Fear, don't be afraid of the challenge of laughter

Charlene 2022-03-22 09:01:49

Laughter does not dispel fear; joy does not obscure sadness. To believe because of fear, belief is based on human sensibility; in order to defend belief, it stifles laughter, and sensibility relies on turning against oneself. Old George's mistake was his unwillingness to use reason to inquire into the truth of fear and hope. Laughter can dissolve fear, sadness and despair, but can laughter be the foundation of life? Old George said that laughter makes people forget their fears. He has grasped the key: laughter is a cover for fear.

For life, fear is the primary color, the essence of life. Not just fear, life is the sum total of a series of negative meanings of sadness and despair. Because a being cannot be a god, she cannot think about herself in eternal serenity, but must sink into endless motion—the essence of life is a lack.

Laughter, joy, hope, these positive values ​​can only temporarily obscur the dark nature of life. A man who can exercise reason will never be overshadowed. "Don't let yourselves be deceived! If you believe that you see some solid land on the sea of ​​becoming and passing, it is only in your hasty gaze, not in the nature of things."

If old George could face it To the question of laughter deconstructing fear and belief, he should seek the answer like a scholastic philosopher, using reason to prove that fear is a higher existence than laughter. But then he must overthrow two of the three virtues of Christianity: despair rather than hope, and fear and disgust rather than love. He would become a Manichaeus philosopher.

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Extended Reading
  • Brendon 2021-12-08 08:01:46

    D9 has a gloomy atmosphere, the last labyrinth library is destroyed, and the wonderful ocean of knowledge is burned. Is it also an irony to human civilization? Human beings will never leave real treasures?   

  • Carter 2022-03-27 09:01:06

    Knowledge and death, love and faith, all burn out as well. // A religious crime-solving movie of the last century? The library is so cool! ( // Der Name der Rose, actually lied to me with a German name... I thought it was a German film and only brushed it out (I am the person who will take the German listening test tomorrow (

The Name of the Rose quotes

  • [first lines]

    Voice of Adso as an Old Man: Having reached the end of my poor sinner's life, my hair now white, I prepare to leave on this parchment my testimony as to the wondrous and terrible events that I witnessed in my youth, towards the end of the year of our Lord 1327. May God grant me the wisdom and grace to be the faithful chronicler of the happenings that took place in a remote abbey in the dark north of Italy. An abbey whose name it seems, even now, pious and prudent to omit.

  • [last lines]

    Voice of Adso as an Old Man: I have never regretted my decision, for I learned from my master much that was wise and good and true. When at last we parted company, he presented me with his eyeglasses. I was still young - he said - but someday they would serve me well. And in fact, I'm wearing them now on my nose as I write these lines. Then he embraced me fondly - like a father - and sent me on my way. I never saw him again, and know not what became of him, but I pray always that God received his soul, and forgave the many little vanities to which he was driven by his intellectual pride. And yet, now that I am an old, old man, I must confess that of all the faces that appear to me out of the past, the one I see most clearly is that of the girl of whom I've never ceased to dream these many long years. She was the only earthly love in my life, yet

    [pause]

    Voice of Adso as an Old Man: I never knew, nor ever learned, her name.