Thursday, November 29, 2007

More Musil

"The prevailing system was that of reality, and it was just like a bad play. It's not for nothing that we speak of a 'theatre of world events' - the same roles, complications, and plots keep turning up in life. People make love because there is love to be made, and they do it in the prevailing mode; people are proud as the Noble Savage, or as a Spaniard, a virgin, or a lion; in ninety out of a hundred cases even murder is committed only because it is perceived as tragic or grandiose. [...] Seen in this light, history arises out of routine ideas, out of indifference to ideas, so that reality comes primarily of nothing being done for ideas."
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities p395.
It appears that what is at stake here is one's self-understanding. We are limited in what we do not so much by the fact that an outcome is conceivable or not, but by whether it is comprehensible. The true value of art, literature and avant-garde cinema can only be seen in this light. When one cultivates more subtle or nuanced ways of perceiving oneself, the possibilities for action - that is, our potential - begin to broaden.

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