The Things Are so Clever

On Connectedness

Or;How do Things remember ?

Stanislaw Lem,the great Polish Science Fiction writer,has written a highly readable book on his childhood,which is called "The High Castle" or in Polish "Wysoki Zamek" - a book full of the most remarkable observations and unusual experiences.One passage which has caught my attention ,goes something like this in my English rendering;
"I believed,without confiding the secret to anybody,that dead objects like man might suffer from shortcomings and inadequacies,and even that they might be forgetful.If one had enough patience ,one might be able to force them to multiply by taking them by surprise.Thus,if one assumed that a pocket-knife ,which hade been left in a drawer ,did forget where it was supposed to be ,one might later find it in a completely different place,e.g.among the books in a shelf.As it would lack possibilities to get out of the drawer,in this impossible situation it would simply duplicate itself and become two.Thus in my view ,the things were suubject to a certain logic,they had to obey some rules,and for someone who knew them well,it might be possible to force the dead matter to some desirable results."

What Lem describes in a negative way,is what it means to live in a well ordered world. Of course things as we know them in everyday lifte are not like Lem expected.They are flawless.They do not forget and we can never force them to multiply by surprise.The things are so clever;they remember where they are,even when we have forgotten where we put them. How do the things remember ?


And is not this flawless memory of things an important part
of what we mean when we say that a certain segment of our experience was "real" as opposed to "unreal" ?

Two objections of course immediately present themselves to this way of reasoning.
The first is that this form of order is a local phenomenon.The physical world contains much more than "things" and it is of course
unsatisfactory to limit the realm of reality to that relatively limited sector of the physical world or what we take to be the physical world which contains "things" organised in a wellordered pattern of time and space coordinates.The realm of things extends from somewhere close to our body and outwards to a limit which might be quite difficult to define exactly.The biscuit which I take with my afternoon coffee definitely stops to be a thing when it disappears into my mouth and not unlike a musical tone dissolves into a,hopefully pleasant sensation.At the other end there are e.g. galaxies.It seems very weird to say that galaxies are things as the different stars and clouds of heated matter which make them up are not all present at the same time.
In a plasma there is hardly any well memorized order of the sort we expect from a campus building or from the drawers where we keep our underwear.On the subatomic level memory really seems to start to fail in different ways depending on what interpretation we want to give to subatomic phenomena..So the flawless memory of
things cannot reasonably be extended to the material world in its entirety. The sort of order which can be expressed by saying that the things have such a good memory , rules,but not everywhere and on all levels.But it seems to actually rule wherever we are.
So,to identify this sort of memory with reality is obviously to define "reality" in a more narrow way than is ordinarily done. We should not be surprised.It has been shown by many philosophers in many contexts that "unreal" can mean many different things.
I leave it there,for the moment.

