Mod det falske

Løgn, manipulation og strategisk forførelse er, og har altid været, en del af den politiske dagligdag. Nogle vil mene: en del af alles dagligdag.

Jeg vil forsøge at tydeliggøre, at et for ensidigt fokus på ”post-truth” reelt overser noget mere essentielt, nemlig en tiltagende skødesløs omgang med livet. Internettet og især de sociale medier har fremmet en nonchalant tilgang til livet, der har forvandlet os til forbrugere uden reel indsigt i, hvad vi vil. Vi er blevet forført til afhængighed. Det indebærer også, at information opfattes som gyldig, i det omfang den stemmer overens med vores egne interesser – i det omfang den er brugbar for mig.

Læs resten af essayet i Eftertryk

Et demokrati kræver myndige mennesker

“Journalisten er den, som kan tilføre information en etisk såvel som æstetisk ramme. En ramme, der ikke kun handler om at behage læseren, men også om at oplyse, støde, problematisere og fabulere. Gode journalister er gode observatører; de er gode til at tolke det, som sker, hvorved de formår at give informationerne et skær af saglighed, som læseren derefter kan vurdere fornuften af ved hjælp af forstand.”

Fra min kronik Et demokrati kræver myndige mennesker. Det skal journalistikken hjælpe med bragt i Information. Den påpeger vigtigheden af den gode journalistik i en ’postfaktuel æra’, fordi den kan træne, pleje og skærpe den kollektive forstand. Modsat skaber den mindre gode journalister umyndige læsere, der ikke længere evner at skelne mellem sandt og falsk.

Meningens logik

Den franske filosof Gilles Deleuze er en original og kreativ tænker. Det er derfor glædeligt, at forlaget Klim har valg at oversætte Meningens logik til dansk. Bogen, der udkom på fransk i 1969 og engelsk i 1990, er – ifølge forfatteren selv –  ”et forsøg udi den logiske og psykoanalytiske roman.”

I dag er romanen heldigvis så fleksibel en betegnelse, at alt kan høre ind under denne genre, så lad os bare kalde Deleuze filosofiske bog for en roman. Det giver mening, når nu romanens hovedperson er Meningen. Og det er Meningens logik, altså dennes biografi, som forfatteren beskriver for læseren. Faktisk er det en roman, der viser psykoanalysens mangler, når det kommer til at forstå meningens kompleksitet.

”Det hører med til tilværelsens væsen at gå og pege i begge retninger på engang,” skriver Deleuze med reference til, hvordan meningen er udspændt mellem fortiden og fremtiden. Det er et sted her imellem, at den finder sted.

Den franske filosof går genealogisk og strukturelt til værks. Han fortæller, at antagelsen om at sandheden er en del af meningen, ikke er tilstrækkelig til at forstå meningens logik. Af samme grund spørger han, ganske pædagogisk: Hvordan bliver noget sandt?

Rent strukturelt (og traditionelt) hænger sandheden og meningen sammen. Logiske sætninger eller udsagn giver mening, fordi 1) de refererer til eller peger på noget eksternt, 2) de åbenbarer en overbevisning eller et begær, der passer sammen med sætningen, eller 3) de demonstrerer en sammenhæng mellem en historie og en anden. Det sagte passer ind, hvorfor det giver meningen.

Men hvad nu, hvis ord, handlinger, ting og dét, som sker, ikke hænger sammen? Tag for eksempel sætningen: ”Det regner.” Hvad er ”det” som regner, hvad refererer ”det” til? Eller, som Deleuze viser med hjælp af forfatteren Lewis Carroll, et sted siger Carrolls vidunderlige Alice fra eventyrlandet: ”hvis du kun talte, når du blev talt til, så ville ingen nogensinde sige noget.”

Meningen logik giver plads til vrøvlet, det opfindsomme og skabende.

Meningen, siger Deleuze, er udsagnets fjerde dimension (jf. de tre førnævnte: pegende, åbenbarende og manifesterende). Det er den stoikerne opdagede sammen med begivenheden. ”Meningen er det af udsagnet udtrykte, dette ulegemlige ved tingenes oveflade, irreduktibel kompleks entitet, ren begivenhed.”

