Quantifying all aspects of music

The sciences are those modes of inquiry which relay on quantification. If it cannot be quantified, it cannot be studied. And music is not an exception. Those who study the psychology of this art have at their disposal a variety of machinery and observational tactics with the purpose of quantifying the data. Here below are some of the most intriguing and thought-provoking quotations from Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis’ The Psychology of Music. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford U Press, 2019, pp. 121). These quotations are accompanied by my own take on the information they contain.

Usually, the quote that initiates talking about music in general is “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” (source unknown). This is on account of the fact that human music is like no other phenomenon of modes of expression, reception, performance, composition. Therefore, the closest to what human can say about music is a simile, for ex., “Music is like language”. In my opinion, this is not really true and it does not give both modes the appropriate due.

p. 10 “Like language, music consists of the complex patterning of individual sound elements. Like language, music varies across human cultures. Like language, music occurs dynamically in time and it is capable of being notated. And arguably, like language, music seems to be unique to humans.” So the psychology of music relies on many of the theories and methods of linguistics. However, it is proving to be difficult to observe the perception and production of music in a natural setting. Much work needs to be done, notwithstanding the large corpora of data and the help of computer technology. One of the similarities discovered between music and language is the observation that people slow down at the end of spoken phrases, and performers also slow down at the end of musical phrases. However, the simile could also have been “Music is like clothing”, because clothing is also complexly patterned, varies across cultures. And this simile would also put forward the idea of homogenizing – both in clothing and in music.

p. 21 “Music is often perceived as expressive in ways that go beyond language. Music can seem deeply meaningful even when it does not denote a concrete object or idea; rather, it seems to traffic in the ambiguous, the multiple interpretable. … p. 22 “the sense of being transported beyond one’s self tends to be a hallmark of musical listening across the world. This powerful kind of experience has variously been referred to as effervescence, a surplus effect, or (in less fanciful terms) a heightened state of arousal. Rather than be listened to and merely received, music tends to sweep people into its vicissitudes, eliciting sympathetic movement (toe tap or head nods) of a tacit sense of participation (mentally singing along, or feeling drawn out of yourself and into the music). This capacity underlies …four primary functions of music: to regulate a mental of psychological state, to mediate between self and other, to function as symbols, and to help coordinate action.”

This is the most fascinating part of music: when you really listen or when you really play, it makes you feel like you are in another universe, in fact, it does away with your own self – the listener and the performer do not have a self. It is fascinating that this feeling of “outside-ness” is highly pleasant, and “waking up” from it is a let-down.

p. 22 the lullaby all over the world has the same features: higher pitch levels, slower pace, warmer vocal tone.

This is an interesting finding, given that musical traditions across the world use different materials to enact the four functions listed above.

p. 23 “Rather than depending on a single dedicated region [of the brain], the ability to hear, understand, and make music calls on networks spread throughout the brain – networks used by many other activities from speech to movement planning. This overlap likely explains some of the benefits musical experience and training can confer on abilities as diverse as learning a language, literacy, executive function, and social and emotional processing. … in other words, what might be special about music is not so much that it is different from everything else, but rather that it draws everything else together.”

This is a fascinating observation, underscoring the complexity of studying music in the brain.

p. 57 (musical grouping) “Because auditory sensory memory does not extend past about five seconds, it is difficult to directly experience rhythmic relationships that extend beyond this timescale. Larger-scale temporal relationships – such as form – tend to be perceived in a less sensory, more cognitive way.”

This is very interesting and it points to the idea that music does not simply touch the emotional phenomena, but involves the cognitive ones as well.

p. 60 (rhythmic patterns and language) “Musical themes from England and France…bear the marks of the linguistic environment in which they were composed: English themes contain more durational variability between successive notes, but durations in French themes are more uniform.”

This is a perfect example of how scientists leave the most interesting facts out of their description. Which music is the author talking about? Folkloric, vocal, classical, instrumental…? How exactly was this measured/quantified?

p. 63-64 “The dimensions available for performers to manipulate include timing…, dynamics…, articulation…, tempo… , intonation…, timbre… .”

All of these are amenable to quantification, so psychology has made big strides in this area.

68 “Understanding expressive performance is more about understanding the dynamic interplay between listener experiences and performer decisions than about understanding how performers relate to a score… .”

This is yet another unclear discovery: does it mean that the more the listeners knows the score, the more they can judge the subtle variations of performers? But then it means that listening in this way is more cognitively, not emotionally-driven.

69 there seems to be a difference between listeners’ enjoyment and interest.

Here, too, the author does not elaborate, especially as regards the definition of enjoyment and interest.

69-70 “Numerous studies show that information in the visual modality-particularly the movements of performers as they play – has powerful effect not just on the overall evaluation of the performance, but also on what listeners actually hear. “

This is called “perceptual illusion” and it was mostly examined by having a video recording of someone saying “ba-ba-ba” superimposed on a video recording of the lip movement for “ga-ga-ga”. People looking at the video tend to hear an in-between syllable such as “da-da-da” which corrects to “ba-ba’ba” as soon as they close their eyes. Apparently, “what the person sees can fundamentally shape what a person hears.” It is difficult to gage this experiment’s design and translate it to music and its visual reception. People were observed to rate dissonant moments in blues performances of B.B. King as more dissonant when accompanied by a video footage of him visually highlighting the tonal conflict. “Perceptions of dissonance contribute essentially to affective responses to music. Scholars have tried to explain them in terms of the structure of the human ear and basic psychoacoustic principles, but research suggests that even something like the raising or lowering of an eyebrow can play a role.” (p. 71)

71 “…musical expressivity can sometimes be more easily decoded from the visual than the auditory domain”.

The observations that give rise to this finding were of a violinist either playing very expressively or in a deadpan manner. However, there is no mention of being just too expressive, which may interefere with the enjoyment of the performance.

72 “People also tend to enjoy individual performances more if told they come from a world-renowned professional pianist rather than a conservatory student.”

This is an example of the power of the peripheral information about a live concert: this information determines already the mind-set of the listeners and predisposes them in a certain way to the experience.

73 “Most studies suggest that performers plan three to four notes into the future as they play. This span increases as people gain experience; the longer someone has studied an instrument, the more anticipatory errors they make. “

This is interesting: I has always been interested in knowing why i play the wrong notes. I have to start observing if the erroneous notes are in fact notes that I anticipated by playing them too early.

As regard practice, p. 75 “No other measure, including intelligence and a general musical aptitude test, was able to predict the success [of learning a piece]. More practice has been shown to lead to faster transitions from key to key in pianists and more consistency in expressive playing.”

In other words, there is no substitute for practice. Moreover, the type of practice is crucial: quality practice involves ” careful self-management, attention, goal-setting, and focus.” p. 75 And, interestingly enough, “some of the findings currently attributed to practice may ultimately prove to have their roots in biology”.

