BENEDETTO CASANOVA – THE MEMOIRS

We all know the other Casanova, Giacomo, and it is a funny surprise to discover this Benedetto. The book covers most of the 18^th century, a time when philosophers were trying to open up their minds to the future and to open up the minds of other people to what had to be done to let the sun rise. But the book is not that deeply involved with the philosophical debates of the time. It is more a long book about all kinds of gossips more than serious history or reflection.

The second element is that Benedetto has little to do with Giacomo. Officially they don’t even know each other. Giacomo is a skirt chaser and Benedetto is a pants hunter, in fact more what is in the pants than the pants themselves. He is heavily descriptive of all his sexual affairs and who is who in good society. Gossips as I said, along with explicit scenes of what may happen between two men or more when they meet intimately.

The third interest is maybe the best one. They travel across Europe as if there were highways in those days and fast trains too. We visit all kinds of cities though he does not spend much time describing them since he is only interested in the dominant men he can seduce. Of course he has a long lasting love affair with a man from Dresden, Carl Anton, and it is this man who will accompany him in the second half of his adult life and finally to Rome where the book closes.

The most explicit element is in fact the very hypocritical duplicity of the people of the church at the top echelons of power, from the Pope to the bishops. They either take part in all the partying and gang bang in this life or at least witness and enjoy but apparently they do not waste too much time chasing the perverts and catching them.

Here and there some precise details may be given like the information about the 1750 burning of two homosexuals in the Place de Grève in Paris. He even gives their names, Bruno Lenoir and Jean Diot. Apparently it is a serious case that was vastly commented at the time and was brought up in the Paris City Council in May 2011 with the demand or wish from the Communists councilors that a plaque be erected in the neighborhood where they had been arrested. The book then might be interesting as a testimony about this period since Benedetto Casanova was a spy for the Pope to follow his brother more or less incognito who was suspected of being a spy for Venice trying to gather support for a reunification n of Northern Italy and the inclusion of Papal states into that project.

The book though is so heavily impregnated with gay sex and gay exchanges that the historical dimension becomes light and even doubtful. If you like erotic literature this is the book you can offer to your partner for Valentine’s Day.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

JARON LANIER – YOU ARE NOT A GADGET – 2010-2011

This book is small by its size but it is enormous by the subject it discusses. He starts in an extremely positive way by saying: “Technologies are extensions of ourselves.” (p. 4) We could then believe he was going to follow Marshall McLuhan in his tracks since the latter was the inventor of this idea in many books covering a full history of human technology and how each step of it was a new extension of one new sense or one new physiological, sensorial or mental ability of man. We could have expected Jaron Lanier was going to show how the “cloud” or “web 2.0” were extensions of ourselves, of our central nervous system for example, of our brain maybe, or our mind.

But Jaron Lanier does not even refer to Marshall McLuhan. And he does not follow that track.

He targets two types of Technologists he identifies as “cybernetic totalists” and “digital Maoists.” This community is qualified by what they advocate or represent. First of all they are the open culture community, those people who consider everything has to be on the Internet and everything on the Internet has to be free of access, economically free hence everyone can get it for nothing, and what’s more everyone can do what they want with what they find and appropriate freely. Jaron Lanier calls that mashups. These people believe in Creative Commons, a license that is no license at all, a license that authorizes anyone who wants to use something for a non commercial production to do it without in anyway contacting the initial proprietor and without leaving any tracks behind. The appropriated “goods” are thus used in all possible ways without anyone knowing really who is responsible for the final product or products thus produced, the afore-mentioned mashups. Their mascot software is Linux which is nothing but the old command-line software known as UNIX wrapped up in a Graphical User’s Interface to make it user-friendly. They are the people of the Artificial Intelligence lobby that pretends that they can, or will soon be able to, simulate human intelligence and the machine they will use to simulate that intelligence will be intelligent, just as if a plane, since it can fly, were a bird. They are the full proponents of web 2.0, this version of the web that enables the circulation of all kinds of products, freely and easily, with the development on top of it of social networks. And finally they are characterized by the fact that they want to share and mashup files that have no context, meaning they cannot be attached to anyone or anything that could claim some propriety right on the file. They are called anti-context file sharers and remashers.

Jaron Lanier takes a strong stance against these people but not in the name of the technology they propose or advocate, but in the name of the deep consequences of these technologies. The whole book is dedicated to that exploration. But he defines his objective as soon as page 19 when he explains the five reasons why all this is important, all that amounting to “people defining themselves  downward.”

1-           “Emphasizing the crowd means deemphasizing the individual in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad moblike behaviors. This leads to not only empowered trolls but to a generally unfriendly and unconstructive online world.”

2-           “Finance was transformed by computing clouds. Success in finance became increasingly about manipulating the cloud at the expense of sound financial principles.”

3-           “There are proposals to transform the conduct if science along similar lines. Scientists would then understand less of what they do.”

4-           “Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.”

5-           “Spirituality is committing suicide. Consciousness is attempting to will itself out of existence.”

The diagnosis is severe and the book is trying to suggest solutions.

