Arquivo para a ‘Recursos comuns’ Categoria
Development, power and civilization
08
Nov
Politics dominated by the arrogance of power, by 
little service to social causes and by contempt and disrespect for the citizenship of ordinary citizens is public life gone awry.
The polarization into two large political blocs has not happened recently. Edgar Morin, in his book Terra-Pátria, already stated: “The cold war began in 1947. The planet is polarized into two blocs, waging an unrelenting ideological war everywhere. Despite the balance of atomic terror, the world is not stabilized” (Morin, 2003, p. 30).
What kind of crisis is this? In other books Morin talks about the crisis of thought, in this one about a crisis of development: “Isn’t our civilization, the model of development, itself sick of development?” (Morin, 2003, p. 83).
The crisis of civilization that we are experiencing has side effects: “Individuals only think about today, they consume the present, they allow themselves to be fascinated by a thousand futilities, they chatter without ever understanding each other in the tower of Babel of trinkets. Unable to sit still, they throw themselves in every direction” (Morin, 2003, p. 84).
Another effect is on young people: “When adolescence rebels against society, when it ‘goes astray’ and dives into hard drugs, it is believed that it is only a youthful malady; it is not realized that adolescence is the weak link in civilization, that the problems, evils, diffuse and atomized aspirations elsewhere are concentrated in it”. (Morin, 2003, p. 85).
What happens is that we enter a “blind race” as Morin calls it: “The race of the triad that has taken charge of the human adventure, science/technology/industry, is uncontrolled. Growth is uncontrolled, its progress leads to the abyss”. (Morin, 2003, p. 92).
We have certainly produced important fruits of civilization: “Oh, certainly! Shelley, Novalis, Hulderlin, Pushkin, Rimbaud, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Mussorgski, Berg are the historical fruits of a civilizational development; but their work transcends this development, it expresses our being-in-the-world, it speaks to us of the unspeakable, it takes us to the edge of ecstasy, where the irremediable influence of time and space is attenuated” (Morin, 2003, p.107).
However, the owners of power, wrapped up in their megapolitical daydreams, empires and struggles that do not contemplate human and civilizational greatness, incapable in their arrogance of giving up privileges and other peoples and nations as allies and friends, incapable of solving social and climatic problems.
The Gospel says of these, who are also those of Pharisaical religiosity: “Jesus said in his teaching to a large crowd: ”Beware of the teachers of the Law! They like to wear flashy clothes, to be greeted in public squares; they like the first seats in the synagogues and the best places at banquets. They devour widows’ houses, pretending to say long prayers. For this they will receive the worst condemnation” (Mk 12:38-40).
Morin, E.; Kern, Anne-Brigitte (2003). Terra-Pátria, transl. por Paulo Azevedo Neves da Silva. Brazil, Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Other cancellations and joy
07
Nov
Not only are there cancellations of identities
and ethnicities, there are also cancellations aimed at policies that eliminate fraternity, solidarity and love.
Edgar Morin wrote about “salvation”: “Life, consciousness, love, truth and beauty are ephemeral. These marvelous emergencies presuppose organizations of organizations, unusual opportunities, and they run mortal risks all the time. For us, they are fundamental, but they have no foundation” (Morin, 2003, p. 164).
This type of cancellation is not only the most dangerous, it is itself a cancellation of the possibility of good news: “Love and conscience will die. Nothing will escape death. There is no salvation in the sense of the religions of salvation that promise personal immortality. There is no earthly salvation, as promised by the communist religion, that is, a social solution in which everyone’s life would be free from misfortune, chance and tragedy. This salvation must be radically and definitively renounced” (Morin, 2003, p. 164).
Morin quotes another author who is fundamental to his argument: “As Gadamer says, it is necessary to ‘stop thinking of finitude as the limitation in which our infinite will-to-be fails, (but) to know finitude positively as the true fundamental law of dasein’. The true infinite is beyond reason of intelligibility, of the powers of man” (Morin, 2003, p. 164).
