Three texts, three moments and three wounds that located humanity in a more appropriate place
Knowledge, transmitted through tablets, scrolls and paper has forged our way of seeing the world and the voices of centuries continue to resonate in the human mentality.
By Yael Zárate Quezada/Ps*
Like everything that is inherent to the human being, we cannot escape the wounds that knowledge itself has generated. Not for the novels that have the ability to lacerate with their stories; but for something much deeper; ideas capable of cracking our beliefs and forced us to rethink our own nature.
Sigmund Freud called “Narcissistic wounds” To three discoveries that, in his opinion, had shaken human pride:
–The cosmological woundthe discovery in which the human being realized that it was not the center of the universe
–The biological woundwhich was far from the divine origin of the human species and pointed out that we are only one more link in the evolutionary chain of a species
-And finally, The psychological woundthat is, the conception that we are not completely conscious and rational of our behavior and thoughts, but rather these are determined by traumas, education and behaviors that we have hidden in the unconscious.
Each of these findings was reflected in a book that changed our relationship with the cosmos, life and mind forever.
The revolutions of the heavenly, Nicolas Copérnico (1543)
You are not the center of the universe. With the movement of the celestial spheres, Copernicus withdrew the earth from his throne in the center of the universe. By proposing a heliocentric model – with the sun as a motionless reference – disrupted centuries of Aristotelian and ecclesiastical authority. The cosmological wound reminded us that we are not the epicenter of creation, but one more planet in orbit that forces us to rethink our place in an infinite universe.
Find the book The heliocentric revolution in this link
The origin of the species, Charles Darwin (1859)
You do not descend from a divine being. Darwin presented natural selection as the engine of evolution by demonstrating that all living beings – including the human being – share a common lineage. By stripping humanity of a privileged divine origin, he opened the biological wound, revealing that we are one more link in the chain of life. This idea degraded the claim of exceptionality and changed forever the scientific and theological look about ourselves.
Find the book the origin of the species in this link
The interpretation of dreams, Sigmund Freud (1899)
You are not aware of yourself. Freud shook collective consciousness by showing that our acts do not respond solely to reason but also hidden impulses. With his founding work of psychoanalysis he opened the psychological wound, exposing that much of our behavior is born in the unconscious. Traumas, repressed desires and forgotten memories emerge in dreams, challenging the illusion of a totally conscious and sovereign “I”.
Find the book the interpretation of dreams in this link
Perhaps at some point it could hurt that we are not the center of the cosmos, that our blood runs in the same biological family as that of other animals or that a handful of invisible impulses governs much of our decisions. But those wounds, far from weakening, encouraged us to explore, to question with honesty and to immerse ourselves more and more in the ocean of knowledge and know more human, too human.
*PS
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