Prominent intellectuals prof. Ph.D Čedomir Cupic and prof. Ph.D Djuro Šušnjić will participate in the Market of Philosophers, which has been held at the KotorArt International Festival for more than a decade.
During the two-day program, on August 5 and 6, he will hold lectures on the topics "Culture of memory" and "Identity and change". The program will be held in the Creative Hub in Kotor at 21 p.m.
This program provides an opportunity to remember significant personalities - War Božović i don Branka Sbutege, and their role in shaping the cultural and intellectual landscape of the region, emphasizing the importance of preserving memory as a basis for understanding current and future social changes.
How did you choose the topics for the lectures at Pjaca od filosophe?
In the cosmic order, music belongs to the place of greatest harmony, harmony to perfection. This led us to suggest themes that go with the musical Kotor holidays. It was chosen that on the first evening we will talk about two thinking beings from these Montenegrin areas, whose thought fit in with musical spirituality. There is more Plato believed that everything in earthly orders should be in accordance with the musical scale. It is the optimization of relations, which should be achieved between people. The state, as the most perfect human organization, was imagined by Plato as a musical scale, in which everything functions in a musical way. When disharmony occurs in the musical scale, then the state, that is, human organization, gets into trouble. Ratko Božović and Don Branko Sbutega approached thinking and searching for answers to social phenomena, relationships and problems they dealt with in a musical way. Both of them possessed a philosophical culture, with the help of which they approached cultural and social phenomena and reality. Božović from a scientific and artistic point of view, and Sbutega from a philosophical and theological point of view. Exactly their approaches took place according to Hegel's eggs to the spiritual triad of the movement of ideas throughout history - art, religion, philosophy. Also, their interests extended to two philosophical reductions - science and ideology. These are parallel spiritual worlds, which are not mutually exclusive, but complement each other and develop exactly in the way the musical scale functions. We will try to connect with these topics a broken spiritual picture of the world in which the parts are closed in their own uniqueness and thus lose connection with the whole. It's a look in a broken mirror. Spirit and truth are whole and cannot be reached from narrow scientific and disciplinary divisions and fragmentation. These two thinkers knew this and strove to connect this fragmentation, as much as they could, into meaningful wholes.
On the first evening, you will talk about the character and work of the recently deceased writer, cultural sociologist and university professor Ratko Božović. What are the key messages you want the audience to take away from this lecture?
Both Ratko Božović and Don Branko Sbutega are sumptuous Renaissance personalities, who with their earthly departure diminish and slowly disappear. It is precisely this opulence and richness, both in living, as well as in thought and work, that should be taught to the listeners of the lectures. Through their way of life and what they have created, an appeal should be made that we must not be without such people neither in the present nor in the future. They gave us a threefold gift: first, how a human should live, act and behave; secondly, they are an example of intellectuals in the best sense, where three powers - gifts, knowledge and conscience - are harmoniously combined; thirdly, they lived fully in their time, by not scorning and rejecting the difficult and often painful reality in which there was more inhuman than human, more superficial than essential, more worthless than valuable. Their life and work are a warning that in a civilized life there is no place for intolerance, exclusivity, insincerity, discrimination, prejudice, rudeness, simpleton and fraud. They were looking for answers, but they also showed by personal example how to overcome cruelty, selfishness, insensitivity, striving for success at any cost, naked pragmatism and readiness for various kinds of pranks and manipulations. Also, how to tame bad feelings such as envy, hatred, malice, but also bad states such as fear, apprehension, cunning and panic. All of this can be overcome by good upbringing, quality education and socialization, which are determined by universal values and by cultivating both oneself from the inside and the influence on the external environment. They stood for action and affirmation of our best possibilities. They put a lot of emphasis on two definitions of man - a being of possibility and a moral being. The fulcrum and landmark for the cultivation of personality and the environment in which one lives are universal values: truth, justice, goodness, love, beauty, freedom, human dignity, solidarity and equality. To spread and dominate these values in personal and social life, role models are needed, as examples of how to behave and live by them. In their works, they refer to these role models, but also to exemplaryness. Their important message, like that of the ancient philosophers, is that a person should act, behave and live in moderation. Any exaggeration drags us into challenges and risks that can be problematic and dangerous. When something is not an obligation in the spheres of the spirit, it is easier to read, remember, understand better and opens and enriches the meaning. This non-obligation and unforcedness in reading philosophical books and texts enriched Ratko's opinion, thinking, imagination, associations, which extremely helped him to go deeper and wider into what he was doing. He had a large framework and foundation on which he more fruitfully analyzed and drew syntheses on the topics and problems he investigated. A literary gift with a philosophical culture allowed him to deal exceptionally with phenomena, relationships and problems from the sociology of culture and art, theories of culture, communication and mediology. He approached every topic and problem in a multidisciplinary manner, which enabled him to process them optimally. Ratko dealt with culture and art not only in an ontological and cognitive sense, but also in terms of the consequences they cause for individuals, groups and society as a whole. He particularly singled out the importance of values for the formation of personality and its socialization, as well as for overall social life. Values shape a person's life. They are landmarks and beacons of life. Values illuminate and illuminate human life. Based on them, people can be distinguished and divided. All other differences and divisions are by origin and choice. By origin, they are natural, such as racial, tribal, belonging to the people, and by choice they arise from freedom, that is, free expression. It is precisely the division by universal values that is recommended, because it shows essential properties, for example, that we can divide people into those who serve and live according to the truth, and not according to lies, or into those who are just and those who are unjust, as we can divide into good and bad. All other divisions can be problematic and dangerous. This is how Ratko approached people and treated them. Of course, he never showed exclusivity. If a person had a single bright spot or virtue, but was overwhelmed by flaws, he believed that that virtue should be attacked in order to suppress the flaws.
What are your favorite memories of working with your colleague and friend Ratko Božović?
My memories of Ratko Božović are long. And now that he is no longer physically present, memories pop up on different occasions, daily events, with the problems I face, in friendly conversations about the virtues and flaws of people, in dreams and in various professional and other daily events and challenges. I was lucky enough to make two lifelong friends as a young man. One is Ratko Božović, whose earthly remains are located in the city where the virtues of the Mediterranean, Adriatic and Montenegro gather, where he is guarded from the north by the Montenegrin karst, from the south by the waves and bonaces of the Adriatic, and above by the firmament and cosmic infinity. The other is Đuro Šušnjić, who will sit next to me and who is the only living sage I know. He's a friend, how is that? Aristotel marked, the other me. In our friendship, I was their choice. That's why these friendships bind me more than if I imposed myself. I distinguish a friend from a friend-acquaintance. If a man has one friend, his life has a safe support. Friendship is shown both in good weather and bad weather. If one remains consistent in those times, then the friendship is true and real. Friends-acquaintances are life's spices. They make you feel good and invigorate you, just as spices do for the benefit of the human gastronomic cosmos - the stomach. It's good to have them, but you can do without them if you overdo the seasoning. I also tried to protect these friends-acquaintances, that is, not to tempt them so as not to lose them, but I lost many of them not by my own will, but by their foolishness and inhuman actions. Three times I would forgive the bljots, and the fourth time it would be the end of our acquaintance. Of course, I never regretted everything I did and gave to them, because I did it because I wanted to and could. When I put an end to such a friendship, there is no going back. They no longer exist for me. By decision, I also suppress the memory of them. I don't want to remember an inhuman relationship, because such memories can be dangerous, poisonous and devastating. Ratko was the second strongest. He did not write them off, but he was saddened by the fact of human failures. That was his breadth and attitude towards friendship. A lot of things when it comes to Ratko are related to the attitude towards the professor's vocation. He was an example of a great professor, as I called it - a holy calling. One could learn from him how to maintain that calling in a human way. I have taken as an example only two relationships, friendship and professorship, because space does not allow me to express all my memories of Ratko, which are many.
