Professional Documents
Culture Documents
READINGS 13
Before Punk Came Funk, a mixed-media, ink, and paint collage on Mylar, by Wangechi Mutu, whose work was exhibited
in December at Gladstone Gallery, in New York City.
and successes. A life without combats, without a the French philosopher Bertrand Vergely. In oth-
burden, without effort of any kind, a life that is a er words, the only defeats that are beneficial are
straight line instead of Xenophon’s “steep slope,” the ones to which we can give meaning, that lead
would be a monument to languor. to broadening and leave us strengthened by an
But if people attain humanity only through experience that seemed likely to engulf us (never
ordeal, we still need to distinguish the latter from mind Nietzsche’s “Whatever doesn’t kill me neces-
penitence. Contrary to the idea that one must sarily makes me stronger”). What is interesting
have greatly suffered in order to know human be- about the biographies of common or famous peo-
ings (Elias Canetti is supposed to have told George ple, with their alternating rises, falls, and resurrec-
Steiner, “You will never write great books unless tions, is that they present ordinary individuals
someday you experience a complete mental col- capable of showing exceptional courage in desper-
lapse”), suffering does not teach people anything. ate situations, of finding a solution. The contem-
It makes them unhappy and bitter. “One has to porary hero is a circumstantial hero propelled
have very little love for humanity to think that it despite himself beyond the norms, an accidental
is by being shattered that a life progresses,” said fighter and not a professional brave. In the same
READINGS 15