Plants, patterns, labels, taxonomies, and people

The easiest way to sort out life is to use patterns and labels in order to put things into categories. Linnaeus brought order to human societies, by providing a system to label the plant and animal reigns.

Beautiful plants received structure, a way to look at them in such manner that one could go further into understanding their kinship. Purple, red, yellow and green became less important, and shapes, patterns, textures ruled the newly ordered kingdom. 

And it was good. One needs structure in order to fully discover beauty. 

However, the taxonomy is far from being enough to fully enjoy the stories of a plant. Shrubs, bushes, flowers have their own individual lives, way beyond the simple label that places them into a family. They adapt to environment to show the word the most amazing pictures, they survive in harsh conditions to bring joy to the eyes, they conquer deserted human landscapes, such as abandoned cities, to bring them real life, pulsing almost unknown, and blossoming in silence, reminding us the power of nature, the story behind the story, bringing unexpected happiness in places that were once supposed to die. 

Delicate stripes, intricate stems, funny shanks, and majestic haulms sketch an entire tableau, put on stage a show in which stunning flowers and promising buds play the role of stars. One may take a more careful look to stripes, petioles, laminas, or veins, to their unique ways in each plant, to the delicate story that amazes you like the most beautiful eyes that one can find in the person one loves. 

Because plants are like people. Taxonomy helps understanding their kind, but otherwise, they are unique, and show the careful viewer so many facets, that somehow they become overwhelming. 

And people developed in recent years their ability no be overwhelmed by the richness of emotions, facets, and variety of their own lives. 

As sociologists of postmodernity claim, this new world is so diverse, and allows us so much recompositing, so many rearrangements of the same apparently simple ‘reality’, that one needs a variety of perspectives to find the path from which she or he really grasps happiness. 

Plants also are sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes they seem noisy or even troublesome, sometimes they bring a calm mood. But they always find their way to express beauty. For themselves and for beholders. 

Like people. The key resides in the perspective, and in the capacity to accept them, as they accept us.

Simply putting them into categories does not help in this matter. Labels are just a way to simplify word, to give structure, but plants, and people, exist way beyond categories, they combine them in the most fantastic and atypic ways. Paraphrasing one of the obsessions from marketing, for some, normal is beautiful. For others, atypical is the is what is really wonderful. And a variety of stance stays in between. And one can grasp happiness from any of these stances. 

Atypical … Well, atypical may mean combining tumultuous noise with serenity, or joy and sadness, or various types of joy, or anything else, including romanticism and realism. Apparently, a plant is a given, it combines such nuances as a fact. But one can actually see it through various lenses, that it becomes in fact art, and can be whatever one wants to see it. 

When labeling them is not so strict, and leaves room for imagination, plants are always able to provide us with a new beginning. 

Like people. 

Netflix and European identity

I rarely write about movies, and I think that this is the first time in ages that I write about series. However, this is rather about the role of Netflix in connecting European countries through their series. 

First, there is Into the Night (thanks to Tinca for recommending the movie), a post-apocalyptic Belgian series, based on a 2015 Polish SF novel, spoken in French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Arabic, English, Flemish (or Dutch??), and Bulgarian. Indeed, this is a kind of pan-European selection. Probably not the best shot movie, but with a decent script, quite appealing twists, and realistic scenes. I really enjoyed the first season (6 episodes), in which people are put in unexpected setups, social relations are on the verge, and characters need to reinvent themselves. I have saw one of the actors, Laurent Capelutto in the French movie by Hirokazu Kore-eda, La Vérité. The entire plot includes constant reference to European diversity, which made me start the post with Into the Night. Beyond the SF pretext (which is kept at minimum), and the situation that sometimes remind of Lost, there is the message that people can act in a good way, despite their hidden tumultuous past. And there is the recurrent theme, derived from the permanent switching of language, of being European, that is diverse, and that diversity does not impede community to build up. 

 

 

Second, I mention Occupied, a Norwegian alternative-contemporary-history movie, played in Norwegian. Addressing ecological themes, this dystopia is actually a 3-season series on politics, including a few policier sub-plots (one can retrieve Stieg Larsson's influence). It follows the constant dance of the Norwegian politics, when the country cuts energy supply from oil, to switch to a new power source, under a green government, and Russia occupies Norway at the EU request. Placed in our times, it is played in Norwegian, English, Russian, with scenes in French, Polish, Ukrainian, German and so on, and filmed in locations that are virtually placed across the continent (however, the main action shows Norway, and sometimes its very nice landscapes). Again, the recurrent theme is European identity and European politics. And it addresses pan-European common debates such as gender identity, tolerance and xenophobia, and solidarity.

 

 

Third, I remark Tribes of Europa. This is the poorest as plot out of the three series that I include in this enumeration. Tribes of Europa is also post-apocalyptic, and not very creative. It replicates somehow Revolution, the American TV series. A mysterious blackout in December 2029 leads Europe to a conglomerate of clans, tribes, and military states. Played in German and English, it includes at least one swear in Romanian: Du-te dracului! (I have seen only the first few episodes, maybe some other languages are incidentally used). English comes as main communication language between various tribes, including the ones that normally speak German, and people move almost freely from a place to another in a way that reminds of the Roman Empire. Also, the German dominant language of the movie is “augmented” with words taken from English, or with Slavic and Scandinavian origins. As a side note, beyond the violence similar to another series - The 100, let observe the discussion on gender roles, honor and treason, family relations, reinvention of love in times of total uncertainty and enduring war, and harsh inequality, along with slavery and oppression. 

