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Peace in information stage
Russia announces conquests in Mariupol and attack on training barracks in Northern Ukraine, Zelensky speaks in Davos and is applauded, but the war is getting farther and farther from the end.
A novelty even on the path to peace is a new path taken by Germany and much criticized because it is not so hard on Russia, far from showing any sign of adhesion, Germany seeks a way of negotiation where peace can be thought of, speaking to a channel At the World Forum in Davos, Robert Habeck, Vice Chancellor of Germany, insisted that “nothing is inevitable, we are human beings and we can change the course of history”, seeing that a world war could break out.
In the opposite direction, China threatens to invade Taiwan, which has one of the largest armies per capita in the world, with state-of-the-art submarines and military robots, an army of more than 300,000 men and an air base of 600 fighters, including 141 F- 16V Block 70 at Chiayi Base.
It is small considering the strength and continental dimension of China in the event of a war, but last week the United States declared an unconditional defense of Taiwan in the event of war with China, finally adding more fuel to the fire in the tense world environment.
China has an active military personnel exceeding 2 million, with more than 3 thousand aircraft, including 120 Xian X-6, Tupolev Tu-16 version and 388 Chengdu J-7 MIG-21 version.
But the main fighter is the Chinese version of the SU-27, 450 Shenyang J-11, in addition to the Russian Sukhoi.
So a war with China would make Russia’s war seem small by the proportion and forces involved, but the threats with military training and exercises have intensified.
The world seems to be on the verge of generalized and terrible chaos, but as the German Chancellor said: “we are human and we can change the course of history”, starting from the defense of peace.
Covid in global fall and new disease
The WHO announced a worldwide drop of 21% in world infections, in Brazil it remains at a slight increase and is already worrying, but the biggest health concern is the emergence of monkeypox.
In the case of Covid 19 in Brazil, hygienic care and disease protocols are still needed.
The endemic started in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2016, there were also cases in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Central African Republic and Nigeria, which suffered the biggest recent outbreak, data indicate that a recent increase in incidence was the interruption of vaccination against the disease. smallpox in 1980, and now cases have appeared in Europe, with local infections and the first cases in the US.
A 26-year-old Brazilian who passed through Portugal and Spain, countries that already have several cases of infections, was diagnosed in Germany, is isolated in a clinic and has mild symptoms.
Clinical differentiation between monkeypox and smallpox and chickenpox (a hepervirus and not a pox virus) is difficult as medical reports, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) examination or electron microscopy are necessary to detect the infection, there is no safe treatment , however, the disease is not lethal, its rapid expansion in Europe is already a global health concern.
The treatment indicated is that of simian smallpox, supportive, data from cases in Africa indicate that the smallpox vaccine is effective in 85% of cases as the disease is linked to the smallpox virus.
The image posted above is courtesy of the Public Health Image Library of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PHIL), American Prevention Center Image Library.
Serenity and true peace
We have already posted a history of peace: Romans Pax, peace of Westphalia agreement between Catholics and Lutherans on the secularity of the state and the perpetual peace of Kant, each one who thinks of structures and peace agreements that have not shown by the ineffectiveness of being able to establish peace.
We enter into ontological aspects with the question of Serenity proposed by Heidegger, which includes aspects of origin and territoriality of peoples, these are almost always the factors that are decisive for peoples to go to war, but little thought in peace agreements.
If we almost always live under some tension, it is important to understand if a peace is possible beyond human issues, which of course must be resolved, as they need men who are truly peaceful and have ontologically resolved this issue internally and help humanity in the ways that lead to lasting peace.
Heidegger’s philosophy develops how much man has advanced in reason, technique and science, but it has lost its own foundation of Being reduced to the Being (the thing without a soul), it loses its originality (differentiation from originality only because it deals more with original peoples of the Americas), he thus begins his own essence (he sees it only as subjectivity) and loses the power of re-presentation that comes from it, he loses an essence that is not secondary, but primordial.
