I N - F O R M A R S ERevista de In-formacin y cultura humanstica / Junio de 2015, Ao XIII no. 51

I51BELLEZA DEL MUNDO Y LA

TRASCENDENCIASegn algunos escritores antiguos

BEAUTY IN TRAGEDYWhere It Comes From, Where it Leads

LA BELLEZA Y LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIN

Una mirada a la actualidad

03 Beauty in Tragedy Where It Comes From, Where It Leads. BY ERIC GILHOOLY, L.C.

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06 Beauty, Evangelization of Culture, and the humanities The Mission of the Legion. BY TIMOTHY KEARNS

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10 Traduccin: acerca de los principios Poemas de san Gregorio Nacianceno. POR LOUIS DESCLVES, L.C

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11 Masculinity and Beauty The Hazard of an Achilles Heel. BY JONATHAN FLEMINGS, L.C.

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14 La belleza Al tiempo de las redes sociales. POR JORGE ENRIQUE MJICA, L.C.

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16 La belleza del mundo y la trascendencia El creyente delante del universo. POR LUIS F. HERNNDEZ, L.C.

Coordinador: LUIS F. HERNNDEZ, L.C.

Diseador / Editor: MARIO SANDOVAL, L.C.Asistente de diseo: CARLOS RUZ, L.C._____________________________________

Revisores: ISMAEL GONZLEZ, L. C.JONATHAN FLEMINGS, L. C.

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Colaboradores:LOUIS DESCLVES, L.C. (Mxico)TIMOTHY KEARNS (Estados Unidos)ERIC GILHOOLY, L.C. (Italia)JONATHAN FLEMINGS, L.C. (Italia)JORGE ENRIQUE MJICA, L.C. (Italia)LUIS F. HERNNDEZ, L.C. (Italia)

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S U M A R I OIN- FORMARSE | No. 51

ARTCULOS

Equipo de trabajo

En portada:

CATEDRAL DE LEN, ESPAA

IN- FORMARSE / 02

Coordinador: LUIS F. HERNNDEZ, L.C.

Diseador / Editor: MARIO SANDOVAL, L.C.Asistente de diseo: CARLOS RUZ, L.C._____________________________________

Revisores: ISMAEL GONZLEZ, L. C.JONATHAN FLEMINGS, L. C.

____________________________________

Colaboradores:LOUIS DESCLVES, L.C. (Mxico)TIMOTHY KEARNS (Estados Unidos)ERIC GILHOOLY, L.C. (Italia)JONATHAN FLEMINGS, L.C. (Italia)JORGE ENRIQUE MJICA, L.C. (Italia)LUIS F. HERNNDEZ, L.C. (Italia)

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Sector Clsico

By Eric Gilhooly, L. C.

ragedy in all ages bears witness to the value of suffering and to its captivating beauty. Hamlet dies, and we are uplifted. Camelot is lost, yet something inside us grows. Why do

we find tragedy beautiful and yet our own suffering so senseless?

B e au t y i n T r ag e dy W h e r e I t C o m e s F r o m , W h e r e I t L e a d s

T

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heartAbsent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,To tell my story

Shakespeare, Hamlet

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The fury of achilles, Charles-Antoine Coypel, Hermitage Museum

According to Aristotle in his Poetics (cf. ch.13), tra-gedy is meant to cause a catharsis, or a purification, of our pity and our fear. Aristotle says that trage-dys beauty lies in its fitting within an order and following specific rules. By learning how to inte-grate our passions properly, we too can live a life more harmonious with the world and with others.

Aristotle holds tragedy to be more beautiful than life (cf. Poetics, ch.25), but maybe by perceiving or-der in a tragedy, we should try to piece togeth-er our own lives, to find some kind of order, some kind of greater meaning. While disagreeing with Aristotle that tragedy could be more beautiful than our lives, it is definitely easier to understand.

The greatest tragedies are beautiful because they cause a longing to well up within us: the story isnt enoughfor the characters or for us. And while its beauty reveals to us a great depth of truth, it in-sists that there must be something more, something greater, an order in the mystery. Tragedy is beauti-ful because it paints us a life-picture that resonates: Yes, thats exactly how it is, we say. But the that is not only the tragedy itself, but what the tragedy

hints at: meaning beyond the story, beyond chaos. We are sorrowful not because thats life, but because we know deep down that its NOT lifeit shouldnt be that way. An injustice has been committed.

So the beauty of tragedy is in finding a certain or-der and meaning, a blueprint that tries makes sense of the senseless in our own lives. Yet where does the meaning, the purpose, the beauty come from? How can beauty be found in sorrow, joy in suffering?Tolkien tells us that the music of creation, runs through all the veins of the world in sorrow and in joy; for if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomed at the foundations of the Earth. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Ch.1, Of the Beginning of Days)Human life overflows with joy and sorrowits part of who we are. And to deny the sorrow or to try and choke it off is to deny our very selves. For if we wish to experience the greatest joys in life, we must accept the greatest sorrows alongside them. Yet we cannot have the one without the other, for both lead to beauty. This was a choice Sheldon Vanauken saw clearly, long before any tragedy entered his life:

great joy through love always seemed to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, the joy would be worth the painif indeed they went together. If there were a choice and he suspected there was a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths. (S. Vanauken, A Severe Mercy, p.10)

So wheres the great joy necessary for beau-ty in tragedy (and in our lives): to complete, counter-balance, and redeem the sorrow? Pure tra-gedy is meaningless, an incomplete sentence.At this stage in our reflection, we can (and should) ap-ply Tolkiens concept of myth and fairy stories. The key to all tragedy is found in Chris-tian revelation, in the Chris-tian Sto-ry which leads to the cross. The trag-edy of t r a g e d i e s : that when

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Hamlet and Horatio Before the Grave Diggers, Eugne Delacroix, Brooklyn Museum

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God himself took flesh and entered into history (His-Story), we rejected him and crucified him. The greatest, purest, most eloquent figure ever to take center stage is cut off in mid-sentence. Or is he?