His first question then is about how this cloud or web 2.0 technology is changing people. It develops in them a crowd mentality, what he calls a “hive mind” or “noosphere.” The reference to “noosphere” is never exploited, but the term “hive mind” is vastly exploited and developed into “hive mind thinking,” “hive thinking” and other expressions of this type. It is a metaphor and he may not be responsible for it since it is an old metaphor. But using it for the mentality of the people blindly using web 2.0 and cloud technology is warping the metaphor out of any meaning but excludes the only proper meaning of a herd stampeding wildly across the virtual sky of the Cloud. A hive is a social organization with a very clear and rather rigid hierarchy, with each member having to do one task everyday, each category of members having one special task to perform, including the queen who has to feed in order to lay eggs. The hive produces several products that are highly sophisticated all transformed from collected pollens: honey, wax, royal jelly, propolis, and many others. They take care of the hive and keep it in perfect shape: any mishap endangers the whole colony or swarm. There is nothing of the sort in the cloud, on the Internet on web 2.0. What’s more bees have a language that enables one to tell the others where she has found a good field of flowers. This language is a highly symbolic sign and dance language based on extremely objective elements like the sun, angular orientation to the sun, distances, etc. No one has studied what happens to a bee who could not accurately give that kind of information, or who would endanger the hive and the swarm by reckless actions. That kind of social organization of the survival project of a beehive requires some kind of regulatory authority to take care of trespassers. Hackers are not welcome.

This metaphor is bad and it would have been well advised to use another one like herd psychology or crowd psychology. In fact he could have even been ironical with an expression like Panurge’s sheep borrowed from Rabelais’s Pantagruel, himself borrowing it from antiquity, Panurge meaning in Greek “he who can do everything”.

Beyond that Jaron Lanier insists on the reductionism of this cloud ideology. It forces to anonymity and pseudonymity, both practices that reduce simple personal humanity. He points out how this ideology, this technology produces a complete contradiction that they assume: “It’s the people who make the forum, not the software. Without the software the experience would not exist at all.” (p. 72) The forum is then illusionary. He says the software is “flawed.” The point is that everyone knows it is flawed in its very principle of requiring in the form of an encouragement and an incitation to use personae and avatars instead of real identity and pictures, and then everyone makes do with this software, with this technology. And yet Jaron Lanier is not entirely clear since he advises not to concentrate on the software because then you forget the person behind or the person in the user of the software. If the software is bad, it has to be gotten rid of. But we have to wonder if this anonymity and pseudonymity is not in a way a positive element. Not for security of course, since the IP of a computer can be traced within seconds by any let’s say “security authority” not to speak of hackers and spywares. Some people complain that the Internet enables anyone to say anything without any control. Then what’s the problem? The Internet does not aim at only telling the truth, and what is the truth? Something decided by Parliament or Congress or the United Nations? Some people consider we are not dealing with real people since they are hiding behind avatars. And then what! Deal with the ideas expressed by these avatars, if they express ideas, otherwise forget them. Jaron Lanier seems to believe that this crowd psychology was invented by the Internet and web 2.0. That is certainly not true. We all know “bread and circuses” events in all societies in all historical periods including some war episodes to satisfy public opinion and popular demand. Some of these mass events could be very grim like hanging and drawing and quartering people in England, frying homosexuals in oil in France, impaling people in other countries, and still beheading people with swords like in Saudi Arabia still.

He is right when he says Cybernetic totalism has failed spiritually by fetishizing objects and objectizing people; behaviorally by undervaluing individuals and overvaluing the crowd; and economically by endangering the economy of all types of expression (music, videos, photography, text, etc) and by permitting highly risky financial schemes that could not be devised before. This cloud reduces the creativity of individuals by erasing any circumstantial, existential, experiential real data from Internet products. Real creativity can only come from a circumstantial, existential, experiential real environment of one real individual who invests all that environment in his creativity and in his creation. If the Internet and web 2.0 succeed in that line, how long can the world live without creativity? Yet I will express some reserve on this extreme vision. Real creative people are produced by their circumstantial, existential, experiential context. The Internet and the Cloud can be part of this context but cannot erase it. Mozart would always have been Mozart even if he hadn’t died in poverty: he would still have been composing on his death bed, I guess. The new point is that all those whose creativity is very limited can today “create” and broadcast their “creations” thus producing a tremendous inflation on the cultural or musical market. But even if that may harm many professional creators of value, these have to find ways to protect their work and to guarantee their survival. That’s called union action. I believe that the proportion of creative artists is not going to go down because of this technology. Plays in theaters, concerts in concert halls, films in cinemas, but also the DVDs of these live shows are multiplying their audiences, direct live audience as well as indirect audience at a distance in space and time. A full reform of the management of the Internet is to be thought through and brought about but there is no reason to believe creativity is going to be drowned by the mediocre flock bleating of the herded crowd of the newly Internet-empowered people.

Jaron Lanier is conscious of this dimension and he proposes a humanistic approach of this Cloud technology. The main suggestion is to make all products freely reachable on the Internet but the user would not pay a flat rate but a rate in proportion with the quantity of bits that user would have reached no matter what, including the pictures of his/her sweetheart/boyfriend. On the other hand that user would get a payment for all the bits of his/hers that have been reached by other people, including from his/her sweetheart/boyfriend. This suggestion should be taken seriously because then the circulation of bits on the Internet would become a market and that would bring quality at the top. Though we must not forget that before the Internet and that will be eternal all that reaches the broadcasting public sphere is not necessarily good and all that is good does not necessarily reach the broadcasting public sphere. Thousands of good books have never been published and thousands of good Mozarts have never been able to perform or become publicly known. Jaron Lanier’s approach though requires some reflection on how a creative work is produced, by whom, at what and which and whose cost, how that creative production can be encouraged? Subsidize it, encourage the profitable broadcasting of it, create events where creators can confront themselves with others and with an audience;, including critics, and many other solutions have to be found. Personally I am quite more afraid of the weight of norms, standards and traditions in professional fields than of the competition from the herd’s mooing and dooking.