In his conclusion to Serenity, Heidegger contrasts the immediacy and lack of meditation that we have today: “There are, therefore, two types of thinking, both in their own way, respectively, legitimate and necessary: the thinking that calculates and the reflection (of the Nachdenken) who meditates. […] a thought that meditates arises as little spontaneously as the thought that calculates. Thought that meditates sometimes requires great effort. It requires a long workout. It needs even more delicate care than any other true craft. However, like the farmer, he also has to know how to wait for the seed to emerge and mature” (HEIDEGGER, 1955, p. 13-14).
Serenity, meditation on the need for it to understand the originality of each Being, of its presence in a certain Region, requires more than a momentary exercise, it must be lasting and aim at eternity.
In the biblical reading we find the deepest lesson of Jesus to his disciples about peace (Jn 14: 27): “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; but I do not give it as the world does. Do not let your heart be troubled or intimidated”, is a lesson also for the peaceful and for those who love peace.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Serenity. Translation by Maria Madalena Andrade and Olga Santos. Lisbon: Instituto Piaget, original version is from 1955.
Serenity, originality and peace
Serenity refers to the idea of a super quality of Being, it comes from the Latin serenus, which is different from patience which comes from patientia, “resistance and submission” and is rather confused with serene.
Three qualities of the Self can be directly linked to serenity: peaceful, which means solving problems with peace, calm, which means keeping your inner peace at peace, and clear, which means expressing and communicating peace with clarity.
Heideger wrote a booklet on Serenity, at the initial chapter end it with a sentence that expresses in philosophy a synthesis of serenity: “when serenity towards things and openness to mystery awaken in us, we should reach a path that leads to a new ground. On this soil the creation of immortal works could put down new roots” (Heidegger, 1959, p. 27).
We are lacking in the conception of Being and that Heidegger highlights in his idea about the originary the idea of Region, as it was translated from German, but a nation could be the locus of belonging as Being in its true originary identity, Heidegger wrote:
“We are not and never are outside the Region, since as thinking beings […] we remain on the horizon […] The horizon is, however, the side of the Region facing our power of representation (Vor -stellen). The region surrounds us and shows itself to us as a horizon” (HEIDEGGER, 1959, p. 48).
Here it is necessary to return to a dilemma in Heidegger’s thinking, considering that being in the midst of the Region is to remain on the horizon: to be, but not to be, on this original path, means that it is a revelation of the Region, which becomes visible to the being, in it his Being is.
The philosopher states that serenity presupposes being free (Gelassensein) and the Region itself (Ge-eignet) and entrusts to the serene entity (gelassen) the guard of serenity. Now, if waiting is fundamental and decisive, what we are talking about is the appropriation to which “we belong to what we wait for” (Heidegger, 1959, p. 50)
The author does not ignore the absence of this concept in the West, a historical lack of knowledge: “the essence of thought cannot be determined from thought, that is, from waiting as such, but from the other of oneself (Anderer seiner selbst), that is, from the Region, which is insofar as it is religionalized” (Heidegger, 1959, P. 51).
This is where contemporary wars are based, without forgetting that many of them had their origin in the dispute over the territories of native peoples where their Being was completely ignored.
HEIDEGGER, M. (1959) Serenidade (Serenity). Lisboa: Instituto Piaget.
The Mapuche, ontology and peace
One of the most resilient native peoples of the colonization of the Americas is the Mapuche people, there are more than a million people who study in the south of Chile and Argentina, and find themselves once again betrayed by governments that promise freedom to live as a nation and be respected.
But the truest interpretation, which refers to a kind of original ontology, is Mapúmche, which means all beings that inhabit the cosmos: living beings, trees, stones, water, wind, etc. it is likely that the arrival of the Spaniards reduced the word to Mapuche, which simply means peoples of the land.
I read with sadness that the new Boric government, which promised in a campaign to suspend restrictive measures in the region that receives the colonized name of “La Araucanía” (name given by the Spanish colonizers) has returned to be militarized because of claims to indigenous lands.
The Minister of the Interior, Izkia Siches, said when sending soldiers to the region: “We decided to make use of all the tools to provide security” to the region and the long saga of the Mapuche continues.
