Arquivo para a ‘’ Categoria
Routes and paths
01
Dec
While the West suffers from covid-19, the east in the midst of the
crisis continues to show signs of vitality and strength, formed a bloc of 15 countries with China, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan and Australia ahead, called RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) was signed at a regional summit in Hanoi on 11/15, although the conference was online.
One of the objectives is to progressively reduce tasks in key areas in the coming years, in addition to the countries that were part of the Asian ASEAN treaty, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, bloc has half the world population and almost 40% of the GDP of the entire planet.
In addition to the pandemic, the West is struggling with polarizations, crises with minority and racial rights, a degrading moral environment, in which corruption is only part of the whole structural gear around it, with an increasing presence of migrants from the whole planet, but especially the Arabs, who have a very different culture.
The Eurozone will have to strengthen ties to get out of the economic crisis imposed by the pandemic, the departure from England that ends in December, still has unpredictable effects also for England, but the conservative government has managed to impose itself in the midst of the pandemic and prepares the first mass vaccination in the west.
In Latin America, the step taken by Bolsonaro from Brazil and Fernandez from Argentina to hold the first bilateral meeting is still encouraging, but the call for cooperation from the Brazilian government’s armed forces and the request for collaboration on the environmental issue despite of the diplomatic touch also represent a provocation in what the presidents believe.
The elected government of Bolivia, supporter of the deposed Evo Morales, tries to break the isolation by inviting the opposition leader of Venezuela, but used the Bolivian flag and Whipala, symbol of the indigenous peoples’ congregation, in the liberation party of the state of Potosi.
The call for cooperation and the formation of a cohesive Mercosur bloc is difficult to leave the paper for concrete measures where cooperation, respect for political and cultural diversity, and cooperation across borders is a step taken as in the East or in the still fragile European Union, agreements of the Americas, as was the proposal of NAFTA, if they go forward with Joe Biden they must be a very slow process
The eschatological infinity
26
Nov
Transcendence as an idea of the Infinite can be understood in
Lévinas’ philosophy as “The presence of a being that does not enter the sphere of the Same, a presence that exceeds it, fixes its’ status” of infinity, this is how the idea will appear in Lévinas of Foreigner and there he in his own eschatology.
The term Foreigner is typical of the biblical tradition from which Emmanuel Lévinas feeds, as many feed on Greek mythology, it is present in the fourfold prophet Isaiah, a prophet as in the mode of the celebrated Greek poets Homer and Hesiod, is curious because it can if Lévinas’s part sees a convergence between Hellenic and Semitic culture, contrary to all fury against Judeo-Christian culture.
The quadratics are as follows: the poor (who have no economic resources), the widow (who has no husband to support her), the orphan (who has no shelter to collect him), the foreigner (who has no country to step on) . they are the synthesis of what we now call and excluded in biblical times, and we can see in a new “philosophical” eschatology by Lévinas the idea of an eschatological “end” not as the end of time, but the end of poverty, of female helplessness (today more serious is femicide), the organs of wars and foreigners who walk around the world and which Bauman comes to irony (amazement) and then a new apocalypse.
It is thus that the infinite and the being-for-death can also have an eschatological interpretation, without any prejudice or presumption to the religious sense that may at some point occur, and from which the planet is not exempt, after all an eschatological end present in many non-Christian religions is what the earth itself (the mother-earth) rebels against, again a convergence with biblical prophecies.
The big reason why this idea was almost abolished in modernity, Leibniz already claimed it, is said by Lévinas: “My life and history do not form totality. The common that allows us to speak of objectified society, and by which man resembles the thing and individualizes himself as a thing, is not first ”(in Ethics and Infinite), and Lévinas will define this process as“ infinity ”(perhaps a better translation would be infinitation, but they did not translate this way), an inversion of modern subjectivity, because the subject is subjecting himself to Other, and thus lives his personal “in process” eschatology, subject to the Infinite.
On the social scale it is the foreigner, the poor and the one who suffers some kind of prejudice (the racist, for example, but there are others including the religious) and with this we are heading towards an authentic eschatological end, an apocalypse of the current world without brake and without a safe direction for all humanity.
