Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
Human dignity and unacceptable beliefs
02
Jun
The death by asphyxiation of African American George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin shocked
the world and triggered a series of violent demonstrations across the United States, including yesterday in the capital Washington, at the same time as in Brazil to accusations and demonstrations between groups for and against Bolsonaro grow.
In the Brazilian case, these are the president’s fearless words, and a meeting of ministers that became a public scandal due to the way in which serious state issues were dealt with, in a pandemic moment that should be a reason for unity, the political stage is heating up.
It was not the line of reasoning of this blog, but it cannot be omitted when one realizes the serious moment in the world and national scene, and two points must be considered, without forgetting that the pandemic should be our main focus, but gravity forces us to touch these points.
In the American case, Floyd’s own family through the autopsy clarified the death by asphyxiation and thus asked that it be considered manslaughter, when there is an intention to kill and not painful when there is no intention, Derek Chauvin the policeman who killed him already had 20 complaints and two letters of reprimand. In the Brazilian case, there are several manifestations in defense of democracy and the principles that govern the Brazilian constitutional charter.
I personally signed one that calls on all Democrats of different convictions to defend these principles. I want to point out that both in the American case, where Floyd’s brother thanked him for his support and asked for the acts to be peaceful, as in Brazil I also consider the fight against violence and respect for constitutional powers is fundamental.
Corona vírus plateau in Brazil
01
Jun
We defend the use of LockDown here, since last week it would be late, now
what the curve shows is a plateau in 1 thousand deaths during 14 days, depending on when it will start to fall it is possible to evaluate the extension of the plateau and the prospect of a fall, as a week-long holiday was made, with a small result, some response is expected in a week.
The outlook will be as slow as the rise, counting only from March to make the projection easy (March, April and May) we will have the curve retraction only in August (June, July, August) which even coincides with the end of winter, so the “new normality”, because there is no way to predict what may happen afterwards even if there is a second wave of infection, only even in September.
Any plan that intends to open up more, with the collaboration and education of the population that has not happened until now, is an adventure, a plunge into the dark.
The sensible thing would be to allow the opening of trade with severe restrictions and punishments, the collaboration is at most half the population, which is insufficient to contain the contamination, and we still count on the disinformation sometimes aided by government officials.
We will come out of the pandemic more divided than before, with low morale because we were not led and we were not even able to unite, and looking for culprits will be worse than the pandemic itself because we will have to face a serious economic situation to follow.
Hoping that we will learn something from this, the thousands of doctors, nurses, assistants, drivers, rescuers and security guards who helped save lives, the solidarity of those who help the unemployed population and the institutions that struggle to maintain this aid.
It could be worse, if there were no social isolation and field hospitals that expanded the capacity of the health system, if there were no emergency aid for the unemployed and informal workers, in addition to the help of the family allowance (plan for poverty), but it is in the people the impression that a stronger decision for greater social isolation was lacking.
The pandemic has not passed, and the drop in the curve will depend on the population and surveillance.
The ontological recovery and the dynamic Being
28
May
If there is an ontology in Hegel, it is static, although between being and not being
there is becoming it is an affirmation of being and not its poietic or noietic negation (noesis here in the sense of Husserlian phenomenology), it is a feeling or capture at the present moment of change or fusion of horizons, and poiésis in the sense of a mediation or a language of Being.
The ontological resumption that, although static, is present to some extent in Hegel, it is static when it sees being in opposition to non-being, while as a moment of interiority in life and being, it is precisely becoming, which is externalized in a relationship with the Other, the diverse.
However, Peter Sloterdijk’s interpellation to Heidegger in his Rules for the Human Park cannot be overlooked, as well as the crisis of scientific thought in Europe pointed out by Husserl in his work of maturity in which both physicalist and transcendental subjectivism challenges, resuming his Lebenswelt, the world-of-life.
The question of Sloterdijk makes sense when thinking about the dire times of the end of World War II, after the concentration camp but also the Hiroshima bomb of the allies, and in this new “war” against the pandemic it seems to make sense to ask us about the Humanism.
