Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
The Just sees the Other and is delicate
19
Jun
Paul Ricoeur in his two volumes of The Just will
dedicate himself to unveiling this relationship, which involves power relations, starting with the cry that is considered fair: “This is unfair!” he says in the preface of his book in reference to the first chapter of R.J. Lucas’s book “On the Justice” (1955) and recognizes it as a proclamation of a protest.
As in much of Paul Ricoeur’s work, it is in recognizing the face of the Other that we must understand the principle of Justice, but he makes a long analysis of John Rawls’ work “Theory of Justice” because it does not ignore power relations and their influence on the vision of current justice, even Habermas analyzed it.
The experience of injustice is made by ourselves as well as by other individuals and even more so by human groups, especially those who are at war because they consider the theft of their rights to be serious, but the experience of injustice requires deep reflection, especially in those cases where there is violence against victims and social injustice.
Ricoeur takes up Aristotle to analyze the “good life”, but it is necessary to clarify that it is not the pejorative sense of good life of scoundrels and opportunists used in common sense, in Aristotelian and ancient Greek language the good has an eminently ethical meaning, that is , the good that one seeks is inseparable from the good of the other, thus seeking peace and not conflict or the usurpation of goods as Eduardo Galeano classifies all wars, it is beyond any reprehensible selfishness, which demeans the subject, preventing him from achieving and be respected on a moral level.
In the essay truth is justice, from Justo 2, Ricoeur refers to the same expression that serves as the title of his book The other as a self, where he comments: “The formula of « Self as an other» is in this sense a primitively ethical formula, which subordinates the reflexivity of the self to the mediation of the otherness of the other.”
There is a deontological dimension that is not far from the theological in his thinking about the Just, Ricoeur’s ethics are not limited to the monologism inherent to Kantian formalism, present in John Rawls, at the same time that he refuses to appeal to feeling, let’s say to “heart” has a dimension of “delicacy” in respect for the Other.
Byung-Chul Han remembers in his book “On the exam” that only one relationship is symmetrical (we would say horizontal, without the power relationship): “respect” and it is this respect that leads us to understanding the Just in relation to the Other.
Thus, those who practice justice rarely seek the spotlight or their own shine, they know that in essence what they do is a relationship of respect for the Other, different and diverse.
Ricœur, P. (1995) Le Juste 1. Paris: Éditions Esprit.
New record for the blog, ontology and peace
19
Jun
We surpassed 50 thousand monthly hits on this
blog, it should reach close to 60 thousand at the end of the month, it is already a new record, the last one in a long time was above 30 thousand.
I credit this to our current developments on ontology, the resumption of the question of Being hidden by the absence of a philosophy that understands Being (the things that are present in real life) and contemplates the whole man, revealing the relationship with Being, in our personal joke: the Being of entities (in portuguese appear Being sick).
We do not fail to touch on the issue of contemplation, the need for a true spiritualized asceticism and an authentic religion that preserves the life and dignity of all.
It is in connection with our analyzes and constant calls for peace, the escalation of conflicts worldwide puts civilization itself in crisis and how in the period before the war many narratives distort the true causes and dangers of war, new types of colonialism and discourses that ignore the Other, so in addition to frequent readings of Byung-Chul Han and Heidegger, central points of our posts, we do not fail to analyze everyday life and other authors such as Paul Ricoeur and Edgar Morin.
I thank the readers and we will keep the website and blog independent and without any sponsorship.
Tensions and pressure for peace
17
Jun
The G7 summit managed to bring together 90
countries and met without the presence of Russia and without the approval of China, which considered Russia’s participation essential, the Kremlin’s reaction was ironic in relation to the meeting that demands that Ukraine’s territory be kept in In all its integrity, despite Zelensky’s diplomatic victory, the war battle continues to be cruel.
On Thursday (13/06) the USA signed a ten-year cooperation pact with Ukraine, which puts it on an equal level with the partnership with Israel, however a Russian nuclear ship that arrived in Cuba raises the level of tension close to the famous missile crisis in the 1960s, although today global involvement in the crisis is much greater as much of Europe feels threatened by Russian military incursions and militarization is increasing as a more nationalist political turn evolves.
In addition to the 7 countries that make up the G7 US, UK, Canada, Canada, Italy, Japan and France, another 82 countries attended the meeting that discussed a possible peace agreement in the war in Eastern Europe, highlighting the presence of Pope Francis, remembering that the Vatican is also a sovereign state.
Also noteworthy is Prime Minister Modi of India defending the well-being of the Global South, emphasizing the importance of Africa in global affairs, a point that escapes much debate, but some aspects of colonialism still survive, both in the economic and social aspects. cultural, and the defense of these countries is essential.
In 1918, with the end of the First World War, American President Woodrow Wilson proposed a “peace without winners”, although Germany should be better analyzed in the agrément (in the photo the countries of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, which established the borders).
Little known, the 14 points that established a new peace policy after the Second World War, known as the 14 points, were the following: 1. Open diplomacy without secret treaties, 2. Free economic trade on the seas during war and peace, 3 .Equal trading conditions, 4. Decrease armaments among all nations, 5. Adjust colonial claims, 6. Evacuation of all Central Powers from Russia and allow it to define its own independence, 7. Belgium will be evacuated and restored, 8. Return of the Alsace-Lorraine region and all French territories, 9. Readjustment of Italian borders, 10. Austria-Hungary will be given an opportunity for self-determination,11. Redraw the borders of the Balkan region creating Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, 12. Creation of a Turkish state with free trade guaranteed in the Dardanelles, 13. Creation of an independent Polish state and and 14. Creation of the League of Nations.
Today there are new issues such as the real borders of Ukraine, the lack of a territory for the Palestinian people (Hamas is just a group from this nation), the forgotten Kurdish people, the conflicts in the Kashmir region (there is an Indian and a Pakistani one) , the end of conflicts and tensions in Africa that hide new colonialism and some guarantees of peace on Russia’s borders that can very well be understood (Russia calls them “neutral” regions) and the complex tension Taiwan x China.
Ultimately, it is not impossible, but it is necessary to draw a global map of peace and isolate governments and groups that threaten the freedom and autonomy of people.
The Other as a political category
11
Jun
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
10
Jun
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.
Violence , manipulation and resistance
04
Jun
Edgar Morin asked in an interview that when
faced with a situation of polycrisis, we face it with resistance of the spirit, strength of character, opposition to hatred and opposition to small dishonest acts, but the most difficult thing is spiritual resistance, the narratives that go from politics and religiosity.
Clarifying as we did in the previous post, that when using Walter Benjamin who passed away in the 40s, what he was mentioning was about the press being concerned with hot news and not always thinking and digesting in depth the “slowness” as proposed by Byung-Chul Han the facts of reality, says Byung-Chul: “Digitalization sets in motion the process that Benjamin, due to his time, could not predict… associates information with the press. The press is a means of communication that follows narration and romance” (Han, pg. 27), remembering that it is the romantic vision that begins a process of death of narration.
We had already mentioned in previous posts Karl Kraus (1874-1936), an Austrian poet and journalist who was a strong opponent of the 1st. world war, a spirit of resistance of the time, alerted the boiling nationalist and militarist ideas, of which the press was a partner, and saw in war a manifestation of humanity’s collective madness.
In times of spiritual emptiness, it is very common for a warlike and passionate spirit to grow, there is no shortage of exalted spirits without any reflection in all media, the order is to promote disorder, the moral order is to promote the immoral, this madness feeds on warlike and sick spirits, they need collective madness for their war madness to thrive.
In an even earlier period, the [disordered] information regime stated George Büchner (1813-1837), quoting Byung-Chul: “we are puppets, whose strings are pulled by unknown powers; we are nothing, nothing ourselves” (Han, 2023, pg. 29), now “the powers are becoming more subtle and invisible, so that we are no longer aware of it. We even confuse it with freedom” (Idem).
The poverty of the narration experience, also pointed out by Benjamin and cited by Han: “what happened to all this? Who still finds people who know how to tell stories the way they should be told?” (Han, 2023, pg. 31), there is certainly no neutrality, but between two warlike forces a power of resistance is possible that denounces them.
In biblical reading, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar (Mc 12,16-17): “They took the coin, and Jesus asked: “Whose figure and inscription are on that coin?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” Then Jesus said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Jesus, because it was not an allied act but rather showing which side the power is on and which side are the peaceful men who truly want the common good of all.
After countless alliances with the Pharisees, in the year 70 AD the Roman Empire destroyed the second Jewish temple and whose reconstruction they dream of to this day, both lost, the Roman Empire also fell in the year 476 to the German leader Odoacer , the barbarians had already undermined the political, financial and military power of the Empire (in the photo the Visigoths sacking Rome).
Han B.C. (2023) A crise da narração (The crisis of narration). Transl. Daniel Guilhermino. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Narratives, wars and dangers
03
Jun
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.