This is a fascinating finding, because it touches especially the inclination to practice, which seems to be inextricably connected to a function of the genetics of musicality. Further questions on musicality involve the variables that account for musical capacity and its acquisition, the level of inborn musicality, and its development. Research focuses on pitch perception (frequency of sound waves), tonality, exposure to different types of music, all possibly having to do with developmental stages, and effects of musical training.

p. 96 [as regards emotional responses to music] “It is important to distinguish between two kinds of experiences. On the one hand, music can evoke emotion. Listening to a song can lead a person to weep in sorrow or to experience great joy. But sometimes, rather than actually experiencing an emotional state, listening to a song might lead a person merely to recognize that the music is expressive of sorrow or joy. Although both of these responses are interesting, the first has received more attention from music psychology because it is so puzzling. emotions are usually inspired by clear events relevant to a person’s goal. For example, sorrow might be elicited by the prospect of abandonment and joy by the hope of reconciliation. Music cannot abandon someone or reconcile with them. It seems to carry no goal-relevant object that would render it capable of triggering an emotional response.”

It seems that we are hard-wired to respond to, for ex., sudden, loud, unpleasant sounds which ready a person to respond even in situations which prove to be innocuous.

p. 99 “Music may also elicit emotions by triggering visual imagery. People generate visual imagery and imagined stories easily in response to music.”

It would be helpful to examine if the composer’s imagery (if in fact there was one) relates closely to the listener’s imagery.

p. 100 “Most of these [associative and visual] mechanisms rely on music’s entanglement with nonmusical entities – the way music can reference particular experiences or objects or social groups. However, one mechanism – musical expectancy – depends more exclusively on the purely sonic aspect. …a theory links between moments of musical surprise with experiences of emotion and expressivity. …even listeners without formal training anticipate particular continuations as the music progresses. By deviating from these expectations – leaping to a far-away note or stepping out of the key – music can generate tension and expressive intensity.”

Researchers observed the duration and frequency of the emotional responses, the intensity of them, the propensity for them.

p. 103 “…studies reinforce the notion that people prefer music that occupies a sweet spot of complexity – music that is neither too simple nor too complex.”

Again, the author does not go into definitions of terms such as complex music or simple music.

p. 105 “The lifetime set of a person’s previous musical experiences and that person’s personality are not wholly independent variables, because personality influences genre preference. People high on openness to new experience tend to prefer genres they view as more complex, such as classical, jazz, and metal. Extroverts tend to prefer conventional genres such as pop, especially when the music is fast and danceable.”

The careful wording suggests that the answers were given by subjects self-reporting on their preferences. It is not clear what type of experiments were carried to come up with these conclusions.

p. 107 [Musical functions and motivation] “…categories of experience music affords or makes possible. Six basic candidates for these categories might include movement, play, communication, social bonding, emotion, and identity.”

Music, it has been repeated often in this book, resides and requires many areas of the brain to activate. And it links all types of external human activities,whether they are social, economic, physical, and individual, such as emotional responses and ability to concentrate. In the concluding paragraph, the author raises an urgent point:

p. 121 “By providing a laboratory for thinking between the sciences and the humanities, music psychology can fuel innovation that transcends its own disciplinary borders, while helping us understand a fundamental human attribute – musicality – that is key to our identity, our eccentricity, and our ability to understand one another.”

This is a heavy burden for one scientific discipline, and a project, if successful, which may actually help people understand not only each other but also, and especially, themselves.

NPL 4: J.M. Coetzee

This is the fourth in the series of reviews of books of those authors who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. J.M. Coetzee received the prize in 2003.

I have read 5 books by J.M. Coetzee; two before he received the honor (In the Heart of the Country, Vintage books, 1977 and Waiting for the Barbarians, Vintage Books, 1980) and three after he was awarded the Nobel Prize (The Childhood of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2013, The Schooldays of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2016, and The Death of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2019).

There is no doubt that J.M. Coetzee is a consummate narrator whose power of expression wins over any hesitation to continue reading. The themes in the novels embrace a vast array of specific topics, some of which are dealt with below. The characters themselves do not exhibit great resolve, but definitely a great strength in searching for the meaning in their lives. This search is expressed in very different ways in the 5 novels.

In the Heart of the Country is written in a first person narrative, from a perspective of a “melancholy spinster” (p.3) who lives on a farm far from other farms or indeed towns or cities, among “brown folk” she is the “black widow” in an undisclosed country, although the use of “veld” narrows it to South Africa. The story which this spinster offers us is very limiting, prompting her to ask, almost right at the outset, “Does an elementary life burn people down to elementary states, to pure anger, pure gluttony, pure sloth? Am I unfitted by my upbringing for a life of more complex feelings? Is that why I have never left the farm, foreign to townslife, preferring to immerse myself in a landscape of symbol where simple passions can spin and fume around their own centers, in limited space, in endless time, working out their own forms of damnation? (p. 13) The question of the utmost importance of upbringing for the development of a human being’s life is taken up in the “Jesus” series as well. In any case, the introspective narration of this utterly lonely woman contains at least one murder, lots of desire for human relationships of all kinds, and, above all, the need to understand oneself. Language, therefore, plays a crucial role, and there are a number of musings about especially words that the spinster presents to us. On the one hand, “Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire.” (p. 28), on the other hand, “Perhaps…if I stopped talking I would fall into panic, losing my hold on the world I know best.” (p. 85) She is “the poetess of interiority” (p. 38), and yet she wants to be noticed (yet another leitmotif in these novels). She feels she is like “a great emptiness…filled with a great absence…which is desire to be filled, to be fulfilled” (p. 125). She explains that she is “a sheath, a matrix, a protectrix of vacant space. I move through the world as a hole, … I am a hole crying to be whole.* I know that this is in one sense just a way of speaking, a way of thinking about myself, but if one cannot think of oneself in words, in pictures, then what is there to think of oneself in?” (44-45) But more than anything else, “I need people to talk to, brothers and sisters or fathers and mothers, I need a history and a culture, I need hopes and aspirations, I need a moral sense and a teleology before I will be happy, not to mention food and drink” (13-131). The main point of the novel, therefore, is an answer to the question “What happens to a person when her/his life experiences are lived through a language which is devoid of the connections between language and culture, language and politics, language and history, language and philosophy?” (The Jesus trilogy also brings up this theme.) The answer seems to point to a desperation of the blackest type because it looks like the language we have cannot be separated from other expressions of the human psyche. If this connection does not exist, the person is forever searching for answers that cannot be given and therefore desperation ensues. It seems we need what Lyotard called grand narratives to anchor us in time and space so that we can keep on living. Interestingly, the spinster does not mention religion nor philosophy nor music nor any arts, so clearly her language is disjointed from experiences of a different sort than the one she made for herself: carnal desire.

