domingo, 31 de julio de 2022

Kiss me Kate @ BBC Proms

Somos de lo más

 Un retropost de 2012:

Quizá sea una costumbre especialmente occidental, pero creo que es más general que eso. Todos somos dados a presentarnos a los demás con una imagen favorable (ejemplo: este blog, sin ir más lejos). O en lo que suponemos será una imagen favorable: al menos lo intentamos. Subir puntos ante los demás, obtener kudos que dicen los americanos. O, siguiendo la lógica de lo que hemos dicho, al menos obtener puntos imaginarios ante nosotros mismos, habida cuenta de la valoración imaginaria que recibimos.
 
Decía Goffman que el rostro de uno (interaccionalmente definido, o sea, la face que presentamos ante los demás en un encuentro y cuidamos con el face-work) es sagrado. No sólo en la estimación propia, sino como regla general de fondo del trato social. Así, no sólo no ofendo yo a mi propio rostro, ni al de los demás, sino que espero que los demás van a colaborar conmigo más o menos manteniendo la línea en la cual me presento, y la imagen que quiero dar de mí mismo. Eso al menos si no me como demasiado terreno del vecino. Es parte del ritual social por tanto el protegerse mutuamente la cara, entrando en la ficción de que todos somos guays y extremadamente respetables, y ayudando a mantener el propio rostro y el del vecino a base de cortesía, protocolo y rituales de asentimiento. 

 

Este es el panorama de fondo, pero claro también hay face-threatening acts, como estudiaron Brown y Levinson en Politeness, después de Goffman—actos comunicativos que al dar respuesta al sujeto hablante amenazan el rostro público presentado por él. A veces estos son directos y explícitos (por ejemplo el comportamiento de muchos trolls en los blogs, atacando anónimamente al bloguero y procurando desacreditar su línea o autoimagen). Otros son indirectos—los que parece que conceden la mayor pero en realidad socavan la idea que pretende dar el sujeto de sí mismo, o de un tema, o de los otros. Estos comentarios pueden ser más o menos corteses o más o menos malignos—en principio siempre es más cortés jugar al juego ritual del respeto mutuo, aunque sólo sea como retórica preliminar.

Unas veces damos una idea favorable de nuestra personalidad en general, de nuestros accomplishments, o rasgos de carácter o belleza física. Otras veces de lo magnífica que es nuestra vida privada, nuestra familia, nuestro círculo de amistades, nuestro enfoque original sobre la vida, lo envidiable de nuestro éxito en tanto que sujetos sociales. La falsa modestia puede ser una estrategia útil a seguir en estos casos, mientras no sea demasiado evidentemente falsa, lo cual sería contraproducente. Pero quizá sea especialmente divertido el contraste que se da a veces en el paso súbito del tono desenfadado o relajado que conviene al hablar de uno mismo, para ponerse súbitamente en tono profesional y presentarse uno mismo como lo más de lo más en cuestiones profesionales—un profesional de eficacia estratosférica, si nos preguntan a nosotros. El trabajo es tan sagrado, o más, que la imagen privada de cada cual— o, por lo menos, el yo privado y el yo profesional sirven de refugios alternantes para las insuficiencias detectables en el otro. De acuerdo, soy feo y mi vida privada carece de interés, pero como profesional no me tose nadie. O bien viceversa: mi trabajo es mediocre y gris, mejor oculto mi faceta laboral en la que soy un mero esclavo de la noria, pero mi yo auténtico está fuera del trabajo, donde soy una persona de infinitas posibilidades, una mente libre e impredecible.

Para eso a veces es conveniente no aventurar demasiado el yo profesional por andurriales no profesionales, o el yo privado fuera de su ámbito, y en general no mostrar mucho ni de uno ni de otro, pues podría perderse el aura. Incluso en cuestiones de la red, es prudente mantener una atractiva nube difuminada de vaguedad sobre cuál es exactamente nuestro status profesional, o qué hacemos con precisión en nuestro trabajo, o en nuestro tiempo libre (a menos que sea espectacular, viajar, etc.). Es una manera de no darle argumentos al adversario, y así ponernos en situación de ser los que más información tengamos sobre nosotros mismos y nuestra valía, en un encuentro determinado. El oyente se verá casi obligado a seguir nuestra línea de autopresentación, a falta de datos propios que aportar en contra. Si decimos que somos de lo más, y ése es el único dato que consta, ¿quién nos va a contradecir? Por desgracia, el control de la autoimagen no siempre está tan fácil. Nos puede quedar el consuelo de que hablen de nosotros aunque sea mal, eso también da puntos.


 
—oOo—


Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña

 Libertad Digital

La localidad toledana acoge el 30 y 31 de julio la representación de la obra de Lope de Vega .
Representación de la obra | José Sancho / Ayto de Ocaña

Ocaña viaja al Siglo de Oro y engalana sus calles en honor a Lope de Vega. La localidad toledana acoge la representación de una de las obras más destacadas del dramaturgo: Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña, una pieza que se publicó por primera vez en 1614 y cuya trama se desarrolla en esta villa. Esta será la cuarta edición que se celebre.

"Peribáñez ha dejado de ser un espectáculo teatral y se ha convertido en un sentimiento de unión para todos los que entienden que la obra de Lope de Vega es un producto heredado del Siglo de Oro que tenemos que mantener", afirma Remedios Gordo, alcaldesa de Ocaña.

Los propios vecinos -unos 250- darán vida de forma desinteresada a Casilda, Peribáñez, el Comendador y al resto de personajes, bajo la dirección de Jesús Caro, en esta obra donde el amor y la honra villana son los ideales por los que luchar. Además, el ambiente tornará al siglo XVII con carros de caballos, galeras gigantes y cabezudos, fuegos artificiales, un mercado temático y la recreación de la procesión del Corpus de Toledo. "No le falta detalle", añade la alcaldesa.

En ediciones pasadas, se habilitaron 1.800 butacas para disfrutar de esta obra, un número muy destacable teniendo en cuenta que se trata de un pueblo de once mil habitantes. "El público ha sido el motor impulsor para que los vecinos sigan con esta obra", dice Remedios Gordo. El escenario escogido es un aliciente en sí mismo: "Es Bien de Interés Cultural. Además, todas las calles que rodean a esta plaza favorecen que el espectáculo tenga colorido y vistosidad". 

peribanez-cartel-ocana.jpg

La representación de Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña será los días 30 y 31 de julio, a las 21 horas. Las entradas pueden adquirirse en la web del ayuntamiento y en la oficina de turismo por un precio de 5 euros o 10 euros. "Es una gran oportunidad -resume la alcaldesa- para disfrutar de cultura, patrimonio, buen hacer, buena gente y buena gastronomía".

- Seguir leyendo: https://www.libertaddigital.com/cultura/teatro/2016-07-30/peribanez-vuelve-a-reclamar-su-honra-en-ocana-1276579449/

El Gran Teatro del Mundo

 

Neguțătorul din Veneția

 

 

Contemporary Literature Press,
under The University of Bucharest, in conjunction with The British Council, The Romanian Cultural Institute, and The Embassy of Ireland,
Announces the publication of
William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice. Neguțătorul din Veneția.
Parallel Texts
Translated into Romanian by Const. Al. Ștefănescu, 1912
ISBN 978-606-760-060-5
Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu
In April 2016, Contemporary Literature Press will publish as Parallel Texts over 30 volumes of plays by William Shakespeare. Every play will appear in more than one Romanian version. The translations sometimes use older spellings, and even older typographic characters. This confers special Romanian local colour to Shakespeare's plays: it is a reminder of an old poetic quality that Romanian possessed in the early 19th century, and which we have lost since then.
We will publish these translations "in instalments". Our volumes are meant to support the British Council project "Shakespeare lives in 2016!" The series published by us will continue for quite a while.
Last but not least, let us remember that, four hundred years ago, Shakespeare died almost at the same time as Cervantes. The only playwright of our world and the only novelist of our world shared the same historical age.
C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu
William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Neguțătorul din Veneția. Parallel Texts. Translated into Romanian by Const. Al. Ștefănescu, 1912, edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu, is formally launched on Wednesday 27 July 2016. But it is available for consultation and downloading on receipt of this Press Release, at the following internet address:

 

 

 

