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lagren0uille · 2 years

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I was thinking recently about how some “reparative” interpretations of difficult or troubling texts end up turning every work of fiction into a mouthpiece for the same uplifting and reassuring vision of the world, and I think one of the most interesting examples of this phenomenom is the story of the reception of I. L Peretz’s short story “Bontshe Shvay”.

The story revolves around the character of “Bontshe the silent”, a kind of anti-Job and a figure of absolute passivity in front of injustice. The first half describes his insignificant life, spent in absolute silence (”he was born in silence ; he died in silence ; he was buried in silence”) ; and the second is centered on his judgment in the after-life.

Peretz (Poland, 1851-1915), an activist and one of the most prominent figures of Yiddish literature, was very close to the Bund (the main secular Jewish socialist party of the Russian Empire) at the time he wrote that text. A lot of people have thus been reading it, since its publication, as a socialist denunciation of absolute disempowerment and alienation. Others, however, have turned it into a narrative of sainthood, interpreting Bontshe as a figure of exemplary humility. I think it’s a very good illustration of how -idependently from what the work actually presents as admirable or not- its political and moral impact largely depends on its interpretations.

In case anyone be interested, here is a large excerpt of the text (translation by Golda Werman, full version here) :

Here on earth the death of Bontshe Shvayg made no impression. Try asking who Bontshe was, how he lived, what he died of (Did his heart give out? Did he drop from exhaustion? Did he break his back beneath too heavy a load?), and no one can give you an answer. For all you know, he might have starved to death.

The death of a tram horse would have caused more excitement. It would have been written up in the papers; hundreds of people would have flocked to see the carcass, or even the place where it lay. But that’s only because horses are scarcer than people. Billions of people!

Bontshe lived and died in silence. Like a shadow he passed through this world.

No wine was drunk at Bontshe’s circumcision, no glasses clinked in a toast; no speech to show off his knowledge was given at his bar mitzva. He lived like a grain of gray sand at the edge of the sea, beside millions of other grains. No one noticed when the wind whirled him off and carried him to the far shore.

While Bontshe lived, his feet left no tracks in the mud; when he died, the wind blew away the wooden sign marking his grave. The gravedigger’s wife found it some distance away and used it to boil potatoes. Do you think that three days after Bontshe was dead anyone knew where he lay? There was not even a gravestone for a future antiquarian to unearth and mouth the name of Bontshe Shvayg one last time.

A shadow ! No mind, no heart, preserved his image. Nothing remained of him at all. Not a trace. Alone he lived and alone he died.

Were not humanity so noisy, someone might have heard Bontshe’s bones as they cracked beneath their burden. Were the world in less of a hurry, someone might have noticed that Bontshe, a fellow member of the human race, had in his lifetime two lifeless eyes, a pair of sinkholes for cheeks, and, even when no weight bent his back, a head bowed to the ground as if searching for his own grave.

Were men as rare as horses, someone would surely have wondered where he disappeared to.

When Bontshe was brought to the hospital, the corner of the cellar he had called his home did not remain vacant, because ten men bid for it at once; when he was taken from the hospital ward to the morgue, twenty sick paupers were candidates for his bed; when he was carried out of the morgue, forty men killed in the fall of a building were carried in. Think of how many others are waiting to share his plot of earth with him and well may you wonder how long he will rest there in peace.

He was born in silence. He lived in silence. He died in silence. And he was buried in a silence greater yet.

******

But that was not how it was in the other world. There Bontshe’s death was an occasion.

A blast of the Messiah’s horn sounded in all seven heavens: “Bontshe Shvayg has passed away! Bontshe has been summoned to his Maker!” the most exalted angels with the brightest wings informed each other in midflight. A joyous din broke out in paradise: “Bontshe Shvayg - it doesn’t happen every day!”

Young, silver-booted cherubs with diamond-bright eyes and gold-filigreed wings ran gaily to greet Bontshe when he came. The flapping of their wings, the patter of their boots, and the merry ripple of laughter from their fresh, rosy mouths echoed through the heavens as far as the mercy seat, where God Himself soon knew that Bontshe Shvayg was on his way.

At the gates of heaven stood Father Abraham, his right hand outstretched in cordial welcome and the most radiant of smiles on his old face.

[...]

The defense counsel said: - “At last, one dizzy, wet spring evening, he arrived in a great city. He vanished in it like a drop of water in the sea, though not before spening his first night in jail for vagrancy. And still he kept silent, never asking why or how long. He worked at the meanest jobs and said nothing. And don’t think it was easy to find them.

