Arquivo para a ‘on-line libraries sharing’ Categoria
What justice and peace we want
06
Aug
In the previous post we talked about peace and
freedom, peace is not the Pax Romana that meant the submission of the defeated, those who practice injustice need to divert life from its natural course in the lives of people, they need to change humanism by transforming it into something perverse , transform ancient cultures into a strange culture, remove from it what is most original and true, disrespect the poor and helpless by confusing it with desires for power and greed typical of oppression.
Few men try to avoid these traps, with this the idea that a “successful” person means that they were lucky, “blessed” or through strategies they knew how to accumulate wealth, but there are also perverse structures that benefit from power, and many of them are in the power structure, which is why it is a source of influence.
But there is another path, that of inheritance, throughout history only the winners tell their glories, “to the Vencedor the potatoes” says the character Quincas Borba (figure) in Machado de Assis’s novel (brazilian writer) with the same name, where he develops the idea of humanitas, which sees war as a form of selection of the fittest, thus justifies the oppression and impoverishment of the wronged.
The character Quincas Borba is a kind of atheist philosopher, who became rich after inheriting the assets of an old uncle, a resident of Barbacena, State of Minas Gerais, where he stayed in this city for a while before dying.
The one who will enjoy the fortune left by Quincas Borba will be Rubião, a modest inhabitant of the interior of Minas Gerais, who receives his fortune and decides to go and live in Rio de Janeiro, thus speaking of migration from the interior to the big cities, not from the perspective of the poor. who go in search of work, but the rich who go in search of a good life.
Rubião goes to the city and will try to apply the Humanitas philosophy developed by Quincas Borba and this is actually the theme of the book.
In addition to the literary and historical aspect of the novel, characteristic of the time (the novel Quincas Borba was published for the first time in 1891), Rubião, at the same time that he enjoys an easy fortune, is a victim of his provincial credulity, of which his friends who welcome him in the “big city” they will enjoy it.
The theme is universal, even if painted with historical Brazilian colors, in addition to the injustices towards the poor and helpless, the tricks and machinations that also take away the possessions of people who, having earned easy money, don’t know how to use it well and get lost in traps set by greedy false friends.
Thus, freedom cannot be conditioned by perverse structures or autocratic forms of power, it must actually contemplate the justice of the simple and humble, the trap of liberalism is also present in Balzac’s novel Eugenie Grandet.
Assis, Machado. Quincas Borba. Rio de Janeiro, 1891. (see pdf in portuguese)
Painless society and the midnight library
19
Jul
Byung-Chul Han wrote the Palliative Society,
not only about the Pandemic, but also and above all about the search for a world without pain, we are even capable of suffering and great efforts due to narcissism and personal aesthetics, what Peter Sloterdijk called of “the exercise society”, but a despiritualized asceticism.
The novel by English writer Matt Haig: The Midnight Library, tells of a 35-year-old woman full of talents and few achievements, regretting her bad choices in life, she wonders if she could have lived differently, after losing her job and his cat is run over, he decides to take his own life, in the stage between life and death he finds the Midnight Library (picture illustration brazilian cover), with the possibilities of lives he could have lived.
With the help of an old friend, she decides to move to Australia and renew old relationships, discovering that it is possible to review life and undo something that we regret, to have hope.
Among Nora’s initial dramas, I highlight the part where she says: “I get a headache looking at… cell phones”, it’s not just her, it’s a lot of people, this takes away the capacity for reflection and silence that Byung-Chul Han claims, the one that can make us reflect on life and our actions.
Palliative society, according to Byung-Chul Han, has nothing to do with palliative medicine, explains the Korean-German philosopher: “Thus, every critique of society has to carry out a hermeneutics of pain. If pain is left solely to the burden of medicine, we miss its character as a sign” (Han, 2011).
It reminds me of a saying by Ernest Jünger: “Tell me your relationship with pain, and I will tell you who you are!”, so every social or social suffering must precede and precede moments of reflection, or as Byung-Chul likes it, a “Contemplative Life ” another essay by the author.
“The survival society completely loses the meaning of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed to health elevated to an end in itself” (Han, 2021, p. 34), that is, the very absence of a “hermeneutic” of pain can lead to the end of the meaning of life.
It also clarifies Agamben’s meaning of homo sacer and via nude: “Without resistance we subject ourselves to the state of exception that reduces life to bare life” (Han, 2021, p. 34).
