The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

All language is but a poor translation.

1.  

   If old people manifest the same desires, feelings and demands of young people, this causes outrage; in them, love and jealousy sound disagreeable or ridiculous, sexuality repugnant, violence laughable. They must exemplify all virtues. First and foremost, they are demanded calmness and composure; it is declared that they possess it, which allows us to feel no interest in their misfortunes. The sublimed image that is proposed of them is that of the haloed Wise Man with white hair, rich in experience and venerable, who oversees the human condition from on high; if they veer from this image, they fall below us: the image that opposes the first is that of the crazy old senile man who talks nonsense and becomes the laughing stock of children. In any case, through virtue or abjectness, they are placed outside of humanity. It therefore becomes possible to deny them, without any sort of scruple, that minimum which is necessary for them to enjoy a decent human living.

   – Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age (via allartwehavedevoured)

   (via sendforbromina)

   Source: speakmnemosyne

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