El idiotismo de la sociedad tradicionalista tecnificada de principios de siglo XX en Colombia: La crítica de Luis Vidales a través de "Suenan timbres"

En este artículo tratamos, por medio de Suenan timbres de Luis Vidales, el idiotismo de la sociedad tradicionalista tecnificada de principios de siglo XX en Colombia. Estudio que realizamos desde el concepto de idiotismo de Vidales, en estrecha relación con el de cultura de viñeta de Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot, para plantear la burla del poeta a la sociedad capitalista, que cuestiona la presencia de la Iglesia católica y la política conservadora en todos los estadios de la vida nacional.

Contemporary Transformations of the Relations between Politics, Culture and Religion in Western Europe. Some Notes on the Spanish Case

According to Tilly, two laws shaped the process of transformation undergone by Western European societies since the Peace of Westphalia until the end of the 20th century: their increasing inner homogenisation and their growing heterogeneity between them. Cultural inner homogenisation affected, fi rst, those ethnic groups living within the territories of the said states. The second phase of homogenisation impinged on those groups that immigrated after World War II. This process followed different models according to the country considered, but the 1973 oil crisis revealed their general lack of success. During the last quarter of the 20th century and onwards, these European societies have been altered by two progressive and contradictory global logics: a process of cultural homogenisation at the world level (rather than society level) and a process of cultural re-creation led by those groups with an immigrant background, who have reacted against their integration shortcomings by searching for new sources of social and personal esteem in their respective cultural and religious traditions. This paper seeks to clarify these processes from a social differentiation and political representation theory perspective. The latter becomes indispensable, as the said processes have happened in a context in which the structure of relations (i.e. communication) between civil society and the democratic political sphere have experienced a radical crisis. In this way, the complex relations that exist between civil society, culture, religion and politics in these Western European societies are depicted.

Discovering keys to explain social policies within the social and democratic rule-of-law sate

There is a collective worldview on social policies that is expressed and understood by university professionals. However, it takes students time to construct this knowledge. Here, we provide fundamental ideas and a dynamic to facilitate learning of social policies. The preparation of a brief dictionary of significant terms is to be constructed as a group, alongside the maieutic work to be carried out by the teacher. The goal is to discover keys to understand the meaning of social policies and the underlying values that sustain a social and democratic rule-of-law state such as the one proposed in the Spanish Constitution of 1978. Attention is focused on the structure of the mixed welfare state. This is an integral proposal and comprises three dimensions. First, it considers the state and its possible welfare agents: business, market, the Church and civil society. The attitudes with which universal and inclusive social action is promoted, breaking radically with the aid-based meaning contained in other systems, are then addressed. Finally, we examine human dignity as a principle and aim of intervention, a basis for understanding other concepts such as human, social, labour and political rights. It is to be hoped that these pages prove useful for both teaching staff and students.

Vis-á-Vis-á-Vis. The Three-dimensional and artistic view of a problem

ANPO (A Non-predefined Outcome) is an an art-making methodology that employs structuralist theory of language (Saussure, Lacan, Foucault) combined with Hegel’s dialectic and the theory of creation of space by Lefebvre to generate spaces of dialogue and conversation between community members and different stakeholders. These theories of language are used to find artistic ways of representing a topic that community members have previously chosen. The topic is approached in a way that allows a visual, aural, performative and gustative form. To achieve this, the methodology is split in four main steps: step 1 ‘This is not a chair’, Step 2 ‘The topic’, Step 3 ‘ Vis-á-vis-á-vis’ and step 4. ‘Dialectical representation’ where the defined topic is used to generate artistic representations.The step 1 is a warm up exercise informed by the Rene Magritte painting ‘This is not a Pipe’. This exercise aims to help the participants to see an object as something else than an object but as a consequence of social implications. Step 2, participants choose a random topic and vote for it. The artist/facilitator does not predetermine the topic, participants are the one who propose it and choose it. Step 3, will be analysed in this publication and finally step 4, the broken down topic is taken to be represented and analysed in different ways.