Art and Identity
Soma : The Pill Against the Whistle and Laughter of Culture
Manuel Cuesta Morúa Historian and Political Scientist Arco Progresista Party ’ s Spokesperson Platform New Country ’ s National Coordinator Member of Citizens for Racial Integration Committee ( CIR ) Havana , Cuba
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et ' s remember . In one of the best accomplished anti-utopias attempting to describe the human emptiness in every project for building a perfect society — Brave New World ( 1931 ), by Aldous Huxley — one of his characters introduces us into the soma . What ’ s soma ? It ’ s a pill that combines all the advantages of both Christianity and alcohol , without going through any of their drawbacks . I must make it crystal clear that my mention of Christianity will not imply any value judgment herein . On the planet Ford , inhabited by scientifically tailored human beings , it is enough to ingest soma to achieve that blissful state of well-being and perfection , in which everyone is happy and life goes by with programmed pace and normality . If Christianity — by exercising its greatest virtue — condemns the orgies to which alcohol can lead , soma preventively takes effect to exculpate the consequences of drunkenness through the purifying work by Christianity , previously tasked to empty sex of all its erotic charge and to endow it with a public function : the necessary release of social stress . So , do not worry : we are sinning without sinning . Soma ’ s prodigious effect . But we learn that the perfect society of Brave New World may not be so conclusive . On planet Ford , a singular and corrosive character impertinently parades : The Savage , who reminds us that there are human marriages , sex for pleasure , and some mysterious nooks and crannies where mankind moves away from utopias due to that stubborn perseverance of human nature beyond the human planning . And even if they keep on being given to us , life becomes life by constantly betraying the utopias . Well then . It has been a long time since the cultural discourse by the powers that be in Cuba was assigned the soma ’ s function to sublimate the contradictions in social life , which began to surface with the revenge of cultures , in all their diversity , about the discourse on Culture ( like that , in capital letter ). Let ' s say that our soma was rounded up by the ideological laboratory in the late 80 ' s and early 90 ' s against both the unstoppable return of tradition through religious life and aesthetics , and the breakthrough of modernity with the advent , for example , of Arte Calle ( Street Art ) and young heterodox thinkers gathered in something that was called Grupo Paidea . Let ’ s recall also that there was a time when the discourse on culture did not need to cross-dress as a pill , like soma . Quite the opposite . That was a time dominated by the socialist real constructivism and narcotics were not necessary ; the utopian alienation was lived with youthful arrogance , to produce everything again , and the only
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