A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the contrasting treatment of objects and living beings, questioning the value placed on human life compared to material possessions.
Zapffe's quote highlights a profound philosophical observation about the human condition. It suggests that while a coinβa mere objectβis carefully handled and turned before being given away, a child's life is sometimes subjected to the harsh realities of existence without consideration or compassion. This stark contrast provokes thought about how society often prioritizes material things over the well-being and dignity of individuals.
In practice
In a discussion about societal priorities, one might use this quote to illustrate the value we attach to possessions over human lives.
Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail.
The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.
As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change.
The seed of a metaphysical or religious defeat is in us all. For the honest questioner, however, who doesn't seek refuge in some faith or fantasy, there will never be an answer.
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again- the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (-that is English!): the weak possess more mind. ... To acquire mind, one must need mind-one loses it when one no longer needs it.
Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
It is time, therefore, to abandon the superstition that natural science cannot be regarded as logically respectable until philosophers have solved the problem of induction. The problem of induction is, roughly speaking, the problem of finding a way to prove that certain empirical generalizations which are derived from past experience will hold good also in the future.
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
Without justice and love, peace will always be a great illusion.
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