He insists on another effect of computational technology on any knowledge or let’s say semantic data. It grinds it down into small items in order to digitalize them. It standardizes the basic units: computationalized music notes do not contain any fuzzy variation; they are pure but no instrument played by any musician will ever produce pure notes. Considering the meaning of anything comes from the variations this anything contains, a dog being seen differently by any single person thinking of a dog, this systematic purification and simplification of every item processed digitally produces an enormous loss of meaning. Imagine the 25 or so ways Eskimos have to speak of the snow and Egyptians or Arabs have to speak of the sand or the sun. This grinding of everything down into some bit-powder destroys the architecture of the original object and its inner hierarchy: it aims at simulating a phenomenon or an object but a beautiful picture of a rose does not smell like a rose: it does not prick either. What’s more all the particular environment attached to that item by the person who carries it is erased and lost.

That’s when Jaron Lanier tries to cope with language and bring it back into his conception of computationalism. He is no linguist and he refers to people who are no linguists. To come to his own version he has to reject other approaches. First of all Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity as becoming a newly invented secular religion:

“Those who ,enter into the theater of computationalism are given all the mental solace that is usually associated with traditional religions. These include consolations for metaphysical yearnings, in the form of the race to climb to ever more “meta” or higher-level states of digital representations, and even a colorful eschatology, in the form of the Singularity. And indeed, through the Singularity a hope of an afterlife is available to the most fervent believers.” (p. 178)

He rejects in the same way the approach that considers the inner thing is the same thing as the outer thing that supports that a computer with specialized features is similar to a person, hence is a person. He rejects of course the Turing approach since it is basically a very similar attempt: a machine that cannot be differentiated from a human person in its and his/her reactions is as intelligent as that human person, hence is a human person.

It’s when he suggests a realistic approach of computationalim that he gets lost into language.

He starts with Jim Bower and tries to compare olfaction with language. He asserts that both work “from entries in a catalog not from infinitely morphable patterns” (p. 165). He contradicts this assertion for language page 167: “Only a handful of species, including humans and certain birds, can make a huge and ever-changing variety of sounds.” Of Course he speaks of sounds and before he spoke of words. That’s just the point. The words have been phylogenetically produced from sounds. He misses the articulations of language. He contradicts his first assertion again page 190: “We can make a wide variety of weird noises through our mouths, spontaneously and as fast as we think. That’s why we are able to use language.” He does not wonder why we can do that: what physiological particularity enables us to do it?

He continues his parallel with olfaction and says: “the grammar of language is primarily a way of fitting those dictionary words into a larger context. Perhaps the grammar of language is rooted in the grammar of smells.” (p. 165) This is a non-cautious assertion about linguistic syntax. It negates the various articulations that build the hierarchy of language. Language can’t really be compared with smells. Once again the grammar of language is an invention of man and has been produced from scratch by a long and complex phylogenic process from simple isolated sounds to complex discourses.

To crown it all he compares the Tourette syndrome in which a man or woman uncontrollably produces all kinds of swear words to the “pheronomic system [that] detects very specific strong odors given off by other animals (usually of the same species) typically related to fear and mating.” (p. 165) First consider the fact that all mammals produce the same hormone for fear, which explains that in the wild a man’s fear can be detected by other mammals which will get on the offensive because an animal who is afraid attacks, and since the man here is detected as being afraid hence as going to attack, the best defense is to attack, so the wild animal will attack. Anyone who has some practice of some jungle knows that. Never be afraid in such a situation if you want to have one chance to survive. Then I can’t see how he can compare these pheromonic smells, their detection and the reactions a mammal may have to them to swear words. A Tourette patient cannot use swear words he/she has not heard first, learned second, memorized third. Swear words are not instinctive.

At that point we have to say Jaron Lanier is completely off the point concerning language. He does not take into account the phylogeny of language experienced by Homo Sapiens in concrete conditions; he does not consider the psychogenesis of language experienced by a child learning it in concrete conditions. He does not know about the hierarchical articulations of language and the immense variations from one family of languages to the next, and within each family of languages. Finally he does not know about the distinction between “langue” which represents the infinite expressive potential carried by language and “discourse” which is the concrete realization of one expression of one meaning in real conditions.

And yet he is brandishing the essential concept to approach these problems: neoteny, the fact that human children are born extremely immature, premature, dependent for a long period of several years. That would have given to all his other arguments a power they do not have. Yet he concludes properly not as the final conclusion of the whole book but as the conclusive deduction of the final concept of neoteny brought up at the end of the book.

Moore’s law (the exponential development rate of hardware) will have to accept to be slowed down or even blocked by the very slow development rate of software, the fact that neoteny has a conservative effect since the younger generation are forced into an ever longer period of training that reproduces and ossifies previous knowledge and know-how. Cultural neoteny is even more drastic since it leads to Bachelard’s Poetics of Reverie, vastly overused here since Bachelard is from a period when these modern techniques did not exist, when life expectancy was very limited and when education was only for an elite but the general idea is correct: “The good includes a numinous imagination, unbounded hope, innocence and sweetness.” (p. 183) But on the other side childhood can also produce what Jaron Lanier identifies as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: “The bad is more obvious, and includes bullying, voracious irritability, and selfishness.” (p. 183) His conclusion is realistic for once: “The net provides copious examples of both aspects of neoteny.” (p. 183) This constant dichotomy, and in fact we should see more than two sides, on the Internet is the possibility for the Internet to be the place were various approaches will be confronted, confronting one another, hence will be a marketplace of some sort, the marketplace of global communication.

If he is right about childhood and youth, we better start thinking of education and start integrating the internet and the Cloud in our systematic education efforts not to moralize, not to demonize, not to advocate the Internet but to teach children how to use it to their own advantage along their own motivations, not the teachers’. He sure is right when he says: “Our secret weapon is childhood.” (p. 188) Why the heck did he not start from there and consider the phylogeny of Homo Sapiens and the psychogenesis of all children.

