Posts Tagged ‘peace’
The position of power and symmetry
25
Aug
As we elaborated in the previous post, power is always a hierarchical
position and so the final decision and the instruments of oppression are the positions only of those who occupy the highest positions in the hierarchy and what remains at the base of the pyramid is rebellion or resignation.
If power is necessary, it is up to those in the post to exercise it with discernment and generosity, the ideal would be that they were in fact at the service, but with rare exceptions, most use the post, and in general all those who who sophism with power.
The Platonic and Aristotelian model assumed that the polis could be governed by those who were well prepared and for this they created instruments for the formation of the citizen of the polis, the politician par excellence.
The evolution of this model reached the Enlightenment, and practically all current models (there are some exceptions in Africa and in Asian countries) this is the model of power of most nations, by force, by vote or by what Byung Chul Han called psychopolitics, deceiving peoples.
But it is important to remember that there is power disseminated throughout the social structure, and also that there are networks (they may or may not use media) and through them each one can exercise their action for a better, more symmetrical world with greater reciprocity between co-citizens.
Sloterdijk created the model of co-immunity, but they presuppose that some “evil” always prevails, something like the “discontent of humanity”, what we call here the civilizational crisis, the absence of a real model to oppose the prevailing dictatorial models. or on an increasing scale, there is a return to the crises of the beginning of the century, precisely because there was no opposition to the root of the model: the Enlightenment and the idealist.
The economic reasons are consequences and not the root of these models, as Edgar Morin intended when emphasizing that there is no way to change without changing the roots of thought, Heidegger also says that abandoning the revolution in thought is not allowing real change in society, and that it is basically the reason why we reverted to the theses before the first war, that is, we repeated history.
Symmetry, reciprocity, understanding of human diversity and respect for it are almost always ignored by the models of the beginning of the last century, returning to them is nothing but a foreshadowing of a greater tragedy: the civilizational crisis with deeper roots than the previous ones. .
Who will suffer the most will be the base of the pyramid of power, but the volume of military power can lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, only solidarity, fraternity and reciprocity can avoid and redirect this crisis.
Power and violence
24
Aug
Historically, peaceful peoples or peoples with little defense 
structure were dominated by imperialist peoples, often justified by social values or noble causes, but the practice in the end is domination, developed by Max Weber.
In recent history, the ideas of the “sovereign” by Hobbes and the “prince” by Machiavelli started the idea of the State even in the period when there were kings (in England and other countries there are still), and later they were reworked by Kant and Hegel, where the concepts of city-state and citizenship from classical antiquity have been recovered and updated, but this is the idea of modern power.
The idea of democracy in the American sense of the word was developed by Alexis de Tocqueville, which is at the same time a compliment to the American model, but has gaps in interpretation that allow for a critical analysis.
The idea that all power emanates from the people, despite being an ideal model in the broadest sense of the word, is really the final project of idealism, but Sloterdijk notes that the model of “human domestication” has failed, there are two wars in the so-called “advanced” countries. ” and one lurking.
The most recent analyses, which deal with the “de facto” power present in forms of domination and ideological control of populations (ideology here in a broad sense) depart from Michel Foucault’s analysis that there are disparate, heterogeneous and constantly changing forms of how this power is exercised, so it is everywhere and not in an institution or in someone, where it develops the concepts of biopower and micropower.
Byung Chul Han, disciple and in line with Peter Sloterdijk, develops the most advanced form that we have today, which is psychopower, not only through the control of news and fake news, but especially through the relationships that develop socially where there is no reciprocity, what what Chul Han calls “symmetry”.
He says there is no symmetry in any form of power or in communication (so all communication is a form of domination and power), there is only symmetry where there is “respect”. and so the most “violent” form of politics today is to disrespect the adversary in various ways.
This is everyday violence, that it advances to its cruelest form which is war is nothing but a consequence, so violence begins in the actions of psychic violence in everyday life.
As Chul-Han establishes: “power is an asymmetrical relationship. It grounds a hierarchical relationship” (HAN, 2019, p. 18) and it is the basis of all social and political violence, a power that is truly democratic must re-elaborate the symmetry or reciprocity between citizens and the state.
Han, Byung Chul. (2019) No enxame (In the swarm). Brazil, Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes.
The war grows
23
Aug
While the war in Ukraine continues, now with tension points in the
Crimea annexed by the Russians, China continues with “exercises” close to the island of Taiwan. This Sunday (21/08) 12 aircraft and five ships were sighted, with 5 planes crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
The war escalates into violence with the death of the daughter Darya of Russian ideologue Alexandr Dugin, who makes a philosophical mix of Lenin, Stalin with Nietzsche, Weber Heidegger and others, an authentic philosophical Russian salad. Darya’s car exploded and caught fire killing her in the blaze.
