Yesterday evening, Marita Mathijsen, one of the leading Dutch literary historians, gave the 38th Huizinga-lecture at the St. Pieterskerk in Leiden. An elaborate version of this lecture has been published in a print edition, and a summary of the lecture is available at NRC Handelsblad (both in Dutch). Underneath my rendering and translation of her amazing talk.

Mathijsen begins her lecture by using the metaphor of a blind dog who has to rely on his memories to survive. In a way, we are all dependent on the past to survive. In the present we are all blind. Every action we perform carries its fare of memories within. And this also applies, even stronger perhaps, to our collective past, as a civilizing process (Elias). But where does historical awareness stem from, Mathijsen wonders, when does it start?

Hans Goedkoop argues historical awareness is congenital (it is Nature, not Nurture). It is an instrument that is implanted on our hard drives by evolution. It is a human survival strategy. Historical knowledge gives an evolutionary advantage. It provides cohesion (like religion did in the past). Mathijsen wonders whether this means that those with the best historical knowledge also have the best chances to survive? Goedkoop states that historical awareness is part of men, the notion that historical awareness might be declining is thus nonsense. However, as Mathijsen argues, much of our historical interest is a dissimulation, it does not strive, as she states, towards capturing the historical sensation, it only provides historical sensationalism.

Johan Huizinga’s notion of historical sensation has thus been reduced to historical sensationalism. As Mathijsen states, it is necessary for historical awareness to spread into society, however, this should not have to lead to distastefulness. Serious historiography should not have to be adapted to the needs of the masses. In that case everything becomes a cliché. Mathijsen mentions several examples of this development, for instance the soon to be reopened Dutch Museum for Literature, which will no longer put any original manuscripts on display, only copies. Mathijsen explains that this has nothing to do with historical sensation, it is fake, the people are being misled, they are fooled. The same problem arises, she states, in the discussion on the still to be established Dutch Museum of National History. Erik Schilp, one of the directors of the museum has proclaimed that ‘history should take a humble position’, it should thus not rise above the average. Valentyn Byvanck, the other director, pleads for a rebellious mentality. Mathijsen feels this shows no historical knowledge at all and wonders how they will combine a vision of a modest past with a rebellious one.

But the question remains: where does historical awareness originate? To explore this question a little deeper, Mathijsen makes a distinction between history and memory. Memory is something that both humans and animals share. History is a story consisting of sequences: it is uniquely human. However, Nietzsche states animals do not even have memories. According to Nietzsche, humanity is glued to the past: it walks on its leash. Children, like animals, are still chainless; they are blissfully oblivious. Historical awareness starts with the introduction of the past tense in language: ‘once upon a time there was…’. This is the end of innocent ignorance. When does memory become history? When memories are ordered into a story, into language, into an image. When chronology is introduced. Memory is Nature, history is Nurture. Children develop historical awareness trough stories, stories are used to generate an interest into the past. History serves as a means to retain the past. From memories, images of the past arise. And from these images, historical awareness grows. Historical awareness needs a level of abstraction, which needs a certain age, a certain sense of culture to grow. A culture or society can also have a historical awareness. Historical awareness originates in a transition. A culture with a highly developed sense of historical awareness, is a culture that gives a good rendering of the orderings, of the chronology of the past. It is a culture that takes care of its monuments, of its national heritage, and in which a historical canon is a natural entity that is regularly adjusted. The acknowledgement and appreciation of the historical dimension is something that needs to be supplied. However, this should not be that difficult, since it is something inherent to us, to our nature: everything bears an amount of history within.

When does historical awareness turn into historical sensationalism? When it loses its profundity. In primitive cultures historical awareness starts with a longing to chronicle events. When stories are told, when myths are written down. But not with Homerus, but with Herodotus historical writing truly starts. But making a record of history is still not the start of historical awareness, where this can also have juridical or heretical reasons. Historical awareness needs something more, both on an individual as well as on a cultural level. As Johan Huizinga has shown, historical awareness needs a feeling of emotion, a feeling of being moved, or thrilled, when you encounter something new or special. But in the case of Huizinga, this awareness was even lifted to a higher level, to the level of historical sensation, where the researcher becomes one with the object: the sublime moment or instant when the past and the present collide, when they become one and the same and a deeper insight into the past emerges. This goes even further than remembering or reliving history, it is a seizing of the past, a resurrection. As Frank Ankersmit has stated, in the historical sensation the past and the present come together, as Huizinga said, object and subject, past and present merge. The historical sensation comes before the historical experience, it is the characteristic moment needed to achieve historical understanding, when we start to consider and understand the past as part of our daily life. Our memories about the past unite the present and the past, both on an individual level as well as on a societal. We can even see a collective turn to the past in certain periods, for instance in the 19^th century, the period in which normal, regular things turned into objects of remembrance: lieux de memoires. History turned into a stimulant, something you could not get loose from, something that, since the French Revolution, had become available to everyone and had turned our way of looking into a historical view. The past was no longer worthless, it became valuable. The historical sensation opens ones eyes for the historical dimension.

According to Nietzsche however, this could also lead to excesses, to an overvaluation of history. This is where historical knowledge turns into a disadvantage, into a defect, into a shortage. Nietzsche experienced how at the end of the 19^th century history was transformed into a mass product, harmful to life. Historical interest can thus quickly turn into historical sensationalism. As Mathijsen claims, this interest in historical sensationalism in the Netherlands these days does not mean things are going well on the level of historical awareness. But what exactly is wrong with historical sensationalism? Isn’t this taking on an elitist viewpoint, stating history is from the few and for the few? No, Mathijsen states, for she does believe history should be available for everyone, however, that does not mean it should hide under the guise of historical stupidity. Mathijsen sees a lack of true authenticity, of attention for deeper insights instead of superficial thinking. Popularization should be substantiated with knowledge and research. Historical awareness is more than nationalism. Without our past we do not have a future. Our search for the past is a struggle against forgetting that what has passed.

