Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert die Bedeutung der Idee der umma in der „Muslimischen Jugend in Deutschland e. V.“ und der sie umgebenden pop-islamischen Szene entlang der Frage sozialer Grenzziehungsprozesse. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass soziale Grenzen nicht nur durch Zuschreibungs- und Exklusionsprozesse von außen konstruiert, sondern auch entlang von gemeinschaftsbildenden Identifikationsprozessen junger Musliminnen und Muslime hergestellt werden. Indem individuelle und kollektive Bedeutungen der Umma im Kontext des Untersuchungsfeldes erfasst werden, werden Prozesse der Vergemeinschaftung ebenso in den Blick genommen wie (...) damit verbundene soziale Distinktionen, Exklusionen und Abwertungen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass soziale Grenzziehungsprozesse der pop-islamischen Szene sowohl gegenüber der deutschen Mehrheitsgesellschaft als auch gegenüber verschiedenen islamischen Strömungen je situations- und kontextabhängig ausgehandelt werden und sich als gleichzeitige Suche nach Partizipation und Abgrenzung bzw. Inklusion und Exklusion beschreiben lassen. (shrink)

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing (...) virtues of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

Reluctance to adopt mask-wearing as a preventive measure is widely observed in many Western societies since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemics. This reluctance toward mask adoption, like any other complex social phenomena, will have multiple causes. Plausible explanations have been identified, including political polarization, skepticism about media reports and the authority of public health agencies, and concerns over liberty, amongst others. In this paper, we propose potential explanations hitherto unnoticed, based on the framework of epistemic injustice. We show how (...) testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice may be at work to shape the reluctant mask adoption at both the societal and individual levels. We end by suggesting how overcoming these epistemic injustices can benefit the global community in this challenging situation and in the future. (shrink)

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing (...) virtues of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

This paper traces back the psychological effects of the ?masked exile? of a Jewish Tunisian family settled in France. The author provides a rich analysis of a sudden and permanent change of nationality, country, language, urban bustle and family environment, following the ?tunisification of Tunisia? launched by President Bourguiba at the end of the 1950s. A comparison with the situation of later migrant workers from the Maghreb countries is sketched in the second part of this paper.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the recommended/required use of face masks in public. The use of a face mask compromises communication, especially in the presence of competing noise. It is crucial to measure the potential effects of wearing face masks on speech intelligibility in noisy environments where excessive background noise can create communication challenges. The effects of wearing transparent face masks and using clear speech to facilitate better verbal communication were evaluated in this study. We evaluated listener word identification (...) scores in the following four conditions: (1) type of mask condition (i.e., no mask, transparent mask, and disposable face mask), (2) presentation mode (i.e., auditory only and audiovisual), (3) speaking style (i.e., conversational speech and clear speech), and (4) with two types of background noise (i.e., speech shaped noise and four-talker babble at −5 signal-to-noise ratio). Results indicate that in the presence of noise, listeners performed less well when the speaker wore a disposable face mask or a transparent mask compared to wearing no mask. Listeners correctly identified more words in the audiovisual presentation when listening to clear speech. Results indicate the combination of face masks and the presence of background noise negatively impact speech intelligibility for listeners. Transparent masks facilitate the ability to understand target sentences by providing visual information. Use of clear speech was shown to alleviate challenging communication situations including compensating for a lack of visual cues and reduced acoustic signals. (shrink)

The security bill that was proposed by the Justice and Development Party government in 2014 has sparked controversy both within and outside the Parliament of Turkey. Yet, with AKP’s majority, the bill – which includes an anti-masking regulation for protests – was passed in spring 2015. In this article, first I demonstrate a partial mapping of the rhetoric employed by mainstream politics in Turkey, to underline that any oppositional political activity on the streets has the potential to be labeled (...) a ‘terrorist’ one – and most have been. Then, by taking one of the most prominent examples of these events, the Gezi uprising, I discuss the affirmative biopolitical potentialities of the uses of masks that the law criminalizes. Lastly, I situate the law globally in relation to the protest movements, on the one hand, and anti-masking laws on the other. (shrink)

In my previous paper I argued that if in vitro fertilization (IVF) is legal and practiced there is no moral ground to object to legalization of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). My opponent raises an objection that my paper “fails to address the ethical argumentation of one key opponent of IVF – the Catholic Church”. In this reply I show that her/his thesis that embryos created during IVF are in ‘ethical limbo’ and “fall outside the moral universe of Christian ethics” does (...) not undermine my argumentation and masks the serious problem Catholics have with the moral status of early embryos. (shrink)

The plays of Menander have been largely absent from the recent critical attention given the metatheatrical aspects of ancient comedy because they avoid direct reference to performance and maintain dramatic illusion. But as readings of tragic self-reflexivity have shown, even consistently illusionistic drama can make reference to itself as drama so that the audience is encouraged to view the play in double focus, as both a pretense of reality and as an evident dramatic artifice. Metatheatricality in Menander has its basis (...) in the recurring view of the characters that life is like a tragedy. A number of characters state that the events at hand resemble a tragic situation, comment on events by quoting from a tragedy, or ask other characters to view the current situation through the lens of a particular tragic drama. In other instances, reference is made to aspects of dramatic staging or to the constitutive parts of plays. Such comments are realistic, or probable, because it is likely that Greeks of the fourth century regularly interpreted their own lives through the paradigm of myth, best known in dramatized form, and used theatrical metaphors to refer to everyday events. At the same time, however, audience members may experience a character's comparison of the dramatic situation to tragedy as humorously ironic because they know that the plot is destined to fulfill itself in a comic mode. Tragedy is in fact a mask worn by Menander's comedy, and the audience has a metadramatic experience whenever it focuses on the fact of masking. Analysis of passages from the Dyscolos, Epitrepontes, Perikeiromene, and Samia, as well as fuller discussion of the Aspis, demonstrates that Menader's plays invite metadramatic readings in which the plot develops through the struggles of characters to impose on themselves and others tragic readings of their comic situation. (shrink)

While face masks prevent the spread of disease, they occlude lower face parts and thus impair facial emotion recognition. Since emotions are often also contextually situated, it remains unknown whether providing a descriptive emotional context alongside the facial emotion may reduce some of the negative impact of facial occlusion on emotional communication. To address this question, here we examined how emotional inferences were affected by facial occlusion and the availability of emotional context. Participants were presented with happy or sad emotional (...) faces who were either fully visible or partially obstructed by an opaque surgical mask. The faces were shown either within an emotionally congruent (e.g., “Her cat was found/lost yesterday afternoon”) or neutral (“Get ready to see the next person”) context. Participants were asked to infer the emotional states of the protagonists by rating their emotional intensity and valence. Facial occlusion by masks impacted the ratings, such that protagonists were judged to feel less intense and more neutral emotions when they wore masks relative to when their face was fully visible. Importantly, this negative impact of visual occlusion by mask was reduced but not fully eliminated when the faces were presented within a congruent emotional context. Thus, visual occlusion of facial emotions impairs understanding of emotions, with this negative effect of face masks partially mitigated by the availability of a larger emotional context. (shrink)

This thesis explores Officer Cadets' social construction of leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). It addresses calls for more research into leadership behaviours. Taking a social constructionist perspective, the thesis focuses on unmasking the social construction of Leadership amongst Officer Cadets. This study adopts a reflexive approach, acknowledging the centrality of the researcher in the co-construction of the data. The thesis develops interdisciplinary links between the theoretical areas of Dark Leadership to problematize and inform contemporary understandings of Officer (...) Cadets' social construction of leadership through the emergent findings of the study. This qualitative study employed a mono-method research design consisting of semistructured interviews. Through these, participants shared their lived experiences and gave descriptions and understandings of their past leadership experiences before and current experiences within Sandhurst with a reflexive interview approach. The thesis utilises Reflexive Thematic analysis to interpret the data, with the results presented thematically. The thesis uses reflexive thematic analysis to explore dark leadership through a social constructionist lens; the research has evidenced functional changes to practices within Sandhurst and developed a model of what dark leadership at Sandhurst is from an Officer Cadets view. This approach highlights the importance of contextuality, the person and the situation through a holistic Leadership approach. The thesis proposes a holistic framework for leadership, which would advance toward de-coupling the dichotomies of leadership. (shrink)

The ability to read emotions in faces helps humans efficiently assess social situations. We tested how this ability is affected by aspects of familiarization with face masks and personality, with a focus on emotional intelligence. To address aspects of the current pandemic situation, we used photos of not only faces per se but also of faces that were partially covered with face masks. The sample, the size of which was determined by an a priori power test, was recruited in (...) Germany and consisted of healthy individuals of different ages [M = 24.8 years]. Participants assessed the emotional expressions displayed by six different faces determined by a 2 × 3 design. Each person was presented with six different emotional displays with or without a face mask. Accuracy and confidence were lower with masks—in particular for the emotion disgust but also for happiness, anger, and sadness. When comparing the present data collected in July 2021 with data from a different sample collected in May 2020, when people first started to familiarize themselves with face masks in Western countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not detect an improvement in performance. There were no effects of participants’ emotional intelligence, sex, or age regarding their accuracy in assessing emotional states in faces for unmasked or masked faces. (shrink)

The information age we are living in and the technology that supports it, raises new ethical concerns. Among these concerns are privacy — the rights of individuals to withold information they consider sensitive, and accessibility — the rights of individuals to obtain information that is relevant to the decisions they must make. Arguments about potential impacts of information technology on privacy and accessibility mask and underlying conflict — that one person's beliefs about their right to relevant information is likely to (...) conflict with another person's belief's about their right to withold information they consider sensitive. This paper proposes that the conflict is likely to be a function of the role the individuals plays in the decision making situation — situationally conditioned belief (SCB) — rather than a function of the person's underlying ethical values.This paper presents an empirical study involving information privacy and accessibility in routine business and market decisions, designed to reveal the presence of SCBs. The results indicate that SCBs cause a gap in beliefs about information accessibility and privacy. Impacts of the SCB gap are discussed. A negotiation technique called information exchange is suggested as a means of closing the SCB gap in routine business and market transactions. (shrink)

The problem of masking is widely regarded as a grave threat to the conditional analysis of dispositions. Unlike the difficulty arising in connection with finkish situations, the problem does not involve the (dis)appearance of a disposition upon the arrival of its activating conditions. Consequently, some promising responses to the finkish cases, in particular David Lewis's reformed analysis, are ill-equipped to deal with masks. I contend that the difficulty posed by masks can be surmounted by supplementing the counterfactual at the (...) heart of the conditional analysis with a ceteris paribus clause. In spelling out this idea, I first examine the issue of provisos in nomic statements. Then I show how the employment of the ceteris paribus clause escapes the objections that are often raised against it, including the charge that the clause cannot informatively capture all the possible masks of a disposition. (shrink)

The problem of masking is widely regarded as a grave threat to the conditional analysis of dispositions. Unlike the difficulty arising in connection with finkish situations, the problem does not involve the (dis)appearance of a disposition upon the arrival of its activating conditions. Consequently, some promising responses to the finkish cases, in particular David Lewis's reformed analysis, are ill‐equipped to deal with masks. I contend that the difficulty posed by masks can be surmounted by supplementing the counterfactual at the (...) heart of the conditional analysis with a ceteris paribus clause. In spelling out this idea, I first examine the issue of provisos in nomic statements. Then I show how the employment of the ceteris paribus clause escapes the objections that are often raised against it, including the charge that the clause cannot informatively capture all the possible masks of a disposition. (shrink)

This paper situates Arendt's ideal of political participation at the cross-roads of two entirely opposite traditions of thought: the one, anti-representationist, the otherpleading for something stronger than mere representation. The first leads Arendt into playing off participation against representation in order to avoid the loss of presence that she fears the latter will entail. Whereas this line of thought seems to derive from what contemporary thought has deconstructed under the heading 'metaphysics of presence', Arendt's work at the same time shows (...) traits that unmistakeably belong to a tradition that is irreconcilable with the presuppositions of such a metaphysics. In fact, her view of freedom as an inner product of the public realm, forbids the latter to merely mirror, express or harmonize the antecedent freedoms of the private sphere. It should rather change these freedoms by transforming them and forcing them into a structure that has an independence of its own. This anti-expressivism seems to share its presuppositions with what we nowadays recognize as 'the symbolic' (in the sense the term has taken with Lévi-Strauss and others, like Claude Lefort). Not having that notion at her disposal, Arendt manages to balance these two contradictory legacies by the weight she puts on the ideal of participation, and she 'succeeds'in doing this so well that she may not have noticed how they are at work in her own texts. In the second part of the paper the author shifts that weight to a number of quasi-concepts that Arendt did not or could not take beyond the level of metaphor, like the daimon in The Human Condition or the short passage on masks in On Revolution. Connectingthese two to an ontological analysis of the difference between the private and the public, he then attempts to delineate a new conception of the public realm that, surprisingly, might salvage the meaning and sense of the separation between the social and the political Arendt was notoriously criticized for, even by those who were otherwise sympathetic to her ideas. In conclusion, the relevance of what the author calls 'the monumental recognition' of appearing in public is indicated by showing its potential as a response to some of the difficulties that have set contemporary multicultural societies ablaze. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two technological changes in (...) the second half of the twentieth century prompted calls for a new, or at least expanded, definition of death: the development of intensive care medicine, especially the use of mechanical ventilators, and the advent of successful transplantation of vital organs. Patients with profound neurological damage, leaving them incapable of breathing on their own and in an irreversible coma, could be maintained for some period of time with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The situation of these patients posed two ethical questions. Is it appropriate to stop life-sustaining treatment? If so, is it acceptable to retrieve vital organs for transplantation to save the lives of others before stopping treatment?In 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death proposed that death could be determined on the basis of neurological criteria, thus providing a positive answer to these two questions (Ad Hoc Committee 1968). According to the position of this committee, patients diagnosed with the cessation of brain function are dead, despite the fact that they breathe and circulate blood with the aid of mechanical ventilation. [End Page 185] Because they are dead, it is appropriate, indeed imperative, to stop mechanical ventilation. And because they are dead, it becomes ethical to procure vital organs for transplantation before stopping what otherwise would be life-sustaining treatment. Remarkably, this innovative neurological determination of death became, with little debate or controversy, the established position in medical ethics and the law throughout the United States.The Harvard Committee articulated the diagnosis of “irreversible coma,” but merely asserted that this condition constituted death. No explanatory rationale was provided. It fell to the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to provide an authoritative rationale in its 1981 report, Defining Death. The second paragraph of the report set the stage as follows: “The question addressed here is not inherently difficult or complicated. Simply, it is whether the law ought to recognize new means for establishing that the death of a human being has occurred” (President’s Commission 1981, p. 3). The Commission claimed that “death is a unitary phenomenon” (p. 7) and that the determination of death by neurological criteria, in terms of the absence of all brain function, is consistent with the traditional conception of death as the cessation of vital functioning of the organism as a whole. The key issue is the integrative functioning of the human organism, which ceases to exist, according to the Commission, when the whole brain, including higher cortical areas and the brain stem, fails to function. Although “brain-dead” patients do not appear to be dead—i.e., the reality of their death is “masked” by the activity of mechanical ventilation—the patient’s body has irreversibly lost all capacity for integrative functioning. In the words of the Commission: “When artificial means of support mask this loss of integration as measured by the old methods [cessation of respiration and heart beat], brain-oriented criteria and tests provide a new window on the same phenomenon” (p. 33). The President’s Commission was instrumental in developing and establishing “The Uniform Definition of Death Act”: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead” (p. 2).Although the question posed by the President’s Commission was easy to articulate, the answer, over time, has proved complicated and controversial. The coherence and cogency of determining death by neurological criteria has been challenged. Various experts have demonstrated that “brain-dead” patients maintained on mechanical ventilation display a range of vital, integrative, functioning, which conflicts with the judgment that they are dead (Truog and... (shrink)

