THE SHAPE OF THINGS - Borges y Yo y Yo

When I got back to Mexico a few weeks ago after spending two months in the states, I realized something. During the transition from the US to Mexico, or vice versa, I have the habit of lingering for a while in the place I've just left via internet media. It can last for quite some time. And there's something slightly unsettling about this– disorienting– and for a while, I'm not quite sure where I am. It's as if there's an afterimage of one place floating on top of the other. The transporter on the Star Trek mission didn't quite beam me up [Scotty], properly? I'm neither here nor there, but somewhere in between. At times, I feel like a molecular mess.

This particular aspect of the Parallax Universe, or being Everywhere At Once, is as challenging as it is illuminating. Of course, right now it's hard to ignore what's happening in the US, regardless of where on earth you happen to be. So my sense of being here and there at the same time, may be more pronounced than usual. 

But in general, during these transitional phases, it's as though the shape of my life resembles a sphere whose circumference is everywhere and center nowhere; a mirror of the virtual space we experience through the internet– in cyberspace. Is this an example of life imitating technology? It brings a certain amount of angst into the mosaic of my life, and at times feels like an existential, adolescent identity crisis. But it also gives me a sense of freedom, and a broad cultural, experiential scope I like to think is a truer, more realistic, global picture of the world. 

"Truth is so great a thing," wrote Montaigne in his essay Of Experience, "that we must not disdain any medium that will lead us to it...there is no quality so universal as diversity and variety." 

To give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, the day before I left Mexico for New York, I visited the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, http://www.soumaya.com.mx/BoletinesPrensa/PlazaCarso/MSPC_presskit.pdf built by Mexican Billionaire, Carlos Slim to showcase his collection. Though the collection might benefit from some curatorial assistance, the building itself is a dazzler and worth the visit. It's a torqued cube, with a Gehry-esque, metallic, fish-scale skin, designed by Slim's son-in-law who cut his teeth working for Rem Koolhaas. Then, the following day in New York, I saw an exhibition of drawings by Richard Serra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/special/serra_drawing/images.asp , all in black oil stick, monumental silences, transcendent, profound stillness. Later that evening, I attended a lecture at The Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, http://www.spanishinstitute.org/ in celebration of Hudson Review's Spanish Issue– a panel discussion on translation. Most speakers touched upon the topic of the Anglo perception of the Hispanic world, hispanophobia, and the paucity of Spanish language literature translated into English.

That brief span of time was a sort of hypertext experience, where one thing linked, and opened up to another like Jorge Luis Borges' weirdly prescient vision of digital media and the internet in his story The Garden of Forking Paths, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths where he envisions "a labyrinth that folds back upon itself" ad infinitum and asks the reader to "become aware of all the possible choices we might make." All this suggests a way of seeing, an expansive, dynamic perception. And it's not just Borges' vision. Recent comment from a long-lost, high-school friend found through Facebook, cited James Joyce's Ulysses and Bloom's preoccupation with all things scientific including the parallax effect; a mind that perceives objects (phenomena) from at least two points of view. In this case the object is the self– the writer– and hopefully the reader too. 

-PHA

EVERYWHERE AT ONCE

The other day, I received an abundance of happy birthday wishes via Face Book from friends all over the world. Though I've heard criticism regarding the limitations of social networking– a weak replacement for actual social interaction that may further estrange us from fellow members of our species– I felt embraced, deeply moved, happy. Talk about warm and fuzzy. What a wonderful gift, FB. I'll leave discussion of the phenomenological relationship between virtual communication and actual human emotional response (feeling) to someone with a bigger brain (leave discussion of the relationship between feeling and thinking to the BB too). But my Face Book birthday party, and the feelings aroused, got me thinking.

After the party, the phrase: "A sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere," sprang to mind. I recalled when I first heard that, a very long time ago, I dismissed it as a seemingly profound statement concealing absolute hokum. I'd also seen it written a few ways with "God," "Infinity," and "Nature," inserted at the beginning, and took it to be a metaphor about a numinous presence. Agnosticism prevented me from giving it any further thought, and I buried it alongside quandaries about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.    

Of course, like many things we burry, it came back to haunt me. Most recently, and ironically, in relationship to the internet and the social networking experiences I've had with sites like Face Book. Ironic in that that phrase, an idea regarding a sphere as a metaphor about a conception of god, infinity, or nature is a good definition, or description of cyberspace and the World Wide Web. 

The internet is a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. And to further complicate issues, the inverse of this statement also seems to work: The internet is a sphere whose circumference is everywhere and center nowhere.

