Arquivo para a ‘SocioCibercultura’ Categoria
The limits of logical thinking
16
Aug
The full development of modern science and
technology was the realization of a program dreamed of by Francis Bacon, René Descartes and Immanuel Kant as a total domination of man over nature on a dangerous ethical threshold, manufacturing what is natural, but this comes up against two dilemmas: the natural was and (in my opinion) will always be the “unmanufactured” and by making the substance manipulable it continues to be in fact what it was naturally.
In excerpts from Heidegger’s notes between 1936 and 1946 (therefore in the final stage of the 2nd world war), the author wrote an essay called Overcoming Metaphysics, and with all his genius describes what would result in the technical and industrial production of life, wrote: “Since man is the most important raw material, one can count on the fact that, based on current chemical research [of course at the time], factories for the artificial production of human material will one day be installed. The research of the chemist Kuhn, distinguishing from planned directing the production of male and female living beings, according to their respective demands” (Heidegger, Uberwindung der Metaphysik, paragraph 26).
Adono and Horkheimer also expressed in the famous Dialectic of Enlightenment, that this “has always, in the most comprehensive sense of thought in progress, pursued the goal of removing fear from man and establishing him as master. However, the completely enlightened earth sparkles under the sign of triumphal misfortune.” (Adorno, Horkheimer, 1987, p. 25).
Habermas also spoke of this extravaganza of bad science fiction, experimental production of embryos, even a convinced atheist, in his work “Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?” complains about this vision of “partners in evolution” or even “playing God” as metaphors for the self-transformation of the species.
It is not about opposing the advancement of science, a retrograde thought present in all social circles, but about opposing bad science, bad progress that result in scourges for humanity itself.
The sense of fully recovering life, of opposing growing authoritarianism and warmongering, of proclaiming peace, sustainable development and the divine origin of human life is not just a proclamation of faith or serious and sincere humanism, it is a resistance of spirit, hope and a rationality above instrumental and agnostic logic.
Unity or dualism
14
Aug
Dualism is an essential part of modern thought,
even if little or nothing is known about philosophy, and it has penetrated deeply into the human soul and created things through contrasts, not the one that came from Plato, the shadows of the cave where we cannot see clearly and not the clearing place of Heidegger’s search to find the forgotten being in philosophy.
Byung-Chul Han, when describing modern narratives, is incisive: “the new barbarian celebrates the poverty of experience: one should not imagine that men aspire to new experiences. No, they aspire to free themselves from all experience, they aspire to a world in which they can display their external and internal poverty so purely and so clearly that something decent can result from it” (Han, 2023, p. 35) quoting Walter Benjamin .
He will then say that they “profess transparency and a lack of mystery, that is, they profess a lack of aura. They also reject traditional humanism” (pgs. 35-36), clarifies, however, that the aforementioned book by Walter Benjamin “is full of ambivalence” and in the end, after a “certain” apology, modernity (the quotation marks are mine) gives way disillusionment and foreshadows the Second World War.
We could have freed ourselves from this “disease of modernity” (as Freud wrote) but Benjamin’s skepticism makes sense again, quoted in Han: “We became poor. We abandoned all the pieces of human heritage one after another, we had to pawn them many times for a hundredth of their value to receive in exchange the small coin of “current”…” (pgs. 37-38).
We talk about peace while we fight wars, we talk about unity and we are deeply divided, we talk about democracy and we come out in support of autocratic attitude and government, and perhaps the greatest of all sophistry, we intend to eliminate poverty and misery by filling our pockets, there is no coherence between discourse and attitude, it is about creating good narratives, and this started from the division between what is specific to the subject (not subjectivity but his soul) and the object (not objectivity, but the material use of what he produces life).
There is a lack of an “aura”, complains Byung-Chul Han, perhaps a spiritual one, the resistance of Edgar Morin’s spirit makes sense, but it is necessary to find a true meaning for this, what most men call religion is nothing other than justifying personal narratives.
It is possible to rediscover unity, dialogue and peace, but it is necessary to “disarm” the spirits.
Han, B.C. (2023). A crise da narração. Brazil, Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes.
