The Earthly Paradise with the Fall of Adam and Eve (c. 1615) by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. According to Midas Dekkers, ‘the best paradises lie in the past’. IMAGE: MAURITSHUIS, THE HAGUE
In a style that is sometimes inimitable and often humorous, the armchair scholar from Weesp guides his readers through the heartening ineptitude of humankind.
‘Mankind is the most powerful species on earth. Even uttering that single sentence carries within it the seed of its own downfall’, writes biologist Midas Dekkers (1946) in the final chapter of Het menselijk tekort. ‘It is precisely at their peak that the forces of resistance that animals themselves have called into being are also at their strongest. The highest glory is a warning of the deepest fall. The hardest fight for a heavyweight is the one against himself. If there is anyone you cannot overcome, it is your own perfect likeness.’ In his view, people do not do enough of nothing. ‘Imagine if people had idled more often. There might be no Eiffel Tower and no hot tub, but there would also be no traffic jams on no four-lane motorways, no Slagharen theme parks, no speeches from the throne and no Lelystads. All the places you would no longer have to go! At last, time to do absolutely nothing.’
Dekkers has certainly not lost his gift for vivid writing, with its ironic or self-deprecating undertone. The armchair scholar and prolific author from Weesp, who turns 80 next year, cannot really sit still himself and still produces a book roughly every three years. Forty-five years ago those books were mainly about animals; now he confines himself to the ‘crown of creation’: humankind. Four years ago he ventured an idiosyncratic ‘biological perspective on race’, and now he turns to human imperfection – a shortcoming and ineptitude that, in his view, we should above all embrace. ‘There is no laughing at a perfect human being, let alone laughing with one. Humour only came into existence with the Fall; in paradise there was nothing to laugh about. Afterwards, all the more so’, says Dekkers. ‘Thanks to our failings, we need never be bored. The shortcoming is not there to be eliminated but to be cherished. As a schlemiel, humanity is dearest to me.’
Across seven chapters, Dekkers leads his readers through a forest of elegantly written arguments, personal anecdotes and biological laws, quoting philosophers and anyone else who fits his purpose: from Shakespeare to Gerard Reve, and from Cornelis Vreeswijk to the Bible. ‘The Bible is the strangest book. It is back to front. It begins where it should have ended’, writes Dekkers. ‘The world’s best-selling book has no happy ending – only a happy beginning.’
It is quite exhausting to follow Dekkers down all his side paths and digressions. These are sometimes impossible to keep up with and frequently jump from one thing to another: from bird conservation, car design, granite floors, Adam’s apples, birds-of-paradise, bachelors and pheromones to the circle, the sphere and the golden ratio.
The persistent reader
The persistent reader, however, is richly rewarded with nuggets of wisdom that would look perfectly at home on a motivational tile: ‘More flaws, more human’, ‘Without shortcoming, no desire’, ‘One infallible species and the entire ecosystem collapses’, ‘The best paradises lie in the past’, ‘Truth may make you wiser, but not necessarily happier’, ‘The smallest territory is yourself’, ‘Becoming innocent is impossible; innocent is something you can only be’ and ‘Whoever is clever becomes a writer and makes a book for fools and simpletons’.
HET MENSELIJK TEKORT – Midas Dekkers
paperback, 291 pages, €25