Meningen er ikke et spørgsmål om dybde, da det ”der er dybere end enhver bund, er overfladen, huden.” Meningen eksisterer ikke engang, men den vedholder eller består. ”Til Alices kroningsmiddag, spiser man enten det, der bliver stillet frem, eller man bliver fremstillet for det, man spiser.” At spise og blive spist sameksisterer. Meningen er ”Noget, aliquid, på én gang yder-væsen og vedholden, dette mindstemål af væren, som passer til det vedholdende.”

Et sted i værket, der består af 34 serier, fastslår Deleuze: ”Begivenheden er selve meningen.” Hvad er så en begivenhed?

Det er et sæt af singulariteter, af særegne punkter, skriver filosoffen. ”Singulariteten er væsentligt set før-individuel, ikke personlig og a-begrebslig … Den er neutral.”

Begivenheden er et nøglebegreb i hele Deleuzes filosofiske værk. At begivenheden er selve meningen skyldes, at begivenhedens modus er det problematiske. Det betyder nu ikke, at der findes problematiske begivenheder. Snarere at begivenhederne ”angår problemerne, hvis betingelser de definerer.” Begivenheden i sig selv er problematisk og problematiserende. En begivenhed er ikke mere eller mindre meningsfuld, fordi dette ville forudsætte en reference, som begivenheden ville blive tolket i lyset af. Derimod fremsætter begivenheden de elementer, som kan blive meningsfulde.

Et problem bliver bestemt af de singulære punkter, som udtrykker dets betingelser. For eksempel, da Nietzsche sagde, at gud er død, så bestemte han et problem, der var betinget af at mennesket ikke længere kunne læne sig opad en ukrænkelig og hellig instans; en instans, der kunne fortælle mennesket, hvad der var værdifuldt. Hermed bestemte Nietzsche problemet. Og et problem har altid den løsning, ”der tilkommer det, ifølge de betingelser, der bestemmer det som problem.” Så, filosofi handler ikke om at finde en passende løsning, som eksisterede der allerede en løsning til ethvert problem. Tværtimod. Filosofi begynder med opfindelsen af et problem.

Måske kan læseren forestille sig Nietzsche, mens han kigger rundt og observerer mennesket; han ser, at det virker handlingslammet og vakkelvornt, hvorefter han formoder, at det skyldes at dets guide, dets gud, er død.

Inden filosoffen begynder at skabe begreber, hvilket Deleuze ser som filosofiens opgave, så må han eller hun bestemme et problem. Nietzsches begreb ”Vilje til magt” er et begreb, der overkommer problemets betingelser, nemlig den manglende sikkerhed qua guds død, hvorfor mennesket nu selv, ganske modigt, må skabe værdier.

”Meningen er aldrig princip eller oprindelse, den er frembragt,” skriver Deleuze. Den frembringes af nye maskinerier, det vil sige, nye forbindelser som når noget går i noget andet, tredje, fjerde … og pludselig går itu. Den rhizomatiske og horisontale tænkning, som Deleuze introducerer sammen med Félix Guattari i Tusind plateauer understreger, at meningen ikke er hierarkisk eller vertikal. Deleuze er stærkt uenig med Platons forestilling om, at filosoffen er en der render rundt med hovedet oppe i skyerne. Der er intet dybere end overfladen, intet dybere end sminken, tatoveringen; intet dybere end dét, som sker. Meningen er aldrig ”oprindelig, men altid forårsaget, afledt.”

Meningens logik er en fantastisk bog. En filosofisk roman for alle – inklusiv alle os som måske aldrig bliver andet end ikke-filosoffer. Bogen er lærd, men ikke tung; den er svær, men luftig, sjov og ganske klar. Den er fuld af smukke sætninger. Faktisk rummer bogen noget af det smukkeste, der nogensinde er blevet skrevet om etik. ”Enten har moral ingen mening eller også er det dette, den vil sige, og som er det eneste, den har at sige: Ikke at være uværdig til det, der indtræffer for os.”

Etik = at gøre sig værdig til at bære det, som sker.

