O conversație între doi hoinari singuratici

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO SOLITARY WALKERS. Translated by Ionuț-Constantin Isac. Sometimes, under the irresistible inspiration of a great writer, the famous historical characters come alive and face each other in front of us. This time, Prof. Gerhard Seel offers us a delightful time, while reading a conversation between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, under the expected title: A Conversation between two Solitary Walkers [Conversation entre deux promeneurs solitaires]. The exceptional nature of the conversation comes out of the mysterious all-pervasive knowledge that both of them seem to have acquired posthumously about the entire history, culture and destiny of mankind; and, especially Rousseau. Humor and irony, wise arguments and sparkling retorsions, joy and sorrow – all of them overwhelm us and make us more aware of the whole humaneness in its intrinsic issues than we have been before the reading. The lives of protagonists overlap onto the course of history, as their misfortunes (mainly those of Rousseau) gain a meaningful and bitter understanding. It appears that the issues of individual and society, nature and culture, state, labor and force are not something given once and for all, nor complacent to a single-minded solution. To be free, but powerful enough to enslave others and drop the life burdens on their backs, is not a mark of sustainable civilization. This world may be not the best place ever, but the best place to live consciously and to act now. Words apparently innocent become “heavy weight” metaphors, growing steadily along the pages, until they break out the conventional paradigm of thinking. The conclusion of the dialogue about the future of mankind is drawn by the comparison between “a dry waterfall” and “a blind tunnel” (among which the first one is, however, desirable...?). We might draw the bottom line by the following remark: to be conscious of a major existential shortcoming and trying to do something about it is better than to helplessly face an unavoidable dead end without option [translation from French: Ionuț-Constantin Isac].