The CEU Institute of American Studies of CEFAS celebrates its first event with the seminar “The (in)culture in Western societies of the 21st century and its influence on Latin America”.

The event, held in the auditorium of the Colegio Mayor Universitario de San Pablo, began with a speech by the historian and member of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain, Emilio de Diego, who began his speech by stating that “culture is everything that human beings are capable of doing”. In this sense, de Diego said that lack of culture “leads us to the loss of our human identity, to subjugation, to marginalization and to the reduction of our capacity to think and reason”. With respect to the cultural situation of Latin America, the historian said that “Latin America has a greater problem of lack of culture than the Western European world”.

Next, Jorge Vilches, professor of History of Thought and Social and Political Movements, spoke about the culture of cancellation and how this affects culture in general, especially language. In the face of this, he stated that “the cultural struggle is the struggle of our time” and warned that progressivism could lead us to the cultural destruction of the West.

The capacity of wonder

The director of CEU-CEFAS, Elio Gallego, began his speech by referring to the words of Professor de Diego in relation to culture as mediation between man and nature in the face of the loss of our society’s capacity for wonder. In this sense, Gallego raised the need to “recover the naive and amazed look at the world”, something that, according to the director of CEU-CEFAS, can be achieved through philosophy: a central element that nourishes and sustains the arts.

At the same time, the assistant professor of Philosophy of Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, José María Carabante, said that “culture is the only framework where human life can develop and the dimension where man can be aware of himself. In addition, Carabante pointed out the contemporary diseases of culture: individualism, relativism and utilitarianism; and against this he proposed rethinking the idea of community, rejecting relativism in favor of a pluralism that recognizes the unity of human nature, and vindicating social and superfluous values in the face of utilitarianism.

The usefulness of the useless

The second part of the seminar began with the intervention of the director of the CEU Institute of American Studies, Consuelo Martínez-Sicluna, who addressed the usefulness of knowledge considered useless and highlighted fortitude, honor and duty as virtues that should be taught in schools, but which have disappeared in today’s culture. In this sense, he pointed out that the best of knowledge is being denied: “knowledge” and assured that currently “there is nothing better than a sleeping citizen who is not aware of his identity” to be able to control society.

Finally, the current situation of young university students was discussed. José de la Puente, PhD in History and former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of the Catholic University of Peru, addressed the many challenges facing university education, stressing the importance of educational quality, ethics, values and the integral formation of students. Gonzalo Sanz-Magallón, head of the Economics Department of the CEU San Pablo University, also insisted on the need to strengthen the historical knowledge that young people lack, according to the poor results obtained in a recent report on the historical and cultural level of university students.