Arquivo para a ‘Museology’ Categoria
Libraries and Wars
31
Aug
In the 1950s, shortly after the Second World War, the Brazilian
documentation magazine translated and published an article by Carl Hastings Milan on the Wars and the loss of documents and libraries.
He had been director of the Birmingham Public Library, where he opened the first branch of services for African American authors and readers, the article is available online and shows a face of the war for libraries in reference to the previous post we made on this blog.
The transcriptions into Portuguese were made by Sylvio do Valle Amaral and the original article follows the war in September 1944, published in The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia.
The article begins by indicating the interruption and discontinuity of journals and publications during wartime, in addition to the material loss and lack of exchange of many documents.
The author emphasizes this loss where: “London publishers and booksellers lost millions of volumes in 1940-41. Several famous British scholarly libraries, and dozens of public ones, were damaged or destroyed. Several European countries, Russia, China, in addition to the Philippines, have suffered or are now experiencing a similar fate, but the saddest is yet to come” (MILAN, 1950, p. 50).
In advance many works were taken or hidden from German libraries, but the destruction and looting represent a cultural attack according to the “infamous” author who was credited to Hitler, it is important to look at this for history so that it does not repeat itself now.
Among the author’s denunciations is that also in the defeat: “Newspapers recently reported the burning of books in Naples, before the withdrawal of the Nazi army” (idem, p. 50), and thus a part of history is erased, regardless of of what those documents represent, they are an important cultural testimony of a time, which, because it is outdated, is subject to criticism, but there is no right to erase it, they are cultural documents.
It reestablishes the role of libraries, now also in crisis due to a distorted view of digital technology that we also post here, but the author says for that time: “Basic to the reestablishment of intellectual activity throughout the universe, is the reorganization of libraries” and ignoring this is a crime against the cultural preservation and memory of the people.
After emphasizing cooperation and support for libraries in Latin America and elsewhere, countries discuss the training of librarians:
“Despite the common recognition, in the United States and abroad, of the imperfections of our methods in preparing young men and women for library work, a surprisingly large number of students from abroad come to this country at normal times to obtain what schools of this specialty can offer” (MILAN, 1950, p. 53)
Milan, C. H. As bibliotecas, os intelectuais e a Guerra, trad. Sylvio do Valle Amaral. Rio de Janeiro: REVISTA DO SERVIÇO PUBLICO, AGOSTO DE 1950 (original in 1944).
War and peace
30
Aug
I read a recent commentary on Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) that another Russian
writer Ivan Turgenev claimed that knowing and reading Tolstoy is better than reading hundreds of works of ethnography and history” to know the character and temperament of the Russian people, conservatives such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) who came to be considered his successor, and Vladimir Lenin leader of the Soviet revolution who considered him one of the greatest Russian writers.
Many of his books were for the cinema, recently (2012) Anna Karenina was rewritten for the cinema, under the direction of Joe Wright, and was nominated for an Oscar and won the best costume design, but a masterpiece by Tolstoy is the book War and Peace.
From War and Peace I remember impressions and some loose phrases, and the context of the book that talks about the tsarist wars of their context and time, but which is revealing of Russian thinking about war, and that its scourges are not ignored.
The book deals with the lives of 5 aristocratic families, in the period from 1805 to 1820, in the midst of the march of Napoleonic troops and their brutal impact on the lives of hundreds of characters.
There are figures such as the brothers Natasha and Nikolai Rostóv, Prince Andrei Bolkónsky and Pierre Bezúkhov, the illegitimate son of a count whose spiritual quest serves as a kind of thread in the novel and transforms him into a complex and intriguing character of the 20th century. XIX, and whose pursuit will be a complement to peace in the midst of war.
A kind of refuge similar to the book-stealing Girl, which in this case is in the context of Nazi Germany and she will find in the books a refuge for the dark environment of the rise of Nazism in Germany.
I see a common feature in these two books, which is this “refuge”, something between the spiritual and the reader, but both manage to create, in a suffocatingly hateful environment, gaps and spaces of peace and spiritual elevation.
If war comes, what will be our refuge, at what level of spiritual life and knowledge do we want to put our lives that will be at risk, I believe these are contemporary readings.
TOLSTOI, L. (1889) WAR AND PEACE, transl. Nathan Hskell Dole, NY: Ed. Thomas V. Crowell & Co.