”At blive værdig til det, der indtræffer os, altså at ville det og frisætte begivenheden deraf, at blive søn af sine egne begivenheder, og at blive genfødt derigennem, at få sig en ny fødsel, at bryde med sin kødelige fødsel. Søn af sine begivenheder og ikke af sine værker, for værket bliver selv kun frembragt af begivenhedens søn.”

Der er tale om en generøs og ydmyg filosofi, der ikke forfængeligt klamrer sig til sine værker, men erkender, og udlever, det faktum: at livet former os.

At filosofere kræver en opmærksom omgang med det, som sker, for at kunne give plads til det. Meningen er noget som bliver til i mødet med verden. At forstå meningens logik er at forstå, at ingen ejer hans eller hendes tanker. Dermed er det nu ikke alle forundt, at kunne frisætte begivenheden, problematisere og tænke med den.

Afsluttende er det måske passende at forsøge, at tænke med Deleuze. Hvordan finder man ind i #MeToo-bevægelsens kraftcenter? Følger vi Deleuze skal vi ikke lede efter en dybere og mere oprindelig mening. Hele bevægelsen er en maskine af forskellige forståelsesudsagn, der handler om køn, sex, magt, overgreb, kapitalisme, etc. Deleuze ville ikke fortolke bevægelsen, men følge den; give plads til dens forskellige eksperimenter, der nedbryder rigide og ofte diskriminerende strukturer. #MeToo handler om at en minoritet skaber et større sprog. Et sprog, som på sigt ikke kun vil omhandle bedrestillede kvinder fra den vestlige verden, men også kvinder der er stærkt undertrykt i religiøse samfund eller på grund af økonomisk ustabilitet. Det er en potentielt set altfavnende bevægelse, der kan fremme respekt, omsorg og lighed.

Meningen handler ikke om identitet, rødder eller hellige ydre reference. Meningens logik er derimod noget blivende, noget som befinder sig i mellemrummet, som når ”sundheden bekræfter sygdommen, når den gør sin afstand til sygdommen til en genstand for bekræftelse.” Meningen er ikke en dualistisk dans mellem det sunde og det syge, som noget fasttømret. Snarere fremkommer den, når vi kan begribe det, der relaterer sundheden og sygdommen til hinanden. Når vi tør placere os i mellemrummet, dér, hvor det hele finder sted.

Det sunde handler om at kunne bære ens egne sår, skavanker, mangler og middelmådighed. At ville begivenheden er, at ville livet – i al dets perversitet.

Det er meningens logik. Læs den.

 

Meningens logik, Gilles Deleuze. Oversættelse og efterskrift ved Christian Rud Skovgaard, Klim.

 

You can only change yourself

“If you can’t change the world. Change yourself,” sings the English post-punk band The The in their song “Lonely Planet.”

On the surface, it is both liberating and sad to hear that perhaps we cannot change the world. However, that does not mean that we should be resigned. On the contrary. The challenge is rather to change ourselves, that is, change our approach or relationship to the world. And that too can be difficult.

The moral is the following: It is people who change the world. A change occurs by which certain people have another approach or relationship to the world. By that I am saying nothing about what is good or bad, only that if you want a different world, a slightly better and more loving world, it is not going to happen by itself. Nothing comes of nothing. Everything starts here and now with you and with me.

Another important element in this line of thinking is that there is no reason to preach or moralize. No one has lucrative access to the truth or goodness. But you can inspire others through your actions. You can lead by example. Meet the world with kindness.

Everyone is a mutable process without reference to a given essence but to something permanent. To something that I can help influence or cultivate. This type of cultivation requires that we look inward and outward. It is important to realize that you can always be influenced by or influence the surroundings of which you are a part.
Why would you like to change the world?

One possible answer could be that you want a world without hierarchies, whether they are patriarchal, racial, social or economic. It could also be that you want to create a more harmonic balance with the nature of which we are a part.

Behavioural economics, motivational theories, compulsion and threats can change people’s behaviour, but only in the short-term. Fear is a repressive solution model. Lasting changes come about through shifts in mentality, another way of thinking, feeling and living. No one can bear to live in constant fear. If I begin living differently, for example, am more friendly and loving, that approach will also affect my thoughts and feelings. It can be expressed simply: I want to save the Earth, not because I fear its demise, but because I love it.

