– 03/14/15, 13:04
© anp. René Gude, afzwaaiend Thinker laureate, died tonight at the age of 58 at his home in Amsterdam.
“Maybe mumps me a bit, but I’m really not afraid of death,” he said last year in an interview with Wim Brands. Tonight René Gude died from the effects of cancer in his home in Amsterdam.
He was almost Thinker of the Fatherland-off. In April, during the Month of Philosophy, he would officially resign. But two weeks ago, he carried the baton already unofficially over to his successor, Marli Huijer. In that sense his death eerily well timed.
Even at his appointment as Thinker of the Fatherland, two years ago, he was terminally ill. In 2007 was diagnosed bone cancer, and in 2011 he showed his leg amputated. But the cancer came back, in his lungs. Operations against metastases were futile.
He left his job satisfaction not spoil by his illness. “I’m looking for the meaning of my life in the success of the projects I undertake with others,” he said when he took office as Thinker of the Fatherland. And he was unwilling to let the impending death spoil his good mood.
You have to use some of it
“Mood Management ‘, as he did to. And that could use good society as a whole, he said. Optimistic without being naive. Life is not always fun, but you do have to do something. “Depression Expressionism” he called his attitude – Gude loved to invent new words. He said things often on his own, funny way. Food was’ opgobbelen ‘and sex’ hupseflupsen.
He tirelessly spoke about the usefulness and the consolation of philosophy, in numerous interviews in newspapers and magazines. On television, he created unforgettable moments; table Matthijs van Nieuwkerkestraat, already in his coffin stepping with the EO, eating mushrooms with Theo Maassen ’24 hours’.
His contribution to the public philosophy in the Netherlands is hard to overestimate. In 1957 at Surabaya (Indonesia) born Gude studied social geography and philosophy in Amsterdam and Utrecht. He was co-founder of Philosophy Magazine and was for many years the head of the International School of Philosophy in Leusden, Dutch oldest philosophical institituut. Last year he was knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau.
The Thinker of the Fatherland he wanted above all ‘thinking’ with the country. And so he did, with an energy that surprised him. “I’ve never worked so hard as since I am unfit for work,” he joked.
Until the last moment
And he continued to work until the last moment. In this paper the past two weeks appeared every day a short interview with him about big words. Such as ‘meaning’. “Fancy seemed used to be reserved for religion,” Gude said. “And so you would strictly speaking ‘zinkrijging’ should mention. In our secularized society, meaning something you need to make yourself, sense-giving.”
A difficult task, but not impossible, Gude found. Precisely here proved himself in his utility of philosophy. Which he saw as a ‘training’ for life. Philosophy, there had to have something in daily life, in dealing with yourself, the world and the others.
He himself set an example. If someone did to mood management, than he. He continued to hold meaning in life. That was not a denial of his approaching end. Far from. He had learned, he said, the “beast of death in the mouth look.
René Gude was 58 years.
Gude in The World Keeps Turning
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