Friday, February 18, 2011


"The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie."
Jack LondonThe Mutiny of the Elsinore
(Painting by Peter Paul Rubens)

1 comment:

  1. That's as compelling an argument against art as I've seen. Funny that it should come In Fiction!

    ReplyDelete