Category Archives: History

Notes on Emile Durkheim’s Suicide, a Study in Sociology (1897)

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Emile Durkheim’s Suicide, a Study in Sociology, from 1897, is both method and study. That is, the book is not only presenting a sociological approach to the study of suicide, but it is also teaches what is the use of sociology. As Durkheim’s first lines to the book put it, “sociology has been in vogue for some time” (35). The discipline is on a stage of development, at the stage of “system-building and philosophical synthesis” (35). What sociology attempts, then, is to provide a study of society of philosophical consequences, one is tempted to say of ontological consequences.

Divided in three books, Suicide traces the way different sciences have approached suicide; it revises what physicians and other sociologists have written before Durkheim (notably these perspectives will be refuted); it also offers statistics and data to chart the number of individuals who have committed suicide. The chore of the argument is that suicide is socially caused. That is, while there is a form of suicide that is manifested by purely “personal” reasons, i.e. suicides that Durkheim’s attributes to an unstable mental health, suicide, in general, is prefigured by social forces. To determine these social forces, Durkheim begins by comparing the suicide rate of different areas in a country. In the states of Germany, for instance, he notes that there are notable differences between the suicide rates of the provinces of Rhenish Palatinate and Bavaria. While the latter has the lowest number of suicides between 1867 and 1875 (19 in total) in the German states, the former has one of the highest number of suicides (157 in total). For Durkheim, the number of suicides in a state is relative to the number of Catholics and Protestants in each state. So, Catholicism socially cancels suicide, while Protestantism propitiates it, to some extent. For Durkheim it is the values of each of these religions what determines the predisposition of people towards the act of suicide. That is, while for the catholic all form of suicide is “abhorrent,” the Protestant is more convinced that each individual is “the author of [their own] faith” (158). Since Protestantism embraces the “spirit of free inquiry” (158), then, when one starts thinking for themselves, one quickly realizes that life does not make sense. It is not that Protestantism “kills,” but that by the fact that individualism becomes crucial for Protestantism, excessive individualism results in egoistic suicide. As Durkheim would put it “the more the believer doubts, that is, the less he feels himself a real participant in the religious faith to which he belongs, and from which he is freeing himself; the more the family and community become freeing to the individual, so much the more does he become a mystery to himself, unable to escape the exasperating and agonizing question: to what purpose?” (212). The individual becomes less integrated and regulated by society because individuals can integrate and regulate themselves on their own, and by extension, they can decide if life is worth living.

It would seem, then, that behind the sociological inquiry, at least as presented by Durkheim in Suicide, there is a defence of traditional values, or more precisely to Catholicism. But, far from it, Durkheim also charts the existence of suicide within traditional values. That is, if egoistic suicide is tied to Protestant values of individualism, altruistic suicide would be tied to the excessive presence of the social group. While egoistic suicide is a matter of decision, altruistic suicide will be a “duty” (219). In other words, whereas egoistic suicide results from an individual decision, altruistic suicide depends on a collective decision. Egoistic suicide is no sacrifice, but a refusal to keep living within a particular social context; altruistic suicide is, above all, a sacrifice for the greater good. The former is an excessive manifestation of the self, the latter does not question if life is worth living, they simply give their life for the good of the socius, society. In a society where individuals are both highly regulated and integrated there is a “joy of sacrifice,” because, even with no particular reason, renunciation [to life] in itself is considered praiseworthy” (223). Durkheim proposes a possible history of this type of suicide, from ancient societies to modern ones. If in ancient societies religion was tied to altruistic suicide, in martyrdom, in modern society, it is the army the institution that embraces altruistic suicide.

Durkheim proposes that there is a third type of suicide: the anomic suicide. This suicide seems to appear only in periods of acute crisis. But Durkheim would argue that this form of suicide, at least at the end of the nineteenth century, has become normal, especially in people in the fields of trade and industry. “For a whole century, economic progress has mainly consisted in freeing industrial relations from all regulation” (254). And with this, religion “has lost most of its power. And government, instead of regulating economic life, has become its tool and servant” (255). So, if egoistic suicide derives from the maximization of individual doubt and open inquiry, and altruistic suicide is motivated by the duty to sacrifice an individual life for the good of society, anomic suicide combines both individual duty and individual decision. That is, anomic suicide is tied fully to the revolting forces of capitalist accumulation. While Durkheim does never mention the word capitalism, his diagnosis of the late nineteenth century is akin to Marx’s. Since there has been a “liberation of desires” that “has been made worse by the development of industry and the almost infinite extension of the market” (255), anomic suicide is what comes when both egoistic suicide, the informed decision of kill oneself, coexists and antagonizes with altruistic suicide, the self-sacrifice for a bigger good.

To some extent, Durkheim is already challenging Max Weber’s explanation of the rise of capitalism. It is not the protestant ethic, as described by Weber, that is behind the expansion of capitalism (the liberation of desires by the infinite expansion of the market), but the conflict between traditional (Catholic) and modern (Protestant) values. If capitalism, as described by Engels and Marx, is characterized by the revolting and revolutionary forces of the bourgeoisie, mixing the old and the new, then, anomic suicide lies in-between the intelligibility of both traditional and modern values, anomic suicide is the grammar of capitalism (since grammar is the unseen infrastructure of enunciation). It makes sense, then, that Durkheim has a hard time typifying anomic suicide. He relates it to both egoistic suicide and altruistic suicide (258), but he insists on the radical difference between them. While both altruistic and egoistic suicide “draw their chief recruits from the same social environments [army men, for the altruistic; intellectual careers for the egoistic] […] the other [anomic suicide draws from] the industrial commercial world” (258). What is the industrial commercial world, at the end of the nineteenth century, if not a combination of both militarism and highly educated elites? The anomic suicide is the suicide of the soldiers of capital: individuals who are the byproduct of the intellectualization (Protestantism) and sacralization (Catholicism) of capitalist relationships, a society both modern and traditional, and in perpetual change.

In the last section of the book, “Practical Consequences,” Durkheim tries to solve the problem of anomic suicide, and of suicide in general. He stresses that since anomic suicide goes against society, or more precisely against the forces that guarantee the cohesion between individuals (integration and regulation), a form of socialization should restrain the centripetal force of anomic suicide. While religion, the family, and politics have been key in restraining anomic suicide, in the late nineteenth century, for Durkheim, none of these institutions can restrain anymore the anomy. With the emergence of capitalist relationships (though capitalism is a concept alien to the book, as mentioned before) where can one find a restrainer for the anomy? “The only way to resolve this antinomy is to set up a cluster of collective forces outside the State, though subject to its action, whose regulative influence can be exerted with greater variety” (380).

Durkheim’s distrust of the state derives from what he sees as an ambivalent transformation of political power since the French Revolution. That is, Durkheim believes that since the state was the only institution that survived the ancient regime, the state’s own survival and perseverance made of it an institution that “tended to absorb all forms of activity which had a social character,” and no other social institution was able to challenge this because the rubble of the ancient regime was but “an unstable flux of individuals” (389). Modern society, then, is a state society, “Individuals are made aware of society and of their dependence upon it only through the State [sic]” (389). As a consequence, “While the State [sic] becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them” (389). If the state cannot make of the individual but “liquid molecules,” what can guarantee grip, solidity, restraint and order in society? Durkheim’s proposal is to provide the restitution of autonomy to local groups, he proposes a “decentralization” of society from the state, a decentralization that would “simultaneously produce a greater concentration of social energies” (389). This decentralization then is meant to not loose “the bonds uniting each apart of society with the State [sic], moral powers must be created with an influence, which the state cannot have, over the multitude of individuals” (390). It would seem, then, that Durkheim is appealing for the emergence of an autonomous multitude of individuals, such multitude is open to building bridges for the sake of taming anomic suicide. Since moral power is the only power that holds people together, for Durkheim, then, it is not by abolishing the state, or the market, or capitalism, that one cancels anomic suicide. If one cannot control the flows of the “luquid molecules,” one can at least try to direct their fluidity, one can bet on hydraulics as sociability. But would this end for good anomic suicide? And more importantly, what would happen if moral power become anomic itself?

9 to 5 (1980): liberation, fantasy and women empowerment

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The saying “behind every great man is a great woman” has always been a euphemism of the domination of men over women. In more than one way, the film 9 to 5 (1980) directed by Collin Higgins deconstructs this common saying. The film kickstarts with the busy streets of New York City, as masses of women dart into their jobs. As the lyrics of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” accompany the opening sequence, the film presents one of its main characters, Judy, a recently divorced woman who is about to begin her first ever job. Once Judy finds her way into the right building and the right floor where her new employment waits for her, she is introduced to her direct supervisor, Violet, a widow who runs diligently a crew of secretaries under the supervision of Mr. Hart, the vice-president of the company. As Judy’s first day begins, she soon realizes that her new work environment is far from perfect.

