Passage, April 2010, Kostas Axelos


 As a very small tribute, Radio Art dedicates its Passage for the month April to one of the greatest Greek philosophers, Kostas Axelos, who recently left us behind.

"Thursday 11 February 2010, cemetery of Montparnasse in Paris, a crowd of friends say goodbye to him. The reading of the important part of the ancient Greek tragedy Antigone, where the great accomplishments of man are mentioned and the fact that he only death cannot escape, while music of Mozart playing and escorting him as he goes down into the earth..."

Kostas Axelos had a burning passion for quest and wondering. He was interested in "poetry that escapes from all limits and reaches an upmost point, where it crushes and crushes its poet too", as he had mentioned in the interview that follows.

We dedicate to him a dance of Maria Pages that brings with it all these elements and is depicted on the deep blue of the photographs of the banner of Radio Art carrying the infeasible hope of the immaterial fellowship to his long journey… to the planets… from where he probably took the light for his planetary thinking

The last interview of Kostas Axelos in Greece was given to the poet-writer Mr. George Douatzis and was published to the magazine of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini.

We deeply thank Mr. George Douatzis for sending us this important interview that is sited below.

We also site below some short abstracts from Kostas Axelos' thinking and a short comment of the journalist-writer Kostas Katsoularis regarding his work.


Lambros Mitropoulos

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“Until now the world fell under an Absoluteness, Nature, God, Man (his will and his thought). These three absolute meanings are already dead or are at the phase of their end. In their places we have to face the world itself, which is the sum of all the toys that appear to us and with which we play. Man is the great co-player of the world’s game, but man is not only a player, but also the game itself.” 

“To try to stand up and keep standing up as upright as we can, in a stand of philosophical alertness, when everything falls down, crawls and zeros.” “Not to forget that nature, stronger than man, science and technique, unlimited but not necessarily infinite, has its limits in tolerance and endurance.”

“To absorb the course of the world history, where all ideologies have gone broke, although some of them may have partly succeeded and to oppose against the prevailing tricky politics a more soothing affiliation and resistance that will not be based on fraud and deception, on profiteering and exploitation.”

“By planetary thought I mean a thought that takes the baton from the European and modern thought and that spreads over the whole globe, namely planet earth. The planetary thought, and that is its modernity, is no more a thought of truth but a thought of wondering. Since in the Greek language by planet is meant the star of delusion, the fate of our own wondering star is to take a path where all truths appear as triumphal forms of wondering.” 

Kostas Axelos

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“Axelos’ work is singular, lonely and volitionally “marginal”, although translated in sixteen languages, consisting of 24 books and a lot of other texts, it is impossible to summarize it in a few phrases, on the one side due to its magnitude and on the other side mainly due to its foundation outside the known ideological and philosophical systems. He defined himself as a “thinker” or as a “post-philosopher”, “out of the circuits or the opposite circuits, who is not trying to establish schools and to have followers”, believing that philosophy itself is outrun and devitalized – as each closed system of thought that seeks for the one and only “truth”. Irakleitos, Nietzsche, Marx and Freud, the great romantic poets Rempo and Heiderlin, Dostoyevsky, were steady fellow travelers to his thinking, which tends through time to set out poetic and audacious questions, instead of seeking answers.”
 

Kostas Katsoularis

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The end of ideologies?

The generalized ideologies die. After these, a delusional way of life will prevail for a long time.

What will be the characteristics of this way of life?

This way of life has elements of everything. A bit of liberalism, socialism, Christianity, Hebraism, elements of proletariat, of the urban way of life, of philosophies, but always a confusing mix of everything, without that being thinking. It makes people think that they are actually thinking.

Can man go forward this way?

Technique has gone forward with great speed, with gigantic steps. But man…I doubt it.

Can you foresee the world of tomorrow?

The world of tomorrow is an industrialized, massive, nihilistic, electronic and “technique-lised” civilization, which will even “technique-lise” imagination. Is there something beyond technique? Who prevails over technique? And to this question I cannot answer. 

Does technique prevail over everything?

It seems that today technique is the prevailing element. There is even a technique of fantasies. Cinema, our own life is a form of technique. It reminds of what students often say, “I made love” using the word “make”, as if they made a stool like carpenters...

If philosophy is at its end, then what?

If our time is at a low level, philosophy is also living its end. After that, there is place for open poetic thought.

Your work is imbued from poetry.

Undoubtedly. Apart from the poetry of man in a lyric sense, there is also the poetic side of the world, which is stronger. And the human poetry is kind of a conclusion of it. I am interested in "poetry that escapes from all limits and reaches an upmost point, where it crushes and crushes its poet too"

Do you identify poetry and philosophy?

At the top of a play poetry meets thoughtfulness. The great thinkers had at the same time a great poetic opening. The human poetry complies with and can communicate with the poetic side of the world (of the place-time Opening).

What is God?

The route of the world has made it possible for a God to appear. I often say that God is a form and a mask of the world.

