¡Que inventen ellos!

Unamuno in Salamanca (sculpted by Pablo Serrano).

In this engraving of Gustave Doré, Don Quixote fights against the giants while Sancho advertises him that they are windmills; a Cervantine scene interpreted repeatedly as a metaphor of the opposition between the idealism and the materialism (not very in the philosophical sense as in the vulgar of both terms).

¡Que inventen ellos! (English: Let them invent!) is a lapidary quote by Miguel de Unamuno whose repeated use of the phrase has produced a motif or cliché used with opposite meanings.

The motif is an example of how the topic of science and technology in Spain is a "marginal reality in Spain in its organization and social context". It has become a stereotype of Spanish people being anti-scientific, sometimes rejected as offensive and sometimes claimed with pride. The quote is often paraphrased, in some cases in a feminist sense, revindicating the work of the women in science; Que inventen ellas (let them [women] invent).

History

The phrase became controversial with José Ortega y Gasset, who, from 1906 and at least to 1912, who wrote on the subject of "the Europeanization of Spain, or the Spanishization of Europe" and this adquires an acid definition (africanist deviation from the professor and salamantine morabite), and an agrious final accusation (Don Miguel de Unamuno, energic spaniard, has failed to the truth).

Spanish Lo europeo moderno o lo africano antiguo... ¿por qué no ser africano como lo fue San Agustín?		Translation The modern European or the ancient African... why not be African like Saint Augustine was?

For Unamuno who reactes in their maturity against his initial positivism, considered modern European scientific orthodoxy and scientific inquisition to be at odds with "Spanish science", which he identified with mysticism and idealism. He wrote that it was preferable to be a religious ancient African than a scientific modern European. The science removes the wisdom to the man... the object of the science is the life and the object of the wisdom is the death

The phrase is given a distinct although coincident meaning in a letter of Unamuno to Ortega on 30 May 1906.

Spanish Yo me voy sintiendo profundamente antieuropeo. ¿Que ellos inventan cosas?, invéntenlas		Translation I have come to feel profoundly anti-European. They are inventing things? Let them invent.

The phrase is used later in July of the same year, in El pórtico del templo, an article in the form of dialogue between two characters:

Spanish ROMÁN.- Inventen, pues, ellos y nosotros nos aprovecharemos de sus invenciones. Pues confío y espero en que estarás convencido, como yo lo estoy, de que la luz eléctrica alumbra aquí tan bien como allí donde se inventó. SABINO.- Acaso mejor. — El pórtico del templo		Translation ROMÁN: So, let them invent and we will take advantage of their inventions. Well, I trust and hope that you will be convinced, as I am, that electric light illuminates here as well as where it was invented. SABINO.- Maybe better. — El pórtico del templo

Ortega announced his motives to release a disputes against the africanist deviation of Unamuno.

Years later, in 1911, over the Joaquín Costa tomb, Unamuno denies the regeneracionist leader would be europeanizer, but a great african, or celtiberian, who these putted under the europeanisation flag, but didn't made more than popularize the word.

Spanish Es inútil darle vueltas, nuestro don es ante todo un don literario, y todo aquí, incluso la filosofía, se convierte en literatura... y si alguna metafísica española tenemos es la mística... ¿es esto malo, es bueno? por ahora no lo decido, sólo digo que es así. ... y como hay y debe haber una diferenciación del trabajo espiritual así como del corporal, tanto en los pueblos como en los individuos, a nosotros nos ha tocado esta tarea... en Suiza no pueden desarrollarse grandes marinos... Alemania, verbigracia, nos da a Kant, y nosotros le damos a Cervantes. Harto hacemos con procurar enterarnos de lo suyo, que su ciencia y su metafísica fecundará nuestra literatura, y ojala nuestra literatura llegue a ser tal que fecunde su ciencia y su metafísica. Y he aquí el significado de mi exclamación, algo paradójica, lo reconozco, "¡que inventen ellos!", exclamación de que tanto finge indignarse algún atropellado cuyo don es el de no querer entender o hacer como que no se entera.		Translation Is inutile to give more cycles, our gift is every before a literary gift, and every here, even the philosophy, converts into literature... and if some spanish metaphysics have themselves is the mystic... ¿this is bad, is good? for now i don't decide, i only said as is it. ... and how is there and as should be a differenciation of the spiritual work as from the corporal, a lot in the people as the individuals, to us has touched this task... in Switzerland is no posible the development of great marines... Germany, gracious verb (for example), gives us Kant, and we give to Cervantes. Tired up of doing with procurate to finding out about them, of their science and their metaphysic fecundes our literature and may god want our literature became someting that fecundes their science and metaphysic. And here the meaningship of my exclamation, something paradoxique, i recognise, "¡Let them invent!", exclamation of something that appears outraged some rush whose gift is of don't want to understand or to made it if does not find out.

In the epilogue of the Tragic Sense of Life in the Man and the Peoples (1912), Unamuno said:

Spanish No ha mucho hubo quien hizo que se escandalizaba de aquello de "que inventen ellos", expresión paradójica a la que no renuncio.		Translation No a much time there was somebody scandalized of something of "let them invent", paradoxical expression who doesn't renounce

To support, cites Joseph de Maistre (in a letter to a russian minister):

Spanish "no por no estar hecha para la ciencia debe una nación estimarse en menos".		Translation by no stay maked for the science a nation should be underestimated.

Continues with a challenge:

Spanish que no tenemos un espíritu científico ¿y qué importa si tenemos algún otro?... no basta defenderse, hay que atacar		Translation we don't have scientific spirit ¿and what imports if we have some other?... no enough to defend ourselves, we have to attack

In the last lines from this epilogue, refers directly again to the campaign of Ortega in support of the europeanisation:

Spanish y ahora vosotros, Bachilleres Carrascos del regeneracionismo europeizante, jóvenes que trabajais a la europea con método y crítica científicos, haced riqueza, haced patria, haced ciencia, haced ética, o más bien traducid "Kultura", que así matareis a la vida y a la muerte. Para lo que ha de durarnos todo.		Translation and now you, Bachellors Carrasques of europeanisant regeneracionism, working joungers à l'européenne with methods and scientific critique, make richness, make fatherland, make science, make ethique, or better translate "Kulture", this is how you kills the life and the death. For what we last all.

The Unamunonian Quixotism, assumed by Unamuno himself comparing to his polemist with the Bachellor Sansón Carrasco, other of the permanent themes of his literary production, and like the science and progress, confluent in his conception of Ser de España.

See also

• África empieza en los Pirineos