Orgojlo 1997 (aperis kiel kolumna teksto en 15.12.2003)

O r g o j l o 1 9 9 7

Esti movado por serioze neutrala flegado de chies digno havas sekvojn ironiajn. Unu tia sekvo estas ke multaj el ni prenas la solenecon por seriozo kaj, intencante digne agnoski aliulan dignon, tamen esprimas nin per pompa honoremo. Tiu tendenco oftigas gestojn ritajn, alvaste disdirektatajn, kaj do neinterpreteblajn. Alia ironiajho tushas la klavon de la ideala esperantista strebado maksimumigi la humilon. Chi-tekste mi shatus iom okupi nin chirkau tiu klavo. Hum-ilo, hum! Evidente rimedo per kiu vi humas, ha jes, vi fosas vian sulkon, laboro kvintesence huma. Sekve kampara. Chu la kamparana stilo flegi la fieron eble okupighas chefe pri la neplua sinfleksado antau la bienestroj? Chu nia movado eble celas esti unuavice interurbana spaco kiu tamen uzas didaktikon kamparanan?

Ni estas fiera komunumo. Parte tio malfaciligas al ni agnoski kiastile ni komunumas fierulare. Se iu Sigmundo Freud priparolebligis la sekson au iu Melanie Klein metis sur la tagordon la agreson, ni esperantanoj (inkluzive multajn kiuj lau la bulonja difino ne difinighas esperantistoj) unike rajtas kaj kapablas surtagordigi por nia epoko la gravecon de la fierigho. Inter la digno kaj la orgojlo, inter rajtoj licaj kaj agresemo licea, la tereno sur kiu vi fieras estas delikata, ekvilibrobezona, neregebla ejo de fluoj sen interlimoj. La esperantanaj dramoj reliefigas kachojn, eksplodojn kaj implodojn el inter la trafikeroj de la fierado. Havu aliaj la agrablan taskon kroniki tion. La chi-foja tasko estas reliefigi ion ne aperontan tiel nete el la ordinaraj rikordoj.

Mi do elektas epizodon kiu profiligas la trafikon de fiero en medio for de la kutimaj lautecoj. Temas pri ege nelautema fierulo, homo aparte konscia pri la brecho inter la urboj kaj la kamparo, precipe en la tria mondo, atenta pri la potencialo de nuntempaj iloj por pontofari trans tiu brecho, kviete kolera pri la nevolonteco de la nuntempanoj eluzi tiun potencialon, kaj tamen ne perdinta sian junulan henemon. Mi volas veturigi vin al la momento de henado en kiu mi ekkonis lian specon de seriozo.

Sciu unue, ke diversajn aspektojn de la lingvistiko mi instruas en la universitato de Hajderabado, kaj ke diversajn spektojn tiu rolo portas al mi. [Nunaj legantoj atentu, ke chi tiu teksto datighas de 2003. Mi fakte nun ne plu instruas en Hajderabado.] Iometon da fonologio kaj multon da sintakso studis miakurse Dimit Nord (nomo maskanta lian identon). Magistrighinte en 1995, Dimit reiris al sia komputista metio. Tiu portis lin tien-reen. Multaj landoj mendas komputikemajn baratanojn. Dum lia dejhoro en Otavo, mi hazardas printempi en Montrealo. Simpozio sintaksa min logas otaven. Mi gastas che Dimit kaj lia metikamarado Pralhad (nomo maskanta mian senhontan forgeson de lia vera nomo). Dimit elektas cheesti kun mi la tutan simpozion. Dum la vespera dibocho mi prezentas lin al usona sintaksisto kies lernolibro siatempe instruajhis al Dimit. Nokte, en la Dimitejo, ni babilas; mian kutiman vortmulton kontrapunktas lia kutima fortbrilula vortavaro, dum dormas Pralhad.

Jam inter 1993 kaj 1995 mi plurfoje konstatis ke Dimit ne estas tipa brilulo. Se ies kursado malalte kurzis en lia borso, Dimit enshaltis atentomankon por signali tiun takson. Sekvis komprenebla poentofalo. Unufoje mi ech demandis lin chu pri tio li grumblemas. Li senpasie diris ke ne ghenas lin la poentoj che taksantoj ignorindaj. "Ne por poenti mi venis. Se evidente ne funkcias iu kurso, tiam ne plu gravas chu al mi venas bona noto tiukurse." Mi trafis ne daurigi vanan kvizadon. Dimit estas kvila ulo (TRAN-kvila, chu? tro peze por li).

Malfrunokte kunabili che tia henanto leghera, en la Otavo de 1997, devas do esti okazo por kelkaj ekkonstatoj. Precipe post simpozio tia. "Vi do siatempe instruis al ni la sintakson ghis usonaj normoj," li komentas. "Jes ja," mi malmodestas. "Nu, miaj bezonoj ne plenumighis che vi, kaj tial mi volis cheesti la seminarion. Tamen ankau chi tiuj homoj sintaksumas samnorme kiel vi. Evidente la globa lingvistiko estas tiunivela. Domaghe." "Kaj kial tio ne plenumis viajn atendojn?" "Mi volis evoluigi komputilajn programojn por lernejaj instruistoj en la kamparo. La porurbajn lernomaterialojn oni devus povi duonautomate reverki kaj taugigi al tipaj demandoj de kamparaj geknaboj. Tial mi bezonas algoritmojn por aliformatigi la informprezentojn lau malsamaj lernontoj. Sed via istaro ne faris sian laboron."

Mi digestas. "Kaj elrevighinte, vi decidis -?" "La revo ne apartenas al mi sola. Ni gekamaradoj kiuj revis pri io tia nun laboras en diversaj shvitejoj. Kiam ni estos kvardekjaraj au simile, ni retachmente kuncerbumos kaj certe liveros tion kion vi aliaj ne trafis liveri."

Ne kredu mian malhumilulan mienadon. La foja nokta henado kun studentoj kiel Dimit tenas nin surhume. Mi poste konstatis ke multaj nialandaj abiturientoj teknike brilaj, eklerninte la komputistikon, ekpensas same kiel Dimit. Ili agnoskas la valoron de la industria urbemo sub la chefministreco de Nehru en la nove sendependa Barato de la kvindekaj jaroj. Sed lau ili la nuna triaonda teknologio ebligas reiron al la pli seriozaj revoj de Gandhi kaj sisteman pontofaradon, por ke niaj streboj ne sisteme preterlasu la kamparon. Chu ne ankau che vi la konatigho kun la kvila Dimit richigos vian fosadon de viaj sulkoj kaj la okupighon pri utilaj stiloj porti vian fieron? Chu vi ne certas ke el tiom da revantoj iu trafos tian ilaron kian ni kachuloj ne fasonis por li?

Dependent Thinking versus Amlan Datta

Dependent Thinking versus Amlan Datta

Probal Dasgupta

[NOTE: Readers who find that this piece needs to be supplemented by background information may please suggest concretely just what type of information should be added. This is a draft for circulation.]

Some of us try to trace Amlan Datta (1924-2010) back to M.N. Roy, or to Gandhi, or some other thinker, to read his work as a line of thought derived from that source, and to seek to identify just what Datta has done with that inheritance of his. We all know, of course, that relating a major thinker to his or her sources is a difficult enterprise -- but that is not the main problem in this case. The main problem is that such an approach to Amlan Datta's thinking rests on a fundamental misreading.

Had Datta's style of cognitive functioning resembled other thinkers of his time more closely than it did, there would have been less of a risk of such fundamental misreading. To invoke the traditional Indian trio of cognitive processes -- listening, thinking, internalizing -- the point is that Datta preferred to maximize prior thinking as basis for listening/ reading, and for establishing a clear and truthful relation between his own thinking and that of others, a truthfulness that for him was the arena where non-violence would be articulated in the form of an unending practice. Datta once said to his boyhood friend Arun, `Suppose you hear that Plato has written about some issue. Your first job is to think about that issue as much as you can on your own, collect your thoughts -- and then look at Plato's text. If you read something Plato has written and figure it out, sure, that's one kind of understanding, but it's not worth as much. If you think yourself into the position that he's at, then you will really get his point.'

