The Last Revolution -- Chapter Twenty Three

Vision of a future – Development of interpersonal relations

(Translated from Serbian by Vesna Todorović/Petrović)

Direct democracy;
Production for meeting genuine human needs;
A radical reduction in labor time;
The development of man’s creative being;
The development of interpersonal relations;
The establishment of a humanized relation to nature.

Historically perceived, every ruling order has sought to create man according to its own image. As far as capitalism is concerned, the period of initial capital accumulation was marked by diligence and thriftiness and a corresponding type of man. At the time of laisser-faire capitalism, man was reduced to a beast (homo homini lupus) and human society to a menagerie, where every man is an enemy to his fellow man (bellum omnium contra omnes). Liberal capitalism metastasized into monopolistic capitalism, ruled by the principle “Destroy the competition!”, where man is reduced to the impersonal storm-trooper of capitalist corporations. “Consumer society” represents the final form of capitalism’s denaturalization and dehumanization of the world. It is about the creation of a “technical civilization” and a corresponding man.

Humanness no longer finds its social and historical meaning only in opposition to non-freedom and injustice, but now also in opposing the destruction of life. To ensure the survival of humanity is a basic criterion of authentic humanness. Capitalism has, in fact, transformed all social institutions, unto the entirety of life, into means for the growth of profit, for the destruction of life. In order to survive, man can only ask for help from another man: sociability is an existential imperative. In the dialectic sense, man as a fulfilled social being becomes a totalizing life-creating being – in relation to capitalism as a totalizing order of destruction. In that context, one of Marx’s basic theses from Тhe Communist Manifesto, claiming that “the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all”, could be restated. Considering that the whole of humankind is threatened when the life of any man is threatened, one can posit that the survival of each represents a basic condition for the survival of all.

The body is the elementary form of the existence of man as a social being. Physical community is the elementary form of the existence of society as a human community. Man perceives his body as a human body and relates to it as man through other people. Human society is an organic community of people dominated by man’s movement towards another individual. An emancipated relation to the body, as immediate nature, is possible only on the basis of emancipated sociability. The dehumanization of the body is concurrently the destruction of society as the community of emancipated people. The cultivation of the body is not possible without the cultivation of man’s natural being, of interpersonal relations and of man, himself. The body at play is the highest form of the cultivated body. The liberation of his body is one of the most important ways by which man liberates his personality. Man’s historicity implies the historicity of the human body. Above all, it implies a body cultivated through humanity’s emancipatory (cultural and libertarian) legacy, and becoming an emancipated human body. The struggle for man’s freedom implies the struggle for a free body. Instead of a toiling, athletic, technical or consuming body, libertarian play will develop a creative body and an abundant mobility enabling the realization of man’s creative being. It is not only about the struggle to preserve humanity’s cultural heritage and man as a cultural being, but also about the struggle for man’s survival as a natural and playing being. Libertarian play should enable the revival and development of those emancipatory achievements of physical culture that had been destroyed by “technical civilization”. Instead naturalizing a body that has been reduced to a machine, man should seek to cultivate his natural being through the development of his playing being, through a creative art that develops man as a whole being (physical, intellectual, erotic, social…). Ultimately, authentic body movement is the most elementary form of the creation of society as a community of physically emancipated human beings. Society should become an organic community of emancipated bodies united in free and creative body movement.

Endeavoring to create genuine play is not an attempt to establish a separate social sphere existing “parallel“ to the “work-a-day world“ (like Fink’s “oasis of happiness”), where man futilely strives to fulfill his needs for play and express his energies therein, but is rather an attempt to create a truly human world where life itself represents the realization of man’s playing being. A critique of established play (world) is not the expression of a longing for “free play”, but of an aspiration for a life that is manifested in the fulfillment of the universal creative (playing) forces of man as an emancipated member of the human community. For libertarian physical culture play is not a separate area of life, but represents the entirety of human existence within which man strives to realize himself as a playing (libertarian/creative) being. Since living is carried on as a series of interpersonal relationships, we are concerned here with a totalizing man who interacts with others not from separate areas of his life (work, science, philosophy, play…) but from his fundamental humanness: man’s life-creating need for another human being represents the basis of man’s motion towards another individual. Life as play demands the resolution of man’s duality as both social being and “player”, insisting that man, as a concrete social being, realize his own playing being – the representation of his original social being. A sensibility for play is the supreme form of the realization of a sense of humanness, of man’s ultimate and most complex ability to experience another human being. It requires not only a creative body, but also a (life) creative mobility. The procreation of man as a playing being is the highest human act and requires the reproduction of the society as a community of free creative personalities. Man’s need for another human being, from whence derives man’s original playing motives towards another, represents a genuine scheme for play and the authentic basis for establishing a society as a human community: homo homini is a mirror of humanness.

