Arquivo para October, 2022
Resume the culture of life
31
Oct
All over the planet, there is an impasse between choosing a
culture that advances peace and prosperity for all humanity, including all diversity, and a culture of hatred, war and adversity.
War is this perspective, to enter into that polarized us-against-them current, and the war in Ukraine and the nuclear danger must awaken humanity to greater risks than diversity, which is ultimately beneficial and helps reflection on the future and the humans values.
Between Putin’s threats, the takeover of the city of Kherson in Ukraine with the population expelled, the power blackouts and a new embargo on Ukraine’s grains, Putin gives a weak nod to the West and says he is not an enemy and able to live together, there are even suggestions of peace brokerage by the pope and possibilities of agreements, they are urgent because winter is coming in the north.
Europe is already feeling the strong crisis that is approaching, not being able to control the economy, the British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned, who stayed in office for a short time, being replaced by Rishi Sunak, an Englishman of Indian origin, which in itself is already very interesting, although it belongs to the Conservative Party, it is a breath of diversity for the United Kingdom, as India’s exit from the British empire was painful in the time of Gandhi, who made the first peaceful colonial war.
The political scenario is moving, now almost all Latin America is turning to the left, entering Brazil in this scenario can bring great changes, however, it is first necessary to internally pacify the forces literally divided and in an uncivilized confrontation.
It is necessary to defend life, also in the aspect of health and emotional balance, a lot of poison was distilled with apparently peaceful and loving words, and this is the worst type of war, the one that is carried out with refinements of cynicism and hypocrisy.
It is time to really pacify the mood, to look to the future so that it is less gloomy and at the end of the year that is approaching, we return to wishing for peace, prosperity and health, which is lacking in current times.
Ostentation and poverty
28
Oct
It is necessary to produce in order to distribute wealth, the
enterprise, its opportunity and logistics are factors that require investments and capacity for this, in a word: it requires vocation.
What produces poverty and misery is the inability to distribute the wealth and benefits of an intelligent process of production and a social organization of the state, boasting and appropriating social and public goods, in both fields.
Countries that do not produce wealth only organize misery, they cannot distribute what they did not produce and did not deliver into capable and responsible hands for building the wealth of a people.
The idea that wealth was a product linked only to certain nations, coming from Adam Smith’s liberal model, evolves into the idea of exchanging goods and wealth between nations, including the help of poorer nations, unfortunately also evolves into colonialist ideas.
In the sphere of wealth and personal goods, even Adam Smith warned of moral goods, those that make a society balanced and healthy, not outside the construction of relief and aid for the development of the poorest and the social peripheries and nations, there are nations on the edge of poverty, and in general some ostentation exploited them.
It is possible that those who produce and govern think beyond their own personal goods, if they are not profligate and ostentatious they will certainly understand that they have more than what they need for their own survival and investment in the development of social wealth, however as individuals they need to go beyond selfishness and personal ostentation.
Ostentation is not exclusive to a certain social stratum, those who have access to wealth coming from the periphery can also evolve into this pattern of power through money and appearance.
The Biblical passage that Jesus announces to Zacchaeus, who was short and to see Jesus climbed a tree, an important metaphor, when understanding and changing his values and Jesus realized that all the people did not understand that approach of Jesus (Lk 19,7-8 )“:
“Seeing this, they all began to murmur, saying, ‘He has gone to stay in a sinner’s house!’ Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord: “Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, I will pay back four times as much”, but this remains difficult for the religious to interpret, who continue to murmur.
It is not the production and possession of wealth that produces injustice, but its maldistribution.
Diversity and adversity
27
Oct
A society that lives in balance and serenity is one that admits
diversity, see that adversity is precisely the denial of diversity, where differences can coexist.
It is not possible for the civilizing process and the public sphere to develop without diversity being accepted, harmonized in which all differences are respected, says Byung Chul Han: “Respect is the foundation of the public sphere. Where it disappears, it crumbles. The decadence of the public sphere and the growing lack of respect are conditioned.” Byung Chul Han No swarm” (Han, 2018, p. 12), which by the way is a reasoned and balanced critique of digital media.
