Arquivo para a ‘Recursos comuns’ Categoria
Time to change and rethink
26
Nov
The Pandemic did not cause changes in our behavior, most want to go
back to the old normal: rushing, a nervous and complex day to day, ambitions that are mixed up with healthy and possible goals, in short, what the philosopher Sloterdijk called “frivolities”, however the crisis did not pass and a 4th one is already admitted. wave.
Of every 100 new infections reported in the world, 62 are in Europe, according to the news agency Reuters, the region registers 1 million infections every two days.
The wisdom that involves an entire universe of human life, from health to politics, the true well-being that includes justice and empathy, even with a pinch of nature was not enough, the result is a crisis that approaches and swells, look at the infinity of the universe and its mysteries should become humility, but arrogance is everywhere from unbelievers to skeptics, from low culture to bookish and encyclopedic cult, a real change of thought, as Morin wants, has not happened.
All this that should have inspired greater feelings of love, solidarity and peace did not happen, the Pandemic did not give a truce of hostilities and radicalizations, the result cannot be other than a catastrophe, regardless of elected governments and trends, since the polarization always leads to two extremes and does not let up.
There is anything in the air, the human spirit knows when things are out of place, they do not always know exactly where they are due to lack of harmony and spiritual evolution, material human development is not enough, it is important if it is sustainable, it is necessary that the human soul follows this evolution and it is not what you see, you see “frivolities”.
Several European countries are thinking of lockdown, an energy crisis is also in the sights of many European countries, dependent on external suppliers, according to data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, the increase in gas has caused inflation to rise in 19 countries of the euro zone, and it impacts everything but mainly energy since 90% of the gas comes from Russia, and a fifth of the electricity is produced using gas.
Remember that it is winter in Europe and this consumption tends to grow for heated environments and longer stay indoors.
In the Christian liturgy, Advent begins on the weekend, it is not just the celebration of Christmas, the first week is the waiting for a new coming of Jesus, called Parusia, and it is not just the end of the world, but also the great crises God is not indifferent, of course to those who believe, his intervention is always possible in an unexpected way.
Hope is thus an engine of our lives, but we need to be attentive as the liturgy of this period says (Lk 21:34): “Take care that your hearts do not become insensitive because of gluttony, drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day do not suddenly fall upon you, for that day will fall like a trap on all the inhabitants of our land”.
Good news and caution
11
Oct
Five Brazilian states did not register death by Covid 19 in the
last 24 hours, but it has already exceeded 600,000 deaths and accounts for 21,575,820 infections, the moving average is below 500 deaths and more than 60% of the adult population has already received both doses or single dose of the vaccine.
The main danger is that the stress of the period of sanitary measures causes a relaxation in the population, sanitary measures are still mandatory and this is the right time not to relax and be resilient.
The precaution is due to the worldwide problem of the pandemic, the WHO global data indicate 52,929 infections yesterday with a weekly drop of 17.64% and a total of 818 deaths (more than 42 in the week) with a weekly drop of 21.26% (see chart), both more pronounced than in previous weeks.
In many countries there is already a relaxation in sanitary measures, it is necessary to be aware that this affects the whole world, as flights and global mobility start to be relaxed, and without the precautionary measures taken by everyone, it can make the fall more slow, and it is also necessary to remember late autumn and early winter in the northern hemisphere.
Sanitary precautions such as washing your hands and continuing to wear masks and alcohol gel, avoiding crowds and distances when in collective activities (public transport remains a problem), and avoiding the usual end-of-the-year consumerism problem.
A more dignified and less sumptuous Christmas will be more worthy of the date and will avoid the desperation of traditional spending and consumption at the end of the year.
May the return to normality also be a return to serenity, empathy and solidarity.
Renouce privileges and provide conditions for the poor
08
Oct
Alongside the problem of poverty and extreme poverty, the 
world lacks solidarity and compassion for the poor, according to Amartya Sen, another Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, “poverty is the deprivation of capabilities”, so it is not about the disabled. or some system of privileges, but access to education, social and financial status, health, etc.
The contribution of Kremer, Barnerjee and Duflo (see previous post) is revealing because it addresses the multidimensional aspect, which goes beyond the lack of resources of poverty, and even further points to the ineffectiveness of government poverty, and among these measures they address that even microcredit has limitations.