George Steiner once wrote a book entitled Dix raisons (possibles) à la tristesse de pensée, on why thinking makes you sad, echoing Schiller’s Schleier der Schwermut. Thinking makes us sad because we never seem to find adequate answers. It also makes us sad that we will never be able to think the past again in such a way that it actually comes to be again; our inability to conquer the past is what makes us feel melancholic. Compared to Steiner, Huizinga is an optimist: he believed in the possibility to think the past in the present, in, or through, the historical sensation. The disenchanted world (Entzauberung der Welt – Weber) can again be enchanted by actually seeing the past. For to survive and evolve into our future, we are all dependant on our past.

In my journey up Mount Prynne I’ve been looking at some of the academic work that sets out to elucidate the poems and place Prynne in a wider context. The Jacket site has been particularly useful in this regard but unfortunately most of the stuff on there is couched in dense and (to the lay reader) impenetrable terms which doesn’t actually elucidate the work but does serve to further mystify and complicate the business of climbing Mount Prynne. I cite as evidence Kevin Nolan who writes- “rather than a merely mechanical materialism or, even worse, a Heideggerian apophatics which would collapse the autonomy of the poem in the rush towards a negative theology of the unennhalte?” How many people, other than post-graduates, are going to be entirely familiar with the meaning of this?

There’s also the issue of value in poetry and the fact that an impossibly elitist and obscure discourse on poets and their work effectively destroys that value by means of exclusion. This is not to say that I am against theory nor am I against the various European brands of criticism per se. I do recall however watching with some dismay as deconstruction, post-structuralism and all things Foucault started to seep into the Anglo-Saxon world in the early eighties. This seepage has produced what is, at best, a bastardisation of the original ideas and, at worst, a complete travesty of what was meant.

I need also to say that there are some insights in Mr Nolan’s piece but the hapless reader does need to wade through the bullshit to get at them. Unlike David Harvey, I don’t think that Eng Lit has entirely lost it’s theoretical way  but I do feel that attempting to be more ‘difficult’ than difficult poets themselves are does nobody any good. Criticism, if its any good, should provide readers and students with the wider context and provide the tools for us to appreciate the poems finer points. Alastair Fowler’s gloss on Paradise Lost, for example, tells me about the way Milton makes use of astronomy and of the significance of numbers in the poem’s  construction.  I can then choose whether or not to marvel at the astronmical invention and puzzle over the numbers but Fowler also lets me know that these are not barriers to understanding. George Steiner writes with great warmth and enthusiasm about Paul Celan but he does this with far more clarity than many members of the academy.

So, this is a plea for Eng Lit to sort itself out and to remember that obscurity and quality do not always go hand in hand and that ‘difficult’ poets do should not be written about in difficult terms.

George Steiner en The New Yorker

Fondo de Cultura Económica

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Librería Crack Up
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Entre 1967 y 1997 George Steiner escribió más de ciento cincuenta artículos para el semanario The New Yorker; la agudeza y diversidad de estos textos dibujan una silueta de extraordinaria erudición. La ciudad de Viena, el ajedrez y el Risorgimientoitaliano interesan a Steiner tanto como las elucubraciones de Borges, Céline o Benjamin. Excelente narrador y sabio de inusual precisión, George Steiner esboza una trayectoria ideal que conduce del pensador a la esencia del pensamiento, del escritor al espíritu de la escritura y del acontecimiento fortuito a la historia cultural.Los ensayos de esta compilación no dejarán de sorprender al lector: Canetti, Russell, Cioran, Chomsky, Orwell y el historiador y espía Antonio Blunt conforman, entre otros, un irresistible elenco de protagonistas.Discernimiento que arroja nueva luz sobre los grandes temas de la cultura contemporánea, ideas que transitan de la controversia a la claridad, esta colección de ensayos es un modo de lucidez e independencia intelectual.

“La invención de la melodía es el supremo misterio de las ciencias humanas”. Esta frase de Lévi-Strauss, repetida muchas veces por Steiner en sus libros, asombraba al autor de “Gramáticas de la creación”.

En 1967, las Conversaciones de “L´Express” con diversos intelectuales del mundo recogieron, entre otras, estas declaraciones del pensador recientemente fallecido: “Es posible que nuestro mundo camine hacia un cataclismo o hacia una guerra atómica que extermine a las tres cuartas partes de la humanidad. En ese caso, el cuarto restante se encontrará en unas condiciones de vida bastante parecidas a las de las sociedades que estudiamos. Pero, incluso si se descarta esta hipótesis, podemos preguntarnos si nuestras sociedades, cada vez más grandes y cada vez más parecidas las unas a las otras, no tienden a recrear en su propio seno ciertas diferencias, centradas sobre ejes diferentes a los que ahora presiden el desarrollo de las similitudes.”.

La mezcla de ideas materialistas, marxistas y freudianas llevó a Lévi-Strauss a una antropología que fue calificada por muchos como “antihumana”, entre otras cosas por la disolución que supone de la persona. Emmanuel Lévinas, filósofo del Otro y del Rostro,  al cual me he referido más de una vez en Mi Siglo, declaró sobre Lévi-Strauss: “El ateísmo moderno no es la negación de Dios, es el indiferentismo absoluto de “Tristes trópicos“. Lévinas denuncia el lenguaje reducido a un sistema de signos, la formalización matemática. “El pensamiento contemporáneo se quiere mover así en un ser sin trazas humanas, donde la subjetividad ha perdido su sitio, en medio de un paisaje espiritual que se puede comparar a aquel que se ofrece a los astronautas que, al llegar los primeros, ponen su pie sobre la luna donde la tierra misma se muestra deshumanizada”.

Recuerdan de algún modo estas frases de Lévinas las declaraciones que Heidegger hiciera a la revista Spiegel en 1966 mostrando su recelo ante ciertas actitudes del mundo actual: “Todo funciona – decía Heidegger -. Esto es precisamente lo inhóspito, que todo funciona y  que el funcionamiento lleva siempre a más funcionamiento y que la técnica arranca al hombre de la tierra cada vez más y lo desarraiga. No sé si usted estaba espantado, pero yo desde luego lo estaba cuando vi las fotos de la Tierra desde la Luna. No necesitamos bombas atómicas, el desarraigo del hombre es un hecho. Sólo nos quedan puras relaciones técnicas. Donde el hombre vive ya no es la Tierra“.