Before the wildly desperate questioning of Job, God knew logic wasnt enough. His answer to Job was no answer but Himself. The answer to suffering, to the tragedy of human existence, is the cross:

The summit, the archetype of beauty manifests itself in the face of the Son of Man crucified on the Cross of sorrows, Revelation of infinite love of God who, in His mercy for His creatures, restores beauty lost with original sin. Beauty will save the world, because this beauty is Christ, the only beauty that de-fies evil, and triumphs over death. By love, the most beautiful of the children of men became the man of sorrows, with-out beauty, without majesty no looks to attract our eyes (Is, 53, 2) and so he rendered to man, to each and every man the fullness of His beauty, His dignity and His true grandeur. In Christ, and only in Him, our via crucis is transformed into His

in the via lucis and the via pulchritudinis. (The Pontifical Council for Culture, Via Pulchritudinis, Conclusion)

This Story shares its truth with all stories, tragedy included. The Cross, silently, speaks with unspeakable words and expresses Gods love for us better than any other miracle or sermon. We find a beauty that lifts us over and above the deepest ugli-ness. The Christ-story completes and gives meaning to all stories, whether written or lived. The Chris-tian joy, the Gloria, it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. ... Legend and History have met and fused. (J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, Conclusion)

In A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken tells of his real-life tragedy, when his perfect marriage is first disrupted by their conversion to Christianity, and then shattered by his wifes premature death from a grueling liver virus. He doesnt hide the questioning, doesnt hide the sorrow. Yet he is able to read be-tween the lines of his personal tragedy, given meaning through Christ, and his story becomes one not of de-spair, but of redemption: for him and for the reader.

[In Christs] Face that is so disfigured, there appears genuine, extreme beauty: the beauty of love that

goes to the very end; for this reason it is revealed as greater than falsehood and violence. (J. Ratzinger, 2002 Rimini Address) Tragedy receives beauty from the Passion precisely by receiving hope. Hope in grace and in resurrection. Tragedy is transformed into triumph. Its beauty tells us more of who we are and hints at the Answer beyond this valley of tears.

BibliographyAristotle, Aristotles Poetics, S.H. BUTCHER (tr.), Hill and Wang, New York 1961.

H. Carpenter, The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1979 (esp. 42-45).

J. Ratzinger, The Feeling of Things, the Contempla-tion of Beauty, Rimini 2002.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Via Pulchritudinis, 2009.

J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf, Harper Collins, 2001. The Silmarillion, Ballantine Books, New York 2002.

S. Vanauken, A Severe Mercy, Hodder and Stoughton, London 2011.

Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia Before the King and Queen), BenjaminWest, Cincinnati Art Mueum

succinct way to put the mission of the Legionaries of Christ is this: to send out to the world priests who can both

evangelize culture and form others to do the same.

But what does evangelization of culture mean?

St. John Paul II defined culture as a shared way of life of a given community (See R. J. Staudt, Cul-ture in the Magisterium of John Paul II, Claritas 3.1 (March 2014), 52-65). Straightforwardly, then, evan-gelization of culture means evangelizing the shared way of life of a given community. Now, a way of life is a very practical thing. Perhaps the Pontiff, being a philosopher himself, had in mind the (then) recent work by Pierre Hadot, Quest-ce que la philoso-phie antique? (Paris: Gallimard, 1995) in which Hadot argued that ancient philosophy was never just a set of doctrines or answers to theoretical questions; it was always a way of living out a human life togeth-er with others: from Pythagoras in his school to So crates in the agora to Aristotle in the Lyceum. Nor could a search for wisdom really be anything else: even contemporary usage does not deploy the term wisdom only or primarily for abstract theoretical knowledge or answers to non-practical questions.

Wisdom is a matter of a whole life, then as now. If culture is the shared way of life of a given com-munity, one can see that wisdom for a given person

in that community is what enables him or her truly to live out that life in the best way possible. Indeed, the practices of a culture are defined by those ac-tions that are the best; so, in so far as a culture aims at what is truly good, it is wisdom that, in the practical as prudentia and in the theoretical as sapientia, defines the various aspects of that way of life itself and wis-dom also that leads us to criticize the ways that cul-ture is not aimed at the good. A shared way of life, then, in so far as it is good, is derived from wisdom.

How can we describe the practi-cal life of the person who lives wisely?

One thing is clear in general: the person who lives the common life of his people in the best way lives a life that is beautiful in all aspects. For many plain

Beauty, Evangelization of Culture,

and the Humanities

By Timothy Kearns

A

T h e M i s s i o n o f t h e L e g i o n :

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Maesta, Duccio, Siena

The Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

people living ordinary lives, this means living in simple and beautiful ways: such people are and have good friends, they dress well, live in as beau-tiful homes as are fitting (and possible) for them, they care for their possessions, they clean and keep clean, they beautify their surroundings, they may contribute to the arts in their time and place, they foster parish life, care for the poor, visit the sick and aged, they develop their own talents and help others realize their potential too, and they try as much as is right for them to influence the political life of their community for the best.

II

But this picture has only to be drawn for us to see at once the problem of our own day: wis-dom and beauty are both very hard to find.

