Us and Nothing

Abstract

Perhaps everyone is familiar with Aristotle’s view that man is a cultural, social and political animal: “ . . . And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homer denounces – the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.” Although Aristotle’s view seems obvious, at first sight, it is not so. This is evidenced by the numerous examples of recluses, outsiders, stateless persons, anarchists who dismiss belonging to a state or world culture, thinking nothing of them. Thus, there they feel observed, spied upon, assessed, censored, directed, sizedup, priced, marked, lectured, tied, robbed, repressed, degraded, examined, baited, derided, plundered, judged, manipulated, sold-out, conscripted, corrected, socialised, punished and homeless. These views unmask the political, social and cultural “Us”, as a mask hiding the anarchistic and pre-social “Nothing”.