Arquivo para a ‘Information ethics’ Categoria
Spirit and power
25
Jul
Power and autorithy seem to get confused, but this is not true
as authoritarian governments are growing in the world and this has always been a bad symptom of civilization because it indicates both disputes and, at their limit, wars.
Byung-Chul Han in his book “In the Swarm” explains after saying about the necessary distance in the public sphere, that the “waves of indignation indicate, moreover, a weak connection with the community” (Han, In the Swarm, 20,18, pg. 22) and he has a specific book about power.
The book What is Power? (2019) has a long analysis of the issue in Hegel, this is justified both by the influence on Western thought and by the incidence of the vision of power that affects the entire public sphere, but we highlight his vague concept of the Absolute and the influence even religious , seen in the previous post.
Its analysis is important when it refers to ontological concepts, thus defining that “the entity is, even when it is finite, surrounded by the other” (Han, 2019, p. 110) and the Being must generate a negativity in itself, this is not the case here of “bad thoughts” but the concept that cites in Paul Tillich (1886-1965) that the power of being as “the capacity of living beings to overcome negativity, or as he says, “non-being”, that is, the who does not involve it in self-affirmation” (pg. 111).
Quoting him, Han states: “one has more power to be, because it must have been overcome but not to be, and as long as one can overcome it. When you can no longer bear it or overcome it, then it is total impotence, the end of the power of being, the event. This is the risk of every living being” (Han, 2019, p. 111).
He cites Foucault’s thesis that the human being would be “the result of submission” (pg. 118) and Hegel who thinks that power should act primarily in a “non-repressive way” (pg. 119) however, both do not abandon the idea from the Absolute, which actually comes from Machiavelli’s Prince and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, and as the author says: “power promises freedom” (pg. 121).
The need to create a “neurotic” religion of power, for Hegel, would come from the idea of God, the power that He has the power to “be himself”, this comes from idealism that does not overcome the division between subject and object, or be the Creator and the created (beings and entities) are not composed.
There is no doubt that power, without the necessary negativity of non-being (the inclusion of the Other) is a neurosis as Hegel says, and thus its “god” or “the spirit” “would still be an appearance of this neurosis” (Han, 2019 , p. 121).
“The pain of finitude can perfectly be the pain of any limit that separates me from the other, which can only be overcome by the creation of a particular continuity… it does not have the continuity of the self that power creates. She does not have the intention of returning to herself” (Han, 2019, p. 121).
Hegel’s neurotic power is not that of the Creator, it is of the being caged in the self, incapable of looking at and serving the Other, of leaving the self, of denying oneself to serve the Other, it is a neurotic power.
The idealistic religion
24
Jul
Among the Young Hegelians, those who along
with Marx criticized the “old Hegelians”, especially David Strauss and Bruno Bauer, was Ludwig Andres Feuerbach (1804-1821) much better known for Karl Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach” than for his own work, but his concepts, although criticized by Marx, also influenced him in addition to the other “new Hegelians” also known as the “Hegelian left”.
Feuerbach, coming from a Catholic environment, was educated in Protestantism, from a young age he was oriented towards religion, beginning his studies at the University of Heidelberg, but upon meeting Friedrich Hegel, he abandoned theology and became a student of this philosopher for two years, which provoked profound changes in his thinking and creates what I call here “idealistic religion”, but the God of Christianity is no longer Feuerbach’s god.
Hegel’s idea of the absolute is well known, where his “in itself” which is his “one” is not alienated from matter to finally emerge as “Absolute Spirit”, but man, as a conscious species, is the infinite itself and absolute, being man’s reason for his “liberation” to the detriment of indoctrination or Christianization (Feuerbach, 2013, p. 2-23) this God that man “imagines” is for the young Hegelian now in fact his own being, its own essence, it is necessary to understand that Being for idealists is not ontological Being, but rather an “anthropological” being.
Thus, religiosity, in the idealist analysis, would not be linked to an immaterial being, which transcends the human (idealist transcendence is the knowledge of the object), it is not a timeless and creative Being, but nature itself, in another way Spinoza also explored this .
Thus Feuerbach understands that man’s relationship with his “god”, which is different from other “young Hegelians” (Marx will criticize him), his god or gods, is founded on his own ex-sistence, a subject also explored in ontology, but seen as a relationship with “time” or temporal being.