At least through such series, apparently with no intention in this regard, Netflix does a great job to consolidate a common European identity and to bring forefront the themes on the European agenda. Somehow, it replaces lack of face-to-face interaction and traveling across the continent, and reduces the fragmentation brought by proliferation of social media bubbles, rebuilding bridges between the later ones. From another perspective, it also becomes visible that EU filmmakers have now an almost unexpected sizeable market where they can compete with American, Indian, and Chinese ones. 

And the movies are easy to consume, both when you are cold and rational as a stone, or when their Romantic sub-messages of love bringing hope touch your heart. And they are better when one combines the two ... moods ;)

Life. Take #2

Sometimes navigating through life becomes a difficult endeavor. You add a step in one direction, make a step towards another aim. Then you stop and start asking if this is the wrong path. Whether you turned the right wheel. If getting out of your self-imposed comfort zone is what you actually want. Whether you aren't happy enough with what you already have.

Wheels are colorful

 

You remember your dreams. As a little girl, you learned about Prince Charming, and how he will make your life beautiful. Or you imagined yourself as Manic Pixie Dream Girl, magically turning everything right, after kicking-out the bad guys. As a little boy, you imagined yourself as Prince Charming, defeating all enemies and getting through that long list of challenges. But you discover yourself bored and tired to fight all these battles. Preserving what you already have might be more appealing than trying again to be a brave girl or boy.

You are tempted to avoid decision, to find reasons not to looking into the fountain of magic goodies.

München, Marienplatz

Your start to justify yourself in front of others. Would the search for justifications meaning that you have doubts? Or is it meaning that you actually care about others, and simply don´t want them to suffer of your decision? Is your decision directed to follow your own path or to give up to what they found once as important? Were there your responsibilities to trigger your final choice? Was your family? Friends? Is your own state of well-being the one who came first? Is your choice even final?

You end up deciding to follow your heart, and to forget the reasoning. And probably this is best. You smile, feel the warmth in people around you, shoot another scene, or maybe the same scene.

After all, life is not complicated anymore. Choices? Feelings? Take 2. Same actors. Always different. Or mere combinatorics 😉

♫ Life's a long song 🎸♫

München

15 minutes to noon, the main square is already packed. Eyes heads up, towards the figurines in the Neue Rathaus tower. Women and men. Giggling children. At noon sharp, the bell starts to ring. However, it is not the Townhall. It comes from behind the square, maybe from St. Peter church, maybe from Frauenkirche, maybe from another church. The Neue Rathaus is still quiet. Tourists first time in München become worry 3 minutes latter when another bell rings. Then it is the turn of another one. One may feel disappointment within the crowd gathered in Marienplatz. And some hope: “We are so many; they could not have fooled all of us”, everybody thinks.

7 minutes past hour, the crowd is happy. The figurines in the bell tower are moving. It was worth waiting. The champions go round, and in the end, one knight wins the jousting tournament, the other being pushed off the horse by the blunted tip of the opponent's lance.

An enthusiastic reaction comes from the crowd. Eyes are glittering, the droplets of rain do not matter, and there is a murmur and a tremor. Nothing like an extraordinary feeling, but smiles and friendly eyes welcome the putting in motion of the second set of figurines in the tower.

For me, the actual show is the crowd, reacting to little thinks. The thrill of humanity sparkled by puppets put in motion by a mechanism designed and built 200 year ago.

The light in the eyes.

Humans, which turn irrelevant politics, pop stars, reeky mobile phones, or stupid radicalisms.

The new old social wars

A 13-year-old boy was decapitated in Syria, by rebels. He was labeled as being the enemy.

A mother and her three daughters were stabbed by a Moroccan man in southern France, for taking sun baths. They were labeled as being indecent.

Paris, Zaventen, Islamabad, Nice, Istanbul, Bagdad, Munchen …

In recent months, there was an uncontrolled attack almost every single week. People died all over the world. People could not enjoy life because other people believed they do not follow a traditional rule.

The US experience every few months an armed attack, in which Americans use guns against Americans, just for showing their power. Typically, the aim is a high school or a college.

Killing youth and children has this ancestral symbolic meaning that one cuts the roots of the evil, by expelling the heritors out of this world. This was pretty much the most important survival rule in the dark ages of the Middle Age. Bloody examples may be found in the Bible and Quran. And this is the most simplistic way to solve an imaginary problem: killing.

Breivik is the best-known example, since he was coming from a society that puts less price on such habits, and actually ejects them. But he occurred and acted in a “barbarian” way...

The more such killings, the more examples one has to follow ...

