Arquivo para a ‘Recursos comuns’ Categoria
The water problem
22
Nov
One of the serious differences between developed
and developing countries is the serious global crisis in water resources, which has a direct correlation with social inequalities.
In regions where water shortages are at critical levels, such as some Arab countries and even Latin America and mainly on the African continent, where the average water consumption per person is nineteen cubic meters/day, or fifteen liters/person may seem exaggerated, but baths and washing utensils and clothes should be considered.
Just for comparison purposes, in New York there is a consumption of clean and drinkable fresh water of two thousand liters/day per person, of course this is an exaggeration, clothes and utensils are washed with drinking water.
According to Unicef, less than half of the world’s population has access to drinking water, irrigation accounts for 73% of water consumption and 21% goes to industry, only 6% is for domestic consumption while one billion and 200 million people ( 35% of the world’s population) do not have access to treated water.
One billion and 800 million people do not have adequate basic sanitation services and thus the realization that ten million people die as a result of intestinal diseases transmitted by water, a basic resource for life, water is neglected.
Giving drink to those who are thirsty is not a catchphrase, it is a vital necessity
Concrete actions against poverty
21
Nov
At first glance, the solutions may seem simplistic:
injecting capital and distributing goods to the poor, but in the medium- and long-term concrete measures and public policies are needed.
The human resources necessary to produce, combat and help in extreme cases of poverty are necessary and this means production, as if there were very advanced equipment, but without people who know how to operate it, advanced in this case is distribution.
We need to improve human resources, or rather our humanity around serious social security problems, given the state of misery at quite high values for a world that may have problems with shortages of food, sugar for example due to warming and grains due to wars.]
The numbers are high, in Brazil data published in the press state 32 million people, in Argentina in crisis the newspapers claim 40% of the population, and injecting resources is little if there are no medium and long-term projects that are sustainable.
In the past, reconstruction plans for post-war Europe required an injection of capital, as the available labor force was adequate. This was the period in which the World Bank was created, whose name was the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BIRF) , the result was achieved, but it is necessary to know that Europe exploited the colonies, in fact this was a hidden conflict.
The funding resources in the so-called “third world” through the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) have not achieved great results and every now and then there are countries in crisis, with high inflation and loss of resources in the productive sectors.
Poverty has increased and continues to increase, for two reasons: growth in poorer regions is greater than in rich countries, without a policy of full employment and greater income distribution, and the lack of ability to adjust to new conditions of technological change widen the gap between poor and rich countries.
Therefore, concrete public policies are necessary to reduce poverty and train human resources and establish policies to combat poverty on a global scale, if there is so much money for weapons (see the prices of planes, ships and ammunition for wars), why wouldn’t there be for the fight against poverty?
This problem is what worsens political polarization, a lack of plans to combat poverty in the short and medium term.
True commitment to the common good
06
Oct
Bad managers and dictators also promise to
work for the excluded and the common good, what happens is that their true personal interests remain hidden.
No one openly says they are going to do evil, except declared psychopaths who are already at a level of mental illness that can no longer disguise their desires.
Political and social analyzes hide interests of violence, hatred and war against opponents, there is no shortage of justifications, but any initiative of exclusion is already an indication that no common good will be well managed by these managers.
They begin with small actions that initially confuse people with good faith and who actually want the common good for all, a peaceful and balanced life for everyone, but little by little the true personal desires for personal possession of goods are revealed.
Corruption also starts like this, small unrestrained thefts lead to large ones when there is no impunity, parents who correct and educate without children know this, it is necessary to always be attentive to actions and what each small gesture leads to, educators also know this.
As a biblical reading says, an owner of a vineyard rented it and traveled, after a certain time he ordered the employees to collect the rent (Mt 21:33) they beat him and sent him back, he sent others and they also caught him and returned with nothing and finally sent his son, so the tenants thought let’s kill him and keep the vineyard, and Jesus remembers himself at the end of the parable: the stone that the masons rejected became the cornerstone.
This is how good is established, with those that the evil people rejected, oppressed and after much suffering it is possible to establish peace and the common good.
Resilience and the development of good is greater than great evil, although avoiding them also means avoiding injustice, social imbalances and mainly innocent deaths.
A cold and dangerous European winter
25
Sep
We are entering spring in the southern
hemisphere and autumn in the northern hemisphere, in Europe the concern about fuel stocks for the winter due to the Russian embargo is growing, there is a danger of rationing and a rush to use coal, in Poland for example there is already queues to buy stocks.
But this is not the only aspect, the reduction in the supply of diesel by Russia will affect the entire world market and the price of fossil fuels could skyrocket, according to Abicom (Brazilian Fuel Association) the defense in Brazil is 7% in relation to the international market and 12% in the case of diesel, and may increase.
Another crisis is that of food, because Ukraine has maintained a large part of its production, which helps the international market, but there is a conflict over the flow through Poland where the country’s producers have protection and the port of Gdansk is famous, since in Black Sea military clash in Crimea grows.
The geopolitical crisis is the most serious problem, if Ukraine loses part of its territory, Baltic countries such as Estonia and Latvia which border Russia and Belarus, and Lithuania which borders Belarus feel threatened (map), and the question is who will be the next target.
The news talks about NATO’s help, but these small countries, due to their fragility, have supported Ukraine militarily and materially, there are even several reports of military enlistment in the war in Ukraine.
The United States announced long-range missiles (ATACMS type) and winter is always a strategy during war due to difficulties in logistics and troop mobility, now also due to supplies and heating energy.
Ukraine proposed a peace plan that was rejected by Russia, Zelensky went to the assembly that was taking place and had bilateral talks, including with Brazil, which certainly irritated Russia, but beyond the principles of peace and mutual aid there is no indication of a Brazilian position in the confrontation.
What can be expected for winter, if there is no peace, it is dangerous not only for the countries in conflict, but for all of Europe due to its proximity and everyone due to economic issues, fuels are just one aspect.
Administer the common good and peace
22
Sep
I thought about keeping silent and just
writing PEACE, PEACE, PEACE today, but that would be silent.
Managing the common good is making peace prosper, disregarding it is allowing a large space for hatred, intolerance, violence and on a larger scale: war.
The 21st of September was established by the UN as an international day of Peace, the secretary general António Guterres cited in a video the effect of conflicts that expel a record number of people from their homes, and did not fail to also talk about these factors people, other factors such as: fatal fires, floods and high temperatures, combined with poverty, inequalities and injustices in a reality of distrust, division and prejudice.
In Italy, a group with numerous social initiatives launched a campaign “Italy united for peace”, the Community of Sant’Egidio stands out for a dispassionate and bilateral vision on the problems of wars and peace, it has the authority to talk about peace.
On the 10th to 12th of September in Berlin, Germany, they had already promoted a religious meeting that they called “The boldness of peace”, and there was no shortage of reflections on social inequalities, intolerance and injustices present in various areas across the planet.
We need to manage what Nature, the Planet and human development itself have given us to allow for a more fraternal, more just and more humane world.
For those who believe, all this is a divine gift, but it is necessary to manage it well as we will be charged in some way for the consequences of our actions, as the biblical parable says of the employees who were entrusted with talents through the owner of a vineyard.
The contract workers arrived, but as he needed more he went to the square and also hired those who were unemployed, and asked why they were there without work, they replied: “because no one hired us” (Mt 20,7) and then they were also hired.
At the end of the afternoon he paid the same salary, 1 silver coin to everyone, and some who were there from the beginning didn’t think it was very fair, but the boss remembers that the agreement was a silver coin so everyone was receiving the agreement.
So the meaning of the common good is that everyone has the right to a decent wage, but correct administration and honesty and zeal on the part of those who pay are necessary, it is fair for everyone to receive a decent wage.
But peace also requires a heart open to the just and dignified rights of the excluded other.
Urgent: earthquake in Morocco
09
Sep
The news began to emerge in the early hours of 
Brazil, an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit the center of Morocco approximately halfway between the historic cities of Agadir and Marrakech, the region is called Adassil, according to the country’s interior ministry 820 people have already died (the number exceeded 2000 in the early hours of Sunday), 672 people have been injured and 205 are in serious condition, according to the latest information.
People rushed into the streets and the earthquake was felt in Portugal, Spain and Algeria, an aftershock of magnitude 4.9 was felt 19 minutes later.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the epicenter was in the mountains known as the High Atlas, 71 km from Marrakech, at a depth of 18.5 km, the city was heavily hit and has a historic center declared a world heritage site, it occurred in middle of the night, but online newspapers don’t give the exact time.
Several governments declared solidarity and promised help, the pain is hard, but it awakens solidarity, even Zelesnky from Ukraine and Putin from Russia declare their regret.
All solidarity with the Moroccan people, the under-20 Brazilian team is there and there were no injuries.
Taxes, profit and tithing
15
Aug
Whenever a crisis appears on the horizon, the
most common temptation is to overload society and the issue of taxation is on the agenda not only in Brazil, but worldwide.
For benefits to be incorporated into civil life, the state needs taxes, but they should not serve as perks of the state since it is a service provided to society, and taxes incorporated into costs and prices distort and can strangle investments, savings public and private and inhibit export.
The problems in the country are enormous, the most common is double taxation (taxes on services that are already taxed, road fees for example), but governments are insatiable, they need to feed the plentiful tables of those who sustain them in power.
Profit must be thought of as having three purposes, the maintenance of social services that also serve companies, goods and social security that serve all citizens, especially workers, and the growth of the company itself and the country in investments.
Finally, the contribution to the cultural, social and religious interests of specific groups can be seen both as a society, to which everyone freely opts, and as a compulsory one, provided that there is a prior agreement for this.
The important thing is to understand that fraternal relationships, which are spontaneous, differ from obligatory ones, which imply a type of society that, once broken, the bond is lost, and this must be the case of tithing, spontaneous donation and action “between friends”.
In the philosophical field, Paul Ricoeur wrote about these relationships between partner and neighbor (Le socius et le Prochain, 1954) and
Those who doubt that this is biblical, I recommend reading Mt 17,25 when asked if they paid the temple tax: Peter replied: “Yes, pay”. Upon entering the house, Jesus came forward and asked, “Simon, what do you think: Who do the kings of the earth collect taxes or fees from: children or strangers?” to which Peter replied of the strangers, but Jesus, in order “not to offend” ordered that the taxes be paid.
The three behaviors are not far apart: dishonest profits, high tribute, and temple taxes.
welcome to polycrisis
04
Apr
This is the part of title of the article by Adam Tooze, professor of history at Yale
University (USA) written in the Financial Times in 2022 that drew a lot of attention: pandemics, droughts, floods, mega storms, forest fires, war in Ukraine and high prices of fuel and food, as is typical of the magazine and of today’s world, the economic aspect stands out.
But Edgar Morin’s polycrisis went deeper, the author recognizes the origin of the term, but is unaware of what Edgar Morin and many other philosophers actually think, who point to the most fundamental root of these evils: our way of thinking. thinking and the vision of the world that we create from it and implant in our societies.
The term cited by Morin was said for the first time in 1990, but in an interview with Le Monde on April 20, 2020, the French educator updated the word: “The health crisis triggered a chain of crises that were linked together. This polycrisis or megacrisis extends from the existential to the political, passing through the economy, from the individual to the planetary, passing through families, regions, states. In short, a tiny virus in an overlooked village in China has unleashed a world of disruption.”
In his view, the polycrisis crossed our ways of being, living together, producing, consuming and being in the world, challenging us to think about all our paradigms, much of what he wrote talks about new methods such as hologramatic and the danger of hyperspecialization of science that leads “to a new obscurantism” that is our inability to see the whole in modernity.
It is true that we are going through other crises, but Tooze’s article shows the implications of the war in Ukraine and the pandemic in accelerating these crises (see the Map), in the pragmatic aspect of the economic it is clear, in the spiritual and ontological aspect it is still not so clear , but it may be clearer soon.
War becomes dangerous and can get out of hand
13
Mar
As the war scene advanced in Eastern Europe, several analyzes were made here showing
an increasingly cybernetic war and with chances of being nuclear, now both international news (such as CNN for example) and the American intelligence services, point out this tragic evolution.
Officials of the US Senate Intelligence Committee spoke last Wednesday (08/03) of this scenario affirmed what is written in the report of the Office of National Intelligence: “degraded Moscow’s conventional land and air capabilities and increased its dependence on weapons nuclear weapons”, so a window for peace is becoming smaller and smaller.
The battle of Bakhmut, which could pave the way for a larger invasion of Ukrainian territory, is costing both sides dearly, but will intensify the war on Ukrainian soil, with losses and unpredictable scenarios.
While the Russians announce victory in Bakhmut, the Ukrainians say that each Ukrainian soldier killed cost the lives of 5 Russian soldiers, propaganda aside, Russia does pay an expensive cost for the dispute in the region and shows that it will be a war step by step and costing many lives, in addition to refugees and material destruction.
At the global level, NATO’s involvement grows as Russia seeks allies beyond China.
The involvement with weapons and even training of troops from Poland and Germany, as well as the already evident involvement of NATO since the beginning of the war, can extrapolate the limits of Russia and Poland and pass to the entire European continent, already a Russian “new Pearl Harbour”. , launching long-range missiles into American territory would start a global tragedy by the power of weapons.
Weapons are available and there is also tension in the East, now with South Korea and Japan approaching Western forces.
Peace is always possible, but it requires an environment of cooperation and understanding between nations.
The fair and the legal
08
Feb
Legality is evidently based on laws, even if strange or questionable, it is a kind of “social contract”
for living in society, which is why the topic of the previous post is relevant, even more so if one considers that the highest point of what is legal today is neocontractualism.
Paul Ricoeur wrote in two volumes on the subject, done in the form of essays, in the third essay he deals with John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, not only attests to its relevance but also he claims what almost all of us said at a time in our childhood : “this is unjust” and then this precedes the sense of the Just as they also concern not only the law, but all people.
Ricoeur in the preface of Justo 1 already pays attention to the detail that the theme is connected to the idea of what is ethical, in classical philosophy, is “the desire for a ‘good life’ with and for others in just institutions”, and here he situates A good part of the civilizing crisis has emerged: the mistrust that exists in democratic institutions.
The expression “good life” taken up from Aristotle is a qualifier of good in a strict ethical sense, so the good is inseparable from the good of the other, under the penalty of being nothing more than a reprehensible selfishness, which degrades the subject in the sense of moral plane.
Put more clearly, the relationship with the other is constitutive of self-awareness, and it is, to a certain extent, ethical beyond the legal and merely moral.
Where only obedience is decisive, even with an inner conformity to the moral Law, which can be unavoidable in every ethical life, this has something beyond the Law, in it man desires the Good, aspires to the Good for himself and for others, in a sense that also becomes consciousness for the other.
It is obvious that this finds a barrier in our faults, the bad feelings, the bad actions, the violence that mark society since the most primitive times, in this sense it is necessary to awaken the conscience of guilt, which contains in it the very conception of judgment, this means to limit yourself.
For this reason, the theme of freedom is relevant, what kind of freedom is desired and under the pretext of what conception of justice, thus “fair institutions” are needed.
So this is Ricoeur’s formula: “: « the desire for a good life with and for others in just institutions », without them the legal becomes revolting.
However, it must be said that “institutions” are not limited to the legal aspect, in the same way that what is fair cannot be reduced to what is legal, it is necessary to analyze it in depth.
To explain this, Ricoeur says what is awareness of the Law: “Applying a norm to a particular case is an extremely complex operation, which implies a style of interpretation irreducible to the mechanics of practical syllogism”, that is, simple logical rules, there is not one subjectivity, but a transcendence.
When giving a lecture to the L’Arche Association (founded by Jean Vanier) that cares for exceptional people, he addressed the theme and spoke of respect when dealing with the difference between the normal and the pathological, relying on the works of Georges Canguilhem, who discusses the epistemology of biology.
