Arquivo para a ‘Antropotécnica’ Categoria
Spirit and power
25
Jul
Power and autorithy seem to get confused, but this is not true
as authoritarian governments are growing in the world and this has always been a bad symptom of civilization because it indicates both disputes and, at their limit, wars.
Byung-Chul Han in his book “In the Swarm” explains after saying about the necessary distance in the public sphere, that the “waves of indignation indicate, moreover, a weak connection with the community” (Han, In the Swarm, 20,18, pg. 22) and he has a specific book about power.
The book What is Power? (2019) has a long analysis of the issue in Hegel, this is justified both by the influence on Western thought and by the incidence of the vision of power that affects the entire public sphere, but we highlight his vague concept of the Absolute and the influence even religious , seen in the previous post.
Its analysis is important when it refers to ontological concepts, thus defining that “the entity is, even when it is finite, surrounded by the other” (Han, 2019, p. 110) and the Being must generate a negativity in itself, this is not the case here of “bad thoughts” but the concept that cites in Paul Tillich (1886-1965) that the power of being as “the capacity of living beings to overcome negativity, or as he says, “non-being”, that is, the who does not involve it in self-affirmation” (pg. 111).
Quoting him, Han states: “one has more power to be, because it must have been overcome but not to be, and as long as one can overcome it. When you can no longer bear it or overcome it, then it is total impotence, the end of the power of being, the event. This is the risk of every living being” (Han, 2019, p. 111).
He cites Foucault’s thesis that the human being would be “the result of submission” (pg. 118) and Hegel who thinks that power should act primarily in a “non-repressive way” (pg. 119) however, both do not abandon the idea from the Absolute, which actually comes from Machiavelli’s Prince and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, and as the author says: “power promises freedom” (pg. 121).
The need to create a “neurotic” religion of power, for Hegel, would come from the idea of God, the power that He has the power to “be himself”, this comes from idealism that does not overcome the division between subject and object, or be the Creator and the created (beings and entities) are not composed.
There is no doubt that power, without the necessary negativity of non-being (the inclusion of the Other) is a neurosis as Hegel says, and thus its “god” or “the spirit” “would still be an appearance of this neurosis” (Han, 2019 , p. 121).
“The pain of finitude can perfectly be the pain of any limit that separates me from the other, which can only be overcome by the creation of a particular continuity… it does not have the continuity of the self that power creates. She does not have the intention of returning to herself” (Han, 2019, p. 121).
Hegel’s neurotic power is not that of the Creator, it is of the being caged in the self, incapable of looking at and serving the Other, of leaving the self, of denying oneself to serve the Other, it is a neurotic power.
Fatigue and true rest
18
Jul
Giving a psychological and sociological picture
of contemporary society Byung-Chul Han describes her as having “Neural diseases such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) or Burnout Syndrome (SB) determine the pathological landscape of the beginning of the 21st century (HAN, 2017, p. 7).
Using a concept from his PhD advisor (he did his thesis on Heidegger) Peter Sloterdijk, his analysis extends to what he calls “the object of immunological defense is strangeness as such” (p. 8), the book was written before the pandemic ( also wrote about it in the Palliative Society, the one that rejects pain) and the concept of immunology here is one that states that the last century was a time in which a “clear division was established between inside and outside… the Cold War I followed the immunological regimen.”
Thus the book will explore the mystical concepts of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, master of the contemplative life (of which Han also wrote a book), explores fundamental aspects of the inner life that combats the serious problems of the Active Life, which pushes us towards efficiency and tiredness under the pressure of demands and the cultural war that has taken place.
The immunological paradigm says “it is not in line with the process of globalization… also hybridization, which dominates not only the theoretical-cultural discourse, but also the feeling we have in today’s life, is diametrically contrary precisely to immunization” (p. 11).
His concept of resistance goes in the direction of Edgar Morin’s “resistance of the spirit”, but in our view it reaches the heart of the matter: “the dialectic of negativity is the fundamental feature of immunity” (p. 11), where the discourse of “engagement” is actually the void, as it is absent of true alternatives, as current immunology is one that accuses the Other, we remember here the distance from the pandemic (after the book as we said), a good “metaphor”.
Baudrillard quotes, speaking of the “obesity of all current systems”, in a time of overabundance, “the problem turns more to the rejection and expulsion” (pg. 15) of the Other.
