ILLUSTRATI GENESIS: Day 7

Seven little lessons to rediscover our everyday life.
Seven days for the Creation… of a new perspective.

DAY 7 – REST OR FREEDOM

The well-known detail: The weekend has arrived. You have two days of free time at last, which you can use to: 1) do the cleaning; 2) set up the online payment of the latest bills; 3) organize that business dinner for next week; 4) clear the sink which is full of piled up dishes; 5) go to that concert even if you don’t feel like it, but you have already bought the tickets; 6) study the new offers from telephone providers; 7) visit your neighbours to maintain relations (which you’ve been delaying for weeks); 8) go shopping; 9) catch up with overdue laundry and ironing; 10) any other business. The two days are over in a jiffy. On Sunday evening, to chase away the shadow hanging over the back of your mind, you start watching that funny video on the Internet that everyone but you in the office has already seen. One video leads to another, and at three in the morning you’re still on your computer. It’s already Monday, and you’re more tired than before

The background: Even during free time you can feel anything but free. Caged as we are in our schedule, in a fragmented time marked only by planned and unavoidable duties, we tend to fill the hours with incentives and to keep our minds moving even when we have nothing to do; otherwise it seems to us we’re wasting our time. Rather than just sitting around doing nothing, we start playing a mini-game on the phone: to quit doing things is increasingly becoming a taboo today. The machine of the so-called late-stage capitalism demands from us that we constantly produce (or become products ourselves). Excitement does not stop for a second, there is no rest at all, there is no boredom. Perhaps it would be enough to learn the ancient Chinese art of “doing without effort”. For instance, the skilled butcher never sharpens his knife because he knows how to exploit the spaces inside the flesh, his blade passes through the cavities between the bones and never go blunt; yet if you ask him how he can cut so perfectly maybe he won’t be able to answer. Instinctively, and thanks to practice, this ninja-butcher has learned to recognize emptiness and fullness, he knows when to sink his knife and when to withdraw it, he is aware that the key is alternating effort and relaxation, doing and not doing. Even the God of Genesis, when on the seventh day he allows himself a little relaxation after the efforts of creation, is not just having a rest. He is completing his work through rest. Stasis is an essential moment of creating (and of creation), such a fundamental part that the seventh is the only day that God defines as sacred. Doing without doing, completing with rest: all this sounds very good on paper, but how does it apply to our everyday life? Help comes to us from an often misunderstood state of mind: boredom. A study conducted in 2013 by the University of Central Lancashire suggests that performing a repetitive and uninspiring task can sometimes influence creativity in a positive way. A group of 40 subjects was given a monotonous task consisting in copying phone numbers from a phonebook; on the other hand, a control group wasn’t asked to do anything. Subsequently, psychologists presented polystyrene cups to both groups, asking the participants to come up with as many uses as possible for these objects. Those who had been bored by copying telephone numbers found creative solutions which were definitely more original than the others. Boredom gives the mind an opportunity to rest, but also to fantasize. Scientists are convinced that mind wandering is essential for learning, developing creative thinking, solving problems, planning and simulating future events, and then making decisions.

The Seventh Lesson: Since we are no longer able to simply stop doing, here is a replacement exercise. Try to dedicate yourself to a long, repetitive and above all boring task. You can do whatever you prefer: dust your old collection of action figures, wash the dishes by hand, paint a wall – or even better, perform a completely useless activity. Do it without music, without notifications from your mobile phone, unconcerned about the result and enjoying this ancient sensation to the full. A little boredom is good for the organism, the mind and even philosophy (many thinkers, from Giacomo Leopardi to Bertrand Russell, have included it among the most sublime human feelings).
Therefore, claim boredom as a luxury or, better, an inalienable right! On Monday morning, when your colleagues ask you what you have done on the weekend, you can proudly answer: “I got bored, and I liked it.”

This post concludes the series ILLUSTRATI GENESIS:
– Day 1 & 2
– Day 3
– Day 4
– Day 5
– Day 6
– Day 7 (this article)

The island that wasn’t there

Aug17

Umberto Eco writes in his Book of Legendary Lands (2013):

There have been lands that were dreamed, described, searched for, registered on maps, and which then disappeared from maps and now everybody knows they never existed. And yet these lands had for the development of civilization the same utopic function of the reign of Prester John, to find which Europeans explored both Asia and Africa, of course finding other things.