Love and beyond pain
09
Aug
Pain is not the resignation of absolute
interiority: “the subject who works on identity, returning to himself in his interiority, assimilating the world, is incapable of pain” (pg. 329), while other thinkers stopped in anguish or in the search through difference or even through the subject destined for an “absolute spirit”, Heidegger sees in pain a “fundamental affective tone of melancholy” (Han, 2023, pg. 329), it is the tone of being… of finitude… of finite thought, “is the identical feature that, as the basis of a certain formal manner, supports every fundamental tonality occupied by some content, the main feature that, as the same, is the basis of the respective tuning mode” (Han, 2023, pg. 330).
There is no reason for pain other than a separation from something that transcends it, says a Brazilian song “those who did not suffer for love, did not love”, but this relationship can be reversed if we can see the divine as Pure Love, He also through pain loves us out of love, perhaps it is its ultimate essence, like the Christian symbol of the cross.
All philosophy tells us about being separated from something, a search for something, the desire for infinity and agape happiness (those that are not lasting are only palliative), thus the name of Han’s book “The palliative society”, speaks of pain today.
There is an attraction in this type of essence, the relationship between pain and love, not because of a suffering or masochistic spirit, but precisely because of the separation of infinity, plenitude and pure Being, and only the existence of Pure Being can attract us to this kind of love.
A striking quote from Han is: “The modern loss of faith, which concerns not only God and the afterlife, but reality itself, makes human life radically transitory.”, the Korean-German philosopher is much closer of Buddhism than of Christianity, but understands an essential relationship that exists in this Love/Pain, in this Being/Non-Being, not in a dualistic way, but in an intimate relationship like true Love.
So if there is a precedence in the relationship, it is Pain and Love, but not as a denial of life but as its maximum affirmation.
Han, B.C. (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger. Transl. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Pain and the divine
08
Aug
The book chapter on the Voice in Byung-Chul
Han’s “Heidegger’s Heart: On the Concept of Affective Tonality”, this Voice could be final (the chapter too), but as Heidegger saw it it was more of an inner Voice than a relationship with the divine, and Han was faithful to him, for him it is part of the development of the Being, also when talking about pain, a subject that Han dealt with in the “Palliative Society: pain today” (we made some posts), remembering the way we treat the pandemic and other scourges in a society that does not want to look at this side of life: suffering and pain.
Not by chance, Heidegger addresses this when elaborating on Parmenides, where ontology is reduced to Being is and non-Being is not, to a logic A and not-A, with no third hypothesis, there Heidegger speaks of “a certain death (sacrificial ) of the human being: “But the supreme form of pain is the dying of death, which sacrifices the human being for the preservation of the truth of being” (Han, 2013, pg. 321), so the sacrifice is not here, as “Does sacrifice have its own essence and does not need objectives or benefits? ” (idem) and so this should be guided by something beyond the earthly, the merely human.
Han, quoting Foucault, asks that “is it a matter of a certain agony to awaken thought from an “anthropological sleep”?” (idem), perhaps an anthropotechnical awakening or even as we chose an onto-anthropotechnical awakening, since the forgetfulness of being is not just a philosophical category, there is something transitory in it, not infinite and not open.
When addressing the emptiness of modern man, also based on the reading of Foucault, Han recalls that Heidegger, when resuming the metaphysical category “subjectum”, which in “its essence is modern man is the “subject” and it is exactly here that Heidegger “criticizes implicitly anthropological thought” (pg. 322), it is according to Heidegger: “the continuation of Cartesianism”, Han quoting him: “With the interpretation of man as subjectum. Descartes creates the metaphysical assumption for future anthropology of all types and orientations” (pg. 323), the categories subject and object are characteristic of modernity.
Thus it is not man’s opposition to beings, but modernity’s mistaken opposition to language: “concern for language would be concern for death. Giving language back to man would therefore mean giving him back death, his mortality” (pg. 324), and it is also not about the ‘being’ or ‘non-being’ of the human being” (pg. 325-326 ).
For Heidegger, the subject is reflected in the world; “the image of the world is in a way its own mirror image” (pg. 326), which is why it hides the being, whereas pain “tears apart subjective interiority. It is not completely lost. Pain is associated with a peculiar concentration, which, however, is not established as a subjective interiority” (pg. 327).
Although the author and Heidegger do not say so, this is why “idealistic sleep” exists, where subjectum and being are divided, and “in pain, thinking is concentrated on what gives thought… in the concentrated dispersion of pain, the thinking by turning outward learns the exterior by heart – this side of knowledge and science, which would enable assimilating internalizing learning” (pg. 327).