Could it be that Datta did not know that it is not possible for any reader to pre-think all thoughts of every author? The infinitely exorbitant demand that you should achieve cent percent prior independence of thought, and that this was an all-or-nothing precondition for any reading to be worthwhile, was not Datta's point. He was outlining an ideal. It made sense to strive in that direction -- this was all he was trying to say. His main question was, have you set yourself up as a self-reliant thinker on your own little patch of intellectual territory, and do you have your feet firmly on that ground when you listen and respond to what others have to say? You are not growing too dependent, are you, on what others are trying to feed you? Watching the conventional young Bengali intellectuals growing into conventional intelligent adulthood all around him, he had noticed, earlier than others, the pitfalls of their habit of reading a printed page and going "I get it, I get it". He could tell that they saw this as the whole point of reading -- and he found it necessary to try to change that goal.

Many people around him were getting carried away and cheering for causes without serious reflection on what this cheering would mean; Datta decided, quite early, that he would have to remain critical, and unswayed by thoughtless enthusiasms, despite all the peer pressure. He was willing to accept ideas from others only on condition that no source of ideas would expect to enthral him. He noticed that some peers felt attracted by certain widespread forms of wishful thinking and were quite happy to exchange one thraldom for another; his response was simply to redouble his own caution on that front. He saw, of course, that he could not possibly stop the vast majority of his peers from being swept off their feet. But it did not take him long to notice that exemplifying the unity of thought and action, and arguing lucidly in favour of his own ideas, was the only way to keep trying to change the opinions of others; there was no legitimate alternative to this way.

To cut to the chase, Datta's thought and action exemplified the project of working towards a cooperative social order. This vision stands in contrast to both the capitalist and the socialist variant of welfare economics. The welfarist enterprise takes it that it is up to the state to carry out welfare-focused analysis and planning. Do the specialized advisors to that state conduct a separate conversation with civil society? How much power does such a state have? To what degree does civil society take part in constituting and reconstituting the state? The various answers to these questions do indeed distinguish several models of capitalist and socialist development from each other; granted. But any variant of welfarism is bound to accord a certain centrality to the state. It is from that centre that the state is supposed to look at the public, to tell welfare from illfare, and to take on the responsibility of doing something about concrete instances of illfare; or so every known articulation of welfare economics has assumed. Datta sought to build an alternative to this entire project. He believed in the cooperative vision. Someone who tries to make sense of him in the idiom of capitalism versus socialism is asking for frustration.

Could it then be that this worker in the domain of social accounting got swept away by a non-accountable tide of imagining that one could believe in Gandhi's theory of trusteeship and allow social development to depend on the kindness of compassionate rich people? Or could he have been spinning some novel economic web around M.N. Roy's political formulations? If we play up questions of this type, we get sucked into the quest for sources. Of course there were sources; nobody starts from scratch. The question is just where the specific ideas Datta had taken from several sources -- regardless of what these sources were -- were situated in his vision.

In text after text Datta writes that individuals attain initial self-awareness in a state of dependence on two spheres -- the narrow sphere of the family and the wider sphere of the country; on another axis, an individual is pulled towards affection and towards self-interest. Taking as a starting point the affection that an individual feels above all in the narrow sphere of a child's life-world, Datta's fundamental question is: as the individual grows up, as s/he modifies his or her methods of evaluation in the face of colliding customs and ideas all over the wider sphere, s/he does wish to reconnect with that primary affection in full maturity, doesn't s/he? How is a person to retrieve that affection in the public space of society as the foundation for the social interdependence of human beings without abandoning fundamental loyalty to any form of truth? We are born into dependence on spheres of various shapes and sizes; we have to attain independence by our own efforts; this point is crucial even in Datta's economics, for reasons to which we return.

In order to pursue his inquiry along these lines, Datta found it appropriate to contextualize the issues at a site where this type of inquiry was likely to prove fruitful. For this purpose he chose the interface where literature meets conceptual and social analysis. We are therefore not surprised when we find that a student of his, reminiscing in a newspaper, recalls that Datta had once said to him, "So you've read Dickens, have you? Good. Next month I shall teach Marx; since you know some Dickens, you will have no trouble grasping the point of Marx's enterprise." Datta did not accept an economics that would focus exclusively on material resources; his economics dealt with resource-endowed persons, who recognize themselves as human beings; and Datta was aware that the unique site of such self-recognition was literature.

Are we then to identify a literature-oriented model of social science research? Does such a concept serve to unify the entire body of Datta's thinking? Will future inquiry conclude that Datta found the key to the self-conscious subject of economics in literature?

That this was not Datta's point must be clear from the way he worded his Dickens and Marx comment. Literature too is a contested field. Why should anyone imagine that we can harvest a unique visualization of the human prototype there? Surely literature is a major site of articulate disagreement. Datta was a major exponent of the art of disagreeing articulately. One of the major facts about Datta was that he used to practise a form of non-violent resistance that was wedded to the art of literarily careful and articulate public discussion. Another major fact about him was that he rejected conventional economics, based on the belief that the state alone can determine and address welfare needs. This received wisdom fans out into capitalist and socialist variants that seem to many observers to exhaust the field of choice. But Datta maintained that the main task of our times was to fashion cooperative economic and political alternatives to this state-focused mode of thought and action. Reliance on handouts strikes Datta as a variant of dependence; this is where his economic thinking interfaces with that non-violent political practice that his fellow thinkers take as their point of departure.

In today's West Bengal, after Singur and Nandigram, many voices have been suggesting that indiscriminately dragging capital into West Bengal will not be in our best interest. Several commentators have begun to mention labour-intensive development, small industries, participatory rural democracy, and even cooperative management. At a time such as this, Datta's work is likely to get a hearing even from those of us committed to the welfarist project. It is thus fair to assume that Datta's economic, political and moral work (focused on cooperative self-uplift along the lines of Sarvodaya) will elicit specialist commentary and a quest for new implementations. The point is to prevent such initiatives from getting stuck in the privacy of specialists. The specific urgencies of our time merit careful public attention. Agenda items raised by each major participant need to figure in broader conversations in civil society. It is with this urgency in mind that I am trying here to present Datta's main line of inquiry and to link it to some contemporary threads that count as natural sequels to his work. Those of us who wish to follow up will do so, advancing the discussion.

The tripartite periodization of social history at the heart of Datta's thinking (see esp his book The Third Movement, Calcutta: Ananda, 1983) can be identified as the agriculture-focused village community, the industry-oriented city, and the yet to be established citizens' community based on cooperative principles. We get our portraits of human life from literary galleries; Datta drew our attention to the characterization of the rural and the urban in literature. The abstract impersonal forces of business in today's cityscape seemed to him to be in contradiction with the concrete neighbourly solidarities of yesterday's countryside. He believed that questions that civilization has raised will be answered by civilization itself. What do the answers look like, though?

Datta maintained that, if our way of facing the ecological crisis takes Schumacher's `small is beautiful' path seriously, then our hearts and minds, our social practices will overcome the city-countryside binary and step into a caring, understanding future. Such a future will base its economic management on cooperative principles and its investment allocation policies on an ecologically sensitive balance between the needs of agriculture and of industry. The development of interpersonal relations among inhabitants of such a community, he believed, would strike a balance between the friendly neighbourliness of yesterday's rural communities and the atmosphere of necessary mechanical amenities and resources that today's city should make available. (Notice the key word `necessary'; Datta never assented to the proposal that an economics that takes charge of the future could conceivably regard luxury goods as essential.) This was nothing other than the quest for a way to ensure that everybody's freedom is given equal importance. What yesterday's countryside saw as love and what today's city sees as rationality need to be reconciled; the issue of this reconciliation seemed to Datta to be the main question of our time. He was sure that we would overcome the tension between these two visions and move onto a higher plane of existence. He did not make the mistake of losing faith in humanity. A man who was able to follow cricket results with enthusiasm minutes before he died can hardly be described as having become bitter or cynical.

Datta's thinking regards as crucial the poles of the binary between `self-interest' and `love' -- ordinary words that Datta consistently employed for his purposes, running the risk of being misread but preferring to avoid bizarre and private inventions that would remove his work from the ambit of public discourse. In the absence of love, the basis of the non-violent quest for truth becomes shaky. Only love makes people strong enough to wish to cooperate and sustain convivial institutions. It is this love that empowers people to make sacrifices, to feel the urge to bring about a serious social transformation.

On a couple of points, Datta's texts are not entirely explicit. It is up to us, as readers, to plot the curve from the dots that are quite clear in his writing. I have already spoken of Datta's focus on literature. It is literature that guides us into our understanding of love. Books are important, but literature is not confined to books alone. Even in the case of so-called illiterate aboriginal peoples, it is their oral literature that serves as the repository of human self-knowledge -- the elders of the community are the bearers of a millennia-long line of textual transmission.

