To die consistent with life

May 12, 2009

I shared a quote from Brave New World a couple of days ago, so thought I would follow it up with one fromArthur Koestler”s Darkness at Noon, to my mind the greatest of the three dystopian novels of the last century, although the least known. The psychological dramaand the exploration of choice, and the consequences of choice are unparalleled. Rubashov has elements of Socrates in accepting the consequence of the life lived, and the interpretation of book in the liberal west is (I think) often mistaken. This book is about the human condition, it posits no simoplistic opposition of good and evil. This quote is one of the best.

There must have been laughter amidst the apes when theNeanderthaler first appeared on earth. Neanderthaler was uncouth and bound to the earth. The apes, saturated and peaceful, lived in sophisticated playfulness, or caught fleas in philosophic contemplation; theNeanderthaler trampled gloomily through the world, banging around with clubs. The apes looked down on him amusedly from their tree tops and threw nuts at him. Sometimes horror seized them: they ate fruits and tender plants with delicate refinement; thedevoured raw meat, he slaughtered animals and his fellows. He cut down trees which had always stood, moved rocks from their time-hallowed place, transgressed against every law and tradition of the jungle. He was uncouth, cruel, without animal dignity – from the point of view of the highly cultivated apes, a barbaric relapse of history. The last surviving chimpanzees still turn up their noses at the sight of a human being…

Recent Posts

About the Cynefin Company

The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
ABOUT USSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Cognitive Edge Ltd. & Cognitive Edge Pte. trading as The Cynefin Company and The Cynefin Centre.

© COPYRIGHT 2024

< Prev

The train to Eindhoven

I had a trip down memory lane today; flying in the Amsterdam then getting ...

More posts

Next >

Another dystopian quote

The tabloid press comes to mind with this one Don't you see that the whole aim ...

More posts

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram