Roberto Bolaño og kunsten

Det er ikke muligt at penetrere livets eller kunstens inderste hemmelighed. Men den kan erfares gennem de produkter, som et livs kreative handlinger efterlader. Sådan skal man læse den chilenske forfatter Roberto Bolaño, for sådanne efterladenskaber udgør eksistensens fundament. Og med et sådant kan der måske gives et svar på, hvordan lever man i en verden fuld af vold, pengegriskhed og had?

Læs essayet “Hver eneste forbandet ting er vigtig” i anledning af, at Bolaño døde på en solrig dag, som i dag, tilbage i 2003.

Og jeg stopper først

”Og jeg stopper først, når mænd stopper med at begå overgreb,” skriver Sille Kirketerp Berthelsen i en kronik i Information. 

Offerrollen er blevet så populær, at alle tilsyneladende drømmer om at påtage sig den. Kvinder og mænd, de fremmede, de syge, de arbejdsløse, de smukke, de tynde, de kloge og mindre kloge. Alle er de til tider ofre. For offeret er det altid den anden eller de andres skyld. 

I Berthelsens kronik er det mændenes skyld. De begår overgreb. Og det gør de. Jeg tvivler ikke på statistikkerne eller hendes oprigtighed. Men, modsat hendes spådom, er jeg ikke træt af #MeToo. Tværtimod. 

I Spanien, hvor jeg bor, dør der cirka to kvinder om ugen på grund af hustru- eller parvold. I alt for lang tid har holdningen været – helt forrykt – at lidt fysisk vold er okay. Heldigvis har #MeToo og andre vigtige kampagner igangsat en mentalitetsændring i Spanien (se også When Stupidty Rules).

Men kvinder begår også overgreb af den ikkedødelige karakter, som kronikøren nævner. Mange mænd har fået slynget en barm i ansigtet eller presset nogle hårde bryster mod sin ryg. Mange mænd er også blevet reduceret til objekter af kvinder. Mange mænd har oplevet at blive kysset mod deres vilje. Eller haft en hånd i skridtet efterfulgt af en enten såkaldt smigrende eller fornedrende kommentar om, at der er noget henholdsvis ikke noget at komme efter. Jeg har prøvet det hele. Jeg har også mødt en kvindelig blotter. 

Adfærd er altså ikke partout kønsbestemt, men snarere tegn på at en person er mere eller mindre velfungerende (se også All Women Are Not Angels).

Mine egne erfaringer til trods ser jeg ikke mig selv som offer. Jeg er snarere et menneske, der har erfaret livet på godt og ondt. 

Enkelte vil nok mene, at det skyldes, at jeg er en mand. Og sagen forholder sig unægtelig anderledes for mænd, idet manden ofte er fysisk stærkere og derfor kan virke mere truende (og manden fylder unægteligt væsentligt mere i statistikkerne). Alligevel gjorde den kvindelige blotter mig bange, da jeg mødte hende som niårig.

Jeg tror, at inderst inde i os alle befinder alle de andre sig. Vi former og formes af hinanden.

Stereotyper og generaliseringer er der nok af. De vokser som bekendt, hvor ignorancen trives.

Pointen er, at der findes smukke, respektfulde og tillidsvækkende mænd og kvinder, ligesom der findes mandlige svin og kvindelige orner. 

Af samme grund, så vil jeg gerne være en killjoy – noget typisk filosofisk og ikke partout feministisk – og ønske mig, at kronikøren først ville stoppe, når alle mennesker stopper med at begå overgreb. 

Dette vil kræve, at vi bevæger os udover denne dualistiske dans mellem offer og krænker, hvor positionerne hele tiden skifter, som i en tenniskamp. Når offeret føler trang til at hævne sig, som i kronikken, så kan jeg godt forstå det, ligesom jeg ofte finder vreden produktiv, men problemet er dog, at taktikken nemt kan ende med at bekæmpe had med had.

Det for småligt til at gøre verden mere rummelig. 

En mere frugtbar tilgang ville udspringe af kærlighed. Det vil sige, at i stedet for at gøre et regnskab op, som jo aldrig kan gøres op, når det er så attraktivt at være offer, kunne kræfterne bruges på at skabe et fundament, hvor fremtidens mennesker kan leve frit og kærligt sammen. Som den afroamerikanske feminist bell hooks har påpeget, er kærlighed ikke en naturlig menneskelige evne, men derimod noget vi må lære. Kærlighed forudsætter, at vi mødes med kærlighed, venlighed og medfølelse, hvorved vi også erfarer lighed mellem mennesker – dvs. mellem køn, racer, aldre og seksuelle præferencer. Kærligheden kræver tillid og respekt, hvilket er noget som kultiveres gennem tillidsvækkende og respektfulde handlinger.

At vedkende sig eksistensen af krænkelser og overgreb er første vigtige skridt. Næste skridt må være, at eliminere eller reducere muligheden for fremtidige krænkelser.

Dette projekt kræver, som nævnt, kærlighed, venlighed og respekt, ikke had.     

Denne kommentar blev bragt i en redigeret og forkortet version i Information

Nietzsche and Psychotherapy

It looks like the 21st century will become one of philosophical therapy.

Philosophy has moved out of the ivory tower and back into the public sphere from where it began. At times, this trend enhances the public debate and, at others, only populates philosophy to make it more marketable. The latter is often disguised self-help literature.

Another, more important reason for the awakening of philosophy is that many of today’s illness cannot be graphed using psychology. Stress, burnout, borderline, and depression can no longer be regarded as individual diagnoses. Rather, they are symptoms of a sick society. Among the philosophers who are often used in philosophical therapy, is the late Wittgenstein and his mantra “meaning is use,” or existentialist, especially when they are dealing with a pallet of powerful concepts, such as false belief, anxiety, authenticity, responsibility, freedom, and perhaps most popular, stoicism, which some used to overcome their vulnerabilities and attain peace of mind. For example, the stoic tries to eliminate the passions that cause a person to suffer. Stoicism is closely related to religious or spiritual thinkers in that they operate based on a kind of salvation, a stage in which they no longer suffer from pain or loss.

Then, there is Nietzsche.

Psychotherapist Manu Bazzano has written Nietzsche and Psychotherapy. Unlike the stoic, Nietzsche saw suffering and loss as a part of what makes a life worth living. A full and flourishing life has something at stake. For example, my love for my wife and our children makes me vulnerable because I could lose them.

Nietzsche and Psychotherapy can be read as a Nietzschean experiment that brings some of the German thinker’s concept, including joy, becoming, will to power, etc., into psychotherapy.

Bazzano shows how radical and powerful a thinker Nietzsche is, as well as how psychotherapists can learn or be inspired by his thoughts.

 For example, he tries to compare the life-affirming and life-denying approach by taking what works from psychotherapy and adding a dose of Nietzsche where these practices do not work. “In person-centered therapy it is assumed—rightly, I think—that the person receiving therapy is in a states of incongruence… It is also generally assumed—wrongly, I think—that ‘successful’ therapy means the coming together of organism and self-concept” (p. 31).

The first is right, according to the author, because those who suffer from a crisis indirectly are inviting creative experimentation into their lives. However, they do not do so to find themselves but to overcome. The self is not found; rather, it is achieved or created.

According to Nietzsche, philosophy starts in fear. For example, fear in today’s performance or achievement society has reduced education and therapy into punishment. Here, Bazzano tries to liberate psychotherapy so it becomes more creative and less judgmental. “Therapeia means, after all, healing…The nihilistic, life-denying influence of our culture has made sure that psychotherapy replicates these principles, thus functioning as a mouthpiece for a pervasive ideology of resentment” (p. 134). Instead of a passive nihilistic approach to life, Bazzano suggests the adoption of an “active nihilism” that turns therapy into a kind of entertainment, a term that originally means  “holding together” (p. 150).

Holding what together, we might ask. A myriad of interpretations of what it is that actually is holding life together (or potentially might hold it together), and how intense it is doing so, etc. The approach related to Nietzsche goes against a mechanical, teleological or strictly normative approach; instead it opens for a more intuitive, poetic and liberating relationship to and with life. “Where you can guess, there you hate to deduce,” Nietzsche is quoted for saying. Bazzano call it “therapy without prejudice” (p. 82).

