Sapiens Tribune - liberal arts blog

It's the end of the World (how do you feel?)

Rolf Strom-Olsen

Uh oh. Been watching the news? It starts with an earthquake. Or at least that's what we were told by R.E.M., the  alternative band that helped rock out the 80s and provided an important counterweight to the cultural atrocities of Boy George and Madonna (then still feeling qua virgo intacta). Yes, it was the end of the world as we knew it (cool video below). But that was okay for R.E.M. because they felt fine - they just needed some time alone, presumably to help them figure out what on earth those ridiculous stream-of-consciousness lyrics meant.

Last week, I quoted a brief passage from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In it, Gibbons observes that early Christian defended their pacifist views with obscurantism and ambiguity, since they believed "war, government, the Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more." That is a rather fanciful passage, of course; typical of the easy denigration of Christian sectarians that suffuse Gibbons' work. But the sentiment that the world (as they knew it) was coming to an end is probably a fairly accurate observation. The third century witnessed dramatic and profound changes across the Roman world. The Pax Romana - centuries of relative peace and stability that reigned across much of the Mediterranean world - foundered. And rather quickly too. For a sense of this, one need only visit the city of Lugo. The remarkable Roman-era walls that today survive and serve as that city's principal tourist attraction are a powerful reminder of how quickly the peace and (relative) prosperity was displaced when civil order collapsed. Walking those walls today is an oddly serene experience; but when they were hastily erected the walls were a symbol of nervousness and disquiet - the system breaking down as the defences went up. The social upheaval that followed was significant. The stuff of daily existence changed dramatically: travel, drinking water, food supplies, and trade all suffered disruption. Aqueducts fell into disrepair, roads became dangerous and goods simply ceased to be available as long-distance trading routes shrivelled. That rift produced a great deal of  popular response and the sentiment that the "Roman Empire and the world itself would be no more" was almost certainly part of that response. No wonder Christianity, with its built in millenarian message, gained traction. For most people, I suspect, they didn't feel fine at all.

I was recently in the British Library admiring their copy of the "illuminated Beatus," so named after the 8th century monk who in the relative quiet of a monastery in Northern Spain compiled a great number of exegetical texts relating to the Apocalypse. The resulting manuscript was hundreds of pages explaining in great detail the Book of Revelation. For Beatus, it probably seemed as if the prophesy were coming true: most of the Iberian peninsula was engulfed in chaos, war and deprivation, provoked by the violent Muslim invasion of 713. Hordes of murderous infidels rampaging across the countryside? That's got to be in Revelations somewhere. As with the collapse of Roman order in the 3rd century, so too the collapse of Visigothic, Suevi, Alanic and Byzantine Iberia in the 8th century presaged an end, promoting with it an enthusiastic renewal of Christian millenarianism (judging, at least, by the popularity of Beatus' work, of which numerous copies still exist).

Robert Rauschenberg, Great American Artist Dies

Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American artist who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century, died on Monday night at his home on Captiva Island, Fla. He was 82.

To listen to thoughtful commentaries on his art and his life, please watch the following video. 

La actitud interpersonal

Julián Montaño

Supongamos que estoy ordenando mi colección de sellos, son las cinco de un domingo, he terminado de redactar mi post para Sapiens Tribune y he encontrado un rato de solaz para mi afición favorita. Los tengo ya todos colocados en la mesa, perfectamente clasificados, allí los extranjeros, aquí los de color verde, los nuevos delicadamente amontonados en otro extremo, y, zas, Voltaire (Voltaire es el nombre de mi supuesto perro) buscando juego se ha subido a una silla y me los ha barrido todo con la cola. Es una catástrofe, toda mi hora de paciente clasificación se ha ido al traste. “¡Voltaire!” grito, “no lo vuelvas a hacer”. Ahora bien ¿cuál es mi actitud ante Voltaire? ¿puedo estar resentido? ¿puedo idear formas de demostrarle mi antipatía por lo que ha hecho? No lo haría en serio. Voltaire no tenía razones, propósitos racionales para hacer lo que hizo con lo cual yo no puedo establecer ningún tipo de relación moral al respecto. Voltaire no tenía la obligación de respetar el trabajo ajeno, no tenía que seguir una regla que se definiera como “respeta el trabajo ajeno”. Pensar que los animales tienen ese tipo de reglas morales no es estar confundido, es no saber como tratar con animales.