A citizen planetary and prudence
06
Nov
The pandemic crisis showed that our most serious problems are 
global, affecting the entire planet, the second wave that is already in Europe will soon arrive in the different continents, if it has not arrived in small doses already, they lead us to think globally what it seems difficult with political polarization.
What is needed is to abandon old proposals, and make possible the coexistence of private freedom with the strong social urgencies, the proposal of the banker of the poor Mohanmmad Yunus goes in this direction, eliminating poverty, carbon emissions and guaranteeing jobs for all, has become the most urgent pandemic.
It is not the only proposal, of course, another such as solidarity, creative economy, groups of cooperatives of small farmers, can compose a productive ecosystem capable of adapting to local interests and vocations of production and human life, it is above all necessary to leave the excess consumption and social stress.
The cultural aspects in which the religions and beliefs (in the broadest sense of the word) of peoples and nations are included are not minor or negligible. I distinguish because many nations already have people of different cultural origins within them, what is called here original culture, which also includes indigenous peoples.
There is no clear agreement on how this can happen, a wide pan-national dialogue (which we have just said about “peoples”) is essential to organize a new social ecosystem where the foundation of social security combined with personal freedom are as premises for chart this future.
For the time being, as a family that has disorganized the accounts of the house, and reaps many troubles from this disorganization, there are still dictatorships of different ideologies on the planet, wars such as attempts at cultural submission, new types of colonialism, although a strong current of decolonization has emerged ( the term is this), what happens on the planet can be a rupture in serious situations and the “common home” itself can react, what we already call an aortic mutation.
A biblical passage talks about wisdom and those who seek it, it is a stage above simple intelligence, it is necessary to be open to the new and also leave what it “enters”, says the book of Wisdom (Sb 6,13-15 ): “It even anticipates itself, making itself known to those who desire it. Those who wake up early will not get tired, as they will find her sitting at their door. Meditating on it is the perfection of prudence; and whoever stays awake because of it, will soon live carefree”.
So wisdom is combined with the gift of “prudence”, and meditating on it is “the perfection of prudence”, ignorance creates only fanaticism and cruelty.
Happiness from beatitude, purity and love
30
Oct
All contemporary argument about happiness when it does not go 
down to the bottom of barbarism, is to link it to consumption, material goods and pleasure.
That is why beatitude has distanced itself from happiness, although in the western roots of classical antiquity (Eudaimonia) it is common, in “Ethics to Nicomachus” Aristoteles establishes: “As for his name, the majority is practically in agreement: happiness calls him, both like educated people, assuming that being happy consists of living well and being successful ”, but clarifies in another point that it is not wealth:“ Life (…) dedicated to trade is against nature, and it is evident that wealth is not the good we seek; in fact, it exists only for profit and is a means to something else ”, but at this point it will say that it is pleasure.
The question arises as to what is the end of this search, whether it is success, honor, recognition, in the end what we perceive is that “If, in fact, the good were one and predicable in general, and subsisted separately, it is evident that it would not be achievable or achievable by man; but that is precisely what we seek ”, what is this end.
In any eschatology we perish and if death is only a tragic and final end, it would be good to make the most of this life and even values such as honor and success would be worthless, only if these resulted in the end of “pleasure”, and not it is then humility, compassion and participating in the happiness of others are beatitudes that also result in our own happiness.
Thus, those who seek only their own happiness in no way favor their own since they have no occasion to share and selfish pleasure is only partial happiness. hedonists try to deny it, but those who really experience it guarantee that there is a balanced and always present happiness, joy and peace for those who practice it.
The Sermon on the Mount is a classic for those who believe and may well serve as a meditation for those who seek effective and full happiness:
the poor in spirit
those who cry
the humble ones
those who are hungry and thirsty for justice
the merciful the pure in heart
the peacemakers
those persecuted for the sake of justice
For these will be comforted, they will receive the land as an inheritance, they will be fed up with the justice that will finally be achieved, they will have mercy and will be called “children of God”, for those who believe in the greatest beatitude, it was the central and eschatological truth announced for all the humanity.