His accurate elaboration on page 27 is that current “disciplinary systems” (or pseudo-ethical) seek the logic of production “what causes depression and exhaustion is not just the imperative to obey only oneself, but the pressure of performance” (p. 27).
Thus, meditating and completing is not distancing oneself from reality, but the possibility of looking at it with different eyes, seeking a true human and spiritual asceticism, where we can truly find rest and peace (despite and against daily wars and wars) because in truth is only possible through it.
I remember the biblical passage that says “come to me, all you who are tired” (Mt 11,28) and in a reinterpretation for today, in addition to seeking the divine, it is also about finding true interiority, which should not be disconnected from the vita activa, under penalty of tiredness.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2017) A Sociedade do Cansaço (Burnout Society), trans. Enio Paulo Giachini, 2nd. ed. Ampliada, Brazil, RJ: Petrópolis, Vozes.
Some fresh water and hot food
16
Jul
While the powerful fight for dominance,
colonization and power ignore the lives of simple people, of basic service workers who are necessary in any country and culture because they have forgotten true community and moral values.
They can talk about this in everyday life, but their minds, articulations and efforts are focused on achievements and power, not the achievement of a good friendship, of a few hours of relief and pleasure in a day to day life and in a society that pushes us towards maximum efficiency and fatigue. to the limit of strength.
When hiring some construction service workers, they told me that they would like that in order to work they needed good fresh water and hot food, lunch boxes needed to be reheated and sweat was restored with simple fresh water.
They are also grateful for a dignified treatment and a little rest after lunch, it is incredible that a large part of the affluent society is unaware of these simple things that can bring great happiness, balance and peace, the tired society ignores this.
The centers of power are surrounded by ambitious people who know (or think they know) how to deceive simple people, but they are unaware of the day-to-day lives of these people.
I see when they form conversation circles, the issues and concerns, there are almost always concerns about relationships that are lost, the use of violence and chemicals that permeate their family life, as human values crumble and fall as well. upon them the worst degradations and inhumanities.
A good word, it is also a little fresh water now in a figurative sense, but no less true, true cultures and religions keep this “fresh water” in their thermal jugs and where the food of the soul can be digested and provide energy for everyday life. .
The biblical passage in which Jesus speaks to the crowds, and his family seeks him, he has a surprising answer Mt 12,49-50: “And stretching out his hand to the disciples, Jesus said: “Here are my mother and my brothers. whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven is my brother, my sister and my mother” “, does not mean that he ignores his family, but he wants to give those people some good food and fresh water.
The world we live in is not ignored, in fact those in power ignore it, but its good to bring a little peace and hope to the souls that survive in a society of tiredness, hatred and neglect.
The question of spirit in Hegel
10
Jul
Byung-Chul Han criticizes Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit seen “in terms of the forgetfulness of being” (Heidegger’s central theme) as an “arid self” that finds “its limitation to the being that encounters it” (Han, 2023, p. 334), this is not the resistance of the spirit.
Hegel recovers in part, in the epigraph of the last chapter “truth is the whole”, re-discusses the dialectic and its metaphysics in idealism “in relation to “just being” which empties it to a name “that no longer names anything”, consciousness natural… when he realizes being, he assures that it is something abstract” (Han, 2023, p. 336).
This natural (idealistic) consciousness “lingers on “perversities” … “it tries to eliminate one perversity by organizing another, without remembering that the authentic inversion” [occurs when] “the truth of the essence is withdrawn into the being” (Han, 2023, p. 336, citing Heidegger).
In contrast to Hegel’s dialectic, this topic would fill a book, it engages in a dialogue with Derrida and Adorno on the question of mourning and the work of mourning, killing death is not just something secret in the heart of Plato or Hegel (pg. 384), but also reverse the negative of Being.
This work of “tragedy” is distinguished from the “work of mourning” of dialectics (Han, 2023, p. 385), it is what Han calls in other works excessive positivity, not understanding pain (in the palliative society, for example, analyzing the pandemic and the pain itself).
“Tears free the subject from his narcissistic interiority… they are the “spell that the subject casts on nature” (Han, 2023, p. 394), citing Adorno the “Aesthetic Theory” is the book of tears and that contrary to Kant, “the spirit perceives, in relation to nature, less its own superiority than its own naturalness” (Han, 2023, p. 395).
Hegel’s absolute is abstract: “the Absolute is absolute only to the extent that it knows itself as Absolute, that is, as self-consciousness” (Hegel in §565 of the Phenomenology of Spirit).
