Posts Tagged ‘paz’
The Other as a political category
In the history of philosophy, Being, Entity and Essence were three fundamental metaphysical categories, as modern philosophy threw the “dirty water with the child in the basin”, in addition to the forgetfulness of Being as pointed out by Heidegger and his interpreters and dialogues (Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Sloterdijk, Byung-Chul Han and others), there is also a rediscovered, or even new, category from outside religious culture: the Other, seen as the “neighbor”, the “brother” or the “faithful”.
Paul Ricoeur wrote about the neighbor and the partner, to differentiate the relations between the two in the modern utilitarian relationship, but also Lévinas (Time and the Other), Martin Buber (I and You) and Byung-Chul Han, in a more contemporary analysis, wrote The Expulsion of the Other, but Junger Habermas’ work “The Inclusion of the Other – Studies in Political Theory” is one, as the title says, that tries to include this analysis within the modern polis, it says in the introduction: “I defend the content rational basis of a morality based on the same respect for all and the general joint responsibility of each one for the other” (Habermas, 2002, p. 7) and condemns the distrust of a universalism marked more by the appeal to difference than “the same respect for everyone extends to those who are similar, but to the person of the other or others in their otherness” (idem).
The author says: this moral community is not just the mere inclusion of the Other (pg. 8)”, but the “inclusion of the other” means that the borders of the community are open to everyone – also and precisely to those who are strangers who are strangers each other – and they want to continue being strangers and constituted exclusively by the idea of discrimination and suffering” (pg. 8 and the entire first part of the book refers to this issue.
The second part refers to a reply and a discussion with John Rawls, who was invited by the editor of the Journal of Philosophy, where he analyzes in terms of concepts, the moral institutions that guide Rawls and clarifies that his reply also serves the purpose of clarifying “the differences between political liberalism and a Kantian republicanism as I understand it” (pg. 8), I remember that also Paul Ricoeur “The Just or Essence”, written in two volumes, also aborted the ideas of John Rawls.
The third part of the book “intends to contribute to the clarification of a controversy that resurfaced in Germany after reunification. I continue to follow the line that I began in the past in an essay on `Citizenship and National Identity’” (pg. 8), but the author knew that the theme would be so current today.
The fourth part was one of the motivations for this post, as Byung-Chul Han talks about Kant’s eternal peace, the author talks about human rights at a global and national level (in Germany obviously), on the occasion of the bicentenary text on Peace Kant’s perpetual, “The light of our historical experience”.
The book will have a no less thought-provoking fifth part on “the theory of discourse regarding the conception of democracy and the rule of law” (pg. 9) and this is all just the author’s preface, and the first topic is about the cognitive aspect of morality, which must be prior to the other chapters, as it presents its foundations.
The author writes: “moral manifestations bring with them a potential of motives that can be updated with each moral dispute” (pg. 10) and thus “moral rules operate by making references to themselves” (idem) and will establish “for this two levels retroactively coupled to each other” (pg. 12).
At the first level, they direct social action immediately, to the extent that they compromise the will of the actors and guide it in a determined way” (pg. 12).
At the second level, “they regulate critical positions in the case of conflict… it does not just say how members of the community should behave… it provides reasons to consensually resolve conflicts of action” and sees this in a way very analogous to Wittgenstein’s language games where polyphony is established.
The theme is close to Byung-Chul Han’s Narration Crisis because both, and this also includes John Rawls and Martin Buber although in quite different ways, as Han clarifies: “the face requires distance. He is a You, and not an available It” (pg. 96), and penetrating Communicative Theory, Habermas’ great thesis, Han sees so much in his idea of psychopolitics in the Swarm from a digital perspective, that the only possibility of symmetry is respect , power relations are asymmetrical, and for him so are communicative ones.
Who is the Other, the one I meet and who is often very different from me, if he wishes me peace, says the biblical passage, we will sit and have dinner together.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Trans. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Habermas, Jürgen (2002) A inclusão do outro – Estudos de Teoria política. (Die Einbeziehung des Anderen – Studien zur politischen Theorie). Trans. Georg Sperber, Paulo Astor. Edições Loyola, São Paulo, Brasil.
