Gray al Royal Festival Hall

Abans d’ahir fou presentat al Royal Festival Hall el darrer llibre de John Gray, del qual ja vaig donar notícia a aquest blog. L’acte tingué lloc a un local del cinquè pis, la qual cosa permetia que darrera de Gray tinguéssim com a fons una espectacular vista del parlament amb el rellotge i el London Eye en primer terme. El presentador de l’acte era Richard Holloway un d’aquest homes d’església britànic molt més escèptics dins de la seva fe que els ateus a la moda contemporània o els de la tradició anticlerical pròpia; gent allunyada irreversiblement de l’estereotip clerical i energúmenic de la nostra terra.

Gray seguí més o menys l’esquema del llibre i insistí a alguna de les seves idees més significatives. Potser fou la primera part aquella en la qual s’estengué més, cosa que resulta justa perquè la paradoxa és de primer ordre. Els individus protagonistes de la història narrada per Gray pertanyien als estrats més brillants de la intel·ligència victoriana i estaven molt lluny de ser els “freakies” amb els que associem la pràctica de l’espiritisme. Gray remarcà la importància que tingueren les seves experiències biogràfiques. Al capdavall, allò que ells volien preservar no era tant el seu “jo” real, com el “jo” il·lusori amb el que identificaven les seves aspiracions. Gray insistí també en un punt de vista que hauria de ser obvi, però que sovint és oblidat pels defensors de l’existència d’un més enllà. La idea de la immortalitat de l’ànima no resol el problema del sentit de la vida sinó que, sí fa alguna cosa, és duplicar-la. Res no pot garantir que allò que trobem en el més enllà tingui més sentit que allò que fem aquí. És una idea que m’és familiar. Jo mateix he argumentat moltes vegades als meus alumnes que sembla preferible la idea d’una desaparició total que no pas una eternitat avorrit a l’espera que quatre desvagats et cridin per moure un got.

La part dedicada a Rússia li permeté a Gray parlar de la seva actitud més definitòria: el seu escepticisme envers el progrés. Gray no nega la realitat d’un progrés indubtable a l’àmbit científic i tecnològic, els avenços de l’odontologia per exemple, i, malgrat tot, a la moral i a la política. La millora de grups victimititzats, les dones o els homosexuals, per exemple són fets ben reals. El perill inherent a les concepcions pseudoreligioses del progrés és que ens fan oblidar la fragilitat de la situació humana, la qual és causa de què una marxa enrere sempre sigui possible. L’exemple més clar és la cada cop mes ample admissió de la pràctica de les tortures per part dels intel·lectuals de l’establishment (gairebé tots) i de l’opinió pública, tot generant un consens que haguéssim considerat impensable fa molts pocs anys.

El descrèdit del progrés implica inexorablement la impossibilitat de les utopies, la darrera versió de les quals i potser la menys intel·ligent és la Big Society de Cameron, i això du a defensar una política basada a la improvisació intel·ligent. En aquest apartat definí el transhumanisme, hereu de les aspiracions escatològiques i tecnològiques de la intel·ligència bolxevic, com programes per a l’extinció de la humanitat.

Gray estigué brillant, Holloway oportú i segur duent la conversa i tots plegats tinguérem una bona estona. Gray acabà citant i donant la raó a Freud quan aquest definí la civilització com el conjunt de tècniques i instruments per alleugerir la incurable malaltia implícita a la condició de ser humà.

Edip

El complex d’Edip té certament molts més sentit sí, com suggereix Girard, ho llegim al revés: allò determinant no és el desig de l’infant vers el parricidi i l’incest sinó la por de pare envers la competència del nen, la qual d’alguna manera no és gens simbòlica sinó del tot real.

Més aniversaris i idees fonamentals

Seguint amb aniversaris, fa 150 anys que un naturalista malat de malària a Indonèsia, Alfred Russell Wallace, concebí unes idees llavors estranyes i originals que revelà en una carta a un altre naturalista anomenat Charles Darwin, el qual reconegué una formulació de la idea que portava vint anys treballant: l’evolució de les espècies. Una mica poruc de què la seva idea fos capitalitzada per un altre, assolí que es fes una exposició de les teories de Wallace i Darwin a la Linnean Society, el dia 1 de juliol. Fou la primera presentació en públic de la teoria de la selecció natural. El públic no quedà especialment impressionat i de fet, el president de la societat Thomas Bell, a la memòria anual escrigué que el 1858 no havia aportat cap descobriment dels que suposen una revolució a la història de la ciència. En qualsevol cas, la ponència va animar a Darwin a començar una tasca que estava ajornant des de feia vint anys. Aquell estiu comença la redacció sistemàtica del seu treball de vint anys. Un any després es publicà On the origen of species by means of natural selection. Wallace restà en un discret segon terme a la difusió de la teoria i encara hi és.

A hores d’ara és difícil discutir que la idea de Darwin (i Wallace) ha estat una de les més importants de la història de la humanitat, quines en foren les altres? The Observer del darrer diumenge oferia el segon llistat:

· La filosofia de Plató

· La hipòtesi copernicana ( des de l’elaboració de Galileu)

· El cogito cartesià.

