"[...] if we “start” from a belief in the existence of “history” (as the history of freedom), all the immutable, eternal, gods, fixed and rigid structures that have appeared and reappeared throughout Western history are constraints that suffocate humanity: in this sense, certainly, the history of the West is a history of progressive liberation from the immutable. This movement of emancipation is analogous to the liberation of servants from their masters, to refer to the famous figure of Hegel“s ”'Phenomenology of Spirit'“: the 'immutables” here are the masters, and becoming is the movement of liberation through which the servants rise up against their masters. In this story, however, both servants and masters are in agreement and solidarity “in essence”: they both have faith in the existence of history (in the existence of becoming) and in the existence of forces capable of “making history”, capable of creating and destroying the things of the world. Instead, we need to think of a dimension different from that in which the great “masters” and great “servants” of our culture are placed: a different dimension, in which we become aware of the extreme folly of the original faith that animates the entire history of the West. When we become aware of this madness, a sense of the “eternal” emerges, which is completely different from that for which the “masters” of our culture are “eternal”. If one has faith in the existence of creation and annihilation, then the “masters” and “gods” rise up; but when one sees the madness of that faith, then, with the “servants”, all the “masters” decline. The “eternal” is no longer the master, but the “heart” of things."
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Emanuele Severino
Emanuele Severino (26 February 1929 – 17 January 2020) was an Italian philosopher, a disciple of Gustavo Bontadini.
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