And this seems to be precisely what the evange-lization of culture is meant to address. In a way, every religious order in the Church has evange-lization of some aspect of our shared way of life as part of its specific task. But many of the more active orders focus on clear problems like education, poverty, care for the elderly, nursing, etc. And, in a largely Christian world, these are

some of the most important social problems facing the Church. We are not, however, any longer living in a Christian world. Pope John Paul perceived this, and his response was to call for the evangelization of culture. Since he meant culture as a shared way of life, and since he knew well the missions of most reli-gious orders, we can see that he meant specifically that what needs to be evangelized now in a special way are those aspects of our shared way of life that have been turned away from (or never pointed toward) the truth of the Christian faith and the beauty of the Chris-tian life; this is because every account of the good life implies a sociology. Such evangelizing includes every-thing from art to clothing, from holiday celebrations to social life, from public spaces to architecture of churches, shops, homes, and businesses; of particular importance here are those aspects of our culture that are more shared than others, e.g. families, friendships, organizations, public spaces, work, and celebrations. This kind of change of culture requires not just re-ligious orders and dioceses that can host their own events or build their own institutions, but it also entails that there be a concerted effort to form leaders who can effect change in their own lives and in the lives of their communities. For a reform of our shared way of life, we need leaders who are apostles of the ordinary.

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This is the mission of the Legionaries of Christ, an urgent mission for a darkening time.

III

And this mission may be the most difficult mission of all: culture cannot simply be reformed through policy changes and initiatives; the people whose culture it is must want to reform it. And the only way they can want to reform their culture is if they perceive clearly that their way of life is in need of reform and that the reforms proposed are actual-ly good. If people do not think their way of life needs change, or if they do not think the changes proposed are good, they will not want to change and will not be able to see why they should change.

This in itself should cause us concern. Can we actually change minds on the most fundamen-tal questions of how we should live together? That is a hard question to face. But lets assume that we can do so, somehow, through the work of the Spirit---all things are possible with God.

Exactly how we can do it, though, is an equally hard question. If we can change culture and change minds on such important questions, the only pos-sible way is through evangelizers who, in addition to a knowledge of the faith and fervor to change the world, have a thorough knowledge of contem-porary life and of the values that contemporary life encodes and which underlie that life. One can-not adequately evangelize people whose views and the way of life derived from those views one does not understand. But, even more than this, the rea-son that evangelizers must understand the views and life of contemporary culture is chiefly that those evangelizers are themselves participants in contemporary cul-ture and with it they themselves share at least some of those ways of life that need to be evangelized.

So, apostles must first understand and evangelize what is a key part of themselves. At every age, Christ calls us to conversion, a continual conversion, a conversion of belief, habits, manner of life, polit-ical institutions, of everything. If evangelizers do not seek such an understanding of themselves and conversion for themselves and their own way of life, they are simply blind guides leading the blind.

But what is entailed in coming to understand a per-sons views and his or her way of life, even if that person is oneself ? What, in fact, is understanding in such a case? Understanding here is a knowl-edge of the causes of those views and the causes of the life related to and derived from those views, as well as a knowledge of the truth of the various matters. One needs a knowledge, then, of where those views and this life came from. Such knowl-edge of the causes of views and ways of life is not primarily a matter of knowledge only within the contemporary academic discipline of philosophy or theology; it is a knowledge of how the human past and present have been shaped by the pursuit of goodness and truth in every aspect of human life and how those pursuits manifest in ones own life and the shared way of life of ones communi-ty; hence, the necessity of a study of man informed by the right account of human nature and its place.

Men and women live out their lives seeking good things, but ordinary people generally do not real-ize that these practical goods and their way of life are both derived from implied accounts of good-ness and truth. Philosophy and theology as pursuit of good and the highest end of human beings are not abstract disciplines, but are found at the heart of every decision a person makes and at the heart of every human institution, indeed, of everything that can be called human at all. It is this pursuit of truth and goodness innate in human beings that

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The Cardinal and Theological Virtues, Raphael, Stanza della Segnatura, Vaticano

unifies all aspects of human life. But most people do not recognize this. Because of that, apostles need to pay particular attention to how accounts of goodness and truth underlie all aspects of hu-man life (cf. St. Paul in Acts 17 at the Areopagus in Athens). Thus they need a knowledge of human culture and its history, human goods and how the pursuit of those goods has influenced human life.

But this knowledge is not of the same kind as knowledge that a secular educated person would have of the same subjects. First, it is built upon the Catholic understanding of man and nature and is thus an understanding that integrates the best accounts of the various subjects into the Catho-lic framework. (It also helps us to refine that very understanding; there are still questions that need better answers, still problems that need to be solved.) Second, such an education is equally both a matter of specific content and a matter of in-culcating a real love of learning and a knowledge of how to learn. Third, every aspect of such an education focuses both on the relevant subject matter and on how that subject matter is connected in a real way to the larger world; this is the genuine knowledge of causes. On this point, students must take the active role because only by understanding for themselves the various causes will they come to a true understanding that will remain with them and to a real love of learning that will sustain them.

This is the best kind of integral formation of the intellect.

IV

But, of course, this education into human culture is only what enables one to engage a human being where he or she is. A true apostle is not solely con-cerned with narrowly intellectual problems. He or she is primarily a friend to those he or she seeks to evangelize, and this is a friendship that must be based on truth. One crucial thing that friends do for each other is help one another realize their respective potentials for excellence. So, too must the evangelizer. And now we can see the full weight of what evangelization of culture means: not just knowing philosophy and theology, not just knowing culture, not even just knowing culture in the right way, but chiefly evangelizing culture means transforming

the shared way of life of ones community through friend-ships based on and leading toward truth and goodness be-cause those friendships foster human excellence of all kinds.

