How does man alienate himself?

Man can be tyrannical to his own self. “Is everybody looking at me?”; “Do I look like a man that can be made to suffer?”. Beckett’s character Pozzo in the first act of his play Waiting for Godot (1953), seems to be continuously dependent of the other’s look, their attention to him. That’s the way he has understood Nietzsche’s advice of “Giving style” to one’s character, trying to be satisfied with himself alone, with his proper art and poetry.  Putting his person at the center of his concern, he is being tyrannical not only to himself but also to others. Lucky, not a horse, neither a “pig“, arrives on the stage with a rope around his neck. And our Pozzo shouts violently on him, ordering him  to put away his coat, to bring his bag and his basket so that he can delights himself at a leisurely pace with his piece of chicken. What’s more, he cannot conceive his supposed happiness as separated from the others’ misery. “The more people I meet, the happier I become. From the meanest creature one departs wiser, richer, more conscious of one’s blessings”. And this forms a vicious circle in which Pozzo cannot bear his solitude and domineers others. He therefore become’s his slave’s slave for he seems to be anxious with the idea that Lucky leaves him.

                Normalization of Evil is part of this movement, Pozzo alienating his consciousness and Vladimir and Estragon getting accustomed to the treatment he gives to Lucky, to the extent of shouting themselves on this man.

But both Beckett and Nietzsche, in his book “The Gay Science” (1882), let their hand denounce an even greater alienation the humankind suffers. For them, it seems the idea one has of God finishes life off piece by piece. We can first interpret Vladimir and Estragon’s infantile wait of Godot as the Christian absurd wait for the return of Jesus at the end of time which has made and makes so much people living on an illusionary hope. Illusionary life.

Nietzsche also throws out the thinking that a God could ever exists, castrating life, making man pronounce interdictions to his self consciousness. Vladimir and Estragon riddled with guilt with the idea of having some sexual relation or even eating a carrot would be for the philosopher the perfect illustration that “[…] an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of church is hostile to life”.

But even more violent and concrete is this image of Lucky is living, or dying, in the illusion he is nothing without his master. He gives more efforts on serving him; he literally dehumanizes himself so that Pozzo decides not to sell him at the fair, or the hell. For nothing would Lucky let Estragon wipe his eyes and open them. Nietzsche considers it as a dark proof of the weakness of man’s will.

 But what if true faith in God was not what described before? How could it save man from alienation? Is that truly possible? The story of Abraham and Isaac, beyond all what we could think in a first reflex, emblematic of these questions. Let’s quote the Bible: ““The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said (climbing the Moriah Mont with his father), “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”” Genesis 22: 7-8. After the angel had stopped the father’s hand, this last caught sight of a ram and burned it in sacrifice. What did God’s meant be this? To try understanding it we can have a look at other parts of the Bible. Later, the symbol of the lamb comes back when the Hebrew are in Egypt, trying to release from Pharaoh’s slavery. One night, they put the blood of a lamb on their doors to prevent home from the curse. . And do you know what John the Baptist said when seeing Jesus coming to him? "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29. Jesus by dying on the cross has taken my sin on Him; He Has suffered the most horrible psychological and physical torture by love for me, in order to give me Eternal Life. Freely. Then, there’s no more alienation, there’s no more shaming coming to my heart, but an immense, true, discrete, peaceful joy: He loves me in spite of my weakness (I never realize it enough).

And by the philosophy He has written with His blood, lowering himself to the human condition, sharing our struggles, he has told me one other thing to liberate me from my alienation: God loves you, and in return, love you’re neighbor, yes with your blood too. And this is only in this way that I can make occurs His presence. To finish, I can only quote this prayer from Saint Francis which is one of my favorites:

“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen. »