Research on automatic attention to emotional faces offers mixed results. Therefore we examined validity effects for facial expressions of different emotions with a dot-probe paradigm in seven studies. Systematic variations of type of emotion, CTI, task, cue size, and masking allow for a differentiated assessment of attentional capture by emotions and possible moderating factors. Results indicate a general absence of emotional validity effects as well as a lack of significant interactions with either of the manipulated factors, indicating that facial (...) expressions of emotions do not capture attention in a fully automatic fashion. These findings suggest that situational and contextual factors have to be taken into account when investigating attentional capture of emotional faces. (shrink)

Psychophysical scaling models of the form R = f, with R the response and I some intensity of an attribute, all assume that people judge the amounts of an attribute. With simple biases excepted, most also assume that judgments are independent of space, time, and features of the situation other than the one being judged. Many data support these ideas: Magnitude estimations of brightness increase with luminance. Nevertheless, I argue that the general model is wrong. The stabilized retinal image (...) literature shows that nothing is seen if light does not change over time. The classification literature shows that dimensions often combine to produce emergent properties that cannot be described by the elements in the stimulus. These and other effects cannot be adjusted for by simply adding variables to the general model because some factors do not combine linearly. The proposed alternative is that people initially judge the entire stimulus – the object in terms of its environment. This agrees with the constancy literature that shows that objects and their attributes are identified through their relations to other aspects of the scene. That the environment determines judgments is masked in scaling studies where the standard procedure is to hold context constant. In a typical brightness study the essential stimulus might be the intensity of the light or a difference between the light and the background. The two are perfectly confounded. This issue is examined in the case of audition. Judgments of the loudness of a tone depend on how much that tone differs from the previous tone in both pitch and loudness. To judge loudness people first seem to process the stimulus object in terms of differences between it and other aspects in the situation; only then do they assess the feature of interest. Psychophysical judgments will therefore be better interpreted by theories of attention that are based in biology or psychology than those that are based in classical physics. (shrink)

Barba non facit philosophum. L'habit ne fait pas le moine. In those proverbs, Latin and French, we find the classical opposition between appearance and reality—between the accessory (the superficial, the beard, the clothing) and the essential (the profound, the philosopher, the monk), the latter being independent from and unchanged by the former. Berliner questions this dichotomy. As an anthropologist, he reviews many situations in which humans wear masks or use other techniques to cover their identities: cosplaying, puppy play, historical reenactments, (...) live-action role-playing, and the use of pseudonyms. Cosplayers, the subject of Berliner's first case study, impersonate characters from movies or video games. On the basis of lengthy interviews, he concludes that role-players change when they wear the costumes of their favorite heroes, behaving, for instance, with more self-confidence. A little psychological experiment not cited in this book suggests the same. In 2012, Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky asked a group of students to perform a task demanding concentration. Those given a white medical coat to wear during the experiment performed better, probably because they were more prone to adopt traits and postures attributed to doctors—postures thought to enhance concentration. Berliner believes that, in the case of more immersive games, such changes are not necessarily temporary. They can persist after the acting is done. In other words, in some contexts at least, clothes can change the man.To impersonate a historical figure such as Napoleon, another case covered in Berliner's book, the reenactor must pay attention to minute details of the figure's life, habits, and social environment. The reenactor may then experience a moment de bascule, during which he is so much absorbed in his role that he forgets he is playing a character. As such, the activity of imitating is a way of learning some particular forms of paying attention to the individual serving as model. I regret that this aspect of disguise is not discussed when Berliner approaches animal role-playing. He affirms instead that identification with animals “rests upon our imagining what an animal is.” To imitate animals, however, we must first learn about, watch, and interact with them. Imitation is never fully based on the imagination; our imaginations are opened by prior, more or less proximate interactions with the beings that serve as models. It is far from easy to imagine, out of the blue, using our bodies in the ways that imitating animals requires.Despite the book's title, Becoming Other, Gilles Deleuze is barely mentioned in it, probably because he was very critical of the concept of imitation, which is omnipresent in Berliner's thought. Still, the way in which Berliner uses the concept is Deleuzian to a degree. Deleuze is skeptical of the concept of imitation because the success of an imitation is usually judged by whether the model and the imitation correspond in appearance—the imitation, in that case, does not bring any novelty to the world. In contrast to Deleuze, who proposes to abandon the concept of imitation, Berliner invites us to study it in new ways. Indeed, his book teaches us how creative imitation can be. What counts is not whether an imitation is successful but whether it is fruitful, and that we measure by whether it transforms us. The imitator does not become an alter ego of the model impersonated but a superego, an ego more aware of all its capacities. Even if it is never made explicit, the contrast between successful and fruitful—a contrast dear to Vinciane Despret—structures Berliner's analyses, which are a valuable contribution not only to anthropology but also to philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ADOLESCENCE, INDIFFERENTIATION, AND THE ONSET OF PSYCHOSIS Henri Grivois Hôtel-Dieu, Paris The onset of psychosis happens, by definition, only once. The first psychotic episode is unforeseeable and risks being overlooked. Left to itself its future is uncertain, and the prognosis is potentially unfavorable. The variety of its manifestations as well as its thymic and cognitive instability explains why so little is written on this subject. The psychiatric literature, by (...) its almost exclusive reference to evolved psychoses, has not distinguished the qualities peculiar to the onset of psychosis (nascent psychosis). Yet recent research reflects an interest in early diagnosis of psychosis to secure qualitative improvements and the chance ofa favorable outcome for patients. A special approach must be used for patients during the stage of nascent psychosis. Something must be done, but early treatment is not enough. Psychotropic medication has no more than a sedative effect and there are few specifics at this stage (Swain 175). Further, one risks obliterating the patient's lived experience. The entire battery of interventions, above all the first consultations, must follow from a rigorously organized and intensive strategy to directly engage with this subjective experience. For many years at l'Hôtel-Dieu, a general hospital situated in the center of Paris, we have harnessed ourselves to this task. First I shall describe the existence of centrality. It constitutes the most characteristic and permanent trait of the onset of psychosis. From the concept of concernment, I propose a phenomenological morphogenesis of the initial sequence of psychosis. Next I turn to the state of indifferentiation that overcomes the subject, and then to the vulnerability peculiar to adolescents. I shall end with some fundamental epidemiological data. Henri Grivois1 05 Centrality To be mad is not only the feeling of being uniquely in contact with all humanity, whether as alienated from it or as uniting all of it in oneself conceived as the only member of the species. It is this certainly but also more than this. It is to infer that one occupies a unique place in the human world. It is the feeling of being encircled by everyone. Without being responsible, the patient is placed in the forefront of some grandiose project. His centrality, whatever the mode ofexpression, orients him towards a form of mental disorder. As a general rule, at the beginning, centrality is never explicit and passes unnoticed. The physical and verbal behavior of the patient suffice to accuse him, without any further investigation, of unintelligibility and incoherence. Centrality is above all an emotion about which we should admit that we know almost nothing. People with nascent psychosis are the prey of intuitions impossible to comprehend. Like Rimbaud's drunken boat, they flee, drifting or hiding themselves, coming back and taking offagain. They are therefore incapable, wherever they go, of living an instant of unconcern. Incapable of expressing their singular rapport with the world, they keep silent. Very soon nevertheless centrality engenders a torrent of questions. Silently, voicelessly, patients apprehend in an almost automatic manner the responses to these questions in the verbal and gestural behavior of others. Since Esquirol (Gauchet and Swain 464) identified hallucinatory phenomena as the cause of psychosis, they have occupied a disproportionate place in mental science for 200 years. This construction of the concept of hallucination in psychiatry, key to the orthodox vision of psychosis, assures a watchful vigilance to rule out every non-symptomatic treatment ofpatients. Hours or perhaps days later, no longer capable of abstaining from interpretation, patients begin to sketch out an explanation ofthe prodigious situation which they have experienced. They interrogate their relation to others and the intentions and the degree of unanimity of people towards them. Invoking demons and monsters often gives their explanations a first coherence which is in harmony with the scale of their experience. On their side the psychiatrists, to facilitate verbalizing the experience, suggest paraphrases of a general order: influence, mental automatism, exterior action, xenopathia, etc. To mask centrality, to get away from it, or in response to the gravity of the event, the patients, in search of some responsibility, envisage more elaborate scenarios: mission, conspiracy, trial, condemnation. A political vocabulary, more plausible but less universal than a... (shrink)

