"Resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is"
About this Quote
Durrenmatt’s line lands like a slap at the romance of defiance. “Resistance at all cost” is the phrase that usually earns medals in our political mythology; he yanks it down to earth by calling it “the most senseless act.” The provocation isn’t anti-courage so much as anti-posture: he’s targeting the kind of resistance that treats suffering as proof of virtue, as if the purity of refusal matters more than the outcome. In that sense, he’s not arguing for submission; he’s arguing for intelligence.
The subtext is brutally Swiss and postwar: the 20th century taught that moral certainty doesn’t guarantee moral results. Durrenmatt, who built his career around tragicomedy and the ways institutions turn people into props, distrusts narratives where the “good” side can redeem itself through sacrifice alone. “At all cost” is the tell. It’s the language of absolutism, the same logic that powers fanaticism and the bureaucratic machine: once the cost is irrelevant, human beings become expendable tokens in a moral drama.
Contextually, this sits inside his broader skepticism about heroism in a world governed by systems, chance, and unintended consequences. His characters often do the “right” thing and still lose, not because justice is a lie, but because reality is messy and the stage is rigged. The intent, then, is to puncture the cinematic fantasy that resistance is inherently noble regardless of strategy. He’s insisting that ethics without prudence is just another kind of vanity - and vanity, in politics, is a body count.
The subtext is brutally Swiss and postwar: the 20th century taught that moral certainty doesn’t guarantee moral results. Durrenmatt, who built his career around tragicomedy and the ways institutions turn people into props, distrusts narratives where the “good” side can redeem itself through sacrifice alone. “At all cost” is the tell. It’s the language of absolutism, the same logic that powers fanaticism and the bureaucratic machine: once the cost is irrelevant, human beings become expendable tokens in a moral drama.
Contextually, this sits inside his broader skepticism about heroism in a world governed by systems, chance, and unintended consequences. His characters often do the “right” thing and still lose, not because justice is a lie, but because reality is messy and the stage is rigged. The intent, then, is to puncture the cinematic fantasy that resistance is inherently noble regardless of strategy. He’s insisting that ethics without prudence is just another kind of vanity - and vanity, in politics, is a body count.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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