· La teoria de la gravitació universal

· La teoria liberal d’Adam Smith

· L’ alliberació de la dona (en concret el text A vindication of the rigth of the woman de Mary Wollstonecraft

· L’anàlisi econòmic desenvolupat pel marxisme

· Teoria de l’inconscient freudiana

· La teoria de la relativitat

· La world-wide-web

No sé que pensareu d’aquesta llista. D’entrada jo diria que com a confés salesià ( i no parlo de cap ordre religioso-educativa) no puc deixar d’estar d’acord amb el fet que els únics dos filòsofs esmentats siguin Descartes i Plató. Imagino que molts professionals del gremi ho trobaren força discutible, però crec que Aristòtil és el seguiment d’alguns camins apuntats per la reflexió platònica i que la filosofia alemanya en general (del tot absent amb l’excepció de Marx i Freud molt lateralment filòsofs) és més important per la resta dels filòsofs que per la humanitat en general. Em sembla però que si és explicable l’omissió de Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche o Heidegger és menys explicable l’oblit d’un altre alemany d’ofici més modest, Gutemberg. Si hi és la www, també hauria de ser la seva invenció, com a mínim, igualment decisiva. Hi ha un principi de justícia en incloure igualment a Adam Smith i Karl Marx, tot i que la major part de la humanitat sembla pensar que un dels dos sobra. Finalment, resulta xocant que totes les bones idees de la humanitat siguin europees. Tot i que en realitat això significa afirmar que la Grècia antiga era ja Europa, cosa que particularment no veig gaire clara. En tot cas, si la filosofia Platònica es pot entendre com l’esbós dels principis on es fonamenta la civilització occidental, llavors aquesta tasca presenta nombrosos analogies amb la desenvolupada per figures en alguns sentits equivalents com Buda i Confuci a la denominada època axial. A la llista no hi cap matemàtic, tot i que quasi totes aquestes idees brillants tenen relació amb la matemàtica i molts dels descobriments més decisius d’aquesta disciplina no són ni de bon tros europeus. Hem d’excloure, per suposat, tot el període neolític on es feren les invencions més definitives que no han estat documentades (entre elles l’escriptura). Un principi de justícia elemental fora no oblidar l’adjectiu post-neolític a aquesta llista.

Leo Strauss a Londres

El parc de Primrose Hill
Primrose hill road 26

Elsworthy Road 2 i la placa de la casa veïna

Segons m’informà el Gregorio Luri, ja fa un cert temps, les dues adreces londinenques de Leo Strauss foren Elsworty Road 2 i Primrose Hill Road 26. L’altra tarda va tenir una estona lliure i vaig poder atansar-me al barri. De fet, totes dues són molt properes. La mudança no fou complicada perquè la distància no era gaire més de 100 metres. Totes dues cases estaven a tocar de Primrose Hill, un petit parc que és una extensió septentrional de Regent’s park ,un dels més coneguts de Londres on es troba el seu zoo. L’adreça d’Elsworthy road conserva l’edifici on degué viure Leo Strauss tot i que probablement ha estat modificat, ja que l’horrorosa ampliació, imitació del tudorià, no té res a veure amb les patologies del 30, sinó amb patologies posteriors. Cap senyal commemorà el pas del filòsof, mentre que la casa del costat si té una placa blava en memòria del músic Sir Henry Wood. Potser s’hauria de mirar si es pot fer alguna coseta en aquest sentit. A l’altra banda de l’edifici hi ha una església anglicana dedicada a Santa Maria verge. La següent adreça a Primrose Hill Road correspon a un bloc de cases noves, segurament d’origen municipal que degueren esser construïdes després de la guerra. Tant a un lloc com a un altre tenia accés immediat a l’esmentat parc, un dels indubtables privilegis de la vida londinenca. El barri no deu haver canviat gaire. Era i és un lloc fonamentalment residencial, no gaire llunyà al lloc on uns poc anys després aniria a instal·lar-se un altre jueu centreeuropeu que fugia del nazisme: Sigmund Freud.

Il conformista

L’extended run d’aquest mes al NFT és el Il conformista de Bertolucci. No l’havia vist des de que era molt, molt jove. Recordo que era al cine Spring i res dels continguts de la pel·lícula. Si que he llegit que era potser el millor treball de Bertolucci, però això no em deia molt, perquè de fet no recordo cap pel·lícula de Bertolucci, de les fetes després, amb especial devoció. La pel·lícula és un immillorable estudi del tipus d’home que utilitza les seves capacitats intel·lectuals per justificar la seva abjecció i el seu arribisme, és a dir, com des de l’escepticisme es pot justificar qualsevol baixesa, qualsevol crim. Potser allò menys reeixit a la descripció del personatge sigui la trama freudiana que dóna com una de les claus del seu comportament una homosexualitat reprimida, amb unes escenes que no afegeixen gaire a l’acció i a més semblen introduir la tesi que el feixisme és una conseqüència de la repressió sexual, una idea més aviat banal. Fora del llast freudià tota la resta és ben remarcable. La narrativa té una fluïdesa insòlita pel cine europeu d’aquell moment i visualment és una pel·lícula impressionant, no menys “bella” que films com The sheltering sky, però sense concessions a cap esteticisme, tot reflectint l’estètica mòrbida i suggeridora de la síntesi entre avantguarda i classicisme desenvolupada a la Itàlia feixista. L’autor de la fotografia era un Vittorio Storaro en plena forma encara sense prou crèdit per copiar-se a si mateix de manera condescendent com faria anys després sovint. La música de Delerue és inspirada i l’ambientació i la recreació dels anys trenta no menys convincent que la mostrada pocs anys després a The Godfather, una pel·lícula que sense cap mena de dubte va recollir influències d’aquesta. No és difícil pensar en un lligam entre el protagonista d’aquesta pel·lícula i l’interpretat per Al Pacino; dos personatges solitaris i lliurats a un camí de degradació del que no tenen mitjà de sortir-se’n.