I will overlook his “Post Symbolic communication.” Homo Sapiens started on his/her track to humanity by developing his symbolic power and among other things by using it to invent language from his multiple sounds through a simple process of discriminating items, identifying them including with names and classifying them into concepts and conceptual classes. Homo Sapiens could only recognize one item when he had already encountered it, discriminated it, identified it and classified it, otherwise Homo Sapiens had to start all over again for the item he did not know.

If by any chance Homo Sapiens moved beyond that symbolic power and lost it he/she would lose everything, including all his/her knowledge that was constructed with language. If Jaron Lanier wants to mean that man is going to reach a higher level of symbolic power, I would entirely agree. The machines developed today by the scientific and technical elite of the world are going to be used by everyone as soon as they are born, and even before their birth, which will increase their intelligence tremendously. The increased intelligence of the global population will also mean an increased intelligence of the elite of the world. The elite only reflects the level of their surrounding masses.

But Jaron Lanier forgets that Homo Sapiens is still an animal species going through mutations. The point is that there is no natural selection among humans any more. All those who are different are treated as handicapped or dangerous and they are kept aside or away. It is high time we start changing our vision and consider the potential of those who are different. Autistic children with the Asperger syndrome for example seem to have great possibilities, among other things in languages. Daniel Tammet is one example of a successful Asperger Savant in foreign languages. It is urgent to consider that Childhood is our secret weapon and to really make an effort to screen these new different people and help them find out their real capabilities and develop them to the best level possible. Right now we might be rejecting the people who represent the future of our species, not the destroyers of it, those who will bring our intellect and intelligence to a higher ever point and will event even better machines to serve humanity.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

EMILY LADY – SOME THINGS TO SAY – MYMAJORCOMPANY LABEL – 4 MARS 2013

Le Web 2.0 et les standards MIDI et autres fabricateurs de purée virtuelle sont les maîtres absolus de notre musique aujourd’hui ce qui rend encore plus difficile de faire dans l’originalité puisque tout doit passer dans la moulinette internautique de la cybernétique totalitaire.

Alors qu’y a-t-il dans ce CD que l’on n’a pas nécessairement dans la musique bien électro de la dernière discothèque une nuit de blizzard ?

Il y a d’abord les paroles souvent amusantes d’une flexibilité lexicale et phonique qui chatouille l’oreille justement là où elle vous gratouille. La jeune fille, la dame, la jeune dame, la lady en un mot, n’hésite pas à jeter dans les textes ses phantasmes les plus manuels et charnels car les yeux ne lui suffisent pas. Comme on la comprend, mais comme on se dit que l’on pourrait facilement partager si le partage était la règle chez les Maoïstes numériques de la planète WIKI, comme s’il y avait partage quand on ne sait plus qui est à qui et quoi est à quoi ou bien tous les métis présidentiels ou pas des quoi est à qui et qui est à quoi.

Il y a ensuite les langues étrangères, ici l’espagnol, plus loin l’anglais, et encore plus loin autre chose qui ressemble à quelque chose dont je me souviens mal après toutes les années de voyage dans le monde. Il y a aussi des borborygmes buccaux qui ont des allures d’onomatopées ou de provocations d’appels et de cris qui ne sont pas toujours de ralliement. Laissez-vous héler sur les trottoirs de votre lecteur MP3. J’ai l’impression que ce monde de numérisation intégrale à bout de doigts et de chiffres, de digits comme disent les anglais, nous tient l’âme, l’esprit, le nombril, et tous les détails de son corps, de nos corps, car nous avons autant de corps que nous voulons bien virtualiser dans notre œil mental, j’ai l’impression que nous aimons tous être des arpenteurs expérimentés de ces croisettes publiques que sont nos boulevards citadins, grands ou moins grands.

Il n’y a pas plus érotique que ce qui ne l’est pas. Elle ne tient que la main de l’autre, mais est-ce seulement la main, surtout quand c’est en un anglais que l’on voudrait comprendre mais que l’on n’entend pas toujours bien que pas un mot ne manque, mais le sens n’est pas toujours contenu dans les seuls mots.

Et c’est là que la musique vous surprendra un peu, pas par ses rythmes de danse électro sinon plus encore atomique et nucléaire. Baissez les basses et montez les bruissements des ailes d’ange que sont les instruments qui sonnent comme des solos en arrière ou par-dessus. Ce sont ces instruments qui surprennent un peu car on aimerait qu’ils prennent plus de place et aient plus de présence et qu’ils ensevelissent un peu les boîtes à rythme et les batteries industrialisées du numérique à bout de nerf et branchés sur toutes nos dendrites, une maladie nouvelle qui se répand comme une trainée contagieuse tétanisée en MIDI universel.

Une autre remarque aussi serait de faire plus dans la polyrythmie afro-américaine ou afro-tout ce que vous voudrez. Il n’y a qu’un seul rythme si dominant que je ne peux pas lui échapper et m’envoler dans la transe de l’autre rythme vaudou et extatique d’une vision apocalyptique de l’aujourd’hui, qui doit porter en bière ce qui uniformise le monde d’un vent de conformité, comme si on nous avait interdit de faire l’amour avec les yeux comme avec les mains. Que diable restez dans la tradition de la pudeur castratoire et d’ailleurs castrée.

