THE ARCADIA SYMPOSIUM - 4. Arthur Schopenhauer, Aristotle, Kant, Xenophanes of Colophon, Karl Marx.

SCHOPENHAUER (OFFSCREEN)

Certainly, when modesty became a virtue, it is very advantageous for fools because it is expected that everyone should speak of himself as if he were as lazy as the one listening.

Arthur Schopenhauer in Hugo Santander's The Arcadia Symposium

Scene 4

Aristotle, Kant, Xenophanes of Colophon, Karl Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer.

Arthur Schopenhauer is a young man of average height and a slim build. He wears a blue levita without silk laces. His shirt is white and buttoned up to the neck, from which it falls in arabesques. Over the suit, he wears a long dark blue overcoat. A woolen cap tilted to the left partially covers his head.

He carries a wooden cane with a golden pommel, which he occasionally uses to spin it on the air.

SCHOPENHAUER

For what is modesty but hypocritical humility by which, in a world filled with vile envies, man seeks to apologize for his excellence and merits to those who lack them?

ARISTOTLE

True.

SCHOPENHAUER

Those who do not ascribe any merit to themselves do so because they genuinely have none. They are not modest but miserably honest. Will you accept that fame is often a mise-en-scène in which a man of merit must hire a lackey to list his achievements?

KANT

We admire your resistance to fashion and the human comedy, dear Schopenhauer. You are undoubtedly referring to the unpleasant experience you had with Prussian universities because, after synthesizing Hindu philosophy, the Spanish Golden Age theater, Elizabethan theater, and Greek and Kantian philosophy through your study of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and English, none of them dared to offer a course on your opus "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," "The World as Will and Representation." Hegel, on the other hand, received all the applause of his time. But tell us, knowing Hegel's fame, why did you schedule your course at the University of Jena at the same time as his?

SCHOPENHAUER

So that posterity would take note. I know I was unfair to Hegel back then, for his work is not without merit. But even Hugo Noël frequents my books more than Hegel's. I gave philosophy what Hegel and the other German idealists, except you, Kant, were unable to render, because of their scholastic language: passion.

It's telling that another of my students, Friedrich Nietzsche, receives more attention today than I do, even though he himself wrote that it was my work that inspired his aphorisms. Finally, I can announce to humanity that Hugo Noël, a diligent student of my works, will do me justice from now on.

XENOPHANES

You really have no use for modesty.

SCHOPENHAUER

As some influencers demonstrate, stupid people are more appreciated by society than intelligent people. Some are so impertinent that they can't even pass for what they are; they surpass in vanity the cultivated geniuses, who, however, appear to the people, or the common man, too megalomaniacal.

Our crime, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, is our colossal stature in comparison to them. In fact, modesty is a great advantage for the lazy, as it justifies his uselessness and parasitism. It is more convenient to tolerate the follies of a fool than the merits of a genius, and I'm not referring just to Socrates but also to Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Kafka, Pessoa, La Rochefoucauld[1].

XENOPHANES

We hope that such disregard will end in the era of artificial intelligence, capable of distinguishing and identifying the most capable individuals of humanity.

SCHOPENHAUER

Excuse my impetuous arrival, illustrious companions of philosophical endeavors. Since yesterday, I have been accusing Hugo Noël for the undeserved exclusion from this debate to which he has subjected me. I accept the preeminence of Xenophanes, Aristotle, and Kant. But, to have been placed before Karl Marx, that pupil, emulator, and economic variation of the theologian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?

(All laugh, including Marx.)

SCHOPENHAUER

Is it not paradoxical, dear colleagues, that all my irony, sarcasm, sharpness, and pessimism should end up in Arcadia as the best material for another play by Hugo Noël?

MARX

The wonderful thing about dwelling in Arcadia, the paradise of souls dedicated to art and knowledge, dear Arthur, is that none of us here ever lies. The audience is on the edge of their seats, waiting for my response to your coarse remarks. Tell them the whole truth!

SCHOPENHAUER

Oh, my dear friend Karl! The character you created in life, Marx, as well as Baudrillard, Žižek, Piketty, and all their admirers, are nothing more than theologians who left Latin to dress themselves, as you did in the past, in the obtuse language of economics.

Your preaching, filtered through Hegelian dialectic, consists of mystical revelations sprinkled with statistical formulas that are adapted to suit the economic agenda of each society. Each of them has presented their theories as immaculate economic data, but when their critics point out their flaws, they resort to fallacies of authority or weak personal opinions. In fact, like all philosophers, they are subject to the intrinsic validity of their arguments. As my pupil Nietzsche keenly pointed out, they create masks they intend to replace our humanity.

MARX

It's true that I formulated historical materialism based on Hegelian dialectic. Now, I'm intrigued by your thesis regarding Hegel's work as a new theology devoid of religious connotations.

