Abstract

Tragedy has stalked the recent past. It is neither the tragedy of the aesthete nor the politician. It is a tragedy that cannot be redeemed either through catharsis or reason, some deus ex machina or even a new order. The tragedy is nothing other than death itself; death in all its meanness, greyness, and senselessness.

Beyond the intoxicating Heideggerian and neo-romantic drivel wherein death appears as the “authentic” moment of human existence, as the decisive resolution in the confrontation with one's “Being,” there is actually only the loss — the end to be avoided, the end that cannot be avoided.