One day, Judy finds out that there is a rumour around the professional relationship between Mr. Hart and her personal assistant Doralee. The rumour has it that Doralee is sleeping with her boss. To make matters worse, the rumour was spread by Mr. Hart himself. And not only that, but gossip around the office is also surveyed and policed by Roz, Mr. Hart’s hardcore loyalist company associate. By extension, women cannot openly confront Doralee, nor they can speculate much about what happens at the office. While it would seem that Mr. Hart has a tight grip over his women employees, and in general all his subordinates (professionally and personally [that is, including his wife]), one day things fall apart. Once Violet’s ideas, yet again, were stolen by Mr. Hart and the long-waited promotion that she was seeking will not come, since a less experienced (and completely absent from the plot) man will be promoted instead of her, Violet explodes in anger and frustration. She threatens Mr. Hart, accuses Doralee of being her lover, and storms out of the office to the closest bar. This triggers a chain reaction in which Doralee and Judy will follow Violet as they both raise their voices and concerns: Doralee confronts Mr. Hart about the rumour he made about her, and Judy speaks up her frustration over the firing of a co-worker.

At the bar, somehow, liberation begins. That is, once the three women are confronted with the fact that their boss is, as the film would say later, a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” and they start talking about it, they start discussing the possibility of changing their conditions of exploitation. Surprisingly, the film suggests that to liberate oneself, one should talk with others, and more importantly, share their dreams about change. After the three women, Doralee, Judy and Violet, decide they would spend the rest of the day drinking and chatting, they smoke a marijuana joint. Later, they share their fantasies of getting rid of Mr. Hart. All their dreams coincide that the boss should be better gone from the office. As the story continues, Mr. Hart is deprived of her putative power to command. After he fails to blackmail Violet, Judy and Doralee, Mr. Hart is abducted and restrained at his house since his wife is away for a month.

Without bosses, the workplace flourishes and things improve, including the productivity at the workplace. In fact, the women quickly realize that the boss is but a signature, a ghostly presence that becomes irrelevant when workers gain agency, freedom, and support. Having a boss at the boss is, then, not only unnecessary but also unproductive. Doralee, Violet, and Judy create a flexible work environment in which workers go to the office whenever it fits better with their own personal schedules, they also encourage workers to decorate their own workspaces (something forbidden when Mr. Hart was around), and they establish a day-care at work. Even more, Violet has found evidence that Mr. Hart has been stealing from the company by keeping a double booking of items sold by the company. In short, all is perfect without the boss.

While bliss and productivity grow at the office, the wife of Mr. Hart returns early from her trip. And she liberates her husband. Angry and ready to take revenge, Mr. Hart goes back to the office. At gunpoint he forces Violet, Judy and Doralee to renounce to their ambitions. His revenge will be served, and the women will be punished. But then, almost by deux ex machina, the chairman of the company, Mr. Tinsworthy, shows at the New York City office. The chairman is there to congratulate Mr. Hart. After the recent changes implemented in the New York offices, productivity has increased historically. From being revenge driven, Mr. Hart turns to praise receiving. Finally, since the chairman is so impressed by the work of Mr. Hart, he promotes him to be the head of operations at the company’s offices in Brazil. The boss is gone now and forever. The women are free, the changes stay, but the happy ending happens thanks to the will of the “big-male-boss.” One can argue that the film betrays its plea for liberation and women-empowerment by giving the chairman, at the end of the day, the absolute power to get rid of Mr. Hart, women agency is reduced. At the same time, it would be too simplistic to say that women agency, in the film is reduced by the presence and actions of the chairman of the company. And more importantly, the lesson of the film, if there is one, anyway, is that liberation comes from dreaming together and working together, that changes are achievable, and that even if hierarchies are difficult to fight back, it is the productive work of those oppressed that both presupposes and exceeds any form of exploitation: just as the company was productive when Mr. Hart was oppressed and the company was more productive when he was not around, the only constant was the labour of the workers. If productivity depends on the happiness of workers, why then would companies bet on hierarchies and bosses?

Crisis, extenuación, y transición. Notas sobre Nuestra parte de noche (2019) de Mariana Enríquez II

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Segunda parte (final)

Luego de que la amiga de Gaspar, Adela, sea atrapada por la casa abandonada que ella y sus amigos visitaron al final de la tercera parte, el grupo de amigos se desintegra. Las páginas restantes de Nuestra parte de noche (2019) dan seguimiento a estos eventos. A su vez, el resto de la novela se compone de fragmentos del diario de la madre de Gaspar, Rosario (“Círculos de tiza”); las notas de una periodista que investiga las fosas de restos humanos y desaparecidos de la dictadura (“El pozo de Zañartú”); y la última parte de la novela sigue los años de Gaspar con Luis, su tío, hasta el desenlace de la historia, cuando Gaspar se venga de “La Orden” (“Las flores negras que crecen en el cielo”). Como ya era claro al final de la tercera parte, una de las preocupaciones principales de Nuestra parte de noche es el pensar la post-dictadura argentina, la transición a la democracia. 