And that reveals the true place of beauty in evan-gelization. The first beauty is the beauty of a wise and loving human life. Beauty in the material or so-cial aspects of human culture is and must be built upon truth revealed and lived out in the wise life oriented toward God. It is those living the life of wisdom who will help others and themselves to realize their potential for excellence, their poten-tial to recognize beautiful things, to make beau-tiful things, to do beautiful things, to live together in beautiful ways. This is how we walk the way of beauty, the via pulchritudinis, in bringing the world back to God (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 167).

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The Cardinal and Theological Virtues, Raphael, Stanza della Segnatura, Vaticano

Carved panel from the cloisters showing Doubting Thomas, Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos

Saint Paul delivering the Areopagus sermon in Athens, Raphael

ACERCA DE LOS PRINCIPIOS

IN- FORMARSE / 10

Traduccin de Louis Desclves, L. C.

S muy bien con cul balsa atravesamos tan largo tramo,o con cun pequeas alas hacia el cielo estrellado nos apresuramos, nosotros a quienes el corazn mueve a alabar a la Divinidad, a la que ni las potestades celestiales tienen la fuerza de dar culto, como se debera,a los confines de la gran Divinidad y a su gobierno universal.

Sin embargo, ni a Dios agrada el frecuente don de llensima manocuanto lo que le viene de la amiga incluso pobre.Por ello, hablar con atrevimiento. Pero fuera de aqu, huid, vosotros los impuros: este discurso mo no sale sino para los puros o los purificados.

Los profanos, como fieras, mientras Cristo escribe la ley grabada en piedras para Moiss,Sean en seguida aplastados por quebradas rocas.As sea de ellos. Y as como el Verbo expuls a los malvados,de nuestra regin, al tener un corazn rebelde contra Dios.

Pero, yo pondr este grito como proemio en mis hojas, grito que exclamaron los piadosos hombres, trayendo espanto al pueblo cruel, Moiss e Isaas, testigos de los mandatos (hablo a los entendidos),ciertamente, ste dando la ley recin plasmada, el otro, de la quebrantada: que el Cielo escuche; que la tierra acoja mis palabras.

Espritu de Dios, t, despirtame la mente as como la lengua,trompeta de verdad resonante, que todos gocen en su nimo en la Trinidad entera injertados.

Un solo Dios hay sin principio, no causado, no circunscritosea por algo que fuera de antemano, o que llegara a ser a continuacin,poseyendo todo la eternidad y sin confines, del Hijo valeroso,Unignito grande, el Padre grande, sin nada padecerpor el Hijo, de lo carnal, pues es mente.

Un solo Dios otro,No otro en divinidad, de Dios el Verbo, ste, de Aquel,Paterno sello impreso, hijo del Sin Principio,nico, y del nico uniqusimo, igual de Todopoderoso.

Como ste quedara prognitor todo entero, tanto aquel HijoRegidor del universo y Pastor, del Padre Fuerza y Pensamiento.

Un Espritu del Excelente Dios, Dios. Atrs todos,los que el Espritu no marc para proclamar su divinidad,sino que son abismo de maldad o lengua impuraseudoluminosos, envidiosos, pensadores autoproclamados, fuente oculta, candelabro en recodos oscuros.

Acerca de los principios,Poemas dogmticos I, 1,1san Gregorio Nacienceno

El Moiss de Miguel ngel

Escultura en mrmol realizada en el ao 1509 por peticin del Papa Julio II.

Originariamente concebida para la tumba del Pontfice en la Baslica de San Pedro;aunque, ms tarde, la tumba y el Moiss fueron colocados en la Iglesia menor de San Pietro in Vincoli, donde actualmente se encuentra.

Moiss (Detalle), Miguel ngel Buonarroti

La gloria de San Ignacio,Andrea Pozzo, Iglesia de San Ignacio (Roma).

hen I was a kid, we did not have a television. Weekly entertainment consisted in walking the twenty minutes down to the local public li-brary with my older sister. A book

worm by the age of nine, she quickly infected me with the disease. Our ersatz TV and video games consisted in a backpack full of books ev-ery week or so, most of them selected by her. The only down side from my perspective was that the crowd of protagonists I encountered in my childhood was mostly made up of preco-cious girls who regularly outsmarted their some-what pathetic male counterparts in whatever the child fiction selection of the week happened to be. Every once in a while I found a book on my own about a boy and his dog, but she generally found more interesting stories, so I grew accus-tomed to heroines. There is nothing wrong with heroinesin fact, I look up to quite a few of thembut we also need masculine role models.

Contemporary western societys crisis of mascu-linity, if not universally recognized, is at least a wide-spread topic of debate. Mass media offers a sample of our cultural types. Our modelswhen they are manlyare the muscular dude with all the babes, the violent in-your-face hero who smash-es you to pulp if you stand in his way, and the brilliant, billionaire, Bruce Wayne types who have the money and power to get whatever they want. When they are not reductionist, they are enerva ted, especially fathersthe traditional and prin-cipal role model. Time and again media studies conclude that men and fathers are usually shown to be immature, unhelpful and inept in compari-son with other family members1. The problem is pandemicsit down to any sitcom and you will regularly see men depicted as objects of derision.

In our post-modern, post-sexual revolution world some find it difficult to discern what it means to

WMasculinity and Beauty

By Jhonatan Flemings, L. C.

1.- For example see R. WILLIAMS, Our male identity crisis: What will happen to men? in Psychology Today, in http://www.psy-chologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201007/our-male-identity-crisis-what-will-happen-men [19-4-2015].

