Arquivo para a ‘’ Categoria
Power in Foucault and Chul-Han
16
Apr
Michel Foucault broke with the classical
conceptions of the term power and defined it as a network of relationships where all individuals are involved, and we understand the network here with the modern sense of network, although it was vague in his time, individuals are both generators and recipients of power. movement of these relationships, however he identifies them as biopower, while Chul-Han identifies them as psychopower, and in a way adds the media to this.
State ideology, born from Hegel, is the basis of every history of contemporary power, authoritarianism and modern wars were born from a new idea of imperialism and colonialism, in which stronger states control power not only through weapons, but rather through biopower and now psychopower.
Foucault’s biopower, the state is the first level of power (he calls it a sector), the market is the second level, and the third is civil society, the idea of 4th. The power of the press comes from there.
He studied power not to develop a theory about it, but to identify aspects of subjectivity (in ontology it would be the question of Being), that is, subject over other subjects.
This is important to differentiate him from Chul-Han, who starts from the ontological relationships between beings and identifies the action of media and media structures that act on the psychology of power, so his idea of power (What is power) is like a domination technique that stabilizes and reproduces the dominated system through programming and psychological control.
Foucault sees biopower, as in the body as a training machine, since biopolitics, in the middle of the 18th century, was focused on regulatory controls on the population, the idea being that it was the population increase that caused misery and hunger.
Peter Sloterdijk, who supervised Chul-Han’s doctoral thesis on Heidegger, argues that this “training” process failed and thus, the control process develops towards the fourth power, which Chul-Han focuses excessively on the media, forgetting the 4th. power of the press, TV and cinema that had an enormous influence.
He develops pathologies of self-centeredness (narcissism), emotional instability (borderline) as responses to the demands of a society intoxicated with demands for efficiency, appearance and disciplinary coercion, wrote the author):
“The violence of decapitation is inherent to the pre-modern society of sovereignty; its medium is blood. Modern disciplinary society is, to a large extent, a society of negativity, being governed and dominated by disciplinary coercion, that is, by ‘social orthopedics’. Its form of violence is deformation. But neither decapitation nor deformation are capable of describing the postmodern performance society. It is dominated by a violence of positivity, which confuses freedom and coercion. Its pathological manifestation is depression” (Han 2018, pp. 183-184).
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2018) Psicopolítica: o neoliberalismo e as novas técnicas de poder. Brazil, Belo Horizonte: Âyiné.
(Português) O próximo e a amizade social
28
Feb
Paul Ricoeur’s text “Le socius et le prochain” (the partner and the neighbor)
has already been explored in this post, highlighting the difference between a limited temporal relationship of partner and a relationship of philia and friendship that can last a lifetime: the next.
We now want to reread the comment made by Henri Bergson on this text, in which he articulates that the “I” starts from a “we” that we construct as an “I”, but that it is not separate from this, so the question arises that “we ” it’s that?
Does it designate these other people that we encounter every day in our family and professional environments, or this diffuse presence of others, of “everyone” that, for example, we claim when we try to make someone understand?
It means that we act in a way that is compatible or incompatible with life in society: “what would happen if everyone liked you?” in fact, there are, to say the least, two very distinct relationships with others: others as structure and others as praxis.
By the first term, this basis is understood as the efficiency of laws, institutions, and even more so, the awareness we have of our incessant visibility in the eyes of society: what is done is done based on the possible existence of others, even when no one is physically “there”, by the notion of another as praxis, we must understand the actions through which someone else, however, this distinction corresponds exactly to what Paul Ricoeur wrote in his book “History and Truth”, written to differentiate between “partner and neighbor”, because not only in the business world, but also in politics and social groups, what is true can be related to some narrative of the “society” belonging to.
We can speak of the presence of the Other as a structure in the sense that the socius designates this place, this simultaneously implicit and legal consideration of an invisible, anonymous, almost abstract other, but at the same time omnipresent, a bit like conditional, who would never cease to be presente, manifest to us in the Present, to become present, but never physically (but mentally, constitutionally).
By “near”, Paul Ricoeur designates the immediate, punctual physical presence of another person I know. We have good experiences of being close in big cities, as there we experience many promiscuous situations (subway, queues, etc.), but at the same time time, this crowd with which I am forced to compose is not made up of “neighbors”, since we do not know them.