Anguish, loneliness and depression do not only have social causes, but what we feed our souls on, in the biblical passage that the prophet Isaiah goes to visit Ezekiel who is stricken with a deadly disease (Is 1,1-6) after the supplications of Hezekah through the word of Isaiah God frees him not only from the disease, giving him another 15 years of life, but also “I will free you from the hands of King Assyria, together with this city, which I place under my protection” ( Is 1:6).
Of course, the social solution is not magical, but we face it better if our pain is understood.
Haig, M. (2020) A Biblioteca da meia-noite (The midnight library). Translation: Adriana Fidalgo, Brazil, RJ: Editora Record, 2020.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje (The palliative society: pain today). Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil: Rj, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Affection and empathy heal wounds
13
Mar
Alberto Manguel is an Argentine writer well
known in university circles, both due to his relationship with Jorge Luis Borges, whom he met as a teenager and read books to him, as well as as the author of several anthologies and novels, including a book that I highlight as mandatory is A history of reading, in the original A History of Reading (1996).
A man of the world, in 1971 he lived in Paris and London, in 1972 he returned to Argentina but as foreign editor of the Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci, in 1976 he moved to Tahiti, in 1982, Alberto moved to Toronto, Canada, where he lived until 2000.
He didn’t stop there, he moved to the Poitou-Charentes region, in France, where he bought and renovated a medieval monastery with his current partner Craig Stephenson, one of the renovations carried out was to accommodate his library of 40 thousand books.
In 2020 he donated the entire library to the future Center for the Study of the History of Reading (CEHL), and started living in Lisbon and is a columnist for the Canadian magazine Geist.
One of his famous phrases is “the banal belief that time heals wounds is a mistake: we get used to them, which is not the same thing”, but his phrase about reading seems to be a strong influence of Borges for whom the library was a paradise, it is about reading:
“The love of reading is something that can be learned but not taught.
In the same way that no one can force us to fall in love, no one can force us to love a book.
These are things that occur for mysterious reasons, but I am convinced that there is a book that awaits each of us.
Somewhere in the library there is a page that was written just for us.”
The phrase is also his: “Reading is always an act of power. And it is one of the reasons why the reader is feared in almost all societies”, there are others of course, but for this I invite my reader to read: “A history of reading”.
Manguel, A. (1996) History of Reading. New York : Viking.
Duns Scotto and moderate realism
07
Dec
Duns Scotus is the most typical thought of moderate
realism, as it linked the question of language as part of the essence of being (as the question is presented today) to the existence of universals, but he knew that he also admitted nominalism in part.
He was a philosopher and theologian from the 13th century, his main theological thesis is that God exists through the question: “whether there is among beings an infinite being currently existing” (Ordinatio I, part 1, qq. 1-2) and for him universals how “truth” and “goodness” really exist.
Duns Scotus supported a universal foundation in things (some philosophers will call it quiddity) that was stronger than those supported by Thomas Aquinas, and the entity proper to common nature that serves as the basis for individuation (so there are horses and there is the “ horse” particular to a breed, color, etc.) as well as to the universality that it adds, leaving it as if untouched (the specific horse remains a universal “horse”).
The argument that separates the “contemplative” from the “active” is in this origin of thought, the idea that the Universal is outside the intellect with the same way of being that is in the intellect and was what the scholastics called “naive realists”, returning to Plato, there are two worlds: the sensible world and the world of ideas (eidos, different of modern concept).
Even though eidos may be different from post-Kantian idealism, there remains within this thought a conception of the world “of ideas” different from the real world, that is, a radical nominalism whose Aristotelian categories were transformed into “concepts”.
Plato’s fundamental idea, and don’t be alarmed, is at the basis of modern thought, is that the truth is out there and not inside man, where he sees it through a process of meditation or contemplation, as Arendt (and others) have already argued. interpreters of philosophy) see the cave myth differently, argued Byung-Chul.
It is not this type of “parreheia” (opening of the Truth) that Duns Scotus speaks of, and Augustine of Hippo also spoke of, but rather that truth that dwells within every man.
It is in the fifth argument that Scotus uses Augustine: “If we both see that what you say is true, and if we both see that what I say is true, where, I ask, do we see it? Neither I, without a doubt, see it in you, nor you in me, but we both see it in the immutable Truth that is above our intelligence.”
Something similar is said by Socrates: “the truth is not with men, but among men”.
