Arquivo para November, 2024
Prudence and joy
29
Nov
The virtue of prudence can at first glance be
thought of as having a cautious, sensible and patient attitude, which can be its components, but it is more closely linked to the idea of a cautious joy that is also a joy.
The prudent have balance because in it they find peace and happiness, it is beyond being seen only as a religious virtue, some wise philosophers also noticed it, in Letter on Happiness he observes: “… of all these things, prudence is the principle and supreme good, which is why it is more precious than philosophy itself […]” (EPICURE, 2002, p. 45).
We have free will and we can make choices, in Epicurus’ view we can be happy if we stay in a balanced position of pleasure, which may seem like less joy, but it avoids the search as if something is missing and so we can fall into traps and unnecessary suffering if we go beyond a certain balance.
Someone may remember the biblical parable of the “prudent virgins” (Matthew 25:1) in which 10 virgins are waiting for the “bridegroom” and are carrying lamps (vessels for lighting wicks) in their lamps, but only 5 have enough oil and the other 5 are lacking it, in my opinion referring to virtues.
Of course, the bridegroom, in the biblical case, is Jesus, so we’re waiting for his second coming, but since there are four cardinal virtues, we need to add the fifth, which is Love, since in the presence of the divine we don’t need faith (the divine is already unveiled) nor hope (which is already achieved by those who have a lighted candle).
The accuracy of this parable is because prudence is explained in both religious and cultural terms. The biblical parables used by Jesus had this “didactic” aspect, and in this case this virtue becomes clearer: keeping the candle lit as a resource of wisdom, justice, fortitude and love, so that there is enough oil to keep us “waiting” for the divine.
EPICURE, (2002) Carta sobre a felicidade (A Meneceu) (Lettera sulla felicita). Tradução e apresentação de Álvaro Lorencine e Enzo Del Carratore. Brazil, São Paulo: Editora UNESP.
Wisdom and love in hominization
28
Nov
Wisdom is not the same as intelligence, culture
or cunning, it is something clear and pure that is full of life, so it is also a virtue, called cardinal along with justice, fortitude and prudence.
Culture is linked to the cultural tradition of peoples, it can and must be linked to wisdom because it is the only path that can help the process of civilization (or hominization as Edgar Morin calls it) become a safe and sustainable path.
Those who need to dominate by force walk the path of power, there may be something of intelligence there, in general there is, but it is used in the opposite direction to civilization, the argument that wars have helped evolution is only valid because they have learned bitter lessons from war, which they could have learned if intelligence were truly high and imbued with love.
Cunning is the most dangerous intelligence because it is generally linked to power and oppression, it creates intelligent paths, but they are full of traps for oneself and for others, it is not a path of solidarity and communion between peoples and cultures.
Cunning is the most dangerous intelligence because it is generally linked to power and oppression, it creates intelligent paths, but they are full of traps for oneself and for others, it is not a path of solidarity and communion between peoples and cultures.
So the virtue of nature is the one that brings man closer to divine consciousness, or to our divine consciousness, and in this way man finds a solid path to his hominization.
The wise man knows how to live in poverty and wealth, he knows how to control himself in war, prudence is the virtue that is most allied in this respect, he knows how to live in peace, he doesn’t get agitated by it because he knows that it is the true state of grace, those who need goods or abundance to live well are closer to vices than to virtues.
Along with love, the virtue of wisdom contains the others, together with prudence, courage (fortitude) and justice, not that of men, which is imperfect and without mercy, but divine justice.
The virtue of fortitude: the moral ethics of courage
27
Nov
Since ancient Greece, courage has been
associated with violent heroism and the ability to warily confront fear, but it is not this moral virtue called fortitude that is seen as one of the cardinal virtues.
We’ve already mentioned that in philosophy, the Englishwoman Philippa Foot dealt with this aspect of moral ethics and for this reason her ethics became known as virtue ethics.