Elle est un mauvais garçon mais elle semble un peu oublier que les mauvais garçons n’aiment que les mauvais garçons et que leur force amoureuse est nécessairement partagée entre eux, sinon ils ne sont pas mauvais mais simplement des vilains canards qui se cygnent devant les églises. Les mauvais garçons ont sorti leurs monstres de tous leurs placards et dansent avec eux au milieu de la place de la Concorde entre l’obélisque et la colonne Vendôme, ou est-ce la Tour Eiffel, ,en tout cas arrosés de Bourbon de l’autre côté du pont ? Et en plus ces mauvais garçons qui ont cent monstres dans leurs placards dont ils ont fait sauter les portes vont enfin pouvoir se marier. Bonjour les dégâts créatifs même et surtout si pas procréatifs. Et cette chanson est si bien titrée comme « Kiss » un groupe qui dans le monstre à placards multiples faisait en son temps plutôt bonne figure d’autorité et de référence.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

FIVE STARS 

Never a slave again, Thanks Abraham Obama!, February 2, 2013

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say"

This is an admirable adventure film and it probably reflect a deep change in American culture concerning the Blacks, African Americans. So far the great authors and playwrights dealing with the Blacks only or practically only showed the villainous hardships of slavery. This film surely shows a lot of that, but with a different eye than in Toni Morrison's Beloved or many other novels. It shows slavery as the most cruel and absurd social system ever invented but once again from a new point of view, that of a black man who gets out of slavery by accident and gets in business with a German immigrant and shares with him the profession of bounty hunter. That means he can ride a horse and kill white people, provided it is under the authority of his white associate and under the sanctimonious authority of a court-ordered mission, that of catching some fugitive criminals dead or alive.

This black man has a vengeance to fulfill since his wife has been sold away to another planter, one of the worst in Mississippi. I will not deflower the film and tell you the details. This black man, Django, wants to find his wife and free her and in the end, of course, he will succeed, but what an adventure.

The new element in this film is that beyond slavery, and we are just before the Civil War, some Blacks are recapturing their desire to be free beyond their fate of obedience. That fate is explained by the planter as being the result of some kind of a "malformation" of the skull. It is of course the result of nothing but the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) they have been through in the daily suffering imposed onto them mostly for the pure and simple pleasure of the white planters and their white associates who are all shown over and over again as nothing but sadist dullards.

We are here in a postcolonial approach that is only possible because the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also called Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome is finding some kind of a solution, some healing procedure, some way of stepping over it and moving on. This has been a slow and long procedure and the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, and now Barack Obama, and many others before and in-between, have been instrumental in that evolution. Blacks or African Americans are finally finding their self-respect, their self-freedom, their self-pride back and they can finally decolonialize their own souls, their own minds, as the CNN wrote so rightly on November 22, 2012. And when one's mind is free of any colonial heritage the sky is the limit and the White House is the first step to that sky.

Of course the film is unrealistic, the weapons are as effective as missile throwers if not even rockets launched by some drone from the sky. Of course there is too much blood. But it is the first time some of the cruelty of these slave-owners is finally shown, alluded to and defused into absolute punishment. To be free in your soul you must be convinced your torturers have been punished, even those who were silent if not consenting witnesses. That means you have to finally remember and reconcile with and recommit yourself to the future and no longer remain enslaved to the past. That means forgiving the descendants of your torturers and that means the descendants of your torturers have to finally step over their belief you are inferior, which makes them superior without having to prove it.

That's why this film is great. It is really the beginning of the end, maybe even the beginning of the day after the end.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Comments

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Showing 1-6 of 6 posts in this discussion

Initial post: Feb 5, 2013 4:37:36 PM PST

derek nye says:

An apologist from France...now I've seen everything. This movie isn't a homage to the most unqualified President in our history; it's just another Quientin Tarantino shoot 'em up. And guess what? Most of the population in the US never had slave owning ancestors. Get over yourself. Unless of course you're trolling, and if that's the case... sorry, not funny.

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Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 7, 2013 7:32:02 AM PST

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Ah Ah!

Have you heard of Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome by the best qualified psychiatrists and neuroscience researchers in the USA.

Note I am not from France, I am in France but I am from Gascony. Maybe you do not make a difference between Georgia and Massachusetts. True both states start with an S end end with a Y.

Have a good day. and be sure I am no apologist. I do not have time to waste on being such an intellectually reduced mind.

Jacques

0 of 1 people think this post adds to the discussion.

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013 4:13:47 PM PST

derek nye says:

Wow, an arrogant tool as well! I'd be careful before you accuse another of being intellectually deficent. Yes, I've heard of your made up disorder - it is just that, a misnomer. And I'm sorry, but your words are exactly that of an apologist, whether you're from France or Gascony, though with your esteemed accredidations I'm sure you'd have picked that up. By the way, you usually end a question with a question mark, though again I'm sure you're already aware of such a grammatical disparity. Continue on with your ranting garbled reviews that you try and pass off as high intellectual writings. A soul doctor indeed; it may be time to leave a classroom, pull your lips away from Obama's rear end, and take a walk in the real world.

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Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 7, 2013 11:09:09 PM PST
Last edited by you 6 hours ago

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Poor Derek, nay Poor Derek Nye,

a·pol·o·gy (-pl-j) n. pl. a·pol·o·gies
1. An acknowledgment expressing regret or asking pardon for a fault or offense.
2. a. A formal justification or defense. b. An explanation or excuse: "The consequence of those measures will be the best apology for my conduct" (Daniel Defoe).
3. An inferior substitute: The sagging cot was a poor apology for a bed.

These nouns denote a statement that excuses or defends something, such as a past action or a policy
[I excuse nothing, I only defend the victims of the Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome]:

arguments that constituted an apology for capital punishment
[I am 150% against capital punishment except for fleas head lice and body lice ];

published an apologia expounding her version of the events; a defense based on ignorance of the circumstances
[Sorry but I perfectly know the circumstances of the genocide and the deportation of Indians and the sadistic treatment of Blacks];

an untenable justification for police brutality
[I don't seem to support police brutality, or colonial brutality, or colonists' brutality, do you?].