Waiting for the Barbarians made me remember Dino Buzzati’s Il deserto dei Tartari, since the setting is a military outpost of invaders representing the Empire surrounded by a desolate land. Life in this outpost is relatively calm, until a colonel of the Civil Guard comes in and stirs up the idea that the tribes (the barbarians) are likely to storm the outpost, so the military comes in to embark on an expedition to defeat these barbarians. However, no barbarian invasion happens, it is the military who return from the action, badly beaten, to this outpost whose peaceful existence they themselves destroyed. The story is told in the first person by the Magistrate of the outpost who sees all the injustices perpetrated by the invaders (of whom he is a part), of the physical, psychological, sexual tortures the tribespeople endure, and he himself becomes the victim of the colonel’s wrath. He is very much a man of honor, and he knows when his actions are those of an invader: “I do not want to see a parasite settlement grow up on the fringes of the town populated with beggars and vagrants enslaved to strong drink. It always pained me in the old days to see these people fall victim to the guile of shopkeepers, exchanging their goods for trinkets, lying drunk in the gutter, and confirming thereby the settlers’ litany of prejudice: that barbarians are lazy, immoral, filthy, stupid. Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization: and upon this resolution I based the conduct of my administration. (I say this who now keep a barbarian girl for my bed!)” (p. 41)The Magistrate is not a hero, but “the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy”, as opposed to the Colonel, who is “the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow” (p. 148). The colonizing effects (obviously negative for the tribespeople and for those invaders, like the Magistrate, who are aware of the consequences of substituting the old ways of the tribes with the new ways of the invaders) are powerfully spelled out in this novel.

The “Jesus” trilogy, on the surface, analyzes elements connected to childhood, schooling, and death. We look at the actions through the eyes of an omniscient author who takes the perspective of Simon, a 42-years old migrant. In the first volume, Simon leaves his old life behind and embarks on a new one. The old life comes with a five-year old boy whose mother disappears while many migrants cross the sea to their new land. In this way, Simon becomes the uncle, or godfather, to the boy, David, and it is his responsibility to take care of him until the real mother is found. The new land expects the newcomers to shed everything that was their past. This place, where transportation and public schooling, as well as certain meals are free, may be a spoof on Cuba – the newcomers have to learn Spanish, and criticizing matters is not tolerated. Language is again important: on many an occasion, Simon says he cannot express himself well since he is still learning Spanish, and yet David has no problem to express himself. Simon chooses a mother to David when they see Ines playing tennis in an exclusive residence. Ines agrees to take care of the child. David is an exceptional child and all his desires and wishes command Simon’s and Ines’ life. Since he has learnt to read by himself (using the novel Don Quixote for children), he is disruptive in class, and it is suggested that he attend a reformatory school. His parents disagree with this decision, so the three of them escape to another town where they start a new life. The second volume deals with this new setting. In this town, David is enrolled in a Dance Academy, where he hones his special skills of forming an unusual picture of his life, of the universe, of numbers, of music. There he befriends a strange person who will have an unusual hold over him but who is also a murderer. Since his desires are not met even in the Academy, he escapes to a School for Orphans, as he believes he is an orphan. He claims Simon does not understand him. He wants to be recognized – a recognition similar to the spinter’s in the novel In the Heart of the Country. In the third volume, a long and unpleasant agony of David’s illness is described. He loses the use of his legs, presumably due to a neuropathy. David dies alone, in the hospital, without ever telling Simon a special message that he apparently had for him. Clearly, the book is meant to be read as an allegory on many levels, starting from the name Jesus, which is probably the real name of David used in his old life (the biblical names are not used by chance). David never delivers the special message, however, due to his sense of being different than everyone else and due to his illness. The setting, too, depicts a country in which things function superficially, People are neither happy nor sad, there is no laughter, no music, no real abandon to passions. Simon tries his best to explain to David some intricacies of life, but he does so in a didactic and unimaginative manner. David is put off these explanations, and insists on his own views, especially the one that takes Don Quixote as a model to emulate. David wants to help people but he also wants to be recognized by people. He is recognized as someone special, particularly by Simon and Ines, but this recognition does not satisfy him.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that J.M. Coetzee’s literary output gives readers a lot of satisfaction. The language is rich, the actions interesting, the messages profound. But at the end, the feeling that remains is of our own detachment. This detachment, this lack of crucial understanding of the depth and function of our language, makes for a superficial life. The characters are searching, but searching perhaps in the wrong place. Overall, the female characters’ depiction is disappointing, showing the manner in which women are thought of as beings limited in their purpose for men, not as partners in this trip on which we are together.

__

*Until this section, I wasn’t sure whether J.M. Coetzee was a man or a woman. These sentences clearly showed he is a man, because a woman, no matter how much debased, how much maligned, lonely, desperate, would never think of herself in these terms.

NPL 1: Jose’ Saramago

This is a new series, entitled NPL (Nobel Prize for Literature), in which books of those authors who won the Nobel prize in literature are reviewed. An attempt is made not to spoil the reading for those who intend to delve into these books.

The first in this series is the review of Jose’ Saramago’s The Lives of Things (translated by Giovanni Pontiero, London: Verso, 2013) and Death with Interruptions (translated by Margaret Jull Costa, New York: Harcourt, 2008). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Content

Saramago’s strengths are both in content and in style, as both of these are interesting, fresh, and highly entertaining. To be more precise, for example, the story entitled “The chair” describes the form and substance of chairs, but it is specifically about a chair that stopped doing what it ought to, and is collapsing, together with the person sitting on it. Besides dealing with the possible reasons for the chair’s demise, and the consequences of the fall of the person sitting on it as it buckles, this short story is above all a brilliant metaphor for writing: authors have to depict/photograph in words elusive actions and unknown quirky characters in fieri, i.e as these are imagined, and we, the readers, have the chance to follow the linguistic descriptions of these actions and characters and engage with them in our minds. If the depiction is felicitous, then happiness reigns, and this is the case with Saramago’s writing, because reading it brings joy, thoughts, and chuckles. The content of three stories in the collection deals with the reaction of a character (male) to unpredictable (and therefore difficult) circumstances the setting of which is usually some type of bureaucratic state attempting a type of control: “Embargo” (lack of fuel), “Reflux” (moving the human remains from one cemetery to another), “Things” (things acting in strange ways). The last two contain very different contents: the lyrical story “Centaur” imagines the life of a centaur who has lived for millennia and has been attempting to find the place of his origins, and “Revenge” looks at sex from two perspectives.

In the novel Death with Interruptions death is the main character both acting and being acted upon.The author analyzes the consequences of the fact that in one country no one dies. He skillfully, ironically and profoundly narrates the need for death (and therefore the utter dismay when no one dies) on the part of ecclesiastical authorities, funeral homes, and medical profession, as well as some common people. As death returns (with conditions), one person, a musician, does not come under her authority. The novel ends with a lyrical possibility that even death could fall prey to if not love, at least feelings of tenderness. Memorable are the pages that discuss the philosophical musings (by some characters) on death, tackling questions such as “Is there one Death (of the universe) or many deaths (of humans, animals, plants, etc.)?”, or “Is death more powerful than god?”. Although the movement Humanity + has been pursuing the possibility of humans not needing to die, or at least living for a very long time, it bases its futuristic predictions on human biology and the possibility of connection between biology and technology. Saramago’s death is very different. It simply is, and although he describes her at first according to the usual European iconography as a skeleton with a scythe dressed in a long cape, she possesses the ability to transform herself. There are two ironic views which are followed in parallel in the novel: on the one hand, there is the fact that humans live with the thought of death, but not really thinking deeply of the time when death comes to them, and on the other, so much of what humans do is dependent on death. Life without death is really unthinkable, but it is also uncomfortable. We are trapped in this tug-of-war, but it si also what makes us human.