Ahora supongamos que tengo perfectamente ordenada mi colección de sellos, viene mi hermana mayor (casada y con dos hijos) y me dice “¡zascandil!” y desordena de un manotazo toda mi colección. Tengo razón en estar resentido con mi hermana, es más tengo todo el derecho del mundo a juzgar lo que ha hecho, hacerle reproches, y a procurar que se enmiende. En casos más graves de daños a mi persona –un vecino me amenaza todas las noches en el pasillo con estamparme en la cara una raqueta de paddle- puedo denunciarlo y llevarlo a juicio por cometer un delito. Estas personas tenían razones para actuar, actuaban siguiendo reglas racionales y por lo tanto puedo por un lado juzgarlas y por otro lado mostrar el tipo de actitudes que se muestran en las relaciones interpersonales y que puedo tener con quien actúa por razones: resentimiento, gratitud, indignación.

La etimología del garbanzo

Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui

  Reconozco que este es un post fácil, pero entretenido e incluso de cierta utilidad. Cuando se vaya agotando una conversación o empiece a tocarse un tema inconveniente, y sienta uno que debe hilar algún tema nuevo, nada mejor que tomar al vuelo una palabra de la última frase y decir “¿de dónde vendrá la palabra x?”, o si uno es un poco más presuntuoso, “¿sabéis de donde viene la palabra x?”. Y con eso se abre un nuevo tema y se deja atrás el anterior de la forma más natural. Más de una pregunta incómoda tipo “¿qué hace mi hermana con el bribón de tu primo?” se puede esquivar diciendo, por ejemplo, “ah, bribón: muy interesante, ¿sabías que viene del griego biblon, porque era el estafador ambulante que vendía libros mágicos y supercherías librescas? Curioso que tenga la misma raíz venerable de la Biblia, ¿verdad?”, y así lo que hicieran la inocente hermana y el bribón del primo queda en la oscuridad del secreto.

            Ahora, un poco de teoría: los antiguos creían que en la etimología de una palabra estaba su verdadero significado natural. De hecho, un diálogo breve de Platón, el Crátilo, se dedica a experimentar con la idea de que cada palabra tiene una esencia natural que la etimología (de etymos, verdadero) pone al descubierto. En el siglo VI-VII San Isidoro de Sevilla, patrón de la Filología, llama a su gran obra de compilación de la cultura universal las Etimologías, porque comparte la creencia de que sólo conociéndolas desde los orígenes se capta la esencia de las cosas.

            La verdad es que hay pocas esencias naturales inmutables, y el origen es sólo una dimensión parcial de cualquier cosa. Más aún de las palabras, cuyo origen es arbitrario y nada tiene de natural, salvo las onomatopeyas tipo “maullar”, que guarda relación con la voz del gato, como el croar de la rana, el mugido de la vaca. Pero bad es “baño” en alemán y “malo” en inglés, precisamente porque es la convención de cada lengua, y no hay nada natural en la palabra, que podría ser igualmente good (en cambio, sería extraño maullar para las vacas y mugir para los gatos). Los “falsos amigos” en las lenguas extranjeras vienen de una confianza excesiva en la verdad de la etimología. Son muy interesantes también es las etimologías falsas, como que Pepe viene de "padre putativo", cuando viene del italiano Giuseppe (abreviado popularmente en Beppe): la falsa etimología tiene generalmente mucha mayor dignidad que la real.

Nos sobran los motivos

Arantza de Areilza

En honor a Joaquín Sabina, poeta, cantaautor mediterraneo,de clima seco, savia vieja y tronco anudado, de lengua afilada de repasos a la vida y a su diccionario.

