Abstract
The world has long been one, or at least, it has long wanted to be one. And this unity was subsumed under a superior point of view that one attributed to a singular divinity, who is both solitary and insolate. The world is the ideal projection of the Occident, which quickly found its God and its genesis, or which has even found several rivaling versions thereof. For the ensemble of earths located there where the sun sets, the point was to legitimize their action (or rather that of their inventors) because each territory is the result of a human invention. The protection of higher and abstract beings was certainly comfortable, but the action remained nonetheless human. It was human to such an extent that it became inhuman, because that which is human can quickly become too human. However, it was necessary to arrange things so that these humans would not shoulder the entire responsibility of discrepancies in behavior, which were numerous from the start. Actually, the Occidental man has always known how to make do with his cowardice and his eminently plastic conscience so as to not have to completely own up to it himself. And it is in the name of an ideal harmony advocated and put into place by the great founding texts of which he is the author, and as a terminus ad quem, that this man has initiated the work of an ideological harmonization that is within planetary reach. We have known the resulting tragic consequences. The harmonization pretends to be salutary and splendorous, but it is unhealthy and nefast.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Zygmunt Bauma, Identité, trans. Myriam Denneby (Paris: L’Herne, 2010 [2004]), 101.
Bertrand Westphal, Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces, trans. Robert Tally Jr. (New York: Palgrave, 2011).
Isabelle Autissier, “Postface,” in Ulysse et Magellan … , Mauricio Obregón, trans. Marianne Saint-Amand (Paris: Autrement, 2003 [2001]), 117.
Michel Serres, Esthétiques sur Carpaccio (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 2005 [1975]), 90.
Nicole Lapierre, Pensons ailleurs (Paris: Gallimard, 2006 [2004]), 195. This nice title, as indicated by Lapierre, is taken from Montaigne’s Essays (Part III, Chapter 4).
Copyright information
© 2013 Bertrand Westphal
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Westphal, B. (2013). Introduction. In: The Plausible World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137364593_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137364593_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47340-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-36459-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)