If we activate praxis with others, always passing through the “socius” structure, the relationship presupposes a margin of choice, of election, of desire for approximation or rejection, as if our gross salary and our net salary, what is taken away of our salary paid, through supervision by an administrative authority, the “organization”, the State, social security, etc.
Thus the partner is linked to a social “praxis”, while the next depends only on a choice of human relationship independent of the structural relationship to which he is subject.
Ricoeur, Paul (1968) “The socius and the neighbor”, in History and Truth (in portuguese: História e Verdade), trans. F. A. Ribeiro. Companhia Editora Forense: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Procrastinate and do good well
27
Feb
Procrastination means postponing tasks that are normal in everyday life
Credits Harvard Business Review
and other exceptional ones that cannot be postponed, the same Society of tiredness (Byung Chul-Han wrote a book) is also the society of procrastination.
Postponing tasks is counterproductive, when you want to optimize your time and have time to rest, do leisure or meditate, you need to not procrastinate and do the necessary tasks so that there is time available to feel the Aroma of Time (another book by Byung Chul- Han).
However, we can be involved in unnecessary activities, in small and large vices, which in addition to stealing our time, also steal our time to stop, rest and Be.
It is a human problem of all times, for those who believe that this happens because of new media and cell phones, which can be addictions like others, as the ancient poet Hesiod (800 BC) wrote: “leaving your work until tomorrow and the next day” is a human problem.
Harvard researcher Caroline Webb in an article in the university magazine wrote: “this is because it is easier for our brains to process concrete things rather than abstract ones, and the immediate discomfort is very tangible compared to the unrecognizable and uncertain future benefits”, Therefore, activities that take us out of our routine and place us in a social dimension, that is, with the Other, move our brain to “uncomfortable” regions.
Believing that you have to wait until you’re in a good mood to do something is a trap that can lead to procrastination. Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in the United States, discovered that the thought “I’m not in the mood to do X task” can lead to a vicious cycle.
Perform small tasks, which professor and researcher Tim Pychyl tested and confirmed the effectiveness of: “one that students started, they evaluated the tasks as less difficult and less stressful, and even more enjoyable than they thought”, so this returns the routine.
Tasks such as making the bed, preparing breakfast, removing the dishes and washing them, and others can also bring a reward, taking away stress and restoring harmony around you.
If done to do something good, and if done well, they also bring a spiritual reward and they often feel an “inexplicable” relief that is the result of doing something well.
Reference:
Webb, Caroline. How to Beat Procrastination, Harvard Business Review, 2016, Access in: february 2024, Available in: https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-to-beat-procrastination
Human fragility in the face of Infinity
14
Feb
One of the important works to understand the
linguistic shift from the point of view of ontology is the work of Emmanuel Levinas, highlighting here a work that addresses the entire issue of the impossibility of objectifying the Other and human limitation in the face of weaknesses such as vices, ethical difficulties and war.
Levinas draws part of his experience from what he experienced in the Second World War, where he was held prisoner by the Nazi regime, in addition to having his parents and brothers executed, he saw the atrocities of the so-called “enlightened reason” which proved to be violent and totalitarian, these experiences are in tension in his thinking, and are important in a context of threat of a new world war.
Ontology has its role within metaphysics according to the author, but not its primacy as that of first philosophy, the transcendence of the scope of “self” and “being”, since this movement has been unveiled (the categories of reality) veiling is a new veiling) returning the movement to the self, to the identical, to being and its preservation, not to the recognition of the Other.
In contrast to Heidegger, for whom the relationship between being and others is subordinated to a relationship with being in general and nothing interferes with the emergence of the self, Levinas understands that the self is not due to being, but to the Other, and thus this relationship It is fundamental as in Paul Ricoeur.
The author proposes in Totality and Infinity a new choice for understanding being in which exteriority is not sacrificed, thus the relationship with the Other and with the exterior “world” is a reflection and path to interiority, in which it finds a relationship with the all and infinite.
This relationship between the self and the face of the Other that presents ethical resistance, for the author, is through its epiphany, through its “appearance” (a fundamental category in phenomenology), that the exteriority of infinite being can manifest itself as resistance.