Style

Saramago’s linguistic expression is noteworthy. I would love to be able to read him in the original Portuguese. Especially in the novel, his syntactic constructions can be compared, as a complete opposite, to the style of Ernest Hemingway, but not in the vein of Henry James. Reading his sentences leaves the reader almost breathless, and yet wanting to read on. But reading his sentences is not like reading stream of consciousness, it is more like catching up with the developing asides which lead to other ideas but the thematic centre of the sentence is still discernible. Furthermore, now and then the author shows his self-awareness as writer answering questions that careful readers ask as they read, and his comments are witty. Two quotations precede the beginning of the novel. The first one is from the Book of Predictions: “We will know less and less what it means to be human”. The second one is from Wittgenstein: “If, for example, you were to think more deeply about death, then it would be truly strange if, in so doing, you did not encounter new images, new linguistic fields.” Both obviously refer to language, and Saramago’s writing shows he thought about linguistic expression in depth.

In conclusion, these two books brought me full joy, entertainment, and inspirational ideas which I will treasure for a long time.

Lingua, estetica, soglia

Il quarantunesimo volumetto della collana Superfluo Indispensabile, intitolato Lingua
Estetica della soglia di Valeria Cantoni Mamiani (FEFÈ editore, 2021) fa
esattamente quello che un libro avvincente deve fare: offrire delle idee affinché
ogni lettore possa costruirsi una particolare mappa dell’argomento. La lingua
viene presentata mediante i due significati in italiano: 1) il sistema verbale
di comunicazione e 2) l’organo anatomico. Nell’Introduzione viene spiegato che
la trattazione è composta di spezzoni autobiografici, di letture, di intuizioni, il tutto senza ambizioni scientifiche. L’autrice insiste sull’importanza della meraviglia, “della partecipazione stupita al gioco
del cosmo e della vita”.

Basta elencare qui i titoli dei capitoli perché il lettore possa farsi l’idea della complessità
dell’argomentazione dell’autrice:

I. L’organo ambiguo

2. La lingua che scarta

3. In viaggio con la lingua

4. Lingua e seduzione

5. È tutta questione di gusto.

Lo stile della scrittura va spesso per elenchi i cui particolari sono poi trattati separatamente.
Per es., “Gioia, piacere, dolore, seduzione, articolazione, relazione,
conflitto, comprensione, la lingua è tuttoquesto e molto di più.” (p.18) Inoltre, l’autrice prende in
esame alcuni casi molto specifici di personaggi il cui apporto alle discussioni
approfondite sulla lingua è innegabile: Elias Canetti, Noam Chomsky, Hanna Arendt,
Paul Celan, Primo Levi, Umberto Galimberti, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland
Barthes, Demostene, Cicerone, Platone, Agota Kristoff, e altri.

Valeria Cantoni Mamiani non ha paura di avanzare giudizi che esprimono la sua prospettiva. In
particolare, l’ancora di tutto il trattamento sulla lingua è quella della situazione
europea e italiana, contraria a quella della  “cultura statunitense omologata e omologante”,
soprattutto per quanto riguarda i dialetti. Ma non solo. Secondo l’autrice, il
linguaggio sui social è “uniformato, sincopato, poverissimo, semplicistico”.
Purtroppo, la situazione si presenta in realtà, come sempre, molto più  complessa di quanto non appaia a prima vista (lingua scritta, parlata, trasmessa, ecc.). Si corre il rischio di ripetere le
stesse solite formule. Dire che il dialetto esprime il sentimento e la lingua esprime il concetto (con buona pace di  Camilleri e di Pirandello) è semplicemente continuare a sopprimere le possibilità che il dialetto contiene, come ogni lingua, per esprimere tutte le funzioni comunicative. E dunque si continua a svalutare il dialetto.  

Sebbene le posizioni di una persona come Valeria Cantoni Mamiani la cui formazione è
orientata all’ermeneutica e non alla linguistica (p. 44) siano interessanti, queste sfociano nelle spiegazioni poco approfondite di fenomeni a cui la linguistica offre chiarimenti ormai accettati dagli specialisti e, in questo caso, anche dagli insegnanti delle lingue seconde. La vita creativa di Agota Kristoff che non si è ambientata nella cultura e nella lingua francese e che continua a soffrire
quando non scrive nella sua lingua materna illustra la situazione di moltissime
persone che si trovano a dover a che fare con una lingua che non è la loro. Il suo è un caso spiegabilissimo con l’uso del concetto di “affective filter”, i.e. di una difficoltà di apprendimento di una lingua straniera dovuta a un ostacolo psicologico di non volersi avvicinare alla nuova lingua. Ora, una cosa è non sapere la lingua in un modo che permetta la produzione del lavoro letterario
soddisfacente (per chi lo crea), un’altra cosa è la situazione in cui la
persona continua a voler creare letteratura nella seconda lingua nonostante non
si senta a suo agio in quella lingua. Dire che “La seconda lingua è la lingua
del logos, privo di inconscio, perché non è la lingua dei sogni e neppure dell’immaginario…la
si domina, freddamente, a distanza” (p. 92) vuol dire chiudere la via a altre possibilità
di conoscere la seconda lingua e in effetti, di conoscersi.

L’ argomento più scottante ma anche più difficile da sbrogliare è quello della responsabilità della
classe intellettuale. L’autrice si chiede infatti dove sono oggi gli intellettuali, dove sono finiti i filosofi, i giuristi in grado di difendere i principi fondanti della liberta`? Chi sono i nuovi intellettuali? (p.29) Se, da un lato, esiste una lingua inaridita “in un fraseggio funzionale a essere adatto ai social”, dall’altro, l’autrice chiama “alla responsabilità nell’uso delle parole, per lo meno della nostra
lingua, l’italiano, lingua vivissima, ricchissima, composta da strati di tante culture, proprio come la nostra cucina, lingua aperta ad accogliere nuovi pensieri e nuove parole, a stare nella complessità e a leggerla”. Ma a quale lingua si contrappone la lingua “semplicistica” e “inaridita”? L’autrice da`
una risposta  interessante, ma poco adatta all’appoggio dell’italiano più “complesso”:

“Mi sento responsabile per quello che dico o per quello che gli altri comprendono? Questa domanda porta con se’ la consapevolezza del senso primariamente sociale e relazionale della
lingua. E va assunta, senza menzogne.” (p. 30) Per qualcuno che guarda la situazione linguistica e  culturale italiana dal di fuori, è difficile giudicare “quale” versione della lingua italiana è
quella che risponde alla necessità di complessità. La cultura letteraria rinascimentale e illuministica offre esempi di scrittori italiani che oggi sono letti poco perché “difficili” (Pietro Bembo, che scrive per i posteri; Giambattista Vico che offre una Scienza Nuova). Ma la cultura letteraria
è stata soppiantata dalla cultura multimediale (non solo in Italia) in cui la lingua gioca un ruolo minore, se non minimo. La svalutazione del modo di comunicazione verbale fa sì che altri modi di comunicazione occupino il terreno che prima è stato il campo preferito della lingua. A chi spetta lo sforzo di far riacquistare alla lingua almeno parte di quel terreno? Una risposta punta
sui libri, non troppo difficili, ne’  troppo facili, di argomenti svariatissimi trattati a modo: ma solo se è vero che la gente legge. Allora in quel caso si spera che tantissimi prendano in mano e leggano questo volumetto affascinante. Affascinante, ma arduo da recensire, perché, secondo l’autrice, “Nulla di ortodosso, tassonomico e scientifico in queste pagine per chi si aspettasse un trattato filosofico, letterario, gastronomico, artistico, psicologico. Nulla di tutto questo nello specifico, ma tutto questo preso nel suo insieme.” (p. 5-6)    

Cuore: segno, sentimento, organo

Il quarantesimo volumetto della collana Superfluo indispensabile della casa editrice Fefe’, intitolato Cuore storia, metafore, immagini e palpiti di Claudia Pancino (2020, pp. 209), offre un viaggio sorprendente e significativo attraverso la storia e i vari ambiti temporali, psicologici, fisiologici, metaforici, simbolici in cui si trova la parola “cuore”.

Il libro, corredato di numerose illustrazioni di cuore, è diviso in 3 capitoli e chiude con “Testimonianze e documenti” (cioè, con degli esempi concreti di descrizioni tratte da pubblicazioni che includono gli ambiti presi in esame nel libro).

Nella Premessa, l’autrice si sofferma sul fatto che il significato del “cuore” è stato prima quello ideale legato all'amore, anche se si sapeva già nell’antichità che il cuore è il fonte della vita. Dunque, l’espressione “essere senza cuore” non significa essere morto, ma non poter amare. La premessa introduce le 3 domande a cui il libro vuole dare delle riposte concrete:

1. Cosa unisce le diverse rappresentazioni contemporanee del cuore?
2. Qual è la loro storia?
3. Cosa le unisce all’organo pompante?

Capitolo I, intitolato “Cuore: parola, organo, simbolo”, presenta la visione del cuore sia come l’immagine (un simbolo) che come l’organo stesso. Le rappresentazioni visive di tutt’e due questi significati hanno una storia complessa. Per esempio, le testimonianze grafiche antiche sono ambigue o non esistenti fino al XIII secolo, ma abbiamo una data precisa da cui parte il significato del simbolo “cuoricino” (oggi universale) come “I love”, cioè il 1977. Per quanto riguarda la rappresentazione visiva dell’organo, si parte dal mondo vegetale (Giovan Battista della Porta che trova strette relazioni tra la pianta somigliante al cuore e le proprietà terapeutiche di questa pianta). Poi, le testimonianze visive accettate come possibilmente cuoriformi passano dall’elefante di Pindal, agli arazzi, alle illuminazioni nei manoscritti, alla Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto (dove la Carità offre a Dio un cuore con la punta rivolta all’insù che riprende la descrizione del cuore fatta da Galeno), ecc. Tutte queste rappresentazioni hanno un legame con l’organo pulsante che però indica sentimenti, anche se non è chiaro quali sono i sentimenti che si trovano in questa sede, anche perché la simbologia non sembra essere universale. Per i Sumeri, il cuore significa compassione anche vulnerabile (il fegato è la sede dei sentimenti), per gli antichi Egizi il cuore è il centro delle attività intellettuali, per gli antichi Greci il fegato e i polmoni sono dotati di spiritualità superiore. Nella Bibbia, il cuore abbraccia sia le forme della vita intellettiva che quella delle emozioni, e nel Nuovo testamento il cuore diventa la radice dell’atteggiamento religioso e morale, cioè la natura interiore dell’uomo. Gli Aztechi offrivano il cuore del nemico agli dei (cannibalismo cardiaco azteco). I cuori mangiati sono presenti in letteratura (per es., nelle fiabe e nei racconti folclorici, Boccaccio, Calvino).

La storia ideologica del cuore sottolinea l’incessante ricerca di paragoni tra il cuore (nel duplice significato di sentimenti e di organo) e oggetti materiali o meccanismi, specificamente,  il cuore come un orologio, o il fatto che  i musicisti legano la velocità/la lentezza delle pulsazioni alle cadenze musicali. Solo con l’invenzione dello stetoscopio (19mo secolo) si riesce a sentire il vero rumore del cuore, sebbene il ticchettio cardiaco di tipo meccanico continui a sentirsi nelle canzoni. Il cuore umano nel pensiero medico presenta 3 fasi di conoscenze: 1. Dalle origini remote al Rinascimento, 2. Dal Rinascimento al 1967 (il primo trapianto del cuore), 3. Dal 1967 ad oggi.

Nel Capitolo II (“Cuori trafitti e cuori scambiati”) viene illustrata la storia del ruolo del cuore nelle estasi cardiache, nel misticismo cattolico, nelle devozioni al Sacro Cuore di Gesù, negli ex-voto, e nel desiderio/nella necessità di seppellire il cuore dopo la more in un luogo diverso da quello del resto del corpo. Il cuore, come oggetto di intensa devozione cattolica al Sacro Cuore di Gesù, ottiene anche una funzione politica, unendo la pietà religiosa a uffici militari, politici, sociali sia in Francia che in Italia, in Germania, in Austria.

Il Capitolo III (“Storia del cuore nelle immagini”) ripercorre l’immagine del cuore sia come simbolo di sentimenti che come l’organo nelle rappresentazioni visive. Ci sono i cuori cortesi, i cuori anatomici non medici, i cuori amorosi e i cuoricini. Ci sono anche i cuori infranti e cardiopatie. La più antica immagine del cuore amoroso è del 1275 (nel manoscritto del Roman de la Poire, in cui la dama dona il suo cuore a Dolcesguardo, ma il cuore qui è ancora capovolto). L’autrice si sofferma sul fatto che il cuore non è rappresentato prima del XIII secolo; le ipotesi di questa nascita tardiva puntano sulla sacralità o sulla bruttezza dell’oggetto. Nel medioevo la rappresentazione simbolica include foglie (lilla`, edera, da cui il cuoricino) pigne (a volte rovesciate). Le illustrazioni “sentimentali” sono diverse da quelle mediche, ma spesso tra di loro esiste il corto circuito. In particolare, negli anni 2000 il cuore anatomico esce dal contesto medico/religioso per diventare un simbolo (su T-shirt, nelle sculture, ecc.). In altre parole, c’è una tensione tra il cuoricino e il cuore anatomico per quanto riguarda l’espressione visiva che da metaforica (vaga) vuol diventare realistica (essenza delle cose). La rivoluzione “emotica” riguarda l’uso del cuoricino in rete che fa parte del mutamento della comunicazione che privilegia i pittogrammi in moltissime funzioni comunicative mediate dalla rete. L’autrice nota che non è possibile sapere come saranno comunicati gli affetti: “in quali modi la generazione digitale sarà capace di comunicare senza l’ausilio della rete?” (p. 117).   Inoltre, il cuore come sentimento e come organo si stanno avvicinando nel pensiero medico: sono venute a gala le corrispondenze tra il cuore metaforico/emotivo e il cuore pompante perché il cuore biologico è sensibile al sistema emotivo. In questo capitolo vengono menzionati anche i cuori letterari, soprattutto di Conrad e di Bulgakov.