Have I gone off, or is there something remarkable about the fact that this ancient concept is perfectly applicable as a description for cutting edge technology? I dug a little deeper, and my superficial research unearthed a millennia old attribution to Hermes Trismagistus, the legendary Egyptian associated with the third century Corpus Hermeticum, and various other esoteric and mystical ideologies. A few more clicks cited Plotonis (c. 204-270 C.E.), the first proponent of Neoplatonism; another click, 12th century French theologian, Alain de Lille, then Pascal, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Emerson, and Jorge Luis Borges. There's something lapidary, and eternal about this that smacks of truth.

As I write (and realize I risk sounding delusional saying this), I wonder if when posting a blog I'm a kind of "center," like many of us doing the same thing all over the planet– everywhere– within a sphere whose circumference is nowhere really, but in cyberspace. That we can now comprehend, and exist within that sphere which had for thousands of years been used as a metaphor to describe god, gives pause for thought. Does this indicate a perceptual leap, a shift in cognition? A different way of seeing? Far beyond the simple binary optics of a Parallax View, I'm thinking about JL Borge's short story titled, The Aleph, "one of the points in space that contain all points."

Is it time to devise a new metaphor for god? 

CITIZEN OF THE WORLD

Citizen of the World (cosmopolitan)

cosmopolitan |ˌkäzməˈpälitn|

adjective

familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures : his knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish made him genuinely cosmopolitan.

• including people from many different countries 

The OAD lists Cosmopolitanism as a noun form of the word, and I'm not talking about the results of having one too many tasty cocktails. And though the definition cited is adequate, it fails to plumb the depth of the word's origin which suggests a philosophy, a way of seeing.

There's some debate over who first coined the term cosmopolitan which means: citizen of the world. It's often attributed to Diogenes, the 4th century BCE Greek Cynic, but Socrates expressed the same concept when he said (via Plato) "I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." Roman Stoics like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius also elaborated upon the concept.

Being a "citizen of the world" is probably as close as you can come to comprehending what these guys had in mind which included but was not limited to: balance, compassion, fairness, goodness, reason, self-knowledge, truth (see Ortega y Gasset above), and social responsibility. 

Cosmopolitanism is an outlook, a state of mind (or geography of mind), as well as a moral compass. In today's hyper-marketed, product-driven culture, you might say it's also a lifestyle thing. More precisely: how to live. And perhaps out of all the precepts bundled together with Cosmopolitanism, one of the most important is self knowledge. "Know Thyself" (γνῶθι σεαυτόν, gnōthi seauton ) was inscribed above the doorway of the temple of Apollo at Delphi where the oracle used to hang out.

It's curious that by knowing something specific –ourselves– we might come to understand something in general about the world. In his book Self Comes to Mind, the neurologist Antonio Damasio suggests that awareness of what he terms the "autobiographic self" may be the highest form of human consciousness.

Self knowledge is about thinking about why we think the way we think. And Kundera might have added self knowledge as an antidote to provincialism, rephrased: self knowledge allows the observer to embrace the large context of world, gives them the ability to see themselves, and their own culture in the large context.

Critics of cosmopolitanism suggest it's an outlook only the rich and privileged are entitled to– people who have the means to jet about the the globe. While in some cases that might help, money, and globe trotting doesn't a citizen of the world make. Think of all the members of the US Congress and Senate, with their multi-millions in campaign contributions who don't own passports. They hold onto their provincialism as if it were a badge of honor. But this sort of blindness, and head-in-the-sand posture is less and less plausible in relationship to the internet, internationalism, the global economy and a world wide view. 

Cosmopolitanism is a metaphor about a way of thinking, a way of seeing. It's global in perspective and views social responsibility, and concern for the whole human community as the fundamental idea of morality. The point isn't to make other people think just like we think, but to accept and embrace the fact that different people live in different ways and have a right to express their point of view. A Citizen of the World sees why tolerance, inclusiveness, cross-cultural communication and unity in diversity are of the utmost importance; that free human beings will choose to live in different ways and be able to express themselves, freely.

–PHA

A BROADER VIEW

provincialism |prəˈvin ch əˌlizəm|

noun

1 the way of life or mode of thought characteristic of the regions outside the capital city of a country, esp. when regarded as unsophisticated or narrow-minded.

• narrow-mindedness, insularity, or lack of sophistication -O.A.D.

