El hecho y el desecho

Whatever the idea of culture that is defended, all of them will surely have in common that they refer to what is most appreciated by the opinion-maker. Sometimes, there will be no problem in recognizing that culture is the most sacred of all: the only thing that can truly save us. But it is striking that, when explanations are requested about this cult, what the devotee usually declares is that he adores the unfinished, the rest and the mixture, three concepts that are crossed by paradoxes worthy of examination. We are under the spell of culture and will remain in that state for a long time, but the real theoretical task is to describe that spell as if we were not under its effects. The waste should not be the sumptuary and cultural adornment of the facts, but a reason to distrust the very idea of "fact" as that which has the last word in the decisive things of life.