People who resisted empires
04
Aug
The great Persian empire expanded from Cyrus the Great in the
year 558 BC, and dominated the Medes and took all of Mesopotamia, Cyrus respected the culture and customs of his enemies, but expanded his empire to Egypt, and advanced over the Greeks, but was defeated by Athens.
After Darius I, Xerxes I and his son Artaxerxes also tried to conquer Greece and failed, in the year 332 BC. Emperor Alexander of Macedonia the Great organized an invincible army and ended up taking Greece and eventually winning the Persians, establishing a new empire, Macedonian.
Alexander’s death from typhoid fever or malaria (the poisoning hypothesis is not accepted by historians) the dispute between generals ended up weakening the empire and starting a decline.
The period established between the starting point of the Classical Era is pointed out with the first record of the poetry of the Greek Homer, in the 7th-8th centuries BC. and will extend to the period from 300 to 600 A.D. which is called Late Antiquity, when the Middle Ages begin.
In this interregnum between the Macedonian Empire and the Roman/Byzantine Empire, Greek culture developed in classical antiquity, which is deeply influential to this day with the so-called Western culture.
Greek culture and language were for that time what the English language is today, great developments were made from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, names in several areas of knowledge stood out: Hippocrates in medicine, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in theater , Apelles in painting, Phidias in sculpture, Archimedes in mathematics, Aristarchus, Erastothenes and Hipparchus in astronomy, are some important names that still influence our culture today.
This small nation was a great founder of concepts and thoughts that reached our days: the Organon and the Ethics of Aristotle, the Geometry of Euclid and Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras in mathematics.
They won battles uniting the city-states, but they were a small people with a strong culture and humanistic values that are remembered to this day, although they can be modified and updated.
Plague, War and Famine
19
Jul
This vicious circle seems to perpetuate itself in history, and the
recent data and provocations of the war in Europe not only frighten, but cause a justifiable fear when it is observed that all over the world there are “fans” on both sides, and it is not a game , but a great genocide like any other war, but of greater proportions because it can involve the greatest world powers.
The generation that witnessed the horrors of the first two wars no longer remembers it, counting from the start date, the assassination of Duke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, by a Serbian nationalist and which is considered the trigger of the first war.
What preceded it was a period of European politics from 871 to 1914 called “Paz Armada”, where there is an intensification of disputes over markets, colonial territories and a vision of predominance in European geopolitics, where the Austrian Empire stood out. Hungarian to which Francisco Feerdinad was heir.
A documentary about the rise of the Nazis in Germany can be seen in a documentary made by the History Channel, and we will see a similar scenario: recent wars, economic crisis and not mentioned in the documentary: the Spanish flu (1918-1919).
The parallel with the growing tension between NATO and Russia in the current Ukraine war is evident, and therefore the fear of a war of civilizing proportions must be feared, including the inclusion of Serbian separatists, whom China is accused of send weapons.
The future scenario is one of a market crisis, especially in grains that will affect, in particular, the poorest, is already a visible scenario for many analysts. Global Hunger Index reports show that violent conflict is a major contributor to hunger (photo).
Civilization proportions are due not only to the number of nuclear weapons, but to more than 400 nuclear plants spread across the planet, the documentary on what the Nazis thought helps to reflect on our thoughts on popular “myths” and “fantasies” .
There is no vigorous force that fights for peace, but small attitudes such as gestures of empathy and friendship can help to overcome the current growing climate of hatred and lack of love.
Peace also has protagonists
21
Jun
If war makes its “heroes”, peace makes its “heroes”, three
cases were reported last week: Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov who is auctioning his medal for Ukrainian refugees, the former captain of the Russian football team Igor Demisov, midfielder said that I send a video to President Vladimir Putin in March asking him not to continue with the conflict and the last and most touching was the release of nurse Yuliia “Taira” Pavievska (photo 1), known like Taira, heroine of Ukraine in Mariupol where she also took care of Russian soldiers.
Taira had released a video with images of the “horrors” in Mariupol, and worked in precarious conditions of medicine and equipment, even so he also served the Russians.
Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, on the other hand, said that there is less and less independent press in his country, but that he already observes a growing distrust of the population around the war, Dimitry received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa ( photo 2).