Desde Cuba, Meet the Winner of the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Prize

 

By: Tom Gjelten of NPR

Time magazine last week named its picks for the 100 most influential people in the world. Raul Castro made the cut in 2007 as Cuba's acting president. This year, there's a different Cuban on the list. Yoani Sanchez, 32, has gained a worldwide following for the independent blog she writes from Havana. On Wednesday, Sanchez earned a top prize in Spain for digital journalism — or, so she was told. Cuban authorities did not let her go to Madrid to accept the award.

In her blog, Sanchez makes sharp, often stinging, observations about daily life in Cuba. When a massive throng of Cuban workers marched through Havana last week for the May Day parade, many outsiders might have been impressed by the turnout. But Sanchez took note of something the outsiders probably missed. The workers' banners, proclaiming support for the Cuban revolution, were professionally produced.

"If they'd left it to the workers to make their own signs," she wrote, "they might have said something else."

It was the kind of wry comment that many weary Cubans could appreciate.

"Politically, we can't do much. It's hard for citizens to communicate with each other here. The news media are all in the hands of the state. People are afraid," Sanchez says. "What we're trying to do is to get people to reconnect to each other as individuals, as citizens. This is what I like to write about in my blog. I'm not a political analyst. I'm not even a journalist. I speak as a citizen, from her daily experiences and her reflections on her country and her community."

Colores

Rafael Puyol

Los colores definen el aspecto o la tonalidad que adoptan las personas o los objetos. Pero también empleamos sus variedades o el conjunto de ellas para definir situaciones o condiciones de nuestra existencia.

"Ponerse de mil colores "es el cambio brusco del rostro por vergüenza o cólera reprimida. "Sacarle a alguien los colores "es avergonzarle por algún motivo. Y ver como a una persona "un color se le va y otro se le viene "es comprobar la turbación de ánimo del mutante.

El verde denota inmadurez de las ideas. Pero ser un "perro verde "es mostrarse poco sociable y ser un "viejo verde "es exhibir una afición desmedida hacia aquello para lo que no se tiene edad

El "amarillismo "es ofrecer información sensacionalista y no contrastada suficientemente.

La vida puede ser maravillosa y entonces es de " color de rosa ",pero a veces se complica y provoca un " panorama muy negro ".Este color denota obscurantismo ,falta de trasparencia ,cuando no marginalidad y hasta depravación..Negros pueden ser trabajo o el dinero, pero también el cine, las novelas y hasta las penas.

El blanco refleja claridad, inocencia o restablecimiento de la legalidad perdida .Las marcas fiables son blancas las manos que piden justicia también y se blanquea el dinero para devolverle su honestidad.

El rojo es de izquierdas y el azul de derechas. Los nobles tienen la sangre azul, aunque los hay con ideas progresistas como la duquesa roja a la que nadie ponía colorada.

Una persona gris es la que no destaca por nada, resulta anodina, tiene un carácter taciturno y es propensa a tragarse "un marrón "inevitable, a veces impuesto y casi siempre injusto. Las personas grises son austeras, todo lo contrario de aquellas desbordantes y excesivas que se ponen "moradas "de casi todo.

Ya lo ven .Sean floridos o austeros, positivos o negativos, cálidos o fríos, simples o compuestos, los colores definen los sentimientos, las actitudes, los comportamientos, el carácter y hasta la ideología .La vida es de colores.

The Decline and Fall of a Classic

Rolf Strom-Olsen

In the cultural tradition of the West, there are certain foundational texts which are as well-known as they are today unread. I refer to those few works which have managed to rise above their specific cultural or linguistic origins to become entrenched within a more general tradition.  Thus, as an outstanding example, Don Quixote, which among its various accomplishment include the founding of a national literature (Spain), a literary genre (picaresque), giving the English language a word (quixotic), inspiring numerous artists, including Daumier (left, just a fantastic portrayal), Picasso and Strauss, and regularly being selected as the greatest novel ever written, including an impressive first-place show in a poll of 100 leading literati in 2002. (It has even inspired it's own blog!)

