Arquivo para a ‘Museology’ Categoria
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.
Christmas lighting in Brazil
23
Dec
São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro stand out both for their creativity and
tradition, as well as for the investment that largely came from the private sector, for Christmas lighting.
All these two populous cities have scattered lighting and it is possible to take a Christmas tourist tour, so great are the news and curiosities, in São Paulo, for example, Avenida Paulista and countless other avenues: São João and Avenida Brasil, for example , the Vila Lobos park, which received special lighting, but the highlight is the lighting of Ibirapuera, a traditional leisure park in São Paulo, which received special lighting from the lake, which already has a fountain that dances with the waters to the rhythm. the music plays, and the surroundings are lit with more than 200 trees decorated with a million LED lamps.
The special at Ibirapuera this year is the lighting of the lake with a very creative shine and special decoration, highlighted below in the photo above, but the entire park is lit and it is a great highlight in the lighting of the city of São Paulo.
In Rio de Janeiro, all the seafront districts are lit, in addition to special lighting in restaurants and hotels, but the big show is the year-end fireworks at the seaside, financed by the private sector, it was not canceled despite a crisis the flu that Rio de Janeiro is experiencing, in the photo it is possible to see the burning from the image of Christ the Redeemer (also illuminated) from where you can see the fireworks (photo below).
Salvador’s Christmas lighting is also worth mentioning, last year it was a success with more than 1.3 million visitors, in a year of pandemic it is good to remember, with illuminated squares and avenues, some form a true tunnel of lights, with concerts and attractions, including drone performances.
North and Northeast also have several capitals and their attractions, Maceió has been standing out for several years for its Christmas lights, in the south the traditional tourist regions Gramada and Canela (close by), Blumenau and Curitiba stand out.
It is difficult to trace the entire Christmas scene in the country, several cities in the interior have attractions, such as Campos do Jordâo (SP), Petrópolis (RJ) and Monte Verde (MG), the important thing is that there is always an intention and there is always an intention to rescue the spirit. Christmas of love and peace.
Christmas in Lisbon
22
Dec
Lisbon is the Portuguese capital and Christmas there is a special destination for Brazilians, Portuguese was experiencing an explosion in tourism when the 
pandemic hit, a European vaccination champion reopened trade, but these days have returned to days of uncertainty and concern as new sanitary restriction measures
The commercial square is its central point, where there is always lighting with a beautiful Christmas tree (photo 1) and illuminates the triumphal arch (man to King José I), it starts its main street of commerce and restaurants by going to Praça do Rossio, and it gives way to Praça da Figueira, another characteristic and central point.
From the commerce square you have a view of the Tagus river where it connects to the sea, the region called “low Chiado” or simply “downtown” can be climbed via the stairs, the subway or the historic and tourist elevator Santa Justa even the Chiado.
Chiado is the point of an older trade, with its famous Camões square from where you have access to shopping streets and famous bars and restaurants such as the “cantinho do Avilez”, an internationally known chef who makes traditional Iberian food with good taste and creativity, there are many things to see and eat in Chiado, in addition to being a traditional cable car stop (electric as they are called there).
Praça do Rossio and Praça do Comércio are also tram stops, in the case of Praça do Rossio there is also a train station (trains in Portugal), from there you can go to Belém, where there is the famous tower and the traditional “ pastel de Belém”, or go to the most modern part of Portugal, going to Marques de Pombal square by metro or bus (buses, modern trams are nice and comfortable).
Unfortunately, sanitary restrictions are back, both for travel and circulation, so Christmas and New Year tours are limited there too.
Some European cities “illuminated” at Christmas
21
Dec
Many European cities are lit up and decorated at Christmas, there is a wave of denying the Christian feast, but the
atmosphere of friendship and peace remains in many places.
City with strong cultural traits, it is in the north of Switzerland, between Germany and France and therefore with strong influences from both, has approximately 200 thousand inhabitants, being the third largest city in Switzerland, after Zurich and Geneva.
In Swiss Basel, whether in the market market of Barfüsserplatz where is the Christmas Pyramid (photo below), a tower decorated with figures of the nativity scene, around there are several hot drinks kiosks and typical foods such as the Basel Läckerl biscuit and the raclette, other The city’s famous museum is also adorned by the Münsterplatz, with workshops and a tree decorated by the Johann Wanner shop, there is also a skating rink and concerts in the Cathedral.
In Strasbourg, since 1570 there is one where the biggest Christmas markets in Europe, it was even believed that some traditions were born there, such as the Christmas decorations in the half-timbered houses, in the Historic Center with its cobblestone streets (photo above).
In next post more Christmas cities.