(Imágenes:-1.-Claude Lévi-Strauss.-foto Daniel Mordzinski.-EFE/ 2.-”Einstein abstract”.-1999.-foto Cornelia Parker.-Galería Carles Taché.-artnet)

Alte cariche dello Stato che flirtano con minorenni, un premier corruttore, il potere esecutivo che offende quello giudiziario, trattative fra Stato e mafia, collusioni tra politici e camorra, governatori e politici dalla doppia vita, amministratori che incitano al razzismo, stili di vita che disprezzano la precarietà lavorativa ed esistenziale di questi anni…

Esempi per i giovani
di Pasquale Almirante

Le cronache che da qualche giorno stanno infestando le pagine dei maggiori quotidiani italiani, oltre agli affaire erotico-privati (che tuttavia hanno correlazioni perfino col più vecchio mito e la più vecchia storia) dei vari presidenti, riportano il convitato inquietante della cocaina che pare girerebbe dentro il Palazzo a fiumi, ma che a noi serve per riflettere soprattutto in funzione del suo rispecchiarsi dentro la scuola.

Si tratta, benché molti fra i maggiori quotidiani nazionali inoculino certezze, di sospetti, ma il messaggio che comunque passa fra i ragazzi è sicuramente pericoloso e a subirne le conseguenze sono sia quei professori seri che in materia di droga mettono il massimo di impegno, sia le famiglie che alla scuola demandano parte di educazione alla salute. Se infatti a livello delle massime istituzioni dello Stato si insinua il sospetto che la cocaina, e con ogni probabilità pure altre sostanze stupefacenti, viene regolarmente usata a beffa di tutte le leggi che lo impediscono, quale impatto può avere questa notizia, anche se falsa e tutta di dimostrare, su ragazzi in età evolutiva compresa far i 13 e i 18 anni? E non solo, ma con quale autorevolezza potrà mai un insegnante educare a non consumarla, quando nei cosiddetti droga party sono coinvolti pure personaggi potenti e personalità di sicuro spicco?

Intanto i giovani, più che ai predicozzi che tutti sanno fare, guardano ai comportamenti degli adulti, ai loro esempi che poi diventano modelli di vita su cui si impianta il futuro. Non andando troppo lontano, Socrate coi suoi allievi amava dialogare e non fare comizi, e quando ci fu di scegliere tra la fuga dalla legge e il suo rispetto non ebbe dubbi e venne ucciso, ma lasciò l’esempio cosicché le sue parole divennero montagne su cui anche Sant’Agostino edificò fortezze.

Se si prescinde dunque dai comportamenti allora tutto diventa inutile e qualcuno dovrà spiegare ai giovani della scuola, che per emulazione o per mera trasgressione sniffano o fumano le droghe, perché dovrebbero non farlo quando perfino pezzi importanti dello Stato, quelli che scrivono le leggi e ne pretendono il rispetto, la usano con disinvoltura?

Ma i ragazzi sanno ragionare pure coi commenti più comuni dell’opinione pubblica (della quale fanno parte anche i professori), secondo cui tutti i politici sono uguali, sia nella rapina convinta dello Stato sia nella violazione delle legge, che va dalle raccomandazioni all’abuso e ora pure all’uso di certe sostanze, e non solo perché possono permetterselo, in qualità di potenti e quindi quasi extra legem, ma anche perché hanno soldi che invece a loro mancano. Capovolgendo l’ottica, ci chiediamo ancora: quale credibilità può avere allora un insegnante che cerca di dissuadere i ragazzi dall’usare droghe nel momento in cui personaggi illustri della classe politica sono sospettai di esserne stabili fruitori?

Ed ecco allora che ai loro occhi il prof. scrupoloso rischia di apparire o come un bacchettone moralista oppure come colui che vive in un mondo tutto suo nel quale quello dei giovani è solamente il guizzo di qualche ombra. Scaviamo ancora. Prendiamo un docente che abbia una grande ascendenza dentro la classe, cosa potrà fare se non aprire un dibattito, nel tentativo soprattutto di capire come leggono la notizia i ragazzi? Ma fatto questo, cosa può offrire la scuola in alternativa? Trovare forse qualche appiglio (quale?) per evitare che gli scolari si fermino cogli spacciatori che bivaccano davanti alle scuole o dentro alle discoteche? E che tipo di parole sussurrare se non quelle solite e suffragate dalla giaculatoria che per ciò perdono spessore?

La scuola vive ancora di parole, mentre avrebbe bisogno soprattutto di modelli credibili che gli insegnanti riescono sempre meno a offrire, proprio perché i prototipi sono altri: quelli televisivi e quelli che giornalmente i giovani colgono nella giungla della città e dei quartieri degradati dove il termine legalità è solamente un suono, una parola, un sussurro con poco significato.

La sfida che la scuola ha davanti a sé, non è solo di imbrigliare la cultura dentro i cuori dei ragazzi, ma di combattere la retorica delle parole e di proporre esempi credibili e verificabili sul campo. Forse per questo, quando degli alunni furono invitati a partecipare a un corso sulla legalità finanziato dalla Regione, uno di loro disse, in perfetta lingua siciliana e col braccio proteso e saltellante sull’interrogativo: “Prufissuri, ma di che giustizia e legalità va parrannu?”.