The survey was conducted in 13 countries in The Economic Lives of the Poor study, the authors demonstrate that microfinance cannot increase investment, consumption, health and education conditions or empowerment. of women, so what is the solution pointed out.
They point to effects of strengthening and improving specific aspects related to poverty, such as education and infrastructure, and point to a study done in Kenya 2009 (Additional Resources versus Organizational Changes in Education: Experimental Evidence from Kenya), and another one done in India in 2007 (Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India), 2007.
Developed countries are also in line with these proposals, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) plans, but there will be no lack of polarized arguments that will say that it is about welfare or it is a proposal of the radical left, it is about overcoming the selfish and make sure that globalization has not looked at the social problem of humanity.
As it is difficult to overcome this vision, and this comes from afar, overcoming the vision of agreement of the rich and the poor and looking at the poor is also a Christian teaching, says the passage of the evangelist Mark (Mk, 10:21-23) to a rich young man who followed all the commandments and wanted very much to follow Jesus, He looked at him with love and said: “You only need one thing: go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me”, the young man is dejected and leaves, because he was very rich.
Erasure, invisibility and politics
07
Oct
It is not ignored in history the fact that the state, being a “possible”
solver of conflicts, has taken for itself the right to violence, which in the last instance is the right to kill.
Cameroon philosopher Achille Mbembe took this extreme of state power to develop his thesis on the state’s right to kill, calling this policy “Necropower”.
The essay was translated into Portuguese in 2018, and at the heart of this essay is a question about who can live or die in the contemporary world? Mbembe denounces that the role of States should have the defense of the lives of the most vulnerable as a principle, and not what is structurally done, which is the erasure of memory and the conditions of these lives.
We see that, beyond the erasure, there is a permanent invisibility of these people, by a layer that is linked to power, reaching the limit of not having civil registration and cultural rights.
Approached with regard to the forgetfulness (or social invisibility) and silencing made by the State regarding the historical past of these vulnerable groups, it is beyond the academic field, the social, cognitive and identity memory of what was experienced in the past and which is shameful not only through oblivion and invisibility, but made from a narrative opposite to its memory.
If we look from complex thinking, which etymologically means tissue together (complexus), the biological term “necrosis” refers to issues involving the biological death of bodily tissues or part of them, thus, one cannot think of the death of a part without let the whole body suffer, even though it does not look to see the tissue that is failing.
It is important to address the complexity of this concept of necropolitics and invisibility, because only it can address the problems involving racism, sexism and the erasure of different cultures (such as the indigenous, but there are many others in the contemporary world), the already known and unresolved economic dimension, which is access to social goods and services, joins the political dimension (the spaces of power), the construction of narratives and historicity of subjugating cultures (the psychological dimension) and the comprehensive cultural dimension.
Starting from the misery and invisibility of peoples, cultures and races, it cannot deny structural factors that are strong and prevent a more sustainable change of peaceful and harmonious coexistence.
Erasure, invisibility and politics
06
Oct
It is not ignored in history the fact that the state, being a “possible” solver of conflicts, has taken for itself the right to violence, which in the last instance is the right to kill.
Cameroon philosopher Achille Mbembe took this extreme of state power to develop his thesis on the state’s right to kill, calling this policy “Necropower”.
The essay was translated into Portuguese in 2018, and at the heart of this essay is a question about who can live or die in the contemporary world? Mbembe denounces that the role of States should have the defense of the lives of the most vulnerable as a principle, and not what is structurally done, which is the erasure of memory and the conditions of these lives.
We see that, beyond the erasure, there is a permanent invisibility of these people, by a layer that is linked to power, reaching the limit of not having civil registration and cultural rights.
Approached with regard to the forgetfulness (or social invisibility) and silencing made by the State regarding the historical past of these vulnerable groups, it is beyond the academic field, the social, cognitive and identity memory of what was experienced in the past and which is shameful not only through oblivion and invisibility, but made from a narrative opposite to its memory.
If we look from complex thinking, which etymologically means tissue together (complexus), the biological term “necrosis” refers to issues involving the biological death of bodily tissues or part of them, thus, one cannot think of the death of a part without let the whole body suffer, even though it does not look to see the tissue that is failing.
