Mario Rodríguez Cobos
Encyclopedia
Silo —pseudonym of Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos (Mendoza
, 6 January 1938 – Mendoza, 16 September 2010)— was an Argentine writer and founder of the Humanist Movement
.
An active speaker, he wrote books, short stories, articles and studies related to politics, society, psychology, spirituality and other topics. Although he described himself simply as a writer, many see him as a thinker, based on the diversity of issues about which he has written.
. His father was winemaker Don Rafael Rodriguez and his mother Doña Maria Luisa Cobos, a Basque, and a music teacher. He was the youngest of three children, with siblings Raquel and Guillermo. He undertook primary and secondary education with the Maristas Brotherhood achieving excellent grades, while practising gymnastics
and specializing in the pommel horse
and reaching high positions in the regional rankings. In addition he was involved in various youth organizations and lead a very active social and intellectual life. He carried out special studies, in languages including French and Italian, and philosophy. He also published articles in cultural magazines.
He studied law for three years at the University of Buenos Aires and later, when they opened the Faculty of Political Science in Mendoza, he returned to his home town to continue his studies in this field. At university he began to organize research groups on human beings and their existential and social problems.
He travelled around Argentina, South America and Europe and undertook various jobs. By 1960 - following "a rearrangement of his inner truths" as a newspaper slogan of the time reported - he began to present his proposals, while still forming study groups in Argentina and Chile. With members of these groups he organized a public talk, which was initially banned by the military government but later was permitted in the mountains, away from the centres of population. The military dictatorships which subsequently beset the country were present throughout the life of Silo with successive arrests and detentions.
So, on 4 May 1969, Silo spoke to some two hundred people gathered in Punta de Vacas
(Province of Mendoza), in the high Andes
mountains near Mount Aconcagua
, and gave his first public exposition of the ideas, that in time, would form the basis of the Humanist Movement
. In this talk, known as «The Healing of Suffering», he explained themes such as the overcoming of pain and suffering, the meaning of life, violence, desire and pleasure.
He married Ana Luisa Cremaschi, whom he knew from his youth, and had two sons, Alejandro and Federico, with whom he lived in his home town.
In 1972 he published The Inner Look and the initial groups extended to other countries, partly because the military dictatorships provoked the exile of many of the participants. In the early 70's, Silo created the current of thought now known as New Humanism
or Universalist Humanism, and founded the Humanist Movement
an organized group that sought to translate this thought into practice. It can be said that this thinking encompasses the whole of human existence, not only social but also personal.
Since the eighties, and under his orientation, the Humanist Movement began a period of expansion in the world with the creation of organisms and fronts of action: the Humanist Party
with a presence in more than 30 countries, The Community for Human Development (a cultural association), Convergence of Cultures (a civil association), World Without Wars (an anti-armament association) and the World Centre of Humanist Studies.
During 1981 he was invited to express his proposals in various public rallies in European and Asian cities, visiting Madrid, Rome, Barcelona, and later Mumbai (India) and Colombo (Sri Lanka), before returning to Paris, and later San Francisco (California) and Mexico City. He explained with particular force the position of nonviolence
, manifested in the overcoming of suffering, the human treatment of others and the attitude of not searching for those to blame. Aspects of these talks relevant to his thought were published in the book “Silo Speaks”.
On 6 October 1993 in Moscow Silo was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. In this ceremony, he supported his ideas on «conditions of dialogue», concluding his presentation with these words: «We will see no full dialogue on the fundamental questions of today’s civilization until we, as a society, begin to lose our belief in the innumerable illusions fed by the enticements of the current system. In the meantime, the dialogue will continue to be insubstantial and without any connection to the profound motivations of society. However, in some latitudes of the world something new has begun to move, something that, beginning in a dialogue of specialists, will slowly begin to move into the public arena.».
, after being its driving force for 32 years. He did it by moving the orientation of the Humanist Movement to an assembly composed of the general coordinators of the movement. By August 2007 there were about 400 members in this assembly.
In mid-2002 he launched Silo's Message understood as a book, an experience and a path. Among his more recent projects he gave impetus to the construction of complexes known as Parks of Study and Reflection in Argentina, Chile, Spain, USA, Italy, India and Egypt, among other geographical locations. The money to build these parks was gathered from voluntary donations.