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Riabilitare il presente
di Goffredo Fofi

Si riabilita il presente… facendo noi per primi ciò che è giusto fare, momento per momento. Facendo ciò che ci è possibile fare e, quando è necessario, anche l’impossibile. Cercando la coerenza tra il dire e il fare, facendo interagire tra loro la teoria e la pratica… Insistendo sul legame assoluto tra i fini e i mezzi di cui ci serviamo per il loro raggiungimento. Non chiedendo agli altri quello che non siamo disposti a dare anche noi. Non disprezzando nessuno, ma esigenti con se stessi e dunque autorizzati a esserlo anche con gli altri…
(Goffredo Fofi, Da pochi a pochi, pp. 150-151, Elèuthera 2006)

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Materiali

La lezione dei maestri
di George Steiner

… si è sostenuto che l’unica licenza onesta e verificabile per l’insegnamento, per l’autorità didattica, si ottenga grazie all’esempio. L’insegnante dimostra allo studente la propria comprensione del materiale, la sua capacità di eseguire l’esperimento chimico (il laboratorio ospita dei «dimostratori»), o di risolvere l’equazione sulla lavagna, o di abbozzare dal vivo il modello in gesso o il nudo nell’atelier. L’insegnamento esemplare è una messa in atto, e può essere muto. Forse deve esserlo. La mano guida quella dell’allievo sui tasti del pianoforte. L’insegnamento valido è ostensibile. Si mostra. L’«ostensione», che tanto interessava Wittgenstein, è inscritta nell’etimologia: il dicere latino, che significa «mostrare», e solo più tardi «mostrare dicendo»; l’inglese medio token e techen con le sue connotazioni implicite di «ciò che mostra». (L’insegnante, in fin dei conti, non sarà forse uno showman?) In tedesco deuten, nel senso di «indicare», è inseparabile da bedeuten, «significare». La contiguità costringe Wittgenstein a negare la possibilità di ogni istruzione testuale onesta in filosofia. Rispetto alla moralità, solo la vita effettiva del maestro ha forza dimostrativa; Socrate e i santi insegnano mediante la loro esistenza. 
(da George Steiner, La lezione dei maestri, p. 9, Garzanti 2004)

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La “pedagogia dei maestri”
di Emilio Varrà

La prima esigenza mi sembra quella di riattivare una “pedagogia delle passioni”, costruita non sulla convinzione che una passione sia insegnabile, ma che la si possa esibire, mettere in qualche modo a servizio dei ragazzi, perché ne sentano l’energia e possano a loro volta mettersi in ricerca. Avere una passione, o tentare di trovarla, è un processo che immediatamente ripristina un legame con il tempo perché riattiva il desiderio, la curiosità, la visione del futuro. E’ un nuovo slancio verso l’utopia, perché ogni passione vive della corsa verso il raggiungimento, piuttosto che della soddisfazione. L’oggetto della passione non è influente, quello che conta è trovarla:

Avere una vocazione, una passione, è una felicità pericolosa ma senza fine; è la più grande fortuna che si possa avere al mondo. Il grande artista, il grande atleta, e anche noi che non siamo artisti, conosciamo questa sete d’assoluto, la sete che ci divora.
(Gerge Steiner, Ragazzi, qui ci vuole passione, in “La stampa”, 10 dicembre 1998)

Questa sete costringe ad una ricomposizione dell’esistenza: ogni azione o decisione non si ferma più al momento presente, non è inerte, ma assume una tensione vettoriale, conta per quello che provocherà. Ma è in questo porsi in prospettiva che si valorizza anche il qui e ora, perché gli si dà una direzione e una finalità. Diventa così necessario riattivare immediatamente un atteggiamento strategico, comporre un gioco lento di costruzione che può dare forma a un’intera esistenza.

Ma non sempre una passione si trova spontaneamente, anzi sono rari i casi di questo tipo. Molto più spesso essa nasce per imitazione, per contagio, perché si è incontrato qualcuno che ce l’ha. Ecco allora un’altra urgente strategia di intervento: la “pedagogia dei maestri”, intesi qui non come categoria professionale, ma come maestri di vita. La figura del maestro, con la sua storia, la sua esperienza, la sua età radica lo slancio della passione nel passato, ricomponendo così pienamente le tre categorie del tempo. Un maestro ha prima di tutto il dovere di raccontare, di porsi a modello, non importa se da accettare o rifiutare, di lasciare il proprio percorso in eredità. Per quanto sia sempre più pronunciata la frattura fra le generazioni, con un senso crescente di incomunicabilità, i ragazzi sono ancora immediatamente capaci di riconoscere chi può essere utile alla loro crescita.

Ecco che allora il loro distacco, l’indifferenza, il senso di rinuncia sono silenziose accuse a noi adulti, sempre più incapaci di accettare una responsabilità educativa, smarriti fra impegni, frustrazioni e giovanilismi d’accatto.
(Emilio Varrà, Il tempo della pedagogia, in Prima educare, pp. 58-59, edizioni la meridiana 2008)

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“Beato quel popolo che non ha bisogno di eroi”
di Vittorino Andreoli

Forse è bene che tu insegni loro [gli allievi] quanto Brecht pensava: una società di eroi è debole perché non permette che tutti siano protagonisti, e allora educali a diventare protagonisti nella società e a continuare a farlo nella classe dove ci si afferma essendo parte attiva dentro un gruppo e per il gruppo, controllando narcisismo, voglia di sedurre, di primeggiare e di farlo in maniera fuori norma.

Anche le ragazze sovente diventano eroine, mostrando di essere più grandi di quanto l’età non attesti e compiendo cose che dimostrano una triste immaturità e persino un grande infantilismo. Eroine che buttano via il loro corpo, non solo prostituendolo senza saperlo, ma anche attaccandovi ogni cosa, distruggendolo pensando di abbellirlo per poi, più avanti nel tempo, non trovare più niente, solo macerie.

Bisogna insegnare ai tuoi allievi che la grandezza non sta nell’eroismo ma nel senso della propria esistenza e quindi in ciò che si vuol progettare, ed ecco di nuovo il futuro, poiché senza questa dimensione non c’è spazio per i progetti. La scuola ha bisogno di proiettarsi lontano perché una scuola dell’attimo presente è solo uno spot pubblicitario, magari diverso ma sempre menzognero.

Il terrore che il tempo presente ha della normalità è la sua grande follia. Non è un’affermazione giocata sul gusto delle parole e di un paradosso, ma la sconvolgente percezione che tutti vogliono avere qualcosa che li caratterizzi in maniera netta e nessuno accetta di avere come esempio il proprio padre o il proprio nonno, e non tanto per la condizione culturale o sociale raggiunta, ma per la severità manifestata, per la coerenza mai tradita, per la fedeltà ai princìpi e anche ai legami affettivi, alla storia personale piccola che non entra nei testi della grande storia, ma è piena di senso, certo più delle grandi guerre che i libri celebrano e raccontano, con tanto di eroi e monumenti alla memoria.