Facing dangers and even trials (and provocations) means being aligned with the other two cardinal virtues: prudence and wisdom, as well as justice, but here’s another observation: human justice is merciless and legalistic, it doesn’t contemplate mercy and forgiveness.
Courage accompanied by prudence is the ability to pass life’s obstacles in order to overcome them so as not to reproduce hatred, violence and injustice, and so it must be produced and led by wisdom, which is not just culture and good reading.
In dark times it is particularly important because it takes courage to go through difficult situations and not lose one’s serenity, the ability to help others who are going through the same or even worse situation due to the hostile environment.
This is how we find people, true icons of this virtue of courage, who saved Jews from persecution (I’m reminded of the movie Schindler’s List), many characters who were true fortresses in the face of persecution and difficulties in the midst of war, the members of the Red Cross teams and and also the Red Crescent, the Islamic version of relief in the midst of catastrophes and wars.
They bring hope in the midst of chaos, so they also contemplate this theological virtue, and in many cases restore faith and charity, completing the theological trio.
In this way, they go against what everyone is trying to reject: the physical and moral pain suffered by those who find themselves in the midst of wars and catastrophes. We’ve already posted here about the importance of this hermeneutic of pain, for example, when we posted about “The Palliative Society: Pain Today” (Byung-Chul Han).
In this book, Byung-Chul quotes Ernst Jünger’s phrase: “Say what your relationship to pain is, and I’ll tell you who you are!” and that we can be seen as social and say what our relationship to society as a whole is, and that this is where the virtue of fortitude (courage) lies.
False prophets and hope
26
Nov
Bad religion and false prophecies are those that
do not announce the good news; there is no historical or truly prophetic reading of what the divine kingdom is: peace and hope.
Yes, it is true that we are in dark times, but it is still necessary to announce peace and hope. It is a fact that man has built civilization on wars and revenge to this day. However, it was peace and hope that developed agriculture, commerce, and the production of social goods. Even in the midst of wars, hope survived and made its way.
They are bad Bible readers. When the disciples asked when the times of destruction would come, the reading says in Luke 21:8-9, “Jesus answered, ‘Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, saying, “I am he!” And again: ‘The time is near’. Do not follow these people! When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away”
The reading about world conflicts continues (Luke 21:10-11): “And Jesus continued: “Nation will rise up against nation, and country will attack country. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues in many places; fearful things will happen and great signs will be seen in the sky”, but this is not the prophecy but rather what men will do before a time of peace and a true civilizing process on the planet. We learn more through pain than through reason and love. Even though these times are said to be rational, the vision of the whole, of the Earth as a homeland common to all peoples and nations, has not yet arrived. Worldly power prevails, attempts at plunder and revenge among peoples, and there is nothing divine in this, it is just the insanity of a shallow and antisocial rationalism.
The hope is that it will lead men to another level of civilization, that will help the poor, that will renew life and healthy models of development. Even what is considered a principle of sustainability is unable to manage the Earth’s resources.
A new civilization will be the one that survives these dark and intemperate times, as the forgotten cardinal virtues say (last week’s post by philosopher Philippa Foot): temperance, prudence, wisdom and courage are forgotten moral virtues, but not for everyone.
War escalation and hope
25
Nov
The use of long-range weapons by Ukraine and
hypersonic missiles that can carry atomic payloads have already been tested in the war, and the threat of war with European countries has even appeared on Russian TV and made headlines around the world.
NATO military bases in Germany, Warsaw and London appear on a supposed map of first strikes in case Russia feels threatened, internally it has already changed its statutes on the use of nuclear weapons, breaking international agreements, and the Kremlin has authorized an increase in the production of missiles for these nuclear payloads.
