not behold, thanks to the microscope, the whole cosmos in a drop of water? Does not our voice conquer space and time in a split second? Does it not mock eternity by being recorded on a phono- graph record? Do not airplanes transport us through the element that was prohibited to mortals for countless millennia? Why is it, then, that these technical achievements fail to pacify and satisfy our most intimate selves? Why is it that the human soul, despite being on a par with God, experiences not the true jubilation of vic- tory, but only the sinking sensation that we have all those splendors merely on loan, that we are not more than «phony gods»?

Stefan ZWEIG, Sigmund Freud. La curación por el espíritu, Barcelona, Acantilado, 2006, chap. 8.

José I. González Faus, s.j. is in charge of the Theological Department of Cristianisme i Justícia.

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A world suffocating because God has withdrawn from it and the vacuum left has not been filled by man. (Reyes MATE, «Cuando el inocente es declarado culpable», in Europa y el cristianismo, Barcelona, Anthropos, 2009, p. 90).

Modern, post-metaphysical reason will never comprehend itself until it understands itself in relation to religion. (J. HABERMAS, Entre naturalismo y religión, Barcelona, Paidós, 2006, p. 116).

The only true religion is this one: helping the victims and staying far away from the selfishness that structures this cruel world. (cf. the Letter of James 1, 27).

My fundamental point in the first part of this rather philosophical essay is that the western nihilism which we are going to examine, and which I call “light” or decaffeinated nihilism, is a phenomenon which derives from Christian faith as a historical process and thus from history en- dowed with substance, autonomy, and meaning.

I think that this nihilism of ours would cause the Judeo-Christian tradition not be inconceivable in the religions of the only has its religiosity turned toward East (even though Nietzsche thought history, but also endows history with Buddhism to be nihilist). The fact that substance, a vocation to growth and those religions deny any reality to his- progress, and a hope animated by tory might seem to make them a source Promise, it provides a place where the of nihilism, but it does not act as such nihilism we propose to consider can be since those religions are experienced born. apart from history. Islam appears to be In fact, we might say that Christian a religion more turned toward history, faith «opens the eyes» of the western but it avoids nihilism because its histo- world and stimulates its desire for val- ry lacks autonomy and because of its ues such as progress, liberty, and frater- theocratic conceptions. In contrast, be- nity. It desacralizes the world, giving

3 substance to history and reality, and was still happy, still had my infinite it places history in human hands, for it Father, and still looked with joy upon has taught –from the second century the mountains». In reaction to these on– that we human beings have been words, «the shadows of all the dead created «to grow and progress» (St. were shaken as if by fright, … and each Irenaeus). For that reason there have of them found himself separated from been some who, from outside its fold, the others». have accurately called Christian faith The author still presents his disen- «the religion of the end of religion»1. chantment as «a dream», a bad night- In reality, the Christian promise does mare. Thus, upon awaking, «my soul not seem to be coming true, or at least was weeping for joy since it could still it has not been well assimilated. It ends adore God». It is not true that we are up provoking a sensation similar to the orphans and therefore «separated from torment of Tantalus, who is always just the others». However, Jean Paul’s re- about to reach the drop of water that course to a dream doesn’t work: it seems would calm his burning thirst, but nev- to be only an excuse for making his text er quite attains it. known. In fact, his dream is more like a What I will attempt to show is that prophecy that is gradually becoming our nihilism is post-Christian and post- reality. And it produces more or less modern, and I will do so by means of a three reactions. quick survey of texts2. 1.2. From nightmare to reality: 1.1. The nightmare three possible reactions of an orphaned world a) For the young Marx, the dream is The first text is the famous dream of the not a nightmare, but good news: the ab- German writer Jean Paul, in his «Dis- sence of God results in the doctrine that course of the dead Christ from the vault «man is the supreme being for man», of the world: that there is no God». This and therefore also in the categorical im- text, with its undeniable romantic fla- perative to do away with all relations in vor, describes an apparition of Christ which man is an enslaved being. –«a noble figure exhibiting great pain»– b) A century later (passing through above a church that has been shaken by Nietzsche), another Jean-Paul, the an earthquake. All the people present French author Sartre, reads the prophe- ask: «Christ, is there a God?». cy of his German namesake as bad «None exists», was the reply. «I news, because man is the being who walked through the worlds, I entered the imagines himself God. … But the idea suns, and I flew over all the deserts of of God is contradictory, and we become heaven. But there is no God. … We are uselessly lost: «man is a useless pas- all orphans, you and I; we have no fa- sion». It is no wonder, then, that this ther at all». In the narrative Christ re- useless passion should yield the well- calls the time when he was on earth: «I known definition of Sartre, «Hell is 4 other people», a sensation so close to the demnation of compassion and for his «being separated» described in our first call to do away with the weak, who pre- text. vent others from living: it is the cry of c) Between Marx and Sartre, with a the Greek god «Dionysus against the certain air not of prophecy but of fanta- Crucified One». sy, perhaps even the most unlikely fan- What is paradoxical is that it was an tasy, F. Dostoyevski has one of his char- act of compassion toward an animal that acters imagine the future: «As soon as was being maltreated by a coach-driver they are left alone, as they desire,… as that drove Nietzsche into his final crisis soon as they are left orphans, the first and a state of madness from which he thing that men will do is warmly em- never emerged. Perhaps, however, he brace one another, … and all the great himself would not have viewed that as excess of former love of the One who is an act of compassion, but as an act of immortality will be directed toward na- good taste, of esthetics, which was al- ture, toward the world, toward human ways a particular concern of his. In any beings. … How readily men will give case, what I have just discussed would themselves over to love in order to be an accusation of nihilism rather than soothe the sadness in their hearts!». a profession of nihilistic faith. But in another sense, the perception of what the death of God means, which 1.3. The clairvoyance perhaps no one has ever been able to of Nietzsche grasp and endure as Nietzsche did, Although Nietzsche is earlier than brings him to affirm another form of ni- Sartre, he deserves a special section hilism, one that is reflected in his mute since he is the most significant of all. terror in the face of the eternal return of First, though, I would like to point all that is real. Nietzsche believes that out an ambiguity in Nietzsche: he de- all earlier forms of atheism were still in clared himself «the first nihilist of thrall to what they were denying, and in Europe», but I think that word has for confronting them, he recalls that Zara- him two meanings, and these may help thustra «loves those who do not need to us understand the ambiguous or dialec- seek a reason beyond the stars for sacri- tical aspect of our own nihilism, as we ficing themselves and perishing, those will see in the second part of this essay. who immolate themselves to the earth». On the one hand, Nietzsche de- His program for re-creating all values is nounces as pure nihilism the whole his- in reality a decision to create them tory of the Platonic-Christian West, «from nothing», because there is no since it does nothing but deny reality guiding star to which we can refer, there and life in the name of an unreal ideal, is nothing to indicate the direction in and he sees the fruit of this denial in the which we should move, there is no way ressentiment and the envy of the weak. of knowing if we are moving left or That is the reason for Nietzsche’s con- right, forward or backward.

