Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
The Easter of Humanity
19
Apr
It is certain that we live a dark time, not from the digital transformations that in
their essence are not evil because they expanded the worldview by telecommunications and electronic networks, expanded the participation by MEDIAS of social networks, and made more Visible the great atrocities that have been practiced ever since: oppression, inequality and various types of social intolerances.
Only one passage is possible (a great Passover of death and resurrection), if we understand what must die and need to resurrect it.
The ideological construction that we conventionally call enlightenment has three pillars: the Kantian idealism sublimated by Hegel and used by many including Marx, the Enlightenment and the empiricist thought, who believed that true knowledge is in Senses, reason and science came from these pillars.
The Industrial revolution represented the departure of the rural worker who fought in communal regime for the city where it sells its workforce, at the beginning without rules and contracts of employment, then the Social contract of the state (read: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) leaves the Famous 3 powers and goes to the working class, with concessions but insufficient.
Thus the religious thought was progressively abandoned, what Max Weber called “Disenchantment of the world”, but it is necessary to understand that the part that idealism calls subjective (relative to the subject) is his own and with Heidegger there is a twist Ontological.
Also the Enlightenment thought was already in crisis with Husserl, since the logicism had already been questioned by the Vienna Circle, but still without disattaching it.
The Husserl development elaborates the concept of world-of-life (Lebenswelt), but another central aspect little cited is that Husserl takes the problem of historicity of philosophy, undertaking profound teleological-historical analyses, pointing philosophy As able to review the essential aspects of modern science.
Ernest Cassirer (1874-1945) wrote The philosophy of the Enlightenment, and held a significant debate on the issue of Liberty and Kantian reason with Heidegger that reveals these issues, the central point of this debate is the questions of the exact and moral sciences of enlightenment.
In this plan philosophical thought may be able to rethink the Enlightenment model, and certainly no solution will be more national, cultural or religiously isolated, global problems need and can only be solved the light of global governance.
It takes a new thought, a new man who embrace the world and of course a new world culture that allows for social balance, with nature and with cultures.
Arrogance, nets and feet-washed
17
Apr
It is a holy week, a fact that goes unnoticed, but it is fundamental in the spirituality 
that is said to be “Christian” (yes, for the society in crisis, everything is confused: democracy, freedom, moral, ethics and also the principles and values of certain cultures) a detail is the foot-washing ceremony, the master is lowered to a function made by slaves and washes the feet of the disciples.
There is no greater contradiction in the contemporary world, for the idea of power, wealth and arrogance without measures make the Other object of manipulation, desire and submission, and almost no circle escapes, from the power of the state to the periphery of cities, through schools, churches and various types of associations.
Behind this idea is to always see the Other as smaller, less prepared or less capable, the networks have reversed this and disorganized a vertical power structure, clear with exaggerations, but the central, often even established and democratic power too, see the censures of the ministers of the Brazilian STF (Tribunal Superior Judge), who were supposed to defend the constitution.
Yes the networks also exaggerate, but without the exercise they will never learn, is now given a power that only the editorial groups, the centers of power and the wealthy had, manipulate the truth in their favor, and were already fake news, I was going to ask where the truth was then.
Feet-washing puts this logic, will power or power Nietszche, something that seems natural, but for sick reasons evolve in times of crisis.
To wash the feet of prisoners, as did Pope Francisco in last year, to go to those who will not be able to reciprocate, to open their arms and pockets to those who need it, and in the case of Christian Easter, to give their lives for their friends, love, started with washing the feet.
Most people do not recognize the gesture, Peter did not want Jesus to do this, or think it is a false feeling, or that the person himself does not give himself the courage, never that [voluntary and conscious: washing the feet of those who could by some logic being below us.
Few do, in a society in crisis is more than a gesture, it is necessary, it is healing.
While the Brazilian thinker Leandro Karnal thinks that humility does not get well, Mario Sérgio Cortela said that is humility:
The Interiority: garden, indifference or puppets
09
Apr
Following a great development of the idea of the Polis, the next movement of thought
goes into interiority, Aristotle had been the preceptor of Alexander the Great, who built the first great empire of antiquity, but then came the Roman Empire, the polis was confined in ideas about law, wars of conquest and finally the Roman pax, which was the surrender to the great empire.