It is important to address the complexity of this concept of necropolitics and invisibility, because only it can address the problems involving racism, sexism and the erasure of different cultures (such as the indigenous, but there are many others in the contemporary world), the already known and unresolved economic dimension, which is access to social goods and services, joins the political dimension (the spaces of power), the construction of narratives and historicity of subjugating cultures (the psychological dimension) and the comprehensive cultural dimension.
Starting from the misery and invisibility of peoples, cultures and races, it cannot deny structural factors that are strong and prevent a more sustainable change of peaceful and harmonious coexistence.
Of course, the panorama is not just national or Latin America, the brake on economic activities and mainly disorganization, facing the crisis in the economic aspect, when there was one, was just adopting emergency measures and not senatorial or preventive measures.
It is expected that there will be living forces capable of recovering social levels, without forgetting the aspects of distribution and preservation of the environment, which ultimately are the means for production and food and economic development.
The wisdom of pure thoughts
01
Oct
Simplicist is naive thinking, while simplicity is pure thinking, pure noesis.
It is not in the capacity for theoretical elaboration, in the bookish
culture that resists wisdom, it unites simplicity (which is not simplistic) and complexity in the sense of putting everything under the cloak of nature and the universe and understanding that there is original knowledge that is not simplistic, but they were elaborated in real contact with nature, so I reject the idea of naturalization.
Culturalization is what has taken over the natural and perverted it, said philosopher, writer and indigenous leader Ailton Krenak of the current pandemic crisis: “Earth is speaking to humanity: ‘silence.’ This is also the meaning of withdrawal.”
Much of Western culture is in crisis, because it has brutally seized nature and does not want to understand it and has difficulty understanding visible and clear signs, this crisis comes from before the current technological revolution, many philosophers at the beginning of the century XX pointed to her, and the silence asked by Krenak can also be what Theodor Adorno identifies as true contemplation: “The bliss of contemplation consists in disenchanted enchantment.” Theodor Adorno, I remember that this philosopher is neither mystic nor religious.
Ailton Krenak wrote “Ideas to postpone the end of the world” (Cia. da Letras, s/a), within an indigenous cosmovision, but aware that this is a planetary problem, he said in an interview with Daily Estado de Minas (03 /04/2020): “I don’t understand where there is something other than nature. Everything is nature. The cosmos is nature. All I can think of is nature”, denouncing that the way we live is artificial and not in keeping with human nature.
Interpreting the book by Davi Kapenawa, another indigenous leader, Viveiro de Castro and Danowski also see that our “cultured” and Western thinking is concentrated in the world of merchandise, and Kapenawa says: “white people dream a lot, but they only dream of themselves”, that is, with its own culture without being able to contemplate a wider world, where everyone is present.
These worldviews may seem naive, but they mean that we must always think beyond our culture, also the Christian worldview calls for this effort, and after teaching his apostles what the master himself should go through, and they still don’t understand, Jesus will make use of of a new metaphor for them to think in a purer and less culturalized way.
In chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark, seeing that they wanted to keep the children away from him, He says (Mk 10:14-15): “Let the children come to me. Do not forbid them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them. Truly I say to you: whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a child will not enter it”.
The world to come, in different worldviews, even if they seem childish, shows the crisis and exhaustion of cultural thought in our time, and the exhaustion of natural means.
The need to Aftermath´s Pandemic
27
Sep
Aftermath refers to that activity that authorities
responsible for fighting fires and tragedies carry out after the peak of the tragedy has passed, but still recovered, found in terms of a definition for periods that follow the tragedy or remarkable event, even when find the effects or consequences of it.
In Brazil, the data are worrying, because an announcement of flexibility in the measures of the pandemic was enough for the number of deaths to stabilize around 500 deaths daily and in some regions they are already growing, including the populous states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro .
An example of an aftermath, in addition to prevention measures until the end of the pandemic, is the research financed by FAPESP (Foundation of Research of the State São Paulo) and carried out by researchers at the Phycology laboratory at the Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil), which identified a new species of green microalgae of the genus Nyphrocytium that affects the lung of patients who died from Covid 19.
We are exhausted from such a long period of limitations, but it is important that we are careful until a final stage, which is still far away, and could reach the end of the year.
