Latest / Carne Cruda Podcast / Derroteros: La Paradoja, con Santiago Alba Rico (CARNE CRUDA EXTRA)

Transcript

Derroteros: La Paradoja, con Santiago Alba Rico (CARNE CRUDA EXTRA) · Carne Cruda Podcast

0:05
Goodbye goes equally course. Tender it well, road in the middle direction taken
0:12
to reach the proposed end set of data that indicate the way to reach a
0:17
place that we do not go, direction that is given in writing to Maria
0:24
Díaz German of the book that contains a defeat then a line marked on the
0:28
map of tides to guide the pilots course leave otel courses two think walking with
0:43
Santiago alba Rico. Few things can give me more pleasure than these meditative walks
0:50
with Santiago. How you doing, good morning. Javier you know that it
0:55
is reciprocal and I also wait impatiently This day of the week and this moment
1:00
we have already reached the letter p of the alphabet through which we are thinking
1:04
what words chosen to reflect is that it is a super populated letter of words.
1:11
In fact, I think it' s the lyrics that start most of
1:15
the words in Spanish. I mean, I mean that letter that, with
1:23
respect to the others, gives rise to more words in Spanish. And I
1:29
have had many difficulties because I very much like the word piroueta or penguin or
1:34
partisan or pa mi papilla pabulo, notice, paladín, pertinaz pamphilo, which
1:41
is a beautiful word, a wonderful insult, full of tenderness, palindrome or
1:48
bread or fish but in the end notice. I' m left with a
1:51
paradox, because I think we live in a world full of paradoxes and it
1:57
' s not bad that we wander some of them after explaining a little bit
2:01
what' s a paradox? If we know it' s a paradox,
2:05
we' re not going to explain where it comes from. Of course,
2:07
this comes from Latin, which in turn comes from Greek. Paradoxa, doxa
2:12
in Greek. I wanted to say an opinion and it was rather the common
2:14
view, the opinion, the shared opinion. Let' s say something like
2:19
common sense in the face of the episteme that was science and for everything there
2:24
is this proposition so that it means next to or, together with or against,
2:30
against common opinion, would come to do what it wants, what it
2:35
wants, what it means and vulgarly is perhaps this the sense we give it.
2:39
It is something that is counter- intuitive that suddenly turns to common truths.
2:46
But, as you know, the paradox is the opposite of a sophism.
2:52
It' s not necessarily false. Rather, what it does is erode
2:58
common beliefs or evidence. And that' s why the paradox has been worked
3:06
hard from the beginning by philosophy, but falling down by physics and mathematics.
3:10
It' s all those arguments that somehow lead to a bereavement. Another nice
3:16
Greek word means that you have to say dead end that they put you in
3:22
a loop that you can' t get out of. Of course, because
3:24
a paradox, in the end, appears a contradiction in itself, something that
3:29
is nullified in its terms, although at the same time it illuminates another truth
3:34
Exactly. I think that' s how nice we' re going to see.
3:36
In any case, there are very famous paradoxes in the history of humanity
3:39
which, moreover, were at the same time, in some way, formulated
3:45
by Chinese civilization and Greek civilization. They are those that we know as the
3:50
paradoxes of Zenon that, in defense of the philosopher Parmenides, because they called
3:57
into question the movement, the idea of movement. I remember, we even
4:01
want to think we' ve ever talked about this famous paradox here, which
4:06
is the history of achilles and the turtle. Idea that if the turtle,
4:11
the race with aquiles starts with a few meters of advantage, in reality,
4:15
here will never reach them and much less to overcome the turtle, because well,
4:23
the turtle will always advance a little and when it arrives to that point
4:28
where the turtle was at the time of departure, here you will have to
4:33
travel what still remains and so on to infinitum. Well, because the infinite
4:41
divisibility of space makes it necessary for you here to travel half of those hundred
4:46
meters and half? Half? And half? And half? And half?