5 It is easy to understand how the hor- even say that he doesn’t know the an- rifying force of this program would end swer to the question about God’s exist- up driving a person mad. ence. He is simply not interested in the And this is what he finally says in his question, since human beings can feel famous text, The Gay Science: «We are perfectly at home in finitude. «Being an all murderers of God. But how have we agnostic is not missing God»; it is «be- accomplished this? How have we been lieving in the world as utopia». Our dis- able to empty the sea? Who gave us the satisfaction with the world «is never the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? dissatisfaction that proceeds from the … Are we moving forward, or back- world as finitude, but that which pro- ward, or to one side or another? … Is ceeds from the world as manipulated by there still an above and a below? Are we humans». not groping our way in an infinite noth- Despite his dismissal of the question ingness? Do we not feel the breath of the about God, Tierno is certain that «the empty spaces? … Must not we our- finite is the only thing we have», but that selves become gods to make ourselves assumption is not our main concern worthy of such a deed?». right now. What is decisive for this So unbearable is Nietzsche’s pro- former mayor of Madrid is the option posal that his influence has been felt for «fixing up» finitude, in order to be more in the first form of nihilism than fully at home in it. Being agnostic im- in the second. I call his proposal un- plies being revolutionary, and «revolu- bearable because in all his later works tionaries live the satisfaction of finitude he takes to task anyone who trivializes as sacrifice and effort» (an option that that act of killing God. Thus can be we have renounced, except in the field explained, as I have said, the other am- of technology). biguity of our nihilism: its “light” or sof- Tierno understandably considers tened character, which I have some- Nietzsche’s proclamation and program times called «Nietzscheism for the peo- to be flawed, because he basically still ple» (as a parody of the classical yearns for God after having killed him3. designation of Christianity as b) A few years later appeared The «Platonism for the people»). Era of the Void, by G. Lipovetsky, whom th Passing now from the 19 century to we will meet again in the next section. th the second half of the 20 , we cite two Although his talk of the void would texts which allow us to see how the au- seem to relate him to the proclamation thentic Nietzsche fits in with his legacy of Nietzsche’s madman, this author is in our nihilism “light”. no longer concerned with philosophical disquisitions, and he is opposed to the 1.4. Analgesics against Nietzsche profound Nietzschean axiom, «Any sense is better than none at all». Now we a) In his little book, What it Means no longer need to believe that, and so we to Be an Agnostic, Tierno Galván nei- have renounced the idea of recreating ther affirms nor denies God; he doesn’t values and constructing the super-man: 6 «The postmodern desert is as far re- plane, but seen «from above», from the moved from passive universal nihilism intellectual heights. In the following and its delight in universal inanity as section we will try to see it from a level it is from active nihilism and its self- that is more «down to earth», a level destruction. … The joyful news is that that is human, historical, practical, and God is dead, the great finalities are closer to the people. First, though, I will dying off, but nobody gives a damn. … propose a few conclusions to ease the The need for meaning has been swept transition. away …, as if capitalism must render human beings irrelevant, as it has done a) In the ordinary conception of re- with things. … Think about what you ligion, God generally functions as the wanted from television, but plug it in». guarantor of an «established order». Christian faith, however, with its strains As is clear, the French thinker coin- of «Reign of God» and «sin of the cides with Tierno as regards our feeling world», helps us to perceive our situa- fully at home in finitude, but he differs tion as one of «widespread disorder». from him totally as regards the option to And in this regard Modernity will fol- transform the finite world, which for low the lead of Christianity. Christian Tierno meant «sacrifice and effort». faith –and after it (or against it) Why sacrifice yourself? «Today Narcis- Modernitys– introduces the idea of his- sus frees himself, wrapped up in ampli- torical progress to confront what fiers, protected by self-sufficient ear- Mounier called «established disorder». phones». Asocialist logic still held sway A stance of resistance to prevailing in Tierno Galván, but Lipovetsky sub- types of order, justified religiously or scribes to a capitalist logic in which the politically, is something that Modernity question about meaning is replaced by shares in common with the Jesus of consumption. Nazareth who announced God’s Reign Neither of these reactions is defini- in the face of the people’s infidelity. tive, as indeed nothing is in history. In Although it has been done with shame- the following section we will introduce ful belatedness (as tends to happen with a harsh, lucid text of Mario Benedetti, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church), one which, without referring to the two John Paul II has actually declared that texts cited in this section, may serve as that cry of the French Revolution («li- a response to this final stage of our jour- berty, equality, fraternity») is pro- ney. foundly and fully Christian. Before that, it may be good to reflect b) But, with or without God, neither a bit about this whole process. progress nor feeling fully at home in finitude seems to have come about. Moreover, there is a growing sensation, 1.5. Provisional conclusions as our «modern» history progresses, The process we have described resem- that God is not sustained in revolution bles the failure or the crash of an air- either: whether against God or with

7 God, revolution seems to be revealing the earth, that antithetical bond is itself as either impossible or disappoint- broken, and anticipation would have us ing in its results (in Russia, in China, in believe that «now» has already arrived. Cuba, in Nicaragua…). It is quite as dis- And when that anticipation finally appointing as our modern-day situation realizes it is doomed to disappointment, would be for Condorcet or any other the only alternative will be disillusion- Enlightenment prophet4. At this point ment, not patience. Disappointment will we are no longer reading philosophical result because, despite all the promises texts, but historical experiences. of progress, «the prevailing disorder» continues to advance ever more serious- c) Well, then: in the early church it ly and terribly with its threefold threat: was easy to perceive a contrast between nuclear, ecological, and the desperation anticipation («Lord, is it now that you of hunger. will establish your Kingdom?») and patience («It is not for you to know or Given this diffuse state of spirit, we decide that», Acts, 1,6.7). By contrast, can quickly analyze our present mo- with Modernity, since nothing is left but ment.

8 2. OUR SITUATION: DECAFFEINATED NIHILISM

Repentance has become a lucrative industry… Politicians, intellectuals, political scientists, economists, and especially certain opportunists have had recourse to the confessional of the Empire or one of its stylish parishes… There they grumble about their past acts of solidarity, their struggle for just causes, their repudiation of torture. The world of consumers receives them with open arms and, in passing, steals their wallet. Nevertheless, those who benefit from economic cannibalism will never admit them as truly their own; … in the market of disloyalty, repentance is not the most trustworthy of guarantees garanties. (Mario BENEDETTI, El País, 25 February 1994)

This text of Mario Benedetti marks a reaction against our West’s present nihilism. It says to Tierno Galván that the option to change finitude has ended up taking us «to the confessional of the Empire». And it coincides with Lipovetsky (while also opposing him) in the role it assigns to the capitalist system in our process: the port to which we have been carried by our post-Nietzschean trajectory is precisely «eco- nomic cannibalism».

The Holocaust, the gulags, and the claimed that progress has become for us Second World War have much to do «the way back to barbarity». We should with the sensation of frustration that is also pay attention to the acute observa- felt in the face of what history sup- tion of another privileged mind: the posedly promised. A few years after the French Jewess Simone Weil6. Familiar world war, C. V. Gheorghiu published a with both of these, we will not be sur- famous novel (The Twenty-fifth Hour), prised by the ironic claim of the great which may have been one of the first biblical scholar Norbert Lohfink: our signs of real desperation: the twenty- progress as humans has consisted not fifth hour is the hour when «not even a in that we no longer eat one another, messiah can save us»5. but rather in that we eat one another Even prior to that, however, we with knife, fork, and napkin. … So also ought to acknowledge the harsh accusa- we find a context for T. Adorno’s cruel tions made against our progress by one observation that Auschwitz was not an of the most lucid and honest minds of «accident» in our system, but «a conse- the past century, Walter Benjamin, who quence of it».