It is important to highlight the calculating economy seen by Heidegger: “Pain is from ‘because’, not from ‘due to’… mourning does not lament, it does not seek to fill the place that was left empty… mourning without mourning is only conceivable outside of economics (VIII.3)” (quoted in Han, pg. 328).
Han B.C. (2023) Heidegger’s Heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger. Trans. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
The heart and beliefs
02
Aug
The heart is a vital organ, it irrigates blood
throughout the organism reaching all the cells of the human body, when we talk about beliefs (they are also hidden in objects of human knowledge, we believe that something is a certain “way”) we do not we just talk about faith.
Byung-Chul Han, when carrying out his analysis based on the classic authors of Western philosophy, approaches a perspective of what he will call “affective tone”, focusing mainly on Heidegger.
His book, unlike others that are just essays, has “Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger” (Ed. Vozes, 2023), his first book in my opinion, with a new, human and spiritual analysis. even spiritual at the core of Western philosophy.
Part of a concept dear to Judeo-Christian civilization, which is that of circumcision, but circumcision of the heart and not of the failed organ (the skin attached to the beginning of the penis), it is necessary to remember that although it is a male organ, it is an emblem of power, of authority and desire, was culturally a warlike culture.
The part of his vision with his eastern vision and that has a spiritual sense for his entire philosophical question, Han will develop that it is the circumcision of the heart, that which modulates and governs affection, circumcision has a different meaning than what is commonly spoken, the controversy between Christians and Jews at the beginning of the Christian era, is the circumcision of the heart.
Circumcision is the act of removing the skin of the male sexual organ, but even in the biblical sense it was the skin of the heart, in Deuteronomy it reads: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and no longer stiffen your neck” (Dt 10,6), citing in the epigraph of the first chapter of the book: “Circumcision of the heart” (Han, 2023, p. 7).
Thus, “this circumcision frees the heart from subjective interiority” (Han, 2023, p. 11), and there is a surprising preliminary conclusion in Heidegger: “Heidegger’s heart, on the other hand [confronts with Derrida], listens to one voice , follows the tonality and gravity of the “one, the only one that unifies” (Han, 2023, p. 14-15), for him it is an “ear of his heart” and thus there is something strong spiritual in this.
It is there that the human being finds his essence: “he remains in tune with that from which his essence is determined. In the tuning determination, man is affected and called by a voice that sounds all the purer the more silently it resonates through the sonant” (Han, 2023, p. 15) literally quoting Heidegger.
He will not say that it is faith, and it reveals the Buddhist influence of his thought, the author’s only link, in my opinion, with idealism, because in Buddhism there is only a personal elevation, there is no Person on the other side, who resonates through the resounding, that voice of the Holy Spirit.
The author clarifies the disagreement between Derridá and |Heidegger: “The ‘polyphony’ that Derrida opposes to totality does not exclude tonality” (pg. 16) we would say if these authors: Han, Derrida and Heidegger were Christians, that Heidegger and Han would be monotheists and Derrida would be polytheist, but it is clear that this “resounding voice” is not that of God, but from within.
Han, B.C. (2023) Heidegger’s Heart: on the concept of affective tone in Martin Heidegger. Trans. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Form and content
01
Aug
Modern philosophy has separated the form from
the content, just as a label is separated from an ingredient that exists in a bottle, but this comes from the reduced understanding of what matter is, the hylé of the Greeks, whose thought in Aristotelian terminology interconnects them in hylemorphism (ὕλη, hýle = “matter”; μορφή, morphé = “form”).
For this to have an anthropological scope, necessary for the discourse on cultural diversity, it is necessary to link act and power, as Thomas Aquinas did, where matter is not what we today designate (like substance, for example), but rather what is as a possibility or in potential, written like this by Thomas: “matter est id quod est in potentia” (matter is that which is in potential) (THOMAS, ST I q.3 a.2 c), in current terms, while It’s not an act, it’s just a given.
Thus the act is the existence of fact, or the action itself, that is, “forma est actus (form is act) (ST I q.50, a.2, obi.3), so we let ourselves be shaped by ideas, actions and thoughts that can be deeper or shallower, based on just a few words.
Thus the articulation of the binomials power x act and matter x form is in this way, “matter is nothing but power, form is that through which something is, as it is the act” (THOMAS, ScG II, c.43), these Categories give a distinction from fundamental metaphysics, and anthropologically mean that one thing is the possibility of existing or acting: power or matter, another thing is actually existing or acting: act or form.