Renunciation, economy and joy
28
May
Byung-Chul theorizes that despite the difference
between Derridá and Heidegger (see our previous post) there is a structural affinity in their vision of mourning, which is characterized by the renunciation of the subject’s autonomy in Derrida: “No matter how narcissistic our subjective speculation continues to be, , it can no longer close itself to this gaze, before which we ourselves show ourselves the moment we convert it into our mourning or we can give up on it [faire de lui notre dueil], mourning, making ourselves mourn for ourselves, I mean, I mourn the loss of our autonomy, for everything that made us the measure of ourselves” (Han, p. 430 citing Derridá’s text “Krafter der Trauer”, strengthening of pain), this That is, they both have in common a vision of renouncing the autonomy of the subject, the “I” of idealism.
Here the important thing is not to let mourning work (let us remember the concept already seen in the posts about “work mourning”) it is replaced in Derridá by a game of mourning: “however, the happier the joy, the purer the sadness that sleeps in it. The deeper the sadness, the more it calls us to joy…” (Han, pg. 430-431), but Heidegger’s mourning, explains Han, does not kill death, trying to kill it results in something even worse: “ wanting to resurrect, violently and actively surpassing the limit of death would only drag them (the gods) into a false and non-divine proximity and would bring death instead of our life” (Han, pg. 431-432 quoting Heidegger).
Heidegger explains that it is “not a symptom that can be eliminated by psychoeconomic accounting. He does not have a deficient trait that involves work (of mourning).
This “withdrawn” or “saved” for which Heidegger’s “holy and mourning” heart beats is not subject to economics, this “saved” cannot be spent or capitalized, it is therefore that which is and characterizes renunciation, Han does not exemplifies, but we can think of humanitarian aid in disasters and wars, as it will characterize the identity of renunciation and gratitude as conceivable outside of economics, using Heideggerian terms “grievously bear the need to renounce” and promises the “unthinkable donation”.
A profound and wise phrase by Heidegger says, renunciation is the “highest form of possession”, it seems contrary, but we only really have what we can give because otherwise it is a commodity of exchange, and even more so renunciation becomes gratitude and “ duty of gratitude”, this pain increases and becomes joy: “the deeper the sadness, the more the joy that rests in it calls us”. (pg. 433), but it does not even become sublimation, which forces us to “work”, as it is the “inhibition of all income” and the “awareness of the emptiness and poverty of the world”.
Praise of misery one might think, is not a praise of moderate and continuous joy, different from the euphoria and ecstasy that is followed by depression, “the lack of the divine brings about mourning, goes back to an obstinate forgetfulness of being, in which Heidegger inscribes the divine” (Han, p. 433-434), but it is certainly not yet the biblical divine, but surrounds it.
The reward and joy of the Divine inscribed in the being, is that which renounces and gives, but knows that there will be a reward of receiving a hundred times more, not in goods, but in joy.
Han, Byung-Chul (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Transl. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
The difference, the wars and the calamities
27
May
All reading in the recent posts about “Heidegger’s
heart: on the concept of affective tonality” by Byung Chul Han is not a mere philosophical exercise, especially because philosophy has returned to sophistry in a more sophisticated way: narrative, it is because the absence of pain perception exacerbates the difficulty in understanding the other’s pain and the difference.
He wrote about Hegel’s dialectic: “Heidegger uses the word ‘differ’ to describe the tragic-dialectic movement of difference”, and opens quotation marks: “But, in truth, in Hegel beings no longer exist, since all beings have dissolved into the movement of the absolute concept” (pg. 414), and added: “The “differance as differance”, the “differing”, is the blind spot of metaphysics” (pg. 415), and thus: “Différance is more contentious than than Hegel’s difference” (pg. 415) and this explains how idealist thought is more attached to highlighting its political difference than capable of understanding the true meaning of treating those who are different, especially the excluded, the innocent in wars, and The pain of a tragic flood becomes more of a game in the field of power than reaching the hearts of those who can help the affected people.
Difference “is not articulated in “contradictions” that exist in the space of identity, but works for manifestations of identity” (pg. 415), this is how pain works.
Byung-Chul opposes Hegel in addition to Heidegger also to Derridá, “differance maintains discord […] without ever forming a third expression”, maintains contention, “without ever giving reason for a solution along the lines of speculative dialectics ” (Han, pg. 416 quoting Derridá), and says “the pure play of difference is nothing, it does not even relate to its own fire” (pg. 417), see Han’s emphasis on the Western culture of “relationship ”, but the German-Korean’s wit gets there: “Subjectivity is always produced in a movement of westernization” (pg. 417).