The contemporary world is dominated by a vision of the future reduced to the development of “technical civilization”. It is interpersonal relations, rather thаn technology and material goods, that make up the human world. The most important humanist criterion for measuring a society’s development is the extent to which interpersonal relations have developed. The struggle for a new world should create the sort of relations that enable man to express his specific humanness in an authentic and complete way. The abundance of forms of play is a function of the abundance of interpersonal relations. The importance of playing is not in the production of objectivity or form, but in the immediate development of humanness. The abundance of forms of play indicates an affluence of genuine interpersonal relations. By means of playing, man’s creative being is fulfilled in such a way that a need for artistic expression, as a compensation for non-expressed (non-fulfilled) humanness, is superseded. From the sphere of production of works of art by isolated individuals, who displace their own desires for humanness through their works, play establishes the immediate relations between people, within which the wealth of man’s playing (creative) being is realized. Play, as an interpersonal relationship, requires an emancipated man for whom “the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all”. This does not refer to people who know what “freedom” signifies, but to those who experience other people as their kin, in every sense of the word. Play is the supreme form of expressing humanness – the utmost human act of which the immediate result is a contented man. The attempt to preserve “humanness” in the form of normative confinement, or in some artistic form, is an expression of no confidence in human beings and the possibility for human freedom. Replacing the “imperfect” normative conscious with a “perfect” one does not imply the creation of the “perfect” man. The normative sphere is not the one that must be changed. The sphere of fundamental interpersonal relations, that is, the ruling order, is what must be changed.

In a world of fulfilled humanness, it is futile to establish normative criteria upon which human existence is to be determined. In it, there is no longer a dualistic approach to man, where the real and the ideal worlds coexist, and a model of man – a projection of life alienated from man – has been eliminated. In a society where man is genuinely happy, it is absolute nonsense to determine the ideal of “happiness”: life itself becomes the actualization of the ideal of humanness. In the same way, the “aesthetic sphere”, which counters the un-aesthetic (ugly) world, is disappearing. Instead of striving for “perfection”, for a constrained world, the development of an unconstrained humanness becomes the supreme challenge. This requires the abolition of separate spheres, including the sphere within which the novum is sought. Homo homini represents the supreme challenge for libertarian play and is, as such, a mirror of humanness, and not an idealized (abstracted) “man” that represents an incarnation of the “future” society for which struggle is waged. So, not a yearning for “the future” as an abstraction, or even as a real utopian project confronting the existing world on an intellectual level and turning it into a certain normative idea of the future, but the life-creating need of one man for another, a necessity being developed in response to an increasingly dramatic destruction of life, becomes the basis for the creative life that will generate the future. In play, what man can be is being fulfilled: man’s becoming a human being is the criterion for genuine progress. Only when the development of his playing being becomes the “measure” of humanness will the real development of man’s universal creative powers take place – something that today we can only look forward to. The “tenseness” of which Marcuse speaks will always exist, because man will always strive to be more than he is, and will always have a critical/transformational-aspiring attitude towards the world in which he lives with an eye toward the creation of a new and better one. However, the nature of this “tenseness” will be conditioned by the fulfillment of two key preconditions of freedom: freedom from natural imminence (natural forces overcome) and freedom of man from man (abolition of class society and of exploitation). The third precondition for freedom still remains the liberation of man’s universal creative powers – which will be dominant in a future society and which requires humanization of nature and the development of interpersonal relations. “Tenseness” in play does not result from the development of the theoretical mind, but from man’s striving to realize his own freedom and his own creative universality – through the superseding of forms of play in which limitations imposed on man by the existing order are manifested. Aspiration towards play, in its essence, represents an impulse for the free expression of humanness; basically, it is the supreme form of determination for being man – the creation of humanum in an elemental form. Freedom, creativity, humanized naturalness and sociability – these are the characteristics of playing and of play. Man’s authentic nature is the genuine origin of authentic play.

