Maria Zambrano und die neue "Bildung" des Menschlichen im dahinsiechenden Europa

María Zambrano’s diagnosis of the European situation is dramatic: she overtly writes of “Europe’s agony”, interweaving philosophical and religious reasons. The contemporary European attitude is marked by barbaric aggressive- ness, frantic activism and creative urge. These aspects imitate God the creator, the only God in which the European man has really believed in. European collective hysteria results from the misunderstanding of the relation with the Biblical God: European conscience has been substantially marked by the Almighty God Creator, not by a loving and merciful God, a Father who viscerally behaves and loves as a mother. In a certain way, divine omnipotence has been usurped and transferred to human beings. According to Zambrano, only one merciful God can save us in Europe and in the Western world, as Martin Heidegger would affirm in a different context. He gets manifested as light and offers his word and bread. In Europe, such God has never been adored and has never inspired new life, with tragic consequences on human beings. They have lost their identity and emptied their hearts. A frantic longing for success is the new idol which risks leading Eu- rope to a new form of totalitarianism after the twentieth-century ones.