Arquivo para a ‘Antropotécnica’ Categoria
Power, Anger and Time
18
Oct
At a time of threats and hatreds that call into
question not only peoples, nations and cultures, but even the process of civilization, it is good to review what we think of power and anger.
Sloterdijk (2006) had developed the question of Anger in current times, in a context of political psychology, values such as pride, ambition and vanity contribute to what can be called, in times of networks, a verticalization of social life.
The author explains that the social theories of “social stratification based on domination, regression and privilege” have been replaced by ideas of individual disciplining (asceticism, virtuosity and performance), which are seen as the causes of vertical differentiation.
This seemed obvious both to Michel Foucault, the sponsor of this interpretative approach, who in the 1970s denounced the intimate relationship between discourse and discipline, and to the vision of the linguistic turn, in his famous language games, which linked the latter to behavioral figures and opened up to sociology (and some half-philosophies) the understanding of latent rituals, typical of communicative games.
Half-philosophies because Sloterdijk will contest this reading and also various strands of Anglo-American analytical philosophy, which see language games as egalitarian and relativist, which they are not.
The so-called vertical tension in Sloterdijk’s work has great relevance for ethics and pedagogy, as it establishes a hierarchy between values, without which ethics is sabotaged, and the educator, in pursuing something higher than the student, must have something more in his soul and body, and this is his discourse on “the exercise society”.
What these authors draw attention to is the contemporary destruction of interiority, a theme that Byung-Chul Han goes to the root of, but which Heidegger, Hannah Arendt and now Sloterdijk have already drawn attention to: being-in-the-world has destroyed what was considered for thousands of years to be the most important thing: radically distinguishing oneself from this world.
In Heidegger this discourse is already present, pointing out that man as someone who no longer has an interiority that can serve as a shelter, for the fugitive from the world that he would eventually choose to be, modern conditions, opposes the certainty of a more than true life on the horizon of reality or in a hypothetical “end of the world”, this was written long before today’s apocalyptic and pseudo-prophetic visions, without seeing the absence of asceticism.
Hans Jonas wrote: “act in such a way that the effects of your action do not endanger the permanence of authentic human life on earth!” (Jonas, 2006) and Edgar Morin calls for a (re)humanized humanity, finally reversing the process of violent power, hatred and war.
JONAS, Hans. (2006) Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation. Frankfurt Suhrkamp.
SLOTERDIJK, P. (2006) Zorn und Zeit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Lack of balance and Being
17
Oct
An analysis of Western culture cannot be
complete without an understanding of Anger. Various authors have analyzed the issue. Byung-Chul Han recalls that one of the first words in Homer’s Iliad begins: “Aira, Goddess, celebrates the wrathful Achilles, who brought so many sorrows to the Achaeans and cast countless souls into Hades,” but that’s not all.
Aristotle defines anger as: “a desire, accompanied by pain, for perceived revenge, on account of a perceived disregard for an individual or his neighbor, coming from people from whom disregard is not expected” (2.2.1378a31-33) wrote in Rhetoric, but Peter in his essay Anger and Time reframes this psychoanalytical view that reduces the feeling to a mere escape valve for unfulfilled desires and rediscovers it as a 21st century political concept.
The author says: “While the link between spirit and resentment was stable – the demand for justice for the world – whether beyond earthly life or in the history that takes place – was able to take refuge in fictions that have been dealt with in detail here: in the theology of the wrath of God and in the world timotic economy of communism” (Sloterdijk, 2021), which takes on a controversial theme (image is part of book cover).
What is certain is that there is anger on both sides, and the “already” but “not yet” that was discussed in the previous post does not reside in them, because both thoughts are affiliated with modern idealism, and this is the central criticism of Kant and Hegel’s German idealism, they do not point to a new idealism.
In it there is an absence of pain, which precedes com-passion, more than an act of mercy (miseri cordis, of the heart), it is an act of adherence and justification of the existential peripheries, where the pain of justice resides, but as existential it also resides in disillusioned and tired hearts.
Contemplation and the already and not yet, which reaches both the earthly and the divine spheres, requires a vita activa which is that of psychological, family and social equilibrium which does not exclude the other, not infrequently those who defend only earthly or only divine justice, do not have a proactive action that leads to the encounter of pain, widely analyzed in Byung-Chul Han’s “Palliative Society”, eliminated pain by transferring to earthly or divine “paradise”, without our com-passion.
The balance of Being, which is already realized, but not yet (completely), has something to say about justice, the common good and peace.
