Unveil and future
05
Jul
A large part of the future perspectives that are
not within the scope of civilizational advancement, in addition to including wars and hostilities, rely on revelations, whose etymology of the word comes from re-veiling, which means taking off the veil and replacing another, thus as a rule are obscure.
It is not only on the religious level, but also in philosophy, where the last great oracle and prophet was John the Baptist, after all he was the one who announced the greatest of all prophecies: the birth of Jesus, it does not mean, of course, that in this field there is no no matter what is new, God is always new and creative.
The word unveil in philosophy comes from the search for truth, Heidegger and other philosophers take it from a-letheia (a is not and lethe – forget), to modify the concept of what is true in Being and Time (written in 1927), states in paragraph 44 which understands unveiling as an event that removes entities from the veil.
A prior understanding that frees man’s orientation towards objects (the question of subjectivity x objectivity) favors interpretation (Auslegung), that is, the articulation with what was previously understood, and thus remakes it from the perspective of new horizons.
Discourse, in the correct sense of the narration, is later and consists of a basic activity of what is human, connecting and living with others, it gives man a common understanding and in addition to speech and shared opinions, it creates a fusion of horizons , a narration.
We have already posted here the issue of the Narration Crisis, especially the book by Byung-Chul Han, so the man projected onto objects and actions creates narratives and is unable to clearly reveal reality, it is necessary, using a metaphor, to change the glasses.
So if there are true revelations, they are hidden from today’s futurologists, they reveal much more an anguish about the future than an unveiling of the future.
In the biblical passage that Jesus has difficulty revealing himself to his contemporaries (Mk 6,4), he encounters difficulties even among those closest to him and family members, so to speak, the religious people closest to him in his time and something similar occurs today.
Heidegger, M. (2021) Being and Time. Transl. John MacQuarrie, Edward S. Robingon, UK: Must Have Books.
Interiority in a time of exteriorities
04
Jul
Modern man has not only projected himself
onto objects (what idealist philosophy calls subjectivity) but there is also an absence of inner asceticism, what projects and builds itself in his soul, are not just values, but a characteristic of being- there (dasein).
This extends more deeply into the disbelief that there is any interiority and then cultivating empathy, altruism, goodwill and sharing the common good is increasingly distant in the face of selfish, narcissistic values and the cultivation of only worldly exteriority.
The Neoplatonists, like Plotinus (205 – 270), believed in monism and in this radiation of light, there is a one or a god (it was not the Christian God) from which emanates a divine source that radiates throughout all creation, in this one light that Augustine of Hippo will rely on this philosophy to deny the Manichaean dualism which he had previously believed and from there he turned to Christianity.
Soul, or anima for the Greeks, is not just an interiority but also what moves it externally, so it is not disconnected from its actions in the world, the distance between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa, was described by many authors, in antiquity Gregory of Nazianzen (329-369), a Christian mystic who is cited by Byung-Chul Han in the Society of Fatigue, and developed more fully in his more recent book Vitta Comtemplativa.
The Jewish festival of the Sabbath (or Shabbat) (photo) is described in Byung-Chul Han’s book as the phatos of the action, which he begins in his book by describing this festival that contemplates God and the Sabbath, for Jewish culture redemption, the immortal (page 107), yesterday time is suspended, that is, the moment of pause in human action for divine action, thus complementing the action.
Exteriority and interiority are related, civilization’s malaise is due to the culture and time we live in, but also interiorities without true asceticism.
In the Bible, when a paralytic (someone with difficulty in acting) approaches Jesus before healing him, he states that his sins are forgiven (Mt 9:5), he gives him full interiority, the Sabbath.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita Contemplativa (Contemplative Life). Trans. Lucas Machado, Brazil, RJ: Petropolis.
The liquid visionaries
03
Jul
Analyzing Dilthey’s “romantic” vision of history,
Hans-Georg Gadamer first emphasizes his rightness that “what we call the meaning of life is constituted, many times before any scientific objectification, within a natural vision of life about itself ” (GADAMER, 2006, p. 31).
However, he will criticize Dilthey, that “every expression of life implies a knowledge that forms it from within”, and returning to the analysis from Hegel, he questions his vision of an objective spirit, if the “ethical environment in which he lives and the which he shares with others constitutes something “solid” that allows him to orient himself despite the somewhat vague contingencies of his subjective élans” (Gadamer, 2006, p. 32), the emphasis on the solid was made by the author.
