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

Spain: between two extremes

Albert Camus once described a nationalist as someone who loves their country too much.

I recently wrote a small reflection on Catalonia based on my experiences of living in Barcelona for more than ten years. This reflection was not – contrary to what some might think – motivated by a certain political position. I think all political positions are legal, but not all are equally reasonable.

Instead, I wrote it because I am professionally interested in how a group of people finds ways to feel superior to another group of people. It happens everywhere, not just in politics, not just in Spain. This, for me, is the lowest part of what makes us human: the need to discriminate, to find someone else to put down.

It’s a tendency practiced by Catalan separatists – not by all Catalans as such. That is to say – with emphasis – Catalonia does not have a problem with Spain, but some people in Catalonia do.

The Catalan separatists or nationalists, however, are not alone. There exist at least two extreme groups in Spain. On one side, you have the Catalan separatists, who see themselves as victims superior to the rest of Spain. They operate with one logic: regardless of the problem, it’s always Spain’s fault, and independence is always the solution.

Such logic is convenient because it hinders any kind of critical self-reflection.

One the other side, the extremists are Spanish nationalists, who use more or less the same rhetorical strategy: an emotional, almost sentimental tone, self-victimization, and self-righteousness.

In between the two extremes exist many critical, nuanced, reflective voices full of compassion and respect. They exist in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Unfortunately, many journalists tend to focus on the drama of the extremes – perhaps myself included in my previous opinion.

During my stay in Spain, I have travelled around this beautiful country and spoken with people in different cities, such as Santiago Compostela, Vigo, Girona, Valencia, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, and Madrid, and many small pueblos. I’ve seen the flourishing of ecological and feminist awareness. I’ve seen willingness to explore and reconcile with the country’s past.

Travelling around Spain, I have met people who are proud of the divergence and plurality of customs, languages, and cultures in their country. They are proud of being part of something richer than their own region. It’s something rather special. It recalls what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze aimed at when he spoke about how we can maintain our singularity and still be part of something bigger: not by reducing these differences, not by becoming the same, but by nurturing our differences with respect for others’ differences. There is something generous in this approach.

A possible road away from these two extremes might be to implement teaching of philosophy and critical thinking in public schools. Educate empathic, kind, critical citizens who respect different opinions but always question from where they emerge, while appealing to the good in your opponent’s human qualities. Make sure that future citizens have both the knowledge and the courage to use their minds. Today, many people tend to only listen to opinions that suit their own beliefs.

Another important element is to cultivate a more critical journalism that avoids being seduced by the populistic rhetoric of the Catalan separatist as well as the Spanish nationalist. Instead, journalists can try to unfold the plural voices guided not by resentment but by curiosity and compassion. Critical journalism can help us reflect by asking the right questions, not by giving solutions. Consensus never guarantees truth; instead, what I aim at is a pluralism that unfolds any given situation in various perspectives. Critical journalists can emphasize that being against Spain per se (or any other group of people) is literally being against everyone and everything but yourself. It’s discrimination. It’s narcissism even.

‘The problem is the big, fat ego,’ as the philosopher Iris Murdoch once said. Or, as I would put it: holders of all extreme positions are, by definition, either too lazy to think or too ignorant to do so!

I’ve seen all kinds of people living here, all forms of life. Spain is not a perfect democracy (if such a thing even exists), but between the two extremes, a generous and kind people emerges. They are the reason why I live here.

Finn Janning, PhD, is a writer and philosopher.

First published in Spain in English.

Because it’s there

The first 10 to 15 years of Jeppe Hein’s artistic career are reminiscent of a mountaineer’s struggle on Mount Everest. The climb to the top of the world’s highest mountain is shrouded in awe, daring and faltering resolve.

When the British mountain climber George Mallory was asked in the 1920s why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he responded brusquely: “Because it’s there.” In that answer lies an all-too-human impulse, namely the impulse to seek the difficult and overcome the dangerous, apparently without any other ambition than to test your limits.

Naturally, it wasn’t Mount Everest that Jeppe tried—and is still trying—to conquer. It was an artistic career that knocked him out in the first round. He lived without compromise, without any deeper contact with himself.

His sense of direction wasn’t yet well-developed. His anchoring in the now hadn’t been established …

From the book When life blooms: Breathe with Jeppe Hein, in which Finn Janning describes the philosophical and spiritual development of the artist and social entrepreneur Jeppe Hein.

Read the rest of the excerpt here.

Mindfulness og skolen

I medierne kan man til tider læse, at folkeskolens elever er stressede, angste og urolige. Nogle foreslår mindfulness som en løsning på problemet, mens andre mener, at mindfulness ikke er andet end et plaster på en syg præstationskultur.

