My family

I have a plastic concept of family. In my case, blood relations are not a main thing to say that someone is part of my family or not. I have a mother, a grandmother, and many aunts: I grew up in a femenine world. Parents are absent in my family, but I was raised with a cousin that is like my brother. I don’t have a regular family, and I don’t think that “regular families” exist, in anycase. In my concept, family is a large concept, also made up by close friends and non-human animals, because it isn’t strictly a matter of blood, but one of love.

In my family, values like community and dialogue are important. For example, there are some Pinochet’s supporters in my family, but with all the discussions that we’ve had, that support is lower every time, because in my family dialogue is more important than personal convictions. These values are expressed in some rituals that we have as a family: every night, we have dinner, and smartphones are not used by anyone!

However, discussion about a “concept” of family is pointless, because when we define concepts, what we do is cristalize things in the world, and things like family are characterised precisely for its plasticity. This discussion is important in a juridical sense, but in daily life family is simply our relationships with others.

As I’ve said, family is a kind of relationship with others, and we can include many kinds of relationships in this, like friendship. Friends are important for us, and they can be “like” family, but in most cases we don’t live every day with friends. In this aspect, family has an important carachteristic: persons live toghether. Persons who live toghether (non-blood family too) make a special kind of link, that can be called family, because they know people in an intimate way.

In our society, concept of family is very large, and that produces more tolerance. If I were to have a family in the future, I hope that it is a continuation of family that I currently have, including my cats!

Ch-ch-changes.

A change is a kind of movement, from a point to another. We want change something to move us from a point to another, because the first point doesn’t give us satisfaction. Live in the world implies some nonconformity with how the world is, and imagine some changes is a way to express that nonconformity.

                Changes are not necessarily big. We can imagine an utopia, but also we can conceive some little changes in order to make a better world. I want to imagine three changes in our society that can the world a better place:

1. Say hi. In Chile, the neoliberal impact is brutal. Individualism is a life style and consumism is a kind of religion. Basic aspects in neoliberal life are a competition and relations with others are a rarity. This aspect is expressed in minimal details, like people in streets, public transport, elevators, or meetings, almost never say a simple “hi”. This word can change the day of someone.

2. To listen more. The relation with others begins with empathy, and empathy must be worked. Listen is a minimal consideration with others, because is a process in which we know other people and we let our private bubble to understand the life of the others. Listen is a time of silence that we give to others, a little gift that makes a better world.

3. Political participation. Individualism is the way in which society is damaged, based on false belief that we are lonely persons in a cruel world. In order to counter that expression of individualism, political participation is a way of asking ourselves for our collective kind of life. I think that political participation could be the base of a real bigger change in our society.

                In any case, changes always start with little gestures, that turn into a bigger change. We can see any change as a result, but the most important is the movement between.

My future job.

It’s difficult talk about future. We can make some plans and design a way to develop them, but life always take his own decisions. Anyways, I really want to follow an academic career. From my early universitarian life, I’ve worked in research and teaching. I studied laws, I’m a lawyer, but my real interest is political theory. Law school gave me an institutional and juridical close up to political problems, and that allowed me have a more diverse perspective in my analysis. However, I don’t want to work like lawyer (never. It’s so boooring). I want dedicate my academic carrer to philosophy, because my perspective to all theorical problems is in a reflexive and critical way.

                I chose philosophy not only like a perspective for life, but a job. All my efforts have been for construct an academic carrer with philosophy, and so make of philosophy and political theory my lifestyle. Currently, I’m doing a PhD in Philosophy, because it’s a really good place for deep researching and productive reflection. Also, I’m doing a PhD because a doctorate is the actual standard for work in universities like a researcher.

                My actual investigation is about politics and cinema: in a philosophical way, I’m doing a genealogy of the word “gestus”, like a kind of action that haven’t purpose or end, nor beggining or origin. That kind of action is especifically important for cinema, and (this is my thesis) is really important for political action too.

                I want to go to another countries to deepen my studies, like USA or Belgium. In a future, I imagine me like professor in an university and, why not, like film critic in some reviews!

Politics - Nicolás Ried, an interview about politics

How important are politics in every day?

Nicolás Ried: From my perspective, all is political. I mean, each thing what we do, act or perform, in relation to others is a way for construct the political, our polis, in a specifical sense. I think that politics is the way how we have a relation with any other person, not only the day when we go to vote for a candiate (or not). Anyways, I think that one can do things in the world of two ways: focused in constructing a relation with others, a relation with the community; or, we can be individuals that care about itself. Of course, all of us are communitarians or individualist sometimes, but we can think all our actions from this relation. Politics are important, in the sense in which we have to decide construct a community with others or not.

Do you vote? Do you believe people must vote?

NR: Yes, I vote. I believe hardly in a participative community, without this aspect of democracy we have no one. In Chile, ten years ago, participation in elections was obligatory for registered people. Then, much young people didn’t  sign up to vote, because they didn’t believe in anything. For change that mind, was implemented a system in which all are signed up to vote, but the act of voting is voluntary. This new system have provoked a massive abstention from voting, and it results in a real problem for our democracy, because representants are not elected by a real majority of people. I’m a supporter of a stalinist way in this point: obligatory inscription to vote, and obligatory duty to vote. And if we go beyond, I am really supporter of eliminate votation and select our representants in an aleatory way… But that is for another question.