La cultura del narcisisme

The culture of narcissim fou un llibre publicat per Chistoper Lasch el 1979, quinze anys abans del molt lúcid llibre sobre la rebel·lió de les elits, que vaig comentar el desembre passat. Menys contundent a les seves lliçons que el darrer assaig, el llibre de Lasch no és però cap pèrdua de temps. La tesi fonamental del llibre està expressada en termes psicoanalítics: el temps de les neurosis clàssiques descrites per Freud ha passat avall i l’afecció psicològica més comuna al nostre temps és el narcisisme, la qual però està prou estesa com per què per a molts sigui considerada com una situació normal. Si la utilització del aparell conceptual freudià pot resultar empipadora, sorprèn encara l’oportunitat i la profunditat de la mirada de Lasch. El llibre recorda molts dels que es varen escriure a la dècada dels vuitanta, em ve a ara al cap el primer assaig de Lipotevski La era del vacio, però aquest és molt millor. Rebut en el seu temps com un més dels llibre que reaccionaven contra l’alliberament mental produït als seixanta, és a hores d’ara ben actual, quan la política ha estat degradada pel culte a la personalitat que ja no és només una característica del règim soviètic sinó sovint de les nostres democràcies (vegeu pe il·lustrar aquest punt l’e-noticies el model del qual no sembla ser el New York Times, ni el Frankfurter Allgemeine ni Le Monde, sinó l’Hola, això si basant-se en personatges sense cap mena de glamour) i hom rep amb fascinació productes com Big Brother, l’exaltació absoluta del narcisisme buit. El llibre té a més una utilitat especial per els que pensen que cal començar a alliberar-se del mite entorn dels incidents parisencs de l’any 68. El treball sociològic de Lasch és molt clar en aquest sentit: tots els canvis fonamentals tenien causes que venien de molt lluny i feien allò que s’esdevingué inevitable. La mitificació del maig del 68 acaba sent en aquest sentit una manera d’amagar les contradiccions inherents al nostre procés cultural global. Hi ha un capítol sobre educació que val la pena comentar i del qual parlaré un altre dia, però voldria acabar amb un paràgraf que em sembla fa palès alhora les idees principals del llibre i la seva actualitat.
Our society is narcissisitic, then, in a double sense. People with narcissistic personalities, although not necessarily more numerous than before, play a conspicuous part in contemporary life, often rising to positions of eminence. Thriving on the adulation of the masses, these celebrities set the tone of public life and of private life as well, since the machinery of celebrity recognizes no boundaries between the public and the private realm. The beautiful people- to use this revealing expression to include not merely wealthy globetrotters but all those who bask, however briefly, in the full glare of the cameras- live out the phantasy of narcissistic success, which consists of nothing more substantial than a wish to be vastly admired, no for one’s accomplishments but simply for oneself, uncritically and without reservation.
Modern capitalist society not only elevates narcissists to prominence, it elicits and reinforces narcissistic traits in everyone. It does this in many ways: by displaying narcissism so prominently and in such attractive forms; by undermining parental authority and this making hard for children to grow up; but above all by creating so many varieties of bureaucratic dependence. This dependence, increasingly widespread in a society that is not merely paternalistic but maternalistic as well, makes it increasingly difficult for people to lay the rest the terrors of infancy or to enjoy the consolations of adulthood

La identitat al primitiu budisme

Sense res millor a dir, introdueixo el meu darrer treball sobre la noció de identitat permanent al primitiuu budisme. En concret, comparo algunes ideas de les questions del Rei Milinda amb nocions del Chandogya Upanisad


