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Make the difference
07
Feb
Making a difference does not and therefore lose 
identity, only the idealistic concept of self-identity sees it that way, that is why we created a world of sameness in which everything is very similar, before being an element of culture it was an element of thought, the imperative Kantian categorical: “act in such a way as to be a model for others”.
Then the cultural industry, the mass media radio and television developed this, created standards of beauty, consumption and even morality, the morality of the state before being an individual morality, it is a “collective” morality of values and customs, that do not mean an ethics and a “solid” identity, this includes the love of homeland symbols and patrimonial values.
Making a difference does mean having an identity with an ethical and moral principle, which includes beliefs and even behavior (see previous post), but which allows dialogue and cultural customs different from ours, so that you can indicate to others a behavior and an action capable of including them and showing human and social dignity thus influencing culturally by showing the “difference” of true and eternal values that benefit the whole society.
True cultures and philosophies must encourage this, they must make a difference not in order to impose opinions and customs, but in a way that includes the Other, that is why it never accompanies the superior air, arrogance and the idea that what is different is wrong, this is Manichaeism and never love.
The Bible idea that the culture of Love should make a difference, that is to say “salt and yeast”, brings together the idea that to make a difference it takes little, but the salt and yeast cannot be spoiled because the effect on the food will not be noticed.
The true Christian culture establishes in Matthew (Mt 5:13): “You are the salt of the earth. Now, if the salt becomes tasteless, how will we salt it? It will serve no more than to be trampled on by men and to be thrown away. ”
Identity as self-assertion, as arrogance is nothing but tasteless salt
Identity and making a difference
06
Feb
Identity and difference seem contradictory, we
have already stated that the problem is not logical, but onto-logical, this relative to Being, and in modern ontology the contradiction is possible and therefore non-Being can also be, and this gives rise to Becoming , breaking static barriers.
The capacity and integrity of the Being means that we know ourselves as we are, we understand our worldview and the limitations it has, even the most advanced science has limits, absolute knowledge is possible with a true spirituality, where the soul is.
We improperly say that where the heart is, our desires, desires and projections about who we are, most illnesses, especially psychological ones, come from these projections when they are false, unreal or real experiences that hurt us.
The non-Being means that we understand what we are and are prepared to not be, to receive the Other, the different and the cultural and political diversity of the world, the radicalism of defending one’s own identity and being too attached to the worldview , we have already said it is not identity, but self-identity, many who criticize individualism worship self-identity.
Not being is the openness to the other to dialogue, from where the becoming comes from necessarily passes through a non-Being, much of the extremism of the current world, with bad reflexes in politics is the exercise of the cult of “identity” collectively, false collectives and false “Nodes” that are closed and authoritarian structures.
Within this radicalism there is a seed of the Other, of the acceptance of difference and true spirituality, it is necessary that this “exacerbated” identity is open to the different, or contradictory and mainly changes its form of “thought”, and its closed “culture”.
From thinking, two tendencies emerge: simplism, which reinforces self-identity and complexity, as proposed by Edgar Morin, which facilitates and expands the vision of the world and of Being
Between Vertigo and Two Popes
04
Feb
Brazilian democracy does not yet have depth
and maturity, everything is polarized between two exclusive points of view and both authoritarian, but neither is the case of Democracy in Vertigo with a clear interpretation of the facts of the young director Petra Costa, nor Dois Papas (Two Popes) under the direction of Fernando Meirelles, are good directors and have a view of the facts.
I start with Fernando Meirelles because it was his interview at Roda Viva (Brazilian TV program) that encouraged me to talk about the Brazilian Oscar nominations, which should make us all proud, although we may disagree, we need to learn this democratic right, both have cultural foundations.
Meirelles explained his vision of Francisco, which would be the original script of the film, which gradually became the dialogue and the admission of papal mistakes, both made mistakes, as we all do in life, but both manage to dialogue and look at the future of the church and man.
Brazilian democracy lacks this to admit the mistakes of the past, but it is clear, first of all, to know it well, otherwise this will never be possible and in this sense I value and liked the film by Pedra Costa.
