NORMAN MANEA
Writers and the Great Beast
As
it rushes to an end, this century, more than any other, could be called
the century of the intellectuals. When its beginning and end are com–
pared, whether on a mundane or a fundamental level, pivotal develop–
ments are immediately obvious: the mind's achievements in science and
technology, the deep schism in art, and the radical upheaval that has
shaken the individual and society.
Spectacular accomplishments and extreme dangers have accompanied
the dramatic worldwide expansion of uncertainty in this new era. The
year 2000 approaches replete with all the manmade means of planetary
catastrophe. Although the macabre play of man's imagination has antici–
pated this catastrophe, his conscience is inclined to relegate it to an un–
comfortable side road.
The fear at the threshold of this new millennium differs from its
tenth-century counterpart in which an end-of-the-world psychosis was
linked to the gods and fate. In a desacralized world, as Heisenberg said,
"man stands on this earth only in relation to himself."
It
seems as if
mankind is being herded onto an enormous ship, or more exactly, into a
large metal hull with a compass that does not point north but towards the
mass of the ship itsel£ ... And the genetic revolution could well result in
a horrible apotheosis through its creative artifices and manipulations.
Given the widespread crises jeopardizing our transition to a com–
pletely different world, the "crisis of the ideal" is no longer a problem
simply for intellectuals - whom dictionaries usually define as more inter–
ested in thinking and understanding than in feeling or acting.
It
is a prob–
lem for us all. Moreover, this crisis is not merely a question of overpopu–
lation and the arms race, of under- and overdevelopment, of fanaticism,
environmental destruction and the arrogance of power, but of the deep
imbalance in human existence that unleashes all of those. When he sug–
gested that the banality and chaotic absurdity of daily existence cannot be
overcome without a transcendent goal, Einstein was referring to the
centripetal force of the idea. The collapse of the totalitarian communist
system and the threat of new forms of totalitarianism - whether of a reli–
gious nature (incited by Islamic fundamentalism, for example) or a na–
tionalist one - again raise the question of transcendent "ideals" with
heightened urgency. Without such ideals, man falls prey to emptiness or
