Arquivo para a ‘Linguagens’ Categoria
Prudence and joy
29
Nov
The virtue of prudence can at first glance be
thought of as having a cautious, sensible and patient attitude, which can be its components, but it is more closely linked to the idea of a cautious joy that is also a joy.
The prudent have balance because in it they find peace and happiness, it is beyond being seen only as a religious virtue, some wise philosophers also noticed it, in Letter on Happiness he observes: “… of all these things, prudence is the principle and supreme good, which is why it is more precious than philosophy itself […]” (EPICURE, 2002, p. 45).
We have free will and we can make choices, in Epicurus’ view we can be happy if we stay in a balanced position of pleasure, which may seem like less joy, but it avoids the search as if something is missing and so we can fall into traps and unnecessary suffering if we go beyond a certain balance.
Someone may remember the biblical parable of the “prudent virgins” (Matthew 25:1) in which 10 virgins are waiting for the “bridegroom” and are carrying lamps (vessels for lighting wicks) in their lamps, but only 5 have enough oil and the other 5 are lacking it, in my opinion referring to virtues.
Of course, the bridegroom, in the biblical case, is Jesus, so we’re waiting for his second coming, but since there are four cardinal virtues, we need to add the fifth, which is Love, since in the presence of the divine we don’t need faith (the divine is already unveiled) nor hope (which is already achieved by those who have a lighted candle).
The accuracy of this parable is because prudence is explained in both religious and cultural terms. The biblical parables used by Jesus had this “didactic” aspect, and in this case this virtue becomes clearer: keeping the candle lit as a resource of wisdom, justice, fortitude and love, so that there is enough oil to keep us “waiting” for the divine.
EPICURE, (2002) Carta sobre a felicidade (A Meneceu) (Lettera sulla felicita). Tradução e apresentação de Álvaro Lorencine e Enzo Del Carratore. Brazil, São Paulo: Editora UNESP.
Wisdom and love in hominization
28
Nov
Wisdom is not the same as intelligence, culture
or cunning, it is something clear and pure that is full of life, so it is also a virtue, called cardinal along with justice, fortitude and prudence.
Culture is linked to the cultural tradition of peoples, it can and must be linked to wisdom because it is the only path that can help the process of civilization (or hominization as Edgar Morin calls it) become a safe and sustainable path.
Those who need to dominate by force walk the path of power, there may be something of intelligence there, in general there is, but it is used in the opposite direction to civilization, the argument that wars have helped evolution is only valid because they have learned bitter lessons from war, which they could have learned if intelligence were truly high and imbued with love.
Cunning is the most dangerous intelligence because it is generally linked to power and oppression, it creates intelligent paths, but they are full of traps for oneself and for others, it is not a path of solidarity and communion between peoples and cultures.
Cunning is the most dangerous intelligence because it is generally linked to power and oppression, it creates intelligent paths, but they are full of traps for oneself and for others, it is not a path of solidarity and communion between peoples and cultures.
So the virtue of nature is the one that brings man closer to divine consciousness, or to our divine consciousness, and in this way man finds a solid path to his hominization.
The wise man knows how to live in poverty and wealth, he knows how to control himself in war, prudence is the virtue that is most allied in this respect, he knows how to live in peace, he doesn’t get agitated by it because he knows that it is the true state of grace, those who need goods or abundance to live well are closer to vices than to virtues.
Along with love, the virtue of wisdom contains the others, together with prudence, courage (fortitude) and justice, not that of men, which is imperfect and without mercy, but divine justice.
The virtue of fortitude: the moral ethics of courage
27
Nov
Since ancient Greece, courage has been
associated with violent heroism and the ability to warily confront fear, but it is not this moral virtue called fortitude that is seen as one of the cardinal virtues.
We’ve already mentioned that in philosophy, the Englishwoman Philippa Foot dealt with this aspect of moral ethics and for this reason her ethics became known as virtue ethics.
Facing dangers and even trials (and provocations) means being aligned with the other two cardinal virtues: prudence and wisdom, as well as justice, but here’s another observation: human justice is merciless and legalistic, it doesn’t contemplate mercy and forgiveness.