Nella sezione “Testimonianze e documenti” vengono pubblicati brevi brani dei seguenti autori: Giovan Battista della Porta, Andrea Vesalio, Renato G. Mazzolini, William Harvey, Johann Jacob Scheuchzer, Noel Chomel, Denis Diderot, Michael Bulgakov, Mathias Malzieu, Vittorio Zucconi, Christian Barnard, Katy Couprie, Marco Politi, Gianfranco Ravasi, Savvas Savvopoulos, Sandeep Jauhar, e un articolo senza autore del National Geographic.

Cosa si può dire di un trattato sul cuore che presenta questo argomento con sapiente emozione? L’autrice ha risposto a tutt’e tre i quesiti che si era posta in un modo esaustivo, intelligente e soprattutto pieno di spunti per una riflessione che spesso manca quando si parla del cuore. Da un lato, il libro sottolinea la dicotomia cuore-mente (ricordare e rammentare), da cui partono i concetti che separano, invece di unire, questi due aspetti dell’essere umano. La tensione tra la scienza e l’immaginario è partita lasciandoli divisi, ma sembra che la scienza cominci ad avvicinarsi al cuore nel suo valore sentimentale perché gli affetti hanno un effetto sul corpo fisico e vice versa. E` istruttivo sapere che se San Valentino viene festeggiato ormai ovunque, la giornata dedicata al cuore (World Heart Day) non ha questa risonanza; ma forse il futuro avvicinerà questi due significati del cuore anche nell’immaginario popolare. Dall’altro lato, prendere in esame il cuore come uno dei simboli più ovvi del nuovo modo di comunicare per immagini faciliterà la risposta a molte incognite per quanto riguarda l’evolversi dei modi di comunicazione in rete. La questione della superiorità dell’arte figurativa su quella verbale (sostenuta anche da Leonardo da Vinci) deve ancora essere approfondita.

In conclusione, come sempre, è molto difficile in una recensione dare un’idea soddisfacente di tutti gli aspetti di un libro, soprattutto quando questo è pieno di informazioni fertili per allargare l’orizzonte dei lettori.    

The origin of language according to Tom Wolfe

 

Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech (Little, Brown and Company, 2016, 185 pages) is a most frustrating book. When, up to page 162, the reader thinks “finally, there is someone who can shed a smidgen of more light on the question of the origin of language”, the author stops short, and, in fact, destroys the whole edifice he has so carefully constructed in the preceding pages. Paralleling the conceptual developments and social acceptance of the ideas of the pairs Darwin- Wallace, and Chomsky- Everett, Wolfe traces an outline of intellectual vicissitudes of ideas regarding the “science” of language, especially as they involve the origin of language. These developments demonstrate the power of the academia which tends to overlook solitary researchers outside of the university halls who have no chance to promote their ideas to the world, especially to the “learned” world, and have them stamped with academic approval.

Mentalist claims have expanded our vision about language but have not received the hard evidence to support them. The origin of language is inextricably connected not only to the picture we have of human evolution in general, but more specifically, to the answer to the following two questions:  Is language biologically encoded in homo sapiens sapiens, i.e. is it an organ? Or is language a cultural artifact like the bow and arrow? Wolfe chides Chomsky and leaps beyond Everett in stating that speech was the first artifact: sounds formed codes, i.e. words (p. 163). Then he proceeds to state obvious commonplaces: without speech, the human beast is unable to make plans, to enjoy an accurate memory (and to preserve it, he writes – he surely means written language, not speech!), to make use of mathematics, to have power over the animal kingdom.

Wolfe equates words with speech, a common mistake made by linguistically untrained speakers and writers. He mentions six extraordinary cases of individuals who changed history through language: Jesus, Muhammad, John Calvin, Marx, Freud, and Darwin, but he does not elaborate on their verbal contribution. He prophesies that “soon, speech will be recognized as the Fourth Kingdom” (i.e.,  regnum animalia, vegetabile, lapideum, and, loquax, the last one inhabited solely by homo loquax, making up the universum loquax  “spoken” universe – he possibly meant to say “talking universe”, but what he says is “talkative/loquacious  universe”! Most probably, he was grasping for the form  locutum, the past participle of loquor, loqui “to speak”), or better, yet, loquentem, the present participle, i.e. “speaking” (p. 168). Clearly, Latin for an English speaker is a well-used point of origin of some interesting new meanings, but in this case, the author’s description of the universe as loquax invokes irony rather than awe. Unless Wolfe wants to underscore the fact that today everyone is loquacious, especially on social media…And this is the crux of the matter: speech and language are devalued to such an extent that even bestselling authors do not check their verbal  creations. And Wolfe, being an author of verbal creations, clearly opts for the definition of language as the “author’s tool”, which does not add anything to our understanding of the origin of language.

The final paragraph of the slim booklet contains the following:

  To say that animals evolved into men is like saying that Carrara marble evolved in to  [sic] Michelangelo’s David. Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.

Leaving aside the sexist language, and unclear syntax, Wolfe does not elaborate on his theory of  evolution/creation of “men”. In what way is “creation”, i.e., “sculpting” the same as “evolution”?

Yet again, as happens quite often in my posts which contain book reviews, my conclusion has to do with the publishing business of today: was this book in its manuscript form ever edited, read by a representative of the publishing house, discussed by the publishers? If yes, they would have noticed at least the following problems:

1. The title: If speaking metaphorically, where is this “kingdom of speech”? Who is its king (for surely there is no queen in sight)? If the term is used for taxonomic purposes, then there is no need for so many regna: two are sufficient: regnum loquentem and regnum non loquentem.
2. The question about whose ideas are promoted and why is one of the two crucial points of the whole book (the second one being the answer to the question of the origin of language).  The promotion and reception of ideas are extremely topical themes especially these days, when false news and fake news are being constantly banded about. The book seems to endorse the underdog (i.e., the non-academic researcher), without, however, making a concerted effort to analyze this deeply.
3. It is clear that in the era of multimedia products, verbal creations need a defender. What is more, language needs to be supported, cultivated, elaborated, in the individual as well as in society. This book could have contributed to this defense.
4. The answer to the question of the origin of language cannot be delivered by one individual-it needs collaboration among scores of researchers.