Prof. Dr. Đuro Šušnjić will also look back on the memory of Don Branko Sbutega. Can you tell us more about the connection between don Branko Sbutega and the culture of memory as the topic of these lectures?
A person's life takes place partly in the patterns of the past and present, with imagining the future. The past lives in us as memory and memory. Memory reminds the present of what happened in the past. Unlike memory, memory is a selective intervention in the past, which builds a meaningful order. With memory we store selected contents of the past, and with memories we actualize conscious and unconscious contents from the past. The way we use the past shows our individual and collective political culture. Memory culture refers to our emotional and cognitive attachment to the past. Our view and interpretation of the past is expressed through this attachment. The culture of memory also directs us to face the past, especially its negative sides, evil deeds and crimes. Lessons and messages are drawn from the culture of memory. They can be ideologically poisoned and dangerous, but also dehumanized, that is, human. Ratko Božović and don Branko Sbutega approached the culture of memory and remembrance in this humanized, human way. Remembering is a double process in which people are made people by what they remember, but also by what others remember about them. This, along with hope and faith, constitutes their identity.
The second night is reserved for a lecture on "Identity and Change". What are the key points you plan to make about the importance of culture and art for the identity of a society?
Identity is what essentially defines us as individuals and members of groups in social and political life. It is a set of essential characteristics of individuals and groups. These characteristics show what an individual or a group is like. Identity is multi-layered. At its foundation are biological properties, on which the properties that belong to man as a cultural being are built. Biological and cultural properties make up the completeness of identity. The primary identity is personal, around which are networked properties that belong to the groups and different collectivities in which a person lives, but also some peculiarities that connect people. By acquiring an identity, an individual becomes a personality from an individual, a biological fact. Personality maturity is expressed through social, moral, emotional, mental and spiritual characteristics. Identity is built through upbringing, education and socialization. Personality identity is shown through consistency, honesty, predictability and physical characteristics. The more developed a person is as a personality, the more developed are his affiliations to collectivities or communities. One of these collective or common identities is cultural identity. Cultural contents are different, from individual to individual, but also from society to society. Cultural content shows the differences between cultures. What is important is that these cultural differences, and differences between people in general, as a wealth of form and content, are mutually respected and accepted. Of course, it is also important that different cultures are measured according to universal values. If this is how culture is approached, then there are no problems between different cultures. If special values are a measure of a culture and are not in accordance with universal values or do not derive from them, then problems can arise, especially when this is manifested through the cultural superiority or dominance of a culture over other cultures. At that moment, suspicions, devaluing, and humiliation are introduced into cultural trends, which can lead to conflicts, even wars. It is the misuse of culture for ideological and political purposes. On the other hand, cultural and artistic contents raise the level of cultivation of people, which is manifested in actions and behaviors. A cultured person does not show any kind of exceptionalism and contempt for others. On the contrary, he should have more understanding, tolerance, respect for others and others. A cultured man does not despise even problematic reality, but works to change it, so that it becomes reasonable and cultured.
How culture, in the broadest sense, shapes our identity and why it is important to understand this process?
Culture in the broadest sense includes everything that man as a cultural being creates and in that creation realizes and shows himself in a better way. Culture is man's second nature, the nature that separates him from biology and humanizes him. Personality is the product of this other human nature - man as a cultural being. The culture of a society consists of its spiritual layer, in which thoughts, ideas, beliefs, convictions and values are located, and the material layer in the form of objects, symbols and technology. It is the spiritual layer, as the content and essence of culture, that is realized in the material layer. Any technical or technological means is preceded by the idea of its realization. In this sense, culture significantly affects the formation of identity. That is why it is important what are the ideas and values with the help of which identity is built. If ideas are based on universal values, identities will be highly cultivated and will not cause any misunderstandings and conflicts between people. For these reasons, it is important to understand the importance, role and significance of culture for the formation of identity.
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