The self-interest that serves as the counterpoint to love in Datta's work -- a self-interest that gives rise to the binary of narrow self-interest and wider self-interest -- is also articulated in our encounter with literature. We are born into biological reality, which is indeed responsible for our instinctual drives, but learning how to want is something we do in the context of our initiation into language and literature.

What economists, in the interest of specialist formalization, characterize as choices performed by homo economicus is an abstract stylization that simplifies human desires to keep their description within the limits of set-theoretic treatment. However, the compulsions of this simplification for the sake of rigorous description end up forcing the formal economist down a path that sidesteps the question of taste. Such a formalization amounts to the claim that it is possible to calculate the modern city's `self-interest' in total abstraction from the old countryside's `love'.

If we take another look at this apparently rational calculus, we find that, once formal economists get themselves into this `choice'-based stylization, if they subsequently wish to retrieve the notion of taste as a factor capable of guiding particular acts of choice, they are forced to make a bizarre move. What kind of move? They are compelled to say: "Do you want to dress up as an elderly middle-class Bengali male, and will you accordingly choose to buy a dhoti and a kurta? Or do you prefer to have a convenient commute and will you thus choose a shirt and a pair of trousers instead? As I build an explicit account of this choice you face, I cannot confine myself to a picture of you as H, Homo economicus, choosing between S, Shirt and trousers, and D, Dhoti and kurta. In order to take your taste literally into account my description must state that H's choice D amounts to a mapping that associates this choice with D/non-D-choices made by other members of the reference set S consisting of elderly middle-class Bengali males. Another constituent of the fuller unpacking of your choice has to do with the other commodities you could have chosen but do not chose. To take into account what those items mean to you -- trousers, pajamas and so on -- we must add several mappings that associate those non-choices of yours with choices by corresponding reference sets with which you are not affiliating yourself. The set of these mappings shall count as your cultural preference coefficient. If this coefficient is removed, what remains is an uninterpreted, bald, H-chooses-D specification. But that H is hardly you. You realize, of course, that we have to do our economics with H rather than with the real, fully interpreted you, we do hope you don't mind."

Do such prestidigitations look like a viable account of culture? Hardly. That adding such complex coefficients to H in the name of a theory of interpreted choice is neither good economics nor a serious take on culture is surely obvious. And yet, if you accept the initial idealization formal economics rests on and then try to take more aspects of reality on board, the task of portraying taste or preference does push you into such contortions. Despite its superficial implausibility, you feel bound to say that these coefficient-endowed choosers count as the real subjects of economic activity, and that Homo economicus is a mere algebraic skeleton fleshed out by these coefficients. In other words, economics works with a particular type of simplification or abbreviation of culture, and the shadow that its accounting casts on culture makes culture itself look like a desimplification or complexification of economic accountancy that outcalculates calculation itself.

Confused? You should be. That culture amounts to extremely calculative, exceedingly opaque business transactions is obviously a bizarre thought to think. Surely culture requires less, not more calculation. A baby is born into culture. Culture meets her needs. She learns articulate greed only later. After taking her Greed 101 course in a couple of shops, the child begins to see that business involves hard calculations. If we are to come up with a serious account of how the hard and the easy fit into more general equations, where should we look? Datta shows us that we need to deal with that precalculative moment of reckoning at which the literary arena of culture works out the equation between the calculations of self-interest and the impulses of love. The abstract formal procedures of the laboratory of economics do not precede, but follow, that working out. It is only if we give due importance to the literary arena of cultural articulation that we can tell the easy from the difficult -- and stop getting tangled in our own formal knots.

It would be a mistake, however, to accuse accountants and economists of narrow materialism. When we go shopping, we are looking after our self-interest. We may spend time chatting with a friendly salesperson, but obviously these relationships are not about love; our accounts are never out of sight. The point is not to press economists for an answer about the types of formal accounting they go in for at the level of disciplinary abstractions. We should spend our energies figuring out what we are up to when we, in the market, pursue our self-interest: what admixtures move our behaviour or attitudes away from the pure model of homo economicus making bare, unadorned, coefficientless choices?

Choice is normally portrayed in terms of a relation between me and the commodity; the assumption is that I am a buyer, and that the commodities are arranged in front of me. But I am related to the seller, to my fellow buyers, to the people on whose behalf I am shopping. My behaviour that takes these factors into account can perhaps be usefully portrayed in terms of choice, at the level of the pages where I do my book-keeping. But my book of reckoning is not confined to those pages. Questions surrounding the accounts -- who is accountable to whom, for what, and on whose terms -- are also part of the reckoning of self-interest. Even when we seek to understand the market behaviour of our homo economicus, everybody acknowledges that we need to think in terms of the pursuit of self-interest. In addition to the choice of commodities, each buyer has to consider fellow buyers, the folks at home who will consume the stuff, sellers and so on in order to settle accounts with any seriousness.

It is time we paid some attention to the fact that choice is not a primitive in Datta's theory; in book after book, he has used self-interest as a key concept. Choice and self-interest are quite distinct. The concept of choice has to do with potatoes and beans; but the story of my pursuit of self-interest neither begins nor ends with potatoes and beans. I want my potatoes cheap -- over and above my choice, I would like to achieve control over the potato seller's choices; it would be great if I could get them for free. I want the best potatoes -- I will be pleased if the other buyers all turn out to be morons, if they pick up the rotten potatoes and leave the good ones for me. I would like to grab some good potatoes, pay for them, and get out of the shop quickly -- what a pity that everybody else has picked (= `chosen') this very day to do their shopping, did they really have to. The pursuit of my self-interest involves not just my own choices, but wishing for control over all choices by all others. The question `what is best for me' has a two-part answer -- choice (getting the commodities I want) and control (may others choose what I would like them to choose).

The way the chips fall is like this: self-interest = choice + control over the choices of others.

If we look at the matter from the angle of choice and control, and if we imagine that the market is where people's real priorities get defined, then the zone of human life called love looks like an exceptional zone. In the market, if I alone were free -- if everybody else were entirely subject to my wishes -- then that would be very convenient for me; and it is convenience that I want in the market. But if I love someone, what I want is for that person's freely arrived at choices to magically coincide with my innermost desires. If someone is completely dependent on me and I imagine that I love that person, I am obviously deluding myself; that is slavery, not love. Love is the zone where two or more free choosers desire to experience coincidence of choice; that desire is what we recognize as the desire for love.

To link love -- as Datta does -- to the restricted sphere of a child's earliest years has the consequence that identifying love as this type of exceptional zone in a choice-theoretic sense becomes a formally insufficient characterization. In Datta's work, the association with the child's earliest experiences is also crucial. The dimension that this consideration brings into play is that of cognition. A concentrated form of attention is one of the core elements of love. How can either the economic theory of choice or a scientific theory of cognition afford to leave this dimension completely disconnected from the theory of choice? Even game theory, a favourite tool in the formal economist's repertoire, has begun to take faltering steps towards a link with linguistic theory and can be reasonably expected to move towards the larger arena of cognitive science. When that connection is articulated, it will be time for formal economics to return to some basic questions. My purpose here is to adumbrate a few of these questions -- in the long run, economists need to keep in view the relation of mutual accountability between economics and cognitive science, and in this context Datta's work assumes great importance.

That love looks exceptional from the viewpoint of the pursuit of control over other people's choices is of course because of the expectation of reciprocity. If I am in love, I hope that there will be space for mutual perception between my wishes and my partner's wishes, regardless of how important or unimportant this may look to my partner. One precondition for this closely aligned dance is that at least one partner should be attentive to the other -- the alignment is possible even in the absence of complete reciprocity, hence the minimalist formulation `at least one partner', though of course reciprocity makes the alignment optimal. The choice-theoretic point is related to cognitive issues in ways that matter at the level of cognitive science as well -- where considerations of attention and memory are central. If you pay limited and casual attention to someone's moves, this may be a sufficient basis for managing a relation of hostility -- but not for love. Datta was committed to building a society where people would be attentive as a matter of principle; that the fundamental right to receive recognition is the basis for several other rights is a point made by Hobbes in his Leviathan, as many readers will recall. Datta noticed the importance of the right to be heard, the right to receive attention and recognition, earlier than and more acutely than many of his contemporaries. Those of us who wish to understand his work need to grasp this in order to see how such concepts as love, attention, non-violence and peace remain crucial to his enterprise throughout his trajectory.

