John Lanchester -Marx a los 195

Antes de reflexionar acer-ca de lo que Marx hubie-ra pensado de un mundocomo el nuestro, debe-mos empezar por aclararque él no era empírico.No creía que pudiéramosllegar a la verdad sólo contomar trozos de informa-ción de nuestra propiaexperiencia, data points según los científicos, conlos que después integraríamos una imagen de la rea-lidad compuesta de los fragmentos recopilados. Elpensar que muchos de nosotros actuamos casi siem-pre de este modo provoca una ruptura importanteentre Marx y lo que hoy conocemos como sentido co-mún, noción que, por cierto, el mismo Marx detesta-ba: la veía como la forma en la que determinado or-den, ya fuera político o social, transforma su propiaconstrucción de la realidad en un conjunto de ideasaparentemente neutral que después será considera-do parte natural de las cosas. Ya que el empirismotoma sus pruebas de un orden preexistente de lascosas, tiene la cualidad innata de aceptar como rea-lidad hechos que no son más que la prueba de prejui-cios subyacentes y de presión ideológica. Para Marx,el empirismo fue y será un método para confirmar elstatu quo. A él le habría disgustado en especial aque-lla tendencia moderna de debatir a partir de los “he-chos”, como si fueran trozos neutrales de la realidad,libres de cualquier marca histórica, interpretación osesgo ideológico, así como de las circunstancias mis-mas que los originaron. 

Christine Lagarde -La guardiana de la economía mundial

La primera directora gerente del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) se ha convertido en una pionera en todos los centros de poder mundial. Curtida como abogada de negocios en EE UU, exministra de Economía de Francia, carismática, esquiva e implacable, cara a cara se muestra menos diva de lo que cabe esperar. "El FMI ha sido el chivo expiatorio en algunos países" durante la crisis, afirma a lo largo de esta conversación en París, en la que también desvela su lado más personal.  Entrevistar a Christine Lagarde, directora gerente del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), exige preparativos propios de un jefe de Estado y una condicionalidad que, salvando las distancias, parece inspirada en los rescates de la temida troika FMI, Banco Central Europeo y Comisión Europea. Después de un mes de tira y afloja con el gabinete de prensa en Washington, la cita queda supeditada a algunas premisas. Enviar un cuestionario en inglés, una biografía y una foto del periodista, y no hacer preguntas sobre dos asuntos: la política francesa y el 'caso Bernard Tapie', el escándalo en el que Lagarde se vio implicada en 2007, cuando era ministra de Economía y el Estado abonó 403 millones de euros al empresario. Tras una nueva negociación, más breve, el gabinete aceptará un par de preguntas sobre ambas cosas. En la entrevista, Lagarde se limitará a esquivarlas con evasivas.

John Lanchester -Marx at 193

In trying to think what Marx would have made of the world today, we have to begin by stressing that he was not an empiricist. He didn’t think that you could gain access to the truth by gleaning bits of data from experience, ‘data points’ as scientists call them, and then assembling a picture of reality from the fragments you’ve accumulated. Since this is what most of us think we’re doing most of the time it marks a fundamental break between Marx and what we call common sense, a notion that was greatly disliked by Marx, who saw it as the way a particular political and class order turns its construction of reality into an apparently neutral set of ideas which are then taken as givens of the natural order. Empiricism, because it takes its evidence from the existing order of things, is inherently prone to accepting as realities things that are merely evidence of underlying biases and ideological pressures. Empiricism, for Marx, will always confirm the status quo. He would have particularly disliked the modern tendency to argue from ‘facts’, as if those facts were neutral chunks of reality, free of the watermarks of history and interpretation and ideological bias and of the circumstances of their own production.

Toni Morrison & Junot Díaz

"I think the most sustained love of mine," Díaz has said, "the one that's carried me through all these years, is my relationship with Toni Morrison. I'm telling you, I'm one of those people who's still cracking my head on many of the ideas Toni Morrison both suggested and elaborated on in her work." Witness a powerful event as Díaz comes face to face with his literary hero to celebrate her remarkable career.
Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emerita at Princeton University. Her ten major novels, The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love, A Mercy and Home have received extensive critical acclaim. She received the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. Both novels were chosen as the main selections for the Book of the Month Club in 1977 and 1987 respectively. In 2006 Beloved was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter-century. In 1993 Ms. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Toni Morrison is a Trustee of the New York Public Library, a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the North American Network of Cities of Asylum, and the Author's Guild where she served on the Guild Council and as Foundation Treasurer. She served on the NEA National Council of the Arts for six years.Junot Díaz's first book, the short story collection Drown, established him as a writer with "the dispassionate eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet" (Newsweek). His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, established him as a bestseller and earned critical acclaim; Wao was named #1 Fiction Book of the Year" by Time magazine and spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. In his new book, This Is How You Lose Her, Díaz again offers a collection of short stories, all deeply concerned with love -- obsessive love, illicit love, fading love, maternal love. Diaz is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winner.Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the recipient of the Eugene McDermott Award, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and a Lila Acheson Wallace Reader's Digest Award. He is the fiction editor at the Boston Review and on the Board of the Pulitzer Prize, and is the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives in New York City.

Arundhati Roy

Smiley & West

Arundhati Roy, author of the new text, "Capitalism: A Ghost Story", has an update from the front lines of the world's biggest democracy, India. Plus, TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson reflects on his friendship with Nelson Mandela, and a listener from Virginia has a Biblical response to West's comments on same-sex marriage.

Poet Maya Angelou’s Tribute to Nelson Mandela

Poet Maya Angelou’s Tribute to Nelson Mandela: We Lift Our Tearful Voices to Say ‘Thank You’ | Democracy Now!

La Gente Que Me Gusta - Mario Benedetti

Me gusta la gente que vibra, que no hay que empujarla, que no hay que decirle que haga las cosas, sino que sabe lo que hay que hacer y lo hace.

Me gusta la gente que cultiva sus sueños hasta que esos sueños se apoderan de su propia realidad. Me gusta la gente con capacidad para asumir las consecuencias de sus acciones. La gente que arriesga lo cierto por lo incierto para ir detrás de un sueño, quien se permite huir de los consejos sensatos dejando las soluciones en manos de nuestro padre Dios.
  
Me gusta la gente que es justa con su gente y consigo misma. La gente que agradece el nuevo día, las cosas buenas que existen en su vida, que vive cada hora con buen ánimo dando lo mejor de sí, agradecido de estar vivo, de poder regalar sonrisas, de ofrecer sus manos y ayudar generosamente sin esperar nada a cambio.

Me gusta la gente capaz de criticarme constructivamente y de frente, pero sin lastimarme ni herirme. La gente que tiene tacto. Me gusta la gente que posee sentido de la justicia. A ESTOS LLAMO MIS AMIGOS.

Me gusta la gente que sabe la importancia de la alegría y la predica. La gente que mediante bromas nos enseña a concebir la vida con humor. La gente que nunca deja de ser aniñada. Me gusta la gente que con su energía, contagia. Me gusta la gente sincera y franca, capaz de oponerse con argumentos razonables a las decisiones de cualquiera.

Me gusta la gente fiel y persistente, que no desfallece cuando de alcanzar objetivos e ideas se trata. Me gusta la gente de criterio, la que no se avergüenza en reconocer que se equivocó o que no sabe algo. La gente que, al aceptar sus errores, se esfuerza genuinamente por no volver a cometerlos.

Me gusta la gente que lucha contra adversidades. Me gusta la gente que busca soluciones. Me gusta la gente que piensa y medita internamente. La gente que valora a sus semejantes no por un estereotipo social ni cómo lucen. La gente que no juzga ni deja que otros juzguen.

Me gusta la gente que tiene personalidad. Me gusta la gente capaz de entender que el mayor error del ser humano, es intentar sacarse de la cabeza aquello que no sale del corazón.

La sensibilidad, el coraje, la solidaridad, la bondad, el respeto, la tranquilidad, los valores, la alegría, la humildad, la fe, la felicidad, el tacto, la confianza, la esperanza, el agradecimiento, la sabiduría, los sueños, el arrepentimiento y el amor para los demás y propio, son cosas fundamentales para llamarse GENTE.

Con gente como esa, me comprometo para lo que sea por el resto de mi vida, ya que por tenerlos junto a mí, me doy por bien retribuido.

David Grossman - Israel

“The country’s borders have shifted so many times with each war that it’s like living all your life in a house with moving walls. Only by living in peace with our neighbors, the Palestinians, can Israel feel like home, without us feeling like occupiers, without feeling like foreigners.”

“Palestinians have the natural right to a state and a society, to a homeland, and I wish they could have a normal life without the burden of occupation. I cannot tolerate the thought that Israel intervenes in their lives, and it casts a shadow,” said Grossman, criticizing the Israeli government’s “on-going failure” to enter into negotiations with the Palestinians.

“Peace for Israel is essential to its future survival. Right now we do not have confidence in a future.”

Dr. Maya Angelou

Oprah & Dr. Maya Angelou | News | Maya Angelou

Interview with Vandana Shiva and Jane Goodall

VIDEO: Extended Interview with Vandana Shiva and Jane Goodall

Animating Noam Chomsky: "Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?"

The innovative documentary introduces viewers to Chomsky’s theories and ideas through a series of conversations brought to life by Gondry’s vibrant hand-drawn animations. As Chomsky speaks, Gondry’s rapidly moving pencil illustrates his words. The men discuss everything from Chomsky’s pioneering work in childhood language acquisition to his views on education, religion and astrology. Gondry’s past films include the Academy Award-winning "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," the musical documentary "Dave Chappelle’s Block Party" and "The Science of Sleep." He has also directed dozens of music videos by artists including Björk, Kanye West, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones.

Noam Chomsky in Conversation with French Filmmaker Michel Gondry

For Chomsky, the basic essential nature of language is, first of all, uniform for all languages, which is why children can learn any of them.  It is also fundamentally very simple. But when you look at the data of language, it looks extremely complex. But that’s true of anything you don’t understand. If there’s anything you don’t understand that looks hopelessly complex, the idea is to try to see if you can extricate from the complexity fundamental principles, which somehow make things fall into place which otherwise didn’t make any sense, like the one principle that was mentioned at the end of the film about seeking a minimal structural distance. You can pursue that much farther. And a lot of things fall into place, including the way in which quite complex sentences are interpreted, if you continue to pursue the idea that there just has to be fundamentally simple processes that interplay in a way which yields observed complexity.