The psychology that can be understood about Putin is that he’s not bluffing, and the Nordic countries seem to be the most afraid of a Russian attack. Norway distributes a handbook to its population on what to do in the event of environmental disasters or wars, alluding to this, and Finland and Sweden (pictured above) have already prepared for this hypothesis and are new members of NATO.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah continues to escalate. On Saturday (23/11), an Israeli attack killed at least 11 people and injured 23. The type of missile used is capable of hitting even bunkers and, according to the authorities, there was a strong explosive explosion after the attack.
At least there are attempts at peace agreements there, but negotiations seem to be stagnating. In Eastern Europe, it is hoped that after the take office Donald Trump, who won the US elections, some kind of agreement will be reached, but Ukraine would certainly lose part of its territory.
Hope is never forgotten among people who want peace, more than that who reject hate speech and war, because many of those who talk about peace don’t really want it, they believe that some kind of “victory” is possible on battlefields, where everyone loses.
So we can do our bit, if the war becomes unpopular the governments will move, the only thing that can move them is public opinion, because not even a possible economic, environmental or civilizational catastrophe moves them, despite the rhetoric.
Bad religion and the virtues
22
Nov
Contemporary philosophy oscillates between
definitions of ethics and morality, with morality seen as a reduction to the morality of customs, lacking a depth of virtues and true religiosity.
The three theological virtues have been lost: faith, hope and charity, which must be “infused” by God, are confused with the religiosity of fortune-tellers and material goods, hope becomes a kind of positive thinking and behavioral feelings animated by some “coach” and charity, some superficial kindness such as pity, mercy and social aid.
The so-called cardinal virtues are prudence, run over by a world driven by impulses, justice which has become pure political manipulation, fortitude confused with physical or political strength and temperance present in very few situations and people, we live in times of anger.
A rare contemporary philosopher to deal with the subject was Philippa Foot, who died in 2010 at the age of 90. Despite her name, she was British and responsible for the resurgence of “virtue ethics”.
Foot did not abandon the classics, but re-read them for modern times. She believed that morality should be understood in terms of virtues of character, rather than just rules and consequences of actions.
Among her works, she modernized Aristotle’s ethical theory (Nicomachean Ethics) into a contemporary view of the world, showing that it can compete with popular theories such as deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics (that focused on goods, for example, present in religions).
She elaborated and discussed the so-called Tram dilemma (Foot, 1978, see figure), also addressed by other contemporary philosophers such as the famous John Rahls, also extensively analyzed by Judith Jarvis Thomson and more recently by Peter Unger.
The dilemma is simple: the valet must analyze the “lesser evil” where on one line he would run over one person and on another several, in a streetcar that is out of control and cannot stop.
The hope variant is a version of the dilemma considered by Daniel Zubiria, where there is a 50% chance of the derailed train saving all the people and not opting for either track, a similar argument is that of Jonah Barnaby.
The problem is interesting because it necessarily falls into the theological virtues.
Regarding faith, there is only one possible argument: prayer, which is inalienable from religious thought, it is not an exercise in rhetoric, logical and emotional maneuvers, it must be based exclusively on the relationship with God, so the utilitarian or deontological relationship is dispensable since it is theo-ontological: “my Father’s house is a house of prayer” (Lk 19,46).
Philippa Foot, (1978) The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect in Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Reforming thought and its viaticum
21
Nov
At the beginning of chapter 5 of Edgar Morin’s
Cabeça bem-feita (Heads on straight), he uses an epigraph from Euripides’ Edita: “The gods invent many surprises for us: the expected doesn’t happen, and a god opens the way to the unexpected” (Morin, 2003, p. 61), only those who meditate and have a well-developed spiritual side know how to work with the unexpected.
He gives us three viaticums in this chapter, the first of which is “Preparing for our uncertain world is the opposite of resigning oneself to a generalized skepticism.” It is necessary to resist what is anti-human not as an act of courage, but in the only certainty which is the error of the path that our mistaken convictions can lead us down (pictured is Leonardo Alenza’s viaticum, 1840).
The second viaticum is strategy; we get lost on the road to what is good and what we want.