To the extent that I want to change myself in order to – perhaps – change the world, I must first liberate myself from the ideals and norms that keep me trapped in a regressive approach to life.

I will stop allowing myself to be seduced and controlled by things that give status and prestige in today’s performance society. Instead I will interact with life attentively, kindly and lovingly. I will surrender to life. I will joyfully allow life to take me where it flourishes.

*

In connection with the launch of a new Danish ecological clothing label, I was invited to write three semi-philosophical reflections: You can only change yourself is the third.

Life is a shockingly hairy crotch

“The smooth is the signature of the present time,” writes philosopher Byung-Chul Han in Saving beauty. This kind of smoothness, he continues, “connects the sculptures of Jeff Koons, iPhones and Brazilian waxing.”

Han claims that today smoothness is the same as beauty, and this concept embodies today’s society of positivity. We live in a society that offers no resistance; we simply look for others to like us or like what we have posted. Smooth, smoother, smoothest = good, better, best.

Another way of saying this is that a lot of contemporary art works in concert with neoliberal capitalism, instead of resisting or working against it. For instance, Han contends that Koons is, “arguably the most successful living artist at the present is a master of smooth surfaces.” In other words, Koons is playing the capitalistic game. What determines success is the ability to sell your art. Success is here being defined as being known and admired.  Koons’ version of art does not require the artist to open an “echo chamber, in which I assure myself of my own existence,” as Han writes. “The alterity or negativity of the other and the alien is eliminated altogether.”

Koons is about as progressive as a Brazilian waxing.

For readers, who are familiar with Han’s work, Saving Beauty unfolds the same arguments against today’s achievement society. Han discusses the transparent, porno, and burnt-out society we have become. What is sad, of course, is that art, apparently, has also been reduced to something kitsch: shiny tulips, balloons, and smoothness.

This book is full of startling, precise statements. For example, he says, “A selfie is precisely such, an empty, expressionless face.” The addiction that our current society seems to have with taking selfies only illustrates an actual emptiness of the ego. It lacks character, and instead, it is smooth and easily likeable.

The core argument in Savage beauty is that today, beautiful equals smooth, clean, and transparent. In contrast, in earlier times, like during the era of Plato, Kant, and Hegel, there was no distinction between beauty and the sublime. Experiencing sublime beauty is not supposed to be pleasurable; rather, it hurts. It makes you fall and stumble. It is similar to falling in love because you can lose yourself and act rather stupid.

“The sight of beauty does not cause pleasure, but shocks,” Han stresses. I must admit that although I attend exhibitions monthly, I rarely am affected. Visiting the Guggenheim in Bilbao earlier this year, I had a chance to experience Koons’ tulips, which was a pleasurable experience. However, they did not affect me like Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time did. With Serra’s work, I found that his huge iron sculptures opened for me an encounter where I interrelated with the work in a way that affected my equilibrium. The viewing his work made me become someone else. That is the beauty of experiencing your own fragility.

“Instead of opposing the sublime to the beautiful, one should return to beauty a sublimity that cannot be subjected to inwardness,” writes Han. Art can shake us, make us see the world differently, and make us perceive our own limitedness and flaws. “The longing for beauty,” Han says, “is ultimately the longing for a different mode of being, for another, altogether non-violent form of life.” Unfortunately, the digital nature of beauty in our current age has removed all negativity or otherness that might have existed. All there is left is something likeable. Yet, following Heidegger, Han suggests that concealment is essential to beauty since “transparency and beauty do not go together.”

This reflects how information cannot be veiled, whereas knowledge can retreat into secrecy. Art is related to the secret story as Roberto Bolaño once said. It conceals something for us, but it often does so in a way that it painful and not pleasurable. Art  requires hard work. “Without injury, there is not truth,” Han claims. The smiles and likes of today, “lacks any intensity, any quality of a shock.”

Beauty is located, somewhere “between disaster and depression,” according to Han, “… inherent to beauty is a weakness, a fragility, and a brokenness.” I have experienced that feeling with the artwork created by Serra, not with Koons’ work.