La voglia dello strano, dello strepitoso, dell’inatteso mette in ombra quella normalità che è anche costruzione di una identità, di una personalità fatta di coerenza e di princìpi rispettati e anzi difesi talora “eroicamente” con quell’eroismo che non ammette il compromesso e l’ingiustizia.

Oggi tutto spinge verso la flessibilità, il cambiamento, non solo degli affetti ma anche delle idee, e la coerenza sembra rigidità, incapacità di vivere in un mondo che muta rapidamente. Come se le metamorfosi fossero necessarie a vivere e non servisse più un volto come filo conduttore dell’esistenza. Meglio le maschere che hanno colori diversi e nuovi a seconda delle stagioni e degli stimoli a cui ci si deve adeguare per non essere dei perdenti e degli esclusi.

Insegna ai tuoi allievi l’importanza della identità perché non si perdano, non smarriscano ogni riferimento stabile e la capacità di giudicare eticamente i comportamenti e le azioni. Non il carino, ma l’onesto oppure l’immorale.
(Vittorino Andreoli, Lettera a un insegnante, Rizzoli 2006)

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“L’amore alla vita genera amore alla vita”
di Natalia Ginzburg

… Ma se abbiamo noi stessi una vocazione, se non l’abbiamo rinnegata e tradita, allora possiamo lasciarli [i nostri figli] germogliare quietamente fuori di noi, circondati dell’ombra e dello spazio che richiede il germoglio d’una vocazione, il germoglio d’un essere. Questa è forse l’unica reale possibilità che abbiamo di riuscir loro di qualche aiuto nella ricerca di una vocazione, avere una vocazione noi stessi, conoscerla, amarla e servirla con passione: perché l’amore alla vita genera amore alla vita.
(Natalia Ginzburg, Le piccole virtù, pp. 127-128, Einaudi 1998)

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Due segnalazioni: un discorso di Barbara Spinelli e un libro di Alessandro Ferrara.

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Un appello di docenti per la scuola pubblica.

Guide alla scuola della Gelmini qui.

Le circolari e i decreti ministeriali sugli organici qui.

Una sintesi dei provvedimenti del Governo sulla scuola qui.

Una guida normativa per l’anno scolastico 2009-20010 qui e qui.

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Dove trovare il Coordinamento Precari Scuola: qui.

La mappa della protesta qui.

Cosa fanno gli insegnanti: vedi i siti di ReteScuole, Cgil, Cobas.

Spazi in rete sulla scuola qui.

Que signifie enseigner et quel lieu occupe une telle pratique dans le monde contemporain? Le livre de George Steiner intitulé « Maîtres et disciples » offre une piste de réponse particulièrement intéressante quant à ce questionnement.

Le point de départ de son raisonnement est qu’il y a trois grand types de scénarios qui caractérisent la relation maître et disciple. D’une part, il y a les maîtres qui ont détruit leurs disciples sur le plan psychologique et qui ont consumé tous leurs espoirs ainsi que leur individualité. D’autre part, il ya aussi les disciples qui ont ruiné leurs maîtres et qui ont trahi tout ce dont ces derniers était pour. Et la troisième typologie est celle qui est fondée sur un lien de confiance, un dialogue dans lequel le maître apprend de son disciple par l’interaction et le disciple se met disponible à recevoir le savoir de son maître.

C’est le premier scénario qui est tant craint par la logique du monde contemporain. La figure du maître est soupçonnée d’être une figure autoritaire sans pitié qui nie les possibilités émancipatrices du sujet tout en cherchant à l’assimiler au système. Bref, on le soupçonne d’être un endoctrineur.

« Plus de maîtres » disait-on en 1968.

Steiner pense que notre époque est celui de l’irrévérence.

« Les causes de cette transformation fondamentale sont celles de la révolution politique, du chambardement social, du scepticisme obligé dans les sciences. L’admiration, pour ne dire mot de la révérence, est passée de mode. Nous sommes intoxiqués de l’envie, du dénigrement et du rabaissement. »

Dans une telle logique, la figure du maître ne peut plus occuper la place qu’elle avait jadis. Steiner ne pense pas que la relation maître-disciple est vouée à disparaître dans un monde comme le notre, mais elle devra changer de formes. Parce que la transmission de nos passions et éveiller des pouvoirs chez l’autre, c’est sans aucun doute une noble pratique.

Cependant, ce n’est pas dans notre système que sera favorisée une telle relation. Elle se fera plutôt en marge et de manière plus ou moins clandestine.

Me pregunto si el director del Hotel Masaccio, en Florencia, tendrá idea de qué nombre ha dado a su establecimiento. Conozco de igual manera varios bares llamados Unamuno y solamente observo suciedad en la barra y muchas colillas en el suelo. También creo saber que estos nombres no atraen por llamarse así o asá: no tienen ese encanto los nombres. Aún.

Masaccio vivió 27 años y pasó gran parte de ese tiempo entre muros sin imprimación de iglesias hechas según el estilo de ese momento. Masaccio es esencia viva de la cultura renacentista, es la esencia viva de Florencia; una ciudad que parece joven y que lucha por no pudrirse.

Un año antes de morir dejó su herencia a la humanidad: su “Trinidad” (1427) desplegó horizontes hasta ahora imposibles en los frescos. Y en los lienzos. Todo setenta años antes de que Colón descubriese América.

“solo puede resucitar por obra de una violenta transfusión de esas energías, de esos modos de sentir propios de los pueblos del ‘tercer mundo’. Ellos tienen verdadera ‘alma’, ellos poseen la belleza de la negrura y el Eros”.

George Steiner, fragmento del “El Castillo de Barba Azul” (1991).

Nos queda hundirnos con Occidente generando así alternativas para la cultura.

Nota: no tratemos de definir cultura.