La novela de Enríquez invita a pensar en la transición como un proceso de intercambio. Juan engaña a “La Orden,” bloquea los poderes de Gaspar, pero para poder salvar a Gaspar, debe de entregarle Adela a “La Oscuridad.” La amiga de Gaspar, resulta ser su prima, su madre era prima de Rosario. Adela es la hija de una Bradford y un militante del “Ejército de Liberación Maoísta Leninista” (501). Desde esta perspectiva, la novela sugiere que para poder salvar los restos del peronismo (el hijo de Juan, Gaspar), se debe entregar a la “Oscuridad” los restos de la izquierda radical. Desde esta perspectiva, la transición a la democracia argentina es la traición a la izquierda radical. La cuestión, entonces, es si el peronismo puede vivir con esta traición. Por el final de la novela, la respuesta es una rotunda negación. Luis, el tío de Gaspar, intenta reconstruir su vida, y la casa donde se muda con su sobrino “una casa en Villa Elisa, cerca de La Plata, que se venía abajo, pero era hermosa y Luis quería recuperarla” (519). Luis, como un restaurador, intenta reconstruir los restos del peronismo, incluso llama a uno de sus hijos como Perón. Sin embargo, sus esfuerzos son en vano: Luis es asesinado por la abuela de Gaspar para atraer a su nieto de nuevo a la “La Orden” y retomar las tareas pendientes de su padre. 

Si bien, la novela invita a pensar en el rol de las élites en el proceso de transición, sobre todo por los personajes de la familia Bradford “los reyes. Terratenientes. Yerbateros. Rentistas. Explotadores” (591). La novela también invita a pensar en el desgaste de la clase letrada, o más bien, en el desgaste de la profesionalización laboral y artística, y el desgaste de la vida en general. La madre de Gaspar, “la primera doctora en antropología argentina graduada en Cambridge” que sentía “un orgullo ridículo” (445), contrasta radicalmente con los sentimientos de Gaspar y sus amigos frente a sus vidas y profesiones. Gaspar, por ejemplo, filmaba fiestas de quinceañeras, lo “hacía por hacer algo, para no aburrirse” (592). Y más aún, a pesar de ser un joven brillante, atractivo y millonario, es incapaz de compartir su riqueza, incluso después de vengarse de “La Orden.” Él mismo comenta “No entiendo por qué tengo que estudiar” (617), ante las insistencias de su novia Marita para que se vuelva profesor de inglés. Igualmente, los dos amigos de Gaspar, Vicky y Pablo tampoco encuentran ese orgullo que sentía la madre de Gaspar. Vicky es una doctora con una habilidad de diagnóstico infalible, pero incapaz de sentir empatía, “esa parte de la medicina, la empatía, no la tenía tan desarrollada … Le costaba ver a la gente detrás de las patologías …Ella debía ser eficiente y certera para curar. Que otro se encargara de secar las lágrimas y calmar el pánico: ella estaba demasiado ocupada” (582). Pablo, a su vez, vive con la imposibilidad de volver público su romance con un fotógrafo de éxito, a pesar de que en su círculo de artistas, la homosexualidad no es tabú. La transición, entonces, dejó las cosas sumergidas en un miasma. A cambio de eficacia laboral (Vicky); riqueza, no bien distribuida, (Gaspar); y éxito en las artes (Pablo) se sacrificó el amor, el orgullo “ridículo,” la pasión y el deseo del estudio. Los personajes de Nuestra parte de noche viven todos como Gaspar al final de la novela con “un corazón exhausto” (667). 

Civilización y barbarie revisitadas. Notas sobre Nuestra parte de noche (2019) de Mariana Enríquez I

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Primera parte (bis. p 351)

Nuestra parte de noche de Mariana Enríquez es una novela entre el género de terror y el roman a clef ambientada en los años previos a y durante la dictadura y la transición a la democracia en Argentina (1960-1997). La novela se centra el la familia de Juan Peterson y su hijo Gaspar. Juan es el médium de la Oscuridad, una entidad antigua reverenciada por “La Orden,” un culto transoceánico. La historia de “La Orden” y de la familia de Juan se superpone a la historia nacional: la orden ancla sus orígenes con la llegada den el siglo XIX de capitalistas ingleses a la región del Chaco, Juan es hijo de inmigrantes del norte de Europa llegados a la Argentina en el periodo de la posguerra. Este movimiento que superpone terror e historia es, quizá, una referencia al propio título de la novela, nuestra parte de noche. Desde esta perspectiva, el terror es la parte de noche de la historia, esa parte crepuscular e indecible que aterroriza al discurso histórico, que lo hace temblar, pero desde el cual también se articula. Y Al mismo tiempo, como le dice Juan, agonizando, a su hijo, la parte de noche es el residuo, un resto afectivo “tenés algo mío, te dejé algo mío, ojalá no sea maldito, no sé si puedo dejarte algo que no esté sucio, que no sea oscuro, nuestra parte de noche” (301). En este orden de ideas, la novela, ambiciosamente, revisa momentos terroríficos de la historia argentina del siglo veinte. 