The idealistic god is the one that man externalizes “is nothing more than the divinized essence” (Feuerbach, 2009, p. 29), in a way even more so as “the history of religion is the history of man” (Feuerbach, 2009 , p. 30) and here lies the dividing line with Marx because he sees history as his “mode of production”, the relationship with work and the means of production to carry it out: feudalism, capitalism, etc. Thus Feuerbach understands that man’s relationship with the supersensible, which for him “exists”, that is, has its ex-sistence, is in fact an “aesthetic pathology”, an amalgamation of mystical feelings that are at the same time the foundation and promoter of religiosity. : “Mourning and pain at the death of a person or at the diminution of light and heat, joy at the birth of a person, at the return of light and heat after freezing winter days or at the harvest, terror at phenomena in themselves terrible or at the least in man’s imagination… (Feuerbach, 2009, p. 49). So the big mistake, even for “religious people”, is to separate substantiality from spirituality, which is, in our view, the essence of false contemporary asceticism.
Feuerbach, Ludwig. (2009) Preleções sobre a Essência da Religião. Trad. José da Silva Brandão. Petrópolis/RJ. Editora Vozes.
Feuerbach, Ludwig. (2013) A Essência do Cristianismo. Trad. José da Silva Brandão. Petrópolis/RJ. Editora Vozes.
Fatigue and true rest
18
Jul
Giving a psychological and sociological picture
of contemporary society Byung-Chul Han describes her as having “Neural diseases such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) or Burnout Syndrome (SB) determine the pathological landscape of the beginning of the 21st century (HAN, 2017, p. 7).
Using a concept from his PhD advisor (he did his thesis on Heidegger) Peter Sloterdijk, his analysis extends to what he calls “the object of immunological defense is strangeness as such” (p. 8), the book was written before the pandemic ( also wrote about it in the Palliative Society, the one that rejects pain) and the concept of immunology here is one that states that the last century was a time in which a “clear division was established between inside and outside… the Cold War I followed the immunological regimen.”
Thus the book will explore the mystical concepts of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, master of the contemplative life (of which Han also wrote a book), explores fundamental aspects of the inner life that combats the serious problems of the Active Life, which pushes us towards efficiency and tiredness under the pressure of demands and the cultural war that has taken place.
The immunological paradigm says “it is not in line with the process of globalization… also hybridization, which dominates not only the theoretical-cultural discourse, but also the feeling we have in today’s life, is diametrically contrary precisely to immunization” (p. 11).
His concept of resistance goes in the direction of Edgar Morin’s “resistance of the spirit”, but in our view it reaches the heart of the matter: “the dialectic of negativity is the fundamental feature of immunity” (p. 11), where the discourse of “engagement” is actually the void, as it is absent of true alternatives, as current immunology is one that accuses the Other, we remember here the distance from the pandemic (after the book as we said), a good “metaphor”.
Baudrillard quotes, speaking of the “obesity of all current systems”, in a time of overabundance, “the problem turns more to the rejection and expulsion” (pg. 15) of the Other.
His accurate elaboration on page 27 is that current “disciplinary systems” (or pseudo-ethical) seek the logic of production “what causes depression and exhaustion is not just the imperative to obey only oneself, but the pressure of performance” (p. 27).
Thus, meditating and completing is not distancing oneself from reality, but the possibility of looking at it with different eyes, seeking a true human and spiritual asceticism, where we can truly find rest and peace (despite and against daily wars and wars) because in truth is only possible through it.
I remember the biblical passage that says “come to me, all you who are tired” (Mt 11,28) and in a reinterpretation for today, in addition to seeking the divine, it is also about finding true interiority, which should not be disconnected from the vita activa, under penalty of tiredness.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2017) A Sociedade do Cansaço (Burnout Society), trans. Enio Paulo Giachini, 2nd. ed. Ampliada, Brazil, RJ: Petrópolis, Vozes.
Wisdom and simplicity
17
Jul
Among the various contemporary narratives,
one of the most absurd is the praise of ignorance as if it were an ally of simplicity and humility, from the “cultural” to the religious world this is transformed into narratives: he did not attend college, he did not read a book, did not walk among wise men, etc. Do not confuse this with the ability to live simply and among simple people.
It’s not a sign of the times, it’s not “generational”, it’s just a lack of interest in true asceticism, in an inner and outer growth that gives your human nature that something more that is the only thing capable of removing depression, anguish, anxieties and other illnesses. current.
The wise man is an observer, and observes not only the everyday scenes, those that different types of people live in, especially the simplest ones, but also the one who searches in the history of humanity for those peaks of civilizational moments that made us more people, more human. and more supportively, there are many examples, authors and people who gave us this.
We posted yesterday about fresh water and hot food, but in several regions this has interesting contours and cultural aspects, for example, in many countries there is no breakfast, an African told me, in Portugal there is breakfast which is a breakfast. simple morning, and in Brazil what is called breakfast is actually a small lunch.
What to read beyond is of course your personal belief, read the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas or what is sacred or culturally read in a certain culture, the red book in China for example, the second most read book in Brazil is The little prince, although Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is 5th. in the world, but Iliad and Odyssey are still little read, King Lear and Othello by William Shakespeare are increasingly less known.
Of course, wisdom does not mean literary culture, but far from it it also becomes narrative in the sense that it ignores cultural history, the modern model of the novel is present throughout Western culture, and Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert are representatives for different tastes, but even for social criticism they should be read.
Someone can launch the philosophical argument, it is an entire Eurocentric culture, true, but it has been incorporated into everyday thoughts, nationalism through national colors is all over the world, freedom of expression, as the romantic Victor Hugo (Les Misarables (photo), in my opinion, the best of romantics said: “Not even a rule, nor models” is also an expression of individualism and personal heroism, but historical.
We made several posts about being, interiority and the complement of Contemplative Life with Active Life (Hannah Arendt and Byung-Chul Han in particular), about the methodology of the hermeneutic circle where we must listen to the text (and also the dialogues) for fusion of horizons and also the disaster of our Western culture and the need for resistance of the spirit.
Insecurity in Europe and attack in the USA
15
Jul
NATO decided to place American missiles in
Germany, the Tomahawk ballistic missiles, which can hit targets up to 2,500 km away and carry nuclear ammunition, there are also hypersonic weapons in development, which increase European firepower, Russia already has weapons of this type and which are already spread out in strategic locations.
The Russian reaction came through Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov “Europe is in the crosshairs of our missiles, our country is in the crosshairs of American missiles in Europe. We have already experienced this. We have enough capacity to contain these missiles, but the potential victims are the capitals of these European countries”, which would be the trigger for a 3G.
The fighting continues hard, a secret document reveals that the death toll is already immense in the war and Russia would have 750,000 soldiers killed or injured, the number in Ukraine, although unknown, must be close to this figure, and neighboring countries Poland, Latvia and Lithuania and the Scandinavians threaten to send troops if Ukraine becomes more fragile.
Former president and presidential candidate Donald Trump was attacked when he was holding a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, several shots were fired, killing one person and injuring another, Trump was hit in the ear and removed from the scene by his security guards, the shooter was killed and the FBI investigates the motivations, the first is clearly political.
Although the scenario is frightening and there is no shortage of warmongering spirits, at this moment there is a civilizing crisis installed because from the center of power to ordinary citizens there is an animosity that does not perceive the danger of intolerance, violence like this not only awakens more authoritarian spirits but also strengthens them, and should not receive applause from anyone.
The good news comes from Iran where the moderate Masoud Pezeshkian, President-elect of Iran claims to be willing to hold ‘constructive dialogue’ with the European Union, the announcement was made in an English-language newspaper bringing great hope.
Time of conflict and clearing
12
Jul
If we are in inappropriate times for thought
and intelligence, which is why artificial intelligence scares so much, it is inappropriate times for human and moral values, this will be a time of clearing too, as it will require that many consciences and men will be able to awaken and see and launch to open the clearing.
For this, a metanoia is necessary in philosophical, political, everyday and even religious thinking, remember that the true oracles and prophets were killed and ignored precisely even by intelligent and “religious” people.
The threshold of an unlimited civilizing and humanitarian crisis is close, but if we look at everyday culture, we talked about this from the very Brazilian Ariano Suassuna to the Englishman Anthony Daniels (using the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple – Our Culture, What’s Left of It – 2005) in previous posts, also politics and thought it seems polarized between two extremes that in many values are confused, and one of them is war and the desire for power.
Even those who invoke peace hide interests of power, of greed for greater wealth and oppression of those they believe to protect, it is a sad scenario of little light and where men of good will who future they desire, they must have a spirit of resistance.