The author remembers Dilthey’s “Investigating solid forms” (one of the themes of the Collection of Writings), which implies that both contemplation and reflection “always imply practical experience”, then contests Gadamer: “in Dilthey’s eyes, the objectivity of scientific knowledge, no less than the meditative reflection of philosophy, is an unfolding of the natural tendencies of life” (GADAMER, 2006, pp. 32).
In the same collection, recalls Gadamer, Dilthey said that “our task… will be to explain how the relative values of an era can acquire a somehow absolute dimension” and despite being a concern with the absolute, the path between relativism and totality is quite another, since Dilthey’s “being consciously a conditioned being” is not an explicit critique of idealism.
All this philosophy, says Gadamer, starts from a certain intellectualism, I would say, from a “liquid” visionary and points to an “intellectualist motivation of the objection to relativism, an intellectualism incompatible not only with the ultimate implication of his philosophy of life, but also with the starting point chosen by him, that is, the immanence of knowledge in life itself” (GADAMER, 2006, p. 36).
It clarifies Dilthey’s point of view “which demands that his philosophy extends to all domains in which “consciousness, through a reflective and doubtful attitude, finds itself freed from the dominance of authoritarian dogmas and aspires to true knowledge” ‘ (Gadamer, 2006, p. 34) quoting Dilthey himself in quotation marks, from his Collection of Writings.
The questions of the spirit in Hegelian philosophy always remained in the vague concept of the absolute, and never understood the question of contemplation, of a knowledge beyond, its transcendence is that which goes from the subject to the object without any divine or superior plan.
This was Thomas’ dilemma in carrying out the experience, although he lived with Jesus after his death, he was unable to maintain his conviction and needed to touch the master’s wounds.
GADAMER, H-G. The problem of historical consciousness. Trans. Paulo Cesar Duque Estrada. RJ: Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 2006.
Courage and Being
02
Jul
The imprudent is not courageous, in ancient times
Plato and Aristotle defined it in a similar way, for Plato courage “knows what not to fear” while for Aristotle it is the moral virtue that lies in the middle ground between cowardice and recklessness.
However, when courage becomes cowardice, it is certainly not when one is prudent and knows the dangers that surround a certain attitude, but if it is a virtue it cannot be far from the truth, so it means that it cannot renounce the truth, under penalty of renouncing the your Being.
But truth is not a vision of data, facts or a position in the face of reality, philosophy and modern physics include a third hypothesis between Being and non-Being, and thus the Aristotelian “middle term” is possible without it being the capitulation of truth.
The theme of anguish and fear, which occurs when there is a threat to one’s existence, often leading people to remain in the dispersion of concern, in Heidegger, this dispersion, which is the way of existing for most people, can only be overcome through an “anticipatory decision” that leads Dasein to accept within it only what is finite, moral or immediate.
Other authors, such as Kierkegaard, who criticized those who had thought of a solution to this concern in a God “imagined” by reason, and in this sense he is correct since it is not deposited in faith, criticize those who had thought of a transcendence of the “God above of God”, which would be a kind of courage of the Being, and this would be the power of being with roots in transcendence, they are right because, not being something divine, “trust in God” transforms into a power located beyond, and thus becomes the confidence in yourself.
There is something in human existence that is a kind of ultimate fear: death, there are those who seek the source of eternal youth, the prolongation of life, but human finitude is something that causes a fatal fear, and in the face of death, very few are those that do not invoke the divine presence, the presence of the mother or some other divine resource.
The Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han clarifies this well: “The modern loss of faith, which concerns not only God and the hereafter, but reality itself, makes human life radically transitory” because living well in each present moment is be in eternity.
Not everyone believes because they need to see the eternal, but Thomas, who lived with Jesus, needed to touch him when he was resurrected to believe that there is the eternal, there is the infinite beyond the human, the Being-there that we are.
Lebanon, elections in Iran and Eastern Europe
01
Jul
The elections in Iran have already taken place on
28/06, indicating that the correct prognosis of slight favoritism for the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, the most voted with 44.40% over the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili with 40.38%, the second round should take place the next day 07/05 and the elections mean a lot for the West and for the future of the relationship with Israel.
The elections were brought forward due to the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi in May in a helicopter crash in the north of the country, the regime is subject to a board of clerics under the command of Ayotalá Ali Khamenei, who succeeded the famous leader Khomeini and the president submits to this board of clergy.
However, the tension in the Lebanon region, where it is seen by the population and several governments as an imminent attack by Israel, is part of this chess where Iran is seen as an ally of the Hezbollah group which is based in this country, some countries have already asked the its citizens not to travel to or leave Lebanon urgently.
The possibility of a reformist government in Iran and growing pressure on Israel could help change the scenario in the region of war and escalating tension and a very dark future.
