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Dramatis Personae

Mi foto
Filopolímata y explorador de vidas más poéticas, ha sido traductor, escritor, editor, director de museos, músico, cantante, tenista y bailarín de tango danzando cosmopolita entre las ciencias y las humanidades. Doctor en Filosofía (Spanish and Portuguese, Yale University) y Licenciado y Profesor en Sociología (Universidad de Buenos Aires). Estudió asimismo Literatura Comparada en la Universidad de Puerto Rico y Estudios Portugueses en la Universidad de Lisboa. Vivió también en Brasil y enseñó en universidades de Argentina, Canadá y E.E.U.U.

viernes, 18 de febrero de 2022

Imbecilidad

 Según mis estadísticas (elaboradas luego de años de estudio), la imbecilidad se ha convertido en las últimas décadas en el derecho humano más respetado. Una victoria no menor en el camino hacia un mundo más justo. No olvide ejercer su derecho día a día y respetar el derecho de los demás a serlo. (Ya sé que no necesita que se lo recuerde, pero es una frase publicitaria nomás).

jueves, 10 de febrero de 2022

Chesterton and utopias

 I like utopias. But this is one of the best arguments I have read against them:

"I am not at all fond of regimentation or repression; that is why I have never written a novel about Utopia, as is the case with almost all of the sinful human race who have written anything in our time. Utopia always seems to me to mean regimentation rather than emancipation; repression rather than expansion. It is generally called a Republic and it always is a Monarchy. It is a Monarchy in the old and exact sense of the term; because it is really ruled by one man: the author of the book. He may tell us that all the charactedrs in the book spontaneously delight in the beautiful social condition; but somehow we never believe him. His ideal world is always the world that he wants; and not the world that the world wants. Therefore, however democratic it may be in theory or in the book, it is always pretty despotic when it begins to be approached in practice through the law. The first modern moves towards any Utopian condition are generally as coercive as Prohibition. They are, as I have said, despotic because the whole design is despotic. It is despotic because it is a dream; and a man is always alone in a dream. All that we call Utopia is but the rather evasive and vague expression of the natural, boyish, and romantic sentiment, 'If I were King' ". G. K. Chesterton, from his essay "On Broadcasting"