martes, 15 de abril de 2025
Maison Sphérique (1784)
Antoine Vaudoyer’s Maison Sphérique (1784) is a visionary architectural project that embodies Enlightenment ideals of rationality and geometric purity. Designed as a monumental hemisphere resting on a classical peristyle, the interior is organized around a central helical staircase, flanked by symmetrical chambers for various uses. The circular plan and star-studded dome suggest a cosmic order: a habitable microcosm where architecture becomes both symbol and instrument of knowledge. Echoing Boullée and Ledoux, Vaudoyer’s design anticipates modern visionary architecture as a way of thinking the world through spatial abstraction and symbolic form.
Europe is our only hope
We live in a very specific moment in history. I think until now, although it wasn’t true, all the big ideologies — let’s say liberalism with Fukuyama’s end of history, or Marxism — even if they weren’t perfectly determinist, they still believed history had a direction. It might go wrong, we might destroy ourselves, but there was a direction. Rosa Luxemburg, for example, said: The future will be socialism or barbarism. What was her mistake? In Stalinism, we discovered it can be both at the same time. Today, I think the situation fits perfectly the notion of superposition from quantum physics. We live in a moment where we cannot draw a single line. On the one hand, we have the remnants of what Lorenzo and I call the progressive Enlightenment European dream. Then we have something very different: a right-wing defense of Europe that is precisely anti-Enlightenment. Then there is what I sometimes call — not because it’s good, just for clarity — soft fascism. Not the Nazi-like self-destructive version, but this fusion of capitalist market dynamics with a strong state founded on some ethnic, religious, or traditional ideology. Look at China. Xi Jinping recently said young people must be educated not in Maoist, but Confucian tradition. In India, it’s Modi; in Turkey, Erdogan; in Russia, Putin. I think this is the most probable outcome. So, I don’t believe in BRICS. BRICS, de facto, doesn’t mean a multipolar world but a few centers — Russia, China, perhaps a weak Europe, the US — each trying to build its own small empire. And then there's the ecological catastrophe — will it happen or not? We simply don’t know. That’s why, ironically, when people ask me what are you, I say: I’m a moderately conservative communist. Why communist? Because let’s be serious — new crises will explode: new viruses, environmental breakdown. And for me, this isn’t some grand theory, it's a self-evident truth — we will need more cooperation, stronger than the market. People tell me I’m utopian. I say: no. Look at COVID. Even two villains, Trump and Boris Johnson, had to invoke measures reserved for wartime emergencies, bypassing the market and commanding industries. We must prepare for that kind of emergency state — but within the tradition of Enlightenment. If not, the right-wingers will do it. I’m not saying everything is contingent. There is one narrative line, but it functions like the collapse in quantum mechanics — where, retroactively, things appear necessary after they happen. My favorite example: You’re walking, you slip on a banana peel, someone helps you up — and that person becomes the love of your life. Then, you see your whole life as leading up to that moment. The key point is to abandon simplistic progressivism. We are now literally in a state of superposition. Fukuyama’s end of history was the last serious attempt, and it failed. He didn’t understand Hegel — of course, he’s American — but he did support Bernie Sanders in the last election. He’s at least honest. So again: it’s not enough to say natural sciences describe nature, history is different. No — if we want to take contingency seriously, we must locate it already within nature. Even nature is no longer what it was. Traditional ecology imagined nature as stable homeostasis, and humans as the destabilizing force. But think: what is our source of energy today? Oil and coal — the result of massive ecological catastrophes. My response to deep ecologists is: yes, there is Mother Nature — but she’s not a caring mother. She’s corrupt, brutal. To accept this openness, we must think differently. Quantum mechanics offers, I believe, an ontological foundation for a new relation to history. Jean-Pierre Dupuy, my friend who lives between California and Paris, is the best theorist of catastrophes I know. He says: it’s no longer enough to be a realist. His idea is: once a catastrophe happens, it appears retroactively necessary. But — and here’s the dialectic — we must accept it as necessary in order to counteract it. Example: In the late Soviet years, Reagan and others feared that the USSR had already won. That belief — we already lost — mobilized people. In the end, it was the USSR that collapsed. My point is: yes, there is destiny — but we can retroactively rewrite our destiny. That’s how we should act: take catastrophe seriously. And you know, I’m a materialist — a Christian atheist, in fact. We can learn from intelligent theologians: you must begin from the idea that we are lost, that the devil