Si bien, la reevaluación de la turbulenta historia de la Argentina en la segunda mitad de siglo veinte ha sido ampliamente revisada, la vuelta de tuerca de Enríquez consiste en de disociar el terror del que muchas veces es el agente de todos los males, el estado. Así, la orden y sus rituales perversos no son una metáfora del estado, pero sí de esa parte también “malévola” en la historia argentina: los capitalistas. Juan, el médium “perfecto,” se casa con Rosario, una descendiente directa de los miembros fundadores de la orden, los Bradford (ingleses acaudalados que expandieron su capital al mudarse a la Argentina). Así, la familia de Juan y Rosario es, en buena medida, el proyecto nacional de las élites “criollas,” ésas que no quedaron dentro de la política de los caudillos, pero sí contribuyeron a la acumulación de capital. De hecho, la novela reformula uno de los temas más fuertes de la literatura nacional argentina: la civilización y la barbarie. Cuando Juan y su hijo visitan las cataratas del Iguazú. El niño le pregunta al padre porque sus abuelos maternos, tan acaudalados, no se construyeron su finca cerca de aquellos parajes, “No se puede, le contestó Juan, es un parque nacional: no es de nadie, es del Estado. ¿Qué es el Estado? Es de todos, no lo puede comprar una familia particular, eso quiere decir” (112). Los bienes “naturales” son de nadie, del estado, y por lo tanto su terror, no siempre es aterrador: Gaspar primero de asusta de la “Garganta del diablo,” la caída del agua, pero luego “se volvió a reír de lo mucho que se habían mojado” (112). Por otra parte, los abuelos de Gaspar, los Bradford, para quienes “el dinero… es un país en sí mismo” (116) mantienen otra relación con bienes similares a las cataratas, el arte (segunda naturaleza). Cuando su hija Rosario, la madre de Gaspar, le pide su pare que done obras de Cándido a los museos nacionales, pues “es robo, esto [los cuadros] es patrimonio, y él respondía que me la vengan a sacar entonces, la puta que los parió, y un carajo se las voy a dar. Rosario fingía indignación, pero Juan podía verle la sonrisa” (118). 

Desde la perspectiva de Nuestra parte de noche la civilización guarda la segunda naturaleza y la barbarie a la primera naturaleza. El asunto es que, en la novela, la barbarie está ya integrada al estado, y esa parte es ya común. Más aún, si el estado está en la “naturaleza” lo bárbaro deja de ser naturaleza, pues lo bárbaro es más cercano a las carnicerías de rituales que la orden realiza: con brazos amputados, sacrificios humanos, tortura y demás. Así pues, no es casualidad que, aunque los espectros también puedan rondar los bosques, en Nuestra parte de noche todo el terror está en las casas, el lugar de la civilización, sobre todo en las casas abandonadas o las casas de los ricos (la casa de Gaspar y Juan en Buenos Aires fue diseñada por los arquitectos O’Farrell y Del Pozo [329] y la finca de los abuelos diseñada a su vez por otros arquitectos de renombre). Si el terror está en las casas, ¿quién puede vivir en la “naturaleza” si ahí mismo es donde el estado, en la dictadura, vacía y desaparece cuerpos? El pasaje de casa a la intemperie y viceversa es también la tragedia argentina del siglo veinte: la transición. De hecho, este es el conflicto de Juan que, cercano a morirse, por órdenes de la “Orden,” debe transferir su conciencia a su hijo, que posee aptitudes de médium también, para continuar con los rituales. Juan se rehúsa y encuentra una manera de “bloquear” los dones de su hijo. Se anula esta transición, pero no se anula el proceso en sí. Al final de la tercera parte “La cosa mala de las casas solas” una amiga de Gaspar es atrapada por una casa abandonada en su barrio. Juan no canceló la transición, la volvió convertible, transformable, transferible. 

Notes on To Hell and Back. Europe 1914-1949 (2015) Ian Kershaw (3)

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Chapter 3

The aftermath of the First World War revealed what the conflict was all about: an exhaustion of old ways of war-making. By consequence politics was also deeply affected. For Kershaw what was at stake in the period after the war, beyond the reparations and amendments, was “how, instead, did Europe lay the foundation of a dangerous ideological triad of utterly incompatible political systems competing for dominance: communism, fascism and for liberal democracy” (93). Kershaw, in a way, is trying to depict the bigger picture. The end of the first world war was the beginning of the second. Most of the pre-war conflicts were still present after the armed struggle officially ended. Class tension was still high in England. And things were worst, as the returning heroes found lack of opportunities, and very high inflation rates. While it could be argued that the period the period in-between wars was merely a deferral, this pause was significant. 