Soul of the Age

 

miércoles, 27 de julio de 2022

Gerry

 Curiosa película, Gerry, de Gus Van Sant. Se la ahorré a los chavales, diciéndoles que "parece normal, pero mala, y en realidad es rara, pero buena". Es tan desesperadamente lenta, tan "plomo", que a la salida del cine vino corriendo el organizador del ciclo de cineclub a pedirnos disculpas por haberla programado. Pero hablando con él y otros casi le convencimos de que era mejor de lo que parecía. Va, en esencia, de dos personajes de pocas palabras perdidos en el desierto, andando andando de aquí para allá desorientados, hasta que, a punto de morir de insolación y deshidratación, uno de ellos mata al otro, y descubre al poco la carretera para salir de allí.  Lo recoge un coche, y el conductor lo mira por el retrovisor con cierta desconfianza; va sentado en el asiento trasero al lado del hijo del conductor. Delante no sabemos si hay esposa o no, es uno de los enigmas del filme.

A veces las andanzas de Gerry y su colega, no siempre queda claro quién es quien, al parecer los dos son Gerry, recuerdan a las de Vladimir y Estragón en Esperando a Godot. Supongo que la coincidencia de nombres es una de las señales sutiles de poética homosexual que gusta de lanzar Van Sant, igual que en Paranoid Park, explorando las patologías de las relaciones, homosexuales en particular, que son abundantes, la confusión y desorientación que producen cuando no tienen una dirección clara, que normalmente no la tienen. Podría decirse que el desierto éste (imaginario desierto de la mente, nunca hubo un desierto tan variado en su deserción como éste) es en realidad como una alegoría de la propia relación entre Gerry y Gerry, o de Gerry consigo mismo por decirlo de otra manera.

La pareja está en crisis, apenas se hablan—hay dos conversaciones sostenidas, una de ellas una fantasía de Gerry 2 (Casey Affleck) sobre sus problemas como caudillo griego, quizá en un videojuego; al parecer es el fantasioso y a Gerry 1, estólido y más elemento masculino, es al que le entretiene la vida. Pero tras horas de crisis y desierto, sin que la crisis termine de aflorar abiertamente, el Gerry 2 le dice a Gerry 1 "me voy, te dejo"—en circunstancias curiosas, precisamente cuando no puede irse ni dejarlo, pero puede—y es la ocasión de que Gerry 1 lo estrangule. También era Gerry 1 el hombre del desierto despiadado, el tuareg inescrutable. Malas crisis larvadas. El tema homosexual nunca aparece explícitamente—o sea, con sexualidad, ni siquiera con parafernalia muy reconocible—pero de homo hay mucho homo, no siempre sapiens; está claro por otra parte que ninguno de los dos Gerrys son el más listo de la clase. Hacer el Gerry es una frase que usan ambos con el sentido de meter la pata, portarse como un imbécil.

En fin, una película sobre el desierto de la pareja, que a veces cae en la imitative fallacy tan deplorada por Yvor Winters: si quieres mostrar el aburrimiento, aburre. Por suerte hace otras cosas, aparte de aburrir.  Como a Roger Ebert, también me recordó la película a la escena final de Avaricia, de Von Stroheim. Y también a Ebert le recuerda a Godot—todo esto no puede ser casualidad.



 
—oOo—


Sir Ken Robinson and Drama in Education

 

Amplia comedia, cruel teatro

 

Creo que fue Horace Walpole el que sentenció que "el mundo es una tragedia para los que sienten, y una comedia para los que piensan." Al parecer, según nos cuenta Carlos García Gual, a Jean de La Fontaine habría que incluirlo entre estos últimos, pues sus fábulas enseñan una filosofía un tanto cínica, escéptica, desengañada e irónica en cuanto a las motivaciones humanas, o, digamos, las de los animales parlantes. El fabulista mismo parece tener pocas motivaciones al margen de esta observación irónica de los demás....

Esa despreocupación respecto a las riquezas, los honores y las obligaciones habituales de la vida fue la más notoria virtud de La Fontaine. En el mundo conflictivo y bestial que representan las fábulas de los animales parlantes, la ambición, la vanidad y el afán de venganza son los motivos constantes de la feroz lucha por la vida. Como en la Francia de su época, como en el mundillo cortesano de París, ésos son los motivos de la lucha por la vida: la ambición, la vanidad, las rivalidades que hacen de la sociedad un cruel teatro de peleas y desdichas, Eso es lo que impulsa a unos y otros en su continua refriega cotidiana y lo que trae consigo tantas desgracias y desastres. El mundo es así, y triunfar en él requiere practicar esos engaños y adecuarse a esas violencias. 