9 So we ask: what happens with the progressively assimilated to the God religions turned toward history, when deduced by Plato or Aristotle. This way history enters into crisis? Either they of presenting God continued in practice remain turned toward history, and so until Modernity’s recuperation of his- give rise to the nihilist temptation, or tory and historical promise became in- they turn away from history and allow creasingly removed from, or even op- the gnostic temptation to emerge. I will posed to, the Christianity which gave it make some brief observations about the birth. latter before passing on to nihilism, b) Another example is found in which is what we are presently ana- some of the recent offerings of salvation lyzing. within Christian faith, especially those Gnosticism, according to which sal- having a certain esoteric or even mysti- vation is attained by an esoteric knowl- cal tone. Almost all of them involve a edge revealed only to a chosen few, a- flight from history toward a form of rose as a great temptation of primitive gnosis or saving knowledge. Interiority Christian faith in response to the non- 7 is indispensable for dealing with the arrival of the final resurrection . And harshness of history, but it must not be- even though western Christianity come a flight from history. If that hap- fought a determined battle against gnos- pens, then faith ends up being a sort ticism, as José Antonio Marina has of market for spiritual goods, whether rightly pointed out, it ended up seriously in the form of knowledge or human disfigured, taking on a gnostic form resources, but it is no longer a confident itself. I will give two examples of this, entrusting to God of the totality of though I would like to make clear that it one’s being. is not a question of denying the impor- tance of knowledge; the problem of In other words, the disillusionment gnosticism lies in affirming that salva- we mentioned in the previous section tion comes through knowledge. («the God of heaven and earth has failed us») has given way to the kind of a) One example of gnosticism is found in the way we present the topic of disillusionment recently pointed out by God. At the exclusively rational level, Joseph Ramoneda: In the end, even the the problem of God should be presented promise of the earth has failed us. And more as an unavoidable question of our without heaven or earth, where do we reason than as a certainty or a detailed head? demonstration. However, this question- Or to use more philosophical lan- ing manner of presenting God got guage, which amounts to the same blocked in western Christian faith, not thing: the unbearable theoretical nihil- only because of resistance from the ec- ism a la Nietzsche, which forces us to clesiastical hierarchy, but also because risk defining ourselves and making of the way Christianity became implant- commitments (as much as faith in God ed in Greek philosophy and culture. As does), can apparently no longer be re- a result, the God announced by Jesus got placed by the tranquil being at home in 10 finitude advocated by Tierno Galván. are the economy’s secret but unques- So hostile was he toward Nietzsche that tioning servants9. he judged that the intolerability of his For this reason, our current nihilism nihilism was capable of leading us to the is one that is practical and tacit; it is not insane asylum; at the same time, he formulated or professed or defended, thought that fixing up the earth would but it acts as a latent presupposition of deliver us from that threat. Now, how- certain behaviors and certain forms of ever, even that necessary condition that life. Such decaffeinated nihilism will Tierno Galván posited for making our- not hesitate to proclaim great techno- selves fully at home in the world –de- logical victories every now and then, to termining to «fix up» finitude– seems help us toward what A. Camus re- to reveal itself as impossible. To put signedly proposed as a solution for it bluntly, we have the sensation that life: «imagining a happy Sisyphus»10. «there is no god who can fix up our However, at the moment of truth and finitude». And what is worse, there decisive commitment, such nihilism seems to be no human being who is able will once again answer as Pilate did: to fix it up either. «What is truth?» or «What is man?» That, more or less, is what I have de- Has the time come, then, to take up nominated nihilism “light”. that refrain, «With God dead, dead also is man»? There are two fundamentalist We will dedicate this second part to pointing out some examples of nihilism responses to this question that I think we “light” that seem typical of our present should avoid. One response is positive time. and has often been used in religious apologetics; the other is negative and seeks to continue believing in man, 2.1. «The culture of forgetfulness» despite everything, it sometimes ap- pears as the voluntarism of some of the It does not seem to me an exaggeration old Marxists. But there is yet another to say that Auschwitz (and everything response that is not so comfortable, one that word conveys) may be one of the that avoids the question in order to re- best arguments for a radical nihilism. The only way to counter such an argu- main atheist; or rather, it is a Pilate-style ment would be to take seriously the response which, instead of answering, judgment of T. Adorno regarding that limits itself to asking: What is man?8 disgraceful page of our history: «the ca- We now arrive at the moment of es- tegorical imperative that it should never tablishing the thesis of this chapter: I be repeated». Nevertheless, the world suspect that it is that evasive response since the Shoah continues to be plagued which pervades our whole cultural am- by small holocausts, heralded one day bience, which is today shaped not by the as vital front-page news and forgotten a great authors or the great teachers, but few days later to make way for new ma- by the categorical imperatives of the terial with sensational headlines. The re- economy and by the mass media who sult may be more or less what happened 11 to the Italian writer Primo Levi, one of humanizing because it renders commu- the most noteworthy survivors of the nication with the sick person impossi- concentration camps. He dedicated the ble. And the price of that absence of suf- forty years following World War II to fering for those who suffer Alzheimer’s bearing testimony to Auschwitz, and ac- is that they completely lose their cha- cording to common belief, he ended up racter as persons and become incapable committing suicide in 1987 because of of recognizing their past or present iden- his disappointment at the world’s indif- tity. It is no wonder that the psalmist ference to the reality of Auschwitz. Levi calls death «the land of forgetfulness» was able to endure the suffering of the (Ps 87,13). Holocaust itself, but he was not capable Can it be, then, that a good part of withstanding our forgetfulness and of our present-day culture is afflicted our indifference in the face of that ca- with a painless nihilism (a cousin to tastrophe. Lipovetsky’s «painless ethics»)? Such J. B. Metz has repeatedly spoken of an analgesic works in a way similar to our western society as the propagator of what we so often find in our computer a comfortable «culture of forgetful- programs: «Delete? Yes. Are you sure ness». Perhaps there is no such forget- you want to remove this file to the trash fulness when it is a matter of personal bin? Yes». And on we go. claims, but there certainly is when it comes to what Metz call «memoria pas- sionis»: the continuing memory of the 2.2. Selfish and selective crosses with which our humanity is utilization of the Holocaust sown (and for a Christian, their connec- Addressing further the monstrosity of tion with the passion of Christ). Auschwitz, the great writer Elie Wiesel, From the culture of forgetfulness it another survivor of the Shoah, stated is a short step to loss of memory, so that that in Auschwitz it was not Judaism our western society might well be called that died, but Christian faith. We might a «society with Alzheimer’s». By this comment on this by making one of term I am not referring to the personal those classical scholastic distinctions: infirmity, which is very sad and which was it not a certain kind of Christianity someday we may succeed in combating, that died? Let that be conceded (though but to a social diagnosis. I use the term paradoxically that same deceased Chris- to refer to a society which experiences tianity is sadly still present in many sec- only disconnected moments, like a per- tors of high society). What my beloved son with Alzheimer’s. Such a society Wiesel does not dare to proclaim, how- does not suffer, or else it suffers only at ever, is that in the modern state of Israel the beginning of the process, when it it is not the Palestinian people that is becomes aware of what it is losing; it dying, but Judaism (of course, we does not suffer later, when it has lost its would have to specify, «a certain kind memory completely. The ones who suf- of Judaism», in keeping with our earlier fer are those who see the illness as de- distinction). The state (rather than the

12 people) of Israel, in using the Holocaust not where was God, but where was man as a justification for its crimes, commits in Auschwitz, or how to speak about the same sin that Christian faith com- man after Auschwitz? mitted in using the cross of Calvary as a justification for its anti-Judaism. I do not cite this as a criticism of 2.3. Removing the “saints” from Wiesel, but to provide us with a mirror, the altars for another Jewish author has written: Another feature of our light variety of «The Jewish state has attempted to use nihilism is what I would call its need not the tragic memories as a certificate of its to have any “saints”. This means that political legitimacy, as a warrant for all Saint Teresa was not a woman who had its political actions, past and future, and experiences that make us ask questions especially as an advance payment on all about God; she simply had orgasms that the injustices it might commit»11 . she could not recognize or describe. At the same time, there is an ex- Thus do we judge, with absolute securi- traordinary paradox: those who have ty, about things that happened five hun- most radically denied God after the dred years ago, even though we have not Holocaust are those who were not bothered to do any serious, impartial there, while many of those who expe- study of them. rienced the event believed and prayed. Recently I read a book by J. Cercas We may be incredulous in the face of (one of the great writers of the moment) such incoherence and want to criticize about the coup of 23 February 198112. it, but we should also recognize that the Apart from being well written, the book admirable faith of those survivors of the can be shocking, for nowhere does it Shoah runs the subsequent risk of un- mention any good intentions in the derstanding the state of Israel in terms whole history of our democratic transi- of the final chapter of the book of Job tion in Spain. If anyone performed (which almost certainly was a later deeds that might have seemed generous, addition!): Israel is considered the prize well intentioned, and ethically praise- to which people have a right after so worthy, they actually were not such, much suffering. For that reason I would but were attributable to more or less de- like to point out once again that that meaning forms of egoism and ambition temptation was the very same one ex- for political power. And this was the perienced by the early Christians, when case with Suárez just as much as it was they took the destruction of the with Carrillo or the king. If by chance Jerusalem temple to be God’s vindica- there is anyone in the book who appears tion of Jesus. God, however, does not to have been moved by a generous spir- seek vindication by destroying, but by it, it turns out to be … Colonel Tejero raising up. We should ask ourselves (and thus a tacit but clear message is whether this is due to the fact that we sent to readers about the dangers of all are avoiding the other urgent question: generosity). This state of affairs is due