I
The second book of the questions of the King Milinda contains one description of the self, where this notion is compared with a chariot. It is one of the most famous and quoted passages of the Buddhist literature. Nâgasena, the monk who is introducing the Buddhist point of view, analyzes what is a chariot and establishes that whatever it could be it, it must be different from the pole, the axle, the wheels or any of the different material parts, which compound it. None of these parts is the chariot and there is nothing outside them which could be the chariot[1]. In the same way, none of the constituents of a being must be identified with a self. Nâgasena does not coincide neither with his hair, his nails or any other part of his body nor with his ideas, sensation or consciousness[2] A being is a way of coexistence of the khandhas, and there is nothing more just as there is no chariot beyond the coexistence of its several parts[3].
The question seems to be very meaningful for the monk, which if fact induces the enquiry, presenting himself as Nâgasena, but highlighting that these is only a designation in common use, a name. No permanent individuality is involved in the matter, he says. This point is considered quite astonishing by the king and later we will have to come back about this astonishment. Now it is important to remark that if Nâgasena is eager for starting this enquiry, it is because he must consider it as leading to a very important point of his teaching. Certainly, that there is no self is the third point of the most common Buddhist theory of reality which is deeply interwoven with the second, there is noting permanent, and therefore is the real cause of the first: everything (all compound things) are unsatisfactory[4]. There is no doubt that Nâgasena is aware of the fact that through this notion is presenting one of the features which made a difference between his doctrine and most of the previous conceptions. The image of the chariot does not seem to have been chosen in a random way. Peter King[5] remembers that this analogy had already been used in the Katha Upanishad. However in this text it is used just to defend the opposite point of view[6]: the existence of a permanent self[7]. In fact, the point is really crucial because, as we will explain later, without the acceptance of the no-self doctrine it is impossible to find out the way to liberation or rebirth, which is actually the only aim on the Buddhist doctrine. Furthermore, we can say that if we understand what does this lack of self means, we will have understood what it is reality from a Buddhist point of view, although Buddhism is not a philosophy, according to the western point of view, and does not intend to attain theoretical goals. Anyway, a possible danger is to understand what Nâgasena is saying in a completely literal, and therefore nihilistic, view. According to the text, to deny that there is a self could be not less absurd that to refuse the fact that chariots can exist. What is really denied is its permanence, not the being itself. The chariot in which the king Milinda has travelled is not a fiction created by the mind, but it depends only on the parts which once assembled compound this reality. Nothing different of them could be found. Something analogous is the case with the human being, which is finally the assembling of different, changing and moving elements, revealed in each case by the lived experience[8].
From my point of view, what has been denied is something very similar to the notion which was called substance by Aristotle. This point of view could be reinforced in the following passages of the book. So, in the dialogue between Nâgasena and Anankataya, Nâgasena replies to the idea of the second that the soul is the inner breath which comes and goes, that there is no soul in the breath, as there is no soul in a trumpet[9]. Here the emphasis is focused on what is substantial and permanent. Later, is the the King who asks for the soul, introducing an analogy between the soul and himself sitting in his palace and looking through the windows[10]. The analogy is denied by Nâgasena, who says that if this were the case, then it would be possible to perceive indiscriminately any quality with any organ. In different ways, it concludes in each case that the powers are not united one to another indiscriminately[11]. The core of the argument developed by the monk is stated clearly by Gethin when he says that the first argument against the self is that there is not inner controller[12]Although probably the argument most coincident with the point of view which we have tried to defend is the third used by Gethin, when he talks about the meaningless of the term self, every time that this term come up apart from concrete and particular experiences[13]. The only feature that seems to belong properly to the self is its elusiveness[14]. Anyway, it is worth to consider the point of view introduced by scholars as Williams or Harvey[15], when they remember us that one of the main characteristics of Buddhism is its refusal of metaphysical questions. The question about the self is useless, if it is not in the way to Nirvâna. In fact, the defence of speculative points of view is explicitly rejected. Buddha is a physician more than a philosopher as it is illustrated in the image of the man wounded by an arrow[16]. As Hamilton says, the problem for Buddhism is how things, and human being is not an exception, operate, not what they are[17].
II
The objection posed by the king, when he hears Nâgasena describing his self as a void sound, has a moral meaning. Without self a moral life seems completely impossible. There would not be difference between merit and demerit; there would be the same to be an Arahat or a murder[18]. The answer of Nâgasena, the aforementioned image of the chariot, is not a direct answer to this question, whose only possible answer is introduced in the next section, when Nâgasena faces the question put by the king, how many years of seniority has him, using the notion of causality[19]. In fact what has been said by Nâgasena, the rejection of the permanency of the self, has a deep moral sense. One of the aims of the doctrine is to avoid, to cut off from the root, every form of selfishness. This is the main tool to accomplish the overcoming of attachment. Going on, It is in I:5, when the dialogue between Nâgasena and the king starts again, where the King asks him directly about his way of life: renunciation[20], which was not new at that time, but it continued to be one of the most distinctive features of the Buddhist movement. This way of life was fiercely opposed to the traditional point of view, that is to say the vedic, about how should we live and obviously it has to awake the perplexity of a king, who although with intellectual interests has a very different choice about his life. Williams has insisted on this point which he considers, and I agree, quite decisive. Buddha, like his followers, was a drop-out[21] and his way of living openly defied the old tradition in which the excellence was associated with the success of the life as a householder[22]. This life is focused on a range of values which obviously tend to keep having in mind this idea of self, which had to be eradicated. It is a life based on craving and there is no craving without assertion of the self[23]; giving up attachment is impossible in this way of life[24]. For the Buddhists, the itinerant life experienced by the Buddha was without any doubt superior and the doctrine of the lack of self was a sociological sign, as remember us Peter King.[25]From a personal point of view, I have found this conflict really amazing, because it reflects one of the most basics problems which the human race had had to confront and also one of the oldest, probably a question posed since the neolithical revolution. Then, arose two ways of life, completely opposed: those developed by the settlers and the life of the nomads, being none of them completely satisfactory. In each case, we human beings feel that something important is missed. But both are incompatible and one has to be chosen. Buddhism and Vedism make their choice in the most radical way[26]. But the conflict happens in many other cultures. In a much less sophisticated way, it is interesting to note that this election is the central point, for instance, in many westerns focused precisely in this subject. Incidentally, this is in a certain way the question posed by Freud in his Das Unbehagen der Kultur, our life can not be lived without culture, but culture, too contradictory with our inner life, make us unhappy.