Pero quien, como nuestro fabulista, no tiene afán de medro ni lucro, quien no ambiciona ni está ávido de honores, no tiene por qué sentirse entrampado en ese juego de pasiones y astucias. Puede observar el juego desde su retiro, sin tomar partido ni recibir los golpes de unos y otros. Como se aconseja al final de la fábula de El hombre y la serpiente, una de las más amargas del repertorio, para evitar la cólera de los poderosos, el prudente sabe "hablar de lejos o bien callarse". Y quien observa así el espectáculo de la vida puede incluso divertirse con el espectáculo. "Una amplia comedia de cien actos diversos / y cuya escena es todo el universo."

 

            (Carlos García Gual, "El epicureísmo de La Fontaine y la moral de las fábulas." In García Gual, La luz de los lejanos faros: Una defensa apasionada de las humanidades. Barcelona: Planeta-Ariel, 2017. 206-19; 217).

 

martes, 26 de julio de 2022

Exposición hiperrealista

El nuevo Tarzán

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lunes, 25 de julio de 2022

La Question Humaine

Retropost, 2012


Interesante película sobre ética de empresa, pero no al modo americano (para eso ver In Good Company, por ejemplo, o Margin Call, o Up in the Air), sino al modo franco-alemán; va sobre una gran compañía química en Francia, y el protagonista como el director está a mitad de camino de las dos culturas, es de Estrasburgo. La compañía se ocupa de la psicología y el ocio de sus empleados, de maneras inquietantes poco a poco; los colores son fríos, verdes, azules y grises, y el ambiente triste y claustrofóbico. No se sabe qué se fabrica en I.G. Farb, pero hay control metódico, y humo que va a parar a la atmósfera. Hay síntomas, escenas semioníricas de alienación. Hay intrigas. Un visir de la empresa quiere ser director en lugar del director, y manda al protagonista Kessler, psicólogo de la empresa, que investigue su cordura al detectarse comportamientos extraños. Hay maniobras de ganarse confianza, espionaje en distancias cortas. El psicólogo también promueve fiestas rave y actividades musicales; no por ello mejora el ambiente. La Empresa trata mucho con japoneses, y tiende a volver japonés al personal, volcarlos en su dedicación a la empresa; la cuestión humana ataca sin embargo en la persona del director, el Sr. Just, atormentado por la muerte de su hijo y por el pasado que no lo deja vivir. El pasado va saliendo a flote: es la herencia del nazismo, las familias en las que se criaron él y el intrigante subdirector, productos del régimen hitleriano, con traumas de infancia desplazados largo tiempo. Un tercer elemento activo es un antiguo empleado despedido, detector de esos traumas y de la analogía entre la ética de productividad de la empresa y la del Estado nazi. La película es sensible a las críticas de Kraus y Klemperer sobre la distorsión nazi del lenguaje, y la aplica al lenguaje del rendimiento y productividad en la empresa. También recuerda algunas escenas de Las Benévolas, de Jonathan Littell, por ejemplo el sueño en el que la sociedad amenazaba con convertirse en una gigantesca fábrica. El Sr. Just contraataca las maniobras desestabilizadoras contra él, contravigila. Es como un viejo orangután triste y experimentado, defendiéndose en un mundo difícil, es inteligente y lúcido a pesar de las interferencias que su pasado produce en su cerebro, pero no por ello deja de intentar suicidarse. El psicólogo aprende cómo él mismo no está a salvo de verse mezclado más de lo que le conviene para su propio equilibrio emocional, que él creía a salvo—y viene a descubrir su propia culpabilidad e implicación en el la cosificación de seres humanos. Es inquietante la película, termina con un largo recitado recordando el holocausto y cómo el lenguaje nazi, con su barniz de eficiencia deshumanizada, ayudaba a ocultar la realidad humana, algo que para el director se repite en cualquier discurso que subordina la cuestión humana a la eficacia controlada por método y planificación.

La Question humaine. Dir. Nicolas Klotz. Written by Elisabeth Perceval, based on a novel by François Emmanuel. Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale, Edith Scob. France, 2007.


viernes, 15 de julio de 2022

Love of Praise and Love of Praiseworthiness

No somos NÁ

Si un torero es un hombre

The Greatest Theater for Virtue

 

The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism

THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND IN INFANT DRAMATISM
 
—And the origin of drama in the infant human mind.
 
