The last months have been hard, and there haven't been much time left to contribute to this blog. Moreover, Gabriel's posts are so elaborate and have such high quality that I get shy, I can not comply with his standards. And there is no doubt they are stimulating, and they bring lots of new ideas to my mind, ideas that result, at most, in drafts for future posts that I never write. And when I start writing, I always have to check something with google, or have to find a video on youtube, and that further stimulates my mind and postpones my writing. You all know the process.
But I promised Gabriel that I would write something this evening. It is raining, or at least it was raining the all day, so it is the perfect day to seat at write a long post.
I could start with a list of things I would like to write about. The book I am reading now, or the books, the movies I saw last week, and the week before, and the months before; some music.
One of the books I am reading now is called "The Patterning Instinct", by Jeremy Lent. The other is "The second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir.
I am very excited about both of them but let me tell you about the first one. Its subtitle is "A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning". The books goes through the history of human kind from prehistory to the present. It describes not only the western culture but also other cultures, like the Chinese or the Indian, with the purpose of explaining how the cultural framework constrains the way we see the world. All the facts are supported by scientific studies, and when there is controversy, the author discusses the different hypothesis on the table.
Some bits and pieces that impressed me: a hundred thousand years ago, there was a mass extinction of big mammals that before was thought to be caused by climate change, but now it is believed that it was due to the spread of the human species across the planet; the story of the first monotheist religion, imposed by an Egyptian Pharaoh, that also coincides with the most brutal religious repression in the history of human kind, around 1353-1336 BCE; how the splitting between body and soul occurred in the western cultures and did not occur for instance in China, and lead to abstraction and the use of mathematics to describe the Universe; how language influences the behaviour and culture and vice-versa; the fact that the cultural differences are very strong still today, even when we think that this planet is global and everyone and owns a mobile phone.
All this makes me think about smaller things. About the fact that I am writing in an English language that is perforce simpler and less effective than the one spoken by a native English, and this fact makes me say things in a way that probably I would not say in Portuguese. It makes me think that maybe there is a big difference between the European or the American culture and the Chinese one, but I already felt a big difference between the Portuguese and the Italian cultures, both European, both catholic and with very similar languages. And I recall the discussion with Gabriel and Erfan about the differences between the Cuban and the Italian health systems. It makes me think about the enthusiasm I have for the Italian language, the need I feel to listen and to read in Italian, the joy I felt when I found out I had three Italian colleagues in my work place, something I never felt for the English or French languages I learned in school. And it makes me think about Shudong, a colleague from China I met in Modena.
But this book also emphasises the discomfort I feel with my job, a product of the western culture that nowadays seems to me brutal in several senses. Brutal because there is lots of competition going on, to the point that it feels that the ego is the driving force for many scientists. Brutal because it exploits nature without limits. Brutal because many scientist arrive to a new work place, in a new country, and are expected to work efficiently without anyone asking about their stories, their past, their culture, their family.
And that is part of the reason why the movie "Visage, Villages" felt so good. The movie is directed by Agnès Varda and JR. They travel in the French country side and look at people, talk to people, common people, workers, men, women, take their pictures and place them on walls, in huge sizes. And people react to this, feel moved, cry, because they realize someone took notice of them, listened to their story, that can be as simple as: "I lived in this house my all life and now I am the last person left in this street".
It also reminded me how much like to take pictures, and how much I like to look at the faces of the persons I portrayed.
But I promised Gabriel that I would write something this evening. It is raining, or at least it was raining the all day, so it is the perfect day to seat at write a long post.
I could start with a list of things I would like to write about. The book I am reading now, or the books, the movies I saw last week, and the week before, and the months before; some music.
One of the books I am reading now is called "The Patterning Instinct", by Jeremy Lent. The other is "The second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir.
