Para que filosofar? Para resgatar a realidade!
As motivações de minha obra, que culminaria em uma filosofia da história, são simples. Elas têm origem na situação política. Qualquer pessoa bem informada e inteligente que, como eu, tenha testemunhado a história do século XX desde o fim da Primeira Guerra Mundial, se vê cercada, e mesmo asfixiada, pela maré montante da linguagem ideológica. Por linguagem ideológica entendo símbolos de linguagem que se pretendem conceitos, mas são na verdade topoi, ou lugares-comuns, sem depuração crítica. Ademais, quem se vê exposto a esse clima dominante de opinião é obrigado a lidar com o problema da linguagem como fenômeno social. Por ser impossível reconhecer como debatedores os que se valem de uma linguagem ideológica, é preciso torna-los objeto de investigação. Não pode haver comunidade linguística com os próceres das ideologias dominantes. Por isso, a comunidade linguística necessária para criticar os que lançam mão da linguagem ideológica precisa antes ser descoberta e, se necessário, criada.
Reflexões Autobiográficas – Eric Voegelin
‘Hardly has our strength sufficed to beat off the first great assault. The next will be greater. This war then is without final hope, as Denethor perceived. Victory cannot be achieved by arms, whether you sit here to endure siege after siege, or march out to be overwhelmed beyond the River. You have only a choice of evils; and prudence would counsel you to strengthen such strong places as you have, and there await the onset; for so shall the time before your end be made a little longer.’
‘Then you would have us retreat to Minas Tirith, or Dol Amroth, or to Dunharrow, and there sit like children on sand-castles when the tide is flowing?’ said Imrahil.
‘That would be no new counsel,’ said Gandalf. ‘Have you not done this and little more in all the days of Denethor? But no! I said this would be prudent. I do not counsel prudence. I said victory could not be achieved by arms. I still hope for victory, but not by arms. For into the midst of all these policies comes the Ring of Power, the foundation of Barad-dûr, and the hope of Sauron.
‘Concerning this thing, my lords, you now all know enough for the understanding of our plight, and of Sauron’s. If he regains it, your valour is vain, and his victory will be swift and complete: so complete that none can foresee the end of it while this world lasts. If it is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed.
‘Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
‘There are no tidings,’ said the Warden, ‘save that the Lords have ridden to Morgul Vale; and men say that the new captain out of the North is their chief. A great lord is that, and a healer; and it is a thing passing strange to me that the healing hand should also wield the sword. It is not thus in Gondor now, though once it was so, if old tales be true. But for long years we healers have only sought to patch the rents made by the men of swords. Though we should still have enough to do without them: the world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.’
It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden, answered Éowyn. ‘And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies? And it is not always good to be healed in body. Nor is it always evil to die in battle, even in bitter pain. Were I permitted, in this dark hour I would choose the latter.’
The Warden looked at her. Tall she stood there, her eyes bright in her white face, her hand clenched as she turned and gazed out of his window that opened to the East.
The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
