Luzardo and Barquero: the mirrors of our generation

Reading Doña Bárbara (1929), probably the most acclaimed Venezuelan novel by Rómulo Gallegos, I was touched by a conversation that so vividly portrayed the deep rooted feelings of the Venezuelan spirit. The story takes place in the Venezuelan llanos (or Great Plains): an endless expanse of flat grassland, scorched by the sun in the dry season, and in the wet turned by torrential into fever-ridden swamps and lakes; it is the home of a wild and warlike breed, a racial mixture from Indian, white and black stock, hardened by their savage surroundings and capable of great endurance on horseback. Santos Luzardo (the hero), returns home after years spent in Caracas pursuing his university studies. He has become an urbane man and his ways totally contrast with the wild ways of the llanos. He has a conversation with his elder and only cousin left. His name is Lorenzo Barquero, who also did his studies in Caracas years before, when he was the most promising member of the family; but now he is a drunk, useless and decrepit man living in a tiny, stinking and dirty hut, after losing all his properties to the dangerous woman known as Doña Bárbara. Santos Luzardo is coming back (as his cousin Lorenzo did before him), and is determined to change the savage and semi-barbaric ways of the llanos, with the optimist view of a man of progress. However Lorenzo's state is absolutely disencouraging. Here is part of the conversation between both [the translation is mine]:

Santos: ..."It is necessary to kill the centaur", you said. I, of course, didn't know what a centaur could be and not even could I explain myself why the llaneros carried it inside them... Years after, in Caracas, a handout reached my hands of a speech you had delivered in I don't know what patriotic meeting, and imagine my impression when I found the famous phrase there. Do you remember that speech? The topic was: the centaur is barbarism and, therefore, it must be done with...
Lorenzo: ...Look at me carefully, Santos Luzardo! This specter of a man that was, this human wreck, this carrion that speaks to you, was your ideal. I was that which you said previously, and now I am this that you see. Aren't you afraid, Santos Luzardo?
Santos: Afraid, why?
Lorenzo: No! I'm not asking you for you to answer me! But for you to hear this instead: that Lorenzo Barquero who you have spoken of was nothing but a lie; the truth is this that you see now. You are also a lie that will banish soon. This land does not forgive... I started to realize that my intelligence, that which everyone called my great talent, did not work but while I was talking; as soon as I fell silent the mirage would also banish and I couldn't understand absolutely nothing. I felt the lie of my intelligence and my sincerity. Do you realize? The lie of your own sincerity, which is the worse that can happen to a man... To kill the centaur! He! He! Don't be an idiot, Santos Luzardo! Do you think that that of killing the centaur was pure rhetoric? I assure you that it exists. I've heard it neighing. Every single night it passes by here. And not only here; there, in Caracas, also. And far beyond too. Wherever one of us is... he hears the centaur's neighing. You've heard it too and that's why you are here. Who has said that it is possible to kill the centaur? Me? Spit on my face, Santos Luzardo. The centaur is an entelechy. A hundred years it has galloped over this land and another hundred will pass still. I thought myself civilized, my family's first civilized, but it was enough to be told: "come and avenge your father", for the barbarian inside me to emerge. The same has happened to you... Santos Luzardo! Look yourself in me! This land does not forgive!

I edited the conversation so as to show what I think is more interesting in it. It speaks, I think, about the deepest reality in Venezuelan society (I'm tempted to say Latin America, but it might be too bold). I am of those that think that not infrequently poets and novelists portray the human condition in a more acute and spiritual way than any philosopher or scientist. Rómulo Gallegos might have interpreted the tragedy/comedy of our national experience in the best way possible, in the dialectics between our will to progress (in Santos Luzardo) individually and collectively, and our inclination toward barbarism (in Lorenzo Barquero). Venezuelan history is a constant tension between these two forces; when we seem to be on the right track of what we think (what we like to think) is the road toward perfection, the internal forces of our turbulent and wild spirit, deeply rooted in the memory of our war of Independence, emerges as a destructive force that, cloaked in the disguise of justice and fairness, it immerses us in backwardness. Lorenzo Barquero is a metaphor of all of us, the man that tasted both worlds, that personifies both tendencies.

Our national history is filled with centaurs. The war of Independence produced tons of them. Bolivar was the first one (and also the one that combined Santos and Lorenzo in its greatest expression); Boves, not being a Venezuelan born, was also possessed by it in its most barbaric form. Páez was the first one to carry the name explicitly, and that by the end of his life tried to tame it (successfully as an individual and failing absolutely as the nation's leader). Both 19th and 20th century Venezuela has centaurs ruling and being ruled (in the bodies of the leaders, and the bodies of their followers and enemies alike). The 20th century has the more technocratic expressions. And when we seemed to have taken our leave from this tragic/comedy tradition, the centaur revived again, now in its most gruesome form. All Venezuelans know (once again) how is it like.

The figure of the progressive man in Santos is extremely interesting: a man deceived by the taste of modernity. He is our traditionally tragic hero, whereas Lorenzo has reached the level of our comedy hero. "Wherever one of us is... he hears the centaur's neighing". I can't but totally agree with this statement. I that know the country in which I was raised, and the symbols and feelings that it has produced in my being, I hear the centaur's neighing. And this last lines I write for all of my friends and the Venezuelan youth that today study abroad, many of whom were forced by the circumstances. Santos Luzardo is our mirror. And Lorenzo Barquero might be our destiny. The former we already are; the latter is a matter of choice. I don't believe in progress; everything is in eternal return. Venezuelan history: the eternal return of the centaur. Who wants to be part of this play? And what would be your role in it? Ask yourself these questions and choose. Lorenzo asks "Aren't you afraid, Santos Luzardo?" I would say yes.

"Everything becomes and recurs eternally - escape is impossible! - Supposing we could judge value, what follows? The idea of recurrence as a selective principle, in the service of strength (And barbarism!!)" Nietzsche.

A good letter to the bishops and its shameful response

Today the Vatican released a letter with its new guidelines in order to combat the cancer of child abuse by priests. It is part of the Church's response to the wave of accusations that has been taking place for years. No one can legitimately say that the Vatican is ignoring the issue, unless a deep rooted liberal hatred for everything sacred and holy is at place. And, sadly enough one more time, that is the case. Critics are disappointed with the Vatican's letter to the bishops. But it couldn't be the other way around. For them the Catholic Church is an ideological enemy. They want to see us finished. Today it becomes clearer to me that even if tomorrow the Vatican centralizes all the power possible to impose a solution from above, they would find any other argument, however unfair and contrary to common sense, and wield it against us one more time. In their hearts they don't care about the concrete cases of child abuse! That's just part of a discourse of discrediting the Church and its influence in the world, because of all their atheist ideology and secularist programme. Here there is the news in its more neutral content: http://www.monstersandcritics.

com/news/europe/news/article_1639478.php/Critics-dismiss-Vatican-guidlines-on-sex-abuse-by-clergy

For liberals it's not a matter of child abuse. They just simply hate the Church, and it happens that this is the most powerful discourse against it. That's all. All the liberal speech, unproductive as it is, is hypocritical ideology. They fill their mouths with fairness and justice, and when the Church tries to improve and move into that direction, they answer contemptuously to this improvement. If the Pope addresses the issue, they say it is not enough. If the Vatican appoints some people to draft a document to move forward a policy, they say it's ineffective and useless. Now the Church is telling the bishops to cooperate with the civil authorities, and they argue that it is all a cover up. Here there is a better account of the criticism: http://www.washingtontimes

.com/news/2011/may/16/vatican-suggests-bishops-report-abuse-police/?page=3

I will tell you what I think is behind the critics argument. The liberals solution is centralizing power! They want the Vatican to become some kind of modern big government to command directly the bishops in their tasks! Unbelievable isn't it?! Do they really think that the Pope is some kind of President or Prime Minister? A guy that just simply expands the Vatican's bureaucracy so that it acts as they want it to act? It doesn't work that way. The church is a federated body. It is the same argument all over again: in order to improve civil rights, give more power to the central authority. And if they do, then of course the Vatican's spendings will go up, and it will require more money, and then they will wield the old tautological argument that the Church only wants to take away your money from you, because in the end it's a business and not a honest religion, like if everything could be reduced to a merchant's ethos, or utilitarian morality. Here is an additional source in order to create more perspective: http://www.nytimes.com/201

1/05/17/world/europe/17vatican.html

Conclusion: so anywhere we see it, it will always be the same: (a) the Church is not doing enough with its "unbinding" rules, they say; ergo they must create binding rules. (b) But to have binding rules you need the bureaucratic apparatus to enforce the rules (basic common sense political knowledge); ergo you need to expand the central bureaucracy to reach the periphery of the Church in order to make sure that the bishops are obeying you. (c) So in order to make the rules binding, you need to spend more on your new expanded bureaucratic apparatus of regulation; ergo the Church need more resources and its gonna look for them. (d) The Church's expansion is a proof that the only thing they want is money from you! They are all fat hypocrites that don't care about your soul but about your pocket! Their presence is not only spurious (because Jesus story is a lie to manipulate the ignorant masses from which you form a part of, after all), but also costly and uneconomical; ergo, we should get rid of the Church! (An argument that has been stressed for a long time now, since the most infamous and shameful writer in the history of the West wrote; namely Voltaire). Better have that money in the pocket of the bourgeoisie that is giving you a job at least!!!

It all comes to the same thing, so it seems. Liberals, their secular programme and their atheist ideology want to see us all, the Catholic Church of God, extinguished. We shouldn't care about their argument; what matters to us is their final malignant goal.

A note on Internal Relations

Writing a paper for my class of dialectics, I've come up with this quick explanation of what the philosophy of internal relations mean. It is extremely short, but I offer it to my readers, especially to those closer to philosophy, to know their position regarding this controversial school of thought initiated by Hegel. Let it be known that many of the things said following I consider them correct, contrary to what analytical philosophy claims. It says:

Internal relations cannot see the world as a sum of objects. The word “object” implies that there is a finished unit that is separable from the rest. This is not the case. Internal relations assume that any object is not an object proper, but a thing that is determined by all the relations this thing has with the things that it is not; that is, with its environment. For example: a chair is not in itself a unit, because a chair needs space to exists; however space is not a part of what the chair is, but is an indispensable environmental condition without which the chair cannot exist. In this sense the chair’s actual existence is determined by the space in which it is. It means that in the real existence of the chair by necessity there must be the existence of space. This relation of the chair with space (that the chair cannot be understood without the space in which it remains, but acknowledging that the space does not form part of the chair itself) is an internal relation. Basically no-thing stands by itself without the use of abstraction. That a thing exists implies everything that that thing is not, but without which it cannot exist. The thing is by virtue of everything that it is not. Because every thing has a relation to all the rest that it is not, then its determination in the real world takes the form of relations and not of objects. An object would imply that the thing can be taken outside all its external determinations without ceasing to exist.

The relation is internal because things and facts are not seen as objects but as relations. A chair stands in opposition to everything the chair is not. This that the chair is not forces the chair to have boundaries, and hence the chair is intelligible and can exist. If the chair is not related to everything it is not, then it would have no boundaries because it stands in isolation from the rest (it would be a thing by itself without needing anything else), and the chair would become universal; that is everything, which is, of course, nonsense. It is implicit in the bodily existence of the chair everything that the chair negates by virtue of not being it.

As an external relation we take the chair as given in its objective condition, and then relating itself to other things in a mechanic-like structure, like crashing or forcing themselves. This is the path of physics. The chair does not need the rest to be understood, and the rest only plays a role of modifying the chair by having contact with it. External relations are those that take place between finished objects in their physical contacts. In the philosophy of internal relations what the chair is not is part of the structure of being of the chair itself. The chair cannot be understood without its environment. Its environment also determines what the chair is.

A coarse example: A chair is a chair as long as it is used as a chair. Why? Because what makes a chair what it is is its relation to its environment by virtue of having a particular use. If we take the chair and use it to beat someone, the relation with its environment has completely changed. Now it is not being used as a chair but as a blunt weapon. Dialectically it means that the thing in question is no longer a chair but a chair-shaped blunt weapon. The thing changed in being by virtue of a change in its relations to the environment without any actual change in its physical shape. What make a thing what it is, then, is the sum of its relations to its environment. Because of this reason, nothing can be taken as an object in itself, because nothing stands objectively in itself, but in relation to what it is not (its environment).

An elegant example: if we take the Latin alphabet, we have certain units we call letters. If we take A, we can say that in itself it stands as an A: that is A=A, which is a basic proposition of formal logic. However if we want to see A as an internal relation we can also say that: A=-B,-C,-D…-Z. This is saying exactly the same thing but not from the vantage point of A as an object and finished unit in contrast with the rest, but A being part of an environment of letters as the structure of its being. The other letters, by virtue of their negative value, set the boundaries for each positive unit. So if we take a set of letter in this way “-B…-Z” the only possible solution is “A”, because the only one thing excluded from the set of negative determination is precisely the positivity of A.

We can go further in proving the negative quality of everything when seen as internally related with its environment. Let us not take any thing in particular but every thing except the thing that we are not taking. By taking everything except the one thing, this one thing is already implicit in everything taken, because is the only thing that remains missing. We can say that B…Z=-A. The letter “A” becomes a negative determination of the whole when seen from the vantage point of the whole minus what we are not taking. This negative value or determination is what we call contradiction in dialectics. And it is because of this reason that dialectics is a logic of contradictions.

The important thing to understand is that a thing never stands in isolation as an object. The mentioning of anything has implicitly everything else that it is not, because the thing itself excludes the rest. So we can see the thing from the vantage point of the rest, from the negation of the rest. Take something as everything that it is not and we will, by necessity, have what the thing is because it is the remaining from everything that a thing is not. Conclusion: everything includes within its structure of being everything that it is not, because its concrete existence depends on negating the concrete existence of everything else. The structure of being of any thing and fact is determined by contradictions between it and the rest.

In this sense a thing can be abstractly divided in infinite parts. If any thing stands in relation to a whole that remains its environment, also the thing stands as a whole in relation to its parts. The conclusion of this analysis is that the most important hypotheses of dialectics is that the development process of every thing consists in the contradictory relations of its internal parts, not external influences. There are no external influences in dialectics because they are taken to be also part of a bigger whole. This is the inevitable result of an analysis that insists in taking things not as objects but as relations. This is probably the most important aspect of dialectics, and I am going to explain it further ahead. Now I move to explain what dialectics means by the word contradiction.