During the first decade of 21st Century he returned to speak at Punta de Vacas on several occasions with proposals of reconciliation, access to the profound and the sacred of human being, accepting invitations to speak about his Message and going to more humble places, like family homes, or small halls (salitas) in the same neighbourhood of Mendoza, and in greater Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Quito (Ecuador). He also attended events organized in Lisbon, Rome, northern Italy and elsewhere. Furthermore, as well as organising Halls of the Message and Parks of Study and Reflection around his works, Silo attended various opening ceremonies in places such as in La Reja (Buenos Aires), Las Manantiales (Santiago de Chile), Carcarañá (Rosario, Argentina), Toledo (Spain), Attigliano (Rome, Italy), etc.
One of his last public addresses was made in Berlin at the Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, on 11 November 2009, during the passage through that city of the "World March for Peace and Nonviolence
". On this occasion Silo called for global nuclear disarmament as the main urgency of the moment.
His last years were spent in Chacras de Coria
, a town on the outskirts of the city of Mendoza. He died at his home on 16 September 2010, after suffering for more than a year with renal disease.
His figure, until his death, was highly controversial, since he was considered a «spiritual guide» by his followers, while his critics call him messianic leader (see Critics section below). He referred to himself as a writer and practitioner of what he called an «inner religion».
There exist few interviews and reports in the media on the life Silo, however, the most numerous were carried out in Chile in the early nineties (with the return to democracy) from the major talk shows on television.
Some institutions showed recognition of his career in the days after his death, such as the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica.
from medieval scholasticism and developed by Edmund Husserl
in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, takes central importance in the thought of Silo. In it he made a differentiation between sensation, perception and imagination:
Rejecting ideas of the unconscious and subconscious as epochal myths based on scientific premises which are incorrectly formulated, it focuses on the study of the co-presence, impulses, levels of consciousness, centres of response, etc., as part of the psychism and the functioning of consciousness. What is new in Silo's thinking is the definition of the space of representation:
All these books are translated and published in the most common major languages.
At times, critics have tried to make Silo appear as a messianic leader or the leader of a sect. Thus, his path has been unfolding between those who study, understand and disseminate his proposals, and the detentions, virulent opposition and a press that was not always reliable. In spite of this, he was always able to reach the common people to whom his message was directed.
The notoriety of his influence was reflected in obituaries in the newspapers Página/12 in Argentina and El País in Spain. The latter refers to Silo as the «founder of a philosophy that came to gather a million followers in over 100 countries» and «a strange character for the West, one who could have been born in the East. He trumpeted a spiritual and social change as the foundation of the “human nation”».
Two months after his death, he was honoured at the Book Fair in Mar del Plata
, Argentina
.
Mendoza, Argentina
Mendoza is the capital city of Mendoza Province, in Argentina. It is located in the northern-central part of the province, in a region of foothills and high plains, on the eastern side of the Andes. As of the , Mendoza's population was 110,993...
, 6 January 1938 – Mendoza, 16 September 2010)— was an Argentine writer and founder of the Humanist Movement
Humanist Movement
The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...
.
An active speaker, he wrote books, short stories, articles and studies related to politics, society, psychology, spirituality and other topics. Although he described himself simply as a writer, many see him as a thinker, based on the diversity of issues about which he has written.
Biography
He was born into a middle class family of Spanish origin in Mendoza, ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. His father was winemaker Don Rafael Rodriguez and his mother Doña Maria Luisa Cobos, a Basque, and a music teacher. He was the youngest of three children, with siblings Raquel and Guillermo. He undertook primary and secondary education with the Maristas Brotherhood achieving excellent grades, while practising gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
and specializing in the pommel horse
Pommel horse
The pommel horse is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. Traditionally, it is used by only male gymnasts. Originally made of a metal frame with a wooden body and a leather cover, modern pommel horses have a metal body covered with foam rubber and leather, with plastic handles .- History :The pommel...
and reaching high positions in the regional rankings. In addition he was involved in various youth organizations and lead a very active social and intellectual life. He carried out special studies, in languages including French and Italian, and philosophy. He also published articles in cultural magazines.
He studied law for three years at the University of Buenos Aires and later, when they opened the Faculty of Political Science in Mendoza, he returned to his home town to continue his studies in this field. At university he began to organize research groups on human beings and their existential and social problems.
He travelled around Argentina, South America and Europe and undertook various jobs. By 1960 - following "a rearrangement of his inner truths" as a newspaper slogan of the time reported - he began to present his proposals, while still forming study groups in Argentina and Chile. With members of these groups he organized a public talk, which was initially banned by the military government but later was permitted in the mountains, away from the centres of population. The military dictatorships which subsequently beset the country were present throughout the life of Silo with successive arrests and detentions.
