the free man

Has just arrived from the other side of the world (thanks, Papa!), and I can hardly wait to bury myself in it.

An eye-opener, a friend tells me, reminding us how far, far removed from any form of freedom we are - and how sadly repressed. Too high a price for 'civilization'?...



From the blurb (original Portuguese version here):

Men are what they are by their nature. While one might say this is too vague a definition, it actually contains a precise, raw and true meaning. Nature is, as the English term indicates, drive, impulse, compulsion and the omnipotence of desire, what stems from that which is before reflection and judgement, what is and exists as necessity - to breathe, to eat, to have sex, and sometimes to be aggressive. Always, everywhere, all this is necessary as the condition of life, and all this is desired, and it is desired because it is good, because it quenches necessity, and quenching necessity gives pleasure. And what the Bororo teach us is precisely this: the more man is capable of overcoming nature, the more he is capable of recognizing himself as part of it.


Filipe Verde, O Homem Livre: Mito, Moral e Carácter numa Sociedade Ameríndia (Coimbra: Angelus Novus, 2009). [The Free Man: Myth, Morals and Character in an Amerindian Society; my translation]