The Oxford American Dictionary is a good place to start, but I recalled an article by Milan Kundera in The New Yorker published a few years ago where he discussed provincialism. But I couldn't figure out how to put my hands on it. Funny, I was thinking pre-internet– thinking provincially– then with a few words and a few clicks, I had access to the piece. The internet is an extraordinary tool, an antidote to provincialism. It gives us instant access to a world wide view.

Now I realize the reason I liked the Kundera essay, which addressed provincialism in relationship to world literature was because, in addition to geographic considerations, he discussed perception, and point of view– a geography of mind, seeing if you will. 

Geographic distance allows the observer to embrace the large context of world literature. Provincialism is the inability to see one's own culture in the large context. M.K.

Kundera's provincialism is a state of mind; the inability (resistance) to see a larger context beyond one's immediate world. And it's entirely possible, often the case, to be a provincial living in New York City, Paris, London, or DF Mexico.

A shift in geographic distance allows a broader perspective; something that happens by default when you move from one country, one culture, one language, to another. But it doesn't guarantee that you'll see– embrace– the larger context of the world, and how your culture fits into that mosaic. 

The parallax view, whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, is another way of thinking about the same thing. And I can tell you from my own experience, this phenomenon, the process of shifting from one culture to another is no easy thing. It hurts in a way, because you're forced to deconstruct, to "see" all those assumptions about your values, culture, and identity– about yourself– that you thought you'd somehow crafted, then realize in fact you've merely received. 

Then there's the problem of teetering between one culture and another, or maybe getting stuck somewhere in the middle. Even if it were possible, I don't think the solution, if in fact this is a problem, is to assimilate completely, and adapt to the "other" culture at the expense or annihilation of your own cultural identity. Though that was the common practice in the 20th century, the ticket price for becoming an Ahmurcun as George Bush might have said. 

But the opposite may also occur; an intractable provincialism sets in. A ghetto mentality is cast in stone. This may in part explain the scourge of religious fundamentalism in relationship to the expansion of globalism. Or, on a more local level, what I've seen here in San Miguel within the US ex-pat community. Some people seem to cling to their cultural memes more fiercely abroad than they might on home turf. They become more indelible versions, caricatures of same. They live in gated communities, never learn a word of Spanish, and only associate with others exactly like themselves. They reside in a suburban bubble.

I think that's the sort of thing Somerset Maugham had in mind when he wrote, "like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind." Maybe the point, my point– The Parallax View– is about embracing both perspectives at the same time, seeing the larger context, a whole greater than the sum of parts.

WHAT'S ANGLO-IBERO

7/14/11

taxonomy |takˈsänəmē|

noun chiefly Biology

the branch of science concerned with classification, esp. of organisms; systematics.

Why is it I'm annoyed every time I hear or read the word Hispanic? It gets my hackles up a bit. Maybe because it's often misused as code for other, or "non-white" a category for the census bureau, and affirmative action committee. Is this topic too broad for a blog entry? Yes.

In high school biology we learned about classification –taxonomy– of plants and animals? The mnemonic: King philip came over for green stamps, helped us remember: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. It took seven variables to peg a turtle, or tuft of moss. Why when discussing various human cultures and ethnicity does everything suddenly becomes binary; black/ white, anglo/hipanic.

What's Anglo-Ibero? Or for that matter, what's an Hispanic, a Latino, and what exactly, an Anglo? Everybody's sick to death of this crap, frustrated, confused by almost daily shifts in taxonomy, nomenclature– labels. Which term is the politically correct flavor of the week? Is this what's meant by Identity Politics?  

I was delighted, when on this past 4th of July I read a headline for a New York Times article: "Hispanics Identifying Themselves as Indians." The tease: "Many Latino immigrants and Hispanic Americans are identifying themselves with their American Indian heritage on census forms and in their celebrations." I thought the article was a timely, patriotic tribute to the first Americans– true Americans.

But it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Mexico that Americans are identifying with their American Indian heritage. It's estimated over 80% of the population in Mexico is an ethnic mix, or mixta– indigenous American Indian (i.e. Maya, Azteca, Tolteca, Olmeca, Chichimeca, Otomi, etcetera), and Hispanic (i.e. speak Spanish and have some genetic material from Spain, as well as other European countries, the UK and Africa).

While the terms Anglo and Hispanic may be useful in identifying language, they're limited in terms of describing culture and ethnicity, oversimplifications at best, at worst, racist.

