Michael March: Let the man go free

For Jean Genet, “the master determines the definition of words”. Criminals remain hidden—drinks are served.


If language speaks, it speaks to those that know. For Kazantzakis, “the devil has blue eyes and red hair.” For Gombrowicz, “the forest is green.”  For Brecht, Socrates “didn’t believe in the gods—he believed in onions.”


In this business of living—“we must necessarily misunderstand ourselves.” We build upon the dead—“the dead are gentle to us”—“life is a dance on graves”—we remain “condemned to hope”.


In this business of living—“the natural state of man is war”—war “the destruction of good restaurants”.


We live in a police state—where nihilists don’t believe their eyes.  Kazantzakis wished to change the eyes that see reality. Better to adopt—“a delicacy of heart”.


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If we define Europe as “the landmass behind Greece”—we see what we already know—everything can be destroyed—except myth.


“My brothers were cruel—I am the cruelest—and it is I who weep at night.”


We have needs that “cannot be satisfied by any rational means—the gravest human disorders cannot be remedied, only treated day by day”.


“In the beginning the wound is invisible.”




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When Primo Levi returned to Turin, he wrote:  “I come from very far away to bring you bad news”—“all of us human seed, we live and die for nothing—the skies perpetually revolve in vain.”  


We build upon each other—live against each other.


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The Greeks used the word diagnosis:  “to recognize—to know”. Aeschylus saw us “suffering into truth”—a performance—mysterious, insufficient— insufferable.


Assume “loss precedes presence”—“beauty difficult”—our chains—almost divine.


Assume the invisible subsumes the visible—culture—“the formation of recognition”—man a potential being.



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“One day, in the compartment of some train, as I was looking at the passenger sitting across from me, I was suddenly struck by the realization that any man is worth any other. Behind what was visible of this man—I discovered —a kind of identity common to all men.”


All cultures remain provincial—protective—almost tribal—all truths in fluctuation—“at last I was free either to sleep or to fly—instead, I decided to put on one sock”.


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“Ill at ease in the tyranny—ill at ease in the republic—in the one I longed for freedom—in the other the end of corruption.”

“Spinoza understood that humans are an integral part of the natural world, so he never turned to the state for salvation. States are at the mercy of events as much as any human institution, and over the long course of history all of them fail.”


“The real enemy of man is History.”



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“States are bound to rank their vital interests over more universal considerations. This involves giving priority to their citizens. Because they first must serve the interests of who they rule, states cannot adopt an impartial perspective—often thought to be essential to morality—but that does not mean their policies cannot be judged morally.’’


“At its best, politics is not a vehicle for universal projects but the art of responding to the flux of circumstances”—“any country can achieve democracy—and any can lose it”.


For those in the dark—“terrible is the temptation for goodness”—“they know, yet they do”.


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For Marx—“the world is a warehouse of commodities, a place of total availability and exchange”—man becomes “the most important raw material—to be used and exploited.”


For Flaubert—“life seems bearable, when one succeeds in avoiding it.”


“Man forms himself only as a fragment”—held together by “the universal glue of stupidity.”


“Nothing is as vast as emptiness.”


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“Art is magic liberated from the lie of being truth.”


“Through the distance of time, literature preserves beauty—which in turn saves our world.”


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For those looking away—our age mimics Marcus Aurelius—“discard your thirst for books—so that you won’t die in bitterness”.


For Napoleon—“war is a simple art based entirely on execution.”


“Whoever’s laughing hasn’t heard the latest news.”


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Joseph Roth wrote—“I can die for the masses—but not live with them.”


We reply—“culture is the formation of recognition”—let the man go free.