Courage accompanied by prudence is the ability to pass life’s obstacles in order to overcome them so as not to reproduce hatred, violence and injustice, and so it must be produced and led by wisdom, which is not just culture and good reading.
In dark times it is particularly important because it takes courage to go through difficult situations and not lose one’s serenity, the ability to help others who are going through the same or even worse situation due to the hostile environment.
This is how we find people, true icons of this virtue of courage, who saved Jews from persecution (I’m reminded of the movie Schindler’s List), many characters who were true fortresses in the face of persecution and difficulties in the midst of war, the members of the Red Cross teams and and also the Red Crescent, the Islamic version of relief in the midst of catastrophes and wars.
They bring hope in the midst of chaos, so they also contemplate this theological virtue, and in many cases restore faith and charity, completing the theological trio.
In this way, they go against what everyone is trying to reject: the physical and moral pain suffered by those who find themselves in the midst of wars and catastrophes. We’ve already posted here about the importance of this hermeneutic of pain, for example, when we posted about “The Palliative Society: Pain Today” (Byung-Chul Han).
In this book, Byung-Chul quotes Ernst Jünger’s phrase: “Say what your relationship to pain is, and I’ll tell you who you are!” and that we can be seen as social and say what our relationship to society as a whole is, and that this is where the virtue of fortitude (courage) lies.
False prophets and hope
26
Nov
Bad religion and false prophecies are those that
do not announce the good news; there is no historical or truly prophetic reading of what the divine kingdom is: peace and hope.
Yes, it is true that we are in dark times, but it is still necessary to announce peace and hope. It is a fact that man has built civilization on wars and revenge to this day. However, it was peace and hope that developed agriculture, commerce, and the production of social goods. Even in the midst of wars, hope survived and made its way.
They are bad Bible readers. When the disciples asked when the times of destruction would come, the reading says in Luke 21:8-9, “Jesus answered, ‘Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, saying, “I am he!” And again: ‘The time is near’. Do not follow these people! When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away”
The reading about world conflicts continues (Luke 21:10-11): “And Jesus continued: “Nation will rise up against nation, and country will attack country. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues in many places; fearful things will happen and great signs will be seen in the sky”, but this is not the prophecy but rather what men will do before a time of peace and a true civilizing process on the planet. We learn more through pain than through reason and love. Even though these times are said to be rational, the vision of the whole, of the Earth as a homeland common to all peoples and nations, has not yet arrived. Worldly power prevails, attempts at plunder and revenge among peoples, and there is nothing divine in this, it is just the insanity of a shallow and antisocial rationalism.
The hope is that it will lead men to another level of civilization, that will help the poor, that will renew life and healthy models of development. Even what is considered a principle of sustainability is unable to manage the Earth’s resources.
A new civilization will be the one that survives these dark and intemperate times, as the forgotten cardinal virtues say (last week’s post by philosopher Philippa Foot): temperance, prudence, wisdom and courage are forgotten moral virtues, but not for everyone.
Bad religion and the virtues
22
Nov
Contemporary philosophy oscillates between
definitions of ethics and morality, with morality seen as a reduction to the morality of customs, lacking a depth of virtues and true religiosity.
The three theological virtues have been lost: faith, hope and charity, which must be “infused” by God, are confused with the religiosity of fortune-tellers and material goods, hope becomes a kind of positive thinking and behavioral feelings animated by some “coach” and charity, some superficial kindness such as pity, mercy and social aid.
The so-called cardinal virtues are prudence, run over by a world driven by impulses, justice which has become pure political manipulation, fortitude confused with physical or political strength and temperance present in very few situations and people, we live in times of anger.
A rare contemporary philosopher to deal with the subject was Philippa Foot, who died in 2010 at the age of 90. Despite her name, she was British and responsible for the resurgence of “virtue ethics”.
Foot did not abandon the classics, but re-read them for modern times. She believed that morality should be understood in terms of virtues of character, rather than just rules and consequences of actions.
Among her works, she modernized Aristotle’s ethical theory (Nicomachean Ethics) into a contemporary view of the world, showing that it can compete with popular theories such as deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics (that focused on goods, for example, present in religions).
