Books that Stand the Test of Time

I talk about books that have stood the test of time. Books that can be useful for people living in the 21^st century. I do not talk to experts, professors, historian of philosophy. My target audiences are those who look for some practical pieces of advice. Or for some refection from such books. The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is such a book. For example, many contemporary books, texts, podcasts, blogs, and vlogs refer to it. Even a contemporary movement, Modern Stoicism, has appeared and gains popularity.

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

The Meditations, written two thousand years ago, shows us an important thing. Despite the technological, medical, and cultural developments, there are human issues that do not change that much. Now and then, people have questions about the meaning of life. Everybody tries to avoid pain and suffering. We want to be happy and successful. In the video, I talk about the ideas we can find in the book rather about the author. Although he was a very special figure: top politician at his time, Roman emperor of Rome (2^nd century). At the same time, a thinker and philosopher. One of the most eminent representatives of stoicism.

The Message

What this high rank politician writes is compatible with what wrote an ex-slave, Epictetus, physically disabled. For Epictetus, his disability and slavery he had to face were not big problems! I mean, Epictetus did not complain much about the socio-political system. Or about injustice or about his maltreatment. Instead, he focused on his attitude towards the life in general so that he and his students – yes, he was a famous teacher! — could feel happiness independently of the conditions they happened to live. 

Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism

Stoicism was, and still is, a philosophical movement. Marcus Aurelius was one of its most eminent representatives. It focused on thinking deeper about the division between what is in our individual power as agents and what does not depend on us. Marcus Aurelius and other stoics recommended that we deal with things that depend on us in the first place. It does not mean that we should ignore everything around. Just we should realize that many good things depend on us without too much intervention in the external conditions. It is possible to change the description of the reality by changing our attitude towards the external world.

Marcus Aurelius and the Pandemic

Marcus Aurelius lived during a long and terrible pandemic of his time (The Antonine pandemic). Reading his book, we can think what he would say about our present pandemic? Most probably something like this: we cannot have control the pandemic because it is independent of us. However, each of us can have control the risk of getting infected. One of the resources would be to listen to what experts say about self-protection against getting infected. Reliable knowledge would be a good start. And reducing emotions and phantasies about how terrible it is. Bad emotions cause panic, sadness, and do nothing good. Famous Stoic slogan says that fear does us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid.

Philosophy as a Therapy for the Soul

The stoics would take the medical term ‘therapy’ and apply it into the sphere of mental health. Medicine is effective in the treatment of corporal illnesses whereas philosophy can be helpful in the area of mental hygiene.

Through a somewhat surrealistic literary language, Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke (a title that means practically nothing) presents a concept of human life; secular, social, intellectually creative and also existentially disoriented. It places it among the dominant cultural powers according to a mechanism of formation and deformation. What does that mean? Every structure of human life, individual or corporeal, both established and developing, manifests itself with the help of speech, the use of symbols, in reference to the values it respects, that is, through its Form, according to Gombrowicz’s vocabulary. By maintaining his Form, he fights for a position in the socio-political hierarchy for recognition, also for fame and for the power to influence others.

However, he always confronts the danger of deformation by encountering obstacles, indifference and animosity at every stage of his formation. Looking for its authenticity, the individual is not able to do it completely because never, at any moment in his life, is he absolutely independent of the circumstances, that is: of the moral norms, of the social conventions, of the legal regulations, of the public opinion, of the intellectual currents that dominate, in their moment, the discourse on values and many other factors more or less defined. He needs to use several compulsory conventions, language and customs first, those he had absorbed in the early stages of his life, and constantly confronts other people who are fighting for their own originality and recognition. In addition, he needs to meet the expectations of his own society, and, for example, to remain mature, is a theme especially pronounced by the Polish author.

Society, regardless of its cultural character, expects us to remain mature and responsible in accordance with the norms that society upholds. The education system prepares us to mature in family life, professional life, and public life, but at the same time it limits us in our spontaneous originality because it imposes on us conventional models of the good, the true, the beautiful, the proper, and the normal.

It is not only ordinary people who are constantly confronted with obstacles and repressions of various degrees of intensity. Much more this concerns artists and members of cultural circles who seek and/or maintain their unrepeatable character, especially in confrontation with other cultural groups. One dimension of the mechanism of formation and deformation, now mentioned, is an encounter, if not a clash, between the province (secondary cultures) and the metropolis (dominant cultures). Both are responsible for cultural formation, but there is enormous tension between them and here Gombrowicz gives us his first-hand experience of the subject. He refers to the Argentine and Polish cultures, two very different cultures geographically, but at the same time very similar in feeling marginalized compared to French culture (at that time) and in aspiring to approach the metropolis that symbolized Paris – the cultural metropolis of the Western world in the mid-twentieth century. We can say that, despite the changes of the metropolis in recent decades to the Silicon Valley, Brussels, etc., the mechanism now works too and it is worth studying Gombrowicz to rethink this mechanism in the context of present cultural clashes.

Ferdydurke contains many references of an existentialist type because it analyses the meaning of cultural creation as a personal strategy to maintain the meaning of life. What is original in Gombrowicz is to maintain that this strategy must necessarily have a social aspect because we do not exist culturally without other people. We are not culturally autonomous, although we would like to be authentic and self-determined in our decisions and in our plans. Being authentic and autonomous is not possible for social beings. What is possible is to self-create an image, a mask, that we use to impress the world around us. That is our fundamental freedom. What happens when we leave the mask? Just another mask underneath to perform another social role, and another…and another. We do not live authentic life by wishing, at the same time, to live authentically and freely. This insoluble tension is a fundamental theme of Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke.

Reflections in Light of Santayana’s Philosophy — Video Session moderated by Chris Skowroński

Wednesday, May 13, 19.00 Berlin Time

Organized by Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum e.V and The George Santayana Society.

SEE THE VIDEO HERE

VIDEO GRABACIÓN EN CASTELLANO

Please, read HERE

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Multiculturalism in Canada and the US (TUE, 18.00-19.30)

Master in Liberal Art (WED, 16.30-18.00)

Rhetoric and Persuasion (English in Public Communication) – (WED, 15.00-16.30)

Rhetoric and Persuasion – EPC two Chinese groups (TUE, 15.00-16.30 and 16.30-18.00)

Please, prepare your devices with cameras – the more solid the better – placed on stable things (a table rather a hand) with headphones and microphones (close to your mouth!!) in a room with REDUCED ECHO (empty rooms not so good as rooms with carpets and curtains) with a friendly background (NOT a door or an entrance behind you!!!) with limited or no people around and/or in the background), your faces close to the camera — all according to visual/digital rhetoric principles. Remember, please, you will be visible and the way you will be visible and hearable will make a difference as far as the quality of your work is concerned.