The footballer Igor Demisov (photo 3) said that he feared for his life after making his request for peace public, saying “I don’t know. They may arrest me or kill me for these words, but I say things as they are. I even told him: I’m willing to kneel before you”, even though he said he was proud.
The fourth photo is a painting by Maria Prymachenko (photo 4), about 25 works may be destroyed in the small old Ivankiv museum, on the outskirts of Kiev, she made drawings, painted pictures (photo 4) and did embroidery, Pablo Picasso considered her “brilliant” after seeing her works in Paris.
The lamentable statement by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who expects the United States to beg for a discussion of nuclear weapons, and no less regrettable NATO declaration Jens Stoltenberg, that the war will be long, no breath for peace, no word of hope or dialogue.
Peaceful people never tire of asking for peace, the appeal to reason and dialogue, even if it is belated.
Non-violence and agape
13
May
The story told to this day is a story of power, where lack of 
respect reigns and that is why agápe love seems something altruistic and heroic, and it is, but it is more than that, it is the security of a more peaceful, safer humanity. where nations and peoples can freely express their culture.
Byung-Chul Han recalls that the first word of the Iliad for man is menin (anger): “the first word of the Iliad is menin, namely cholera, [Z or n] . ‘Sing, goddesses, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus’, thus begins the first narrative of Western culture” (HAN, 2018, p. 22)
Remember right from the start that only respect is symmetrical (reciprocal): “Power is an asymmetrical relationship. It is based on a hierarchical relationship. The power of communication is not dialogic. Unlike power, respect is not necessarily an asymmetrical relationship.” (Han , 2018, p. 18), so there can only be agape, a reciprocity of love without interests and without conditioning, if respect and love without interests are learned.
Similarly, Joyce’s Ulysses begins with “Buck” Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus in the Martello tower (photo) at dawn on June 16, 1906, the subject is Haines Mulligan’s guest and uncomfortable for Stephen, they argue between the lines, this goes unnoticed. for many interpreters, the Protestant philosophy of unionists (those who want Ireland united with England) and Catholics who want independent Ireland, which Stephen aligns with.
Mulligan ironically calls him a Jesuit, and it is right at the beginning of part I: “He raised the (shaving) vase and intoned: – Introibo ad altere dei. Stopping, he peered down the dark spiral staircase and called out harshly: – Climb, Kinch, Climb, execrable Jesuit” (Joyce, 1983, p. 6).
Philosopher Han begins his book on what mass culture is today, the culture of “shitstorm”, mass bullying, or literally: “Respect is attached to names. Anonymity and respect are mutually exclusive. The anonymous communication that is provided by digital media greatly deconstructs respect. Shitstorm is also anonymous” (HAN, 2018, p. 14).
Byung-Chul Han believes that a society of the future is possible from this current massification where the idea of war and hatred are still present, but will change: “The society of the future will have to rely on a power, the power of the masses. ” (Han, 2018, p. 25).
Byung-Chul Han believes that a society of the future is possible from this current massification where the idea of war and hatred are still present, but will change: “The society of the future will have to rely on a power, the power of the masses. ” (Han, 2018, p. 25).
A mass power must be peaceful and solidary, wars are vertical power disputes.
It is not a question of defining a superstructure of power and a logic of state, but a new and true agapic humanism, one that can be defined as the divine love of the “new Christian commandment (Jn 13, 33-34): “Little children, for I am still with you for a little while. 34 I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another.”
HAN, Byung-Chul.(2018) No Enxame: perspectivas do digital. (In swarm: perspectives of the digital). Brazil, São Paulo: trans. Lucas Machado. Ed, Vozes, 2018.
Joyce, J. (1983) Ulysses. Trad. Antonio Houaiss, Portugal: Difel. pdf
A reading of Ulysses´s Joyce
12
May
It may seem complicated for an unsuspecting reader to
read James Joyce’s Ulysses, first its division that claims to have connections with Homer’s Ulysses, so for example Telemachy (part 1, chapters 1 to 3) focuses on characters (Telêmachus was the son of Ulysses) and Odyssey (part II, chapters 4 to 15) is the development of the action that takes place all of it on June 16, 1904, as we already posted after a friends party with Joyce became Bloomsday .