She elaborated and discussed the so-called Tram dilemma (Foot, 1978, see figure), also addressed by other contemporary philosophers such as the famous John Rahls, also extensively analyzed by Judith Jarvis Thomson and more recently by Peter Unger.
The dilemma is simple: the valet must analyze the “lesser evil” where on one line he would run over one person and on another several, in a streetcar that is out of control and cannot stop.
The hope variant is a version of the dilemma considered by Daniel Zubiria, where there is a 50% chance of the derailed train saving all the people and not opting for either track, a similar argument is that of Jonah Barnaby.
The problem is interesting because it necessarily falls into the theological virtues.
Regarding faith, there is only one possible argument: prayer, which is inalienable from religious thought, it is not an exercise in rhetoric, logical and emotional maneuvers, it must be based exclusively on the relationship with God, so the utilitarian or deontological relationship is dispensable since it is theo-ontological: “my Father’s house is a house of prayer” (Lk 19,46).
Philippa Foot, (1978) The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect in Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Reforming thought and its viaticum
21
Nov
At the beginning of chapter 5 of Edgar Morin’s
Cabeça bem-feita (Heads on straight), he uses an epigraph from Euripides’ Edita: “The gods invent many surprises for us: the expected doesn’t happen, and a god opens the way to the unexpected” (Morin, 2003, p. 61), only those who meditate and have a well-developed spiritual side know how to work with the unexpected.
He gives us three viaticums in this chapter, the first of which is “Preparing for our uncertain world is the opposite of resigning oneself to a generalized skepticism.” It is necessary to resist what is anti-human not as an act of courage, but in the only certainty which is the error of the path that our mistaken convictions can lead us down (pictured is Leonardo Alenza’s viaticum, 1840).
The second viaticum is strategy; we get lost on the road to what is good and what we want.
“Strategy is opposed to program, even though it can include programmed elements. The program is the a priori determination of a sequence of actions with a view to an objective. The program is effective under stable external conditions, which can be determined with certainty” (Morin, 2003, p. 62) so we need to think about strategy by exercising it, if we want more humanity we need to be human, if we want peace we need to practice it.
The third viaticum is the challenge, we usually look for our comfort zone or security, but neither comfort nor security are there, in general they require a challenge to conquer them, says Morin: “A strategy carries within it the awareness of the uncertainty it will face and, for this very reason, contains a bet. It must be fully aware of the stakes, so as not to fall into false certainty. It is false certainty that has always blinded generals, politicians and businessmen, and led them to disaster” (Morin, 2003, p. 62) – this is the disaster of today’s false peace.
The answer is not exactly a Christian, but someone of Jewish origin who lives a secular life: “Betting is the integration of uncertainty into faith or hope. Betting is not limited to games of chance or dangerous undertakings” (Morin, 2003, p. 62). If we work for peace and for the correct process of civilization, we can certainly count on some extra help, why not: divine.
Morin, E. (2003) A cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento. transl. Eloá Jacobina. Brazil, 8a ed. -Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
Bad thinking, bad politics and bad religion
20
Nov
The structure of the civilizational crisis that we
are experiencing, the nuclear threat has become real after the release of missiles into Russian territory these days, the energy crisis and the problem of world misery are on the civilizational agenda, but thought, politics and religion (in their deviations) do not perceive them clearly.
It’s about making allies and not building bridges and breaking down political, cultural and even religious walls. Enlightenment thinking still dominates the West, a shallow cultural vision invades the discourse of even the most educated and religion, when it’s not pure commerce, deviates towards human precepts and preconceptions that have little or nothing pure and divine about them.
On the subject of thought, an interesting text to read is Edgar Morin’s “Cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento” (Well-made head: rethinking reform, reforming thought, brazilian edition). He says of the crisis that was already present in discourses on “civilizational malaise”: “So that we can, at the same time, integrate and distinguish human destiny within the Universe; and this new scientific culture makes it possible to offer a new and capital knowledge to the general, humanistic, historical and philosophical culture, which, from Montaigne to Camus, has always raised the problem of the human condition” (Morin, 2003, p. 38). 38).
He says in the book’s introduction: “Knowledge has become increasingly esoteric (accessible only to specialists) and anonymous (quantitative and formalized). Technical knowledge is likewise reserved for experts, whose competence in a restricted field is accompanied by incompetence when this field is disturbed by external influences or modified by a new event.” (Morin, 2003, p. 19).
