Free-D

Choice is a wonderful thing. But so much of the time it’s simply an illusion (satellite TV for example). There is an inherent tension between commerce and culture. Well, I say “tension”, what the situation really amounts to is a 500lb gorilla that has a feebly protesting bookish type by the throat.  Dialogues between the two don’t tend to be equitable, even when democratic governments with social concerns are supposed to be mediating.
So it is that USAL’s philology department finds itself threatened with a reduction of its courses - on the grounds that some are not as popular as others. It seems English is one of the most popular. But why? Is it that it’s an inherently beautiful language, or that it has produced some of the world’s greatest prose? Or could it possibly have something to do with the fact that it’s the language of international business. I’ve always felt dreadfully attracted to those languages which aren’t so widely spoken – that often hold concepts unheard of in other, more widely broadcast tongues. Students of such languages rarely elect their specialism due to a glittering financial prospect, but for the love of words; for the unique worlds that varying languages can construct.  Do those proposing the cuts actually want to banish such wonderfully quixotic pursuits from Salamanca University? To be honest, they probably don’t care. It seems that humanity is losing the battle and economics is winning; certainly if the cultural “life” of Salamanca is anything to go by.

Naturally, I keep a catalogue of offenders; but outstanding in the field of unmitigated balderdash is the offensively anodyne “High School – the musical”. In my book this production amounts to nothing less than a declaration of war against the genuine cultural and intellectual development of young Salmantinos. Perhaps those at CAEM would say that popular entertainment can provide funding for smaller scale, artistic work.
The problem with this is that it’s a very “passive” view, which asserts that somehow it’s possible to poison society’s cultural diet and expect the minimal presence of a few “beneficial works” to miraculously maintain the cultural health of society. Such health is analogous to that of the body: if we don’t whole-heartedly and consistently fund the arts and flatly reject such nonsense we will find ourselves a bloated, wheezing, pasty skinned couch potato of a continent – and some might say there’s already someone doing that job.