In the last few hours Ukraine has attacked the Russian administrative headquarters in Donesk and Russian ships in Crimea, the war is now total there and the capital Kiev can be attacked again.
In a statement yesterday (22/08), China reacted to the speech of the American ambassador Nicholas Burns, who accuses it of being “manufacturing crises”, saying that the US practiced “an empty rhetoric, and a hegemonic logic” and the temperature between the two richest and most militarily strong nations is rising.
The rapprochement between Russia and China is increasing, and the American government sees this as a strong threat, since it creates two major conflict fronts and in different parts of the planet, the danger of a war of unimaginable proportions grows.
One hope would be the meeting of the G20, a group of the 20 richest nations, in which the USA, Japan, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Indonesia, where it will be the 37th. G20 meeting in Bali.
The date of November 15th and 16th, however, is very distant and tensions are emergency, the UN has not made progress in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, in a highly polarized world, there is a lack of reliable interlocutors in conflict environments.
It is no exaggeration to say that we are on orange alert, approaching red due to the threats and rhetoric of the great nations of the planet.
There is always hope, in many cases in history there is an inflection point where the curve reverses its trend, in this each a tendency towards peace.
The origin and crisis of humanism
17
Aug
The two wars and the current tension Russia x Ukraine and
China x Taiwan, which are nothing but the tension now between two types of colonial systems, capitalist imperialism and ideological imperialism, which is not just Marxist or communist, because this requires a discussion on the topic.
His proposal, according to Sloterdijk himself, were well understood by the participants, however in the reaction of the philosophers there was a “fascist” content in them, which is the genetic selection of humanity, or the induction of this change.
I also had this reaction in a first reading, in my case the criticism of Heidegger’s “Letters on Humanism”, one of the central themes that it addresses, in addition to the questioning it makes of the conception of humanism, its great contribution is in understanding the ontic relationship ontological, inverting Heidegger’s precedence of the ontological over the ontic.
In practice it means a revision of the clearing motif, as the incorporation of its natural history over the social one (Sloterdijk, 1999, p. 61), means that there is a natural dimension on the ontological.
Personally, I prefer not to submit one dimension to another, I say that they cooperate, something similar to what Henri Bergson wrote in his “Creative Evolution” (1907), but adhering to the mystical, and it is clear that this depends on a cosmovision with some religious background.
Sloterdijk’s review of Plato’s “Politics” (Sloterdijk, 1999, p. 47-56) develops the origins of humanism in Antiquity, in his view, linked to the exercise of an inhibition, that of the habit of reading capable of pacifying, to tame, to develop patience, in opposition to the frenetic amusements of the “uninhibited homo inhumanus”.
The Platonic metaphor supposes that these different natures are found in Being, that is, they are ontological, and as raw material to form the Greek citizen (the politician), there is the artifice of separating them in order to have the desired configuration for their function. in the polis.
It must be remembered that the Greeks also already spoke of areté, the exercise of virtue, to use Sloterdijk’s term “a life of exercises”, but the German philosopher’s view is that this project fails, and in our analysis that includes the mystic , means that there is an abandonment of areté.
Thus, I am not making a blind defense of Sloterdijk here, I only note that his criticism of humanism is to this “peacemaking” project of man, hence why the “rules of the human park”, his suggestion of ontic nature, do not necessarily mean manipulation. genetics.
Behind this question is the question whether man is good or bad, as the Enlightenment contractualists did when defining the role of the state, so Sloterdijk’s question proceeds.
The Silicon War and the Hedgehog
16
Aug
We have already posted the power that Taiwan is in the production of
chips, which are mostly produced from silicon, but the sand from which the silicon is taken comes from China, of course, and from other countries, but this depends on the transom of ships at sea and this is China’s strategy.
The disproportion between population and troop strength is huge, China has 1.4 billion inhabitants while Taiwan has 24.5 million inhabitants, China’s military strength is over 2 million while Taiwan is close to 170,000, in this effective the smallest disproportion is for the navy of 240,000 for China and 40,000 for Taiwan.
Thus, Taiwan’s so-called “porcupine” strategy consists of counterattacking with painful thorns, that is, instead of acquiring expensive fighter jets and submarines, it deployed mobile and hidden defensive systems, with anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles and these will be the “painful thorns”.
The sacrifice of civilian lives is inevitable, although condemnable by all kinds of war agreements, mistakes in strategy, wrong targets and even the hatred that wars generate end up reaching innocent people who barely understand the real reasons for wars and trade disputes. .
In any case, this would have a limited duration due to the disparity of forces, so they will need to act on other fronts: financial, commercial and informational (including cybernetics already underway).
While China plans to strangle and isolate the rebel island and Taipei perfects the porcupine strategy, the Americans are left in the ambiguity of trying to maintain good relations with China on the one hand and on the other hand not revealing the support they can give Taiwan in attack case, but analysts say it will.
The war in Ukraine is but a separate chapter in the ideological aspect of this issue, as Russia and China are political allies who want to destroy the forces of Western capitalism, although both have absorbed aspects of free enterprise.
There is a third force on this chessboard which are the Islamic countries, Turkey and Iran in particular, and they may represent an imbalance of forces that keeps the tension in a pre-World War II stage, where a full confrontation would lead to a nuclear crisis.
Are there forces for peace? Yes, but they seem weakened, the UN cannot play a mediating role and in some cases, such as amnesty international, there have also been ideological defections on both sides.
Humanity has always managed to get out of these civilizational snares and crises, at the moment it is difficult to find these answers, even thinkers like Edgar Morin or Peter Sloterdijk seem to be a collapse of world proportions, perhaps a force superior to what most men believe, something superhuman or supernatural.
Freedom, Tolerance and Peace
12
Aug
The popular adage says: “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”,
this thought would extend to tolerance and Peace, where they cease to exist, freedom also ends up being curtailed.
Not only do the authoritarians want to limit freedom, there are also authoritarian models that try to justify themselves in the name of promises that they do not fulfill: justice, public morality and the well-being of their fellow men, for all this, it always depends on spaces for the different and the dialogue.
The first act of a war is to eliminate those who are different, the second is to establish a state of exception that allows those in power to feed the fuel of intolerance for war.
It is not a national issue, the extent of these tensions already has global contours, even Amnesty International, an exempt and generally tolerant body, already presents distortions in its actions and its reports are questionable.
The Pandemic generated a global problem, however, not even this common “enemy” made us solidarity, we could not read a great civilizing distress signal and with this others will come.
So, what is our reaction to the lack of solidarity and peace? Pinochet.
For a more just and fraternal world, not only words are needed, but actions that are in fact affirmative to implement tolerance, the right to difference and social freedom.
To those who believe, the biblical word is very clear, because an announcement of a civilization of solidarity and peace requires action, it is written in Luke (12,49-51): “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I would like was already lit. I must receive a baptism, and how anxious I am until this is accomplished! Do you think that I came to bring peace on earth? On the contrary, I say to you, I came to bring division.
It is a clear watershed between true Christians and those who think only of heavenly peace.
The idealistic model of in-tolerance
10
Aug
Modernity brought to light a model where some individuals, ideologies or
cultures would be superior to others, in the Kantian logic of the categorical imperative: “act in such a way that you are a model for others”, so this is the ideal of perfection and its ethical basis. .
The reaction we are experiencing is not the supposed ideological polarization, but a civilization that assumes that belonging to a certain group indicates greater or lesser civilization, it is not, therefore, an attitude of tolerance or “benevolence” towards the other, but imposing a model civilizing.
In a society that gave voice to almost everyone, there are still oppressions in dictatorial countries, what is a model starts to be questioned and in this sense there is a clash between models that can be called ethical, and those whose ethics are the norm of a certain sector. in the power.
The other then can be seen as inferior, abnormal, wild, uncivilized or even intolerant when a standard is imposed as being the “correct” or “civilized”, in practice it is a clash between authoritarian thoughts of two or more different hues, which do not fail to include the religious and the “culturally civilized”.
Understanding that history was written and is still dictated by political groups, editorials from culturally “civilized” sources means a possible historical, epistemological and even scientific critique of modern thought.
Conservative forces, of different shades, it is good to explain are on one side of the pressure and want the tension to remain only between them, the forces that are really contrary and that know that this tension is nothing but a dispute over the market and interests. , are the real opponents of these models, but there is little or no support from power.
Thus, war only favors the powerful and their interests, while peace is only thought of if there is an interest in those that history has neglected: the vanquished, that those peoples who historically contradicted the logic of the war of the powerful also make themselves present in the agony of a civilization in crisis.
In the map above, the concentration of the World GDP, with the USA, China, part of Europe, India and some countries in Arabia highlighted.
At the beginning of this war scenario, we dealt with the analysis of the bad agreements at the end of the first two wars, the submission of the colonized countries and now the confrontation of the powers under the cloak of political struggle, the power and control of markets is at stake.
China and Taiwan prepare for war
09
Aug
Long before the visit of the US Mayor Nancy Pelosi, on
Taiwan, the crisis of China and Taiwan grown up, we had already posted here the intensification of the Chinese struggle to regain possession of the Island of Taiwan, which since 1949, when China became communist, declared itself an independent democratic republic.