4:49
And since space is infinitely divisible, it would never reach the turtle. You
4:59
know the paradoxes, because they also applied while it was the paradox of the
5:03
arrow, that arrow that could not be moved and neither could be in the
5:09
air, because, ultimately, the moments would have to be darkened, so
5:15
that it would always have to be located in an impossible enough instant that it
5:20
would no longer be him. And, therefore, through these paradoxes, I
5:24
questioned the concepts of space and time. I just realized that Kenon, without
5:31
knowing it, anticipated quantum theory, of course, and of those who have
5:38
exploited the paradoxes of Zenon the most, that all physicists, philosophers and mathematicians
5:46
then tried to refute what the paradoxes of cerloneo do. In any case,
5:51
it is not to prove that the movement does not exist. It is proving
5:57
that the movement cannot prove anything, as Diogenes did, rising up where he
6:03
was sitting and walking. Our courses prove factually that the paradoxes of Zenon are
6:14
not true. But the paradoxes of Zenon do show that the movement can only
6:19
be demonstrated by walking, as the proverb and other paradoxes say. We are
6:26
already there, but you will remember very well the paradox of the liar.
6:30
This paradox that I tell you as Borges sums it up says burges democritus,
6:35
swears that the Abderitans are liars. The Ateritans were the inhabitants of abdera the
6:42
birthplace of democritus, but it turns out that all abdevitanos are liars. The
6:50
claim that all appderitans are liars, enunciated by an abderitan, can only be
7:00
true at the same time. And democritus is lying to us because he'
7:04
s abderitan and he' s a liar. But at the same time,
7:09
how do we make it possible for that lie to correspond to the truth it
7:16
announces. So democrites abderitans then democritus lies then, it' s not true
7:21
that the arteritans are liars, then democritus lies and so on to the end
7:30
and notice. There is a very beautiful paradox that enunciates Borges himself was very
7:34
fond, you know him to explore the infinite idea, tales, paradoxes and,
7:40
in fact, and he himself announced a paragua that will amuse you a
7:43
lot, Javier, if you do not know, and the listeners, it
7:46
is also that of the examiner sorcerer. Don' t imagine a few oppositions
7:51
to Witch, that is, a guess guess in which one of the questions
7:57
is to ask the candidate the question more to test or you' re going
8:03
to suspend the test. Imagine that the candidate replies that he will suspend the
8:07
exam and that, in fact, he will suspend the exam. If you
8:13
stop the test, you cannot stop the test, because you have proved to
8:18
be a good fortune teller. He has anticipated the test result, but he
8:22
cannot pass the test because he is a good fortuneteller, because in that case
8:28
he would cease to be a good fortuneteller to the extent that he had not
8:33
anticipated the test result well and had not answered the question well anyway, which
8:37
is a very funny paradox, which is actually a variation from that of the
8:43
liar. And then we have, I think, paradoxes that have to do
8:48
with whether over time and that are more of an anthropological or metaphysical or philosophical
8:56
character and also, as we say, as I would say, more psychological,
9:01
that have to do with the experience that we all have. This idea,
9:03
for example, that the present is the only thing that there is a
9:09
claim that many philosophers have had to history, because I don' t know
9:15
Schopenhauer says no one has lived in the past no one will live in the
9:18
future. The present is the way of all life that no one says.
9:24
You can take us away, but that' s true. It is true
9:28
that in the past no one lives, in the future no one lives either.
9:30
But we are really in the present. Not if you remember that when
9:33
we talked about clocks, I spoke precisely of this translation that in a beautiful
9:43
aphorism made by Juan de Mairena, the heteronym of Antonio Machado, of the
9:50
paradoxes of Zenon on space, on the scope of time and said that,
9:54
convinced of the brevity of his days, the human being thinks that he could
10:01
lengthen them by the infinitethial way and that the infinite divisibility of space applied at
10:07
the same time would open a gap through which to glimpse eternity. Rather,
10:11
what we have done has been to speed up the present. Accelerating the present
10:15
through precisely the clocks, starting from the attempt to count more and more carefully
10:24
time. I think the present is unviviable, because if you stop to live
10:31
it, it' s already happened. It' s past. As soon
10:35
as you pay attention to the present, that is already past. Ernest Junger,
10:39
in a beautiful book called the Arena Clock, which we also quoted from
10:43
that old course, spoke of a clock in a square in Germany that when
10:50
you looked at it, I was telling you had a sign that said,
10:54
" Oh you walking around looking at me" Are you wasting your time watching
10:58
the clock, are you wasting your time the one you consult at the time?
