My readings of Gustave Thibon (1903-2001) are joyful, I enjoy them. They leave me with a well of good knowledge. Some of his books are composed of short reflections, a kind of extensive aphorisms – if you’ll excuse the comparison -, a type of writing in which I feel comfortable, conducive to continually awakening the intellect (for example Balance and harmony, A blind gaze towards the light, Daily bread). Recently, Men of the Eternal: Conferences 1945-1980 (Rialp, 2024 -Kindle edition-) has been published. The whole book is an anthropological vision of what is permanent in the personal being and what is changeable in human doing. His proposal can be summarized in these terms: “Neither conservatives who block the future nor progressives who deny the past: we must be, above all, men of the eternal, men who renew the best of the past through an alert and active fidelity, always challenged and resurgent”.
What is typical of Thibon is the incarnation of thought in reality, in what is earthly and spiritual. “Facere veritatem (do the truth). This simple word from the Gospel – says Thibon – gives us the key to the relationship between the ideal and the real: “Do the truth”, adhere to it, not only with thought but also with action, and bear witness to it with all our being. ”. Abstractions contribute little when they become contaminated with unrealism, far from contact with their object. Having a body, I often repeat, is not superfluous. A virtual greeting and its countless emojis do not replace a loving or fervent hug, or a face-to-face coffee. The primacy of the brain (intellectualism) or the heart (emotivism), when one and the other are excluded, usually leads to unrealism.
The great Lima that welcomes us, so full of traffic jams and people driving from one side to the other; with a population of millions of inhabitants and long, very long routes, it lends itself to nostalgia for the small. In the face of the disproportionately large, one yearns – as Thibon does – for what is close, the green spaces, the warmth of home, what is healthy and artisanal. Being back in contact with others and reconciled with the environment is a desire that comes from the depths of the soul. And our author is right when he advocates “re-entering into contact with the two great realities with which no artifice interferes: nature, the work of God, and God himself. To pagan realism, which links us to creation, we must add Christian realism, which unites us to the Creator. Open eyes, then, do not let the asphalt drown nature in its aromas, flavors and textures; nor let the hurry and technique impoverish the spirit.
Homo faber requires Homo sapiens so that the creations of technology do not roboticist the warmth of interpersonal relationships. The wise person “is not the one who solves—or thinks he solves—the problems, but the one who digs into them and, by digging, sees the infinite mystery they contain.” He has the finesse of spirit to dig with patience in order to clear the rubble that hides the mystery of what is real. Having the ability to think to find the causes of problems and, likewise, the ability to meditate to patiently contemplate reality. Think about the flashes that manifests, stopping at the truth revealed. Effort to access the deepest layers of reality. Immersion to be amazed at the personal intimacy that our neighbors show us.
“No conquest of the past is definitive,” says Thibon, no promise of the future is certain: “We can constantly lose everything here on earth, and it is precisely from this uncertainty that we draw our courage and our hope.” Each generation not only receives a material and moral heritage from those who preceded it, it must also return to value it. There are achievements and failures in the path of humanity. Successes come, but they are not usually definitive. The fragility of our creations is a reality. And whoever says fragility of works, also thinks about the vulnerability of human existence.
Stay stuck in longing, or hurriedly throw yourself into the winds of progress? Thibon proposes to overcome this dilemma by elevation and says: “the difference between conservatism and progressivism is rather like that between calm and storm: the calm does not allow the ship to move forward, but the storm makes it shipwreck or spin in circles,” which is not better. This is my conclusion: the current situation in the world clearly shows us the urgent need to return to the basis of civilization. It is no coincidence that the crisis of culture is accompanied by a parallel crisis of religious faith. A crisis manifested in ethical deterioration, observable in both hemispheres, for whose healing neither politics nor economics have the remedies. Our time, more than techniques and systems, asks for more spirit and eternity, depth and transcendence.
