PROMOTING CULTURE IN THE AGE OF THE IMAGE
AND OF PUBLICITY
By: Prof. Aliza
D. Racelis
Story
(university students doing research)
|
Challenges: pose
perturbing questions (4 properties)
|
One-true-good-beautiful
Slides
|
Culture:
Definitions
|
Examples: 3-4
papers per transcendental property
|
Novo
Millennio: "having or doing taking precedence over being"
|
Human
Development
|
Virtues
|
|
Story
(university students doing research)
------------------------------------------
1. Story (university students
doing research)
·
Good Morning to one
and all. I have been tasked to speak
about the theme for UNIV 2004: “Proyectar la Cultura: El Lenguaje de la
Publicidad”, which I have preferred to translate loosely as: “Promoting
Culture in the Age of the Image and of Publicity”.
·
Let me start by
telling you a story: there was this group of college students coming from
different disciplines who were writing a term paper about Culture. As they were writing the paper, they were led
to such notions as: human development, the giving of self, the true and
the good and the beautiful, losing oneself in order to gain oneself, in
order to find oneself, the dignity of the human person. They began to realize that, as they tried to
propose solutions to the issue of cultural underdevelopment, they
discovered that they themselves will have to learn: to respect human life, to
respect the dignity of every human being starting with their own, to live a
culture of life and to reject a culture of violence, to develop and perfect
their bodily and spiritual qualities, to exercise justice and mercy, temperance
and sobriety, modesty and propriety; in a word, to love people.
2. Challenges: pose perturbing
questions (4 properties)
·
In this day and age,
when an overarching importance seems to be given to IMAGE --"the medium is
the message", they would say; or "90% image, 10% content", they
would say--, it is necessary for us UNIV participants to take stock and probe
the deeper questions relating to the world of culture, that is to say, relating
to our very LIFE.
·
Could it be that a counter-culture is being produced? (In this speech, I will largely be borrowing
from Prof. Tomás Melendo of the
3. One-true-good-beautiful
Slides
·
Let us review these
crises in relation to the so-called transcendental properties of being, the
perspective from which I prefer to consider culture. (Slide 2 please.)
·
(Once again, I borrow
from Prof. Tomás Melendo of the
·
With regard to UNITY:
Is there a break between people’s behavior and their (supposed) guiding
principles?
·
With regard to the
TRUTH: Is there a concordance between what people say, think, or do and
reality? What do the mass media present?
·
With regard to the
GOOD: What really is GOOD? Is there an absolute good? Or do I ask in
each case: “What is good for me?”
·
Am I right in
observing that the attitude of our contemporaries with regard to the good,
freedom, happiness and ways of conceiving their self-fulfillment has come to be
focused on: the indiscriminate exaltation of the "me", and the
limitless reign of one's own pleasures?
·
With regard to
BEAUTY: Is what is gross, grotesque,
macabre, monstrous beautiful ? What is
proper to human dignity?
· Inger Enkvist, a Swedish specialist, once said: "people who don't fill their gray matter are <empty>. They do not possess the necessary cultural heritage which they ought to have in order to be able to use it; ...neither are they able to seek pleasant experiences, for example through art, since art also demands learning and training... The only thing they can enjoy is the set of experiences that create ecstasy, for example drugs, since it is the only kind of distraction not requiring any form of prior discipline or mastery”.
· This age of the image, at times bereft of meaning, is characterized, among other things, by the following (Ref. Prof. Tomás Melendo “Metaphysics: Criterion for Culture at the Service of the Faith”): (1) On the one hand, the unfocused getting accustomed, on the part of many of our fellowmen, to a bombardment of impressions, frequently heart-rending, in all the areas of our sensibility: from the monotonous chewing of gum or distracting one's tongue with more or less exotic foods or drinks, all the way to the alternating of deafening sounds, images and changing of lights during those moments of recreation... or even in those attempted moments of work, all the way to the exposure to strong sensations --the liking for what is terrifying, violent or macabre--, which temporarily awaken and activate their emotionalism; and (2) on the other hand, the extent to which that coming together of incitements, which come to be indispensable, contributes to making their intellects lethargic and, as a consequence, to an almost endemic boredom of so many people within and outside of the school and work environment: a tedium which, as philosophers like Kierkegaard or Camus and psychiatrists like Frankl would comment, constitutes one of the most devastating plagues of our present world and one of the key elements for understanding those apparently intelligible actions of some of our contemporaries and for explaining the absence of authentic growth --of cultural development-- in a good number of them.
