No. 40 - Formative cultures of the edge

As the past century has unequivocally shown (and the current one seems to have dramatically inherited), exile constitutes one of the prevailing forms of dispossession of individual rights. In the tragic nature of this condition of estrangement, it is precisely the 20th century - between apocalyptic disasters and periods of great cultural turmoil - that provides us with a highly significant educational panorama, which, somewhat paradoxically, seems to rest precisely on the rubble of that despoliation, thus giving rise to a significant duality. 

The dual position of tragicity/generativity has made intellectual exile formatively relevant, even in its indirect manifestations, such as the individual's desire not to belong to any institution, in the pursuit of the opposition between insider and outsider.

For the experiences detected in every scientific and cultural sphere, referring to personalities who, despite having chosen silent 'marginality', have provided a contribution, often crucial, to substantial heuristic changes, it is possible to speak of a forced or voluntary estrangement, of an escape devoted to necessity or guaranteed by significant economic means and international cultural recognition. And yet, often and in not a few situations, it is necessary to highlight not only the autonomous transitivity of such a choice, but the decisive importance of paradigm and style shifts.

 

A more careful reflection on these figures suggests defining how much and in what way this "intellectual exile" - whether in its form of forced removal or in the voluntary choice to remain on the margins of cultural and educational institutions - has influenced and, more often than not, enriched and upset the cultural representation of the intellectual, between denied commitment and refusal of any nicodemism or "voluntary servitude".

In this broad perspective, it is not only a physical exile but also a 'mental' one; not only 'forced' but also shaped by the ability of these multiform intelligences to be able to adapt to a new environment and to influence it, sometimes 'inventing' new cultural realities and new educational experiences.

Although it may seem contradictory, it is possible to argue that an intellectual exile is highly active in terms of creativity and generativity. This attitude has crossed all forms of human manifestation, in the most unimaginable situations of difficulty: from literature to music, from philosophy to pedagogy up to psychoanalysis and the natural sciences.

 

But how, then, can we say - in its formative, educational and pedagogical dimension - the importance and permanence of this enormous cultural heritage?

Firstly, by starting from the language (through the experience of a real 'uprooting') and, secondly, from the intellectual obstinacy of some exemplars of this extraordinary collective representation to want to follow secondary paths little travelled by the official culture.

The gap experienced by those who work in the scientific and cultural spheres between an inside and an outside of institutional dynamics, between the possibility, that is, of playing a plurivocal role through the respectful executability (and exigibility) of the procedural apparatus and the critical disposition to the imponderable transvaluation of one's own time, elicits certain questions that underlie this proposal. What, in fact, does this stubborn temptation to remain on the formative edge of the institution involve? What change, individual and collective, occurs through the persistent opposition to the institutional obstinacy of wanting to reduce all 'knowledge' to its own discursive rules?

 

Keywords: intellectual exile; generative tragicity; insider/outsider; cultural marginality.

 

Publication: beginning of December 2024
Submissions deadline: June 10th 2024
Journal approval: within July 10th 2024
First peer review’s outcome: within September 20th 2024