The disenchantment of the world and hope
War is the height of disenchantment, but it is reproduced in narratives, intolerance and small everyday wars that cause the expulsion of the Other, especially when there are different interpretations and visions of what the “facts” are, but they use small wars hidden in their narratives and in a restricted context where it is valid.
The disenchantment of the world, now taken up by the crisis in Byung-Chul Han’s narration, was once the theme of Max Weber who referred to the phenomenon as a process in which the modern subject began to strip away customs and beliefs based on inherited traditions or learned under the fixed pillars of religions or “magic”, nothing more convergent with Han, however it is important to understand how this penetrated the language.
To be coherent with the theme, the final chapter of the Narration Crisis (there is another one in I know it is Storyselling, but I opt for the resistance of the spirit), which we posted notes on last week, begins with the narration of Peter Nadás, of a village that gathered around a large wild pear tree, and there they tell stories to each other, it forms a narrative community “that carries values and norms, intimately linking values and norms” (Han, 2023, p. 121), in it the village indulges in “ritual contemplation”.
Nadás says at the end of his essay: “I still remember how, on hot summer nights, the village used to sing softly […] under the big wild pear tree […] Today there are no more of those trees, and the singing of the village has become silent” (Han, 2023, p. 122, citing Nadás), and “this community without communication gives way to communication without community”.
He imagines like other authors, even cites Kant’s Pax Eterna, but his philosophy also constructed the modern narrative, and says as Edgar Morin dreamed and imagines a radical universalism “a global family” beyond nation and identity (pg. 125 and says “poetry elevates each individual through a peculiar connection with everything else” quoting Schriften Novalis, and this narrative community rejects the exclusionary narrative of identity.
“Political action in an emphatic sense presupposes a narrative” (pg. 126) and presupposes a narrative coherence, recalls Hannah Arendt “for action and speech, whose close interrelationship in the Greek conception of politics we have already discussed [in this blog as well], are in fact the two activities that, in the last instance, always result in a story, that is, in a process that, however arbitrary and random it may be in its individual events and causes, it still has enough coherence to be narrated” (Han, 2023, p. 127), I remember in previous posts Arendt’s idea, also used by Byung-Chul of vita activa and vita contemplativa.
From the final chapter I take advantage of his “To live is to narrate. Humans, as animal narrans, differ from animals in that they are capable of realizing new forms of life through narration. Narration has the power of a new beginning” (pg. 132) which is a sign of hope for humanity in a growing crisis.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023). A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Trans. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Narratives, wars and dangers
In one of Byung-Chul Han’s recent essays, while the author remembers Hyppolyte de Villemessant, founder of the French newspaper Figaro and Walter Benjamin, essayist and philosopher who died in the 40s, the author does not fail to associate the modern narrative associated with new media, with storytelling called storyselling (product that sells).
Thus, instead of provoking a reflection on the major problems of today, including the escalation of wars, the problem is old: “the reader of a modern newspaper jumps from one piece of news to another, instead of letting his gaze wander into the distance, and linger there. The long, slow and lingering look was lost” (Han, 2023, p. 17), that is, there is no reflection.
So it’s about creating a narrative favorable to this or that ideological vision, logic and humanity don’t matter, even in the face of tragedies we are more busy (not all of them fortunately) in creating a narrative to justify a certain position than to defend a principle. humanitarian, there is this or that war, but all of them kill innocent people, all of them, as Eduardo Galeano said, hide desires for power and exploitation over the nation to be dominated, but great empires have succumbed despite all the arrogance and genocides.
The resurgence of the war in Ukraine, the threats to the last stronghold of Palestinian refugees, the constant threats to Taiwan, in addition to incursions into Africa and now even South America, Venezuela is once again threatening Guyana with intense troop movements and provocations between the USA and Iran, warlike spirits ignite and even good but innocent people embark on these narratives, there is no other interest in wars: looting, deaths of innocent people and inhumanity.
There is no shortage of meetings between nations in Brazil, Europe and attempts to sensitize governments to the dangers of this war escalation around the world, but they come up against partial and partisan narratives, few minds are aware of the serious and civilizing danger of this escalation. , around the world, armaments are the only response that seems to reach the rulers, and so narratives of “heroic acts” of warlike events grow around the world that should shame those who invoke humanitarian principles, with the UN being the wars and environmental problems that have led starve more than 700 million people.