·
What really is
the problem? (Slide 5 please.)
·
In relation to the ONE:
Is it supposed to be: What persons, things, institutions really ARE?
Or what we ‘feel’, ‘think’, ‘desire’ that they be?
·
In relation to the TRUE:
The truth-in-itself has come to be replaced by what I think: the
‘truth-for-me’, the ‘truth for each one’.
·
In relation to the GOOD:
The good as such has come to be replaced by: ‘I like’, ‘I am interested in’,
‘this pleases me’.
·
In relation to the BEAUTIFUL:
From genuine beauty to the cult of what is ugly, grotesque, macabre, monstrous.
4. Culture: Definitions
·
Understood in this
light, we can therefore zero in on a solid and nuclear aspect of culture:
the aspiration towards excellence.
I wish to consider, along with John Paul II, that definition which says
that something is associated with culture to the extent that it contributes
towards man's leading up to the fullness of his being. Otherwise, that thing's qualification as
cultural --no matter how much it leaves a mark in man or how much it comes into
contact with him-- will be the result of an impoverished or a deceitful or a
fraudulent use of the word culture.
·
Thus, the ability to
distinguish what ought to be accepted as "culture" depends on an
adequate conception of the human person.
Among the many possible conceptions, the human person’s characterization
as a "metaphysical entity" is suggested, that is: as someone who is
in intimate relation with the attributes that reality possesses, precisely for
being real, viz.: unity, truth, good and beauty; or better yet, as a being
oriented by vocation towards making present and incarnating in himself such
properties, in such a way that he grows and perfects himself to the extent that
he gets involved with and lives in the one, the true, the good and the
beautiful, appreciated in their intrinsic value and elevated to their highest
expressions.
· Stated differently, culture can be defined as ‘everything whereby man develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities’ (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, no. 53). Also, culture can be defined as ‘that through which the human person, as human person, becomes more human; better yet, comes closer to being’. Likewise: “The exercise of those spiritual faculties whereby those same faculties are put in conditions of bearing more and better fruits afforded by their nature”.
5. Examples: 3 or 4 papers per
transcendental property
·
Those among you who
are writing UNIV papers know full well that your research will have to bear
some relation with the topic put forth by the International UNIV Committee: “Proyectar
la Cultura: El Lenguaje de la Publicidad”.
·
I am glad that several
students are writing UNIV papers on such Culture-related topics as: The dignity
of woman as projected in commercials and television programs; Culture as
projected in animated films; Aesthetics in Print and Out-of-Home Media;
Creating a socially-responsible corporate culture; etc.
·
With regard to UNITY:
Value of the Firm vs. Value of the Human Person (‘Utility theory’ in
Economics); Student’s Perception of and conformity to a Public Image of the
Student Archetype; When is Feminism True Feminism?; Emerging Image of Filipino
Women as Projected in TV Ads and Noontime Shows.
·
With regard to the
TRUTH: Mass Media’s Influence on the Culture of Philippine Elections; Lifestyle
advertising; JPII: Promoter of Culture and Defender of Truth; The Pope on
Cartoons.
·
With regard to the
GOOD: Creating a Socially Responsible
Business Culture (Corporate Social Responsibility); Prevailing Ideologies in
the 2003 Ad Congress; Music/Music Videos and Children.
· With regard to BEAUTY: Aesthetics in Print & OHM Media: A Metaphysical Analysis; Media as Fashion Setter; The Image of the Woman as Projected by Cigarettes Ads; Cosmetic Surgery.