INTRODUCTION BY NANCY FUMERO What is a translation that stalls comprehension? That, when read, parsed, obfuscates comprehension through any language – English, Portuguese. It is inevitable that readers expect fidelity from translations. That language mirror with a sort of precision that enables the reader to become of another location, condition, to grasp in English in a similar vein as readers of Portuguese might from João Guimarães Rosa’s GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS. There is the expectation that translations enable mobility. That what was (...) written in one language be accessible in another. And that a translator is to serve as a mediator, acting ultimately in service to ideas within the source text. To disperse them. However, this notion of translation is partly antithetical to the ideas in Rosa’s work. Or, alternately, to convey the despair of terrain slipping beneath one’s feet, and to encounter the heightened suspense of magic, the translation, as part of its strategy, cannot devotedly rely on its original language, not as its source text. The work undertaken by Felipe W.Martinez is a new form of translation that risks everything in order to encounter the same treacherous knowing Rosa had traversed. And it takes its risks by not taking risks: by being, almost word for word, a literal translation. This is an approach that reductively converts, as opposed to translates. The idiomatic differences between English and Portuguese are not accented. The syntax is not finessed. Liberties are not assumed on account of improving readability. What stands, resoundingly amid such absences, is the awakened challenge of reading. The genuine peril of not knowing. That is, this translation, one that purports to know nothing, creates access into the guileful world Rosa had created in Portuguese. But not by translating. If anything, GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS is speaking a cosmic language through a linguistic one. And W.Martinez does us the service of recognizing this, as what configures the shapes of words and sentences is not as simple as neologisms, portmanteaus, and digressions, but as terrifying as the path the fool traverses: all paths. As such, this translation doesn’t speak English, just as the original does not speak Portuguese. It is the assemblage of paradox as a new logic that can be navigated, if only one could suspend the comfort of readability, of expectation. If one could descend a mountain in the pitch dark of night, each step shocking the body, unable to acclimate to the unleveled heights. Without a doubt, the translation is incongruous to the Portuguese. Taking a small excerpt to compare: Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. What is striking is the interplay between “god” and “dog”. To most English speakers, this anagram is a familiar one. But in Portuguese the words god (“deus”) and dog (“cão”) are not so closely linked. In fact, there is no direct mention of “deus” in Rosa’s text: Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Both are fascinating. In Rosa’s excerpt, the rhythm is unmistakable and precise, despite, of course, the indices of hesitation: the commas, the Eh, the uncomfortable way of searching through prolongation and wait. This is the sort of paradox Rosa can engage within a sentence. W.Martinez’s does this as well, at a scale that reverberates beyond the sentence, and with one noticeable addition: deus. What may appear to be an overstep, to add such a weighted word that draws out wordplay but is, nevertheless, not in the source text, is exemplary of risk. The translation buzzes because of it. This is because throughout the text we encounter dogs frequently, as some primal beast on par with humans. The dog is one that masters and can be mastered. A creature that is at times its face, and at others a mask. It is a powerful presence. For the translator to be attuned to the reverent undercurrent attributed to this animal, and create within the translation such charged play in English from what was only an implication in Portuguese, is in tribute to the grand beauty within dissonance. What aberrant modes of writing and translation can teach us most assuredly, is that things, words, are not in states of rightness or wrongness, but of oscillation. This isn’t so different from what Rosa says himself: The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. We find this so readily in W.Martinez’s translation, this tuning and detuning. Nancy Fumero Los Angeles GRAND SERTÃO: VEREDAS BY JOÃO GUIMARÃES ROSA TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY FELIPE W.MARTINEZ Nonothing. Shots that the Sir heard were man brawling not, God be. Bleach white sights on the tree in the backyard, down in the river. By my right. I do this every day, I like; from the bad of boyhood. Thereof they came to call on me. Case of a calf: a white calf, errorful, eyes of to not be—saw selves—; and with a mask of a dog! They told me; I didn’t want to catch a sight. Same that, by the defects of birth, upturned lips, looked to be a laughing man. Folkface, dogface: they determined—it was the devil. Bananas. Killed it. Do not know who owned it. They came to borrow my guns. I caved. I’ve no power to impose. Oh, sir, you laugh certain laughs…Look: when it’s a true shot, first the dogs begin to bark, instantly—after, then, you see who’s handed death. Sir, endure, this is the Sertão. Some want that it is not: that situated Sertão is in and out of those general fields, they say, end of the road, highlands, the other Urucuia. Toleima. For those of Cortino and of Curvelo, then, isn’t here said Sertão? Ah! That there’s more! To place the Sertão it’s told: it’s where the pastures lack latches; where one can tear off ten, fifteen leagues without running into a houseinhabitant; where criminalousness lives out its christ jesus. Sifted out from the tightening grip of the law. The Urcuia comes from the western mountains. But today, its banks, give all—farmlands of farms, pastures of meadows of good yield, low tides, cultures that go kill for kill, until these virgins there are. The general fields run round. These general fields are without size. Ultimately, whichever one one approves, the Sir knows: bread or breads, it’s a question of heads…the Sertão is everywhere. Of the devi? No comment. Sir ask the dwellers. Falsely I fear they unspeak that name of his—only say: whatsitcalled. Volt! no… Whosoever over avoids it, lives with it. In the sentence of one Aristides—who exists in the first palm grove on the right hand side, called Vereda-of-Cow-Calm-of-Saint-Rita—everyone believes: he can't pass in three designated places: then can be heard the tiny cry, behind, a little voice warning:— "Here I come! Here I come!... "— that is the Capirote, the whatsitcalled... And one Jise Simplicio—who anyone from here will swear he keeps an imp in house, a little satanite, imprisoned and obliged to help in all greedful deeds; reason that Simplicio emprises en route to complete riches. As such, for this they say too that his beast bristles and refuses, denying his banner, unyielding, when he wishes to mount... Superstition. Jise Simplicio and Aristides, continue getting fatter, thence unheard or heard. Still the Sir study: right now, in these days of time, you have people purporting that the devil proper stopped, mid-passage, in Andrequice. A boy out of there, to whom'd appeared, and there lauded that, to get here—normally, by horse, a day-n-half—he was capable of such with only some twenty minutes enough... by coasting the River of Chico by the headwaters! Or, too, who knows—sans offense—will not have been, for example, even yourself the Sir who announced such, when you passed by there, for fun run funny? Thereof, not my given crime, I know that wasn't. And evil I wanted not. Only that one question, in hours, at times, brightens peaceful reason. But, the Sir understand: if such a boy, there was, he wanted to dupe. Because, hey, that, to cut the river off by the springs, would be the same thing as one redoubling in the internals of this our state of ours, costant of a journey of some three months... Then? Whatsitcalled? Dodo. The fantastication. And, the respect of giving him such these names of delicacy, is what it is for one to want to invoke that he form of form, with his presence! Not that is. I, personally, almost that have lost in him the creed, deserving to Deus; is the that to the Sir I say, to pure-secret. I know that it is well established, that it greases our Saintly-Gospels. On occasion, I conversed with a young seminarian, super suitable, conferring in the book of prayers and coated in vestments, with a stick of black-sage in hand—prosed that he went auxilitator to the father, to extract the Cujo, from the body living of an oldwoman, in Waterfalls-of-Bulls, he went with the vicar of Field-Round... I conceive. The Sir not is as I? I didn't believe a single thing. Compadre mine Quelemem describes that that which reveals effect are the low spirits meager, of third, adoing in the worst darkness and with anxieties of connecting selves with the livers—they give support. Compadre mine Quelemem is who much me consoles—Quelemem of Goias. But he has to live far from here, in Jijuja, Vereda of Buriti Dark... Ahrr, I leave myself there, that in enevildemonment or with support—the Sir too must have had known diverse, men, women. As not yes? For me, umpteen I've seen, that I've learned. Ma-Neigh, Blood-o'Other, or Legion-Lips, or Tear-em-Down, Cold-Cutter, or Sissy-Goat, one Treciziano, or Verdigris... or Hermogenes... o'them, pileload. If I could forget so many names... I'm not a man for calming horses! And, same, whom of yes of to be jagunço self enters, yea is for some competence entrant of demonion. Will it not? Will it? From first, I made and mixed, and to think not I thought. I didn't have the deadlines. I lived pulling difficult from difficult, fish alive on griddle: who lives asp'rously, no fantasies. But, now, fete of fate to me comes, and sans little disquietudes, I'm from creaky net. And myself invented in this like, of to speculate ideas. The devil exists and nonexists? I say the saying. Opennouncement. These melancholies. The Sir sees: exists waterfall; and since? But waterfall is gulch of ground, and water so pouring from it, retumbling; the Sir consume that water, or undo that bankment, remainder waterfall any? To live is negotiation much perilous. I explain to the Sir: the devil vigors inside of human, the wrinkles of human— or is the human ruin, or the human of adversess. I free, per se, citizen, is that not has devil notone. Notone!— is the that I say. The Sir approve? Me declares total, frank— is high merit that me make: and to beg might, increased. This case— by rashtravagance that me they see— is of mine certain importance. God grant not was... But, not say that the Sir, awised and instructed, that agrees in people of them?! Not? You I appreciate! Your high opinion composes my value. Yea I knew, waited for it— yea the field! Ah, a we, in oldness, we lack of to have plowing of rest. You I appreciate. Is devil notone. Nor esprit. Never I've seen. Someone ought to see, then was I myself, this your servant. Was I you to tell... Well, the devil regulate his state black, ins creatures, ins womens, ins humans. E'en: ins childrens— I declaim. Since not is said: "boy—trainee of the devil"? And ins thes uses, ins plants, ins waters, in terra, in wind... Manures. …The devil in the street, in the middle of the vortex... Hey? Hey? Ah. Figuration mine, of worse by back, the certain memories. Mal-make me! I suffer pain of to tell not…Meliorate, if chillingly: well, in a ground and with equal format of branches and leaves, not give to cassava-calm, that is eaten common, and the cassava-mad that kills? Now, the Sir yea saw a strangeness? A cassava-sweet can rapidly to turn agonizing— motives not I know, at times is said that is for replanted in the terrain always, with mutations then, of caules—go embittering, of s’much in s’much, of its self takes poisons. And, well look: the other, the cassava-mad, too is that at times can fix calm, the estimate, of is to eat sans notone mal. And what this is? Eh, the Sir yea saw, for to see, the ugliness of hate pleated, facetorqued, on the faces of one cobrarattlesnake? Observed the porker fat, capita day more felicity brute, capable of, could, snort and engulf for its own dirty coziness the world total? And sparrowhawk, blackbird, some, the features of they yea represent the need of cleave for before, rend and shred by beak, appears a knife much fine for ruin I desire. Total. Has even twisted races of stone, horrorous, venomous— that spoil mortal the aquas, if they are buried beneath of well; the devil inside of them sleeps: they are the devil. Is known? And the demon— that is only thus the significance of one mercury malign— have order of to follow the path of him, have license to brag?! Arr, he is variegated in all! What the what wastes, goes spending the devil of inside of the people, by itttybits, is the reasonable to suffer. And the delight of love—compadre mine Quelemem says. Family. Really? Is, and not is. The Sir think and not think. Total is and not is… Almost all more grave criminous ferocity, always is much good husband, good son, good father, and is good-friend-of-your-friends! I know of those. Solo that have the afters— and Deus, joined. I spy many nimbi. But, in veracity, son, too, softens. Look: one called Aleixo, resident a league from Step-of-Sour, in Of-Sand, was the man of major badness calm that yea you saw. Me agreed that near the house of his had a weir, amidst the palms, with traíras, for souls of enormous, desenormous, to the real, that received fame; the Aleixo gave of to eat to them, in hours just, they self accustomed to if assuch of lunacies, in order to gobble, seemed to be fishes instructed. One day, solo for grace rustic, he killed an oldman who by there passed, destitute begging alms. The Sir not doubt—have people, in this bored world, that kill solo in order to see someone make grimace… Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. This Aleixo was man afamilied, had children small; they were the love of his, total, absurdity. Gave good, that not even a year there passed, of to killed the oldman poor, and the children of Aleixo there they asickened. Smallepidemic of measles, they said, but complex; they never heal. When, then, they healed. But the eyes of theirs vermillionized high in an inflame of spraining to rebellion; and nexthing— the that not I know is if they went of at once, or one later and later other and other— they remained blind. Blind, sans remission of one sweet of light of this Ours! The Sir imagine: stairset— three boys and one girl— all blind. Sans remediable. The Aleixo not lost the judgment, but he changed; ah, mutated complete— now lives of band of Deus, sweating to be good and charitous in all his hours of night and of day. Appears even that he fixed the felicity, that before not was. He himself says he was a man of luck, because Deus wanted to have pity of him, to transform for there the route of his soul. That I heard, and me it gave rage. Reason of the children. If being castigated, what culpa of the let-there-bes of Aleixo those little children had?! Compadre mine Quelemem reproved my uncertainties. That, for certain, inother life returnaound, the children too had been the most wicked, of the mass and part of the father, demons of the same kettle of place. Sir the what thinks? And the oldman, assassinated? — I know the Sir goes to discuss. Well, too. In order that he had a sin of crime, in the body, by to pay. If the people— conforming compadre mine Quelemem is who says— if the people turn to to incarnate renovated, I contemplate even that enemy of death can come as son of the enemy. Look see: if to myself I say, has a subject Pedro Pindo, neighbor of here more six leagues, man of good for all in all, he and the woman of his, always been good, of goodness. They have a son of some ten years called Valtei—name modern, is the that the population of here now appreciates, the Sir knows. Well this-little-thing, thislet, since that some understanding illuminated in him, deed demonstrated the that is: petition stepfather, acid burner, likeful of ruin of inside of the profundity of the species of its nature. In which that torments, to the slowly, of all beasts or raisinglings little that quarrel; one time he found a creole woman hooched foolish sleeping, he arranged a shard of bottle, lashed at three points on the stern of the legs of hers. The what this boy drooled seeing, is bleeding hen or to knife pig.— “I enjoy of to kill…”— one occasion he teeny me told. He opened in me a fright; because: birdy that self leans over— the flight yea is ready! Well the Sir oversee: the pa, Pedro Pindo, mode of to correct this, and the ma, they give in him, misery and mast—they cast the boy sans to eat, they tied to trees in the yard, he nude, unplumed, even in June cold, they tilled the bittybody of his with the trammel and with the goblet, after they cleansed the skin of the sanguine, with bottle gourd brine. The people know, spy, fix wasted. The boy yea relowered of thinness, the eyes entering, caress of bones, enskulled, and tuberculated, the time total hacking, coughness of the that draw parched pectorals. Arr, that now, visible, the Pindo and the woman self habituated of on him hit, of little bit in little they were creating in this a pleasure ugly of diversion— as they regulate the canings in hours certain comfortable, until they call people to see the example good. I think that boy not endure, yea there is in the ta-da, not arrive for the lent to come… Ooee-ooee, then?! Not being as compadre mine Quelemem to want, that explication is that the Sir bestowed? That boy had to be a man. He should, in swing, terrible perversities. Soul of his was in the pitch. Demonstrated. And, now, paid. Ah, but, happens, when he’s crying and paining, he suffers equal that as was as a boy good… Bird, I saw all, in this world! Yea I saw even horse with hiccups… —the that the thing most costous that is. Good, but the Sir may say, should of: and in the start— for offenses and arts, the people— as for that was that s’much amended was started? Ey, ey, ey all collided. Compadre mine Quelemem, too. Am solo a sertanite, in these high ideas I navigate mal. Am much poor poor-thing. Envy my pedigree and of ones conform the Sir, with total reading and doctoration. Not is that I be illiterate. I spelt, years and middle, midly speller, memory and palmer. I had master, Master Lucas, in the Curralinho, he memorized grammar, the operations, rule-of-three, even geography and study patria. On leaves great of paper, with caprice I traced handsome maps. Ah, not is for to speak: but, since of the start, me they thought sophisticated of side. And that I merited of to go to course latin, in Lesson Waterlily—that too they said. Time nostalgic! Going today, I appreciate a good book, despaced. On the farm The Lilittlelemon, of one mine friend Vito Soziano, so sign of this almanac thick, of logoglyphs and conundrums and other divided matters, all year come. In s’much, I place primacy is in the reading advantageous, life of saints, virtues and examples— missionary astute engambling the Indians, or Saint Francis of Assis, Saint Anthony, Saint Gerald… I like much of moral. To ratiocinate, exhort the others for the good way, to acounsel to just. Mine woman, that the Sir knows, vigils for me: much prayer. She is a blessable. Compadre mine Quelemem always says that I may to aquiet my fears on conscience, that being well-attended, terrible good-esprits me protect. Eep! With like… As is of saint effect, I help with mine to want to accredit. But not even always can I. The Sir knew: I total the mine life I thought for me, lining, I am born different. I am and I same. I divert of total the world… I almost that nothing not I know. But I disconfide of many things. The Sir, conceding, I say: in order to think long, I am dog master— the Sir loose in mine front an idea ease and I research that by profundity of total the backwoods, amen! Look: the should of to have, was of so reunited-selves the wise, politicos, constitutions graded, closed the definitive the notion— to proclaim for one time, art assemblies, that not have devil notone, not exists, not possible. Valor of law! Solo assuch, they gave tranquility good to the people. Because the government not cares?! Ah, I know that not is possible. Not me settled the Sir for philistine. One this is to place ideas arranged, other is to deal with country of people, of flesh and sanguine, of thousand-and-many miseries… S’many people—gives scare of to know—and notone so calms: All nascenting, crescendoing, so wedding, wanting collocation of employment, consumables, health, abundance, to be important, wanting rain and affairs good… Of luck that lacks of so to choose: or we t’weave of to live in the salacious common, or care solo of religion solo. I could to be: father clergyman, if not chief of jagunços; for other things not was I birthed. But mine oldness yea principaled I erred of total account. And the rheumatism… There as whom says: in the primers. Ahem. Hey? Hey? The that more I think, I testify and explain: all-the-world is mad. The Sir, I, we, the people all. For this is that so lacks principally of religion: in order to desendodorize, to disdodoate. Pray is that heals of lunacy. In the general. This is that is the salvation-of-the-soul…Much religion your servant! I here, not I lose occasion of religion. I profit of all. I drink water of all rivers… One solo, for me is little, maybe not me arrives. I pray christian, catholic, I burrow the certain; and I accept the prayers of compadre mine Quelemem, doctrine of he, of Kardec. But, when I can, I go in the Mindubim, where one Matias is believer, methodist: the people so accuse of sinner, reads high the bible, and why, singing hymns beautiful of his. Total me quiets, me suspends. Whatever small shade me refreshes. But is solo much provisory. I wanted to pray— the time total. Many people not me approve, they think that law of Deus is privileges, invariable. And I! Doof! I Detest! The what I am? — the what I do, that want, much curia. And in face of total I face, executed. I? —not I trammel. Look: I have a black girl, Maria Leoncia, long from here not she lives, the prayers of her afame much virtue of power. Well to her I pay, every month— ordering of to pray for me one third, every saint day, and, on the Sundays, a rosary. Value, so values. Mine woman not sees mal in this. And I am, yea mandated word for an other, of the voyage-voyage, a Izina Calanga, in order to come here, I heard of that prayer too with grand mermermerits, I go to effect with she treatment equal. I want handful of those, me defending in Deus, reunited of me in volta… Cuts of Christ! To live is much perilous… To want the good with too much force, of incertain way, can yea to be being so wanting the mal, per to initiate. These humans! All they pull the world for itself, for the to concert amended. But capita one solo sees and understands the things of one his world. Amountain, the most supro, most serious was Mediero Vaz. That one man ancient… his Joaozy Ben-Ben, the most brave of all, no-one never can decipher how he by inside consisted. Joca Ramiro— grand man prince!— was politico. Zé Bebelo wanted to be politico, but had and not had luck: fox that lingered. So Candelario so demonized, by to think that was with illness mal. Titao Passos was the by the appreciation of friends: solo per via of them, of his same amities, were that such high so ajagunçoed. Antonio Do— severe bandit. But by half, grand majority half that be. Andalecio, in the profound, a good man-of-good, being raving in his total justice. Ricardao, same, wanted was to be rich in peace: for this he warred. Solo the Hermogenes was that born formed tiger, and assassinite. And the “Ofidios White”? Ah, not me speak. Ah this… joyless mischeivious, that was— that was a poor boy of the destiny… So good, congruous. The Sir heard, I you told: the ruin with the ruin, they terminate by the spine-bushes so to crack— Deus awaits that spendance. Boy!: Deus is patience. The contrary, is the devil. So consumes. The Sir file knife on knife— and file— that so they scrape. Even the rocks of the profound, one of in the other, they go-so aroundabounding even, that the rivulet rolls. Per enquantity, that I think, total as hath, in this world, is because so merits and lacks. Afterly precise. Deus not so reports with rifle, not garrotes the regulation. For what? Quit: goof with goof—one day, some illumination and learn: smart. Solo that, at times, for most auxiliar, Deus begets, in the middle, a pinch of pepper… Therebe? Well, for example: some time, I went of train, there in Seven-Lagoons, for parts of to consult a medical, of name me indicated. He went vested well, and in car of first, by via of the doubts, not me they shadowed for jagunço ancient. It goes and happens, that, close same of me, enfront, he took aseat, returning from the wild North, a mac Jazevedao, delegate professionale. Came with a capanga of his, an undercover, and I well knew the two, of that s’much a was ruin, as the other ruin was. The veracity to say, first I had the strict of me to surpasss for one lonng, to mutate of my place. Judgement me told, meliorate stay. Well, looking, I looked. And— you I tell: never I saw face of man furnished of brutez or malady more, of the them in that. As that was ogre, trussed of thickset, relustered of crude in the eyes small, and armed a chin of stone, toweringbrow; not of mid nor forehead. Not laughed, not so laughed not even one time; but, speaking or silent, the people appeared always to him some teeth, prey pointed of canids. Arr, and blustered, an ittybit. Solo growled curt, low, the mid-words grizzled. He came relooking, historicizing the documents— one by one the leaves with portraits and with the blacks of the digits of jagunços, lifters of horses and criminouses of death. That application of work, in one thing of those, generated the ire in the people. The undercover, busybodyguard, total close, seated joined, attending, excelling of to be dog. Me made a dread, but solo in the goof of the corpus, not in the intern of the courages. One hour, one of those reports fell— and I bent quickly, I knew there precisely by why, not I wanted, not I thought— even today I raise shame of this— I picked the paper of the ground, and delivered to him. Thereof, I say: I had more rage, because I did that; but there yea it was done. The man not even me looked, not even said notone thankfulment. Event he soles of the shoes of his— solo looking— that soles rough thick, bent of enormous, appearing iron bronzed. Because I knew: This Jazevedao, when he apprehended someone, the primary quiet thing that proceeded was that he came entering, sans to have to to say, feigning some hurry, and go stepping on the top of the feet of the poorthings. And that on these occasions he gave laughters, gave… Well, geck! I delivered to him the leaf of paper, and went leaving of there, by to have hand on me of not to destroy by shots that subject. Meat that much they weigh… And umbilicated beginning of belly pot bellied, that me created will… With my lightness, joyful that I’d kill. But, the barbarities that this delegate made and happened, the Sir not even has callus in heart to be able me to hear. He achieved of many men and women to cry blood, for the simple universolo ours here. Sertão. The Sir knows: sertão is where mandates who is strong, with the guile. And bullet is a tidbit of metal… S’much, I say: Jazevedao— one assuch, should of to have, needed? Ah, need. Leather ruined is that calls goad of point. That there be that, after— business particular of he— in the life or in the other, each Jazevedao, accomplished the that he has, desclimbs in his time of pain, too, until to pay the that he gave— compadre mine Quelemem is there, in order to fiscalize. The Sir knows: the peril that is to live… But solo of the mode, of these, by ugly instrument, was that the jagunsaga so finished. Sir thinks that Antonio Do or Olivino Oliviano were going to fix goodies by pure spelling of itself, or by begging of the infelicitous, or by always to hear sermon of father? You I think! In the aims… Of jagunço comported active in order so to repent in the middle of his jagunsagas, solo I lay of one: called Joe Cazuzo— was in smashing of one shotshow, for on the summit of the place Sierra New, district of river rusted, on the stream Traçadal. We made mal minority small, and they closed in order summit of us the personnel of one Coronel Adalvino, forted politico, with many soldiers uniformed in the center, commanding of the Lieutenant Epiphany Helm, that after fixed captain. We lasted hour more hour, and yea gave almost of encircled. There, of misslip, that Joe Cazuzo— man much valiant— so kneeled turned on the ground of the thick, lifted the arms that not even shoots of Jatoba dry, and solo yell, howl clear and howl deaf:— “I saw the Virgin Ours, in the resplendor of the Heavens, with her children of angels!... ” He screamed not touched. — “I saw the Virgin!... ” He ensouled? We desequaled. Bolt for my horse—that I thought— I leaped in mal seat, noteven I knew in which rupture-time I unfastened the halter, of tied up it foot of timber. I flew, arrived. Bullet come. The pasture roared. In the brush, the fear of the people so goes to the whole, one fear intentional. I could to lash out, fated burro brute, giv-that, giv-that. Some two or three bullets so drovein the pad of the mine saddle, they perforated of to tear away almost much the kapok of the filling. Horse trembled in pro, in middle of gallop, I know: thinks in the owner. I not fit of to be more well shrunken. Bulleted came to the sack that I had on the back, with few mine things. And other, of fusil, in ricochet decreed, heated my thigh, sans me wound, the Sir see: bullet does the what to want—so pierced impressed, between in me and the harness! Times crazy… Burumbum!: the horse so kneeled in the fall, dead perhaps, and I yea falling for front, embraced in foliage full, branched and linias, that me swayed and skewered, done I was pendulating in web of spider… Whither? I traversed that life total… Of fear of anxiety, I ruptured to read with mine corpus that forest, I know there — and me fell world below, rolled for the hollow of a grotto closed of shrubs, always me grasped— rolled same assuch: after: after, when I saw mine hands, total on they that not was withdrawn sanguine, was smeared green, on the digits, of leaves living that I pulled and mashed… I landed on the sedge of the profound— and a beast dark gave a releap, with a sneeze, too mad of fright: that was a papa-mel, that I descried; in order to flee, this is solely. Bigger being I, me doused mine overcoat; I spigotted total. And of one bit of thought: if that beast irara lying there then there not had cobra. I took the place of his. Existed cobra notone. I could me to lose. I was solo spineless, softness, but that not deadened, inside, the collisions of the heart. I gasped. I conceived that they came, me kill. Not even did mal, me mattered not. Assuch, some moments, at least I guarded the license of term in order me to rest. Conforming I thought in Diadorim. Solo I thought was in he. One joão-congo sang. I wanted to die thinking in my friend Diadorim, hand-o-bro, who was on the Sierra of WoodO’Bow, almost on the border baiana, with our other half of the so-candelarios… With my friend Diadorim me embraced, sentiment my went-flew right for he… Ay, arr, but: that this mine mouth not has order notone. I am accounting outside, things divagated. In the Sir me confide? Til-that, til-that. Say the angel-of-the-guard… But, conforming I came: after so knew, that same the soldiers of the Lieutenant and the goats of Coronel Adalvino remitted of to respect the blast of that Joe Cazuzo. And that this ended being the man most pacificious of the world, fabricator of oil and sacristan, in the Saint Sundays White. Times! For total, cleaned revelation, I fix thinking. I like. Meliorate, for the idea if well to open, is travelling in train-of-iron. Could, lived to top and to bottom, inside of it. Information that I ask: same in the Heavens, end of end, how is that the soul wins so to forget s’much sufferments and maladies, in the received and in the given? The how? The Sir knows: are things of hideous ofmuch, have. Pain of corpus and pain of idea mark forted, that forted as the total love and rage of hate. Goes, sea… Of luck that, then, the Firmiano, by appellationed Louse-of-Snake, so leoprosized with the leg disconformed, thickening, of that disease that not so cures; and not discern almost more, constant the branchials in the eyes, of the cataracts. Of before, years, had to of so disarray of the jagunsaga. Well, one occasion, some was on the ranch of his, on the High Jeuitai, after accounted—that, turns time, comes subject, he would say: “Me give yearning is of to seize a soldier, and such, for one good flay, with knife blind… But, first, to castrate…” The Sir conceive? Who has more dose of demon in self is Indian, any race of brusque. Folk see nation ofthese, for there profound of the generals of Goias, theofwhere has vagarous grand rivers, of aquas always so clear pleasantly, running of down crystal rosed… Louse-of-Snake gave of sanguine of heathen. Sir me will say: but that he pronounced that out of mouth, manner of to represent that yet not was old decadent. Opus of to oppose, for fear of to be tame, and cause in order so to see respected. Total listened for such rule: palavered of ruins, for more so valued, because we to the environs is hard durability. The worst, but, is that they finish, through the same ford, given of one day to execute the declared, in the real. I saw s’much crudity! Pain not pays to account; if I go, I collide. And me dedrip, three that me sicken, this total. Me convokes that the personnel, today in day, is good of heart. This is, good in the trivial. Malices wildwants, and perversities, always have some, but scarcities. Generation mine, true, was not assuch. Ah, goes to turn a time, in which not is used more to kill people… I yea am old. Good, I was saying: question, this that me excavates… Ah, I formed that question, for compadre mine Quelemem. That me responded: that, for close to heaven, we so amplified so, that total the uglies past so exhaled of not to be—fated sans-modus from time of youngster, mal-arts. As we not lack of to have remorse of the which divulged in the pulsation of his nightmares of one night. Assuch that: fleeced-so, flourished-so! Ahem. For this said, is that the journey to the Heavens is delayed. I confide with compadre mine Quelemem, the Sir knows: reason of creed same that has—that, for total the mal, that so does, one day so repays, the exact. Subject assuch rises three times, in ante of to want to facilitate in any minutia reprehensible… Compadre mine Quelemem never speaks vacant, not subtreats. Solo that this to he not I go to expose. We never should have to declare that accept entire the alien—that is what is the rule of the king! The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. Truth major. Is the that the life me taught. This that me animates, mound. And, other thing: the devil and the brutes; but Deus is treacherous! Ah, a beauty of treacherous— gives like! The force of his, when he wants— boy!