Some modern theologies want to separate body and soul, this is without eschatological and biblical foundation, otherwise the human figure of Jesus would be divided into two: the divine and the human, which would be in opposition and would fight against each other, and this is why the Christian anthropology must be rigorously unitary, as it is in Thomas Aquinas.
M matter and form (seen in this new aspect linked to content and essence), without its actual existence (form) the body would not even exist, but only the possibility of existing (potentially) makes it exist in act, this unity is radical, since the necessary condition for its existence is the body, so spirituality is not just “body” there is an essence in it.
It is fundamental to understanding Christian anthropology, written clearly by Thomas: “The human being is not just a soul, but something composed of soul and body” (THOMAS, ST I q. 75 a 4c), if on the one hand not all materialism (which is not hylemorphism) denies the existence of the soul, much bad theology seeks to deny the existence of the body, it is the modern dualistic relationship, crystallized in objectivity and subjectivity, in which both are mutilated, so they were not “shaped” with a spirit new.
According to Thomas Aquinas, human living bodies and their actual existence (form, also called by him the intellective soul) is immortal, unlike other non-human living bodies, whose existence has a beginning and an end, not the eschatological end, but the finalist end of an interruption, as all humans die, and for him death is explained as a provisional disability through which we pass into an immortal existence and overcome the radical disability of the living body through death.
The metaphor of the potter that transcends the simplistic analysis of simple adherence (Jer 18, 3-4): “I went to the potter’s house, and behold, he was working at the wheel; When the vase he was molding with clay broke down in his hands, he was once again making another vase out of that material, as seemed best to his eyes.”
AQUINAS, T. (2001-2006) Suma Teológica. Brazil São Paulo: Loyolla, 8 v.
Contemplation and treasures
31
Jul
No, it is not about the art of observing nature or the universe, as the act of observing is also an “active life” as there will certainly not be any interpretation or detail that catches our attention.
It is about other meanings: listening without interpreting, looking with a purified gaze and understanding what is incomprehensible to human reason, so it is not a rational attitude, nor a madness or sensitive delirium, it is an exercise of “inactivity” writes Byung- Chul Han.
The author writes in Vita Contemplativa: ou sobre a inativa (Han, 2023, p. 11): “Inactivity constitutes the Humanum. What makes doing genuinely human is the amount of inactivity in it. Without a moment of hesitation or restraint, acting degenerates into blind action and reaction. Without rest, a new barbarism emerges.” (above the painting by Rembrandt The Philosopher).
Therefore, contemplative inactivity is not to be confused with laziness, absence of action, but a rest for clairvoyant action and deep speech, says the author: “It is silence that gives depth to speech. Without silence there is no music, but only noise and noise. Play is the essence of beauty. Where only the scheme of stimulus and reaction, of lack and satisfaction, of problem and solution, of objective and action, prevails, life is reduced to survival, to naked animal life” (idem) and it is not by chance that it is confused with current modern life .
We are not machines always destined to function, the true life of conscious action begins when the concern with survival ceases (also in the sense of prolonging the experience) and the need for raw and non-bare life arises.
The confusion arose because of the confusion between history and culture, not the history of ideas (in the sense of the Greek eidos), but that which ignores culture and deals only with the pleasure, power and oppression of people, says the Han: “ action is, in fact, constitutive for history, but it is not the formative force of culture” (Han, 2023, p. 12) it may even be a consequence, but made of silent reflection it is just noise and impulsive manifestation.
And he adds in the same passage: “Not war, but celebration, not weapons, but jewelry, are the origin of culture. History and cultural do not coincide” (Han, idem).
“Jewelry” may seem strange, but the core of our culture is ornamental. It is situated beyond functionality and utility. With the ornamental that is emancipated from any purpose or utility, life insists on being more than survival” (idem).
This is the biblical example of eternal life, where the narrator explains Jesus’ speech: the kingdom of God (Mt 13:44) “is like treasure hidden in the field. A man finds him and keeps him hidden. Filled with joy, he goes, sells all his possessions and buys that field” and he will also say this about a pearl buyer who finds a large pearl.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Contemplative Life. Trans. Lucas Machado, Brazil, RJ: Petropolis.
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.