Adversity is even worse when it comes from the powers that be, because having authority they should precisely oppose the hostile and hateful climate between differences, this does not mean that exactly they should curb exaggerations and abuses that powers have no legitimacy to have.
The public sphere has the right spaces and forums where those who feel that abuses may be committing, it is true, there are cases in which the desire to react is violence, one can enter a vicious circle in which it is often possible not to find the return, behold the wars.
So the ad-diversity school is the choice of conflict, hatred, dispute and death.
The greatest desire of sincere religion cannot be other than that space where there is peace, justice, harmony and respect for differences, difference is part of nature and in it human nature, one of the mistakes is not to be within the ecosystem , read Nature of Nature, we already made a post about this.
Jesus’ anguish when he saw the religious divided was greater than seeing his countrymen divided by the Roman Empire, greater than the theft and exploitation of the humble, we will come back to this tomorrow.
Diversity is a wealth for plurality, for dialogue, hatred and revenge are ad-diversity, the non-acceptance of what is not a mirror, the lack of respect and empathy.
Ethics and morals are important
26
Oct
From Greek society, through all cultures and generations, 
societies develop rules and moral conduct as part of their social stability, it is true that they must evolve, but without them the vacuum of organization and power leads to a cultural civilization crisis.
Even the Frankfurt school theorist Adorno wrote a book called “Minima moralia”, the book in addition to showing the overcoming of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, to the argument that the life “of the spirit only conquers its truth when it finds itself even in absolute detachment …it is not this power, like the positive, that separates itself from the negative” (Adorno, 1951, p. 5-6) and argues that this is due to his attachment to liberal thinking that overvalues the individual.
Philosophizing on the conflict of generations, where he exposes problems of the various ages of life, he will state that: “With horror it must be recognized that many times already before, in opposition to the parents, because they represented the world, the bearer was in secret. voice of a worse world in the face of the bad world” (Adorno, 1951, p. 11).
So, unlike Marx who cursed the family, whoever wants to read his writing “The Holy Family”, Adorno will dissect marriages based on interests, saying “the more “generous” the mutual relationship between the spouses was originally, the less they had thought of property and obligation, the more odious will be the degradation; because it is within the scope of the legally indefinite that disputes, defamation and the incessant conflict of interests thrive! (Adorno, 1951, p. 21).
He makes an analogy with slamming the door, in the sense of respecting individuality and also having the lightness of care, compares this to the doors of cars and refrigerators: “It removes all hesitation, all care, all urbanity from gestures” (Adorno , p. 29) and explains the fact that they close on their own.
Although relatively old, its reading is current in confronting Hegel’s self-consciousness, which was the truth of self-certainty; said in Phenomenology: “the native realm of truth” for what today is the conscious self: “the reflection of the self as perplexity, as the perception of impotence: knowing that nothing is” (Adorno, 1951,p. 40).
Although relatively old, its reading is current in confronting Hegel’s self-consciousness, which was the truth of self-certainty; said in the Phenomenology: “the native realm of truth” for what today is the conscious self: “the reflection of the self as perplexity, as the perception of impotence: knowing that nothing is” (Adorno, 1951, p. 40).
He speaks of the crisis of thought: “always talk, never think” (p. 55), the absence of interiority in “inside and outside” (p. 57) and asks for “a morality of thought” (p. 64) in society of narratives.
Valuing family relationships, the relationship between parents and children, empathy and sensitivity still exist.
ADORNO, T. Minima Moralia, primeira edição 1951, Portugal: Lisboa, edições 70. (Pdf)
The seeds of peace
25
Oct
The seeds of life, however small they may be, rise like trees
after germinating, those who wish to have desert areas need to throw strong vermifuges and pesticides on them that do not allow any form of life to start.
So it is by limiting the entry into the life of any seed and its collaborators the fertilizers that contain microorganisms that we limit the growth of life, the desert area can look clean and even in a way beautiful, and this is the modern misconception, not allowing life evolve.
It may seem contradictory, but the land is not impoverished by those who add pesticides to plant monocultures, yes the fruits seem “less perfect”, but imperfection can be part of the land, recent discoveries show that certain fungi save bananas that are doomed to no longer bear fruit.
