"Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end"
About this Quote
Capek writes like someone watching the future arrive early - and hating what he sees. The sentence opens with a grim accounting: melancholy hasn’t merely happened, it has “devolved upon mankind,” a passive construction that makes suffering feel systemic, almost bureaucratic, as if despair is an inheritance passed down by history itself. Then he snaps the mood into moral clarity: it’s “detestable” that “might will triumph.” Not tragic, not regrettable - detestable. Capek refuses the comforting posture of resignation.
The subtext is a rejection of the era’s loudest seductions: the idea that force is efficiency, that cruelty is realism, that history rewards the strong so you may as well join them. Writing in interwar Central Europe, with fascism metastasizing and democracy looking fragile, Capek (best known for coining “robot”) understood that modern power doesn’t just conquer bodies; it colonizes language. “Might” sells itself as inevitability, and inevitability is the propaganda of the powerful.
What makes the line work is its tension between despair and defiance. Capek concedes the mood - the world is heavy, humans are tired - but he refuses to let that fatigue become complicity. The phrase “in the end” is doing dark magic: it gestures toward a story people tell themselves, that the arc bends toward dominance, that morality is a quaint sidebar. Capek’s intent is to interrupt that story. He’s warning that when we treat violence as the final author of history, we’re not predicting the outcome; we’re rehearsing our surrender.
The subtext is a rejection of the era’s loudest seductions: the idea that force is efficiency, that cruelty is realism, that history rewards the strong so you may as well join them. Writing in interwar Central Europe, with fascism metastasizing and democracy looking fragile, Capek (best known for coining “robot”) understood that modern power doesn’t just conquer bodies; it colonizes language. “Might” sells itself as inevitability, and inevitability is the propaganda of the powerful.
What makes the line work is its tension between despair and defiance. Capek concedes the mood - the world is heavy, humans are tired - but he refuses to let that fatigue become complicity. The phrase “in the end” is doing dark magic: it gestures toward a story people tell themselves, that the arc bends toward dominance, that morality is a quaint sidebar. Capek’s intent is to interrupt that story. He’s warning that when we treat violence as the final author of history, we’re not predicting the outcome; we’re rehearsing our surrender.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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