History will either go there or we will have a crisis process much bigger than the current pandemic, than the horrific cycles of war, and not be happy.
Affliction and anguish
29
Oct
Those who have read The Being and Time attentively know that one of Heidegger’s important responses is what should be read in Kierkgaard were quick to witness the celebrated response of a thinker considered to be one of the most eminent philosophers of contemporary times.
It is, therefore, Heidegger himself who Kierkegaard separating him into so-called “edifying” teachings that would be more important than “theoretical” ones, except in one case that is anguish, in his treatise The concept of anguish, and that the “the forest philosopher” is keen to say that “from an ontological point of view” it remains “entirely tributary to Hegel and ancient philosophy seen through him”. (HEIDEGGER, 2012, p. 651, n. 6).
What Heidegger saw in this 1844 book, whose authorship is attributed to Vigilius Haufniensis, a Kierkegaardian pseudonym that translates as “Copenhagen Watcher”, since Kierkegaard was Danish and his first intention is to return Socratic wisdom, which for him contemplative knowledge (theory) with practical knowledge (phrónesis), the way of ancient Greek.
Although he called Socrates a “practical philosopher, he just wanted to focus the“ anguish ”dressing on the experience of what was reflected by the soul and this meant an approximation of psychology, it was“ the doctrine of the subjective spirit ”(KIERKEGAARD, 2010, p. 25), was one of the branches of Philosophy, and of a really dialectical philosophy in the Greek-Socratic sense since modern philosophy has fixed itself on the Kantian dualism thesis versus antithesis with an improbable synthesis.
The philosopher uses the expression “hereditary sin”, used by the author throughout the work, but as the one that corresponds to what theologians, called by him “dogmatic”, call the original sin, nomenclature apart, is the aspect that brings his theme closer to the anguish of that “soul” affliction, which can have a philosophical and psychological outline, but which is basically that affliction of those who feel outside a center, from a clear perspective of overcoming anguish.
What leads existence to a singular way, to a way of acting in such a way? This is where the notions of freedom and anguish emerge as “concepts” converge to this “anguish”, but without having a locus, neither in Aesthetics, in Metaphysics or even in Psychology, so the author does not say so, but there is something afflicted and tragic in this journey in this “anguish”.
Paul Ricoeur, reflecting on these expressions of Kierkegaard, establishes that evil is “what is the most opposite to the system”, precisely because it is absurd and scandalous, irrational and incomprehensible, situated on the margins of morality and reason, recalls Ricoeur (1996, p. 16), referring to the Kierkegaardian reflections, evil is “what is the most opposite to the system”, precisely because it is absurd and scandalous, irrational and incomprehensible, situated on the margins of morality and reason.
Ricoeur thus differentiates structural evil (we have already made a post), linked to anguish and sin and free will linked to personal decisions in the face of anguish.
The point that I consider essential in Kierkegaard’s thought on this existential aspect is that “only what has crossed the anguish of possibility, only this one is fully trained not to be distressed, not because it evades the horrors of life, but because they always become weak compared to those of possibility ”(KIERKEGAARD, 2010, p. 165-166), it is here that affliction can find its opposite and we can understand that there is a source of comfort in it.
Thus anguish and affliction are not exactly curses or sinful states or diseases of the “soul” or thoughts, they are phases of rupture or transition to other more mature phases when this stage involves reflection and overcoming.
HEIDEGGER, Martin (1957) Ser e tempo. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2012. (Multilíngues de Filosofia Unicamp). JOLIVET, Régis. As doutrinas existencialistas: de Kierkegaard a Sartre. Portugal, Porto: Tavares Martins.
KIERKEGAARD, Sören (2010). O conceito de angústia: uma simples reflexão psicológico-demonstrativa direcionada ao problema dogmático do pecado hereditário de Vigilius Haufniensis. Tradução e notas Álvaro Luiz Montenegro Valls. 2. ed. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Bliss and beatitude
27
Oct
Although the term is associated with Christian holiness, and is also one of its aspects, the term in classical antiquity had a more generic meaning, a permanent state of perfect satisfaction and fullness that only a wise man could achieve, so thought Aristotle, but today it is conditioned only to the religious sense, it is intended here to show that they can be closer than we think.