And then there are imaginary lands which crossed the threshold of fantasy and stepped right into our world, as improbable as it seems, bursting into shared reality – even if for a brief time.

In 1968, Rose Island stood some 7 miles from the coast of Rimini, bordering international waters.
It wasn’t a proper island, but rather a man-made platform, which had taken ten years of work and sacrifices to build. Why did it took so long to erect it? Because Rose Island had something different from other marine platforms: it was constructed bypassing or ignoring laws and permits, in a constant fight against bureaucracy. It wasn’t just an extreme case of unauthorized development, it was a true libertarian project. Rose Island declared itself to be an independent Republic.

This micronation‘s President was Giorgio Rosa, born in 1925, who had been an engineer since 1950. In 1958 he began to shape his dream, his life’s accomplishment. Among economic and technical difficulties, in the following ten years he succeded to plant nine pylons out in the sea, on which he then had the platform’s structure built: 4,300 squared feet of reinforced concrete, suspended at 26 feet above the water level. Rosa and his accomplices even found a freshwater aquifer under the sea bed, which proved useful for the island’s supplies and to create a protected space for docking (which they called “Green Harbor”).

The idea Giorgio Rosa had was somewhat anarchic and pacific at the same time: “my initial project was to build something that could be free from any constraint, and wouldn’t require a lot of money. On dry land, bureaucracy had become suffocating. […] We wanted to open a bar and a restaurant. Just eat, drink and watch the ships from Trieste passing close by, sometimes even too close. My fondest memory is that of the first night, on the island under construction. Along came a storm, and it looked like it would tear everything apart. But in the morning the sun was shining, everything seemed beautiful and possible. Then trouble began“, he recalls.

Yes, because bureaucracy started fighting back, in a war to chase the rebels who attempted to live over the waves, without paying the government its due.
As the second floor of the platform was finished, Rose Island gained notoriey, while ships and motorboats called there, driven by curiosity. Worried by the growing traffic, port authorities, Italian finance police and government were already on guard.

That’s how, in the (desperate) attempt to free himself from Italy and its prohibitions once and for all, Rosa unilaterally declared his Island independent on May 1, 1968. Even if he was quite distant from hippies and countercultures, his move was in tune with the fighting spirit of the times: a couple of days later, to the cries of “Banning is banned“, the rebellious civil unrest of May 1968 would begin to take place in Paris.
The newly-born “nation” adopted esperanto as the official language. It began printing its own stamps, and was about to coin its own currency.

But suddenly things took a bad turn. Points of order were put forward in Parliament both by right and left wing, for once united against the transgressors; Secret Services were sure that the platform actually concealed a base for soviet submarines; others thought the whole thing was an obscure Albanian maneuver.
Once the media event broke out, authorities responded ruthlessly.

On February 11, 1969, all the concrete parts were demolished, the steel poles and joints were cut, and 165 lb of explosive were detonated on each pylon. On the impact, Rose Island tilted, bended over… but refused to collapse.

Then, two days later, artificers applied 264 lb of charge to each pillar – a total of more than a ton of explosive. Yet once again, the Island resisted, tilting forward a bit more. Like a dream stubbornly refusing to surrender to the blows of a tangible reality.
It was not to the military that Rose Island eventually decided to give up, but to a violent storm, sinking into the Adriatic Sea on February 26, 1969.

Today, after 40 years of oblivion, the Insulo de la Rozoj – the esperanto name of this micronation – is the object of renewed attention, through documentaries, novels, theatre plays, shows and museum exhibits, Facebook pages and blogs devoted to it. There are those who doubt the idealistic nature of the project, suspecting that the entire operation was nothing more than an attempt to build a tax haven (Rosa never denied the commercial and turistic purpose of the Island); those who, like the curators of the Museum of Vancouver, find connections with Thomas More‘s writings; and even those who think that Rosa’s feat prefigured the collapse of faith in representative democracy through a mix of political activism, architecture and technology.