In part I, it’s eight o’clock in the morning at the Hammer Tower, where Stephen (Bloom’s son) lives with Buck Molligan, an Englishman Haines friend of Mulligan is present, they discuss the art, which is the backdrop for their ethical positions. : the tension between the two is because Stephen of an art integrates and that despises the (social) concessions for recognition, while Mulligan sees an art that gives in to social pressure supported by Haines who intends to study the renaissance in Irish Literature and admires the folklore , however it turns out to be anti-Semitic, part of the xenophobia that the Blooms suffer from the origin of their father Leopold Bloom, who is a Jewish-Hungarian immigrant.
Stephen sees Haines as the colonizer as Irish-England unionism dominates the conservative Irish landscape of the early 20th century, while Stephen defends independence although he sees Irish provincialism as small and is also critical of his Catholicism.
Proteus (god of the seas and son of Ocean in Greek mythology) reveals Stephen’s reflection on the visible and the invisible, the objective world as signs that require interpretation (and contextualization), the transformation of everything in time and space, in mind. It develops here subliminally the themes of mother, woman and fertility, Amor Filia.
In Calypso the novel goes to Rua Eccles, n. 7 where Leopold Bloom has his breakfast and prepares it for himself, his wife and the cat, he decides to eat pork kidney and goes to the butcher shop to buy it, on the way he sees a woman who awakens daydreams, returns home collects the mail and sees a letter from daughter Milly, another from Blazes Boylan addressed to Molly.
Blazes had organized a concert tour for Molly and he suspects that the woman is cheating on him with Blazes, eats the roasted kidney, goes to the bathroom and outside the house reads a newspaper. This chapter prepares an incarnation and Odysseus, Stephen’s spiritual father, the inner monologue prevails, but now the daydream goes to the problems of Zionism and eroticism, on the whole, is a space of Eros Love.
Bloom reads a letter addressed to Henry Flower, his pseudonym, the name refers to the flowering of the sexual desire that emerges (the direct correspondence in Homer is with the lotophagous (picture), the people who eat lotus and who are a region of danger in the Odyssey), finally reveals Bloom’s moral strain.
At the end of this topic is Molly in bed, reflecting on her husband, her meeting with Boylan, her past, her hopes, she too suspects a lover of her husband, aspires to a great future, is interrupted twice by the train whistle (a kind of time passing) and another for a start of menstruation, she thinks of the doctor, her children Stephen and the deceased, she remembers the first sex with Bloom.
There are ethical and aesthetic concerns, especially with Stephen in the book, which sets the stage for early 20th century Ireland, but there is an absence of Agape Love, except in Stephen’s conception of art, and this is the connection that James Joyce tries to make. between his Ulysses and Homer’s.
Joyce, J. (1983) Ulysses, Trad. António Houaiss. Portugal: Difel. (pdf)
The palliative society or the absence of pain
13
Apr
Palliative society explains Byung Chul Han has nothing to do with palliative medicine, as the Korean-German philosopher explains: “Thus, every critique of society has to carry out a hermeneutic of pain. If pain is left solely to medicine, we miss its character as a sign” (Han, 2021).
It reminds us of a saying by Ernest Jünger: “Tell your relationship with pain, and I will tell you who you are!”, so a critical society is not possible without a hermeneutics of pain, the relationship with each suffering not only that produced by history, but that which is in the particularity of each Other.
“Survival society completely misses the point of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed to high health for an end in itself” (Han, 2021, p. 34).
He recalls and quotes Agamben in his vision of homo sacer and via naked: “Without resistance, we subject ourselves to the state of exception that reduces life to bare life” (Han, 2021, idem).
In the palliative society “The art of suffering pain is entirely lost to us… Pain is now a meaningless evil that must be fought with painkillers. As a mere bodily affliction, it falls entirely outside the symbolic order” (Han, 2021, p. 41), emphasis added by the author.
So today, pain is removed from any possibility of expression, it is condemned to remain silent, and “the palliative society does not allow to enliven, to verbalize pain into a passion” (p. 14), emphasis added by the author.
Vargas, Cecília (2018) Systems of Pain/Networks of Resilience project in one gallery. Curated by Cecilia Vargas, Dickson Center at Waubonsee Community College, June 7-July 10th(foto).