Anyway, Buddhism could not be described only in terms of opposition to the ancient point of view. It defined itself as the middle way and it is thought that Buddha Himself has knowledge of some of the Upanishads[27]. So it is not surprising to find sometimes something like a family resemblance between the Buddhist ideas and themes of the aforementioned book. The point of the text where most vividly I have had this sensation, occurs in the first book when the king asks Nâgasena about the characteristic mark of wisdom and the Monk answers that it is cutting off, the action made by the barley reapers when they are doing their work[28].This statement remembers me another which can be found in the Upanishads, the definition of self as dam[29], because the purpose of a dam is also to cut off. On one side of the dam, there is evil, old age, death and grief, most of the things which compound life for Buddha, making it unsatisfactory, on the other side of the dam, there is something which could more or less be expressed with the metaphor of light. Probably, is not a matter of chance that in this Upanishad appears ideas, like the avoiding of rebirth and the superiority of the renouncing life. Although, opposed in many points, the Buddhist teaching has some of its roots also in the brahamanic tradition.
III
What replaces the notion of a permanent self is the doctrine of the dependent causation. It is relatively easy to make a general account of this doctrine in spite of the obscurity of some formulations. The main statement is that there is no a permanent unity; every subject differs from itself after any period of time. But these differences do not mean that the subject must be considered as completely different. The subject X1 has become after some time the subject X2, Jordi when began his curs about Buddhism and Jordi when it is finished, both subjects, in this case perhaps I should properly say we, are not the same, but there is a link between them; a link founded in causal connexion. My way of being now, my way of doing and living, determines the future from this someone, who strictly is another, but from whose life I am entirely responsible. The causal connectedness becomes the condition of possibility of the moral and makes rebirth possible without having to postulate the existence of any kind of permanent self[30]. The point is exposed in a clear way in the beginning of the second chapter, where Nâgasena states that the man who is born again is neither the same nor another[31]. It is in this chapter, where could be found the image of the milk in order to illustrate what is rebirth. The milk turns to curds, then to butter and finally to gee. Each one of these states is different but they are produced from the preceding state. They have an only and direct cause which determines inexorably its being[32].
The statement that the notion of soul must be replaced by the succession of cause and effect is indeed not an interpretation, but it is something explicitly told by Nâgasena in the chapter second. When the King asks the monk, what is reborn, he answers that name and form. Not the same name and form, but another name and form arisen out of the deeds of the former, that is to say, from its kharma[33]. The statement is followed by a serie of stories, about mango stealers, bought brides, glasses of milk and different kinds of arsonists, in order to illustrate the point previously questioned by the king: if moral nihilism becomes unavoidable according to the doctrine defended by Nâgasena. In each one of the cases, the king is moved to assent to the fact, that causal connectedness implies moral responsibility[34]. As it always happens in the dialogues of Plato, in this dialogue it is only said, what is required by the situation: the king is not the proper interlocutor for serious metaphysical disquisitions, but it is interesting to note that something is said in order to deepen into the knowledge of the Buddhist point of view. When the King asks for a more definite explanations of what does name and form means[35], Nâgasena says that Form is whatever is gross and name whatever is subtle and mental. Both are connected and spring into being together in the same way that the yolk and the egg-shell[36]. The explanation is by no means complete, especially if we consider, as Sue Hamilton does, that both notions are crucial[37], but it defines, at least, the first step of the ladder.
IV
The Buddha always refused to answer any metaphysical question, claiming that if they do not help in the way to Nirvâna, they have to be considered as useless. Nonetheless, Buddhist thinkers were arguing with systems of ideas, which have developed throughout its history its own ontology and epistemology. Although only with an instrumental aim, Buddha and his followers were forced into outlining some kind of alternative, which was later completely developed through the Abbidharma. Perhaps more than in strictly philosophical terms, it would be useful to recover the old notion of “Weltansachaung” to designate the set of differences between early Buddhism and its rival conceptions. Buddhism entails a new way of looking at the reality and, consequently, of being in the world. Some of the features which distinguish this new way are related to Metaphysics but not all of them. From my point of view, two of these features can be found in the dialogues of King Milinda. I will finish my essay making some remarks about each one of the two following points:
- An Ontology without neither identity nor difference. From the point of view introduced by the doctrine of dependent causation, the chain of causation makes unnecessary to postulate the notion of identity. The doctrine implies a dynamical conception of reality, based on the notion of permanent change[38]. The refusal of early Hindu eternalism entails a different logic and a different conception of what it is the meaning of being. As Peter King says, this denial of eternal substance consequently leads to reject the notion of absolute difference which would be another way of denying the causal continuity between past, present and future[39]. A consequence of this change has to be considered as what Williams calls the ethicisation of the world[40]. Action, morally relevant action, is the heart of this conception.
- A different and new conception of time, whose meaning is strongly connected to the notion of dependent causation. The doctrine of the Buddha makes time the most important dimension of reality or, to speak in a most precise way, of reality as it is experienced by humans[41], in contrast to the way shown in the Upanishads which tends to deny the reality of time[42]. In fact the notion of time seems to be very central for some of the authors of the Abhidharma, that conceive time as a kind of dimension through which dharmas travel[43], but the question also appears in our text. The king asks Nâgasena about the meaning of time. He answers, in the most obvious way, that time is past, present and future, but the question of the king is focused on knowing whether time is something real[44]. Now, the answer of Nâgasena is more detailed. Time refers to these causes which still have a possibility of producing an effect. Where there will be reborn, time actually is, whereas time is not real for those who have attained Nirvâna[45]. To escape from time is not different to run away from dukkha. This point is stated in the clearest way in the next chapter, when Nâgasena says that Ignorance is the root of time and afterwards develops his own version of the doctrine of dependent arising[46]. The following section provides some illustration of the fact that the ultimate point of time is not apparent, that is to say, that the cycle of time has not an end, if the subject is unable to attain Nirvâna[47]. The most important metaphor of this chapter represents khandhas, that is to say the ultimate root of reality, as seeds. Time is presented in this way as endless and circular.
V
The main aim of this essay has been to compare some ideas introduced in the second book of the Questions, with some teachings contained in the Upanishads, especially in the Chandogya Upanishad, concerning the notion of self. In fact, the text itself seems to ask for this comparison, since it begins denying human self in a way which is widely open to a polemical questioning of the tradition. Throughout the essay, we have intended to show, that from these different positions on nature of the self, it must be deduced a different understanding of the reality, even although the main purpose of the Buddhism was not related to challenge the previous theoretical conceptions. However the negation of the self leads, perhaps we must say unavoidably, to an alternative weltanschaung, which is based on reformulated notions of time, identity and causation and begets a dynamical, procedural understanding of the whole[48]. It could not be denied, that there are also points shared by both doctrines. Otherwise, it would be contradictory to consider the Upanishads as a root of the Buddhist teaching. At least, the purpose of avoiding rebirth is common to both traditions. However they pursue the same goal with very different means. The Upanishads often seems to look at the past in a conciliatory way. The old conceptions of the vedic religion are perhaps rectified but never completely discarded, whereas Buddhism is bitterly opposed to the patriarchal way of living that is defended in the Vedas. In fact, the confrontation reflects a polemics which is not only religious and metaphysical, but also political and sociological.


