Artwork © ElPinguinoCoyosaurioª (@CoyoPinguino)
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Zeroing
The licit, the obligatory and the forbidden
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 28, 2022
According to Arab jurists, human actions are classified into five categories, which they list as follows: obligatory, commendable, licit, reprehensible, forbidden. The obligatory is opposed to the forbidden, praiseworthy to worthy of reproach. But the most important category is the one standing in the centre and which constitutes, so to say, the axis of the balance that weighs human actions and measures their responsibility (responsibility is called “weight” in Arabic legal language). If commendable is that whose accomplishment is rewarded and whose omission is not prohibited, and reprehensible is that whose omission is rewarded and whose accomplishment is not prohibited, the licit is that on which the law can just keep silent and is therefore not neither obligatory nor forbidden, neither commendable nor reprehensible. It corresponds to the paradisiacal state, in which human actions do not produce any responsibility, are in no way “weighed” by law. But — and this is the decisive point — according to Arab jurists it is good that this zone which the law cannot deal with in any way, is as large as possible, because the justice of a city is just measured by the space left free from rules and sanctions, rewards and censures.
Exactly the opposite is happening in the society we live in. The zone of the licit is getting smaller every day, and an unprecedented normative hypertrophy tends not to leave any sphere of human life unsubjected to obligation and prohibition. Gestures and habits which had always been regarded as indifferent to law are now meticulously regulated and punctually sanctioned — to the point that there is hardly any sphere of human behavior that can be considered simply licit. Unidentified safety reasons first, and then, increasingly, health reasons made an authorisation compulsory in order to perform the most usual and innocent actions, such as walking down the street, entering a public space or going to the workplace.
A society that restricts the paradisiacal realm of behaviors non-weighed by law to such an extent is not only, as Arab jurists deemed, an unjust society, but it is an unlivable society indeed, in which every action must be bureaucratically authorised and juridically sanctioned, and the ease and freedom of habits, the sweetness of relationships and forms of life shrink until they disappear. Furthermore the number of laws, decrees and regulations is such that not only does it become necessary to resort to experts to ascertain whether a certain action is permissible or prohibited, but even the officials in charge of applying the norms get confused and contradict themselves.
In such a society, the art of life can only consist in reducing to a minimum the part of the obligatory and forbidden, and conversely in widening, as much as possible, the zone of the licit, the only one in which at least a joy, if not a happiness, becomes possible. But this is just what the wretches who govern us strive in every way to prevent and make it difficult, by multiplying rules and regulations, checks and verifications. Until the dark machine they built will ruinously fall over itself, hampered by the same rules and devices that were supposed to allow it to work.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 28, 2022
According to Arab jurists, human actions are classified into five categories, which they list as follows: obligatory, commendable, licit, reprehensible, forbidden. The obligatory is opposed to the forbidden, praiseworthy to worthy of reproach. But the most important category is the one standing in the centre and which constitutes, so to say, the axis of the balance that weighs human actions and measures their responsibility (responsibility is called “weight” in Arabic legal language). If commendable is that whose accomplishment is rewarded and whose omission is not prohibited, and reprehensible is that whose omission is rewarded and whose accomplishment is not prohibited, the licit is that on which the law can just keep silent and is therefore not neither obligatory nor forbidden, neither commendable nor reprehensible. It corresponds to the paradisiacal state, in which human actions do not produce any responsibility, are in no way “weighed” by law. But — and this is the decisive point — according to Arab jurists it is good that this zone which the law cannot deal with in any way, is as large as possible, because the justice of a city is just measured by the space left free from rules and sanctions, rewards and censures.
Exactly the opposite is happening in the society we live in. The zone of the licit is getting smaller every day, and an unprecedented normative hypertrophy tends not to leave any sphere of human life unsubjected to obligation and prohibition. Gestures and habits which had always been regarded as indifferent to law are now meticulously regulated and punctually sanctioned — to the point that there is hardly any sphere of human behavior that can be considered simply licit. Unidentified safety reasons first, and then, increasingly, health reasons made an authorisation compulsory in order to perform the most usual and innocent actions, such as walking down the street, entering a public space or going to the workplace.