Sloterdijk, P. (2021) Ira e tempo. Trad. Marco Casanova. Brasil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
Noetics, Ontologie and War
14
Oct
For Plato, noesis is superior to dianoia, which
is discursive and apparently logical, while the former is a high possible mental activity, inhabiting the sphere of Good and Harmony.
It is a possibility of access to the “divine” world (Plato’s highest good which is in the eidos), it is transcendent, absolute, beyond ordinary human reasoning, philosophers pursue it without even touching on the question of the belief in a higher God where noesis “dwells”, it is not Being, but a mental attitude.
Dianoia, on the other hand, while it inhabits logical, mathematical and technical reasoning, is attached to what the mind can grasp of the earthly world, even though it admits to mistakes, truths that are not absolute and sometimes confusing, they inhabit the daily life of the human being, who is also disconnected from Being.
There is a foundational line that goes from phenomenology to the anthropotechnics of Peter Sloterdijk and Byung-Chul Han, essentially involving the question of Being, the link between noesis and noema, weakened by the bombardment of narratives that the digital universe has provided, but the forgetting of being, the absence of interiority have led to what Chul-Han calls “deauritization” and “pure facticity”:
“The disenchantment of the world expresses itself as de-auritization. Aura is the radiance that elevates the world beyond its pure facticity, the mysterious veil that envelops things” (Han, 2023, p. 80).
It’s not a question of denying facticity, but of not allowing its noesis, that is, the initial comprehension in the mind in all its aura, it makes a “narrative selection”, in the words of Byung-Chul (talking about photography): “It extends or shortens the temporal distance. It skips years or decades. Narrativity is opposed to chronological facticity” (Han, 2023, p. 81).
These are the lies of wars, of all wars because they hide their real motives, but particularly of current wars because they use narratives to change what is evident if read in chronological facticity, in a very current example, last week’s bombing of a hospital for the elderly in Ukraine (photo) and the bombing of UN bases in Lebanon, this correlates with cruelty and the absence of any narration to justify them.
Peace lies in the hearts and authorities that maintain the aura of hope, the spirit of solidarity.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2023) A crise da narração. Transl. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Heidegger and the affective tone
14
Oct
Intentionality is inherent to Being, it is a
manifestation of interiority.
As a good orientalist, although based in Germany, Byung-Chul Han’s analysis does not start from the objectivist, materialist or substantialist perspective of the classic authors of Western philosophy, but from the holistic perspective of what he calls “affective tonality” in Heidegger.
To understand this different form of ascesis, contrary to the distance from the object that idealism proposes, the affective tonality “possesses an a priori anteriority that is not, however, attributable to the transcendental capacity of the subject, a pre-vision that sees before the object be outlined” (page 58).
Understanding objects as “beings”, “letting entities be, which is an attunement, penetrates and precedes all behavior that remains open and develops” and “the opening of entities in their totality does not coincide with the sum of currently known entities” (pg. 58), so any rationalist analysis is fragmentary and does not “see” the entities.
And furthermore, the “in the midst of beings in totality” is not verified by any reflection, so the thematization itself, “which always proposes an original scenario” is already an interpretation (pg. 59).
The affective tonality opens the space of there, according to Han, “which floods consciousness and which must be given in advance so that it can begin its thematizing work and discourse, and concludes with a quote from Heidegger: “Consciousness is only possible on the foundation of there as a derivative mode of it”.
Thus “the a priori event already presupposes an interpretation, and this temporal difference, which is placed before the interval of countable time, remains constitutive for the difference between being and being” (pg. 59), which is why ontologically the difference exists and not the idealistic separation as idealism supposes.
Thus, true ascesis is not a separation of the world (objective and subjective), but in the world through the difference between being and being, only a divided ascension (through death) can definitively separate being from being, thus we are in the relationship of an “affective tone ”.
Han, B.C. (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Transl.Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Believe in divine protection and do good
02
Oct
Despite the climate of war, we must wish for peace.
We warned in yesterday’s post that an escalation was imminent and it has happened, the climate and hate speech on both sides in the current global polarization is advancing and only those who continue to do good will be at peace.
It seems heroic, innocent or even childish to continue to wish for and do good, but this is the only way not to fall into the trivialization of evil, polarization and inhuman discourse.
Yesterday, on Monday night in Brazil and early Tuesday morning in Israel, more than 180 missiles from Iran were launched at Israel, hypersonic missiles that traveled in 12 minutes until they hit Jewish soil; the number of victims and targets hit were not disclosed.
The involvement of the Arab world, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria have already declared their support for the attack, which had Palestinian celebrations in Gaza, takes the confrontation to a global scale, in the United States, Biden asked the forces in the area to defend Israel, which promises retaliation to Iran.
The possibility of the closure of the Gulf of Oman will affect the price of oil worldwide and, with it, the cost of products that depend on transportation and global logistics.
Only by adhering to goodness, peace and your daily life can we remain emotionally balanced and serene, even in the face of adverse circumstances, where everyone gives in to panic, hatred and the trivialization of evil.
For the philosopher Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil is the phenomenon of our character’s refusal to reflect and the tendency not to assume the consequences of actions that do not assume the consequences of evil, and thus prevent us from adhering to the good.
We only have protection in our spirit and soul when we resist the temptation to evil, what the philosopher and educator Edgar Morin also calls “resistance of the spirit” in the midst of polarization, hatred and war; by doing good actions we attract peace around us and divine protection.
Truth, language and method
27
Sep
The understanding of any phenomenon
necessarily involves language and method, language as a means of communicating the phenomenon and method as a strategic path by which the truth can be reached on some issue.
Dogmatic and ideological truths have led to narratives and distortions of reality, even those that pass through the imaginary, which is not necessarily an untruth, but often an analogy or metaphor to tell the truth.
Language as the “dwelling place of being” is for the phenomenological and ontological interpretation of truth, i.e. that which goes through the question of the “being” of the “being” is the basis for communicating the truth between source and destination, but it cannot be confused with sender and receiver.
When we have an “entity” as a means of communication, be it analog or digital (another confusion is to give analog an ontological category), it means that it is restricted to being just a “means” of communication, so it makes the message encoded in a signal, for example an analog acoustic wave (fm radio for example) or a signal encoded in zeros and ones, in this case digital, both of which cannot be interpreted as “the dwelling place of being”, but only code, that is, something more conducive to the entity than to being.
The signal aimed at reducing noise and authenticating the message that has been coded should not be confused with the message itself, since it comes from Being and carries within itself not a logic, but an onto-logy, in other words, something originally from Being.
It is in this ontology that we can understand the meaning of dialogue, even between logically opposed messages, since ontologically they can share a fusion of horizons and can then create a method, developed by Heidegger and formalized by Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Gadamer’s explanation of the hermeneutic circle is expressed as:
“The circle must not be degraded to a vicious circle, even if this is tolerated. In it there is a positive possibility of the most original knowledge, which, of course, will only be adequately understood when interpretation understands that its first, constant and ultimate task remains not to receive beforehand, by means of a ‘happy idea’ or by means of popular concepts, either the previous position or the previous vision, but to ensure the scientific theme in the elaboration of these concepts from the thing itself”. (GADAMER, 1998, p. 401).
This is why Gadamer’s studies, entitled Philosophical Hermeneutics, cover many peculiar aspects of his studies and writings, with a contribution that goes beyond philosophy itself, linguistics and, to a certain extent, theological hermeneutics, from which came the work and studies of Schleiermacher, who spoke of “spheres” and “circles” in his studies on hermeneutics.
It is only in this idea of the fusion of horizons, of going beyond the vicious circle, that we can understand an inverse reasoning of one against all, and understand the dialog between opposites.
GADAMER, Hans-Georg (1998). Verdade e Método: Traços fundamentais de uma hermenêutica filosófica. Transl. Flávio Paulo Meurer. 2a. ed. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Narrative and truth
26
Sep
It’s not just some thinkers like Edgar Morin,
Peter Sloterdijk and Mario Bunge who complain about the difficulty of elaborating thought in a truthful way, the fundamentals have been lost and narratives dominate even areas like science and religion, not to mention politics which is the realm of narratives, peace, climate and social security are part of rhetoric.
In Byung-Chul Han’s book “The Crisis of Narration” he recovers an essay by Hungarian writer Peter Nadás “Betsutsame Ortsbestimmung” (I don’t think there is a Portuguese translation, but Han translated the title as Location pending), which tells the story of a village where in the center stands a huge wild pear tree.
Nadás describes this village as a narrative community that gathers around the pear tree “on warm summer evenings” for “ritual contemplation” and ratifies the “collective content of consciousness” (Han, 2023, p. 121), where there is “no opinion about this or that, but uninterrupted narration of a single great story” (Há, p. 122) and where they used to “sing softly … Today there are no more of these trees and the singing of the village has died down” (Nadás, apud Han, 2023, p. 122).