See also R. WILLIAMS, The Male Identity Crisis and the Decline of Fatherhood, in Psychology Today, in http://www.psychology-today.com/blog/wired-success/201406/the-male-identity-crisis-and-the-decline-fatherhood [19-4-2015].

IN- FORMARSE / 11

Apollo and Daphne, Louvre Museum, Paris

be a man and even more difficult to feel comfort-able being one. Given this dilemma, what good can come from forcing young men to dedicate time and attention to the fine arts? Telling them they need to experience beauty and focus on feelings will only emphasize the effeminate. Besides, aesthetics have very little to do with manliness anyway, right? The humanities seem mushy. But the fundamental philosophical error of our age is to take division as a start point instead of unity: a sort of simplistic reasoning incapable of embracing complex wholes with contrasting poles. So masculinity is reduced to machismo, money, and power. Forming mascu-line role models for our time requires saving the wholeharmony of the poles. And the human-ities are key for doing just that. Let me explain.

Seneca, in his treatise on happiness, made a mem-orable comparison between virtue and something that has an awful lot to do with beautypleasure:

Virtue is a lofty quality, sublime, regal, unconquerable, untiring. Pleasure is base, slavish, weakly, perishable; its haunts and

homes are the brothel and the tavern. Virtue you meet in the temple, the market-place, the senate house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt, with calloused hands. (De Vita Beata, VII.3)2

Virtue, manliness, has a lot to do with keeping pleasure at a distance, but not necessarily beauty.

Wikipedia (not exactly the font of wisdom, but a good thermometer of the opinion of the age) says that one of masculinitys principle traits is cour-agewillingness to defend the good in the face of opposition. Aquinas and Aristotle held cour-age to be a certain firmness of character neces-sary for all the virtues. In fact, the word virtue, vir-tus, comes from virman. Virtue, moral courage in particular, is the key to manliness. But in or-der to defend the good, you must see it, and not just part of it. Here is where beauty comes in.

Men experience beauty in a particular way. In his book about the journey to manhood, Fathered by God, John Eldredge claims that to reach manhood one must go through an aesthetic conversion, be-come a lover. At one point or another, a mans soul is awakened by beauty. The problem is that any man knows it is something dangerous, so powerful that it can overwhelm, but so vital to his existence that it cannot be ignored. In his ancient epics, Homer has no shortage of heroes, but all of them have an Achilles heel. The Achilles heel of every man is the existential needa gaping hole in himselffor what is beautiful. And it is incarnate in woman. Heres the hazard. Navigating todays aggressively promiscuous environment as a man is like sailing past the Sirens. You either keep beauty and all of its attraction at a distance by making yourself insensible to it, or you get sucked in so far that you become a slave and destroy yourself and what you love.

Virtus in medio. The problem here is the narrowness of the extremes. If you only experience beauty as body, you are missing most of it. Beauty is more. And there is nothing contrary to manliness in be-

2.- Altum quiddam est virtus, excelsum et regale, invictum infatigabile: voluptas humile servile, inbecillum caducum, cuius statio ac domicilium fornices et popinae sunt. Virtutem in templo convenies, in foro in curia, pro muris stantem, pulverulentam coloratam, callosas habentem manus.

IN- FORMARSE / 12

Apollo of the Belvedere, Vatican Museums

ing moved by it. On one of his campaigns, the Persian warrior-king Xerxes was stopped in his tracks by the beauty of a sycamore tree. So much so that he had a replica cast in gold to remem-ber the moment for the rest of his life. King Da-vid, a man battle-hardened in hand-to-hand com-bat, didnt hesitate to sing and compose poetry.

Appreciation for beauty in all of its formsfrom a mountaintop view to Shelleys The Cloud to Bachs cello suites to the spiritual beauty of a hu-man soulmakes it easier to plot a course between extremes resembling Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, it helps to put the beauty of bodies into a broader context. Harmony and order tem-per the energy in man that could become immani-tas, making it humanitas. On the other hand, since beauty unlocks the power of a mans potential by drawing him toward what is good, studying the humanities can direct that energy by showing that beauty has a hierarchy. At the summit of that hi-erarchy is the greatest created good: persons. And each of them is a messenger of Beauty Himself.

The humanities promote manliness, not mushi-

ness, and have an important role to play in forming a truly masculine heart. Experiencing beauty in all of its complex and varied forms opens the heart to the whole, offering an opportunity to turn the haz-ard of an Achilles heel into a source of strength. To be a man you have to be a lover. To be a lov-er you must know the beauty and intrinsic value of what you are loving and defendingparamount is the dignity of women and children. Giving and defending lifepersons, their innocence, their ide-als, their hopes and dreamsis what being a man is all about. Real men responding to the whole.

IN- FORMARSE / 13

The Triumph of Achilles, Franz von Matsch,from a panoramic fresco on the upper level of the

Achilleion Palace, Corfu, Greece

l contexto en el que hoy se plantea la cuestin de la belleza supone un nue-vo reto para todo aquel que desea ofrecer una respuesta. Ya la misma

interrogante implica saber a quin la dirigimos: a un nativo digital o a un inmigrante digital? El segun-do es an capaz de recordar que hubo un tiempo en que internet no era lo que permeaba todo mientras que el primero naci con lo digital bajo el brazo.

La revolucin digital ha supuesto, adems, una reforma mental y as una manera distinta de aproximarse a los problemas. Es el caso que nos ocupa. Mientras el inmigrante digital ha entrado en relacin con el mundo a travs del ambiente de la interrelacin fsica, el nativo digital lo ha hecho por medio del ambiente de la interaccin virtual. De esta manera se puede esperar que la respues-ta del primero apunte a una concepcin de la belleza distinta de la que puede tener el segundo.

