La nostalgie, une maladie suisse?

J'ai parlé plus tôt de la nostalgie, telle que l'analyse Isaiah Berlin, et je mentionnais que j'en suis une victime. Serait-ce parce que j'ai grandi en Suisse? Le terme nostalgie a été inventé au XVIIème siècle par un médecin suisse, Johannes Hoffer, qui introduisit le terme dans la thèse qu'il présenta à Bâle en 1688. Il avait composé ce mot à partir de racines grecques, algie douleur, et nost- le retour, pour le faire mieux accepter en tant qu'affection médicale par la communauté scientifique. Bien qu'adoptée par le corps médical, cette notion devient particulièrement importante au XIXème siècle, en parallèle avec le romantisme. Kant en traite déjà, intéressant, puisque Berlin rattache la pensée de Kant à la naissance du romantisme:

"Les Suisses ainsi que les Westphaliens et les Poméraniens de certaines régions, à ce que m'a raconté un général expérimenté, sont saisis du mal du pays, surtout quand on les transplante dans d'autres contrées; c'est par le retour des images de l'insouciance et de la vie de bon voisinage, du temps de leur jeunesse, l'effet de la nostalgie pour les lieux où ils ont connu les joies de l'existence." Kant

Cette maladie est beaucoup étudiée par les médecins militaire au XIXème. En particulier dans l'armée de Napoléon. Les médecins trouvaient ce mal particulièrement mystérieux chez les soldats suisses. Ces hommes venaient de contrées jugées ingrates, pleines de montagnes et de précipices, qu'il semblait extraordinaire de pouvoir regretter. Les soldats qui souffraient de cette affection en mouraient fréquemment. Etonnant, de nos jours, où la nostalgie ne semble plus tuer, comme si le fait qu'elle ait été démédicalisée lui ait ôté de son pouvoir.

Ci-dessous une référence à un article très complet sur la nostalgie.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VP7-3XG1T9P-3&_user=10&_coverDate=06/30/1999&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1411644103&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c62d9181dcfe107ca0ab7b5ac525c175

Résumé
Le terme « nostalgie « est un néologisme formé par le médecin alsacien Johannes Hofer pour désigner une maladie causée par le mal du pays, et qui associait un état dépressif à de graves perturbations physiologiques qui menaient régulièrement à la mort, à défaut du seul traitement possible, le rapatriement. L'histoire des conceptions et du traitement de cette véritable entité morbide pourrait résumer à elle seule l'évolution de la médecine et de la psychiatrie des trois derniers siècles. Si le Heimweh ne répond plus aujourd'hui aux canons de la scientificité, il n'en a pas moins laissé maintes traces dans nos théories et pratiques actuelles. Le romantisme allemand, plutôt que de voir dans la nostalgie une redoutable maladie, a fait de la Sehnsucht son véritable credo. L'absence dans l'espace devient perte dans le temps, mais la nostalgie romantique signifie aussi reconquête d'un passé mythique dans un avenir non moins imaginaire. Le danger est grand cependant de confondre dans cette quête les registres réel, imaginaire et symbolique. Les romantiques ont rarement su éviter ce piège, tout comme d'ailleurs certains cauchemars totalitaires du xxe siècle. Il existe cependant une sorte de bon usage de la nostalgie, qui peut être considérée aujourd'hui comme étant la métaphore du désir du névrosé.

Publié par  - -  Arabella Hutter

The Huly Buble by Jon Ferguson

I'm thrilled to have a new guest on this blog. Jon Ferguson is a writer, painter and basketball coach. Not buddhist, I think. Nitzchean, more. To find out a whole lot more about him, click here.

Jon in interview





Jon again in prank mode (below with mic)

Jon writes mostly long short stories, or short novels which often exhibit a sardonic sense of humor. The Huly Buble is shorter, and the humor more concentrated. It serves as an introduction to Jon's latest novel "The Flood" which just came out in French: "Le Déluge" (Editions Castagniééé, Vevey, Switzerland):
http://www.castagnieee.com/index.php?p=10&l=31

The Huly Buble

Once upon a time, a time when things were happening just like they are now, but with variations of course, Gud decided that there was too much seriousness in the behavior of trees, rocks, spinning planets, and sunsets, so Hu decided to create mun and wumun. At first there was just one mun and one wumun, but Gud, being one to plan ahead, gave the mun a punus and the wumun a vaguna and the next thing Hu knew there were mun and wumun of different colors and sizes all over the place. In the beginning Gud really liked watching them fight over things like big sticks and pieces of meat, and Hu often laughed his uss off. All of this lasted for quite a long while and Gud stayed reasonably amused….But, as always, boredom began to set in and Hu decided to make a few changes. First Hu decided to make the mun and wumun talk, you know, make noises with their mouths and tongues and lips. But after a while these noises got to be very repetitive and Gud got bored again, so he decided to put a brun in the heads of all the mun and wumun. Up until this point all the decisions that the mun and wumun made were made in their punuses and vugunas and mouths. But now, with a brun in their heads, they had another engine to tell them what to do and which way to go.

It’s funny how all the mun and wumun started to take their bruns seriously. Whereas before, when the punuses and vugunas and mouths were responsible for what was going on, suddenly there were a whole bunch of new things happening in Gud’s funhouse. And the biggest things were all of the sudden the establishment of rulugions and murulities. Suddenly mun and wumun – mostly mun actually – started inventing all kinds of guds and murul principles telling everybody what was rught and what was wrung. Up until then everybody was just kind of eating, sleeping, furnicating, and dying, but suddenly people started to write books and give speeches at see anguls and have vusions about guds and stuff like that, and climb up mountains and telling everybody what was rught and wrung and how to luve their luves.

In Chuna their were people like Cunfucius. He was probably a pretty nice guy who didn’t overeat.

In Jupon there were things like “The Seven Guds  of Guud Luck”.

In Undia there were the Hundus with Guds all over the place running around with holes in their shoes.

And all around there was the bug duddy Buddhu who got his picture in lots of newspapers and who liked desserts and second helpings of food.

In Muxico the sun was Gud for a while until the Chrustians came.

In the Muddle East there was the mountain-climber named Muses who had a gud that got mad a lot and threw lightening bolts at sunners.

The Gruuks had some prutty guud guds too who even liked to drink good wine and show off their punuses and vugunas.

Then came Jusus who was really probably a pretty nice guy, but who got killed and accused of things like walking on water and feeding five thousand people with twelve loaves of bread by people like Puul, Juhn, Luuk, and Muthuw who started writing the Huly Buble.

Pretty soon there was a string of Pupes who got real rich, ate well, built nice buildings, and started  a series of wars.

Then Muhummud came long with Ullah and scarves became fashionable along with cutting off hands and fingers.

Then there were people like Luthur and Culvun who had seen enough of the Pupes and started new religions also based on the Huly Buble.

Then came the Prutustunts and the Murmuns, and the Juhuvuhs Wutnussus and the Suvunth Duy Udvuntusts and the Buptusts, all kinds of groups like that that were telling people what was rught and wrung and who the real Gud was.

It really got to be a big mess and the real Gud was becoming less and less amused by the whole show. Hu started thinking maybe Hu shouldn’t have put that brun in the mun’s and wumun’s heads after all.

Hu finally decided to have a flood and into the gurbage can went most of the mess.

 

© J. F.        Murges, June 2010

No reproduction in any medium allowed without direct authorization from author.


published by  - -  Arabella Hutter