admirable people

It is surprising how sometimes you find rational people where less you would expect, living totally out of the mainstream ideas of their times. It is always reassuring, and heartwarming, encountering by chance one of those figures, and understanding that not everything’s lost with the human kind, that there’s worthy life beyond the masses around of selfish, egocentric, and deceptive citizens who don’t give a shit for anything except money and anyone except themselves, and their really close ones. Today, I was reading a bio of the American post-metal band Isis, which has climbed up to be my favorite music of the week, and found out that they shape their songs based on books such as Cervantes’ Don Quijote, Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Borges, and the philosophies of the English philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham. I knew of all these references (they also figure among my favorite readings of all time), except for Jeremy Bentham, of whom I only knew the name. So I looked him up in Wikipedia and came to see that he’s an amaaazing character, the kind of person who motivates notes like this one here. Bentham (1748-1832) is one of those political men that the Anglo-Saxon tradition calls, usually in a pejorative manner, radicals (more on this some other day). I knew he was one of the founders of the school of philosophy known as utilitarianism, but apparently he was much more (well, like everyone, of course): he was also an advocate for the concept of animal rights, and an opponent to the idea of natural rights (the idea that some rights are natural, or rather, given by God, and not the result of the actions of government, or evolution from tradition). But there's more: he was also a defender of ideas that in his time were totally anathema such as individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the end of slavery, the abolition of physical punishment (including that of children), the right to divorce, the decriminalization of homosexual acts, and the abolishment of the death penalty. Awesome, huh? Oh, and he's also known as the creator of the concept of panopticon (a type of prison structure that Michel Foucault made famous in his Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison), and as the godfather of the prestigious University College London, where his embalmed body is still stored and occasionally brought out for reunions of the council. (He requested this in his will, apparently). Well, independently of this last extravagant note, this man merits my absolute admiration and applause, and I hereby add him to the list of readings for the summer (looking forward to it).

(In the picture, you can see the embalmed body of Bentham.)