After watching Inglourious Basterds last week, I skimmed through a few films I was referring to in my review and felt that Tarantino’s movie, its last chapter in particular, refers to them in a manner slightly deeper than mentioned. What I present here may be plainly speculative, but the very fact that Tarantino’s film retains enough ambiguity to generate such arguments makes the film one to be celebrated. Inglourious Basterds, more than any other movie, seems to be closest to Jean Luc Godard’s History of Cinema (1988-98). If one considers Godard’s film as a classroom lesson in cinema (Why not? The movie even resembles an office presentation!), then Tarantino’s movie is a student project (that would easily get an A+) based on that lesson. It seems that everything that the French discusses in his video anthology is absorbed and blended cleverly into a mainstream flick by Tarantino. For the sake of simplicity, I lift and reproduce the same lines from my post on Godard’s film to compare it with Inglourious Basterds.

“If we had to single out Godard’s most favorite quote it has to be the misattributed Bazin one: “The cinema, substitutes for our gaze a world that corresponds to our desires”. And this is where the series kicks off. Cinema as a substitute for our dreams – the dream factory. Godard explores the meaning of “dream” as interpreted by the two functioning extremes of cinema then. He presents the occident interpretation as one that had converted cinema into a portal offering an alternate reality, a second life, to the audience whose “dreams” were the fodder for the larger-than-life images that the films projected -one that continues till date.”

Tarantino’s film, on a basic level, as the director himself confesses, is a form of wish fulfillment. As with his other films, Inglourious Basterds unfolds as a revenge saga. But by situating his plot amidst real life events, unlike its predecessors, Tarantino is able to involve his audience more and provide better justification to the characters’ actions, rather than dealing with simple morality.

“[Godard] argues that cinema could have prevented unfortunate tragedies and averted genocides rather than merely crying over damages dealt and observing helplessly the misery of its subjects.”

Here, Tarantino seems to deviate. He seems to be of the opinion that cinema, perhaps all art, can’t ever change the world (unless, of course, you consider the way he uses it in the movie!). Proof? Take a look around. What it can do is to change the image of the world when it is passed onto a new generation.

“And in resonance with this ideology, instead of bemoaning what is lost and what could have been, Godard anticipates the death of cinema (He apparently asked Henri Langlois to burn the archives). Death, so that it can rise again from the ashes. “Art is like fire. Born from what it burns.” says Godard and that is precisely what he desires – Cinema to go down with all its exploitations and restrictions and rise in its purest form. Back to infancy, so that it can learn everything out of free will, without rules and without vanity.”

This is exactly what Marcel does when he burns the films – destroying those exploitative propagandist films of the Nazis and perhaps also those WW2 films that insist upon being loyal to reality and hence impotent. With the fire at the cinema hall that flips conventional reality, Tarantino places us at the beginning of a new history – of cinema (courtesy Tarantino) and of the world (courtesy Marcel).

“Godard attempts to reconstruct history as seen in retrospect. He utilizes existing film fragments to fabricate various histories of film – the one that was and the ones that weren’t but could have been. He examines how cinema could have been made independent of historical accounts and even made to influence them.”

This theory seems to form the core of Inglourious Basterds. Why should art ever trail history? As Bazin would say, Realism in cinema should just be the means, not the end itself. Tarantino, like Godard, sure can’t change history, but, at least, he can examine the history – again, of cinema and of the world – that could have been.

“Godard elucidates this servile relation that cinema bears to history using images of dictators and authoritarians. He highlights how the visual medium itself is being manipulated by a few people in power and how in turn, modern cinema manipulates the audience. Godard reproaches this moral policing and expresses his disapproval of the hypnosis that the TV-driven audience is subjected to. He appeals for a cinema that provokes but doesn’t direct, a cinema that gives you options but doesn’t select one, a cinema that makes you think and doesn’t think for you and a cinema that is only complete with its audience. As he quotes in one of the segments, “Cinema does not cry. Cinema does not comfort us. It is with us. It is us”.”

Tarantino, also, fills the film with fascists who seem to be exploiting the medium for questionable purposes. Goebbels’ film, like many a mainstream film that are made by another kind of fascists, has manipulated reality and wants its audience to buy that as truth. And Shoshanna’s film (like Tarantino’s) is what Godard seems to be wanting in place of Goebbels’.

“There is an intriguing recurrence of the image of human hands in the film. Godard urges artists to think with their hands – their real tools that have the potency to both create and destroy, to beautify and to horrify, to document and to change. He argues that these are the instruments capable of changing and redefining history and it is the weakness of the mind that hinders the possibility.”

Marcel, who had ‘created’ the small film with Shoshanna, is the one who would be setting fire to the pile of nitrate films. Tarantino, too, highlights his hand as he flicks the cigarette on to the heap – the hand that went from mere documentation of reality to direction of reality.

Brandon Colvin is of the opinion that Inglourious Basterds is primarily a comedy. I’m going to take a diametrically opposite path and say that this movie, when reduced to its human elements, stripped of all its film references and modernist facets, is a tragedy with a martyr called Shoshanna at its heart. The word ‘tragedy’ is often used loosely and seems to denote every tale that has a pathetic, miserable and depressing outcome. But, surely, Tragedy does not base itself upon emotions. In fact, it is quite the opposite. A tale is said to be tragic when two morally unquestionable and righteous forces are made to clash and a situation evolves when one of them has to let go of its stance, despite all convictions and emotions for the greater good. Tragedy is always the result of a choice that calls for a great sacrifice to go with it. As they say, it is our choices that define us. And a tragic choice defines us for life – either as a hero or as a coward (“merely human” would be the euphemism). Sansho the Bailiff (1954), even with its heavy pathos, is a melodrama whereas The Dark Knight (2008), despite its uplifting upshot, remains a tragedy. Shoshanna could well have married Zoller and led a very content life. Instead, she repudiates that path and takes up the task of liberating the Jews at the cost of her own life. Tarantino, apart from using Ennio Morricone’s moving piece Un Amico, employs mythological and historical iconographies to underline the magnitude of this tragedy.