For true asceticism it is beyond human nature, it leads to an ascension, a new interiority that expresses itself in a more human exteriority, not human self-consciousness (even thought of in religion) but rather that which admits human singularity in the one divine and This is Absolute.
Han, B-C. (2023) O coração de Heidegger: o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s Heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Trans. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, RJ: Petrópolis, Vozes.
Religiosity and liberal culture
27
Jun
Modern liberalism created an environment
where many cultural practices that were previously questioned, especially those that ignore social rights and duties, were gradually being released, the idea (in the sense of philosophical idealism itself) of freedom is one that pleases the will, in the sense of rational and practical requirement of universal self-determination, with this morals and ethics are not those that prevent the exercise of evil, but those that please reason.
Thus, it makes no sense for contemporary liberalism to combat usury, extortionate interest rates are practiced by banks, not to mention usury, the fight against public immorality, public nudity and pornography is no longer a moral issue and the various types of health problems, to social well-being has even become a joke in media discourses.
It is also not a matter of puritan moralism, nor of personal taste in relation to the way of expressing oneself and behaving socially, but of debauchery, of public offense to all who want a minimum of public morality, Theodor Adorno wrote about the “Minima Moralia ” in the 40’s, in the sense of how “damaged life” developed into a form of violence and horror in the contemporary world.
There are also forms of bad religious culture, one that lacks a true asceticism that encourages the world towards empathy, healthy social coexistence (also in terms of health in a world intoxicated by the use of alcohol, drugs and toxic substances), without forgetting that The most harmful and terrible thing is the cultural offense, and the culture of violence that reaches its limit in the forms of armed and unarmed wars in the contemporary world.
Regarding the religious aspect, it is worth remembering to everyone who tries to use the religious alibi for antisocial practice, the biblical passage from Matthew 23: “Then I will say to them publicly: I never knew you. Depart from me, you who do evil” and in the passage is a clear reference to preachers who “cast out demons” and “performed miracles” in the name of Jesus.
The toxic narratives that are used for these practices are generally unable to provide a complete narrative, they need to use false examples and even meaningless testimonies to justify the insanity of the practice and permissiveness in relation to public and social morals, they use offense and even public insults that make clear their adherence to exclusion and antisocial behavior public permissiveness, that which refuses coercion and the punishment of antisocial attitudes are also forms of violence by omission.
The result is a psychologically difficult environment, a damaged social life, as expressed by Adorno, and a life in which everything is transitory as seen by Byung-Chul Han.
Pharisaism and Jonah
26
Jun
What the absence of spirituality consists of today,
more than the lack of God, says Byung-Chul Han is the fact that everything in life becomes transitory, but also the consequences of a strong polarization in which all moods are concentrated and limit true interiority, true spirituality outside the bubble, in the allegory explored by Sloterdijk in Spheres I, Jonah’s sign is somewhat reminiscent of the biblical passage (Luke 11:29-30): “This generation is a perverse generation: it asks a sign, but no sign will be given to him except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was a sign to the inhabitants of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
Sloterdijk saw the lack of centrality in a dyad, which serves both polarization and polycentrism, that is, an absence of being situated in the world. We remember that the central point of his philosophy is what it means to be in the world, and Jonas who tries to escape his mission ends up in the belly of the whale, that is, his desire to escape the world and his mission, is the idea of taking refuge in a pure interior of which those who practice despiritualized asceticism, try not to being in the world, which is different from Being-in-the-world, a category in which Sloterdijk uses the word “vorhandensein”* to explain his controversy on humanism with Heidegger, who uses the term dasein for Being in the world.
Where was Jonah when he was in the world? Inside the whale. The whale is part of Jonas’s consciousness that provokes him to think about the outside from the inside. Heidegger had already thought about this pure interior of which we are all victims, a radical and intrinsic space, our unique and first dwelling through which all our impressions, thoughts and affections permeate.
The sign of Jonah, the only sign for this generation that seeks a “sign of God” is, therefore, finding this interiority even while being in the world and subject to its dyads (poles) or even polycentrism (half-truths of different narratives) without manage to achieve true asceticism, however Jonah leaves the whale and goes to Nineveh to fulfill his mission.
Thus, the relationship with the outside is a constant tension, and there is no way to escape it, it is not a filter for the truth, but the search for a clearing, for a space where we cultivate our interior, so in Sloterdijk’s vision that helps us, Jonah’s sign is his inner life when he was in the belly of the whale, within his “sphere” in Sloterdijk’s conception.