In today’s transparent consumeristic society, art is rarely contemplative. The ideal consumer, Han argues, is a person without character. The ideal worker or citizen in today’s neoliberal and capitalistic society tolerates everything as long as it sells. Nothing is avoided because there might exist a market somewhere for it. “Facebook is a characterless market,” Han writes. Art, when it is made smoother, is characterless as well.

Still, why all the fuss about saving beauty? Why must we fight to save it?

“Beauty promises freedom and reconciliation,” and “truth is freedom,” as Han writes. In other words, a world of smoothness is false; it’s a world of “post-truth.”

For Han, the beautiful is both true and good, it’s almost like the Korean-German philosopher is turning Platonic.

Han is a strong critic of contemporary society. He elegantly hides his own moralism (most of the time). When “beauty frees me from myself,” Han points out, then saving beauty is also a way to rescue the other. It represents an opportunity to save the negative and that which constitutes me as another.

Han ultimately ends up embracing the philosophy of Alain Badiou, especially, his idea that the task of philosophy is to be loyal or faithful towards whatever binds us together. (Han also ended up with Badiou in his essay, The Agony of Eros).

If there is a morale, it is that we have to show fidelity to what takes place. Fidelity is unconditional in that it presupposes commitment. That means, that we once again should try to become capable of matching all parts of life, not just when life is pleasurable and smooth. We must do so even when life is a shockingly hairy crotch or chest. To do so is to save democracy. Or as Han finishes his essay: “The saving of beauty is the saving of that which commits us.”

I recommend the book.

See also my review of Buyng-Chul Han’s In The Swarm.

Algo sobre Byung-Chul Han

“Ya no vivimos en una sociedad disciplinaria controlada por las prohibiciones o mandatos, sino más bien en una sociedad orientada al logro del que es supuestamente libre,” según el filósofo Byung-Chul Han.

Y continua, “Sí, presumimos que somos libres, pero en realidad somos nosotros mismos quienes, de manera voluntaria y casi pasional, nos empujamos hasta llegar al colapso.”

La video artista alemana Isabella Greeser dirigió este poético documental sobre Han. Este documental tuvo su premier mundial el 9 de febrero (2015) en el Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB). Unos cuantos cientos de personas acudieron al show.

Byung-Chul Han es popular no solo en Alemania, sino también en España, donde cinco de sus libros han sido traducidos al español. La tesis de Han es que el neoliberalismo de hoy ha transformado la política, en una –Psicopolítica– como titula otro de sus libros. La lógica del neoliberalismo ha invadido nuestras mentes. Esto es triste porque nuestra mente es todo lo que tenemos. Es nuestra habilidad de estar presente en nuestra vida, nos permite pensar, y amar y ahora está amenazada por esta invasión.

Nos encogemos mentalmente. Cada vez más se dice y hace de la misma forma, casi de manera hipnótica y acrítica, siguiendo la corriente. Todo esto es extraño, secreto o negativo, en otras palabras, todo lo que pasa por nuestra mente desaparece, debido a la repetición continua de la mismidad. Parece que todos los aspectos de la vida sufren de la idea de “mejores prácticas”, tan popular en las organizaciones empresariales. Nos falta un enfoque crítico con tono creativo para superar este confinamiento.

En la película documental, seguimos a Byung-Chul Han mientras pasea por las calles de Berlín. Habla de su pasión por las tiendas de antigüedades, que al parecer allí soportan el paso del tiempo. Al pasar por la tumba del filósofo Georg W. F. Hegel, comenta que para él ha sido su filósofo más influyente.

Con rapidez te das cuenta de que Byung-Chul Han no tiene prisa, aunque publique con la rapidez de Usain Bolt. Aun así, no parece motivado con la actuación como tal. Al contrario, él se detiene. Se sienta. Lee. Cierra sus ojos. ¡Para! Todo esto son formas de Resistencia hacia la positividad de hoy. Afortunadamente, él no es parte de lo que en algún lugar se llama “el terror de positividad.”

