14 April 2016

Envy.

When you think you've seen, by now, everything,
when you think of no longer be able to see something of new,
when you see, more and more often, things strangely identical to the ones you've always seen,
when you perceive that everything is repeated equal to itself (as in movie "Groundhog Day"),
when you think that you has become hopelessly senile,
only then, appears the incredible, the unimaginable, the unexpected and the resounding:
it turns out the Envy of others.

The envious is targeting always at the people of their own sex, and, almost always, takes as pretext a relationship, of mutual confidence or esteem, between the envied person and a person of the opposite sex.

Envy, among women, it is always disguised as moralism.
In other words, the envious woman try to hit the envied woman right there where the envied, as woman, is culturally more fragile and, ie, on its respectability (moral or social).
Therefore, we tend to credit the idea that the interest of the man is purely sexual or purely economic or that this man is too younger or too older, and that, consequently, the woman that support this type of instrumental interest is a little 'bitch.
In this case, the beloved operational tool is the defamation.

Envy, among men, it is always disguised as altruism.
In other words, the envious man try to hit the envied man right there where the envied, as male, is culturally more fragile and, ie, on its attractiveness (aesthetic or intellectual or manly).
Therefore, we tend to credit the idea that the woman, object of male interest, is ugly or stupid or bitch, and that, consequently, the man who accepts the interest of a woman so mediocre is also he an mediocre.
In this case, the beloved operational tool is the mockery.

"Si sa che la gente dà buoni consigli ... se non può più dare cattivo esempio"
["We know that people give good advice ... if can not give more bad example"].
Fabrizio De André, "Bocca di rosa"

Théodore Géricault: "La Monomane de l'envie (ou, La Hyène de la Salpêtrière)", 1819-1820.

03 April 2016

The maze of mirrors.




"And God said: us make man at our image, at our likeness" (Genesis 1: 26-27): ... but, in truth, it was God to have been created by men at their image and likeness!

To quote Xenophanes of Colophon, "... Οι Αιθίοπες λένε ότι οι θεοί τους είναι μαύροι με κοντή μύτη Οι Θράκες πως οι δικοί τους είναι γαλανομάτηδες και κοκκινοτρίχηδες" [Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed and black, Thracians that they are pale and red-haired], "... αν τα άλογα και τα βόδια είχαν τα χέρια και μπορούσαν να ζωγραφίσουν οι θεοί τους θα ‘μοιαζαν πολύ με άλογα και βόδια ..." [If oxen and lions had hands and could paint as men do, they would give to the gods that they would draw the bodies like theirs: the horses, putting them under the figure of horses, the oxen under the figure of oxen].


Not for random, I have never met people similar to God but, conversely, too often I heard about Gods very similar to men.