Andrei Cornea: The crew of the shipwreck

People love the beautiful stories we call myths. It's like having a beautiful daydream or being wide awake. It's refreshing, a giver of hope in troubled times. It compensates for the fear they feel, the worry that weighs on them, the disdain with which they are treated by others, the resentments that are awakened; moreover, it brings them together: each story reinvents the community. That is why, even for the most skeptical, the sharpest, the subtlest among them, it is sometimes hard to refuse to surrender to the daydream, especially if they have a good Storyteller. Or, more precisely, at first they send anchors into reality that they believe to be solid: they believe and do not believe; they believe just a little, maybe a quarter: "I know it can't be, but still, maybe just a little...". Then, gradually, the percentage increases to half, then to three-quarters; the anchors break one after another; oh, how pleasant is the feeling of liberation, like when a vessel prepares to take off into the wide and bright sea, freed from everything that kept it moored to the dark shore! And so, man begins to forget that he was only dreaming, or, let’s say, that he only had a working hypothesis.

Now enters the Orator: there are outbursts against those who only believe superficially, reproaches that their disbelief is out of place, that it could summon failure. He invents arguments based on analogy and models. How could he not? Reason, having become the Apostle's instrument, is able to invent anything to support the utopia, which, once believed, becomes for the believer the reality of existence. Moreover, a new member of the crew, the Historian, tells them that humanity could not advance without myths, showing them that throughout the ages of the past, dreams and utopia have always mobilized action.

Now it is the turn of the Moralist: he invokes his own conversion to convince the rest of the skeptics among us that we are obliged to accept the stories in the name of the values that the Great Man at their center embodies. Of course, these are metaphors for the advice to "put aside" the consequences, adhering to a supposedly pure and bright ethics of conviction. Ultimately, it is not long before the inversion occurs: expelling the critical eye from within, the believer considers himself a realist, while his critic ends up in quotes, so to speak: he has become "realistic". The vessel – look – has set sail. At least does it have an authentic compass, a functional one?

Unfortunately, no. Because, in such cases, the simple believer is not the only obstacle, but the central character, the "Great Man". He tends to become infected with his own mythology, especially since there are enough around him who serve it, and the people of the believers amplify it. He is told that things are going unexpectedly well, that the chances of his vessel crossing the Ocean are skyrocketing. He is provided with arguments – incomplete, however. If he still has doubts, the Sycophant intervenes, assuring him immediately that the inconvenient information is produced by the terrifying enemies, that the critical evaluations are malicious gossip. Gradually, he comes to believe only in what the Courtier tells him is favorable. Worse: the absurdity of some information presented to him as real from multiple sources no longer surprises him. The damage is done, the intoxication has reached its peak, the critical eye has completely closed. In the past, around any Messiah, there would be a prophet predicting. Now, they are called analysts and sociologists. But replacing ecstatic visions with the latest figures from the Expert, adapted to the story, does not change the essence of foolishness.

...The vessel is now in the open sea; soon it drifts and sometimes even sinks – which was to be expected. But who is to blame? Ah, not the lack of good sailors, the crooked helm, or the lack of supplies! No, to blame is that odious "realist" – the Sophist assures all survivors – he discouraged the crew! He prevented more dreamers from boarding. He interrupted the believers' daydream. He starved. He unraveled the story. He kept "the eyes open" when it was not the case...

And, to be fair, concludes the saintly Philosopher, the shipwreck was not actually an authentic failure, but a great "moral victory"!

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