 
I want to quote a crucial passage from George Herbert Mead's 'Mind, Self, and Society', developing G. H. Mead's central concept of self-interaction resulting from internalized interaction, as a generative process which gives rise to the complexity of the human mind —a mind which is inherently social, as its very structure is the result of an inner dramatization of sociality. The passage is equally important as a contribution to an interactional theory of the origin of language. I dealt with some aspects of Mead's theory of the self as it bears on the self and language in previous papers, for instance here:
 
_____. "Una pequeña teoría sobre el origen y desarrollo del lenguaje." In García Landa, Vanity Fea March 2015.*
2015
_____. "Bucles en la mente: Autointeracción, retroalimentación cerebral, y la realidad como expectativa autocumplida." Social Science Research Network 10 May 2015.*
2015
 
—but now I want to emphasize another dimension in Mead's conception: it is a theory of the origin of role-playing, and therefore, in an indirect way, a theory which stresses the inherent theatricality of human interaction and of the human mind. Where we find the origin of language, and the origin of the human self, there we find, as well, the origin of drama. Protodrama is inscribed in the very structure of the human mind, and in our earliest social interactions, those that take place between the newborn child and its parents.
 
Protodrama is to be found in play, and the complex role-play of the child goes beyond the playful or make-believe attitudes of young animals. This complexity is no doubt associated to the greater flexibility of the human brain (due to the human altricity and to the infant maturation in the 'social brain'—processes which feed back on each other). Human cognitive complexity, and cogntive flexibility, are inherently linked to the inner dramatism of the self, to the role-playing capacity of the human mind, and to the theatricality of human social structure. Theatre and role-playing build up our mind right from the origin of the species and of the individual.
 
From George Herbert Mead's 'Mind, Self, and Society' (Supplementary Essay III, 'The Self and the Process of Reflection'), pp. 364-66.
 
"There are two interesting human types of conduct that seemingly arise out of this relationship of child and parent. On the one hand we find what has been called the imitation of the child, and on the other the sympathetic response of the parent. The basis of each of these types of conduct is to be found in the individual stimulating himself to respond in the same fashion as that in which the other responds to him. As we have seen, this is possible if two conditions are fulfilled. The individual must be affected by the stimulus which affects the other, and affected through the same channel. This is the case with the vocal gesture. The sound which is uttered strikes on the ear of the individual uttering it in the same physiological fashion as that in which it strikes on the ear of the person addressed. The other condition is that there should be an impulse seeking expression in the individual who utters the sound, which is functionally of the same sort as that to which the stimulus answers in the other individual who hears the sound. The illustration most familiar to us is that of a child crying and then uttering the soothing sound which belongs to the parental attitude of protection. This childish type of conduct runs out later into the countless forms of play in which the child assumes the rôles of the adults about him. The very universal habit of playing with dolls indicates how ready for expression, in the child, is the parental attitude, or perhaps one should say, certain of the parental attitudes. The long period of dependence of the human infant during which his interest centers in his relations to those who care for him gives a remarkable opportunity for the play back and forth of this sort of taking of the rôles of others. Where the young animal of lower forms very quickly finds itself resonding directly to the appropriate stimuli for the conduct of the adult of its species, with instinctive activities that are early matured, the child for a considerable period directs his attention toward the social environment provided by the primitive family, seeking support and nourishment and warmth and protection through his gestures—especially his vocal gestures. These gestures inevitably must call out in himself the parental response which is so markedly ready for expression very early in the child's nature, and this response will include the parent's corresponding vocal gesture. The child will stimulate himself to make the sounds which he stimulates the parent to make. In so far as the social situation within which the child reacts is determined by his social environment, that environment will determine what sounds he makes and therefore what responses he stimulates both in others and himself. The life about him will indirectly determine what parental responses he produces in his conduct, but the direct stimulation to adult response will be inevitably found in his own childish appeal. To the adult stimulation he responds as a child. There is nothing in these stimulations to call out an adult response. But in so far as he gives attention to his own childish appeals it will be the adult response that will appear—but will appear only in case that some phases of these adult impulses are ready in him for expression. It is, of course, the incompleteness and relative immaturity of these adult responses that gives to the child's conduct one of the peculiar characters which attach to play. The other is that the child can stimulate himself to this activity. In the play of young children, even when they play together, there is abundant evidence of the child's taking different rôles in the process; and a solitary child will keep up the process of stimulating himself by his vocal gestures to act in different rôles almost indefinitely. The play of the young animal of other species lacks this self-stimulating character and exhibits far more maturity of instinctive response than is found in the early play of children. It is evident that out of just such conduct as this, out of addressing one's self and responding with the appropriate response of another, 'self-consciousness' arises. The child during this period of infany creates a forum within which he assumes various rôles, and the child's self is gradually integrated out of these socially different attitudes, always retaining the capacity of addressing itself and responding to that address with a reaction that belongs in a certain sense to another. He comes into the adult period with the mechanism of a mind."
 
