"This is why, as soon as this condition fails to appear, the imprescriptible love of others also disappears. The other is now just another person, a person as people are – hypocrites, liars, ambitious, sinful, egotistical, blind, fighting ferociously for their own advantage and prestige, no less combative toward others who oppose their projects and desires. Forgetful of their veritable condition and the other’s veritable condition, they behave toward themselves and others as mere people. Then the whole edifying morality that wishes to found itself on the mere person, on the rights of man, discovers its emptiness, its prescriptions are flouted, and the world is given over to horror and sordid exploitation, to massacres and genocides. It is not by chance that in the twentieth century the disappearance of “religious” morality has given rise not to a new morality, a “secular morality,” albeit a morality without any definite foundation, but to the downfall of any morality and to the terrifying and yet daily spectacle of that downfall."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 257-258
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_Henry
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michel Henry
Michel Henry (10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
113 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michel Henry →
Related Quotes
"L'affectivité a déjà accompli son œuvre quand se lève le monde."
"La souffrance forme le tissu de l'existence, elle est le lieu où la vie devient vivante, la réalité et l'effectivité …"
"La puissance du sentiment est le rassemblement édificateur, l’être saisi par soi, son embrasement, sa fulguration, es…"
"Mais la joie n'a rien au sujet de quoi elle puisse être joyeuse. Loin de venir après la venue de l'être et de s'émerv…"
"The question of phenomenology, which alone confers a proper object to philosophy, is what makes it into an autonomous…"
"To radicalize the question of phenomenology is not only to aim for a pure phenomenality but to seek out the mode acco…"
"Material phenomenology is able to designate this invisible phenomenological substance. It is not a nothing but rather…"
"The task of material phenomenology is immense. It is not simply to be attached to another order of phenomena that rem…"
"The idea of community presupposes the idea of something in common as well as the idea of community members who have i…"
"Ce qui se sent sans que ce soit par l'intermédiaire d'un sens est dans son essence affectivité."