"A judgment about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last, and the mind is at ease only at the moment when everyone is shouting at once and no one can hear a thing"
- Georges Bataille
About this Quote
Georges Bataille, a philosopher known for his unconventional and intriguing concepts, often challenges traditional viewpoints on social norms and human experiences. This quote is no exception, presuming an intricate meditation on reality, judgment, and communication.
The first part of the quote, "A judgment about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last," suggests a relativistic view of fact and judgment. Here, Bataille may be critiquing the idea that objective truths or absolute judgments about life are elusive and even impossible. Within this context, the "one who speaks last" is significant; it implies that the narrative or judgment that continues is not the most sincere however merely the most recent or forcefully asserted. This can be interpreted as a commentary on power characteristics in discourse, where the dominating 'fact' is typically identified by the last or loudest voice rather than by its intrinsic accuracy.
The second part of the quote, "and the mind is at ease only at the minute when everyone is shouting at as soon as and nobody can hear a thing," contrasts dramatically with the first. This declaration recommends a paradox where peace or ease of mind is discovered not in silence or clearness but in collective chaos. When "everybody is shouting at when," individual voices-- and their judgments-- are hushed, resulting in a cacophony where no single reality can control. This can be viewed as a metaphor for the democratization of truth, where the loss of a single reliable voice opens space for plurality and maybe a form of quietude in the middle of noise.
Taken together, Bataille might be challenging the desire for conclusive answers about life and suggesting that the search for an ultimate reality or judgment is both futile and unsettling. He appears to advocate for embracing the tumultuous, diverse, and typically contradictory nature of human interaction and understanding, finding an odd type of peace within that chaos. In this view, meaning is not discovered in the clearness of silence however in the dynamic interaction of several, frequently clashing voices.
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"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday"
"A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living"