The Korean philosopher adds: “That ‘ritual contemplation’ that ratifies the collective content of consciousness gives way to the noise of communication and information” (Han, p. 122), “that ‘singing’ that tunes the villagers into a story and thus unites them” (Idem).
What they experience from “noisy” communication “does not create any social cohesion, it does not create a We. On the contrary, it dismantles both solidarity and empathy” (Han, 2023, p. 123).
Han’s philosophical critique is clear: “But not all the constitutive narratives of a community are based on the exclusion of the Other, insofar as there is also an inclusive narrative that does not cling to an identity” (Han, 2023, p. 124) and even quotes Kant’s Perpetual Peace, despite all its conservative idealism.
His universalism is clear: “Every human being enjoys unrestricted hospitality. Every human being is a citizen of the world … He [Novalis] imagines a ‘world family’ beyond nation and identity. He elevates poetry as a form of reconciliation and love” (p. 125).
The author, based on Novalis, also refers to the issue of complexity that contemplates the whole: “The individual lives in the whole and the whole in the individual. It is through poetry that the highest sympathy and coactivity originate, the most intimate communication” (Han, 2023, p. 125).
Han, B.-C. (2023). A crise da narração. Transl. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Power, punishment and psychopolitics
17
Sep
After Surveillance and Punishment, Foucault
realized that disciplinary society was not exactly what modern society reflected, as Byung-Chul Han’s book on Psychopolitics puts it, “the problem, however, was that it remained linked both to the concept of population and to that of biopolitics [quoting Foucault] ‘if once we know what this governmental regime called liberalism was, we can, it seems to me, grasp what biopolitics is’ (Han, 2020, p. 37).
Byung-Chul discovers that “disciplinary technique passes from the corporeal to the mental sphere. The English term “industry” also means “effort”. The locution industrial school can mean house of correction. Bentham also suggested that his pan-opticon would morally improve the inmates. Content, the psyche is not the focus of disciplinary power” (Han, 2020, p. 35).
The Korean-German essayist develops all the assumptions developed by Foucault to make the transition from biopolitics to psychopolitics, which he is right to do, but it is totally linked to the idea that it is the neoliberal principle and not the Hegelian one that establishes this logic of power, although both in the book What is Power and in the book In the Swarm, he examines other aspects ranging from technology to human behavior, for example, in the essay In the Swarm, he states that the only symmetrical form of power is respect.
In a more analytical way, he also considers idealist philosophy from a behavioral perspective:
“As in the relationship of knowledge (Kant), there is no continuity of the Ego, without the Alter, as he attests, by denoting that, power allows the ego to be in the other by itself. It generates a continuity of the self. The ego makes its decisions in the alter. This is how the ego continues in the alter. Power gives the ego spaces that are its own, in which, despite the presence of the other, it can be itself.” (Han, 2019, p. 11).
So it is necessary to escape from selfish, exclusivist concepts to penetrate a level of alter in order to fully realize our feelings and decisions, it is not an effort of the self nor of egocentric power that we achieve this state of peace and happiness so desired.
So inflamed egos, masters who seize power in order to dominate others, are unable to create a healthy policy that includes the whole of society and perhaps the whole of society, because it is not possible to live in harmony without respecting diversity, difference and the Other.
All totalitarian regimes are heading for war because they need to eliminate the Other, the different and the voice of those who see the world from a different perspective.
HAN, Byung-Chul. A Psicopolítica: o neoliberalismo e as novas técnicas do poder. Brazil: Petrópolis: Vozes, 2020.
HAN, Byung-Chul. O que é Poder? Transl. de Gabriel Salvi Philipson. Brazil: Petrópolis: Vozes, 2019.
Joy, sacrifice and hope
13
Sep
Pain is part of human reality, and so no joy is
everlasting if it doesn’t understand sacrifice, in the etymology of the word “sacred office”, it’s not exactly pain, as Byung-Chul Han describes in The Palliative Society: pain today, meaningless pain, it’s “bodily affliction”, pain has become a thing, it has lost an ontological and in a way “eschatological” meaning, “meaningless pain is possible only in a bare life emptied of meaning, which no longer narrates”. (Han, 2021, p. 46).
Han cites literary authors such as Paul Valéry, for whom in his book Monsieur Teste “is silent in the face of pain. Pain robs him of speech” (Han, 2021, p. 43), and also Freud, for whom ”pain is a symptom that indicates a blockage in a person’s history. The patient, because of his blockage, is unable to move forward in the story” (p. 45).