But the networks have invaded the discourse of experts and made cultural and political knowledge worse, now under the influence of the “digital swarm” (read Byung-Chul Han: The Swarm), a wave of bad politics and bad religion has been unleashed and invaded by “influencers”, pseudo-prophets and politicians whose anti-civilization conduct already denounces their falsehoods and evil.
It’s time for opportunists, for little thought (it has already reached the select layer of “cults”) and for bad religion, which prophesies evil, disorder, and announces as a “prophecy” the religion of easy profit, of contempt for culture and cultures other than one’s own.
But the light persists, the resistance persists among those who proclaim the good news and a more human world, the new civilization and the protagonism of what is good, beautiful and human; and little by little what is outdated thinking, bad politics and false religions and prophets will disappear, it will be a long and painful process, but the night only persists in the absence of light.
From those who have little (thought, culture and faith) even the little will be taken away.
MORIN, E. A cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento / Edgar Morin; tradução Eloá Jacobina. – 8a ed. -Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2003.
Joy and re-building the Earth
19
Nov
Amid threats of total war: the US authorized the
use of long-range weapons in the war in Eastern Europe, Finland and Sweden prepare for possible war (RFI press) and the Russian threat of a total war over the approval of missiles (Terra online press).
All of this seems contradictory to the possibilities of Terra-Pátria that we posted last week, but a theologian, paleontologist and philosopher Teilhard Chardin also points out something beyond this: re-constructing the Earth.
Chardin’s text, dated at the end of his life in the 1930s (there are several extracts), compiled and published after his death in 1958, only said in Building the Earth, but there was not yet the strong environmental imbalance, the growth of atomic plants (energy was used in the war for bombs) and the danger of a global cataclysm, threats present today, in addition to social imbalance.
He was already aware of the crisis of democracy and the growth of totalitarian systems (fascism and communism), he defined his belief in the future in three aspects: passion for the personal, the universal and the future itself, and seeing the planet as an organism gave his sentence: “each cell thinks, because it is free, that it is authorized to build a center for itself” (Chardin, 1958), but it noted the dispersion of this false intellectual and social liberalism.
See, however, the contradictions in dialogue, these forces do not have “merely destructive power, each of them contains positive factors… no matter how little these components talk, each of them contains positive components… each of them is the world itself is the world itself who defends himself and wants to reach the light”, it is clear that conflicts of war and extremism must be avoided.
In the sense he gives to the “spirit of the Earth”, this was written combining extracts from 1931, on a journey across the Pacific Ocean, he defined this spirit as “the passionate sense of common destiny that drags, ever further away, the thinking fraction of Life” , and it gives meaning to our consciousness in growing circles of families, homelands, races, finally discover that the only true, natural and real human Unity is the Spirit of the Earth”.
Edgar Morin in his book Terra Pátria created a similar concept as planetary citizenship, but it is necessary to give a “common soul” to this idea of a planet as home for everyone.
In Chardin’s cosmology, he insistently works on this theme in his Noosphere (this thinking layer that creates this spirit capable of involving everyone), he will say that “love is the most universal, the most formidable and the most mysterious of cosmic energies”, today With so many poles and so many forces in conflict, it is necessary to rediscover this essential point of convergence.
On the path to unity, “to the wonders of a common soul”, he wrote “these brief and pale words must make us understand that a formidable power of joy and action still sleeps within human unity”, rediscover this value and this cosmic force, like the defines, it is our destiny.
This is the joy of those who believe in the divine participation that corrects human history.
Chardin T. (1958) Construire la Terre. Paris: Editions du Soleil.
Words that will not pass
15
Nov
When the Greeks thought up the Greek polis, 
almost simultaneously the Jewish world was reinvigorated and updated by the Christian world, there were hundreds of false prophets, one was the expected one, he came not with a bang, like a euphoria, but like a gentle breeze.
On the threshold of a new civilization, Edgar Morin leaves four challenges for humanity: ”
Coming out of the planetary iron age, saving humanity, co-piloting the biosphere, civilizing the earth are four terms linked in a recursive ring, each necessary for the other three” (Morin, 2003, p. 178).
