“Every man who believes in something in an absolute fashion is the mortal enemy of “truth“ and “reality”.

Fanaticism – vibrant stupidity bewitched by a ludicrous Unconditional. Transforming one facet of Becoming into the sole reality; converting one aspect of the spirit into a fixed point of reference; elevating an “event“ to the rank of unappealable symbol – that is the mechanism of violating diversity which defines the intolerance of any faith. (…)

The partisan of a political sect experiences the obsession of things spelled in uppercase just like any believer. All the evil and the little good that we know in time derive from the truncated vision of fanaticism. The transformations of society – on the pretext of unqualifiable “progress” – are possible through resistance to clear sight, to contradictory existence, through suppression of the descriptive spirit. Prolific ages are fatal to the spirit. Because every creation is obtained at the expense of understanding and impartiality. Taking part in something means reducing yourself to a system of acts that exclude all others; suppressing the divergent neighbor; resorting to the state or the police, in any case to a uniform, to decide on controversies that have made philosophers fail; and, ultimately, channeling breath in a single direction.

Therefore, one can only breathe in sterile ages – those ages in which each individual takes part – at the very most – in themselves.”

Emil Cioran – Razne (Digressions), Paris, 1945-46 (translated from Romanian by the owner of this blog).