Nicolae Rambu

Power demonism - or the demonic nature of power - is a phenomenon found everywhere one can identify a political power center. Niccolo Machiavelli is the person who revealed clearly for the first time the nature of power demonism. Paradoxically, far from being himself a demonic being-- a description which Goethe ascribed to the meaning of this term - the author of The Prince was just a realistic theoretician of his time. Power demonism is the ability of the politician to create the general conditions to achieve political power from the dark side of the individual. This phenomenon evidently has a destructive potential.

Mein Beitrag wird versuchen, die inneren Spannungen der Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit Schopenhauers darzustellen. Zuerst geht es um den axiologischen Bankrott des Lebens, dann um ein moralisches Dilemma, in dem sich der Leser Schopenhauers befindet: Idealismus oder Weisheit. Am Ende des Beitrags stellt sich die Frage, ob die Aufgabe der Philosophie darin besteht, gegen „die moralischen und intellektuellen Ungeheuer“ auf unserer Welt kämpfen zu sollen. Kann also die Philosophie eine Therapeutik des Geistes sein? Das bleibt eine offene Frage.

By axiological memory I mean the capacity of a society to establish a set of fundamental values in the memory of its people, so that these values become indelible and unforgettable. The thesis that I will argue in this essay is that aesthetic ideas, which are closely related to Kant’s theory about genius and taste from the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, are values that the genius creates and translates into works of art in order to be set in the collective memory. Aesthetic ideas shape the tastes of others so that the collection of works and especially masterpieces of a particular civilization forms a genuine support for the axiological memory.

Fichte’s essay about Machiavelli was published in 1807 in Vesta journal with the declared aim to contribute to the »defence of a formidable man’s honour«. A year later some fragments from this essay were republished at the beginning of Fichte’s celebre writing: Addresses to the German Nation. Fichte’s declared admiration for Machiavelli as political thinker is difficult to understand, as the two men had very different political conceptions. The present study demonstrates that there is no difference between Fichte’s eulogy for the man who discovered the demonic nature of power and his own political theory, which contains exactly an attempt to de-demonize this power. For Fichte The Prince contains a perfect political theory useful for the past of the humanity, but his theory, based on a new form of education, addresses the problems of the future. That is why he considered Machiavelli a good specialist of the human nature who, as a real physician of culture, made a very precise diagnosis of humanity’s moral maladies.Fichtes Essai über Machiavelli wurde 1807 in der Zeitschrift Vesta veröffentlicht, um zur »Ehrenrettung eines braves Mannes« beizutragen. Ein Jahr später wurden einige Passagen am Anfang seiner Reden an die deutsche Nation neu aufgelegt. Fichtes Bewunderung für Machiavelli als politischen Denker scheint schwer erklären zu sein, weil es um zwei entgegengesetzte politische Konzeptionen geht. Es gibt jedoch keinen Widerspruch zwischen Fichtes Lobrede auf Machiavelli als politischen Denker, der die Dämonie der Macht entdeckt hat, und seiner eigenen entgegengesetzten Lehre von der Entdämonisierung der Macht. Für Fichte enthält das Buch Vom Fürsten eine politische Theorie, die für die Vergangenheit der Menschheit vollkommen gültig ist, während er durch seine Lehre von der Entdämonisierung der Macht durch eine neue Art der Erziehung die Zukunft im Auge hat. Für ihn ist Machiavelli ein tiefgründiger Kenner des Menschen und der Gesellschaft, der wie ein Arzt der Kultur alle moralischen Krankheiten der Menscheit sehr genau diagnostiziert hat.

Although it is been more than a century since the appearance of Max Weber’s famous essay about the objective character of knowledge in the field of social and political sciences, it still continues to attract the interest of researchers in the various cultural sciences. There is a whole secondary literature dedicated to concepts that Weber has not defined clearly enough, such as Idealtypus [ideal type], historisches Individuum [historical individual], Wertbeziehung [value-relation] or Werturteilsfreiheit [the freedom from value- judgement]. Our contribution falls into this category; since the phrase ‘axiological memory’ appears nowhere in Weber’s work, the concept itself is present, especially in his essays dedicated to methodology in the social and political sciences. As Guy Oakes noted, Weber did not always endeavour to argue his thesis rigorously, thus leaving ample room for the interpretation and development of his ideas.

What makes casanova the prototype of the seducer? This is the question that many have tried to answer, such as Hermann Kesten, in his study dedicated to this character, whose name has become a common proper noun in almost all European languages. Was the incredible force of Casanova’s seduction made possible by a certain technique or, better, an art with rules that everyone can master? As he says in The Story of My Life, “The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses.” Is it possible that this was the nucleus that radiated such a mysterious force? Did he discover something extraordinary, Kesten asked, that escaped the knowledge of the rest of the people?1 Yes, indeed, Giacomo Casanova.

Theoreticians of civilization have defined a series of anomalies of the European culture as cultural maladies. But this notion was used from author to author with very different meanings, being vaguely defined or used as a simple metaphor. In the ideological discourse of the Third Reich the references to the maladies of the European culture are frequently correlated to the references to the savior Reich. The present study suggests the concept of axiological malady in order to designate more precisely a series of unhealthy phenomenon of the European culture, for instance the puerilism

The barbarian of interpretation, in his barbarity, cannot be omitted from the line of ‘the new barbarians’. In the following, I will underline not only the threatening side of the barbarian of interpretation, but also the fact that the entirety of modern hermeneutics appeared in order to offer a certain protection from ‘the invasion’ of these strange barbarians disguised as gentle scholars, commentators and interpreters. As an irony of fate, hermeneutics, the science that was supposed to protect civilization from the barbarity of interpretation, has become a terrible weapon used by these barbarians to intensify their attacks, as has always happened in history with the weapons captured by the barbarian hoards from the protectors of civilization.