Even for a biblical or historical narration, where the intention is to build a “whole” narrative, there is a call for humanitarianism, when Cain kills his brother Abel, the divine question is “where is your brother?” (Genesis 4,9) and the narration suggested by Byung -Chul Han is that of the Egyptian king Psammenit who was captured by the Persian king Cambyses, and after the defeat makes the king humiliate when he sees his daughter turned into a slave and his son being taken to be executed (Han, pg. 21), however the Egyptian king only felt when he saw an elderly and frail servant among the prisoners and “hit his head with his fists and expressed deep sadness” (pg. 22), so the narration, says Han, “needs no explanation” (Han, pg. 22).
If we are capable of long, slow and lingering reflections, it is not difficult to understand the danger of the escalation of wars, of simple people like Psammenit’s service who suffer and die for issues that they barely understand, and that the narratives do not explain, they only try to justify the unjustifiable: death, jokes and lies.
As the philosopher Morin states, it takes resistance of the spirit, we are gradually losing the sense of love, hope and solidarity and if we read and investigate the news and facts of the wars we will see that there was nothing in them other than great genocides, robberies and In situations of hunger and misery, it is necessary to resist hatred and violence.
Han B.C. (2023) A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Transl. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Ukraine may be just one step in the war
Fears are growing that the Russian advance in northern Ukraine will be able to reach and capture the city of Kharkiv, the second largest in Ukraine and of undisputed industrial and military importance, the scenario could be more serious than one thinks.
There is no ideological connection, but a tactical analysis of the second war, Germany, before invading Poland, annexed Austria, a country with many common traditions and a very similar linguistic structure, the event known as Anschluss (connection or annexation) occurred in May 11-13, 1938, the invasion of Poland took place on the 1st. from E
The basis of conflicts is always this: a certain culture, ethnicity or people considers themselves entitled to dominate other peoples due to their “superiority” by any criteria.
The signs that Russia would not stop there are in several speeches from the Kremlin, recently Putin said that NATO “is messing with fire”, and also claims possession of the Svalbart islands (map) currently owned by Norway, which has already been challenged by Putin who declared: “The Russia’s right to Svalbard cannot be challenged!”
On the NATO side, France had already declared the possibility of a direct NATO confrontation, financial aid continues to be sent, recently Estonia declared that it could send “rearguard” troops to assist Ukraine, however the country’s Defense Minister, Hanno Pevkur, told the European media outlet ERR on May 14 that such talks “got nowhere” in Tallin, and that Estonia would not make a decision alone, but this reveals that there were “talks”.
The US continues to send millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, but with the elections approaching this weakens the Biden government, the elections will take place in early November.
Another worrying news these days is that a helicopter carrying the President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs crashed this Sunday (19) while crossing a mountainous area in heavy fog upon returning from a visit to the Azerbaijan border, the information originated from the Iranian authority.]
Apparently the accident was due to fog, Raisi since being elected in 2021 is known for violent repression of anti-government protests and pushed nuclear negotiations with world powers, Iran is also an important player for its opposition to Israeli attacks in the Gaza region, now in its last stronghold, which is the Rafah region.
There is always hope when people show solidarity with the suffering, the floods in the south awaken the Brazilian people, but we cannot stop there as there are serious rates of illness in addition to the Zika virus that is taking over the country, CNN being the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has been alerted to the outbreak.
Is hanging by a thread from a civilizational disaster
Despite the immense damage already caused by wars, we highlight those that directly involve the imperialist powers, but we do not fail to look at “smaller wars”, the tone of the discourse of the forces involved, especially NATO and Russia, increased last week.
Russia says it is ready for a direct confrontation with NATO, accusing it of already being present in Ukraine, which was practically confirmed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, when he declared: “NATO today is helping as much as it can. Without NATO help, Ukraine would not be able to defend itself for so long,” and added to journalists: “Well, and there are some troops there [in Ukraine], I mean soldiers. There are some soldiers there, observers, engineers. They are helping them”, which is a confirmation.
