𝌎Descent Into Politics

Thus I am present as if Eumeswil were a dream, a game, or even an experiment. This does not rule out personal sympathy, which, after all, we do feel when we are moved by a play at the theater.

Given my brand of observation, I would rather associate with Vigo and Bruno than with my genitor and my dear brother. Were I to behave like them, I would be rooted in an agitation that does not appeal to me in any way, whether I view it from above, from below, from the right, or from the left.

The Condor would then be β€œthe tyrant” for me, not just factually but also morally. Tyrants must be hated, so I would hate him. Or else: he embodies the will to power, as extolled by Boutefeu; a great navigator, he steers us through the waves and storms of the struggle for life, I then model myself after him, I follow him without giving it a second thought, I idolize him. Be that as it may: these are feelings that I ward off.

When I, as a historian, view us en familie, it strikes me that I dwell one story higher than my father and my brother: in rooms where one lives more unabashedly. I could come down at any time. That would be the historian's descent into politics - a change that might have good and even noble reasons, yet would in any case entail a loss of freedom.

β€” Eumeswil