La filosofía es un tiempo intermedio, señala en La sociedad del cansancio. La filosofía puede ser entendida como el tiempo de “no-hacer”, “tiempo de paz”, como él lo llama, refiriéndose a Peter Handke. El concepto de “no-hacer” También se asemeja a los elementos de la atención plena en la que subraya que no necesitamos estar haciendo cosas constantemente. “No-hacer” permite que las cosas se desarrollen a su propio ritmo.

A mitad de la película, Byung-Chul Han vuela a Seúl donde nació en 1959. En esta parte del mundo, la relevancia de la tesis y el análisis del filósofo se hace aún más evidente. La gente está agotada. Duermen en el metro, en los autobuses, detrás de la caja registradora. Parece una tragicomedia. Los que no están durmiendo viven a través de la luz resplandeciente de los omnipresentes teléfonos móviles, ¿Funcionan los teléfonos móviles como los marcapasos?

La filosofía de Han, como la mayoría de las formas de meditación budista, trata de liberarnos de la ilusión convencional de tener un yo. Por otra parte, a diferencia de sus estudiantes universitarios alemanes de la Escuela de Frankfurt, Han no es normativo en su crítica, sino inmanente. Esto hace que su enfoque sea más creativo. La mayor parte de su crítica se realiza como práctica. Se trata de cambiar nuestra relación con el mundo, por ejemplo, dice que está bien no hacer nada.

Byung-Chul Han afirma en La agonía del Eros que muchos de nosotros nos hemos convertido en narcisistas, y me resulta difícil no estar de acuerdo con él. Como Narciso, más y más personas caen en el agua y se ahogan. O su vida se desvanece, mientras que la gente está buscando en Google su propio nombre. O saltan de un puente. Corea del Sur se encuentra en la parte superior de la lista de países con la tasa más alta de suicidio. En la película, Han pasa por un puente en Seúl, un sitio muy popular para los suicidios. Al parecer, nadie intenta comprender la depresión que lleva a muchos a cometer suicidio. Más bien, la tristeza se encubrió con citas de poemas junto con imágenes coloridas de deliciosos platos de fideos. Pero  ¿que vale más, un plato de fideos o tu vida?

El capitalismo neoliberal se ha vuelto loco. El capitalismo es como un tren sin frenos. Estamos agotados; tenemos que abrazar una sociedad cansada donde está bien no hacer nada por un tiempo. En lugar de amor y compasión, tenemos estrés, agotamiento y depresión.

Es el momento de tomar un descanso. Pausa. Cierra tus ojos. Respira.

***

For more on Byung-Chul Han (in English), please see my review of In the Swarm, or my review of Saving beauty.

In Danish: anmeldelse af Transparenssamfundet , I Sværmen & Træthedsamfundet

What is happening in Catalonia?

The Spanish novelist Eduardo Mendoza has won many literary prices, including the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2015, and the Premio Cervantes, in 2016. Recently, he published a short essay entitled Que está pasando en Catalunya (What is happening in Catalonia).

Like many others, he wants to understand what is happening in the Spanish region of Catalonia, especially, as he notes, because of the “ignorance” and “prejudices” that affect many people’s images of Catalonia and Spain.

It is a mistake to reduce the Catalan nationalist and separatist movement solely to origins in the Spanish Civil War, Mendoza says. Franco’s dictatorial regime is gone. Since the late 1970s, Spain has undergone a difficult, but also impressive, democratic transition. Many of those today who refer to “Franco’s ghost” never lived under his regime; if they had, they would probably be more cautious when using terms such as “Francoism,” “fascism,” and “dictatorships” so carelessly. At the very least, they would be cautious out of respect for all those who suffered and died during that time.

It is true, however, that Catalonia, like the rest of Spain, suffered during the Franco years. Furthermore, the Catalans suffered with respect to their language, and many Catalans wanted to separate themselves from Franco (as did many other Spaniards). “No one doubts the antipathy of the Franco regime towards the Catalan language,” Mendoza writes. And yet, not all Catalans were against Franco. He continues, “we should forget that a good part of the young (and not so young) Catalans volunteered for the Falangist movement.”

The idea of Catalonia revolting against Spain is wrong, because this assumption is based on the naïve generalization of claiming that all Spanish or Catalan people are identical. Spain, as a country, suffered under Franco, just as some Catalans followed Franco freely.