Giorgio Rosa is now 90-years-old, and seems amused by his adventure’s revival. After losing his war (“the only one Italy was ever able to win“, he sarcastically stresses out) and having paid for the cost of demolition, he went on with his engineering career. “Don’t even bother to ask me, I’ll tell you: no more islands!“

But if the interest for his experiment is well alive and kicking, it means that we still find that dream of freedom, escape and independence seducing. We could ascribe its modern appeal to our impatience towards the ever more suffocating bureaucracy, to the alluring idea of escaping the economic crisis, to our disillusionment towards institutions, to fear of authorities interfering with our privacy; but maybe the truth is that Rose Island was the realization of one of humanity’s most ancient dreams, Utopia. Which is both a “perfect place” (eu-topia), away from the misery and malfunctions of society, and “non-place” (ou-topia), unreal.

And it’s always pleasant to cherish an impossible, unattainable idea – even though, or provided that, it remains a fantasy.

Giorgio Rosa’s quotes are taken from here and here. (Thanks Daniele!)

Progetto MKULTRA

Sep10

Gli Americani saranno anche dei paranoici cospirazionisti, sempre pronti a vedere intrighi e misteriosi “progetti” dei servizi segreti ovunque; ma bisogna ammettere che questa loro paura non nasce dal nulla. Di cospirazioni e di strane operazioni occulte ne hanno viste e vissute parecchie.

Anni ’50, inizio della Guerra Fredda. Stati Uniti e Russia cominciano a cercare freneticamente nuove armi per essere sempre un passo più avanti del loro avversario. E, in aggiunta alle ricerche batteriologiche e al perfezionamento delle armi atomiche, la CIA decide che ci sono i presupposti per iniziare un’operazione un po’ differente, sperimentale, e soprattutto illegale.

Sotto il nome in codice MKULTRA, il nuovo programma di ricerca segreto si propone di studiare e scoprire dei metodi per controllare la mente delle persone. Vi ricordate il nostro articolo su José Delgado? Ecco, la CIA vuole fare un ulteriore passo innanzi. D’altronde, pochi anni prima, aveva utilizzato l’Operazione Paperclip per reclutare i “migliori” scienziati e criminali di guerra nazisti, comprando le conoscenze acquisite durante gli esperimenti umani nei campi di sterminio, in cambio dell’immunità dai processi. Alcuni di questi scienziati avevano studiato tecniche di lavaggio del cervello, interrogatorio e tortura.

L’intento della CIA è quello di capire se esiste la possibilità di indurre, ad esempio, una persona all’assassinio programmato; se c’è un metodo scientifico per attuare il lavaggio del cervello o estorcere informazioni durante un interrogatorio; se si può alterare la percezione degli eventi nei testimoni, e via dicendo. Va da sé che per raggiungere questi risultati occorrono cavie umane. Così, se molti dei soggetti studiati dal progetto MKULTRA sono consenzienti, i ricercatori comprendono subito che per ottenere delle analisi precise e delle prove inconfutabili serviranno anche soggetti ignari… cavie che non sappiano di star prendendo parte all’esperimento. Anche in questo risiede l’illegalità dell’operazione, coperta quindi dal massimo segreto. E, sempre in massimo segreto, vengono investiti milioni e milioni di dollari in un progetto che a posteriori si può tranquillamente definire aberrante e criminale.

La maggior parte degli esperimenti relativi a MKULTRA hanno a che fare con le droghe. Si ricercano sostanze che alterino la mente in tutti i modi possibili: dalle sostanze più innocue che favoriscano la concentrazione, o che si dimostrino efficaci come rimedio per il dopo-sbronza… fino ai metodi chimici per creare confusione, depressione, paranoia e shock prolungati in un soggetto, per inibire le menzogne, per creare uno stato di ipnosi, per indurre lo svenimento istantaneo o la paralisi degli arti. Insomma, droghe “positive” che possono potenziare le truppe americane; e droghe “negative”, destinate a controllare e alterare la forza mentale del prigioniero o del nemico.

Gli esperimenti di MKULTRA meglio conosciuti sono quelli legati alla sperimentazione dell’LSD. Sintetizzata per la prima volta nel 1938 da Albert Hoffman, la dietilamide-25 dell’acido lisergico (LSD) era ancora sconosciuta al grande pubblico. Gli agenti di MKULTRA decisero di comprendere i suoi effetti su una serie di cavie ignare, e nella famigerata Operazione Midnight Climax misero a punto questo sistema: dopo aver installato dei finti specchi in alcuni bordelli di San Francisco, con la complicità delle prostitute facevano in modo che al cliente venisse servito un drink in cui era stata disciolta una potente dose di acido. La “sessione” veniva quindi filmata da dietro lo specchio.