I am very excited about both of them but let me tell you about the first one. Its subtitle is "A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning". The books goes through the history of human kind from prehistory to the present. It describes not only the western culture but also other cultures, like the Chinese or the Indian, with the purpose of explaining how the cultural framework constrains the way we see the world. All the facts are supported by scientific studies, and when there is controversy, the author discusses the different hypothesis on the table.
Some bits and pieces that impressed me: a hundred thousand years ago, there was a mass extinction of big mammals that before was thought to be caused by climate change, but now it is believed that it was due to the spread of the human species across the planet; the story of the first monotheist religion, imposed by an Egyptian Pharaoh, that also coincides with the most brutal religious repression in the history of human kind, around 1353-1336 BCE; how the splitting between body and soul occurred in the western cultures and did not occur for instance in China, and lead to abstraction and the use of mathematics to describe the Universe; how language influences the behaviour and culture and vice-versa; the fact that the cultural differences are very strong still today, even when we think that this planet is global and everyone and owns a mobile phone.
All this makes me think about smaller things. About the fact that I am writing in an English language that is perforce simpler and less effective than the one spoken by a native English, and this fact makes me say things in a way that probably I would not say in Portuguese. It makes me think that maybe there is a big difference between the European or the American culture and the Chinese one, but I already felt a big difference between the Portuguese and the Italian cultures, both European, both catholic and with very similar languages. And I recall the discussion with Gabriel and Erfan about the differences between the Cuban and the Italian health systems. It makes me think about the enthusiasm I have for the Italian language, the need I feel to listen and to read in Italian, the joy I felt when I found out I had three Italian colleagues in my work place, something I never felt for the English or French languages I learned in school. And it makes me think about Shudong, a colleague from China I met in Modena.
But this book also emphasises the discomfort I feel with my job, a product of the western culture that nowadays seems to me brutal in several senses. Brutal because there is lots of competition going on, to the point that it feels that the ego is the driving force for many scientists. Brutal because it exploits nature without limits. Brutal because many scientist arrive to a new work place, in a new country, and are expected to work efficiently without anyone asking about their stories, their past, their culture, their family.
And that is part of the reason why the movie "Visage, Villages" felt so good. The movie is directed by Agnès Varda and JR. They travel in the French country side and look at people, talk to people, common people, workers, men, women, take their pictures and place them on walls, in huge sizes. And people react to this, feel moved, cry, because they realize someone took notice of them, listened to their story, that can be as simple as: "I lived in this house my all life and now I am the last person left in this street".
It also reminded me how much like to take pictures, and how much I like to look at the faces of the persons I portrayed.
Claudia, let me first tell you that you not only comply to "my standards" but you rise them once and again. You have a perspective on the world that I not only admire but I can dialogue with. Second, let me comment on two of your topics that are somehow linked.
ReplyDelete1) These communication disadvantages and cross-cultural differences that you mentioned sometimes hamper the process of delivering specific messages to people but they can also cage our thoughts for a long time -deteriorating them. I believe some thoughts are worth to be outside interacting with other thoughts, growing and being modeled, or simply dying in a rightful duel. And there is little time or not the right audience in the right time, to take out all these thoughts and work them out. Indeed, it takes longer time in a different language and within a different culture; it takes much more patience from the audience, for sure. It is also frustrating and tiresome for us as possible communicators because of our own constant self-criticism of the quality of our discourse. That's why our Ping Pong blog is such a great thing for me: (as output) I can build up some ideas in my own time and take care at picking up the (almost) right words to get them across; (as input) I can ruminate lots of new references/suggestions/impressions, great new thoughts matching or not to my own synapses that I can deconstruct at my pace.
2) I quote you: "Brutal because many scientist arrive to a new work place, in a new country, and are expected to work efficiently without anyone asking about their stories, their past, their culture, their family." I suggest you to watch: "The man who knew infinity", a movie about the famous Indian mathematician Ramanujan that worked under the supervision of Hardy and Littlewood in Cambridge. Actually, forget about 2). This would be the topic of my next post. ;)