13 not to any express intention of the au- 2.4. Liquid Modernity and the thor, but to a mentality of the epoch banality of evil which our author shares without know- Liquid Modernity is the title of a highly ing it. commendable work by Z. Bauman, and A similar example can be found in I use it here as a paradigm for a series the last book about Alfonso Comín, of other works that I will mention forth- which I prefer not to name. Its author with. I use the term also because what I claims that he is not writing hagio- have previously called nihilism “light” graphy, which is fine, since Alfonso was could well be called also “liquid” nihi- a man with many defects, but what is lism. It is a reality without solidity or surprising in the book is that it is not consistency; it is something adaptable Comín’s defects, but his most noble and and moldable; it is the «continual and dedicated endeavors that are depicted as irretrievable changing of position» that having been motivated by base ambi- Bauman mentions on the first page of tions and crude calculations of future his work. power. Since we do not have time for more The thesis latent in all these exam- detailed analyses, I will limit myself to ples is this: every act that appears displaying the titles of important works generous and disinterested is in reality that appear to me significant. selfish: it is seeking after power, after The much-read Lipovetsky is nota- admiration, or after cleansing from ble for the evolution of his titles over the some unpleasant guilt. Nothing more. years: from The Era of the Void in 1983 Absolutely nothing more. It is not that we move on to The Empire of the the self is always capable of staining or Ephemeral (1987), and this carries us on muddying what is best in us; it is rather to The Twilight of Duty (1992). The the case that the only thing that exists is «void» mentioned in the first title may allude to our sensation of disenchanted our self, and nothing more. In contrast nihilism14, which was the starting point to Camus’s La Peste, these books ap- of my reflections. Since that void be- pear to have been written in order to comes bearable when handed over to prove that in man there is nothing 13 the «ephemeral», Lipovetsky’s second worthy of admiration (at most, the work is dedicated to fashion. The only thing worthy of admiration is the ephemeral, however, is not limited to «honesty» of the one who is writing fashion15. The empire of the ephemeral and is above not only all hagiography, arises from the very origins of our mo- but also the meanness, power- dernity, as when Voltaire tells us (in Le mongering, and aggressiveness that he Mondain): «There is nothing more ne- is denouncing). Thus, it is not the case cessary than the superfluous». And the that there is a selfish side in us that proof that the empire of the ephemeral sullies all that is noble; the reality is that is not limited only to fashion may be solely the selfish side exists, and there found –just another example– in the ex- is nothing noble in us at all. pression which the announcer for Radio 14 Nacional de España got tired of repeat- Eichmann was not the only one invol- edly shouting when Messi score the se- ved, that there were many others like cond goal for Barcelona in the finals of him, «terribly normal» (p. 412), and the European league: «Astral orgasm, that «not even with the best of will is it astral orgasm!» Astral? At that very possible to attribute to Eichmann dia- same hour thousands of human beings bolical profundity» (p. 434), because were dying of hunger, many of them then we would still have some guideline children. At that very same hour cancer or horizon by which to measure the pro- and AIDS were still triumphing, and a fundity. It may have been possible to poor unemployed Andalusian, driven by speak of something of that sort at the be- desperation to hold up a pool hall, was ginning, when Himmler was saying, savagely killed by the patrons. Astral no «We expect you all to be superhumanly longer means anything more than par- inhuman» (p. 160). But what happens, ticular. The only cosmic reality is my Arendt explains, is that «once a crime own small satisfaction16. And so we un- makes its first appearance in history, its derstand how that downward slope car- repetition is more probable than its first ries us to the «twilight of duty», which appearance» (p. 412), and in that repe- also becomes “liquid”; duty becomes tition the evil takes on a structure, be- moldable and adaptable, as we are see- coming ever more anonymous and in- ing in our most public forums, such as visible. For Arendt, what makes that ba- politics and the economy17. nalization of evil possible is «the The total absence of ethics and so- interdependence of thoughtlessness and cial responsibility ends up making ni- wickedness; … such detachment from hilism something we can tolerate, and reality and such thoughtlessness can that circumstance would seem to ex- cause more harm than all the evil in- plain the strange title of Lipovetsky’s stincts that are perhaps inherent in hu- latest work, Le bonheur paradoxal man nature» (pp. 434-35). Given this in- [Paradoxical Happiness]18. It is para- terrelation, even the classical term «ge- doxical because the author refuses to nocide» becomes excessive: what proclaim that any nihilism exists nowa- happened was really a question of «ad- days, thanks to our «society of hyper- ministrative slaughters», nothing more consumerism» and the «market of the (p. 435). That expression appears to me soul»19. to be very close to another phrase, «col- The most serious expression of this lateral damage», which our economic paradox, however, is to be found in the system has made familiar to us. famous title of Hannah Arendt, The The relevance of Arendt’s reflec- Banality of Evil, a work dedicated to the tions finds corroboration in another of trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem20. The our literary stars, whom I dare not re- author states that, in the face of such ba- commend and whose book was declared nality, «words and thought seem impo- by J. Semprún to be the most atrocious tent» (p. 382) and that is the terrible les- he had ever read. I am referring to The son they teach. Arendt stresses that Kindly Ones of Jonathan Litell. This is

15 not the place, nor am I the person, to dis- mechanical «eye for an eye» or a justi- cuss the historical accuracy of the novel fication of gratuitous evil and becomes (which also takes place in Hitler’s instead a judgment of reason. At least, Germany during the epoch of the that was the case with Euripides, but Holocaust and World War II). Nor do I now, in Litell’s reworking, the benevo- have sufficient authority to comment on lence ceases to be justice based on rea- the literary value of the work or on the son and becomes instead a justification credibility (or skillful recourse) of hav- of evil that is gratuitous, and banal as ing the author be present on all the fronts well, without there being any «diabol- at all moments of war-time Nazism. I ical profundity» or any question of think it sufficient to recommend the being «superhumanly inhuman», as prologue of the work, which describes Arendt said of Eichmann. That is what repeated cases of diarrhea and dysentery the Eumenides do in Litell’s work. with the same care and detail as would That is why I have associated this be used in any classic novel to describe title of Litell with the title Hannah a magnificent landscape. This novel is a Arendt gave her book on the judgment work in which the main character kills of Eichmann in Jerusalem: the banality his friend (who had come to save him) of evil. That is the form that our nihil- as naturally as he would have shaken his ism “light” takes. hand. As Nietzsche said in the famous text cited in the first part of this essay, we have the sensation of having wiped 2.5. «Instrumental reason» out the sky with a sponge or of having Here I will be more succinct since we cut the earth free from its link to the sun, are dealing with a point that is already and now we do not know whether there well known and thoroughly analyzed. I is an above or a below. That’s just the will only point out that at the root of this way things are. Excrement has as much whole process there may be a much reality and naturalness as a landscape, more ancient expression, one coined and shooting a friend is something as by the two authors of The Dialectic natural as giving him a hug. That is all of the Enlightenment, especially M. there is, and the protagonist of the work Horkheimer. I am referring to instru- is absolved. mental reason as the only form of rea- This explains the other significant son and as the only universal reason that feature of Litell’s novel, which is its exists. It turns out that the goddess rea- title, The Kindly Ones, recalling the son, which Modernity has made into a famous tragedy of Euripides, The true universal religion, knows how to be Eumenides. In that ancient Greek drama universal only when explaining how the vengeful Furies (the Erinyes or «un- things are made, but is not so when elu- namable ones») change their nature and cidating the reasons for making the their name and become benevolent or things or when deciding which things «kindly» (Eumenides)21. The tragedy need to be made. In the sphere of the thus shows how justice ceases to be a hows, reason can produce dazzling suc- 16 cesses, but also frightening atrocities. to be happy (or to say and demonstrate The problem is that reason cannot that we are). It is another aspect of what supply the «reasons for»: or else it can Lipovetsky called «paradoxical happi- supply an infinity of them. The «reason ness». for» is given only by some type of faith, According to Lucía Ramón, that cul- which means faith in values, since ture of the homo felix is «the ideology these are affirmed only in belief. The of consumer capitalism»; it is «what re- capitalist system, above all its most mains of the utopian discourses of mo- savage version, is a superb example of dernity and their optimistic faith in pro- this reduction of reason to the instru- gress». In such a culture «prophetic dis- mental: if something provides more be- course has been sequestered by the nefits, that is what must be done (even consecration of the hedonistic present as if it means paying unjust wages, out- transmitted by the festive mythologies sourcing jobs, etc., all the way to the of objects and diversions»22. In such a awesome engineering involved in the culture, according to Pascal Bruckner, Madoff fraud). A clear expression of the «right to happiness» has been trans- this purely instrumental reason is found formed into a «euphoric imperative», in the trite argument offered when any which creates shame and discomfort humane consideration is proposed: among those who feel excluded from it. «But those are not economic reasons». And Lucía Ramón comments: «In this It is hard not to recall the title of epoch, in which ‘despotic happiness’ Goya’s famous painting: the dream of reigns, individuals don’t limit them- reason produces monsters. selves to being unhappy; now they feel guilty about not feeling good about themselves. There begins to emerge a 2.6. The imperative to be happy new form of marginalization, that of If our movement toward nihilism those who suffer, those who are truly ex- “light” is traceable in part to instrumen- cluded and dispossessed, those who are tal reason, its ultimate goal nowadays identified as failures»23. is expressed in the sub-title of the suc- What is characteristic of all theocra- cessful work of Pascal Bruckner: The tic societies (namely, that people are ex- duty to be happy. The final link of cluded from them by their own fault, as the process we have described is that a punishment of God) is reformulated in this is what makes us happy; we are our consumerist market theocracy in a obliged to be happy in this way and manner that is secular but equally radi- to proclaim our happiness in a loud cal.Corresponding to liquid nihilism voice… (Otherwise our economic and the banality of evil, there is also a system would not function.) Thus do we banalization of happiness. According to find ourselves with the paradox that the Bruckner, happiness becomes banal be- same society that refuses to accept any cause the duty to be happy «supposes a obligation imposed from without ends perversion of the most beautiful idea up tacitly imposing on us the obligation that exists, namely, the possibility con- 17 ceded to each person to be in control of mundo feliz]27. When «the savage» who his or her destiny and to improve his lands by chance in that happy world ex- or her existence»24. This is so because presses his preference for living dan- «the great mystery of happiness is that gerously, the people in charge tell him it is not reducible to the components that it is better to live comfortably. that allow or inhibit its appearance. As When the savage insists («I don’t want joined together as we may be in some comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I ideal grouping, happiness exceeds all want real risk, I want freedom, I want of us; it does not allow itself to be de- goodness, I want sin» …), the messia- limited or defined, and it does not dis- nic figure, «Our Ford», tells him, «In integrate, like the wing of a butterfly, as other words, you are claiming the right soon as we think we have it in our hand. to be miserable». But above all, life has the structure of a The decaffeinated nihilism which promise, not that of a program»25. I have tried to describe and which I be- In opposition to the «duty» to be lieve characterizes us seems to have happy, Pascal Bruckner offers a defense been born in the West out of this fear of of the old wisdom of knowing how to being miserable. But that same fear has live, which consists precisely in making carried us to the inconsequentiality of happiness something secondary in rela- not confronting the riskiness and se- tion to other goods like liberty, love, or riousness of nihilism. Thus, after totally friendship, and in giving pride of place relativizing all authentic absolutes, the to certain attitudes and activities with West also relativizes its own nihilism, regard to life, such as desiring, discover- limiting itself to a cozy version of it. ing, and loving. The secret of a good life would lie in «joking about hap- * * * piness» or in «considering it always and everywhere secondary, because it ar- rives only by way of something else». We will offer a rapid summary before After all, «there is nothing that can com- finishing this part. On the one hand, our pete with the irruption into our life of an cultural milieu, domesticated as it is by the lure of consumerism, does not have event or a being that devastates us and the courage to confront honestly and enchants us. There is always too much decisively the question of nihilism. On to desire, to discover, to love. And we the other, it prefers to take refuge in ni- leave the scene without having tasted of 26 hilism as an excuse for not committing the banquet» . itself to improving a planet and a hu- As may be seen, these considera- mankind that are gravely threatened. It tions are not far removed from what A. seems clear that we have moved beyond Huxley prophesied in an old novel, very Camus’s resigned affirmation, «All that well known and republished many is left is imagining a happy Sisyphus»; times; its title in the Spanish translation now we have the urgent obligation, not was precisely A Happy World [Un of imagining, but of proclaiming that