Can a thinker outrun himself?

A modern man that has a complete way of thinking has no other choice than to say “yes” and “no” to the things that happen and especially to technique.

What is reason for you?

Reason was –in ancient Greece- the language and the thinking of the man and of the world. Today I would rather talk for thinking, since we do not talk anymore for the reason of the world.

What keeps your thinking alive?

The quest in life and in thinking, their convergence and the inability of total consequence.

Is the consequence in life with the work of a thinker a quality criterion for you?

I would hesitantly say that it should be. But we see that great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle stupidly thought that slaves were slaves from their nature. Closer to us stands Heidegger and his so questionable relationship with Nazism. Consequence is a demand, that I find mostly to the great poets like Heiderlin and Rempo.

What is your hope and your hopelessness?

Hope and hopelessness are relative, narrow meanings. They are and they stay psychological meanings and so limited.

Everything of a psychological meaning, limits?

Psychological powers give thought a push. But when the psychic becomes psychological, this is an obstacle. For example, narcissism is the zenith of “psychologism”, it is something that keeps back and reduces everything. 

Haven’t there been any times that you have felt narcissism, vanity…

I find them unworthy, but necessary. They too, keep the wholeness together and nobody can escape history with clean hands. If somebody wants to keep his hand totally clean, he will have no hands. Man takes part in this denudation, he is never outside of what is happening.

How do you receive recognition?

With satisfaction undoubtedly and I would be lying if I said that I am indifferent, even though its motives do not always satisfy me. I would like for my new book to be sold, discussed about, liked. But the anxiety is to be found at where the next step will be. 

Why do you publish books?

I think that the books are those that impose on me.

If you had left them as manuscripts in your drawer?

Man is not an isolated being. He is not independent; he is an element of the world. Each thing wants to be said, shown. And mediocrity and stupidity. That’s why they also have their place.

Guilt?

I am not a man of guilt. I would tell you that I am mostly moved by the ancient Greek mythology than by the biblical-Christian religion.

The thinker’s motivation?

The quest and the exploration are the thinker’s constant motivation, while the situation of not thinking is to be met at times. The amity for friendship is replaced by the amity for thinking.

What does philosophy serves today?

Philosophy cannot serve anything and anyone. Today, as a planetary thought it can put everything under question and to give enigmatical answers.

What do you discover when “overcoming the boundaries of the private world”?

The game beyond our private lives, which keeps us tight together.

What would deaden our thoughts?

The absence of the game.

The game…

Let us first of all set a question, how does the world unravel? I wouldn’t say what the world is, because then we turn it into something static. Some say it is an outcome of an idea, others an outcome of material, others say a fantasy of man. All these are meanings that we give, when we are outside of the world, while the world itself unravels without meaning, without whys, like a game.

Do you have an accurate feeling to what happens at the time of creation?

Creation and its path are much stronger than what we call conscience.

What is time?

A very main subject of thinking that mobilizes and crashes each thought.

Where is the tragedy of the modern man to be found?

The situation of the modern man is not so tragic (the connection with the gods is missing), in comparison with the situation crashed by fate, which is not fate.

You say “we should struggle to save the dream since we cannot realize it”…

We are all moved also by diffused dreams. The dreams are openings of our life. We have still to learn a lot of things from our dreams.

Their realization…

May be the meaning of realization will also be shuttered. May be at some point we realize that “realize” means at the same time crushing.

Does human thought works beyond men?

Of course. Along with men, not alone with men, but with the world.

Why does man suffer?

Because he is not whole. He is a part of the wholeness.

Could there be another way?

No, it could not, but he is drowning in this limitation. That he cannot at the same time be here and there…

What is love?

The quest that lies to meeting and not meeting the other.

What is female for you?

The half part of the world. It is something very dominant, not at a level of distinction between sexes, man, woman. It is like two powers in the world. The relation to the female is one of the points of meeting of the people with each other and with the world and at the same time of detachment. The absolute meeting of male and female can never take place.

Has the female played a role in your life and work?

A great role. But I do not know very well where and how.

Death?

It runs all life through; it is its final end and maintains the traces of life of the deceased, while those will also at some point disappear.

Are you afraid of death?

For me there is no fear of death, without this meaning that I would like to die tomorrow. Death is the best friend and the worst enemy because it puts an end to the adventure that is called life. But it’s also the one that gives meaning to everything.

Most of the people are scared.

Man is afraid of life more than he fears death. I think that men are afraid of the life that is leading to the end.

Which is your biggest fear?

The dry out of the soul and thinking.

How can fear be bitten?

By reconciling with it.

The meaning of creation for you?

I would rather talk of a production, a production that does not obey to economism, but it unravels in a poetic way.

What are the three things that we have to believe in?

Belief is a religious thing. With poetry and thinking man can open himself to nature, to technique and to the wondering game on a time-expired planet.

From where should the modern man grab himself on in order for him to exist?

He cannot grab himself from anything. It is kind of impossible for him to open himself to the scrappy whole.