Also, I suspect that Don Quixote remains astonishingly unread - it is, after all, immensely long. I have been reading, on and off (mostly off), the Don for about four years and still have several hundred pages to go. (That's the advantage of the picaresque novel - you can easily start reading where you left off, even after the space of several months.) Most people I know, however, haven't read it at all. And why should they? After all, there are plenty of other things that demand our attention. Who has the time for thousands of pages of the whacked-out adventures of a delusional Knight-Errant and his fat sideshow?

I suspect that this neglect enshrouds many such canonical works. How many of us actually read any or all of Goethe's Faust, or the Brothers Karamazov, Pascal's Pensées or Aristotle's Ethics? If I consider the number of such works that I haven't read (read yet I'll say optimistically), it would furnish a small library. In fact, it has furnished a small library, since I own a whole slew of motley classics that mostly collect dust wrought by the benign neglect that tends to follow good intentions. Some I suspect are destined to remain gloriously uncontaminated by my reading eyes. (For sale: Derrida, Selected Essays, Excellent Condition. That was a foolish purchase; what was I thinking?) However, every so often I start in on one. Such it was the other day when I pulled from my shelf one of the greatest classics of all: Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (available online in various formats).

This is widely considered the forefather of modern history: a monumental six-volume work covering a thousand years of history, closely documented, exceptionally well-written and now generally neglected. Not that long ago, Gibbon was a must-read, or at least the first few volumes were (even contemporaries found the whole 6 volumes a tough slog). But as part of the general decline and fall of the classics, Gibbon has become one of "the great unreads" to quote the late Roy Porter. What remains known of Gibbon is mostly his famous excoriation of the Christian religion drawn in limpid, animated and vigorous terms and typically adduced as an instance of the rejection of organised religion among Eighteenth Century Lumières like Rousseau, Voltaire and Hume. The anti-Christian sentiment shocked many of Gibbon's contemporaries and intellectually titillated yet others. Admittedly, it is fun stuff.  For instance: Early Christians'

indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare, exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans who very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire, attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. To this insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret cause of their security; the expectation that, before the conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more.

While Gibbon's wry wit and trenchant turn of phrase target Christianity repeatedly throughout the Decline and Fall, the accumulated weight of his invective and sardonic commentary is particularly heavy in two chapters (15 and 16 if you are taking notes). This alone is now what most people read of Gibbon (when anything at all); that is all that I had read of Gibbon.

Butterflies Aren’t Free

Op-Ed Columnist

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: May 7, 2008 in the New York Times

Maureen Dowd

In his memoir, the legendary Elia Kazan wrote about directing Vivien Leigh in "A Streetcar Named Desire." While he did not think that Leigh was a great natural actress, he was impressed that she would crawl through glass to get the role right.

Hillary Clinton may not be a great natural politician, but traveling across the country on her own Bus Named Desire, she has crawled through glass to get the role right.

She showed again with her squeaker win in Indiana that for many white working-class men, she is The Man — more tenacious and less concerned with the judgments of the tony set, economists and editorial writers. Talking up guns, going to the Auto Racing Hall of Fame, speaking from the back of pickup trucks and doing shots of populism with a cynicism chaser, Hillary emerged from a lifetime of government limos to bask as queen of the blue-collar prom.

Nobility is for losers.

From Aryans to Indoeuropeans II

Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui

Last Tuesday I posted a map of Indo-European languages. I encourage ST readers today to look at this family tree in which these languages, ancient and modern (from Hittite to English, from Armenyan to Afrikaans), are shown to be genetically related. The languages, not the peoples. These languages have extended along history among an extremely wide range of populations, so that even if in the remotest past there was an Aryan “people”, we can only speak now of languages, spoken by black, Indian, Indian-American or white people in the five continents.