 
 
 




_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 11 July 2016.*

         http://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2016/07/the-origin-of-human-mind-in-infant.html

         2016

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." Ibercampus (Vanity Fea) 11 July 2016.*

         http://www.ibercampus.eu/the-origin-of-the-human-mind-in-infant-dramatism-4010.htm

         2016 DISCONTINUED 2021 -  Online at the Internet Archive:

         http://www.ibercampus.eu/the-origin-of-the-human-mind-in-infant-dramatism-4010.htm

         2022

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." Social Science Research Network 7 Dec. 2017.*

         https://ssrn.com/abstract=3081625

         2017

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." In García Landa, Vanity Fea  14 Jan. 2018.*

         https://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2018/01/the-origin-of-human-mind-in-infant.html

         2018

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." Academia 3 Feb. 2018.*

         https://www.academia.edu/35827813/

         2018

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." ResearchGate 4 Feb. 2018.*

         https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322924875

         2018

_____. "The Origin of the Human Mind in Infant Dramatism." This Huge Stage 15 July 2022.*

         https://thishugestage.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-origin-of-human-mind-in-infant.html

         2022

Adam et Éve - Pascal Obispo



 

Dios nos vigila

 



jueves, 14 de julio de 2022

CONSCIOUSNESS AS RATIONALITY AS INTERNALIZED DRAMATISM

 CONSCIOUSNESS AS RATIONALITY AS INTERNALIZED DRAMATISM

From George Herbert Mead's Mind, Self, and Society (§42, 'Summary and Conclusion'), pp. 334-36.

In the closing sections of his book, Mead summarizes his view of human consciousness as disctinct from the wider "ecological" conception of consciousness. A general ecological-interactional approach to consciousness gives us a generalized and emergent conception on consciousness (also espoused by Mead), according to which an organism reacts in a more or less complex way to its environment, and in so reacting creates novel and emergent aspects of the world. Consciousness, then, is not contained "in" the mind, but is inherently relational, a function of the organism's relation to its environment. But (within this general framework) there is a specific mode of consciousness which requires human selves and rationality, and involves the peculiarly human structure of internalized social dramatism, involving taking the role of the other, or putting oneself imaginatively in the other's stance. Which in turn gives rise to a generalized social consciousness, in which we take the attitude of a "generalized other". Such rationality involves a distribution of social parts, and a generalized understanding of what these parts are, and of the choreography and collective stage management of the whole social play, under the virtual direction of the "generalized other." These are the last paragraphs of Mead's section on "Society", before the Supplementary Essays:

"The other conception that I have brought out concerns the particular sort of intelligence that we acscribe to the human animal, so-called 'rational intelligence', or consciousness in another sense of the term. If consciousness is a substance, it can be said that this consciousness is rational perse; and jut by definition the problem of the appearance of what we call rationality is avoided. What I have attempted to do is to bring rationality back to a certain type of conduct, the type of conduct in which the individual puts himself in the attitude of the whole group to which he belongs. This implies that the whole group is involved in some organized activity and that in this organized activity the action of one calls for the action of all the others. What we term 'reason' arises when one of the organisms take into its own response the attitude of the other organisms involved. It is possible for the organism so to assume the attitudes of the group that are involved in its own act within this whole co-operative process. When it does so, it is what we term 'a rational being'. If its conduct has such universality, it has also necessity, that is, the sort of necessity involved in the whole act—if one acts in one way the others must act in another way. Now, if the individual can take the attitude of the others and control his action by these attitudes, and control their action through his own, then we have what we can term "rationality." Rationality is as large as the group which is involved; and that group could be, of course, functionally, potentially, as large as you like. It may include all beings speaking the same language.