Looking at the etymology of the word clearing in Heidegger’s philosophy, it comes from the German word Lichtung, whose meaning, in addition to clearing in the forest (he himself lived for some years in the black forest of Germany), its root Licht is the word for light, which will mean hidden things, or entities whose truth must come to light, as some translators use as unveiling.
What a propitious time this is, and why we are approaching it, because whenever the prophetic words of thinkers and mystics who ask for a change of course in humanity have not been heard, this time of darkness approaches followed by a great clearing.
In the biblical metaphor, the clearing is the light of the good news (gospel), but the master warns “behold, I send you (Mt 10:16) “Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and simple as doves.”
This was the case at the time of the Punic wars, of little Greece fighting against the strong Persian empire and also at the time when the apostles of Jesus were sent two by two on a mission to open the clearings and minds of humanity to a more fraternal civilization and not It was a war against his empire, but his mentality.
Evil and compassion
11
Jul
Hannah Arendt, in her work The Origin of 
Totalitarianism (original 1951) criticized Kant’s theory that defended evil as the search for satisfaction through self-love, and argued that evil exists for different reasons, such as greed, greed, resentment, desire for power and cowardice.
Byung-Chul Han’s genius analyzes Heidegger’s work from the heart and affective modality, but it is not something totally original, Kant confesses in his book “Conflict of the Faculties” that “because of his flat and narrow chest, which leaves little space for the movement of the heart and lungs, I have a natural predisposition to hypochondria, which in previous years bordered on the boredom of life (Han, 2023, p. 8) and hence in Kant a “yearning expands the heart, it defines him and exhausts his strength” (Han, 2023, p. 9).
Han uses the metaphor of Heidegger’s seamstress (Näherin) who “works in proximity” and is also a circumciser of the heart” (pg 10) and there “the heart of being-there” beats in the transcendental horizon, just as Han explains, in the late Heidegger that “contrition penetrates more deeply” and being-there separates itself from the being of there: dasein (p. 11).
Analyzing the affective tones of the heart and its close connection with being-there is more than discovering the interiority and transcendence of philosophical discourse, it is “Heidegger’s heart, on the other hand [confronted with Derridá], listens to a single voice , follows the tonality and gravity of the “one, the only one that unifies”, for him it is an “ear of his heart” but there is something strong spiritual in this, more than feeling or emotion.
The resistance of the spirit, in our times, Han says that Heidegger’s speech is quite temporal in the sense of the context of the second world war, it is the speech of peace, of announcing fraternity, of overcoming hatred and differences (it will recover the “Il y a” by Lévinas, and also Derrida’s concept of différance), to go beyond conflict and Hegelian dialectics.
It is necessary to circumcise the heart, this is the origin of the Jewish term, in the reading of Deuteronomy (10:16) cited in the epigraph by Han: “Circumcise therefore your spiritual heart; removing all carnal obstructions, and stop being insubmissive and stubborn!”.
Han, B.C. (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heart of Heidegger). Trans. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil: Petrópolis: Vozes.
Resistance of the spirit and pacifism
09
Jul
What Edgar Morin defines as resistance of the
spirit, he is 103 years old yesterday, is beyond thought and political force, what is spirit for European philosophy is mediated by the idea we formulate about the world, and spirit here has to be beyond current everyday thinking.
Human beings are capable of thinking about peace in their relationships, cultivating their interiority, an exhaustive theme in Byung-Chul Han’s ontology, and delving deeper into values such as: humility, fragility and the need we have for each other, we do not live isolated.
Finally, having a true otherness, the fear of otherness is when there is difference and we “put ourselves on the defensive”, for example what is called preventive wars, guarantees of sovereignty over other peoples or other cultures, this generally starts wars and does not prevent them as intended.
The main reason, say many authors, one that is not questionable for denouncing “the open veins of Latin America” is Eduardo Galeano, who said that the big reason is the theft and the jokes of the people to be dominated, today in addition to this they are also clashing empires.
The spirit of resistance and pacifism is historically not an easy or “neutral” position, it is to avoid the humanitarian catastrophe that characterizes all wars, on a global scale this means an unprecedented civilizational crisis, since the military power today is immense .
It takes a very high, truly altruistic and missionary spirit, since current wars easily find allies, even among the simple population, both polarization and the use of the media to promote almost all biased narratives, are what give substance to the warlike thinking and spread throughout the social fabric.
