{"id":788,"date":"2016-02-12T08:53:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T07:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.algorithmics.is\/wordpress\/?p=788"},"modified":"2016-10-16T20:32:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-16T18:32:41","slug":"a-child-of-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.algorithmics.is\/wordpress\/en\/2016\/02\/12\/a-child-of-society\/","title":{"rendered":"A child of society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"troll-imadeWEB-1\"<\/a>The man with the tattered coat opens his briefcase, taking out a few sheets of paper and walks round the room to offer them to some of the customers seated at the tables.\u00a0 Probably an insurance salesman looking for new customers he can hoodwink into buying his very latest special offer.\u00a0\u00a0 30 years ago, Hresso caf\u00e9 was far from busy in high season.\u00a0 The tourists had yet to arrive, while most Icelanders spent their holidays in the far-flung corners of the earth, giving young people a chance to earn a bit of pocket money during their holidays.\u00a0 At that time, Hresso caf\u00e9 was therefore mainly popular with scribblers, who spent hours there filling sheets of paper with their words, leaning on one side next to their white iron coffee pot.\u00a0\u00a0 At this time, you could only buy alcohol in State shops, and coffee was still served in large half-litre pots which kept the scribblers from dehydrating over the next four hours.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, it was not recommended to drink too many pots of this powerful beverage, and those of you who have survived the nightmare of caffeine poisoning, know what I am talking about.<\/p>\n

Ragnar struck up a lively conversation with the man.\u00a0 As it turned out, he was not an insurance salesman, but a poet trying to sell his latest poems.\u00a0 The man wanted to know if his poems were not good enough, since Ragnar had not bought a single sheet, to which Ragnar replied that he already had these poems, before closing with these words:\u00a0 \u2018He is a child of society\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Haldor Laxness, had already developed philosophical considerations on the term society<\/em>. In his book \u2018\u00cd t\u00faninu heima\u2019, he looked into what might really be meant by this word:<\/p>\n

\u2018Society didn\u2019t even exist when I grew up.\u00a0 Today, we would like to believe that it exists, in order to improve it, despite the fact that its address is unknown and it\u2019s impossible to summon it to a court.\u00a0 A while ago, I asked an intelligent acquaintance, if they knew what type of association society was: the people, the Government, the parliament, or perhaps the sum of these?\u00a0 My friend frowned, then finally answered: \u201cDoesn\u2019t this word rather refer to the police?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Today, subsequent generations know that while society does indeed exist, it cannot be improved.\u00a0 Because what Albert Einstein said holds true:\u00a0 „To be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself“. <\/em>To which Niklas Luhmann added:<\/p>\n

\u201c … What is really misleading about the mental state of members of society is the convergence of their ideas and concepts. We naively think that if most men share the same ideas or feelings, these must be fair.\u00a0 Nothing is further from the truth.\u00a0 Convergence on its own is no guarantee of intelligence or mental health.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Society can be described by the fact that its members have activities that are successful enough to attract attention.\u00a0 As for attention, it can be measured by the mental state as recorded by the daily TV ratings.\u00a0 Over time, we have simply forgotten that communities originally formed in order to find sufficient food, protect themselves from the threat of other species and learn from one another.\u00a0 With the disappearance of these needs, these healthy tissues have become cancerous tumours which we refer to as a society.\u00a0 For example, if we were to compare the relationship between the number of people killed in the name of good, and those killed in the name of evil, we would find this difficult, because of those whom we don\u2019t consider as criminals.<\/p>\n

\"Bjarni_Bernhar\u00f0ur-150x150\"<\/a>The white iron coffee pots of yesteryear have long since disappeared, along with the scribblers.\u00a0\u00a0 Caf\u00e9 Hresso is now always busy and full of young people and tourists who prefer coca-cola or a yellow liquid that has a certain resemblance to beer.<\/p>\n

And the man?\u00a0 He is still there.\u00a0\u00a0 However, now he stands in front of the door, against the wall, next to the \u2019Austurstr\u00e6ti stand.\u00a0 The poet and painter Bjarni Bernhar\u00f0ur still sells his self-published poems (Eg\u00f3\u00fatg\u00e1fan), now available in the form of bound collections, together with a bar code and a ISBN number.<\/p>\n

The kiss of the bat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was living
\nin a dark cavern
\nin my childhood<\/p>\n

When the bat
\nkissed me<\/p>\n

That warm kiss
\nsealed my destiny
\nI took the path
\nof cold nights<\/p>\n

on the boundary
\nbetween light and darkness<\/p>\n

\"Bjarni-3\"<\/a>Bjarni Bernhardur sells his latest collection \u2018Koss Le\u00f0urbl\u00f6kunnar\u2019, with his own illustrations for 2,000 crowns, but he also has English versions of his poems, for tourists. There is no greater proof that in his sixty-fifth year of life, Bjarni\u00a0Bernhar\u00f0ur is still a hopeless optimist.<\/p>\n

Translation: Jackie Dobble<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"de\"<\/a>Ein Kind in der Gesellschaft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"fr\"<\/a>Un enfant dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man with the tattered coat opens his briefcase, taking out a few sheets of paper and walks round the room to offer them to some of the customers seated at the tables.\u00a0 Probably an insurance salesman looking for new customers he can hoodwink into buying his very latest special offer.\u00a0\u00a0 30 years ago, Hresso … A child of society<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[274],"tags":[332,342,344,346,338],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-road","tag-albert-einstein-en","tag-bjarni-bernhardur-en","tag-halldor-laxness-en","tag-niklas-luhmann-en","tag-reykjavik-en"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uOIU-cI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":758,"url":"https:\/\/www.algorithmics.is\/wordpress\/en\/2016\/02\/09\/history-will-take-care-of-the-rest\/","url_meta":{"origin":788,"position":0},"title":"History will take care of the rest","author":"Bj\u00f6rn Eriksson","date":"9. 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