Language as such is simply a process by means of which the individual who is engaged in co-operative activity can get the attitude of others involved in the same activity. Through gestures, that is, through the part of his act which calls out the response of others, he can arouse in himself the attitude of the others. Language as a set of significant symbols is simply the set of gestures which the organism employs in calling out the response of others. Those gestures primarily are nothing but parts of the act which do naturally stimulate others engaged in the co-operative process to carry out their parts. Rationality then can be stated in terms of such behavior if we recognize that the gesture can affect the individual as it affects others so as to call out the response which belongs to the other. Mind or reason presupposes social organization and co-operative activity in this social organization. Thinking is simply the reasoning of the individual, the carrying-on of a conversation between what I have termed the 'I' and the 'me'.

In taking the attitude of the group, one has stimulated himself to respond in a certain fashion. His response, the 'I', is the way in which he acts. If he acts in that way he is, so to speak, putting something up to the group, and changing the group. His gesture calls out then a gesture which will be slightly different. The self thus arises in the development of the behavior of the social form that is capable of taking the attitude of others involved in the same co-operative actvity. The pre-condition of such behavior is the development of the nervous system which enables the individual to take the attitude of the others. He could not, of course, take the indefinite number of attitudes of others, even if all the nerve paths were present, if there were not an organized social activity groing on such that the action of one may reproduce the action of an indefinite number of others doing the same thing. Given, however, such an organized activity, one can take the attitude of anyone in the group.

Such are the two conceptions of consciousness that I wanted to bring out, since they seem to me to make possible a development of behaviorism beyond the limits to which it has been carried, and to make it a very suitable approach to the objects of social psychology. With those key concepts one does not have to come back to certain conscious fields lodged inside the individual; one is dealing throughout with the relation of the conduct of the individual to the environment." (334-36)
Thus far Mead. I would only want to add that this description of universal and complete communicability, or of the universal exchangeability of positions, is the description of an ideal model. Actual social behavior, and the concomitant phenomena of consciousness, are just as much dependent on partial, approximative or plainly mistaken moves in the internalized dramatism, as they are on the partial success of an ideally frictionless social conduct.


 



These reflections by Mead on the 'Generalized Other' can be profitably compared with Adam Smith's notion of the 'Impartial Spectator' in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In this paper I examine the implications of Smith's concept for an evolutionary of mind—the kind of theory that Mead would fully develop.

"Selección natural del Espectador Imaginario." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 15 March 2022.*

         https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2022/03/seleccion-natural-del-espectador.html

         2022

 

On the evolution of God and sociality, see also:

 

Johnson, Dominic. God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. New York: Oxford UP, 2015.


 

Legare, Christine (Associate Professor of Psychology; U of Texas, Austin). Rev. of God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human, by Dominic Johnson. Reading Religion 21 May 2016.*

         http://readingreligion.org/books/god-watching-you

         2016


viernes, 8 de julio de 2022

Así nos programan - El Instituto Tavistock

Bibliografía sobre Samuel Beckett

_____. "On Samuel Beckett." From A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology. iPaper at Academia.edu 23 Sept. 2010.*

         https://www.academia.edu/336353/

         2015

_____. "On Samuel Beckett." From A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology. Online at SlideShare (Peter Buck) 10 May 2010.*

         http://www.slideshare.net/peterbuck/on-samuel-beckett

         2014

_____. "On Samuel Beckett." From A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology. Online at Instalike 23 Feb. 2016.*

         http://instalike.org/a-bibliography-of-literary-theory-criticism-and-philology.html

         2016

_____. "Bibliografía sobre Samuel Beckett." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 20 June 2015.*

         http://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/bibliografia-sobre-samuel-beckett.html

         2015



 

Frames, Roles, and Institutions

How role-playing organizes both the individual and society from the inside. Institutions are exteriorizations of our psychological functions, and in turn our social mind is made up of the interiorization of institutions and the relevant roles associated to them. From George Herbert Mead's Mind, Self, and Society (§34, "The Community and the Institution" 260-61):
 
