Civic Humanities Javier Suarez People talking to people is still how the worlds standards change Usually we go to see

the doctor when we have a pain somewhere in our body. Lets remember how many times we have had to describe our pain to the man in white who is in front of us. How we described our pain? It is like We use one of the most common poetic tropes, the simile. Our daily life is full of poetic tropes, metaphors, similes, metonymies, etc. However, to appreciate them we need to be attentive to the expressive power they convey. In the case of The use of force, maybe a different approach was needed, one that starts with a dialogue (not necessarily verbal, but any kind of expression that appeals to the reason, the feelings or the emotions of the little girl). Poetry is one of the multiple aspects of a person that can give us a better understanding of his or her needs and desires. I mention the word person in purpose. I would like to say something about it. It comes from the Greek prosopon; it means something like something to be seen (pros-opon); in Latin, it became persona, something which sounds. In fact, person, in this sense, is always a relationship with somebody or something else; it is not possible to hear or see a person in complete isolation, because an isolated person would not be seen or heard. Consequently, he or she would not exist (for persons). Person is a relationship with beings, with the world. This leads us to the idea that for understanding difference (a person who is always different from me) we need to be aware of all the existential nuances that make him or her that particular person: history, art, politics, economy, architecture, etc. In this sense, it is really important to connect different kinds of knowledge (saberes) because in that way we can understand each phenomenon deeply. What keeps us connected? I will answer this question with a phrase of Giordano Bruno: vinculum vinculorum amor est, love is the connection of all connections. Love, according to Bruno, is the cosmic understanding that everything in the cosmos (not only human beings but natural things too) are connected by an erotic force. I think that a re-envisage of humanities should take into account the ideas of person as relationship and love as connection as two main principles of action in our contemporary world. Person is somebody we are connected with and who we have the duty to see but overall to hear. Only when we hear persons we can love them, we can be connected with them. Returning to our case with the doctor, he should see and hear us, and this hearing capacity sometimes is not easily, but we should practice it always. That is why I began this text with the words of Atul Gawande: People talking to people is still how the worlds standards change. Sometimes, the most obvious, can be forgotten. This alternative approach to understand persons (in plural) enables us to understand that there is no one point where you can say: I already know this person completely. That would mean that the person has an essence that we can grasp once and forever. This approach has been sometimes used by scientific social sciences and its quantitative methodologies. Instead, relationships are fluid, are made in the process of interaction, in an open-ended process. In this sense, Nina Vasan affirms that in this new era of social responsibility, the goal is progress, not perfection. I agree with the second part of this statement, we should not look for perfection, but for understanding and recognition and self-expression of difference. However, I would like to say something about the first part of the statement: the goal is progress. Twentieth century world experienced the most devastating wars of history. Much has been written about the problematic concept and dangerous concept of progress in Western societies.

Why the goal is progress? Progress means a directionality of history, history is going somewhere. From a Habermasian point of view, we could say that the goal is progress towards the revitalization of communicative action in the public sphere. In this ideal sphere, we would need to use a universal language to translate our differences and reach agreements. The question is who gives the rules of that universal language? Is it economic neo-liberalism? I am afraid that the attempts to include difference within a democratic and capitalist society can be only an attempt to subsume difference inside a capitalist world-vision. I remember one text of Chakrabarty1 about subaltern agency. He talks about how the gods and religious experiences of the subaltern groups can have a voice in the language of social sciences (Western) that presupposed a time bereft of Gods and spirits. He says that these beliefs have to be translated in the universal language of social sciences to be understood: Subaltern history cannot be thought outside the global narrative of capital. So to be heard we have to translate ourselves in the universal language of capitalism. I remember our last lecture: a perfect translation of the clothes of a community in the universal (and capitalist) language of fashion. Is that wrong? I do not think so; I think it is an interesting approach, but not the only one. We have to aware of its limitations too. What is more, we have to think about the possibility of not being translated in that universal language. Do we have an alternative to democracy and neo-capitalism? Do we have one? That is my (our?) question.

The Times of History and the Times of Gods.