As we have already posted, Europe is entering autumn and winter promises to be harsh, as well as our summer in the southern hemisphere, the danger of new viruses and mutations of the current one must be observed, we see that in some countries, as is the case of Eastern countries, some cases already create a warning and take tough measures, but required, our liberalism can be costly.
At the opening of the UN General Assembly, Secretary General António Guterres, speaking of the general situation beyond the pandemic, but which includes it, said that we are in the wrong direction, the planet has never been seen “so threatened, nor so divided”, and stress : “we are on the brink of an abyss and we are improving in the wrong direction”, is a difficult warning, but necessary at this moment. 7
The functions of are fundamental for a time of global crisis, and there is no co-management of problems that are global, and that can expand to other areas, an already easy to be observed that is a social one, which was not properly faced, and now it’s urgent.
If we run away from a central, complex problem that involves the entire globe, we are not solving it, and we are making it worse, ineffective combating the pandemic and its consequences cannot produce good results, and those who receive political dividends are co-responsible.
We must face the aftermath of the Pandemic or we will not be able to prevent another fire.
The human purpose and its finitude
24
Sep
Unlike the machine that has the environment as its purpose
(see previous post), the human purpose is to reaffirm existence through the perpetuation of life, and also everything that is alive can and should defend this existence, as explained by Edgar Morin:
“The impositions that inhibit enzymes, genes, and even cells, do not diminish a freedom that does not exist at this level, as freedom only emerges at a level of individual complexity where there are possibilities of choice; they inhibit qualities, possibilities of action or expression” (MORIN, 1977, 110), machines are not without purpose, but whatever they are, they are means.
But this freedom when it is at the human level, and it is “only at the level of individuals who have possibilities of choice, decision and complex development that impositions can be destructive of freedom, that is, become oppressive” (idem) .
It is the development of human culture that can develop these potentialities, as Morin says: “It is certainly culture that allows the development of the potentials of the human spirit” (ibid.), it depends, therefore, on the development of a culture of peace, solidarity and of preserving life within the human spirit.
Morin will say in the chapter of his conclusion on the “complexity of Nature”, that in the so-called “animistic” universe, or mythological in the case of the Greeks, “human beings were conceived in a cosmomorphic way, that is, made of the same fabric as the universe.” (MORIN, 1977, p. 333).
This presence of what Morin calls “generativity”, the animated and animating beings, all existing within the universe, implied a communication between the spheres: the physis, life and anthroposocial, if we extend these concepts to Sloterdijk’s spherology: anthropotechnic.
But as we reasoned a few posts ago, the separation of physis into nature (animate) and physics (inanimate) not only “disenchanted the universe, but also desolated it.”
He completes his reasoning with a sentence that shows our multiple crises and nights: “There are no more geniuses, nor spirits, nor souls, nor soul; there are no more gods; there is a God, strictly speaking, but elsewhere (the emphasis is on the author); there are no longer existing beings, with the exception of living beings, which certainly inhabit the physical universe, but come from another” (idem).
Thus he concludes that nature was returned to poets and physis to the Greeks, and so the universe of techniques (which are means) dominated life (which is purpose) and so “science and technique generate and manage, like gods, a world of objects” (MORIN, 1977, p. 334).
It does not let finalism (or fatalism) be the last word: “it is from the crisis of this science that new data and notions that allow us to reconstruct a new universe come out” (idem), quantum physics, from the third included (the quantum between two quanta) and entropy/neguentropy are renewed.
Every universe is “anima”, the theologian Teilhard Chardin also agrees with this thesis, and also that life is the complexification of the universe, in which the human phenomenon is its apex.
In addition to the animist or mythological interpretation for these purposes of life, which is death and life in life in death, a Heraclitian principle also cited by Morin, the Christian reflection on the passages already cited above about who Jesus is (Mk 8,27 and Mc 9,31), and He must suffer greatly.
It is complemented by the question about abandoning what is the transitory purpose of life (therefore only means) and if it is not useful for the ultimate purpose (and therefore, they are only means and should be relativized) if your hand, your foot or your eye leads you to sin (forget the ultimate end of human life which is the eternity of life) it is better to lose them to have the living purpose.