“Strategy is opposed to program, even though it can include programmed elements. The program is the a priori determination of a sequence of actions with a view to an objective. The program is effective under stable external conditions, which can be determined with certainty” (Morin, 2003, p. 62) so we need to think about strategy by exercising it, if we want more humanity we need to be human, if we want peace we need to practice it.
The third viaticum is the challenge, we usually look for our comfort zone or security, but neither comfort nor security are there, in general they require a challenge to conquer them, says Morin: “A strategy carries within it the awareness of the uncertainty it will face and, for this very reason, contains a bet. It must be fully aware of the stakes, so as not to fall into false certainty. It is false certainty that has always blinded generals, politicians and businessmen, and led them to disaster” (Morin, 2003, p. 62) – this is the disaster of today’s false peace.
The answer is not exactly a Christian, but someone of Jewish origin who lives a secular life: “Betting is the integration of uncertainty into faith or hope. Betting is not limited to games of chance or dangerous undertakings” (Morin, 2003, p. 62). If we work for peace and for the correct process of civilization, we can certainly count on some extra help, why not: divine.
Morin, E. (2003) A cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento. transl. Eloá Jacobina. Brazil, 8a ed. -Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
Bad thinking, bad politics and bad religion
20
Nov
The structure of the civilizational crisis that we
are experiencing, the nuclear threat has become real after the release of missiles into Russian territory these days, the energy crisis and the problem of world misery are on the civilizational agenda, but thought, politics and religion (in their deviations) do not perceive them clearly.
It’s about making allies and not building bridges and breaking down political, cultural and even religious walls. Enlightenment thinking still dominates the West, a shallow cultural vision invades the discourse of even the most educated and religion, when it’s not pure commerce, deviates towards human precepts and preconceptions that have little or nothing pure and divine about them.
On the subject of thought, an interesting text to read is Edgar Morin’s “Cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento” (Well-made head: rethinking reform, reforming thought, brazilian edition). He says of the crisis that was already present in discourses on “civilizational malaise”: “So that we can, at the same time, integrate and distinguish human destiny within the Universe; and this new scientific culture makes it possible to offer a new and capital knowledge to the general, humanistic, historical and philosophical culture, which, from Montaigne to Camus, has always raised the problem of the human condition” (Morin, 2003, p. 38). 38).
He says in the book’s introduction: “Knowledge has become increasingly esoteric (accessible only to specialists) and anonymous (quantitative and formalized). Technical knowledge is likewise reserved for experts, whose competence in a restricted field is accompanied by incompetence when this field is disturbed by external influences or modified by a new event.” (Morin, 2003, p. 19).
But the networks have invaded the discourse of experts and made cultural and political knowledge worse, now under the influence of the “digital swarm” (read Byung-Chul Han: The Swarm), a wave of bad politics and bad religion has been unleashed and invaded by “influencers”, pseudo-prophets and politicians whose anti-civilization conduct already denounces their falsehoods and evil.
It’s time for opportunists, for little thought (it has already reached the select layer of “cults”) and for bad religion, which prophesies evil, disorder, and announces as a “prophecy” the religion of easy profit, of contempt for culture and cultures other than one’s own.
But the light persists, the resistance persists among those who proclaim the good news and a more human world, the new civilization and the protagonism of what is good, beautiful and human; and little by little what is outdated thinking, bad politics and false religions and prophets will disappear, it will be a long and painful process, but the night only persists in the absence of light.
From those who have little (thought, culture and faith) even the little will be taken away.
MORIN, E. A cabeça bem-feita: repensar a reforma, reformar o pensamento / Edgar Morin; tradução Eloá Jacobina. – 8a ed. -Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2003.
Joy and re-building the Earth
19
Nov
Amid threats of total war: the US authorized the
use of long-range weapons in the war in Eastern Europe, Finland and Sweden prepare for possible war (RFI press) and the Russian threat of a total war over the approval of missiles (Terra online press).