Datta knew that control was not just a matter of one's power over other people's choices; it was crucial to look at autonomy, at control over oneself. But why should the theme of self-control be pertinent to economics? Because the formal theory of choice on which economics rests articulates a notion of choosing, but elides the issue of greed; one consequence of this omission is that economics has been unable to get its theoretical act together. Greedy humans do not covet things alone; as I have said earlier, the content of self-interest is choice plus control, and the lust for control that comes to the fore in many instances is so interwoven with choice that it becomes hard to find any pure choices in reality; likewise, we need to construe greed as a composite of acquisitiveness and the lust for power.

This is the point at which we need to tweak our apparatus. The mathematics of greed can be summarized in the formula `desire minus self-control equals greed'. It is possible to set aside the attitude of conventional religions towards greed; but even the modern outlook is not unfamiliar with the fact that greed captivates the imagination and leads to delusions, and that a deluded person often fails to pursue his or her best interest and makes hasty, irrational decisions. One would have therefore expected votaries of `rational choice' to have systematically and fundamentally thought about greed and ways to overcome it. Notice that they have not. Economists who advocate capitalism are willing to construe greed as freedom of choice and to praise it -- their line is that any type of restraint of desire amounts to an attack on human liberty. Those who hold the socialist banner aloft speak negatively of private greed and positively of the welfare state's planning -- a narrative that elides the fact that the culture of planning in such a state is bound to pass into the hands of players endowed with a lust for power, since the socialist conceptual repertory has no resources to address issues of lust of any sort. Datta invites us to notice that we have a lot to learn from authors of these schools of thought, and that we must give credit where it is due; but the fact is that greed clouds one's intelligence, and one needs to resist it on one's way to serious, self-controlled, informed freedom of action. The welfare state's capitalist or socialist fans do not help meet this need. If we wish to free our vision from greed and to give love the serious respect it deserves in our thinking, we have to turn to Gandhi.

Some readers are bound to say: "What makes you think that we have never heard of the idea that greed is bad?" For public consumption, some words mildly critical of greed are indeed uttered from time to time; this may be what prompts such a response. But consider the following. The entire apparatus of every state is, at all times, prepared for war, a continuation of politics by other means. The welfare state theorists whose words rule the world, in the conceptual basis of their work, have had nothing to say that recognizes the elementary need to reject war and install a durable and universal peace. As long as people are encouraged to cheer for national greed in the military arena, it is futile to even mention the minimization of individual greed as a desideratum in theory, let alone try to achieve this in practice. That some theoreticians are not into greed and that others are is still viewed as a matter of individual preference. As long as prominent thinkers to whom civil society delegates its serious theorizing regard this view as natural -- as long as they fail to see that they must place non-violence in their formal repertoire as an essential, non-negotiable presupposition of any serious social analysis -- the prospects for rational discussion of these issues will continue to remain quite remote.

Many concerned and thoughtful individuals are willing to provide explicit support for various types of struggle -- even armed struggle -- and are convinced that such struggle will increase human welfare. They regard non-violence as an object of derision. My view is that such thinkers have not had the time to take a serious look at the geo-political realities of our period of history. I request the reader to consider, in the light of a particularly acute comment of Datta's, four of the crises that people in our time have had to keep in view as they grow up -- the crises of the environment, of religion, of the world economy and of the state system.

In his book The Third Movement (Calcutta: Ananda, 1983), Datta said of certain religious and ideological movements that "Whatever their proclaimed intentions, revivalist movements and militant ideologies are today a deeply divisive force, as one can see all around. They have the power to create crises which they are powerless to overcome" (p. 3).

I find this a perceptive comment that helps make sense of the other crises as well. In religion, individuals and communities are held hostage by their genuine, religiously impeccable affective commitment to certain people that they have always been close to. In the economy, people have been falling into technically perfect traps of their own devising. The ecological crisis reflects highly skilled exploitation of natural resources, following the rules of what had been taken to be the scientific and industrial game. In the state system, the industrial and management skills of statecraft have brought us into a world of nuclear bombs and terrorism in which the question of providing serious security to populations sounds like a cruel joke. In each of these domains, the role of human intelligence and sincerity is clear, and the public thought it was cheering for the good guys. But these successes seem to have added up to failure. How did this come about? What can be done about it?

Datta provides a general account, though not quite in these words; the articulation I am about to propose, though based on his texts, is mine. In several domains, people have used their keen intellect in ways that colleagues in those endeavours regard as major contributions. Busy evaluating each advance in terms of the technical criteria prevalent in the privacy of the relevant field, people have failed to notice that the application of these excessively sharpened tools is leaving their hands bloodied and unusable. The piloting devices slip out of their wounded hands; the supersharp tools themselves take over; the machinery on auto-drive, embodying human intelligence and sincerity, thus erode the freedom of humans capable of self-determination -- without any violation of rules of intelligence or sincerity occurring at any stage of the process.

How are people to win back the freedom, the self-steering, that they have lost through this process? An answer based on Datta's reasoning might be -- the antidote to this supersharp intelligence is a delicate intelligence that is not accountable to the private athletics of the sports team of religion or science or commerce alone. Such a delicate intelligence is accountable to a public critical space. We all have to fashion such a public space together. This work of regaining territory for truly public evaluation is necessary if we are to regain control over fundamental thinking, as we reverse the delegation of all our serious thinking to these `sports teams'. Such `teams' have allowed a dialogue-obstructing, private-bonding-based cronyism to hijack notions of intelligence and genuineness, replacing them with privately developed expressions of team spirit. The result is that these `teams' do not even try, dialogically, to reconnect with other `sports teams', let alone humanity as a whole.

Let us now elaborate this line of reasoning in the context of one particular crisis -- that of the system of states. Trying to be exhaustive would mean taking on all four crises in this text -- and stretching the reader's attention span to its breaking point; that would be precisely an example of the cognitive overload that has got us into the contemporary mess. I am sure that readers who agree with the spirit of this article will develop these or related ideas in other sectors -- and criticize what I say in this article. Out of such cooperation, a genuinely public critical space will grow.

The terrible experience of the use of nuclear bombs in 1945 has made one thing clear to humanity as a whole. The most heavily armed states of any given moment -- the `superpowers', as they are called, such as the US and the USSR in the fifties or sixties -- must avoid direct armed conflict so that the system of nation-states does not move into the world war setting, for that would spell the demise of civilization. Since then, despite numerous proxy wars, superpowers have carefully avoided engaging each other, and have reserved nuclear bombs for strategic use. The sophisticated writing of `mutually assured destruction' narratives has become a new activity for the war industry. These are well known points -- with certain consequences that seem not to have received much attention.

After it became clear that the old war system could no longer be maintained, faced with a major crisis, humanity from the forties onwards has tacitly taken steps with far-reaching implications. Not a day has passed without armed conflict on the planet in the last sixty-five years -- it would be a cruel joke to suggest that an absolute cessation of hostilities is in place. But humanity has indeed put in place a cessation of absolute hostilities. Since Hiroshima, it has been clear to the superpowers that direct armed conflict between them will spell disaster for all; thus they have been discharging their responsibility to make sure that this does not occur. Despite hundreds of failures, working around thousands of human frailties, they have been able to do this. A planet full of crazed gun and bomb freaks has managed not to let even any non-state armed organization use nuclear devices. When we notice this, we find reasons for not losing faith in humanity. The adults who were responsible for various set-ups in the forties perhaps unconsciously realized that truly cleaning up such a fundamental mess was beyond their powers. The point was to cobble together some arrangement that would keep the planet intact for a couple of generations. Children born around that time would have to figure out the next move in a suddenly very complex game. Those who were babes in arms at that moment are today in positions of institutional power in politics, in culture, in other human endeavours. Notice that many local and global issues kept pending since the forties have now suddenly come back to the agenda. The crisis in the geopolitical system is now forcing us to look for a serious road to peace. The point has been on the back burner for ages; now we seem to be facing a deadline; procrastination has stopped being a possible response. It is now or never.

It pays to notice that people have indeed taken the challenge seriously. We all know that the foundations for tomorrow's politics are created in today's writing; examples such as Harriet Beecher Stowe before the American civil war or Voltaire and Rousseau before the French revolution come to mind. You can see that we are really getting ready for a fresh start on a large scale when you notice that the conventional nation-state-focused novel of what was called the `realist' kind, though it obviously has not gone out of business, is being superseded by a certain international genre that mixes a bit of science fiction with plenty of fantasy. Conventional children's literature used to teach the child unconditional and unique loyalty to the nation and contempt for foreigners, and proclaimed the purity of the nation's bloodline as a value all true citizens must cherish. But today's children are learning from the authors of their favourite books that a healthy school is a place where children from many backgrounds have fun and grow up together, that it is bad guys who make a fuss about the purity of blood and sow the seeds of hatred for others.

