Umberto Eco sorprenderá a muchos intelectuales y “defensores de la cultura” que lean su reciente artículo en el International Herald Tribune, Temples for the tourists, al proporcionar argumentos en defensa de las reconstrucciones de monumentos históricos con fines turísticos:
… someone is going to build, at a price of well over a billion dollars, an archaeological park called Megale Hellas, complete with a fake but wholly intact temple made of concrete clad in travertine marble, at Albanella, a small Italian township 10 miles from the temples at the ancient Greek colony of Paestum and 40 miles from the temple at Velia.
Those who object to this idea point out that there is a genuine temple dedicated to Demeter dating from the fourth or fifth century B.C only a few miles away.
Supporters of the scheme imagine an influx of tourists greater than that drawn by the real temples - all slightly ruined, to tell the truth. They must be thinking of the reconstruction of the city of Venice in Las Vegas or of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, and maybe even the various Disneylands. The cultural value of these tourist attractions is open to criticism, but no one can say that they don't bring in people (and cash).
Eco se manifiesta totalmente partidario de estas reconstrucciones por su utilidad para evitar, traduciendo libremente sus palabras, que las hordas de turistas escasamente civilizados y respetuosos con el patrimonio acaben degradando irremediablamente los originales. Ya pasaron los tiempos del turismo restrigido a las clases aristocrática y burguesa, suficientemente escasas y cultas como para ser capaces de destrozar a su paso el patrimonio:
I understand the reactions of those scandalized by the idea, and I'm sorry to add to their dismay by stating that we should all be very much in favor of such enterprises. These schemes are a good way to safeguard Italy's artistic heritage.
There was a time when important historical and cultural sites were visited only by aristocratic travelers making the Grand Tour or exploring Italy. Those people thought it was just fine that the churches and palazzi were falling to bits, or that great paintings lay abandoned in damp sacristies.
Then came "bourgeois" tourism, which was still an elite affair but involved hundreds of thousands of cultivated and sensitive travelers. In order to satisfy their requirements both locations and artworks were restored, and this new form of tourism brought economic benefits to many towns and cities.
With the advent of mass tourism, some important sites increased their income, but at the cost of ugliness and vandalism. They became dumps for discarded soda cans and plastic bags, and were marred by ranks of stalls selling fake artifacts to souvenir hunters. Ancient, labyrinthine streets were made intolerable by noisy, sweaty crowds. As for the works of art, the very breath of the millions of tourists damages them. The feet of certain statues of saints have been worn smooth by the constant handling of the faithful, and not even the Pyramids can withstand the daily shuffling of visiting feet much longer.
What are we to do? Deny the masses access to art, thus flying in the face of all democratic ideals? Discourage visitors - as already happens with Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in Milan, to which limited numbers are admitted?
Eco niega que su postura deba ser calificada como clasismo; por el contrario la fundamenta en la libertad de elección para el “nuevo proletariado” cultural:
Don't tell me that my proposal is "class-driven" in the sense that it would represent an attempt to separate the troglodytes from people with refined artistic sensibilities. True, it might, but each person would decide to which category he or she belongs by choice and not by social decree. Similar choices are made by millions of people - including those who consider themselves aesthetes and connoisseurs - when they tune in to trash TV shows.
Come to think of it, unlike the proletariat of Marxian memory, the new proletarians of art wouldn't even know they were such and would feel fortunate to have visited the shiniest, newest temple of them all.
Seguramente, las ideas de Eco sorprenderán e indignarán a muchos. Pero, al menos, tiene la virtud de defender una postura que será poco popular tanto entre este “nuevo proletariado”, al que menosprecia en cuanto a su capacidad de disfrutar con la “verdadera cultura”, como entre la “aristocracia intelectual”, siempre crítica con las reconstrucciones turísticas.
Esta aristocracia recuerda mucho a la nueva “aristocracia urbanística” (ambas situadas en su inmensa mayoría en la clase media acomodada), aquella que denuncia los excesos urbanísticos y la excesiva ocupación del territorio al tiempo que ridiculiza los modelos de tursimo de masas (llámense Benidorm o Costa del Sol). Son estos mismos los que elijen destinos turísticos “de calidad” (y generalmente de baja densidad y por tanto extensivos en la ocupación del territorio), que no podrían permitirse la inmensa mayoría del “proletariado turístico” que “debe disfrutar” con los Benidorms que se pueden pagar con sus limitados recursos.
Para todos ellos serán intersantes las fotografías que acompañan este post, que muestran el templo supremo de la reconstrucción: Las Vegas. Las fotografías son de Guillermo Lago (del que ya hemos comentado antes su trabajo) y nos permiten conocer los hitos universales que se concentran en el desierto de Nevada, como el Hotel Casino Venetian, con la reconstrucción del Gran Canal en Las Vegas, o retazos de New York, el interior de la pirámide del Luxor o Paris, entre otros. Por supuesto todos ellos son simulaciones, tal como las definió Baudrillard, pero que permiten disfrutar a multitudes de personas (poco preocupadas por la alienación a la que están sometidas en opinión de buena parte de la “nueva aristocracia”). Además, como me decía el propio Guillermo: “lo mejor de estos proyectos es que no están subvencionados y sin embargo generan muchos recursos para atender otros servicios públicos”. Actúan, como dice Eco, con plena libertad. Pero, ¿que diría el propio Eco si, usando esa misma libertad y con mayores recursos, el proletariado decidiese visitar los originales y no las copias? Me temo que el semiólgo sea sólo un libertario utilitarista, que ha encontrado una buena excusa para disculpar su pertenencia autoproclamada a esa “aristocracia cultural”.
