Chimeras or Danger?

The internal disintegration of Europe as a culture, of European peoples, is reflected in (not so much created by) the works of its major writers and thinkers, especially of Germany. Signing on to generalize I will say: it was Kant who first questioned an uncritical acceptance of the scope and promise of scientific knowledge. But if there was any discernable direction to the inclinations of European culture, one could see that science was only growing ever-so-unthwartedly to define the tastes and prejudices of European culture! So Kant 's questioning manages to only announce the imposing growth of a certain absymal chasm between reality and knowledge, between what man thought and how man lived. He did not provide a cure to the disease, but boldly showed its symptoms. The Jena Romantics made a brave attempt, but in vain, to overcome this chasm, and Hegel thought he achieved the seemingly impossible. But people who came after Hegel managed to mockingly laugh at him, especially because he died. The real Gods do not die, you see! Now came, repeatedly, philosophy's (I say "philosophy" not without over-simplification, since I have left out the adjective "European", which is not insignificant!) pressing moments of decision - either, continue to philosophize in utter isolation, betraying the wisdom of peoples and their existences, conjuring abstract chimeras one after the other, or else do something, act to fill up the abyss, take up the dangerous path! So came the procession of upheavels: communism, the political strifes and revolutions, philosophies in action, the whimsical scape-goating of races, the search for European culture, the Ubermensch, existential inner-turmoils, nostalgia, disillusionment - all in the lofty name of spiritual integration, all in an effort to prevent the banal leveling of races, masses, and philosophies. But the end-result: two world wars and the ever-widening of the engulfing chasm! The inevitable: Europe disintegrates. But this disintegration is also a work of genius - the scattered pieces, it seems, have found a way to avoid facing upto the two-pronged question of philosophy, by continuously wearing masks and vaporising into shadows! The opiumated genius evades! The question however remains as the vestiges of an echo : What is philosophy?