Tension in Eastern Europe is also growing, the escalation of the war has reached Crimea under the Russian government and the retaliation has hit Ukraine’s energy sources, Russia is under the tone due to the West’s growing support for Ukraine and directly accuses France of sending troops, what a declaration of war means in practice.
In the USA the pressure is also growing, in the presidential debate the topic was relevant, the elections in the country will take place at the beginning of November, and in the first debate Biden found himself worn out and now there is talk of replacing him as candidate.
Russia under the same tone, even commenting on the pathetic coup attempt in Bolivia, seen by the Kremlin as a Russian ally, but there was an exchange of 90 prisoners between the two countries (photo) in a rare moment of truce in the middle of an entire border zone under a strong military contingent.
Peace is always possible, it takes hearts and minds capable of overcoming hatred and violence.
Catharsis and moral cleansing
28
Jun
Political and moral liberalism does not want the
term “being clean” to be used, most people who have experienced chemical dependency nevertheless like to use the word and the meaning is deeper than it seems.
Without an inner strength that helps us with frustrations and complex social situations, it is not possible to enter a new state of mind, a change of route, this means that what the Greeks call catharsis occurs.
The term coming from the Greek “kátharsis” means a state of psychic liberation (which can also be physical and moral) in which the human being overcomes some trauma, dependence or fear that comes from a psychic disturbance.
Few realize the value of being morally clean, at least making an effort to do so, the doctor and psychiatrist Antony Daniels who wrote several books about the destruction of culture, what in another way and analysis Adorno called “damaged life” is nothing but the observation of a malaise in civilization as analyzed by Freud or the forgetfulness of Being.
Antony Daniels wrote books under the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple, in his analysis of the civilizing process he explains: “The first requirement of civilization is that men be willing to repress their baser instincts and appetites: failure to do so makes them, precisely because they are intelligent, much worse than mere beasts” and we have already reached this point.
The idea that we are “freeing” people by releasing their most animalistic instincts is nothing other than enslaving them through the most cruel form of dependence, so it is not a catharsis, but rather a path of difficult return, psychic dependence. some appetite.
In history, due to ignorance, people with leprosy were considered impure and were socially excluded. Today, this impurity is related to vices and moral or chemical dependence on instincts released without the necessary repression.
In a biblical passage from the Gospel of Matthew, a leper approaches Jesus and asks: “Lord, if you want, you have the power to cleanse me”. Jesus reached out his hand, touched him and said: “I want, be clean”. At the same time, the man was cured of leprosy.
Religiosity and liberal culture
27
Jun
Modern liberalism created an environment
where many cultural practices that were previously questioned, especially those that ignore social rights and duties, were gradually being released, the idea (in the sense of philosophical idealism itself) of freedom is one that pleases the will, in the sense of rational and practical requirement of universal self-determination, with this morals and ethics are not those that prevent the exercise of evil, but those that please reason.
Thus, it makes no sense for contemporary liberalism to combat usury, extortionate interest rates are practiced by banks, not to mention usury, the fight against public immorality, public nudity and pornography is no longer a moral issue and the various types of health problems, to social well-being has even become a joke in media discourses.
It is also not a matter of puritan moralism, nor of personal taste in relation to the way of expressing oneself and behaving socially, but of debauchery, of public offense to all who want a minimum of public morality, Theodor Adorno wrote about the “Minima Moralia ” in the 40’s, in the sense of how “damaged life” developed into a form of violence and horror in the contemporary world.
There are also forms of bad religious culture, one that lacks a true asceticism that encourages the world towards empathy, healthy social coexistence (also in terms of health in a world intoxicated by the use of alcohol, drugs and toxic substances), without forgetting that The most harmful and terrible thing is the cultural offense, and the culture of violence that reaches its limit in the forms of armed and unarmed wars in the contemporary world.
Regarding the religious aspect, it is worth remembering to everyone who tries to use the religious alibi for antisocial practice, the biblical passage from Matthew 23: “Then I will say to them publicly: I never knew you. Depart from me, you who do evil” and in the passage is a clear reference to preachers who “cast out demons” and “performed miracles” in the name of Jesus.
The toxic narratives that are used for these practices are generally unable to provide a complete narrative, they need to use false examples and even meaningless testimonies to justify the insanity of the practice and permissiveness in relation to public and social morals, they use offense and even public insults that make clear their adherence to exclusion and antisocial behavior public permissiveness, that which refuses coercion and the punishment of antisocial attitudes are also forms of violence by omission.