— me gives the fear dread! Deus comes coming: no one not sees. He does in the law of gentle— assuch is the miracle. And Deus attacks beautiful, so amusing, so economizes. The well: one day in a tannery, the little knife mine I had dropped inside of a tank, solo soup of bark of tan, stryphnodendron adstringens, angico, there I know. —“Tomorrow I try…”— I said, withmyself. Because it was of night, light notone I not disputed. Ah, then, I found: on the other day, early, the knife, the iron of it, had been gnawed, almost by half, by that aqua dark, total quiet. I left, for more to see. Crack, fuse! Know the what was? Well, in that same of afternoon, there: of the little knife solo so found the handle… The handle, for not to be of cold metal, but of horn of deer. There is: Deus… Good, the Sir heard knows, the that knows me understands… We sum, not think that religion fractures. Sir think the contrary. Visible that, those other times, I painted—belief that the neoglaziovia variegata lifts the flower. Ah, good my joy… Boyhood. But boyhood is task for more later so to deny. Too, I of that of to think in vague in s’much, lost mine hand-of-man for the management hot, in the middle of all. But, today, that I ratiocinated, and think the endeavor, not nor for this not I give for low my competence, in a fire-and-iron. The to see. Would approach would come here with war on me, with bad parts, with other laws, or with excessive looks, and I even draw to ignite this zone, ay, if, if! Is in the mouth of the blunderbuss: is in the rete-te-tem… And lonelyonly not I am, there-of-the. For not this, I was I placed encircle my mine people. Look the Sir: here, close, vereda below, the Paspe — cropper my — is mine. More league, if that, have the Herpetotheres, and have the compadre Ciril, him and three children, I know that they serve. Band of that hand, the Alaripe: knew the Sir the that is that so boasts, in rifleation and by the knife, one cearense did this! After more: the João Innatal, the Quipes, Lophiosilurus-of-claws. And the Fafafa— this gave fights high, all side with me, in the combat old of the Anteater-such: we cleaned the wind of whom not had order of to respirate, and ante these we desencompassed… The Fafafa has a mass of mares. He raises horses good. Even a little more distant, on the ped-of-sierra, of band mine was the Sesfred, Jesualdo, the Nelson, and João Concliz. Some others. The Triol… And not I go valuing? I leave terra with them, of theirs the what is mine is, we close that we not even brothers. For what I want to gather richness? They are there, of arms aireated. Enemy to come, we cross called, gathering: is hour of one good shotshowerment in peace, they exp’riment to see. I say this to the Sir, of confidence. Too, not go to think in double. We want is to work, propose tranquility. Of me, person, I live for mine woman, that total mode-meliorate merits, and for the devotion. Well-to want of mine woman was that me assisted, prayers of hers, graces. Love comes of love. I say. In Diadorim, I think too— but Diadorim is the mine nebulina… Now, well: not I wanted to touch on this more— of the Tineaous; arrive. But has a nevertheless: I ask: the Sir believe, think trust of truth in that parlance, of with the demon so to able to deal with pact? No, no is no? I knew that not there. I spoke of favas. But I like of total good confirmation. To vend you proper soul… Inventionate false! And, soul, the what is? Soul of has to be thing internal supremed, much more of the of inside, and is solo, of the that one if thought: ah, soul sheer! Decision of to vend soul is fearless moll, fantasied of moment, has not the obedience legal. Can I to vend those good terras, thereof of between the Veredas-Four— that are of one Mr. Admiral, who resides in the capital federal? Can I some? Then, if one boy boy is, and for this not so authorizes of to negotiate… And we, this I know, at times is solo fated boy. Mal that in mine life I prepared, I was in a certain infancy in dreams — total runs and arrives so swift —; will be that if hath flame of responsibilities? If dream; yea so did… I gave rapadura to the chump! Ahem. Well. If his soul, and has, it is of Deus established, not even that the person want or not want. Not is vendible. The Sir not thinks? Me declare, frank, I beg. Ah, you I appreciate. You so see that the Sir knows much, in idea firm, beyond of to have letter of doctor. You I appreciate, for much. Your company me gives high pleasures. In terms, I liked that I would live here, or close, was a help. Here not so has conviviation that to instruct. Sertão. Knows the Sir: sertão is where the thought of the people so forms more forted of the than power of the place. To live is much perilous… Eh, that you so go? Yeayea? Is that not. Today, no. Tomorrow, no. Not I consense. The Sir me forgive, but in endeavor of mine friendship accept: the Sir stay. After fifth of-morning-early, the Sir wanting to go, then goes, same me leaves feeling your absence. But, today or tomorrow, no. Visit, here in house, with me, is for three days! But, the Sir really intends to trespass the field this sea of territotires, for sortment of to confer the what exists? You have your motives. Now— I say for me — the Sir comes, came late, Times were, the customs mutate. Almost that, of legitimate loyal, little surplus, not even no excess more nothing. The bands good of valientoughs they reparted their end; many who were jagunço, by ouch pain, beg alms. Same as the herdsmen they doubt of to come in the commerce vested of clothes entire of leather, they think that garb of jerkin is ugly and boor. And even the herd in the shrubbed pasture goes waning less mad, more educated: casted of zebu, dissee with the rest of corralers and captiveborns. Always, in the generals is to the poverty, to the sadness. A sadness that even gladdens. But, then, for a crop reasonable of bizzarancies, I recounsel of the Sir to entest journey more dilated. Not were my desmight, by acids and rheumatism, there I went. I guided the Sir till total. March 2013 San Diego, CA ORIGINAL TEXT NONADA. TIROS QUE O SENHOR ouviu foram de briga de homem não, Deus esteja. Alvejei mira em árvores no quintal, no baixo do córrego. Por meu acerto. Todo dia isso faço, gosto; desde mal em minha mocidade. Daí, vieram me chamar. Causa dumbezerro: um bezerro branco, erroso, os olhos de nem ser – se viu –; e com máscara de cachorro. Me disseram; eu não quis avistar. Mesmo que, por defeito como nasceu, arrebitado de beiços, esse figurava rindo feito pessoa. Cara de gente, cara de cão: determinaram – era o demo. Povo prascóvio. Mataram. Dono dele nem sei quem for. Vieram emprestar minhas armas, cedi. Não tenho abusões. O senhor ri certas risadas... Olhe: quando é tiro de verdade, primeiro a cachorrada pega a latir, instantaneamente – depois, então, se vai ver se deu mortos. O senhor tolere, isto é o sertão. Uns querem que não seja: que situado sertão é por os campos-gerais a fora a dentro, eles dizem, fim de rumo, terras altas, demais do Urucuia. Toleima. Para os de Corinto e do Curvelo, então, o aqui não é dito sertão? Ah, que tem maior! Lugar sertão se divulga: é onde os pastos carecem de fechos; onde um pode torar dez, quinze léguas, sem topar com casa de morador; e onde criminoso vive seu cristo-jesus, arredado do arrocho de autoridade. O Urucuia vem dos montões oestes. Mas, hoje, que na beira dele, tudo dá – fazendões de fazendas, almargem de vargens de bom render, as vazantes; culturas que vão de mata em mata, madeiras de grossura, até ainda virgens dessas lá há. O gerais corre em volta. Esses gerais são sem tamanho. Enfim, cada um o que quer aprova, o senhor sabe: pão ou pães, é questão de opiniães... O sertão está em toda a parte. Do demo? Não gloso. Senhor pergunte aos moradores. Em falso receio, desfalam no nome dele – dizem só: o Que-Diga. Vote! não... Quem muito se evita, se convive. Sentença num Aristides – o que existe no buritizal primeiro desta minha mão direita, chamado a Vereda-da-Vaca-Mansa-deSanta-Rita – todo o mundo crê: ele não pode passar em três lugares, designados: porque então a gente escuta um chorinho, atrás, e uma vozinha que avisando: – “Eu já vou! Eu já vou!...” – que é o capiroto, o que-diga... E um José Simpilício – quem qualquer daqui jura ele tem um capeta em casa, miúdo satanazim, preso obrigado a ajudar em toda ganância que executa; razão que o Simpilício se empresa em vias de completar de rico. Apre, por isso dizem também que a besta pra ele rupeia, nega de banda, não deixando, quando ele quer amontar... Superstição. José Simpilício e Aristides, mesmo estão se engordando, de assim nãoouvir ou ouvir. Ainda o senhor estude: agora mesmo, nestes dias de época, tem gente porfalando que o Diabo próprio parou, de passagem, no Andrequicé. Um Moço de fora, teria aparecido, e lá se louvou que, para aqui vir – normal, a cavalo, dum dia-e-meio – ele era capaz que só com uns vinte minutos bastava... porque costeava o Rio do Chico pelas cabeceiras! Ou, também, quem sabe – sem ofensas – não terá sido, por um exemplo, até mesmo o senhor quem se anunciou assim, quando passou por lá, por prazido divertimento engraçado? Há-de, não me dê crime, sei que não foi. E mal eu não quis. Só que uma pergunta, em hora, às vezes, clareia razão de paz. Mas, o senhor entenda: o tal moço, se há, quis mangar. Pois, hem, que, despontar o Rio pelas nascentes, será a mesma coisa que um se redobrar nos internos deste nosso Estado nosso, custante viagem de uns três meses... Então? Que-Diga? Doideira. A fantasiação. E, o respeito de dar a ele assim esses nomes de rebuço, é que é mesmo um querer invocar que ele forme forma, com as presenças! Não seja. Eu, pessoalmente, quase que já perdi nele a crença, mercês a Deus; é o que ao senhor lhe digo, à puridade. Sei que é bem estabelecido, que grassa nos Santos- Evangelhos. Em ocasião, conversei com um rapaz seminarista, muito condizente, conferindo no livro de rezas e revestido de paramenta, com uma vara de maria-preta na mão – proseou que ia adjutorar o padre, para extraírem o Cujo, do corpo vivo de uma velha, na Cachoeira-dos-Bois, ele ia com o vigário do Campo-Redondo... Me concebo. O senhor não é como eu? Não acreditei patavim. Compadre meu Quelemém descreve que o que revela efeito são os baixos espíritos descarnados, de terceira, fuzuando nas piores trevas e com ânsias de se travarem com os viventes – dão encosto. Compadre meu Quelemém é quem muito me consola – Quelemém de Góis. Mas ele tem de morar longe daqui, na Jijujã, Vereda do Buriti Pardo... Arres, me deixe lá, que – em endemoninhamento ou com encosto – o senhor mesmo deverá de ter conhecido diversos, homens, mulheres. Pois não sim? Por mim, tantos vi, que aprendi. Rincha- Mãe, Sangued’Outro, o Muitos-Beiços, o Rasgaem-Baixo, Faca-Fria, o Fancho-Bode, um Treciziano, o Azinhavre... o Hermógenes... Deles, punhadão. Se eu pudesse esquecer tantos nomes... Não sou amansador de cavalos! E, mesmo, quem de si de ser jagunço se entrete, já é por alguma competência entrante do demônio. Será não? Será? De primeiro, eu fazia e mexia, e pensar não pensava. Não possuía os prazos. Vivi puxando difícil de dificel, peixe vivo no moquém: quem mói no asp’ro, não fantaseia. Mas, agora, feita a folga que me vem, e sem pequenos dessossegos, estou de range rede. E me inventei neste gosto, de especular idéia. O diabo existe e não existe? Dou o dito. Abrenúncio. Essas melancolias. O senhor vê: existe cachoeira; e pois? Mas cachoeira é barranco de chão, e água se caindo por ele, retombando; o senhor consome essa água, ou desfaz o barranco, sobra cachoeira alguma? Viver é negócio muito perigoso... Explico ao senhor: o diabo vige dentro do homem, os crespos do homem – ou é o homem arruinado, ou o homem dos avessos. Solto, por si, cidadão, é que não tem diabo nenhum. Nenhum! – é o que digo. O senhor aprova? Me declare tudo, franco – é alta mercê que me faz: e pedir posso, encarecido. Este caso – por estúrdio que me vejam – é de minha certa importância. Tomara não fosse... Mas, não diga que o senhor, assisado e instruído, que acredita na pessoa dele?! Não? Lhe agradeço! Sua alta opinião compõe minha valia. Já sabia, esperava por ela-já o campo! Ah, a gente, na velhice, carece de ter sua aragem de descanso. Lhe agradeço. Tem diabo nenhum. Nem espírito. Nunca vi. Alguém devia de ver, então era eu mesmo, este vosso servidor. Fosse lhe contar... Bem, o diabo regula seu estado preto, nas criaturas, nas mulheres, nos homens. Até: nas crianças – eu digo. Pois não é ditado: “menino – trem do diabo”? E nos usos, nas plantas, nas águas, na terra, no vento... Estrumes. ... O diabo na rua, no meio do redemunho... Hem? Hem? Ah. Figuração minha, de pior pra trás, as certas lembranças. Mal hajame! Sofro pena de contar não... Melhor, se arrepare: pois, num chão, e com igual formato de ramos e folhas, não dá a mandioca mansa, que se come comum, e a mandioca-brava, que mata? Agora, o senhor já viu uma estranhez? A mandioca-doce pode de repente virar azangada – motivos não sei; às vezes se diz que é por replantada no terreno sempre, com mudas seguidas, de manaíbas – vai em amargando, de tanto em tanto, de si mesma toma peçonhas. E, ora veja: a outra, a mandiocabrava, também é que às vezes pode ficar mansa, a esmo, de se comer sem nenhum mal. E que isso é? Eh, o senhor já viu, por ver, a feiúra de ódio franzido, carantonho, nas faces duma cobra cascavel? Observou o porco gordo, cada dia mais feliz bruto, capaz de, pudesse, roncar e engolir por sua suja comodidade o mundo todo? E gavião, corvo, alguns, as feições deles já representam a precisão de talhar para adiante, rasgar e estraçalhar a bico, parece uma quicé muito afiada por ruim desejo. Tudo. Tem até tortas raças de pedras, horrorosas, venenosas – que estragam mortal a água, se estão jazendo em fundo de poço; o diabo dentro delas dorme: são o demo. Se sabe? E o demo – que é só assim o significado dum azougue maligno – tem ordem de seguir o caminho dele, tem licença para campear?! Arre, ele está misturado em tudo. Que o que gasta, vai gastando o diabo de dentro da gente, aos pouquinhos, é o razoável sofrer. E a alegria de amor – compadre meu Quelemém, diz. Família. Deveras? É, e não é. O senhor ache e não ache. Tudo é e não é... Quase todo mais grave criminoso feroz, sempre é muito bom marido, bom filho, bom pai, e é bom amigo-de-seus-amigos! Sei desses. Só que tem os depois – e Deus, junto. Vi muitas nuvens. Mas, em verdade, filho, também, abranda. Olhe: um chamado Aleixo, residente a légua do Passo do Pubo, no da-Areia, era o homem de maiores ruindades calmas que já se viu. Me agradou que perto da casa dele tinha um açudinho, entre as palmeiras, com traíras, pra-almas de enormes, desenormes, ao real, que receberam fama; o Aleixo dava de comer a elas, em horas justas, elas se acostumaram a se assim das locas, para papar, semelhavam ser peixes ensinados. Um dia, só por graça rústica, ele matou um velhinho que por lá passou, desvalido rogando esmola. O senhor não duvide – tem gente, neste aborrecido mundo, que matam só para ver alguém fazer careta... Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Esse Aleixo era homem afamilhado, tinha filhos pequenos; aqueles eram o amor dele, todo, despropósito. Dê bem, que não nem um ano estava passado, de se matar o velhinho pobre, e os meninos do Aleixo aí adoeceram. Andaço de sarampão, se disse, mas complicado; eles nunca saravam. Quando, então, sararam. Mas os olhos deles vermelhavam altos, numa inflama de sapiranga à rebelde; e susseguinte – o que não sei é se foram todos duma vez, ou um logo e logo outro e outro – eles restaram cegos. Cegos, sem remissão dum favinho de luz dessa nossa! O senhor imagine: uma escadinha – três meninos e uma menina – todos cegados. Sem remediável. O Aleixo não perdeu o juizo; mas mudou: ah, demudou completo – agora vive da banda de Deus, suando para ser bom e caridoso em todas suas horas da noite e do dia. Parece até que ficou o feliz, que antes não era. Ele mesmo diz que foi um homem de sorte, porque Deus quis ter pena dele, transformar para lá o rumo de sua alma. Isso eu ouvi, e me deu raiva. Razão das crianças. Se sendo castigo, que culpa das hajas do Aleixo aqueles meninozinhos tinham?! Compadre meu Quelemém reprovou minhas incertezas. Que, por certo, noutra vida revirada, os meninos também tinham sido os mais malvados, da massa e peça do pai, demônios do mesmo caldeirão de lugar. Senhor o que acha? E o velhinho assassinado? – eu sei que o senhor vai discutir. Pois, também. Em ordem que ele tinha um pecado de crime, no corpo, por pagar. Se a gente – conforme compadre meu Quelemém é quem diz – se a gente torna a encarnar renovado, eu cismo até que inimigo de morte pode vir como filho do inimigo. Mire veja: se me digo, tem um sujeito Pedro Pindó, vizinho daqui mais seis léguas, homem de bem por tudo em tudo, ele e a mulher dele, sempre sidos bons, de bem. Eles têm um filho duns dez anos, chamado Valtei – nome moderno, é o que o povo daqui agora apreceia, o senhor sabe. Pois essezinho, essezim, desde que algum entendimento alumiou nele, feito mostrou o que é: pedido madrasto, azedo queimador, gostoso de ruim de dentro do fundo das espécies de sua natureza. Em qual que judia, ao devagar, de todo bicho ou criaçãozinha pequena que pega; uma vez, encontrou uma crioula bentabêbada dormindo, arranjou um caco de garrafa, lanhou em três pontos a popa da perna dela. O que esse menino babeja vendo, é sangrarem galinha ou esfaquear porco. – “Eu gosto de matar...” – uma ocasião ele pequenino me disse. Abriu em mim um susto; porque: passarinho que se debruça – o vôo já está pronto! Pois, o senhor vigie: o pai, Pedro Pindó, modo de corrigir isso, e a mãe, dão nele, de miséria e mastro – botam o menino sem comer, amarram em árvores no terreiro, ele nu nuelo, mesmo em junho frio, lavram o corpinho dele na peia e na taca, depois limpam a pele do sangue, com cuia de salmoura. A gente sabe, espia, fica gasturado. O menino já rebaixou de magreza, os olhos entrando, carinha de ossos, encaveirada, e entisicou, o tempo todo tosse, tossura da que puxa secos peitos. Arre, que agora, visível, o Pindó e a mulher se habituaram de nele bater, de pouquinho em pouquim foram criando nisso um prazer feio de diversão – como regulam as sovas em horas certas confortáveis, até chamam gente para ver o exemplo bom. Acho que esse menino não dura, já está no blimbilim, não chega para a quaresma que vem... Uê-uê, então?!Não sendo como compadre meu Quelemém quer, que explicação é que o senhor dava? Aquele menino tinha sido homem. Devia, em balanço, terríveis perversidades. Alma dele estava no breu. Mostrava. E, agora, pagava. Ah, mas, acontece, quando está chorando e penando, ele sofre igual que se fosse um menino bonzinho... Ave, vi de tudo, neste mundo! lá vi até cavalo com soluço... – o que é a coisa mais custosa que há. Bem, mas o senhor dirá, deve de: e no começo – para pecados e artes, as pessoas – como por que foi que tanto emendado se começou? Ei, ei, aí todos esbarram. Compadre meu Quelemém, também. Sou só um sertanejo, nessas altas idéias navego mal. Sou muito pobre coitado. Inveja minha pura é de uns conforme o senhor, com toda leitura e suma doutoração. Não é que eu esteja analfabeto. Soletrei, anos e meio, meante cartilha, memória e palmatória. Tive mestre, Mestre Lucas, no Curralinho, decorei gramática, as operações, regra-de-três, até geografia e estudo pátrio. Em folhas grandes de papel, com capricho tracei bonitos mapas. Ah, não é por falar: mas, desde o começo, me achavam sofismado de ladino. E que eu merecia de ir para cursar latim, em Aula Régia – que também diziam. Tempo saudoso! Inda hoje, apreceio um bom livro, despaçado. Na fazenda O Limãozinho, de um meu amigo Vito Soziano, se assina desse almanaque grosso, de logogrifos e charadas e outras divididas matérias, todo ano vem. Em tanto, ponho primazia é na leitura proveitosa, vida de santo, virtudes e exemplos – missionário esperto engambelando os índios, ou São Francisco de Assis, Santo Antônio, São Geraldo... Eu gosto muito de moral. Raciocinar, exortar os outros para o bom caminho, aconselhar a justo. Minha mulher, que o senhor sabe, zela por mim: muito reza. Ela é uma abençoável. Compadre meu Quelemém sempre diz que eu posso aquietar meu temer de consciência, que sendo bem-assistido, terríveis bons-espíritos me protegem. Ipe! Com gosto... Como é de são efeito, ajudo com meu querer acreditar. Mas nem sempre posso. O senhor saiba: eu toda a minha vida pensei por mim, forro, sou nascido diferente. Eu sou é eu mesmo. Diverjo de todo o mundo... Eu quase que nada não sei. Mas desconfio de muita coisa. O senhor concedendo, eu digo: para pensar longe, sou cão mestre – o senhor solte em minha frente uma idéia ligeira, e eu rastreio essa por fundo de todos os matos, amém! Olhe: o que devia de haver, era de se reunirem-se os sábios, políticos, constituições gradas, fecharem o definitivo a noção – proclamar por uma vez, artes assembléias, que não tem diabo nenhum, não existe, não pode. Valor de lei! Só assim, davam tranqüilidade boa à gente. Por que o Governo não cuida?! Ah, eu sei que não é possível. Não me assente o senhor por beócio. Uma coisa é pôr idéias arranjadas, outra é lidar com país de pessoas, de carne e sangue, de mil-e-tantas misérias... Tanta gente – dá susto de saber – e nenhum se sossega: todos nascendo, crescendo, se casando, querendo colocação de emprego, comida, saúde, riqueza, ser importante, querendo chuva e negócios bons... De sorte que carece de se escolher: ou a gente se tece de viver no safado comum, ou cuida só de religião só. Eu podia ser: padre sacerdote, se não chefe de jagunços; para outras coisas não fui parido. Mas minha velhice já principiou, errei de toda conta. E o reumatismo... Lá como quem diz: nas escorvas. Ahã. Hem? Hem? O que mais penso, testo e explico: todo-omundo é louco. O senhor, eu, nós, as pessoas todas. Por isso é que se carece principalmente de religião: para se desendoidecer, desdoidar. Reza é que sara da loucura. No geral. Isso é que é a salvaçãoda- alma... Muita religião, seu moço! Eu cá, não perco ocasião de religião. Aproveito de todas. Bebo água de todo rio... Uma só, para mim é pouca, talvez não me chegue. Rezo cristão, católico, embrenho a certo; e aceito as preces de compadre meu Quelemém, doutrina dele, de Cardéque. Mas, quando posso, vou no Mindubim, onde um Matias é crente, metodista: a gente se acusa de pecador, lê alto a Bíblia, e ora, cantando hinos belos deles. Tudo me quieta, me suspende. Qualquer sombrinha me refresca. Mas é só muito provisório. Eu queria rezar – o tempo todo. Muita gente não me aprova, acham que lei de Deus é privilégios, invariável. E eu! Bofe! Detesto! O que sou? – o que faço, que quero, muito curial. E em cara de todos faço, executado. Eu não tresmalho! Olhe: tem uma preta, Maria Leôncia, longe daqui não mora, as rezas dela afamam muita virtude de poder. Pois a ela pago, todo mês – encomenda de rezar por mim um terço, todo santo dia, e, nos domingos, um rosário. Vale, se vale. Minha mulher não vê mal nisso. E estou, já mandei recado para uma outra, do Vau-Vau, uma Izina Calanga, para vir aqui, ouvi de que reza também com grandes meremerências, vou efetuar com ela trato igual. Quero punhado dessas, me defendendo em Deus, reunidas de mim em volta... Chagas de Cristo! Viver é muito perigoso... Querer o bem com demais força, de incerto jeito, pode já estar sendo se querendo o mal, por principiar. Esses homens! Todos puxavam o mundo para si, para o concertar consertado. Mas cada um só vê e entende as coisas dum seu modo. Montante, o mais supro, mais sério – foi Medeiro Vaz. Que um homem antigo... Seu Joãozinho Bem-Bem, o mais bravo de todos, ninguém nunca pôde decifrar como ele por dentro consistia. Joca Ramiro – grande homem príncipe! – era político. Zé- Bebelo quis ser político. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two technological changes in (...) the second half of the twentieth century prompted calls for a new, or at least expanded, definition of death: the development of intensive care medicine, especially the use of mechanical ventilators, and the advent of successful transplantation of vital organs. Patients with profound neurological damage, leaving them incapable of breathing on their own and in an irreversible coma, could be maintained for some period of time with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The situation of these patients posed two ethical questions. Is it appropriate to stop life-sustaining treatment? If so, is it acceptable to retrieve vital organs for transplantation to save the lives of others before stopping treatment?In 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death proposed that death could be determined on the basis of neurological criteria, thus providing a positive answer to these two questions (Ad Hoc Committee 1968). According to the position of this committee, patients diagnosed with the cessation of brain function are dead, despite the fact that they breathe and circulate blood with the aid of mechanical ventilation. [End Page 185] Because they are dead, it is appropriate, indeed imperative, to stop mechanical ventilation. And because they are dead, it becomes ethical to procure vital organs for transplantation before stopping what otherwise would be life-sustaining treatment. Remarkably, this innovative neurological determination of death became, with little debate or controversy, the established position in medical ethics and the law throughout the United States.The Harvard Committee articulated the diagnosis of “irreversible coma,” but merely asserted that this condition constituted death. No explanatory rationale was provided. It fell to the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to provide an authoritative rationale in its 1981 report, Defining Death. The second paragraph of the report set the stage as follows: “The question addressed here is not inherently difficult or complicated. Simply, it is whether the law ought to recognize new means for establishing that the death of a human being has occurred” (President’s Commission 1981, p. 3). The Commission claimed that “death is a unitary phenomenon” (p. 7) and that the determination of death by neurological criteria, in terms of the absence of all brain function, is consistent with the traditional conception of death as the cessation of vital functioning of the organism as a whole. The key issue is the integrative functioning of the human organism, which ceases to exist, according to the Commission, when the whole brain, including higher cortical areas and the brain stem, fails to function. Although “brain-dead” patients do not appear to be dead—i.e., the reality of their death is “masked” by the activity of mechanical ventilation—the patient’s body has irreversibly lost all capacity for integrative functioning. In the words of the Commission: “When artificial means of support mask this loss of integration as measured by the old methods [cessation of respiration and heart beat], brain-oriented criteria and tests provide a new window on the same phenomenon” (p. 33). The President’s Commission was instrumental in developing and establishing “The Uniform Definition of Death Act”: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead” (p. 2).Although the question posed by the President’s Commission was easy to articulate, the answer, over time, has proved complicated and controversial. The coherence and cogency of determining death by neurological criteria has been challenged. Various experts have demonstrated that “brain-dead” patients maintained on mechanical ventilation display a range of vital, integrative, functioning, which conflicts with the judgment that they are dead (Truog and... (shrink)

