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Escalation of conflicts, the thought of peace
30
Oct
It is incredible that polarization takes over even
the discourses of peace, such as the question of the Other and the meaning of what “terror” means, whereas anti-Semitic discourse is emptied and so is the idea of “Nazi” forces, polarization has reached a global scale and can grow.
The war between Ukraine and Russia is also getting worse, with new long-range American military equipment and the arrival of winter makes it dramatic and could escalate from now on.
Praise and defense of Hamas have placed the UN itself in a position of polarity, there is also a discourse that tries to mischaracterize the killing of civilians and innocents as that which is carried out by the Other, so there is no space for dialogue and peace, everything can have a reverse narrative.
Humanitarian aid faces difficulties both from those who want to assist the population and from the governments themselves that make it difficult for civilians to cross and open borders. The land war in Gaza will only worsen humanitarian conditions.
Turkey’s position in favor of Hamas could also disturb the region and escalate the war. This position is very complicated because Turkey is part of NATO and has been important in its position on the passage of grains. Let us remember that in the Bosphorus Strait, the Passing through Istanbul, the city with territory in Europe and the Middle East, is strategic.
In war, it is civilians who lose, and the limits of civility are almost always exceeded on all sides, there are no agreements that can establish clear limits that are respected.
A true philosophy of peace must condemn the conflicting sides, each side’s misguided attempt to establish an acceptable narrative, polarization does not allow.
Which forces will be able to sue for peace? What will happen in a growing escalation of war, with Iran involved? and if China and eastern countries get involved, there will already be issues of tension between the countries.
The hope is that a stifled outcry from those who truly desire peace will come, the forces that are of true humanism could recover hope for a less dangerous world.
Love in western literature
26
Oct
In the previous post we commented on an unusual example in literature which is human love seen from a Christian narrative point of view, there are others of course, but this one is due to the repercussion of Francine Rivers’ work and its recent transformation into a film (2022) and the critics applauded.
In history we can remember some works that marked literature: The Banquet by Plato, The art of loving by Ovid and Sobre el Amor by Plutarco, highlighting in the medieval period The Romance of Tristan and Isolde and Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise.
The philosophical style of the Banquet where there is a predominance of mythological elements that explain or denote love, perhaps hence the idea of platonic love, but which has nothing sublime or non-carnal, what commentators say is that there are homoerotic relationships that are part of the dialogue between partners in relationships.
If there is something elevated, it is in Socrates’ dialogue that defines the so-called philosophical love, which is outside the sentimental sphere and inserted in an idealism (I always remember here that it is for the Greeks to remember Being in its essence, and not something that lives only in mind), is a love that is related to beauty and good.
Ovid (45 BC – 18 AD) is not interested in achieving this asceticism towards a deified love, he seeks to find the necessary tools to realize a more sensual love in a carnal world.
Ovid does not restrict love to the conjugal sphere, Plutarch (45 – 120 AD) sees it within a social and political institution, it is a “path” within marriage towards happiness, like an asceticism of the type that the Greeks considered conceived, this is not a spiritual asceticism.
The romance of Tristan and Isolde and the Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise must be understood in a reality dominated by Christian philosophy in medieval Europe, where the Love of God is indisputable, but love as a union of two bodies is still subject to debate.
This type of romance, inserted in the troubadour tradition, is imbued with a “courtly” element; we find an interesting description of this love in the work of Denis de Rougemont:
What they love is love, it is the very fact of loving. And they act as if they had understood that what opposes love guarantees it and consecrates it in their hearts, to exalt it to infinity in the instant of the absolute obstacle that is death. Tristan likes to feel love, much more than he loves Isolde, the blonde. And Isolde does nothing to keep him close to her: a passionate dream is enough for her.
Among modern novels, I would highlight among the most characteristic: Eugénie Glandet by Honoré de Balzac, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, while Eugénie Grandet shows the reality of the material interest surrounding the novel, Madame Bovary will show the lack of lucidity, excess and human selfishness, Anna Karenina shows the tragic colors of her infidelity with her husband Vronsky, but there are two other marriages: a happy marriage (Levin and Kitty) and another that only supports each other (Stiva and Dolly).
ROUGEMONT, Denis de. (1983) Love in the Western World. Transl. Montgomery Belgion. USA: Princeton University Press.
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Redemption Love
25
Oct
The book was inspired by the biblical narrative
of the prophet Hosea, a woman, Angel, who considered herself ruined, with no chance of salvation, a disbeliever of human love, discovers the unshakable love of God, but the context is the gold rush in California in 1850 .
The time is when men sold their souls for a handful of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.
Angel sold as a prostitute since she was a child, hates the men who used her and is invaded by contempt and fear of herself, until she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks the divine in all things, and believes he has a calling from God to marry Angel.