BIBLIOGRAPHY


THE UPANISADS
Translated and edited by Valerie J.Roebuck (Penguin classics, 2003)

THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA
Translated by T. W. Rhys Davids, (Dover publications, 1983)

THE LONG DISCOURSES OF THE BUDDHA. A Translation of the Digha Nikaya
Translated by Maurice Walshe (Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1995)

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY. AN INTRODUCTION TO HINDU AND BUDDHIST THOUGTH
Richard King, Georgetown U.P. 1997

THE FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHISM
Rupert Gethin, Oxford U.P., 1998

AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM: TEACHINGS, HISTORY AND PRACTICES
Peter Harvey, Cambridge U.P., 1990

BUDDHIST THOUGTH: A COMPLETE INTRODUCTION TO THE INDIAN TRADITION
Paul Williams with Anthony Tribe, London, Routledge, 2000

EARLY BUDDHISM: A NEW APPROACH. The I of the Beholder
Sue Hamilton, Curzon Press, 2000

[1] P. 43-4. When there is no other indication, the quotations belong to The Qustions of King Milinda
[2] P. 42-43
[3] P. 45
[4] King, 77
[5] ib, 81
[6] (3-3-4); in fact the text is interesting because although the self is conceived as permanent it seems to be outside of the chariot. It has to be identified with the owner who can not be linked to any part of it.
[7] The comparison is also interesting and tempting for the readers of Plato. But it could be also misleading because it is very easy to forget, in fact it has often happened, that he context where this idea springs up is a myth. From my point view is very difficult to discern if the theory of the soul in Plato is about a permanent soul, ;even, I do not dare to discern if there is such a theory in Plato
[8] It is interesting the way in which Hamilton (op. cit., p. 123) deals with the question. The world is what I experience and nothing that I experience, that is to say I know, can be identified with the self. The doctrine of the no self is more epistemological than ontological.
[9] P. 39-40
[10] P. 86
[11] P. 87-8
[12] Gethin, p. 136. Interestingly enough in order to explain the fact of perception Nâgasena introduces the successions of cause and effect, a discourse which has been drawn from the Abbidharma, according to the text itself.
[13] Ib. P. 137 i 138
[14] This point of view must be connected with opinion of Hamilton, when she says that the most relevant fact to understand the question of the self as it is posed, is its connexion with Ignorance, the first root of the chain of dependent causation (Hamilton, 36)
[15] Harvey, 53
[16] Williams, 36
[17] Hamilton, 24
[18] P. 41-2
[19] P. 45
[20] P.50
[21] Williams, 17
[22] Ib., 28
[23] Ib. 47
[24] Gethin, 162. Hamilton highlights also this point remembering that the expression “homeless” is used to signify that an individual has embarked on the spiritual quest for truth. (p. 102)
[25] King, 79
[26] Although finally Buddhism chooses a less radical way of living based on monastic institutions.
[27] Williams, 12
[28] P. 51
[29] Chandogya Upanisad VIII,4
[30] Williams, 69
[31] P. 63
[32] P. 66
[33] P. 72
[34] P. 72-76
[35] P. 77
[36] P. 77-78
[37] Hamilton, p. 151
[38] Williams 70. Death and rebirth are two points of change but not differents in itself from any other point or our ordinary life.
[39] King, 82.Although the notion of absolute difference must not be completely forgotten. Between me and my neighbour there is a complete absence of connectedness which does not happen between me and who I used to be thirty years ago.
[40] Williams, p. 73
[41] Nirvâna can be also described as an escape of time, because time is a reality which belongs only to the pre-Enligthment experience. (Hamilton, 173)
[42] This is the consequence of an eternalistisc point of view. Even although this point is not usually highlighted, it could be easily inferred: if the most important part of reality is unchanging, then time has to be illusory.
[43] Gethin, 220
[44] P. 78
[45] P. 79
[46] P. 80; this version has some differences with the most standard form which is discussed, for instance, in the book of Gethin (p, 150)
[47] P.80-82
[48] A point of view perhaps still more challenging to the western tradition, which since Parmenides has usually tended to associate perfection with stability

El Museu Freud

Hampstead és a hores d’ara un dels barris més atractius de Londres. Al segle XVIII era encara un lloc eminentment rural, com palesen alguns dels quadres de Constable exposats a la Tate Gallery i ara encara està prou lluny del centre de la ciutat com per mantenir una personalitat pròpia. El seu parc central és potser el millor de la capital i una dels que posseeix racons més feréstecs. Hampstead és el lloc on va passar Sigmund Freud el darrer any la seva vida, des de finals de setembre del 38 fins a començaments de setembre del 39, quan va morir. La casa que fou seva és ara la seu d’un museu dedicat a la seva memòria. El carrer, Maresfield Gardens, és un lloc tranquil on pràcticament només hi ha cases unifamiliars que des de fora s’imaginen confortables i elegants, com, de fet, era la casa de Freud. Freud arribà a Londres malalt i amb una edat massa avançada com per poder parlar, sense fer un acudit macabre, de començar una nova vida. La seva estada hagué de consistir essencialment en una llarga agonia marcada per la nostàlgia de la seva llar vienesa on va viure més de cinquanta anys i va haver de marxar per la força. Benauradament no només ell, sinó tota la seva família directe va poder fugir de l’Austria nazi, no així les seves germanes que moriren a diferents camps de concentració, i això degué ser un consol fonamental. Els seu fill, arquitecte, feu una remodelació de la que cal destacar l’eixida (terme que utilitzo per traduir allò que els anglesos anomenen conservatory), molt lluminosa i totalment projectada sobre el jardí. Dins de la casa hi ha una part de la col·lecció d’objectes arqueològics de Freud ( moltes de les explicacions insisteixen en l’estret lligam entre arqueologia i psicoanàlisi), una molt bona part de la seva biblioteca, en la què no hi havia gairebé llibres de psicologia i un dels artefactes més mítics del segle XX: el famós divan on els seus pacients es dedicaven a la lliure associació d’idees. Pel contrari el menjador és del tot convencional i fins i són presents algunes imatges alpines com sembla obligat en una llar germànica. L’exposició del pis superior està centrada a la figura de la seva filla Anna, important psicoanalista, que va viure a la casa fins a la seva mort. La botiga del museu ofereix l’oportunitat, única pel que jo sé, de comprar un peluix de Freud o unes sabatilles que tenen la forma del seu rostre.

