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Some elements of the human existence make the gods powerless

There are, without doubt, some elements of humanity against which, it seems, the gods (whoever they really are, if they exist) have no power. In other words, certain human characteristics make the gods powerless. Let's see three examples.

In 1801, Friedrich Schiller presented his play The Maid of Orleans, an adaptation of the well-known story of Joan of Arc. In the sixth scene of Act IV, Talbot, one of the characters, exclaims: "Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain."

More than 200 years after that wise affirmation, the current process of infantilization of adults in the "Western" countries and the constant process of loss of our cognitive abilities (the so-called "Flynn Effect) widely confirm the growing human stupidity, promulgated inside echo chamber of social networks.

But Schiller goes beyond just pointing out the undeniable reality of human stupidity and affirms that not even the gods themselves can change that condition. And he is right.

We live, as it is obvious, in a world where all disagreement means disliking the other, where every dialogue turns into a debate, where listening is an exercise of closing our ears to everything that invites us to think, and where the extended helping hand becomes the a bitten hand.

As Schiller said, deities, in spite of all their divine powers, can do nothing against human stupidity. But there is another human element that takes away divine powers: boredom. 

In 1888, the last year in full use of his mental faculties, Nietzsche wrote The Antichrist and, in section 48, with full awareness of paraphrasing Schiller, he states that "against (human) boredom the gods themselves fight in vain".

Nietzsche is not talking about that feeling of annoyance for having nothing to do while one does not want to do anything or is interested in anything. It could be said that Nietzsche did not focus on “doing nothing”, but on “being nothing” (or on feeling nothing), so that nothing of what one does, has, or achieves serves as motivation. In fact, Adam was bored in paradise.

Paradoxically, Nietzsche suggests that the divinity cannot do anything against human boredom because humans are a kind of entertainment for the divinity. And there is still a third element that prevents all divine actions: the closed mind.

In 1972, Isaac Asimov published his novel The Gods Themselves, in which he explicitly cites Schiller's phrase quoted above. In this case, the book is about how to save the earth in the 21st century from a planetary and galactic catastrophe, created by human technology.

This is not the place to summarize Asimov’s novel. We will only say that, in the novel, not everybody listens to scientists trying to prevent destruction and death.  

Suffice it to say that the social field of negativity that now prevails on our planet brings us quite close to the "Great Crisis" anticipated by Asimov. And not even the gods will save us from closed minds, hearts and hands. Salvation, then, is in us and our intentions.

Thanks for listening. For more commentaries and other stories, please, visit us at Project Vision 21 dot com.

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