Redemption Love is a timeless, romantic, epic or tragic classic, it is a story capable of transforming human feelings into an unconditional, redemptive and absolute love that is within the reach of everyone who still thinks about true, lasting and deep love.
But Angel, a victim of her story, as many are today of erotic ideology and contempt for true happiness, runs away and returns to the darkness, away from her husband’s resilient love, from the new that is her definitive cure from a world of shadows and contempt. for the life.
Francine Rivers’ book, far from being just Christian fiction, is an appeal to real human love, the one capable of filling the void of souls that do not accept the passenger, the use of the body as a mere commodity or “instrument” of pleasure, where it is possible to find peace and happiness, of course with all the natural tribulations of life: bills, accidents and getting old, etc.
The book was turned into a film in 2022, written and directed by D. J. Caruso, with the cast: Abigail Cowen, Famke Janssen and Logan Marshall-Green.
Rivers, Francine. Redeeming Love. San Francisco: Multinomah Books, 2007.
Ukraine defends itself and Israel attacks
23
Oct
The two biggest war fronts in the world that
threaten world peace, which could enter an even worse cycle, can be summarized as follows: Ukraine defends itself by responding to the only strong Russian advance in the town of Adviivka (photo) and bombing Russian military tactical airfields , while Israel attacks the Gaza strip and opens new fronts against Hezbollah and Syria.
American involvement is already total and unquestionable, which creates a global polarization, in which it could call Iran into the war in the Middle East, the sewing of peace treaties with the Arabs that was being made could fall apart and make the region the epicenter of a war.
Humanitarian forces finally managed to enter southern Gaza to send aid to Palestinian victims, Egypt and Israel finally agreed to open the border crossing at Raffah, which allows for both food and medical aid, but without any hint of peace.
Joe Biden’s flight to Israel helped this agreement, a delay after the explosion of a hospital in Gaza and the sending of more weapons makes its involvement in the war even more dangerous, in Europe there are fears of acts of terrorism, while Palestine, which is not Hamas, becomes the weak and victimized side of the war.
An escalation of the war in the Middle East is inevitable for now and a possible direct entry of Iran into the war, Hezbollah already at war with Israel is an ally and receives help from Iran, could give a dramatic turn to the conflict in the Middle East.
The world situation is getting worse, and despite apparent peace in the East, China and North Korea have conflicting interests with Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
The security council, which tried two peace motions for the Middle East, appears divided and unable to identify short-term solutions for this war.
Your fathers rejected the prophets
20
Oct
After the period of the Judges, which was a
truly theocratic period, ended, the people of Israel began to ask for Kings (Samuel 8,6-8), the kings ruled from 928 BC until the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem (586 BC), but the people had already gone into captivity in Babylon in 722 BC, more than 100 years later the kingdom of Judah was destroyed.
Already in the last period of the judges, Samuel, who was also a prophet, saw the people going astray, and even his children no longer followed divine laws, the very division between Israel and Judah (it must be said that this is where the name of Jews), and was the second king of Israel, David, who unites the two kingdoms and names the capital Jerusalem, where his son Solomon will build the first temple.
It was the prophet Ezekiel who lived in Babylonian exile, between 593 BC and 571 BC, who prophesied the destruction of the temple and spoke of the infidelities of the Hebrew people, the prophet Isaiah had also preached that sin had reached Israel and Judah in such a way that the curse would hit the Hebrew people, the biggest of which, of course, was the exile from Babylon.
When Cyrus becomes king of Persia and takes Babylon in 538 BC, he allows the Hebrew people to return to their land and the possibility of rebuilding their temple, the second, but the people’s deviations continue to occur until the last and greatest of the prophets John the Baptist , the one whose head Herod asked for in exchange for Salome’s dance, which he asks for at his mother’s suggestion.
Jesus was rejected for challenging the Pharisees and teachers of the law of his time, there were also those who wanted a leading position in the war against the Roman empire, after the death and resurrection of Jesus in the year 70 AD, the second temple was destroyed by the general Roman Titus and only the wailing wall remained (photo).
Jerusalem was burned and the Jewish people were dispersed, the Jews who settled in Eastern Europe were called Ashkenazi and those from the Iberian Peninsula Sephardim.
Jesus’ position on the Roman empire was clear, since the Romans also feared him, Herod especially, and Pilate washed his hands at his crucifixion, when the Pharisees set a trap asking if it was fair to pay taxes, Jesus takes a coin and upon seeing the figure of Caesar he says: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22,34-40) this trap remains in religious circles to this day.
Religious and historical origins of Israel and Palestine
17
Oct
Although Noah is not a recorded figure in
history, his sons Ham and Shem are recorded as they are the origin of the Hamite and Semitic peoples, the latter stand out for being Hebrews and Arabs and thus share both cultural and religious origins.