Congratulations to the long-lived Edgar Morin, his resistance is visible due to his age, the lucidity he still maintains and may his words echo and civilization finds a path of resistance.
Courage and Being
02
Jul
The imprudent is not courageous, in ancient times
Plato and Aristotle defined it in a similar way, for Plato courage “knows what not to fear” while for Aristotle it is the moral virtue that lies in the middle ground between cowardice and recklessness.
However, when courage becomes cowardice, it is certainly not when one is prudent and knows the dangers that surround a certain attitude, but if it is a virtue it cannot be far from the truth, so it means that it cannot renounce the truth, under penalty of renouncing the your Being.
But truth is not a vision of data, facts or a position in the face of reality, philosophy and modern physics include a third hypothesis between Being and non-Being, and thus the Aristotelian “middle term” is possible without it being the capitulation of truth.
The theme of anguish and fear, which occurs when there is a threat to one’s existence, often leading people to remain in the dispersion of concern, in Heidegger, this dispersion, which is the way of existing for most people, can only be overcome through an “anticipatory decision” that leads Dasein to accept within it only what is finite, moral or immediate.
Other authors, such as Kierkegaard, who criticized those who had thought of a solution to this concern in a God “imagined” by reason, and in this sense he is correct since it is not deposited in faith, criticize those who had thought of a transcendence of the “God above of God”, which would be a kind of courage of the Being, and this would be the power of being with roots in transcendence, they are right because, not being something divine, “trust in God” transforms into a power located beyond, and thus becomes the confidence in yourself.
There is something in human existence that is a kind of ultimate fear: death, there are those who seek the source of eternal youth, the prolongation of life, but human finitude is something that causes a fatal fear, and in the face of death, very few are those that do not invoke the divine presence, the presence of the mother or some other divine resource.
The Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han clarifies this well: “The modern loss of faith, which concerns not only God and the hereafter, but reality itself, makes human life radically transitory” because living well in each present moment is be in eternity.
Not everyone believes because they need to see the eternal, but Thomas, who lived with Jesus, needed to touch him when he was resurrected to believe that there is the eternal, there is the infinite beyond the human, the Being-there that we are.
Religiosity and liberal culture
27
Jun
Modern liberalism created an environment
where many cultural practices that were previously questioned, especially those that ignore social rights and duties, were gradually being released, the idea (in the sense of philosophical idealism itself) of freedom is one that pleases the will, in the sense of rational and practical requirement of universal self-determination, with this morals and ethics are not those that prevent the exercise of evil, but those that please reason.
Thus, it makes no sense for contemporary liberalism to combat usury, extortionate interest rates are practiced by banks, not to mention usury, the fight against public immorality, public nudity and pornography is no longer a moral issue and the various types of health problems, to social well-being has even become a joke in media discourses.
It is also not a matter of puritan moralism, nor of personal taste in relation to the way of expressing oneself and behaving socially, but of debauchery, of public offense to all who want a minimum of public morality, Theodor Adorno wrote about the “Minima Moralia ” in the 40’s, in the sense of how “damaged life” developed into a form of violence and horror in the contemporary world.
There are also forms of bad religious culture, one that lacks a true asceticism that encourages the world towards empathy, healthy social coexistence (also in terms of health in a world intoxicated by the use of alcohol, drugs and toxic substances), without forgetting that The most harmful and terrible thing is the cultural offense, and the culture of violence that reaches its limit in the forms of armed and unarmed wars in the contemporary world.
Regarding the religious aspect, it is worth remembering to everyone who tries to use the religious alibi for antisocial practice, the biblical passage from Matthew 23: “Then I will say to them publicly: I never knew you. Depart from me, you who do evil” and in the passage is a clear reference to preachers who “cast out demons” and “performed miracles” in the name of Jesus.
The toxic narratives that are used for these practices are generally unable to provide a complete narrative, they need to use false examples and even meaningless testimonies to justify the insanity of the practice and permissiveness in relation to public and social morals, they use offense and even public insults that make clear their adherence to exclusion and antisocial behavior public permissiveness, that which refuses coercion and the punishment of antisocial attitudes are also forms of violence by omission.
The result is a psychologically difficult environment, a damaged social life, as expressed by Adorno, and a life in which everything is transitory as seen by Byung-Chul Han.