A society that restricts the paradisiacal realm of behaviors non-weighed by law to such an extent is not only, as Arab jurists deemed, an unjust society, but it is an unlivable society indeed, in which every action must be bureaucratically authorised and juridically sanctioned, and the ease and freedom of habits, the sweetness of relationships and forms of life shrink until they disappear. Furthermore the number of laws, decrees and regulations is such that not only does it become necessary to resort to experts to ascertain whether a certain action is permissible or prohibited, but even the officials in charge of applying the norms get confused and contradict themselves.
In such a society, the art of life can only consist in reducing to a minimum the part of the obligatory and forbidden, and conversely in widening, as much as possible, the zone of the licit, the only one in which at least a joy, if not a happiness, becomes possible. But this is just what the wretches who govern us strive in every way to prevent and make it difficult, by multiplying rules and regulations, checks and verifications. Until the dark machine they built will ruinously fall over itself, hampered by the same rules and devices that were supposed to allow it to work.
(English translation by I, Robot)
M. C. Escher, Emblemata — Balance, 1931. Courtesy of WikiArt.
Snow White
Korean fashion designer Miss Sohee unveils her couture Christmas tree installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, United Kingdom. Photo: Yui Mok/PA. |
Monday, November 28, 2022
Sunday, November 27, 2022
太极 (Tàijí)
Anti-lockdown peaceful mass protests spread all over China as criticism grows over government’s unending “zero-COVID” rule. Thousands of students gathered at their university campuses calling for the end of pandemic “state of exception” with slogans and chants that are meaningful enough to appeal to large parts of Chinese society. Photo: CNN. |
Saturday, November 26, 2022
A Night at the Opera
The inaugural MetaMoon Music Festival lands at Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York City tonight, November 26. |
Friday, November 25, 2022
Love Rearm’d
Erwin Blumenfeld, Unititled, Paris, 1939. (Editorial Harper’s Bazaar, October 1939). Photo © The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld. |
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Blumenfeld Countergambit
Erwin Blumenfeld, Variant of the photograph published in American Vogue magazine, August 1, 1950, p. 63 (model: Dovima). Photo © The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld. |
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
What Is to Be Done?
An invitational conference, titled Le faux sans réplique (The false without reply). War, war profiteers, and rising cost of living — what tools for a democratic and economic response?, organised by the cooperative Generazioni Future and the “Commissione Du.Pre (Dubbio e Precauzione)” (“Doubt and Precaution Commission”), is called at University of Turin — Campus Luigi Einaudi in Turin, Italy for Monday, November 28, 2022 10.00 A.M. with interventions, among others, by Giorgio Agamben, Massimo Cacciari, Joseph Halevi, Ugo Mattei, Fabio Mini, Geminello Preterossi, and Davide Tutino. For further details and information, click here. |
Variants and Invariants
Erwin Blumenfeld, Variant of the photograph published in Life magazine entitled The Picasso Girl (model: Lisette), c. 1941–1942. Photo © The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld. |
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Miss Hollywood
Jan Smeets – 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán)
70th Corus Chess Tournament (B Group); Wijk aan Zee, January 19, 2008
8/2q3pk/4K3/1P1QB3/7p/2P5/8/4r3 b - - 17 58
70th Corus Chess Tournament (B Group); Wijk aan Zee, January 19, 2008
8/2q3pk/4K3/1P1QB3/7p/2P5/8/4r3 b - - 17 58
Position after 58. Bd4-e5
58. ... Rxe5+! 0 : 1. An elegant finish, for after 59. Qxe5 Qxe5+ 60. Kxe5 h3 61. b6 h2 62. b7 h1=Q 6. b8=Q Qh2+ the Black Queen skewers the White King against its own Queen. Here is the whole game, with notes by Grandmaster Nick de Firmian from Chess Room Newsletter #893, November 16, 2019.