Abraham, who was a Chaldean, a people who lived south of the Euphrates River, was the son of, in the lineage of Shem, comes from his son Arphaxad, who fathered Shelah, who fathered Heber, who fathered Peleg, who fathered Reu, who fathered Serug , who fathered Nahor, who fathered Terah, father of Abram (only later will he be called Abraham due to his descendants).
Abram’s father and brother die in Chaldea, and his nephew Lot, who will travel to Canaan, meanwhile going up the Euphrates River and then down through the north of the Middle East, before separating, dividing the lands, leaving Lot with the most fertile to the west and Abram with the southern lands.
Lot’s descendants became people known as Ammonites, due to the god Amon, and who are children of Lot’s incest with his youngest daughter. Lot looks and turns into salt.
To the east to the Mediterranean lies Abraham, now called that by God, after having his Son Isaac (promised by God) with his wife Sarah, and Ishmael with Hagar, his slave.
While Isaac will be the “son of promise” and through him the twelve tribes of Israel will be born, the Quran can be read: “In the Quran; “God gave gifts to all Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah and Lot favor above the nations”, so Ishmael is not passed over.
From Isaac the twins Esau and Jacob were born, Esau is born first, but through a disguise, Jacob dresses in animal skins, helped by his mother Rebekah, as his brother was hairier and his father Isaac was almost blind, he notices the voice different, but blesses the son, in Hebrew tradition the eldest son, the firstborn, had priority in leading the family.
Jacob will fight with an angel to obtain divine blessing, before a confrontation with his brother, and in the biblical narrative it is there that he receives the name Israel, which means “he who fought with God” (every suffix el in Hebrew means God), Gabriel (God’s fortress) and Michael (no one like God) are two possible hypotheses of Jacob’s struggle, now Israel.
The children of Israel will form the 12 tribes: from Helena: from Joseph (who was sold to the Egyptians by his brothers) will be his grandchildren Benjamin and Manasseh, from Leah (first wife): Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Levi (who were priests and had no lands), from the slave Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali, and from the slave Zilpah: Gad and Asser.
In fact, there would be thirteen tribes,
but the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, formed one tribe.
Tension in the Middle East
16
Oct
Despite beginning a critical phase (winter),
the war between Ukraine and Russia is out of focus, with increasing tension between Israel and Palestine, which claims its own territory.
After a daring and cruel incursion into Israeli territory, the military group took several hostages and Israel responded by attacking areas of the Gaza strip and cutting off water and energy in Israeli territory as a way of pressuring the handover of the hostages.
The humanitarian situation caused several international organizations to appeal to Israel to allow humanitarian aid, while Israel gives the option of moving to the south where the water and energy supply would be restored, giving a very short deadline and an ultimatum.
There is a point to the south where a passage to Egypt is possible, which is the Rafah refugee camp, negotiations between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi indicate that this passage would be open for humanitarian aid.
Israel is preparing for a fight on three fronts, as in southern Lebanon there were attacks by another anti-Semitic group, Hezbollah and there are already tensions and the capture of combat points with Syria, also through Hezbollah.
The greatest tension is the possible involvement of Iran, which finances these groups against Israel and Hamas leaders have already gone to Iran to talk to the country’s authorities, however the US warns that Iran’s entry into the war would cause strong tension with the West, since the US sent aircraft carriers.
The involvement of the Arab world could make the crisis even greater, as there are already unilateral talks.
Russia is a traditional ally of Syria, and with a military approach to Iran it could create an axis of allies with common enemies, which paints a dangerous geopolitical picture.
Peace seems distant, and the elements for a war with tragic consequences are emerging, but there are still localized forces for peace.
New war front and dangerous week
09
Oct
Since Israel had developed a strong anti-aircraft
battery scheme called the Iron Dome, missile attacks in the region had decreased, but at the end of the week a new attack by the Hamas group took place and more than 700 people were killed, showing that there are weaknesses in this system.
Israel’s military was caught by surprise on Saturday (10/07) and despite decades of the country becoming a technological powerhouse with the world’s most impressive military and a world-class intelligence agency, all of this simply hasn’t worked and This creates a new front of war in geopolitics already with delicate problems and Israel responded with missiles into Palestinian territory.
Hamas has Iran as a strong ally, which has supplied drones to Russia, and although it has denied that this continues to happen, Iran wants to be part of the BRICS and on the side of another invisible war, according to the words of Medvedev, the vice-president of the Russia’s Security Council and former president of the country, this war is taking place.
He was referring to Russia’s good harvest of wheat grains, which it intends to become a bargaining chip with allied countries, even providing supplies to allied countries in Africa that do not have the resources to purchase grains.