Lo que todo sujeto entiende y percibe por bello y juzga como tal tiene una dimensin objetiva y una subjetiva. La dimensin objetiva puede estar basada en cnones procedentes de convenciones sociales y/o culturales (muchas veces apoyados en disquisi-ciones especulativas de no poco valor), mientras que lo segundo re-direcciona ms bien a una per-cepcin que queda bien recogida en la famosa ex-presin del de gustos no hay nada escrito. Ambas, en todo caso, apuntan a lo experiencial pero bajo modalidades diferentes: para el inmigrante digital o para el que ni siquiera lo es supone momentos de contemplacin, reflexin y discernimiento mien-tras que para el nativo digital supone interaccin.

Demos un paso ms y vayamos del sujeto que per cibe lo bello al lugar donde la belleza es plasmada y contemplada: es internet como se conoce hoy un espacio para la expresin de la belleza? La respues-

E

IN- FORMARSE / 14

L a b e l l e z a a l t i e m p o d e l a s r e d e s s o c i a l e s

Por Jorge Enrique Mjica, L. C.

Am

arill

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Azu

l, K

andi

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, Mus

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nal d

e Arte

Mod

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, Par

s

Sector Cultural

ta inicial parece ser un rotundo s: el arte, canal privilegiado de lo bello, existe tambin en la web no como un mero migrar del arte tradicional a internet (art on line) sino como una autntica nueva manera de expresar el ingenio humano (on line art). Internet se presenta, entonces, como una nueva gran galera para apreciar lo hermoso pero tambin para plas-marlo. Esto va de la mano de apelar a considerar programas y otros recursos como verdaderas herra-mientas de creacin artstica: si en otros tiempos el pincel o el cincel eran los instrumentos para materia- lizar lo que el artista llevaba dentro, hoy parece serlo el mouse, los softwares, hardware y dems artilugios tecnolgicos que facilitan la creacin del on line art.

Naturalmente estas consideraciones no suponen pen-sar que cualquier cosa deba considerarse arte y menos una ejecucin lograda y por tanto bella. Qu es en-tonces lo propiamente especfico de lo bello en la web?

La facilidad con que en las redes sociales se com-parten materiales y stos son valorados ofrece un indicio que nos deja ver qu es lo que en muchos casos se entiende por verdad en la web: en la per-cepcin de muchos es verdad lo ms popular, lo que ms se comenta o reenva. Siendo que la ver-

dad est ntimamente vinculada a la belleza no es ex-trao que sta tambin pase por ser considerada a la luz de la popularidad. Y es entonces esto a lo que se reduce la belleza al tiempo de las redes sociales?

Antes de aventurar una respuesta consideremos tam-bin al artista. La interaccin ofrece al artista un con-tacto directo e inmediato con aquellas personas inte-resadas en sus creaciones pero tambin puede llegar a condicionar su propia creacin en caso de no poseer la suficiente madurez que le haga capaz de pasar in-demne ante la tentacin de la popularidad que no sera otra cosa que el menoscabo del propio ingenio.

La consideracin acerca de la belleza en el siglo XXI pasa por hacerlo tambin a la luz de lo digital y todo lo que lo digital implica, especialmente en relacin con el modo de pensar. El binomio belleza-internet, por tanto, conlleva un nuevo reto pedaggico: en-sear a apreciar lo bello, tanto del mbito fsico-ma-terial como del on line art, se pone como reto. Se trata de un reto que no slo se limita a los nativos digitales sino incluso hacia el que crea on line art, menester que intenta abrirse campo en un nuevo contexto. Conse-cuentemente, ese reto tambin apunta a no reducir el tema de la belleza a meras interacciones de masas.

IN- FORMARSE / 15

Varios crculos, Kandinsky, Guggenheim Museum, Nueva York Mancha roja #2, Kandinsky, Galera Lebachhause, Munich

La belleza del mundo y la trascendencia*

Por Luis Fernando Hernndez, L. C.

IN- FORMARSE / 16

E l c r e y e n t e d e l a n t e d e l u n i v e r s o

a nadadora Diana Nyad dej desconcertado a un periodista que no entenda cmo ella poda maravillarse ante la naturaleza y la humanidad sin creer en Dios. Michael Shermer, el fundador de The Skeptics Society, comentaba el hecho: Esta es la sutil intolerancia dice Shermer refirin-

dose al periodista de los que no son capaces de concebir cmo uno pueda maravillarse sin creer en causas sobrenaturales del asombro. Por qu habra que pensar as? 1.

En este breve artculo vamos a abordar la cuestin que Shermer no trat en el suyo (Puede un ateo maravillarse del universo?), es decir, cmo es posible que las maravillas del mundo lleven a pensar en algo o alguien ms all?

Los textos de algunos escritores antiguos nos ayudarn a comprender esta gran cuestin que va ms all de todos los avances tecnolgicos de hoy. La tecnologa no lo es todo: si lo fuera todo, ya no habra turismo para ver lugares exticos o simplemente inspiradores.

En el dilogo Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses Cicern pone en boca de Balbo, uno de los personajes, una serie de argumentos sobre cmo conocemos la existencia de los dioses. Para saciar la curiosidad, los resumimos as: el primero es porque podemos conocer algunas cosas futuras; el segundo, por los continuos cambios climticos; el tercero, por la abundancia y calidad de los bienes de la tierra; y el cuarto, por el orden y con-stancia que vemos en el universo (cf. Cicero, De natura deorum II, 13-15; III, 16).

