Rob Riemen, writer and director of the Nexus Institute, located in the Netherlands.
Photo: Santiago Díaz
Perhaps we should take advantage of the fact that in recent times there has been talk of Stoicism to revisit this and other schools of thought in order to recover the importance of a philosophical attitude towards life. Without looking for blame, because it would also be difficult to establish who, how and when, talking about philosophy and humanities became something abstract, distant, boring and unnecessary. But since one of the many schools – whether well or poorly read, that is another discussion – is attracting several people today, we could take the opportunity to vindicate these studies and ideas that give meaning to existence.
It is valuable that publishers once again dedicate space in their releases to philosophy. One of them summons us this time, because it is about The art of being human, the book by Rob Riemen, Dutch philosopher, which includes in four studies a series of analyzes and criticisms of various elements that make up the present time and, in particular, that speaks of the political and social context in Europe and the United States. And although it starts from a Eurocentric perspective, much of what is explained in the book can be transferred to this part of the world, because unfortunately we do seem to share the problems of the West no matter where we are speaking from.
“I think we are all interested in philosophy; we don’t have to study it. It starts with asking ourselves questions like why the world is the way it is or who am I. It is a basic attitude to life. Not asking these questions is impossible. Trying to answer them is like entering the world of philosophy. Could we avoid these questions? That would be the world of escapism. We could look for various forms of entertainment, but these are not going to help us. Another way would be to turn to science and technology; we could cut corners on concrete answers, but I don’t know if that would be successful,” said Riemen.
The Dutch philosopher starts, among others, from the idea that dictates that it is necessary to return to the origins of our institutions to understand and remember the principles by which they were created, and that over time they were distorted or forgotten for multiple reasons. And it is perhaps from there that the book evokes Socrates to say that after his death it was that “the Athenians understood that, with their way of approaching life, they had already given the definitive answer: the art of being human lies in the nobility of spirit.”
“Let’s look at the world as it is today. It is not only the wars that are on the front page every day: the wars in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan. There is a long list of things, but we can talk, for example, about social inequality, about the ultra-mega-rich who continue to earn billions every day, about the multitudes of people who cannot make it to the end of the day. These are consequences of a lack of compassion, and this is related to a lack of social justice, to the fact that it is increasingly difficult to find humanity in others. Let’s try to imagine a life without nobility, without dignity, without compassion. Let’s try to imagine a life in which no kind of beauty is created, a life in which we do not think about justice. In general, I think it’s about understanding that everything I do in life has meaning, that the things I do are right, that I can make mistakes, but that I start from that intention. Unfortunately, we live in something that was predicted by Nietzsche when he assured that in the world of nihilism there would be a revaluation of moral and spiritual values, and that these would be replaced by materialism. Now we see that all societies are reduced to numbers,” said the Dutch thinker in an interview for this newspaper.
Numbers, figures, everything is measurable. In his book, Riemen writes “personal value became marketable value, and self-esteem depends more on how much one earns than on the ability to love, think, and be creative.” Numbers that also speak of business, of a world that thinks in these terms, which are important, but should not be reigning. And for this, Riemen gives an example that talks about Karl Kraus, who considered that “the world order of lies” was manifested for the first time in the mass media of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century, but that it can still be seen today. be verified. “A poet can be a poet if every word he uses is an expression of the truth. That doesn’t happen in the media world. You journalists can do an article about the number of people being murdered in Gaza, and on the same page you have an ad for a new hot tub. Is rare. Horror and the market at the same time. When the media generally say that they are telling the truth, it is because they want to sell newspapers, and it is not the same. Obviously to be sustainable you have to sell, but in my own experience with the New York Times, when they published my book, they asked me to write an open editorial about it, and with very objective reasoning I spoke of Trump as a contemporary fascist. “They didn’t want to publish it, they asked me to do something else and I did it, but they didn’t want to publish it either and they told me that it was because it went against their business model, that that would result in losing access to the White House.”
Another premise that Riemen starts from to approach his essays is the already worn-out phrase that those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it, but he approaches this idea from Cicero’s maxim: “History is the guardian of life.” For the Dutchman, wars, the return of fascism and the rise of the extreme right in Europe have not happened due to circumstances exclusive to this time, but rather it is the sign of an eternal return of events that have already happened and that as societies we end up forgetting or underestimating
“Albert Camus spoke to us about the plague as a kind of metaphor for fascism, as if it were a type of virus that invades the political body of a society, which may take many years, but at some point it will appear again. Thomas Mann, unlike Camus, ended by saying that we should stop making these mistakes, that the war could end, but fascism will not disappear. In a mass society or democracy, which is not guided by moral, ethical or spiritual values, and which is guided by instincts such as fear, greed or resentment, demagogues are created who present themselves as the new messiahs. People don’t want freedom, they want happiness, and the demagogue knows how to promise that happiness. Many use hate and lies to make their country great again. We have not learned from the mistakes of history, we also have organized stupidity and amnesia. We have lost courage because we prefer to adapt. A democracy deteriorates when the media becomes a propaganda machine, when education is only reduced to what is useful, when politicians stop caring about debating what is best for a country, use slogans and become machines. of their own interests.”
There is a tendency to think that these types of essays or texts suggest a pessimistic attitude towards life. No. In fact, Riemen’s commitment with his books and also as director of the Nexus Institute, in the Netherlands, is to make a call to question, debate and not ignore even the most everyday things, because in this we will find answers and reasons. to the problems that concern us. Thus, for example, Riemen also draws on literature and poetry to demonstrate that from aesthetics or the idea of beauty it is possible to understand the events of history.
“John Keats says that beauty is intrigue, curiosity, but there is a fundamental truth in this: beauty without truth is simply something kitsch, it looks very glamorous, very pretty, but it is like shampoo. In any form of beauty there is some truth behind it. For example, this morning we saw Presidents Macron and Biden present medals to men in their 80s and 90s who were on D-Day on June 6, 1944. We see those faces and it is impossible not to consider this something beautiful. “One of the secrets of life is to see the beauty in simplicity.”
Riemen states in his book that “compassion is the greatest human virtue,” as well as quoting Emile Zola when he said that in this era “we should cultivate equality and tolerance as the essence of civilization.” “These values are part of the foundations of civilization. They are not the only ones, first, and second, we are now at a moment in our struggle for civilization because the nation of Western civilization is in a deep crisis. If we combine all the crises (environmental, social, economic, political), we will see that it is a matter of civilization, that this leads us, once again, to a crisis of values. To fight this, the establishment would have to decide to create humanism, but we cannot be tolerant of a country like the United States if it is guided by Trump, we cannot be guided by a society that wants to reduce everything to market failures. We cannot be tolerant of totalitarianism when discussing faith in Saudi Arabia or China, or with Putin’s Russia. “We cannot be tolerant of any type of fundamentalism.”
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