An old Chinese proverb says, "Frogs croak in the pond day and night, and nobody listens, but the rooster only crows at dawn, and all take heed." It could well be a Libyan or an Albanian proverb, but its meaning has no dependence on its source, and it will be universally understood, in the "silence is golden" vein.
On the other hand, the words “sour grapes” ought to be put in the context of the Aesop/La Fontaine/Krylov fable, in order to be properly understood. Most of us are reasonably well educated to make the connection automatically, but those who do not know the fable, will have trouble understanding the meaning of these words. (Ironically, most people believe that “sour grapes” stands for some embittered never-happy grouch, whereas the fable’s real meaning is far more subtle: it is not the fox who is called “sour grapes,” but, rather, the unattainable object of the fox’s lust, the actually delicious grapes, branded as “sour” for being out of the fox’s disappointed reach.)
Bakunin writes, in Dieu et l’État: “If society had not been invented, man would have remained a wild beast forever, or, what amounts to the same thing, a saint.” One can venture a wide variety of philosophical and pseudo-philosophical interpretations of this sentence, but its proper understanding may never be arrived at, without knowing who Bakunin was, and what he stood for. Otherwise, our understanding of “beast” will be torn between Luther’s super-negative (see below) and Nietzsche’s super-positive (as in “blond beast”), and thus, into the bargain, we shall be left awfully confused about Bakunin’s understanding of “sainthood.”
Bakunin was, of course, the internationally-acclaimed co-father of anarchism (along with Proudhon), but his distinctively peculiar Russian soul, and his special historical significance, as the challenger extraordinaire to the authority of Karl Marx, within the First International, make him a particularly unique character. As an anarchist, his attitude toward the invention of society (the hidden clue of the word "invented" is easy to miss) leaves little to second-guessing, from which it follows that both the wild beast and the saint, of his account, must surely represent some sympathetic traits. As, indeed, they do!
Bakunin’s famous fascination with the revolutionary Spirit and the awesome destructive-creative Power of the Buntar, be that the unstoppable surge of the peasant rebel, or the devious genius of the master criminal and his underworld, leaves no doubt that, from his lips, wild beast comes like the greatest compliment one can bestow on the human race. How far is that removed from, say, Martin Luther’s thinking:
“All wild beasts live in fear and quaking; they have black flesh by reason of their fear, but the flesh of tame animals is white, for they live securely with mankind.” (Tischreden, cxxvii)
Luther’s reasoning is, of course, rather suspect here, but taken at its face value, and compared to Bakunin’s wild beast and Nietzsche’s blond beast, representing among other things extreme fearlessness, the contrast between these two opinions is astounding.
On the question of the imagery of the saint, here we clearly encounter Man in a state of innocence. Sancta simplicitas, the innocence of the Saint! The Saint fears nothing (like Wagner’s Siegfried), and is ashamed of nothing (in the words of Rousseau’s Émile). Perhaps, Adam was the first Saint, and the Fall represented the inevitability of this Saint’s corruption. In his primordial state of innocence, the Saint was totally fearless of God’s power, and totally mindless of his own punishment for disobedience. Fearlessness, like all innocence is reckless!
My concluding thought reunites those two Bakuninian descriptions of man in the blessed state of innocence, as a wild beast and a saint, in one last reflection on the genius recluse, ordinis eremitarum membrum, one of the solitary armies of one:
Without civilization (as represented by the Serpent), man is a saintly beast. Civilization tames the beast and corrupts the saint.
On the other hand, the words “sour grapes” ought to be put in the context of the Aesop/La Fontaine/Krylov fable, in order to be properly understood. Most of us are reasonably well educated to make the connection automatically, but those who do not know the fable, will have trouble understanding the meaning of these words. (Ironically, most people believe that “sour grapes” stands for some embittered never-happy grouch, whereas the fable’s real meaning is far more subtle: it is not the fox who is called “sour grapes,” but, rather, the unattainable object of the fox’s lust, the actually delicious grapes, branded as “sour” for being out of the fox’s disappointed reach.)
Bakunin writes, in Dieu et l’État: “If society had not been invented, man would have remained a wild beast forever, or, what amounts to the same thing, a saint.” One can venture a wide variety of philosophical and pseudo-philosophical interpretations of this sentence, but its proper understanding may never be arrived at, without knowing who Bakunin was, and what he stood for. Otherwise, our understanding of “beast” will be torn between Luther’s super-negative (see below) and Nietzsche’s super-positive (as in “blond beast”), and thus, into the bargain, we shall be left awfully confused about Bakunin’s understanding of “sainthood.”
Bakunin was, of course, the internationally-acclaimed co-father of anarchism (along with Proudhon), but his distinctively peculiar Russian soul, and his special historical significance, as the challenger extraordinaire to the authority of Karl Marx, within the First International, make him a particularly unique character. As an anarchist, his attitude toward the invention of society (the hidden clue of the word "invented" is easy to miss) leaves little to second-guessing, from which it follows that both the wild beast and the saint, of his account, must surely represent some sympathetic traits. As, indeed, they do!
Bakunin’s famous fascination with the revolutionary Spirit and the awesome destructive-creative Power of the Buntar, be that the unstoppable surge of the peasant rebel, or the devious genius of the master criminal and his underworld, leaves no doubt that, from his lips, wild beast comes like the greatest compliment one can bestow on the human race. How far is that removed from, say, Martin Luther’s thinking:
“All wild beasts live in fear and quaking; they have black flesh by reason of their fear, but the flesh of tame animals is white, for they live securely with mankind.” (Tischreden, cxxvii)
Luther’s reasoning is, of course, rather suspect here, but taken at its face value, and compared to Bakunin’s wild beast and Nietzsche’s blond beast, representing among other things extreme fearlessness, the contrast between these two opinions is astounding.
On the question of the imagery of the saint, here we clearly encounter Man in a state of innocence. Sancta simplicitas, the innocence of the Saint! The Saint fears nothing (like Wagner’s Siegfried), and is ashamed of nothing (in the words of Rousseau’s Émile). Perhaps, Adam was the first Saint, and the Fall represented the inevitability of this Saint’s corruption. In his primordial state of innocence, the Saint was totally fearless of God’s power, and totally mindless of his own punishment for disobedience. Fearlessness, like all innocence is reckless!
My concluding thought reunites those two Bakuninian descriptions of man in the blessed state of innocence, as a wild beast and a saint, in one last reflection on the genius recluse, ordinis eremitarum membrum, one of the solitary armies of one:
Without civilization (as represented by the Serpent), man is a saintly beast. Civilization tames the beast and corrupts the saint.
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