The week is delicate in Ukraine and Russia, because on both sides a new surprise attack is expected, such as that of Hamas in Israel, on the Ukrainian side long-range missiles, and on the Russian side the destruction of energy sources in Ukraine which would make the coming winter cruel to the population and weaken the Ukrainian military army, which already has difficulties with ammunition for conflict regions.
Something new is expected in terms of peace, there is no shortage of nods from Russia, but without negotiating the territories already conquered, while the Ukrainian side wants possession back, including the controversial Crimea, one of the main targets in the counteroffensive.
All people of good will and who know the dangers of war want some relief.
Because evil grows
05
Oct
Common sense is to say that evil grows because
good is omitted, in part this is true, as evil is the absence of good, but this absence can be due to aporia (lack of knowledge), due to bad education that forms unenlightened minds and due to end out of pure pride and power.
Power is a way of legitimizing both good and evil, this is only possible through violence, and generalized violence is war, so this is the clearest and most unequivocal form of evil, in it intolerance, contempt for what is different, the imposition of ideas and injustices is facilitated.
Thus, at different times in our history, it was through violence that empires and dictators imposed their wills and ideologies, not without the consent of a large part of the population, which is why we remember bad education, whether through propaganda campaigns or through schooling itself. impoverished and malformed, the two issues are linked.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to management at all levels, from our homes, neighborhoods and condominiums to power structures, small illegitimate actions, education for empathy, coexistence, cleaning and even leisure must be observed and guided by managers and public bodies in order to preserve common space and public goods.
The zeal for honesty, transparency, respectful dialogue between opinions that are not necessarily opposite, but different even if in completely divergent directions should not be a reason for hatred and violence, dialogue is always possible.
Evil needs polarization, radicalization (in the bad sense, there is the good sense of going to the root of a problem), pure disagreement as a way to justify and propagate violence.
Just like the seeds of a good tree, weeds and poisonous plants also have roots, they grew in a healthy plantation and the fact that they must grow together can be a mistake because they can suffocate the good seeds, pests and diseases in plants.
Care must also be taken to cure these pests, in agriculture several pesticides have already been condemned, and even disease-resistant plants can be questioned, genetic mutation can cause greater harm than expected, there is a lot of ethical dialogue about this.
Therefore, three precautions must be considered: the ethical education of valuing what is good, the zeal so that error and evil do not spread and finally the correction methods must be careful not to cause even greater harm.
Religions and evil
04
Oct
One of the biggest mistakes, already developed
in some of the posts, is the Manichaean duality of evil x good, without understanding that evil is precisely the absence of good, great Christian thinker, Augustine of Hippo converted precisely by abandoning Manichaeism.
Religious concepts that have long been forgotten, or that are submerged in mistaken preaching, impede what would be the “natural flow of humanity towards the enlightenment of the soul”, evil has deep-rooted sources in the form of old thoughts and emotional burdens from the past and, despite obsolete, still persist, hindering the progress of souls.
The remedy would be very simple, the closer the soul is to enlightenment, the less evil is present, and the more enlightened souls make the world more empathetic, harmonious and free from injustice.
The ethics and morals that derive from the need for civilizing progress do not find space if there are not souls and people in prominent positions with clear and convincing illumination, that is why evil has become a social, theological or ideological issue, and the both times.
It’s not just Christian thinkers who say this, Hannah Arendt talks about the Banality of Evil, Nietzsche about the “death of God” (or how we “kill” Him, of course impossible), Paul Ricoeur and Lévinas about the Other and Byung Chul Han about the “ Society of Fatigue” speaks of the vita contemplativa as a complement to the vita activa (which Hanna Arendt also spoke of), even remembering Christian thinkers.
The return of threats of war, the social crisis of moral values (everything is permitted!), before a true civilizational crisis occurs, a new enlightenment of souls is necessary (in Picture st. Francis expelling devils from Arezzo, by Benozzo Gozzoli).
The lack of understanding of subjectivity and human imagination, or its submission to unenlightened values, the absence of compassion towards others, the misunderstanding of progress as having fundamental positive aspects, even to save the civilizing process, leads society to exhaustion , disbelief or the fatality of wars and hatred.
It is not difficult to find positions in newspapers and social media in favor of the process of excluding people with a certain opinion, religion or even simple disagreement with dubious moral values (see the case of abortion in Brazil at the moment), the debates are sterile and instead of arguments the reactions are sarcasm and irony.
They are seeds of the broader process of civilizational crisis in progress and detected by great thinkers since the last century, crediting them to new media, to the resurgence of nationalism and authoritarian currents is to look only at the consequence, the root is the absence of enlightened souls who help humanity to contemplate its future with greater grandeur.
*When Francisco was in Arezzo, there was a great scandal and a war almost throughout the city, day and night, because of two factions that had long hated each other.