The Mapuche have always known that language unifies them, Western ontology says that language is the abode of being, and they rejected the name Araucanos, which resembles the Araucaria and transforms them into aboriginal peoples, also the exotic idea that Mapuche would be derived from the Greek, of a historian Kilapan Lonko, who wrote “El origen greco de los Araucanos”, a falsification of history.
Many Mapuche words entered the Chilean language, choclo (corn), huacho (illegitimate child), laucha (small mouse), quiltro (dog), ruca (house), etc. and a popular interpretation of mapuche is mapu (land), che (people in the sense of people), thus several places and cities in chile have the prefix hue: Carahue, Colhue, Pencahue and others.
The extract from the documentary “Los Araucanos”, entitled “Mapuches: idioma o mirror da alma” from 1978, which mistakenly calls them Araucanian peoples, shows the importance of the language that the Mapuche have always had, which refers to the ontology of the native peoples.
The historian and professor at the University of Chile, the Mapuche Rodrigo Huenchún, also explains that culture has been increasingly appropriated as a political manifestation since the Pinochet dictatorship. Elisa Loncon and many others.
The recognition of the culture of peoples, if its original roots are at the root of true peace, this is the drama of modern man, of forgetting being, his experiences and his roots.
War advances with no prospect of peace
Finland and Sweden have already asked to join NATO and Russia threatens with retaliation, having already cut off the energy supply to Finland, the fear of a conflict on the borders of the countries grows.
Various efforts were made at negotiations, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö spoke with Putin, also German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both without any practical result.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Chinese Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe on April Wednesday, the first call made in the Biden administration, and the Chinese general said that no one can deny that Taiwan belonged China, relations are also strained with China.
The chances of peace in Ukraine are small, both Ukraine and NATO allied countries do not accept the annexation of Crimea and there is no possibility of accepting the separation of the Donbass region from Ukraine.
Internally, Ukraine retaken the Kharkiv region and reached the border, now the fighting is moving towards Izium, which is close to Donbass and thus attacking the Russian rear in the region.
On the other hand, Russian forces practically control the Mariupol region, with the last resistance remaining at the Azostal where an attempt was made to evacuate wounded civilians and combatants (last night it was done),, in addition to Odessa, which becomes the next war objective, isolating Ukraine from access to the sea.
Also several Russian bulk carriers have appropriated grain from Ukraine and it is important to remember that one of the largest grain producers in the world is Ukraine and this further tightens the crisis situation in grain distribution around the world, the scenario points to an increase in grain as well. , in addition to the impact that is already happening on fuels.
The hope for peace is always renewed, despite the tense scenario, and there are forces fighting for peace.
Covid is back to record high in Brazil
In a report by Veja magazine, experts say that the variation of 20.4% compared to two weeks ago, the assessment is that above 15% is already classified as a high moving average.
In another report by USP (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Professor Esper Kallás, from the Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases at the USP School of Medicine and infectious disease coordinator at the Clinical Research Center at Hospital das Clínicas da USP, analyzed the current situation, stating that at the beginning of the pandemic it was thought that it would peak but it would not bring surprises, but “time has shown us that we were wrong”, he added.
According to Professor Kallás, the virus has multiplied very quickly around the planet, which has favored its ability to genetically modify which resulted in new variants.
He said verbatim to the report: “This made the virus adapt with a main objective, which was its transmissibility, because, from an evolutionary point of view, what it wants is to spread”, he explains. This is due to natural selection, that is, those with the highest transmission capacity stand out in relation to the others.
In addition to him, the professor also informed other researchers that the current coronavirus is the most transmissible virus ever known.
In its current worst moment, the moving average of known cases reached the mark of 188 thousand cases, it went down until it was close to 12 thousand cases and was below 100 deaths, now it is about to reach 17 thousand known cases daily, returning to get above 100 deaths a day.
The moment is worrying, experts point out, but health authorities are betting on a new fall, even without any evidence, to justify the release of protocols.
Non-violence and agape
The story told to this day is a story of power, where lack of respect reigns and that is why agápe love seems something altruistic and heroic, and it is, but it is more than that, it is the security of a more peaceful, safer humanity. where nations and peoples can freely express their culture.