The religious meaning is also that of happiness, but in the sense of joy of balanced pleasure of the soul, which can only reach those who enjoy the presence of God, that its fullness can be achieved only in eternal life, but does not mean discarding earthly life, 
“I have come that everyone may have life, and life in abundance” (John 10:10), so proclaims the evangelist, but what is different between the two proposals for happiness.
Aristotle in the book “Of the causes” will say that the end of beatitude is relative to its desire, so the ultimate nature of this end moves mainly by desire and this is pleasure, so much so that it absorbs man’s will and reason to the point of make other goods despise.
Both Boethius, that the church also beatified him (that is, he proclaimed him happy, blessed and holy), and Aristotle dealt with the theme, and their question is what if pleasure is really the ultimate end of happiness, of beatitude and that it also Tomás de Aquino will argue the contrary.
What Boethius says is that the consequences of pleasures are sad, all those who want to remember their sensualities know it, because, if these could make them happy, there would be no reason why the brutes too would not be considered such, and this is very reminiscent of current cases of abuse and objectionable violence.
For Boethius: “The beatitude is the perfect state of the union of all goods”, and so it seems that through money you can acquire all things, because the Philosopher, in book V of Ethics, says that money was invented for to be the guarantor of everything that man wanted to possess, which today can be translated as money buys everything.
In addition, Boethius also says: “Riches shine more when they are distributed than when they are conserved. For this reason, greed makes men hateful, generosity makes them illustrious ”, and so wealth is not condemned, but its bad distribution.
In the representation above the painting “The cheerful violinist with a glass of wine” (1624) by Gerard van Honthorst (1590-1656).
What makes love loved
23
Oct
Hannah Arendt sought in Augustine of Hippo for her answers to Love,
brought great contributions in the philosophical field to the theme, far beyond the classic division of the Greeks: agape, eros and filia; but as the contemporary philosopher Julia Kristeva observed, she went no further than the philosopher Augustine, for there is also the theologian.
In addition to the intelligent division of her doctoral thesis: “Love in Saint Augustine”, Arendt herself emphasized the philosophical character of the work of the Bishop of Hipona, by emphasizing: “he never completely lost the impulse of philosophical questioning” (Arendt, 1996), his bases of Cicero, Plato and Plotinus are noticeable in his work.
Arendt’s choice to divide his dissertation into three parts is due to a willingness to do justice to Augustinian thoughts and theories that run in parallel. So each part “will serve to show three conceptual contexts in which the problem of love plays a decisive role.”
She also realizes the importance of Amor Caritas, but as she sees it is not theological, but only within human possibilities, Julia Kristeva when talking about Love goes further by stating: “love is the time and space in which ´I´ give myself the right to be extraordinary“, while Arendt is clear that there is a difference between Caritas and Cupiditas, who loves the world, the things of the world.
But the question of Augustine that must also be answered by Christians is what “do I love when I love my God?” (Confessions X, 7, 11 apud Arendt p. 25), the fifth essence of my interior, it is true as Augustine thought that I find in me what connects me to eternity, but there is beyond the fifth essence or Other outside, not just God , but that Other that passes by me, the one whose identity is hidden in the human envelope of the Other that has God in him too.
What I love when I love God, is thus extended to Love humanity, concrete in each Other that I relate to, and is beyond the fifth essence of my “I”.
So Caritas is the extraordinary in me, both Arendt, Kristeva and Augustine himself are right in part, but the God I love is now also present in the Other, which is beyond my mirror and beyond my inner essence.
Perhaps the biggest trap made for Jesus by the Pharisees is in the question, after Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, it was in the question (Mt 22,36) “Master, what is the greatest commandment of the Law?”, And Jesus will answer (Mt 22, 37-39): “Jesus replied:“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding!’ That is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is similar to this: ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself’ ”, and concludes that this is the synthesis of the entire Law and of the prophets.