“Drenched in his own sweat, doubled over beneath more than a man can carry, his stomach gnawed by hunger, he kept silent!

“Spattered with the mud of city streets, spat on by unknown strangers, driven from sidewalk to staggers in the gutter with his load beside carriages, wagons, and tram cars, looking death in the eye every minute, he kept silent! [...]

“He never even raised his voice to demand his meager wage. Like a beggar he stood in doorways, glancing up as humbly as a dog at its master. “Come back later!” he would be told - and like a shadow he was gone, coming back later to beg again for what was his.

“He said nothing when cheated, nothing when paid with bad money.

“He kept silent!”

“Why, perhaps they mean me after all”, thought Bontshe, taking heart.

“Once”, continued the counsel for defence after a sip of water, “things seemed about to look up. A droshky raced by Bontshe pulled by runaway horses, its coachman thrown senseless on the cobble-stones, his skull split wide open. The frightened horses foamed at the mouth, sparks shot from under their hooves, their eyes glittered like torches on a dark night - and in his seat cringed a passenger, more dead than alive.

“And it was Bontshe who stopped the horses!

“The rescued passenger was a generous Jew who rewarded Bontshe for his deed. He handed him the dead driver’s whip and made him a coachman, found him a wife and made him a wedding too, and was even thoughtful enough to provide him with a baby boy...

“And Bontshe kept silent!”

“It certainly sounds like me”, thought Bontshe, almost convinced, though the still did not dare look up at the tribunal. He listened as the counsel went on:

”He even kept silent in the hospital, the one place where a man can scream.

“He kept silent when the doctor would not examine him without half a ruble in advance and when the orderly wanted five kopecks to change his dirty sheets. He kept silent as he lay dying. He kept silent when he died. Not one word against God. Not one word against man.”

”The defense rests!”

[...]

The judge said: “My child, there, in the world below, no one appreciated you. You yourself never knew that had you cried out but once, you could have brought down the walls of Jericho. You never knew what powers lay within you.

“There, in the World of Deceit, your silence went unrewarded. Here, in the World of Truth, it will be given its full due.

“The Heavenly Tribunal can pass no judgment on you. It is not for us to determine your portion of paradise. Take what you want! It is all yours, all yours!”

Bontshe looked up for the first time. His eyes were blinded by the rays of light that streamed at him from all over. Everything glittered, glistened, blazed with light: the walls, the benches, the angels, the judges. So many angels!

He cast his dazed eyes down again. “Truly?” he asked, happy but abashed.

“Why, of course!” the judges said. “Of course! I tell you, it’s all yours. All heaven belongs to you. Ask for anything you wish; you may choose what you like.”

“Truly?” asked Bontshe again, a bit surer of himself.

“Truly! Truly! Truly!” clamored the heavenly host.

“Well, then,” smiled Bontshe, “what I’d like most of all is a warm roll with butter every morning.”

The judges and angels hung their heads in shame. The prosecutor laughed.

#literature #literature meta #y l perets

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compneuropapers · 6 years

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Interesting Papers for Week 15, 2018

Input-Specific NMDAR-Dependent Potentiation of Dendritic GABAergic Inhibition. Chiu, C. Q., Martenson, J. S., Yamazaki, M., Natsume, R., Sakimura, K., Tomita, S., … Higley, M. J. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 368–377.e3.

A New, High-Efficacy, Noninvasive Transcranial Electric Stimulation Tuned to Local Neurodynamics. Cottone, C., Cancelli, A., Pasqualetti, P., Porcaro, C., Salustri, C., & Tecchio, F. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience, 38(3), 586–594.

The effects of sleep on the neural correlates of pattern separation. Doxey, C. R., Hodges, C. B., Bodily, T. A., Muncy, N. M., & Kirwan, C. B. (2018). Hippocampus, 28(2), 108–120.

Less means more: The magnitude of synaptic plasticity along the hippocampal dorso-ventral axis is inversely related to the expression levels of plasticity-related neurotransmitter receptors. Dubovyk, V., & Manahan-Vaughan, D. (2018). Hippocampus, 28(2), 136–150.

Exploration Disrupts Choice-Predictive Signals and Alters Dynamics in Prefrontal Cortex. Ebitz, R. B., Albarran, E., & Moore, T. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 450–461.e9.

Paradoxical response reversal of top-down modulation in cortical circuits with three interneuron types. Garcia del Molino, L. C., Yang, G. R., Mejias, J. F., & Wang, X.-J. (2017). eLife, 6, e29742.