This genetic relation of languages was discovered in the 18^th century by English travellers to India (Sir William Jones was amazed by the similarities of Sanskrit to Latin) and then developed by German philologists in the 19^th cent. The best known are the brothers Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm (photo), whose tales have delighted the childhood (and perhaps the parenthood) of many of us. They were not only enthusiastic collectors of old folklore and legends, but also excellent scholars of historical linguistics. They (as other 19^th century learned romantics like Savigny) should not be confused, as they are sometimes, with what came afterwards. The manipulation of all these studies by the Nazis, who constructed a fictituous “Aryan race” in the “one nation-one language” spirit, was already commented in the last post. The use of sholarly concepts to justify genocide and crimes tainted all historical scholarship with the suspicion of being pure  ideology. That is doubtlessly one of the causes of the extreme asepsis of the academic humanities, which can, however, lead sometimes to self-isolation and sterility (see Santiago Íñiguez’s and Arantza’s posts on how IE model wants to avoid both).

In Memory of Mr. Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo

Arantza de Areilza

Sapiens Tribune would like to express its deepest sorrow for the death of Mr. Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo yesterday, one of the most enlightened European Prime Ministers of the 20th Century, Prime Minister of Spain between the years 1981-82.

"El Presidente del 23 F"

As published in ABC

Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo pasará a la historia como el presidente del Gobierno que asumió el poder tras la derrota de la intentona golpista del 23-F y que firmó el ingreso de España en la OTAN como miembro de pleno derecho. El primer jefe del Gobierno democrático que fallece marcó el puente entre la etapa de Adolfo Suárez y la decadencia de la UCD y la que abrió Felipe González con el auge del socialismo. A pesar de estar sólo 21 meses al frente del Ejecutivo -entre febrero de 1981 y diciembre de 1982-, su mandato fue algo más que una mera transición y contribuyó a asentar los cimientos de la democracia.

Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo nació en Madrid el 14 de abril de 1926. Su actividad política se remonta a la década de los setenta aunque durante su juventud fue integrante de las Juventudes Monárquicas y en 1957 fue uno de los fundadores de Unión Española, de carácter monárquico posibilista.

Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward (Anne Sexton)

Felicia Appenteng

The following is the winner of Poetry Out Loud, the annual poetry contest for high school students which is sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts.  The 2007 winner was Amanda Fernandez.  Please enjoy this wonderful reading.

DIMINUTIVOS

Rafael Puyol

A veces usamos los diminutivos, no para reducir la dimensión de una cosa o persona, sino para magnificarla. Todos conocemos a individuos habilidosos en el ejercicio de una función, que definimos con su diminutivo. “El cerebrito” es un personaje con destacada capacidad intelectual; el “manitas” lo arregla todo en un pispas; el “cocinillas” posee grandes dotes culinarias; y el “piquito de oro” encandila a la concurrencia con exuberante verborrea. Recuerdo aquel Pepín de mi juventud, gran seductor y amador profesional, al que sus amigos llamaban “colita”.

Pero hay otros usos. Tener una “barriguita” es exhibir un protuberante abdomen moldeado por el consumo de muchas “cañitas”. Por esa vía adquieres unos “kilitos” de más y acabas siendo “un gordito”.

La playa, aunque tenga una extensión sahariana es la “playita” y el sol benefactor que nos tonifica es el “solecito”, aunque su dimensión permanente y volumétrica nunca aconsejaría el diminutivo.

Una “amiguita”, no se crean ustedes, no es sólo una conocida pequeña; en ocasiones es un planazo, con tendencia a la permanencia, protagonizado un auténtico putón verbenero.

Si te dicen de una persona que es un “sosito” échate a temblar. Los “bobitos”, pobres, suelen rozar el encefalograma plano, y los que están “muy malitos” hacen antesala en las 10 de últimas.

Poseer un fortunón es tener “dinerito” y hay quienes, tras cometer un desfalco o una tropelía, se van “de rositas”.

Una persona tratable y facilona es una “perita en dulce”, un buen negocio puede ser un “chollito”. Y una intensa relación sentimental un “rollito”.

Los diminutivos también contradicen el tamaño de algunas personas. Angelín era el pívot de mi colegio y pesaba 120 kilos. Y qué me dicen de Sarita o de Carmencita o de Pititas.