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013 3:13:27 AM PST

derek nye says:

An "apologist" isn't a term that has anything to do with the noun "apology." But kudos on your ability to read the dictionary. It's a term for those who feel guilty over slavery, or any type of event that had nothing to do with you, and feel the need to make some type of amends to descendants who have no memory or were involved in said events in any case. That's what you are doing. There's no such thing as Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome; no african American today was involved in that horrid time. It's simply used as an excuse and crutch by many today. I don't have what you're describing, at all; and most don't. It's a far left APOLOGIST misnomer. You feel guilty for reading and understanding history, and are unable to seperate yourself from said events. That's sad, in every sense of the word. Nothing poor about me, but you seriously need to get some help. You defend so called "victims" so vehemently, when there's no victim to defend anymore. The Civil War, and slavery, are long done. All that's left are those who perpetually use a historical event to mask their own deficinces.

I love when the so called "educated" try to talk down to those who I can guarantee have far more intelligence and education than you do, usually by attempting to qoute an innocous source and twisting it to your own end. You must fit into whatever university you wear your patched sleeve tweed coat at every day. In any event, you're incredibly boring, and I won't be responding anymore. And for the record, the great President Abraham Lincoln isn't and never was related to or involved with the farce that is Barack Hussein Obama; they don't belong in any type of comparison or combination, in thought or word.

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1 new post since your last visit

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 8, 2013 5:13:57 AM PST

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Since Derek Nye will not respond anymore, which I regret, let me tell him, or you for you to tell him, that he is missing many points.

It is the Catholic Church of the USA that for the first time considered the Catholics, hence all Americans since the Catholic Church considers itself as universal, had to "remember, reconcile and recommit" themselves to serving justice for and to American Indians. I just wonder why Congress just passed big packages of reparations to Reservation Indians and Black farmers or sharecroppers, or their descendants?

Mr Derek Nye rejects Obama. Who cares? Obama was just very fairly re-elected which was not the case of some others.

But Mr Derek Nye should get out of his images: I do not teach in a public university. I do not wear patched sleeve tweed coats. I am not from his picture book.

The use of apologist with that meaning of his is so far not listed in dictionaries. I found another approach though:

"Starting Out as an Apologist
"People often ask, "How should I begin to train myself to defend my faith? How do I prepare for the inevitable knock on the door? I don't want to have to stand there open-mouthed." The best place to start your homework is the Bible. Almost every American home has one. It's either a well-worn, well-used book (if that's how it is in your home, you may skip the next several paragraphs), or it's the book with the thickest layer of dust. " (Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004)

If Bible we take, let me ask you how many generations of children are supposed to be held responsible for the mistakes and sins of the parents? Isn't it 7 or so? Hence 7 x 30 = 210 years. There is still a lot of water to run under the bridges of your conscience before 1865 + 210 = 2075.

Your attitude and discourse, Mr Derek Nye is only there to disenfranchise yourself from your responsibility to yourself and to your fellow citizens, Blacks and Whites and Latinos and Asians. I regret that state of mind which is in many ways the negation of the mind itself.

Have a good evening.

Jacques

CHARLES TRENET – JEROME SAVARY – Y’A D’LA JOIE§ … ET D’L’AMOUR

Grand spectacle pour grand poète, c’est sûr. Les chansons s’enchainent avec brio et la mise en scène est époustouflante en jardin extraordinaire et en rivage méditerranéen. Les provocations visuelles des acteurs multi-polyvalents qui font les faunes autant que les diables, les travelos autant que les transgéniques, sont ce qu’ils doivent être, enivrants. La musique est fortement allègre et joyeuse, comme il se doit. Ce spectacle a retrouvé ce que j’appellerai l’esprit de Charles Trénet, un esprit qui visait d’abord et avant tout à faire plaisir, à donner confiance tant dans l’avenir que dans le présent. Et pourtant il y a un Trénet qui n’est pas présent, un Trénet d’une autre dimension. Il manque l’âme de l’artiste.

L’âme de l’artiste c’est son ancrage dans la réalité de son temps et dans l’horreur et la souffrance de son temps. Le spectacle commence avec les congés payés sans vraiment montrer ni le drame qui les a amenés, une grève générale sans précédent, ni le drame qu’ils présagent, une guerre effroyable que le Front Populaire qui n’avait pas les congés payés à son programme prétendait vouloir empêcher, comme si on empêche l’orage. On n’a jamais eu l’orage et une crevaison n’est vraiment pas le drame de Munich.

Trénet a traversé son époque qui se centre sur la deuxième guerre mondiale puis sur la guerre froide et les guerres coloniales, et rien dans ce spectacle ne donne à entendre les cris de douleur que l’on trouve chez Trénet, même si souvent cachés sous le fringant et le rutilant d’un spectacle qui sonne faux tout en chantant juste. Comme si le jardin extraordinaire n’était pas un refuge, un cache-misère, un paradis artificiel. Et quel refuge, quel cache-misère, quel paradis artificiel il était, ce jardin extraordinaire, au cœur même de l’horreur sans égal.

Que Jérôme Savary ait voulu ne faire qu’un spectacle distrayant, facile, léger, emporté, sans pourtant se laisser emporter vers l’autre face de la lune, soit. Mais je dois dire que cela me laisse un peu froid. J’attendais plus d’un artiste qui a bercé mon enfance et dont le goût aujourd’hui est à la fois la joie de vivre au cœur d’une misère à pleurer. On a la joie mais pas la misère et la joie en perd tout son goût, toute sa valeur. Ce n’est que le contraste qui peut rendre à Trénet sa force.

