Every culture is a crisis and every language arises from the corruption of another Culture

There is an anthological entry in the diaries of Julien Green in which the most French author in American literature recalls saying to his sister Anne at the age of seven, “It used to be better.” At seven years old

Beyond the author’s anecdote of Adrienne Mesurat – a classic that has disappeared from the conversation – these three words – “before it was better” – sum up well the mantra that our language “is very battered” – as Rafael Cadenas said in his Cervantes speech on Monday – and that culture lives unprecedented moment of crisis. Not as much. Rather, culture is an eternal crisis: let us not forget that “our language” is a corruption of Latin. Perhaps the only thing that hasn’t been seen before is the speed at which it’s now being produced. In 2011, Mario Vargas declared Llosa in The civilization of the spectacle that we had hit rock bottom. Exactly what TS Eliot ordered Notes on the definition of culture in… 1948. That is, about a century after Georg Simmel expressed a similar opinion The future of our culture essay collected The individual and freedom.

We may be living in an accelerated version of the Middle Ages, another time of disrepute, when literary genres were nonexistent, orality reigned, Romance languages ​​were born, and cut and paste triumphed.

The hallmark of each era is the announcement of the apocalypse, that moment of panic when time is confused with genesis. Remember that terms like impressionism O minimalism They were born as insults. The same as mannerism, laden with a negative connotation that EH Gombrich was unable to counter when he suggested calling it the “Renaissance Post-Classical Style”. Too long. Perhaps the only exception to the recurring “Let us go less” occurred in 1550. That was the year Giorgio Vasari published his CVs of the most outstanding Italian architects, painters and sculptors to consecrate the geniuses of his time and to celebrate leaving behind the “rough” medieval painting which he believed was executed “of the ugly Greek way”, i.e. the Byzantine way.

For centuries, culture has been built in favor of or against history. The first we call tradition. Second, avant-garde. But even that was blown up when Octavio Paz proclaimed there was a “tradition of the avant-garde.” Rebellion against the past is an exercise in remembrance, counterbalanced not always by biblical decadence but by sheer wear and tear. Maybe we are – we were so Christian! – two visits to the Sistine Chapel before we forgot who it was San Bartolome. Even our great-grandparents stopped recognizing Marsyas, another skinned. Shall we call them ignorant?

Today there is a culture of forgetting that does not do justice to history or opposes it: it stands on the fringes. Without pride, but without complex. Regardless of what was previously considered a live concert, a tangible work of art or even a well-written novel. We may be living in an accelerated version of the Middle Ages, another sleazy era when literary genres were nonexistent, orality reigned, Romance languages ​​were born, and cut and paste triumphed (the sampler all the time). Of course, no one will miss the fear of God. The impatient can wait for the umpteenth neoclassicism.