In fact, it is necessary to know her story, Elena, her first film has what characterizes her and seems to be the guiding thread of her style, puts her “gaze”, which is clear by putting in the documentary she makes a swirling dance , reminiscent of the deceased sister and closes in a close-up of her eye, I mean, she sees herself putting her vision on the facts.
Seeing the debate, and remembering the films of Meirelles O Fiel Jardineiro (2005) and Cidade de Deus (2002), I see that the debaters (in tv program) know little about his work and are fixated on their own polarized opinions about the film, I also highlight the little trendy but excellent film “Essay on blindness” (2008) that would fit very well for what happens in Brazilian culture.
Both Petra’s documentary and Meirelles’ film have emotion, good images and photography, in short they are good, but most will stay with the polarization and not with the dialogue that art seeks.
Does tradition and innovation have any relationship?
28
Jan
In the cultural sphere, it is often imagined that it does not, or establishes innovation only in the strict scope of culture, while it is related to beliefs, values, and mainly to the forms of social relations that involve the
production of wealth, the use of techniques , for example, the transition from oral culture to writing, meant a profound change.
Innovation is linked to some significant cultural change, in general, with the influence of new techniques and production methods for consumption, but the term is broader.
The change today is from the media to the transmedia, that is, the media complement each other, you can make a video from a text or an oral exhibition of a certain culture, so you can talk about the narrative of transmidia, or “ storytelling ”, that is, telling stories.
The term was first used by Professor Marsha Kinder, from the University of Sourthern California (USA), in 1991, but in 2003 Professor Henry Jenkins created a definition that was enshrined in his book “Culture of Convergence”, where he defined it as: “[…] a new aesthetic that emerged in response to the convergence of the media”.
When referring to the term aesthetics, it goes beyond the pure production of consumer products to reach art, culture and, in a way, the belief system as a whole, even though rejection in several areas is common, the process of “innovation ”Advances.
There is also a redefinitionof storytelling, the tradition of oral culture of storytelling, where the tradition is perpetuated changes to a new form, now it becomes the use of audiovisual resources to transmit a story, which can be told in an improvised way (as in oral tradition), but can also be worked on and enriched with visual aids.
JENKINS, Henry. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NY: New York UniversityPress.
Complex thinking
14
Jan
Nothing favors obscurantism more than the idea
that is possible to make what is complex simpler, ignore the organicity of social, ecological and cultural problems and how they compose themselves.
Complex thinking is born from the idea of nature and the universe as organisms that are increasingly mysterious and whose structure is gradually revealed, through the hard work of those who first admit the complexity of phenomena and second resist temptation to simplify them by imagining that simple solutions and ideas would be enough to solve them.
Man himself is but a complexification of nature, they agree with this not only the most elaborate scientific thought but also theologians like Teilhard Chardin.
Scientific simplification is called reductionism, religious simplification reductionism, cultural and social simplification has no specific name, but it can be said that it is confused with ignorance and dualism.
Morin explains in Introduction to Complex Thinking: “the ancient pathology of thought gave an independent life to the myths and gods it created. The modern pathology of the spirit is in the hypersimplification that makes it blind in the face of the complexity of the real” (Morin, 2008 p. 22).
In the scientific field explains it epistemological blindness: “Those disputed between Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, etc., are ignored. Now this blindness is part of our barbarism. It makes us understand that we are always in the barbaric age of ideas. We are always in the prehistory of the human spirit.” (Morin, 2008, p. 23).
Nothing more complex than reducing it to the simple, as Bachelard stated, there is no simple, there is only simplified, which most often mutilates and deforms the phenomenon, inducing thought to obscure liquidity.
Morin, E. (2008) Introduction to complex thinking. 5th. ed. Lisbon: Institute Piaget.
Truths and Fallacies of Humility
09
Jan
It is common thought that humility would be a kind of 
wisdom revealed only to the humble in the strictu sense of the word, so it is linked to a lack of knowledge, instruction and therefore truth, this is not humility, but only and only. ignorance.