One pioneer of such writing -- J. R.R. Tolkien -- famously said: "In our dreams begin our responsibilities." This is a timely quote for two distinct reasons.

First, as we welcome the leadership of internationally minded authors in the fantasy genre who are showing us a way out of the system of nation-states based on war as a value, we need to note that by cheering for these authors we are also by the same token expressing non-confidence in the economists who have been playing the role of advisor to the prince. Economists who are able to see that the public has been voting with its feet against their views, and have the guts to face this challenge, will no doubt come up with fresh, original lines of inquiry and elicit our attention and gratitude -- lines of inquiry that consciously avoid the trap of positivism and pay direct attention to the status and limits of formalizations.

Secondly, in today's best fantasy novels we find that the protagonists are growing into a maturity that does not confine itself to outtoughing randomly emerging toughs by maximizing martial prowess. The dreams of today involve taking responsibility for acquiring what one might call a situated form of maturity. The protagonists of today's best novels are learning that the arch-villain who is a perfect, total embodiment of evil is a peer of yours, made of the same ingredients as you; if you cannot ferret out and vanquish my own innermost and deepest vices, you do not attain self-determination and thus cannot successfully face your adversary. That the conquest of oneself is the main battleground is a message that children today are hearing not from preachy religious types, but from their favourite fiction writers -- this is an enviable piece of good fortune. What begins in dreams is not only one's responsibility towards oneself, but one's responsibility for who everybody else has become, even one's worst and most evil enemies. Fiction used to allow itself the luxury of treating some people as residual, as expendable -- as figures that the reader or the main protagonist need not take the trouble to understand. Serious fiction authors today find that they can no longer afford the luxury of such non-inclusive writing. Just as absent-mindedly throwing things away makes you forget that garbage is what you produce in that format, and that your methods of garbage disposal determine how healthy various ecological cycles are going to be -- so also thoughtless avoidance or uncomprehending rejection of others is a mistake that protagonists today can no longer afford to make. This is what today's fiction writers are teaching us by way of preparing us for the task of peace. This, too, is a lesson in the art of achieving self-reliance and self-control.

This at least is how I construe Datta's legacy. It is of course important to compare this exposition with other construals of Datta, and with the views of those who have serious issues with this line of reasoning. That task, no doubt, will be carried out by authors far more competent to do so than I.

malnova dokumento pri palacoj kaj pajacoj

Parolu malpalace

Ni alighis al movado por neutrala lingvo. Chu char tiu lingvo ighos regho? Ne, ne! Stulta demando! Jam de longe ni scias, ke la neutrala lingvo ne estas, ne estos, lingvo palaca. Niaj motivoj por lerni ghin kaj uzi ghin evidente estas neghe puraj.

Prefere pensu, ke Esperanto estas lingvo ... pajaca. Ni amuzas la spektantojn. Ni ridigas ilin.

Vi certe scias parkere tiujn versojn el _La Vojo_: "Nin jam ne timigos la noktaj fantonoj, / nek batoj de l' sorto, nek mokoj de l' homoj" -- jes, la mokoj de la homoj en la tempo de Zamenhof trafis la pionirojn, kaj la aktualaj mokoj de novaj homoj donacas al ni la sperton resti pioniroj.

Oni devas lerni, kiamaniere chesi agrese respondi al la mokantoj. Se ni koleros pri la nekonantoj au la nekomprenantoj, ni chesos konscii pri nia propra nekono kaj nekompreno rilate al multaj aliaj pioniroj.

Prefere ni respondu al la kutimaj mokoj kunride. Ni dividu la ridon. Ni ridu kun la ridantoj. Ha, vi do trovas nian lingvon sherco? Jes, efektive, ghi ne estas palaca -- ghi estas pajaca, ha ha! Sinjorinoj, sinjoroj, chu vi ne memoras la grandan sherciston Rag^ Kapur?

... Paroloj, vi diras, de amara malnovulo, kiu veteranas en la movado kaj chesis fidi al ghia kapablo sukcesi.

Ne, geamikoj. Mi donacas al vi la pajacan frukton de multaj jaroj da pozitiva kaj rigora pensado. En alia medio mi nomus nian lingvon poeta kaj ne pajaca. Kaj per tio mi volus diri la samon. La pajaco en la teatrajhoj de Shekspiro estis figuro poeta. Ne subtaksu nian kapablon ridi, amuzi, amuzighi, per tiu chi shajne tute ludila, tute senminaca lingvo. Ne subtaksu la forton de niaj propraj ridoj. La ridoj metos niajn radojn sur la finan shoseon de la monda historio.

Amike salutas la nacian kongreson

Probal Dasgupta

1 augusto 1995

salute al la landkongreso de Federacio Esperanto de Barato en Puneo en 1995

Vi kaj mi duopis, tiun tagon, boske

Vi kaj mi duopis, tiun tagon, boske;

balancilon plibeligis floroj.

Ventas nun iamo, haltu vi agnoske.

Ne staru ekzile la memoroj.

Tiam la aero portis - kaj vi sentis -

la impetojn, kiuj en mi elokventis;

tra la chielegoj chie evidentis

reehhoj de viaj ridfavoroj.

Padis ni duope, sub plenlun' majesta,

benis nin silenta nokt' aprila.

Nia renkontigho chion kronis festa,

samtempe jubila kaj trankvila.

Al la fina pagho ni hodiau venas;

mankas vi por chiam -- tion mi eltenas --

sed la aerchenoj, kiuj nin katenas,

konstantu en ambau niaj koroj.


Bengala originalo ('Sedin dujone dulechinu') de Robindronath Thakur/ Tagore 1861-1941;

Esperanta traduko de Probal Dasgupta en 9 majo 2010; hodiau ni festas la 149-an datrevenon de lia naskigho kaj lanchas la jubilean 150-an jaron.

La postnacia literatura entrepreno kaj Esperanto

La postnacia literatura entrepreno kaj Esperanto

Probal Dasgupta


“Specife la Esperanto-parolanta komunumo havas almenau la taskon serioze rekompreni la fantastan romanarton, kia ghi forghighas sur postnacia planedo ne tute identa al la nia, kaj ligi chi tiun rekomprenan procezon al la laborado por mondo postmilita evidente tre malsama ol la nia." Vi nepre demandos -- chu tiu citosignita deirpunkto por la nuna teksto estas simple movadstrategia sugesto?

Por movi la diskuton al alia tereno, mi devas unue alparoli vian demandon, char alie ghi dancetados chirkau ni. Jes, vi rajtos tiamaniere legi la citosignitajhon, se iu sukcesos fari chi-terene netan distingon inter la strategia tasko kaj la literaturkritika tasko. Sed mi esperas, ke vi almenau iomete jesos miajn petojn rekompreni la tutan bildon. Vi do trovos, ke la rekomprena laboro devigos la strategiajn aglandanojn kaj la teoriajn penslandanojn oftege interveturi inter tiuj du teritorioj de la serioza Esperanta spaco.

Audante min mencii la literaturan teoriadon, vi flaras ian aludon, chu, al antaua propono mia pri la redirektado de la literatura kritikarto lige kun Esperanto?

Efektive, mi iam pledis por koncepto de metaliteraturo (Dasgupta 2001). Sed en tiu eseo mi provis uzi la ideon de gastigejo kaj parencajn ingrediencojn en tre malsama kuiro -- kiu, cetere, restas la intelekta bazo de mia opozicio al la ideo, ke la uzantoj de Esperanto rigardindus kiel diaspora komunumo. Malprave vi timas, kara leganto, ke chi-foje mi regalos vin per revarmigo de tiu kuirajho. Sidighu, mi petas.

Ni rigardu deproksime la fantastan fikciarton, kia ghi nun eklumas sur la monda chielo. La verkoghenro nomata 'fantasto', najbara al la sciencfikcio, estas karakteriza elemento de nia epoko. Ghi fandas la naciajn, 'realismajn' romanartojn en unu grandan rakontejon. Tiu emfaze utopia, neniuloka kaj neniesa rakontejo forfantazias la 'realojn', kies mapojn antaue desegnadis la respektivaj enlandaj elitoj.

Char la edukan sistemon de chiu nacio posedis ghia elito, oni tradicie inicis la lernejanojn en la kredon, ke la preferaroj de la landa elito estus fidindaj mapoj de la 'realo' tuthoma. Ni parolas pri la epoko, kiu vidis la levighon de la modernaj nacishtatoj surbaze de tiu modelo de eduko. Temis pri eduko celanta nacian koherecon surbaze de specifaj mitoj, kiujn arkitektis la nacimulda elito.

Mi ne volas sugesti, ke la nacia eduko restintus senshangha tra la jarcentoj! Tiu eduko iam emfazis klasikajn verkojn aperintajn tuj post la lauvorte mita epoko kaj la klasikajn lingvojn, en kiuj aperis tiuj verkoj. Poste la eduko ja evoluis kaj lertighis kontrastigi tiun revan epokon disde la realismaj bildoj che la romanistoj. Tamen, por ke konvena slogano koncizajhu nian skeptikon pri la 'realisma' romanarto, ni moknomu ghiajn konvenciojn 'revalismaj', tiel emfazante la finfinan kontinuecon kun la pranaciaj revoj.

Ghuste pro tiu ligiteco inter la naciaj realismaj tradicioj kaj la respektivaj prarevoj nacifondaj, la disvastigo de specifa nacia verkarto -- per la koloniismo kaj la ekonomia imperiismo -- al multaj landoj signifis, ke unu revanaro, subpremante kaj aneksante aliajn revanarojn, trudas al sia koloniaro la elektitajn klavojn de sia muziko. Ghis hodiau, ekzemple, la barataj legantoj, ne nur en la angla sed ankau en siaj lingvoj (la bengala, la telugua, la hindia, la panghaba ktp), legas la mondan literaturon tra angla prismo. La tradukantoj en baratajn lingvojn tradukas nur tion, kio trafikas pere de la angla, kaj do ekzistas sen ekkono de la finna _Sep fratoj_, de la pola _Sinjoro Tadeo_, de la hungara _La tragedio de l' homo_.

Jen kompreneble la baza argumento, sur la literatura tereno, kontrau la imperiismo: ke ghi stultigas la popolojn; ke ghi reduktas ilian legan elektipovon. Se la geometrio de la verka mondo restus konstante tia, ke la disvastighantaj grandaj lingvoj -- chefe la angla -- trenadus kun si simple kaj nure la ekspansion de originale anglalingvaj verkantoj, tiam la opozicio al tiu tendenco rajtus funkcii same kiel en la pasintaj jardekoj. Havus do sencon la strategio, kiu simple emfazas la pluan tradukadon en Esperanton chefe de la klasikajhoj el niaj naciaj verkotradicioj. Tio do prave konsistigus preskau la tuton de nia strebado por malhelpi, ke audighu nur la vochoj anglaj -- au oligarkie grandlingvaj.

Surbaze de iuj lastatempaj tendencoj, tamen, ni povas demandi nin, chu chi tiu analizo de la situacio kaptas la entutan bildon, kaj chu ni tauge reagas, restante pli-malpli ekskluzive che nia kutima repertuaro.

Unu tia tendenco estas la apero, ekde la sepdekaj kaj okdekaj jaroj, de tuta serio da internaciaj autoroj, kies praktiko kontestis la realismajn konvenciojn en la romanarto. Iuj nomis ilian metodon la 'magia realismo'. Oni baptis ilin internaciaj autoroj. Post la publikigho en la propraj lingvoj, iliaj verkoj furoris tutmonde en traduko. Notinde, ili estis ofte el landoj ne parolantaj angle au france. Menciante Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Amitav Ghosh, mi ne intencas doni prioritaton ghuste al tiuj autoroj, sed identigi la fenomenon. Pli lastatempe reliefighinta ekzemplo de la sama speco estas la turka verkisto Orhan Pamuk. Ne chesis la tradicio de magirealismaj internaciaj romanoj.

Sed la scenejon, dume, shanghis la reliefigho de parenca, sed nete alia ghenro en la fikciarto internacia -- la fantasto. Tiun ghenron pioniris kiel seriozan komunikilon antau jardekoj Tolkien kaj Le Guin. Sed sufiche nove muldas ghiajn konvenciojn chefe ekde la naudekaj jaroj autoroj kiel Pullman, Rowling kaj Jordan. Chi-terene notindas la regravigho de anglalingvaj autoroj kaj de la klasika magiarto kiel fikcia ingredienco. La nuntempaj verkoj en la fantasta romanarto sin nichas en tiu sama internacia romantraduka merkato, kiun establis la magi-realismaj romanoj el chefe neanglalingvaj landoj.

Kiel ni komprenu chi tiujn tendencojn? Diversaj elektoj sugestas sin, kaj ni kompreneble devos sekvi proprajn gustojn.

Antauparolante en 1978 novelaron de la shlosila fikciisto J.G. Ballard, la kritikisto Anthony Burgess havis jenon por diri, kio eble helpos nin:

"Lau mia kompreno la solaj vivantaj [anglalingvaj] autoroj, kiujn Ballard vere admiras, estas Isaac Asimov kaj William Burroughs. Chi tion oni povas interpreti kiel malakcepton de tia fikcio, kia shajnigas, ke ne estus okazinta revolucio en la pensado kaj la sentivo ekde, ni diru, 1945. Kaj tio, ve, ampleksas la plejparton de la aktuala fikciarto, kiu restas teme kaj stile torpora, kaj limigas sin enhave, al la observajhoj kaj deobservaj deduktebloj, kaj lingve, al stilo, kiun George Eliot trovus iomete avangarda sed ghenerale perfekte komprenebla. Ballard opinias, ke tia limigo, akceptata en la plimulto de la hodiaua fikciarto, estas morale abomeninda, ia hontinda sekvo de la levigho de la burgha romano. La lingvo, lau li, ekzistas malpli por registri la efektivon ol por liberigi la imagon. Movi sin tempe antauen, kion faras Ballard, estas ankau iri malantauen -- la scienca apokalipso kaj la antauscienca mitologio renkontas unu la alian en la sama krea regiono, en kiu la grandaj burghaj romanistoj de nia tradicio ne sentus sin hejme.

"Ballard estas verkisto, kiu jes akceptas temajn limigojn, sed siajn proprajn. Lia estetika instinkto diras al li, ke la tasko de la sciencfikcia verkisto estas unuavice ne surprizi au shoki per bizaraj inventoj, sed, kiel che chiaj fikciistoj, prezenti homojn en situacioj kredindaj -- se ekstremaj -- kaj imagi iliajn reagojn." (vii-viii)

La dato 1945 estas io atentinda. Burgess -- kaj parolante tra li, Ballard -- shajnas chi tie marki la finan jaron de la dua mondmilito kiel kriterian. Ni scias, ke la apero de la nukleaj armiloj draste shanghis la taskon de la sciencfikcio. La postkatastrofa transvivado farighis unu el la chefaj problemoj, kiujn chiu serioza autoro devis de tiam alfronti ie en sia repertuaro. Sed kial "Ballard opinias, ke tia limigo, akceptata en la plimulto de la hodiaua fikciarto, estas morale abomeninda, ia hontinda sekvo de la levigho de la burgha romano" -- do de la romano, kiu shoforis la pedagogion de la moderna naci-shtato? Kial Ballard trovas "morale abomeninda" (angle "immoral") la emon de iu verkanta post 1945 akcepti la ghenrajn konvenciojn de la realisma romanformo?

Mi legas chi tiun tekston jene. Ekde la unuaj (fiaj) uzoj de la nukleaj armiloj en 1945, la homaro per komuna, senbrua interkonsento persvadis sin tabuigi ilin. Por kompreni chi tiun ideon, oni pripensu la multajn patologiojn, kiuj plagas la homojn. Eblus teorie imagi, ke iu el tiuj patologioj estus tentinta iun, ie, iam, decidi foje denove uzi tiujn ikonajn hororajhojn. Sed chiuj scias, ke la uzo de nukleaj armiloj en serioza milito tuj detruos la planedon milfoje. Chi tiu chiesa, fundamenta scio sukcesis absolute malinstigi ilian uzon, same kiel plenkreskuloj chie senescepte detiras la manon de bebo for de flamoj.

Pro tio chi, la nuklea armilaro farighis la strategia timigilo, per kiu la serioze mondestraj nacishtatoj, ekzemple Usono kaj Sovetunio dum la malvarma milito, komencis funkciigi novan intershtatan reghimon de militado. Tiu reghimo bazighas sur fantaziado pri hipotezaj uzoj de tiuj bomboj.