6. Novo Millennio: "having
or doing taking precedence over being"
·
In his Apostolic
Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, Pope
John Paul II says that <Ours is a
time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of
"doing for the sake of doing".
We must resist this temptation by trying "to be" before trying
"to do". (John Paul II, Novo
Millennio Ineunte, no. 15).
·
(Ref. Prof. Tomás Melendo “Metaphysics:
Criterion for Culture at the Service of the Faith”) In order to counteract these counter-cultural elements to which I have
just referred, it is necessary to exert effort in nurturing in our fellowmen,
from their most tender years, their strict condition as persons. And neither should it be surprising that I
define this task as a deep and progressive recovery of being; as a salutary
immersion in reality, united in its turn to three poles already mentioned and
which in the last analysis are equivalent: the truth, good, and beauty,
uncovered and welcomed with all the vigor that is proper to them. <Satiate with reality>: there we find
summarized the entire work of formation of every person. And that is, in addition, what we ought to
make clear now: this is the most effective way to put the human being in
fruitful and unified contact with the true, the good and the beautiful, in all
the areas and at all levels in which these are made manifest.
·
(APPEAL) Handa ba tayo, sa pamamagitan ng
pagsulat ng ating UNIV papers, na buong tapang na ipagtanggol and
KATOTOHANAN? Handa ba tayo, sa
pamamagitan ng pagsulat ng ating UNIV papers, na buong tapang na ipagtanggol and
KABUTIHAN? Handa ba tayo, sa pamamagitan ng pagsulat ng ating UNIV papers, na
buong tapang na ipagtanggol and KAGANDAHAN?
· I continue with what Prof. Tomás Melendo insists on: “If we truly want to sustain a committed immersion in what is real, each one of us ought to struggle and exert every effort, with personal doggedness and seriousness, above all to discover unity deeply and to discover the ineffable real marvels of the universe: to acquire a vivid awareness of the fact that everything that is [more or less intense and unitary reflection of God One and Triune] precisely delights by virtue of its truth, captivates by virtue of its goodness, embellishes by virtue of its beauty. And it is necessary to appreciate it with convinced depth and learn how to contaminate others with the same conviction utilizing our most vibrant vital fibers.
· All this implies a notable effort at going deep into reality and a similar effort at integrating the goals thus achieved. Both efforts definitely have to leave their mark in our very manner of working and of relating with our peers, towards a greater and more solid unity of life.
· àIt is necessary, for example, to recover that <passion for the truth> to which John Paul II exhorts us, for each one of us to go deep in the experience of knowing, as a privileged means of discovering the meaning of one's existence and the function of the universe, and a means of getting introduced to reality and being nourished by reality. We find the implied or express assertion that the world cannot be known is practically the same as behaving as if the world did not exist, or as if it existed only to the extent that I could relate with it and only from this does it have meaning and consistency; this in turn leads us to be alone and isolated and out-of-context, and thus impoverishes the universe and deprives it of value, reducing it to its relation with me, to a <show-window for my ego>... with all the sterile and frustrating effects that such isolation gives rise to.
· To avoid this risk and to personally live through the experience of the truth, and also to help others carry out the truth to its last consequences, it becomes indispensable, in the first place, to adopt an adequate outlook, that is to say, to understand and live our intellectual formation --task which we never consider finished-- as a unified knowledge of reality, and not simply as an unconnected study of materials: as a learning of a series of <subjects>, which would constitute an isolated and fragmented preserve in our lives, hidden in a kind of parallel existence --the center of formation--, which only with difficulty can attract a modern-day person, accustomed as he is to living in the street and living in the media.
· I appeal specifically to those of us who in one way or another dedicate or will dedicate part of our efforts to forming others: I am fully convinced that only when we get to transmit what we know as news about the magnificence of the world and of ourselves ¾and not mere "disciplines", I repeat¾ can we awaken in girls and boys the meaning of and inclination toward what is real, indispensable in order for their lives to have any weight and to not remain at the absolute mercy of the movable comings and goings of desires and of the shallow but nevertheless persistent invitations of our environment.