So it is not the one who shouts Lord, Lord nor the one who lives on external “good intentions” only, it is necessary to live this inner tension and be the Being that he is in the world.
Pharisaism is living on external appearances that do not correspond to interiority, but also “pure” interiority is staying in the belly of the Whale without experiencing external tension.
* the literal translation would be: to be available (in Jonas’ case for the mission).
Sloterdijk, P. (2016) Esferas I: bolhas (Spheres I: bubbles). Translated by José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
The bubbles and the other
25
Jun
Several authors wrote about the issue of the Other,
unfortunately there is still ignorance about the term, it has been reborn (in my opinion it has always existed in Christian philosophy, patristics largely treats the term as “neighbor” and Paul Ricoeur remembers this), Habermas wrote about the Inclusion of the Other which would be the borders of communities open to all, Byung-Chul Han wrote The Expulsion of the Other, when reflecting on communication today, however Emmanuel Lévinas and Paul Ricoeur treated it with originality and richness.
We have already posted something about Lévinas read by Byung-Chul Han which recalls his concept of “il y a” in which he analyzes a functional aspect of the ethical relationship, making it transcend. It must be said that it is not Hegel’s ethics, for him the principle the exit from being to existence, passing from being to its raw state, is leaving the solitude of “il y a”, thus giving meaning to existing.
From Paul Ricoeur we post in some excerpts the relationship between the “partner” and the neighbor, the first is utilitarian and the second really “transcends”, but his seminal work is the Self as another (published in 1990, in Portuguese on Brazil in 2014 by Martins Fontes), he is careful to ensure that the self is not left aside, since it is common to see the Other eliminating the self, even though in the phenomenological relationship an “epoché” is always necessary. ”, but placed in parentheses.
But here we want to move on to the concept of bubbles in Spheres I by Peter Sloterdijk, he exposes his spherology, a way of defining and problematizing what it means to “be in the world”, since we come from a sphere that is the maternal womb, and leave to the sphere of our planet, and he creates a concept of immunology to give meaning to his idea of a social means of communication that is co-immunity. It is curious that the term came well before the pandemic.
It is curious that the author, who does not see religion as something objective, does not fail to analyze in his work concepts that come from the “culture” of Christianity when speaking, for example, of a despiritualized asceticism that applies to many religious people today, and of The Matrix in Gremio (on the mother’s lap, a clear allusion to Mary) and here we highlight the Eucharist (it is not the orthodox concept, obviously).
When talking about bubbles, a special topic is “Of Eucharistic excess”, this mutual incorporation is described in illustrative episodes that constitute the European tradition of cordiality in his view, which for us Latins could be an adjective of miseri-cordis, has a heart that humbly welcomes the heart of others, and its “excess” would be better understood.
It narrates three episodes on this topic, the first is from the period of the chivalric troubadour of the 13th century by the poet Conrad of Würzburg, in which the impossible troubadour adultery of a knight and a lady is brought to fruition only with the unconscious consummation of the boy’s heart by the girl, of course it’s about human love here.
In second example, the author also deals with the testimony of Raymond of Capua (1330-1399) that gains chorus, in which Catherine of Siena (a very wise Catholic saint) who has her heart exchanged for that of Christ himself revealed, marking the spherical communion of the human with the divine, and here we understand its adjective of “eucharistic excess”.
The third is more philosophical and takes up Plato’s classical philosophy, an adaptation made by Marcílio Ficino of Plato’s Symposium, with the influence of medieval medicine he imagines that Phaedrus penetrates, with a clear medieval adaptation, with blood vapors that came from his heart and extrapolated from their own eyes, the others of Lysias, with this inflates his heart making him fall in love with Phaedrus.
Lysias’ speech, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, talks about the enchantment caused by the art of using logos beautifully, with the intention of persuading, he elaborates a beautiful and “logical” speech to say that it is more advantageous to give oneself to someone who is not in love than a lover, he exerts a phenomenon called apathê on Phaedrus.
Sloterdijk’s important point is that we are all subject to our bubbles, our preconceptions and only with this resource thought by Lísias, seeing the other non-lover and not close, as a possible delivery can we begin a process of rapprochement, in the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer the “fusion of horizons”.
What perspective do we have on the different Other and how can we carry out an “apathê” that becomes a favorable and interesting encounter, a possible communication.
