2024年5月24日 星期五

Alain de Botton (2) : The School of Life; Art Is Therapy review; 陳玉慧觀點:我們需要好新聞



The emotionally intelligent person knows that love is a skill, not a feeling, and will require trust, vulnerability, generosity, humor, sexual understanding, and selective resignation. 

The emotionally intelligent person awards themselves the time to determine what gives their working life meaning and has the confidence and tenacity to try to find an accommodation between their inner priorities and the demands of the world.

 The emotionally intelligent person knows how to hope and be grateful, while remaining steadfast before the essentially tragic structure of existence. 

The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm.

 There are few catastrophes, in our own lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance. ~Alain de Botton

(Book: The School of Life https://amzn.to/4dPggOz)

(Art: Photograph of Paul Newman and wife Joanne Woodward)


The School of Life 人才招募
The School of Life 總部位於英國倫敦,由英國作家艾倫.狄波頓 (Alain de Botton) 於2009年創立,透過文化和人文學科,探討關於工作、愛情、自我的生活課題。2017年The School of Life於台北開幕。

目前台北辦公室正熱烈招募以下職缺。有興趣加入The School of Life Taipei 師資或團隊成員,請聯繫 taipei@theschooloflife.com

師資 Faculty
www.theschooloflife.com/taipei/company/faculty-recruitment/

事業發展暨行銷經理
Business Development & Marketing Manager
www.theschooloflife.com/taipei/company/recruiting/


Alain de Botton : The News: A User’s Manual ; 幸福建築...

陳玉慧觀點:我們需要好新聞

陳玉慧 2014年05月08日 10:47 

陳玉慧觀點:我們需要好新聞
在無冕王已死的年代,人人都是記者,正因此我們更需要好新聞。(取自網路)
狄波頓(Alain de Botton)又寫了一本我想寫的書,他每次都這樣。因為,他是大才子,我不是。但狄波頓從來沒做過特派員,他好整以暇可以仔細以他哲學家般的巧思來評論 現今的新聞環境,而我的的確確擔任過特派員,真槍實彈,幾乎每天都在與新聞為伍。我一直身處新聞現場。可以乘機說說我的讀後感嗎?狄波頓先生?

曾經擔任廿年歐洲特派員,我經歷太多這樣的日子,每天起床,早餐後,喝起咖啡或茶,一邊讀報紙或溜覽新聞網頁,然後思索:什麼新聞值得我寫?

或者,什麼新聞值得台灣讀者閱讀?

狄波頓要說的是,新聞已經是宗教。每天的晨間新聞是晨禱,午間新聞是午禱,而晚間新聞又是晚禱,在歐洲,收視率最高的是晚上十一點的電視新聞,因為很多人看過後便可以去睡覺。

對一個特派員而言,什麼新聞值得讀者閱讀,這個決定權不一定完全在我手上,因為報社每天都在同樣的時間裡,開著大小不同的編採會議,有時會議中已經 決定什麼歐洲新聞必登不可,又或者是,什麼台灣新聞過於重要,歐洲新聞根本不會有版面,揙採會議決定了歐洲新聞的篇幅,會後同事會同步告知我。

如果不告知我的話,而那天又剛好有點版面的話,是的,那麼我大可書寫一些我認為值得閱讀的新聞。但問題就在這裡,什麼是那樣的新聞?我得發廿年的時間才知道,不是什麼新聞值得台灣讀者知悉,而是什麼角度和什麼寫法的新聞,才值得台灣讀者閱讀。

狄波頓這一本「新聞的騷動」(The News:A User's Manuel)便是在闡揚及描繪他的「新聞文藝復興」理論,他的書大大安慰了多年擔任駐外特派員的我。現在我才知道,那些年,我無能發揮我那歐陸的黑色幽 默,可能並不是我的問題。因為,台灣正如大部份的西方媒體,新聞寫法沿襲了那一板一眼的制式新聞規定:五個W(who where when what why),而且,許多記者連五個W都做不到。另外,台灣讀者(包括媒體編輯)對歐洲的欠缺了解,往往是很多新聞的盲點。而台灣媒體勢單力薄,如何與大通訊 社競敵?說穿了,我們無法競爭,只能延續和伸論,或者,在好一點的情況,過濾和篩選,但前題是,寫稿的人也得對歐陸政治社會文化有足夠的熟悉和理解。