Scotus, John Duns. (1973) Text Selection. In: Os Pensadores (Braziliam Collection). São Paulo: Abril Cultural.
Love in western literature
26
Oct
In the previous post we commented on an unusual example in literature which is human love seen from a Christian narrative point of view, there are others of course, but this one is due to the repercussion of Francine Rivers’ work and its recent transformation into a film (2022) and the critics applauded.
In history we can remember some works that marked literature: The Banquet by Plato, The art of loving by Ovid and Sobre el Amor by Plutarco, highlighting in the medieval period The Romance of Tristan and Isolde and Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise.
The philosophical style of the Banquet where there is a predominance of mythological elements that explain or denote love, perhaps hence the idea of platonic love, but which has nothing sublime or non-carnal, what commentators say is that there are homoerotic relationships that are part of the dialogue between partners in relationships.
If there is something elevated, it is in Socrates’ dialogue that defines the so-called philosophical love, which is outside the sentimental sphere and inserted in an idealism (I always remember here that it is for the Greeks to remember Being in its essence, and not something that lives only in mind), is a love that is related to beauty and good.
Ovid (45 BC – 18 AD) is not interested in achieving this asceticism towards a deified love, he seeks to find the necessary tools to realize a more sensual love in a carnal world.
Ovid does not restrict love to the conjugal sphere, Plutarch (45 – 120 AD) sees it within a social and political institution, it is a “path” within marriage towards happiness, like an asceticism of the type that the Greeks considered conceived, this is not a spiritual asceticism.
The romance of Tristan and Isolde and the Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise must be understood in a reality dominated by Christian philosophy in medieval Europe, where the Love of God is indisputable, but love as a union of two bodies is still subject to debate.
This type of romance, inserted in the troubadour tradition, is imbued with a “courtly” element; we find an interesting description of this love in the work of Denis de Rougemont:
What they love is love, it is the very fact of loving. And they act as if they had understood that what opposes love guarantees it and consecrates it in their hearts, to exalt it to infinity in the instant of the absolute obstacle that is death. Tristan likes to feel love, much more than he loves Isolde, the blonde. And Isolde does nothing to keep him close to her: a passionate dream is enough for her.
Among modern novels, I would highlight among the most characteristic: Eugénie Glandet by Honoré de Balzac, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, while Eugénie Grandet shows the reality of the material interest surrounding the novel, Madame Bovary will show the lack of lucidity, excess and human selfishness, Anna Karenina shows the tragic colors of her infidelity with her husband Vronsky, but there are two other marriages: a happy marriage (Levin and Kitty) and another that only supports each other (Stiva and Dolly).
ROUGEMONT, Denis de. (1983) Love in the Western World. Transl. Montgomery Belgion. USA: Princeton University Press.
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Redemption Love
25
Oct
The book was inspired by the biblical narrative
of the prophet Hosea, a woman, Angel, who considered herself ruined, with no chance of salvation, a disbeliever of human love, discovers the unshakable love of God, but the context is the gold rush in California in 1850 .
The time is when men sold their souls for a handful of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.
Angel sold as a prostitute since she was a child, hates the men who used her and is invaded by contempt and fear of herself, until she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks the divine in all things, and believes he has a calling from God to marry Angel.
Redemption Love is a timeless, romantic, epic or tragic classic, it is a story capable of transforming human feelings into an unconditional, redemptive and absolute love that is within the reach of everyone who still thinks about true, lasting and deep love.
But Angel, a victim of her story, as many are today of erotic ideology and contempt for true happiness, runs away and returns to the darkness, away from her husband’s resilient love, from the new that is her definitive cure from a world of shadows and contempt. for the life.
Francine Rivers’ book, far from being just Christian fiction, is an appeal to real human love, the one capable of filling the void of souls that do not accept the passenger, the use of the body as a mere commodity or “instrument” of pleasure, where it is possible to find peace and happiness, of course with all the natural tribulations of life: bills, accidents and getting old, etc.
The book was turned into a film in 2022, written and directed by D. J. Caruso, with the cast: Abigail Cowen, Famke Janssen and Logan Marshall-Green.
Rivers, Francine. Redeeming Love. San Francisco: Multinomah Books, 2007.
The wrath and tranquility of the soul
13
Sep
The Stoic Seneca not only wrote Wrath but
Brian Wildsmith’s sun
also about the Tranquility of the soul, you can find a current edition with his other book “the tranquility of the soul”, does not mean the absence of restlessness, pain or errors.
He writes in his book I, still about Anger: “Thus, some wise men said that anger is a brief insanity. She is equally unrestrained, alien to decorum, forgetful of emotional ties, persistent and clinging to what she started, closed to reason and advice, incited by vain reasons, incapable of discerning what is just and what is true, very similar to something that collapses and collapses. it shatters on top of what it has crushed.” (Seneca, 2014, p 91).
Although we can hide feelings, Wrath strips us bare, animal ferocity is even shown in appearance, since its “control” argued by some authors is uncertain: “But to prove the insanity of those in the power of wrath, observe the wrath itself. their appearance, as clear symptoms of madmen are the bold and threatening appearance, the sinister countenance, the slanted face, the hurried step, the restless hands, the changed color, the successive sighs…” (Seneca, 2014, p 91).
He is not unaware that other passions can also expose us: “I am not unaware that other passions are also difficult to hide; that lust, fear and audacity give signs of themselves and can be sensed.” (p. 92), but these also emerge amid widespread anger.
He does not ignore Aristotle’s vision, as some authors hastily assume: “To be harmful, we are all powerful. Aristotle’s definition is not far from ours. For he states that anger is the desire to return pain. Finding the difference between this definition and ours would require a long explanation” (p. 94), so he also knows that there are differences.
Without going into exaggerated altruism, he knows that we are irascible, subject to some anger, but he explains it like this: “It has been sufficiently explained what anger is. How it differs from irascibility is evident: as a drunkard differs from someone who is intoxicated, and a fearful person from someone who is afraid” (p. 95), so there is an angry person, who may sometimes not be angry.
It examines whether anger is our nature, and thus in some way necessary, for example for correction, differentiates it: “But this without anger, based on reason, for it is not harmful, but it heals under the appearance of being harmful” (p. 97), it is the doctor who cures, not how to take revenge.
But was it sometimes useful? Remember that “The beginning of certain things is in our power, their subsequent stages overwhelm us with their strength and do not allow for return” (p. 98) and this is also the cause of injustices that awakens new anger and new furies, so it does not cure. Brian Wildsmith’s sun is powerful but benevolent (his drawing above).
Seneca. (2014) Sobre a ira. Sobre a tranquilidade da alma diálogo, transl. José Eduardo S. Lohner, 1a ed. São Paulo, Brazil: Penguin Classics, Companhia das Letras. (pdf in portuguese)
Hearts that contemplate, love
28
Apr
Despite writing romantic novels in the sentimental romantic sense, the first
look I looked at Nicholas Sparks, who is very successful with the American public, with translations of his books in more than 50 languages, the first contact was due to interest in the subject.
Rescue, published in 2000 ( in Brazil Corações em Silêncio, published in 2016 by Asa Editor), tells the story of Taylor McAden, a volunteer firefighter who, in his personal life, despite intense loves, are short-lived and does not like to take risks.
In an unusual situation he needs to help find a boy when Denise Holton’s car goes off track, Taylor saves her and from there another quick relationship is born, but another terrible situation occurs, after recovering his senses he asks for his son who has learning difficulties and I was in the car with her.
A search begins and Taylor is faced with a situation that he really has to love.
There is no way to do contemplation or meditation without silence, not only of the environment but also of the soul, of our established values and preconceptions.
A search begins and Nicholas is faced with a situation that he really has to love.
There is no way to do contemplation or meditation without silence, not only of the environment but also of the soul, of our established values and preconceptions.
Silence, meditation, contemplation are often caused by unexpected situations more of pain than of love, but also of love, in these situations we have to make some courageous decision in the face of life, commitments and the relationship with the Other.
The silence and the discovery of the true value of love led him to an action beyond what could justify Taylor as his “job”, even if it was voluntary work.
The biblical passage that can inspire this meditation and contemplation is the one that the disciples who were going to the village of Emmaus and “listened” to Jesus, who only later will they understand that he was the teacher and ask Him (Lc 24,29): “Stay with us, for the night is coming; the day is nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.”
The night is symbolic in the sense of dark and difficult moments in our lives, which require meditation, silence in order to listen to “that voice” of wisdom and common sense.
Sparks, Nicholas. The Rescue. New York: Warner, 2000. (versão brasileira Hearts in Silence, Editora Asa, 2016).