Sloterdijk, P. Spheres I (2016). trans. José Oscar de Almeida Marques, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
The clearing and the forest
18
Jun
Ontology is that scientific vision where Being 
must be present, even if wrapped and unfolded around beings, beings are that which designates everything that “is”, that is, it refers to the present participle of the verb to be, thus Heidegger will thinking about what the being of beings is, in short, everything that is related to the world we live in, but never forgetting that it is in it that Being lives.
Thus the philosopher thought of truth from the Greek word alétheia (a- no, lethe – hidden), this is the act of unveiling the truth of Being and its relationship with beings in time, truth is then distinct from the common concept that considers it as an objective descriptive state.
For Heidegger, however, there is a fundamental difference between Being and Entity, Being refers to the foundation of existence and ways of existing, while Entity corresponds to concrete existence, or, human reality, as a presence in the world, thus generally we think about the Being of Entities (the cacophony is intentional here) and not Being as Being.
Being as Being is this being-there (dasein without an exact translation, in my view, into Portuguese), the one that “exists” being the only entity that exists, the others are, but do not exist (as consciousness , or more recently as sentience) even though animals can have emotions and affective reactions.
In other words, sentience is the ability of beings to feel sensations and feelings consciously, thus avoiding negative, violent or temperamental reactions.
So the clearing is that encounter with your own truth, in the middle of the forest, there is a space where everything is revealed and our true Being meets and encounters the Other.
The being of the being, projected onto merely mundane things: money, facilities and achievements, finds a space for its active and contemplative life, everything around it is revealed, re-enchanted and has meaning, it is not easy or simple because the forest is still there and we continue to explore it in search of “beings” and we even find them, but again we have to go in search of new ones because it is not yet the clearing, it is different from Plato’s myth because there is a dual world there: the world of ideas and the world of the senses.
Modern man needs to place himself at the center of his Being and have a relationship of transitory ownership with entities, everyday things and the real world.
Modern man needs to place himself at the center of his Being and have a relationship of transitory ownership with entities, everyday things and the real world.
In the biblical narrative we must always love the Other, even asking and praying for those who do not want our good, this limits us from shooting at beings as Being.
The Other as a political category
11
Jun
In the history of philosophy, Being, Entity and
Essence were three fundamental metaphysical categories, as modern philosophy threw the “dirty water with the child in the basin”, in addition to the forgetfulness of Being as pointed out by Heidegger and his interpreters and dialogues (Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Sloterdijk, Byung-Chul Han and others), there is also a rediscovered, or even new, category from outside religious culture: the Other, seen as the “neighbor”, the “brother” or the “faithful”.
Paul Ricoeur wrote about the neighbor and the partner, to differentiate the relations between the two in the modern utilitarian relationship, but also Lévinas (Time and the Other), Martin Buber (I and You) and Byung-Chul Han, in a more contemporary analysis, wrote The Expulsion of the Other, but Junger Habermas’ work “The Inclusion of the Other – Studies in Political Theory” is one, as the title says, that tries to include this analysis within the modern polis, it says in the introduction: “I defend the content rational basis of a morality based on the same respect for all and the general joint responsibility of each one for the other” (Habermas, 2002, p. 7) and condemns the distrust of a universalism marked more by the appeal to difference than “the same respect for everyone extends to those who are similar, but to the person of the other or others in their otherness” (idem).
The author says: this moral community is not just the mere inclusion of the Other (pg. 8)”, but the “inclusion of the other” means that the borders of the community are open to everyone – also and precisely to those who are strangers who are strangers each other – and they want to continue being strangers and constituted exclusively by the idea of discrimination and suffering” (pg. 8 and the entire first part of the book refers to this issue.
The second part refers to a reply and a discussion with John Rawls, who was invited by the editor of the Journal of Philosophy, where he analyzes in terms of concepts, the moral institutions that guide Rawls and clarifies that his reply also serves the purpose of clarifying “the differences between political liberalism and a Kantian republicanism as I understand it” (pg. 8), I remember that also Paul Ricoeur “The Just or Essence”, written in two volumes, also aborted the ideas of John Rawls.
The third part of the book “intends to contribute to the clarification of a controversy that resurfaced in Germany after reunification. I continue to follow the line that I began in the past in an essay on `Citizenship and National Identity’” (pg. 8), but the author knew that the theme would be so current today.
