José F. Peláez as Sancho Spain – kudupinter World News Network

Kafka says that Don Quixote’s misfortune does not come from his imagination, but from Sancho Panza. The idea is prodigious because it reverses the traditional reading of Don Quixote and it would no longer be delirium, but an anchoring to reality, which condemns the gentleman. Seen this way, … Sancho is no longer counterpoint but essentially ballast and ringtone. Perhaps Don Quixote could have traveled through his higher world if he had not had at his side someone who constantly reminded him that there is only the obvious, the obvious, the dictatorship of mediocrity claiming its scepter. Kafka therefore sees in Sancho something more than common sense: he sees the incarnation of the vulgar as a repressive force. It is Sancho which translates as fool, who binds greatness with ropes and the club which condemns the dreamer to bow his head and stare forever at the dirty ground. Thus understood, Don Quixote would no longer be a free madman but a visionary punished for wandering the roads with his own censor.

At the same time, the Ibsenian Brand, son of Kierkegaard, tells us that “he who is alone is mad” and that madness ceases to be madness as soon as it becomes collective. There is no romantic defense of delusion here, but rather the uncomfortable realization that normalcy is only a matter of numbers. The same idea that alone leads to a madhouse, in a group founds a church, a party or a country. Truth is therefore not measured by its coherence, but only by its ability to come together. And it is for this reason that Don Quixote is alone, even when accompanied: because Sancho does not share the vision; he just manages it; does not believe, negotiates; It doesn’t burn, he calculates. The gentleman’s folly never reaches a critical mass and remains an extravagance, a tender eccentricity. If Sancho had believed, perhaps history would have been different and today we would be talking about a crusade and not a novel.

Kafka and Ibsen warn us against the same danger: what destroys the individual is not excess of genius, but only its isolation. Society tolerates any idea as long as it is shared. But he never forgives the clairvoyance of the solitary man. The visionary can therefore exist as a character, but never as a program. And there is something profoundly modern – profoundly political – in this reading. Power does not need to ban fantasy: it is enough to surround it with translators of reality, pedagogues of renunciation, and specialist political scientists to try to add what really remains. Perhaps this is why the big ruptures do not start with new ideas, but with communities of Sanchos. And this is perhaps why so many projects fail before being born: not because of a lack of imagination, but because of an excess of shared common sense. Because there is always a Sancho nearby who reminds us of the good reputation of destructive nihilism. Sometimes it would be better to leave it behind and keep riding. Because it is appropriate to remember that it is a Sancho sick of reality and thirsty for ideals who, in the last chapters, needs to revive Don Quixote, knowing that it is only thanks to his genius that he will be able to continue to dream. All right.

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