The second objection is that things can hardly have any memory at all,because things do not have any minds. Not everybody might agree on that point,but I shall assume that such things as we normally call "dead" do not have any minds. And memory is normally thought of as something which can only exist in the context of a mind.
When I say that the drawer is so clever,because it is able to remember exactly what I put into it,this could pass as a metaphorical way of expression.When I say that the dollar is falling in its relation to Deutsche Mark I do of course not mean it literally,and when I say that the book is very intelligent I do not expect to be misunderstood as an animist either.We actually ascribe qualities to things all the time which are really mental qualities in some way or another related to their internal representations.
Of course,e.g.in Henri Bergson´s philosophy the world itself tends to take on mind-like characteristics,because he introduces a concept "pure memory" or "mémoire pure" by making a rather difficult distinction between what could become the meaning of a memory image ,the raw material of memory as if it were,and the memory as represented in the memory image in an act of actual recollection. A less abstract name for memoire pure might be potential memory.
Potential memory cannot recall itself but it is the sort of subjectmatter which can be recalled.Of course everything does not lend itself with the same ease to become represented in memory.A certain degree of order is a prerequisite.
An example which might help to clarify this point is the sort of organisation which antique writers recommend in the so called
Ars commemorativa .The latin writers of rhetoric manuals e.g. the
anonymous author of the book Ad Herennium (falsely ascribed to Cicero) recommend us to visualize and memorize a building,with archways,colonnades,stairs and big rooms organized in a definite way.Statues and herms help us to identify the places between the different pillars.Everything has to be clearly lighted and to have such an architecture that things do not stand in the way of each other.This is called the locus .In the locus we then place the different representations of what we want to remember.They are called imagi. If ,e.g. we are preparing a political speech where we want to speak,first of naval defense and then of territorial defense,we might place an anchor in one archway and a sword in the next one.
The trick of artifical memory is to map topologically a memory representation on top of another,where the first order representation supports the second order one.It seems to have worked fairly well for the antique rhetors who used it.With natural memory the difference is that the representation is supposed to map something which is not a representation itself.
Parts of the world we know easily lend themself to be represented in memory. Things are connected in particular ways with each other.These connections are not always spatio-temporal,which obviously raises the need for a more generic concept than connected in space and time.For this more generic concept I shall from now on use the word "connectedness".
The following might serve as an illustration:I sometimes teach in a room on the first floor of the Hall.To get from there to my office ,which is on the fourth floor, I have a choice between a few alternative paths,of which some include an elevator,others not.
Whatever path I chose I have to start in a (particular) corridor on the first floor and to end in a (particular) corridor on the fourth floor. Of course we take topological order in the surrounding space for granted.This is always the same.So the lecture hall remembers where it is and the office remembers its place in the order.Furthermore,there is a reversibility.If I go back I expect the rooms to appear in an order which is the mirror image of the first one.
These are topological properties of experienced space which we take for granted .These are the properties of the antique memory palace,the loci on which artificial memory was built.
So far so good.What I have said up to this point does not seem very controversial to me. Let us assume now,,that,having at last arrived in my office on the fourth floor,passing all the rooms of one of the ordinary paths which lead there ,I fall asleep in my office.And in a dream I enter another room which is thus a room of my dream.It might be a Greek Temple Hall,or may be an agora.As we need some name for that room ,let´s call it "the last room".
The last room clearly has different properties than the other ones.It does not relate spatially.It has no place of its own in the topological order of the rest of the rooms.It does not fit topologically.It does not make any sense to say that it is included in the next last room either.There are many things represented in different ways in my office - by pictures and books - which are not spatially included even if the physical vehicles of the representations are included in it.It does not belong to a path in the sense that there is a determinate sequency of passages which leads to it.Like the prompter on the screen of my computer,when it passes from the extreme right margin to the left my attention seemed to get there without any mediation.(It is of course possible to construct an abstract topology which can take care of the prompter,e.g. by representing the screen as the two-dimensional projection of a cylinder;for the case with the last room I am less certain.) I am not certain that the fact that the last room is a room in a dream is relevant either.It is of course a "mental image" in the sense that in some way its vehicle of representation is in my brain.But would we have had a much different problem if the last room had been produced by means of cyberspace and virtual reality ? Clearly in that case too we would have to make a distinction between the room represented and the means of representation.And furthermore,"real"rooms are not less unreal in the sense that they are of course represented to us as well. In the standard case of being in my office I am in the room and the room is in me,in the sense that the vehicle of representation of the office is in my brain and that it represents me as being in the room.
I do not know,for certain,either whether it is right to call the last room the last one."Last" suggests a place in a temporal order but is it the room or its mental representation which takes place in an order ?
So the last room is connected to my total experience but not in quite the same way as the other rooms in the actual sequence.There are differences.One is that it does not have the same excellent memory as the other rooms.It does not recur with the same willingness.If I leave it,I am not certain that I will ever find my way back to it.
So the last room is connected but obviously connected in such a way that it does not recur in the same pattern as the other rooms.It does not,figuratively spoken,have the same excellent memory.
What sort of connectedness is ,then, this one ?
Lacking other glue lets try then,with causal connection !
The problem is of course,that I do not have more reason to believe that the office,or the sequence of rooms which led to the last one, have more to do with the last one,than a suddenly occuring
tooth-ache has to do with the room where I got it.
Temporal and causal connectedness without spatial connectedness seem weird to us.Causes are events . Effects are events.
Causes are supposed always to have precede effects.We often reason as if external events could cause dreams and dreams can cause events.But this is of course a metaphorical way of speaking,like when we say that an antique stone speaks about the battle of Thermopyle.Of course no stone can speak.There is not even any text which can speak.Somebody performs a speech-act by means of an (inscribed) stone and we emulate it through its medium until it reaches us.
By Analogy; to dream is an event,which takes place in time,also in space,I dream in a particular hotel room etc. but the dream room or dream locality are not in space .Can something occupy a place in time without occupying a place in space ? It seems weird,but if we do not want to assign to the dream room a place in time which is not a place in space it seems impossible to claim that it is the sort of entity which can causally connected to the rest of our experience.