· àWith regard to the good: the indispensable objective for the youngsters and the less young to reach perfection and to reach their fullness consists in putting them in conditions of appreciating and loving the good in itself and, consequently, the good for another as such, overcoming the well-rooted tendency nowadays to pursue, in an almost exclusive manner, one's own benefit and pleasure (good for me)... which imprisons the human subject in the very narrow molds of his subjectivity.
· As Carlos Cardona says: ‘educating, forming integral men, good persons [...] is this: teaching and helping the child and the adolescent to forget themselves and their appetitive tendencies, so that they give of themselves generously to the others. It is helping them to come out of their animal state of pure <needs> (real or unreal), and move on to their spiritual state of <freedom>, of elective love, responding in that way to the primordial precept of all natural ethical law: love God above all things with all thy heart and love thy neighbor as thyself’.
· Moving towards that goal, the modelling of noble persons ¾and not of mere elements in the workforce and elements of social life who act for their own benefit¾ will have to consciously be geared towards an entire development in the various centers of formation. And in order to achieve this, in order for the youth of today to discover the wonders of his condition as person and to discover that the only acceptable behavior leading towards that goal is to open himself up lovingly towards others --including in the exercise of his professional work, when he is making his acquired knowledge bear fruit--: it would be good to make them reflect on what follows, which comes from one of the most notable Masters in humanity in Western history: Thomas Aquinas.
· As this author says: there exist two fundamental types of operation: one, that through which one seeks one's own completion or preservation; and the second, more noble, that which expressly attends to another's good. The first kind, continues Thomas Aquinas, is proper to imperfect agents; the second, proper to those which already possess a certain fullness. In colloquial terms --although charged with biblical resonances--, this can be summed up in the third and well-known expression: it is more perfect to give than to receive. Therefore, the more elevated a reality finds itself in the hierarchy of beings, the closer its operations get to pure gift, that is to say, to love: the most sublime of all activities.
· Obviously, those tendencies that predominate in the modern-day civilized world do not go along this line. What has come to be known as consumerism --the tendency to limit to purely commercial aspects even the highest manifestations of the spirit, including education and culture-- conceives of and obtains happiness by means of acquisitive operations and repetitive use-destruction operations which are found infinitely beneath man's and woman's dignity and, as a consequence, make them unable to progress and experience the true joy that such development brings with it. It would be good, therefore, to go deep in these foregoing ideas and transmit them with strength and attractiveness to those whom we want to help, avoiding to the extent possible their being carried away by the dynamism of consumerism...which always brings about a profound personal frustration. As Ballesteros affirms: ‘hedonism, since it is opposed to the control of one's instincts, denies the qualitative difference between man and beast’ (11), impeding thus that perfection which is properly human and which arises from the search for sublime ideals.
· Thus, when time comes to explain to every human being his own greatness and the sure path which will lead him to perfection, it would be good to clarify --in accordance with the demands of an ethics anchored on Metaphysics-- that we are speaking here of loving the others disinterestedly and selflessly. We would like to insist, nevertheless, that such altruism does not in the least imply the rejection of one's own improvement and satisfaction.
· As Tolstoy would say: ‘in the sentiment called love is to be found the single thing capable of resolving all the contradictions of our existence and of giving man that total joy whose achievement is the end of our lives’. And the key anthropological contradiction is that a person, who is called by his very greatness to give himself to the others, becomes impoverished and destroyed by thinking only about himself. Hence, love --on opening us to the others-- introduces joy into our lives.
· àLastly, it is necessary to personally possess, and transmit to those we desire to form, the conviction that, when the beautiful is understood as it ought to be, then the education for capturing it is summed up in and elevates all our human potencies and leads them to the summit, leading the soul towards God. It cannot, therefore, be despised; rather, there has to be the contact with what is beautiful, for as long as it is conceived correctly.