18 Sisyphus actually is happy, enormously These discourses are not issuing a happy. Perhaps that is the only way we prophecy of doom, but a wake-up call. can avoid acknowledging that «the em- What I have done, then, is just to give a peror» of human progress is naked. warning. And besides, I am a Christian. Such a circumstance is what makes a b) Secondly, I know that I have not man as unrepentantly optimistic as described our whole reality, but only Lipovetsky to wonder: What if the road being traveled by our technological that very important part of it which is civilization is a dead end? What if our our culture and the education we absorb cult of the homo felix is our greatest mis- through the mass media. Our reality is fortune?28 actually much more polymorphous, though I think that what I have described here is a strong force within 2.7. Conclusion it. Furthermore, I continue to believe, with T. Adorno, that «human beings are Despite the tone of these remarks, I am usually better than their culture» (at not pessimistic; far from it, and for two least some of them). My exposition reasons. has mainly attempted to give a global a) The biblical world includes a kind evaluation, but it is only a partial de- of literature that is usually called «apoc- scription; it simply describes what I alyptic», a word that evokes in us a have called “light” or “liquid” nihilism, notion of catastrophe or upheaval. The or what my colleague, J. Rovira Bello- specialists in that genre, however, insist so, years ago called «nothingness that apocalyptic literature is not neces- dressed up». sarily pessimistic. Apocalyptic litera- ture does not claim that the disasters it It is not the case, therefore, that what portrays are necessarily going to occur; I have written should lead people to it simply says they may occur, and think, as they so often do nowadays, that it describes them so that they can be «there is nothing to be done». At the avoided. Furthermore, when the reality very least, we must be conscious of the described is especially harsh, the apoc- danger of conservatism inherent in “sa- alyptic literature is simply attempting lon nihilism”. Furthermore, we must to communicate to people that, despite learn about and revitalize every non- everything, «God is the Lord of his- nihilist cell that may exist in our culture. tory». We have an example of the latter And finally, we must realize that the key in the New Testament book of the for the human struggle lies not in how Apocalypse29, whereas the former is much success we will have, but in doing exemplified in the discourses pro- what we have to do. nounced by Jesus near the end of his With these three principles, we life (for example, chapter 13 of Mark). move on to the next chapter.

19 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN TIMES OF NIHILISM

It is not our present intention to enumerate all the practices that are pos- sible, many of which are already being implemented, although by minority groups. We will simply outline some features which would shape a mindset or a culture that is opposed to what we have seen in the previous sections.

3.1. A culture of the memoria sidered something accidental, attributa- passionis ble to a minority, even though such as- saults have doubled in the course of a In response to our culture of forgetful- year. The increase in the numbers of ness and the Nietzschean axiom that people who vote for fascist parties in «happiness comes only from forget- countries with a long democratic tradi- ting», J. B. Metz has asserted the need 30 tion is another accidental, minority phe- for an «anamnetic reason» . I wish to nomenon, and the 30,000 who die of offer a few reflections on this expres- hunger every day are another accident sion of his. worth forgetting about … a) In reaction to anything like a Given these evasive responses, we warning, the consumerist culture of for- do well to recall the advice of Ignacio getfulness offers the facile excuse that Ellacuría (now that we are celebrating things happen only «accidentally»; they the twentieth anniversary of his martyr- are done by a minority and are in no way dom). He proposed that our society do symptomatic. Thus, the Holocaust was an «analysis of its feces». Without a only an accident on the road toward pro- doubt (and luckily) feces are still some- gress. Nowadays, the alarming phe- thing momentary in our lives, and abso- nomenon of children who physically as- lutely secondary. Nevertheless, analysis sault their parents (recently denounced of them can reveal serious illnesses that by the attorney general of Spain) is con- affect and may seriously threaten the 20 whole organism (internal bleeding, b) From a Christian point of view, amoebas, etc.). Thus, all the examples this culture of forgetfulness is actually a we have just given, and a thousand translation into secular terms of what others that might be added (such as ter- Paul called «emptying the cross of rorism and the drama of illegal immi- Christ». What the cross reveals first of gration), could well be considered all is that we Christians adore «a delin- symptoms which oblige us not only to quent God» (S. Weil). And wherever alleviate the effects, but also to analyze Love (with a capital «L») is delinquent, and cure the causes. there is need of much correction and However, this is precisely what we much reform. Unfortunately, the eccle- refuse to do, because it throws off the sial institution has too often used the rhythm of the accumulation and the en- Cross of the Master not to manifest its tertainment which the culture of nihil- total opposition to a society which ism “light” would make the sole aim of adores the golden calf or the god our lives. Turning off the television Mammon (incompatible with the God when we can no longer bear certain of Jesus), but to impose on people images on the newscasts (which are excessive loads which only reinforce fewer than they should be!) is a psycho- clerical power. logically understandable reaction, but it This misuse of the cross from a is also a form of tacit complicity, for it believer’s viewpoint has its secular is precisely the unbearable nature of the version in the way memory is reserved images that should make us conscious only for those evils which we believe of the fact that what is absolutely un- (rightly or wrongly, it now no longer bearable is not the images, but all those matters) have done harm to us personal- realities which they only dimly convey. ly. «I forgive not but I don’t forget» is And those realities are what would something we are only too used to summon us to the battle. During the hearing. Although such a statement can times of Franco we were guilty of great have a positive meaning (I forgive but I hypocrisy, for we felt the moral obliga- tion to avoid the word “whore”, and that learn), it too often camouflages a tacit served as justification for our forgetting desire for vengeance, which inflicts about the injustice of prostitution. And punishment not for the redemption and we are equally hypocritical today when correction of the perpetrator, but for the we show concern about people killed in satisfaction of the victim. traffic accidents, which is understanda- However, for Christians, the memo- ble, but which seems excessive when ria passionis is also a reminder that pain we consider how unconcerned we are and injustice do not have the final word about those killed in labor accidents or in our history, because God has raised those who die of hunger. Yet we are Jesus from the dead as the first-fruits of capable of struggling against these the final victory, which will in the end forms of death as well as against traffic rescue all victims, even those of long deaths. ago. Some of the most hope-filled pages

