LOS DISPARATES DEL MIEDO (THE FOLLIES OF FEAR)
-by Oscar Cueto
At the time I decide to write this text I am reading “Tools for Conviviality”[1] and “Deschooling Society”[2] by Ivan Illich (Vienna, 1926 – Bremen, 2002). I also have by my side the book “Healing the Museum”[3] by Grace Ndiritu (Birmingham, 1982) and one on the series of engravings “Follies”[4] by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Aragon, 1746 – Bordeaux, 1828). I guess I am trying to find in all these references a guide to help me cope with the melancholy and fear that, like me, haunts millions of human beings horrified by wars, ethnic cleansings, unstoppable exoduses, the returns of ultra-right governments and current geopolitics.
In 1973, Ivan Illich warned that the advanced stage of industrialization would produce its own destruction because the creatively mutilated human being would be reduced to an accessory of the mega-machine and the collectivity to the game of polarization and extreme specialization. He claimed, then, that two-thirds of mankind could still avoid going through the industrial age and the eminent chaos to which it was destined, if they chose a mode of production based on a postindustrial equilibrium. Two years earlier, he would also write that to reverse the process of industrialization, it was necessary to deschool society in order to restore creative autonomy to the individual because only a society of creative individuals could control the rhythms and means of production. By deschooling he also meant deinstitutionalizing, for he believed that the Institutions had replaced their social vocation with one oriented towards the production of services for the domestication of citizens. Illich asserted that they offer schooling instead of knowledge, police control instead of tranquility, military reinforcement instead of national security, entertainment instead of culture, daily struggle instead of productive work. I understand that this is perhaps the reason why in these moments of crisis we feel betrayed by our political, educational and cultural institutions, which instead of functioning as sanctuaries that offer refuge and security, turn against us and our sense of justice and solidarity, because this sense is opposed to the ethics of super-production that hold them hostage.
Goya's engraving "Folly of Fear"—in which fear, represented by a giant hooded being, stalks characters paralyzed with panic who seem hopelessly condemned—makes me think that perhaps we have passed that threshold that could have allowed us to reverse the process of self-destruction and that humanity is on the brink of the void. But that same fear also activates my survival instinct and makes me remember that I have felt this way before, and that humanity has also gone through very difficult times before. And that maybe then, it is still possible to stop the great machine, forgetting the obsession with efficiency, and instead frantically pursuing the Age of Leisure (schole)[5]—as Ilich suggests—organizing ourselves outside the institutions, to reimagine them and to celebrate the new ones, and in doing so, to find the true sense of community and culture.
Perhaps there is also still time for institutions themselves, such as museums, to do what they can to heal themselves from within, as Grace Ndiritu suggests: seeking to practice a lack of self-interest, responding to the demands of the community rather than donors or patrons, listening empathetically to the needs and opinions of colleagues especially those with less power, committing to changing the ecological footprint and working with Indigenous communities from which the objects in their collections were taken from in the first place.
In any case, we cannot allow fear to paralyze us. Let us pause, yes, to rethink, rectify or give up what we do in order to do something new. Because it is our right to change our minds, to be creative, to control our means and rhythms of production and because no one should be the accessory of any other, much less of a machine.
Oscar Cueto was born in Mexico City, lives and works in Austria. He holds a TransArts MA of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His artistic work deals with issues of history, knowledge, identity, and memory. Cueto's projects are developed flexibly with regard to a great variety of techniques, such as drawing, collaborative projects, or performative installations. His works have been exhibited in several countries and are part of various collections in museums as well as public and private art institutions. Since 2017, Cueto has been inviting artists to Austria to work on his nomadic project MUME / Museo Mexicano.
References:
[1] Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, Harper and Row, New York, 1973.
[2] Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, Harper and Row, New York, 1971.
[3] Grace Ndiritu, Healing the Museum, Motto Books, Berlin, 2023.
[4] Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Disparates (Follies / Irrationalities), ca. 1815–19 (published by the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid in 1864).
[5] With “schole”, Ivan Illich refers to the Greek word "skholè", which means "leisure, free time", and is also the root of the Latin word "schola", which in turn has given rise to "school".