The dispute about the role of class in understanding the life situations of people of color has tended to be overpolarized, between a class reductionism and an “it's only race” position. Class processes shape racial groups’ life situations. Race and class are also distinct axes of injustice; but class injustice informs racial injustice. Some aspects of racial injustice can be expressed only in concepts associated with class (e.g., material deprivation, inferior education). But other aspects of racial injustice or other harms, (...) such as racial discrimination or stigma, are not reducible to class concepts and cannot be fully addressed through class-focused policies. Overall, any attempt to fully secure racial justice for a racial group will require a combination of race-focused and class-focused policies. Anti-racist outlooks often neglect or downplay either the normative or the explanatory significance of class, or both—for example, by overlooking or downplaying the dignitary harms of class and the material harms of race; missing the historical dimension of class injustice; masking class by a narrowing of the complex normative structure of racial disparities; or not recognizing that a class-focused initiative (like raising the minimum wage) can address substantial racial justice concerns, even though not all of them. “Systemic racism” terminology recognizes class explanatorily but suppresses it normatively. Charles Mills's influential notion of “white supremacy,” while a powerful tool for conceptualizing and illuminating racial injustice, can also contribute to minimizing or masking the justice-related impact of class, as do some of Mills's specific discussions of class in various writings. (shrink)

The world, as a unifying nexus of significance, is inherently precarious and constitutively destined toward its own unraveling. Our fascination with a future end of the world masks our realization that the world as common and unified totality is already disintegrating. What remains after the end of the world is also what pre-cedes it, the geomaterial elements, which condition the world without being reducible to things within it. Through our participation in elemental materiality, we encounter the abyssal vertigo of deep (...) time as an anachronistic rupture of lived and historical time. The geological memory of stone situates it at the threshold of world and non-world, while our liability to an immemorial prehistory situates us at the intersection of incommensurable durations, those of the ancestral past as well as the apocalyptic future.El mundo, como un nexo de significado unificador, es intrínsecamente precario y está constitutivamente destinado a su propio desenredo. Nuestra fascinación por un futuro final del mundo enmascara nuestra comprensión de que el mundo como totalidad común y unificada ya se está desintegrando. Lo que queda después del fin del mundo es también lo que lo precede, los elementos geomateriales, que condicionan el mundo sin ser reducibles a las cosas dentro de él. A través de nuestra participación en la materialidad elemental, nos encontramos con el vértigo abismal del tiempo profundo como una ruptura anacrónica del tiempo vivido e histórico. La memoria geológica de la piedra lo sitúa en el umbral del mundo y del no mundo, mientras que nuestra responsabilidad ante una prehistoria inmemorial nos sitúa en la intersección de duraciones inconmensurables, tanto del pasado ancestral como del futuro apocalíptico. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We live in a world with enormous disparities in health. The life expectancy in Japan is 80 years; in Malawi, 40 years. The under‐five mortality in Norway is 4/1000; in Sierra Leone, 316/1000. The situation is actually worse than these figures suggest because average rates tend to mask inequalities within a country. Several presidents of the IAB have urged bioethicists to attend to global disparities and to broaden the scope of bioethics. For the last six years I have (...) tried to do just that. In this paper, I report and reflect on my attempts to teach bioethics in ways that address global health and justice. To begin, I discuss how I structure bioethics courses so as to move naturally from clinical ethics to health policy to global health. I then discuss ways to address key ethical issues in global health: the problem of inequalities; the nature of the duty to assist; the importance of the duty not to harm; the difference between a cosmopolitan and a political view of justice. I also discuss how teaching about global health may help to shift the emphasis in bioethics – from sensational cases to everyday matters, from autonomy to justice, and from access to healthcare to the social determinants of health. At the end of my paper, I reflect on questions that I have not resolved: how to delineate the scope of bioethics, whether my approach over‐politicises bioethics, and how to understand the responsibilities of bioethicists. (shrink)