Il était la force qui permettait aux hommes et aux femmes de son époque d’affronter l’effroyable malheur qui inspirait une effroyable haine et un besoin sans fond de travestir et de grimer cette souffrance en plaisir exquis qui ne niait pas la mort mais la trompétait haut et clair comme le son du cor au fond des bois annonce l’hallali qui va tuer la biche éperdue et le cerf traqué par les chiens de la meute politique. Walt Disney, lui, nous produit Bambi qui fait pleurer tant de la beauté de la vie que de l’horreur de la chasse et du feu que les hommes imposent à l’adorable jeune daim ou chevreuil.

Encore aurait-il fallu que l’horreur soit au rendez-vous comme la lune voulait y être.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

QUENTIN TARANTINO – DJANGO UNCHAINED – JAMIE FOXX – LEONARDO DICAPRIO – CHRISTOPH WALTZ

This is an admirable adventure film and it probably reflect a deep change in American culture concerning the Blacks, African Americans. So far the great authors and playwrights dealing with the Blacks only or practically only showed the villainous hardships of slavery. This film surely shows a lot of that, but with a different eye than in Toni Morrison’s Beloved or many other novels. It shows slavery as the most cruel and absurd social system ever invented but once again from a new point of view, that of a black man who gets out of slavery by accident and gets in business with a German immigrant and shares with him the profession of bounty hunter. That means he can ride a horse and kill white people, provided it is under the authority of his white associate and under the sanctimonious authority of a court-ordered mission, that of catching some fugitive criminals dead or alive.

This black man has a vengeance to fulfill since his wife has been sold away to another planter, one of the worst in Mississippi. I will not deflower the film and tell you the details. This black man, Django, wants to find his wife and free her and in the end, of course, he will succeed, but what an adventure.

The new element in this film is that beyond slavery, and we are just before the Civil War, some Blacks are recapturing their desire to be free beyond their fate of obedience. That fate is explained by the planter as being the result of some kind of a “malformation” of the skull. It is of course the result of nothing but the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) they have been through in the daily suffering imposed onto them mostly for the pure and simple pleasure of the white planters and their white associates who are all shown over and over again as nothing but sadist dullards.

We are here in a postcolonial approach that is only possible because the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also called Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome is finding some kind of a solution, some healing procedure, some way of stepping over it and moving on. This has been a slow and long procedure and the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, and now Barack Obama, and many others before and in-between, have been instrumental in that evolution. Blacks or African Americans are finally finding their self-respect, their self-freedom, their self-pride back and they can finally decolonialize their own souls, their own minds, as the CNN wrote so rightly on November 22, 2012. And when one’s mind is free of any colonial heritage the sky is the limit and the White House is the first step to that sky.

Of course the film is unrealistic, the weapons are as effective as missile throwers if not even rockets launched by some drone from the sky. Of course there is too much blood. But it is the first time some of the cruelty of these slave-owners is finally shown, alluded to and defused into absolute punishment. To be free in your soul you must be convinced your torturers have been punished, even those who were silent if not consenting witnesses. That means you have to finally remember and reconcile with and recommit yourself to the future and no longer remain enslaved to the past. That means forgiving the descendants of your torturers and that means the descendants of your torturers have to finally step over their belief you are inferior, which makes them superior without having to prove it.

That’s why this film is great. It is really the beginning of the end, maybe even the beginning of the day after the end.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

UN SOUTHERN SPAGHETTI À LA SAUCE BOLOGNAISE ÉPAISSE.

Sergio Leone dans les cordes enfin. On trouve ici tout les constituants d’un Southern profond, un film sur le Sud du temps où l’esclavage était le sort naturellement – j’entends par nature – absurde imposé aux Noirs. Cette dénonciation de l’esclavage est d’une force et d’une fureur telle que vous devriez prendre une bonne dose de calmant avant d’aller voir ce film. Il y a des scènes insoutenables.

Mais ce qui fait que ce film est un film de génie ce n’est pas cette vision extrême de l’esclavage et de la bêtise absolument congénitale sur une prétendue malformation du crâne des Noirs que certains blancs prétendument éduqués pouvaient défendre, comme John Caldwell Calhoun. C’est le regard nouveau qui se glisse sous chaque scène, sous chaque plan. Le film est entièrement vu du point de vue d’un esclave, libéré par accident par un immigrant allemand de Düsseldorf et qui s’associe à cet esclave qu’il libère et dont il a besoin pour réussir sa mission de chasseur de primes, et le Noir, Django pour ne pas le nommer, accepte de partager cette profession, bien que son objectif final soit de retrouver son épouse qui a été vendue à une des plantations les pires du Mississippi et de la libérer, ce qu’il réussira en fin de compte, bien sûr. Mais je ne vous donnerai pas les détails.

Ce qui est neuf dans ce film c’est qu’il est entièrement vu du point de vue d’un Noir qui a retrouvé sa fierté, sa liberté, sa volonté de justice et les moyens d’obtenir cette justice par ses propres mains et ses propres gâchettes. Ce film représente enfin la sortie de la vision apocalyptique du sort des esclaves noirs qui a dominé pendant un siècle la littérature et les arts noirs, comme dans Beloved de Toni Morrison.

Les Noirs aux USA aujourd’hui sont en train de sortir de ce que l’on appelle le Syndrome du Stress Post Traumatique que certains appellent dans ce cas précis le Syndrome Post Traumatique de l’Esclavage. Ce syndrome fait que les gens atteints sont les esclaves complets de leur traumatisme et qu’ils n’arrivent pas à en sortir une fois ce traumatisme surmonté ou fini, et soyons clair, il est impossible de surmonter un choc traumatique comme celui de l’esclavage par ses propres moyens. Il est nécessaire de collectivement faire en sorte que la communauté des descendants des esclaves acceptent de se souvenir du passé, de se réconcilier avec lui et de se réengager dans la vie sociale globale, ce qui implique que ces descendants des esclaves ont réussi à pardonner les descendants des maîtres et tortionnaires d’esclaves et que ces descendants des maîtres et tortionnaires d’esclave acceptent enfin de ne plus considérer les Noirs comme inférieurs, ce qui leur donne le privilège d’être supérieurs sans avoir à le prouver.

