Tesis principal 1.
Luego de varios años ha ido tomando forma la siguiente idea fuerza, que nos parece fundamental, para la interpretación y la re-lectura de la historia, como para la comprensión de los enormes cambios culturales, sociales, políticos, económicos, etc. que occidente (y el mundo), experimenta en los últimos 50 a 70 años y que continuará durante muchos más.
Consiste básicamente en lo siguiente.
Los sucesivos conflictos militares del siglo XIX y XX, y fundamentalmente, la Primera Guerra Mundial en principio, y mucho más, en otro sentido la Segunda Guerra Mundial, por su carácter de conflictos masivos, han dado con el fin de lo que se denomina LA MUERTE BELLA.
En principio, este final de la muerte bella (tal como occidente y por favor entiéndase solo occidente entiende), provoca un ruptura y destrucción de la idea de la "razón por la cual morir". Uso la palabra razón, pues se entienden otras formas de muerte como accidentes, o desgracias, pero ir a una guerra, declarar la guerra, morir en combate, requiere razones, es decir valorar la posibilidad de la muerte como un acto más valioso que la vida, aunque no la deseemos. Las razones las produce el estado, la sociedad, la cultura, en la cual la persona vive y, asiente o no, aunque se vea obligado a ir a la guerra. De alguna manera entendemos la necesidad de la muerte y la destrucción en favor de una situación que consideramos mejor. (entiendo que debe ir con "la razón por la cual morir" de la mano de la "razón por la cual matar", aunque entendemos que la primera es más profunda que la segunda, debe poseer un peso importante en la moral constitutiva de la sociedad).
Entiéndase por "muerte bella", la muerte del héroe griego. Bello, en la flor de la edad, con una finalidad superior, muere por y para la sociedad en la que convive.
En principio la masividad de los conflictos, han convertido al héroe, en un ser anónimo, pero lo que más duele, es que las trincheras de la primera guerra mundial, demostraron que la muerte estaba lejos de ser bella, lejos de los relatos épicos, con los cuerpos destrozados, pudriéndose en el barro y sirviendo de parapeto hasta que las ratas los convirtieran en huesos roídos.
La Primera Guerra mundial es capaz de consumirse a la flor innata de la sociedad en el primer año, y los relatos dejan de ser épicos para transformarse en otra cosa. La masividad de la guerra introduce además a todos en la misma a todas partes. El cariz de tragedia impregna el relato. Vacía la finalidad teleológica del hombre en éste aspecto, en la "razón por la cual morir".
La Segunda Guerra mundial, nos enfrenta con la misma tragedia, elevada a la potencia del holocausto. Pero además a la tragedia de la guerra en el Pacífico, en China, en el frente ruso y por último, sí, por último, con la Guerra atómica. Es decir por la posibilidad en que la Guerra por primera vez y sólo a causa nuestra, en razón de nuestros conflictos vuelva real la posibilidad de la desaparición de la especie.
Nada de lo que hemos escrito hasta aquí, está muy lejos de lo que solemos leer. Sin embargo entiendo que esta visión, es la que podría explicar el relativismo moral que vivimos en nuestro tiempo y creemos profundamente que es posible historiar el proceso, tanto de la ruptura con la idea anterior, como con el proceso de construcción de la nueva idea de Muerte Bella que se está produciendo.
Este proceso de destrucción y recreación (como el ave fénix nace de sus cenizas) entendemos se está haciendo desde hace más o menos 180 - 200 años, a través del arte.
La Segunda Guerra mundial, nos enfrenta con la misma tragedia, elevada a la potencia del holocausto. Pero además a la tragedia de la guerra en el Pacífico, en China, en el frente ruso y por último, sí, por último, con la Guerra atómica. Es decir por la posibilidad en que la Guerra por primera vez y sólo a causa nuestra, en razón de nuestros conflictos vuelva real la posibilidad de la desaparición de la especie.
Nada de lo que hemos escrito hasta aquí, está muy lejos de lo que solemos leer. Sin embargo entiendo que esta visión, es la que podría explicar el relativismo moral que vivimos en nuestro tiempo y creemos profundamente que es posible historiar el proceso, tanto de la ruptura con la idea anterior, como con el proceso de construcción de la nueva idea de Muerte Bella que se está produciendo.
Este proceso de destrucción y recreación (como el ave fénix nace de sus cenizas) entendemos se está haciendo desde hace más o menos 180 - 200 años, a través del arte.
La muerte bella.
¿Qué me vas a doler, muerte?
¿Es que no duele la vida?
¿Porqué he de ser más osado
para el vivir exterior
que para el hondo morir?
La tierra ¿qué es que no el aire?
¿Porqué nos ha de asfixiar,
porqué nos ha de cegar,
porqué nos ha de aplastar,
porqué nos ha de callar?
¿Porqué morir ha de ser
lo que decimos morir,
y vivir sólo vivir,
lo que callamos vivir?
¿Porqué el morir verdadero
(lo que callamos morir)
no ha de ser dulce y suave
como el vivir verdadero
(lo que decimos vivir?)
Juan Ramón Giménez
Diego Fernando Maeder
This concept consists basically of the following:
The successive military conflicts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, essentially speaking, WWI and WWII, by their nature of massive armed conflicts, led The Beauty of Death to its end.
