Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

I read it from a psychologist: “It’s not big actions that cause big effects!” We need to pay attention to small vices, small faults that we think are tolerable, because over time they become big problems. The idea of letting everything around us off the hook makes us more vulnerable to frustration, life’s difficulties, disappointments and obstacles.

It’s also not about the rigid discipline of dictators and people with little dialog, owners of the truth, pseudo “thinkers” who are increasingly common in the daily life of media society.

The ideas of simplification, of doing what “feels right”, freedom without obligations, a world without obstacles and without pain (Byung-Chul Han: The Palliative Society: Pain Today), create a world of rebels without measuring consequences, gratuitous hatreds, intolerance, bubbles and obstacles to dialog, to the right of the Other and the different, in short, the society of hatred and war.

The idea that every action is external is characteristic of non-thinking, acting impulsively and this is not only linked to the new media, but also to the absence of reflection, meditation and contemplation (Vita Contemplativa, Hannah Arendt and Byung-Chul Han), verbose thoughts without reflection.

Han explains by quoting Arendt: “Hannah Arendt’s Vita activa begins with the distinction between immortality and eternity” (Han, 2023, p. 144), and continues: “Surrounded by the infinite, the human being, as a moral being, seeks immortality by creating works that remain” (Han, p. 145), but “in contrast, the objective of the vita contemplativa is not, according to Arendt, to persist and last in time, but the experience of the eternal, which transcends both time and also the surrounding world” (Han, p. 145).

She clarifies that Arendt herself may have intended to be immortal when she wrote, but “even writing can be a contemplation that has nothing to do with the search for immortality” (p. 146), and she is surprised that Socrates didn’t write, thus renouncing immortality, she doesn’t quote, but Jesus didn’t write either, the gospels were only written by his disciples.

Small actions, lack of thought and big disasters

I read it from a psychologist: “It’s not big actions that cause big effects!” We need to pay attention to small vices, small faults that we think are tolerable, because over time they become big problems. The idea of letting everything around us off the hook makes us more vulnerable to frustration, life’s difficulties, disappointments and obstacles.

It’s also not about the rigid discipline of dictators and people with little dialog, owners of the truth, pseudo “thinkers” who are increasingly common in the daily life of media society.

The ideas of simplification, of doing what “feels right”, freedom without obligations, a world without obstacles and without pain (Byung-Chul Han: The Palliative Society: Pain Today), create a world of rebels without measuring consequences, gratuitous hatreds, intolerance, bubbles and obstacles to dialog, to the right of the Other and the different, in short, the society of hatred and war.

The idea that every action is external is characteristic of non-thinking, acting impulsively and this is not only linked to the new media, but also to the absence of reflection, meditation and contemplation (Vita Contemplativa, Hannah Arendt and Byung-Chul Han), verbose thoughts without reflection.

Han explains by quoting Arendt: “Hannah Arendt’s Vita active (active life) begins with the distinction between immortality and eternity” (Han, 2023, p. 144), and continues: “Surrounded by the infinite, the human being, as a moral being, seeks immortality by creating works that remain” (Han, p. 145), but “in contrast, the objective of the vita contemplative(contemplative life) is not, according to Arendt, to persist and last in time, but the experience of the eternal, which transcends both time and also the surrounding world” (Han, p. 145).

She clarifies that Arendt herself may have intended to be immortal when she wrote, but “even writing can be a contemplation that has nothing to do with the search for immortality” (p. 146), and she is surprised that Socrates didn’t write, thus renouncing immortality, she doesn’t quote, but Jesus didn’t write either, the gospels were only written by his disciples.

Accepting small setbacks, starting over and thinking about why you stumbled helps you move forward.

Han, B.-C. (2023) Vita contemplativa: ou sobre a inatividade. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.