The general state of peace was but a promise written and signed in Paris with the Peace Conference. Germany was facing a radical period of transformation with the installation of a democratic republic. The many ethnicities part of the Habsburg Empire found themselves with the possibility of becoming nation states, but not all of them were able to achieve this. The violence that moved the war could be explained, but instability that many countries in Europe were facing in the aftermath of the war depicted a very different type of violence. This one “had no clear or coherent ideology. Greed, envy, thirst for material gain, desire to grab land all played their parts” (105). Kershaw does not connect these affects with other big events of this period. That, for Kershaw the general state of violence without ideology that some countries faced is disconnected from the violence in Russia, during the Bolshevik revolution, the diplomatic meetings in Paris, and the triumph of Fascism in Italy. However, as much as there was a plan that moved the Bolsheviks or an “agenda” in the meetings in Paris, perhaps everything was more improvised like the always shifting career of Benito Mussolini. What was fascism, embodied by Mussolini, but a form of politics without ideology, a form of politics that was greedy, melancholic, conservative and aggressive?

The “world of nation-states [that] was emerging” (147) was prepared to emerge. As the Great War was interpreted as a war of self-preservation, so were the negotiations, the conflicts, and general violence after the war, affairs of self-interest. These were, in fact, the new rules in town: self-conservation and to self-interest. Or perhaps, these two were always already there, always contingent, or about to emerge in the world of Empires that Europe self-disguised as. 

Personajes de carácter y de destino, y el (buen) uso de la garlopa. Notas sobre Soldados de Salamina (2001) de Javier Cercas

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Si bien Soldados de Salamina (2001), de Javier Cercas, evoca directamente la batalla entre persas y helenos que “salvó a occidente de las garras de oriente” en la antigüedad, en la novela esta evocación es más ironía que hermenéutica. El relato comienza con un narrador fácil de confundir con el mismo Cercas, un periodista de mediana edad que ha publicado varias novelas y que lleva el mismo nombre del autor. Éste entrevista a Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio. Mientras que la entrevista va por un sendero incierto y rocoso, pues Ferlosio, como menciona el narrador, cuando se le pregunta algo responde con otra cosa, la charla entre ambos fluye hacia otra parte. En un momento, Ferlosio le cuenta a Cercas sobre su padre, Rafael Sánchez Mazas, uno de los fundadores de la Falange y luego ministro en la dictadura franquista. Cuando el gobierno republicano estaba por ser consumido por la cruenta guerra civil en España, y el avance de los nacionalistas, comandados por Franco, ya anunciaba su triunfo inevitable, muchos presos importantes para los republicanos fueron mandados a fusilar. Entre estos presos estaba Sánchez Mazas. La particularidad del asunto no es sólo que Sánchez Mazas sobreviviera al fusilamiento colectivo, sino que su escape está lleno de enigmas y traiciones. Si bien, él se mantiene fiel siempre a la Falange, y luego al Franquismo, su escape de la muerte depende de, primero, un soldado republicano y luego de unos desertores republicanos y campesinos catalanes. 

Con todo y que el texto enfatice en repetidas ocasiones que no se trata de una ficción, sino de un evento “real,” lo que está en juego en Soldados es la forma en que tanto “lo real,” como “lo ficticio” generan memoria. De hecho, el argumento del texto está dado desde las primeras páginas. El relato de Ferlosio sobre su padre es lo que se repite durante toda la novela. Más aún, la misma entrevista con Ferlosio da la pauta de la dinámica a seguir en todo el texto. Cuando el narrador recupera parte de la “entrevista” menciona: 

“El problema es que si yo, tratando de salvar mi entrevista le preguntaba (digamos) por la diferencia entre personajes de carácter y personajes de destino, él se las arreglaba para contestarme con una disquisición sobre (digamos) las causas de la derrota de las naves persas en la batalla de Salamina, mientras que cuando yo trataba extirparle su opinión sobre (digamos) los fastos del quinto centenario de la conquista de América, él me respondía ilustrándome con gran acopio de gesticulación y detalles acerca de (digamos) el uso correcto de la garlopa” (19) 