The thought will confine the interiority, Warburton will call the chapter on Garden Epicurus, because he ran his school in a house with a garden, and his basic ideas was how to make the philosophy practical to make life happy, the practical was so rules of how to work inner issues, and between them avoiding ideas about death.
A second school that emerged in this period were called skeptics, for their indifference in many relevant matters, or Stoics because they met at the gates of the cities called “stoa”, hence the name of the school.
The basic idea is captured by Warburton as: “Our attitude toward what happens is within the limits of our control, though whatever happens is not.”(Warburton: 2012, 32).
To a birth of reason, because the Stoics believed that we should not feel sad about something wrong that happens to us, when we are deceived or have emotions that would hinder our thinking, we should always eliminate it completely.
Thus, if contemporary philosophy can be said to be objectivist in the sense of the subjectivists, the influence of Cicero on the Enlightenment is recognized, especially in Locke, Hume, and Montesquieu.
Finally, Augustine’s view of Warburton as that which all reality as “puppets” of divine thought, nothing more unjust, Augustine tried to free himself from the Manichean thought that imprisoned him in a struggle between good and evil, and his conversion to Christianity was just that cristianism isn’t manichaeism view of life.
I know that even Christian scholars see it that way, and Manichaeism is still an influential part of religion.
Warburton, N. Uma história da filosofia. São Paulo: LP&M, 2012. (in portuguese).
The philosopher Massimo Pugliucci has interess in stoicism and explain this thinking:
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Judge not to be judged
05
Apr
In addition to the resentment that holds the will to change and the renewal of 
relationships, the most criminal and cruel human sentiment is to judge, these days Hubert Nathan Myers and Uncle Clifford Williams Jr were released after 43 years in prison on charges of a crime.
Today they are 61 and 76, they were 18 and 34 when they were detained, the United States will indemnify them with 1.78 million euros, enough money? even if it were ten times as long as the young people who were still and lost were to be replaced, they hugged each other at the end of the prison.
Judging crimes is necessary, but justice exists precisely for this and to avoid abuses, especially against races, cultures and religions, the idea of conceiving a certain culture, race or creed as inferior or malignant in relation to others is that in fact evil .
Also in human relationships when we are unable to see what is good and positive in certain people make relationships poisoned and even those that are healthy can deteriorate through some hasty judgment.
We rarely know the set of facts, that is, what leads a person to a particular crime or problem, and it is not enough to propose a solution to it, you must give him the means to get out of the web that is often and can not detach itself .
The adulterous woman, who at the time of Jesus could be stoned in public, is saved when the Master asks those who wish to do so if anyone there had not sinned, they all go out and then he asks the woman John 8: 10-11: “Woman, where are they?” No one has condemned you? ” She replied, “No one, Lord.” Then Jesus said to him, “Neither do I condemn you.
You can go, and from now on sin no more, “that is, he acquitted her. That is, a family, a community, a society or a country begins to collapse if the judgment no longer finds a stopping point, and then begins to punish everyone.
Domestic violence is a disgusting type of violence, but violence itself is, there is a TED to show that it exists in many so-called “civilized” countries, but why does it exist?
Resentment and sorrow in history
29
Mar
The behavior of the “elder brother” in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is even more
serious when we analyze groups, cultures and peoples throughout history whose processes of oppression, war or simply cultural differences mark facts that can lead to violence.
In this scenario the first Great War, the German defeat and submission, the second and extermination of the Jews and the Hiroshima bomb that cannot be forgotten, May 68, the fall of communism, September 11 in the United States, Venezuela and the social issues and the exclusion seen by the American government, the Brazilian polarization and latent corruption.
There are many other facts, such as the yellow jackets in France and Brexit in the UK, an analysis was made by Marc Ferro, a French historian of 95 years, who wrote in 2007 on the problem of Resentment in History, and “Blindness – another story of the world ” (ed. Cavalo de Ferro, 2017), I did not have time to read, but it has already been included in my list, in the figure the woodcut “Country of the blind” of H. Wells (of 1904).
These eternal twists in history may surprise some people, but I realize that Marc Ferro does not, and neither do I, we see crises emerge when journalists, thinkers (not always good) and people who form opinions begin to walk in a dangerous direction, we already write a post by Karl Kraus that claimed this in the 1900s.
Finally, fake news is not new, and different visions and interpretations of history may also have differences and dialogue, withdrawal of resentments and wounds is necessary for an accurate view of history, as a method for this I defend hermeneutics.