In principle, this end of the beauty of death as the West (and only Western cultures) understand puts forward a disruption and destruction of the idea concerned with “the reason why anyone should die”. I use the word reason (though there are such other causes leading to death as accidents or misfortunes) because I consider that going to war, declaring war and even die fighting require special reasons, that is the assessment of death as a more valuable act than life itself, even though we do not wish it.
The reasons are created by the State, the society and the culture within which human beings grow and develop, whether they like it or not, no matter if they are forced to go to war.
In a way, we all understand the need to die and the destruction in favour of a situation we regard as better (I personally think that “the reason why anyone should die” and “the reason why anyone should kill” must go hand in hand and as such the former thought, being more profound than the latter one, must have a substantial weight in society).
The beauty of death can be understood in relation to the death of the Greek hero Bello. Bello died very young in battle, fighting for and defending the society he opted to live in.
In principle, the massive armed conflicts changed the hero into an anonymous being, but what is more painful is that the First World War trenches were witnesses to the fact that far from being beautiful and far from epics, death came to be actually watched in the smashed bodies, languishing in the mud, waiting for the rats to eat them up and turn them into eagerly gnawed bones.
WWI was likely to obliterate all the young society during its first year and accounts ceased to be epic to become something else. It is well known that the potential impact of a war introduces people from different walks of life into different scenes of conflict. Tragedy itself impregnates the accounts. It removes “the reason why anyone should die” from man´s teleological purpose.
As well as WWI, WWII coped with the same tragedy linked, at this time, not only with the horrors of the Holocaust but also with the catastrophes taking place in the Pacific War, in China, at the Russian front and the Atomic warfare. This was the first time a massive war might, and only owing to our own faults, have vanished human species from Earth.
Nothing written so far is quite different from what we are used to reading. However, I think this is the conceptualization that might explain the moral relativism we are coping with in our time and I profoundly believe it is possible to make a factual story of the process, including not only the radical rupture with the past thoughts but also the procedures to build up the new concept of the Beauty of Death which is coming into use right now.
This destruction and reconstruction process —like the phoenix that rises again from the ashes— is believed to take place since nearly 180-200 years ago through art.
Main thesis (1): The basic premise
After many years a new notion of the world has gradually come into being, which is rather fundamental for the interpretation and (re)reading of history as well as the comprehension of the enormous cultural, social, political, economical changes that the West (and the world) has been facing during the last 50 to 70 years and that will still keep facing over a much longer time.This concept consists basically of the following:
The successive military conflicts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, essentially speaking, WWI and WWII, by their nature of massive armed conflicts, led The Beauty of Death to its end.
In principle, this end of the beauty of death as the West (and only Western cultures) understand puts forward a disruption and destruction of the idea concerned with “the reason why anyone should die”. I use the word reason (though there are such other causes leading to death as accidents or misfortunes) because I consider that going to war, declaring war and even die fighting require special reasons, that is the assessment of death as a more valuable act than life itself, even though we do not wish it.
The reasons are created by the State, the society and the culture within which human beings grow and develop, whether they like it or not, no matter if they are forced to go to war.
In a way, we all understand the need to die and the destruction in favour of a situation we regard as better (I personally think that “the reason why anyone should die” and “the reason why anyone should kill” must go hand in hand and as such the former thought, being more profound than the latter one, must have a substantial weight in society).
The beauty of death can be understood in relation to the death of the Greek hero Bello. Bello died very young in battle, fighting for and defending the society he opted to live in.
In principle, the massive armed conflicts changed the hero into an anonymous being, but what is more painful is that the First World War trenches were witnesses to the fact that far from being beautiful and far from epics, death came to be actually watched in the smashed bodies, languishing in the mud, waiting for the rats to eat them up and turn them into eagerly gnawed bones.
WWI was likely to obliterate all the young society during its first year and accounts ceased to be epic to become something else. It is well known that the potential impact of a war introduces people from different walks of life into different scenes of conflict. Tragedy itself impregnates the accounts. It removes “the reason why anyone should die” from man´s teleological purpose.
As well as WWI, WWII coped with the same tragedy linked, at this time, not only with the horrors of the Holocaust but also with the catastrophes taking place in the Pacific War, in China, at the Russian front and the Atomic warfare. This was the first time a massive war might, and only owing to our own faults, have vanished human species from Earth.
Nothing written so far is quite different from what we are used to reading. However, I think this is the conceptualization that might explain the moral relativism we are coping with in our time and I profoundly believe it is possible to make a factual story of the process, including not only the radical rupture with the past thoughts but also the procedures to build up the new concept of the Beauty of Death which is coming into use right now.
This destruction and reconstruction process —like the phoenix that rises again from the ashes— is believed to take place since nearly 180-200 years ago through art.
The Death of the Beauty
You will never hurt me, death!
Doesn´t life hurt anyway?
Why would I feel more daring
to lead an open life
than a deep death inside?
What has Earth rather than air?
Why would it suffocate us?
Why would it blind us?
Why would it crush us?
Why would it keep us quiet?
Why would death mean
what we really call death
and to live would mean just to live
that eternal life we keep inside?
Why would true death
(what we call death)
not be as cute and silky
as true life
(what we call life actually)
Juan Ramón Giménez
Traducción: Pamela Flores de Teplitzky y José luis Garletti
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