A poco a poco gli effetti della droga si manifestavano, e i clienti cominciavano ad essere preda di violente e incontrollabili allucinazioni; come si sa, l’LSD è fra le sostanze psicoattive sintetiche più potenti, con effetti che ad alti dosaggi possono spingersi ben oltre le 12 ore. I poveri clienti, arrivati con la modesta speranza di una seratina piccante, si ritrovavano di colpo scaraventati nel baratro della follia, in quella che aveva tutta l’aria di essere una crisi psicotica. Non capivano, non potevano capire perché di colpo vedessero le dimensioni della stanza alterarsi, il tempo distorcersi e la carta da parati pulsare come fosse viva. Si convincevano di essere impazziti di colpo, e il terrore si impadroniva di loro. Una volta esauriti gli effetti della droga, gli agenti si palesavano e intimavano alla vittima, ancora sotto shock, di non rivelare nulla di quanto era successo. Se avessero raccontato la loro storia, si sarebbe anche saputo che frequentavano il bordello… Alcuni dei soggetti non si ripresero più, e finirono ospedalizzati, e molti ritengono che diversi suicidi siano imputabili a questi esperimenti senza scrupoli.

Oltre alla somministrazione di droghe, il progetto sondò anche le diverse possibilità offerte dalla deprivazione sensoriale, dall’ipnosi, dalla privazione del sonno e dagli abusi verbali e fisici. Che tipo di osservazioni scientifiche si potevano trarre da simili esperimenti? Che valore aveva questa ricerca? Quando la CIA ammise pubblicamente, fra il 1975 e il 1977, l’esistenza del progetto MKULTRA e offrì le sue scuse, confessò anche che tutte queste ricerche non avevano portato ad alcun risultato concreto. Gli agenti a capo degli esperimenti, si scoprì, non avevano nemmeno le qualifiche necessarie per essere degli osservatori scientificamente attendibili. Quindi la massiccia operazione, dal costo stimato di più di 10 milioni di dollari, e che aveva coinvolto numerose multinazionali farmaceutiche e distrutto la vita a molti civili divenuti cavie, non era servita a nulla.

Nonostante la declassificazione di molti documenti, iniziata nel 1977, e le ammissioni della CIA, c’è chi è pronto a giurare che la “confessione” sia un ulteriore depistaggio, e che il progetto MKULTRA non sia mai stato chiuso: continuerebbe ancora, sotto diverso nome, per mettere a punto metodi sempre più perfezionati di controllo della mente.

Ma la cosa forse più curiosa è un effetto boomerang che la CIA non poteva prevedere, e che cambiò la storia. Come ricordato, non tutti i soggetti degli esperimenti di MKULTRA erano vittime ignare. Fra i volontari che si sottoposero ad alcuni test con l’LSD in California, c’era anche un giovane studente della Stanford University. Questo ragazzo, sconvolto dal potenziale della droga, decise che avrebbe cercato di promuovere l’LSD anche al di fuori di MKULTRA. Lo studente era Ken Kesey, autore di Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo, che di lì a poco avrebbe fondato i Merry Pranksters e girato gli Stati Uniti portando follia e buonumore su un furgoncino multicolore, dispensando dosi gratuite di LSD a chiunque volesse provare. Grazie a Kesey cominciò la rivoluzione degli anni ’60, la pacifica ribellione hippie, e la cosiddetta psichedelia che cambiò volto alla società, alla musica, alla politica e alla cultura.

Da un terribile progetto segreto militare per il controllo della mente, quindi, nacque paradossalmente un movimento che in pochi anni conquistò il mondo; milioni di ragazzi cominciarono a predicare la liberazione della mente, l’espansione e l’allargamento della coscienza, l’uguaglianza dei diritti, il sesso libero, la convivenza pacifica e l’affrancamento da qualsiasi organizzazione militare o politica. Non esattamente quello che i vertici della CIA, con tutte le loro sofisticate conoscenze, avevano sperato di ottenere.