The excessive polarization, the incomprehension of the different generates what Byung Chull Han calls “exclusion of the other”, even conscious circles do this systematically and for this is a revision of what the question of “historical consciousness” means.
I think Gadamer initiates this in Truth and Method, but the historical moment demands something profound. As a day-to-day practice I suggest removing poison, harsh language, incitement to violence, at last without dialogue what we always claim, to building the pace in world.
The video shows and sintetic form and point of view of Marc Ferro on memory data and French resistance:
What characterizes the changes today
07
Mar
In order to change social structures, it was necessary for a long time to mobilize
formal structures capable of reacting to structures of power that oppressed the feeling of change in various ways, feeling and emotion were always present, saying that they are emotional now is a mistake, it is due the old idealist separation between objective and subjective motivation.
The virtual is real are coming, not just because of the speed, intensity and quantity of devices able to connect people almost permanently regardless of distances.
The virtual depends on the updating, and therefore is opposite to the current and not the real, even in the space of the imaginary, where the cultural cosmologies are composed, the virtual is close to a cultural real.
What is changing now is that it is possible through the use of communication to establish real (not just virtual) links between people and to mobilize them for a reaction to structures of domination, and those who are unaware that information is available on the net and can being hacked, the last one is the football leaks that shook the world of soccer, by the denunciations of the Portuguese Rui Pinto.
As Manuel Castells explains, social movements have always had at the origin the feelings of shared injustice and indignation, what changes today is that these networked technologies allow a collective subject, but of course this can be negative.
Castells explains that this is not a utopia, but what is happening, and that technology is not decisive, but is influential, as McLuhan says by changing the means and changing communication, change social relations.
The structures of the old state, groups of religious and ideological polarization weaken, and a more real society comes to light than that whose state, for its vices and its virtues appear, the vehicles of communication all controlled by editorial groups and the old ones oligarchies dominated and retained power.
Castells explains this in a 2013 video:
Ashes in the Snow, now the movie
06
Mar
The novel by novelist Ruta Sepetys, on the theme of Stalinist repression at the
beginning of Stalinism and World War II, the character Lina is deported from Lithuania to Siberia with her mother and the younger son, the novel, translated into 27 languages, is 2012, won several awards and now goes to the screens.
The film directed by Marius A. Markevicius, had several producers, among them Sepetys own, will have among other appearances: the actress Isobel Dorothy Powley, or Bel Powley of 26 years, in the paper of Lina Vilkas, Lisa Loven Kongsli like Elena Vilkas, Sophie Cookson as Ona, Sam Hazeldine as Kostas Vilkas, Peter Franzén as Commander Komarov, Martin Wallström as Nikolai Kretzky and others.
As important as the theme of repression is the artistic resistance of Lina, who placed her separated from the family in another prison camp struggling to survive documenting her experience with artistic notes and waiting for her messages to reach her father’s prison camp separate from her, so you know she’s alive.
She risks everything, waiting for her messages in art to reach her father’s prison camp and she hopes her messages will arrive and console her.
Sepetys decided it was more important to write a novel of fiction than a documentary of more than a dozen people he interviewed, this would make it easier for the survivors to talk to her without fear.
The film premiered January 19 and the photography, costumes and art look very good:
Statocentric policies and social networks
27
Feb
Yes, the word does not exist, but this was the great idealistic and liberal revolution
promotes this concept, the idea that the state is the provider of all social guarantees, which may be above the cultures, the roots of the population and the original societies, that is, with their cosmological and eschatological visions.
The idea of social welfare, providence state or social state, vary in politics, degree and tonalities, but essentially it is the idea that it is the state of social promotion, organizer of economy and culture, which is more worrying and statocentric.
The idea that this was born during the Great Depression is not true, again it is the ignorance of what we call history-knowledge, it was the economist Joseph Schumpeter who developed the concept of social value in the years 1907-1907, as shown in his article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
There is no idea of society as a living body, the citizen as the possessor of rights (only the one that the state establishes, the rest is illegal), and for this we emphasize in the previous post the idea of a free press, but now it expands to social media, society has always been a network, although the state generally does not see it as such.
The fact that there are media that can vitalize the enzymatic functions of the social fabric should lead to policies that contemplate these ideas, for example, it is common in Portugal to speak of neighborhood (bairrismo in Portuguese), not in the pejorative sense that exists in Brazil, but in the sense of social coexistence and to create nuclei and social spaces for this convivial, a cultural Portuguese characteristic.