How is this beyond finitude can be written according to the author: “The gospel of lost men and the Fatherland tells us: let us be brothers, not because we will be saved, but because we are lost*. Let us be brothers in order to live authentically our community of earthly life and death destiny. Let us be brothers, because we are in solidarity with each other in the unknown adventure” (Morin, 2003, p. 166), and explains in a footnote (*):
*In fact, the idea of salvation born of the refusal of perdition carried within it the repressed awareness of perdition. Every religion of life after death carried within it the repressed awareness of the irreparability of death.
He quotes Albert Cohen to explain: “That this astonishing adventure of humans who arrive, laugh, move, then suddenly stop moving, that this catastrophe that awaits them does not make us tender and compassionate towards one another, this is unbelievable” (Cohen, apud Morin, 2003, pgs. 166-167).
This is his call for fraternity: “The call for fraternity is not confined to one race, one class, one elite, one nation. It comes from those who, wherever they are, hear it within themselves, and it is addressed to each and every one. Everywhere, in every class, in every nation, there are beings of ‘good will’ who convey this message” (Morin, 2003, p. 167).
MORIN, E. e Kern, Anne-Brigitte. Terra-Pátria, trad. por Paulo Azevedo Neves da Silva. — Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2003.
Dilemmas about peace in Europe and the Middle East
21
Oct
The first major dilemma, although quite
obvious, has no support in the mainstream international press: there is a lack of forces that want peace in a way that is equidistant from the countries in conflict.
The UN could once play this role, but with infighting between the major powers, this power is limited to speeches and attempts to sensitize the warring parties.
The second major dilemma stems from a serious misconception that is common among warmongers: if you want peace, prepare for war, but the opposite is true: if you want peace, fight for it.
In Eastern Europe, for example, it was reported in the German press that Estonia, which has only 6,500 active military personnel and a population of 1.3 million, had recently simulated an evacuation plan to withdraw the population, although 60% of the citizens say they are willing to defend the country, they have no military preparation for this.
A curious defense structure has been set up on the border of many Baltic countries (photo from the German newspaper DW – Deutsche Welle). It’s not known how effective it will be, but it’s for war, and the proximity of Ukraine and Russia is making several Baltic countries prepare for the worst.
In the midst of Israeli attacks and little public aid, activist forces in Lebanon are taking action, albeit politicized and insufficient for the people in need, according to the same DW newspaper, the Syrian military and opposition forces charge exorbitant amounts for the transport of refugees fleeing the war.
This leads to a third serious dilemma: the red cross and the red crescent (the Arabic version of the red cross) do not accept the religious controversy, but it is this that divides aid forces.
The fourth dilemma is to resolve the ideological and cultural-religious background to the conflicts. During the Cold War (USA vs. Soviet Union), the sociologist Raymond Aron uttered a well-known phrase: “The Cold War was a period in which war was improbable and peace impossible.” The dilemma is now reversed: “Peace is improbable and war is possible.” The imperialist forces at play will not easily give up their disputed interests.
How to think about peace seems like an arid and impractical path, but great thinkers have called for it: “the resistance of the spirit” and as a consequence “the resistance of hope”, Edgar Morin among others point to this path, perhaps the only one to change the mentality of power, to think about solidarity and serving all of humanity, not one group of interest.
Really tackling the issue of poverty
24
Sep
Simply distributing income or just giving a plate
of food solves the emergency issue, but it keeps poverty latent and does not provide social uplift and economic stability.
The issue of poverty is a complex problem, although its consequences are easy to see, but raising the quality of life and dignified survival of millions of people must be tackled in a way that goes beyond the emergency, even if it is necessary.
Among the rarely analyzed causes of poverty are corruption, wars, precarious infrastructure and the difficulty in generating jobs and creating them with decent wages, so informality and even crime and illegal markets (even drugs) are consequences.
The consequences are well known: hunger, unemployment, lack of decent housing, lack of basic sanitation, violence, the spread of epidemic diseases, discrimination and social vulnerability.