11:01
She' s wasting her time, but if you don' t lose
11:07
her looking at her now, you actually lose her living because you never pay
11:13
enough attention to the immediate, to the synchronous. And this is another paradox
11:15
that has to do with this perception of time, which we also talked about
11:20
in some ways, when in the context of the pandemic, we talked about
11:24
how our perception of time had been distorted. And that in a formula for
11:30
me masterly, my mother- in- law, who is ninety- three
11:33
years old, is a very lucid woman, still very active, but whose
11:39
strength dwindles and declines. It sums up very well in a sentence he told
11:43
me a few months ago. He told me how long the afternoons are,
11:48
how short the years are, which is a great paradox that I think from
11:52
a certain age it becomes reality. And then there is the paradox of death,
11:58
clear paradox that Picuro enunciated, pretending to reassure the human beings that we
12:07
live always afraid of the possible imminence of death or the inibertability of death,
12:13
that what he said fear nothing, because if she is, you are not.
12:18
And you are, she is not. He remembers at the end of
12:22
Ivan Ilich' s death, that novel by Tolstons a short, novel by
12:28
Tolstoy, whose character is a hypochondriac who keeps thinking about death, who finally
12:31
falls ill and whose last sentence is that of what relief. It' s
12:39
no longer right at the moment when the one who loses his life. But
12:43
the paradox of death has been expressed poetically a lot, especially by Christian mystics
12:48
in a very beautiful one. There is a poem that I love about the
12:54
director Escribao a very unknown Valencian poet from the early 9th century, which is
13:01
that I do not know if he knows him, but I swear that no,
13:05
because I have never read him, because look he says see death so
13:09
hidden that he does not sit with me, because the joy of you does
13:15
not give me again. Life goes on. But the important thing is this
13:18
idea to the point desires death, which is afraid that when death is presented
13:22
it will bring such joy that it recovers life or the desire to live.
13:28
And that poem, in fact, is a preview of one that you do
13:31
know and know all and know all our listeners, that is of Saint Theresa
13:37
of Jesus, who gives himself alive without living. You don' t remember
13:41
me or because I can' t do that and so high life. I
13:45
hope I die because I don' t die. Look, love is a
13:48
strong life Don' t be annoying to me. Look, I' m
13:52
only left to win you lose Come on, sweet. Death dying Come light
13:58
I die because I don' t die. It is a paradox wonderfully expressed
14:05
in the poetry of Saint Theresa. Let me return a moment to that paradox
14:09
of time that brings me back to quantum physics, because it reminded me of
14:13
Heisenberg' s uncertainty principle, which says that you cannot know the position of
14:18
a particle because by measuring it you are altering it, that you cannot know
14:24
any phenomenon because the measurement itself modifies the position conditions. He can' t
14:31
know where a particle is, because by measuring it he moves it exactly and
14:35
thinks about Schroding' s cat. That' s it. We can'
14:39
t know if he' s alive or dead. That' s would be
14:43
the same you at the same time would be somehow dead alive. It'
14:45
s you who decides whether the cat is alive or dead. Yeah, somehow,
14:50
quantum mechanics, quantum physics. In fact, you have found a world
14:56
in which these paradoxes are reality. The reality itself, of course, and
15:01
that generated a lot of concern for all physicists, including Einstein himself, who
15:05
could not understand that reality had that paradoxical complexity, because until then the systems
15:11
let us say that they had explained in a rational way without contradictions, and
15:16
arriving at a system that explained the universe in this paradoxical way, generates a
15:24
lot of anxiety, a lot of uneasiness, as well explained in his book
15:28
La Batut. I do not believe that it explains very well what quantum mechanics
15:31
means in the framework of the science of the century, of the twentieth century
15:37
in the book of a terrible greenery, the first in a greenery frees you,
15:39
then mania that maniac explains it a better. Benjamin Labatute is a highly
15:45
recommended book to understand above all this resazon that from physics is transferred to all
15:50
humans. Hey, by the way, and who' s the paradoxical writer.