In Heidegger it is like Da-sein, “being-ai” (or being-being), that the human takes on the task of shepherding the being, and it is in the sense of place-time (using the new quantum dimension) that inhabits Man, since the place is now the whole planet, but nationalisms persist, not as an affirmation of peoples that is just and real, but as a delimitation of grazing and interests.
Sloterdijk seems to be right in pointing out that the “unveiling” of political destructiveness has been reduced to its most explicit and encouraged form of being like the formula “will to power” (Sloterdijk, 2012, p. 284) in a “synthesis of humanism and bestialism ”(Sloterdijk, 2000, p. 31), and which seems to remain equally ambiguous as a movement, and it is not possible to avoid mentioning some forms of neo-nationalism that have taken up with great force.
In Heidegger it is like Da-sein, “being-there” (or being-being), that the human takes on the task of shepherding the being, and it is in the sense of place-time (using the new quantum dimension) that inhabits Man, since the place is now the whole planet, but nationalisms persist, not as an affirmation of peoples that is just and real, but as a delimitation of grazing and interests.
Sloterdijk seems to be right in pointing out that the “unveiling” of political destructiveness has been reduced to its most explicit and encouraged form of being like the formula “will to power” (Sloterdijk, 2012, p. 284) in a “synthesis of humanism and bestialism ”(Sloterdijk, 2000, p. 31), and which seems to remain equally ambiguous as a movement, and it is not possible to avoid mentioning some forms of neo-nationalism that have taken up with great force.
SLOTERDIJK, Peter (2000). Regras para o parquet humano: uma resposta à carta sobre o humanismo. Trad. José Oscar de Almeida Marques. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2000.
Sloterdijk, Peter (2014). Regeln für den Menschenpark: ein Antwortschreiben zu Heideggers Brief über den Humanismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2014.
What is Hegelians spirit and transcendence
27
May
We have already made several posts to explain that Kant’s transcendence is
nothing more than the separation of subjects and objects, but Hegel completes and systematizes this whole philosophy in Phenomenology of the Spirit, a work that deeply influenced the philosophies of law, history, aesthetics and of religion, Marx himself and many currents that flow from it have not escaped this.
We have also made posts on the question of Gadamer’s historical conscience, criticizing Dilthey’s main ideas about history, now let’s analyze the “spirit” in Hegel.
First, as the name says, it is a phenomenology, therefore not a set of facts or even tangible realities, but a set of phenomena placed under a certain scheme.
Hegel understands history, art, religion and philosophy itself as an objective phenomenon, and as such (this is an object) is directed to the spirit for self-knowledge.
His capacity for synthesis will make his history of philosophy, with specific schemes and elements about transcendence and metaphysics in philosophy, give strength to his thinking, and the Phenomenology of the Spirit is central to his scheme.
To understand what he thought as a phenomenon, it is necessary to understand what he calls “natural conscience” which was what opened the way for philosophical knowledge, and it is through it that he will make a reading of the history of philosophy and thus elaborate what it is knowledge.
Just to make a counterpoint, Husserl will say instead that there is only awareness of “something”, while Hegel constructs this category as being “natural” and there is objectivity.
But Hegel’s “natural” is not only natural, but historical, therefore, its introduction to a system of philosophy, is built on the historical path of thought, it seems “natural” but it is not, its is philosophy of history.
What is hidden behind this scheme is what Nietzsche will call the genealogy of morals, but then other genealogies arose, the linguistic turn from Wittgenstein for example, he will see objects in relation to others: “we cannot think of no object outside the possibility of its connection with others” (Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 2.0121).
To understand what is Spirit in Hegel, and which profoundly influences the conceptions of arts, history and religion today, the forms are correlated to an idea of absolute subjectivity, therefore “outside” the object, and related to it by a special type of essential logic that leads to the knowledge of reality, therefore it is not a phenomenological realism as Husserl sees it.