"There are what I have termed 'generalized social attitudes' which make an organized self possible. In the community there are certain ways of acting under situations which are essentially identical, and these ways of actin on the part of anyone are those which we excite in others when we take certain steps. If we assert our rights, we are calling for a definite response just because they are rights that are universal—a reesponse which everyone whould, and perhaps will, give. Now that response is present in our own nature; in some degree we are ready to take that same attitude toward somebody else if he makes tha appeal. When we call out that response in others, we can take the attitude of the other and then adjust our own conduct to it. There are, then, whole series of such common responses in the community in which we live, and such responses are what we term 'institutions'. The institution represents a common response on the part of all members of the community to a particular situation. This common response is one which, of course, varies with the character of the individual. In the case of theft the response of the sheriff is different from that of the attorney-general, from that of the judge and the jurors, and so forth; and yet they all are responses which maintain property, which involve the recognition of the property right in others. And these variations, as illustrated in the different officials, have an organization which gives unity to the variety of the responses. One appeals to the policeman for assistance, one expects the state's attorney to act, expects the court and its various funcionaries to carry out the process of the trial of the criminal. One does take the attitude of all of these different officials as involved in the very maintenance of property; all of them as an organized process are in some sense found in our own natures. When we arouse such attitudes, we are taking the attitude of what I have termed a 'generalized other'. Such organized sets of response are related to each other; if one calls out one such set of responses, he is implicitly calling out others as well.
Thus the institutions of society are organized forms of group or social activity—forms so organized that the individual members of society can act adequately and socially by taking the attitudes of others toward these activities."



The Mind Messing With the Mind

 

Exposición Performance Fotográficco


Exposición Performance Fotográfico



 



jueves, 7 de julio de 2022

Externalized Complications


La organización social como externalización y teatralización de las funciones cerebrales, reproductivas y familiares —según la descripción de George Herbert Mead, en Mind, Self, and Society (241-42):

The human being is social in a distinguishing fashion. Physiologically he is social in relatively few responses. There are, of course, fundamental processes of propagation and of the care of the young which have been recognized as a part of the social development of human intelligence. Not only is there a physiological period of infancy, but it is so lengthened that it represents about one-third of the individual's expectation of life. Corresponding to that period, the parental relation to the individual has been increased far beyond the family; the development of schools, and of institutions, such as those involved in the church and the government, is an extension of the parental relation. That is an external illustration of the indefinite complication of simple physiological processes. We take care of an infant form and look at it from the standpoint of the mother; we see the care that is given to the mother before the birth of the child, the consideration that is given for providing proper food; we see the way in which the school is carried on so that the beginning of the education of the child starts with the first year of its life in the formation of habits which are of primary importance to it; we take into account education in the form of recreation, which comes one way or another into public control; in all these ways we can see what an elaboration there is of the immediate care which parents give to children under the most primitive conditions, and yet it is nothing but a continued complication of sets of processes which belong to the original care of the child.

This, I say, is an external picture of the sort of development that takes place in a central nervous system. There are groups of relatively simple reactions which can be made indefinitely complex by uniting them with each other in all sorts of orders, and by breaking up a complex reaction, reconstructing it in a different fashion, and uniting it with other processes. Consider the playing of musical instruments. There is an immediate tendency to rhythmic processes, to use the rhythm of the body and to emphasize certain sounds, movements which can be found among the gorillas. Then comes the possibility of picking to pieces the action of the whole body, the construction of elaborate dances, the relation of the dance to sound which appears in song, phenomena which get their expression in the great Greek dramas. These results are then externalized in musical instruments, which are in a way replicas of various organs of the body. All these external complications are nothing but an externalization in society of the sort of complication that exists in the higher levels of the central nervous system. We take the primitive reactions, analyze them, and reconstruct them under different conditions. That kind of reconstruction takes place through the development of the sort of intelligence which is identified with the appearance of the self. The insittutions of society, such as libraries, systems of transportation, the complex interrelationship of individuals in political organizations, are nothing but ways of throwing on the social screen, so to speak, in enlarged fashion the complexities existing inside the central nervous system, and they must, of course, express functionally the operation of this system.

 

Shakespeare: Rey Juan

Obituary: Sarah Kane

Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis

martes, 5 de julio de 2022

Inner Dramatization

Some Roleplay

La fetua de los transexuales

"Acting Quite Dramatically"

El laberinto mágico

The Eye in the Sky, c'est les autres

How New Objects Are Created

The Show Must Go On

El principio del derroche ostentoso

  Un importante principio de organización social y del comportamiento humano, según la Teoría de la Clase Ociosa de Veblen, es el de la ost...