Sub la gheneralaj postulatoj de tiu reghimo, la homaro ne absolute chesis militi -- lokaj militoj dauris -- sed okazis io shlosile grava. La homaro chesis absolute militi. Tio estis la unua milit-rilata cheso en la historio de la homaro.

Per tio mi volas diri du aferojn. Unue, la absolutaj nacishtatoj en la politika sistemo (ekzemple Usono kaj Sovetunio en la 40aj kaj 50aj jaroj) neniam efektive lanchis militon inter si -- tia milito faligus la sistemon en la mondmilitan staton. Due, chiuj nacishtatoj chesis uzi, inter la fizike permesataj bataliloj, la absolutajn mortigilojn en la taktika sistemo -- nome, la nukleajn armilojn kaj ankau la grandegskale vivdetruajn biologiajn armilojn.

Tra la hororo de la ideo de nuklea milito, tra la hororo de la efektiva uzo de atombomboj en Hiroshima kaj Nagasaki, ni devas percepti, ke rilate tiun chi hororon la homaro, malgrau multaj malsaghoj, suriris novan shtupon en sia evoluo. Ghi akceptis la ideon, ke la planedpinta milita sistemo -- la sistemo de militado inter la absolutaj potencoj, kies interrilatoj determinas la eblojn kaj maleblojn en la mondo -- devos transiri de la fizika al la fantazia batalarto.

Ekde tiam, la serioza militado mem, sur la plej decida shtupo de sia shtuparo, farighis speco de fikciado -- eventuale mallerte stirata pro la manko de fikciverka sperto che la decidantoj en la nacishtataj sistemoj.

Mi tute ne volas nei la hororan fakton, ke dauris la intenca amasmortigado de homoj, la uzo de kemiaj armiloj, kaj aliaj abomenajhoj. Mi volas nur atentigi pri la graveco de la struktura fakto, ke la plej decida shtupo en la hierarkio de batalkapabloj transiris de la iama 'realismo' al la fantasto.

Mi tezas, ke, kiam la fizika militado, kiel sistemo de mastrumado de la rilatoj inter la nacishtatoj, chi tiele komencis akcepti sian bankroton, tiumomente la planeda sistemo komencis, infanpashe kaj mallerte, konstrui la pacon.

"La homaro estas infano/ kruela kaj groteska./ Kiam ghi tion komprenos/ ghi ighos adoleska."

En 1945, la homaro prezentis al si la taskon ekkonstrui la pacon -- kaj do, unue, konsciighi, ekadoleske, pri nia krueleco, groteskeco kaj infana stato. La homaro konstatis, ke fermi la pordon tuj al la mondodetrua tria mondmilito nur liveros la spirebligan tempon por elmediti vojon el la krizo. Efektive konstrui la vojon kapablos nur generacio, kiu naskighas el tiu chi nova mondo aperinta en 1945, kaj kies nekonscio donas al si la jarojn necesajn por kovi veran rekomprenon de niaj disponajhoj.

Temas do pri niaj nun aktivaj generacioj. Chi tiuj generacioj trovas, en chiu lando, ke diversaj taskoj metitaj antau nin en la kvardekaj jaroj devas ghuste nun esti traktataj. Ni estas ghuste nun devigataj pripensi kaj priagi la homajn rajtojn. Ni estas ghuste nun devigataj solvi detiamajn teritoriajn demandojn. Same, ni renkontas ghuste nun la fakton, ke la demando de milito kaj paco, sur sia pinta shtupo, surprize transiris el la 'realo' en la 'fikciarton', inversigante niajn pensojn pri la realo kaj la fikcio.

Tiu transiro fortiris la fikciarton el la nacishtataj kultivejoj, kie kreskis naciaj romanarboj, sur postnacian ebenon, kie nun komencas kreski la plantoj de la fantasto. La hodiaua fantasto, pro tio, ne plu ekskluzive okupas sin pri la problemo kiamaniere entute postvivi sur planedo kapabla mutmortigi sin. Vidu la lernejanojn en la romanoj de Rowling, ekzemple. Ili ne nur okupas sin pri hororaj kontrauuloj, sed ankau rimarkas, ke la demonigo de niaj apuduloj komencighas jam en la subtilaj psikaj gestoj, per kiuj ni foje defalas de la kapablo kunridi en la kapablachon kunsibli. La hodiaua fantasta kaj sciencfikcia romanarto okupas sin ankau pri tiuj lokoj en la psikoj de infanoj, kie semighas la hororaj semoj de la militemo.

La nacia romanarto ne havis la strukturan kapablon priparoli tiujn lokojn. La nacishtata ideologio volis la infanojn tiaj -- amemaj al pursangaj samnacianoj, mortigemaj al la 'aliuloj'.

Sed nun ni komencas havi serioze postnaciajn romanistojn, kiuj en siaj bildoj rekte montras la demonigadon. Ili instruas al la infanoj, kiamaniere haltigi la procezon demonigi sian samlernejanon, kiam tiu procezeto ankorau ne perhurlis al si plene maturan detruan bestiecon de la formato "frat' fraton atakas shakale".
Tiu instruo estas burghono. Ni devas studi, de kie ghi burghonas. La uzantoj de Esperanto -- kies diversaj agadoj kreskis chirkau la monde dialoga literaturo situanta kerne de la spirita laboraro de tiu chi lingvo -- havas ne nur apartan respondecon, sed apartan kapablon aprezi la nun ghermantajn burghonojn de la floroj de la serioza, daurigebla, literature pentrebla, alinfane rakontajhebla paco.

Se ni akceptos kiel nian la taskon kompreni la postnacian literaturejon, kiu nun naskighas, tiam ni -- kiujn la vivlonga uzado de Esperanto sentemigis al la pli subtilaj rilatoj inter la demandoj de milito kaj paco, unuflanke, kaj la detalaj konduteroj inter najbaroj, aliflanke -- ni, kiuj plej sindediche laboris por florigi mondan literaturon, nepre komprenos, de kiuj radikoj en la jhusaj kvindek jaroj floras chi tiuj pacburghonoj. Ni estos inter la plej kleraj kaj aktivaj ghardenistoj dum la necesa eksperimenta, do ghardena fazo. Post tiu fazo evidente devos temi jam ne pri ghardenoj, sed pri agroj.

Chu vi demandas, per kiaj iloj do ni agrikulturos? Per p l u g i l o j, kaj r i k o l t i l o j, kompreneble -- chu vi ne memoras, ke alia sektoro de niaj fortostrechoj okupighos pri Jesaja 2:4? "Kaj Li [la Eternulo] jughos inter la nacioj, kaj Li decidos pri multaj popoloj; kaj ili forghos el siaj glavoj plugilojn kaj el siaj lancoj rikoltilojn; ne levos nacio glavon kontrau nacion, kaj oni ne plu lernos militon" -- la biblia teksto surskribita sur shtono vizagha al la sekretariato de Unuighintaj Nacioj en Nov-jorko rekte klarigas, kiel funkcios la agrikulturo, kiam sufiche progresos nia konstruado de la paco.

Mi skribas en intence ridetanta tono chefe char ni chiuj scias, ke la vojo pacen estas ege dorna, kaj ke ghia konstruado kostos al ni multe pli da doloro, ol niaj ploroj kapablas esprimi. Tial la literatura kritikarto, precipe en la manoj de Esperanto-konantaj kritikantoj, devas enfokusigi en tiu chi eklabora momento ghuste la ridojn alinfanajn kaj deinfanajn. Tiuj ridoj plej reliefe aperas en tiuj ghenroj de la fantasto, kiuj konkrete intervizaghas kun la bezono -- kaj rajto -- de la homaj infanoj klerighi. Tio, kiel ni scias, sed devas nun alimaniere relerni, signifas edukighi ne sub nacia standardo kun "glavo sangon soifanta", sed sub standardo verda, kiu odoras je la humo, la plugiloj kaj la rikoltiloj.

Kiel do oni traduku chi tiujn sloganajn ideojn al konkreta laborprogramo en la literatura kritikarto, vi demandos min. Prava demando, karaj legantoj, sed vi estas multaj, kaj multmaniere vi serchos respondojn. Mi jes pretas, pro via demando, prezenti al vi mian respondon, sed emfaze petas vin ne legi ghin samfadene kiel la demandon mem, kiun vi devos tute viamaniere trakti.

