Knoten

O time! thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie!
(Shakespeare, The Twelfth Night or What You Will - Act 2, Scene 2)

In the Phrygian capital Gordion (today an excavation site 80 km southwest of Ankara), a chariot of King Midas dedicated to Zeus was kept. Its drawbar was attached to the vehicle with a very complicated knot. According to an oracle, whoever managed to untie this knot was promised dominion over Asia. When Alexander the Great came to Gordion on his campaign against Persia (334-333 BC), he wanted to make good on this promise and, as was his intention, mythologically appropriate Asia. But even he found it impossible to untie the artfully intertwined knot. With a ruthlessness and brutality that seems to be characteristic of all conquerors, he simply cut through the knot with his sword.

This way of dealing with obstacles that stand in the way of the human will, which is not interested in an actual solution, has since been regarded as a model for a quick, decisive and unconventional solution to a complicated problem. What the conqueror - personally educated by Aristotle after all - and all his imitators overlooked was and is the fact that solving knots and problems is not an athletic and weapon-based achievement, but primarily an intellectual endeavor. This requires a willingness to delve into a matter, to be cautious and to have humble patience in the face of the wonderful complexity of creation and the social world. The fact that Alexander came a long way, but never exercised (especially not prosperous) rule over Asia, shows that he had not found the right solution after all. Unfortunately, the Alexandrian way of dealing with problems or tasks still seems to be the one that mankind likes to use: Using acts of violence to quickly reach the supposed goal. In the ‘most ancient times’, as the Chinese I Ching tells us, people were governed by a ‘system of knots’. One could argue that Alexander, as a prominent protagonist of the new, western (?) appropriation of the world, was exemplary in smashing this old, delicately balanced system of life.

To restore the great knot, to bring the fine, the artistic structure of the original, created harmony back into its original form is a desire - from the earliest Daoist philosophy to the Tikkun Olam (restoration of the world) to contemporary concepts of healing - not to give up the idea of paradise. This object bears witness to the helplessness and inability to reweave the original weave, the heavenly knot.