En el prefacio al libro donde se publicaron aquellas breves cartas, casi viñetas, que dirigiera veinte años atrás desde Europa a su estudiante más destacado cuando éste barajaba la posibilidad de estudiar un doctorado, se lamenta por lo que considera 'otro motivo más de vergüenza en una vida plagada de ellas'. Se queja de su carácter pedagógico, de su falso aire de profundidad, de su naturaleza incremental y derivativa, del escamoteo de verdades incómodas que 'tarde o temprano habrían de reventar'. Añade que confía, sin embargo, 'en el carácter expiatorio de su publicación', aunque sólo sea buscando el perdón de sí mismo. Las primeras quince cartas, presentadas a continuación, casi carecen por completo de referencias personales directas, excepción hecha de la mención a su doctorado en Praga o al equipo de trabajo en que su estudiante participó bajo su dirección en una obscura universidad de provincias. De haberse limitado a ellas, quizá, no se habría juzgado con tal severidad.
I. On faulty reasoning
Based on elementary prejudice and faulty reasoning, I decided to make my PhD in Prague: the former because I was convinced that leaving the country was the condition sine qua non for technical as well as spiritual success; the latter because there was no link between a pair of good teachers and the place they both decided to make their PhD. Are you about to retrace my steps? Hardly, for the circumstances are remarkably different. But can we claim there is no prejudice nor faulty reasoning behind your choices? Hardly, too, I'm afraid.
One can always say there is no such thing as lost time. Friends and experience, language and life can be recollected form the Czech experience. But, isn't this the kind of faulty reasoning that takes A for B? Isn't this just a way to patch things up by blending them together in a single pot, the magic place where nothing can be truly distinguished and no one (certainly not us) is accountable for what went wrong? Shouldn't be more adequate to say the whole PhD experience was an error whose only advantage was to provide me with a research field? If this is the case, what are you —in all consciousness, fed with all the available data about your choices— doing? I did not have that input.
II. On youth
It might be true there is a time and a place for everything. If a life has to be lived in a proper way, it must contain youth, not only as a physical unavoidable stage, but as the everlasting capability of awe and promptness, the call of freedom. We live in times when being a youngster is not only praised, but encouraged. How exactly can this be performed is not clear.
Western civilization has witnessed a radical change in the last fifty years, for it has moved away from adulthood, first bursting disorderly though authentically into drugs and sex (fearing to be stubborn, fearing fascism), then turning his back to radicalism and embracing comfortable concepts whose ambiguity equally serves contradictory but politically correct positions. Fakeness acclaimed as tolerance; the phony ways as the best possible solution for humans to get along.
Where is then the old flame of youth in getting yourself recruited for graduate studies? In which sense getting a degree would set you free? Modern thought, if any, contains a solution to this dilemma, for it has a place for every distortion, for it is plenty of time for what Orwell called double thinking. 1984 was not the triumph of totalitarianism; it was the kingdom of alienation. Who's dream is your dream? "What is wrong with him is that he is not prepared to fail".
III. On business
If any guidance to the modern world should be given, business principles come at hand: Darwinism in its pure form, rationality based on logic, an objective sense of reality. Whether something is convenient or not is a matter of math: pros in one column, cons in the other, calculation, and execution. As far as laws are respected —yet laws can be modified or interpreted— anyone is on the safe side by simply following what many may call their very brains. Right and wrong are therefore meaningless. Right and wrong are only labels standing for profit or loss.
Under the business commandments —the rules of the world we are living in, the rules of success— why would anyone get involved in something with no objective immediate measurable payback? Can the modern man —the successful businessman, the owner, the best fit— find any room for gratuitous love far from social convenience and mindless sex? Is there any room for the artist which wouldn't be contaminated by snobbism and sales? What remains distinctively human if the supreme law —the human law— is an algorithm that any standard computer is able to perform?