In this study, Consistency and Balance Model (CBM) is proposed and introduced. In the context of the model, the importance of consistency is emphasized in morality just like in Philosophy. Therefore, CBM gives the reason prominence in morality to ensure the consistency and according to CBM the emotion, the intuition and the conscience in addition to the reason, are also important. In order to see the principles determined by the reason in human behaviors, two kinds of classification are developed for (...) the virtues that is defined as the middle of excess and defect. The first of them is the triple classification of virtues that draws attention to the false existence of virtues and determines the opposite of virtues as forming dichotomy. The latter is the tetrad classification, which is based on the duality of two means that propose to consider the virtues together. The Contrast is considered as the central concept in the first classification and the integration is considered as the central concept in the second classification. Then it is offered that the virtues may be evaluated consistently in the social, global and theological contexts. However, the ideal morality with objective qualities and the real morality with subjective qualities are produced in order to reach the universal morality that is determined by the reason, then the consistency and the integration are proposed for them. Similarly, consistency and integration are proposed in the dualities of principle-virtue, abstract-concrete, intention-outcome, universality-locality, objectivity-subjectivity throughout the study. Finally, it is pointed out that the reasonableness of applying consistency in morality has exceptions.Summary: Philosophy is the logical, systematic and consistent thinking that focuses on specific questions and topics to reach the reality. When this basic tendency of philosophy is applied to morality, logical, systematic and consistent actions are expected to emerge. Accordingly, a new model called as Consistency and Balance Model (CBM) is proposed and introduced in this article. By this model, the importance of consistency is emphasized in morality just like in philosophy. Therefore, CBM gives the reason prominence in morality to ensure thought, expression and behavior consistency. According to CBM the human emotion, the divine intuition and the solid conscience in addition to reason are required to determine the virtues. CBM, which is a synthesis of the good intention and the reason, aims to constitute the sensible and good actions. According to CBM, which has a holistic structure, if a person can adopt the virtue as a principle and reflect the virtue in all of his behaviors during his whole life, he can be defined as consistently virtuous.CBM defines the good with the concepts of consistency and balance. According to CBM, the good is the mean of excess and defect. In this respect, CBM is based on Aristotle’s mean idea. However, CBM aims to develop it with new content. Two important questions arise during the identification of the evil: 1. Is it bad that nothing happens? 2. Is it bad that something is wrong? The point of defect represents the absence and the point of excess represents the fallacy in the entity. Both of them are bad in morality. The middle of them is the virtue. In order to see the principles determined by the reason in human behaviors, two kinds of classification are developed for the virtues which are defined as the middle of excess and defect. The first is the triple classification of virtues that draws attention to the false existence of virtues and determines the opposite of virtues as forming dichotomy. The triple classification, which forms a dichotomy as an empty pattern that can be applied to all virtues, is determined as over virtue-virtous-virtueless. According to CBM the opposite of the mean is always clearly the point of defect and implicitly the point of excess. Therefore, it is important to determine extremes of virtues. The point of defect can be briefly denoted as virtueless. The point of excess can be denoted as in fact virtueless, pretending as virtuous, masked virtue and over virtue. The latter is the tetrad classification, which is based on the duality of two means. In this classification, it is possible to produce new and better virtues by considering two virtues together. The Contrast is considered as the central concept in the first classification and the integration is considered as the central concept in the second classification.The principle is seen as a guarantee for the consistency in philosophy. CBM points out that a similar situation should be in ethics. According to Kant, the invisible internal principles of the actions are more important than the actions themselves to determine the moral value. The principle does not vary according to the individual and the condition, on the contrary, the individual is shaped by the principle and all individuals benefit equally from the outcome of the principle. Thus, the abuse of the rights of individuals with arbitrary treatments and double standards are prevented. In this democratic environment formed by the principle not only the owner of the power, but all right holders can get their rights. In this respect, the adherence to the principle is the guarantee of the rights and the freedom by establishing a balance between the rule and the freedom.Aristotle’s virtue and Kant’s principle are discussed in a holistic manner in this study. Thus, it is aimed that the principles in the human mind and the virtues in human actions are consistent in themselves and ultimately the union of the principles and the virtues can be ensured. Besides, the concepts of the ideal morality and the real morality are introduced in this article. The ideal morality takes place on the objective basis of the good and the truth, which is absolute, universally and unarguably accepted by everyone. The ideal morality with its objective qualities can be seen as the target that people know and want to achieve. The real morality is the morality that is shaped in the people or society in all its positive and negative aspects, which also includes the subjectivity of them as their own realities. The real morality with subjective qualities is the morality that occurs in life. CBM aims at the integrity and the consistency between the ideal morality and the real morality to reach the universal morality. In this article, the virtues are divided into two parts as material and spiritual. Then it is offered that the virtues may be evaluated consistently in the principal, individual, social, global and theological contexts. In this context, on the one hand it is aimed that the principal, individual, social, global and theological virtues are consistent within themselves and on the other hand they all are consistent within each other. In this classification the principal and theological morality have objective qualities and the individual and social morality have subjective qualities. CBM aims at an objectivity that incorporates subjectivity within the consistency and integrity of the principal, individual, social, global and theological morality. CBM aims to achieve the ultimate morality by integrating the starting point as the principal morality and the end point as the theological morality and to make them clear in the individual and social morality. As a result, CBM confirms the mean found by reason, by the revelation given by God. In other words, the morality that God has already there and always presents and the morality that the human mind finds here and now coincide. The consistency and integration are also proposed in the dualities of principle-virtue, abstract-concrete, intention-outcome, universality-locality, objectivity-subjectivity in the article. However, consistency, which is the central concept of the article, can form the basis for possible criticisms. But, it can be foreseen that the possible criticisms oriented to CBM would come from an extreme consistency perception that detaches the concept of consistency from reality without careful consideration. For this reason it should be kept in mind that it is wrong to expect excessive consistency in human behavior and to accept the ideal morality as absolute by neglecting the real morality. Finally, it is pointed out that the reasonableness of applying the consistency in morality has exceptions. (shrink)

