rechtboese.ch

Ziellosigkeit als Wert

by | Dec 25, 2015

It is admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at one an insult and a disenchantment for those who do.

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It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hill-tops, and when all is done find humanity indifferent to your achievement.

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A fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does not fall into one of your scholastic categories. An inquiry must be in some acknowledged direction, with a name to go by; or else you are not inquiring at all, only lounging; and the workhouse is too good for you. It is supposed that all knowledge is at the bottom of a well, or the far end of a telescope. Sainte-Beuve, as he grew older, came to regard all experience as a single great book, in which to study for a few years ere we go hence; and it seemed all one to him whether you should read Chapter xx., which is the differential calculus, or in Chapter xxxix., which is hearing the band play in the gardens. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils.

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Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupations. Bring these fellows into the country or set them aboard a ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; the do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk; the cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require to go to office, when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance with their eyes open.

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Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box empty, and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in Life.

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There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty to be happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor.

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When nature is “so careless of the single life,” why should we coddle ourselves into the fancy that our own is of exceptional importance?

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The ends for which they gave away their priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical or hurtful; the glory and riches they expect may never come, or may find them indifferent; and they and the world they inhabit are so inconsiderable that the mind freezes at the thought.

Aus einem phantastischen Aufsatz von Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) über die Pflicht, glücklich zu sein: An apology for idlers, hier im PDF zu finden.

Der Tod

by | Aug 10, 2015

Ach, es ist so dunkel in des Todes Kammer,
Tönt so traurig, wenn er sich bewegt
Und nun aufhebt seinen schweren Hammer
Und die Stunde schlägt.

Matthias Claudius, 1740-1815

Lied von den Gerichten

by | Jul 19, 2015

Im Tross der Räuberhorden
Ziehen die Gerichte
wenn der Unschuldige erschlagen ist
Sammeln sich die Richter über ihm und verdammen ihn.
Am Grab des Erschlagenen
Wird sein Recht erschlagen.

Die Sprüche des Gerichts
Fallen wie die Schatten der Schlagmesser
Ach, das Schlagmesser ist doch stark genug. Was braucht es
Als Begleitbrief das Urteil?

Sieh den Flug! Wohin fliegen die Aasgeier?
Die nahrungslose Wüste vertrieb sie:
Die Gerichtshöfe werden ihnen Nahrung geben.
Dorthin fliehen die Mörder. Die Verfolger
Sind dort in Sicherheit. Und dort
Verstecken die Diebe ihr Diebesgut, eingewickelt
In ein Papier, auf dem ein Gesetz steht.

Bertold Brecht

Dickens und das Recht

by | May 27, 2015

Eine hübsche Stelle aus Charles Dickens‘ (1812-1870) Roman Oliver Twist (1838; im Volltext hier) zum Recht.

“It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it,” urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round, to ascertain that his partner had left the room.

That is no excuse,” returned Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and, indeed, are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”

Tja, tja, das für die Wirklichkeit blinde Recht. Vieles hat sich da nicht verändert, ausser die Paarbeziehungen selbst natürlich.

Gemeinschaft und der Tod

by | May 25, 2015

Es gab also Menschen ausser ihm, die daran laborierten zu sterben und es wussten. Natürlich hatte er das schon vorher geahnt, aber es war ihm nicht bewusst geworden, er sah solche einfach nicht. Das ist ja der Kernpunkt der sozialen Frage. Es existierten diese Elenden, diese hungrigen Massen, diese leiblich oder geistig Unterernährten, Arbeiter, heimatlose Bauern, Verbrecher oder sonstige wahrscheinlich minderwertige Existenzen, und warum sollten sie nicht minderwertig sein, sie krepierten ohnedies vielleicht noch schneller; sie existierten, diese Elenden, in ihrem schamlosen, breiten Elend, gewiss, man wusste das, sie existierten, aber man sah sie nicht, wollte sie nicht sehen, man sah weg, kurz, man sass ihnen nicht gegenüber in der gleichen Lage wie sie.
Er sass ihr gegenüber, ganz nah. Er musste sterben. Sie musste sterben. Er wusste es. Sie wusste es. Aber hatter er nicht einen Trost mehr, da er jetzt, eben in ihr, den Kameraden seines Elends sah? Freilich hätte er bedenken sollen, dass letzten Endes alle Menschen seine Kameraden seien. Alle lebten. Alle mussten sterben. Alle wussten es.

H. Kesten, Vergebliche Flucht, 1926