His thinking is more complex, but we can understand that the weakness and limitation of the self, if kept in tension with exteriority and with the Other, reveals the infinite and our relationship with it, which cannot be other than the recognition of its “ transcendence”.
Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, London: Kluwer Academic Pub.
There is an inner Being
07
Feb
The philosopher Hannah Arendt had already
developed the theme of Vita Contemplativa, and the Korean-German essayist Byung Chul-Han expands on this theme in his book with the same name, but we will only point out the new features there, including what he takes from Heidegger that It’s the disposition.
In Being and Time, Heidegger works on the verb stimmen, using the conjugation stimmung (which is translated as disposition) and also uses Gestiment-Sein (to be willing), but which in German is something like being in tune, being in tune with something and This modifies the concept of intention.
Literally disposition, a state of mind precedes any intentionality referred to objects: “Disposition has already opened up, however, being-in-the-world as a whole, and makes primarily possible a direction towards [something]” (Heidegger apud Han, 2023, p. 66).
Thus, the relationship with the external world, with objects, with beings and with everything that comes from outside the Being, means that we are disposed, says the text: “Disposition opens up to us the space only in which we confront ourselves with a entity. It reveals the Being” (Han, idem).
This vision transforms what we are and what we think, in spiritual terms, what the soul is disposed to and what it is directed towards from interiority, says the text: “The contemplative dimension that inhabits it transforms it into a correspondence. It corresponds to what “addresses us as the voice [Stimme] of being”, by allowing itself to be defined by it” (Han, 2023, p. 67).
Thus thinking becomes something other than logical articulation or narrative discourse: “Thinking means “opening our ears”; that is, listen and listen carefully. Speaking presupposes listening and responding. “Philosophia is the truly consummate correspondence that speaks attentively to the call of the being of beings. The correspondent hears the voice of the call […]” (Han, 2023, pgs. 67-68).
All of this seems excessively philosophical and in fact it is, but it means, as the author states, that something defined, and we have many pre-arranged definitions, is something that is condensed in our mind and our thoughts “in the pre-reflective scope”, I mean inside us.
So it is what we have inside, in our interiority that helps or limits us, says the author quoting Heidegger again: “If the fundamental disposition is left out, then everything is a forced cluster of concepts and shells of words” (Heiddeger apud Han, p. 68).
Thus, it is not the outside and what we take outside of ourselves that defines us, but what we have inside and that is why interiority is fundamental for any analysis.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita contemplativa: ou sobre a inatividade. Trad. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Wear in Ukraine and humanitarian crisis in Gaza
06
Nov
While the war enters a stage of attrition in 
Eastern Europe, European governments already want some type of peace agreement and the stage is of attrition for Russian and Ukrainian forces, in the Gaza Strip the land advance of Israeli troops worsens the humanitarian crisis .
The UN, the Arab countries and several Western countries are trying to forge some kind of agreement that could lead to a ceasefire and allow for more effective humanitarian aid, the situation is a humanitarian crisis, there is a lack of food, medicine and water, the situation in hospitals is also precarious, and Palestinians report bombing in nearby areas.
The death toll in the Gaza strip has been close to 10,000 since October 7th, and therefore tomorrow will complete one month, Israel says it has now entered a second phase and there is no desire for any proposal to cease fire, but the pressure West Bank grows, while Hamas seeks Arab allies, in addition to traditional West Bank groups and Hezbollah’s base in southern Lebanon.
All over the world there are demonstrations by Palestinians, one held in Portugal was attended by the president of Portugal, Marcelo was questioned by a pro-Palestinian group or gave his position with the phrase: “Against terrorism, but in favor of a Palestinian State ”, because pro-Palestinian groups do not see Hamas as “terrorist”.
The pope called the leader of Mahmoud Abbas who spoke about the urgency of creating humanitarian corridors, and in return the rabbis scheduled an audience with the pope, who only gave his speech as he was not feeling well.
According to the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni: “The Pope expressed regret at what is happening and recalled the position of the Holy See, hoping that we can reach a two-state solution and a special status for Jerusalem.”
The fact that Europe has entered a path of peace, even due to the exhaustion and immense effort it makes to support Ukraine, also in the Gaza Strip international pressure is strong and the only problem is Israel’s irreducibility.