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2021) The palliative society: pain today. trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Language and empathy
21
Jan
José Saramago expressed this about the opinion that people have
on different subjects: “The problem is not that people have opinions, this is great. The problem is that they have opinions without knowing what they are talking about”, in times of social media it is very common to repeat illustrious strangers because they said an impact phrase, but when it is placed in an appropriate context or if one penetrates the subject in question, one can have a more sensible opinion.
Everything is controversial today and in a way almost everything has become mere opinion, the doxa of the Greeks, in this context the problem of language is extrapolated and empathy is increasingly rare in everyday language, if the problem at the origin of modern society in classical antiquity was sophistry, everything was argued just to please the ruling power, the problem today is to see this disseminated in everyday language, care with language, respect for others and respectful listening must be part of empathic language.
It is not just central politics that has deteriorated, or democracy that has gone into crisis, the choices of savior leaders of the homeland, the little discussion of the de facto problems that affect the population, in full pandemic expansion little is said about effective measures against it. , just to give a serious example, the whole problem seems to be the vaccination of children, which is undoubtedly urgent, but everyone has several cases of family or close infection in the neighborhoods where they live.
Re-educating everyday language, reintroducing respect for any citizen, of any race, color or religion, should be a common effort to improve social empathy.
Even in religious language, previously extremely respectful and loving, a more separatist and isolationist conception seems to evolve where the different is isolated and frowned upon.
It is necessary to find space, time and place where the first truths can be spoken, where the original cultures can manifest and be heard.
In many cultures, religions and theories there is a central node there where the deepest truths are spoken.
The biblical passage in which Jesus reveals who he really is and what he came to should be the central point of analysis of his language and his mission, went to Nazareth, the city where he was raised and could be seen as an ordinary person, an empathic attitude, going the synagogue on the Sabbath day they gave the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 61) and there he read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor: he has sent me to proclaim the deliverance of the prisoners and, for the blind, the recovery of sight; to give freedom to the oppressed, he sent me to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord”, closed the book and then surprised everyone by saying: “Today this passage of Scripture that you have just heard has been fulfilled” (Lk 1:14). -21) (In the photo the signature of the prophet Isaiah, National Geographic).
Verbal, mixed and mystical language
20
Jan
Verbal language is one in which we find only words (it can be
primary, secondary or written orality), while non-verbal language involves gestures, visual signs, images, figures, drawings, photos, colors and even music, but communication can be realized beyond the gesture and then becomes a mystical communication.
It is not specific to religions, close people, lovers and even children can communicate with this perfection without the exclusive use of verbal or written language, it is beyond autosuggestion involves the theme that we develop further behind empathy, the vigor of a loving relationship or simply a great opening of the soul.
But the mystical language to make itself revealed to many and to be understood uses mythical resources, figures of speech, parables and even poetry, as Heidegger already thought who considered it an “other function” of language, the verses are rich in metaphors. , symbols and stories such as the passage of the Samaritan who helps a person who was robbed and attacked on the road to explain that helping the Other, mercy with those who suffer and helping is always a divine “will” for man.
However, it happens that many passages are read and analyzed out of context or out of the hermeneutic meaning of their realization, if in the past several linguistic resources were needed to read mystical documents, among them the Bible, the Quran or the book of Vedas, it does not mean that they can be read without the necessary hermeneutics.
Also updating them just to make political use, whatever the ideological tendency that makes it is a suspect hermeneutic because it depends on a certain historical conception, and we know that the sacred text, except for its contextual reading, must refer to a timeless and divine reality. aspatial (although the term does not exist), but considering the earthly life of everyone who reads it, it is on this that a good hermeneutic must be based.
The Bible does not mean anything other than what was written from a verbal word, the Christian gospels represent a review and a re-reading of the facts and verbal accounts of the early times of Christians that began with the public life of Jesus, period of domination of the Roman Empire and in which, besides him, many others claimed to be prophets.
The mystical language finds correspondence when a certain soul is in tune with the “divine will”, in the Christian saying, attentive to the Holy Spirit and having a special grace for this, which is very different from common influencers in our days due to the media powers and to the appeals to our human needs, one must be attentive to the divine, of course this is for those who believe, although also a perfect non-verbal communication can perfectly happen between those who do not believe, but it will be devoid of any divine revelation.
