Stories

One essay revolving around Peter Sloterdijk’s Book “The Princeps and His Heirs: A Story of Big Men in the Era of Common People” or, in its original title: Der Fürst und seine Erben | Über große Männer im Zeitalter der gewöhnlichen Leute (2026, Suhrkamp).

And, specifically, one vibrant quote I translated into English.

Chapter 1 — Signs from above: The charismatic aura.

Page 59:

[…]

Let's now complete the step into another set of arguments and, virtually, into another book: an anthropology that is worth its very own name— at least on the level of clarity on by which it hereby explicates — can only take place as a personal media doctrine.

His root must be found in the preposition “through”, the keyword of the human ability to find a direction to be followed. This ability comes before the technical media, while the word "through" acts silently in every try, in every endeavour to understand how "the better angels of our nature" use their powers on us in order to shrink the effects of the worse ones “through us”. Abraham Lincoln took initiative when daydreaming about those angels in a speech he gave in the year 1861.

[…]

I read this paragraph from Peter Sloterdijk while sitting on a fast-moving train to Vienna two weeks ago and was struck from the very first glance at it, because it was not expected and simply impacting. I had found a meaning which resonated with me for a quite long time. For example, when the Danube just went past me and my hotel got closer and closer. What followed was one of those moments that impress.

A man was cruising with his bicycle and had the impression that a dozen of tourists might have blocked his way. From the distance I could not see exactly who and how.

Suddenly this man started screaming at them always louder to pay attention. The third “Achtung” was as loud and unpleasant as humanly possible: the architecture of the underground passage certainly contributed to this concert.

I was now closer; the biker went past the group and had just the time to see how he missed them by a few inches. Then I understood the one decisive detail: these men and women visiting Vienna, as many other pensioners surely do, were deaf and could not hear the warning sign. In the following hours and days, I kept on thinking about this experience and about how we tend to believe the one or another iron certainty simply because we feel sure it was cemented on stable ground. It is actually like in Sloterdijk’s work, where we call “some perspectives” to be our own or settle on believing in princes and heirs, while we could be as a matter of fact angels’ puppets.

The meaning of those words is, finally, this need to understand how we may concretely move beyond ourselves as a species if we just opened our heart to what is good and, in doing so, became Princes and Princesses that can concretely provide for their heirs.

Sometimes reality goes beyond what you imagine and the time has come for me to see what I could not imagine.

I will turn the page, well aware that my heart won’t find peace until I am able to name each and every one of the peaks in the photos. It was a blast, Innsbruck. Now let’s get the best out of what’s left.

Alpinmesse 2025 was a great occasion to meet old and new friends, but also get emotional on a totally spontaneous conversation.

I had a drink in my hand and many good points to talk about. Then I turned around and a man started to talk and immediately showed his helvetic open-mindedness.

It’s evening and like every year you need to scream in order to be understood with this loud music. Anyway, he’s a policeman in the Canton of the Grisons and comes always to this annual fair packed with news, clothing, skis, climbing shoes, talks and the usual bouldering competition.

He tells me about how we are “Bergmenschen”, mountain people and have a deeper understanding of each other because we share common values, simple and genuine. I tell him of that one snowfall in Ampezzo, where one good metre of snow let me realise that I would have nothing to do but wonder about how to move it and be stuck in awe. The Olympics are also around the corner and I let some of that magic there is at home shine through my eyes. We smile and say goodbye. To the next one!

This week on Wednesday I was walking home from the annual dinner with my colleagues. Then I looked around wandering between the mountains Serles, Patscherkofel, Hafelekar or Brandjochspitze. I thought about that word I had two weeks ago: we are mountain people, blunt and tied to simple but eternal principles. No language, border, definition, label, pin, artificial intelligence or any expression of the modern age will change us. Like the awesome mountains we willingly surrounded us with.