21 of the New Testament are those written is most sacred is always what is most during times of persecution or when corruptible, we commit a sacrilege when recalling such times31. we are interested in the victims only to I conclude by referring to the old gain from them some personal benefit saying, «We remember Saint Barbara for ourselves, or when we use them only only when it thunders». Atrue culture of as an excuse for discharging some of our memory should always be mindful both adrenaline or for the sake of some po- of Saint Barbara (reputed patroness litical or economic advantage. against storms) and of «Brother Sun, Let us take just one example from who announces and brings the day and today’s Spain. From a Christian point of is beautiful in his splendor» (Francis of view, it is incomprehensible that today Assisi), but who is also there when the many persons, who during the 40 years horizon is beclouded. There are some of dictatorship proclaimed and canon- things that we have the right not to for- ized their own victims (and they were get, but there are others that we have the victims!), are now opposed to the law of duty not to forget. A Church which historical memory and are using juridi- excels in humanity should strive to cal ploys to denounce Judge Garzón for make this culture of memory an integral attempting to carry out that law. At the part of every educational endeavor in same time, however, those others who society or the family, and it should be are now claiming justice for their own constantly exposing, “on top of” the victims should always be careful to clean tables of our millionaires, all the avoid seeking thereby the gratification filth that envelops our world. of their own victory over others. Such an attitude in the long run would only leave us all with the sensation that we 3.2. Victims, yes – victimism, no human beings are incapable of living to- The reverse of all this is selective me- gether in mutual forgiveness and that we mory, which remembers only one’s own can survive only by destroying one an- pain and forgets about the pain of other. As a result, we would become others. even more overwhelmed by that nihilist Of course, our perceptions are inevi- feeling that there is nothing that can be tably selective. The orientation and the done with us and that the best thing we selectivity of our mind depend not only can do is just dedicate ourselves to con- on our conscious, expressly willed suming and having a good time. objectives, but also (and often much How different such an attitude is more!) on an unconscious gravitational from the memory Saint John Chrystos- law of our knowledge, one well tom spoke of, when he claimed that described in that phrase of Saint whenever he saw some monumental Augustine: amor meus pondus meum edifice, he could not help but wonder: («what I love moves me»). «How many tears did that cost This is particularly applicable in the to build! How many orphans were left case of victims. Precisely because what naked! … How many workers were 22 robbed of their wages!» (PG 55,517). ill-treatment of his people than to be When we leave Barcelona on the high- called the son of Pharaoh’s daugh- speed train, who remembers that at ter». The value of these witnesses least four workers died during its con- thus extends beyond the framework struction and that we travel as comfort- of explicit Christian faith. ably and rapidly as we do thanks to them? b) These witnesses were not people made of different stuff from ourselves; Remember those who are going they were formed from the same clay. through tough times, because you are As O. Clément writes in regards to a just like them – that is what the letter to great witness of our own times: «If we the Hebrews (cf. 13,3) tells us, and only love and venerate Mother Maria too rightly. [Skobtsov], it is not in spite of her dis- orderliness, her strangeness, and her 3.3. Recovering the witnesses passions, but because of them, for they render her an extraordinarily lively Considering what was said earlier about figure, amidst so many pious corpses taking the saints down from the altars, and sweet-talking busybodies»32. and without indulging in hagiography, I would now like to make a couple of For centuries now Catholic hagiog- observations that are important, at least raphy has adopted a contrary way of from an expressly Christian point of viewing saints. It has practically forgot- view. ten the value that saints have as wit- nesses, stressing instead their value as a) In the New Testament, the Letter intercessors33. As a result, the horizon of to the Hebrews presents to its readers a hagiography has been populated by number of models of faith, and these saints of other epochs than our own, models have three noteworthy features: described in language that sadly betrays – They are called «witnesses», be- their true stature: they are made out to cause they form «a cloud» that en- be «syrupy», cowardly, conservative velops us and orients our eyes to- saints. Instead of imitating Jesus by indissolubly uniting love of God and ward the One who is the «pioneer love of neighbor, they seem rather to and perfecter of our faith» (11,4ff. understand love of God as a blind and 12,2). defense of an ecclesiastical institution – It is expressly said that this world that can always be reformed and today «is not worthy of them». is badly in need of reform. They are – And, to our surprise, not one of saints who don’t make claims on us: that them is a Christian: the Letter is the problem. However, it is not dif- speaks not of Peter, John, or Mary, ficult to see that when holy persons step but of men like Abraham, who knew outside that framework, their influence how to take leave of his home, and can be enormous, as the case of Fr. Moses, who «preferred to share the Hurtado in Chile makes clear. 23 But we are not talking just about the metaphysical distrust and cosmovi- Catholic institution, for our superficial sional disorder, concrete persons and secular culture, with its nihilism, is also real lives continue to have considerable prone to this distortion. Take, for exam- power of attraction; they are perhaps the ple, the greatness of Teresa of Calcutta only antidote capable of shaking us out and the disgraceful way our world of our indifference. All this reminds us makes use of her: she is glorified be- of that well known saying of Jesus: cause she sweeps off the streets the ca- those who will enter the kingdom of davers produced by us; she removes heaven will not be those who cry, from our line of sight those who are ago- «Lord, Lord», but those who do the will nizing. But if people with a love like of the Father. hers seek to help our victims not only to die, but also to live, then we immedi- ately discredit them by labeling them de- 3.4. The seriousness of authentic magogues and populists. And of course, evil since they are made of the same clay as The witnesses stand in sharp contrast to we, it is quite likely that they have our earlier theme, the banality of evil, some characteristic or other that war- which has become a feature of our daily rants our bringing them into disrepute. life. But now, if we attend to one of the Nevertheless, as I have repeatedly most undeniable root causes of things, said in other writings, the whole of the following New Testament teaching Christian 20th century was filled with («the love of money is the root of all impressive witnesses, many of them evils», 1 Tim 6,10), it seems impossible women, many of them converts, some for us to escape from the nihilism we of them martyrs, nearly all of them per- have described unless we denounce and secuted. Their witnessing goes beyond put on display all the «Eichmanns» of the sphere of the expressly Christian our economic culture, all those good to include figures like Gandhi and and upright genocidal servants of what Mandela, Simone Weil and Etty they hold to be a great cause. I use the Hillesum, figures of whom the author term «genocidal» deliberately, because of the Letter to the Hebrews would if Eichmann collaborated in or caused probably say again today: our world the death of millions of Jews, then «is not worthy of them». Mr. Madoff allowed himself to ruin the We have important work to do to lives of three million human beings compensate for the dearth of witnesses from all over the world by consigning in a culture that worships models on the them to a state of misery and desper- catwalk, players on the ball field, or ation, without distinction of race or ori- metrosexual stars on the screen. Such gin or fortune. The court that judged heroes pervert the meaning of a title as him calculated the scale of his fraud at beautiful as Corazón, Corazón34 and 65 billion dollars35. evoke no desires deeper than I want We ourselves have become accus- to be like Beckham. In a world of tomed, as if it were the most normal

24 thing in the world, to hearing about constituted some sort of «socialist» bankers with salaries and indemnifica- crime (the most abominable type for tions worth millions of dollars a year, them). Rather, what they consider to be and we know that these practices con- unspeakably socialist is any attempt to tinue in the midst of our present world- use a bit of the excess of their wealth to wide economic crisis. Five thousand help ease the misery they have created. bankers and board members received Maybe Pius was right: we have lost more than a million dollars each in our sense of sin. What is unfortunate is 2008, when everything was in a state of that many of the ecclesiastical leaders collapse. The banker A. O. received who wield that phrase don’t seem them- more than 33 million dollars from selves to have much of a sense of Merrill Lynch, during a year when the where sin is to be found. Never will you company suffered astonishing losses hear from their lips a single utterance, and when many banks were being bol- not even as a quote from the Bible, to stered with public funds. In Britain, at remind us that it is more difficult for a the Royal Bank of Scotland, executive millionaire to be saved than it is for a F. G. obtained an annual pension of ship’s mooring cable to be threaded almost 700,000 pounds sterling, during through the eye of a needle36. the same year that his firm recorded the greatest losses in the whole of British business history. These are only three 3.5. Critique of fragmentary examples from a list that is already too reason long, and what makes them significant Kant has already undertaken a theoreti- is that none of the executives suffered cal critique of human reason. Since even a twinge of conscience as a result. then, greater awareness of the limits That’s the point we might well reach: of human reason and the attempts of don’t make such a fuss over a few the young Marx to find a universality millions! intrinsic to reason, as opposed to the All this inevitably brings to mind a universality aspired to by religion, have moralizing phrase of Pius XII: the mo- caused a definite disillusionment dern world «has lost the sense of sin». among many thinkers. As a result, they For what is truly tragic is that many of have been led to postulate other forms those genocidal businessmen were not of reason, which are distinguished from hypocrites who were consciously lead- one another by the addition of an adjec- ing a double life. Rather, like the Nazi tive to modify the word ‘reason’. Thus criminals, they were people persuaded we hear people talk about ‘emotional’ of the «normality» of their ways of pro- reason (or emotional intelligence: Gole- ceeding. Even today they continue to man), ‘dialogical’ reason Habermas, consider it «normal» for ordinary peo- Appel, Adela Cortina), and the like. ple’s money to be used to rescue them These are attempts to show that the gift from the abyss they have got themselves of reason is not limited to just one into. For them the bailout in no way part of our being or to one portion of