In libertarian play, skill does not present itself as independent from man, from the (objective) social sphere, but rather as a form of specific (individual) human expression. Skill and the way of playing do not derive from play as a separate social sphere that possesses its own mechanics of development and its own rules, but from a spontaneous, creative relationship between individuals, where one man is another’s inspiration for play. In this context the playing skills developed in sport (giving up the ball, dribbling, etc.) can be productive. Genuine playing skills require the supersession of the technical sphere as an intermediary in fulfillment of man’s playing potential, in the context of a surmounting of institutional (repressive) intermediation between men. The range of creative spirituality, a wealth of sensuality and of interpersonal relations based upon solidarity and tolerance – which means a fullness of man’s playing being – this represents the basis of the playing skills and playing manner. Instead of “motion control technique”, body, glance and vocal conversation should be introduced… The acquiring of skills through (body) motion control requires the development of human powers, of a rich and unique individuality, and, thus, the satisfaction of individual predilections, and not the pushing (destroying) of humanness into the background and the adaptation of man into a “model citizen” mold. Development of playing skills becomes a function of the development of man’s universal creative (playing) powers. Genuine human motion is aimed at the great many impediments to man’s conquest of the existing world that restricts, shapes, and degrades him… This represents the basis for the development of the creative physical activity that finds its expression in physical movement. Health, spirituality, harmony of motion – all are comprised in physical mobility as the supreme spontaneous interaction of nerves, muscles, tendons, joints, heart, lungs… Genuine physical motion requires a genuine engagement of the organism. This does not merely mean “the exertion of a large number of muscles”, but rather the harmonious activity of the entire body, from whence derives the “softness” of motion which determines physical “elegance” or grace. The ideal of harmonious physical development corresponds to man’s creative universality.

Man’s prolific creative life should become the basis for the development of his playing being. No free and contented personality can exist if man does not liberate his body and his movements from the destructive capitalist civilization. The supremacy of libertarian and creative (playing) motion must be established, and this motion turned in favor of man and a living world (nature) that has no intermediary but represents man’s genuine necessity for others. Development of playing skills is manifested as openness to the future, as creation of novum, and not as “improvement” of a playing model composed of ritualized expressions of submissiveness to the ruling order, within which man is reduced to a mechanical doll. The most important task of libertarian play is to enable physical motion, through the development of man’s artistic being, to become the playing motion by means of which man will attain “unity” with himself as an whole creative being, and society will become a playing community. Schiller’s position that “education by means of art is education for art“ is one of the most significant postulates of libertarian play, because education by means of libertarian play is education for a free society.

Regarding the universal grammar of motion (skills), it provides the possibilities for establishing a comprehensive approach to physical exercise, while at the same time enabling the creation of an artificial body language that is more of a technical (strictly defined motions, repetition, “objectivity” of form being developed as an area alien to man, space defined in advance…) than a cultural nature. Instead of assigning a distinct model of body and motion, which is, in essence, of a repressive nature, a spontaneous motion that is expressive of man’s playing being should be sought: richness of motion is conditioned by richness of the playing personality and by the development of interpersonal relations.