But his last word is to accept those who see this reality differently, if they are not against us, it is in our favor (Mk 8, 40) and (Mk 8,41) and “whoever gives you a drink of water , because ye are of Christ, he will not remain without receiving his reward”, so many can cooperate with the growth of the human anima, with the life and living Nature on which we all depend.
MORIN, E. (1977) The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA.
To avoid a fourth wave
20
Sep
The map at the side, official WHO, clearly indicates the
three waves of Covid, the new variants and a resistant Pandemic demand a final effort so that it is possible to think a 2022 without the restrictions that are uncomfortable, of course, but still necessary.
The small town of Floraí in the northwest of Paraná State (Brazil) is a good illustration of the need for this care, the small town of just over 5,000 inhabitants received a stage of a handball championship and before, with only two cases, it rose to 68 in one week.
Looking at the WHO chart and the data from Brazil, we have a moving average of deaths above 500 in a still very slow fall, what is most talked about is the possibility of more flexible measures, which in many cases is already happening, however care still continues.
Brazil reached 65% vaccination of the first dose and just over 37% for the second dose, if we look at the data from July, when we had already reached 30% of those vaccinated, it can be noted that there is a slowness especially in second dose without any explanation.
Europe enters its autumn, while the southern hemisphere in its spring, it is to be expected that in the heat the proliferation of the virus will decrease, but if care is maintained and vaccination evolves.
The great danger in Europe, and I don’t see any comment or concern, are opportunistic diseases, that is, clinically they are those infections caused by microorganisms that even in people with normal immunity, due to other diseases, can cause infections or even conditions immunodepressants in convalescent patients or those who went through the contagion, after all, there are more than 200 million people who have already been infected with the virus, all over the planet.
At the beginning of the Pandemic, WHO had warned of the problem of treating post-covid in many patients, but the topic was forgotten and as these are not isolated cases, a mass treatment would be necessary, what may lie ahead is difficult to know without a medical research, but not difficult to imagine, it would be like a new post-pandemic epidemic, I leave it to the doctors.
We need to come out strengthened, at least in terms of health, in terms of solidarity, many of the world’s analysts have already thrown in the towel, we were not able to treat a common problem as such, it seems that it is a problem for the other, for those who had the disease, of course not for everyone, there is a moral reserve in society that still guarantees future hope.
Order, disorder and dialogue
17
Sep
Understanding the process of complexification of nature also
means understanding that it is man and that it actually means humanism forgotten in traditional idealist and positivist schemes.
Thus for Edgar Morin (2001), the paradigmatic issue goes beyond the simple understanding of the theory of science (epistemology or methodology), as it involves the questioning of the frameworks of knowledge we have (gnoseology and what we think is reality) and more Deep ontology (what is the nature of reality), these principles govern the phenomenon of what we know and cannot be separated from physical, biological and anthropo-sociological systems.
It is an open reason, not irrationalism or relativism, but based on the idea that an evolutionary, complex and dialogical knowledge can be built, in which disorder is a part.
Systems develop in a process of entropy, but it is negentropy (the denial of entropy at each stage of evolution) that makes self-organization a living and evolving system.
It defines it as a body that develops and expands, entropy, dispersion and crisis appear in the original organization, but negentropy means new self-organization and if we look at man within it, within nature and in its evolutionary aspect, it returns question of a supernatural order, because it was precisely the opposite path that denied this transcendence.
When the repudiation of naturalism won and took hold, the humanist myth of the supernatural man became the very center of anthropology (and of all other sciences) and the oppositions nature-culture, man-animal, culture-nature took shape. of paradigm.
Of course, the role of man in nature depends on the worldview, animists for example, all non-human realities also have supernatural power, others stand out a God also human as in Christianity (created in the image and likeness of God) and others an ascesis that we are at one end of the scale of evolution (complexity), the Hindu and Eastern religions.
In Christianity, last week we reflected Jesus’ question to the disciples, “Who do they say I am?” and he prepared them for death, for the “disorder” of his death, even though the disciples still understood they wanted to dispute the power, position and positions they would occupy in the ascesis, and Jesus, seeing what they said, will give them a harsh sentence (Mk 9,35): “If anyone wants to be the first, let him be the last of all and the one who serves all!”, do you understand today?.