Such is the purity of life, the desire to eliminate “enemies” from life that we end up eliminating life itself, every ideal of “purity” ends up killing the possibility of life, we have already posted here about the “communities of the elect” in the religious case and in the political case it is “ideological purity”.
Nazism also spoke of racial purity, in short, it is enough to allow the tiny seeds to develop, under water and protection from the sun, of course, that they themselves will give rise to life.
‘Social polarization is nothing but two clashing ideas of ‘purity’, both of which limit life where diversity must be allowed to grow and conflicts must be seen as a good opportunity for dialogue.
The biblical compares the origin of life to a mustard seed, a tiny seed that gives rise to a leafy tree.
A new piece in the war: Iran
24
Oct
The presence of the Iranian military in Russia has opened a new
alert to NATO countries, but also the deployment of anti-aircraft batteries from Germany and the training of Ukrainian soldiers in France open new war fronts in Ukraine.
The attacks in Ukraine were not only carried out by missiles, but also the Iranian drones of the Shahed-136 type, which are triangular and measure 3.5 m, capable of carrying up to 36 kg of explosive charge and also dribble or confuse anti-aircraft radars due to their large number.
Iran denies sending drones, but the presence of the military in Crimea has been confirmed by NATO intelligence, and European Union countries are already threatening sanctions, but the dependence on oil in the current Russian gas crisis is immense, and a closure of the Persian Gulf would have a bombastic repercussion on the European economy and, as a domino effect, on the world economy.
In a context of American conflict in the region, the fact becomes even more serious, it is not necessary to destroy an aircraft carrier to put it out of combat, just hit a part that causes some inclination and it will already be out of combat, and Iran has nuclear weapons.
It is also necessary to remember that we are less than a month away from the World Cup, which will be in a country in the Persian Gulf, the last one in Russia took more than 700 thousand people, it is believed that in Qatar it is likely to reach one million tourists from all over the world.
It also marks the beginning of the European winter, and the war on European soil has no sign of a truce in sight, on the contrary, it undergoes a dangerous escalation.
Peacekeeping forces are lacking, countries and political forces capable of leading a peace crusade are lacking, the situation is quite dangerous and few realize the gravity.
The Pharisee and the Sinner
21
Oct
There are personal and public sins, but the relationship between them is clear, whoever is not honest and morally upright individually will find it difficult to be so in public, and this is
notorious.
False spirituality is one that hides its own interests behind religiosity without actually adhering to the values of solidarity and fraternity necessary for this.
Each culture, religion or social group develops its own rites and languages, and sometimes, this makes manipulation easy by those who do not know in depth what is in each culture, as many have ancestral roots, it can be difficult to understand their social origin and their values, this makes manipulation easier.
However, what really reveals the true face of each culture is its public attitude, because what it really is is revealed in it.
There is an Aesop fable in which a cat becomes the most beautiful woman at a court party and enchants everyone, however when a mouse appears she devours it, showing her true face.
It is no different in religion, those who do not have true spirituality find some difficulty in public life with their values, they do not engage in dialogue because they are intolerant, they do not practice solidarity because they are selfish and they do not love because they are close to the rigidity of hatred and this difficulty see the different, the Other.
There are several biblical passages that refer to the theme, such as the one that calls false religious “whitewashed tombs”, another that says they praise God with words, but the heart is far away, but the clearest passage is that of the sinful who sits at the back because he fears God and the Pharisee who sits at the front to magnify himself, at the end the text says (Lk 18:14): “I tell you, the latter went home justified, the other did not. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
There can be a fair division
20
Oct
The union of society and peoples has always been desirable in peaceful ways, which happens when it becomes unfeasible in a polarized society, something that some social forces
not only encouraged but spread in the social fabric.
What happens on a broader horizon is war, in an environment closer to the citizen is the growth of hatred, intolerance and little empathy and dialogue.
Presenting values that are not practiced is, in addition to hypocrisy, a great social decoy, one bets on what will never be accomplished, and both peace and war are achievable.
A fair division is thus one that, within a broad process of social division, of imposing ideas and political, religious, gender intolerance (heteros are also a gender) promotes concord and the possibility of dialogue, it is heroic, but it is true .