Tackling one aspect while ignoring others, for example the issue of basic sanitation, is crucial and is not easily visible to many public managers who only see aspects that give them more visibility and help improve their vision, which in Brazil is always critical.
The issue of income distribution is a fundamental aspect, but it’s not just a question of solving the emergency, creating possibilities for social mobility among the lower income levels is an essential factor in eradicating poverty, as is promoting aspects of schooling and job creation.
The global problem to be tackled is emigration, not just hunger and poverty, but above all wars and persecution of certain ethnic groups, which is a very serious factor and could escalate into a world war.
Clear public programs that not only solve the emergency problem, which is visible to the population, but also the medium and long term problems are essential. The low level of social mobility and the difficulty for the lower income groups to access public goods and services is still a crucial factor in many countries around the world, and extreme poverty persists despite programs and policies, where they have failed is precisely where the propaganda was strongest and the measures least effective.
Changing the rhetoric of welfarism and the distribution of social leftovers is fundamental. We need to restore dignity to every human being, overcoming not only prejudice, but above all the way in which we view these people, who have the same dignity as others.
Justice, ideia and thinking
29
Aug
The three words are important at a time of
great crisis in thought (what is), what is an idea, and the idea of justice or the just, explored by current thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas (we mentioned in a previous post on the issue of including Outro) and we quote in passing the two volumes of Paul Ricoeur o Justo (volume two published by Martins Fontes in Brazil) although the author himself says that it is an essay, he penetrates a deeper aspect, the question of truth and morals.
Reading the text, Inclusion of the Other by Habermas, clarifies that in philosophical terms, that morality in John Rawls, in Kantian terms, has differences between Kant’s original political liberalism and Kantian republicanism, which is how Rawls defends it, this would be enough, but there is a long analysis in Volume 1 by Paul Ricouer on justice in Rawls.
To understand Ricoeur’s book 2 it is necessary to understand that for the Greeks the first philosophy is that which for them, and the ontological resumption has to do with this, metaphysics as questions about Being, existence, the cause and the meaning of reality and physis (nature) must be placed prior to the second, aspects linked to logic and ethics.
Book 2 addresses what seems most essential in Ricoeur, although he confesses that it is an essay, its goal is “to justify the thesis that theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy are of equal levels; as none of it is first philosophy in relation to what Stanislas Breton characterized as the meta- function (I myself defended this reformulation of metaphysics in terms of the meta- function, in which “the maximum genres” of the dialectic of Plato’s last dialogues would be united and Aristotelian speculation on the plurality of the meaning of being or beings) “ (Ricoeur, 2008, p. 63) … but he did not speak (initially it was written in a conference) about this but rather about the two second philosophy.
His analysis is based “initially, thinking about justice and truth without each other; in a second moment, think about them in a way of reciprocal or crossed presupposition” (Ricoeur, 2008, p. 64) and this undertaking “has nothing revolutionary, it is located in the line of speculations about transcendentals…” (idem).
When approaching the first stage of the analysis: “I thought of Rawls’ statement at the beginning of Théorie de la justice: “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, just as truth is the first virtue of theories” (pg. 65) and There the author takes up the ethical part of another text of his: Soi-même comme um autre, to “guarantee the eminent status of justice”.
The idea developed there is that this triad leads to “equity”, it is not the dualism between the Self and the Other (the next one also uses Ricoeur), “the triad belongs to the horizontal axis and does not consist absolutely in the simple juxtaposition between the self, the near and far; it is the same dialectic of the self. The desire to live well roots the moral project of life, in desire and lack, as marked by the grammatical structure of the desire… but without the mediation of the other two terms of the triad, the desire for a good life would be lost in the nebula of the variable figures of happiness… I would say that the short circuit between wanting a good life and happiness is the result of ignorance of the dialectical constitution of the self” (pg. 66).
The author formulates the idea of distance in these terms: “fair distance, a middle ground between the very little distance typical of many dreams of emotional fusion and the excess of distance fueled by arrogance, contempt, hatred of the strange, unknown. I would see in the virtue of hospitality the closest emblematic impression of this culture of just distance” (pg. 66).