It’s all well to throw some crumbs (ideas) on the road, but it is a far cry from a well-developed theory, or at least, a well-developed analysis: hence my frustration with the book.

Design fiction and designing future

The following are critical comments on the content of the YouTube video of a presentation given by Jasmina Tesanovic and Bruce Sterling entitled Future Domestic Robots: Design Fiction and the Home of the Future. Although theirs is not the only way of looking at design fiction and designing future, it is a starting point and a rich mine full of bits and pieces of thought. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyb6JgWDSvg.

While the idea of design fiction, defined by Bruce Sterling as “a form of design that has an audience”, seems intriguing and full of promise, in actuality the gist of the design production of fiction and its connection to designing future is problematic. Designing things that are fictional, mythological, futuristic right now creates more problems than it solves. My take on design fiction belongs to the realistic and critical camp, rather than that of unquestioning acceptance and adoption, not to mention adoration. Three main ideas are the foundation of what follows: 1) the generation of waste 2) the false sense of “anything is possible by anyone” 3) conscientious and conscious language use.

1) The generation of waste

Anyone who has designed and produced something knows that the way to a finished product is punctuated with waste, garbage, junk: only one prototype remains and even that does not guarantee its adoption by everyone. The saddest part of design fiction is that the people who are involved in this enterprise know that they are producing an exorbitant amount of garbage but they just shrug it off and laugh about it. In the video program, there was an example of the OCAD group inventing things which may be in use in 2025: all of them were made of plastic! Where will these “invented things” end up? There seems to be no sense of the finiteness of  natural resources. And, needless to say, the extollment of  3D printing has no bounds, again, without awareness of the fact that the machine will “print” 99.9% of things which are waste.

2) The false sense of “anything is possible by anyone”

It is customary in the post-modern world to accept the fact that “the burden is on the user” and “do-it-yourself” is praised as the epitome of human creativity. In the video program, Sterling exclaims: “Just go and do a project!”, “Make your own stuff!”. However, talking about Casa Jasmina, both Tesanovic and Sterling fail to mention where their financial backing comes from: granted, they may be independently wealthy (after all, they are “married emigres” as Sterling puts it) and the abandoned factory in Torino may not have costed much, but they do have to have robotic technology (lots of it and of an up-to-date kind), pay taxes, so they do need money. They do not mention the amount of free (?) help they get from the “squatters” who apparently use open source information. Their works presented in an installation version are sought after by museums (who also do their own de-accessing, i.e. separation of what stays and what is junk: see 1) above), and certainly the installation costs the museum a nice sum. Furthermore, they “do not want to be depended on Google”. This is simply to underline the fact that projects such as these look beautiful on the outside, doable, and accessible to anyone; the truth is that unless the individual is backed by an institution, a university, a museum, and paid by these, the design fiction works would not be realizable.

3)  Conscientious and conscious language use

The language used  especially by Sterling (writer, novelist, lecturer) is really thought-provoking without being accountable.   He uses the adjective “moral” in two phrases: “our work has moral effects on society” and “ours is a moral gesture”, and yet nowhere in this video program there is an explanation of what these “moral” effects and “moral” gestures really signify. As if social responsibility and social awareness were a side-product of design fiction.

Tesanovic notes: “The stuff you have determines your lifestyle.” The assumption is therefore, “have more robotically-supported stuff , so you will have a better lifestyle”. The consumption’s doors have opened yet more widely…   She is also surprised that a UN group wants to use the Casa Jasmina: theirs is not a business but an avocation.

They both claim that they do not want to be anyone’s “users” or “clients”. Nevertheless, they are users of technology and clients of Arduino and internet providers.

In conclusion, to design things that so far exist only in the imagination and fiction must surely be extremely satisfying. However, as these designs are also projected into the future, it looks like humanity must elaborate and generate different fictions in order to design a more creative future.  It may be true, as Sterling claims at the end of the video, that technological breakthroughs are chipping away at the fine metaphysical line between what is real and what is imaginary, but technology by itself will not solve the more pressing problems humanity is facing right now.

 

 

 

Romani/Sinti/Gypsies and (Italian) science fiction

Clearly, the attractive seduction of the ideal Gypsy lifestyle is easy to see: outside the grid, no taxes to pay, traveling wherever and whenever with whomever, no responsibilities other than to oneself, no consequences to engaging in what may be defined as some illegal activities. Nevertheless, there is always the other side of the coin, in this case,  discrimination, hate, uncalled-for beatings, detentions and arrests, etc. In addition to the  lifestyle mystique, the question of Gypsy origin looms large. And here is where things start to become full of amazement: what is their original “homeland”? Are they survivors of the Atlantis upheaval? Do they come from outer space?

This last is a hypothesis suggested by Lino Aldani in his themoro korik (Perseo Libri, 2007). Lino Aldani (1926-2009) is hailed by many as the most important of Italian science fiction writers. But by any measure, themoro korik cannot be part of a list of science fiction works simply on account of the other-worldly origin of the Gypsies, suggested but not elaborated on in this novel. Aldani’s love for the Roma and Sinti (living in Northern Italy) is obvious in this and his other novel, Quando le radici (Piacenza, Science Fiction Book Club, La Tribuna, 1977).  In both novels, Gypsies (more specifically, young Gypsy women) provide a possible way out for disenchanted young gadjo men: urbanized, caged-in by work and unable and unwilling to fit in a technological world, but above all who wants to find a different lifestyle.

In Quando le radici (literally, “When the roots”), Aldani seems to be suggesting that impermanence in the form of eradication of one’s past has two paths (for the gadjo). On the one hand, technology levels villages to the ground and therefore obliterates the old way of life. On the other, the possibly unchanged Gypsy nomadic life offers a fresh start. The protagonist, Arno Varin, works in the city but visits the area of the small village he was born in, and talks to the old generation of survivors who live without water and electricity and who are in constant danger of being dispossessed because a new highway is planned on the site. Gypsy peddlers come regularly to sell their wares and Arno falls in love with a young Gypsy woman. Being young and impulsive, he kills the bulldozer driver sent to prepare the ground for construction, and therefore he has to flee to save his life. His solution? Join the Gypsy peddlers.

 

Themoro korik (literally “the world over there”, in Aldani’s imaginative version of Romani) presents the view that the chasm between Gypsy life and non-Gypsy life is just too great to be able to make meaningful connective bridges. Towards the end of the first part of the novel, a  Gypsy father, his wife, and their daughter, enveloped in round, violet-colored light, disappear into another dimension (or another, parallel world, from which the Gypsies have been kicked out millennia ago), without the protagonist having a chance to join the daughter, with whom he is in love. The novel is more like a write-up of an unorthodox participant observation study, in which the protagonist joins an old professor, an admirer of all things Gypsy, and meeting them, studies their ways and above all, language. Almost half of the book is dedicated to a glossary of Gypsy terms, coming from both Hervatsko Roma and Sinto Lombardo, given as equivalents to the Italian lemmas. One can only wonder if all of these equivalents are in use or are genuine, as the introduction to the glossary notes that “lo zingaro e` svogliato e mentitore… ama scherzare e prendere in giro il gagio che l’interpella” (p. 153; “Gypsies are indolent and liars…they love to joke around and make fools of non-Gypsies who consult them”). Linguists have characterized Romani as an Indo-Aryan language, therefore Romani cannot support Aldani’s other-worldly origins.