讓我舉個例子吧,這譬如說,身為歐洲特派員,我報導了無數次的德國女總理梅克爾,她參加選戰,她在國會發言,她接受訪問,這種種的新聞,甚至包括她 宣佈那違背她所屬右派的決定,也是一個順從民意的好決定:2022年德國全面廢核;但這些新聞都不如我注意到的一件事:無論她在哪裡,聆聽別人時,她的雙 手手指總是會做出一個心型圖案,梅克爾,妳怎麼了?妳的雙手手指被瞬間膠黏住了嗎?其實,這件事說明了梅克爾為了營造自己有多麼努力.....畢竟,在德 國那樣的父權社會,她已經是全球最有權勢的女人。



我曾經和梅克爾面對面,我詢問她問題時,她便有這樣的手勢,我也曾看過幾十張別人拍攝她的心型手勢相片,我便曾經想寫一篇這樣的報導,卻一直沒寫。 是造型和心理專家聯合建議她做出這樣的手勢,女性、委婉但堅定,我被那選舉選舉選舉記者會記者會記者會分心了,因為我也會擔心我漏新聞。而在台灣媒體,漏 發新聞便是記者的大罪。

好吧,我說遠了。我本來只是想禮讚狄波頓這本「新聞的騷動」。在此無冕王已死的時代,人人都是新聞記者,可以隨時在任何網路社群發佈訊息,垃圾新聞 因此滿天飛,讀者其實更無知了,人心其實更惶惶了,消息其實更泛濫了,但我們需要這麼悲觀嗎?狄波頓無非要告訴我們,我們不必這麼悲觀,我們需要新聞,但我們需要更好的新聞,不是人人都可以寫新聞,是極少數有文化有知識又有使命感甚至幽默感的人才能寫好新聞,而這本書告訴我們怎麼寫好新聞,也充份說明了書寫及閱讀好新聞的必要性。

編者按:

艾倫.狄波頓被喻為英倫才子作家,在台出版作品有《哲學的慰藉》。《新聞的騷動》(先覺出版社,5月19日上市)是他最新力作,深刻觀察六大新聞類 型:政治、國際、經濟、名人、災難、消費,並將哲學與新聞連結,以絕妙觀點顛覆一般人對新聞的認知。本文係作者為新書所做的序言。 

*作者為知名作家,曾任聯合報駐歐特派員

全文網址: 陳玉慧觀點:我們需要好新聞 -風傳媒 http://www.stormmediagroup.com/opencms

Art Is Therapy review – de Botton as doorstepping self-help evangelist

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Alain de Botton has filled the Rijksmuseum with giant yellow Post-it notes that spell out his smarmy and banal ideas of self-improvement – but leaves us no room to look at the art