True because it promotes a fair division between the intolerant and the true and sincere democrats, who are peaceful and who want a coexistence between the different and the diverse, it is a type of division also because it separates the hypocrites from the realists and sincere.
These positions also require firmness, resilience and tenacity, it is not for the weak but for those who are truly strong, but without the use of brute force, they only use the coherence of ideas, arguments and are in fact open to dialogue.
It is the division with authoritarians, imposters, liars and demagogues, they never do what they actually claim to promote, they want to see only “their side” of history, only their version of the facts, their imposition of “community” ideas, but of few and not of the social set.
There is a simple reading of this type, they are characterized by arrogance, by the rejection of dialogue, the “other side” is always wrong, but the arguments are just irony and contempt.
Those who despise the different, the diverse, have no democratic basis or logic of dialogue, with these there is indeed a social division, because they are against peaceful coexistence between opposites.
Between faults and crimes
19
Oct
In the face of a situation of danger or pressure, we can all
commit faults and mistakes, but the most socially punished crimes are those that are committed intentionally or worse still premeditated, carefully planned and with the refinements of evil.
There are also crimes that are tolerated and should not be, such as cases of prejudice or systematic theft, even of things of little value, society can and must defend itself in these cases to prevent what is evil from spreading, and if the justice is conniving it is also an accomplice in these crimes.
However, modern society does not know how to deal with human faults and mistakes and that the person has the right to correct himself or repair possible damages, given the religious message these people are liable to repair, but they must recognize the faults.
It can also happen that serious faults are committed by people who have a certain social respect, administrators, public figures and religious authorities and they do not recognize that their faults are equally grave and this type of hypocrisy or self-righteousness occurs with some frequency.
They are particularly serious because they are being practiced by those who should play the exact opposite role to what they do, and the power to culturally propagate evil is greater.
This needs to be socially exposed so that society can also defend these crimes, they are potentially greater because they go beyond the crime itself and spread false values.
The society that does not fight them becomes morally perverse and can reach the point of a civilizational rupture, wars in general are on these limits and for that reason alone they are dangerous.
A culture of peace must include in everyday values messages referring to values of peace.
Theocide and the community of the elect
18
Oct
We have already conceptualized in another post the Thocide in a line of dialogue with
Peter Sloterdijk’s The Post-God, we conceptualized this rereading, in a certain way also of Nietzsche, as an attempt to kill it, because if it doesn’t exist, you can’t kill what you don’t exists and if it exists it is immortal so we can just erase it from our mind temporarily.
But the reaction to the Hegelian Theocide, that of Feuerbach, in which God only exists in the mind and thus is an ideal thought something and only with idealist “transcendence” do we reach it, there is the religious reaction of closing in on the “community of the elect”, the favorites of God, those chosen by criteria that a certain community determines and the rest are lepers, public sinners and unworthy of the “kingdom”.
We have already made a long journey on the issue of error, part of human reality, and whose reading can be concluded in the biblical passage that says that the doctor should go to the sick and not to the healthy.
In a way, the reaction to this elevated God, distant from the “all powerful” men, is nothing more than a mundane and temporary power and a form of despiritualized asceticism, the life of “exercise” as advocated by Peter Sloterdijk.
Founded on perfectionism and extreme moralism, morality is important and should not be denied, however, taken to the extreme, it makes the “addiction” much closer and liable to fall into it, that is, they are actually false moralists because they cannot to put into practice what they defend, and it is often these false exercises that lead to a practice of deviations and moral aberrations.
The union of these concepts with politics leads to an unsustainable form of political moralism, it is not about defending theft or corruption, but understanding that a balance is needed, for example, politicians must want benefits for their region, the its electoral base and local economic strength.
Everything has to be thought of in a balanced way, another example is the size of the state, the big state is a pachyderm, the minimal state is incapable of executing necessary public policies.
What is then, in fact, religiosity or spirituality, difficult to find in modernity, the balance between social practices that must have doses of fraternity and spiritual practices that must have doses of true asceticism and that is a reflection of what is lived in life ” mundane”.
Man thirsts for true justice, true spirituality and is fed up with hypocrisy.