Play is not an immediate relation of man with himself, but requires the existence of a playing community of emancipated, creative personalities, where the movement of one man towards another dominates, and where homo homini mirrors humanness. Therefore, the development of interpersonal relations is a conditio sine qua non of play. The playing disposition is potentially a human disposition that can be actualized exclusively within a community of free and creative personalities. Giving up the ball is not the act of throwing an object from one position to another, an action that has an “objective” form and a technical character, but is a humanized (by means of cultural heritage) gesture by one man towards another and, as such, establishes human community in an immediate form. This is what constitutes its concrete historical (social) nature and endows it with a “soul”. Play is a result but, at the same time, also a supreme spontaneous form of man’s self-creation and a supreme mode for forming society into a community of free people. The spontaneity of play requires an emancipated personality. If this is lacking, the effort to express uniqueness leads to extremism, narcissism, aggression, destruction… Richness of personality is a basic precondition for the richness of interpersonal relations and vice versa. Each new friendship opens up a new human space inside man, develops his sense of humanness, in the same way a developed aesthetic sense provides opportunity for distinction in music or painting, the experience and creation of an abundance of tones, forms and colors. It is essential to develop a communal spirit while developing, rather than destroying, individuality. The immediate goal of libertarian play is not to set records, improve playing techniques, develop play as a normative sphere and create a healthy body, but to create a healthy society within which creative personalities will be developed.

A distinction should be made between playing as fulfillment of man’s playing being (the act of playing) and play as behavior in accordance with imposed norms. Play as a normative constraint has no tendency towards the improvement of man and interpersonal relations, but tends to reduce (“discipline”) him to the model of a usable citizen (subject). It is a matter of striving to preserve the ruling order and to reduce man to the “dimension” that corresponds to that order. The ruling historical forms of play are behavioral forms deprived of humane (playing) content, alienated from man. They are reduced to a behavioral model that is, in fact, a form of play in which the ruling relations are being manifested. Playing is reduced to an action that is most consistently mimics the consensus model of play, the rules of which should not be violated at any cost. Therefore, play’s “immutability“ (Huizinga) becomes its crucial feature. The ideal of “perfection”, by means of which “cultural” legitimacy and the infinity of the ruling forms of play are provided, is reduced to the complete submission of man to the rules of play, as well as to the imposed aesthetic pattern – which represents the “décor” of the ruling order. Man’s longing for another is mediated by relations that alienate man from others and reduce him to a role imposed on him from outside. A typical example is the “sport play”: it becomes a mechanism by which man is made to express the non-liberty of others. The intellectual sphere cannot be man’s compensation for the senseless life he lives; in the same way a love song cannot make up for a lack of human closeness. Instead of trying to define the concept of a genuine life, which is the typical reaction to a false life, a genuine human life must be lived.

In a repressive society play is a form of repressive normative confinement that impedes the fulfillment of man’s authentic playing being. Attempting to get through to the essence of humanness and to “catch” it by fixing human existence at the level of certain forms, structures, spiritual formations – inevitably leads to the preservation of the world in which such forms and structures are possible. The expression of play has to be of such a nature as to enable man to realize his own playing being. Genuine creativity does not go into the creation of playing forms, but into the enrichment of the human personality and development of interpersonal relations. Play is neither transcendental nor trans-subjective, but an immanent and inter-subjective phenomenon: it is an immediate interpersonal relation and, as such, represents the supreme form of establishing a society as a community of free persons, in a word, the creation of the humanum in the untainted sense. Commitment to play means a struggle for the fulfillment of man’s need and capability for play, and not just becoming skilled and imitating the imposed model of play – which appears as the “supreme human challenge”. Instead of play as a “cultural form” representing the basic possibility of playing, there is man as a cultural (playing) being: the authenticity of play is the expression of the authenticity of man. Play is not a criterion for determining a playing disposition and playing, reduced to the transcendental normative form, but the free realization of human playing (universally creative) powers. Play is the highest and the most immediate form of experiencing the world through creating it, which means that it represents the most immediate and the most authentic form of man’s becoming human. In genuine play the dualism between the “being” (Sein) and the “should” (Sollen) has been resolved. Nothing is before man, above man or outside to man. The so-called “universally human” does not exist outside of man anymore (as an imposed or transcendental sphere); it is no longer the image of “man” for which man longs and exclusively within which he can distinguish “his own (human) look” – but man as a free and dignified person becomes the creator and the “image” of humanness. Instead of being the model of “perfection”, the free man becomes a source of aesthetic inspiration: freedom is the substance of beauty. Schiller indicated the correct path: instinct for play is the instinct for freedom. Playing turns into the awakening of the lethargic (deterred) playing being, “enlivening” the senses, surmounting anxiety and shedding the snakeskin of the (petty) bourgeois. Instead of giving vent to the deterred being, spontaneity in play requires breaking through the barriers that constrain man. What develops the playing disposition is not play per se, but the humanness that develops as man faces the limitations, misfortunes, and challenges imposed by life. A rich creative life is the basic precondition for the development and improvement of the playing being. Genuine play extends the horizon of the freedom achieved, of the enthusiasm for life, and is the consummate expression of man’s life-creating powers. The joy of play comes from the contentment of an engagement with living; intimacy in play is possible only because of the closeness that comes from the process of struggle for a new world: man’s movement towards another is, at the same time, man’s movement towards new worlds. The actual outcome of playing is not play, but an enrichment of man’s spirit, emotions, sensuality, and the improvement of his interpersonal relations. The completed experience of humanness represents the “measure” of the richness of playing.