Hannah Arendt quotes this passage, but the sequence is clear you will love with all courage and soul, theological aspects and then with understanding, the philosophical.
However, the updated question is this of Augustine: “What do I love when I say that I love God?” and if the answer is also “The neighbor as yourself”, that is, with its inner essence directed to the Other, it means that I cannot say that I really love Love, which comes from God, if it is not the Love caritas.
Arendt, Hannah. (1996) Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Figure: Textures and acrylic on canvas. January, 2018. Eva-sas Gallery.
Plato’s banquet
06
Oct
At banquets, tables and food sharing celebrate many things,
including dialogue on essential topics.
Occurring around 380 BC it is a dialogue, and there are some who prefer the translation of Greek as Symposium (in ancient Greek sympotein means “to drink together”), and the central theme is Love, between eros and agape, and the central character as in most of his dialogues are Socrates.
Also in the dialogue Aristophanes and Ágaton (or Agatão), in his house there had been a previous banquet in celebration of the literary prize he had won, in this banquet Socrates and other participants spoke about “love”, Apolodoro and Glaucon, Aristodemo and Agaton himself.
Glaucon considers Apolodoro as crazy because he despises the material, Ágaton means “good” in Greek, good things and love lead to the practice of good and beautiful, and if we knew the practice of love the good it does, men would make an army of lovers, reminiscent of the army of banos, whose front was Pelopidas and Epaminondas in 371 BC
Phaedrus’ speech is that the love worshiped by men reveals them to be more virtuous and happier during life and after death, but it is in cosmogony that the speeches will oppose, while Phaedrus sees the origin of Eros as a very ancient god, without mention of parents, he was born next to Geia (land) after Chaos.
Pausanias the second to speak, contrary to Phaedrus, there are several Eros, he was the son of Aphrodite, and two Aphrodites, a daughter of Uranus and another of Zeus, that of Zeus generates vulgar eros and that of Uranus a heavenly Eros.
Eriximaco approves the distinction of Pausânias on the duplicity of Love and, universalist, extends it to every cosmos: “great and admirable, and it extends to everything, both in the order of human and divine things”, being a doctor says that the love and concord provide harmony, combining opposites (the healthy and the morbid) that extend throughout the universe: “one must keep one love and the other…”.
Aristophanes will insist on the power that love has over historical nature, using the myth of the androgens, legitimizing homo-affection and the unbridled search for what we now call “soul mates”, which is a search for perfectionism and in a way narcissism . Socrates praises the fact that Agaton began to show nature and what are the works of Love, but then follows his classic Question method: “Is Love such that it is Love of something or nothing?”, Ágaton confirms that Love is Love of something. Which “something” is Love from and continues with the question: “Does Love, what it is love, does it want it or not?” and the banquet follows the fashion of the Greek classics.
The banquet, the table at which everyone sits is the important part of this dialogue, seems so classic and so present, but we would add a question and Francisco de Assis, remembered these days, he said with conviction: “Love is not loved”, so before to be an instrument as stated by Agaton is itself something to be used as an instrument, at a time of so much pain in humanity, or else the Socratic way of asking: “Is Love loved?”
Plato, (2003). The Symposium, trans. by Christopher Gill. London: Penguin.
Effective aid to poverty
15
Sep
If, on the one hand, emergency aid is necessary, mainly because the
pandemic prevents informal work and many families have saved with domestic workers, a medium and long-term recovery plan is needed to avoid even worse degradation and income distribution than the one that already exists.
Economist Muhammad Yunus is known throughout the world as “the banker of the poor”, but he is not really a banker in the conventional sense, as he assists people who have never had access to any banking system, what he fosters is an entrepreneurship, especially among women, and their results are surprising. It is true, however, that he founded a bank, the Grameen Bank in 1983 in Bangladesh, but today what he does most are lectures, he is one of the most requested speakers on the planet, and received among other awards, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
In his lectures, he censors and criticizes bankers who aim only at easy profits, exorbitant interest and little or nothing look at the social reality in which they live, one of his well-known phrases says: “Dealing with economic theories in the face of people dying ], for me it was a joke ”, this is even more true in a pandemic.