In a psychotherapeutic setting it “means that the criteria of true and false no longer have primacy and are superseded by new criteria of high and low, noble and mean. What begins to matter more is the sense and value of what one thinks, feels and says” (p. 165). In his book on Nietzsche, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze said something like that we have the thoughts and feeling we have due to our form of life.

Reading Nietzsche and Psychotherapy, you instantly notice that Bazzano is a man with an agenda. He exemplifies Nietzsche, where the German said: “Every talent must unfold itself in fighting” (p. 50).

The book is not a critical inquiry into Nietzsche, but one using Nietzsche to conduct a critical inquiry into psychotherapy, yet always trying to do so in an affirmative way. I would not recommend the book to readers with no knowledge of either Nietzsche or psychotherapy. However, if the reader has some experience in these areas, the book is inspiring. Furthermore, the book is full of illuminating quotes by Nietzsche and Deleuze, which actually make it archaeological.

The writer ends, “We go on digging. The conversation is infinite.”

Review published in Metapsychology, Volume 23, Issue 24

Michel Serres

I first crossed paths with Michel Serres in the late 90s. I was studying philosophy at that time in Copenhagen when I overheard someone speaking about a French writer and philosopher who had a “poetic style.” Shortly afterward, I found a book written by Serres called Genèse published in 1982. The volume marks a shift in his oeuvre from a more traditional academic style to a more poetical tone. For example, from Genèse onwards Serres rarely used footnotes. It was the beginning of the kind of love affair that philosophy is full of—illustrating that philosophical thinking begins with a vital force like loving friendship.

Michel Serres was born in Agen, France in 1930 and died Saturday, June 1st, 2019.

He was the son of a sailor—a path he too followed by entering the École Navale in 1949. In 1952, he began studying at Ècole Normale Supériere. Significant for a multidisciplinary thinker like Serres, he was a licentiate in three disciplines: mathematics, philosophy, and classical philology. After graduation, he returned to sea, working as a naval officer until 1958. Following this period he began teaching, and his philosophical opus began with his doctoral thesis on Leibniz in 1968. Still, the sea never left him. For example, on several occasions, he described philosophy as a journey through an archipelago, where the philosopher connects what is being separated. For a time, Serres was a professor at Stanford in the US, and in 1990, he became a member of the French Academy.

Read the rest of the essay in Erracticus.

We play to survive

We play to survive.

Play refers to our engagement in an activity, either as participants or active observers. It is normally regarded as a fun endeavor that often results in anger and frustration when interrupted. However, I argue that playing is a matter of life and death. Unlike games, which have a competitive element, play is a joyous activity—and when we get bored, we stop or invent new aspects or dimensions of play. Games, of course, can also be joyful, but they differ from playing in the sense that they stimulate an extrinsic motivation, whereas playing is much more intrinsic. We play because we like to play.

Unfortunately, we tend to play less as we age, perhaps because we lose some of the imagination that makes the play worth playing, and we forget the implicit existential lesson within it. 

Play is a metaphysical activity.

Read the rest of the “Play Is the Metaphysics of Becoming” in Erraticus

Mona Lisa Smiled

In 1996, I saw the Mona Lisaat the Louvre in Paris. Standing there in front of the painting, I heard – like many before and after me have heard – an American woman say, “It’s so small.”

The woman was disappointed. She came from a culture where something was being evaluated based on its size. Hearing her, I felt disgusted. As I turned around, I saw—with joy and satisfaction—that she was fat and wearing clothing of no particular style, along with a yellow cap with a guide logo on it. She was part of group wearing identical caps. She didn’t want to get lost. 

Read the rest of my essay in Critical Read

Transparency, trust & predictability

In the book The Transparent Society (1992), Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo says, “All things are reduced to the level of pure presences that can be measured, manipulated, replaced, and therefore easily dominated and organized—and in the end man, his interiority and historicity are all reduced to the same level.” In a similarly titled book, The Transparency Society (2017), Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han reaches the same reductive conclusion: “The transparent society is a hell of the same.” 