Russia recently carried out military exercises with nuclear weapons, Russia and the USA together have more than 10,600 of the world’s nuclear warheads, out of the 12,100 that exist, followed by China, France and the United Kingdom, a provocation of this size is dangerous.
In the Middle East, Israel threatens to invade Rafah (in the photo above), the last border for Palestinian refugees, with more than 1 million people there and it can be said that now half of the population of Gaza is there, various political and diplomatic forces try to dissuade Israel from carrying out the invasion.
Diplomatic talks for a ceasefire have been going on for months without any results, Egypt and the USA are at the forefront of forcing an agreement, even if American troops support Israel, the humanitarian disaster would be immense as it hits the refugees hard.
There are dialogues, statements by forces for peace, however, those who take a unilateral position must understand that they increase the strength of the conflict and there is no neutrality, yes there is no neutrality in the humanitarian sense (always defend life), but politics is polarizing.
Edgar Morin talks about resistance of the spirit, other authors talk about truce, we posted last week about the “tonality of affection”, one that is neither plural nor polyphonic.
The big and the small
In politics, philosophy and even religion the idea of Great is always seen as power.
It may seem strange to use the term Great de Sloterdijk when referring to major political, economic and imperialist theories, but it is more appropriate for what he intended to talk about in his book “If Europe Awakens”, little read even in Europe, despite him being recognized as one of the greatest living thinkers.
I would say that being a thinker is already great, using his own term for philosophy, since as he states: “it is not a time for thinking”, we have to choose between dictators and narratives, instead it take the thread of history for a balanced civilization and happy.
Even in the religious world this is confused, Jesus did not proclaim or insist on any political current of his time, despite having the rebellious group on his side, Simon, the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot were zealots, a group that was rebellious to the Roman Empire.
Great empires succumbed and disappeared, one that is forgotten and little analyzed by historians are the Mongols, from the 13th and 19th centuries (see the globe above) being one of the largest in size and today reduced to a small country divided and dominated by China.
Europe has not woken up, Makron said in a dramatic tone last week at the Sorbonne: “Our Europe, today, is mortal. She can die, and that depends solely on our choices!”, the speech is right, but the intention is wrong, because shortly afterwards he talks about nuclear weapons.
The Great in spirituality, in times of despiritualized religions, are narratives around religiosity that talk little or nothing about this Great “megalopath”, as Sloterdijk calls him, but rather about the capacity for solidarity, of true love put into practice, of welcome and seek out the little ones and sufferers who live on the margins of inhumane society.
Francis of Assisi, was the son of Peter Bernardone, a rich and prosperous merchant whose son rejected him, Catherine of Siena was illiterate and her followers wrote wise and holy works for her, she had an influence on the return of Pope Gregory XI from Avignon to Rome, being ambassador of Florence, a city at war with the pope and which she pacified.
The West was experiencing a great schism, and she went with the Pope to Rome, sending numerous letters to princes and cardinals, to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI.
The West was experiencing a great schism, and she went with the Pope to Rome, sending numerous letters to princes and cardinals, to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI (successor).
Small men and small kingdoms made history, see ancient Greece, the Gauls during the Roman Empire, the Great, almost always imperial, warmongering and blind despite a temporary brutal imposition, always succumbed to the legitimate desires of peoples and nations.
Sloterdijk, Peter (2002). Se a Europa despertar. Trad. José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade (in portuguese).
The political animal and the ontological being
We imagine from most narratives that Greek politics is
a great model for contemporary society, but Sloterdijk’s correction is as accurate as possible: “The truth about the form of the world imagined by Plato and Aristotle is certainly that city and empire they are figures of the agrarian era” (Sloterdijk, 1999, p. 43).
It is difficult to believe, however, “if Plato defined political knowledge as a pastoral art in reference to featherless bipeds, then it is clear how agro-ontological motives advanced even in the fundamental definition of the essence of power in cities – agriculture and animal husbandry are the reservoirs of contemplation, from which political discourses must draw their plausibility, even if the gaze passes from the garden of the academy to the agora” (pg. 44).