The result is a psychologically difficult environment, a damaged social life, as expressed by Adorno, and a life in which everything is transitory as seen by Byung-Chul Han.
Pharisaism and Jonah
26
Jun
What the absence of spirituality consists of today,
more than the lack of God, says Byung-Chul Han is the fact that everything in life becomes transitory, but also the consequences of a strong polarization in which all moods are concentrated and limit true interiority, true spirituality outside the bubble, in the allegory explored by Sloterdijk in Spheres I, Jonah’s sign is somewhat reminiscent of the biblical passage (Luke 11:29-30): “This generation is a perverse generation: it asks a sign, but no sign will be given to him except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was a sign to the inhabitants of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
Sloterdijk saw the lack of centrality in a dyad, which serves both polarization and polycentrism, that is, an absence of being situated in the world. We remember that the central point of his philosophy is what it means to be in the world, and Jonas who tries to escape his mission ends up in the belly of the whale, that is, his desire to escape the world and his mission, is the idea of taking refuge in a pure interior of which those who practice despiritualized asceticism, try not to being in the world, which is different from Being-in-the-world, a category in which Sloterdijk uses the word “vorhandensein”* to explain his controversy on humanism with Heidegger, who uses the term dasein for Being in the world.
Where was Jonah when he was in the world? Inside the whale. The whale is part of Jonas’s consciousness that provokes him to think about the outside from the inside. Heidegger had already thought about this pure interior of which we are all victims, a radical and intrinsic space, our unique and first dwelling through which all our impressions, thoughts and affections permeate.
The sign of Jonah, the only sign for this generation that seeks a “sign of God” is, therefore, finding this interiority even while being in the world and subject to its dyads (poles) or even polycentrism (half-truths of different narratives) without manage to achieve true asceticism, however Jonah leaves the whale and goes to Nineveh to fulfill his mission.
Thus, the relationship with the outside is a constant tension, and there is no way to escape it, it is not a filter for the truth, but the search for a clearing, for a space where we cultivate our interior, so in Sloterdijk’s vision that helps us, Jonah’s sign is his inner life when he was in the belly of the whale, within his “sphere” in Sloterdijk’s conception.
So it is not the one who shouts Lord, Lord nor the one who lives on external “good intentions” only, it is necessary to live this inner tension and be the Being that he is in the world.
Pharisaism is living on external appearances that do not correspond to interiority, but also “pure” interiority is staying in the belly of the Whale without experiencing external tension.
* the literal translation would be: to be available (in Jonas’ case for the mission).
Sloterdijk, P. (2016) Esferas I: bolhas (Spheres I: bubbles). Translated by José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
The bubbles and the other
25
Jun
Several authors wrote about the issue of the Other,
unfortunately there is still ignorance about the term, it has been reborn (in my opinion it has always existed in Christian philosophy, patristics largely treats the term as “neighbor” and Paul Ricoeur remembers this), Habermas wrote about the Inclusion of the Other which would be the borders of communities open to all, Byung-Chul Han wrote The Expulsion of the Other, when reflecting on communication today, however Emmanuel Lévinas and Paul Ricoeur treated it with originality and richness.
We have already posted something about Lévinas read by Byung-Chul Han which recalls his concept of “il y a” in which he analyzes a functional aspect of the ethical relationship, making it transcend. It must be said that it is not Hegel’s ethics, for him the principle the exit from being to existence, passing from being to its raw state, is leaving the solitude of “il y a”, thus giving meaning to existing.
From Paul Ricoeur we post in some excerpts the relationship between the “partner” and the neighbor, the first is utilitarian and the second really “transcends”, but his seminal work is the Self as another (published in 1990, in Portuguese on Brazil in 2014 by Martins Fontes), he is careful to ensure that the self is not left aside, since it is common to see the Other eliminating the self, even though in the phenomenological relationship an “epoché” is always necessary. ”, but placed in parentheses.
But here we want to move on to the concept of bubbles in Spheres I by Peter Sloterdijk, he exposes his spherology, a way of defining and problematizing what it means to “be in the world”, since we come from a sphere that is the maternal womb, and leave to the sphere of our planet, and he creates a concept of immunology to give meaning to his idea of a social means of communication that is co-immunity. It is curious that the term came well before the pandemic.
It is curious that the author, who does not see religion as something objective, does not fail to analyze in his work concepts that come from the “culture” of Christianity when speaking, for example, of a despiritualized asceticism that applies to many religious people today, and of The Matrix in Gremio (on the mother’s lap, a clear allusion to Mary) and here we highlight the Eucharist (it is not the orthodox concept, obviously).
