Repurposed (Brief) Lyrics Gimme Shelter
Revised for Anno Vaccine and the Saved and the Damned
Paul Valéry — ‘But hope is only man's mistrust of the clear foresight of his mind.’
Pera has become a leading opponent of post-modernism and cultural relativism and on this subject he resonates with religious thinkers.
Opposing cultural relativism he declared, "There are... good reasons for deeming that some institutions are better than others. And I deny that such a judgment must necessarily lead to a clash."
Opposing the postmodern denial of the possibility of ascertaining objective facts, he says, "Against deconstructivism, I do not deny that facts do not exist without interpretation. I refute Nietzsche's thesis that "there are no facts, only interpretations" (F. Nietzsche, Afterthoughts); or Derrida's "there is nothing beyond the text" (J. Derrida, Of Grammatology)."
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away, yeah
Yes, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very streets today
Earth like a burnin' carpet
Mad bull lost your way
For Gabriel Marcel, Hernandez argues, the death of God "is not an abstract difficulty, but is a concrete historical and sociological fact of our moral evolution" (p. 48) that is produced by the materialistic functionalism of the problematic man's stance toward being. Accordingly, whether or not one is participating in the death of God is not a matter of one's belief. In fact, Hernandez suggests that theists who construe God as an object of knowledge have a special culpability for God's death since they not only promote an idea of God that plays directly into atheism but also "contribute to the problems facing humanity . . . by undermining the mystery that Marcel thinks underlies the relationship between God and humans" (p. 32). Further, Hernandez argues that, for Marcel, the way in which one responds to the death of God is the defining existential issue for all individuals.
"Marcel's position," she writes, is that for any given individual, regardless of their belief, the death of God presents an unavoidable moral obstacle that must be wrestled with in order for freedom (and then, moral responsibility and virtue) to be able to take hold. The obstacle of the death of God is not something that can be overcome; it is an existential dilemma that can only be struggled over and grappled with until, ultimately, one's life is defined by it. (p. 48)
The first step in the Marcelian ethical life, then, is to recognize one's own participation in the destruction of meaning and value embodied in the death of God. This participation is rooted in one's functional, materialist, and rationalist stance toward existence. Even if this destruction of meaning and value cannot be finally and definitively overcome, Hernandez argues, the lived struggle against it can form the basis for the creation of existential meaning.