Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
The sign of Lazarus and the pandemic
27
Mar
The pandemic came to warn us that it is not life that matters the economy anymore,
we posted this week that it is not the oeconomicus of home and agriculture (of food we would say today, because food processing is already part of history), it is that of speculation by banks and exchanges.
Now it is life that governs the economy and not the other way around, maybe an economic Darwinism could say in the beginning it was money and then man came, nothing more unreasonable, but it is clear that if an economy goes to ruin, the maintenance of life is in the limit, it stays like this in wars, comes the famine.
But the sign of the pandemic is still poorly read even by economists, and even more lost by some leaders and even religious is the sign of Lazarus (his tomb in side), more than half a million infected and death coming is not enough reason for the even stronger economy on the planet want to stop.
A careful reading of the bible reveals that Jesus knew of Lazarus’ death (John 11: 4-7) and it was not before because the Jews were reluctant to change the lifestyle of “law” and tradition, and wanted to stone him, however. Jesus explains to the disciples that they did not want to return to Judea out of fear, that this should happen so that the people there understood that a change was necessary.
What change the world expects, yes, if we win the pandemic, but the global effort, the idea of stopping and reviving the domestic economy that includes the relationship and well-being of those close to us requires a “conversion”, a change in cultural attitude , taking care of what is beside us and taking care not to be “infected”, the sign of Lazarus is that death comes, but the cure will also come.
The important thing is what we will do next so that a new crisis does not set in, we already had influenza and in Brazil vaccination is beginning, but will we be prepared for another pandemic, without understanding that hospitals and the economic health of the people, in particular, of the simple people is essential, we will not understand anything.
Lazarus did not rise (he later died of a natural death), he just revived and Jesus said that this disease “does not kill”, that is, humanity will not be exterminated, but the hard lesson must be learned is the life that governs the economy and not the other way around, and let’s do our part #FicarEmCasa and applaud the health workers
Co-immunity: healing
24
Mar
We are waiting for a miracle, those who do not believe or ignore science, now
hope that scientists will find the vaccine, while vaccines for the old flu infections are beginning to be available at health centers in Brazil.
The lesson from the medical point of view is that this disease that has taken on aspects of the pandemic teaches us is already definitive, that people’s health is more important than the disease, that we can all help each other if each does our part well, and that no one will do our part for us, the government and health authorities can raise awareness, but depend on individual, cultural attitudes.
The philosopher Peter Sloterdijk worked in a broader sense on the idea of immonology and co-immunity, the idea that we cannot get rid of all the viruses and microorganisms that have always been part of life, and that now are attacked and worked on by society as a whole may have their effects reduced, although they seem more and more aggressive, influenza a few years ago looks like a common flu close to the corona virus and its range and aggressiveness.
Heir to phenomenology, but mixed with Nietzsche, and co-heir of Heidegger with Byung Chul Han, he created a surprising new anthropology beyond the human, by defining homo sapiens as the result of an unfinished and infinite autopoiesis (auto is self and poiesis, creation), so we go on each clash with nature, self “creating” and reviewing.
The revision of this moment is interesting and will be unfinished because the results for the economy and the future social structure itself will be undefined and dependent on decisions, but the joint fight of peoples and nations in the pandemic creates a new “joint action”, which Sloterdijk calls co-immunity, that is, creating joint defenses and an immunology beyond the human.
In relation to Heidegger, it goes beyond being-there to being-with, not only because it creates an anthropological view of the human relationship, but that shows the efficiency of joint action where each does its part, and the immunity of the whole, depends on the rearrangement network of each individual part.
In response to a question asked in 2018, he (from the frontiers of thought program) explains his immunology as follows: “Let’s not forget: the word “immunology ”is a metaphor borrowed by lawyers from biologists. I take it a step further, extending the concept of immunis (which in Latin means “free from duties”) to the religious dimension.
Comparing his system with Luhmann’s, he stated: “While for Niklas Luhmann the legal system would be the immune system of the social system, ballpoint states that religion is society’s original immune system”, and this would be anthropology beyond the human, entering a dimension of religious transcendence.
When relating the problem of immunology with ecology, he elaborates it in relation to nature:
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The changes of the 20th century
13
Mar
The changes of the last century, but whose social and economic structures are still 
present, were marked by the end of economic liberalism but which was supported by great empires, in addition to the colonial ones in Africa and Asia (the end of the empire in India, for example), also social and economic customs were changing and are still present in the 19th century.
It would be more opportune to talk about the economic, at a time when the financial empires seem to be melting on the Stock Exchanges, the so-called Bear market, of fear managing business, but on March 8, which was women’s day, we chose to talk about the issue .
Since Ibsen’s romance in the 19th century, the Doll´s house, where the affable and liberal structure of a marriage hid her husband’s machismo, by the way the moment he takes over an Investment Bank, the oppression of wife.
We also pointed out the development of the female issue through Doris Lessing Nobel Prize for Literature and who had a balanced but tough position, far from fads and the politically correct, she lived and pointed out the issue of women, even though white women suffered in South Africa with the issue of racism for defending blacks.
We arrived at the “Commons” economy of Elinor Ostrom, ignored by the left for not being against capital, and ignored by the right because it affirmed that the governance of common goods can be productive and well managed, contrary to what the “Tragedy of Commons” provides ”.
The change in posture and culture, it is true that we need laws and policies to combat machismo, but cultural change defends the view of women, now independent, in the job market but still suffering the consequences of her emancipation.
Although the religious view is said to be sexist, and often is, it is not what Bible presents in the New Testament, remembering that the Jewish culture of the time was sexist and the Old Testament reflects this, however Jesus’ position on women were different.
Thus, it appears in the text of John (Jn 4, 8-9): “The disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman then said to Jesus: “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me to drink that I am a Samaritan woman? “, And the text clarifies that the Jews did not get along with the Samaritans, and the position of the woman was inferior, accepted by them.
The first woman Nobel in economics
12
Mar
Elinor Ostrom was the first woman economist to receive the Nobel Prize in
Economic Sciences together with Oliver E. Williamson, in 2009, for “her analysis of economic governance, especially with common goods”, the so-called “Commons” that now also dominate the world of scientific dissemination, such as Creative Commons, where copyright is maintained with permission to use.
But, of course, Elinor’s theory is much more general, and aimed mainly to disprove the idea that was then “enshrined” in the “Tragedy of Commons”, which became known for the article written by the American philosopher and biologist Garret Hardin in 1968.
The modern concept that Elinor explored from “Commons” is universal common goods such as water, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, roads and highways (privatized almost worldwide), and even an office refrigerator or space shared audience.
Elinor Ostrom demonstrated in her book “Governing of Commons” giving an example of communities that self-managed whether top-down regulations or privatizations, with economic success.
In 1973 she founded the Theories and Political Analysis Workshop at Indiana University with her husband Vincent Ostrom, and one of her last activities was the preparation for the Rio + 20 conference at the head of the Planet Under Pression scientific committee, which had a strong influence at the conference, although Elinor died in 2012.
His latest book Working together: Collective Action, The Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice, written in conjunction with A. Poteete and M.A. Janssen, gives practical lessons in collective action that can enhance work around “common goods”.
The golden book
11
Mar
Written in 1962 and considered one of the great novels of the 20th century, the 
Golden Book (O Caderno Dourado in Spanish, in the photo), tells the story of Anna Wulf, a writer immersed in a personal crisis who decides to tell her story, from the black book for his literary life when he lived in South Africa, the red book on his left-wing political activism, the yellow his emotional life and the blue his daily life.
Doris Lessing, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 85 (2007) when she expected nothing more, herself made a joke about it, but the recognition was deserved and little is known today of this consequent feminist and who refused to adhere to fashions and conjunctures followed his struggle.
Themes such as friendship, motherhood and sexuality have much deeper tones and outlines in this author, in novels such as “As grandmothers” (2007) where old age is seen in a different light, especially for women, or about politics in its book “The sweetest dream” that she suggests as an autobiographical one, and that reflects deeply on her humanitarian vision.
But if I had to highlight a novel by her, my favorite of the youth “Prisons we choose to live in” (1987), it attacks in a subtle and extraordinary way the question of political rhetoric (or what was decided to be politically correct) where it instigates individuals to come out of social constraints and build a better world, in fact and above everyday fashion.
He does not fail to attack in this novel ignorance and the lack of personal responsibility in the desire for applause and mere repetition of mottos, how current his speech would be, anticipating the times, because it was precisely because of the excess of rhetoric and the absence of concrete acts that we fell into pitfalls and we help contemporary ignorance and demagogy.
His sentence that seems to sum up his thinking was: “I cannot and will not hurt my conscience just to adhere to the fashion of the day”, and he said this not for conservatives, but for the apparently advanced positions of his time that were not directed towards attitudes concrete.
Powers and the Other
28
Feb
There is something beyond the will to power, yes there is a non-being, which does
not depersonalize or imply a loss of identity, but in dialogue with the Other, with the one who is not my mirror.
The affirmation, the empowerment of people and groups in logical closings of identity, are neither original in the sense of preserving the dialogue with cultural traditions, nor are they in fact power because it implies submitting the Other that is one to some identity that is not his.
Thus, the true ontological identity, contrary to the logic that is individualistic or closed in groups, we often criticize the individualism of the Other because we do not admit its original identity (that which comes from races, cultures and traditions) and ultimately we do not admit the your Being, and to admit it you need a non-Being, that is, to see the Other as he is.
The powers in modernity have grown because of the impositions that the laws of the State, the rules of conduct and what has historically been called “Contract” which is nothing but making the right to conscience something that is subject to the rules and laws of the State. It is not about anarchy, rules of social coexistence that existed since the primitive man who was already known originally lived in groups: in caves, nomads or established in territories.
What leads to violence is to always submit the Other to our own will, our cultures, looking at the Other as less, less cultured, less “evolved” or another justification for not understanding and respecting different cultures, beliefs and ethnicities, so violence arrives.
The cult of the State, Hegel went so far as to say that it was eternal and it is not, many have changed throughout history from the Greek City-State to modern democratic societies, now in a new turmoil.
The biblical passage that the “devil” offers Jesus earthly powers and he rejects is this (Mark 4: 8-10): “again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him, “I would give you all this, if you kneel before me, to worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Go away, Satan, because it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you will worship Him alone´”.
Coronavirus, euthanasia, media and power
27
Feb
We have already pointed out the power of new media, the concept of psychopower
was also explored by Byung Chull Han, we wrote a post about it, but now we are back to biopower.
As Foucault thought, biopower has two distinct forms: one called anatomical-politic of the body and another of population biopolitics, the first are disciplinary devices responsible for extracting the productive body from the human body, by controlling time and space, within institutions (see how many do this, including educational ones) and the second way is to regulate populations by making birth rates, migration flows, epidemics and increasing longevity useless.
See discussions of the corona virus, migrations in Europe and longevity problems in the social security of the elderly, but now the perverse case of “assisted death” that avoids spending on the elderly and allows them to die “assisted”, of course the electric chair also has assistance , but it is for criminals, at least supposedly, because there are mistakes.
The coronavirus threatens to get out of control and the power controllers are frightened, they might think a few, perhaps most of them poor, will die, but that is not the case, it affects everyone, in Iran even a deputy health minister is sick, and several events are threatened, some have already been canceled and tests for the Olympics are already threatened and may even be canceled.
Biopower, therefore, is out of control and power itself can suffer from it, stock markets fall, economies collapse, tourism and travel fall, in short, biopower also has limits, but both it and psychopolitics are still mostly in the state control.
Social networks, and not always their media form networks, these can lead new powers and empowerment of groups, cultures and ethnicities that are under the tutelage of the States.
An incomplete ontology: the affirmation of Being
21
Feb
The Wheel of Fortune is chance because the logic of laissez faire, chance brought to
the economy, is also the logic of the affirmation of Being, in the classic sense; Being is and Non-Being is not, there is no becoming.
Non-Being is also Being, the affirmation, the will to Power, takes with it the logic of war, dualism, Manichaeism and its destiny is war, the difficulty of understanding the Other, the dialogue made as a form of hypocrisy , because in the end, it is the negation of the Other and the affirmation of Being, in the logic “we have the truth”, even if it is said in a religious way, it is its negation.
The impossibility of coexistence, from where physical violence arises, even psychological and moral violence, the unconscious desire to demoralize and undermine the Other, which is in this non-Being logic, and thus the moment that passes is lived in a false way, as fleeting and with the sense of maximum affirmation of the Being.
It seems crazy to say that non-Being is also, but it is precisely in its exercise that we deny war, we deny conflict as necessary, we make dualism become sincere dialogue and we can enter the logic of the Other and discover a complement of Being, while not-Being.
To affirm that the Non-Being is destroys the logic of power, exclusion, conflict, because it allows the Other to exist, denies psychopolitics because there is no need for the “psychic” oppression of the Other, to affirm the Same, the mirror, even which exercised collectively, is a selfish knot and tied exclusively to its own power and pleasure.
So say contemporary speeches about philosophy, which fill audiences and praise philosophers and eloquent religious: “you came to win, assert yourself, say you are the best”, etc.
The complete ontology is also opposed to religious fundamentalism and the Pharisaic, because it is also exercised as a non-Being, says the evangelist Mateus on the Master’s teaching to his disciples (Mt 5.38): “You have heard what has been said (yet the it is in our day): I look for another and tooth for tooth !, But I say to you: “do not face that it is evil” On the contrary, if someone slaps you on the right face, it also offers you the left! ”, here it is the “hidden” logic of non-Being.
Happiness and idealism, between subjects and objects
18
Feb
The development of idealistic thinking, the strongest and most profound of
modernity, gave man a sense of dominance not only over nature, but also over his own possibilities and the reach of his will.
So the exploitation of natural resources, now with signs of exhaustion, also the exploitation of peoples and labor forces made human undertakings take off and now intending to conquer planets and the universe, but we discovered the human limits: desires, powers and wars.
The first and the main one is the finitude of life, even the oldest cultures always elaborated some eschatology about the previous and future life of humanity, modernity meanwhile tried to exploit its finitude to the fullest, what counts is the maximum happiness in short life for all of us, exploring it to the fullest is enough.
But idealism pointed out limits, if it is an unfinished project or if we have already plunged into another project, late modernity or postmodernity does not matter, the essence of this project was finitude, and what was called enlightenment, happiness, will and freedom it showed not only finitude, but also the monstrous aspects of this conception: absence of imagination (the subjectivity said of this way of thinking), the human and natural unbalance of forces, and the absence of peace.
The idealistic building built a society full of objectivity, of wonderful constructions, from the reach of the productive forces almost until their exhaustion, but war and cultural, religious and mainly ideological hatred, a fundamental part of this building.
Separating the human into two pieces, to later search him, subjectivity and objectivity, was nothing but a monumental building that disregarded the human essential: the absence of forms of happiness that contemplate everyone and the search for solidary means of power.
It is not that God died, but that we killed him, if there is no divine bond between men, he can never exist transcendently, in fact, idealistic transcendence is nothing other than the separation between subject and objects, unified by this fallacy of objectivity.
Without recovering real dreams, real happiness, and the social means for this, we sleepwalk in the dark, as stated by Edgar Morin.
The importance of Droysen’s legacy
17
Feb
We stated last week that both the perspective of Droysen’s Hellenism (he coined the term) and the perspective of the true meaning of his story were broader,
long before Gadamer’s criticisms of “romantic” historicism, this author who was a student of Hegel , had already done so and with much property because in addition to being a student, he entered the concept that Hegel is for modern philosophy its founder.
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884) questioned the principle of historicity, and, long before his time, questioned historians about the “scientific” foundations of a certain perspective and relativism, as well as indirectly questioning Dilthey in an attempt to use history to support the Sciences of the Spirit.
Droysen in his Compendium on History (Grundriss der Historik) that was not suitable for History, since it pretends to be science, to borrow without a method from another perspective of knowledge, which is natural science, even if as an “example”.
The solution presented by him, similar to that of Gadamer, synthesized in the methodological notion of Investigative Understanding (forschendes Verstehen), aimed to give History the possibility of an autonomous science, so for him there is something that precedes the explanation x understanding dualism, which is the history, what we called last week the “form” of thinking.
His 1857/1858 compendium of history (Grundiss der Historik) is available in Spanish (1983) and Italian (1989) versions, still in Portuguese.
Of particular interest, at least for me, was Chapter 3, which deals with the hermeneutical problem of understanding, which gives a sense of the applicability of its method.
The link that we can and should make with the moral question, from the previous topic, can be found on page 386 of her work Teologia dela Storia (Italian translation):
“… we need a Kant, who critically examines not the historical matter, but the theoretical and practical movement before and within history, and who demonstrates, like anything similar to the moral law, an imperative category of history, the living source from which the historical life of humanity flows. ”(DROYSEN, 1966, p. 386)
Droysen observes in what he calls “Systematics” three types of ethical communities: “the natural communities”, “the ideal communities” and “the practical communities” (figure above), and relates to them from history, said thus: “ours systematic resulted from the notion that the historical world is the ethical world, but while conceived from a certain point of view; because the ethical world can be considered under other points of view … ”(Droysen, 1994, p. 413).
Its becoming, therefore, is far from the Hegelian dialectic, but at the same time it dialogues with it.
DROYSEN, J. G. (1966) Teologia dela Storia. Prefazione ala Storia dell´Ellenismo II – 1843. In: Istorica. Lezioni sula Encilopedia e Metodologia dela storia. Trad.: I. Milano – Napoli: Emery.
_______. (1994) Istorica. Lezioni di enciclopédia e metodologia dela storia. Trad. Silvia Caianiello. Napoli: Guida.