So,even if it makes perfect sense to say that I dreamed a certain dream on Monday last week and a second dream two days later,if I may have my way,this does not entitle us to say that the contents of the two dreams display a temporal order.They are simply not related in time,and thus not causally related either. I am aware that this conclusion might cause trouble for some types of psycho-analytical theory of the more mechanistic type,but I am willing to take the consequence.A dream is related to the rest of our life not in the way an effect is related to its cause,but rather in the way an interpretation of a text is related to the text .

*



So what sort of connection is the connection between the last room and the rooms that led up to it ?

One possible answer is of course to say that there is no connection at all.But that does not make any sense.At least no common sense.My dream is mine.It is not yours .It is not nobody`s.In some way it belongs to a complex which we might provisionally call my life experience and my life experience is not yours.And observe,that in order to use the possessive pronomen here,we do not have to dogmatically announce that there is such a thing as a central substance which is me and which is the base of the use of the possessive .Films do not have ego-substances and still it makes sense to say that one sequence belongs to one film and not to another.The last room belongs to this life experience and not to another.
Why ?
After all I arrived there.
The standard answer to the question what makes a dream my dream is of course that it is connected to me as a subject in a unique way. Only I can dream my dreams.But is not this a rather unfounded assumption ? Why should I not be able to dream somebody else´s dream ? Is there really any intrinsic quality of my dreams that make them mine ? (And by intrinsic quality I think I mean what G.E.Moore would have meant with an intrinsic quality;one which could not be detached from it without making it qualitatively different.) Honestly,I do not know.
But if we deny that my dreams have an intrinsic quality which makes them mine,their uniqueness must consist in the unique way they are connected to the rest of a field of experiences.And thus,to try to define the uniqueness that way is to beg the question as we do not know that it is connected but not in what the connectedness consists.

*
At this point it might make sense to say a few words about immaterialism.An important point in immaterialism is that it deprives us of the possibility to sort objects,such as towers; into two distinct categories such which exist outside us as real towers and inside us, represented as being outside us,and such which only exist inside us,represented as being outside us but not really being outside us.For immaterialists everything which exists exists as representations.If we only look at representations it is hard to tell the difference.
So the connection between the representation and other representations becomes the only thing we have to go after. It is very important indeed to Berkeley´s immaterialism that there is no logical tie between the tactile representation of roundness and the visual representation of roundness. Because if there were ,we could compare as if it were from a point outside the world.(This might be what Nicolas Malebranche is out to find in his celebrated seeing in God. )
In the case of dreams it seems to us as if we might be able to compare,because there is the awakening .In the case of virtual reality there might be such criteria as the fact that a certain pattern,after long experience,say the reflections of sunlight in a lake , seem to repeat themselves,or something like that.
Here,actually the illusory shows a better memory than the real (we might think of a sequence of virtual reality which at the end
reveals itself by starting to repeat itself) which shows that repeatability is a fairly shaky test of reality. We see it as the test of the reality of a room that we can reach it again,following one or more established paths.But if we arrive at the same place,whatever path we chose to take, we are not content at all. A labyrint where all roads lead to the center makes an unreal impression.(Jerome K.Jerome made a grandiose joke of it in the passage about the Hampton Court garden labyrint in "Three Men in a Boat") So what we tend to regard as a test of reality is not organisation and connectedness in abstracto but some particular types of organised connections between experiences. They have to be organised in such a way that they give something like a decision procedure.Different operations,like taking one path out of many possible ,has to give a different outcome than taking another one.(It might be the case that future developements in information technology,virtual experiences in a cyberspace might weaken or change our entire system of sensitivities on this point.Already air travel ,as practised in our days,gives us a strong feeling,but alas,illusory of being able to move from a place to another without passing the places in between.)
*