The final chapter of Inglourious Basterds has got to be the densest that Tarantino has ever filmed. The chapter is ambiguously titled “Revenge of the Giant Face” as if recalling some B-movie from the 50s. But more than that, it seems to me now, it tries to allude to two of the most iconic “giant faces” of women that we know. The first would be that of Maria Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) – a film that is constructed out of hundreds of such giant faces. The tale of Joan of Arc by itself is a tragedy in which Joan sacrifices a normal life for the good of her people, much like Shoshanna, who, too, goes down in flames at the end of her journey. Only that Shoshanna doesn’t just suffer and prefers to take all of them down along with her. And then there is the most dreaded giant head in Greek mythology – that of Medusa the Gorgon – a mere gaze into whose eyes is supposed to petrify you. Daniel Ogden (source: Wikipedia) describes this stare of Medusa’s as “seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer”. Now, the Nazi officers in the final chapter are watching a fictional film, seated safely away from real life action, without any apparent threat from the images on the screen. When Shoshanna slips in her own film, with her gaze directed towards the Nazis, she essentially “looks out of context of the movie”, challenging, literally, the viewers, in a manner in which the modernist director used their actors, and petrifying them by dragging them out of their passive state.

But then, our ideas about these two iconic characters are derived only through images and shadows – through paintings, through Dreyer’s film and through textual accounts. As George Steiner put it, “It is not the literal past that rules us. It is images of the past.” With the passage of time, history and mythology mingle to such an extent that it becomes virtually impossible to separate them. In Chris Marker’s magnum opus The Owl’s Legacy (1989), Jean-Pierre Vernant illustrates the mythos behind this practice of image (which is a word that referred to doubles, miniatures, copies and ghosts in general in Ancient Greece, the land of tragedies) creation. He tells us that images, for Ancient Greeks, were a means of facing man’s worst fears by reducing them down to caricatures. In Medusa’s case, this meant that they could see her directly in the eyes (a la Perseus who used a mirror – an image creating device – to slay her) and subsequently use these images to intimidate enemies. In Vernant’s own words: “So there is a way, though images and through stories of disarming the horror of death that the monstrous face expresses and which the image carries out so that what can’t be seen can be depicted in many ways” (recalling Godard’s quote about movies in History of Cinema: “How marvelous to be able to look at what we cannot see.”)

In the final chapter of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino absorbs these images of dead characters from tragedies in mythology and history, blends it with the “image” of the tragic Shoshanna, who too is now dead, and, in essence, creates a mythology (Shoshanna the martyr) and history (Shoshanna the WW2 hero) of his own. Now, this is not far from what he does with his other characters in his movies, wherein he imbibes mythos and facts from within cinematic history to create new ones for his own characters. Only that, in Inglourious Basterds, his canvas seems to have expanded, with his universe transgressing boundaries defined by the history of cinema.  Furthermore, Tarantino uses the images of the movie – his Medusa mask – to “look at what he cannot see” in reality. Throughout the movie, he keeps attacking Hitler’s “image”. He depicts Hitler as a weak and paranoid individual with vermin like attributes. When he kills him in the final shootout, it is the “image” of Hitler that he wants to kill (much like the mentality behind voodoo and effigy-burning practices), for he can’t kill him in reality – exactly the same thing that Florya (Aleksei Kravchenko) does in Come and See (1985) when he fires at a photograph of Hitler in an attempt to undo the images of history, if not history itself.

In The Conformist (1970), Bertolucci equates the fascists with Plato’s prisoners of the cave, suggesting that they are blinded by fake ideologies fuelled by personal insecurities. In The Owl’s Legacy, Marker equates the audience in the cinema hall (citing Simone Weil) to those prisoners, proposing that they are blinded by images they see on screen and take them for reality. In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino combines both these notions and presents us Nazis watching movies in a cinema hall. These “blind” Nazis enjoy the massacre that Zoller is doing on the screen, assuming that this is how it was. Zoller, on the other hand, is the only person there who knows it wasn’t so and leaves the cinema hall, breaking free from one of the captive caves he is occupying. Additionally, Tarantino does not forget to free his audience from the chains of their cave. Like it was done in Bertolucci’s film, he keeps reminding us that we are watching a movie and whatever we are seeing is a mere paining on a plastic canvas (contrary to what other films on historical subjects want us to believe). In chapter two, Raine, seated at the centre of an arrangement that resembles a Greek theater, tells the captured Nazi officer that “watching Danny beat the Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies”. Raine seems to know that he is just the shadow of a man placed on a simple image. And because he regularly attempts to remind us of the fakery of it all, Tarantino’s violence also helps to serve the same purpose – to try to disengage us from whatever is depicted on cinema screen even when it is unmitigated and concrete. As the movie’s title confesses, its all a fraud and a very beautiful one at that.

[The Conformist (1970)]

[The Owl's Legacy (1989)]

(Images Courtesy: Imaginary Year, Hellenica)

-¿Rechaza usted el público burgués?

-Ese que se regodea con escenas en el que el protagonista se arregla la corbata silbando y llama de pronto a su criado:… «Oye Pepe, tráeme…». Eso no es teatro ni es nada. Pero la gente de plateas y de palcos hacen lo mismo todos los días y se complacen en verlo. Yo arrancaría de los teatros las plateas y los palcos y traería abajo el gallinero. en el teatro hay que dar entrada al público de alpargatas. «¿Trae usted, señora, un bonito traje de seda? Pues ¡afuera!» El público con camisa de esparto, frente a Hamlet, frente a las obras de Esquilo, frente a todo lo grande. Pero ¡qué! Si lo burgués está acabando con lo dramático del teatro español. Está echando abajo uno de los grandes bloques que hay en la literatura dramática de todos los tiempos: el teatro español. El otro bloque es el teatro chino.

Federico García Lorca, fragment d’entrevista recollida a la introducció a Bodas de sangre, ed. Cátedra.

Aquesta enorme resposta la va donar Lorca l’any 1933. Als nostres temps, quasi un segle més tard, la mateixa resposta l’hauria pogut donar el Pepe Rubianes, si és que no ho va fer indirectament, el Brujo, o qualsevol amant de la tragèdia «en se i per se». Perquè Lorca escrigué Bodas de sangre i moltes altres obres com a una tragèdia amb tot el sentit de la paraula; pretenia refundar l’esperit dionisíac perdut, que segons ell vagava (inobservat) per Andalusia i apropar-lo al públic, que el necessitava.