No sólo se trata de la imposibilidad de “extirparle” a Ferlosio algo de información, sino que cada respuesta de Ferlosio va, aparentemente, hacia un campo semántico y temático disperso. Como si no hubiera nada en común entre los héroes de carácter y destino, y los quinientos años de la conquista, con la batalla de Salamina y el buen uso de la garlopa, la narración pasa por alto estas respuestas. No obstante, lo que hay aquí es el borboteo de una embriaguez argumentativa que ya obedece una lógica de readymade: las respuestas de Ferlosio son imágenes analogables, objetos que se encuentran (“no fue hasta la última cerveza de aquella tarde cuando Ferlosio contó la historia del fusilamiento de su padre, la historia que me ha tenido en vilo durante los dos últimos años” [19]). Así, los héroes de carácter y de destino tienen todo que ver con las causas de la derrota persa, y los quinientos años de la conquista también tienen todo que ver con el uso apropiado de la garlopa. A la larga, también, estas respuestas son las mismas que explicarán la misteriosa manera en que Sánchez Mazas sobrevivió a la guerra civil. 

La distinción entre héroes de carácter y de destino es elaborada por Sánchez Ferlosio en varios ensayos. De forma muy escueta, la diferencia entre héroe de destino y héroe de carácter está en que el segundo es un manojo de repeticiones y el primero un nudo que siempre se resuelve. En otras palabras, el héroe de carácter tiene experiencias que siempre se repiten, es el héroe del hábito y del estoicismo. El héroe de destino, por otra parte, es el que actúa no por su experiencia, sino por otra fuerza, eso que el narrador de Soldados describe en la mirada del soldado que traiciona sus órdenes y deja ir con vida a Sánchez Mazas. El héroe del destino actúa por “una insondable alegría, algo que linda con la crueldad y se resiste a la razón pero tampoco es instinto, algo que vive en ella con la misma ciega obstinación con que la sangre persiste en sus conductos y la tierra en su órbita inamovible y todos los seres en su condición de seres” (104). Ese flujo, que puede ser entendido como el conatus spinozista, es aquello que antecede y precede a la acción, pero sólo puede ser expresable en eso mismo: acciones. 

Con esto en mente, Soldados de Salamina es una novela sobre la posibilidad de pensar que la guerra civil española fue más que sólo una lucha entre carácter y destino. Es decir, Sánchez Mazas es el héroe del carácter, al que siempre se le regresa su experiencia primordial (que puede ser la ceguera), pero que por más que se empeñe por hacer destino (fundar la Falange) nunca lo logrará. Y de esta manera, su presunto salvador, un soldado republicano que termina peleando por Francia en la Segunda Guerra Mundial llamado Miralles, es el soldado de destino. Miralles, como Ferlosio en la entrevista, siempre hace lo opuesto de lo que se le pide en el momento indicado. Ser personaje de destino, pues, es saberse ínfimo, reconocerse como un personaje, no más, pues como le dice Miralles a Cercas, el narrador, “Los héroes de verdad nacen en la guerra y mueren en la guerra. No hay héroes vivos, joven. Todos están muertos” (199). El asunto, pues, no es que el personaje de carácter y el personaje de destino se contrapongan, ni que alguno de los dos deba de volverse héroe. Lo que está en juego en Soldados es menos entender la historia como una dialéctica, y más como un posible buen uso de la garlopa (el instrumento que genera planicies entre dos junturas de madera), algo que, efectivamente, traiciona a la historia. Así, Soldados de Salamina triunfa como literatura y fracasa como historia (muchos datos son falsos en la novela). Este triunfo consiste en la transformación del evento repetido, y por tanto repetible, (la salvación de Sánchez Mazas) en un avance, en una larga acumulación. Esto es evidente en el último párrafo de la novela: una serie entrópica que va sólo hacia adelante, al afuera de las páginas, al lugar en el que, como la mirada del soldado anónimo que salva a Sánchez Mazas, el flujo encuentra y conecta a personajes de carácter y destino por igual, el acto de lectura.  

Notes on To Hell and Back. Europe 1914-1949 (2015) Ian Kershaw

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Chapter 2

“The Great Disaster,” there is, perhaps, no better title to address the years that the armed conflict of the first world war lasted. The war was, indeed, a disaster for everyone. For Kershaw this event marked the beginning of European twentieth century (44). Indeed, this ferocious and terrible event was only the beginning of what later was going to be continued only 20 years after. While the first chapter identified 4 drives that motivated the clash, this chapter abandons any possible categorization, or reading, that can possibly capture what this war was. Weather it is understood as a “war of industrialized mass slaughter” (45), or as a total war (45), what any history of the armed conflict of the first world can only recount deaths, lands lost, people displaced. 

The task that Kershaw proposes, then, is less to try to make sense of that which precisely escapes sense, and more to simply give numbers and dates the main stage. At the same time, this recount of the chaos also trims what the image of Europe was at the beginning of the war. When discussing the situations of each front, it is noteworthy how in some cases the war was not only between “nations,” but between ethnicities. The case of the Ottoman Empire, for instance, offers a clear example on the ways the war transformed too internally the way the country functioned. The Armenians, first supported by the Russians to proclaim their independence from the Ottoman Empire, were left alone in an ethnic conflict with Turks and Kurds. Though these atrocities happened in 1913, their consequences were present for the war period (50). Same case, also told briefly, but with larger consequences, was the Russian Revolution of October. The changes of the Bolshevik revolution not only aided to finish the war but will later prove to have deep influence for Europe. What conflicts like this one prove is that the war was many wars in one. 

The will to war present at the beginning of the conflict vanished too. While in certain latitudes, like Verdun, in France, war was understood as a necessary patriotic sacrifice, this formula soon found its exhaustion. For many soldiers of all ranks it became clear that “it was probable unclear just what they were fighting for” (52). Terror propagated in all fronts, and with this many affective responses bloomed. There were soldiers who thought still on winning at all costs, others that surrendered to terror, and other who kept fighting by inertia. The war drastically changed many habits, but the old habit of warfare, for those soldiers well trained, prevailed. The days of war were for many just like any other day (63-64). There are testimonies for all tastes, and even if for Kershaw, literary accounts “can at best be impressionistic” (63), perhaps these accounts do something other than merely exaggerate or lie. 

More than ending the war, the cease of fire was the beginning of an intense period of reform. The transformation happened in all fronts. But perhaps were these transformations had stronger implications was in the figure of the state. With most of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points to build a durable peace in Europe being applied, the state found itself at a threshold were its development relied not only in the creation of a nation, but in the creation of a market. The state at the end of the first world war found itself changing its governmental reason, not only arms needed to be mass produced, but also research in general and health institutions. With the end of the Habsburg rule, after 500 years (85), “ethnic nationalism was one of the war’s main legacies” (91): the capture of the sad and happy passions that guard the unsayable affect that the the great war brought.  

Notes on To Hell and Back. Europe 1914-1949 (2015) Ian Kershaw

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-This term I’m TAing a course on European History from 1900 to 1950. This book is the “textbook” for the course. These series of blog posts are notes for the discussion groups I organize for the course-

Chapter 1

Historiography is, to a certain extent, a delicate game to play. One can make connections to the present, or comment on the events that happened, but what one should always be careful of is to imply that our relations with the historical events is free of any layer that separates the event from us. History is a rotten archive. And, for sure, we always arrive to late when things have happened. In this tone, Ian Kershaw’s To Hell and Back (2015) acknowledges its own limitations. The book is, as we are told in the first pages, tries to offer an image of a time in history “dominated by war” (xxiii). Since war is, at its core, illegible, Kershaw argues that “a history of Europe cannot, of course, be a sum of national histories. What is at stake are the driving forces that shaped the continent as a whole in all or at least most of its constituent parts” (xxiv). Flows and forces are what move history, not a sum of events. And yet, the flows too add to one another, they come and go, shape things and dissolve them. 

What the first chapter of To Hell and Back is trying to do is to detect the flows that shaped the turbulent years previous to the first world war. As the epigraph of the paragraph tells us, “the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings” (1), the things that happened at the beginning of the twentieth century are, in a way, beyond the solid and monolithic figure of the monarch. We are, as the chapter tells us repeatedly, in the age of the masses. So far, then, Kershaw has two main characters in his history of Europe: the masses, and their flows, their affects. To understand how masses and affects came together Kershaw proposes 4 interlocking motives. 1.- An explosion of ethnic-racist-nationalism. 2.- Bitter and irreconcilable demands for territorial division. 3.- Acute class conflict. 4.- Protracted crisis of capitalism. The adjectives chosen could not be better, all of them are circling an idea of excess and lack, what explodes, what is irreconcilable, what is acute and what is protracted. History is not a sum of events, but it is a sum of affects. 

The first world war, from this perspective, was crisscrossed between two forms of war, the war of kings and the war of the masses. What can possibly distinguish both is the way that in a world of masses all social figures are involved, somehow, in the armed conflict. From “Eugenics” (20) as a project to exercise a power capable of expelling all negativity from “progress,” to the enthusiasm of the masses for war (39), the driving forces of history are revealing themselves to be ambivalent and yet to be willing to fight for an imagined community. The array of emotions that the war provoked (39) depicts not only that the idea of monarchy, as the main form of politics was being vanished from Europe, but also that politics was going to be a dependant aspect of what the will of the masses. As the “armies that went to war in 1914 were nineteenth-century armies [and] they were about to fight a twentieth-century war” (43), the governements that went to war in 1914 were about to witness a twentieth century politics.