Al mi shajnas, ke la nuntempaj urbegoj konverghas al deprima sameco, kaj ke la esperantista laborejo devas sin ne bazi sur tiuj samighoj -- ili helpas la imperiojn, kaj ne nian strebadon kontrau la kulture diskriminaciema imperia civilizo. La procezoj, kiuj antauenigas la agan kaj pensan samecon en la metropoloj en chiuj landoj, apogighas je la grandskale disvendata supozo, ke inter la kulturoj de niaj landoj ne trovighas seriozaj diferencoj, char la homoj estas esence samaj. Tiu ideo de homogeneco inter la kulturoj -- malgrau unuavida simileco al nia strebado -- fakte ne estas aliancero nia. Kion mi celas?

Grava kaj perceptema autoro sur la fantasta tereno, Philip Pullman (kiu hazarde konas la Esperantan numeralan sistemon kaj instruadis ghin dum siaj lernej-instruistaj jaroj), inter siaj multaj atingoj kreis romanon, kies chefrolaj knabo kaj knabino konstatas, fine de siaj aventuroj, ke ili ne povos kunvivi feliche. Kial? Pullman montras, ke en la mondo de la knabo, la nia, chiu homo vivas kun sia animo en sia korpo, dum en la mondo de la knabino, la animo vivas ekster la korpo en la formo de dorlotbesto. Kaj li prezentas al ni premsituacion estigitan de fizika malebleco, ke apartenanto al unu el tiuj mondoj pasigu sian tutan vivon en la alia -- oni iom post iom perdas sian vivkapablon, se oni restadas tro longe en la malghusta aero, por tiel diri. La geknaboj estas frakasitaj de tiu malkovro. Sed Pullman prezentas al ni tiun chi apudeston de ekstrema kunagemo inter la homoj kun ekstrema malkongruo inter iliaj fonoj kaj heredajhoj -- kiel premsituacion, kiun la rolantoj devos vigle trakti, sen blindi al la ebleco de ech fundamentaj malsukcesoj.

La tasko de la esperantista kritikarto, kia mi vizias ghin, estas reekzameni la tradukajn rilatojn inter la urbega kaj kampara mondo en la literaturoj de la homaro. Esperanto estas interalie kvintesence traduka lingvo; ghiaj seriozaj laborantoj devas okupighi pri la tradukado mem en ties esenco -- kaj konstati, ke la edukado signifas, grandparte, traduki inter la infana lingvaneco-stilo kaj la plenkreska maniero alstari al la respektivaj lingvoj kaj idiomoj. Chiu infano naskighas al pejzagho kaj kreskas al urbego, kaj havas la ofte malobservatan rajton ricevi chicheronan konatigon kun sia pejzagho dum la kreskaj, edukighaj jaroj. Tiu chicheronado postulas multe da traduka laboro. La pedagogoj devos fosi la humon kaj trovi la civilizojn kaj fosiliojn de diversaj paseoj por povi rakonti al la infano prian parton de tiuj epopeoj -- sen antaukondichoj pri tio, kio aspektos pria au malpria en la kresko de specifaj infanoj, do kun vigla preteco kunludi kun chiu infano kaj fasoni por li au shi propran vojon tra la rakonta kontinento. Tiun pejzaghon la infano povos proprigi nur reference al tiuj kolektivaj memoroj, al kiuj li au shi lernos senti apartenon -- memoroj tiuvilaghaj/ tiuurbaj, memoroj landaj, memoroj etnaj (multaj infanoj loghas en lando, al kiu ilia etno migris). Ni bezonas kapablajn pedagogojn, kiuj, sen mem aparteni al tiuj diversaj spacoj, suple perrakontas al siaj lernantoj ekapartenon al ties paseoj.

Mi vidas kiel la literaturkritikan taskon de Esperanto la faradon de komprenaj pontoj inter niaj paseoj kaj niaj nunoj. La modelo, surbaze de kiu mi pensas pri tia traduka programo, estas la relego de la kolektivaj pasintecoj en P o e m o d e U t n o a de Abel Montagut, unu el la chefverkoj de la memkonscia fantasto. Sed mi proponas krome, ke ni pontu inter la ideoj de tradukado kaj pedagogio. La pedagogio estas speco de tradukado, kaj inverse.

Chu la konverghanta planeda urbegaro formas la kernon de nova kultura geometrio? Chu la homoj, pro sia kreskanta protektemo al siaj medioj -- ekde la plej tuje protektenda natura medio -- scipovos traduke ligi tiun kernon al la diversegaj heredajhaj pasintecoj verve vivontaj en ni se la nun kreskantaj infanoj ricevos saghan pedagogion? Se jes, tiam la esperantista kritikarto kapablu aplaudi, kaj per sagha kritikado flegi, la rolon de la mondane verkata fantasto kiel kovilo de tiu pedagogio.

Tiuj el ni, kiuj provas vendi Esperanton kiel varianton de la angla kiel mondestra lingvo, finfine laboras (ofte senkonscie, kaj kun la plej bonaj intencoj) por iomete alispeca imperio, kiu parolus Esperante anstatau angle. Mi provis en la nuna eseo kiel eble plej pozitive, prezentante mian bildon de alternativaj idealoj, esprimi mian opozicion al tiu mondpercepto. Lau mi nia tasko estas helpi konservi la pejzaghojn per inicado de la infanoj en la kapablon legi riche siajn diversajn kolektivajn pasintecojn,
traduke ponti inter tiuj pasintecoj kaj la same diversaj nunoj, kaj per tiu pontado kompreni, ke la pasintecoj estis same homaj, kiel niaj nunoj.

Pullman helpas nin vidi, tamen, ke tiu esprimo "same homaj" ne nepre signifas, ke chio estas dolche interkongrua.

Tiu mencio de dolcheco evidente enshaltas la desertan parton de mia menuo, kaj mi ne volas riski tian longon, ke vi prenos la deserton por dezerto kaj fughos al viaj oazoj. Tempo por konkludo (ni hinduoj ofte ludas ghuste niajn konkojn). En asociema movado, oni amas vochdonojn, chu ne? Pretighu iom levi la manojn, do.

Tiuj el vi, kiuj cherpas de mia teksto la komprenon, ke mia recepto postulus la esperantigon tujtuj de chiuj fantastaj romanoj, bonvolu levi la manon. Poste levu la manon tiuj, kiuj pro la jhusa frazo ekpensis, ke mi malkuraghigus tian tradukadon. Fine, levos la manojn tiuj, kiuj hazarde ne scias, ke la eldonisto de J.K. Rowling ankorau al neniu donis la permeson traduki shiajn verkojn en Esperanton, kaj same hazarde ne scias, ke ekzemple al Pullman neniu direktis tian peton.

Referencoj

Burgess, Anthony. 1978. Introduction. The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. vii-ih.

Dasgupta, Probal. 2001. La metaliteraturo. Sabine Fiedler, Liu Haitao (red.) Studoj pri interlingvistiko / Studien zur Interlinguistik: Festlibro omaghe al la 60-jarigho de Detlev Blanke / Festschrift fuer Detlev Blanke zum 60. Geburtstag. Dobrichovice, Praha: Kava-Pech. 184-193.

Atentigoj pri iuj komentoj kaj pri iuj miaj afishoj

Saluton!

Mi skribas unuavice por diri, ke post la apero de komentoj el evidente netaugaj fontoj (iuj el ili shajnas fonti el neseriozaj retuzejoj) mi devas formuli strategion rilate la aliron al la blogo. Mi provizore konservas la plene liberan alireblecon de la blogo. Se iu volas rekomendi, ke mi faru alion, tiu bonvolu mesaghi al mia retkesto -- ne komenti chi tie; antaudankon pro eventualaj rekomendoj au konsiloj.

Mi tiras atenton ankau al la fakto, ke la blogaj tekstoj afishitaj chi tie pri la homaj rajtoj, kiuj klare indikas miajn opiniojn, restas nekomentitaj de tiuj, kiuj aliloke esprimis interesighon pri mia starpunkto pri la homaj rajtoj.

Amike

Probal

The Return to Adventure

The Return to Adventure

A bit steep, this climb. Unclimb to land.
Climate untamed, and yet you toil,
We toil, this we of mountaineering,
Spectacular, a macho team.
But tender the inside of teamhood?
This soft and rigorous unclimb, then,
Must travel back to valley level.
No space for comfort as we steel us,
Ourselves, each other, to revisit
The unexamined smooth of being
To climax out the dumbest valley.
We're green enough, though, are we? Does
Our rustle outlast duty's buzz?
Do towns unfriendly, cities hostile,
Bequeath us yet recycle's profile?

On the way back to Hyderabad, 7 November 2001