What would it mean to say that the world as a whole is illusory ?
Would it imply immaterialism ?
Or maybe something entirely different ?
In order to maintain that the world as a whole is illusory,do we need something less illusory to compare with ? There seems to be a good point in Gilbert Ryle´s observation that in a country without coinage there can be no counterfeits.

If by "reality" we mean a set of experiences which are orderly connected in the sense described,i.e. that they form a suitable subject matter for memory, obviously our total experience,the "world we found" - to use Wittgenstein´s handy expression - contains real and unreal elements.Of course dreams ,experiences of virtual reality,hallucinations etc. - in other words all sorts of virtual experiences also belong to the world we find.But they are obviously differently connected.
As the dream argument of Descartes seems to show there are local decision procedures but hardly any global one.

What would it mean then to claim that orderly connections are only local phenomena which do not extend over the whole context of experience ? That we cannot trust our senses ? But certainly we trust our senses! Even the most sceptical philosopher turns into a dogmatist when he hits road traffic after hours. He does not expect some of the meeting vehicles to be virtual and others non-virtual.
The local properties of the system do not cause us much trouble.It is when we try to imagine it as indefinitely extended that we run into philosophical problems.
A general problem of orientation,or navigation,if you prefer that,might serve as an illustration.
Assume that we are travelling in a universe which we ,for the sake of simplicity assume to be two dimensional and to be populated by only three sorts of objects ,hyphens,dots and the blanks between them.Like in the Turing-machine then movement is only possible forward or backward.We assume that the hyphens and dots and blanks are randomly distributed but form some recognizable constellations.Travelling from a place in such a system to another another particular place the traveller has to identify the goal by the constellation in which it is inbedded.(He has of course,first to decide whether to go forward or backward and then where to stop.) To identify the area where he wants to go,he can always study it in a more extended context.
If we assume,now,that the universe in which the travel takes place is transfinite ,there is of course no ultimate method to identify the goal area as the unique destination .In other words - in such a system unique orientation is only locally possible.
It is fairly easy to see the relevance of this model to the Dream argument.If the decision of the status - virtual or nonvirtual - of a string of experiences can always be made dependent of a more extended strand of possible experiences the distinction can only be upheld locally.
In his "Reflexions on Science",Diderot has a famous passage where he describes the extension of Science as a vast landscape scattered with places which are in the darkness and other which are in the light. Somebody might want to trade this metafore with the situation in a Swiss cheese.
How are the holes connected to the solid cheese ? One possible answer is of course that they are not connected at all.The holes are also the cheese,but they are not connected in some special way to the rest.

*

Ny utgåva av Folke Dahlbergs lyrik

Av de tre verkligt betydande svenska poeterna från nittonhundratalets första hälft d.v.s. Bertil Malmberg,Gunnar Ekelöf och Folke Dahlberg, är Dahlberg den mest opersonlige.Han är också den sprödaste :

”Vår bakgrund i en ring av dimma
har ingen synlig avståndspåle
och ingen gränssten.Dagarna
är inte längre tillflyktsorter
och inte tillhåll för en fågelart som sjunger.
Åren rullar nedför sluttningarnas spegeldis
och kvar står bara kors och flockar
schematiska med inåtvända ögon,tynande legender
i någon usel översättning”

