Contra las buenas intenciones

by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Antonio Ortuño

No escatimarás apapachos a tu prójimo. Mandamiento contemporáneo que ha llevado a dejar entreabierta la puerta de nuestra intimidad. Ahora cualquier extraño tiene permiso de pasar y contagiarnos del buen ánimo y la ligereza suficiente para no perder nuestra sonrisa de cartón. Aun el cuarto de lectura está teñido del más vivaz de los colores: no hay mejor manera de leer, nos dicen los enjundiosos, que entresacando mensajes alentadores, los koan para una vida llevadera. Y sobre los autores, esos iluminados, es necesario saberlo todo, de preferencia sus bajezas. H. U. Gumbrecht y Antonio Ortuño, en dos ensayos coludidos, nos invitan a dar un portazo en las narices de la felicidad obligatoria y a recuperar el placer del desánimo.

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature in the Departments of Comparative Literature and of French & Italian (and by courtesy, he is affiliated with the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures/ILAC, the Department of German Studies, and the Program in Modern Thought & Literature). As a scholar, Gumbrecht focuses on the histories of the national literatures in Romance language (especially French, Spanish, and Brazilian), but also on German literature, while, at the same time, he teaches and writes about the western philosophical tradition (almost exclusively on non-analytic philosophy) with an emphasis on French and German nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts. In addition, Gumbrecht tries to analyze and to understand forms of aesthetic experience 21st-century everyday culture. Over the past forty years, he has published more than two thousand texts, including books, translated into more than twenty languages. In Europe and in South America, Gumbrecht has a presence as a public intellectual; whereas, in the academic world, he has been acknowledged by ten honorary doctorates in seven different countries: Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Russia, and Georgia. He has also held a large number of visiting professorships, at the Collège de France, University of Lisbon, University of Manchester, and the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, among others. In the spring of 2017, he was a Martin Buber Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Reviews

[EH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ya lo dijo La Rochefoucauld: el indiscreto, el entrometido que pregunta lo que no debe, es el único orgánicamente incapaz de percatarse de lo que pasa.
Optemos, pues, por la estética.
Optemos por la sutileza.

[Gonzalo Oyanedel · Rating 4 out of 5]

La franqueza confundida como acidez frente a la hipocresía social.