Byung-Chul Han recalls that the first word of the Iliad for man is menin (anger): “the first word of the Iliad is menin, namely cholera, [Z or n] . ‘Sing, goddesses, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus’, thus begins the first narrative of Western culture” (HAN, 2018, p. 22)
Remember right from the start that only respect is symmetrical (reciprocal): “Power is an asymmetrical relationship. It is based on a hierarchical relationship. The power of communication is not dialogic. Unlike power, respect is not necessarily an asymmetrical relationship.” (Han , 2018, p. 18), so there can only be agape, a reciprocity of love without interests and without conditioning, if respect and love without interests are learned.
Similarly, Joyce’s Ulysses begins with “Buck” Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus in the Martello tower (photo) at dawn on June 16, 1906, the subject is Haines Mulligan’s guest and uncomfortable for Stephen, they argue between the lines, this goes unnoticed. for many interpreters, the Protestant philosophy of unionists (those who want Ireland united with England) and Catholics who want independent Ireland, which Stephen aligns with.
Mulligan ironically calls him a Jesuit, and it is right at the beginning of part I: “He raised the (shaving) vase and intoned: – Introibo ad altere dei. Stopping, he peered down the dark spiral staircase and called out harshly: – Climb, Kinch, Climb, execrable Jesuit” (Joyce, 1983, p. 6).
Philosopher Han begins his book on what mass culture is today, the culture of “shitstorm”, mass bullying, or literally: “Respect is attached to names. Anonymity and respect are mutually exclusive. The anonymous communication that is provided by digital media greatly deconstructs respect. Shitstorm is also anonymous” (HAN, 2018, p. 14).
Byung-Chul Han believes that a society of the future is possible from this current massification where the idea of war and hatred are still present, but will change: “The society of the future will have to rely on a power, the power of the masses. ” (Han, 2018, p. 25).
Byung-Chul Han believes that a society of the future is possible from this current massification where the idea of war and hatred are still present, but will change: “The society of the future will have to rely on a power, the power of the masses. ” (Han, 2018, p. 25).
A mass power must be peaceful and solidary, wars are vertical power disputes.
It is not a question of defining a superstructure of power and a logic of state, but a new and true agapic humanism, one that can be defined as the divine love of the “new Christian commandment (Jn 13, 33-34): “Little children, for I am still with you for a little while. 34 I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another.”
HAN, Byung-Chul.(2018) No Enxame: perspectivas do digital. (In swarm: perspectives of the digital). Brazil, São Paulo: trans. Lucas Machado. Ed, Vozes, 2018.
Joyce, J. (1983) Ulysses. Trad. Antonio Houaiss, Portugal: Difel. pdf
A reading of Ulysses´s Joyce
It may seem complicated for an unsuspecting reader to read James Joyce’s Ulysses, first its division that claims to have connections with Homer’s Ulysses, so for example Telemachy (part 1, chapters 1 to 3) focuses on characters (Telêmachus was the son of Ulysses) and Odyssey (part II, chapters 4 to 15) is the development of the action that takes place all of it on June 16, 1904, as we already posted after a friends party with Joyce became Bloomsday .
In part I, it’s eight o’clock in the morning at the Hammer Tower, where Stephen (Bloom’s son) lives with Buck Molligan, an Englishman Haines friend of Mulligan is present, they discuss the art, which is the backdrop for their ethical positions. : the tension between the two is because Stephen of an art integrates and that despises the (social) concessions for recognition, while Mulligan sees an art that gives in to social pressure supported by Haines who intends to study the renaissance in Irish Literature and admires the folklore , however it turns out to be anti-Semitic, part of the xenophobia that the Blooms suffer from the origin of their father Leopold Bloom, who is a Jewish-Hungarian immigrant.
Stephen sees Haines as the colonizer as Irish-England unionism dominates the conservative Irish landscape of the early 20th century, while Stephen defends independence although he sees Irish provincialism as small and is also critical of his Catholicism.