Transparency leads to predictability. It’s a society that trims everything risky, chaotic, turbulent, or different to look the same. Such a society is characterized by its smoothness and a desire to make everything clean and neat, as Han writes in Saving Beauty (2018) when he detects this smoothness in artist Jeff Koons’s sculptures, as well as in iPhones and Brazilian waxing.

Still, regardless of these less encouraging descriptions of transparency, the general understanding of it is overtly positive. Uncritically, many people ask for more transparency when problems emerge. “The more transparent, the better” seems to be the mantra. For this reason alone, I think we need to reflect a bit more on the concept. 

Read the entire essay in Erracticus

Frankie Says Relax

There is a photo of my older brother on the shelf behind my desk. It has been taken in a hospital. There is a handle hanging by the side of his head so that he can pull himself up. My brother is standing (or is he sitting on the bed?). He is smiling because he is holding his newborn daughter in his arms.

The father has a proud gaze, which I recognize in myself. The small baby lies safely tucked under his right armpit, meticulously wrapped in a white terrycloth hand towel. I can make out some of the caption on the black T-shirt my brother is wearing: Frankie Says Relax. 

Exactly why Frankie from the pop group Frankie Goes to Hollywood said ‘relax,’ I don’t know. But I have often thought about whether the message was more one of resignation or resistance. I have looked at the message on this shirt as if it was some kind of meaningful sign, no doubt because my brother died barely two years after this photo was taken.

A writer must say ‘yes’ to life, to all forms of life. The writer is loyal to that which happens, because the moment is important. Each moment is filled with life.

Read the rest of the essay here

Philosophical Leadership

Today, the concept of happiness has been so popularised that it has almost become a burden, perhaps even a cliché. There is a booming happiness industry of self-help books and programmes that rarely serve as more than a plaster on a sick and stressed culture. Companies hire ‘chief happiness officers’ in a valiant attempt to measure, weigh and quantify happiness, as if a person were just ‘another brick in the wall’.

The importance of balance

According to Greek philosopher Aristotle, happiness is rather less tangible than the happy pop lyrics of today. To him, happiness was leading a life worth living. Such a life is able to stay in balance despite the changing winds of time.

Even the art of balancing depends on our abilities and general life circumstances. But what seems to be crucial is independence from the time restraints and stress of our surroundings. It is good for our well-being to be extravagant with time every once in a while. Aristotle spoke of the golden mean as the way to a life worth living: neither too much nor too little. This is not as easy as it sounds, which many young people experience in their initial encounters with carousels, candy or alcohol. Buddha also spoke of the Middle Path between austerity and indulgence.

Kill your idols

This balanced path is found or even created as you gradually investigate life’s opportunities. Yet, unlike many contemporary self-help programmes that advocate a one-size-fits-all approach, the philosophical path to a happier life is paved with innumerable exits.

A happier life is never more than a side effect of leading a life worth living, a meaningful life.

It requires an understanding that the world’s so-called ideologies are never more than fleeting ideas disguised as incontestable and unalterable truths. Even Buddha said, ‘If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.’ Meaning: kill the idealised concept that inhibits a critical examination of your own mind.

Explore, experiment, try things out.

Philosophical love

Instead of focusing on happiness, I suggest concentrating on creating a meaningful existence through cultivating a more caring and loving relationship with all aspects of life: family, friends, work, nature, etc.

I am not, therefore, referring to obsessive narcissistic self-love, nor the romantic love of the nuclear family. Rather, I try to propose a worldlier, more politically or socially transformative love. A love that does not discriminate but embraces life in its multiplicity.

The challenge for a philosophical leader is to step back and make room for love, that is, to relinquish one’s need to control, one’s desire to polish one’s ego.

Only through a more honest and humble approach can we establish meaningful relationships. Only this way can love’s multifaceted revelations become manifest.

Philosophical leadership is about protecting life’s various energies, not one’s own ego. Therein also lies the potential for creating a future without domination; one of trust, respect, care and equality for all.

First published at the TBS blog

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