Nous voulons des paradigmes d’humanité. Et nous passons notre temps à chercher la faille, le défaut, le mot de travers.
Mais nos génies sont des gens torturés. On fait un film sur Paul Gauguin, mais le peintre se tapait des adolescentes. C’est scandaleux et surtout pédophile, et c’est sa vie. Rééditer Louis-Ferdinand Céline et ses brûlots antisémites ? Pour certains, ça ne passe pas. Il a pourtant écrit ces pamphlets. Nous lisons Louis Althusser, qui a étranglé sa femme pour ne pas qu’elle le quitte. Claude Sarraute pointe fort bien nos faiblesses* : c’était un des grands esprits de son temps, il a plaidé la folie, et sa victime mérite à peine trois lignes.
We want saints, people we can admire. Brilliant people, but not people suffering of vices we don't even understand, crippled with contradictions and fears. We want superheroes we can honour, inspiring and perfect people.
We want them paradigmatic in their humanity. And we scratch all the time to find the flaw, the problem, the wrong word.
But our brilliant people are also tortured minds. Someone makes a movie on Gauguin's life, but the painter liked to sleep with teenagers. It's a scandal, it's pedophilia and it's his life. Re-publish Louis-Ferdinand Céline and his antisemitic papers? Some people don't agree. But he wrote those lampoons. We read Louis Althusser, who killed his wife so as she wouldn't break up with him. Claude Sarraute points our weaknesses*: he was one of our genius in his time, he argued on insanity, and his victime doesn't deserve more than three lines.
*« Nous, dans les médias, dès qu'on voit un nom prestigieux mêlé à un procès juteux, Althusser, Thibaut d'Orléans, on en fait tout un plat. La victime ? Elle ne mérite pas trois lignes. La vedette, c'est le coupable. »
We want saints, people we can admire. Brilliant people, but not people suffering of vices we don't even understand, crippled with contradictions and fears. We want superheroes we can honour, inspiring and perfect people.
We want them paradigmatic in their humanity. And we scratch all the time to find the flaw, the problem, the wrong word.
But our brilliant people are also tortured minds. Someone makes a movie on Gauguin's life, but the painter liked to sleep with teenagers. It's a scandal, it's pedophilia and it's his life. Re-publish Louis-Ferdinand Céline and his antisemitic papers? Some people don't agree. But he wrote those lampoons. We read Louis Althusser, who killed his wife so as she wouldn't break up with him. Claude Sarraute points our weaknesses*: he was one of our genius in his time, he argued on insanity, and his victime doesn't deserve more than three lines.
*« Nous, dans les médias, dès qu'on voit un nom prestigieux mêlé à un procès juteux, Althusser, Thibaut d'Orléans, on en fait tout un plat. La victime ? Elle ne mérite pas trois lignes. La vedette, c'est le coupable. »
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