With what weapons?

Without weapons. And using all weapons. The opening is not something mysterious. Let’s take for example a group of friends on the beach. Some of them take pictures of the other. They want to make them familiar to them, to file them. Others take pictures of the sea; they want to make it stand still. Others say, how wonderful it is, watch, watch, how wonderfully the waves break on the beach. All these are forms of the place, time standing still and not opening to the space-time. Opening would be for them to swim, to be happy, to live without this constant watch, watch…

Thinking contains feeling…

There is a feeling of great pride, but at the same time crushing as well. In front of the great philosophers of all centuries, what should I have done? Man either as a small man or as a man trying to add something to this world, he feels himself as a broken being. Man is like a broken toy.

About the system of values that you build?

I do not build a system of values. I try to take a step. And this will pass. It is not an end in itself. You know that you have left something behind, even though it has gone under vast changes.

An illusion of immortality?

If someone takes this as an illusion of immortality, he must know that in the end something else will happen.

From everything you say, I have a bitter feeling for the world.

Bitter, since we hold the bitterness of thousands of years. Because we have been taught that man should be the notional of Plato, the good of Christianity, the good bourgeois and then the good proletarian, today the good producer… Humanity has undergone sermons for thousands of years that limit it even more.

Is there a crisis today?

There is a crisis of civilization, crisis in the psychic of men, which is expressed in the whole world.

Why did the young read Marx and Nietzsche at the same time?

Because both of them criticize without pity the present time. Marx condemns the detachment of the man from himself in the capitalistic system. Nietzsche sees in the system that we live in an endless nihilism. But both of them want to make a salvation step. Marx towards the total communism and Nietzsche to the superhuman. Until now I do not of a philosopher who did not want to give an opening of salvation.

I know of one.

Who?

You
…(laughter)

Is the system stronger than men?

While the system cannot exist without men, it is stronger than weak men and tired societies that do not succeed in discovering its secret.

What is the civilization of today?

Our time is the time of the mythological-technological civilization that is hiding its deeper motive.

With what tools could we “humanize” ourselves?

With the tools we are walking towards (where?), but they do not solve the basic problem of the existence of humanity, which is trapped in the huge power that comes from the meeting of nature with technique.

The greatest joy?

The encounters –instant and important- with expressions of nature, the power of love and friendship that contains love, the thoughts that come to us.

The greatest vision?

The vision of meeting of the thinking and of the world and the admitting of the evanescent. The admitting of revealing and at the same time of retiring, as serenely as possible.

Do you feel that you have to prove something?

From adolescence I always had the impression that I had to say what I saw.

Have you set yourself to thinking?

I have set myself to a cause, for which I am the middle and the intermediate to the world.

Is the depending on others a weakness?

We are mutually depending on others. Depending itself though creates some gaps. Depending and not depending, have the element of necessity, which is at the same time positive and negative.

Self-dependence?

Self-dependence cannot exist at any level.

What is the picture that you have of yourself?

I honestly do not have a cohesive picture of myself. When I know that thought is important, then I think that this is probably something passing, I say that I try to dare to think, while the majority of modern people do not think…I would say that the picture of myself is prismatic, where all colors constantly change, like the kaleidoscope.

Modern Greece?

This is a problem. Not East, not West, not Europe, not Asia. The country is walking towards the quest of a unity, which cannot be easily found. Right and Left they are worn out and a path emerges.

How will the Greek politicians discover the “true politics”?

The Greek politicians will have to get over the narrow tricky politics. Is that possible?

Is Democracy attainable?

Democracy remains an utopia, meaning that it has no place to realize itself. Its own meaning eludes us.

What has Greece given you?

A lively urge. The relation with its elements, the sea, the wind, the earth, the fire.

What has Greece taken from you?

I never had the prejudice, in order for Greece to take it from me.

What are your emotions by the honors made for you by the Greek universities?

Pleasantly. I would rather have a more lively conversation, thoughtful and productive with the professors.

Have you thought that on the one side they may pay a tribute to you and on the other side not to have read your books, texts?

Many things do not need to have been read. They may penetrate the atmosphere.

You contradict the curse of Greeks not to acknowledge living creators.

In Greece there is a self pity and difficulty if a recognition from abroad has not preceded. Abroad things are more politically institutionalized. But there are still things waiting for their future.

Do you believe that you have been rewarded?

And yes and no. But if the recognition was complete, that would mean that it would flatten the already said.

Works of art are estimated in money. Thinking?

There is a personal connection with the work of art. Thinking has a connection with the whole. A work can be estimated.

The whole?

Consumerism?

The need for obtaining has prevailed. Property is the greatest misfortune cast on humanity.

What would you say to a young philosopher?

To open himself into thinking, into texts and into the movement of thinking, into the poetry that penetrates each art and to live and to say what encourages him and what crashes him individually and socially.

What would you say to a teenager?

To keep a heartbeat, as far as this is possible, for the so called mature age.