(Roende ,1956)
Det finns knappast en rad i detta rika lyriska författarskap där man annat än högst tillfälligt skymtar en annan människa.Dyker de upp är det snarast som staffage ,som en hukande silhuett i en båt,som en gammal fiskare på väg upp från strandskoningen,som någon som kommer med eftermiddagskaffet i en korg.Det är måleri,men knappast dialog.
Det märkvärdiga är att denna poesi som både den tveksamme Dr Georg Svensson på Bonniers förlag och den mycket entusiastiska Gunnar Ekelöf uppfattade som surrealistisk är så djupt fascinerande.
I minnet förknippade jag denna med vågrörelser över djupa klara vatten,gamla fartygsskrov av trä som multnar under en regngrå himmel (det regnar nästan alltid i Dahlbergs poesi), gnisslet i ett gammaldags skotblock när vinden vänder,djupa myrar,och öar,framförallt öar.Öar - dessa bilder av isolering,frid och även instängdhet är ett slags kardinalsymboler i denna stora poesi.
Är det stor poesi ? Jag bestyrks i den tanken när jag nu håller i handen den mycket vackra bok som Dahlbergssällskapet nu har gett ut i sin skriftserie.”Öarna bar mig länge” heter den, Ett dikturval med en mycket innehållsrik och ytterst välskriven inledning av Jonas Modig.Den senare är troligen det bästa som har skrivits i ämnet sedan Ekelöfs BLM-recensioner på femtiotalet. Han har förstått hans ensamhet, hans bräcklighet och kanske allra bäst ;Folke Dahlbergs uthålliga och djupa fascination med döden.Det är något nästan något skrämmande med en diktare som i ”Cartesiansk dykare” (1948) citerar det ställe i ”Rättsmedicinsk handbok som behandlar frågan hur den obducerades lungor skiljer sig vid sötvattens- respektive saltvattensdrunkning och som slutar sitt liv med en drunkning i Vättern,en visserligen stor och fängslande sjö som då i princip har fyllt hela hans vuxna liv med innehåll.
Länge tycks han ha valt denna ensamhet i stället för döden.Den kronofogde som beslagtog hans koster för skatteskulder begick troligen en av de skamligaste akter av statsterrorism som den svenska litteraturen känner.Dahlberg kunde inte längre segla och hänvisades till dessa tungt nedlastade Vätternsnipor som de sista åren för honom blir frihetens instrument.Likafullt strävar han ut mot dessa ödsliga öar,med skeppsvrak och förfallande redskapsbodar som om det fanns något alldeles speciellt därute för honom att söka efter.
Långsamt förtunnas sedan denna privata mytologi,blir skör och multnande också den.Malmberg,Ekelöf,Dahlberg är alla,var på sitt sätt sköra,och just därför djupa poeter.Och jag använder ordet ”djup” på samma sätt som matematiker kan tala om ”djupa resultat” – Fermats förmodan,Riemanns primtalshypotes .Men hur olika är de ändå inte ! Hos Malmberg sjunger en hel poetisk tradition med,Ekelöf har sin vedanta,sina sufiska mystiker.
Dahlberg har nästan bara ”öarna”,de gamla öskaren på bottnen av övergivna ekor,de slitna seglen i höstregn.Och gör så mycket av dem.

”Tingen är på väg ifrån mig.
Barndomens båtar är millimeterstora,
snart försvunna ur kikarlinsen.
I minnet hugger de smärtsamt mot klena bryggor.
Stävarna söndersmulas och insjövatten
tränger i skroven in ,natedoftande,alltför stilla.
Färden ropar allt svagare,detta är tystnad.
Mellan de fuktiga väggarna springer jag ännu
Instängd och led på mitt starka hjärta.”

Fantastiska berättelser

Jag blir då och då tillfrågad,senast nu i en älskvärd kommentar av Lisa Marklund,om min science fiction.Den består alltså hittills av två samlingar korta berättelser;FÖRBEREDELSER TILL FLYKT från 1967 och DET SÄLLSAMMA DJURET FRÅN NORR från 1989.Båda finns sedan förra året tillgängliga i ett vackert band i serien "Atlantis väljer ur världslitteraturen" hos Atlantis under titeln FANTASTISKA BEÄTTELSER. Jag utesluter inte att det kan komma mer.Sagokretsen kring Dr Weiss och Fredegesiusbrödernas stulna intelligensförstärkare lockar.


lars g

Sommardikt I Folke Dahlbergs stil

Polarsommar



Ödslig vind går
genom ödsligt landskap
Att hyvla ek kan vara tungt
Ek varar mycket länge i sötvatten

Tvärtemot vad det falska
mediabruset förkunnar
i allt genomskinligare lögnrapporter
blir somrarna allt sämre,
det vill säga,allt kallare nu.
De gamla torvladorna,
begagnade av ingen
sjunker allt snabbare ner
i det mörknande myrvattnet

Årtionden går

Möjligen var alltsammans ett skämt
Vi borde i så fall
ha insett det något tidigare

Ek varar mycket länge i sötvatten
Men blir mycket mörk till slut.