Being a grown man, you are hardly an adult. Being a youngster, you may be a successful businessman. Can we flip the mask and find a human beneath? An artist? A soul?
IV. On science
We are told science is about truth or, at least, compelling evidence, as if reality needed no definition on its own: unique, universal, attainable. Western civilization relies on this belief, as if knowledge and technique were an unstoppable logical progression, an objective measure of a society's development. Comparisons, we are said, can be made as to identify whether some country is behind or ahead this race. It seems history, as every field no matter how far from mathematics, can also establish categories, perform predictions, and qualify as scientific. 'This country is at stage A, this other at stage B, which logically follows from A as a rock is deemed to fall when thrown from a window'.
Scholars all around the world have been pushed by managers to routinize science. We no longer live in a world where someone curious and clever enough may found a valuable answer and succeed at communicating it by conducting a quest on his own without the proper credentials: universities, doctorates, degrees. As a result of this bureaucratization a scientist must follow the right path: peer review, impact measures, publish or perish. Crunch numbers as a dull accountant. Negotiate. Become a businessman.
This state of affairs might seem unfair; alternatives, naïve or worse. Therefore, how can anyone argue with Kuhn who was able to see in the early sixties that science —the machinery which stands today for it— is simply another human matter no differently driven than fashion, no less capricious than sports?
V. On Friday
Routine is what we have at hand, not only to keep a thread of continuity, but also to regularly break it. Nobody keeps feeling this way as much as those who were left behind at schools: among them, nobody experiences it as much as those who never had the chance to get old in an ordinary way: idealists with no kids, dreamers with fictitious families to rise and feed. For pretension and solemnness are defenseless against the spirit. For adulthood must be skeptical of itself to be authentic. For no real man can be so if he doesn't first laugh at him.
Cheers, my friend. I bid you a long life full of Fridays.
VI. On contradiction
Daria, the cartoon character, made once a speech addressing her comrades at school; there, she said: 'The truth and a lie are not sort of the same thing'. A simple, yet quite profound message for the generations that were about to sweep off hers, i.e., mine. Why such an obvious distinction should be pointed out? Isn't it naïve to think one will always be able to tell the truth from a lie? Is anyone standing by this simple sentence fit enough to deal with contemporary world?
It seems our brains are hardwired to feel uncomfortable when faced to contradiction. In old times this served a purpose: to debug our thought from such loopholes by changing our actions, by getting reality and its portrait progressively closer. For consistence was appreciated as a quality, a sign of righteousness and intelligence. Daria addresses a completely different world: a world of comfort where is no longer required to make distinctions, let alone fight for them; a world which seems to live in peace by respecting everyone's truth, no matter if contradictory. Why should anyone insist, therefore, in creating a conflict by pointing out contradictions? What is so bad about such an enjoyable world?
We are warned by Lorca in New York —from the very innards of the senseless productivity paradigm still valid today—that 'life is not a dream. Beware. And beware'. For carelessly living in a complacent world full of commodities and screens only benefits the architects of the system; for ignorance and dullness perfectly matches the needs of the owners to get cheap labor; for individuals unable to grasp the truth and negligent of subtle distinctions are no more than 'a pig in a cage, on antibiotics'. Beware.
VII. On law and beyond
Biological imperatives are for sure insufficient to provide humans a code, for their brutality would only lead to the rule of the strongest where anybody weaker is deemed to fail. The rule of the strongest is no rule; therefore, we have law. Law, nevertheless, has its limitations, for humans are still searching its right dose of fairness, freedom, and feasibility. Turing decodes the Enigma code which helps his country and the Allies win the war and save thousands of lives. Having done so, he was chemically castrated by law for being found guilty of homosexuality.
If human species is to survive it has to go way beyond law to make it, not going back to the rule of the strongest, not incarcerating its fellows in totalitarian paradises, but perfecting freedom by making it responsible, individually responsible. Not by law, not by nature, not by religion which promises reward and menaces with eternal flames, but by an intimate experienced conviction on the nobility of being noble. It is good to be good.