Pero Balbo decide dejar a un lado sus argumentos ms lgicos y empieza a hablar de la siguiente manera (recomendamos mentalizarse segn aquella poca):

L

IN- FORMARSE / 17

Indio al atardecer, Thomas Cole, Coleccin privada

1.- Michael Shermer, Can an Atheist Be in Awe of the Universe? en Scientific American, vol. 310, 3. * Las traducciones al latn son del mismo autor del artculo. Vienen acompaadas del texto original latino para facilitar la lectura didctica de los textos. La traduccin, por tanto, conserva un cierto aire de literalidad.

En la descripcin que hace Balbo de las maravillas del universo hay que notar la exuberancia y variedad de vocabulario, que no son casuales. Lo que Cicern quiere lograr es reflejar con el tex-to mismo la realidad de lo que afirma: el universo contiene una vastsima variedad de seres. Por eso, la descripcin va de lo ms cercano a lo ms lejano a nosotros, para hacernos notar esta maravillosa diversidad.

Dejando a un lado la complejidad de la discusin, podemos en cierta manera contemplar con los ojos la belleza de las cosas que hemos dicho que fueron formadas por la divina providencia.Para empezar contmplese toda la tierra colocada en medio del universo, firme, redonda y compac-ta por todas partes en s misma por la gravedad; revestida con flores, hierbas, rboles, frutos, cuyo increble nmero se distingue por una interminable variedad. Aade a todo esto el permanente estado fro de las fuentes, el flujo centelleante de los ros, los atavos tan verdes de las riberas, la profundi-dad y concavidad de las cuevas, la escabrosidad de las piedras, las alturas de las grandes montaas y la vastedad de los campos; [...].Y cunta es la belleza del mar! Qu belleza la del mundo, qu cantidad y variedad de islas, qu gracia de playas y costas! Cuntos gneros y qu dispares de animales que nadan o que viven sum-ergidos o flotando o adheridos a los cascos de las embarcaciones! [...].Queda el complejo del cielo lejano y distante de nuestras moradas, que todo lo cubre y abarca, [...] en el que con gigante fascinacin las formas de fuego trazan las carreras ordenadas. De entre las cuales est el sol, cuyo tamao supera por mucho al de la tierra, viaja alrededor de la misma; y sa-liendo y ponindose da lugar al da y a la noche [...].En el mismo espacio las estrellas, que llamamos errantes [las constelaciones], giran en torno a la tierra y del mismo modo salen y se ponen, y su movimiento traslaticio a veces se acelera, a veces se lentifica; muchas veces tambin se detienen, nada puede ser ms admirable, ms hermoso que este es-pectculo! (De natura deorum, II, 98-104 excerpta).

Licet enim iam remota subtilitate disputandi oculis quodam modo contemplari pulchritudinem rerum earum, quas divina providentia dicimus constitutas. Ac principio terra universa cernatur locata in me-dia sede mundi, solida et globosa et undique ipsa in sese nutibus suis conglobata, vestita floribus, herbis, arboribus, frugibus, quorum omnium in-credibilis multitudo insatiabili varietate distingui-tur. Adde huc fontum gelidas perennitates, liquores perlucidos amnium, riparum vestitus viridissimos, speluncarum concavas altitudines, saxorum as-peritates, inpendentium montium altitudines in-mensitatesque camporum; [...].At vero quanta maris est pulchritudo, quae spe-cies universi, quae multitudo et varietas insularum, quae amoenitates orarum ac litorum, quot genera quamque disparia partim submersarum, partim fluitantium et innantium beluarum, partim ad saxa nativis testis inhaerentium. [...].Restat ultimus et a domiciliis nostris altissimus omnia cingens et coercens caeli conplexus, [...] in quo cum admirabilitate maxima igneae formae cursus ordinatos definiunt. E quibus sol, cuius magnitudine multis partibus terra superatur, cir-cum eam ipsam volvitur, isque oriens et occidens diem noctemque conficit [...]. Isdemque spatiis eae stellae, quas vagas dicimus, circum terram ferun-tur eodemque modo oriuntur et occidunt, quarum motus tum incitantur, tum retardantur, saepe etiam insistunt, quo spectaculo nihil potest admirabilius esse, nihil pulchrius (De natura deorum, II, 98-104 excerpta).

Regresemos al ncleo de nuestro artculo. Balbo ha estado argumentando antes de distintas maneras. Es ms, estas son sus ltimas palabras antes de hacer la descripcin ya mencionada (De natura deorum II, 96-97):

Sed adsiduitate cotidiana et consuetudine oculo-rum adsuescunt animi neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper vident, proinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnitudo rerum debeat ad exquirendas cau-sas excitare. Quis enim hunc hominem dixerit, qui, cum tam certos caeli motus, tam ratos ast-rorum ordines tamque inter se omnia conexa et apta viderit, neget in his ullam inesse rationem eaque casu fieri dicat, quae, quanto consilio ger-antur, nullo consilio adsequi possumus. An, cum machinatione quadam moveri aliquid videmus ut sphaeram, ut horas, ut alia permulta, non dubi-tamus, quin illa opera sint rationis, cum autem impetum caeli cum admirabili celeritate moveri vertique videamus constantissime conficientem vicissitudines anniversarias cum summa salute et conservatione rerum omnium, dubitamus, quin ea non solum ratione fiant, sed etiam excellenti divinaque ratione?