In Australia, Japan, Sweden, and Switzerland, the average life expectancy is now greater than 80 years. But in Angola, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, the average life expectancy is less than 40 years. The situation is even worse than these statistics suggest because average figures tend to mask inequalities within countries. What are we to make of a world with such unequal health prospects? What does justice demand in terms of global health? To address these questions, I characterize justice (...) at the local level, at the domestic or social level, and at the international or global level. Because social conditions, structures, and institutions have such a profound influence on the health of populations, I begin by focusing attention on the relationship between social justice and health prospects. Then I go on to discuss health prospects and the problem of global justice. Here I distinguish two views: a cosmopolitan view and a political view of global justice. In my account of global justice, I modify and use the political view that John Rawls developed in The Law of Peoples. I try to show why an adequate political account must include three duties: a duty not to harm, a duty to reconstruct international arrangements, and a duty to assist. (shrink)

Kotarbiński is one of the leading figures in the Lvov-Warsaw school of Polish philosophy. We summarize the development of Kotarbiński’s thought from his early nominalism and ‘pansomatistic reism’ to the later doctrine of ‘temporal phases’. We show that the surface clarity and simplicity of Kotarbiński’s writings mask a number of profound philosophical difficulties, connected above all with the problem of giving an adequate account of the truth of contingent (tensed) predications. The paper will examine in particular the attempts to resolve (...) these difficulties on the part of Leśniewski. It will continue with an account of the relations of Kotarbińskian reism to the ontology of things or entia realia defended by the later Brentano. Kotarbiński’s identification of Brentano as a precursor of reism is, it will be suggested, at least questionable, and the paper will conclude with a more careful attempt to situate the Brentanian and Kotarbińskian ontologies within the spectrum of competing ontological views. (shrink)

In this article I put forward an interpretation of what is at stake in Frantz Fanon's claim that there is a reciprocity at the basis of G. W. F Hegel's master-servant dialectic. I do this by staging a critique of the ‘shared-humanity’ interpretation of Fanon's claim. Fanon's problem, as this interpretation understands it, is that the master-servant dialectic describes a situation in which two human beings knowingly confront one another as such. Such a situation—because human-to-human confrontation is assumed—does (...) not adequately describe a racially divided situation because of racism's dehumanizing force. Fanon's problem would thus be that Hegel assumed shared humanity. I contest this reading by claiming that Fanon's issue is not reciprocal humanity but reciprocal struggle. To get to this point requires demonstrating that the shared-humanity reading is implausible on a variety of grounds. Thanks to the work of Philippe Van Haute it can already be said that in Hegel's text no shared humanity takes place. But Van Haute nevertheless claims that the shared-humanity problem is present in Kojève. Thus, it first needs to be shown that Kojève's text disallows such a reading. With this result in hand, I move to show the textually unsupportable nature of a subset of the shared-humanity reading—the ‘ontological reading’—whose strategy of reading Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks obscures the Sartrean-Beauvoirian commitments which would in fact allow a more accurate reading of Fanon's claims about reciprocity in Hegel to be made. I then seek to show—with reference to these commitments and a broadly Kojèvean emphasis on the centrality of struggle in human subject-formation—that Fanon's comments about reciprocity take aim at the question of mutual struggle in Hegel and Kojève. ‘The French Negro’, Fanon argues, did not get to experience the cost and value of freedom, unlike Hegel's servant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Possibility Of Puns: A Defense of DerridaGordon C. F. BearnHow is a pun possible?—J. Derrida 1Puns are not high on the philosophical horizon. 2 Wittgenstein, it is true, thought that the depth of grammatical jokes was the same as the depth of philosophy, but it is not unusual to smile politely at this remark, and move on. 3 Jokes, like puns, are philosophically puny. Or worse. The air (...) of crime clings to puns. In some contexts the use of a pun is enough to convict one of the fallacy of equivocation, and even where “simply” fun, we refuse to laugh. By groaning, we punish the punster. Apparently we take puns more seriously than we consistently insist.Puny or not, puns do exist, and any adequate account of linguistic communication should allow for the possibility of puns. Surprisingly enough, one natural way to account for this possibility brings us very close to a Derridean domain most philosophers of language make every effort to avoid. But with this result in hand, we may be better placed to understand the seriousness which by scoffing at puns we mask.Puns can be made, but more often they are found. We can find ourselves surprised, sometimes embarrassed, by puns we have inadvertently put into play while thinking about some other, more serious, linguistic business. These are the puns I want to consider: inadvertent puns. 4 How are they possible? It is easy to think that in ordinary cases of using a word, we intentionally or contextually invoke some one of that [End Page 330] word’s possible significances and put that significance into play in our sentence. Successful communication would then consist in successfully transmitting that significance—and only that significance—to the receiver of our communication. The possibility of inadvertent puns shows that more meanings of a word are in play than those we have intentionally put into play. The possibility of puns which are not only inadvertent but also inappropriately sexual shows, in addition, that more meanings of a word are in play than are contextually called for. Inadvertent puns draw our attention to the occasional powerlessness of either context or intention to narrow down the possible significances of our spoken or written words to one. What are we to make of these facts?At a minimum, the possibility of inadvertent puns shows that more meanings of our words can be in play than we normally suppose. We might want to say that only those meanings were in play which surfaced with the inadvertent pun itself. But is there any justification for drawing the line there? The only thing that makes the situation of the inadvertent pun different from the more usual one is that we noticed the intentionally and contextually surprising meanings. But the possibility of inadvertent puns is perfectly general, so the most straightforward account of the possibility of inadvertent puns is to say that all possible significances of a word are always in play whenever it is being used. The fact that we don’t normally notice this is no more remarkable than the fact that we don’t normally notice the size of people’s ears. Inadvertent puns draw our attention to what was there all along.Immediately smelling trouble, we might consider backpedalling: insisting that the only meanings invoked by an inadvertent pun were those intentionally invoked by the producer of the pun. But that would be to deny the existence of inadvertent puns altogether; it would be to insist that they were illusory, merely apparent, artifacts of the circumstances, not really real, at all. This is as unpalatable a suggestion as that according to which the spinach was only apparently good for playing spinach tennis, simply because the cook did not intend to produce projectiles. The cook’s intentions make these qualities of the spinach unintentional, but not unreal. So, pedalling forward once again: what are the consequences of saying that whenever we use a word all of its possible significances are in play?(a) We will have to reconceive our account of interpretation. When it is a question of providing an interpretation of a spoken or written text, this hermeneutical process... (shrink)

Nature's experiments in isolation—the wild boy of Aveyron, Genie, their name is hardly legion—are by their nature illusive. Helen Keller, blind and deaf from her 18th month and isolated from language until well into her sixth year, presents a unique case in that every stage in her development was carefully recorded and she herself, graduate of Radcliffe College and author of 14 books, gave several careful and insightful accounts of her linguistic development and her cognitive and sensory situation. Perhaps (...) because she is masked, and enshrined, in William Gibson's mythic and false Miracle worker, cognitive scientists have yet to come to terms with this richly enlightening, albeit anecdotal, resource. (shrink)

RESUMO:No intercurso das relações sociais, o homem passa da representação dos objetos para a representação de si mesmo. Pelo relato do Segundo discurso, a ordem social fez dos acontecimentos um espetáculo enganoso porque, em vez de unir as pessoas, acabou por separá-las, interpondo o fenômeno, o parecer. Se o mundo se tornou, dessa forma, pura representação e a vida, uma encenação, a melhor máscara a ser colocada é a de um homem civil, e o papel a ser desenvolvido é o (...) de um homem virtuoso, que tudo faz pela coletividade. A saída parece ser educacional, visto que o Emílio traz um projeto de formação humana que usa da representação de forma bem intencionada, já que não gera o espetáculo, a pompa e nem a usurpação. Tal situação pode ser entendida como o emprego da arte em benefício da moral, emprego da ficção, da brincadeira, do jogo e da imaginação em favor de uma ação cuja arte seja a de operar a restauração da natureza no homem e prepará-lo para o melhor convívio com seus semelhantes. Emílio é exercitado contra o sortilégio do jogo representativo e colocado em relação direta com a realidade, isto é, com a natureza e com as condições mais aproximadas do estado natural. Daí a valorização da vida campesina com suas festividades como ponto de partida de sua educação, a qual termina no pleno turbilhão social, tirando proveito inclusive dos espetáculos. ABSTRACT:In the course of social relations, man passes from the representation of objects to the representation of himself. According to the Second Discourse, the social order makes a deceptive spectacle of occurrences; instead of uniting people, it ends up separating them, interposing phenomena or appearance. If in this way the world has become pure representation, and life a performance, the best mask to be put on is that of a civil man, and the best role to be developed is that of a virtuous man who does everything for the collective. The way out seems to be through education, given that in Émile Rousseau expounds a project of human formation that uses representation in a well-intentioned manner, as it does not generate spectacle, pomp, or usurpation. Such a situation can be understood as the employment of art for the benefit of morals, and the use of fiction, play, games, and the imagination, in favor of an action whose art is that of affecting the restoration of nature in man and preparing him for fellowship with those like him. Emile is taught to resist the spell of the representative game. He is also placed in direct relationship with reality, that is, with nature and with conditions approximate to those of the natural state. This explains Rousseau’s appreciation of peasant life with its festivities as the starting point of Emile’s education. Nevertheless, Emile will finish his education in the midst of social turmoil, and it will include taking advantage of spectacles. (shrink)

One of the signal developments in contemporary criticism over the past several years has been the ascendancy of the colonial paradigm. In conjunction with this new turn, Frantz Fanon has now been reinstated as a global theorist, and not simply by those engaged in Third World or subaltern studies. In a recent collection centered on British romanticism, Jerome McGann opens a discussion of William Blake and Ezra Pound with an extended invocation of Fanon. Donald Pease has used Fanon to open (...) an attack on Stephen Greenblatt’s reading of the Henriad and the interdisciplinary practices of the new historicism. And Fanon, and published interpretations of Fanon, have become regularly cited in the rereading of the Renaissance that have emerged from places like Sussex, Essex, and Birmingham.1My intent is not to offer a reading of Fanon to supplant these others, but to read, even if summarily, some of these readings of Fanon. By focusing on successive appropriations of this figure, as both totem and text, I think we can chart out an itinerary through contemporary colonial discourse theory. I want to stress, then, that my ambitions here are extremely limited: what follows may be a prelude to a reading of Fanon, but does not even begin that task itself.2 1. See Jerome McGann, “The Third World of Criticism,” in Rethinking Historicism: Critical Readings in Romantic History, ed. Marjorie Levinson et al., pp. 85-107, and Donald Pease, “Toward a Sociology of Literary Knowledge: Greenblatt, Colonialism, and the New Historicism,” in Consequences of Theory, ed. Barbara Johnson and Jonathan Arac.2. A properly contextualized reading of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, the text to which I most frequently recur, should situate it in respect to such germinal works as Jean-Paul Sartre’s Réflexions sur la question Juive, Dominique O. Mannoni’s Psychologie de la colonisation, Germaine Guex’s La Névrose d’abandon, as well as many lesser known works. But this is only to begin to sketch out the challenge of rehistoricizing Fanon. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is coeditor of Transition, a quarterly review, and the author of Figures in Black and The Signifying Monkey, which received an American Book Award. (shrink)

L’auteur situe l’intérêt intense suscité par les Présocratiques en Allemagne dans les années 1920 dans le contexte de la philologie classique tout en le reconduisant au mouvement de fascination pour l’« archaïque » apparu au cours du dernier quart du xixe siècle. L’auteur montre que ce phénomène trouve sa source dans l’« invention » des Présocratiques par Nietzsche, au point que la réception des Présocratiques, notamment d’Héraclite, peut être considérée comme une réception déguisée de Nietzsche, ce qui éclaire d’un jour (...) nouveau l’invocation du « premier commencement » grec dans le Discours de rectorat de Heidegger.The author situates the interest in Pre-Socratic philosophy in Germany in the 1920s in regard to classical philology, linking this renewal to a fascination with the « archaic » that arose at the end of the 19th century. Critical here is the way this phenomena is rooted in a modern « invention » of Pre-Platonic thinkers through Nietzsche, one that culminates with figures such as Heraclitus functioning as a mask for Nietzsche reception, a philological and hermeneutical situation which illuminates the topic of the « first Greek beginning » in Heidegger’s Rectorial Address. (shrink)