Utilitarian productivism, production is necessary mainly in essential goods, is one that targets only the most attractive sectors where profit is high and the social impact is not always so high, with regard to the poor, and in the case of education and health, it is necessary even if profit is not considered, as it is an investment.
The idea that invaded several sectors, and unfortunately also in education and public health, that these sectors need to be productive is nothing but a reproduction of a savage capitalism incapable of managing the current crisis, and is only on the rise because of disinformation of the population, in dark times authoritarian theories gain a voice.
What Yunus says about jobs is very interesting: “An essential issue is the idea of employment. Who said we were born to look for a job? The school? The teachers? The books? Your religion? Your parents? Someone put this on people’s heads.
The educational system repeats: ‘You have to work hard’. Human beings were not born for this. The human being is full of creative power, but the system reduces him to a mere worker, capable of doing repetitive work. This is shameful, it is wrong ”, here we must also overcome left´s-wing economism.
The digital world in which anyone can have an online system and work in it, where “informal” jobs can make people from any location, including the periphery entrepreneurs, goes against Yunus’ proposal, to make “services” closer to the population periphery is made possible by the ubiquity of digital.
Entrepreneurs exist in all social strata, I even venture to say that they are concentrated in the periphery, the problem is who risks putting capital there, who could finance these “microentrepreneurs” from the periphery, there is a solution, the number of jobs can grow quickly and circulation of goods and income in fragile environments
Error, cholera and thymós
09
Sep
Just as scientific error is assumed to be part of scientific research,
errors in human and social relationships should not lead to disruption and the return to connection between people or groups will inevitably involve some type of forgiveness.
It is often possible that the error is not assumed, but implied, this is because, we justify the path we take and make considerations about our lack and end up not assuming it, but the return should always be tried once forgiveness sana, and allows the dialogue to move forward.
Peter Sloterdijk wrote about the “timotic” situation of our time, Thymós is at the base of Plato’s theory to designate the “organs” from which the impulses, the excitations, the most inflamed affections are born, it seems something present in our time and so its book Ira e Tempo (Cholera and Time, in Portuguese translation by the publisher Relógio d´Água).
The preferred subject could not be anything other than politics, it is undoubtedly the pole of catalyzing hatreds and grudges, where forgiveness and dialogue seem to be increasingly a distant point that will never be reached, and the reverse of this is …
These impulses cross not only social networks, they pass through political journalism and polarize between parties, people and social groups, what Sloterdijk does in the form of “analysis” is that there is a state of proliferation (attention, it’s not what Byung Chul Han will call it psychopolitics, or the old “mass politics”), we have already drawn attention to Karl Kraus, who in his time between wars, drew attention to the discourse of the press and intellectuals.
In one of his comedies, “Walpurgis’ third night”, he said that “about Hitler nothing comes to my mind”, it is logical that he did not ignore the danger of that speech, but he warned journalists and writers who insisted on just mocking and he said that the media seemed to like the indignant but impotent citizen, so it has the opposite effect of the desired one.
An analytical look at the psychopolitics that Chul Han does is not dispensable, even though we are equipped with little knowledge on this matter, it would verify that the state of high tymotic tension, established by the media to guarantee the success of individuals who are charged with “ thymós ”, leads us to an endless (apparent) civil war.
It is as if all anger finds its “political economy” only in what Sloterdijk calls “rational” cynicism, a kind of “world bank of anger” that catalyzes, not by chance, opposite sides of the current polarization. Just look at politicians of different trends to see how attached they are to this trend, so resentment and legitimation of crimes make popular indignation impotent, claiming appetite and becoming a blank slate for any conversation, even if it comes from one. liberating feeling that should point to the new.
The absence of forgiveness or at least tolerance, makes violence and false radicalism visible and hides impotence.
SLOTERDIJK, P. (2012) Rage and Time – A Psychopolitical Investigation. USA: Columbia University Press.