So, on 4 May 1969, Silo spoke to some two hundred people gathered in Punta de Vacas
Punta de Vacas
Punta De Vacas, meaning "cows point", is a hamlet in Mendoza Province, Argentina between Mendoza and Puente del Inca, not far from the border with Chile. The city was once served by the now disused Transandine Railway which ran from Mendoza in Argentina to Los Andes in Chile.From there, the...
(Province of Mendoza), in the high Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
mountains near Mount Aconcagua
Aconcagua
Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas at . It is located in the Andes mountain range, in the Argentine province of Mendoza and it lies west by north of its capital, the city of Mendoza. The summit is also located about 5 kilometres from San Juan Province and 15 kilometres from the...
, and gave his first public exposition of the ideas, that in time, would form the basis of the Humanist Movement
Humanist Movement
The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...
. In this talk, known as «The Healing of Suffering», he explained themes such as the overcoming of pain and suffering, the meaning of life, violence, desire and pleasure.
He married Ana Luisa Cremaschi, whom he knew from his youth, and had two sons, Alejandro and Federico, with whom he lived in his home town.
In 1972 he published The Inner Look and the initial groups extended to other countries, partly because the military dictatorships provoked the exile of many of the participants. In the early 70's, Silo created the current of thought now known as New Humanism
Humanist Movement
The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...
or Universalist Humanism, and founded the Humanist Movement
Humanist Movement
The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...
an organized group that sought to translate this thought into practice. It can be said that this thinking encompasses the whole of human existence, not only social but also personal.
Since the eighties, and under his orientation, the Humanist Movement began a period of expansion in the world with the creation of organisms and fronts of action: the Humanist Party
Humanist Party
The Humanist Party was launched on 8 March 1984 by the Department of Social Affairs of the Community for Human Development. Around the world many Humanist Parties started to emerge and on January 4, 1989, in Florence, Italy, the first congress of the Humanist International was held.In this event,...
with a presence in more than 30 countries, The Community for Human Development (a cultural association), Convergence of Cultures (a civil association), World Without Wars (an anti-armament association) and the World Centre of Humanist Studies.
During 1981 he was invited to express his proposals in various public rallies in European and Asian cities, visiting Madrid, Rome, Barcelona, and later Mumbai (India) and Colombo (Sri Lanka), before returning to Paris, and later San Francisco (California) and Mexico City. He explained with particular force the position of nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
, manifested in the overcoming of suffering, the human treatment of others and the attitude of not searching for those to blame. Aspects of these talks relevant to his thought were published in the book “Silo Speaks”.
On 6 October 1993 in Moscow Silo was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. In this ceremony, he supported his ideas on «conditions of dialogue», concluding his presentation with these words: «We will see no full dialogue on the fundamental questions of today’s civilization until we, as a society, begin to lose our belief in the innumerable illusions fed by the enticements of the current system. In the meantime, the dialogue will continue to be insubstantial and without any connection to the profound motivations of society. However, in some latitudes of the world something new has begun to move, something that, beginning in a dialogue of specialists, will slowly begin to move into the public arena.».
Later years
In early 2002, Silo announced his retirement from the Humanist MovementHumanist Movement
The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes nonviolence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution...
, after being its driving force for 32 years. He did it by moving the orientation of the Humanist Movement to an assembly composed of the general coordinators of the movement. By August 2007 there were about 400 members in this assembly.
In mid-2002 he launched Silo's Message understood as a book, an experience and a path. Among his more recent projects he gave impetus to the construction of complexes known as Parks of Study and Reflection in Argentina, Chile, Spain, USA, Italy, India and Egypt, among other geographical locations. The money to build these parks was gathered from voluntary donations.
During the first decade of 21st Century he returned to speak at Punta de Vacas on several occasions with proposals of reconciliation, access to the profound and the sacred of human being, accepting invitations to speak about his Message and going to more humble places, like family homes, or small halls (salitas) in the same neighbourhood of Mendoza, and in greater Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Quito (Ecuador). He also attended events organized in Lisbon, Rome, northern Italy and elsewhere. Furthermore, as well as organising Halls of the Message and Parks of Study and Reflection around his works, Silo attended various opening ceremonies in places such as in La Reja (Buenos Aires), Las Manantiales (Santiago de Chile), Carcarañá (Rosario, Argentina), Toledo (Spain), Attigliano (Rome, Italy), etc.