The fourth part was one of the motivations for this post, as Byung-Chul Han talks about Kant’s eternal peace, the author talks about human rights at a global and national level (in Germany obviously), on the occasion of the bicentenary text on Peace Kant’s perpetual, “The light of our historical experience”.
The book will have a no less thought-provoking fifth part on “the theory of discourse regarding the conception of democracy and the rule of law” (pg. 9) and this is all just the author’s preface, and the first topic is about the cognitive aspect of morality, which must be prior to the other chapters, as it presents its foundations.
The author writes: “moral manifestations bring with them a potential of motives that can be updated with each moral dispute” (pg. 10) and thus “moral rules operate by making references to themselves” (idem) and will establish “for this two levels retroactively coupled to each other” (pg. 12).
At the first level, they direct social action immediately, to the extent that they compromise the will of the actors and guide it in a determined way” (pg. 12).
At the second level, “they regulate critical positions in the case of conflict… it does not just say how members of the community should behave… it provides reasons to consensually resolve conflicts of action” and sees this in a way very analogous to Wittgenstein’s language games where polyphony is established.
The theme is close to Byung-Chul Han’s Narration Crisis because both, and this also includes John Rawls and Martin Buber although in quite different ways, as Han clarifies: “the face requires distance. He is a You, and not an available It” (pg. 96), and penetrating Communicative Theory, Habermas’ great thesis, Han sees so much in his idea of psychopolitics in the Swarm from a digital perspective, that the only possibility of symmetry is respect , power relations are asymmetrical, and for him so are communicative ones.
Who is the Other, the one I meet and who is often very different from me, if he wishes me peace, says the biblical passage, we will sit and have dinner together.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Trans. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Habermas, Jürgen (2002) A inclusão do outro – Estudos de Teoria política. (Die Einbeziehung des Anderen – Studien zur politischen Theorie). Trans. Georg Sperber, Paulo Astor. Edições Loyola, São Paulo, Brasil.
The disenchantment of the world and hope
10
Jun
War is the height of disenchantment, but it
is reproduced in narratives, intolerance and small everyday wars that cause the expulsion of the Other, especially when there are different interpretations and visions of what the “facts” are, but they use small wars hidden in their narratives and in a restricted context where it is valid.
The disenchantment of the world, now taken up by the crisis in Byung-Chul Han’s narration, was once the theme of Max Weber who referred to the phenomenon as a process in which the modern subject began to strip away customs and beliefs based on inherited traditions or learned under the fixed pillars of religions or “magic”, nothing more convergent with Han, however it is important to understand how this penetrated the language.
To be coherent with the theme, the final chapter of the Narration Crisis (there is another one in I know it is Storyselling, but I opt for the resistance of the spirit), which we posted notes on last week, begins with the narration of Peter Nadás, of a village that gathered around a large wild pear tree, and there they tell stories to each other, it forms a narrative community “that carries values and norms, intimately linking values and norms” (Han, 2023, p. 121), in it the village indulges in “ritual contemplation”.
Nadás says at the end of his essay: “I still remember how, on hot summer nights, the village used to sing softly […] under the big wild pear tree […] Today there are no more of those trees, and the singing of the village has become silent” (Han, 2023, p. 122, citing Nadás), and “this community without communication gives way to communication without community”.
He imagines like other authors, even cites Kant’s Pax Eterna, but his philosophy also constructed the modern narrative, and says as Edgar Morin dreamed and imagines a radical universalism “a global family” beyond nation and identity (pg. 125 and says “poetry elevates each individual through a peculiar connection with everything else” quoting Schriften Novalis, and this narrative community rejects the exclusionary narrative of identity.
“Political action in an emphatic sense presupposes a narrative” (pg. 126) and presupposes a narrative coherence, recalls Hannah Arendt “for action and speech, whose close interrelationship in the Greek conception of politics we have already discussed [in this blog as well], are in fact the two activities that, in the last instance, always result in a story, that is, in a process that, however arbitrary and random it may be in its individual events and causes, it still has enough coherence to be narrated” (Han, 2023, p. 127), I remember in previous posts Arendt’s idea, also used by Byung-Chul of vita activa and vita contemplativa.
From the final chapter I take advantage of his “To live is to narrate. Humans, as animal narrans, differ from animals in that they are capable of realizing new forms of life through narration. Narration has the power of a new beginning” (pg. 132) which is a sign of hope for humanity in a growing crisis.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Trans. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