The spiritual and transcendent in Hegel is “the most interior, from which the whole construction of the spiritual world ascends”, it was what Marx called “heaven for earth” and that he (Marx) reversed, however, the separation of subject and object remains, so spiritual is a type of Absolute Spirit of Religion (see diagram).
The post-pandemic and spirituality
26
May
The life of exercises that led us to the “Society of Burnout” (Byung Chul Han)
despite the pandemic and quarantine in many places has not stopped, accustomed to the frenetic pace of modern society, continues behind the action, the agitation and the fill the void with nothing.
In a hurry there are already those who predict a more closed society in frontiers, strengthening nationalism and protectionism in business, those who proclaim a “new world order” (a new conspiracy theory) and those who are always ready to defend ideologies: it is our turn .
However, just as the pandemic nobody predicted what will come is out of the great theories and a novelty will be a search for refuge in forces beyond the human to support the new and real news that have already happened: greater recollection at home and time for inspiration and contemplation, a poorer or at least more austere life, and new forms of living together.
Those apocalyptic of the network society, have rediscovered the new media, but due to the delay the use is still irregular and more curious than fruitful, but with time it will mature, there is a gap without doubt that is online education and little thought and if planned on this.
However, one thing has already changed, something we did with our “free time”, cooking the house, sharing daily tasks, looking with new eyes at people close to us and for many a new look at nature and our own nature: the complex human phenomenon.
If we made great theories of dialogue, now we have to practice it or we will be stuck in our closest relationships, because when we leave them we face a different and unthinking Other.
Those who survived the pandemic, and it may even return, Spain and China present new worrying cases, will require a new lesson from each and from society: rethink everything that has been the foundations of our lives, including the religious, we can wake up or not.
To those convinced of the near future, I remember that they did not foresee the pandemic, perhaps a war or a prophecy, or an irrevocable historical path, an invisible and unknown virus shook life
#LockDown didn’t happen, brazilians didn’t do our homework
25
May
The social isolation rate rose to 51% in the State of São Paulo and 53% in
the Capital, which is very close to the advance of Covid 19, although the numbers indicate they are stabilized at a level around a thousand deaths, the fall may be very slow if there are no ways to increase the level of social isolation, today is also an anticipation´s holiday in São Paulo.
Little by little we are drawing harsh lessons from the pandemic in Brazil, even with the government meeting with governors the already planned day after happened and in the worst possible way, the video of the ministerial meeting caused perplexity across the country and increased the distance between powers and the government. with governors and mayors. The cold also came, although it is still autumn in the southern hemisphere, and Latin America is already the new epicenter of the pandemic
While Europe is slowly returning to its new normality (Spain have any problems), and with hopes of eliminating the infection rates from falling further.
Health´s deds in the capital are running out, they reached 91% occupancy on Sunday, so either a tough measure is taken or a new breakthrough in the death curve will be inevitable.
The hope of the vaccine advances in the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca of England, its CEO Pascal Soriot affirmed this Sunday (24) that the United Kingdom will be able to have access to the vaccine in September of this year if the tests are successful, now with 10 thousand volunteers that begin to be vaccinated.
Although social isolation is below what is necessary, its effectiveness is proven, the curve that is exponential for deaths and infections, must be analyzed on a logarithmic scale (see figure), where it can be observed, decreasing inclinations that may remain on a horizontal inclination when this number stops at a level, which would be desirable to not exceed the limit of the Health system, depending on the #LockDown measure we can vary from 30 to 100 thousand deaths.
About São Paulo, the scientists evaluate, the analysis was made by researchers from USP according to the G1 portal, which instead of having a peak may have a plateau where the maximum peak remains for several days before retreating, this would also exhaust the system already at a high rate.
Some states already show an attenuation of the curve, as is the case of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catariana, but Amazonas remains serious, while Ceará and Maranhão State due to #LockDown had improvements while Pará still not even with radical isolation, and Amazonia has many problems.
The truth, the method and the life
19
May
The contemporary concept of truth, although quite attached to logicism
and idealism, arises from Socrates’ maieutics, a technique for valuing dialogue for the parturition (in sense of childbirth) of ideas that are consolidated according to the concrete conditions of knowledge (it is said material, but the Greek hilé is something different from matter today) where it is questioned what is unshakable and absolute.