Alain de Botton's exclusive video guide to Art is Therapy
Alain de Botton at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
No eye, and no ear for language … the writer Alain de Botton at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photograph: Vincent Mentzel
A flashing neon sign hangs over the grand entrance to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Art Is Therapy, it reads, mirroring the cover of Alain de Botton's recent book Art as Therapy, written with the philosopher and art historian John Armstrong.
  1. Alain de Botton and John Armstrong
  2. Art Is Therapy
  3. Rijksmuseum,
  4. Amsterdam
  1. Until 7 September
  2. Details:
    +31 20 6747 000
  3. Venue website
The Rijksmuseum reopened last year after major reorganisation and restoration, to almost universal acclaim. It had more than 3 million visitors in 2013. They thought they had a museum; what they have is a crammed-to-the-gills tourist attraction. It's the Tate Modern effect.
Perhaps troubled that 3 million visitors was not quite enough, Rijksmuseum director Wim Pijbes invited De Botton and Armstrong to make an "intervention". The authors have filled the place with loud, intrusive labels – giant Post-it notes that often dwarf the exhibits – along with a number of thematic displays.
Art Is Therapy, De Botton, Armstrong, Rijksmuseum No escape … one of the philosophers' labels at the Rijksmuseum. Photograph: Olivier Middendorp You can't avoid the crowds, and there is no escape from the labels: in the entrance hall, on the stairs, in the grand salons that connect the galleries, as well as beside and beneath the exhibits. People are spending longer reading the damn things than looking at the art.
"You suffer from fragility, guilt, a split personality, self disgust," reads a note next to Jan Steen's 1660s genre painting The Feast of Saint Nicholas. "You are probably a bit like this picture," the label goes on. "There are sides of you that are a little debauched." The labels tell us what's wrong with us, and how the artworks and artefacts they accompany can cure our ills.
In front of Rembrandt's Night Watch, the crowning glory of the collection, another big yellow label tells us what it believes we are thinking: "I can't bear busy places – I wish this room were emptier." De Botton sees the Night Watch as an image of communality, which I suppose it is. There's not much fellow-feeling in the audience around it, and I guess that's the point, too.
De Botton, Armstrong, exhibition label One of the exhibition's yellow labels … Photograph: Olivier Middendorp Next to Vermeer's Woman Reading a Letter and his quiet Delft street scene, beside teapots and Chinese gods, alongside an Yves Saint Laurent dress and a Rietveld chair, the labels proliferate. De Botton is trying to mend what he sees as a disconnection between art and life, between past and present. This is an unexceptional ambition. Artists and designers do it all the time. Why do we need De Botton? In a display of 19thcentury daguerrotypes, under the curatorial theme of memory, we are told we are in "one of the saddest rooms in the museum. You might want to cry." Why? All the people in the pictures are dead. They generally are in photographs this old.
Banality and bathos are the stock-in-trade here. De Botton's curatorial rubrics – as well as memory, there's fortune, money, politics and sex – are anodyne, his insights and descriptions shallow and obvious. De Botton insists that art can tell us how to live: "It should heal us: it isn't an intellectual exercise, an abstract aesthetic arena or a distraction for a Sunday afternoon." His petulant tone is wearing. I also dislike the self-improvement shtick. In front of an athletic bit of statuary, a label inquires why, if we can accept going to the gym to improve our bodies, we don't visit the museum "to work on our character".
De Botton, Armstrong, Rijksmuseum Banality and bathos are the stock-in-trade … Photograph: Olivier Middendorp De Botton is like one of those "Jesus is your best mate" Christians, giving us not one but 150 thoughts for the day, on the ubiquitous labels, audioguide and downloadable app. He wants museums to become temples of virtue, places of instruction that go far beyond their usual remit of caring for and displaying centuries of culture. He'd probably also like to replace burgeoning museum education departments with outposts of his School of Life, a sort of drop-in self-help centre which, just this week, opened a branch in Amsterdam.
De Botton thinks we've got art all wrong. He doesn't like the way museums are organised and finds the usual little wall labels, with their dates and movements and snippets of art history, unhelpful. Ideally, he envisages museums reorganised according to therapeutic functions – with a basement of suffering, leading upwards to a gallery of self-knowledge on the top floor. It's like Dante's circles of hell.
De Botton's evangelising and his huckster's sincerity make him the least congenial gallery guide imaginable. He has no eye, and no ear for language. With their smarmy sermons and symptomology of human failings, their aphorisms about art leading us to better parts of ourselves, De Botton's texts feel like being doorstepped. But art contains concentrated doses of the virtues! You could coerce any art at all into his cause of mental hygiene and spiritual wellbeing. De Botton reduces art to its discernible content. He doesn't make us want to look at all.
Until 7 September. Details: +31 20 674 7000. Venue: Rijksmuseum.

沒有留言:

網誌存檔