El racionalisme i la ciència com a culte han intentat amagar sempre i desesperadament al Tànatos i «la noció de que existeix a la naturalesa i a la psique humana forces ocultes i no controlables capaces de embogir i destruir», parafrasejant a George Steiner. El racionalisme carrega contra l’irracionalisme, Apol·lo carrega contra Dionís. Suposadament són actes d’autodefensa d’una bèstia que es veu acorralada, que té por.

Com és que encara manifestem, i potser cada vegada més, aquesta por?

GEORGE STEINER

GEORGE STEINER
CINQ ENTRETIENS AVEC LAURE ADLER
FRANCE CULTURE
RÉALISATION | NATHALIE SALLES

Steiner le provocateur

Depuis une précédente série d’À voix nue, Georges Steiner a publié un savoureux essai intitulé Pourquoi je n’ai pas écrit certain de mes livres un numéro de l’ Herne lui a été consacré et il a pris dans la presse des positions politiques sur le Moyen Orient. L’âge venant, sa liberté grandit et il dit sans hésiter parfois avec sarcasme ce qu’il pense de l’évolution de notre société.

C’est à une vision pessimiste de notre société qu’il nous convie en analysant la perte de l’écrit, l’absence de désir de se réalimenter aux sources de la haute culture et l’avènement du règne de l’immatériel. Toutefois Steiner tempère ce pessimisme par une croyance au développement des sciences exactes et au progrès médical mondial qui permettra, pense-t-il, de nous greffer des mémoires artificielles en cas d’Alzheimer et de veiller à notre bien être !

Steiner revient sur ses deux passions essentielles qui lui permettent d’envisager le lendemain: la musique qu’il écoute chaque jour- il en fait et c’est une vocation manquée à cause d’une disgrâce de naissance – et les mathématiques.

Il évoque sa passion d’enseignant et comment sa vie chaotique de juif européen l’a conduit depuis des décennies à enseigner dans toutes les universités du monde pour se fixer enfin à Cambridge. Lui qui est profondément antisioniste, constate l’impossibilité de l’existence d’un état palestinien et dit son inquiétude d’une montée de l’antisémitisme…

Steiner un penseur libre.

TÉLÉCHARGER LES DOCUMENTS (.ZIP)

MERCI À IOWAN

The G.K.Chesterton experiment continues – and I am enjoying it – but I became aware not that long after my first steps into Lake Chesterton, that I would want something else to complement its cool, lapping and soothing waters: that “something” has turned out to be George Steiner.

Steiner is a long-term hero of mine, ever since I came across “The Death of Tragedy” whilst at school and (predictably for a teenager) was obsessed with the misery, woe, self-centredness and formality of the genre. Steiner’s book wasn’t (isn’t) a simple education in precedent, form and structure – but it was (is) magnificent, ambitious, wide-ranging and (most importantly) of high seriousness. I have read everything he’s published ever since, being particularly fond of “Real Presences”, “After Babel” and “Tolstoy or Dostoevsky” – or I thought I had, until I came across “George Steiner at The New Yorker”, a collection of his essays for that great magazine.

It was in the excellent introduction (by Robert Boyers) that I came across the following passage, wherein Boyers makes the point that so many of Steiner’s colleagues and peers (from so many diverse fields) view him as “exemplary”:  ” “He thinks, ” Sontag noted in 1980, “that there are great works of art that are clearly superior to anything else in their various forms, that there is such a thing as profound seriousness. And works created out of profound seriousness have in his view a claim on our attention and our loyalty that surpasses qualitatively and quantitatively any claim made by any other form of art or entertainment.” While there were those, in the American academy especially, who were all too ready to reach for “the dismissive adjective ‘elitist’ to describe such a stance, Sontag was more than willing to associate herself with Steiner’s commitment to “seriousness”… His efforts to discriminate better from best continue to draw the epithet ‘elitist’,”

Now: I am neither so arrogant, nor so stupid as to even begin to draw a comparison between myself and the truly great Steiner – but I am also struggling under the “epithet ‘elitist’.” Needless to say, his metier is that of the true polymath, his consideration of greatness (in literature alone) spans Dante, Shakespeare, Homer, Sophocles, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky – whereas mine is the very shallow world of advertising. But still: the JOB is to discard the better and reach for, and build, the best. I am unshakeable in this, but it’s getting me into a lot of trouble – there is a prevailing current of “no such thing as a bad idea” (palpably untrue, as scanning the theatre listings, bookshelves, cinema showings and television schedule should make it more than apparent) and “everyone’s voice is equal”. Well: RUBBISH.

What are inarguable rights of humanity (equality, representation, self-actualisation etc.) are simply not transferable to the realm of ideas: and I don’t see why that’s problematic. Indeed, it seems to me to be incredibly dangerous to assert that all ideas have equal weighting, all voices have equal resonance, all thoughts have equal brilliance: if you can’t say “That idea is poor in quality”, “that idea can be improved upon”, “that idea can be liberated by cutting away the dead wood that’s shadowing it” then what hope is there for great ideas? However, my enthusiasm for the great (and I will be honest: my dismissive treatment of the palpably sub-standard) is getting me a reputation of “only wanting to work with people he thinks are good” and the classic “he doesn’t suffer fools gladly” (show me someone who does, and I’ll show you a fool).

In the words of an infuriated Hanif Kureishi, during a Radio 4 interview at which he was surrounded by preening, specious, post-modern egalitarian pussies: “I’m sorry, but opera IS better than “Just Seventeen”. It just IS.” This captures my attitude precisely – but I am astonished at the number of people who are prepared to take the opposing side as they finger the toenails that protrude from their Birkenstocks, and adjust their bejewelled beanies, purchased at Womad or the fucking Innocent Village Fete or some such hell-hole of wilful ignorance.

I really don’t know what the antidote to this is, but my first act of defiance has been to put a poster above my desk with “Elitist at Work” written on it – and in quite an inaccessible font, too. I think we all know that Steiner would see this and think “mon semblable, mon frere.”.