One of his last public addresses was made in Berlin at the Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, on 11 November 2009, during the passage through that city of the "World March for Peace and Nonviolence
World March for Peace and Nonviolence
The World March for Peace and Nonviolence is an initiative of World without Wars, an international organization which has worked for peace and nonviolence since 1995 and was created by the Humanist Movement....
". On this occasion Silo called for global nuclear disarmament as the main urgency of the moment.
His last years were spent in Chacras de Coria
Chacras de Coria
Chacras de Coria is a little town located in the oasis in the north of the province of Mendoza and few kilometers from the capital city....
, a town on the outskirts of the city of Mendoza. He died at his home on 16 September 2010, after suffering for more than a year with renal disease.
His figure, until his death, was highly controversial, since he was considered a «spiritual guide» by his followers, while his critics call him messianic leader (see Critics section below). He referred to himself as a writer and practitioner of what he called an «inner religion».
There exist few interviews and reports in the media on the life Silo, however, the most numerous were carried out in Chile in the early nineties (with the return to democracy) from the major talk shows on television.
Some institutions showed recognition of his career in the days after his death, such as the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica.
On psychology
The concept of the intentionality of the consciousness, which had been taken up by Franz BrentanoFranz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
from medieval scholasticism and developed by Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, takes central importance in the thought of Silo. In it he made a differentiation between sensation, perception and imagination:
Rejecting ideas of the unconscious and subconscious as epochal myths based on scientific premises which are incorrectly formulated, it focuses on the study of the co-presence, impulses, levels of consciousness, centres of response, etc., as part of the psychism and the functioning of consciousness. What is new in Silo's thinking is the definition of the space of representation:
On the conception of the human being
Silo differentiates himself further from the academic ambits with a conception of the human being which led to the formation of the Humanist Movement. In fact, the definition of humanist movement as the group of people who study and interpret the needs of human beings and provide the conditions for advancing from the field of determinism to the field of freedom, i.e. to overcome pain and suffering, both individually and socially, is implied in the idea of human beings:On spirituality
Silo explains his thoughts about spirituality in these terms:Published Books
- 1979: The Inner Look.
- 1981: The Internal Landscape.
- 1989: Humanize the Earth (consisting of the Inner Look, the Internal Landscape and the Human Landscape).
- 1989: Guided Experiences.
- 1991: Contributions to Thought.
- 1991: Universal Root Myths.
- 1993: Letters to my Friends.
- 1993: The Day of the Winged Lion.
- 1996: Dictionary of New Humanism.
- 1996: Silo Speaks.
- 1998: Collected Works - Volume I.
- 2002: Collected Works - Volume II.
- 2006: Notes on Psychology (collection of conferences, 1975, 1976, 1978 and 2006).
- 2008: Silo's Message.
All these books are translated and published in the most common major languages.
Criticism and influence
In a journal of anthropology and American studies, in the early seventies sections of the left began a smear campaign against Silo and his followers, who were accused of fascism and of being a reactionary movement. At the same time, conservative sectors of the Catholic Church accused them of threatening the family and Christian morality, as seen in the Chilean newspapers of the time. According to Siloists this campaign was a reaction to the growing influence of Silo with the young and the proposal of a new left humanist, non-Marxist, ideology.At times, critics have tried to make Silo appear as a messianic leader or the leader of a sect. Thus, his path has been unfolding between those who study, understand and disseminate his proposals, and the detentions, virulent opposition and a press that was not always reliable. In spite of this, he was always able to reach the common people to whom his message was directed.
The notoriety of his influence was reflected in obituaries in the newspapers Página/12 in Argentina and El País in Spain. The latter refers to Silo as the «founder of a philosophy that came to gather a million followers in over 100 countries» and «a strange character for the West, one who could have been born in the East. He trumpeted a spiritual and social change as the foundation of the “human nation”».
Two months after his death, he was honoured at the Book Fair in Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
External links
- Silo.net (official web site of Silo).
- DelNuevoHumanismo.org (artículo destacado, 2006).
- Silo.net («El sabio de los Andes», documental de 47 min, cortesía de Reel Time Images, todos los derechos reservados).
- ImaginaTuVuelo.blogspot.com (blog dedicado al pensamiento de Silo).