A TIME IN XANADU:Two Samples

Two Specimens from John Irons 2008 English translation of Lars
Gustafssons Original Collection ”En tid i Xanadu” Stockholm Natur och
Kultur 2002, ”A Time in Xanadu” Copper Canyon Press 2008,

Available at Amazon







RAMSBERG’S THUMB




There was something peculiar
about Ramsberg’s one thumb.
I think a circular saw had taken
half of it.

He had built our stove
in ’39 and it still works.

The remaining joint
had something childishly round
and defenceless about it.

Nature and unnature
at one and the same time.
Or nature’s remarkable ability
to behave unnaturally.

Even today
I often think
of Ramsberg’s thumb




THE GIRL

One day life stands
gently smiling like a girl
suddenly on the far side of the stream
and asks
(in her vexatious style)

But how did you end up there?

Austin sommaren 2009

Sommaren glöder.Där,dit inte sprinklersystemen når, är vägbankar och gräsmattor sedan länge bruna.Ynglingen Adonis är död och skall återuppstå i de första septemberregnen.Värmevinden rör sig slött genom mäktiga trädkronor,de badande fyller gräsmattorna vid Barton Springs och genom en stilla hashrök förnims ljudet av en enslig och sökande gitarr.
Sedan jag lämnade University of Texas har jag haft förmånen att bo en vecka eller två i Austin som gäst hos en grupp unga människor som hyr ett anspråkslöst hus tillsammans.
Eftersom jag har tillbragt mer än ett kvarts århundrade med unga människor mellan 22 och 25 år har jag inte så svårt att smälta in i kretsen fast jag själv har nått sjuttiotre.Vi har ju mycket gemensamt att tala om, och den milda amerikanska pilsnern uppskattar också jag om jag lyckas hitta en plats i trädskuggan. Över huvud taget har jag alltid haft en känsla av att toleransen mellan generationerna är större i USA än i Sverige,där personer i min ålder nästan aldrig rådfrågas om någonting och rutinmässigt avfärdas med rullator och anstaltsmat i plastförpackning.Här kan en gammal professor vara till viss nytta när det gäller för någon att fort som Fan slänga in en slutuppsats om Rousseaus statslära eller att förklara Kants kritik av ontologiska gudsbeviset.
Sin ålder kan man dock mycket konkret uppleva i närmiljön.För min känsla ingår fast telefon,dagstidningar att punktligt hämta in och läsa till frukostkaffet,rituellt tittande på CNN kvällsnyheter i en civiliserad tillvaro.Så inte i denna energiska och klarvakna miljö.Papperstidningar hör hemma,kan det förefalla,i samma miljö som golvur och sofföverdrag,telefonen bär man i fickan och den gamla TV-apparaten i hörnet plockas på sin höjd fram för att spela upp en eller annan filmdiskett.Titta på TV ? Varför skulle man göra det ? Bestämmer man inte själv vad man vill se,kanske ?
Här kan man se hur mediarevolutionen ser ut på nära håll;det är Google och Wikipedia som är kungarna i spelet.Om nedladdningar skall vi inte tala här.
Kretsen håller på att skingras nu.De flesta tog examen denna vår.Snart skall hyreskontraktet gå ut och livet börja.Några är på väg till prestigeuniversitetens doktorandprogram,några har fått jobb i cykelverkstäder och restauranger.Två reser till ett zenbuddistiskt kloster i Kalifornien för att överleva sommaren som lekbröder. (Vilket innebär uppstigning klockan fem på morgonen,precis som i de gamla europeiska klostren.)
Förra försommaren handlade väldigt mycket om Barak Obamas primärvalskampanj.Vilken roll kunde hans afrikanska ursprung spela ? Hur skulle han kunna kompensera den mäktiga clintonmaskinen ? Vad menades egentligen med den change, som var ett så centralt ord i hans kampanj ? Skulle han ta hem trupperna från Irak och slå igen Guantanamo ?
Rätt mycket har hänt sen dess. Trupperna tycks vara på väg från Irak till Afghanistan , - ett projekt med minst sagt osäker utgång.Stängningen av Guantanamo tycks ta sin tid.
Av den ekonomiska krisen ser man inte mycket i Austin,vars intelligensindustrier förefaller gå för skenbart full maskin och vars uteställen vimlar av glada människor i försommarkvällarna.
Är man besviken på Barak Obama ? Jag vet inte.Faktum är att de politiska samtal vi förde sommaren 08 lyste med sin frånvaro sommaren 09.Snarare liknade våra samtal på ett nästan spöklikt sätt de som vi uppsalastudenter brukade föra på Gubbgyllan vid 1950-talets slut.Zenbuddism, - ja till och med speglad i samma böcker,Suzuki,Herigel,Alan Watts.Nietzsche , - alltid lika älskad av amerikanska filosofistudenter - och de oundvikliga handböckerna om översyn och reparation av tävlingscyklar.
Egentligen är inte femtio år så lång tid som man kan tycka.