Integration of Plasticity Mechanisms within a Single Sensory Neuron of C. elegans Actuates a Memory. Hawk, J. D., Calvo, A. C., Liu, P., Almoril-Porras, A., Aljobeh, A., Torruella-Suárez, M. L., … Colón-Ramos, D. A. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 356–367.e4.

Reconstructing relational information. Horecka, K. M., Dulas, M. R., Schwarb, H., Lucas, H. D., Duff, M., & Cohen, N. J. (2018). Hippocampus, 28(2), 164–177.

Memory as Perception of the Past: Compressed Time inMind and Brain. Howard, M. W. (2018). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(2), 124–136.

Slip-Based Coding of Local Shape and Texture in Mouse S1. Isett, B. R., Feasel, S. H., Lane, M. A., & Feldman, D. E. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 418–433.e5.

Conflict-sensitive neurons gate interocular suppression in human visual cortex. Katyal, S., Vergeer, M., He, S., He, B., & Engel, S. A. (2018). Scientific Reports, 8, 1239.

The Brain Compass: A Perspective on How Self-Motion Updates the Head Direction Cell Attractor. Laurens, J., & Angelaki, D. E. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 275–289.

Cholinergic Sensorimotor Integration Regulates Olfactory Steering. Liu, H., Yang, W., Wu, T., Duan, F., Soucy, E., Jin, X., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 390–405.e3.

Integrating modality-specific expectancies for the deployment of spatial attention. Mengotti, P., Boers, F., Dombert, P. L., Fink, G. R., & Vossel, S. (2018). Scientific Reports, 8, 1210.

Consciousness, Representation, Action: The Importance of Being Goal-Directed. Pennartz, C. M. A. (2018). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(2), 137–153.

Astrocytic modulation of excitatory synaptic signaling in a mouse model of Rett syndrome. Rakela, B., Brehm, P., & Mandel, G. (2018). eLife, 7, e31629.

Endocannabinoid-Specific Impairment in Synaptic Plasticity in Striatum of Huntington’s Disease Mouse Model. Sepers, M. D., Smith-Dijak, A., LeDue, J., Kolodziejczyk, K., Mackie, K., & Raymond, L. A. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience, 38(3), 544–554.

Characteristics of CA1 place fields in a complex maze with multiple choice points. Tanila, H., Ku, S., Kloosterman, F., & Wilson, M. A. (2018). Hippocampus, 28(2), 81–96.

Oscillations Synchronize Amygdala-to-Prefrontal Primate Circuits during Aversive Learning. Taub, A. H., Perets, R., Kahana, E., & Paz, R. (2018). Neuron, 97(2), 291–298.e3.

Inhibition in Simple Cell Receptive Fields Is Broad and OFF-Subregion Biased. Taylor, M. M., Sedigh-Sarvestani, M., Vigeland, L., Palmer, L. A., & Contreras, D. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience, 38(3), 595–612.

#science #Neuroscience #computational neuroscience #cognition #cognitive science #neurobiology #research #Brain science #scientific publications #psychophysics #machine learning

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emmasckyvo · 4 years

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GENIAL!

de Mihai Vasilescu

Școala online și fluturele din sulul de hârtie igienică

De când a început treaba asta cu școala online, sunt un pachet de nervi.

În primul rând, vreau să zic că am tot respectul și admirația pentru cadrele didactice care se chinuie (fix ăsta e cuvântul) să facă ceva ce învătământul românesc n-a mai văzut până acum. Să treci de la tone de maculatură mâzgălită cu stiloul sau pixul, de la tablă, cretă/marker și burete, de la “Stai în bancă, să nu se audă musca, lasă telefonul!” la treaba asta cu online-ul mi se pare ceva fantastic. Practic, într-o săptămână, profesori, părinți și copii au trecut de la cal și căruță la mașină zburătoare. E un progres la care nici dracu’ n-ar fi visat! Mulțumim lu’ nenea Covidu’!

Acu’ să mă întorc la nervii mei. Nu știu cum o fi la alte școli, dar ăștia privații ai lu’ fi-miu s-au dat peste cap să facă ceva super mișto. Folosesc o platformă online structurată super tare, încarcă materiale, se filmează vorbind, au video conferințe cu elevii, ce să mai, nebunia lu’ Țalam! Doar că…

Noi am avut noroc că soția lucrează pe două laptop-uri în același timp (nu întrebați!) și le-a adus pe amândouă acasă când a început nebunia. Pentru că altfel piticul și-ar fi bătut capul la antichitatea mea de PC care se blochează și când deschizi un Solitaire. Ce-or fi făcând ăia care nu au asemenea noroc? Aparent mințile luminate din Minister nu s-au gândit la asta. Adică, cretă și burete la clasă, WC în fundul curții, dar obligatoriu toți copiii au laptop-uri performante.