Among modern truths strongly influenced by Hegel, there is a high dose of subjectivism, said in the following way in Phenomenology of the Spirit: “… everything comes from understanding and expressing the true not as a substance, but also, precisely, as a subject. At the same time, it should be noted that substantiality includes in itself not only the universal or the immediacy of knowledge itself, but also that immediacy which is being, or the immediacy of knowledge. […] “, so it seems to refer to Being and Spirit, but it is subjective and fluid.
What resulted from Hegelianism was the formulation of the idea of Power exercised by the State and from it it will derive a large part of modern formulations, until reaching general relativism, that is, in rough terms “each one has his truth”, we return to the Greek doxa, mere opinion.
It is therefore necessary to discuss the method, but also modern methodologies are permeated with dogmatism, the mere repetition of abstract concepts, the logical-theoretical construction of formal theories, empiricism, according to Popper, the greatest modern danger, and idealistic rhetoric.
Hermeneutics initially and later the hermeneutic circle starting from Heidegger and consolidated in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, reconstructs a modern maieutics, where not only the dialogue becomes viable, but also the possibility of a fusion of horizons becomes possible, including in dialogue with classical ontology and modern historicity.
The hermeneutic method has a profound relationship with life, Husserl’s lebenswelt, is effective for dialogue with different world views, thus it favors the relationship between people who express different cultures, and thus it is crucial for the interpretation of texts in the fields of law , theology and literature, without fundamentalism and false orthodoxy that hides error and doxa.
Hermeneutics in a pandemic relationship makes people act together even with a different visions about political, medical and social reading, it is it that helps distant discourses to show solidarity for life, the common good and in the near future outlines plans for the recovery new horizons of post-traumatic society.
#LockDown although late, in Brazil
18
May
Countries that performed a #LockDown earlier were successful not only in
combating the coronavirus, as is the case in New Zealand and Slovenia, the first European country to not register any deaths by covid-19, but also had a return to new normality more early.
Even from an economic point of view it was better to take radical measures, to be able to resume earlier with social activities, as economic ones will have to be resumed gradually and in many cases they have already undergone radical changes, what are calling a new normal, cases like Sweden and South Korea (which is not true that it has not made strong restrictions on social isolation, although it is not a total #LockDown), have been isolated, but have a conscientious and organized people capable of complying with social rules.
Brazil already has some cities in the North and Northeast with a decreed #LockDown, in the Southeast it is more difficult both for the population volume and for a part of the population that insists on ignoring what stands out: the aggressiveness of the coronavirus and the death toll , in addition to the exhaustion of the health system.
We will enter a week of conflict, with another health minister leaving the central government, with measures to release the central government and restrictive measures by governors, in addition to the controversial use of hydroxychloroquine whose effectiveness has no scientific proof, in addition to the side effects.
The summary of the whole Brazilian problem is the impossibility of a rational discussion around a topic that affects the death of thousands of people, however, we continue to defend a #LockDown in the big centers, which are the main focuses of the virus in the country, so that the curve stops at a plateau, which is around 900 daily deaths, the number 485 on Sunday is underreported due to medical centers that cut staff on weekends.
We look forward to a very turbulent week, which, if not enough, is still more controversial in the political area, with a return to old practices already condemned by the society of physiologists, it is expected that governors and mayors will maintain a firm position in the face of the urgency of #LockDown
Pandemic and power
15
May
A catastrophe situation is faced with solidarity, compassion with those who suffer
it directly, support for those who must face it head on, and especially with all the support of those who can and must give conditions to face the catastrophe.
It is also a new situation, which requires everyone to review actions, concepts and the lifestyle itself can and must change, those who behave trying to avoid the new routine, hinder the coping of the catastrophe and worsen it personally and socially.