Ce changement de braquet est le résultat du mouvement des Droits Civiques, de Martin Luther King et de Barack Obama, avec beaucoup d’autres avant et entre eux deux, et cela a rendu aux Noirs aux USA le droit et le sentiment d’appartenir en toute liberté et en toute égalité à la société américaine. Après cela le ciel est la limite et la Maison Blanche est a première marche de cette ascension céleste.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Bienvenue dans l'arrière boutique de Sganarelle, un maître sorcier en danse vaudou du ventre et du bas ventre à coup de balai et de fosse septique qui doit vous laisser sceptique sur les bords des naseaux.

ALCESTE A BICYCLETTE – FABRICE LUCHINI – LAMBERT WILSON

UN FILM AMUSANT SUR LE TON GRINÇANT.

Les acteurs, comme il est dit si bien dans le film, sont narcissiques et ne pensent qu’à et qu’avec leur nombril. Mais leur nombril a la couleur et la forme de leurs multiples personnages. Vous pouvez leur dire n’importe quoi sur eux-mêmes ils ne sont pas si touchés que cela, mais si vous attaquez un de leurs personnages ils deviennent fous furieux sans s’apercevoir que c’est du narcissisme de leur propre image virtuelle totalement fausse car ils ne sont pas leurs personnages. Mais une brique entendrait cela mieux et plus distinctement qu’un acteur. N’est sourd que qui veut bien ne pas entendre.

Ici le réalisateur veut jouer avec le Misanthrope de Molière mais sans monter le Misanthrope de Molière, sous prétexte de faire moderne, de parler au public moderne. Donc finit les alexandrins et la diction doit être de boulevard, niveau certificat d’études, d’autrefois car autrefois à ce niveau-là ils savaient encore lire, mais guère plus.  Donc finies les simagrées baroques ou classiques, les tenues droites et bien campées en accord avec la définition du personnage. Il faut aller chercher dans le passé du personnage des éléments qui le font boiter, tousser, maugréer, se noyer dans un jacuzzi, pourquoi pas ?

Ce souci de faire moderne est poussé un peu loin dans la cruauté contre les acteurs à l’ancienne et contre les acteurs à la moderne. Ils poussent même un tantinet trop loin. L’actrice moderne est une actrice porno soutenue par son amant et futur mari et qui part tout de suite pour Bucarest en Roumanie, capitale actuelle du porno mondial. On ne sera pas étonné que cette jeune fille trouve qu’une double péné- (sous entendu car on parle SMS dans cette société –tration, ne demandez pas de détails : ou faites-le sur twitter avec un message du genre : « double péné- 7 2 quoi - J ») soit un peu pénible à huit heures du matin. Je suis d’ailleurs étonné que ce film voulant faire moderne s’arrête au porno hétéro-. L’est de l’Europe est aussi un très grand centre en plein développement du porno homo- comme on disait il y a encore peu, gay pour être moderne et LGBT pour être hyper politiquement correct. La double péné- devient alors très athlétique.

Le film fait jouer les deux rôles fondamentaux à deux acteurs pris dans leur vie réelle, enfin la vie réelle de ces deux personnages sui sont acteurs dans cette vie virtuelle, et ils sont les parfaites incarnations des deux personnages : Alceste, le misanthrope et Philinte son ami. Plus gay que ces deux là y a pas, mais le film évacue une telle lecture et au contraire ajoute à ces deux amis et acteurs une italienne qui tombe pour l’un en mots émotionnels mais tombe pour l’autre sexuellement. Et c’est bien sûr Gauthier Valence, alias Dr Morange, alias Lambert Wilson qui se paie l’italienne en parfaite infidélité à son évanescente Christine de compagne, et en parfaite traitrise de son ami qui s’était pris pour la belle Italienne. Et ce fat de metteur en scène qui s’attribue le rôle principal de la pièce qu’il monte ne trouve rien de mieux que de croire que cela n’a aucune importance. La vengeance est mortelle et jusque sur la scène du Théâtre du Rond Point qui aurait pu être la Comédie Française le pauvre et traitreusement trahi Serge Tanneur, alias virtuel et potentiel Alceste, alias Fabrice Luchini trahira à son tour par un tour de passe-passe de magie vaudou son ex- ci-devant prétendu ami de toujours et le terrorisera et ridiculisera dans son intime ego antagonique et plus nombriliste que le plus narcissique de tous les nombrils du monde. Vivement que Dmitri Chostakovitch nous ponde un opéra sur le Nombril, s’il le peut encore.

Mais justement ce film manque quelque chose, manque un objectif. Il ne touche pas le cœur du problème mais simplement la vessie. Et quand je dis la vessie… Le cœur c’est le plaisir immense qu’un public peut retirer d’une performance de théâtre quelle qu’elle soit, même au cinéma, à condition qu’elle leur torde et triture les tripes de la façon la plus exquise et mortelle qui puisse être. Ça c’est le grand Molière. On nous a donné un vulgaire Sganarelle. Amusant, mais le coup du balai on l’a déjà vu dans le film « Molière » d’Ariane Mnouchkine et remplacer le coup du balai par la fosse sceptique qui pue, ce qui est difficile à rendre à l’écran, c’est plutôt scatologique sans s’assumer vraiment. Rebouchez tout s’il vous plait.

 AMEN.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU