Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
Slow fall and protocols
13
Sep
Although the WHO warns of the possibility of a new wave due
to inequality in the fight against the pandemic, which due to the number of vaccines also does not see priority in the third dose, even some Institutes dispute (AstraZeneca, for example), the fall in Brazil is slow, and here the controversy is due to poorly applied and punctually rigorous protocols.
In the country, the total number of doses is 210 million, but the total number of people vaccinated is 72.6 million, which gives 34.4% and it makes sense to say that the third dose is still to be thought about, since the number of vaccines is limited and yet both the fall in deaths and vaccination are slow.
There is also controversy around the vaccines, Chile is applying the third dose with Pfizer and AstraZeneca under the argument that the “combination” is good, but looking at the vaccines that are accepted in European protocols, only AstraZeneca, Pfizer , Moderna and Jenssen are consensus.
To understand the controversy created by the interruption of the Brazil x Argentina game after ANVISA’s (Brazil Agencie) requirement that 3 players be removed from the game (only 1 was on the bench), it is necessary to understand the Interministerial Ordinance 655/2021 which established a period of 14 days for quarantine set for people arriving in the country via South Africa, India and the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, and that Brazil´s International Airports are aware of, but only sign a paper.
There is no local Anvisa agency at the airport to verify that the information provided is in fact true, and only hours after this is done in specific cases that have repercussions in the press.
So there are protocols, use of masks, procedures in bars, restaurants and supermarkets, but anyone who walks around observes whole families in these places, misuse of the mask and sometimes even not using it and because of this it causes revolt, law enforcement is only punctual.
Not to mention the release and flexibility that occurs in many situations where there is agglomeration, schools, in Rio de Janeiro, a team may have fans in the game on next Wednesday, the demonstrations on September 7th and 12th, etc. finally, the protocols must be complied with, but always so that the law is effective and respected by the citizens.
There is still not a broad understanding that the fight to be effective has to be global, there has to be a basic set of protocols that all countries sign to avoid their demoralization, and these are necessary.
As for the third dose, only if there is an assumed ineffectiveness of any vaccine justifies the third dose, as they will be necessary for people who have not yet been vaccinated and for the 2nd. dose.
The natural and the cultural
09
Sep
The word naturalization is widely used at this time in history, 
and so this idea of the natural that permeates Western culture since classical antiquity is explained here, which actually exists is a dichotomy between culture and the natural.
The renaissance was a great movement of transformation in Western culture, the universe became infinite, new lands and new peoples entered the history of the Old World and this climate put everything in discussion, Italian humanism was one of these stages of historical movements, we quote Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Vicino and their works, but Dante Aligheri is more cited.
Dante’s Ulysses will cross the Pillars of Hercules of scientific knowledge, philosophy, technique, mathematics, arts and letters, challenging previous dogmas, but physics and the domain of nature are placed on opposite sides, although the Copernican Revolution is the great symbol of this turn, it will be the domain of nature that will develop in the next moment.
The idea of limitlessness, predictability, and certainties accompanied the philosophy of modernity until the advent of quantum physics, while science sought the domain of the natural, and we now see the consequences of this domain on the planet in ecological crisis, point physics The beginning of the Copernican revolution continued to move towards the mystery of particles to atomic subparticles, from harmonic universe to chaos with black holes, with worm paths that contradict absolute time.
The uncertainties reached science, and Edgar Morin recalls that one of the consequences of the current pandemic in an interview stated: “We do not know the political, economic, national and planetary consequences of the restrictions caused by the confinements. We don’t know whether to expect the worst, the best, or both mixed up: we are heading towards new uncertainties”, and this is the future.
The naturalization of historical contexts (race, ethnicity and sexism, for example), is actually a culturalization (although the term does not exist), and the so-called scientific epistemologies were important for this, mainly from a historical point of view, where they were transformed into culture because they were not natural and not even real, but versions of history.
The planet, society and civilization are asking for a truce, and we do not know if it will be possible to deliver it, the climate is increasingly tense, and a consequence that we did not expect from the pandemic (which should push us towards solidarity) is that we are more divided than before, the truce will be difficult.
The The return to frivolity will not be simple
06
Sep
This is the phrase of the most respected living German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, and a lot of news indicates that they may have to live with the covid 
for longer than we imagine, the feted New Zealand for fighting the pandemic, announced last week a death for the covid.
Vaccination remains important because there are still cases of death, the numbers in Brazil until the weekend are 66,862,534 people who completed the vaccination schedule, this corresponds to 31.34% of the country’s population, while those with the first dose is over 134 million, corresponding to 62.90% of the population, which is insufficient to make the measures more flexible.
It would be enough if it weren’t for the Delta variants and now the Mu (5 cases in Brazil and many cases in Colombia), which has already arrived in Colombia and is even more lethal, the delta is already present in many regions and is the probable cause of high deaths in Rio de Janeiro, Roraima and Espírito Santos, the others we are remain falling but slow.
Peter Sloterdijk’s analysis for the newspaper El Pais about an improbable (his view) returns to the old normality, what he calls frivolity is explained by conceiving the current reality where a “gigantic sphere of consumption is based on the collective production of a frivolous atmosphere . Without frivolity, there is no public or population that shows an inclination to consumption”, and in a way the pandemic broke this link.
Everyone is waiting now, even so-called progressive conceptions, as the philosopher says: “that this link will be reconnected again, but it will be difficult”, many have learned to live the essentials.
Using a modern concept also used for disruptive technologies, his vision of an anthropotechnics is important for a more sensible analysis, explains the current phase: “after such a big disruption, the return to frivolity standards will not be easy”, he says in interview with daily El Pais.
Understanding that the process is now global and this is the “new of this current outbreak”, says the philosopher, before we had “relatively regular outbreaks, but, in the past, people tended to return to their common habits of existence”, ie, a frivolous thought, life and consumption.
While we have not been able to elaborate some form of mutualism, which Sloterdijk defends, he goes back to using his concept of community, prior to this crisis, and states: “this crisis reveals the need for a deeper practice of mutualism”.
It will come, but the polycrisis, as Edgar Morin called the current crisis before the pandemic, will widen, the environmental, social and justice.
Complex thinking and humanism
02
Sep
Edgar Morin, Heidegger, Sloterdijk, and more prematurely 
Nietszche and Schopenhauer realized the crisis of what we call humanism and which distanced itself from man.
Some approached more from an ontological perspective such as Heidegger and Sloterdijk as a critic of Heidegger’s humanism, others as an approach and critique of Nihilism such as Nietszche, and Schopenhauer in a more human purpose, his phrases are famous: solitude is the luck of all exceptional spirits and the higher the spirit, the more it suffers.
All these thoughts deserve to be analyzed in the crisis of civilization that we have already entered, it is no longer lurking, it has already penetrated, in our view, it is in the thought of Edgar Morin that it is possible to find a more solid solution to this crisis, although we are moving in the opposite direction.
According to Morin, the core of humanism that we need to revitalize is the one described in Method II: “It is not a question of refusing humanism. It is necessary, as we shall see, to hominize humanism, and therefore to enrich it, basing it on the reality of the Homo complex” (Met. ll, p, 398).
Complex, because the human cannot be described in a linear logic, and cannot be isolated in areas delimited by knowledge (complexus: weaving together), the whole is man, and this is his complexity.
This arises from antiquity with the emergence of the problematic that will be called subjectivity, Karl Popper draws attention to the pre-Socratic Enlightenment, the naturalistic view of philosophy of this time would have submerged man in the web of laws of the material world, not precisely configuring the notion of Being, placed in subjectivist (of the subject) or objectivist (of the physis) aspects.
Morin promotes a review of concepts and methods, both in The Lost Paradigm, and especially in The Method, the recent evolutions of biological sciences, cybernetics and the so-called cultures of man, undergo revisions, highlighting the concepts of “autonomy” , of “love”, of “individual” and consequently of subjective, and of “uberty”.
Woven in the Jewish-Greek-Christian matrix of our culture, traversing the history of Western thought and daily life, humanism assumes orientations that do not exactly coincide with man, and which, in our view, gave an idealist vision to more universal human principles.
For Morin, two revisions are needed in humanism that intertwine and complete:
— The sketch of the homo complex;
—-The hominization of humanism.
To a phrase by an anonymous author (not Einstein’s) that circulates on the internet: “you cannot reach different results from the same thoughts”.
Caution and caution with new variants
30
Aug
In Brazil until Saturday, the Ministry of Health distributed more
than 230 million of the vaccines against covid-19, these 187 million have already been applied, being 128.4 million in first doses and 59 million having completed the scheme, which gives 36 .9% of the population, and still not enough, as the new variants affect while the scheme is not completed.
The number of deaths and infections in Brazil has been falling slowly, but it is still in the range just below the 1,000 daily deaths of the moving average and close to 20,000 daily infections.
Extensive research carried out by FioCruz revealed that by completing the vaccination scheme, the AstraZeneca-Fiocruz and CoronaVac vaccines are effective against infection, hospitalization and death: AstraZeneca-Fiocruz with 90% protection and CoronaVac with 75%.
Thus, with 36.9% of the vaccination schedule, the current stage of immunization is still fragile, and the new protocols for flexibility have no scientific basis, except for research carried out with rigor and proven data, all information disclosed, even by official bodies, is not are reliable.
The infectologist and researcher at Fiocruz Julio Croda, said in an interview with CNN, that it is necessary to speed up vaccination to protect people more effectively against the Delta variant, and that the effectiveness drops for the elderly and people with comorbidities.
As for the possibility of using the mixed vaccine scheme, called interchangeability, a study conducted by the University of Oxford, UK, showed that the vaccines that show better immune responses are the combination of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, with an interval and four weeks, with the highest results being AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer.
Flexibility is the responsibility of government health agencies, but care is a personal measure that we can all take, while avoiding crowding, using masks correctly and using alcohol gel, must continue to follow the protocols.
A long period of pandemic also causes personal and psychological stress, it is necessary to find occasions for outdoor walks, relaxation in different ways and virtual contacts with friends and colleagues in the work environment.
Law and justice
27
Aug
Human systems are in crisis because if in rhetoric there are new
forms of sophistry, populism is a complex of sophistry, and they have always appeared in the crises of the polis, our justice that comes from the Roman Empire, with strong idealistic and positivist colors, cannot remain on a line of coherence, there is always a double interpretation according to the defendant.
This is due to populism in the current context, more broadly, in the absence of an ethical approach as proposed by Paul Ricoeur, neither the deontological system that claims to be exempt from any metaphysical aspect, nor the
This aim proposed by Ricoeur, as already explained, is not restricted to the field of personal freedom, because by the very requirement of universality it must have a “coercive effect”, this is applied by a force of law, but it is not limited to ethics either ” institutional”, since there must be a set of “estimated good” actions, for example, each person has an intrinsic dignity, death and violence are not fair resources for coercion, and there may be borderline cases, etc.
But an estimated good action, difficult in times of polarization is one that comes from a golden rule, do not do to the other what you would not like to be done with you, there must always be the possibility of discussing the contradictory always, even in actions ” good estimates” and there must be a prevalence of the community over the individual, without embarrassment or excessive “coercive force”, different cultures interpret what is good differently
The limiting and unacceptable discriminatory point, in addition to the sophistry that since antiquity has recourse to rhetoric and the force of persuasion, but demagoguery and public lie, for example, that which omits cases of appropriation of public property as a clear case denial of the common good.
Governance over natural goods and resources that are national or even planetary heritage, not only nature, but also museums, libraries, historic buildings, whatever cultures they may be, cannot be seen as acceptable.
This deontological legalism (which would be justified by the ends), is also present in the Christian biblical narrative, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law asked Jesus about the customs of washing hands, of following the “tradition of the ancients”, as in the passage of the evangelist Mark (7,5-7):
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the ancients, but eat bread without washing their hands?” and Jesus replied: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. The worship they render me is useless, as the doctrines they teach are human precepts’. you forsake God’s command to follow the tradition of men”.
For no one can love the God who does not see if he does not love the Other (neighbor) who sees (1 John 4:20).
The current debate on justice
26
Aug
Heir of John Rawls, Michael Sandel is successful, he says what 
he says to many others who are successful: “Those who are successful tend to think it’s thanks to themselves”, certainly if they weren’t a professor at Harvard, they wouldn’t give assisted lectures by thousands of people, and could not speak of polarization without a clearer definition of its own position.
His book A tyranny of merit (Editora Civilização Brasileira, released in September 2020), drew the attention of progressive sectors, but there is a veiled criticism of these sectors, accused of “embracing, in response to the challenges of globalization, a culture of merit that led to a legitimate resentment of the working classes, of disastrous consequences that were manifested, even in the management of this pandemic” (Daily El País, September 2020).
It has the merit (making a paradox) of saying what is obvious, that without a policy of quotas and breaking the barriers of inequalities (including the cultural one that he points out) there is no possibility of mobility for the underprivileged, but the line of thought de Sandel is rooted in the readings of John Rawls, and his work “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” (Gulbenkian, 2005) is proof of this, and both were colleagues at Harvard.
In the early 1980s, Rawls himself cited Sandel’s communitarian critique as “the most scathing of all” and although he called into question “deontology with a human face” (see the roots of this thought in the previous post), it was an inherent thought. to the Rawlsian theory of a “deontological liberalism” combined with a “reasonable empiricism”, the terms can be found in Sandel’s work.
In order to obtain a “liberal policy without metaphysical constraints”, Sandel called on his colleague Rawls, ultimately, to abandon the deontological argumentation of an “unencumbered self”, “incapable of self-respect” and “self-knowledge, in any morally serious sense”, see that there is an objectivism within what Hegel calls ethics.
Rawls himself had already been led to reformulate his political liberalism, starting from the context of reasonable pluralism and moving away from a comprehensive moral theory of justice.
Sandel’s lectures are successful in the US and now also abroad, and also in his case it is nothing other than the fruit of meritocracy (Harvard in this case), but his works must be read carefully.
SANDEL, Michael. (1982) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Portuguese (2005): Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Trans. C.P. Amaral. Lisbon: Gulbenkian.
Ethics in the morals of Paul Ricoeur
25
Aug
In his 1990 text, Paul Ricoeur has already elaborated what he called
a little ethics, simplified into three theses:
- the priority of ethics over morals, that is, the priority of the life of the good life (comes from the Greek concept of goodness), with and for others, in just institutions, over the moral norm;
- The need, however, that the ethical approach (here opposes the Hegel/Kantian ethics) through the sieve of the moral norm: this passage from ethics to morality, with its imperatives and its prohibitions, is, as it were, demanded by the ethics, insofar as the desire for the good life meets violence in all its forms; and,
- the legitimacy of a recourse from the moral norm to the ethical aim, when the norm leads to conflicts and for which there is no other way out than practical wisdom, the creation of new decisions in difficult cases, such as in law , in everyday life and in medicine.
Ricoeur clarifies that neither in the etymology of the words, nor in the history of the use of the terms, there is no clear distinction between morals and ethics, but there is a nuance in the term ethics “for the aim of a life carried out under the sign of good deeds” , and the moral term “towards the obligatory side, marked by norms, obligations, interdictions characterized at the same time by a demand for universality and an effect of coercion” (Ricoeur, 1991a, p. 256).
In this sense, its “ethical aim” must be understood, nor is it restricted to the field of personal freedom, since it admits “the requirement of universality and an effect of coercion” nor is it limited to institutional ethics since it must be “under the sign of good esteemed actions”.
It is thus possible to distinguish more clearly in his ethical approach, the distinction between two inheritances, the Aristotelian “ethics characterized by its teleological perspective (from telos, which means ends), and the Kantian deontological inheritance (“morality is defined by character from the norm’s obligation and, therefore, from a deontological point of view (deo of “duty”).
Thus, his analysis, rather than excluding one or another thesis of modern ethics, complements both the work of Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, and the Grounds of Moral Metaphysics and Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, but without the need for to be faithful to the orthodoxy of neither is not an evasive solution, but an inclusive one.
RICOEUR, Paul. (1991). Éthique et morale, Lectures 1: Autour du politique. Paris, Seuil, Pp. 256-269.
The just and hermeneutics
24
Aug
The traditional concept of Justice is one that comes from the 
Enlightenment and idealism, will have its consecration in the Introduction to Hegel’s philosophy of law, the margin of this right survives Christian, Islamic and other beliefs (Haiti, for example, had a Creole constitution) , but always the margin.
One can, for historical reasons, return to Kant and Fichte to discuss theoretical questions of justice, but the modern state and its laws, which are the foundations of contemporary justice, at least in the West, have their foundation in Hegel, and an essential concept there is that of ethics, which comes together with the idea of justice based on the equity itself and not on what is fair.
So Hegel theorizes ethics as “objective morality” or “ethical life”, remember Kant’s categorical imperative: “acts in such a way as to be a model for others”, thus an individual morality, but Hegel’s two abstract concepts they are law and morality.
The scope of ethics, to realize the ideal of freedom, is present in the family, in civil society and in the State, but with the State as sovereign over the other institutions for which it establishes a contract, and the moral and ethical rules are defined by someone who acts in this way, then this is a quality of ethics and ethics.
It goes beyond Kantian thought by stating that there is a subjective morality and an objective morality, a classic dualism of idealism to which Hegel is an apogee, for Kant was the first to say “acts in such a way” that it is universal, for Hegel it is the second and for this will define a new (abstract) concept of the “self-determination of the Will”, which is an objective morality.
It may seem that the “individual” (questionable) right is preserved, but in almost all legislation in “missing” situations, it is the state through the judge that determines the justice, see article 4 in the Brazilian case, of the Introduction to the Civil Code:
“Art. 4th. When the law is silent, the judge will decide the case according to analogy, customs and general principles of law“, there is no objection of collective or individual conscience and there is also no self-determination of the will, it is decided by the State, and already in this it differs from morality.
The current discussion has advanced in phase to serious social problems, on the issue of equity, and even on the veil of contractualism (the law ruled by the state), the most eminent name is John Rawls, for whom his discussion advances on intuitionism and utilitarianism, which Paul Ricoeur will focus on to question his concept of Justice in his work: “The fair or the essence of Justice” (1997).
Essentially, the discussion is about collective, diffuse rights (of nature for example) and equity, Paul Ricoeur moves towards a hermeneutics of law, while Rawls towards liberal law and equity in the face of justice and not the social rights of human dignity, and different from equity and social justice.
References:
RAWLS, John (1997). A Theory of Justice/John Rawls: Trans. Almiro Pisetta and Lenita MR Esteves – São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
RICOEUR, Paul. (1995). The just or the essence of justice. Trans. Vasco Casimiro. Lisbon: Instituto Piaget.
Delta variant still worries
23
Aug
The cases of the Delta variant and the new Alfa variant, which
came from the United Kingdom are still worrying, monitoring is needed, movement control, and in the case of Brazil, the state of Ceará, which has 43 cases, provides an example, having created a monitoring center and screening for travelers, Ceará has 43 Delta cases and there is already a case of the Alfa variant coming from the United Kingdom.
The cases in state of Ceará (Brazil) are 24 women and 19 men, the majority (33) are between 20 and 39 years old, which makes sense because the second dose is still happening at the ages, there are cases coming from Nova Friburgo (RJ) and São Paulo and the others live in 20 different municipalities in Ceará, all of whom had mild, moderate, or asymptomatic symptoms.
It is a moment of caution and the flexibility of many state governments may be premature, the curve of deaths and infections is at a stable level, and with vaccination, the expectation was for it to fall.
As reported by the consortium of press vehicles, the number of people who received the first dose is 122 million while 54 million took the necessary doses (a vaccine uses only one dose), were the data of last Saturday (21/08).
As safety for the delta variable is necessary for complete immunization, the exact number of 54,890,099 people (24.92%), which gives a quarter of the population, is too low for the new Delta and Alpha variants (which are already starting to advance in the country), the possibility of reaching 60% immune is still far, September will be a fatal month, and the level of infections and deaths is still high and stable.
Some states are slightly above (states of Brazil) Mato Grosso do Sul (40.59%), São Paulo (32.40%), Rio Grande do Sul (31.62%) and Espírito Santo (28.33%), the others are close or below of an average of 25% complete immunization, according to the press consortium.
Recents data indicate that the Southeast pulls the infection curve up by 7%.
We must learn from Southeast Asian countries as infections grow due to low vaccination rates, even countries like China, Japan and South Korea are seeing increasing outbreaks, as reported by the CNN website, data from Brazilian daily “O Globo” indicates data from some countries in the region, infections in blue and deaths in black (figure).
