Plato in his Dialogues, the Symposium, tells a myth of the Androgynous: once upon a

times human beings were a unity of man and woman, perfect spheres that used to roll
to move, perfect and self-sufficient.
This original androgynous were also very strong, but also arrogant.
To punish them, for their ‘ubris’ (prepotenza, boria, orgoglio, tracotanza), impiety,
Zeus cut them into 2 parts. Since then, each part desires and seeks the other half to
recompose the original harmonious and perfect unity.
This is Love, Eros has a desire to be reunited with the other half, to be back in perfect
harmonious unity.
For the sake of Jewish, Christian, Muslim scriptures (in the biblical myth) it is said that
the first humans, Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony with God and Nature.
Nature was a wonderful garden, where the necessity to work was totally ABSENT.
The first humans disobeyed the limits set by God and, therefore, they were expelled
from Heaven.
The story of human beings on earth is narrated as a loss and as a punishment.
Humans were punished due to the fragmentary, painful dimension of the life on the
earth… here again, an original perfection that was lost in force of a scene.
In other myths taken from the Holy Scripturesthe myth of Babel reiterates the
motive of the loss of an original perfection:
once upon a time humans used to speak one original language and could understand
themselves perfectly, but then they wanted to be similar to God and get closer to
heaven, they built the Tower (of Babel) and God punished them by confusing their
languages. Since then, each people speak their own language and no longer
understand the others… different peoples are forced to laborious translations, always
incomplete and unfaithful.
We just analyzed three famous myths about an original perfection, lost. All of the
three, after that narrate about confusion.
Jacques Derrida in an essay entitled The Tour De Babel has deconstructed the myth of
the Tower of Babel unearthing a different meaning.
The duty of translating each other is not simply a punishment, and Babel does not
mean simply confusion, but also the CITY OF GOD. Derrida mentions an important
passage of Voltaire (Voltaire remains that babel means also the city of god).
In the City of God, humans speak different languages and are called to have mutual
relationships thanks to translation. Translating as a way to relate each other, by taking
care of the unity of the city of god, not reducible to a punishment.
This is the meaning of the myth of Babel, after Derrida’s deconstruction.
The myths we previously memtioned (Plato, Eden, Babel) are famous but when we
read them they seem as fables, yet they have deeply entered in the imaginations of
European and North Americans, they are influencing. When these people find
themselves involved in a war they didn’t believe they could win, they go back to the
myth of an original unshaded harmony which historical events and social customs
have torn apart. An instance may be the worse of religion inside of Christianity, which
began in the 17th century among Christian, inside the heart of Europe.
Recalling the Law of Nature, a natural god shared by all people, was a means to
resolve such a conflict, to find a peaceful unity between people.
Among the founding myth of European modernity and north American culture there is
the myth of nature which works on 2 side:
-the ‘ESTETISTIC’ one, whereby individuals rediscover the original, harmonious unity
by immersing themselves in the beauty of the natural landscape;
-the ETHICAL, JURIDICAL, POLITICAL one, in which we have the positive law (the setting
of legal norms that the state gives to itself, considered just, right and true if and only if
it conforms to natural law)positive law can be different and changing and put us in
mutual conflict, but natural law is the great paradigm, the founding paradigm to which
positive law is called to conform itself.
While positive law can change, natural law is as a paradigm to which positive law is
always to refer to.
When natural law is emphasized, referred to a positive rule, especially in thinkers like
Rousseau (To him society is the dimension of injustice, corruption, what is changing in
a negative sense). By referring to the law f nature thinker believe to have found a
stable foundation to which we can stay in peace and find the source of justice, truth
and beauty.
Of course, many objections can be risen against this paradigm: e.g., when do humans
encounter nature in a pure and original state? Rather it is possible to encounter it in
our mind, that it is never pure, it is conditioned and nourished by historical and social
presuppositions, experiences and so on… The idea of a pure and original law of nature
is probably a historical product rather than really a pure law of nature that is in itself
eternal, stable and so on.
Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The preface of the Discorse on the Origin on Inequality is a good example of what I am
trying to show you. Let’s read some lines together:
of all the branches of human knowledge the most useful and the least advanced
seems to be that of man (man and not human beings, historical prejudice neglecting
females). Rousseau focuses on the issue of Knowledge.
The inscriptions on the temple at Delphi contained a precept more important and more
difficult than all the huge tomes of the moraliststhe most important prescription is
‘KNOW YOURSELF’. It is quite interesting because when an ancient Greek says ‘know
yourself’ the emphasis is on the side of knowledge; whereas when a modern thinker
reads such a prescription the emphasis falls on the side of YOURSELF (shift of the
burden in the same phrase).
