Arts and Thought: a Round-trip Ticket

lecture by
∗
Massimo Schinco

Good evening and welcome to this lecture. First, I want to say

that I’m happy to be here to share at least a part of such a
wonderful initiative like the IP project is. I hope that the time we are
going to spend together today will be useful for you and pleasant as
well. I thank the leaders of the project for inviting me and I thank
you in advance for the attention you’ll give me. Of course, any
questions, any doubts or comments are warmly welcome.

Perhaps you have noticed, reading the summary that my

lecture will aim toward inviting you all to take full advantage of the
experience you are presently living. Let me now explain in a more
detailed way what I mean by that and how I’d like to help you
achieve this result.

An experience like the IP project features all the premises of

being pleasant and multifaceted, thus not boring at all. Just think, a
bunch of young fellows coming from different parts of Europe and
Canada, sharing a deep passion for their arts, many of them visiting
a beautiful country that most likely they have not seen before... a
time not only to work and learn, but also to laugh, chat, make
friends, flirt... is supposed to be a nice time, isn’t it? And we all hope
it will be so!

Well, let’s add something to it, something which is strictly

connected with the very reason that this initiative exists. This
particular “something” has specific characteristics: one of the most
important has to be personally experienced, and cannot be fully
explained in advance. Well, the aim of my lecture is to introduce
you to the discovery of this “something”, triggering a process by
which this “something” shall be revealed to you.


Massimo Schinco is a psychotherapist who lives and works in Italy. He’s the author of several
publications in the field of psychotherapy and creativity and teaches General and
Developmental Psychology in the “G.F. Ghedini” Conservatory of Music (Cuneo, Italy). He also
teaches Systemic Psychotherapy in the Milan Centre of Family Therapy (Milan, Italy) and is a
supervisor in the residential services for children.

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 So, in order to arrive at a place we don’t yet know, let’s
instead take our first steps by focusing on a phenomenon that
everyone experiences every day, in different degrees of intensity,
both passively and actively: I’m talking of prejudice. Everyone has
an intuitive knowledge of what a prejudice is. Let me stay for a
minute on a particular feature of prejudice as the term is meant in
psychology.

For example, let’s take into account the following statement:

"women are emotional, men are rational"

which is a widespread prejudice, though we have tons of

evidence that males can be awfully emotional and females plainly
rational. The same person, no matter if male or female, can be
rational or emotional in keeping with the circumstances, or switch
from one state to the other within a few seconds. Nonetheless,
there is no doubt that males and females deal differently with their
emotions, particularly in the way the latter are integrated in
thought, language and generally in expressive behaviour.

It is clear that, like political propaganda, a prejudice tends to

draw some elements from a whole and complex reality, simplify the
way these elements are connected and unduly exalt the result of
this operation to the state of “universal truth”.

It is necessary to remark that prejudices in themselves are

unavoidable and, to some extent, even useful. Our mind is in the
perennial need of simplifying the vast field of reality in order to
make concrete operations, achieve goals, and explore new
directions. Obviously everything changes whether we are aware, or
not, that we are producing and using prejudices. When we are
aware of that, we can always be able, through dialogue, curiosity
and intelligence, to put into perspective, modify or drop our
prejudices.

Let’s now focus on a pair of prejudices that concern artists –

or, better: the social identity of artists - much more closely. The first
is:

artists, while performing, are mainly executors and are particularly

skilled in raising the emotions of the public

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 This prejudice – reducing the role of artists to that of being
more or less sophisticated entertainers - is deeply-seated in a
superficial knowledge of what artists really do as well as in a
widespread misunderstandings about the nature of intelligence.
There is no doubt that in performing an art, whatever it is - music,
painting, making movies and videos, even writing - one is called to
achieve a high degree of practical, even mechanical abilities. One
must be able to follow instructions and respect a set of rules. One
must be able to come to terms with the materiality of life. Always
there is a sort of “artisan amount” in any artistic performance.
There is no doubt as well that every form of art is connected with
emoting and artists are able to reach effectively the emotional sides
of persons – both one’s own and those of others. But the prejudice
arises when these features, that are elements (important but,
finally, just elements) of the whole artistic identity are mistaken for
the whole and for the finality of the arts. Ultimately, the above
prejudice rests on the following prejudice, which is of a more
general nature:

Thought is, in its nature, separated from other human activities, like
practical or emotional ones.