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is not only a work of economic history and theory but also a political and normative argument and a critique of ideology. It is invaluable for its magisterial documentation of increasing inequality in capitalism, and unprecedented US economic inequality in particular. I situate it within philosophical conceptions of justice. I also identify it as a non-determinist critique of the political economy of capitalism and a substantive and methodological challenge to mainstream economics. I discuss (...) not only what Piketty does not do, as some Marxists do, but what Piketty does do and summarize some of his central claims. I then discuss some problems in his work, some of which have not been addressed in the literature. In particular Piketty’s concept of labor income masks forms of capital, and given his arguments, gender and all women’s reproductive practices should have been addressed more fully. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a way to conceive of free speech that begins by redefining speech. My definition affirms the fact that speaking is an activity that goes on among people in a community. Speaking, I will suggest, is an activity that involves not only the present speaker, but also others who act as listeners and potential speakers. I contend that liberal conceptions of free speech have often proven ill equipped to address certain free speech issues, precisely because they (...) have tended to conceive of speech not as a collective activity in which participation involves both speaking and listening, but as an individualized activity in which only speakers and their utterances are relevant.Of course not all liberal notions of speech are radically individualistic; a useful distinction might be made between "solipsistic" liberal models, and "two-or-more-person" models. The latter sort do ascribe some sort of role to those who hear and respond to speech. John Stuart Mill's arguments for the value of free speech, for example, display a significant emphasis on the role of the community. Mill's model emphasizes the importance of free debate and discussion as a means by which to improve one's ideas. One of his chief arguments in support of free speech is that collecting others' responses to one's speech enables one to develop clearer, stronger ideas. But such a view only addresses others' roles as speakers--as producers of ideas. My position recognizes an even broader role for these others; I shall suggest that listening/potential speaking are themselves aspects of speaking. Thus, others' interests are do not become relevant (and eligible for protection) only when others themselves become speakers; the interests of listeners (and even "ignorers") as listeners must be taken into account in evaluating whether speech in a particular situation is free.¯ The conception I develop defines speaking as collective, thereby illuminating the role played in it by listeners/potential speakers. In the bulk of activities that go under the name "speech", a community of "others" (listeners, potential listeners, "ignorers") plays some sort of role. Those instances of speaking in which there are no relevant others may be defined in terms of their relation to speech-with-listeners. That is, they are exceptions to the general cases, and their presence in the category "speaking" can be understood by reference to one of these general cases. My original motivation for developing this conception of speech was to provide a way to illuminate those forms of sexual harassment that consist of sexist speech. I intend for the conception to characterize free speech in such a way that preventing someone from using sexist language does not (at least automatically) constitute a violation of their free speech rights, but in fact may increase the level of freedom of the community. I develop my account by first providing a critical outline of one version of a liberal conception of free speech.In the course of this outline, I examine two central liberal justifications for protecting speech; the argument from individual rights and the argument from utility. I conclude this section by making explicit my criticisms of this liberal conception. Following this, I turn to develop an alternative collective conception of speaking and of free speaking. I argue that this conception is preferable for two reasons; first, because speaking is a collective activity, and to treat it otherwise is to mask its powers and disguise the benefit or harm it may bring to users. Second, a collective conception of speaking preserves the values of free speech advanced in liberal views better than does a liberal conception. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 599-617 [Access article in PDF] Thinking Geometrically in Pierre-Daniel Huet's Demonstratio evangelica (1679) April G. Shelford Sometime after 1679, Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630-1721) indulged an author's vanity by comparing his Demonstratio evangelica with works whose authors are far better known today. He recorded his judgments on a scrap of paper. 1First, he contrasted the Demonstratio to Antoine Arnauld's Les nouveaux élémens de (...) géometrie (1664). While Arnauld had assumed that all the principles of geometry were true and all geometrical demonstrations certain, and had considered religious questions not amenable to methodical demonstration, Huet noted, "I made clear the contrary by proving religion through a methodical sequence of propositions similar to those one finds in geometry." For Arnauld religious belief fell into the class of things better proven through a series of mutually reinforcing propositions than through proofs modeled on geometry; Huet had actually accomplished the latter. Arnauld did not require geometric proofs in religious works; Huet wrote the Demonstratio "to satisfy those who do." Indeed, Arnauld forbade such proofs, "but I permitted them... and I proposed something to satisfy those who do [demand them]."Huet then considered Blaise Pascal's Pensées (1670). Pascal had also rejected demonstration in proving religious truths, Huet noted, opting instead for "moral proofs, which are directed more to the heart than to the mind. In other words he desired to work harder at moving and disposing the heart than at convincing and persuading the intellect." Apparently, "M. Pascal did not believe that one could prove the truth of the Christian religion by geometric proofs; much less that he had any hope of doing so." [End Page 599]Huet's jottings precisely situate the Demonstratio evangelica (1679)between the claims of Cartesian rationalism and Pascal's fideism and religion of the heart, inviting us to take another look at an imperfectly understood work. Scholarly treatment of the Demonstratio has generally been cursory or partial because it has been considered less for its own merits than for how it fits into larger research agendas. 2 Some scholars have offered important insights but either do not develop them or do not consider the Demonstratio in a sufficiently broad context. 3 A consensus on the Demonstratio's general thrust thus masks puzzling questions. Everyone acknowledges, for example, that Huet's apologetic responded to Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670). Like other Christian apologists, he had to maintain "the Mosaic authorship" that was "the supposed guarantee of the truth of the text," 4 devoting "long chapters to the authenticity of the books of the Old Testament." 5 Yet Huet began the Demonstratio with an assault on geometrical knowledge and an epistemological discussion—an odd place to begin refuting the Tractatus. 6 Why? The question deserves a good answer, as Huet was a scholar of international reputation, and his contemporaries judged the Demonstratio an important work. 7More important for us, the evolution of the Demonstratio superbly reflects a vanished intellectual world and scholarly culture and in fact records change [End Page 600] in that world over four decades. Its genesis was the rash promise of a young man inspired by the possibilities of geometry and aspiring to recognition in the Republic of Letters, but before fulfilling that promise Huet developed a lively interest in such diverse fields as biblical criticism and natural philosophy, and he would apply the insights gained there in his apologetic. 8 A central question confronting Huet and his contemporaries was how to achieve certainty in matters religious, historical, and scientific. 9 The Demonstratio reveals Huet's conclusion that certainty in all three was profoundly interrelated. Finally, he composed the Demonstratio during the 1670s, having grasped with much alarm the consequences of the spread of Cartesianism. Thus, the Demonstratio is an intellectual biography not just of the author but of an era.Of course, Huet had to contend with Spinoza's challenge to Mosaic authorship, which fatally undermined the historical certainty of the Bible, but he also wrote... (shrink)

All the utopian talk of information superhighways and the great media societies of the future helps to mask the fact that contemporary capitalist societies are in a situation of seemingly permanent crisis with increased human suffering due to deteriorating social conditions. In the United States, more than 34 million people live below the poverty level; over 3 million are homeless; over ten million are out of work; and millions lack basic health insurance and guaranteed medical care (Hoffman 1987).

"Meeting strangers" is a metaphor for the increasingly common experience of working with diversity in family therapy. This book offers a model of cultural family therapy for working with families across cultures, particularly immigrants, refugees, and minorities in mainstream society. -/- The author draws together several emerging trends in therapy and the human sciences: narrative approaches, transcultural psychiatry, studies of autobiographical memory and the distributed and saturated self, translation theory and sociolinguistics. He offers an understanding of the "situated nature" of (...) human problems and tools for translating the family's culture and idioms into a common language in a culturally responsive and collaborative way. -/- Each chapter is both theoretical and practical, far-reaching and grounded in the experiences of families in therapy. The chapters of Part I, Meeting Strangers, introduce themes of cultural family therapy, a synthesis of family therapy and transcultural psychiatry that reframes the presenting issue in therapy as the "presenting culture." Here DiNicola both critiques family therapy's unexamined use of cultural concepts and introduces fresh conceptual tools, such as spirals, masks, and roles, that facilitate the therapist's engagement with the family culture. -/- Part II, On the Threshold: Language, Identity, and Cultural Change, introduces a number of "changelings," "liminal people," and "orphans." Between or on the thresholds of two or more cultures, they struggle with issues around language and translation, identity and cultural change. The overbearing influence of Western concepts is seen in DiNicola's examination of the psychological, social, and cultural implications of the myth of independence. -/- Part III, Families as Storying Cultures, demonstrates in extended cases the power of narrative and of metaphor to transform experience. The final chapter is a moving memoir of the author's fascinating journey to Brazil to meet his father for the first time. -/- The author's aim is "to open space for people who have been treated like minor characters in the drama of family therapy." In doing so, he puts onto center stage all sorts of strangers in society, families of diversity, and their human predicaments, inviting his readers to engage in the full richness and complexity of culture, families, and therapy. (shrink)

Our own era is widely viewed as a golden age of intellectual tolerance when compared with the persecutions of yesteryear. But in fact, this tolerance serves to mask a fundamental indifference of one perspective to another. Each world view is seen as a personal opinion, walled off from others and immune to challenge or alteration by them. This article blames the current situation in part on the triumph of critical philosophy since Kant. In closing, several concrete and even whimsical (...) proposals are made for remedying the situation and restoring a more wild and fruitful form of intellectual combat of a kind that no longer exists. (shrink)

Due to increasing consumer skepticism towards promotional messages, companies are looking for new ways to communicate with their target audiences in a less obtrusive way than traditional advertising. Sponsored content disseminated on the online portals of newspapers (i. e., online advertorials) is regarded as a promising way to promote products and brands. Regulations require communicators to inform consumers about the commercial nature of this ‘masked’ persuasion attempt by including an explicit sponsorship disclosure (i. e., a ‘Sponsored’ label). This study demonstrates (...) that such an explicit advertising cue may not be enough to alert recipients. Furthermore, this study investigates the effects of promotional messages by means of a 2 (no disclosure vs. disclosure) x 2 (no forewarning vs. forewarning) experiment. Results show that both (i) foregoing instructions aimed at activating consumers’ persuasion knowledge (i. e., an additional forewarning message) and (ii) recipients’ prior media literacy can foster the effect of sponsorship disclosures in triggering situational distrust towards brand-related content, and in turn, increasing consumers’ reactance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Drama in Aesthetic Education:An Invitation to Imagine the World as if It Could Be OtherwiseFlorence Samson (bio)Maxine Greene, philosopher-in-residence for the Lincoln Center Institute (LCI), suggests that through aesthetic education "new connections are made in experience: new patterns are formed, new vistas are opened. Persons see differently, resonate differently." As Rilke wrote in one of his poems, and as quoted by Greene, "they are enabled to pay heed when (...) a work of art tells them, 'You must change your life.'"1 Greene interprets Rilke's words to mean that "a work [of art], when fully perceived and carefully attended to, makes a demand upon beholders—a demand that they change, look with new eyes, hear with new ears, become something they have not been before."2 Greene believes that "the perceiving, the noticing [about which Rilke spoke] are enhanced," for in the process of "[o]pening ourselves as perceivers to the work, entering into it kinaesthetically, we free ourselves to grasp it in its vital fullness and complexity."3This life change, to which Rilke refers, occurs as we take into our own being the experiences of others and realize that not everyone sees the world as we do. As we look critically at ourselves and our complicity in situations that position people as "other," we are moved to imagine that the world could be otherwise.Curriculum, Change, and Aesthetic EducationAesthetic education, an inquiry-driven engagement with a work of art, can be a catalyst to bringing about change. The aesthetic education experience consists of a number of components. LCI agrees upon a repertoire of "works of art" deemed likely to fulfill the requirements of engagement and inquiry. These may include, but are not limited to, music, drama, and opera performances, and mask, photo, and art exhibits. For each work of art, the LCI [End Page 70] researchers and other staff prepare a resource binder, entitled Windows on the Work. The teacher educator has several meetings with the teaching artist assigned to that work to develop the questions that will power the inquiry process, determine the structure and activities of the pre- and sometimes post-performance classes, and guide the students in their engagement with the work of art.I have included an aesthetic education experience program each term in my graduate and undergraduate elementary and early childhood education courses. My course outlines describe this component and the related student assignments. For the fall 2004 course, I chose Ping Chong's Secret History: Journeys Abroad, Journeys Within.4 This drama documentary, written and directed by Ping Chong and Leyla Mordirzadeh in collaboration with Sara Zatz, was directly related to one of my course goals—teaching for equity and social justice. This involves providing teachers with opportunities to "engage in productive dialogues about both inequities and possibilities for social reconstruction in the communities within which they and their students are developing."5Ping Chong & Company was founded thirty years ago "to create innovative works of theatre and art that explore the intersection of race, history, culture, and technology in the modern world."6Ping Chong, Insider/Outsider, and His Approach to TheatreCanadian-born and New York-reared Chong—theatre director, choreographer, and video and installation artist—is "fascinated and disturbed by the position of the outsider, the person made to feel 'other' in a society" and "probe[s] the drama of those pushed from one culture to another."7 He has done extensive research on both immigrants and refugees and recognizes that there is a psychological difference in the trauma experienced by members of both groups in the transition from one culture to the other.Chong's unique "talk, reveal, and seek to understand" approach to theatre "moves us toward unification, toward diminishing the barriers between peoples, and thus toward embracing all that is good in civilization."8 His work is grounded in his experience of sharing a common ethnicity and language with his community in Chinatown and occupying the position of "other" as the only Chinese student in his high school. Because of his experience of being "other," Chong has "a real kind of empathy and connection" with his projects.9 He considers... (shrink)

Background Recently, palliative care is increasingly important, with an emphasis on the process of dying with dignity. However, nurses who care for such patients experience the associated ethical dilemmas. Objective To explore the meaning of nurses’ experiences in dealing with ethical dilemmas in relation to palliative sedation. Research design A qualitative research design was employed with a thematic analysis approach. Participants and research context Using purposive sampling, 15 nurses, working at palliative care units for at least 1 year, were recruited (...) as participants. Data were collected using unstructured in-depth interviews, and data collection and analysis was performed simultaneously. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the authors’ institutional review board. All participants provided informed consent. For the face-to-face interview, the South Korean standard COVID-19 quarantine guidelines, such as mandatory masking and social distancing, were followed. Results Dilemmas raised by patients, were related to concerns about appropriate drug dose; dilemmas raised by nurses, were related to passive care, sense of guilt for failure to predict death, and colleague’s disrespectful attitudes toward patients; dilemmas from patients’ families were related to demands for palliative sedation and reversal of those demands. Care actions to deal with ethical dilemmas comprised evidence-based care, person-centered thinking, reflecting on the death situation, compassion, providing explanation and help to family members. Conclusion Nurses’ ethical dilemmas were pre-dominantly influenced by themselves, rather than by the patients or their families, especially if they felt they could not do their best for patients. The core concept of care actions to deal with the ethical dilemmas, was person-centered care and compassion. Then, how patients and their family members perceive person-centered care and compassion, should be further explored to improve palliative sedation. (shrink)

Airline pilots are attributed ultimate responsibility and final authority over their aircraft to ensure the safety and well-being of all its occupants. Yet, with the advent of automation technologies, a dissonance has emerged in that pilots have lost their actual decision-making authority as well as their ability to act in an adequate fashion towards meeting their responsibilities when unexpected circumstances or emergencies occur. Across the literature in human factor studies, we show how automated algorithmic technologies have wrestled control away from (...) airline pilots. The inter-related ethical and pragmatic consequences resulting from such a dissonance are presented. This includes pilots serving as ‘legal sponges’, being caught in ‘moral crumple zones’, as well as real impacts on safety and well-being of passengers and crew. One potential avenue presented in the literature involves a redistribution of responsibility towards all agential entities within the cockpit system. We discuss the possible pitfalls to this approach, including the reinforcement of pilot skills erosion as well as technology’s own limitations in adaptively dealing with unexpected circumstances. We justify our position by showing how algorithmic technology’s representational frames mask or severely limit the pilots’ natural reflex to ‘practically cope’ and gain an ‘optimal grip’ with a given context/situation at hand. Here, we present the concept of relevant or meaningful control, which pilots, when allowed to develop their natural brain-body reflexes, gain across gradual mastery of the aircraft. Finally, we propose a socio-technical design approach in which pilots can re-appropriate full human meaningful control of the aircraft, thus allowing them to meet their attributed responsibilities. (shrink)

Splitting livers allows two people to receive a liver transplant from one donated adult liver, but the risks to the adult recipient are greater than if they had received the equivalent whole liver. It has been suggested, therefore, that splitting livers harms adult recipients. Without liver splitting, however, there would be few livers available for children, and paediatric waiting time and waiting list mortality would significantly increase. In this paper, we argue that although splitting livers makes adults worse off, this (...) should be considered sub-optimal benefit rather than harm. We explore justifications for sub-optimally benefitting adults in this way and consider alternatives to the current approach. We argue that splitting livers masks the more fundamental problem of low paediatric donation rates and that increasing the number of paediatric donations would improve the situation for both adult and paediatric liver patients. (shrink)