THE MEANING OF THE CREATIVE ACT by Nicolas Berdyaev

Author:Nicolas Berdyaev [Berdyaev, Nicolas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy
Published: 2017-07-06T18:30:00+00:00

Creativity and Sex: Male and emale: Race and Personality

THE STRONG FEELING of the central position of the problem of sex is characteristic of our epoch, as well as a deep desire to comprehend the elements of sex. It is as though sex had suddenly come into notice, something secret had become known. Man’s concept and feeling for the world depends on sex. Sex is the source of being; the polarity of sex is the foundation of creation. The sense of being, its intensity and its colouring, has its roots in sex. With ever increasing acuity men begin to recognize, scientifically, philosophically and religiously, that sexuality is not a special, differentiated function of the human being, that is diffused throughout his whole being, penetrates all his cells and determines the whole of his life. To-day we cannot separate sex from the whole of life: we cannot assign to it only the importance of a special function of the organism. Sex is vastly broader and deeper than that which we are accustomed to call the sexual function in a specific sense. The specific sex function is itself the result of the differentiation of some sort of general, pre-sexual life. We cannot draw a sharp line scientifically between the normal and natural in sex and the abnormal and unnatural. This boundary line has been drawn not by the natural order of things but by general social morality, in which there is always very much of the conditional. From the philosophical viewpoint, we should do away with the category of “naturalness” as a criterion of good and evil. The “normal” and “natural” sexual function is the product of the differentiation of sex- life, outflowing through the whole physical and spiritual being of man. It is quite possible to say that man is a sexual i being, but we cannot say that man is a food-digesting being. Man’s sexual nature cannot be placed on the same level with other functions of his organism, even the most essential, such as the circulation of the blood. In man’s sexuality we perceive the metaphysical roots of his being. Sex is the meeting-point of two worlds in the human organism. In this point of sex is hidden the secret of being. We cannot escape from sex. We may leave aside the differentiated function of sex, we may deny or conquer this “natural” function. But in this case man’s sexual function is only transferred—and man still remains a sexual being.

Christian asceticism, having overcome the physical sexual life, was still powerfully conscious of the central problem of sex in man—felt it more strongly than many modern people who are living an ordered “natural” sex-life. Asceticism is one of the metaphysics of sex. St. Isaac the Syrian lives in the consciousness of the power and the central place of sex. This strong feeling lies behind his terrible words: “If you are compelled to speak with women, turn your face from the sight of them, and so converse with them. And from nuns,

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