It is with the Christian mystic Teresa of Avila, as a kind of counterfigure of pain, “in her, pain is extremely eloquent. The narrative begins with pain. The Christian narrative verbalizes pain and also transforms the body of the mystic into a stage … deepens the relationship with God … produces intimacy, an intensity” (p. 44). For those who don’t know, it was through reading this book that the philosopher Edith Stein, a disciple of Husserl like Heidegger, converted to Christianity.
Sacrifice is the art of living joyfully through pain. Of course, it’s a mistake to think about and desire pain, but if it comes, and someday it will, it can be re-signified as a “sacred office” that is offered. Byung-Chul Han wrote about it: “Suffering is not a symptom, nor is it a diagnosis, but a very complex human experience.” Only great mystics have penetrated it.
In Mark’s Gospel (Mk 9:31), Jesus shocks his disciples by teaching them in secret: “And he said to them, ”The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. But three days after his death he will rise again,” and then he denies all forms of human power: ‘Whoever wants to be first, let him be servant of all,’ and finally he teaches the simplicity of children: ‘Whoever welcomes one of these children welcomes me,’ is different from what they think today.
Understanding pain, the inverted logic of power and the simplicity and innocence of children is a distant logic in a civilization in crisis, hedonistic, authoritarian and full of malice.
Han, B-C. (2021) A Sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Joy in the midst of crisis
11
Sep
It´s possible to maintain joy in the midst of crisis,
economic difficulties and wars that threaten us? This is not about naivety or mere alienation, others prefer to think about maintaining their essential assets: food, health and safe housing.
Byung-Chul theorizes that despite the “difference” between Derridá and Heidegger (see our posts about Heidegger´s heart book) there is a structural affinity in their vision of mourning, which is characterized by the renunciation of the subject’s autonomy in Derrida: “No matter how narcissistic our subjective speculation continues to be, , it can no longer close itself to this gaze, before which we ourselves show ourselves the moment we convert it into our mourning or we can give up on it [faire de lui notre dueil], mourning, making ourselves mourn for ourselves, I mean, I mourn the loss of our autonomy, for everything that made us the measure of ourselves” (Han, p. 430 citing Derridá’s text “Krafter der Trauer”, strengthening of pain), this That is, they both have in common a vision of renouncing the autonomy of the subject, the “I” of idealism.
Here the important thing is not to let mourning work (let us remember the concept already seen in the posts about “work mourning”) it is replaced in Derridá by a game of mourning: “however, the happier the joy, the purer the sadness that sleeps in it. The deeper the sadness, the more it calls us to joy…” (Han, pg. 430-431), but Heidegger’s mourning, explains Han, does not kill death, trying to kill it results in something even worse: “ wanting to resurrect, violently and actively surpassing the limit of death would only drag them (the gods) into a false and non-divine proximity and would bring death instead of our life” (Han, pg. 431-432 quoting Heidegger).
Heidegger explains that it is “not a symptom that can be eliminated by psychoeconomic accounting. He does not have a deficient trait that involves work (of mourning).
This “withdrawn” or “saved” for which Heidegger’s “holy and mourning” heart beats is not subject to economics, this “saved” cannot be spent or capitalized, it is therefore that which is and characterizes renunciation, Han does not exemplifies, but we can think of humanitarian aid in disasters and wars, as it will characterize the identity of renunciation and gratitude as conceivable outside of economics, using Heideggerian terms “grievously bear the need to renounce” and promises the “unthinkable donation”.
A profound and wise phrase by Heidegger says, renunciation is the “highest form of possession”, it seems contrary, but we only really have what we can give because otherwise it is a commodity of exchange, and even more so renunciation becomes gratitude and “ duty of gratitude”, this pain increases and becomes joy: “the deeper the sadness, the more the joy that rests in it calls us”. (pg. 433), but it does not even become sublimation, which forces us to “work”, as it is the “inhibition of all income” and the “awareness of the emptiness and poverty of the world”.
Praise of misery one might think, is not a praise of moderate and continuous joy, different from the euphoria and ecstasy that is followed by depression, “the lack of the divine brings about mourning, goes back to an obstinate forgetfulness of being, in which Heidegger inscribes the divine” (Han, p. 433-434), but it is certainly not yet the biblical divine, but surrounds it.
The reward and joy of the Divine inscribed in the being, is that which renounces and gives, but knows that there will be a reward of receiving a hundred times more, not in goods, but in joy.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Transl. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