Jeg er enig i, at præstationskulturen er syg, men uenig i, hvorvidt mindfulness blot er et plaster. Faktisk mener jeg, at mindfulness sagtens kan bidrage til udfoldelsen og vedligeholdelsen af pædagogik baseret på en kærlig tilgang til læring i stedet for absurde præstationsidealer.

Kigger vi nærmere på kritikken af mindfulness, er den ofte ganske paradoksal. Enten er mindfulness for religiøst, eller også er den for lidt i kontakt med den smukke buddhistiske livsfilosofi.

Så hvad er mindfulness i grunden?

Læs resten af kronikken i Information

Is it happening again?

‘It is happening again,’ says the giant to FBI Special agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s mystery series Twin Peaks. This sentence came to me today, as the trial against 12 Catalan separatist leaders began in Madrid. The sentence made me reflect:

Witnessing the Catalan separatists’ campaign for independence, I couldn’t help but recall the warning signals revealed by my old German teacher when he showed us the symbols and manipulation used by German supremacists.

What concerned me was not just the flags; rather, it was their degradation of the rest of Spain while simultaneously elevating themselves. Similarly, when the separatists claimed to be victims, suppressed as an endangered species, I saw no real victims, only a very calculated form of control (I don’t refer to the unnecessary police brutality October 2017, but to life in general in Catalonia, see also Compassion in Catalonia).

I think that the mixture of creating a culture of victimisation combined with establishing a society of control, where our minds are controlled through unconscious social conditioning, is what makes the Catalan separatists powerful, but also scary if one casts an eye over history.

It’s common to view what is happening in Catalonia through the lens of history, especially the Spanish Civil War, which took place from 1936 to 1939. And it goes without saying that General Francisco Franco ranks among the worst dictators in human history.

Still, some simple facts should be pointed out: today, Spain is not a totalitarian regime; Spain is no more Francoland than Germany today is Hitlerland. Contentions to the contrary are as incongruous as they are wrong.

To clarify another fact: the Catalan language and culture are not under threat today. On the contrary, instead of giving children the opportunity of a bilingual education, most schools in Catalonia teach only in Catalan. Spanish is being taught as a foreign language. Through this, a basic right is being taken away from Spanish citizens.

For the separatists, language is not a means of communication, but an identity marker; it’s a password that separates ‘true’ Catalans from those Catalans who feel Spanish. Hereby, the separatists have – quite paradoxically, in the style of Franco – created a control system that differentiates and categorizes people.

What is needed is not more communication for or against; rather, it’s noncommunication; a reflective pause that eludes the current communicative control in which people blindly say and do what they say and do because this is what other people say and do.

Unfortunately, such a break seems unrealistic. The PR campaign of the Catalan separatists can’t stop without everything collapsing. To make things even worse, the turbulence of the last few years has awakened other nationalists in Spain, such as the political party Vox.

Perhaps, here we are at the core of the problem: All identity markers, whether national or cultural, are prisons. Nothing more than fictions. The problem with the novel written by the Catalan separatists is not that it is full of lies and exaggerations; rather, that it’s provincially tiring because all the characters are stereotypical and far too predictable. It’s a fantasy that has lost its grip on reality.

The challenge in Catalonia – and elsewhere in the world – is to regain trust in humanity. So far, the separatists have mostly promoted distrust in everything and everyone but themselves and their world view. Yet, without basic trust between humans, life cannot function.

Democracy is the ongoing organisation of disagreement. For example, I disagree strongly when artists and comedians in Spain are hindered in their right to express themselves freely – including when they criticise nations, politicians, and religions. But I also believe that people who deliberately violate the laws of the constitution should be held juridically responsible. To violate the law is to disrespect the principle of the equality of all citizens. Since all human beings are, by definition, different, the only thing that makes us the same, socially, is the law.

A democracy stresses that we are in it together. All of us. Equally. Here and now. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catalan, Danish, a man, a woman, white, black, speak this language or that. Writing this seems embarrassingly banal, yet I see many around me who appear to have forgotten this fundamental concept. For this reason, ‘it is happening again’: the victimization, the exaggerations, the lies …

This opinion was first published in Spain in English, 17th February 2019

When I Am Gone

In the late spring of 2014, I left my home in Barcelona to walk in Norway for twenty days with my friend Jeppe. We planned to follow the last 300 kilometers of the pilgrim path to Trondheim, St. Olav’s Way, named after the Norwegian king who brought Christianity to Norway in ad 1033. 

I am not a religious person; I do have not faith in any of the marketed Gods but a strong belief in life. And yet, during this journey, I experienced an encounter with a muskox that I can only describe as healing, perhaps even spiritual.

Read the rest of my essay in Amethyst Review.

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