Apart from what this word is usually known to mean (besides the known meanings of the term), the CLAQUE was in the history of the theatre a form of manipulation of the evaluation judgements and a way of corrupting the public’s taste. Infiltrated in the theatre hall, in the middle of the „innocent” audience, the CLAQUERS applauded when their chief told them to, in order to give the impression that the play was a huge succes. They did it for the money. Taking into account this phenomenon, we can say that in the whole history of culture and, of course, on the „stage” of the world as well, the CLAQUE was always present. The CLAQUE as a cultural phenomenon is, almost each time, the price of succes.

During the Nazi regime, Immanuel Kant was the most studied German philosopher. The most important in this context is the theory of the genius and of thecreation of the genius that is developed especially in the Critique of Judgement. Kant defines the genius as the natural capacity of the personality to impose its own rules to the art. The Nazi ideologists had invoked this fact to justify philosophically the right of the Führer to impose its own rules to the art of politics. This is the reason of the attempt of the Nazi propaganda to project in the public conscience the image of one genius leader who, like the genius artist, imposes his own rules to the politics.

The abusive interpretation of a text is common practice in the history of philosophy. Johann Gottlieb Fichte is, however, from this point of view, a ‘case’. He is the model of a well-intentioned author, who attacks, in his writings of political philosophy, a de-demonization of the political power, through a new kind of education. This process, however, has led to the emergence of other ‘demons’. He is the creator of the myth of the nation as political myth, in which the magical function of the word predominates over the function of semantics, in the meanings specified by Cassirer in The Myth of the State. In Nazi philosophical and ideological discourse, ‘The Divine Idea’ of Fichte is tacitly replaced by the new Weltanschauung, his political idealism thus becoming a danger.

Goethe's philosophy of creativity revolves around what he called das Dämonische. This essay is not meant as a definition or an explanation of demonic creation, but instead presents a demonic work par excellence, as the term "demonic" is defined by Goethe in the Elegy from Marienbad. The process of the creation of this work, as it is described by Goethe, also represents a strange exorcism, as the entire daemonic creative force of the author is transposed in this lyrical masterpiece of German and universal literature. After writing the Elegy Goethe, it is no longer demonic.

During the Nazi regime, Immanuel Kant was the most studied German philosopher. The most important in this context is the theory of the genius and of thecreation of the genius that is developed especially in the Critique of Judgement. Kant defines the genius as the natural capacity of the personality to impose its own rules to the art. The Nazi ideologists had invoked this fact to justify philosophically the right of the Führer to impose its own rules to the art of politics. This is the reason of the attempt of the Nazi propaganda to project in the public conscience the image of one genius leader who, like the genius artist, imposes his own rules to the politics

Theoreticians of civilization have defined a series of anomalies of the European culture as cultural maladies. But this notion was used from author to author with very different meanings, being vaguely defined or used as a simple metaphor. In the ideological discourse of the Third Reich the references to the maladies of the European culture are frequently correlated to the references to the savior Reich. The present study suggests the concept of axiological malady in order to designate more precisely a series of unhealthy phenomenon of the European culture, for instance the puerilism.

Die von dem an der Alexandru Ioan Cuza-Universitat (Jassy) lehrenden Philosophen Nicolae Rambu, einem ausgewiesenen Kenner deutscher Philosophie und Kultur, vorgelegten sechs glq Beitrage zur Kulturphilosophie grq, allesamt uberarbeitete Gastvortrage der letzten Jahre, gehalten an Universitaten in Italien und Deutschland, verbinden auf uberraschende und ausserordentlich erhellende Weise Fragen auf zweierlei Ebenen miteinander: die in ihre innere Beziehung gesetzten speziellen Probleme der Philosophie, der Kultur und des nationalen Selbstbewusstseins werden zudem anhand ihrer jeweils spezifischen, glq axiologisch unangemessenen grq Konturierung in der jungeren deutschen und rumanischen Geschichte betrachtet. Dabei stellt der Autor eine den Leser regelrecht in den Bann ziehende originelle, tiefsinnige und geradezu witzige Auslegung sowohl so scheinbar akademischer, glq abgegraster grq Themen wie der Philosophie der Werte, der Theodizee der Kultur (Kant), der NS-Weltanschauungsphilosophie oder der Hegelschen Triade unter Beweis, als auch so brisanter, sich glq politisch-korrekter grq Erklarung oft entziehender Erscheinungen, in die die bedeutenden rumanischen Intellektuellen des 20. Jahrhunderts (Ionesco, Cioran, Eliade, Blaga, Noica) verstrickt sind oder die sie helfen aufzuklaren, wie Erscheinungen eines Fanatismus der Werte, des Auftretens von Claqueuren und Usurpatoren in der Philosophie, des Bewusstseins kultureller Minderwertigkeit und seiner Kompensation durch romantisierende, nationalistisch-totalitare Ideen. Das locker, mit einer guten Portion Ironie geschriebene Buch Rambus verdient die Aufmerksamkeit des deutschen Lesers auch deshalb, weil es uns die rumanische Kultur als eine nicht wegzudenkende Facette der gesamteuropaischen verstehen lasst."Christian Mockel (Berlin)

The meaning of life is not just some ordinary old philosophical problem, butalso a practical one that, in some form, everyone wonders about. The wholemeaning of life has always been linked with belief in higher values that formthe incentive for the spiritual uplift of humanity. Even if spiritual values areillusions, they are absolutely necessary in order to give life meaning. Whenthey disappear, it causes a serious disease of the axiological consciousnessof man. The characters that are involved in the cultural stage hosting thisdrama are the idealist, who sets values as necessary illusions of the humanspirit, and the wise man, who shatters any illusion of salvation throughfaith in values.