This morning (06/11) it was published that the Pope yesterday spoke with the President of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi about the crisis in the Gaza Strip, yesterday 5/11 after the Angelus prayer (at noon in Rome).
Mass over the world
06
Sep
Teilhard Chardin’s writing turned 100 years old 
on September 3, 2023, it ended in the Ordos desert in Mongolia, the writing started in 1919 when he worked as a porter in the First World War, it was remembered by the pope who was in Mongolia on this date.
For years the writings of Teilhard Chardin were banned, but little by little they were removed and were published revealing a spirituality and an updated and real worldview, it was Chardin who popularized the word Noosphere by Volodymyr Vernasky.
This mass reads: “Lord, since once again, no longer in the forests of France, but on the steppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine, no altar, I will rise above symbols to the pure majesty of the Real , and I, your priest, will offer you, on the altar of the whole earth, the work and suffering of the world “.
Chardin had completed his thesis on paleontology and was in Mongolia to collect fossils when he finished the work, as he was unable to hold a conventional mass there (pictured with Émile Licent, in the Ordos desert, Mongolia).
His best-known work is “The Human Phenomenon”, controversial because he develops his theology within an evolutionary conception, which infuriated the theologians of the time and which is still fought today in more fundamentalist Christian sectors, it is good to remember that Jesus used parables to explain things complex and that the evidence for the existence of man in primitive periods is already a fact and many biblical allegories are clear, such as those used in the Apocalypse.
In the mass written by Chardin there is the desire for a single humanity, attached to the love of incarnation and revisited in the holy Host of each mass: “Receive, Lord, this total Host that Creation, moved by Your call, presents to You in the new dawn. This bread of our effort is, in itself, I know, nothing more than an immense disintegration. Unfortunately, this wine of our pain is still nothing more than a dissolving drink. But at the bottom of this formless mass, you have placed — I am sure, because I feel it — an irresistible and sanctifying desire that makes us all cry out, from the impious to the faithful: “Lord, make us one!” “.
The desire to see all creation as one and linked to life and Love is the Creator’s deepest desire.
CHARDIN, P.T. La Messe sur le Monde. (in portuguese), 1923.
The Logic of the Biblical Narrative
02
Aug
The historical narrative almost always shows
a change in mentality and the logic of war, power and the conquest of goods and the imposition of one culture over another, the mystical narrative, most of the time, seeks to advance the mentality of the civilizing process both through action human and divine intervention.
Whenever a people promote human, material and spiritual oppression, it tends to decay and civilizing rupture, as happened with the Semitic culture, the Egyptian culture in the beginnings of human civilization.
The mystical and spiritual narrative of the peoples analyzes these cycles from another point of view, there is a divine promise not only in the divine plan, but also human, so for Abraham it was the promised land and the birth of his son, where a theophany, a divine manifestation (or apparition) and finally a covenant.
The promise to Abraham was not only the birth of his son, but after Isaac was born the theophany happens with the promise that he will inherit as many children as the stars in the sky and the alliance is fulfilled because Abraham is considered the father of faith for three great religions monotheists: Christians, Jews and Christians of today.
From Isaac are born the twelve tribes of Israel through his son Isaac, but out of envy the brothers sell Joseph to Egypt, who had gifts and in dreams the promise is revealed that he would be leader of the tribes, but out of envy the brothers sell him to the Egypt and the divine promise is fulfilled with the period of scarcity in which the brothers go to Egypt to buy food.
There is no explicit theogony due to the evil they did to Joseph, but Jacob, after dealing with the angel, obtains divine forgiveness and then the forgiveness of his brother Esau.
In the Exodus narrative we can read that Moses had pitched a tent far away (Ex. 33:7) “outside the camp, and named it the Tent of Meeting. So, everyone who wanted to consult the Lord, went out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp” and it will be after this theophany and having received the Tablets of the Law, that the “ark of the Covenant” will be constituted where the staff will be placed of Aaron, a vessel with the Manna that fed the people in the desert and the tablets of the Law.
There is always a theophany or a theogony in the narratives, as in the case of Greek philosophy, which is an anthropomorphic and diverse god, however, the theogony, due to its characteristic, is only the manifestation of human beliefs and desires.