How informed are people before voting?

NR: People are not very informed before voting (me too). I think that our actual political system has a trap: they say that we have to vote informed, but government programms are really big and they don’t say anything relevant! So, there isn’t a way to know the way of government of a coallition for beforehand. What we can know? Grandilocuent principles. Politics are very spectacular nowadays, in the sense in which we only can know slogans from candidates: “I’m Catholic”, “I’m from left”, “I’m pinochetist”, “I hate Pinochet”, “I will do the same of my predecessors”. In this scenario, people must to ally with candidates whose ideals are shared or similar. It results in a distance between voters and representants, distance that deals damage to our democratic principles.

What kind of change do you think could bring the most positive results to a country?

NR: It’s difficult to think in just one change for a country. Actually, I think that the question for “just one change” is a conservative trap, because in politics we don’t need to choose one way to progress. Anyways, we can think in Chile and indentify one real problem. I think that the biggest problem in Chile is a thing that I said before: Chile was defeated by a neoliberal individualism, breaking all sense of community. It’s utopical, in a way, but I think that is the nuclear problem in Chile is the neoliberal logic in all dimensions of our life, from education and health, to how we act with our neighbours and if we say “Hi” on an elevator. It’s a cultural thing, but if I could change just one aspect of Chile, it will be.

Free theme - My hobbie, Magic: The Gathering

On of my first hobbies are the card board games. Since I was child, I’ve played card board games of every type: from Pokemon cards to Lucha libre cards, from local card games and póker. But, among all the card board games, one of them is the most important in the recent history: Magic, The Gathering.

I play Magic with my very best Friends, as a ritual: every week we reunite for talk about strategies and test our decks, in a festive and fraternal context. We are Magic players since we were children, and we’ve follow the game for almost 20 years! So, a central question is: why this card board game is so attractive for us?

Magic:The Gathering was released in 1993, created by a PhD in maths student, Richard Garfield. The game represent a battle between wizards. Each of them had a library with sorceries and spells, that allows invoque creatures. Each three months, Magic realeases an expansion of the game that represents the journey of the wizards for the magic planes, printing almost one thousand new cards in one year!

The principal chatarteristic that I love of Magic is the art. Magic is characterised for it illustration, with profesional artists and designers whom create visual masterpieces that make game a very attractive objetc. Indeed, colecctionism is an important activity for Magic players.

This game has most of 20 million of players around the World, with championships that rewards more of 20.000 US, and with profesional players that live playing Magic. Magic cards are translated to 20 languages, and all the important cities in the world have a big store for play Magic. For example, Tokyo has Hareruya, a Magic store for 500 players!  In Chile, stores are not too big, but are very active.

In Chile, there is an active community of Magic players. One can find tournaments every day, national and regional championships every month, and, since two years ago, Santiago receives players from all the world to play the Grand Prix of Santiago every year. Magic circuit is very competitive in Santiago, but I’ve clasified for the 2018 Grand Prix, and I hope to reach a good position in it. Meanwhile, I’m practicing with my friends and some bottles of wine, for testing my phisycal resistance as a wizard.

The best concert I've attended: Björk

One of the first aesthetic experiences that forged my taste have been Björk’s music. I knew her music in the 90’s, thanks to my brother, when she published her album Post in 1995. Björk is an icelandic musician (Iceland is a carachterised for have a 70% of musician population!), pioneer in multiple forms of artisctic productions: in her begginings, she plays punk music, leadering a band called Sugarcubes; then, she was influenced by hip-hop, techno, and trip-hop, making a rare mix between that styles; in the 90’s, she made some pop and funny music, but also some deep and dark songs that made of her music something undescriptible; in recent years, she has made some artistic interventions in importante places, like the Royal Academy of Arts in London or the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

                I really fall in love with Björk in a film directed by Lars von Trier, that Björk starred: Dancer in the dark. For that film, Björk won the Cannes award for best actress and was internationally recognized as a complete artist.

                Was 2007 when Björk came to Chile for first time. I was 17 years old, and I had no money for tickets. But occurred me a fan’s miracle: the girl I was dating, was a real fan of Björk too, and she was working in a radio station. The radio made a contest and she fixed the results (laughs)!  The concert was in a really cold stadium, San Carlos de Apoquindo, but nothing could ruin our violent happiness.

A country I’d like to visit: Japan

A kind of knowledge that I give much value is to visit places of the World. Travelling means discover a new culture, a new language, and a new World! That’s because I want go to a place where people, cosmovision, and practices are very different to mine.

              Through novels, films, and comics (that they call manga) I’ve knew some of the japanese culture. They really appreciate the formalities, rituals, and solemnity in every aspect of their daily life, respecting to elders and traditions, at a level that is unintelligeble for us. It doesn’t mean that I want to follow their culture, but to know how these practices work in a society. I think, for example, political manifestation or atypical forms of life in Japan are unthinkable, and is interesting to me understand why this is just like that.

              Japan is for me a mysterious place. For one hand, is one of the principal culture industry (with their cinema, visual arte, aesthethic, music, manga, and anime), characterised for the rare and incomprehensible; and, for the other hand, is a place that exercise the discipline, the formality, and the solemnity own of an old world.

                I want go to Japan for a life experience and, obviosuly, for the food! Did you know that Japan is the place with more awarded restaurants for square meter?