Bienvenidos a «El Jardín Lúgubre»



Este solía ser el «blog madre» Es el primer sitio que usé en Blogger. He borrado muchísimas entradas y fotos de aquí; aún así no he podido quitarle ese exceso de intimidades, razón por la cual dejé de usar esta bitácora, en primer lugar. He dejado «equitetado» lo que me pareció más importante. Al fondo a la esquina están los baños; también pueden comprar golosinas en el Goubriosko y no se pierdan los curiosos recuerdos del Jardín, las camisetas estampadas de «Namakeman» están en rebajas ¡aprovechen!

Siguiente parada: Me gusta

The Lugubrious Garden


This year I decided to start translating some of my blogs into English... well, at least trying to, as an amateur or whatever. I wanted to see reactions to my writings in a broader... field. I also thought it could work as an intermediary for Japanese people I meet here that understand some or more English than me and may be interested in take a look at my site. Of course, those reasons alone wouldn't be enough if I may not think its fun.


So I created a blog called "The lugubrious archives" and make about twelve translations posts. Although so far I liked, the site is not visited at all. I know that should not bother me, but I just feel those entries won't make it alone. They need to be a complement for their "mother site". The plan then is to bring those post in here and keep translating in this garden. Yeap, that's my plan.

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Este año decidí comenzar a traducir algunos de mis blogs al inglés... bueno, al menos intentar, como un aficionado o lo que sea. Quería ver las reacciones a mis escritos en un... campo, más amplio. También pensé que funcionaría como un intermediario entre la gente japonesa que conozca aquí y que entiendan algo o más que yo de inglés y que puedan estar interesados en echar una mirada a mi sitio. Por supuesto, esas razones por sí solas no serían suficientes si no pensara que es divertido hacerlo.

Así que creé un blog llamado "The lugubrious archives" ("Los archivos lúgubres") e hice unas doce traducciones de entradas. Aunque hasta ahora me ha gustado, el sitio no lo visita nadie. No es que debiera molestarme, pero simplemente siento que esas entradas no van a resistir así solas: necesitan ser un complemento para su "sitio madre" El plan, entonces, es traer esos posts para acá y seguir traduciendo en este jardín. Síp, ese es mi plan.

Let’s play war

“Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.”

Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra. War and Warriors.
(Not my translation, of course, I found it in “the free library")

When I was a drone I reigned a lot of times over the Japanese people in Seven Kingdoms. I generously invested on investigation and only in the beginning I imposed taxes. In order to keep giving my people such a prosperous life, I had to explote every new source of resources and stablish village there or annex those ones which were already formed. Force was always my last choice. However, the interests of my kingdom used to get in conflict with other kingdoms’s. Sometimes the thing got fixed by trying to buy the other’s kingdom or... well, by exerting some harmless influence. The thing is, both my culture and my contenders’s had to prevail otherwise being annihilated because of lack of space or resources. So at the end the result was always the same: WAR. And well, certainly sending my powerful army, with their brave generals at command of my dogs of war and their advanced weapons... all the same was exciting. With this little memory I have wanted to start to present the topic of War.

There’s no doubt humans have, or have to have, the capacity of resolving their big conflicts by no violent measures like war; the problem is that most of times war has not to do with that, since I’m afraid it’s all about something apart, a thing with a purpose in itself and whose motivations are so surprisingly and sadly... valid? that you can get to the conclusion war is not just a human impulse. Let’s see:

War is lucrative

Investigation, development, experimentation of prototypes, production, instruction, commercialization and use of weapons and stuff related to military activity. Recruitment, training, lodging and feeding of troops. Taxes. Traffic of weapons. Profit from resources and post-war personnel... Got tired of listing. In other words, not even porn is a better business.

War is funny and have its own aesthetic

We cannot blame the toys industry: toy guns are not which seems real, the real ones do look like toys. Airplanes, cars, tanks, all those machines are designed like pieces of art; you see them and it does not seem their function were to annihilate or assist human annihilation. Movies, novels, TV shows and every form of entertainment whose main theme is the life of war, in certain way they seduce us, be that either Guy de Maupassant’s “Boule de Suif” or Starship Troopers. The camouflage fashion... the sexy camouflaged bikinis...

War promotes cohesion and creates alliances

We support war when we think that through it we can get rid of dangerous enemies or because we state that only by a war an oppressed people can reach its self-determination. Countries with apparently irreconcilable differences join themselves in the case of confronting other/s. Desmond Morris would be right and/or all those who said something similar when they state that humankind only will be united in peace when they may have to face an external threat (extraterrestrial).

War has its own overwhelming common sense

What can be more infallible to subject a human group to their will than exterminate a big part of it and then leave the rest threatened under the offensive power of weapons? Diplomacy may probably not be a genuine method to resolve international disputes but rather a way to save their nation the costs of a war or getting time while they prepare a better arsenal.