ETT HUS I LE MARAIS

Reneé Descartes har bevisligen gått på dessa gator.Hertig Saint-Simon och senare Cardinal de Retz har färdats här i bärstol från den ena intrigen till den andra.Rue des Francs-Bourgois,Rue de Temple,Rue Pavée (som om det ännu vore något värt att nämna att en gata är stenlagd) ,Rue Payenne…
Vilken ära var det inte när Sverige fick sitt kulturhus i Rue Payenne ,i hjärtat av de gamla adelspalatsens stadsdel,le Marais, eller ”Myren” som jag brukar kalla denna unika stadsdel i det gamla Paris . Här har författare förklarat sina nyöversatta romaner, ,här har kompositörer och målare presenterat sina verk och här i de små kuporna uppe under taket med sextonhundratalets grova ekbjälkar frilagda, funnit en fristad mellan timmarna i de stora biblioteken.
Och sedan några år finns Café Suedois,en populär samlingspunkt för alla traktens människor,introduktör av fettisdagsbullar och andra svenska specialiteter hos förtjusta äldre damer med hundar.
När Sverige fick ett kulturhus i le Marais kändes det som om en gammal och livgivande nerv,den som förbinder oss med den franska kulturen ,hade fått nytt liv.Den franska ådran i svensk kultur går djupt och inkluderar bland mycket annat Svenska Akademin.Den franska kulturen i Sverige var traditionellt en importerad överklasskultur ,och en mycket värdefull sådan .
Detta har möjligen skapat ett motstånd mot det franska i kretsar som anser att det proletära är det högsta.Men historiska fakta är vad de är.Det ligger något konstigt i att försöka kapa våra förbindelser med Frankrike.
När man läser den som alltid välinformerade Olle Wästberg rapportera att det föreligger planer på att lägga ner svenska kulturinstitutet i Paris,tar man sig för pannan.
Först lägga ner Generalkonsulatet i New York , alla USA-svenskars hjälpsamma vän och det enda konsulat i USA som aktivt befattar sig med kulturkommunikation, och nu Palais de Marle,Sveriges enda kulturhus.
Konsekvensen blir ju att kulturkontakterna i fortsättningen blir en angelägenhet för populärmusikens och kiosklitteraturens kommersiella agenter .Den verkliga svenska kulturen har inte längre ett ansikte i Paris den dag kulturinstitutet läggs ner.
Ekonomiska skäl kan inte vara annat än svepskäl.Jämfört med de summor som subventionerar olika totalitära regimer i Tredje Världen är det taxipengar vi talar om.
En jämförelse med det tyska Goetheinstitutet och dess verksamhet ger ett intryck av att det svenska utrikesdepartementet paradoxalt nog håller på att förlora verklighetskon