„Mich plagen schlimme Gedanken. Hast du Rousseau gelesen?“
Übergroße Distanz weckt Gleichgültigkeit. Um das zu belegen, erzählt Balzac eine berühmt gewordene Geschichte, die er irrtümlich Rousseau zuschreibt.
In Le Père Goriot nämlich verfolgt ein Mann namens Rastignac
das Ziel, zu einer großen Geldsumme zu kommen. Er erwägt eine
ganze Nacht lang die Möglichkeit eines günstigen Kartenspiels,
durch das er aber zumindest indirekt in einen Mord verwickelt würde.
Danach geht er in den Jardin du Luxembourg, wo er seinen Freund Bianchon
trifft. Zu ihm sagt Rastignac:
„Mich plagen schlimme Gedanken. Hast du Rousseau gelesen?“
„Ja.“
„Erinnerst du dich an die Stelle, wo er den Leser fragt, was dieser tun würde, wenn er reich werden könnte, indem er durch seinen bloßen Willen, ohne Paris verlassen zu müssen, einen alten Mandarin tötet?“
„Ja.“
„Und?“
„Ach weißt du! Ich bin schon bei meinem dreiunddreißigsten Mandarin.“
„Scherze nicht. Also, wenn man dir beweisen würde, daß dafür ein Kopfnicken genügt, würdest du es tun?“
„Ist der Mandarin sehr alt? Ach was, jung oder alt, lahm oder kerngesund, wahrhaftig! Zum Teufel nein!"
Mit der Parabel vom Mandarin will Balzac zeigen, daß es in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft schwierig ist, moralischen Verpflichtungen, auch den elementarsten treu zu bleiben; denn das Beziehungssystem, in das wir alle eingebunden sind, kann uns zumindest indirekt eines Verbrechens schuldig werden lassen.
Der Widerstand von Rastignacs Freund gegen den Gedanken, einen unbekannten chinesischen Mandarin zu töten, kann als unausgesprochene Anerkennung der Tatsache betrachtet werden, daß es, wie Aristoteles sagte, „ein von Natur aus allgemeingültiges Recht und Unrecht“ gibt.
Mit der Herausbildung eines weltweiten Wirtschaftssystems war nun aber die Möglichkeit, durch wesentlich größere Entfernungen als Aristoteles sie sich überhaupt vorstellen konnte, viel Geld zu verdienen, zur Realität geworden.
Wie hier beschrieben, kann ins Extrem getriebene Distanz einen absoluten Mangel an Mitleid mit anderen Menschen bewirken.
Wo aber soll man die Grenze zwischen Distanz und übermäßiger
Distanz ziehen? Anders ausgedrückt: Wo liegen die kulturellen Grenzen
eines als naturhaft angenommenen Gefühls wie des menschlichen Mitleids?
He was still living with his parents who rented an immense flat in the western part of the city. His father was a civil engineer, who had graduated from one of these renowned Grandes Ecoles which you entered by passing a strenuous competitive examination; this system spoiled most of the young men who undertook the studies to reach this supreme goal. His mother was the only daughter of a timorous, hard-working and shrewd small town banker. His older brother had married two years ago and was now living in one of the chic suburbs of Paris. He was working in the business department of a well known industrial concern.
He had been brought up in a very liberal way which had enabled him to gain as much personal experience of the world as possible. He had the opportunity of meeting many different people at his parents' home. He had also been sent abroad, away from his familiar surroundings at an early age. Education in his family had been taken seriously and in the least restrictive manner possible. Interest in others was encouraged and was often freely discussed. All facilities were available and readily provided to fashion his personality. And now as he was beginning to reap the benefits of this unusual education he felt out of touch with his contemporaries. Maybe too much had been given him that others were never to discover or only much later and after many hardships and errors.
At all time he was resisting efforts and pressures of the groups to shape him to their own standards. He resisted by using his florid imagination, building up his own secret and very personal world of relationships.
He detested routine. By that he meant intellectual routine, the dried-up sterilizing standards imposed by the craven pundits of the so-called world of learning. He cast pitiful glances at the paltry babbling puppets it turned out; he had put up too long with those puppets and their wan masters. Their lack of imagination depressed him. He felt utterly frustrated in their company. He had the unpleasant impression of being continuously weaned of many needed incentives. He lack encouragement. This he could no more endure. The revolt had to come from within. He wanted to ridicule them, to make others feel they were unnecessary. This seemed cruel and somewhat weird. Had he any right to criticize them, to pass judgement on them thus? Perhaps this was only due to the rarefied provincial atmosphere.
He had to take steps to do something about this stupefying state of relations. He needed a symbolical culprit, a scapegoat with all the necessary trimmings. It was not of any use to turn on an obscure little-known victim. It had to be somebody who was looked up to, because he embodied just what he disliked most and also was not too stupid. The victory should not be too easy.
He very often invited friends to his parents' home: fellow students, foreign exchange students. They would have bull sessions, listen to music, prepare impromptu snacks in the vast kitchen of the apartment; very often, there was quite a large crowd of young people from various parts of the world scattered all over the apartment. There was always an atmosphere of carefree relaxation; strangers felt happy and very much at home.
Thus he was continually confronted with many different types of human experiences and could draw from them a vast array of facts and notions. He had to adapt, to try and understand this motley crowd. There was no snobbery in his interest in foreigners. Maybe only a craving for estrangement was one of the reasons, his personal horror of rites, his compelling desire to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this impossible creature that man was. His mind was not numbed by the dull train of occupations, of pastimes to which others devoted themselves. It was not exactly a charitable impulse, a desire to be helpful, to cater to the needs of forlorn students away from their country. This was more personal, in a way selfish and deriving from an intense curiosity mingled with a deep-rooted anxiety. There would be very little time to learn, to see, to observe, to participate in such a carefree manner. Soon he would be engulfed in the shocking maddening swirl of the activities demanded by "normal" life. He wanted to secure his very personal means for sanity.
It was a fact that human relations in this eastern city were not an easy matter. People were generally reserved and cold, difficult to deal with. They had that harsh quality which develops in a hostile climate. Recurring invasions, the proximity of a nation periodically bent on war had repeatedly turned the province into a battlefield. It was not easy to be accepted. One met more than often with unpleasant rebukes. It was a place where one learned facts of life the hard way. There was a widespread reluctance to be friendly and to what seemed unnecessary effusions. This strange behaviour was best illustrated by the prickly flower which is prominently displayed on the coat-of-arms of the city. Gradually however, it was possible to be honoured with a hard-won recognition, to be granted an honorary citizenship of a sort.
He had earned his badge by his meritorious efforts at the lycée and was classified once for all as a model pupil. He had been a voracious reader in his teens and an ambitious pupil, who would stay up late to write more than perfect homeworks. Now he was beginning to feel the strain of this rigid self-imposed discipline. He was eager to see the world beyond the books and yet at the same time retain his capacity for scholastic prowess. But he dimly sensed that this was not readily feasible. His interest in the opposite sex was what one could expect of a frail young-looking student; he was strongly attracted by girls but could not bring himself to dally with futile amorous pursuits. Yet he was not shy and as he was attractive enough and could be a very charming and even funny companion, he had occasional affairs of the intense, brief, platonic sort.