Și acum începe distracția. Învățătoarea și restul profesorilor încarcă în platforma sufletului tot felul de fișiere audio, video, text, link-uri diverse, poze etc. Toate formatele posibile!!! Fiindcă e normal, oamenii sunt diferiți și folosesc chestii diferite. Așa că toată ziua stau să-mi bat capul cu ce să deschid fișierul X, cu ce să modific fișierul Y, convertește, importă, exportă. Unii vor ca elevii să scrie temele pe caiete, apoi făcută poză și încărcată pe platformă. Alții vor ca elevii să rezolve online temele, direct în Word, Excel etc.

Le sunt trimise fișe care ar trebui printate, completate, fotografiate și trimise înapoi spre verificare. Doar că, ghici ce? N-am imprimantă acasă! Și nu mă duc la coadă la centrul Kodak de la parter pe pandemie ca să printez nenorocitele de fișe. Așa că le modificăm în Paint sau le facem de mână.

Unele se pot completa în Word, dar, surpriză!, sunt versiuni diferite, ta-su înjură de toți sfinții încercând să repare ceva.

O altă problemă e cea a manufacturatului. Nu știu exact cine gândește programa, dar copiii au deosebit de multe chestii de construit, montat, lipit, proiecte diverse, de parcă toți se pregătesc pentru un viitor luminos în cadrul unor cooperative meșteșugărești! Are de făcut o machetă cu un animal în mediul lui și un fluture decorațiune doar pentru săptămâna asta! De unde să-i scot eu materiale pentru așa ceva? Oamenii ăștia au impresia că la mine acasă e coliba vrăjitorului și că găsesc materiale diverse și ciudate pentru a construi machete și decorațiuni? Ce abilități dezvoltă porcăriile de acest gen? Căutatul prin gunoaie?

“Tati, pentru fluture am nevoie de un glitter!” “Ce e ăla?” ” Este o/un… ceva [mi-a explicat el ce e, dar mi se rupe, am uitat]. Să te duci la librărie să-mi iei!"...

Ar mai fi videoconferințele care sunt circ și panaramă, fiindcă ei, copiii, nu sunt obișnuiți cu așa ceva și parcă e o discuție între mătușa de la țară și văru' din Italea. “Bă, ce faceți?” “Bă, mă, hăhă!” “Ce moacă are ăla!” “De ce se vede verde la tine?” “Cutărică n-a intrat că n-are cameră, hăhă!” “Să vă arăt ce am pe perete?” “Ăsta e fratele meu, nu-l băgați în seamă. Pleacă de aici că am videocol!” Nu știu ce aud ei din ce le zic profesorii (că păstrăm discreția și îl lăsăm singur în cameră, iar noi ascultăm la ușă 🤣).

Orele de educație fizică sunt crimă și pedeapsă. Profa' le trimite filmulețe sau linkuri cu exerciții. Le-am făcut toți. Nevastă-mea a făcut febră musculară, iar vecina de dedesubt a intrat la balamuc precis.

Evident că toate temele sunt perfecte, fiindcă nu poți lăsa copilul să le facă după cum îi trece lui prin cap, nu? Adică, ce naiba, am și eu mândria mea!

În concluzie, un sistem implementat prost și în grabă, cu programa neadaptată pentru așa ceva, care le dă mari bătăi de cap cadrelor didactice, derutează copiii și înnebunește părinții. Nu sunt de părere că ar trebui înghețat anul sau repetat sau ceva de genul, dar nici nu cred că se vor acumula cine știe ce cunoștințe cu ajutorul acestui sistem organizat ad-hoc, fără logistică, fără cap, fără experiență anterioară.

Gata, vă las. Mă duc să pândesc sulul de hârtie igienică de la baie. De ce? Fiindcă îmi trebuie cartonul rotund din mijloc pentru fluturele vieții! Și mi-e că se termină și-l aruncă vreunul la gunoi. Abia am salvat dimineață o bucată de cofraj de ouă și o sticlă de jumate pentru viitorul proiect. Aur curat, vă zic! O să iasă o lucrare… Boboc!

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bialerwochenblat · 7 years

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Ilustratsyes fun Keyn ergets-land (To Fairyland), loyt Y. L. Perets, instsenizirt durkh Y. Pat, Varshe 1921.

#yiddish #varshe

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electrostar · 5 years

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