The concept may seem too technical to some extent, but Levy Strauss, who researched social cultural roots, said: “Each of us is a kind of crossroads where things happen. (LÉVI-STRAUSS, 1987, p.10).
Borgatti and Jones (1998), known for developing the powerful social networking tool Pajek, describes the term social capital, retrieving the term “group” from Wellmann and Bartram, but recalls that Putnam (1995) also develops the idea as a facet of good collective, still found in Coleman (1988, 1990) and Bourdieu (1886) and recalls that the classic tradition of authors such as Adam Smith and Alexis Tocqueville did not use the term directly but would do so today.
A measure of neighborhood, which are several, can be seen as “degrees” of proximity (figure), it is important to know by how many steps a node (or a person) can “reach” in a social network.
The concept may seem theoretical only, but this video shows how it becomes real, a video show this.
BORGATTI, S.P. & JONES, C. Network Measures of Social Capital. Carroll School of Management, Boston College Martin G. Everett University of Greenwich, CONNECTIONS 21(2):27-36, 1998.
LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude. Mito e significado. Lisboa: Edições 70, 1987.
Winners of the 2019
25
Feb
Oscar Green Book: the guide, took the best film, and Peter Farelly on receiving
the statuette said, “we know how to love each other, despite the differences,” Rome’s Mexican Alfonso Cuarón took three statues and film about the band Queen was the biggest winner of the night, with four awards.
A Rhapsody plus Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor with Mahershala Ali, Best Actor Rami Malek who played Freddie Mercury.
Spike Lee won his first real Oscar since he received an honorary award in 2006, was the original screenplay in “BlacKkKlaman”.
“Black Panther” took 3 technical awards, with two unpublished ones, plus soundtrack, won best costumes (1st for black professional) and best art direction (1st for a black woman).
Lady Gaga was not the Best Actress, but took Best Music for “Shallow”, it was Olivia Colman from “A Favorite”, who on apologies apologized to Glenn Close (“The Wife”) who was the favorite indeed.
Fleeing from the restricted circle of Hollywood with foreign actors and directors, the magic also seems to change, the Green Book and Rome move to tell autobiographies, as well as the “Bohemian Rhapsody”, the magic was for Black Panther.
There are other prizes of course, but the hype has stayed in this line.
Green Book (Trailer)
Roma (Trailer)
The Empires counterattack
22
Feb
Russia and the United States seem to rekindle the cold War, now statements
about missiles from Europe, the Venezuelan crisis and the Arab conflicts, finally the world returns to appear more insecure than it is normally, in Europe the elections of the Parliament shake countries.
What happened, are the network media communications? It seems an easy answer, neither McLuhan nor Flusser would say this, and they wrote half a century ago, says Flusser when setting the Zoon Politikon (social animal, because Aristotle spoke about Polis): “He is an idiot (in the origin of the Palava hills a private person: Privatperson) if not has learned to serve the instruments of communication, such as language. ” (Flusser, 2017). but whose essays date back to the 60 decade the same as McLuhan.
The fact that we misuse communication and the media to accomplish has to do with our virtues and proper use properties depends on a correct appropriation.
he fact that we misuse communication and the media to accomplish has to do with our virtues and proper use properties depends on a correct appropriation.
The deeper understanding of the reality we live in requires not only knowing the story, but a knowledge-history that helps interpret facts and cultures, so I think it appropriate for the current crisis to read an Islamic and an American, inserted in the context Of these worlds, of course there are other interpreters, I think that Tariq Ali for the Islamic world and Noam Chomsky for the American world can bring good elements to this dialogue.
I step into a a library and see the works of Tariq Ali: Islamic Quintet: The Sultan and the cartographer (Lisbon: Europe-America, 2006) and Noam Chomski: Who runs the World (São Paulo: Planeta, 2017), the temptation to buy was great, but it will be for later, now there Work priorities.
These two contemporary thinkers both Noam Chomski, who in addition to activist has a huge contribution to contemporary linguistics influencing even the computer world, and, Tariq Ali a Pakistani besides writing for the Guardian has a Opinion on the advanced and current Islamic world.
It is possible for enemies to give hands, it is possible, means the Christian maxim: “To love the enemies”.
The interview is 2012, a bit outdated, but is the only one that puts the two together:
