Ode to R+ revisited ... the echo of a post-classical message

The resounding of Moorish and Christian architecture, of Arab-style rounded and Gothic-style pointed arches paying a joint tribute to the Almighty, is a rare symphony to watch. It is possible to witness it in Andalusia though, the sunny land that, for centuries in the low through high middle age, has hosted Arab conquerers alongside Christian subjects, who waited until the thirteen century before claiming back the lands first seized by their Roman ancestors, while still coexisting for two-hundred long years with the last stronghold of their once invincible Muslim overlords, perched up in Granada, the last bulwark of the long lasting Moorish Mediterranean glory. A resistance to which the Alhambra monumental complex stands tall as an eternal, stone-made account on its hill.

The guides toil at explaining visitors that the reason for such architectural choices were ingrained in the lack of economic means of the Christian conquerers: there was no possibility to tear everything down and rebuild it from scratch, so a superposition was a forced choice.

Seville was also the harbor where Columbus set his Caravels' sails open on his way to America, right after Granada was reconquered, supported and financed by their majesties Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragona: a world scarred by the bloodbaths and poverty of the dark Middle Age that came up for air beyond the horizon on the Atlantic.

And just as in my previous post on one such meeting, one of my Lebanese friend's maxims are an occasion for me to meditate on the sense of history with fresh eyes; a hardened story scholar who happens to make a living in tech, despite he is just more than a kid to my whitening hair and claims he always reads the same books over and over again because so Nietzsche convinced him to do (fasting from books he dubs it), he comes along with a striking reflection, while we are away from architectural beauty. He states: "You know, the fact that we idolize the past is proof enough that we are not classical people, for they would destroy everything and rebuild it their own way". A passage from my beloved Milan Kundera comes back to my mind as soon as these words are uttered, when he ponders the meaning of the absence of classical music composers in our contemporary world: if you think about it, we only, in fact, just play the classical music we have inherited from the European modern tradition, perhaps up until Ligety and Stravinsky's masterpieces. We almost do not compose anything new ourselves. Not that I am aware of at least; and it does not get any rap. So it stands to reason to think that we have no message to give, despite all the talk incessantly made. At least, none that we believe is a candidate to eternity.

Think about it: how is it possible? There has never been more said or written, especially -but not only- in the online space. But our very attitude towards the past is tantamount to a sad confession that we ourselves have no faith in the survival of our messages past our own lives, as abundant as the content we create might be. 

Suddenly, such anecdotes start to flood my mind: I have collected a few of them in conversations with friends, indeed, but R+ meetings have the special property of putting an additional pressure on my psyche, which makes meaningful contents emerge copiously. Or as my wife-to-be puts it, "We have been here for one week but it feels like at least a few months!"
Once I met in café with my Polish language exchange partner, back in my Cracow days, discussing her fellow citizen Olga Tokarczuk, who had recently become a Nobel laureate. She had read a few books of her and commented: "This Noble prize thing is tricky: we measure writers by who gets it, but we never consider that the committee is forced to assign one every year, even if a writer who can be called a giant proper is missing in our world. And if you think a bit more, before it was invented, people who would have deserved it multiple times never got it because it just did not exist." "Like Dostoevsky...?" I dared interject with a provocative smirk, knowing the Polish default bias towards anything Russian. The ensuing conversation is for a different story...

 

Dostoevsky, a giant among giants, with his message of guilt expiation propped up by a desperate faith in the power of Christianity to save man from the luring sirens of the darkest recesses of the soul. It is right in the Seville main square, in front of the cathedral, that one of the central episodes of The Karamazov Brothers is set up: the poem of the The Great Inquisitor, the poster child of Ivan's sick but brilliantly deep imagination. The inquisitor who is burning heretics right in front of the Cathedral in the Middle Age and is visited by none less than Christ himself, whom he reprimands for the excessive difficulty of the rules he has left to the Church to manage believers through and resolves to burn on the stake as well. The supreme disavowal of faith. 

When I first come into the square, I stop for a moment and try to figure out on which side of the cathedral the Russian writer imagined that the stage with the stakes was set? My fiancée's voice calls me back from my daydreaming, but the connection has been made to stay, nevertheless.

The beauty of this meeting, encapsulated outside of me by Sevilles's and Andalusia's multi-layered soul, echoes in the many aspects of my personality and life experience which have been marked by the blending of such different walks of life: my love relationship with a Romanian girl, my work as a manager after a long scientific apprenticeship, our very leader's multi-faceted experience in math, finance, even the aerospace industry.

In the cab that leads us and two other participants back to our hotel after a talks session in the local Institute of Statistics, a fellow participant wonders how it is even possible for such different people who are arguing all year long on their Signal communities to create such a peaceful and respectful atmosphere when they are together. I utter my answer right away, suddenly: "Confronting an idea on a chat is very different from witnessing a person's whole presence. The very fact of standing in front of it all makes you perceive that person's reasons for being the way he or she is and that changes everything. In that understanding respect is ultimately rooted." 

And this is what R+ is: sheer respect for the whole spectra of points of views, which makes absorbing people's stories and insights a pleasure. 

And so, at last, a thought strikes my mind: inclusion and polymathy are the hallmarks of a Renaissance man, exclusion of everything but one's own truth is what tells the classical man apart. Sure enough, wokeness and dictatorship are their extremes, but nothing in this world has no double edge.

This is how I have felt in the place where Columbus started off the quest for the new world, supported by the Spanish monarchs' venture capital: a Renaissance man blessed with the company of Renaissance people. 

Thanks to all of you for sharing your presence and wisdom.

'till next time

Mirko