All of this seems contradictory to the possibilities of Terra-Pátria that we posted last week, but a theologian, paleontologist and philosopher Teilhard Chardin also points out something beyond this: re-constructing the Earth.
Chardin’s text, dated at the end of his life in the 1930s (there are several extracts), compiled and published after his death in 1958, only said in Building the Earth, but there was not yet the strong environmental imbalance, the growth of atomic plants (energy was used in the war for bombs) and the danger of a global cataclysm, threats present today, in addition to social imbalance.
He was already aware of the crisis of democracy and the growth of totalitarian systems (fascism and communism), he defined his belief in the future in three aspects: passion for the personal, the universal and the future itself, and seeing the planet as an organism gave his sentence: “each cell thinks, because it is free, that it is authorized to build a center for itself” (Chardin, 1958), but it noted the dispersion of this false intellectual and social liberalism.
See, however, the contradictions in dialogue, these forces do not have “merely destructive power, each of them contains positive factors… no matter how little these components talk, each of them contains positive components… each of them is the world itself is the world itself who defends himself and wants to reach the light”, it is clear that conflicts of war and extremism must be avoided.
In the sense he gives to the “spirit of the Earth”, this was written combining extracts from 1931, on a journey across the Pacific Ocean, he defined this spirit as “the passionate sense of common destiny that drags, ever further away, the thinking fraction of Life” , and it gives meaning to our consciousness in growing circles of families, homelands, races, finally discover that the only true, natural and real human Unity is the Spirit of the Earth”.
Edgar Morin in his book Terra Pátria created a similar concept as planetary citizenship, but it is necessary to give a “common soul” to this idea of a planet as home for everyone.
In Chardin’s cosmology, he insistently works on this theme in his Noosphere (this thinking layer that creates this spirit capable of involving everyone), he will say that “love is the most universal, the most formidable and the most mysterious of cosmic energies”, today With so many poles and so many forces in conflict, it is necessary to rediscover this essential point of convergence.
On the path to unity, “to the wonders of a common soul”, he wrote “these brief and pale words must make us understand that a formidable power of joy and action still sleeps within human unity”, rediscover this value and this cosmic force, like the defines, it is our destiny.
This is the joy of those who believe in the divine participation that corrects human history.
Chardin T. (1958) Construire la Terre. Paris: Editions du Soleil.
COP20 and geopolitics
18
Nov
The topic will not be touched upon directly, as
Arab countries such as Egypt and Turkey are taking part in the conference and Russia will be present through Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov.
Brazil is hosting the conference, which is expected to last until Monday. The G20 or Group of 20 was formed with an economic purpose after the successive financial crises of the 1990s. In 1999, finance ministers and heads of central banks from the 19 largest economies in the world, plus the African Union and the European Union, aimed to create a strong economic group that would coordinate global actions in the economy.
These countries account for 90% of the world’s GDP and 80% of world trade (including intra-EU trade) and two thirds of the world’s population. We would expect something of great economic interest, but issues such as gender options and geopolitics (indirectly the topic will be touched on) should be avoided and, as in previous editions, the climate should be the big topic, but there is an expectation that the topic of taxing large fortunes will be taken forward.
The basic text is already being drafted behind the scenes and the final text is expected to be presented in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The meeting is important for peace, even if it is not the subject of the meeting, but the talks between the leaders and ministers of these countries will improve relations.
Meanwhile, the war in Eastern Europe is taking on dramatic contours, the Ukrainian capital Kiev has been constantly attacked by drones and the United States has given Kiev permission to use long-range missiles that could hit targets inside Russia.
In the Middle East, Israel is expected to reach an agreement with Lebanon, but the bombings continue and Iran is not taking part in the negotiations, so Hezbollah remains at war.
It is hoped that in addition to the traditional issues of gas emissions and climate problems, COP20 will launch some kind of nod towards peace, given that Russia, China and the United States will be present at the conference.