A distinction should be made between man as being at play, and man as playing being. In the first case he is the object, while play is the subject; in the second case he is the subject, and play is a result of the fulfillment of his playing being. Huizinga’s homo ludens is not man-as-player but man-as-toy of superhuman forces. It is exactly the same with antique and Christian man, as well as with Nietzsche’s Übermensch: he is a toy of cosmic forces. With Fink and Gadamer the notion of play is being used to reduce man to a phenomenological abstraction which is merely a masque behind which the concrete man, reduced to a toy of capitalism, is hiding. The emancipated playing personality requires a man as a unique life-creating being, and, as such, a creator of his world – and, thus, a self-creator. Through playing, the playing disposition turns into play that becomes the basis for identification of the limitations of playing and of the possibilities for its development. Instead of the development of play as a separate social area, we should be moving toward the development of the playing disposition “inside man” and, on that basis, toward establishing society as a playing community, where (potentially) each form of human activity is at the same time an expression of his playing being. Libertarian play attempts to eliminate the fragmented man that has been degraded by the requirements of a fragmented world, where a need for “synthesis” is reduced to the development of technical expressions that seek to impress with their lavish color, sound and form, and become a “compensation” for an increasingly impoverished humanness. It is a matter of superseding the world divided between “misfortune” and “happiness”, and a matter of “restoring” to man his powers from the alienated social spheres and of establishing the human Ego as an integral core of man’s relations toward the whole world. Along these lines, man should not seek to cultivate technique through art, but to cultivate man through the development of his universal creative being, thus abolishing technique as a mediation with nature that has been alienated from him, while art remains a separate social sphere. Instead of a relation between alienated social spheres, people should develop immediate relations as emancipated playing beings. The world as a work of art – this is the purpose of the struggle for the future.

Libertarian play rejects competition that is reduced to personal combat aimed at preserving and developing the ruling order, and advocates out-playing (similar to the “out-singing” common to traditional folk music) that, in essence, represents a struggle against the established order of destruction and for the development of man’s universal creative powers. In out-playing, man is inspired by others, suggesting that man’s movement toward another person is dominant in it – which is only possible because of man’s need for another individual. In this context Rousseau’s principle homo homini homo attains its true value. Out-playing requires striving to supersede what has already been achieved (for creation of a novum) through the development of interpersonal relations, and not through clashes between individuals based upon the Social Darwinist principle of bellum omnium contra omnes and the progressistic principle citius, altius, fortius. Its internal principles of domination and elimination have been abolished and replaced by the principles of tolerance and solidarity, and all that creates life is in opposition to whatever destroys life and restricts freedom. Instead of striving for record-breaking victory, out-playing calls for working to “enlarge” humanness and to create a new world. The key issue here is not how much, but by what means – where the starting point for defining humanness is not the repressive aesthetic stereotype that tends towards “perfection”, but man, himself. Development of the “quality” of play requires a development of rich individuality and of interpersonal relations. In this context, the skills are not manifested in relation to man as an independent (“objectivized”) force (reduced to a dehumanized and denaturalized “playing technique"), but as a specific (individual) human expression. Out-playing in the elements of play, where the playing of one individual becomes the inspiration for the playing of another (like in traditional folk dances, jazz, love play…), creates the possibility for anyone freely to express his own playing being. Spontaneity, creativity, imagination – are all expressed as a playing uniqueness, as an originally human uniqueness.