While businessmen are pouring over this world with their math of pros and cons, presumably respecting law up to the last detail but in fact destroying the earth like the worst plague nature has ever met, some of us must stand opposed. Opposition cannot be rhetorical or unrealistic. Opposition should be rooted in our minds and showed up in ordinary behavior. For how can anyone be individually responsible if isolated? How opposing if alienated? Look around. Twice.
VIII. On alcohol and drugs
Paz thought that the key word for Mexico was 'solitude', a land of fatherless children, a land where the only way to quit emptiness was communion, whether religious or secular. If no illustration, modern times have brought indifference towards religion, voiding life from spiritual meaning and god's timing. What is left to compensate? What is left to go back to the origin and fusion with our brothers? Alcohol and drugs, the chemical path to the instantaneous identification with each other. Substance abuse as an artificial embracement of the universe.
Nevertheless, hypocrisy and business principles made their way into this field, for people feel comfortable damning alcohol, labeling cigarettes, preaching about drugs while exchanging huge amounts of money about them, not even getting close to the next fellow's soul. Allowing or forbidding is not the question, but filling the void with enlightenment and a sound life. Communion may come from our very hearts. Communion may start right here. 'One must love what is to hand, as a dog loves'.
IX. On friendship
It is generally agreed that great narcissists are inclined to feel disappointed about friends, colleagues and whoever falls into their social scope: betrayal and mischievousness, conspiracy and backstabbing, whirling over their lives as a flock of crows over a corn field. There is also a less common class of people who believe friendship has to be discreet and silent and inadvertent in order to be authentic: help, but not be noticed; love, but not to be loved. Yet, these two extremes have too much in common, for they are arrogant enough to be convinced about what the other has to say, need or imply, coward enough to ask. The two of them are failures to communicate.
People motives are anything but clear, not even for themselves. And so it is the case that reasons to befriend or not someone else might be obscure, contaminated, rooted in anyone's past and absences and needs. Even so, I do believe there is room for friendship, for motives are futile against true sharing and communication, against facts and language. What is there to be shared?
When I first watched Good Will Hunting it struck me for several reasons, the first of which was the still-standing definition of friendship when Sean, the shrink, addresses Will by the river. I address you now with the very same words: 'I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fucking book. Unless you want to talk about you: who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that, do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say'
X. On talent
'Can you imagine if Einstein had given [...] up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night?' asked Professor Lambeau to Sean when discussing whether Will should take full advantage of his innate abilities on mathematics at the price of his will. 'Give him time to figure out what he wants', replied Sean.
Life is way too short to be wasted doing what other people want us to do. Regardless of our true motives for exploiting our presumable talent (which may indeed be seriously arguable), it is paradoxical to find scientists who don't give a damn about anyone's opinion while making any move to get recognition of their contributions. Is it that their supposed misanthropy is only a cover for a deeper need? Is it that their work, their talent —no matter if scientific, no matter if on arts or history or sports— only obeys to egocentric desires of transcendence and it is therefore nothing else but fear of death?
'You know how fucking easy this is to me? This is a joke!', says Will to Professor Lambeau.
XI. On happiness
How did happiness end up as the favorite cliché for the sense of life in modern world? What does common folk understand by that? Two are the attitudes I have seen towards happiness: that from gooey guys, especially young, that confuse it with simple pleasure that cannot be found in anything that requires effort to be achieved (as if laziness could be the greatest form of fulfillment, hedonism the paradise); and that from people who think higher of their brains and look down to the very idea of comfort as confused with conformism and mediocrity (as if required by faulty upbringing to prove anyone else there is something worthy in their lives, endless challenges to keep the thrill level).
These attitudes may seem irreconcilable, but they are both complementary and convenient for the businessmen that rule the world, for the world needs scientists and technicians and whoever idly perform a task on the one hand (unhappy people pursuing value from outside) and consumers and clients on the other hand (happy people starving for more immediate entertainment). None of these groups take the decisions, but the managers and politicians.