War is convenient for politicians and their beneficiaries

Maybe you all who really know more about politics than me know why.  For me is obvious that is easer to manipulate a democratic nation by appealing to their fear of insecurity, the fear of seen themselves threatened by armed enemies. “I will protect you but I need your money to do that”:  Is not that what gangsters say?

Culture does not allow consensus

OK, freedom of cult, expression, customs... but just try yourself  to form a “mega-nation” called Earth, protecting those differences. The way to treat a woman, the animals that  must not be eaten, the religious laws that must be followed, etc. Yes, things that are to respect, I guess, but in the long run they create differences so big they become radicalism, and “radical” now connotes “violence”

Humans are greedy animals

It’s never content with one, it wants two, even if that “two” means other’s one. Maybe it’s OK to be like that, at least while we find another planet to expand ourselves or build space stations to dwell in. That because if we all would had our basic needs satisfied then we would be consuming more and we may demand more self-determination; which will imply less resources, less space and less people willing to do undesired work. Perhaps, if science or robotics, or even better, if humankind may really progress... but  that would be an utopian fiction.

And well, I wanted to talk about hopes or possible solutions but I’m dying to play the demo of “Halo:Combat Evolved”. So bye bye.

2006, June 25th. El Jardín Lúgubre.

To behave well

The title of this post has to do with a girl I met on the Net on those days, but since we don’t talk each other now I only going to say in this translation that this journey to the strange world of ethics begins with the question “what is to behave well?” :P

Let’s start by polishing our concept of good and evil. In order to do that we must return to the sources.

OK, there’s an individual criteria, but no doubt that criteria is at first molded by government, religion, geographical moral and family. From government the laws. Not always all that is legal is good but simply “legal” We all know there are things we should not do, not because by doing them we would harm others but because we could win a punitive gift. To promote people’s wellbeing, even if it’s just a conventional assertion, we could say that’s something good coming from a government; that helps.

Religions have certain private ideas about what is good and evil, which, on making comparisons they make some relativity. Some ideals of goodness, love and some ethical codes can be used.

“People’s ethic", except when we talk about “barbarism" uses to ratify the idea that at bottom we are the same animal and because of that there’s some universality. This however could make us mix up ethical values with moral values. To repudiate cruelty on the weak has its local flavors but it is still ethic; on the other hand following the “good ways” has its own local contrasts and nevertheless the don’t have an ethic valuation. The fact a man in Japan would not stand up to let a woman have a sit could be shocking, but we would not consider that man “evil” for his comfort.

The key point is family: daddy and mommy (substitutes and/or relatives) “spray us” with a general idea (local, religious, political) about what is good or evil, but they also make us swallow their own ideas of what is good or evil for them. And then, along with the sparkles of adolescence our imago (the result of our own “creation”) is shaped.

Is is not odd then that sometimes it may be so difficult to discern. Let’s see the case of euthanasia alone. “To kill” in almost all governments is illegal and in almost all religions is a sin. “Normal” people consider aberrant the act of killing another human. But if we take it into terms of “the only option to relieve physical and emotional pain to the hopeless”, then it does not sound too bad. It’s the consequence of our economic tendency to become attached to dichotomies: good/evil, white/black, etc. & etc. which is convenient to the frustrating yet unavoidable inefficiency of every ethical code established to judge a case individually and within its context, be that code a moral one, religious, legal or of any kind. That’s why education is so complicated so is life, because lot of time we don’t know what would be appropriate, we make mistakes, adverse factors weighs or just doing the right thing would be to much against our own desires.

Yes, it is true that Ethics are necessary as collective commitment in order that we can survive to our own human impulse of f... annoy each other. On the way we have built up too absurd expectations. We rack our brains trying to understand why a criminal is “so bad” under the naive implicit premise that “we all should be good” May be because the logic of reality in its simplicity is to overwhelming: the thieve steals because that’s the most convenient, easy or only way to get what he or she wants; the violent one attacks because his surroundings threaten him (or something like that), etc.

For most of us, who don’t consider ourselves so mean, what could be de clue to discern between good and evil when things are not so obvious? Well, we could identify a pattern. A bad action suggest the idea of “cause harm”... but not all damages are evil: Zorro (Antonio Banderas) blew up a profitable gold mine, but this fact is lessen by the release of the slaves working in it. Inversely, some perversion can put all of it charisma and dedication to the construction of massive destruction weapon. In other place, a surgeon cut our flesh and moves our insides, but he does it to heal us and... get paid... hummm... this is not helpful.

In the end I think ethics and all its discussions tending to distinguish between good and evil like they were chemical reagents has no other use than defend our personal or collective valuable interests. If we really care to be honestly good (or honestly evil) we would use that powerful application included in the installation pack of our soul: Empathy.

2006, May 16. El Jardín Lúgubre