As usual, the prejudice is based on a part of actual reality. That

is, some human activities (for example, writing a philosophical
essay) request a larger amount of thought than others (for
example, hammering a nail). But what about your fingers? Would
you try to hammer a nail without thinking about what you are
doing? And how could you write a philosophical essay without
mastering the tools like pens, sheets of paper or a word-processor?
Would you like to kiss your beloved one thinking he or she is a frog?
Would you crack a nut thinking it is your best friend? I hope you
don’t. Everyone likes to eat tasty, home-made bread. How much
thought has been necessary in learning to bake a fragrant, crunchy
loaf? Thus, we can’t help but deduce that not only “thought”, but
many kinds of thought are present in all human activities, like
speaking, working, playing a musical instrument, making a video,
studying, building, destroying, loving, hating, emoting and so on. No
matter what we are doing, we are thinking and we “got thought” in
turn, because we are using thought that other people have
“embedded” into this or that action before. No matter what we are
doing, we are applying, and learning through repetition –
appropriately or not – a thinking style, even though in most of the
cases we are absolutely unaware of this. So actually and

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incessantly we get shaped by the thoughts of many other people
around and before us.

Since the way loaves are baked in Cuneo is different from the
way they are made in Riga or Danzig or Lubeck; since everything is
different: the way homes are built, languages spoken, greetings
exchanged, meals prepared and eaten… it’s implied that the
thoughts embedded in all these activities, that we do in first person
and we are surrounded by, is different. Thus we have been and we
are presently thought as being different, we are thinking differently,
we are different one from another much more than we would
suppose by just “scratching the surface” of our relationships,
independent of how pleasant or unpleasant they might be.

Since one of the aims of the IP Project is that, by getting

acquainted with one another, you may be able to get in touch with
one another for real, we would like to invite, and help you, to be
curious and sensitive, not only to cheering similarities, but to
differences as well. We claim that becoming sensitive to difference
won’t lead, as someone might be afraid of, to an increase of conflict
or to a discouraging fragmentation of your group. We expect,
instead, that following the trails of differences, you’ll get in touch
with those deeper and subtle orders of reality where mankind is
really as one, despite different backgrounds, mentalities, cultures
and so on. Without becoming sensitive to differences your road will
stop very soon and the results will be mostly just apparent ones.

Since it is characteristic of artistic thought to be capable of

connecting people, both as individuals and as a community, to
those deep and subtle orders of reality as mentioned above, where
mankind appears to be as one, we are now going to dwell on some
specific features of thought implied in the sharing of artistic
experiences. On the one hand, relying on this kind of thought is of
great help for carrying out a context in which differences may be
identified and acknowledged. On the other hand, always with the
help of this kind of thought, differences may be interwoven in what
– following a great French thinker whose name was Gabriel Marcel -
we can represent it as a more fitting “infra-human” tapestry. Let’s
take them into account.

1. Motion. Artists are sensitive to motion much more than

the majority of people. So we invite you to rely on the effectiveness
of this motion. Let the situation gently change your habitual mind. If

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conflicts arise, inside one’s self or amongst you as a group, just
accept them. Don’t try too hard to resolve them. People can walk
side by side even though they don’t agree or get on well in many
aspects.

2. Tradition. Other than with motion, tradition is the more

“fixed” part of a reality. Don’t be afraid of drawing copiously from
your own traditions; feel free to play with them, like great artists
and composers have always done. Originality, in the arts as well as
in relationships, resides in new patterns that cannot be forced to
emerge purposively beyond a certain extent.