The great mathematician and philosopher (if not a redundancy) Bertrand Russell wrote that 'all the conditions of happiness are realized in the life of the man of science'. That book was written in the thirties.
XII. On language
The only way to distinguish background noise from actual information is to introduce syntax and semantics. Whether it was an evolutionary accident or a fatal step towards intelligence, language linked —maybe forever— human thought to the ability to put it in words. Contemporary tolerance despises this idea as any other that may look suspicious of imposition, boundary, or effort; additionally, modern paranoia detects political incorrectness in any word formerly meant to distinctively denote something specific.
Are we better human beings because we avoid dangerous words and feel comfortable with anyone's speech no matter how far from grammar or meaning? Does it help to grasp reality to erode specificity? Again, who is benefited with this state of affairs where language is attacked by vigilantes who would like every communication to be as rigid and phony and predictable as to say nothing? Who takes advantage of those mixing everything up in a feast of indistinguishable noise?
You may want to look up to the owners of the chatty box.
XIII. On literature
Childish dreams about being rich and famous come into different versions. Two very popular are music for pubescent youngsters (though 'young' stands for older and older people in these times) and literature for not-so-young characters. While in third-world countries the former usually requires a certain dose of money, the latter can be reached by everybody who feels inclined to. Futile as they are, childish motives can be turned into sound reasons such as pleasure, regardless of the professional quality or public success of our contributions.
But once they are taken seriously, i.e., professionally, both childish and sound motivations have no longer importance, for they are subject to the intricacies of bureaucracy and business principles: writing books to sell, writing books to fill up the vacancies of a government scholarship, writing books to please readers who don't give a damn about contents, style, or ideas, but care about being noticed as cultivated or informed. Literature for snobs. Literature for consumers.
In this regard, is literature any different from scientific research? Does the very idea of doing things for pleasure still hold? If literature has to rush into productivity and hard numbers, if the day comes when no one would write a line without expecting payback, what is left for pleasure? What is left to share?
XIV. On music
The Nobel Prize Albert Schweitzer is supposed to once have said 'there are two means of refuge from the misery of life: music and cats'. Not really certain about the latter, I do agree with the first refuge, for nothing soothes me more against daily petty troubles than listening to music, music that punctuates life periods, music that provides coherence and structure (aesthetics) to paranoia and delusion, music to drift away and set off.
Music has not escaped to modern market rules and snobbism, yet I find its manipulative capabilities far more limited than those of the other arts. No matter how much we are told that Hitler liked Wagner's megalomaniac sounds or that the Supreme Soviet forbade dissident composers as decadent and corrupted, we find hard to believe that melodies possess subliminal powers or the ability to express political opinions without lyrics.
Nevertheless, I cannot help but noticing that music matches synthetic mathematical thought (inwardly-oriented) just as literature matches analytical mathematical thought (outwardly-oriented). Since you have some musical training, do I have to connect it to our communication impossibilities? An accident? A coincidence?
XV. On family
Coetzee tells us that 'all faults of character are faults of upbringing'. Considering what we have witnessed during the last years working together, we cannot but agree with him: five guys which regardless their age were set to display all their fitness and inadequacies their respective families taught them to perform: from the presumable confidence of a guy raised by both parents to the pathetic need of those who didn't have that luck, if luck is the appropriate word to describe what may lead to paradoxical results.
Too bad a family doesn't necessarily stand for individuals truly sharing anything, but gotten used to their faces by mere accident and coincidence; bound, at best, by some mixture of loyalty and love, but not brain. The cycle dictates we have to create a family of our own. Does it have to be so we can pass down all the faults of character which constitute our upbringing? Does it have to be so we can be assured of our value and self-esteem? If there is any altruism to parenthood it may as well lie on taking care of parentless children, taking care of what is left —even by chance, by accident— in our hands.
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