Instead of the martial contests that dominate sport, life-creating competition should be introduced based upon out-playing, where there are no winners and no losers, and where a physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually enriched man is being created. It is not the intention of out-playing to eliminate the “weak” and celebrate the “strong”, but to yield up a humanized man, an individual who experiences himself in his own way, developing his own individuality. Instead of escaping into himself, man should aspire to enrichment the contents of interpersonal relations. Life as play means that creation of interpersonal relations is the supreme manifestation of the playing disposition: man’s social being becomes the fulfillment of his playing being. The joy of creative fulfillment, attaining true respect through companionship (playing), is demonstrated in relation to the “ecstasy”, which is, in the existing world, the highest expression of slavery’s passing for an illusionary “spontaneity”. Physical and mental activities, without which no play can exist, require creative efforts: creativity determines the rhythm of play. It is aimed at establishing and developing interpersonal relations and represents the basis for attaining (self) respect. Play turns into midwifery – delivering humanness through creative effort, that is, through the most immediate form of man’s self-creation. The specificity of play as creativity is, in its being, based on man’s spontaneous, unconditioned and unmediated need for another human being. Genuine play is based on the authentic love developed in creative (libertarian) exaltation, rather than the petty bourgeois love that comes from a place of struggle for money and power, where, instead of human symbols, status symbols incarnating the prevailing values are dominant. The development of a need for man, a true belief in man, the opening of new spaces of the mind, the development of a creative personality – these are all impulses toward genuine play. Homo homini homo becomes the supreme challenge, rather than a mere vehicle for the fulfillment of pathological “needs” imposed by capitalist civilization. Man’s experience always returns to an option for the new, the more complete, the more beautiful… Human intimacy becomes the source of life’s warmth. Cohabitation has no temporal and spatial limitations, only a human dimension. Instead of being an escape from nothingness, play becomes an eruption of unrestrained humanness.

Through playing, man’s external-reality the world is disappearing and becoming man’s self-existence. The variety of forms in the exterior world is no longer a challenge but is being replaced by the richness of the interior and the interpersonal… The world is what man carries inside himself and what he can establish together with other people. Authentic creativity is the “transformation” of the outer world into an experience of human intensity, happiness… Instead of the world of misfortune as a negative basis for play, which is, therefore, an expression of a hopeless attempt at escaping society, the world of happy people will become the grounds and inspiration for the development of a rich playing personality. Genuine play is not merely man’s supreme intellectual relation with the world; it does not only represent man’s self-knowledge and self-expression; but also his self-creation, and is, as such, the most comprehensive form of experiencing the world. No more will man live in a world he refers to as something (im)posed and extra-human (alien). Instead, he will perceive the world as his own creation, in a word, as his manifested (and not “infested”) humanness. This is not a question of a simulated totalizing of the world by means of simple subjectivism, as is the case with romanticism, but of totalizing the libertarian (creative) activism from which is “produced” a society that is a community of free people. Playing becomes the supreme form of man’s “appropriation” of the world, and eventually represents the “appropriation” of himself without “residue”. Man will not achieve “unity with the world“ through labor, technology, play, art… – but will make the world: the creation of the world will become man’s self-creation; “unity with the world” will become the “unity“ of man with another human being. The development of man as a universal free creative being and the advancement of interpersonal relations will become the “measure” of the development of the world. Life, itself, will become the supreme symbol of humanness.

In the capitalist world, play is a vehicle for sucking the repressed working “masses” into the spiritual orbit of the bourgeoisie and, so, has a “classless” determination – clearly expressed in the well-known maxim “sport has nothing to do with politics". Libertarian play is not apolitical, but represents an inherent part of the political struggle against class society. According to Nietzsche, play is a vehicle for the creation of a “new aristocracy” in an exclusive organic (class) community. So at issue is the creation through play of an organic community of free creative personalities. The new society cannot be created solely by means of play but requires political struggle. However, there is no true political struggle without a concurrent struggle for the liberation and development of man’s playing being. Schiller’s fascination with play was directly encouraged by the French Revolution, which opened the gates to the new era. Likewise with Goethe, Klopstock, Fait… The struggle of the oppressed and the awakened and, in that context, the belief that man is capable of realizing his libertarian being, give meaning to play. Without the struggle for a free world, play remains an escapist and empty form.