Justice on the vertical axis, that of power and norm, is seen by the author as follows: “on the vertical axis that leads to the pre-eminence of practical wisdom and, with it, justice as equity, a first observation can be made regarding the relationship between kindness and justice. The relationship is neither one of identity nor difference; goodness characterizes the goal of the deepest desire and, thus, belongs to the grammar of wanting.
I consider the triad to be the self, the other and the distant, if also seen as a transcendent alterity, there is another “unknown” that can be divine and a carrier of messages, in network theory for example the “weak link” is considered fundamental , Ricoeur’s essay is rich, however, when returning to the question of the Kantian categorical imperative, which justifies political idealism, I believe that Habermas is correct in stating that this is the mistake in John Rawls’ consistent and very current “A Theory of Justice”. influential.
A part of the biblical reading can expand the concept of this distant as transcendent otherness (Mt 5,20): “Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”, which in the deontological sense one could say “you will not enter into the truth of justice”.
A part of the biblical reading can expand the concept of this distant as transcendent otherness (Mt 5,20): “Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”, which in the deontological sense one could say “you will not enter into the truth of justice”.
Ricoeur, P. (2008) Justo 2: justice and truth and other studies (in portuguese). Trans. Ivone C. Benedetti. Brazil, São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2008.
Putting out fires
12
Aug
With the initiative of Egypt and Qatar, supported
by other countries, there is an attempt for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that would avoid a likely retaliation from Iran for the assassination of Hamas leader, Ismil Haniyeh, in Tehran, at the end of last July .
Iran considers it possible, but demands an end to Israel’s incursions into the Gaza strip, Israel is preparing as if war were inevitable, and this would raise a new front of global war between the West and now the Arab world.
The other front in the war between Ukraine and Russia with increasing NATO involvement, Ukraine launched a surprise attack on Russian territory in the city of Kursk where intense fighting is taking place, with Russia recruiting young people for military service again.
Two worrying situations at nuclear plants also occurred this weekend, one in the city of Rostov, where a new plant was switched on and there were concerns about a unit having some malfunction, but the plant’s chief engineer, Andrey Gorbunov, said according to press sources: “we are working at maximum efficiency”, saying that it was routine maintenance.
More serious was a fire yesterday, at the facilities of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in the south of Ukraine, this Sunday (11/08), as reported by the Reuters agency, located in a war zone, on Ukrainian territory, but under the control from Russia, both countries exchanged accusations for the fire caused, the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, claims that the situation is under control and radiation levels are normal.
Evgeny Balitsky, an official stationed by Russia in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, accused Ukraine of starting the fire by shelling the nearby town of Enerhodar, and Russian officials said the plant “suffered serious damage for the first time” from the attack.
Thus, the danger of wars, which produce enormous losses and human lives, the risk of an “accident”, a hasty or cruel attitude, such as murders, can trigger irreversible processes and create an irreversible global climate of wars and horrors.
The hope that peacekeeping forces, and in the case of competent technical force plants, will avoid greater tragedies than those that wars already cause, deaths and human despair of civilians and innocent people.
Social promotion and public goods
26
Jul
The promotion of social life and the true 
administration of public goods (water, energy and sanitation) are the true basic inputs for the social promotion of human life, but this is what is only seen in electoral advertisements, they show riches that will be accessible to everyone , but few and only at election time.
Talking about hunger is the slogan of many elections around the world, but the conditions that are sustainable for this are little or almost never understood, and they depend on a greater balance in world markets and guarantees for imports and exports of basic inputs, including for health.
Economic crises, basically, are an imbalance between the production and distribution of essential goods and consumption, and arise in isolated sectors of the economy, it is not necessary for there to be a shortage of various goods, it is a cascading imbalance and capital and stock exchanges are more reflections of the origin of these crises, which include wars and revolutions.
Natural factors can also influence (droughts, floods, epidemics or some major event such as an earthquake or an atomic crisis that is now possible).
