Saturday, July 31, 2010

He looked forward to the day when politics and the state would wither away. I would call that Utopian.

You say his politics were Utopian. Are you implying they were unrealistic?

He looked forward to the day when politics and the state would wither away. I would call that Utopian. On the other hand, he did not invest a great deal of himself in these Utopian longings. He was too much of a Calvinist for that.

Please explain.

You want me to say what lay behind Coetzee's politics? You can best get that from his books. But let me try anyway.
In Coetzee's eyes, we human beings will never abandon politics because politics is too convenient and attractive as a theatre in which to give play to our baser emotions. Baser emotions meaning hatred and rancour and spite and jealousy and bloodlust and so forth. In other words, politics is a symptom of our fallen state and expresses that fallen state.

--"Sophie," from
Summertime

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