Bernard Gast

The inhuman or war within Man Bernard Gast

The inhuman or war within Man
Bernard GASTpour
I Gallery Editions Collection Essays (Philosophy & Aesthetics)

Translated from French by Raphaël Loison

"Bernard Gast sheds new light on the conflict experienced by everyone and that contemporary society seems to be replaying more and more" (John Peter Brown, psychiatrist-psychoanalyst).

To address the inhuman in Man, this essay may be situated at the crossroad of Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and Art.

Man is in perpetual war between good and evil. An intimate and moral rupture divides the individual into two contrary tendencies.

But this divorce is also part of the Society and the social balance is constantly proving precarious.

Art also knows this dualism that artists reveal with relevance. They often offer a sublime synthesis to our ambivalence.

This study discovers it with works by Francisco Goya, Robert Musil and Pablo Picasso.

The introduction:
"Human, all too human, (...) is the commemorative monument of a crisis (...) where you see ideal things, I do see... human things, alas! All too human! (...) It seems that a certain aristocratic tasting 'intellectualism' endeavors constantly to overcome a stream of passion that rumbles underneath (1).
At once Nietzsche's "too human" seems to suggest some non human. Three words - inhuman in Man - three keys linked together and... the preposition 'in', in the center, that points to some inhuman inside and an internal duality. As split by a schism, Man is in a perpetual war between Good and Evil. This intimate and moral breach parts him in two opposite inclinations. This "affective ambivalence" (2) (2 bis) emerges from the pair human-inhuman that cuts across him eternally in the form of a conflict of desire. What does this mean?... (Part 1).
Private to each individual, this divorce reveals itself within the social balance which, thereupon, proves to be always precarious. Does not a fatherless society appear today, threatened by the death drive while it calls for life? (Part 2).
Art also includes this human dualism: for example, Francisco Goya, Robert Musil and Pablo Picasso unravel it pertinently. Some works actually provide a sublime synthesis of our ambivalence (Part 3).
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