Luckily – and I say this ironically – for the contemporary Catalan separatist, “the habit of adapting history to fit contemporary conviction is a distinctive Catalan identity,” Mendoza says.

Anyone with a little knowledge of what has happened in Catalonia will know that facts are treated with creative elegance that places the separatist within the post-truth, alternative facts, or fake news era. Illustratively, Mendoza draws a comparison between France and Catalonia. While France had a glorious past, one to which we can look for compassion, the Catalans never had one. Thus, “to hide what they considered shameful, the imagination and artistic talent of Catalans has been dedicated to inventing a past that the society would have loved to have.”

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the complexity of the separatist lie is by referring to Sartre’s concept of “bad faith,” a way of using freedom to deny ourselves the freedom we actually have. This is a strategic way in which some Catalans take away their own responsibility to choose by saying that they have no choice. As a consequence, the independence movement has created a culture of victimization where it is easier to blame Spain than to take responsibility for themselves. For example, blaming the centralization of power in Madrid. Interestingly, Mendoza writes, “if there is place where you can speak about savagely centralism it’s in Catalonia. Barcelona has always scorned the second ranked cities …”

Mendoza describes the Catalans as shy and a group whose thinking is not used to getting very far. “They are practical thinkers, but theory and abstraction bores them.” Perhaps, for this reason, some seem to speak of democracy and freedom that, at most, resembles Orwell’s Newspeak. As Mendoza has written elsewhere, if you can freely demonstrate in the street and participate in the Spanish government, then there is, indeed, democracy. However, if you do not wish to accept that democracy is a long and tiring process, then you simply need to organize an illegal election insisting that it is legal.

To begin with, “the participation of Catalans in the Spanish government was encouraged … during the years after the transition.” Unfortunately, with Jordi Pujol, who served as President of the Catalan Generalitat (i.e. the Catalan government) from 1980 to 2003, a systematic plan towards independence was in place: it was found in schools, the media (Mendoza mentions how the Catalan media outlets TV3 and Catalunya Radio moved from being neutral to “separatist organs”), the local government, and via less involvement in the Spanish government. All activities were aimed at creating a Spanish enemy by altering facts. Then came the financial crisis in 2008, which – as is many other places such as in Madrid, Athens, Lisbon – hit the younger generations, and created a healthy and global anticapitalistic movement that, unfortunately, quickly turned into a nationalistic protectionism.

Using his trademark easy-going style, Mendoza writes that, regardless of the mythical stories that Spain and Madrid is stealing, ”you live better in Barcelona than in Madrid.” The morale is: Life is hard, for all, not just the Catalans.

Towards the end of Mendoza’s pedagogical essay, he concludes that there is “no practice which can justify the desire for independence from Spain,” before adding, “Spain is not a bad country. It could be better.” This is true, but so can Denmark, where I am from, and all other countries. Democracy is, after all, a dynamic process.

Mendoza succeeds in killing a few myths, but whether these efforts are enough to make people less ignorant, only time will tell. Nevertheless, it is good to see that more and more Spanish and Catalan intellectuals are participating in uncovering the political theater, where politicians (most notably Puigdemont & co) play with the Catalan people’s emotions by selling certain beliefs, irrespectively whether these beliefs are true or false.

So, when Mendoza writes that there is “no practice which can justify the desire for independence from Spain,” then he emphasizes that the emotions and beliefs behind the separatist are unreasonable and unjustified, despite how some Catalans feel. Therefore, it is healthy, as Mendoza says, to question our ideas, to explain things to each other, and to eliminate prejudice, ignorance, and incomprehension.

Mendoza shows that sometimes thinking is painful. For example, Puigdemont & co use “freedom” and “democracy” as tranquilizing slogans, yet if we pay attention, it’s obvious that their use refer to a superficial understanding (if not simply a nationalistic misunderstanding). At most these slogans are sleeping pills that hinders an open and honest examination of a challenging conflict, an examination that requires empathy and compassion. Elsewhere, I ‘ve argued that compassion is needed in Catalonia, not as something artificial, but as something that arises naturally in complex and tense situations.

A difficult road lies ahead – for all parties.

