Post by account_disabled on Feb 27, 2024 2:06:27 GMT -5
A generation is not a handful of egregious men, nor simply a mass: it is like a new entire social body, with its select minority and its multitude, which has been launched into the sphere of existence with a determined life trajectory. "Generation, a dynamic commitment between mass and individual, is the most important concept in history, and, so to speak, the hinge on which it executes its movements." (José Ortega y Gasset: The idea of generations ) It was a few years ago, a couple of them before the calamity of the pandemic (time already has a new measurement milestone: before and after the pandemic), that I had the opportunity to listen to a speech by Federico Mayor Zaragoza that he himself presented as a collection of "souvenirs for the future." It was part of a series of conferences organized by the Galileo Galilei Seminar for the promotion of freethought of the University of Granada together with the secularist organization Granada Laica belonging to Europa Laica, one of those public spaces of concerns and debate that citizens demand to remain live. The prestige of the speaker that afternoon more than justified the fullness of the auditorium where the event took place. His figure – as they say – is of international stature.
I will not gloss here his many merits, but he is one of those men who could be said without exaggeration that he has managed to get the most out of his talents: scientist, poet and philanthropist . Perhaps what he can be most recognized for is having served as Director General of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) between 1987 and Guatemala Mobile Number List Citizens in the squares I cannot remember the message that he conveyed to those attending his conference on that occasion in its entirety; But I do have the imprint of his optimism and his faith in humanity that remains in my memory. His words were those of a faithful follower of the ideals of the Enlightenment and humanism. As such he expressed his confidence in our species' capacity for progress ; a progress that he witnessed personally in recent decades and on a planetary scale. In this regard, there was a point of his that caught my attention, because it showed the recognition of the relevance of the historical perspective when it comes to pondering the processes whose dynamics depend on human intentions, although they are not always these in all or in part the determinants of the effects in which they result.
Progress was presented by Mayor Zaragoza as an indisputable fact. I am not referring here to the full progress of successes in the scientific and technological field, but to what corresponds to the achievements of a moral nature , to human development in the project that concerns the implementation and universal extension of justice, freedom, of equality, of well-being in short, of each and every member of the human species. For him, progress was demonstrated in view of our historical evolution over recent decades. Now, he recognized that this general progress included the existence of phases of regression, periods of time, like valleys in the line drawn by historical development, during which it would be necessary to recognize the occurrence of events that, contemplated without perspective, could give the impression that progress is not occurring or that progress that was occurring is reversed. I wonder if we are currently in one of those regressive phases . At the same time, I would like to find a reliable way to weigh the responsibility of my generation in this. All these reflections, with their consequent questioning, have taken over.
I will not gloss here his many merits, but he is one of those men who could be said without exaggeration that he has managed to get the most out of his talents: scientist, poet and philanthropist . Perhaps what he can be most recognized for is having served as Director General of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) between 1987 and Guatemala Mobile Number List Citizens in the squares I cannot remember the message that he conveyed to those attending his conference on that occasion in its entirety; But I do have the imprint of his optimism and his faith in humanity that remains in my memory. His words were those of a faithful follower of the ideals of the Enlightenment and humanism. As such he expressed his confidence in our species' capacity for progress ; a progress that he witnessed personally in recent decades and on a planetary scale. In this regard, there was a point of his that caught my attention, because it showed the recognition of the relevance of the historical perspective when it comes to pondering the processes whose dynamics depend on human intentions, although they are not always these in all or in part the determinants of the effects in which they result.
Progress was presented by Mayor Zaragoza as an indisputable fact. I am not referring here to the full progress of successes in the scientific and technological field, but to what corresponds to the achievements of a moral nature , to human development in the project that concerns the implementation and universal extension of justice, freedom, of equality, of well-being in short, of each and every member of the human species. For him, progress was demonstrated in view of our historical evolution over recent decades. Now, he recognized that this general progress included the existence of phases of regression, periods of time, like valleys in the line drawn by historical development, during which it would be necessary to recognize the occurrence of events that, contemplated without perspective, could give the impression that progress is not occurring or that progress that was occurring is reversed. I wonder if we are currently in one of those regressive phases . At the same time, I would like to find a reliable way to weigh the responsibility of my generation in this. All these reflections, with their consequent questioning, have taken over.