Pero nuestros espritus se arrutinan por el trajn cotidiano y la costumbre de los ojos y ya no se admiran ni se preguntan por las causas de las cosas que siempre ven, de donde resulta que es casi la novedad la que nos debe despertar para buscar las causas ms que la grandeza de la realidad. Quin llamara humano al que, viendo los mo vimien-tos del cielo tan exactos, tan firme el orden de los astros y tan coordinados entre s y compa ginados, negara que existe en ellos alguna causa y afirme que todo esto sucede por casualidad? O acaso cuando vemos que algo se mueve con un cierto mecanismo, como una esfera o un reloj u otras muchas cosas, vacilamos en que sean obras de la razn? Y, cuando vemos que el impulso del cielo se mueve con increble velocidad y gira cumplien-do persistentemente sus desplazamientos anuales con gran equilibrio y preservacin de todas las cosas, acaso dudamos que no solo se obren estas cosas por la razn, sino tambin por la excelente razn divina?

En este ltimo prrafo sobresalen los motivos lgicos de Balbo: si hay orden en universo, debe haber alguien que lo haya establecido. En el primer texto Balbo nos hace ver las maravillas y la belleza de nuestro mundo, pero sin concluir nada en concreto. Balbo echara en cara a Shermer que no crea posible la capacidad de maravilla autntica y la referencia a Dios al mismo tiempo. Para Shermer las personas que se maravillan se dividen en dos: las que son proclives al asombro y no lo asocian a ningn ser; y las que no lo son, porque refieren inmediatamente la maravilla a una causa externa a ellos.

Qu poder tiene la contemplacin de un paisaje para que nos deje boquiabiertos? Por qu el brillo de Venus, Jpiter o Sirius nos sorprende ms que el brillo de la pantalla de un IPhone?

Hoy en da es ms difcil hacer estas preguntas. Es fcil constatar que preferimos capturar una fotografa del momento que contemplar directamente con nuestros ojos la naturaleza, el arte o cualquier otra maravilla.

IN- FORMARSE / 19

Monte Washington, John F. Kensett, Museo de Wellesley College, Wellesley Massachussets

Tem

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de Z

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Olim

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Las preguntas que hemos hecho merecen una respuesta, porque no pasan de moda. Los aparatos con que tomamos fotos o hacemos vdeos pasarn de moda. La naturaleza, sin embargo, all estar y nuestras pre-guntas tambin.

La descripcin que Cicern elabor a travs de Balbo perdur en la tradicin cristiana posterior. Y este tipo de descripcin la encontramos, por ejemplo, en Minucio Flix (Octavius, cap. 17), san Agustn (De civitate Dei, XXII, 24; Enarrationes in ps., 41, 7) y durante la Edad Media en el franciscano Toms de York (Sapientiale, lib. VII, c. 10, 8-16).

Ponemos el ejemplo del texto de san Agustn en La ciudad de Dios:

Iam cetera pulchritudo et utilitas creaturae, quae homini, licet in istos labores miseriasque proiec-to atque damnato, spectanda atque sumenda divina largitate concessa est, quo sermone ter-minari potest? in caeli et terrae et maris multi-moda et varia pulchritudine, in ipsius lucis tan-ta copia tamque mirabili specie, in sole ac luna et sideribus, in opacitatibus nemorum, in colo ribus et odoribus florum, in diversitate ac multi-tudine volucrum garrularum atque pictarum, in multiformi specie tot tantarumque animantium, quarum illae plus habent admirationis, quae molis minimum (plus enim formicularum et apicularum opera stupemus quam immensa cor-pora ballaenarum), in ipsius quoque maris tam grandi spectaculo, cum sese diversis coloribus velut vestibus induit [...]. Quam porro delecta-biliter spectatur etiam quandocumque turbatur, et fit inde maior suavitas, quia sic demulcet intuentem, ut non iactet et quatiat navigantem!

Con qu tipo de discurso se puede concebir la belle-za y valor de la creacin que la divina generosidad concedi al hombre para que la contemplara y se hi-ciera cargo de ella, a pesar de verse arrojado a es-tos trabajos y miserias, y de haber sido condenado? En la hermosura tan variada y cambiante del cielo, de la tierra y del mar; en el sol, la luna y los astros; en las penumbras de los bosques, en los colores y fragancias de las flores, en la diversidad y nmero de aves que cantan y estn llenas de colores; en las varias especies de tantos y tan admirables animales, de entre los que son ms dignos de admiracin los que poseen menor dimensin (en efecto, nos ma ravillamos de las construcciones de las hormigas y abejas ms que de la inmensa masa de las balle-nas); tambin en el gran espectculo del mar, cuan-do se viste con tan diversos vestidos y colores [...]. Con cunto agrado se contempla el mar cuando se agita y luego se hace ms grande la calma, porque de esta manera da gusto al que lo contempla, con tal de que no arroje y golpee al que navega!

Los textos que hemos citado nos dan algunas pistas para entender cmo la belleza natural y la trascendencia pueden tener un punto en comn. En ambos textos, de un pagano y de un cristiano, aparecen la maravilla como actitud del espectador, la diversidad de la naturaleza, los matices mnimos que hallamos en ella; y la capacidad del hombre de ver tanto lo maravillosamente grande como lo sorprendentemente pequeo: las hormigas y las estrellas del universo. Ya deca Ovidio: y mientras los dems animales miran inclinados la tierra, [dios] dio al hombre una visin sublime y le orden que mirara el cielo y que erguido levantara el rostro hacia las estrellas . S, podemos contemplar y creer al mismo tiempo, porque nacimos para cosas ms grandes .

IN- FORMARSE / 20

2.- Ovidio, Metamorphoses, I, 84-86: pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram, / os homini sublime dedit caelumque videre /iussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus 3.- Cicern, De finibus bonorum et malorum, V, 21: ad maiora quaedam [...] nati sumus.