Coldness: from essence to appearance
18
Apr
Empathy, patience, true love and true feelings seem distant, bodies adorned,
made up and tattooed, minds distant and cold, empty and lacking in inspired ideas.
I read in the book “The book thief” (2005): “perhaps this is a fair punishment for those who do not have a heart: only realizing this when you can no longer go back”, is a harsh sentence, but it was important to analyze my social, personal and friendship context.
My inspiration to read, write and search within institutions, environments and social media for something intelligent, inspired and sweet, productive where I can find different paths from what I see and feel around me, made me understand and admire Markus Zusak’s book, at least unless I remember the 2013 edition (year of film), she was looking for a refuge, an escape from the contextual situation.
I wonder if this situation about the tension of a possible large-scale war is different, I see a lot of hypocrisy and manipulation in the air, while innocent people die in a stupid war, others prepare for an even bigger confrontation that slowly spreads across the globe.
I remember a biblical passage (Thessalonians 1,5:3) when they say: “There is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them, like birth pangs on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape”, but for those in a hurry I remember that it is written that this will not mean the end.
Sincere efforts for peace are lacking, armed spirits cannot promote any peace, they want allies for their temporal power, a timeless message is lacking, beyond immediate interests.
This is how hearts walk, and schools and the everyday life of the simplest and most fleeting life have already arrived, I saw a housewife from a small town excited in the supermarket speaking against that politician who ruined everything and a child who cried over a political situation that I didn’t quite understand.
You can’t put out a fire with gasoline, says popular wisdom, but poetry is no longer in the air, there are no songs that speak of pure love, only immediate interests of an erotic drive, in a society that actually lives “The agony of Eros”, a profound book by Byung Chul Han.
It is not a certain popular singer who speaks against teaching and good education, society echoes these hymns and there is almost no way to succeed without emotional and passionate appeals out of tune.
The dismantling of the human vision as Being and its transformation into the utilitarian vision of Having had a historical origin in Western thought and now penetrates and tries to destroy its meaning.
Zusak, Markus. (2005) The book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Between death and non-death
22
Mar
Recovering the concept of a life well lived is one that can be examined, and one must live it to the end, 
there is another issue that is the gaps in life or what I call the intermittents of death, in reference to what Saramago described in “The Intermittence of Death”, see the post.
If we posted there about the intermittent, here we want to talk about non-death, to address non-life, Saramago’s exercise is to think of a country or fictional place where, for a few days, no death was reported, and he goes further thinking of a situation in which people could know in advance of death, after some reflections, think:
“In theory it seemed like a good idea, but practice would not take long to demonstrate that it was not so much. Imagine a person, one of those who enjoy splendid health, those who have never had a headache, optimists by principle and for clear and objective reasons, and who, one morning, leaving home for work, finds the helpful postman from his area, who says to him, Glad to see you, Mr. So-and-so, I have a letter for you, and immediately sees a violet-colored envelope appear in his hands that perhaps he had not yet paid special attention to …” (p. .123) and receives early news of his death.
He thinks he will be able to avoid stepping on a banana peel, not receiving the letter, throwing it away, but someone will politely bring it back thinking he has forgotten it, finally at the apex of the story he finds it fatal.
If in the previous post the “intermittents” were not clear, here the card is this personification, death made Being not only points to an allegorical discourse, but one can see it as it is.
Then he writes: “Death, where was your victory, knowing, however, that you will not receive an answer, because death never answers. and it’s not because he doesn’t want to, it’s just because he doesn’t know what to say in the face of the greatest human pain” (pp. 123-124).
The speech may seem strange, but only those who follow it can understand that its pure personification brings the understanding that there is something beyond life and not just finitude, this is what bothers Saramago, but he does not give in until he reaches his opposite, which is to accept it as fatal
The personification of death letter and the narrative merge, this is an essential element to understand Saramago’s tale, although he does not refer to it when he says in the cellist’s apartment: “Then something never seen before happened, something not imaginable, death left -If she fell to her knees, she was all of her, now, a body rebuilt, that’s why she had knees, and legs, and feet, and arms, and hands, and a face that was hidden between her hands, and shoulders that trembled you don’t know why, it won’t be crying, you can’t ask so much of someone who always leaves a trail of tears wherever he goes, but none of them are yours.” (p. 152).
Even if it is, in my way of seeing the reverse of life, Saramago remakes the sensible and the finite.
SARAMAGO, Jose. (2005) Intermitências da morte ( Intermittents of death). Brazil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