The importance escapes even Sloterdijk, since in modern industrialized European society the “peasant experience” that even Heidegger blames is so, and the “extra-agrarian motives” came “from the workshops of artisans, namely blacksmiths, to advance in the consciousness of the political-philosophical world, and of the ports, a commander, in Greek kybernetes, could become a suggestive figure of power” (page 44).
Coexistence with nature is also resumed in Sloterdijk and his disciple Chul-Han: “it has always been a risk for the city that it uses more than creates man; more than that, it drives him to the last flowerings like reproductions that are too simple; in both the biological and cultural sense, it is more greenhouse than field or garden” (page 45).
Before the development of Chul-Han’s psychopolitics, it can already be found in Sloterdijk: “dominators, politicians and bosses are, according to this logic, above all detonators of functional cruelty – which they obviously do well to create for themselves, under names like reason of state, common good, justice, planning, among others, an acceptable face, if possible sincere” (page 47).
Sloterdijk develops here the true concept of “humanity” “breaks down here into groups that intensify through tensions, and groups that become stagnant in suffering, pain, in the great civilization, acquires a terrible double face; it acts in some as a stimulator, in others as an obstructer; for the minority, lack has an educational effect; for the majority, it acts as a destroyer of souls” (page 48), it is worth clarifying that Sloterdijk is not religious.
To conclude this post, she detects contemporary illness: “the intimate strangeness of master and servant now links them” (page 48) and “the paradox of exclusive inclusivity then takes its toll; people begin to hunt people, kill them in large numbers, exterminate entire hordes and tribes, sell and buy them… “ (page 49).
We have not yet moved far away from Zoom, the exclusivities and non-inclusivities are there.
SLOTERDIJK, Peter. 1999. No mesmo barco: ensaio sobre hiperpolítica (In the same boat: essay on hyperpolitics). Trans. Claudia Cavalcanti. Brazil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
Hyperpolitics and war
When Peter Sloterdijk wrote “All in the same boat: essay on hyperpolitics” we were on the threshold of the third millennium, Manuel Castells was writing Sociedade em Rede and Edgar Morin was writing about Cabeça Bem done, rethinking reform, reforming thought, they were attempts to wake up and make humanity move towards a less dark future.
Sloterdijk also wrote “If Europe awakens”, he calls it the Empire of the Center and pays attention to its colonialist past and the need for a new future and rethinks war, a topic so linked in the country that triggered the Second World War.
These are all thoughts that tried to redirect a dark future from the possibility of a new war. In Everyone in the Same Boat, Peter Sloterdijk revisits the political project that was born in classical antiquity, the attempt to organize the State, and says: “How can they “talk” to such large numbers of people and convince them to feel like they are participating in what is “great” – until they reach the willingness to face death in exercises of millions against forces of equal order of magnitude, in order to assure “their own “successors what ideologues call the future” (Sloterdijk, 1999, p. 31).
Contrary to the optimism of Castells and Morin, not only justifiable, but desirable, of a more civilized and humane future, Sloterdijk warns that this connected hypersphere, see that social media were just nascent for these three great thinkers, was for the German, a dangerous future of hyperpolitics.
“The first gestures of this instinctive holism are attempts to describe the cosmos as a larger house and people as larger families” (Slotertijk, p. 32), and adds that in fact, “homo politicus and homo methaphysicus belong together historically; promoters of the State and prospectors of God are evolutionary twins” (Sloterijk, p. 33), of course it is not the view of everyone, much less of men in power, the great statesmen who think in this holism no longer exist and now it is the empire of force and monolithic, authoritarian and hateful thinking.
The Greeks’ political project for him can be called “metallomaniac”, but he warns that this is the man who “meddles in big, bigger issues to have something that he will look at and then abandon. But should they call those who, once they have grasped great things, will never abandon them? I propose megalopaths” (page 34).
Also great empires: the Persian, the Roman, the Mongols who came to dominate half of Europe, the Turkish-Ottoman and more recently Napoleon and the “forgotten” colonies in Africa that were nothing more than an extension of the Central Empire, as Sloterdijk calls it the Europe.