15:52
By excellence man, for I would say that you will certainly agree with
15:56
me my call Chester ah clearly is a person who works from paradoxes notice.
16:04
I remember some logic is crazy. Crazy, he' s not the man
16:10
who' s lost his mind. He' s the man who' s
16:12
lost everything but reason. And it is true because, in reality, only
16:18
the truly insane, for example, the conspiranoic, and only those who carry
16:23
logic to the extreme, live in a world without judgment, in a world
16:32
in which everything is accurate and, therefore, everything is besanic and irrational.
16:37
Or, for example, this thing that I like so much in Orthodoxy,
16:40
when it explains that Christianity saved us from spirituality, Christianity that he clearly defends
16:45
is a Christianity that, compared to the Greeks, would be much more pagan
16:48
than the world of Greece and would be full of flesh, skins, bonds,
16:53
food and life. One that finds me I really like this one of
16:57
tradition is the democracy of the dead, which is actually turning the phrase around
17:02
that demars in which Mars says that tradition is the weight of dead generations.
17:08
And Chesterdon insists on this idea of what democracy is. It' s about
17:15
trusting a good man, even if he' s poor, and why don
17:21
' t we trust a good man for the fact that he' s dead,
17:25
for the fact that he' s my father, for the fact that
17:26
he' s my grandfather. A nice way to approach tradition. Or when
17:30
he talks about Dickens, no, Chesterton says this about Dickens tried hard to
17:36
climb up to the lower classes. And this is linked to the denunciation of
17:41
the contempt felt by many writers cultured by Dickens and says that Dickens' novels
17:49
are so flat that even exquisite scholars can understand them. Or that says so
17:55
nice that all the new ideas are in the old books. And one that
18:02
I like very much that we talked about right away, that says dreams something
18:07
crazy, Dreams that the grass is green has thousands when it speaks against Nitzche.
18:14
And what it shows is that, in reality, Nitche' s followers,
18:17
the superman model, find him. That model says of its absolute mission
18:22
in the face of violence and pride Varonil will always find it in the pink
18:26
novel. And this of sharing Nitche in a writer of pink novel is of
18:30
audacity and a phenomenal intelligence. In the end, his method consists of something
18:34
like turning things around, precisely to see if on the back they hide a
18:40
truth exactly that and that' s why Dickens insists a lot that he doesn
18:48
' t just want to draw attention. It seems to him, for example,
18:51
there are people like Bernard South or friend or Oscar Wire who admire and
18:56
respect that they have sought above all to attract attention. When Oscar Wil said,
19:04
I can resist everything, except the temptation, well, that' s
19:08
a way, in fact, to draw attention. But he says paradoxes have
19:12
nothing to do with it. He says rather that paradoxes have to do with
19:18
this, with turning around an accepted truth to see if the truth is not
19:26
really hidden from the other side. So, well, when he puts examples
19:34
of paradoxes he' s not going to follow, he talks about a character
19:38
who' s Mr Pont, who' s the detective officer he dedicates to
19:45
replacing Father Brown and in the last period of his life, because he clearly
19:52
says there was nothing to see. Everyone got drunk right away, or as
19:57
his legs were missing, he won the marathon without dicussion. He does not
20:02
want to follow those concrete paradoxes, but he sets them as an example of
20:07
where a paradox should arise, of totally reversing elementary intuition and looking. There
20:12
is a Chesterton paradox that I have quoted many times and that has a political
20:18
reading that in these particularly instructive days, that one that says that the bad
20:23
thing about a fight is that it ends a discussion when two know, because
20:30
they stop arguing. And war is the opposite of conflict, rather, conflict
20:34
is the opposite of war. Conflict, debate, controversy are the opposite of
20:40
war. And while there is conflict, there is controversy and there is debate,
20:44
there is no war. And that is why we should formulate democracy as
20:47
we formulate it. A true democracy does not consist in consensus or the unanimous
20:52
Communion of souls. It is precisely to keep the conflict open without a solution.