In the post at the time, we show of the countries that voted for resolution 2758 (from 1971), 35 voted for Taiwan, 76 in favor of the presence of the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) as the representative entitled to a seat at the UN, and so on. Taiwan was left without representation.
The map of the six Chinese exercise areas, wrote former Australian General Mick Ryan on his Twitter, “clearly traces where the Chinese think the main operational areas are for their strategic deterrence of Taiwan”, Mick Ryan is an adjunct member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, showing that the Chinese tactic is to strangle and isolate the rebel island.
The island with 23 million inhabitants, has consolidated itself with an increasingly independent economy, and is the leader of the world semiconductor market, currently has 54% of the market for chips made by its company TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and this is a strong reason for dispute, as Chinese electronics companies have high growth.
Taiwan’s defense tactics are not clearly exposed, apparently the Chinese provocation did not trigger the island’s alarms and sirens, the island’s defense strategy entitled “Porcupine” is not clearly exposed, but unlike the Ukraine war it may attack areas China’s internal affairs, which according to this strategy would have long and painful “inflammation” periods.
The archipelago of Taiwan has several small islands and on one of them, the tips aviadas to avoid landings are the ones that most resemble the quills of pigs.
The difference in military contingent and armament is huge, but the Americans promise direct help to the small island, of course this whole scenario is regrettable and not very desirable for world peace.
Japan had part of its maritime area invaded and protested with energy promising to respond, in short, it is an increasingly dangerous scenario and it is necessary for the peacekeeping forces to be mobilized.
The threatened peace is increasingly a civilizing distress call open to humanitarian forces.
People who changed the course of history
03
Aug
For centuries in the Iranian plain the Semitic and Akkadian
peoples dominated and established their civilization there, the Medes and Persians settled later and until the period between 500 BC. and 448 BC. the Persians established a domain and started conflicts with the Greeks, the so-called Medical Wars.
The city-states of Greece came together and managed to impose their cultural and society model on the peoples and started a new cultural process called Classical Antiquity, the Greek polis, art and the civilizing model would be established, including a cultural return in a later period. called renaissance.
These empires disappeared without leaving any traces and only historical records, the marks of cruelty, decadence and impiety of the warlike forces of these empires disappeared.
In times of civilizational crisis, it is good that peoples who had not only a great military force, but also a great cultural appeal, managed to change the course of history and strengthen the civilizing process in a broader democratic and cultural direction.
Great empires such as the Persians, the Roman, the Mongol empire (picture) and more recently the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires also went into crisis and succumbed, unfortunately not without wars and with great loss of civilian life and a critical analysis of wars is always important. .
Part of this story, forces that mobilize peace and dialogue took humanity from even greater scourges that could occur and if we cannot avoid wars, we can maximize efforts so that civilian human lives are spared.
History also teaches that peoples that were not empires and even numerous can and should influence the course of history from a civilizational experience, like the Greek polis and the world today lacks models that can unite humanity in a solidary effort for peace. .
War: current affairs and possible scenarios
02
Aug
The release of a grain ship from Ukraine is an important symbolic
factor, although Ukraine bombed Russia’s HQ in Crimea while Russia killed Oleksly Vadatursky, founder and owner of one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural companies.
The symbolism is important and it is a relief because the confiscation of grain could cause a cascading price surge that would affect the price of food around the world.
The war, however, is far from having an announcement of peace and denunciations of atrocities by Ukraine (a video of the castration of a Ukrainian soldier by Russians was removed from twitter) and Russia, which protested the attack on the Crimea HQ.
There is controversy among experts about the future of 20% of Ukraine’s territory that is already occupied by Russia, most consider it impossible to retake these areas without civilian deaths and this would be a turning point for Ukraine in its narrative of placing Russia as ruthless and cruel.
In the middle of European summer, the European Union achieves a 15% reduction in gas consumption, to try to guarantee a stock for the winter, but Russia’s dependents will be more vulnerable from the end of October, the gas pipelines are simpler than the transport of liquefied gas which even makes it more expensive, in Germany, for example, the demand is great.
In the most worrying future scenario, the 10th will start again. Review Conference on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Agreement, yesterday Biden made a statement hoping that there would be “good faith” to carry out the agreement, clarifying that even in the cold war there was never a rupture of talks and the scenario of the war now worries more deep.
According to May 2019 data from the World Nuclear Association (WNA), there are 447 nuclear reactors in operation in the world and they are in 30 countries, each of which is also a nuclear hazard, either by disaster. natural as in Fukushima in March 2011, or due to operating errors like Chernobyl in April 1986.
It is worth remembering that each plant is also a potential bomb and could be bombed in a war, it is likely that the new nuclear agreement will include this aspect.