Ibero [Latin] America extends from the southern states along the US border (i.e. Florida, Texas, Arizona, California– all Spanish place names) to the tip of Tierra del Fuego, and includes much of the Caribbean.  But to label all human inhabitants in that vast region Hispanic, or Latino is to deny the extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity which is, well, as diverse as it is in the USA. Where exactly is Anglo America? Is president Obama an Anglo? 

By the way, I consider myself Anglo-Ibero.

-Philip Heckel Alvaré

MEXICO IS DANGEROUS

I should have my head examined, because despite the fact I was recently warned that Mexico City is a dangerous place, I flew into DF anyway (Distrito Federal, Mexico City) and spent a couple days in the city, just as I have many times before. I stay in a wonderful B&B located in the leafy, park and fountain laced Colonia Condesa, that was once a hippodrome or horse racing track, and later became a residential area renowned for its Art Deco, and International Style architecture. Think Luis Barragan. I love Mexico City. 

This wasn't the first warning I'd received about the dangers of DF, and I'm sure it won't be the last. And according to authorities, it's not just DF that's dangerous, but apparently all of Mexico. Yet, I continue to go back and forth between NYC and DF, same as ever. And I've begun to feel at home wandering the colonia, frequenting certain cafes and book stores, and watching children play around a fountain in Parque España. 

The Mexico City I know must be very different from the one I've been warned about many times. It never fails. Usually just before I go, some well wishing US/Anglo• lectures me about the perils of Mexico– mainly beheadings. Invariably, I ask the well wisher if they've ever been to Mexico, and the reply, nine times out of ten is, "No." This is usually followed by a pause, my silence, then eventually it dawns upon the "Mexico Expert" that their credibility may be at stake, which is inevitably followed by, "But I just read it in the news!" Hmmnnnn.

Let's just say all news– print, television, radio, and internet– is accurate and true. For the time being, set aside what W.R. Hearst said,"You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." And don't be asking questions about the integrity of the press. Don't mention the name Rupert Murdoch. There is no such thing as distortion or media propaganda. Hello? 

One night during my last stint in the states, while visiting my father in Suburban Philadelphia, I heard a story on the evening news about a gunman in West Philadelphia who entered a disco and randomly gunned downed seven people. Also, while I was there, stories about the Long Island Killer kept popping up as frequently as corpses. And I recall reading about six police officers gunned down in the line of duty (an isolated incident was what the writer said) somewhere in Miami. And you know what? I started feeling more afraid while I was in the US, than I am now, here, back in Mexico. I kept wondering when some psychotic on a random killing spree might plant a bullet in the back of my skull while I wasn't looking.

Hey, I'm not saying parts of Mexico aren't dangerous, especially where the drug wars are raging around the US/Mexican border. The horrors, and death toll– consequences and collateral damage from the war on drugs is real. And it's a US problem as much as it is (if not more so), a Mexican problem. But the vast majority of those crimes, and casualties are directly related to people implicated in drug traffic. Not random killings. 

You know what? My mother always told me the world was a dangerous place. Is it really possible the US is safe, safer than Mexico, statistically– per capita? Odd, the lion's share of the demand for drug product is in the US. And that the guns and ammo are sold by US dealers. Yet crime, violence, and murders related to drug trafficking seem to mysteriously vanish (at least as far as media coverage is concerned) once it crosses the border. Hello, again? 

-PHA

* Coming up: A question of Taxonomy - The Anglo/Hispanic conundrum

POINT OF VIEW

MYOPIA:

A few days before I was about to leave Hudson, New York for San Miguel de Allende, Mexico a friend mentioned an essay by Roland Barthes titled, The Eiffel Tower. Then she asked, "Do you know from where in Paris you CAN NOT see the Eiffel Tower?" "Um, um." I was a little harried, and replied, "I give up." To which she responded, " When you're inside the Eiffel Tower."

It's been ages since I read that essay, one of probably several thousand required when I was immersed in reading about Semiotics at the Annenberg School at Penn. And though I don't think Barthes had in mind quite what I had in mind when I was waiting on line at JFK, first for check-in, then after schlepping my luggage across the concourse to another line, and another hour's wait, something sprang to mind.

I wonder, is it possible to see what the US looks like when you're "inside" it? Can we see what everyone else on the planet sees? I doubt it. My point of view has shifted, and sometimes I'm not quite sure exactly what it is I'm looking at, what I'm seeing. But I know this, the longer you live outside the US, as a US citizen, an ex-pat, the more you begin to see the shape of the culture that rises like a tower in the middle of North America between Canada and Mexico. I suppose it's all a question of point of view, of perspective.
–PHA