· All this means that beauty accompanies the totality of everything that exists, from the most insignificant of realities all the way to God Himself. Likewise, that which is beautiful is not some kind of <decoration> added on and external to beings, by virtue of which they are resplendent, but rather the culmination of all and each one of their most characteristic perfections: of their transcendental properties, as they are called in metaphysics. Concretely, ‘beauty, properly understood, ought to be contemplated along with the truth and the good [...]. For a given form to be beautiful, as opposed to being merely pretty, it needs to be associated with such other values as truth or integrity. These two values of beauty and truth are distinct, although fundamentally inseparable. Both form a unity like water and earth forming clay [...]. All forms of art make reference to the truth: the truth of the sight, of our hearing, of the spirit. True beauty is inseparable from the search for truth. When there's an attempt to create something beautiful separated from the truth, the result is sentimentalism’.
· Unfortunately, among the greatest yet least mentioned lacks that there are in today's world is the lack of ability to preserve the fullness of beauty --which should be, at one and the same time, one, true and good--, replaced frequently by superficial manifestations of what has come to be known as simply ‘cute’, or reduced drastically to a cult of what is ugly or grotesque, which imperceptibly may bring us to the ‘father of lies’.”
7. Human Development
·
When culture –the
closeness to the one, the true, the good, the beautiful– is understood as it
ought, then the education we get to capture it should bring together and
elevate all our human faculties and bring them to the summit, leading
the soul towards God.
·
This is true human development, "the exercise of
those spiritual faculties through which we are enabled to bear the better and
more abundant fruits that our natural constitution permits." And this is the definition of culture
which I have wanted to propose before you today.
8. Virtues
·
Now, that development
--that growth, that culture-- surely involves the exercise of certain qualities
--we call them virtues, good habits,
good affective habitual dispositions-- that make us more human, more worthy of
being called creatures made for our own sake.
Such qualities are, for example: industry or hard work, justice and
compassion, modesty and decency and propriety, generosity, temperance and
sobriety, discretion and tact, etc. etc.
Above all: CHARITY, LOVE, the most important of all.
9. LOVE; Sincere gift of self,
self-donation, oblation.
·
(Gaudium et Spes, no. 24) "The human being, the only creature
on earth that God has willed for its own sake, cannot find his fullness except
in the sincere gift of self to the others."
·
(John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, no. 59)
"In that gift of self is to be found all of Christian anthropology: the
theory and practice founded on the Gospel."
·
And that gift of self,
therefore, in all and each one of its aspects, is what has to mark out and
orient the entire task of education.
·
This does not imply,
in any manner whatsoever, the rejection of one's own improvement and
satisfaction.
·
[We can and, in fact, we should procure
our happiness: for this is, after all, a natural inclination which, at this
level of our nature, we cannot reject.
But precisely in order to achieve that happiness, what we should never
do, in the reflexive and free ambit of elective love, is to transform it into
an explicit and obsessive object of our every action and thought. We neither pursue it at whatever cost nor
repudiate it: rather, we ought to direct all our free capacity for loving
towards the good of the others, in such a way that no space remains for ourselves. By virtue of human excellence, this is the
only thing, I think, capable of perfecting us as persons and of procuring for
us a stable and lasting happiness.]
·
Rather, precisely by
wanting to be happy, the human being must needs be open to all, think of the
others and give himself to them.
·
Behold the ultimate
objective of formation --of inculturation!
Can't we, then, say that culture is that through which the human
person, as human person, becomes more human, or better yet, comes closer to
being? In the words of John Paul
II in his address to the U.N. on
10. Story (university students
doing research)
·
Allow me to return to
my story at the beginning of this speech: that story is a true story, and it is
happening right now. It is our wish here
in UNIV that the same story happen to each one of you, especially to those of you
here who have committed themselves to writing UNIV Papers. It is our desire that, on writing those
papers, you too begin finding yourselves, discovering yourselves, your true
worth, the true worth and dignity of every human person, every human being that
ought to be considered and loved, loved for his or her own sake.
·
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.