25 humankind. We talk a lot about integrat- than the incisive question which the ing “mind and spirit”, but possibly we Dominican Montesinos posed 500 years continue to believe that reason is ac- ago in a famous sermon pronounced be- tually “a part” of the human person. Or fore the conquistadors in a recently dis- we speak with great assurance about covered America: «Are these not men?» «what reason dictates to me», without And if they are truly men, if they are asking ourselves if what it dictates to me persons, then there can be no authentic is the same as what it dictates to every- truth or knowledge that does not start off body else. from a desire to free them from a form Our consciousness of these limita- of slavery that, often enough, we our- tions is a hopeful sign, and perhaps at selves have imposed upon them. the root of all of them is an awareness Otherwise, as Montesinos said further which, since Freud and Marx himself, on in his sermon, we will not be reason- should be an acquired patrimony of ing but dreaming: we will be «sound humankind, namely, the awareness that, asleep and in a state of profound as universal as our pretensions may be, lethargy». human reason is a situated reason. And Even the attempts at so-called dialo- situation always implies limitation. gical reason fail because they run into a What is more, it is not just a question similar limitation: the dialogue does not of our being situated locally37, but of our take place in conditions of complete reason being moved by our particular equality. Only the powerful dialogue; interests. And in being so moved, neu- when the oppressed are allowed to par- trality is an asymptotic goal that is ticipate, it is only under unequal condi- never fully realizable38. tions. What happens with the so-called We have learned that reason, whose G-8 countries and other major movers pretensions to universality are undeni- of the world economy is a striking able, has to move gradually toward example: if their principal players are being universal, just as every human convinced that their vision of the econ- being has to move gradually toward omy is totally rational (and therefore being what he or she already is. But universal, like mathematics), then why universal necessarily means including do they not admit everybody into the what is excluded. If such is not the dialogue? Why is it that the only uni- case, then there is no totality that is versal forum, the United Nations (cre- worth the trouble, nor is there any ated with that intent), has been reduced genuine catholicity in religious matters. to being only a useless entity? More- The excluded are the great blemish over, why is the universality the U.N. on our human history, and their exclu- strives for effectively blocked by the sion cannot be justified with the easy ex- veto power of the most powerful coun- cuse that they are excluded by their own tries on the Security Council? The cruel fault, an excuse which contains much and absolute irrationality that drives the more of the irrational than the truly ra- production and trade of armaments tional. There is nothing more rational becomes totally explainable when we

26 realize that the five countries with the one another. This sensation of harmony right to a veto in the U.N. are precisely transmits the implicit message that the greatest exporters of armaments. A there is a universal meaning in every- multitude of just criticisms could be thing and that that meaning is a freely leveled against Gaddafi, but he should given gift. be applauded for his gesture of throwing Now, on this earth nothing is more the U.N. Charter on the floor during the meaningful than working for universal last general assembly. fraternity, freedom, and well-being. Those who struggle in the pursuit of those ideals come to perceive that, des- 3.6. Meaning in the face pite their efforts and the persecutions of happiness and failures that follow, they are where There is a curious linguistic detail that they should be and are contributing to we should attend to. Our culture of the world’s harmony. They realize that decaffeinated nihilism speaks a great the gratuitous generosity with which the deal of happiness, although it is a com- struggle for justice is undertaken is like pulsive, paradoxical happiness, as we a response to that experience of gratui- saw earlier on. The religions of the tous generosity which follows, say, earth, all of them, do not usually speak upon a profound perception of beauty. of happiness; they speak of peace. In contrast, the crazy race in pursuit This detail is significant. Happiness of the paradoxical, compulsive happi- does not belong to this dimension in ness which gets reduced to hyper- which we live, because the human heart consumerism resembles the futile is essentially restless: it always wants activity which centuries ago a biblical more, or it feels threatened at the author called «chasing the wind» thought of losing what it has. The mo- (Ecclesiastes 1,14). Running after fra- ments of ecstatic joy are brief, not per- ternity and justice can bring out the best manent; they appear not as happiness, in people and make for a fulfilling life, but as «sacraments», that is, as signs that even when triumph is not experienced. we are able to move on toward a better Running after the wind is an enterprise reality. If we fail to understand them for fools. that way, they may even be dangerous, Perhaps for that reason, two of the making us close our eyes to what is great philosophers of our history, Marx around us39. and Heidegger, though opposed to one In contrast, peace can be more con- another in many ways, agree in empha- sistent and enduring, since it emerges sizing a deficiency of human fulfillment from an experience of meaning or of we should not forget about. Marx suspected harmony, an experience such spoke of “alienation” and of the human as one sometimes has when beholding being as alienated. Due to the harsh one of those marvelous landscapes, and unjust conditions in which labor is where one feels that all the pieces are in carried out, he claimed, human beings place and delightfully combined with are no longer themselves, but appear 27 estranged. Heidegger, viewing the If the search for happiness in hyper- matter more individually but also more consumerism brings us humans down broadly, speaks of falling into “oneself”. to the level of sheep, the experience of No one is authentically oneself; rather, fullness, meaning, and harmony, even everyone says what “one says”, every- when they are only partially glimpsed, one does what “one does”, everyone can fill us and empower us to find hap- buys what “one buys”, everyone wears piness, not where it is placed by the cul- what “one wears”, … and everyone is ture of savage capitalism (or Benedetti’s what “one is”. Nowadays, years after «economic cannibalism»), but where it Heidegger made this observation, ad- was placed, paradoxically, by the proph- vertising has reached the point where it et of Nazareth: in the hunger and thirst appeals to your need to be yourself and for justice which flow forth from com- yet different from others, and it does so passion, with all the many positive and as a way of getting you and everybody negative echoes and resonances that else to buy the same product. And faced may be awakened by that twofold atti- with such a complaint, the established tude. That kind of attitude was what Je- stupidity lacks even that capacity for sus had in mind when he spoke of «fish- suspicion which is typical of the woman ing for people», that is, fishing the in- who is affectionately flattered: «You tell credible richness of humanity out of that everybody that…». murky sea of humanity that is all of us.

28 CONCLUSION

The paths proposed here may appear vague and imprecise. No doubt they are limited mostly to the field of strategies. Now it is the task of each situation, each person or community, each moment, to deliberate on the best tactics or orientations, and then to follow through on them. In such an undertaking we may make mistakes over and over again, and often enough the reality will turn out to be far below our aspirations, for this is a very human law. But we will already have accomplished a great deal if we recognize those objectives as more human, more fulfilling, and more meaningful than the compulsive hyper-consumerism which we hear preached to us from all sides. Perhaps then our decaffeinated nihilism would find itself finally superseded, as it comes up against a reality that is much more real, more intense, and more stimulating. And Christians would do well to remember one thing: Christian means the same as Messianic. There can be no Christian faith apart from the Messiah, which is the Hebrew word for Christ, Christos. For that reason, Christianity must be constantly engaged in the struggle for historical change. The gospels narrate a scene where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, but that confession is rejected by Jesus because Peter conceives of the Messianic «according to men and not according to God». For God, the Messianic is not a question of easy triumph, nor does it mean a situation of personal well-being and comfort; rather, it means thrusting yourself into the depths of the struggle to free human beings from all forms of historical slavery, bearing with the conse- quences of that commitment, and knowing how to discover in the proc- ess justice (for all), peace (with all) and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14,17). The Messianic is not so much a goal (however much we human beings may achieve) as it is a way in which the believer comes to real- ize and experience that «God himself is a companion on our journey».