There is still a medieval type of thinking: “the attitude of voluntary abjection in the face of man’s miserable and sinful nature” seems religious, but if this is so, the apostle Paul says more clearly, according to Nicola Abbagnano’s Dictionary of Philosophy, she is “the lack of spirit of competition and boasting”, which is present in various domains, even the religious one.
André Comte-Sponville, in his Philosophical Dictionary helps to discern: “Humility should not be confused, therefore, with self-hatred (I add self-pity), even less with servility or lowliness”.
The humble man does not believe himself inferior to others: he no longer believes himself superior.
Do not ignore what is worth .. or may be worth… ”, so many arrogant criticize the lack if humility that they themselves are carriers. Finally I want to add a stronger philosophical argument, Nietzsche’s disagreement with Socratic philosophy (like, I only know that I know nothing), Nietzsche argued that the Socratic consideration of tragic art (he defended tragedy and criticized its concealment), never It tells the truth, since by constructing a set of conceptual values about life, it impoverishes and diminishes it.
Interestingly, the philosopher of the “death of God” states that life cannot be evaluated by the living, because as part of it they cannot judge it, being an illusion of reality.
The lesson about Nietzsche de Eric L. Dodson is good initialization about Nietzsche:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4baePsCT_E
A re-reading of the three wise men
03
Jan
In times of fundamentalism and religious intolerance, a re-reading of the Magi that they 
have adopted and also “contemplating” the birth of Jesus is essential for dialogue.
The first necessary is that God has communicated with the “wizards” of the East, he can reopen closed hearts for reconnection (religion of the Latin verb religare which is to reconnect), for they were not even religious in the conventional sense, but
magicians and God reconnected them.
The second is that the divine communication was through stars, which means that they could understand this language and that God spoke in their human language, that is, there are forms beyond the dogmatic communication between God and men, even non-believers.
Cosmology is an ancient and fundamental part of philosophy, its evolution and composition studies the universe, and comes from antiquity, the pre-Socratics studied it, also seek the explanation of the origin and transformation of nature and the universe and build myths and divinity, creating a relationship between mortal and imortal beings.
So God is not so indiferente to this, a universal proposition should not disregard cosmology, and if one wishes to construct a cosmogony, that is the beginning and end of all life, then an eschatology is also constructed, and Christian eschatology may be related to Is not this, after all, God the beginning and the end of everything?
Thesecond re-reading, the question about of the stars, in fact even today they are looking for cosmological evidences ofthe star that the Magi followed, a star, a come t, this could help to date Christmas of a more precise date.
Theologians such as Teilhard Chardin did not fail to consider the cosmological hypothesis, and the notion of a Christ-centered universe helps a non-fundamentalist interpretation of a more complex eschatology, and so we have recourse in the previous post (in 1 / 4 /2019) to St. Gregory of Nazianzen.
The third is that the magi were “contemplating” the boy-God, in addition to the active vita, Hannah Arendt also spoke of her in The Human Condition (published in 1956, with Brazilian edition of 2009), which comes from the conference Work, Work and Action (Brazilian publication of 2006), but already spoke of this question Aristotle in the bios politikos and the vita negotiosa or actuosa in Augustine, and, recently Byung Chull Han in The society of the fatigue.
But they did not come to worship only, where the element offered incense is essentially this, but also brought gold in the sense of wealth and myrrh in the sense of sacrifices offered.
Magi should signify the opening of Christianity to other languages which are also an expression of the infinite, of the universe, and of the sacredly constructed life in all and in all.
Óbidos, the Portuguese medieval city
22
Jul
The city of Óbidos, considered one of the 7 wonders of Portugal, the little towns are villages,
although they have municipal council, are linked to a district and this city is linked to the district of Leiria, in the province of Extremadura, the center has 2200 inhabitants , but the whole region has almost 12 thousand.
The city has a castle with walls, considered one of the 7 wonders of Portugal, where you can live with medieval aspects, this week for example, there is the medieval festival, but the project “Literary Village” turned Óbidos into Literary City by UNESCO.