Monday, November 21, 2022
Leaves of Fire
Women collect dried leaves to burn them for winter fuel in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Photo: Farooq Khan/EPA. |
Barefoot in the Park
Serbian tennis star Novak Đoković equalled Roger Federer’s record of six ATP Finals titles after a 7–5 6–3 win over Casper Ruud in Turin, Italy. Photo: Antonio Calanni/AP. |
Sunday, November 20, 2022
As the Last Leaves Fall
To quote Cicero, “Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit” (“If you have a garden and a library, you have all”). |
Saturday, November 19, 2022
He Got a Story to Tell
Fresh out of the hospital, 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov’s recovery begins at Film Club Museum “Eldar” in Moscow, Russia, where, on Wednesday, December 21 at 7.00 P.M., he will celebrate his “Жизнь и шахматы“ (“Life and Chess”) creative evening. Photo: Sergey Vladislavovich Kivrin. |
Circle route
A car drives along a road in the Siberian town of Tara in Omsk Oblast, Russia. Photo: Alexey Malgavko/Reuters. |
Friday, November 18, 2022
$ screen -d -m -S queue
Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) talks chess in a crowded Peking University Lecture Hall. Enjoy! |
延展實境 (Extended reality)
An impressive queue of (mostly Asian) students stormed the movie theatre Cinema La Compagnia today afternoon for the Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival “Lo Schermo dell’Arte” (“Screen Art”), which has come to its fifteenth anniversary. Apparently, they were patiently queueing up in the line for the talk–conference on “Inhabiting the film. Cinema and immersive XR”. |
Thursday, November 17, 2022
From Here to There
It’s just a couple of pages from Yochanan Afek’s “Экстремальная шахматная тактика” (“Extreme Chess Tactics”), Chess Federation of Russia, Moscow, 2022. |
A Ticket to Read
A Ticket to Read
Stefano Tatai, October 19, 2015
When in 1966 Mario Pannunzio, founder and director of Il Mondo (The World) returned from a visit to Hungary, where he had been travelling also because his wife was a Magyar, I asked him what had impressed him most of all. I expected him to respond by commenting on the beauties of Budapest, but to my great surprise he answered me: “All those young people who always have a book in their hands and continue to read even when they travel in the trams”.
The worst things can be said about the countries of real socialism, but surely one cannot say that they did not provide the means for young people to pursue their study desires. The price of books was negligible compared to its cost in Western countries.
Stefano Tatai, October 19, 2015
When in 1966 Mario Pannunzio, founder and director of Il Mondo (The World) returned from a visit to Hungary, where he had been travelling also because his wife was a Magyar, I asked him what had impressed him most of all. I expected him to respond by commenting on the beauties of Budapest, but to my great surprise he answered me: “All those young people who always have a book in their hands and continue to read even when they travel in the trams”.
The worst things can be said about the countries of real socialism, but surely one cannot say that they did not provide the means for young people to pursue their study desires. The price of books was negligible compared to its cost in Western countries.
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Stanzas for an Evening Out
A contemporary dance workshop conducted by Alessandra Innocenti (artistic director of the Associazione Culturale “Il Delta della Luna”) is being held every Monday evening at the elegant premises of Jīva Yoga Studio in Florence, Italy. For further details and information, please contact: ildeltadellaluna <at> gmail <dotcom>. |
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Mobile Lives
Fortunately, there is not an app for everything. Yet one may waste one’s life searching for it. |
A Rainy Wednesday Afternoon
Wednesday. Another day of rain but a day of sun as red flowers grow from vases. |
Thinking Globally
Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) has been appointed as a Councillor of the Global Strategy Commission — one of the countless commissions set up by FIDE — chaired by FIDE Director General Emil Davidovich Sutovsky.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
East or West, Home’s Best
All’s well that ends well if it ends well. FIDE President Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich told Матч ТВ (Match TV) on Tuesday that 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov was finally discharged from the hospital, where he had been admitted at the end of last month due to an accidental fall, and where he also contracted pneumonia during the recovery process. But now, finally, “He’s at home, everything is fine”, Dvorkovich said. |
Hello, World!
Whether it rains or the sun shines, it is always a good time to reconnect to humanity. |
Beyond the ever and the never
To say it in an epitaph, old times are gone for ever, and new times never came. |
In Search of Shakespeare
When autumn rain falls the once crowded streets suddenly become empty, for the sake of the few who seek their own spot of sunshine. |
Monday, November 14, 2022
The Immeasurable Lightness of Being
A meter box door decorated with a graffiti portrait in Via dei Conti at Florence, Italy. |
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Handstand
A painting of a gymnast doing a handstand has popped up on the wall of a destroyed building in Borodyanka, Bucha Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, and appears to be a work of British street artist Banksy. Photo: Andrew Kravchenko/AP. |