“State Humanism has since been the search for a fair center – and since the Roman reception of this Greek idea, this search has carried its name still known today: Humanity” (pages 35-36).
Sloterdijk questions this model of homo politicus, the “pontifex maximus”, “how do we become raja? How do we become Caesar? How do we become consul, senator, emperor? How must someone live to enter the history books like Metternich, Lord Morlborough or Bismark? (page 37).
The idea of politics as metanoia, this was the initial intention of Paideia for example, is no longer true in war, Sloterdijk quotes Goethe: “the man who does not suffer scourges cannot be educated”.
Eminent danger of war and hope for peace
A drone attack on the Zaporizhzhia plant last week triggered an alert from Russia that promptly denounced the danger and consequences of a nuclear disaster would be dire.
It was not clear exactly what weapon was used against the nuclear plant (photo), only that they were drones and that one had been detonated on site. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has experts on site, said only that the information was “consistent” with the entity’s observations, that is, a drone had exploded near the Plant.
International analysts still see the conflict as unlikely due to the catastrophic risk due to the possibility of using nuclear weapons, in addition to conventional combat, the use of cyber and hybrid attacks would be put into motion, initially in Eastern Europe, but with the risk of expanding to Europe and other continents.
Even though NATO holds a significant advantage in both geopolitics, Finland and Sweden joined NATO and Hungary, which sought a position of neutrality, is now strengthened with a military technology agreement made with Sweden, which facilitated its entry into NATO.
Russia, however, has military capabilities combined with economic resources and the modernization of its military apparatus, in addition to a support agreement with China and North Korea, so maintaining peace and preventing conflicts must be done through constant dialogue, but Russian diplomacy continues to play hard and says that dialogue with NATO is “zero”.
Both Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov make statements that imply that the conflict with NATO is already underway, diplomatic strategy or pure rhetoric, the fact that tension levels are rising .
NATO responds with military exercises and troop movements on the borders, in January an exercise involved 90 thousand soldiers, new training was announced by NATO commanding general, Christopher Cavoli, the operation called Defensor Firme 24 (Steadfast Defender 24) had already been carried out in other years, but now it takes place amid an intensification of bombings against Kiev.
The hope is that the balance is fragile and both sides know this, and the risk of war would be catastrophic, even though analysts avoid saying that there would be limits on actions.
Polycrisis and hope
Rumors of confrontation between Russia and NATO have worsened in the last few hours, however, the hope for peace and the resistance of the Spirit, as portrayed by Edgar Morin, remain alive.
In addition to Morin’s polycrisis (just as poly is multiple and is also city polis, Krisis also has the meaning of decision-making power) professor Adam Tooze (Financial Times article), of history at Yale University (USA) expanded and updated: pandemics, droughts, floods, mega storms, forest fires, war in Ukraine (and now in the Gaza strip0, energy and food prices, etc.
In his reasoning, without directly pointing out the professor “discovers” the complexity and a new transdisciplinary vision of the “whole”: “A problem becomes a crisis when it challenges our ability to deal with it and, thus, threatens our identity. In a multiplicity of crises, the shocks are differentiated, but they interact in such a way that the whole is more ambiguous than the sum of its parts”, he states in the article. (in the image the painting by Tsherin Sherpa (Nepal), Lost Spirits, 2014.)
Morin said: “Linked to the domain of calculation in an increasingly technocratic world, the progress of knowledge is incapable of conceiving the complexity of reality and in particular human realities. The result is a return to dogmatism and fanaticism, and a crisis of morality while hatred and idolatries spread” (Newspaper La Repubblica, interview), however, beyond the polycrisis there are signs of hope.
While the Resistance of the Spirit invokes an understanding of the gravity and issues surrounding the current crisis, Hope (capitalized here) means this Spirit put into action and thus the achievement of a countercurrent spirituality that invokes values of change.
Those who immerse themselves in this Hope in different ways, are always willing to embrace the problems that everyone runs away from, to embrace the fragments of a polarized world, and to remember what unites as opposed to what disunites and polarizes, fortunately there are these spirits and I would call them Spirits of Resistance through Hope.
Go to the World and Bring the Good News, it cannot just be a biblical key, it is Living Hope.