While it’s technically true that Quixote lost his final battle, which prompted him to regain his senses just before his death, he is most remembered for his madness: for “tilting at windmills,” for dreaming impossible dreams. But it's far more nuanced than that. In hopeless times, quixotic lunacy or, perhaps less pejoratively, Quixotism, can save people from the paralysis that often accompanies defeatism.
Quixotism means adopting the courage necessary to fight for lost causes without caring what the world thinks. Today, when much of society and politics on a broad front looks like a lost cause to a great number of people, we might do well to consider Quixote’s brand of lunacy.
Abandoning his senses or rather, his common sense, freed up Quixote to engage in apparently pointless tasks like charging windmills. His squire, Sancho Panza, warns Quixote that the giant he is tempted to charge is just a windmill, and, as such, should be left alone. Sancho’s common sense tells him that fights that are sure to be lost are not worth fighting. It is this same common sense that keeps us from engaging in what are perhaps the worthiest of causes: the lost ones.
It could be argued that it was not Quixote but Sancho who was delusional, firm in his belief that windmills are not worth charging, and, more broadly, that unwinnable battles are not worth fighting. The result of this type of thinking will usually be paralysis and/or defeatism, since most enemies are windmill-size instead of human-size. Sancho believed that tilting at windmills was dangerous. Today, we'd just say it was a waste of time, and since common sense also tells us that time is money, we had better steer clear of anything unprofitable.
However, common sense is not perfect and can fail us. Here's a couple of examples: first and very often, it uncritically believes that technology equals progress, and second, even in cases in which we recognise the potential harm to the community, we generally don’t believe that we can resist it. Common sense calls it a waste of time and energy to resist. Quixote rejected such a conclusion, instead favouring his own moral position, Quixotism, to decide who, when and what to fight. Thus freed from the constraints of common sense, Quixote was left open to fight for lost causes — and lose.
Warning: Quixotism will not go over well with many of your friends and acquaintances. If you choose this path, you will face disbelief, judgement and ridicule. In a real-life context, Quixotism will look like constantly falling flat on your face in public or being on the wrong side of every commonly accepted position, and a thick skin and belief are required to accept it. People will laugh at you as they did at Quixote. People will mock your decision to fight big machines, but you must do it neither to win nor to impress. You will eventually grow accustomed to ignoring the criticism of our saner colleagues and friends who seem to follow the adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Cultivating Quixotism amounts to learning to trust your own judgement of what is worthwhile, based on thinking a whole lot about what kind of world you would like to live in and the kind of person you’d like to be. You may not be able to improve the world, but you can at least refuse to cooperate with a corrupt one.
Cervantes detailed the life of the Don as a life in praise of futilely resisting a corrupt world. Quixote fought giants because he could not, in good conscience, not fight them. There is plenty of room for more Quixotes, the kind who are called dreamers, idealists or lunatics, who reject common sense and reinterpret what constitutes a waste of time. If we - and my past and present activities put me firmly in the camp of Quixote - happen to succeed by 'normal' standards, we will be surprised (nay, amazed) and perhaps pleasantly so; if we fail, we will have expected it. Praise be to uncertain successes and to certain failures alike.
Quixotism means adopting the courage necessary to fight for lost causes without caring what the world thinks. Today, when much of society and politics on a broad front looks like a lost cause to a great number of people, we might do well to consider Quixote’s brand of lunacy.
Abandoning his senses or rather, his common sense, freed up Quixote to engage in apparently pointless tasks like charging windmills. His squire, Sancho Panza, warns Quixote that the giant he is tempted to charge is just a windmill, and, as such, should be left alone. Sancho’s common sense tells him that fights that are sure to be lost are not worth fighting. It is this same common sense that keeps us from engaging in what are perhaps the worthiest of causes: the lost ones.
It could be argued that it was not Quixote but Sancho who was delusional, firm in his belief that windmills are not worth charging, and, more broadly, that unwinnable battles are not worth fighting. The result of this type of thinking will usually be paralysis and/or defeatism, since most enemies are windmill-size instead of human-size. Sancho believed that tilting at windmills was dangerous. Today, we'd just say it was a waste of time, and since common sense also tells us that time is money, we had better steer clear of anything unprofitable.
However, common sense is not perfect and can fail us. Here's a couple of examples: first and very often, it uncritically believes that technology equals progress, and second, even in cases in which we recognise the potential harm to the community, we generally don’t believe that we can resist it. Common sense calls it a waste of time and energy to resist. Quixote rejected such a conclusion, instead favouring his own moral position, Quixotism, to decide who, when and what to fight. Thus freed from the constraints of common sense, Quixote was left open to fight for lost causes — and lose.
Warning: Quixotism will not go over well with many of your friends and acquaintances. If you choose this path, you will face disbelief, judgement and ridicule. In a real-life context, Quixotism will look like constantly falling flat on your face in public or being on the wrong side of every commonly accepted position, and a thick skin and belief are required to accept it. People will laugh at you as they did at Quixote. People will mock your decision to fight big machines, but you must do it neither to win nor to impress. You will eventually grow accustomed to ignoring the criticism of our saner colleagues and friends who seem to follow the adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Cultivating Quixotism amounts to learning to trust your own judgement of what is worthwhile, based on thinking a whole lot about what kind of world you would like to live in and the kind of person you’d like to be. You may not be able to improve the world, but you can at least refuse to cooperate with a corrupt one.
Cervantes detailed the life of the Don as a life in praise of futilely resisting a corrupt world. Quixote fought giants because he could not, in good conscience, not fight them. There is plenty of room for more Quixotes, the kind who are called dreamers, idealists or lunatics, who reject common sense and reinterpret what constitutes a waste of time. If we - and my past and present activities put me firmly in the camp of Quixote - happen to succeed by 'normal' standards, we will be surprised (nay, amazed) and perhaps pleasantly so; if we fail, we will have expected it. Praise be to uncertain successes and to certain failures alike.
As Martin Luther said "Here I stand, I can do no other".
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