 

In conclusion, Django, the Gypsy who disappeared, does not pilot a spaceship, nor is he a King of his people, like Yakoub of Robert Silverberg’s Star of the Gypsies (Pyr, 2005). So Aldani’s use of Gypsy characters puts them squarely in the HIC (here) and NUNC (now) of history, even though Django and his family vanish inexplicably, from a science fiction point of view, but not from the point of view of a fantasy, a very poorly elaborated fantasy nonetheless.

3 notes on the film HUMAN by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

There is no doubt that this film reaffirms (through stunning cinematography and amazing colours)* the long-standing characteristics of human individuals: immeasurable dignity, limitless capacity for unbearable suffering, superhuman ability to inflict extreme violence, and also great intelligence, kind simplicity, conscious appreciation of love and ability to verbalize despair. All of these human virtues and vices, however, lose their meaning and become devalued on account of at least three reasons. These reasons are briefly explained as follows:

1) Asepticity. The film seems to have “washed” all the participants and therefore the content on the screen comes through as rigorously aseptic. No one sweats, there is no dirt, no callouses are shown, very few flies or mosquitoes bother the participants. No one suffers from cold or heat. No food or drink is shown. There are no verbal fillers, no hesitations, no swear-words, no words which would “rock the boat”. No pimples, no eczemas. All women wear makeup and everyone looks like they went through a Hollywood cosmetics and coiffeur studio. Why? In the trailer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand explains that he wanted to let the beauty of the world resonate through the faces and words of the interviewees, that their voices are pure and direct. So he made a film that shows beautifully but is sterile.

2) Contextlessness. The interviews do not provide any context of the individuals’ lives: no educational, familial, social, economic, political, ideological, background which is crucial to our comprehending of the standing of the individuals, their points of view, the reasons for their thoughts and emotions. Although the film-maker claims that he made certain critical and political choices, he does not elaborate on these choices. Obviously, the stated intent was to detach the individuals from their environment. Needless to say, as the very first interview clearly and unequivocally demonstrates, the environment made the young man a certain way: but this is only a fraction of his individuality, of the motivations that drove his father to act as he did, and start a chain reaction with tragic consequences.

3) The filmmaker’s deceptive detachment. In general, communication studies teach that all images are mediated, and therefore the honesty of the filmmaker is always in question, and  his/her choices at any stage of the production affect the whole. There are a number of occasions in this film during which I would have dearly loved to know what the reactions of the cameraman or director were to the interviewee’s words. But since the film “lets the voices of those who are never heard speak on their own”, the impact of the content is surely lessened, because there is no dialogue. It is hoped then that the producers take up a suggestion of one interviewee whose statement was surely not rhetorical. She asks to “change places with her”. Now that would be an interesting film, and it would be one that would give a more profound answer to the question “Why is it so hard to understand one another?”.

In conclusion, it is difficult to determine what even the tentative answers are to the existential questions posed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand as the reasons for creating this film. “Why do we, from one generation to the next, make the same mistakes?” One answer could be that we make the same mistakes because we judge others by looking at them from a detached point of view, without regard to the context in which they live, and we let them express their “voices” (giving them false hopes that their “voices” will make a difference). Without a real, difficult, complex dialogue, the existential questions will remain without answers.

*I let someone else comment on 1) the cinematography 2) sources of funding of the film.

On “the Way to Bee”

One of the saddest sights I have ever been exposed to was the mound of dead bees in their hive once my brother opened it up for inspection after a cruel winter. To realize that more than 60 000 individual beings did not survive the freezing temperatures was astonishingly numbing. To appreciate the bees and their existence one must come close to them, observe their wings and pollen-laden hind legs, listen to their humming (happy as well as angry), share with them the fruits of their labor, and, yes, see them die by stinging you (unless you are allergic). Harsh winter die offs are not the only problem worker bees encounter during their short lives. As any beekeeper knows, honey is just the tip of the iceberg which is created when the bees and the keeper respect each other.

One such respectful relationship is the object of Mark Magill’s short book, the Way to Bee. Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping (Lyons Press, 2011).

Magill describes the effects seasonal changes bring to the bees’ lives, their cycles of being, their purposeful existence, their focus on protecting their queen, feeding the brood, guarding the hive’s entrance. He mentions the research into bees behaviour and communication, especially that conducted by Frisch and Langsroth.

Magill also includes his take on the art of meditation. But his desire to somehow connect apiculture and meaningful meditation, to teach the steps to achieve one’s focus, seems too earnest and too rushed. It is as if he were searching for a focus in his own life. The book is lyrical and documentary; it leaves the reader with the desire to keep bees, and, as an aside, how to learn to meditate, presenting the necessary conditions and steps to meditation.

Some introspective books are written with the sole purpose of allowing the author to document an aspect of his or her life which still awaits a conclusive word. The danger in offering such a book to a wider public stems from the ephemerality of one’s experiences and feelings. Thus, documentary elements are mixed in with philosophising and, and, if the author is prone to pedagogize, all this is sprinkled with an earnest desire to teach. Perhaps giving the reader a nice package all wrapped up in colorful paper and topped up with a magnificent bow is not the intended aim. If nothing else, I hope that this book is read wisely so that it may instil different denotative and connotative meanings to the word “bee” to an English-speaking readership. Human culture and experiences are shaped by the language we speak, as Benjamin Lee Whorf’s linguistic relativity hypothesis indicates. Although Whorf and Sapir were more interested in the grammatical/temporal categories of languages, the meanings of words are a prime example of this relativity, and there is no better example of this than in the denotation and connotation of the word “bee”. For English speakers, “bee” is a non-marked, general term that denotes any insect that hums, flies, and possibly stings: wasp, yellow jacket, hornet, bumble bee, etc. The connotation is that if a vicious stinging insect, instilling fear and hate in children and adults alike. Speakers of other languages do not share these connotations, nor the generic denotation. For Slovaks, for example, the word včela is not the unmarked, general category, or hyperordinate term, but it denotes the Apis (mellifera). The connotations assigned to this word include laboriousness, cleanliness, and the attitude it brings to the Slovak speaker’s Weltanschauung is that of respect, not fear. Children used to receive a stamp of a stylized bee on their work in their notebooks, and that was a sign of great pride. Rather than trying to get rid of a buzzing bee, kill it or zap it, children were led to admire its characteristics and be inquisitive about it.

Having a negative connotation about all types of bees makes it perfectly acceptable to kill them using all kinds of chemicals which, in the final analysis, harm all living things. This is the strongest connection between beekeeping and meditation: there is a relationship between humans and bees (of all types) which goes far beyond enjoying a spoonful of honey.