Proteus (god of the seas and son of Ocean in Greek mythology) reveals Stephen’s reflection on the visible and the invisible, the objective world as signs that require interpretation (and contextualization), the transformation of everything in time and space, in mind. It develops here subliminally the themes of mother, woman and fertility, Amor Filia.
In Calypso the novel goes to Rua Eccles, n. 7 where Leopold Bloom has his breakfast and prepares it for himself, his wife and the cat, he decides to eat pork kidney and goes to the butcher shop to buy it, on the way he sees a woman who awakens daydreams, returns home collects the mail and sees a letter from daughter Milly, another from Blazes Boylan addressed to Molly.
Blazes had organized a concert tour for Molly and he suspects that the woman is cheating on him with Blazes, eats the roasted kidney, goes to the bathroom and outside the house reads a newspaper. This chapter prepares an incarnation and Odysseus, Stephen’s spiritual father, the inner monologue prevails, but now the daydream goes to the problems of Zionism and eroticism, on the whole, is a space of Eros Love.
Bloom reads a letter addressed to Henry Flower, his pseudonym, the name refers to the flowering of the sexual desire that emerges (the direct correspondence in Homer is with the lotophagous (picture), the people who eat lotus and who are a region of danger in the Odyssey), finally reveals Bloom’s moral strain.
At the end of this topic is Molly in bed, reflecting on her husband, her meeting with Boylan, her past, her hopes, she too suspects a lover of her husband, aspires to a great future, is interrupted twice by the train whistle (a kind of time passing) and another for a start of menstruation, she thinks of the doctor, her children Stephen and the deceased, she remembers the first sex with Bloom.
There are ethical and aesthetic concerns, especially with Stephen in the book, which sets the stage for early 20th century Ireland, but there is an absence of Agape Love, except in Stephen’s conception of art, and this is the connection that James Joyce tries to make. between his Ulysses and Homer’s.
Joyce, J. (1983) Ulysses, Trad. António Houaiss. Portugal: Difel. (pdf)
Ulysses, Modern Novel and War
The whole structure of the modern novel almost always unfolds around the modern romantic hero, so it is necessary that in the end he is realized within his personal objective and that has the appearance of universal, the Kantian aphorism of ethics: “Acts as if the maxim of your action should become, through your will, a universal law”, but it starts from the individual and not from the whole.
The whole is for the holistic, and in a certain way for the mystical, as they must be understood from the mythical characters of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (928 BC-898 BC) to the characters of James Joyce’s Odysseus (1882-1941) .
In both there is a hero, Homer’s Ulysses and Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, a woman Penelope from Homer and Molly Bloom from Joyce, a son Telemachus from Homer’s Ulysses and Stephen Dedalus in Joyce’s novel, who goes to study in Paris and when he returns living in a circular fort called the Hammer Tower, with a rival Malachi and Buck Bullighan, the novel is written in the war period between 1914 and 1921 and a vision of the end of the world is a setting for Joyce.
In the Odyssey Ulisses will be away from home for 10 years, leaving Penelope and Telemaco, in Joyce’s novel, he puts Leopold Bloom in crisis with his wife’s betrayal and his son’s distance, updating filial (philia) and erotic (eros) love, but the The problem of agápe love is placed at the center of the crisis, which can be a common thread between the classical and the modern novel.
Another thread is the type of hero, the epic hero is a warrior who goes to war for the love of his people while the modern one faces war individually, in the fashion of Don Quixote and in the face of Kantian ethics, last week were made post of Kant’s Perpetual Peace and its limitations, but the root is in the distance from agape, a world of conquests and power where the interest prevails over the common good.
Agape love is not just religious or even altruistic, it exists in institutions for the poor, exiles, drug addicts, emigrants and efforts in the Pandemic, without them the number of dead and excluded in society would have already caused greater social crises than and would leave civilization without a perspective and without hope.
Joyce, James. (1983) Ulysses, Transl. António Houaiss. Portugal: Difel. (pdf) *in portuguese.
HOMERO. (2015) Ilíada e Odisseia, transl. Carlos Alberto Nunes. Brazil: Editora Nova Fronteira. (pdf) *in portuguese.