Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Schiller's Regret

It took me a whole life to understand Friedrich Schiller's regret at the overcoming of polytheism. Grown up in a Catholic village I regarded the belief in the one and only God as the triumphant emancipation from the stupidity of barbaric paganism. It seemed strange that someone would praise that outdated superstition. I was 13, and it never occurred to me that the revered Schiller was an atheist, because my teachers never mentioned it. Revisiting Schiller in my old days I start to understand his thinking. As an atheist he could compare the various religions from a distance. Being an aesthete, he naturally preferred the fantastic and colorful world of the Greek gods to the one-dimensional, comparatively dull monotheism. At 15 I hated his ode to the Greek Gods, mainly because we had to learn it by heart. Lately I re-read it and discovered the beauty of it. I finally understand Schiller's regret.


2 comments:

  1. Regarding the current drive of transcendental esotericism in the western world, I wonder why we can’t observe any resurrection of the Greek Gods.

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  2. Yes, let's get back the Greek Gods and maybe they bring with them some of their culture.

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