29 NOTES

1. Marcel GAUCHET, El desencantamiento del 7. Many of the apocryphal gospels contain a gnos- mundo: una historia política de la religión, tic message. This is one of the principal rea- Madrid, Trotta, 2005. sons why they were rejected by the Church. 2. The texts may be found more fully and with 8. This parallels the question: What is the truth?, commentary in the first chapter of my work Fe with which Pilate cuts off the dialogue with en Dios y construcción de la historia [Faith in Jesus when Jesus explains to him what he God and the Construction of History], Madrid, lives for. Trotta, 1998, p.15-38. 9. Thus the old medieval adage that philosophy 3. Even though he does not cite it, Tierno Galván was the ancilla theologiae, the handmaid of would also have to reject Camus’s reflection: theology, is replaced today with a similar «Man is the only animal that refuses to be adage, which makes the culture of the mass what it is». That is, unless he understood it media the ancilla oeconomiae. only as referring to the reconstruction of 10. The ancient Myth of Sisyphus describes the hell finitude. of a man who was condemned to carry a heavy 4. I have always found significance in these confi- stone up a steep incline, with the promise that dent words of the marquis of Condorcet he could leave hell as soon as he got the stone (1743-1795), who was a philosopher, mathe- to the top. But again and again, just as he was matician, historian, and active politician (par- about to achieve the feat, Sisyphus would slip liamentarian of the Girondists); they were and the stone would roll back down the hill, so written when he was in hiding for fear of the that he would have to begin again, and this Jacobins: «The time will come when the sun went on for eternity. above the earth will shine only on free men 11. Z. BAUMAN, Modernidad y Holocausto, who will recognize no other master than their Madrid, Sequitur, 1998, p. XI reason; when the tyrants and their stupid 12. J. CERCAS, Anatomía de un instante, Madrid, instruments will no longer exist except to Mondadori, 2009. weep for their victims or to know how to rec- 13. In the final pages of La Peste, Camus states ognize and drown under the weight of reason that the book was written to give testimony the first germs of superstition and tyranny, that «there are more things in man worthy of should they ever dare to reappear» (abbreviat- admiration than there are worthy of contempt». ed quote; see the more complete version in my 14. Above all if we remember that, a few years ear- work Proyecto de hermano. Visión creyente lier, Arthur Koestler published a novel which del hombre, Santander, Sal Terrae, 2000, 3th was called The Age of Longing. The move- ed., p. 275). ment from longing to the void says a lot. 5. The novel was made into a movie in the decade 15. I have to confess how dismayed I am that of the ’60s. something as frivolous as the catwalks can 6. «We can no longer have the same naive confi- take up so much space in our newscasts. I sus- dence in progress that our fathers and grandfa- pect that such would not be the case if there thers had» (Escrits sobre la guerra, Valencia, were not so much money behind them. Bromera, 1997, p. 70). And the reason for that 16. Which is, besides, irrational and illusory, is that our progress has not meant universal because I gain absolutely nothing and my will growth, but a sacrificing of the present and the to power is in no way satisfied by the fact that past to a hypothetical future. a bunch of well paid, well trained players

30 manage to win a title. I might enjoy the way desses called the Furies appeal to reason at the they play, but nothing else. hour of judgment. 17. A basic detail in many of the cases of corrup- 22. LIPOVETSKY, op.cit, p. 321. tion we are seeing lately. 23. Lucía RAMÓN, Teología y felicidad. To be pub- 18. G. LIPOVETSKY, La felicidad paradójica. lished by the SM foundation. Ensayo sobre la sociedad del hiperconsumo, 24. BRUCKNER, La euforia perpetua. Sobre el de- Barcelona 2007. ber de ser feliz, Barcelona, Tusquets, 2008, 19. «Is the bride as pretty as that course photo- p. 18. graph suggests? The great majority of people 25. BRUCKNER, op.cit, 147-148. declare themselves happy, even though sad- 26. Ibid., 216. ness and tension, depression and anxiety form 27. The original English title is Brave New World. a river that grows disturbingly. Most people 28. LIPOVETSKY, La felicidad..., 322. Of course, the declare themselves happy, thinking that others author responds negatively to both questions. are not so. Never have so many parents dedi- He always notes carefully the objections to his cated themselves to satisying the desires of theses, sometimes with excellent formulations their children; [yet] never have there been so (for example, we consume three times more many problematic behaviors …, nor so many energy than 40 years ago, but we are not three mental infirmities among children. … If the times happier, p. 331), but he then discredits GNP has doubled since 1975, the number of the objections or shows a readiness to accept unemployed has quadrupled. Our societies are them as long as they don’t infringe on his holy ever more prosperous, but a growing number trinity of hyper-individualism, hyper-con- of persons live precariously and must cut back sumerism, and hyper-marketing. on all their budget items, since lack of money 29. I refer the reader to the earlier booklet of this has become an ever more acute problem. We series, in which X. ALEGRE comments on this receive ever better medical care, but that does scriptural text. Resistencia y esperanza cris- not prevent an individual from becoming a tianas en un mundo injusto, Barcelona, kind of chronic hypochondriac. Bodies are January 2010, n. 165. freed up, but sexual unhappiness persists. The 30. In Greek anámnesis means memory. incitements to hedonism are found on all 31. Examples are the many phrases of the sides, but the worries, the disappointments, Apocalypse about the fall of the great Babylon and the social and personal insecurities (Rome), about the future city, and about the increase». And the conclusion that the author Lord who will dry all tears from our eyes. draws out of this whole depressing description 32. Prologue to the book, El sacramento del her- is not negative; rather, «these aspects are what mano, by Maria SKOBTSOV (p. 15). Mother make our hyperconsuming society the civi- Maria was born in the former USSR and lization of paradoxical happiness» (p. 12). became mayor of her town. She later fled to Hyperconsumerism, along with the lack of Paris, where she dedicated herself to helping solidarity on which it rests, is the true god that persecuted Jews and Russian émigrés, and enables us to bear with the pain and the disap- in the process revolutionizing the conception pointment of history. of monastery life in the Orthodox Church. 20. Hanna ARENDT, Eichmann en Jerusalén: un Finally, she was imprisoned by the SS and estudio sobre la banalidad del mal, Barcelona, died in a concentration camp in Ravensbrück. Lumen, 3th ed., 2000. She was artistic, impetuous, disordered, and 21. The plot of the tragedy is more or less as an inveterate smoker, and she didn’t turn follows: Clytemnestra killed her husband, down a good drink of vodka. O. Clément Agamemnon, because he had assaulted and seems to be alluding to all this in this citation killed their daughter. Then Orestes, their son, from his prologue. kills his mother in revenge, but the spiral of 33. This is certainly due to a bad theological vengeance is kept in check because the god- understanding of what we call the communion

31 of saints, or «the Holy», which we cannot go them; for the mystics the ecstasies were not into now. the most essential part of their experience of 34. Literally meaning «Heart, Heart», this is a God, not even when they thought they might Spanish expression of affection, but has been be an anticipation of a future life in God. b) used recently as the name of a television show Nevertheless, Saint Thomas goes so far as to featuring prominent celebrities. [Translator’s pose the question, whether in every sexual act note] (even between married persons) there is moral 35. See Le Monde Diplomatique, September 2009, disorder because the intensity of the pleasure pp. 4 and 5. makes human beings lose their reason and 36. See Mk 10, 25; as I have explained elsewhere, their control over themselves. He responds this translation (also possible from the negatively, but at the cost of linking the sexu- Aramaic) seems to me more probable than the al act indissolubly with reproduction: since usual translation referring to a camel, where reproduction is something good for the the excessive exaggeration ends up taking species, he argues, then seeking that good away the force of the image. makes the act rational (ST 34,1,c). We may 37. How is it possible that an Afghan girl can con- legitimately consider this opinion to be stupid, sider the use of a burqa reasonable? Or how but if sometimes happens that the stupid ideas can western girls consider reasonable the end- of geniuses (as is the case with Hegel) can less piercings, pluckings, and tattooings with teach us something. And in this case we might which they torture themselves? In the name of be taught that the fulfillment (happiness) of freedom? Let us never forget that everything human beings is not just any type of alien- that has the support and recognition of the sur- ation, but one in which one finds oneself more rounding culture can easily become for us a whole. That is the paradox of human happi- kind of pseudo-evidence. ness. It is another matter that Thomas (and 38. Knowledge and Human Interests, by H. after him church doctrine until Vatican II) HABERMAS, is one of the most important books failed to see that at least an inkling of that ful- of the past century. fillment could be experienced in a sexual rela- 39. Two details: a) no one has put less value on tionship that was loving and authentic. Perhaps mystical ecstasies than those who have had Aquinas was betrayed here by his celibacy.

32