Arquivo para July 23rd, 2020
The goodness and the power
23
Jul
The goodness is that which is a common good, it is practically irreconcilable 
with the temporal power, the one that submits the other by force, in whatever way this submission, collective practices of imposing values, subtle ways of making exclusion and especially the exercise of force gross.
A definition by Max Weber is worth: “how each chance to impose, within a social relationship, one’s own will even against reluctance, no matter what that chance is based on” (Weber, 1922) is in the first chapter of the book “Economics and Society ”whose German edition is from 1922, another interesting definition is that of Hanna Arendt:“ Conceptually speaking, this means: Power is, in fact, essential to all states, including all types of organized groups, whereas violence is not ”in his 1960 book which is about “Active Life”, but which in the translation into Portuguese and English became“ The human condition ”.
If it is possible for the common good to be established, accepting the condition of Hanna Arendt, it will not be through violence, but through nonviolent power, and a brief look at history can see the consequences of violence as a form of power, almost always new forms of exclusion and submission of some parts of the population, as unanimity is impossible, it is necessary to live with difference, this is the formula that precedes any good worthy of the name and sustainable.
The resurgence of nationalism, ideological polarization, and especially the return to forms of violence that seemed to be gradually banished from society, show the crisis of humanism, which did not start today, but at the beginning of the last century and witnessed two wars.
To imagine that some common good can be established by force is therefore contradictory with what legitimizes some form of reasonable power and capable of influencing the conscious portion of society, every other form is destructive and can hardly be sustained, but the limits of force are today scary: the nuclear possibilities and the use of “smart” machines.
Betting on confrontation and conflict proved to be in the past of two wars and several colonial wars disastrous and unsustainable, and in the near future the one that brought the most violent and truculent leaders to power.
In times of pandemic, and with a visible future for a vaccine, one could think of total disarmament and who knows with the billions spent on wars we would have funds to reactivate economies and the dangers of a dark future could be removed.
The lessons on nonviolence and solidarity have not yet been learned, even in the common struggle against the pandemic, although there is always hope for such clear and definite warnings
