A miséria da programação TV

Já sei, estamos na silly season, como se este país tivesse taramanhos para se permitir luxos de paranças e papos para o ar, francamente, e aqui estou eu, a ver George Steiner na SIC de madrugada, num programa extraordinário que a mesma Sic passou há três anos (segundo um blogue), e a quem dá os mesmíssimos tratos de polé desta vez:

OF BEAUTY AND CONSOLATION

Henk Hogeboom van Buggenum

Programme on Dutch TV (VPRO), from 2nd January - 1st July 2000, Presented by Wim Kayzer. A series of 26 talks with 26 eminent people from various walks of life: artists, scientists, musicians, and philosophers.

Participants (in alphabetical order):

Karel Appel, painter; Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist and director; Catherine Bott, soprano;

John Coetzee, author; Richard Dufallo, director; Freeman Dyson, scientist;

Rudi Fuchs, museum manager; Jane Goodall, author and ethologist;

Stephen Jay Gould, zoologist and paleontologist; Germaine Greer, author;

György Konrád, author; Rutger Kopland, poet and psychiatrist;

Leon Lederman, experimental scientist; Elizabeth Loftus, psychologist;

Gary Lynch, neurophysiologist; Yehudi Menuhin, violinist and director;

Martha Nussbaum, philosopher; Richard Rorty, philosopher; Simon Schama, historian;

Roger Scruton, philosopher; Wole Soyinka, author; George Steiner, author and philosopher;

Tatjana Tolstaja, author; Dubravka Ugresi?, author; Steven Weinberg, scientist;

Edward Witten, scientist and mathematician

On Sunday 9th July most of the above mentioned participants came together in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for a final discussion. Teilhard de Chardin would have loved the event, which was broadcasted. He would have loved to be present in their company and look at the basic theme of the lectures: 'What is it that makes our lives worthwhile?' Indeed, a clash of opinions tends to illuminate consciousness. More and more new aspects of the qualities of 'beauty' and 'consolation' emerged, evoking all kinds of personal associations. It was here that the awareness of the relativity of the personal mind became clear.

Anyone who followed the talks on TV may have been irritated by atheist Wim Kayzer's suggestive remarks, as if religion and God were outdated facts. But on the 9th of July, without his presence, it was moving to hear how the participants, one after the other, confessed to believe in some higher Power as an evolutionary directive in the universe, even in God. In the meanwhile Karel Appel had been silently listening to the intellectual exploration that had been going on, when he suddenly announced "You know, I see myself as a 'painting servant', who 'has the planet in his body; like everybody else. I wait for the inner light to come through, the universal contact, the ineffable. I am there and not there at the same time. Nobody, I have listened to so far knows anything about true consolation. It has nothing to do with ordinary reality. The conclusion of my painting is a spiritual orgasm."

For me this turningpoint in the discussion was a moving moment. The tension in the company was tangible. Not only had somebody aired his deepest emotions, he had done it in English as well, not his native language, making him even more vulnerable. Cary Lynch resolved the situation by declaring that scientists like Edward Witten also proclaim to be waiting for the inner light. Leon Ledernan. who had previously described the course of our evolution as follows: "We arose from miracle after miracle - it is a sacrilege to ask the question 'Is life worthwhile?' He now went on to say: "Pure mathematics leads to an orgasm. But not only maths, I wouldn't be surprised if everybody here around the table has had a similar experience."

Catherine Bott nodded, "I sing religious music, the Messiah, and the musical instruments are not always authentic. I often feign sincerity. But the audience is inspired anyway. As an atheist I really believe that the music heals. The sceptic George Steiner immediately reacted: "There were maybe 11 people on Golgotha, and perhaps 1400 attended the Missa Solemnis, but the cupfinals make 2,5 billion hearts beat faster when the great Maradonna scores a goal. So what is it that makes life worthwhile? Football, of course, soccer!"

Germaine Greer supported him. Then Roger Scruton said, "The Golgotha feeling is permanent, but the 2,5 billion heartbeats have subsided. What needs reconciliation is the heartbreak of 'Paradise Lost'. And this is what happens daily, in religion, in the Eucharist in H. Mass."

Martha Nussbaum sees consolation and hope as coming from the fact that nowadays we can be angry together about the abominations and cruelty all over the wörld. What makes her life worthwhile is her dedication to contributing towards a better world. Literally she said, "Don't look at your own life only, but rather to life itself, and help life everywhere towards more fairness and justice." Though she didn't agree about 'depth in yourself being beyond words'. She found the idea romantic and it could apply to our behaviour too. Jane Goodall agreed: "We can change things, which is everybody's problem and task. Many poor children everywhere in the world have to live without hope. What I did in a school in Shanghay was to have them collect positive articles from newspapers and stick them on the blackboard. Now all schools have their walls plastered with positive messages and Shanghay became the 'City of Hope 2000'."

Wole Soyinka reflected how we go on speaking about terrible situations, whereas at the same time the opposite is true as well. "Is this the beauty of consolation?"

The Dutch philosopher Cornelis Verhoeven had some doubts regarding 'consolation not having been intellectually explored'. He remarks: "The only consolation for pain is when the element of resentment and its stubborn knowledge has been purified away, and harshness is confronted by its own weakness and consequently drowns helplessly. (... ) I sincerely believe that consolation happens at the moment of this turningpoint, the point where stagnation melts and weakens. It is something we cannot bring about by ourselves, but rather the feeling that we face something greater than what we can understand and explain with our rational mind. It could be connected to what has been called in the lectures 'transcendence', often in the context of beauty and aesthetics."

In Gerrit Teule's book 'Chaos en Liefde' (transl. 'Chaos & Love') we read the following about BEAUTY: "The structure and vibrations in our eon-memory resonate with the structures and vibrations we observe outside. This resonance of vibrational patterns and structures (morphic resonance) is what we experienee as 'beauty'. We admire what our own evolutionary spirit has created and constructed throughout eons of time"(p. 192). In a sense the book follows Teilhard's trend of thought where he says, "The human species has experienced all the stages of lower species in the course of evolution. species of a lower consciousness and complexity. During evolutionary process those items that were proven valuable for our advancement, were fixed in our memory." According to nuclear scientist Jean Ernst Charon (1920-...) this memory is stored in electrons. The vast range of our memory - according to his theory - can be explained as a result of the structure of the electron being similar to a black hole that absorbs and regulates all photons of change. Thus the electron is the interface with our spatial/temporal reality. Its counterpart, the black hole, does not recognise space & time in the same sense.

When we assume, together with Teilhard, that our evolution is directed towards 'Omega', the return of our Creator, we may experience our essential purpose in life as BEAUTY. It is the most high aim, wherein aesthetics and ethics converge, come together. Belief in God, the Ineffable, appears to be more alive than ever before.