3. Time. The word is one, but times are many. The clock’s
time is just one and it’s necessary to put separate elements
together (for example: you and your plane, if you want to fly; you
and your mates in the orchestra, if you want to play together; you,
your group and the cook, if you want to eat together and respect
the cook’s work). But the intuitive awareness of time or, further,
time as a dimension of being, these are a completely different
kettle of fish. Thus, be punctual in order to respect your
undertakings and the others, but don’t hurry. Get in time with the
pace of your own group.

4. Silence and pauses. Artists give value to silence and

pauses, in order to let new creative patterns emerge. Do the same
in your relationships during this experience.

5. Sincerity. A widespread prejudice claims that artists, to be

genuine and real, can’t help but lose control and be indiscriminately
spontaneous. You know instead that you have studied for years -
and it is going to last - to get in control of your hands, bodies,
minds, tools, instruments and materials so to be able to express
exactly (that is, universally) what you mean in your commitment to
the arts. Let’s do the same in your relationships. Get used to calmly
asking yourselves (and others…) about the effects of your
communication and behaviour. Also, to be in relationship is an art
that takes training.

6. Pain. Though you are here in a merry circumstance, and

certainly you all will do your best to keep a good mood, where

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humanity is there are also pain and suffering. Keep room for
sadness and grief if they come, both your own and those of others,
because they are fine human feelings of which no one should be
ashamed. Imagine that you have a guest room for these feelings.
Perhaps the room won’t receive anyone, maybe it will. Anyway,
keep this room prepared and comfortable if you want to be real
(and let pain go away in its own time).

7. Honesty. If someone hurts you, the first reaction is to

think “he, or she, hurts me”. That’s normal, but try to go beyond it
and put it in a more appropriate perspective which is “I am hurt by
him or her”. If you find someone or something repulsive, don’t say
“It is (or he is or she is) repulsive” but “I am repelled by him, or
her”. Obviously, the opposite is also valid. If something or someone
for you is fantastic, say “I find it (or him or her) fantastic”.

We believe that you’ll get many benefits from the IP Project

experience, both as persons and as artists. My own wish is that,
once you’re back home, you will realize that through this
experience you have become stronger in your personal identity and
more aware of your unique potential. And, in the meantime, that
you will have gotten a strong feeling and a precise awareness of
yourselves as being part of a whole reality that in its genuine nature
is one. May you, in your consideration of yourselves and of other
persons, never separate these two different sides of the same
reality.

Thank you!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Nothing, not even a little lecture like that, stems from a void and
fragmentation. I feel now the need to recall in a special way Francesco
Pennarola of the Cuneo Conservatory who invited me, Gwyn Daniel and Avi
Shlaim in Oxford, Helm Stierlin that I met in Heisenberg with my daughter Sara,
and finally Art Funkhouser (that I thank also for his patient and accurate
editing) with his wife Esther in Bern. Without the enriching conversations and
exchanges with these persons, the pleasure of giving this lecture would have
been much smaller.

REFERENCES

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Nicolson.
Cheah, E. (2009). An Orchestra Beyond Borders: Voices of the West-
Eastern Divan orchestra, London: Verso.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in
Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology,
University Of Chicago Press.
Bergson, H. (1938). La pensée et le mouvant. Presses Universitaires de
France.
Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London: Routledge.
Bohm, D. (1998). On Creativity, Lee Nichol (ed.). London: Routledge.
Bohm, D. (1992). Thought as a System, London: Routledge.
Marcel, G. (1945). Homo viator, Paris: Aubier.
Peat, F. D. (1987). Synchronicity: the Bridge between Matter and Mind,
New York: Bantam Books.
Schinco, M. (2010 – in press). The Composer's Dream - Essays on
Dreams, Creativity and Change, Bowmanville: Malito Press.