Cosmogony, cosmology and eschatology
04
Jul
We have already developed here the
idea of Kosmos in Greek philosophy, which is a time that designates the entire universe as a whole, but it is also “order”, “beauty” and “harmony” for the Greeks, now with powerful telescopes such as the Hubble and James Webb we know that there is also chaos and disharmony in the universe, but the deeper question remains: how did it all begin?
Cosmogonies are a body of doctrines, from religious and mythical principles to scientific ones that seek to explain the order and principle of the universe in its cosmogenesis.
As man became more sedentary, he tried to better adapt to nature to satisfy the needs of animals and plants, needing to look at the sky and understand the seasons to better control crops and pastures for animals.
Practically all civilizations (or civilizational eras) elaborated their cosmogonies, for example, in Western civilization the geocentric model of Ptolemy (the earth is the center), passed to the Copernican model (the heliocentric model), now with the power of James Webb we are looking at the first galaxies and this is possible because the light reaching us has already traveled several light years, so we are seeing a picture of the past.
Thus, our vision of cosmogenesis is gradually changing, at the moment, for example, the telescope that works with a different spectrum of light, the infrared, managed to spot a galaxy 400 million years after the big bang (if this theory is right), which means 13.5 billion years ago (photo), that is, we are seeing almost our cosmogenesis.
Cosmology is then increasingly closer to cosmogesis and this would mean a vision of both, but the essential questions are still missing: where did we come from and where are we going?
Thus, an eschatological vision, beginning and end, is lacking, and one question is already certain, although the planet could collapse and with it our civilization, due to the action of an external cataclysm or a destruction of human artifacts: a war, the very danger of there are so many nuclear power plants on the planet, remember the incident of Fukushima in 2011 and Chernobyl, the planet now has 440 active and 23 under construction, in addition to the military arsenal in several countries.
In the midst of the stormy wind of our time, Christian cosmogony takes shelter and waits in the divine presence of that reading that says (Mt 8:27): “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” when the apostles wake him up on the boat because of the weather and the rough ocean.
Hermeneutic circle and dialogue
07
Jun
Before the dialogue, Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle builds a concept
of fusion of horizons, it seems idealistic, but it is just the opposite, knowledge does not happen by revealing the object to the subject, as understood by Kant, it is not a mere projection of the subject on the subject. object as thought by Kant’s idealism.
Subject and object have their own horizons, as both are endowed with historicity, I exemplify with a very present example: war, it is not enough to look at the subjects at war on both sides of a dispute, there is war as an instrument of hatred and oppression, and it itself has its historicity, of course the subjects at war as well.
Knowledge then takes place from the fusion of the horizons of the subjects, hence the overcoming of the subject-object scheme, it is dualistic and in it the dialogue is segmented.
When perceiving an object, the subject always contributes with his pre-understanding, his interpretation is partial, so it is necessary to understand the other pre-understanding, in philosophical hermeneutics although they are called pre-concepts, it has a positive aspect, the starting point of dialogue and the next step is the fusion of horizons.
If both want peace, and this cannot be just rhetoric, it is necessary to know the prejudice.
Gadamer criticizes Dilthey’s romantic historicity and clarifies: “[…] the idea of an absolute reason is not a possibility of historical humanity. For us, reason only exists as real and historical, which simply means: reason is not master of itself, since it is always related to the data on which it is exercised. (GADAMER, 1998).
Kant provided the overcoming of the object paradigm, with his spiritual vision he went to the philosophy of subjectivity, however today, with the studies pertinent to the linguistic turn, there is already a vision of overcoming subjectivity through intersubjectivity, manifested in language as a condition for the possibility of knowledge and not just as a third thing between subject and object or simple opposition and confrontation.
Philosophical hermeneutics is based not on the duality of meanings, but on its broad and plural vision of possible meanings, the possibility created by the understanding that takes place in the fusion of horizons that is not “anything about anything”, but rather penetrating what Husserl’s phenomenology called “the thing in itself”, that of the Being of beings.
The dialogue of positions in confrontation is just another form of war, there is no analysis that goes to the bottom of each subject’s pre-understanding and what is in the objects.
A sincere dialogue is necessary for a new civilizing step, an “other” dialogue.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1998) Método e Verdade (Truth and method) Trans. Flavio Paulo Meurer. 2nd ed. Brazil, Petropolis: Vozes.