When talking about bubbles, a special topic is “Of Eucharistic excess”, this mutual incorporation is described in illustrative episodes that constitute the European tradition of cordiality in his view, which for us Latins could be an adjective of miseri-cordis, has a heart that humbly welcomes the heart of others, and its “excess” would be better understood.
It narrates three episodes on this topic, the first is from the period of the chivalric troubadour of the 13th century by the poet Conrad of Würzburg, in which the impossible troubadour adultery of a knight and a lady is brought to fruition only with the unconscious consummation of the boy’s heart by the girl, of course it’s about human love here.
In second example, the author also deals with the testimony of Raymond of Capua (1330-1399) that gains chorus, in which Catherine of Siena (a very wise Catholic saint) who has her heart exchanged for that of Christ himself revealed, marking the spherical communion of the human with the divine, and here we understand its adjective of “eucharistic excess”.
The third is more philosophical and takes up Plato’s classical philosophy, an adaptation made by Marcílio Ficino of Plato’s Symposium, with the influence of medieval medicine he imagines that Phaedrus penetrates, with a clear medieval adaptation, with blood vapors that came from his heart and extrapolated from their own eyes, the others of Lysias, with this inflates his heart making him fall in love with Phaedrus.
Lysias’ speech, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, talks about the enchantment caused by the art of using logos beautifully, with the intention of persuading, he elaborates a beautiful and “logical” speech to say that it is more advantageous to give oneself to someone who is not in love than a lover, he exerts a phenomenon called apathê on Phaedrus.
Sloterdijk’s important point is that we are all subject to our bubbles, our preconceptions and only with this resource thought by Lísias, seeing the other non-lover and not close, as a possible delivery can we begin a process of rapprochement, in the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer the “fusion of horizons”.
What perspective do we have on the different Other and how can we carry out an “apathê” that becomes a favorable and interesting encounter, a possible communication.
Sloterdijk, P. Spheres I (2016). trans. José Oscar de Almeida Marques, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
The war could spread to the East
24
Jun
The inclusion of more protagonists in a war
environment encourages its escalation, and Russia’s response to the meeting in Switzerland was immediate.
Putin met with the president of North Korea, one of the most closed and warlike countries in the world, and then went to North Vietnam in search of cooperation for the war in Ukraine, South Korea’s reaction was immediate, the South president -Korean Yoon Suk-Yeol stated: “It is absurd that two parties with a history of launching invasion wars, the Korean War and the war in Ukraine, now promise mutual military cooperation based on the premise of a preemptive strike by the commonwealth. international situation that will never happen”, however it is a clear threat.
The document called the “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty” has the same spirit as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which provides assistance from the entire bloc to any attack that a member suffers, Russia already has the partnership of Belarus, and This is how the alliances that preceded the second war seem to have been formed, at the time the Axis was Germany, Italy and Japan, and later Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia (Finland, which did not participate) also joined forces. Stalin of Russia even agreed to the agreement and then, betrayed, he became an enemy of the Axis and joined the Alliance that was fighting them (USA, France and United Kingdom).
One can imagine that this climate was absurd, people who lived in peace allied themselves in this way, but if we look at our daily lives today it is no different, if we look at the almost always polarized vision and creating narratives for wars we can understand how this climate installs, wanting peace is also an option and few think so, at this moment the Korean president highlights in his speech the clear idea that the country sees no reason for war, but does not rule out sending aid to Ukraine and thus a new pole of conflict comes up.
Reacting passively in a conflict does not mean omitting oneself or otherwise, it is the toughest position because it shows that there are mistakes whenever the resource is war, reading a narrative is not the narration, as stated by Byung-Chul Han and Walter Benjamin (The narrator), remember that the story told by Herodotus of King Psammenit “serves as an example of his art of narration” (Han, 2023, p. 21).
In it the Egyptian king Psammenit when defeated in war by the Persian king Cambyses, a after seeing her daughter reduced to a servant and her son being taken to be executed, she remains with her eyes to the ground, but upon seeing among her servants prisoners, an elderly and frail man “hit her head with his fists and expressed deep sadness” (Han, 2023, p. 22) because perhaps I would prefer to be in that poor man’s place, war destroys our deepest humanity, the narrative distorts and dehumanizes history.
Therefore, a sensible, serene narration is needed, the current war potential of the world can lead us to the most serious civilizational crisis far beyond barbarism and could reach extermination or an insurmountable limit of hatred and violence, we have hope for peace if there are still peaceful people. The biblical reading says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God!” (Mt 5, 9).
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração. Translate: Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