To Rousseau human beings do not know themselves. How can human beings know
themselves? To Rousseau, the necessary way to know ourselves is through the
RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE.
According to Rousseau there is an inequality among citizens that is a social and
historical product (inequality among citizens as a product of society and hisotyr) if we
refer to eternal nature human beings are all equal.
There is a conflict between two levels: inequality reins among citizens, however, at the
antural, original level, human beings are equal.
Rousseau’s move is to try to conform better, to correct the social level in virtue of the
Natural level, where human beings are equal. Notice the difference between citizens
(unequal) and human beings (equal).
‘How can the source of inequality among men be known unless one begins by knowing
men themselves?
How will men be successful in seeing themselves as nature formed themselves
through all the changes that time, and his progress have added to or changed in his
primitive state?’
Rousseau emphatizes that the level of history and society is not only the level where
inequality among citizens reins… it is also a level where time is changing and progress
is considered possible, in contrast with a primitive state, a natural original condition
when human beings are equal.
Recognize the PLATONISTIC DUALISM, there is an eternal nature, a not changing
nature referring to which human beings are equal, different and divided, and, on the
other hand a level where citizens are unequal and times changes.
‘Like the statue of Glaucus, which time, sea and storms have disfigured to such an
extent (Aristotelian distinction between god and the beast) that it looked less like a
god than a wild beast, the human soul, altered in the midst of society by a thousand
constantly recurring causes, errors, by changes that took place in the constitution of
bodies, and by constant impact of the passions has, as it were, changed its
appearance to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.’
‘After the effect of time, who is covering the natural essence of things, after all that
the statue of Glaucus is impossible to recognize… it seems no more a god, but it
seems more a wild beast, covered by incrustations of time that hide the natural true
essence of Glaucus and of human beings.’
There is a heavy dualism between SOUL and BODY:
today, when we are inclined to connect soul to our sensitive sight (it’s frequent to hear
‘he/she has a soul’ and they mean that that person is sensitive)it automatically
evokes a dualism between soul and body as if our sensitivity was part of our soul and
as if our body was a mechanical robot.
This terrible dualism is evoked even if we are not platonic, not Christians, not followers
of Rousseau. The point is that the pure state of nature is unrecognizable because it is
covered and hidden by the effects of time, society, of bodies, corruptionthe changing
nature of time is corrupting the true essence of Nature.
When is this heavy paradigm still active today, and in which cases? From two sides:
A heavy and a narrow aspect, a platonistic dualism, but also with a positive argument.
Noam Chomsky is not simply one of the greatest linguists, but also a great important
scholar as concerns politics and political issues. Chomsky distinguishes between two
levels:
-a level where languages are different, where languages appear with a different
semantic system, grammar, and languages cannot understand each other.
-there is also a deep structure above/inside any languageChomsky emphasizes that
he is not proposing simply a linguistic hypothesis to explain how linguistic grammar
works... he is also proposing a political perspective.
Our historical languages can be different and we can think different contents through
our various languages, but to Chomsky, by referring to this deep nature of logic
grammar, shared by human intelligence as a whole, we can find a unity, something
shared and in common that gets rid of any conflict between us.
In this preface of the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau uses the dualism
of the original statue of glaucus to the chronological incrustations to emphasize the
stable role played by certain invariable principles, such as the law of nature, that is
characterized by SIMPLICITY.
Simplicity, another philosophical and political superstition (how simplicity is helpful: we
are swimming in the middle of confusion, in a labyrinth, in which nobody agrees with
the others). Simplicity is there to find the solution, independent of the confusion we
are compelled to swim in.
Today we encounter very often this myth of simplicity: simplified messages proposed
by politicians, market communicators… But simplicity is a simplification, it is
synonymous of ‘simplicism’.
Things and relationships are more complicated, and if we have the habit of
interpreting, thinking and feeling according to simplicity, we will always be more and
more confused about disorder and complicated dialogues, texts, experiences…
But Rousseau is a strong defender of simplicity:
‘society is a state of confusion, delirium, where the grotesque contrast of passions
reins.’
Passions are the most frequent ally of confusion and disorder. This thing of simplicity
makes one with the superstition of the original.
But Rousseau is not simply a naïve dreamer: actually, he desires a positive paradigm
of a republican democracy. This is quite interesting: he is not reducible to a naïve
dreamer or a childish prisoner of the superstition of the originalin fact, the
Rousseauvian paradigm has nourished the birth of democracy in the US, as well as the
French Revolution.
So, the republican democracy that we are called to preserve and defend still today are
nourished by the strong aspect of the paradigm defended by Rousseau.
The common consensus that has to be the pivot of any democracy. And the common
consensus is possible if human beings, and not simply citizens, refer to the natural
original level (we are reading page 30).
‘It is no light undertaking to separate what is original and what is artificial in the
present nature of man, and to have a proper understanding of a state which no longer
exist (nostalgic hint), which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist,
and yet about which it is necessary to have accurate notions in order to judge properly
our own present state.’
It is in this passage that we encounter the rich ambivalence of Rousseau:
-on the one side, a naïve nostalgic superstitious of the original (something that once
upon a time existed and now no more),
-on the other side, a wise Rousseau (he knows that such a state of nature never
existed and will never exist).
Derrida when he rereads Rousseau is very keen in highlighting this ambivalence.
Any text that is important, influencing, rich and powerful asks us as interpreters not to
simplify to much: SIMPLICITY IS AN ENEMY OF THE UNDERSTANDING OF RICH TEXTS.
On the one side Rousseau is a naïve nostalgic and he divides in two levels what is
original and what is artificial, and he illudes himself to remove the difficulties that
conceive from us the knowledge of the real nature of human society.
On the other hand, Rousseau is deeper than this naïve setting, and he knows that he is
referring to something that he is desiring and imagining, that is a ideal paradigm.
The imaginary dreaming is together with an important horizon that moves
Rousseau’s thoughts, and even ours’ sometimes.
To Rousseau, there is a same natural law, we are called to preserve it and to conform
our norms to that same law of nature.
Two sides: it is simply a mythan eternal same natural law, you are treating like a
substance what you wish, what you ask…
Even if this emphasis on the same eternal law of nature is simply a myth, a dream, it is
a myth that, despite being an illusion, can be a very powerful dream.
Imagine: I encounter a poor human being walking on the street. His clothes are
destroyed and dirty. If I am not able to see under those ripped and dirty clothes a
human being, below that tired face, if I am not able to see a second level when I
encounter a human being, not simply a poor worker, a poor migrant, and so on, if I am
not able to shift from the first level to the second level, then I could say that I am
deeply unjust, that I assume an indifferent attitude. I see just the color of the skin, I
see only dirty clothes, a tired face.
What Rousseau emphasizes is that the duality between a social and historical artificial
appearance and a natural essence can be and frequently is effectively fruitful and
concretely helpful.
How many times we encounter, even in Venice, in this delicate city, so beautiful, so
ancient, we encounter black persons who are so visible that they become invisible: we
see just a black face and our indifference emerges automatically.
This is what Rousseau describes as the social surface: I am not able to grasp the
essence of those people.
I don’t want to be misunderstood; I disagree with this paradigm. Even if it is so
dualistic and so simplified, it is impossible not to recognize how powerful and useful
can sometimes this be.
My reply, even if I don’t share this paradigm, is that it would be a better experience of
the other (that is so rich) that I see what I call the essence of the human being in
his/her face, in his/her clothes.
I insist, the Rousseauvian paradigm is frequently effective, but it is too simplicist.
Anyway, here we encounter this ethical and political theme: human beings are equal
in a state of nature and justice is an eternal lighthouse (this idea is a crucial pivot to
build a good society in the changing time of history).
Today this paradigm, perhaps encountered in some readings, in some reflecting
activities, and more frequently on the esthetics side even if we cannot reduce
Rousseau with what he describes as a solitary walker in the middle of nature.
I could say that farmers are not interested in landscapes and some tourists are struck
by this aspect:
-for instance, alpinism was born about two centuries ago, and when the first alpinist
was about to face an enduring and dangerous climb on the mountain, those who
inhabited the valley considered the alpinist totally crazy: ‘you are climbing the
mountain without any goal, you will expose yourself to that terrible challenge just for
the sake of it, you are totally crazy’.
It is pivotal to take into consideration these different attitudes concerning nature:
nature as a landscape, nature as a test to experiment our courage, fitness, ability (a
shift of paradigm that we cannot take for granted!).
-Also sailors, for centuries, were not even able to swim.
I insist: there is a clash between two paradigms, but today the aesthetic one has
become totally usual and we look for that condition in which we climb, swim without
any goal except to feel the harmonious unity of nature we experience no more in our
cities.
So, the picture of the Eyeball (by the American philosopher Emmerson, who describes
this eyeball: when I walk alone in front of a lake I am an eyeball… nature becomes a
pleasant landscape).
In any case, when we are simply tourists, when we illude ourselves that nature is only
a pleasant landscape we might be silly and may expose ourselves to risks.
I illude myself not to be a tourist, even if I am a tourist myself.
What does a tourist do? To express their appreciation of the luminous, transparency of
water, the tourist says, ‘it looks like a swimming pool’, or about the beauty of the
snow-capped mountain, he/she see a sort of pandoro covered in sugar.
