Amerika

Paracelsus, a scholar of alchemy, philosophy, botany, and other disciplines, identified and described in his Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris Spiritibus the mythological beings — the elementals — that would represent each of the four primordial elements: earth, water, air, and fire.

The way in which these beings are ordered lies beyond the understanding of the common man, who is affected only by the manifestations of the elements, which he cannot control because he lacks the power to do so. Why bother? Since the dawn of time, man has been subjected to the forces of nature, and it was individual will and the capacity to associate with other human beings that allowed him to survive and overcome catastrophic events, even when nature struck him. These forces of nature operated — and continue to operate — at a level far beyond human control, and yet they could be endured.

The twentieth century, or the Age of Violence, was characterized by countless conflicts on a small, medium, and large scale, in which virtually the entire world was shaped by bullets, machetes, and death. Nothing strange, truthfully, considering that practically the whole history of human life has been governed by conflict, in which disagreements are magically transformed into agreements with the help of the magic of violence. The twenty-first century, however, has not been exempt from this, and we might speak of it as a continuation of the Age of Violence.

Networks of violence are the ultimate manifestation of other networks of human relations — relations of power, politics, economics, and so forth — and do not necessarily have the resolution of problems as their objective; rather, they are often a means of achieving an end. Thus, there are wars whose purpose is not to prevail over and annihilate a particular enemy — which, in theory, is the purpose of violence — but which instead become a form of socialization at the level of states and conglomerates far above the ordinary individual. That violence may function as a form of socialization is neither new nor modern, nor is it the product of capitalism, as many would have us believe; it can also be found among primates closely related to human beings, such as chimpanzees.

In times of recurring armed conflict, it is normal for human beings, by virtue of their very nature, to question what is happening around them and, in the presence of information on a global scale, to question and attempt to understand these conflicts, as well as their causes and consequences for the world and for the individual’s own existence. From this search to understand and explain the phenomena being experienced — many of which appear to arise from factors outside the individual’s sphere, yet eventually strike him in one way or another, whether through economic hardship and higher prices for the goods he consumes, or through a bomb falling on his home and reducing him to a charred mass of no use even to worms — there emerge theories that supposedly provide coherent answers, generally within the minds of those who conceive them, to questions concerning such conflicts. These theories, however, end up being reductionist, taking all the complexity underlying conflicts and transforming it into something basic whose explanation is always attributed to a single actor supposedly responsible for everything: capitalism, Marxism, imperialism, the Jews, the Illuminati, some club of millionaires, and so forth. Any explanation derived from this is, at the very least, incomplete.

The truth is that, given the enormous quantity of information — and the even greater quantity of disinformation — the multiple interacting factors, and the ordinary ignorance that results from having no idea what is actually discussed at the level of heads of state, an ordinary individual will hardly be able to understand the entire picture. Moreover, the truth is that understanding or failing to understand what is happening within global networks of violence matters very little. At the levels on which we operate, there is very little we could do that would exert influence on a global scale, except, of course, initiating a terrorist escalation, which would still be insufficient to mobilize the entire world unless it were combined with other forces and interests. It is better to accept the limited scale of our actions and to understand that this is the only scale that should concern us. If no changes occur at the individual and tribal levels, what changes could possibly be achieved on an international scale? It is time to stop dreaming and stop worrying. The romantic glorification of fighting windmills is no longer merely absurd, but dangerous as well.

The new elementals — that is, the elementals of the Age of Violence: relations between states, conflicts, multinational interests, and the entire network underlying high-level violence — are matters that the ordinary human being will scarcely be able to understand and, worse still, will scarcely be able to change. Why exhaust oneself over them, then? Anyone who wishes to waste his time fighting against the fury of the elementals may do so, but unless he achieves a transformation at the individual and tribal levels, his conquest of the world will amount to nothing more than a sad and childish fantasy.

Tags: elementals, philosophy, violence