All of this involves power, central powers and micro-powers, the philosopher Foucault developed the concept of biopower, that is, the control of collective phenomena from the processes of birth, longevity, mortality and fertility, already in recent philosophy Byung Chul Han created the concept of psychopower, one that through the media and communication controls the social environment.
The pandemic seems to have combined the two, and even more deeply human anthropology on its return home, uses both the issue of mortality control and communication, especially digital, for tasks, shopping and work at home, as well as the control by power.
State institutions are mobilized as soon as the Modern State enters the scene, to sympathize or to open its contradictions to the social environment, hospitals, educational institutions and mass media are all mobilized by the forces of power.
The more fraternal and more hostile faces of the idealistic model appear, in an eagerness to replace the health and power of the family’s intrinsically fraternal solidarity, spirituality and the common good. It may point to a way out or put the whole of life in check. .
Religious power is also in check, with the temples closed or they give serious and concentrated responses or they stay in the spiritual subjectivism of known phrases and buzzwords that do not explain or solve anything, the subjectivism / objectivism dualism collapses and asks for a transcendent.
In the Christian reading of John (Jn 15,15) you can read: “I no longer call you servants, but friends because the servant does not know what his Lord is doing”, and this is fundamental in a pandemic, and generates solidarity.
And for those who go beyond friendship and generate brotherly love, there is a divine promise that consoles and strengthens us at this moment (Jn 14,21): “Now whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and I will manifest myself to him ”, and they will have inner peace to face the external war that the pandemic generated.
Society in a transient moment
13
May
Life has changed all over the planet, the limitations imposed will certainly not
be permanent, but some concerns that were born with health, with the invisible and with new technologies will be permanent as to the importance and transformed when taking them more into account.
The transient also observes the idealistic dichotomies of subjects and objects, or subjectivity seen as a false model of the subject, that he is devoid of materiality or substantiality, the disease is a proof of this error, or of a false objectivity, our certainties about our empirical objects have failed and continue to fail in predictions and models, the old age of uncertainty, old because it has been a “theory” since the last century, now became narrative.
The old idealistic theories, which history made them fundamentalist ideologies, have as their epicenter the idea that we must develop and advance the economic models (in the end it is always the idea of “more production”) until an even greater exhaustion, before the nature and now of life itself on the planet put at pandemic risk.
Sloterdijk warns in an interview in El País “current life does not invite us to think”, and the reason that I have a relative optimism about social distance (I prefer isolation, as society as a whole works in a network), is in the reasoning he does in the same interview: “For Husserl and his phenomenology it was necessary to get out of the impetuous time of life, the most elementary device was to always take a step back. This action allows you to become an observer. ” .
And this is the basic assumption of uncertainty, that the observer is part of the phenomenon, the idea of science that we can repeat the experiment observing the phenomenon, must take into account that the observer is part of the phenomenon, in times of pandemic, if not me prevent pandemic affect.
The whole of this epoch change, since its foreshadowing came from the two great wars, which not by chance came from the worst pandemic that humanity faced was the Spanish flu, which is a good example when there is no social distance, which lasted 2 years (January 1918 to December 1920), infected a quarter of the planet (500 million people) and killed between 20 and 50 million people.
Two untruths exist about this pandemic, first #lockDown is not good (see numbers above) and that has not changed anything, it happened right at the end of the 1st. world war (from 1914 to November 1918) that had deteriorated Europe’s sanitary conditions and economic resources, but that’s when the League of Nations model emerged (installed in January 1919, shortly after the Versailles treaty), even though it insufficient to avoid the 2nd. world war, started the discussion of the basic principles of social rights.
Also the old truths about the invisible hand of the market, laissez faire, began to change, with the provident state, and after the 2nd. world war the UN with important departments like FAO, UNICEF and WHO itself, an organization of great influence now in World Health and that gives guidelines to face the pandemic.
So, after this war that is now a war for everyone, against an invisible enemy and one can still say unpredictable, there will be changes and they must be thought out globally, but we are in a transient where the old ideas still resist seeking the previous normality of a consumerism and a society of inhuman and unequal tiredness.