21:03
And in these Pont novels, by Pont' s detective officer, there
21:08
' s a story called when doctors agree and it starts with Mr. Pong
21:15
enunciating before the scandal of his interlocutors. This paradox says I once met two
21:19
men who came to agree so completely that logically, one killed the other.
21:29
And logically, why then in history has there been a murder of a man,
21:33
that a particularly evil Presbyterian preacher and whose death defends a doctor whose name
21:44
is Campbel who keeps arguing with his favorite disciple, who is called Angus.
21:49
The whole story is a discussion about whether or not it' s justified to
21:56
kill someone who' s done a lot of wrong in the world and what
22:02
happens that eventually Campbell convinces Angus. Angus has resisted accepting Campbell was right and
22:07
finally says yes, Look, you' ve convinced me it' s legitimate
22:14
to kill someone who brings evil into the world. And, following your argument,
22:21
I have no choice but to kill myself. They had set out to
22:25
kill you for forgiveness. They had finally agreed on the legitimacy of killing someone
22:30
who introduced evil into the world and, therefore, Campbell, who had killed
22:34
the preacher, as he now receives death for the same reasons. And I
22:42
think it' s important to remember that disagreement doesn' t necessarily lead to
22:49
violence, but rather almost the opposite, that it' s violence to what
22:56
happens when everyone agrees that only rapes it can resolve a conflict, resolve a
23:02
struggle. That has a lot to do with the political paradoxes of our day,
23:11
which we have talked about at other times. The same thing you just
23:14
said you said on some other course. Of course, look, you,
23:18
I don' t think what the political paradoxes of today are, because look
23:22
at one that the only alleged democracy in the Middle East is committing genocide,
23:29
another that Western democracies are supporting Israel in this genocide and, instead, many
23:36
dictatorships in the world, from Iran to Nicaragua, from Syria to Russia or
23:41
China, are at least formally supporting Palestine, with the damage that that does
23:48
to the international legal framework and to the very legitimacy of democracies, of Western
23:53
democracies. But look at yourself in terms of the systemic system of capitalism.
24:00
How strange it is that paradoxical of the more we work, the less money,
24:07
the less money we have and our free time is in less quality.
24:11
The more general wealth there is the more inequality, the more science advances,
24:18
the more difficult it is to cure curable diseases, while, however, a
24:26
whole series of drugs against hypertension or against agnet arise, capitalism is a very
24:33
destructive paradox that generates both wealth and inequality and, in this case, also
24:40
generates erosion and destruction of the very framework of the survival of planetary boundaries.
24:48
And, therefore, the paradox is that the better we live, the more
24:53
our life time is reduced. As a species, another was empressed if I
25:00
am another pay paradox that in any case forces to answer another paradox. And
25:03
it is because all citizens, and especially the disadvantaged classes, vote against their
25:10
interests. Of course and I believe that this is a question that we have
25:12
not been able to resolve from the left and to which we always respond with
25:18
a little sufficiency, pontificalness and class contempt paradoxically also because it is always to
25:26
think that the disadvantaged classes move only for economic interest and that then, it
25:36
would be enough for them to realize, after a masterful lesson, that they
25:41
are operating against their economic interests in order for the world to be transformed looks.
25:45
These days I am, for other reasons, reading about the Golden Century.