rules the world. But this doesn't lead to passive despair — it mobilizes you. Today, the greatest danger is not pessimism but stupid optimism: “AI will save us, it’s not so bad…” No! That’s the real threat. So what is intelligence? If it's just fast mechanical operations — then of course AI will surpass us. But there are other dimensions. Two examples: First — everyday rituals. Like when you walk on tiled floors and feel compelled not to step on the lines. Can AI invent such meaningless yet deeply human habits? Second — swearing. Yes, you can program AI to curse. But real cursing expresses a lack — an inability to express something. As Hegel said, we live in language, but we are never fully at home in it. Cursing marks the gap between thought and language. It registers failure. This — not speed or data processing — is the core of our humanity. And maybe, instead of comparing AI to humans — asking will it surpass us? — we should consider that AI might develop its own kind of spirituality, on a totally different level. In this, I agree with my friend Lorenzo Marsili. I disagree, though, with our mutual friend Yanis Varoufakis. He always repeats “Europe is finished.” No, no, no. Left and right across the globe hate united Europe — Latin Americans, Africans, Putin, China. If Europe were truly dead, they wouldn’t care. The bad parts of Eurocentrism have collapsed. But even those who criticize Europe do so using European concepts. Enlightenment is the only civilizational legacy that includes radical self-criticism. Look at the Latin American left — we know where Chávez ended. Or the US neoconservatives — a catastrophe. China — I respect it, but don’t believe it offers a real post-capitalist alternative. India — god forbid. So yes, let's whip our backs with European masochism. But after all that — Europe is still the best we’ve got. Years ago, I debated Judith Butler. She was against the European tradition — cogito, Cartesian, masculine. But I told her: feminism starts with Descartes. Why? Because cogito has no sex. Pre-modern defenses of women were based on cosmic balance — yin-yang, masculine-feminine. That’s not modern feminism. It begins with radical equality — and that’s Descartes. So yes — I insist, shamelessly — the European legacy is already radically self-critical. And more than ever, Europe is our only hope.
Se canto é porque quero
As cantareiras como núcleo transmisor: voces que sustentan a memoria e a identidade galega. O relato das propias cantareiras é o eixo fundamental que vertebra o significado profundo da música tradicional en Galicia, pois son elas quen falan dende a experiencia vivida, dende a memoria íntima e compartida. Rosa e Adolfina, criadas na aldea de Vila da Igrexa, transmiten coas súas palabras e melodías unha forma de coñecemento herdado, non aprendido en libros nin escolas, senón na cociña, no fiado, nas leiras, nos seráns. A música, nas súas voces, non é arte escénica nin produto de consumo, senón expresión vital, linguaxe cotiá e ponte coa memoria ancestral. As súas historias evidencian como a muller foi sempre columna vertebral da cultura popular galega, malia a súa invisibilidade sistemática nos espazos oficiais da historia e da arte As cantareiras falan dun tempo onde o cantar non era un acto artístico senón funcional e comunitario, necesario para acompañar o traballo, expresar emocións, celebrar e resistir. Nos seráns, nas ruadas ou nas festas, estas mulleres non só cantaban: organizaban, coordinaban, transmitían e ensinaban. A transmisión oral, que elas describen como natural e espontánea, garante a continuidade dun patrimonio que se adapta sen perder esencia. Cantar era tamén un xeito de educar, de lembrar os nomes e as cousas, de marcar os ritmos do ano e da vida. Ao relatar como aprenderon das súas nais e avoas, e como elas mesmas ensinaron ás fillas, están construíndo un relato colectivo onde a muller rural ocupa o centro como axente activa da tradición. A súa percepción sobre os cambios sociais é lúcida e dolorosa: observan como o rural se despoboou, como a xente nova perdeu interese ou vergoña polo galego e pola tradición, e como as músicas foron absorbidas ou simplificadas polo folclorismo institucionalizado. Pero malia todo, manteñen viva a súa práctica e lembranza, conscientes de seren as últimas portadoras dun saber que xa non se aprende na vida diaria. Nas súas voces percíbese unha mestura de orgullo e alerta, de satisfacción e perda, de resistencia e despedida. Falan tamén do valor da gravación e da escrita, non para substituír o cantar, senón para asegurar que, cando non haxa xa quen cante, quede cando menos memoria de quen o fixo Son as propias cantareiras quen máis profundamente comprenden o valor do que sosteñen: non se consideran artistas, senón continuadoras dun fío que, sen elas, estaría a piques de romper. Reivindican, sen necesidade de discursos académicos, que o saber do pobo reside nos corpos e nas voces das mulleres, e que a tradición musical galega sobrevive grazas á súa constancia discreta. Mentres falan, cantan; mentres cantan, lembran; mentres lembran, transmiten. Son a voz da memoria e o eco do porvir.
lunes, 14 de abril de 2025
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