Ya lo sé. El diminutivo, aunque esté en contradicción con la dimensión de la persona o del objeto de que se aplica, refleja sobretodo cercanía, aprecio, reconocimiento, valoración, cariño. Bueno, si es así, sigamos empleándolos.

El Hombre Poliédrico Entrevista con Eduardo Arroyo

(Como publicado en Ideas Empresiales)

Icono de la figuración narrativa y del pop-art, Eduardo Arroyo es también mecenas de encuentros musicales en los que aparecen, entre otras figuras, la pianista Torres-

Pardo o el tenor Enrique Viana. Como hombre poliédrico y casi renacentista que es, lleva desde los años Sesenta haciendo escenografías por toda Europa.

Este madrileño, cosecha de 1937, icono de la figuración narrativa y del pop-art, es también mecenas de encuentros musicales en los que aparecen, entre otras figuras, la pianista Torres-Pardo, la soprano Celia Alcedo, el barítono Isidro Anaya o el tenor Enrique Viana. Como consumado ilustrador, ha enriquecido con su peculiar potencia visual el "Ulises" de Joyce y La Biblia, ambas obras editadas por Galaxia Gutenberg. Como hombre poliédrico y casi renacentista que es, lleva desde los años Sesenta haciendo escenografías por toda Europa. Pero ante todo, Arroyo es un crítico insumiso, un irreverente contumaz, una suerte de artista total, irónico e iconoclasta.

From Aryans to Indo-Europeans I

Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui

Last week I wrote about the mistreatment of some words which taints them with negative connotations, and made a passing reference to the “Aryans”. Since some ST readers, corageously waiving the anonimity of the nickname, seem more prone to face-to-face comments than personal ones, I have been asked to expand on that. And writing the post I realise that the subject is interesting not only for the comprehension of the past, but also for our time. I’ll post it in two parts.

“Aryan” is a Sanskrit and Old Persian word meaning “noble”. It seems to have been used as a self-designation of the sepakers of these languages (hence the modern “Iran”), which belonged to the Indo-Iranian branch of a wider family, the so-called Indo-European languages. I attach a map where you can see which languages, ancient and modern, belong to this family (among others, Greek, Latin and its derivates, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic). Note that Bask, Finnish, Turkish or Hungarian belong to different families. And you could include the whole of America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. Whatever conclusions can be drawn from this map, they have little to do with race.

Actually, the conclusions to be drawn from the map are to be related only to historical linguistics. But in the 19th century “Aryan” was given a wider sense, and it was taken as a designation for Indo-Europeans as a whole: this is not impossible, but there is no definite proof outside the Indo-Iranian branch. The Celtic “Eire” or the Germanic “Ehre” have been related, but phonetics are less mathematic than some think, and there is no way to prove it beyond reasonable doubt: which in scholarly terms means that it cannot be held.

The problem came when from aseptic linguistics it was given a much more dangerous and arbitrary sense, and in the 19th century people began to talk about “the Aryan race”. It is of course a typical mistreatment of the past, to adapt it to modern political or cultural agendas. It invariably entails the retrospective vision of History with anachronical contemporary categories: the identification of language and race is typical of 19th century European nationalism, and it was projected upon the remote past. The “Aryan people” would have invaded and civilized the world two millenia ago, which preluded further versions of the same invasion. We all know the horrors that were perpetrated not so long ago in the name of this non-existant race. So after the Second World War the word “Aryan” was definitely banned at all levels, and it was replaced by the more aseptic “Indo-European” (well, in Germany some still say “Indogermanisch”, but that’s fine, it’s just scholarly tradition).

In fact our own 21st century shows that identity and ethnicity are cultural processes that come out from a variety of elements: race or language are just two among many others. And so could it also be in that remote past which we know so little about. In fact, not so little, if we look for the right things, instead of pursuing racial phantoms. There are no traces of that pretended race, but we can reconstruct much of Indo-European mythology and poetry: perhaps they were (or are?) much more important to (re-)construct ethnicities than language or race. We’ll see that next Tuesday.