25:48
I' m reading the Quijote, rereading picaresque novel or books about the
25:53
Golden Century. And one thing that strikes me and I think is a constant
25:56
in history, is the fact that anti- Semitism in Spain was above all
26:03
a movement of plebeian classes, of chests, of underprivileged classes, one thing
26:11
that explains very well done this great French Hispanist historian dead and a few years
26:18
ago, when he speaks brilliantly of 17th century Spain that says that the concern
26:22
for the purity of blood is of origin, plebeian because it represented in some
26:29
way the nobility of those who were not noble, they said at least we
26:34
are old Christians. And this has to do with the fact, with a
26:41
context in which there were only two social classes, if you want and were
26:47
the nobles and rogues, because after the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors,
26:55
let us say that there was a great contempt for everything that was work
27:00
and, of course, trade, so that the dreams of the poorest were
27:04
simply to have a status as noble but not because the nobility was accompanied by
27:12
power and wealth. Think of don quijote. Don quijote is a very small
27:18
man. Start the quijote by making an inventory of its properties, what it
27:25
eats and what you saw. He' s a guy who lives on the
27:29
edge or thinks of that gentleman, that hidalgo, who' s served by
27:33
the lazarillo, who doesn' t have a nail, who hangs the jacket
27:37
in the house and who has to feed the lazarillo for food. Because,
27:42
in any case, what is appreciated in a nobleman is that it is not
27:47
that I do not work, it is that he is obliged not to work.
27:49
And next to that is the other world, the hereafter in which the
27:56
poor and rich finally share destiny. And what are the three scams of the
28:03
time the most exploited by the trilleros of the time, for look at the
28:08
fake blood certificates, the false bulls that were sold to discount days of purgatory
28:15
and that bought the poor and this ambition to be noble, even if you
28:25
had neither power nor wealth or at least, to serve a noble. And
28:29
I thought all this because in these days I have also seen by chance,
28:33
some videos of this man, of this already two who have to sing apart
28:38
from the World Youth, of this disassociated youth, of this youth, who
28:45
does not want to be Lowser, who does not want to be a loser
28:48
and who has put his life in the hands of a fraudster, of a
28:56
fraudster who charges a thousand euros for a master' s degree and whose teachings
29:02
many people have become, as I have read in statements from Internet users.
29:03
After watching that video, in which this guy on his right has a person
29:11
who drinks a coffee with one heart to the other, a person who takes
29:15
a toast and calls them lowser, calls them mileurists, calls them fucking milliurists
29:22
and has gotten that just like in the period of the golden century, a
29:26
lot of people who feel loser and because they have really lost everything, among
29:33
other things, hopes, ends up dreaming, ends up dreaming about being like
29:40
already two, that is cheating them. So, the neoliberal imagination has made
29:49
praiseworthy, the fraud of the entrepreneurship, whose anthropological budget is that we are
29:59
to blame for not having a Lamborghini, we are guilty of not having a
30:03
million, a million euros. And, therefore, there are many people who
30:07
are there where there is no framework of collective organization, who are dreaming of
30:11
being like two already, the question. Then I would say to put an
30:18
end to the paradox, to this paradox and to the question of the paradoxes
30:22
that we are going to extend too much is that Mira have repeated to us
30:26
over and over again and I myself have done it in a period of my
30:30
life, that the transformation of the world, said Marxism, depends on the
30:36
fact that humans stop dreaming. But maybe not. Perhaps what this is about
30:38
is that we dream well, that we dream, as Chesterton tells us,
30:44
that the grass is green, and that is perhaps the groove that we have
30:49
to explore, that of the wise dreams, accompanied obviously by great economic and
30:56
social reforms that facilitate the dream well. But I believe that the transformation of
31:04
the world is impossible if, at the same time as we do not undertake
31:10
economic and social measures, we do not provide an imaginary, a framework in
31:15
which we can have better dreams, of course because the dreams that, in
31:18
the end, at times of capitalism, are their own dreams. In fact,
31:19
two already represent him better than anyone. The paradox reproducing itself as eternal,
31:26
that is, losers from whom the system has taken everything and who dream
31:30
of winning in reality in a system in which they can only lose, exactly
31:36
that, then, just like the dream