Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 9 Far beyond the languages that these laureate Institutes represent, love, teach and disseminate can be found the profoundly cultural mission that enriches us, for they also pass on values, ideals, customs, collective experience, ways of life and wide-ranging approaches to life and society. This is the other, alternative way to build Europe: the way that is wisely shaped by education and culture, and by language. This Award for Communication and Humanities merges perfectly into the Award for Literature, which has been conferred this year upon Brazilian writer Nélida Piñon, daughter of Galician emigrants who sought new horizons for their lives through the dignity of work and the pride-tinged humility of their identity, as did so many other Spaniards, in our sister countries of America. Her work epitomises many of the values of our Awards. It particularly embodies the values that today’s ceremony is intended to highlight: peaceful coexistence between different nations born of mutual love and respect, ongoing learning not in one, but in many cultures, the brilliance of a literature that is rich and that enriches others, because it is itself multi-faceted, because it has many aspects and offers many messages. This Award is being bestowed today upon a woman who is conscious of all these values, and who is perfectly aware of where her origins lie —something she has never forgotten— but who has also spread her wings in intellectual flight, opening her generous humanity to become enriched, in particular, by everything in her native Brazil, which is a further excellent example of this social and cultural merging that she filters and decanters in each of her books. We are pleased to say today that by conferring the Award on Nélida Piñon we are also conferring it upon her country and on all of Latin America, without which the life and works of this writer could not be understood. Her Portuguese language takes centre stage today for these Awards, alongside the Instituto Camões and the Portuguese neurologist Antonio Damasio, who has been granted the Award for Technical and Scientific Research. Professor Damasio’s discoveries are making a decisive contribution to the progress of neuroscience, a discipline whose origins are solidly founded upon the brilliant work of our very own Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Since Cajal established the fundamentals of neuronal theory, the fascinating world of research into the nervous system has unveiled the organism’s communication processes and has even helped us to understand the complex coexistence of reason and feelings. As is always the case with science at the highest echelons, Damasio’s studies also influence the field of abstract ideas, because he has contributed, and indeed continues to do so, to an inescapable task for the adventure of man: to know the workings of the brain, which we use to order our lives, and how the thought process is able to turn upon itself in self-contemplation. This goal has fascinated philosophers, scientists and thinkers throughout history. Many conflicts escalate precisely because as human beings we often act contrary to common sense and ideas. This is why a better understanding of what makes man tick should help to improve the world by seeking a necessary though difficult synthesis of reason and feeling founded upon a scientific understanding of so problematical a relationship. Damasio’s work on this issue takes on a fundamental significance, and his research into the human mind is indispensable if we are to understand its influence on such diseases as dementia, depression, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The conferring of this Award brings to mind the memorable figure of that universal Spaniard, Asturian-born Severo Ochoa, for we are celebrating the centenary of his birth. Professor Ochoa chaired this Jury from the outset until just before his demise, helping to boost its prestige worldwide. He will always be remembered with immense gratitude and admiration for this, for his essential contributions to our knowledge of the molecular bases of life and for his commitment to scientific progress in our country. It is precisely one of the discoveries about the human brain made by Professor Damasio that sparks our thoughts on the Award for the Arts. Art, he has said, unleashes “a neuro-physiological state of enormous coherence and harmony.” Thus, art becomes a medium for transforming and humanising the world that surrounds