On Thursday this week, we opened our Madách exhibition. It was high time to pay tribute to our other two-hundred-year-old genius besides Petőfi at the Petőfi Literary Museum. All the more so because Madách’s Tragedy, besides its aesthetic values, is a visionary work. Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1923, Mihály Babits wrote in the preface to the Tragedy, which we also quote in the exhibition: “Read his work again, and it will affect you like some bloody actuality, you’ll encounter the most burning problems of your age and life.” This year, I myself have often referred to feeling as if we were living in the phalanstery scene (mixed with a little Roman scene). However, the curator colleagues chose the Eskimo scene as a framework to reflect on climate change, which is now perceived as an increasingly acute problem.
Let’s look at the facts: it rains, the sun shines. This is natural. What doesn’t seem so natural these days is that when it rains, it rains a lot at once, when the sun shines, it shines very brightly. Old farmers crumble wheat grains, shaking their heads. When they say that even their grandfather hasn’t seen such a thing, they’re saying that something has changed, and not in a good direction.
We must do something, they say, we say.
From nature’s point of view, everything and everyone is a link in the chain, what happens is natural. It’s natural that it rains a lot, shines brightly, this is how nature is now. It’s changing, in a bad direction according to humans, but this is humanity’s problem, not nature’s.
From nature’s perspective, it doesn’t matter at all what’s good for humans and what isn’t.
It’s natural that viruses exist, and there’s nothing unnatural about them mutating.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, hailstorms are natural, tiger mosquitoes and cockroaches are natural, it’s natural that if you change something, it changes. In nature, everything has a cause and consequence, there are no coincidences. Nature’s resources are not resources from nature’s perspective; if there’s too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that will be natural, even if we perish from it. The extinction of humanity means nothing to nature, species have disappeared before. Nature won’t be better or worse off, we will be better or worse off.
So as a first step, we need to realize that we don’t want to save nature, but ourselves. Whether the Earth’s environment is suitable for human life is irrelevant to the Earth. It isn’t to humans. However, our common scientific and progressive knowledge about humans today amounts to this: humans are the most harmful living beings. It’s not hard to draw the conclusion from this, which is no longer an indictment, but a judgment. But can the mathematical set of individual humans pass final judgment on humanity?
I’ve said before that the incoming posthuman era reduces humans, or more precisely, the post-human gender, to an ecological footprint. However, the ecological footprint has no freedom, thus no ethics, only a measure. The ecological footprint has no world. It’s beyond good and evil, has no sin, its future is a number. The child of the post-human gender is not a child, but an offspring, an increase in the ecological footprint.
But this is not our life, one cannot live like this. Madách knows this too, let’s remember in the last scene, Adam is just heading to the cliff to throw himself into the depths to “end the comedy,” when Eve steps out the door and tells him, “I feel, oh Adam, that I am a mother,” and here Lucifer was also defeated. Human freedom is not just the possibility of choosing between good and evil – individual freedom goes beyond the individual human and his/her quantifiable ecological footprint. This is how taking responsibility makes sense.
I don’t know what the solution is regarding climate change and other crises. I only know that if a solution exists, it can only be the solution of the created human restored to their freedom.
Let’s quote the Choir of Angels from the last scene: “To choose ‘twixt good and evil, that / Is a glorious thing indeed / And yet to know above us / We have still our Father’s shield”. This shield, in Madách’s interpretation, however, does not replace human responsibility. It’s no coincidence that the Lord’s and the Tragedy’s final words are “I’ve told you, Man: strive on, have faith, and trust!”
I believe that today’s interpretation of this looks like this: you can only trust if you struggle. We must struggle to trust confidently. No one will solve this for us. And there is no other Earth.
Notes:
Literary references:
Imre Madách: A significant Hungarian writer (1823-1864), author of “The Tragedy of Man”.
“The Tragedy of Man”: A philosophical play by Madách, exploring the history and future of humanity through biblical and historical scenes.
Sándor Petőfi: A national poet of Hungary (1823-1849), celebrated alongside Madách in their 200th birth year.
Mihály Babits: An important Hungarian poet and literary figure (1883-1941), who wrote the preface to a 1923 edition of “The Tragedy of Man”.
Specific scenes from “The Tragedy of Man”:
Phalanstery scene: Depicts a dystopian future society based on extreme rationalism and collectivism.
Roman scene: Represents the decadence of ancient Rome.
Eskimo scene: The final historical scene of the play, showing a bleak future where humanity struggles to survive in a drastically changed climate.
Cultural institutions:
Petőfi Literary Museum: A major literary museum in Budapest, Hungary.
Linguistic notes:
“Küzdj és bízva bízzál” (Strive on, have faith, and trust): A famous quote from “The Tragedy of Man”, used here to emphasize human responsibility and action.
Homeland Dictionary 