 

Right here, right now

“Know thyself” is one of Greek philosophy’s best know aphorisms. This aphorism, or saying as Aristotle called it, was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Greek philosophy tried to turn people inward in a friendly confrontation with themselves and their approach to the life around them.

“Know thyself” was not the only aphorism in ancient Greece. Another well-known example is “Take care of yourself”.

The two aphorisms are tied. The better care you can take of yourself, the better you will know yourself. And the reverse. Philosophic practice consists of both. You cannot get to know yourself better without self-care. One way to show self-care is to know yourself better, for example, by acknowledging your limitations and mistakes.

The two aphorisms underscore that philosophy is a practical investigation of life. An investigation into what it means to live. Seen in this tradition, philosophy is both ethical and spiritual, because in order to gain self-awareness, the individual must necessarily take his or her experiences seriously. Philosophy becomes an ongoing testing of one’s opportunities and conditions for existence. Life becomes a great laboratory. And it is here that philosophy’s third aphorism or pillar comes into play, as a balance between “Know thyself” and “Take care of yourself”.

The third aphorism is “Know your place”.

Knowing your place is to know your own history as well as the history that surrounds you: for example, when you were born, where, in which body, with which colour, which gender. To know your place is one way of making the ideal of knowing yourself and taking care of yourself relative, as it always happens in a specific context. Life is always lived here and now. A here and now that winds back and forth in time, yet underscores that what happens is happening here and now.

It is through your presence in the now that you can take care of yourself, test or experiment with life as a lasting attempt to become better at living, meaning knowing yourself. It is never too late, as every self-examination begins here and now.

The moral is therefore just as simple as it is difficult to practice: If you are not paying attention to where you are, if you are never present, it is difficult to care for yourself and impossible to get to know yourself better.

This journey never ends, as you and I and everyone else changes all the time. That is why certain questions never go out of style:

Who are you? What kind of life do you want to live? Are you here?

***

In connection with the launch of a new Danish ecological clothing label, I was invited to write three semi-philosophical reflections: I am Right Here, Right Now is the second.

A Smile for You

It is said that a smile knows no boundaries, that it is universal.

A smile can cross continents and time. It can overcome ugly ideologies, whether they are tied to race, religion, age or sexual observance.

A smile is more mobile than the internet. It connects. It is life’s messenger.

A smile can be decoded at a very early age. Children know whether what they are doing causes concern or earns approval – just by looking at their parents or other adults.

A smile is a language that connects, touches and penetrates because it confirms life. No less than life.

A smile is a smile is a smile. It can be said that simply. It can’t be misunderstood. Naturally, false smiles exist. But such smiles are not really smiles, but rather false smiles. They are assumed, like the Joker’s smile in the Batman comics and films – pasted on. A false smile can seem frightening, because it pokes fun at life. No one knows that better than best-selling suspense author Stephen King, who in his book IT has a clown represent man’s deepest fear. The false smile lacks respect.

A smile is something happy, as well as something serious. It is a love missile that does not seek, but gives, shares. A smile is generous.

A smile comes when it comes, as we say. And indeed it does. But it is possible to cultivate a more smiling approach to life, as when the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh encourages his readers to wake up with a smile on their lips. It is life you are smiling at, from and with. You have awakened, not died in your sleep. You can always smile, because things could be worse. You could be dead. A smile is what always makes us turn towards life, even when we feel that life has turned its back on us. A smile wills life.

A smile is disarming. You can go through most of a day without speaking to other people but still treat others with respect and kindness, if only you smile.

A smile is more than an upward curve on your lips. The smiling sun in children’s drawings always has a mouth turned upward. But even if your mouth were to be sewn shut, you could still smile with your eyes. In fact, you can smile with your entire face. Your entire body. You can have a smiling approach to life. Not a frivolous or unserious approach, but one that is life affirming. The French philosopher Michel Serres has said that people who age unattractively do so because they so rarely smile. Even your wrinkles can smile. Yes, even your frame can smile.

A smile always emphasizes three things: I have lived, I am living, and I want to live.
That is why you smile.

 

***

In connection with the launch of a new Danish ecological clothing label called Change yourself, I wrote three semi-philosophical reflections: A Smile for You is the first.

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