El gran inquisidor

Aquesta nit al Barbican he pogut presenciar per primera vegada un muntatge del llegendari Peter Brook, una adaptació d’un fragment del germans Karamazov; un text ben popular entre el públic filosòfic: el gran inquisidor. El treball de Brook és d’una gran austeritat. Un actor fa el paper d’Inquisidor i alhora de narrador. És l’única veu de la funció. Enfront d’ell donant-li la replica sense dir res ni moure un múscul fins al final de la funció, l’actor que fa el paper del crist baixat de nou a la terra. Tots dos disposats en un petita tarima amb dos tamborets com a seients. Tota la força a la interpretació de l’actor Meiers, l’anglesa és una llengua meravellosa dita per individus amb una dicció tan perfecta, i a la naturalesa del text de increïble riquesa i que fou una font per gent tan diversa com Nietzsche, hi ha clarament una anticipació de la teoria del darrer home, Brecht, erst kommt das fressen, dann kommt die moral, o Freud, un dels temes de fons és en definitiva la dificultat d’ésser cristià. La línia general de la disquisició de l’inquisidor és un examen de l’episodi de les tres temptacions: convertir les pedres en pans, deixar-se caure a l’abisme i tenir tot el poder del món. Per l’inquisidor la resposta de Crist fou sempre l’equivocada, perquè tingué una idea massa elevada dels homes, però l’església va poder rectificar-ho, usurpant el seu nom per fer tot el contrari del que el natzaré predicava; la única manera de portar la felicitat als homes suprimint la seva llibertat i prenent cura del seu benestar material. En definitiva, una gran nit de teatre que s’ha perllongat a la sortida. L’obra era prou curta per permetre’m veure la segona part del Chelsea Barça i ha estat un plaer indescriptible cantar el gol d’Eto’o a un pub anglès rodejat d’afeccionats del Celsea bel·ligerants però cada cop més resignats enfront de l’exhibició del Barça.

Un chien andalou

Aprofito un moment d'esbargiment a la feina per penjar el meu darrer treball pel curs de cinemtaografia:
UN CHIEN ANDALOU
I
The aim of this essay is to show through un chien andalou some features of the surrealist movement. The surrealist manifest was released to public on January 27th 1925 and the film of Buñuel was shot three years later. Although Buñuel and Dali did not belong yet to the surrealist movement, their work was definitely surrealist and they were admitted in the movement some months later. In the first manifesto, Breton acknowledges the debt of his movement to Sigmund Freud. Some of its aims were liberation of the mind and to show the fragility of our standard values and the shifting foundations of our civilization. The last station of this trail had to be revolution and Freud could be seen as the prophet of this Promised Land. Indeed he has defined unconscious, the repressed part of the mind, as the place where lies our own nature (letting us believe that liberation of this repression could be the secret of happiness) and in the twenties his subject was mainly philosophy of culture; works like Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, in which he gave a theoretical basis of the contempt for culture and civilization, reflected in the surrealist proposal.
This book offers the later conception of mind designed by Freud that differs in many ways from the former. Whereas Freud had believed first that there was only a kind of instincts forming the unconscious, concerned with sex, now this monism is replaced by a dualism, in which the sexual instinct, named Eros, is joined to another instinct, Thanatos, the death’s instinct which is the deepest source of violence and aggressiveness.
The surrealism was from its beginnings, for instance in their first manifesto, interested in cinema. This is a well-known fact. They were soon aware of the wide range of possibilities of this new media, which was unusually good to open dreamlike worlds. Indeed, to be in a cinema is like dreaming in some way. But equally interesting to us, they hated and despised novels, a kind of literature that was rubbish to them. The novels, which they were spoken from, were realist novels, like, for instance, those written by Dickens, which were the model chosen by Griffith to articulate cinema’s syntax. But after Griffith, came Eisenstein, which discovered the power of editing, in a way which has not been found out by American movies. Buñuel in his memories remembers how impressed he was by Potemkin. Through editing it was possible to play with time and space, in a more powerful way than any other art, making possible to reflect the structure, the peculiar logic, of human’s dreams.
II
The theoretical approach from above was required to try to describe why the film of Buñuel was the most representative among these made by surrealists. Un chien andalou is a film built under the influence of both natural unconscious instincts, eros and thanatos, and it reflects specially well not a specific dream, although its origins were Dali´s dream about ants and Buñuel´s dream about the cloud and the moon, but the way in which unconscious works.
We begin with the last question. It is obvious that Buñuel had a more deep understanding about film’s making that any other surrealist author. He has been working in the industry and he had a good knowledge of the most basic cinematographical techniques. Un chien andalou is far away to look like an amatheur’s work, what the other surrealist films were. It is a film shot by a filmmaker, by someone who is able to use the camera to create his own language. Following Eisenstein, Buñuel said once that cutting is the best way and he edited his film playing with the notions of time and space, in order to create a narrative structure, which was completely different the narrative of conventional films. He plays with our notion of time, first through the intertitles, whose goal is to confuse the spectator, but also reversing the logical order of events. We saw first as the woman’s eye is cut but afterwards the woman appears on the screen without any damage. But it is still most interesting how he plays with the conception of space because through this manipulation becomes clear the talent and power of Buñuel as a filmmaker. There are more than one example, but my favourite’s one is when the girl leaves the room and there is a beach and the sea on the other side of the door. I would like to precise, why this short film is so touching. It has been edited as a conventional film, the editing accords with all the conventional rules, which had been already fixed, but breaking the correspondence between these rules and our ordinary understanding of time and space, we are able to penetrate in a world whose stuff is the same from which our dreams are made on.
In class and in the commentary of Robert Short, it has been insisted on the sexual nature of its images. Obviously, un chien andalou, is concerned with sex or, more properly, with sexual frustration and its repression. We saw how the woman is harassed by the main player and the opening scene, with the eye, the razor, the moon and the cloud, has been interpreted as a metaphor of sexual act. But not less obviously the film is concerned also with Thanatos. Not only the instinct which creates life, but also the instinct of destruction, rule the world created by Buñuel. In twenty minutes we see, or believe to see, an eye slashed in a barbaric way, and two deaths: the androgynous dead in a car’s crash and the main character shoot by his doppelgänger. It is worth to remember that Buñuel defined the film as an appeal to murder. This is an interesting point which I would like to treat more deeply.