Therefore, the true treasures must be those that lead humanity to greater balance and sustainability, including care for nature, as the production of food, energy and even less essential consumer goods depend on it.
The true treasures, even if we only think about the earthly ones, forgetting the spiritual ones that give us comfort and true joy, are those that provide greater civilizing understanding, tolerance between races and cultures, and those that include the spiritual plane.
The increasingly growing culture of individualism, hatred (of different types), the accumulation of goods as a symbol of happiness, the consumption of even the human body and mind lead to the opposite path of those who want to build real treasures.
Illusions pass away, moths consume, time rusts or rots, but what remains is essential and a true spiritual asceticism depends on it, a good that glimpses into future generations, and for those who believe, eternity.
Illusions pass away, moths consume, time rusts or rots, but what remains is essential and a true spiritual asceticism depends on it, a good that glimpses into future generations, and for those who believe, eternity.
Thus, the current crisis is, at its base, a crisis of thought, of ethical and solidarity values, of mutual respect and of clarity about what it means to build true treasures.
In the Bible, Jesus takes a few loaves and fish and distributes it, the meaning is very direct and simple: little distributed feeds everyone, and poorly distributed causes opulence for some and hunger and misery for many.
Common good and society
23
Jul
Those who imagine that the word is only linked
to religious, socialist views or natural goods (air, water and social well-being) are mistaken.
In fact, many economic theories have focused on the topic, from moral philosophers to public economists, in a list that includes Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, although opposed Marx reread Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill in a utilitarian vision until John Maynard Keynes, in a vision of state interventionist in the economy.
Thomas Aquinas considered “the common good” (bonum commune, written in Latin) to be the goal of law and government; John Locke declared that “the peace, safety, and public good of the people” are the aims of political society, and further argued that “the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law”; David Hume argued that “social conventions” are adopted and receive moral support due to the fact that they serve the “public” or “common” interest, this in the social theory that structured the modern state.
The most advanced vision, within the framework of contractualism, was the vision defended by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his theory does not do without two legitimizing components: the idea that everyone’s participation in the sovereignty of the social body (political equality) must be accompanied by a certain level of substantial equality, and second, a rational principle of political morality, which maintains the general will of the interests of those who are different from the true common interest.
If this vision were pursued: freedom, equality and fraternity would be composed in such a way as to adjust to the interest of the common good, however, recalls Edgar Morin in his book “Fraternity: to resist the cruelty of the world” (in Brazil published by Editora Palas Athena ) that the motto of the French revolution are not complementary, but need an effort, a practical and reflective human action to integrate and interact with each other.
There is also a modern discussion about the idea that the common good is never well managed except in private hands, the so-called Tragedy of the Commons, which was contested by economist Elinor Ostrom, the first female Nobel Prize winner in economics.
It does not mean that everything will pass into the hands of the state, or as Keynesian theory says the state should intervene in the economy, this does cause great tragedies and in Brazil good economists have goosebumps remembering the historical facts of these interventions: Collor plan, price freeze , etc. all caused great losses to the popular economy.
Tragedy of Communs was an initially successful text by Garrett Hardin, but he used environmental themes to justify this type of “tragedy”: the increase in consumption of natural resources, and on the other hand the way in which human beings organize themselves to extract these same resources, and this is part of the justification for the misuse of environmental resources.
The learning that Elinor Ostrom’s studies brought us is that the sustainable use of common good resources are alternative solutions to Hardin’s fatalism, for her both state ownership and privatization are subject to failure depending on the circumstances (Ostrom et al . 1999).
Ostrom et al (1999): Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science, Vol. 284. no. 5412, pp. 278 – 28
The Just sees the Other and is delicate
19
Jun
Paul Ricoeur in his two volumes of The Just will
dedicate himself to unveiling this relationship, which involves power relations, starting with the cry that is considered fair: “This is unfair!” he says in the preface of his book in reference to the first chapter of R.J. Lucas’s book “On the Justice” (1955) and recognizes it as a proclamation of a protest.
As in much of Paul Ricoeur’s work, it is in recognizing the face of the Other that we must understand the principle of Justice, but he makes a long analysis of John Rawls’ work “Theory of Justice” because it does not ignore power relations and their influence on the vision of current justice, even Habermas analyzed it.
The experience of injustice is made by ourselves as well as by other individuals and even more so by human groups, especially those who are at war because they consider the theft of their rights to be serious, but the experience of injustice requires deep reflection, especially in those cases where there is violence against victims and social injustice.
Ricoeur takes up Aristotle to analyze the “good life”, but it is necessary to clarify that it is not the pejorative sense of good life of scoundrels and opportunists used in common sense, in Aristotelian and ancient Greek language the good has an eminently ethical meaning, that is , the good that one seeks is inseparable from the good of the other, thus seeking peace and not conflict or the usurpation of goods as Eduardo Galeano classifies all wars, it is beyond any reprehensible selfishness, which demeans the subject, preventing him from achieving and be respected on a moral level.
In the essay truth is justice, from Justo 2, Ricoeur refers to the same expression that serves as the title of his book The other as a self, where he comments: “The formula of « Self as an other» is in this sense a primitively ethical formula, which subordinates the reflexivity of the self to the mediation of the otherness of the other.”
There is a deontological dimension that is not far from the theological in his thinking about the Just, Ricoeur’s ethics are not limited to the monologism inherent to Kantian formalism, present in John Rawls, at the same time that he refuses to appeal to feeling, let’s say to “heart” has a dimension of “delicacy” in respect for the Other.
Byung-Chul Han remembers in his book “On the exam” that only one relationship is symmetrical (we would say horizontal, without the power relationship): “respect” and it is this respect that leads us to understanding the Just in relation to the Other.
Thus, those who practice justice rarely seek the spotlight or their own shine, they know that in essence what they do is a relationship of respect for the Other, different and diverse.
Ricœur, P. (1995) Le Juste 1. Paris: Éditions Esprit.
Stories of a future life
14
Jun
There are many visions and even prophecies
about the contemporary polycrisis, it goes beyond thinking and reaches social life, politics and wars on a worrying scale, but the
The question is what are the reasons to have hope, and at the same time what Edgar Morin called “resistance of the spirit”, in the final sections of The crisis of Byung-Chul, he criticizes current politics: “political narratives offer the perspective of a new order of things, they paint possible worlds… we drag ourselves from one crisis to the next. Politics is reduced to problem solving. Today we precisely lack future narratives that give us hope.” (Han, 2023, p. 132).
The solution to specific and emergency problems is the solution to great problems, the “works” it can be visible and bring popularity to those in power, when they should have both the long-term perspective and the notion that they are short-term solutions implemented sparingly that lead to long-lasting, sustainable and effective responses and concludes Byung-Chul: “every action that transforms the world presupposes a narration” (idem) and thus there are few cases of immediate responses that are lasting.
There is a well-known narration that a young woman asks the man who was planting dates “why do you waste time planting what you are not going to harvest”, the man turned and he replied: if everyone thought like you, no one would eat dates.
The idea that things can be quick and simple is present in today’s storytelling: how to lose weight effortlessly, how to learn this or that complex job in just a few lessons, how to speak clearly and simply about a problem with a complex solution and many other “magic” formulas that have little magic and enchantment, are narratives that aim to sell and easily consume products whose effectiveness is questionable.
The first idea is to understand medium and long-term solutions, second is to be suspicious of easy solutions that are not lasting and third to admit that a complex problem it requires a longer narration and silent listening to different voices and different listenersto listen carefully.
To a biblical saying that says that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (one of the smallest seeds), you plant it, in years it grows and becomes a leafy tree and only it depends on its own nature and waiting time (Mark 26-27).
Says Byung-Chul Han in his final paragraph: “in the world of storytelling, everything is reduced to consumption. This blinds us to narratives, other ways of life, other perceptions and realities” (p. 132-133).
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração. Trad. Daniel Guilhermino. Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