The search for “speculative dialectics” is for an ontotheological or ontoteleological synthesis, I would say more the latter since Hegel’s god is invented, that of an abstract absolute, but not far from the triumphant God of Manichaeism, expressed not only in the justifications of wars and in différance, the westernized god also judges, condemns and excludes and makes sacred readings a game of convenience, mourning, pain and suffering have no space, everything is power, joy and consumption, the kingdom in sameness proclaiming difference.
“What does Derridá’s pain revolve around?” asks Byung-Chul, “Around the lack of a sacred name?” (pg. 424), those would say yes because not even the Absolute, or the Whole can have an ontological answer, perhaps enthelogical (in the sense of pure e objective being), but the author points out his mourning as “probably” like the difference, it is banal (Derridá says this).
In our view, the inability to mourn, to renounce, to understand pain prevents us from a complete vision of the whole as sacred. The innocent deaths of wars, natural catastrophes and respect for differences do not cause us grief, without a Sacred that references these values, we create a thing, an entity that replaces it.
Han, B.C. (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Transl. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
The great idealistic sleep
21
May
The dream of idealism was to propose goals to
be achieved that gradually proved to be contradictory and some of them are a fundamental part of the crisis of current thought, in which the reasons of state precede the popular will, even if it acts in its name, in fact the concentration of power It seems fair to those who believe they have the final say, finally the reason, to exercise power, this has medieval origins, although diffuse.
Even though literature differentiates “idealists” from “realists”, this exists after the Renaissance/seventeenth century paradigm, where in “The Prince” by Machiavelli (1513) it was understood that all the means provided by force and intelligence are lawful for the ruler, from that employed with skill and according to the circumstances (MAQUIAVEL, 2001, p. 85), thus emerge in everyone and in all societies attitudes of force considered reasonable when exercised by the State.
Also contractualism, from Thomas Hobbes, who lived between 1588 and 1679, the State is the fundamental institution to regulate human relations, given the character of the natural condition of men that impels them to seek fulfillment of their desires in any way, at any price, violently, selfishly, this is driven by passions.
In the words of Hobbes, “if two men desire the same thing […] they become enemies”. Everyone would be free and equal to seek profit, security and reputation, according to national author Francisco Welfort, in his work The Classics of Politics (2006), equality between men, in Hobbes’ view, generates ambition, discontent and war”, but it was idealism that divided Man, or the Being of beings, as preferred in ontology, into two opposing halves.
Even though contractualism has the empiricism of Locke (1632-1704), where the state must be a mediator of conflicts, interfering as little as possible in the lives of individuals, and finally Rousseau (1712-1778) who states that man is good, the society that it corrupts (see that there is contractualism on the left and on the right).
Returning to the ontological aspect, in the Heideggerian sense: “the beating of the heart by that “magic key” that could “break a thousand padlocks” would not be the fundamental trait” (Han, p. 280), there is no rigid and perennial light in it. , whose violence and unbridled presence as cause and mistress could penetrate, explain and dominate all phenomena” (Han, p. 281) where there is a direct reference to Plato’s Republic, and Byung-Chul sees him as the first Heidegger.
The second Heidegger is the one who sees the clearing, which “does not offer a fixed setting with a constantly raised curtain, where the theater of beings unfolds” (Han, p. 283) citing Heidegger, where he replaces the physical paradigm of “light ” by the figure of the clearing, to “react against the violent mechanisms of that light that allows everything to coagulate into image” (Han, p. 283), although there is no direct reference to the Enlightenment, it is inevitable to this “luminous” vision of power .
The evident presence is replaced by the non-apparent, which cannot be translated as the counterpart of an encounter: “Here there is no longer an ‘encounter’, no appearance for man already fixes itself in advance and captures what has appeared” (Han, 284), Plato’s world of shadows has never seemed so real as it does today.
So it makes sense to both “unveil” and “clearing”, as terms that are neither “re-vealing” nor illuminating, they are ontological paths where Being “lives”.
HAN, B.C. (2023) Coração de Heidegger: sobre o conceito de tonalidade afetiva em Martin Heidegger (Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger). Transl. Rafael Rodrigues Garcia, Milton Camargo Mota. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
MAQUIAVEL, Nicolau. (2001) O príncipe (the Prince). Transl. de M. J. Goldwasser. Brazil, São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