In a humane society, every word will mirror the human. As the poet says:

“…but one day where heart was, Sun will stand and human speech will no longer have words which poem would deny, everyone shall write poetry, truth will exist in all the words, in the places where poem is the most beautiful, the one who started it first will retreat, leaving the poem to the others…”
(Branko Miljković)

Not only shall everyone write poetry, but everyone will sing poetry – each in his own way. Man will become a song-bird, and society will be a flock singing on its way to the future. Singing is the most authentic way for man to realize himself as a social being. It is genuine speech because it comes from the very essence of man as a human being. There is an old saying, “The one who sings does not mean evil!” Singing is the most authentic call to humanness. It is the highest form of a cultured nature and a cultivated sociability. Through singing, birds express their essence as natural beings; through singing, man expresses his nature as a cultivated, natural and human being. Just as tone is a sound cultivated in a human way (John Blacking), so is singing a tune cultivated in a human way. A singing speech is the most authentic way of producing a cultivated sociability and, as such, should become an integral part of pedagogical work with young people.

Interestingly, it did not occur to bourgeois anthropologists when considering man’s need and ability to sing, to proclaim man a song-bird, instead of a wolf – who does not sing, but howls, barks and growls. In ancient mythology, sirens gained control over mariners with their song, and Orpheus gives the world its true form and meaning through his singing, setting animals in motion and stopping the flow of rivers, bringing his beloved Eurydice back from the dead… Religious communities have long known the magic of singing. A prayer, when sung, penetrates deep into the human heart and becomes a way of rising above earthly life and spiritually connecting with what is beyond the phenomenal world. Even without words a song sends an intense message. It is the language of the emotions. Through singing, man emanates his humanness – it is the most authentic human way in which the aura of Walter Benjamin is created. Man’s emotional being, cultivated in aesthetics, enables man to grow his natural capabilities (vocal cords, nervous system…) and sing. Singing is the most authentic way of creating sociability. It abolishes all forms of man’s alienation and establishes an immediate relation between individuals at the level of their essence. An authentic song is the most efficient way to man’s purification and the most humane way to man’s cultivation.

The growing threat to the lives of more and more people is the impetus for humanity’s integrated fight against ecocidal capitalist barbarism. In the struggle for the preservation of life on Earth with the creation of a new world, humankind will be so united that it will obviate all forms of mediation that have kept man separated from his fellows and turned him into a “tool” of “superhuman” forces working for anti-human goals. Instead of moral principles, upon which a repressive normative consciousness is being developed and used for the preservation of the ruling order, man’s essential and existential need for another will become the motive for making interpersonal connections. Instead of living the life of the chosen, as with Nietzsche, the pinnacle of life will be to live as free, creative people; instead of the plutocracy as an organic community united by parasitism and by existential fear of the laboring many, the man’s overriding goal will be the formation of society as an organic community of free creative personalities; instead of having to hide the repressive normative confinement and the repressive aesthetic canons (by means of which the elitist class status is rationalized), man’s physical and spiritual need for another like being will predominate; instead of the child’s subordination to repressive normative stereotypes, that children be educated by allowing them to live as free creative personalities will become the basic pedagogical principle… It is an matter of superseding the “fragmentized” and attaining the “synthesized” man who represents a unity of Apollonian and Dionysian, that will not be, as with Nietzsche, a privilege of the “new nobility”, but a basic human right.

The Last Revolution (Part 22) << Previous • Part 23 • Next >> 6#6 Humanized relation to nature

The Last Revolution (Part 23) – Development of interpersonal relations

Ljubodrag Simonovic: The Last Revolution

The Last Revolution -- Chapter Twenty Three

Vision of a future – Development of interpersonal relations