III
When Freud was trying to explain the changes between his first model of human mind and the second, he remembered how he found some phenomena, which he was unable to explain with selfish instincts, that, according to his first works, compounded our unconscious. The most characteristic of these was sadism, when sexual pleasure is acquired hurting another and masoquism when sexual pleasure comes from hurting oneself or be damaged by another, which was absolutely in contradiction with unconscious‘s selfishness. In Buñuel’s film sadism is also an important point. Incidentally, he felt great admiration by Sade as a writer. He discovered his works in Paris in the twenties and he was absolutely amazed, according with his memories. Witness of this admiration is his second film, l’âge d’or ,that ends with an homage to the marquis in which he is shown like Christ. Although the marquis´ shadow is not so important in the former film, it is not less powerful.
I would like to finish this essay, talking about a fragment of the film which is an astonishing example of what sadism means: the androgynous´ death. This character is introduced in the street between a crowd that looks at him at the hand, whereas he seems to play, in a very meditative mood, with a cut hand, which lies on the roadway. A constable compels him to put the hand in a box and persuades the people crowded to go away. Now, the boy-girl stays alone in the middle of the street among the cars. The main character is looking at him through the window. The cars are running fast and every time closer to the boy-girl, who seems to be completely paralysed. The man in the window gets more and more excited, while the risk is increasing. In the soundtrack we are hearing, Isolda’s death by Wagner a music whose nature is absolutely sexual, with a rhythm that seems to imitate our body’s rhythm when we are copulating. Finally a car runs the androgynous over, Wagner’s music reaches its peak and Buñuel shows the face of the main character with an expression of absolute satisfaction, just like he was having an orgasm. Afterwards, he will be going to try to have sex with the girl. The connection between violence has sexual pleasure, which is the main characteristic of sadism, has been performed and experiences in a very powerful way.

Schopenhauer a L.A.

El nou cicle de la NFT té com a protagonista a Billy Wilder, de l’obra del qual s’ofereix una revisió completa ( evidentment, també hi ha altres cicles com per exemple el dedicat a Julie Andrews però ara no ve gairebé al cas). Simultàniament al curs d’introducció a la cinematografia se’ns va introduir dins del gènere negre amb una projecció de la primera gran pel·lícula americana de Billy Wilder: Double indemnity, que feia bastant temps que no veia. La veritat és que la pel·lícula mereix la condició de clàssic i funciona tota ella com un mecanisme perfecte de rellotgeria, de vegades fins i tot massa perfecte. Precisament per la seva perfecció és un títol del tot encertat per introduir el film noir, perquè no hi manca cap dels arquetipus que el defineix. Un dels trets que van servir per presentar al gènere ve establert pel fet de la connexió cronològica entre la seva aparició i la popularització de la psicoanàlisi als EEUU, això explica una de les tendències a presentar personatges més o menys propers a la patologia. Veient Double Indemnity, però, el meu pensament no se’n va anar tant a Freud com un dels seus mestres Schopenahuer (un autor d’altra banda omnipresent al mitjà cultural on es va formar Wilder). La descripció de l’anàlisi existencial realitzat pel pensador alemany ens ve a dir en definitiva que a la vida humana només hi ha dues realitats essencials: el desig i l’avorriment, quan no hi és el primer, que és una forma de patiment, apareix el segon, patiment d’una altra mena. Crec que aquesta descripció és perfecte per un film en el que, com comentava alguns dels meus companys de classe, tots els protagonistes són terriblement desgraciats i tots semblen estar duent una vida del tot alienada i avorrida. El desig intervé com l’únic element revolucionari d’aquest ordre monòton i és el desencadenant de l’acció. Cap altre dimensió de l’acció humana sembla tenir lloc en una societat on qualsevol element de cohesió aliè a l’interès propi és del tot nominal.