It is 80 kilometers from Lisbon, has three cross streets, Rua Direita, Rua do Facho and Josefa d’Óbidos, a tribute to the main baroque artist of the city, post tomorrow. There are vestiges that Óbidos is inhabited from primitive peoples, its logistics near the sea, the climate and the fortification of defenses were in this region also the Romans, the Muslims and in the year 1148, after the conquest of Santarém and Lisbon by D. Afonso Henriques, was also taken from the Arabs.
There is near the Lagoa (lagoon) d’Óbidos, it is possible for the real road, being like lagoon easier of defense and also with exits to the sea in several points, going from the Beach of Bom Sucesso to the Praia da Foz do Arelho (Beach of the Foothills of the Sea Arelho), bypassing the Lagoon.
As for the name, the word comes from the Latin Oppidus, which means “fortified city”, there are signs that the emperor Cesar Augustus erected the city in the late 1st century BC. This week Óbidos holds the Medieval Festival, and there will be a doctoral meeting of Digital Art from the Open University.
The video below shows the Medieval Festival of last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeVOXpiKBC4
in Balsamão, away from the hustle and bustle
19
Jul
The movement to rest, to meditate and to dive deep in the Being, is 
a process of alienation of the political, social and economic crises. .
One can and should recover life from day to day, but with renewed energy, at the suggestion of a friend arriving in Portugal Marians of the Immaculate Conception.
It stands on top of Mount Morais, which is one of the five levels of the world, and the second is more important than Psalm 124, which says, “As Jerusalem surrounded thereby, protect your people / agora and forever.”
Climbing the terrace to the belvedere, with the Sierra de Bornes around, the olive groves of Chacim in the background, and the Abilheira thermal baths below, the tons of sunset are seen in this sunny period.
The story of the Polish book Casimir Wyszynski (1700-1755) described it as follows: “Here we are surrounded by rivers, fields, orchards, vineyards, meadows, olive trees and fruits of various kinds, and on this hill there are forests, trees, beautiful oaks.”
He is being formed by a monastery there, who already lived and called Brother Casimiro with his companion of grace Joao de Deus, who accepted and dressed to integrate a new order.
Does the desire to retreat and meditate to hear the deep voices in us, is also what Jesus means to care about his faith? Jesus and not to help the services of the house, seeing Jesus rebuke her (Luke 10,42): “Martha, Martha! You are worried and anxious for many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary chose a better place and this is not the one.”
It takes time to breathe, to rest and re-establish as energies.
The soul-world and self-identity
10
Jul
In general, few authors are outside the idolatry of the Modern State, even though
most of them, especially the Hegelians, consider it abstract, or as Habermas outside the “world of life”, but this concept is different from Husserl’s Lebenswelf, which is out of state.
One of the few authors who will speak of the “constitution of society” is impracticable in the concept of late modernity, but Giddens will demonstrate in “Beyond the right and the left” that the central component of societies of so-called “late modernity” is not plus some kind of interactive or collective element, to the process is the formation of self-identity.
Quoting Giddens in his view of self-identity: “The self is reflexively [understood as self-identity] by the person himself in terms of his biography. Identity, in this case, assumes continuity over time and space: but the self-identity is this continuity interpreted reflexively by the agent ” (Giddens, 1991: 53).
It may seem an overly individualistic argument, or because of the selfies think of something hasty in the new media, Giddens did not say in this context, but the expression of citizenship of various groups with specific identities, cultural, social or religious minorities.
By disembedding and without surpassing the abstract idea of State, Giddens understands that the process of lifting and shifting (lifting out) the social relations of local contexts, and thus the re-establishment in another type of citizen.
By disembedding Giddens understands the process of elevating and shifting the social relations of the local contexts and their re-articulation in another space-time dimension (Giddens, 1991:18:21), note that the space-time it is not time and space seen in absolute motion.
So despite Giddens’s advance, he cannot demonstrate that reflexive self can generate more democratic international institutions and defend multicultural forms of citizenship, there is still a hole in these concepts, which is not at all anarchism.
GIDDENS, A. Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1991