Parties such as UKIP and FN, politicians of various orientations constantly exploit the niche. They provide traditional individuals with traditional ways of solving problems. Keep the borders closed, send people to churches, eliminate freedom of speech, blame the liberals as being the enemies, and the socialists to be against the traditional law as well. Blame the system is the newer manifestation of such tendency, a sort of extremism à la carte.


Pierro Ignazi explained it 20 years ago, discussing about the silent-counter revolution. When important parts of society move towards more freedom, trust, and focus on the individual as a human being, not just another …. part of the society, the most traditional people voice up. They back traditional solutions to restore the old order. The one in which all are the same, as an army of identical soldiers. The new chaos, of whose rules they do not master, is proposed to be replaced by the old order. They attempt to block freedom of movement and speech. They call for religious obedience. They ask for less liberal education. They provide populism. They promise development. Hitler did it the same way. He is the salient example. But his not an exception. Au contrary. As Inglehart and Baker noted, when a threat is visible, many retreat to more traditional values. This is what populists of all orientations are awaiting. They seize the opportunity, start blaming “the other”, find the exploit in the weakness of a political system rotten by corruption and mediocrity, but forget saying they are the same in this respect. They attempt to take power and in many cases they manage to. Eventually, their failure leaves a huge paying bill for society, and regular people start asking how it was possible that they get deceived.

The new social war hits modern civilization in its basic foundations: tolerance, rule of law, trusting people, individual freedom, pursuing knowledge. This is the great ISIS victory: we turn back towards traditionalism, we choose a new Middle Age. See the Brexit, to coin a single example. (I do not refer Brexit as the separation of the UK from the EU, but as an act to legitimize the interests of the traditionalist camp).



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Social science can teach us about such stories. Social science can explain how societies fail, and can enable prevention of such failure. Social science cannot fully prevent terrorist attacks, but can enable societies to defend against them and to minimize the effects. This why one needs studying societies, in particular in a comparative perspective. One needs to consider all variables, to contrast what happens somewhere else with what happens in one’s own courtyard, and to quickly react by enabling decision makers and regular people to understand where they are and follow informed solutions and policies.


This is part of what we tried to explain the Romanian Agency for Scientific Research, a couple of months ago, in the context of the almost total exclusion of social science from financing in the national research plan valid until 2020. The reaction was polite, but we learned that we were not convincing enough to persuade the Agency to allot about 120,000 Euro yearly for comparative research (this is less than the total yearly expenses of a Romanian football team to play and avoid relegation from the 4th League!!). Therefore, I start today a series of public postings that aim to provide compelling examples. If anyone wants to join, please e-mail me. Any collaboration is more than welcome.

Wintertime, 1976

31 December
In the morning, someone from Thailand of Malaysia, according to the name, started to follow my academia.edu profile. In the country where the respective person should have had ancestors, the New Year was very very close, maybe just few tens of minutes away.

A little later, there was an email, coming from Google Scholar, which announced about a new citation for one of my papers. 2014 was anyway the year when I have received the most citations up to now.

And this was pretty much all the good news for 2014, a year when nothing went well. It also ended badly, with some lack of communication…

But wintertime always brings hope. Few days earlier, in Bucharest … it started to snow like in my childhood. All the time it snows, we believe that it is or it will be like in our childhood. My daughter asked for pictures. I sent them via WhatsUp.

Walking on the frozen street (there were minus 10 at noon), I remembered that day, 38 years ago… I was four. It was the first year when I went to kindergarten. It was early December, and it was snowing so much that it was foggy. For reasons that I cannot remember, we were supposed to go to the kindergarten in the afternoon.

The kindergarten was at the edge of the village. 1043 meters from our house, as Google Earth says today. After 250 meters I have met a colleague whose name or face I do not remember. We started making a ball out of the fresh snow. It took probably 25 minutes to get to the kindergarten, an old four-room house in the middle of a large courtyard. We had a huge and heavy snowball that was rolled for such a large distance by three brave little kids (another colleague had joined us on the way). A fantastic snowman resulted latter in the day. I do not have an exact image of that snowman.

I do remember my parents and my grandmother going down into the cellar and bringing the orange carrot for the nose, taking some corn seeds from storehouse – to be used as teeth, bringing the embers for eyes, searching the darkened cast iron cauldron - for hat, giving us the small pieces of corn cob for buttons, passing the broom made out of broom for the only one arm. However, these were about the snowmen from our courtyard, several of them, during a long winter season. I do have a very exact memory of one of them. But this is another story.

With the one in the kindergarten, I remember nothing else than we pushed that large snowball all over the way, with the last few meters more and more difficult, due to the uphill slope. During the first break we made a disproportionate hilarious snowman out of it. Big first ball, very small body, smaller head (whom would have made and lifted another big snowball?). I do not remember his (or her??) face. Maybe he or she had no face, just a head and a minuscule body?

Those times passed. I am not young any more. Irina is far away. Wintertime as during my childhood is seldom in the Wallachian Plain.

At the time of my childhood, there was no WhatsUp, Google Hangouts, Skype, blogs, Facebook Messenger, Google Plus. Not even computers, to be honest. At least not personal computers ;). And for fireworks, we had only those “starlets”.

But winter ... Winter is still the same, with its magic and promising hopes ;)

Have a fantastic 2015!