Nature has no more a sacred power. Nature is no longer a sacral manifestation of
earth. I try to be sober in emphasizing this aspect. I insist though that nature has lost
its sacrality. Mountains are objects for our touristic vacations. It is quite different to
experience the sacrality of nature. We cannot experience it only when it becomes
nature. We must experience it also when mountains, rivers, forests are calm and
harmonious. Our eyeball today is unable to experience such a sacrality. There is a
wonderful sentence by German philosopher Adorno who in his Minima Moralia ‘if today
we were to encounter a lion in one of our city it would constitute a disturbance for the
traffic’.
Before Adorno, Wuderlin, a great German poet who wrote his poems in the first year of
the 19th century (a sort of link between enlightenment and romanticism, an important
epoch in which the modern age shows also its destroying sides)he also wrote ‘the
gods have vanished’. He refers to this loss of sacredness of nature.
I insist I don’t want to be misunderstood, I am stressing this point with sobriety.
Sacredness is not something mystical or superstitious. Sacredness of a river, of a
mountain, of sea, is not a mystified object, it is the experience that we depend on
what is more powerful than us.
Sacredness is a strong manifestation of what precedes us, or what is not at our
disposal.
The sacredness of nature is for instance a sky and the stars in the night: there is light
pollution today, a lot of artificial lights that prevent us from looking at the starred sky.
If you visit a southern country, (in central Anatolia, the stars in the sky were not simply
immensely luminous, but it was like a wonderful and powerful hub on everything).
Today, in order to see some small and weakly luminous stars in the sky we have to put
an effort in it. In Anatolia, the luminous sky full of stars was an immense presence
embracing everything. This sacredness of Nature is not something mythical, it is a
concrete experience, when such a presence invades our bodies, our beings, reminding
us that we are finite inhabitant of a great planet. And this is not a fairy tale, it is
something empirical, sacred, that too often we forget.
So it is easy to refer to nature as a modern citizen would do: nature as something we
have lost.
What is more interesting in Rousseau: a grounding feature of any modern
individualthe state of nature never existed but we are moved by a wish of something
that never existed and will never exist.
This feeling, so powerful in us, we try to forget it, we try to move on with efficiency,
sobriety, we study, we work, we accomplish our duties. But such a wish of harmonic
unity, such a passion is moving our deeper sights. It is a wish of what never existed
and will never exist.
Here, Rousseau grasps an essential feature of the modern European way of living.
That is why it is less interesting to talk about the European perspective: we need to
listen to other perspectives who have a different experience of nature. There are
cultures who have no words for nature because they do not encounter a landscape,
they may encounter a recipient where they live.
When nature is a concrete space in which human beings live, walk, and not simply
landscapes, the word ‘nature’ is no more necessary: I feed, I breed a camel, not an
animal part of the nature; I cultivate a plant that will give me its fruits; I don’t
encounter nature, I concretely take care of that tree, of that garden.
By contrast, nature is a term that is a consequence of an egotistical dream.
Rousseau is able to describe this grinding feeling moving everybody in the modern
European north American imaginary.
‘AN TRANSPARENT EYEBALL’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836
Emerson had read Rousseau and various German poets and thinkers.
His experience is already North American.
‘in the woods, a man casts off his years (his biography), as the snake his slough, and
at what period so ever of life, is always a child (in the middle of woods an adult). In the
woods there is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and
sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed.
(the presence of God is always at the bottom: society is the historical level, the
surface, then there is nature and at the bottom there is God).
In the woods, we return to reason and faith (our words are so heavy, ambiguous,
ambivalent, rich of implications, but the text is so direct and simple that tries to let us
forget the ambivalent richness and the burden of these terms).
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life- no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my
eyes) which nature cannot repair.
Standing on the bare ground all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
Eyeball: I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through
me; I am part or particle of God. (notice, there is nothing behind this eye, I am nothing
but an Eyeball)this is wonderful not only from a theoretical point of view, but also
from an existential point of view: to become nothing!
There is a hidden wish to become nothing, there is an implicit ‘cupio dissolvi’ (I wish to
be nothing, to be dead, not to exist, I wish to vanish, but embraced from an aesthetic
feeling).
The name of the nearest friend sounds foreign and accidental. To be brothers,
acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and disturbance (the other is nothing
too, something accidental, outside this experience that invest the Eyeballthe other
as an impediment to our lived experience).
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness I find something
dearer than in the streets and villages (far away from others, strangers and
foreigners).
(also the social hierarchy between master and servants is outside the experience
investing the EyeballI forget the others, my worries, my social duties, my
commitments, I am an eyeball in the woods).
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds
somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.