Simplists and false prophets insist on apocalyptic or warlike solutions, or both, but Edgar Morin warns: “For how much blindness there is today among traditionalists, moderns and postmoderns! How much fragmentation of thought! How much ignorance of the planetary complex! How much unawareness everywhere of the key problems! How much barbarism in human relations! How many lacks of spirit and soul! How many misunderstandings!” (Morin, 2003, p. 179).
So we can have two attitudes depending on our spiritual and conceptual view of the future: “In any case, we must reassume the principle of resistance. In addition, we have principles of hope in hopelessness…” (Morin, 2003, p. 180).
He points out six possible attitudes to this: the first is vital: “… vital principle: just as everything that lives self-regenerates in an incoercible tension directed towards its future, so what is human regenerates hope by regenerating its living; it is not hope that makes one live, it is living that makes hope, or rather: living makes hope that makes one live” (idem).
He lists five others, but we want to highlight the fifth: “The fifth is the principle of rescue by becoming aware of the danger. According to Hõlderlin’s phrase: ‘Where danger grows, so does that which saves. (ibid).
The book ends bleakly: “The adventure remains unknown. The planetary age will perhaps succumb before it has had a chance to blossom. The agony of humanity will perhaps only produce death and ruin” (Morin, 2003, p. 181).
But for those who believe, God will not remain indifferent to the fate of humanity, so it is necessary to think beyond the resistance of the spirit, to hope that the words of salvation will not pass and then the whole world will be able to recognize the power and divine action over our lives.
How much barbarism there is in human relations! How many lacks of spirit and soul! How many misunderstandings!” (Morin, 2003, p. 179).
So we can have two attitudes depending on our spiritual and conceptual view of the future: “In any case, we must reassume the principle of resistance. In addition, we have principles of hope in despair.
Going beyond earthly consciousness
14
Nov
At the end of the century, we seemed to
become aware of our reality.
Suddenly, new conflicts erupt and the dormant wars awake: ethnic hatreds, racial and ideological hatreds. Morin wrote about this moment:
“Still until the 1950s-1960s, we lived in an unknown land, we lived on an abstract Earth, we lived on an object Earth. Our end of the century discovered the Earth-system, the Earth Gaia, the biosphere, the cosmic parcel, the Fatherland. Each of us has our genealogy and our earthly identity card. identity card. Each of us comes from the Earth, is from the Earth, is on the Earth.
We belong to the Earth that belongs to us” (Morin, 2003, p. 175).
So what would this awareness be, Morin writes:
– “the awareness of the unity of the Earth (telluric consciousness);
– the awareness of the unity/diversity of the biosphere (ecological
ecological awareness);
– the awareness of the unity/diversity of man (anthropological awareness);
– becoming aware of our anthropo-bio-physical;
– becoming aware of our dasein, the
fact of “being there”, without knowing why;
– becoming aware of the planetary era;
– the awareness of the Damoclean threat;
– the awareness of the doom on the horizon of our lives, of
every life, every planet, every sun;
– the awareness of our earthly destiny. “ (Morin, 2003, p. 175)
Although he recognizes that he needs to go further, as he writes: “And it is through these awarenesses that messages can now come from the most diverse horizons, some from faith, others from ethics, others from humanism, others from ro- mantism, others from the sciences, others from the awareness of the planetary iron age” (Morin, 2003, p. 176), he is stuck with the idea of the humanism of the Enlightenment “which recognizes the quality of all men” (idem), but comes up against human limitations without knowing how to overcome them.
“Mastering nature? Man is still incapable of controlling his own nature, whose madness drives him to dominate nature by losing control of himself. Mastering the world?” (Ibidem), the author is not clear about the awareness of the divine in the ‘most diverse horizons’.
Without being part of the imaginary high point of civilization, which sees a new civilization in the distance, which the author himself acknowledges: “This man must relearn earthly finitude and renounce the false infinity of omnipotent technique … “ (p. 177), but the cosmos is not the limit.
Morin, E. e Kern, B. (2003) Terra-Pátria. Transl. Paulo Neves, Brazil, Porto Alegre: Sulina.