SCHOPENHAUER

It's common knowledge that Hegel closely guarded in his library the source of his inspiration: the complete works of the mystical cobbler Karl Böhme, who, in his revelations of God's will for humanity, described the ethical forces that trigger changes in history. When Hegel writes that all civilizations have a single opportunity to rule the world and once there they fall into oblivion, is he demonstrating it or is he just speaking with authority, as a Bishop who delivers his sermon? Of course, he’s preaching!

MARX

But he comes to such a conclusion after observing the forces that have been operating in History. Such was the model for my historical materialism.

SCHOPENHAUER

And who says or what says that history repeats itself?

MARX

With some significant variations.

SCHOPENHAUER

Should we assume then that we are approaching a new twilight of our civilization, as it happened with Greece, Rome, and Andalucía? Or are we going to be conquered by aliens, as the Spaniards did with the Guanes and all American tribes?

MARX

I see your viewpoint.

SCHOPENHAUER

The stubbornness with which your followers follow your dialectical materialism, dear Karl, is due to your pseudo theological writing. As happened with the Spanish Catholics of the 16th century, the communists of the 21st century have not accepted that the precepts of their prophet are only hypothetical, as any interpretation of the movements of history is hypothetical. For the future, my dear friend, can’t be predicted by any man. The destiny of humankind is as creative as the creation itself. Indeed, it would be naïve to consider God as a repetitive identity, without fantasy, or imagination, unable to surprise us.

XENOPHANES

As it would be naïve, Herr Marx, to consider you as an oracle of truth.

MARX

I quite agree with you, my friends. Sadly, many of my readers thought that by reading me they didn’t have to ponder on my precepts, to question them, to reformulate them. Moreover, most of them got the idea that they didn’t have to read any other books in their entire lives.

SCHOPENHAUER

Just as it happens with the sacred books.

(All of them applaud Arthur Schopenhauer, who bends as an actor, almost reaching his knees.)

XENOPHANES

I invite you to return to the issue prior to this debate.

MARX

Thanks Arthur. We are sure that your black humor and my English phlegm will help the reader keep their attention on the concepts that are getting outlined in this scenario.

ARISTOTLE

Your criticism of religion as the opium of the people, dear Marx, is no less ambivalent than that which I made against tyrannies, monarchies, and aristocracies. Unless there is a philosopher-king or a wise ruler, when a system considers itself perfect and closes itself to any reform or dissent, all kinds of repression among men arise. In other words, without political participation of every free citizen, the polis can turn into despotism and slavery, depending on the fortune of having a good ruler or the misfortune of not having one.

As John Stuart Mill prescribed in recent centuries, "A state that dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished." You'll agree that such has been the fate of the communism you proclaimed in your manifesto.

MARX

Isn't it absurd that because I stated that the socialism of the future would be temporarily ruled by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the leaders of communism have assumed a messianic role as eternal tyrants? And I'm not only referring to Lenin and Stalin, but also to Castro, Maduro, Evo, and Ortega, demagogues who have plunged their nations into misery and slavery. Anyway, while religions have served as conduits for mankind to access morality and metaphysics, their influence has been greatly diminished since the French Revolution. Today, it's not religion but Manichean sectarianism that alienates the masses from their superintelligent human essence. By sectarianism, I mean nationalism, regionalism, racism, sports, and politics.

SCHOPENHAUER

I agree with you, dear Marx. It was the Roman kings and emperors who actually institutionalized this division of the world into two opposing camps that hate each other, as their best form of dominance. The rivalry between the "reds" (Russati) and the "greens" (Veneti) in the Roman Circus games dates back to the Roman Republic period. These factions, which included supporters of different chariot racing teams, became an important part of Roman entertainment culture. Their rivalries were passionate and sometimes violent. Supporters of different teams fiercely competed, and factional conflicts often spilled over from the circus and could result in street brawls and deaths in the streets of Rome.

XENOPHANES

Video games, soccer fans, and traditional hero-villain cinema continue to perpetuate this Manichean ethical narrative structure in the 21st century.

SCHOPENHAUER

Indeed, Marx, religion still wreaks havoc in the world, especially in impoverished nations, where, as I wrote decades before you, religion is the solace of the desperate. This allows demagogues disguised as prophets to preach that their divinity is universal and must be imposed on others by blood and fire. But it's time to enlighten our audience about this scenario.

[1] "Les sots sont plus supportables dans la société que les gens d'esprit. Il y a des sots si impertinents, qu'ils ne peuvent passer pour tels ; ils surpassent en fatuité les personnes d'esprit, qui sont cependant bien fatigantes. Toutefois, la modestie leur fait une grande ressource : il est plus commode de tolérer l'orgueil d'un sot que la vanité d'un homme d'esprit."