Posts Tagged ‘pandemia’
Saint John Damascene and pericoresis
05
Jun
Even for those who do not believe in the
concept of pericoresis, it is important because it makes the idea of relationship something more substantial, although it is already admitted that man is a relational being, the relationship is full of dualisms and non-Trinitarian interpretations (in the case of Christians) and can lead to indifference.
After resolving the Trinitarian dogma by the Cappadocian priests, who explained that God is One and Triune, are people (hypostasis) and maintain unity (ousia), Damasceno will dwell on the relationship between the three people and create a term also used in philosophy: pericoresis, interpenetration in relationships, that is, the possibility of listening to the Other not just out of respect, which would already be a step, but trying to penetrate and understand the reasons for his thinking.
It was João Damasceno (675-749) who studied this relationship of pericoresis, the term emerges proposing the articulation between the unity and the communion of the Trinity, it seems simple to say this, but difficult to understand and practice, since most relationships exclude the Other which is different, be it of color, race, creed or culture, far ahead of his time João Damasceno was a friend of the Saracens.
In his historical theological journey, he sought to find something to explain the relationship, which was in accordance with what the scriptures said of God and his relevance in history: the articulation between the concept of God that is triune and one, but each one being a natural person (prosopon) and God, João structured the intra-Trinitarian way, based on the Greek concept of person: hypostasis.
In the Greek word it means hypo, which is sub, underneath, and stasis, which is sub-posited; as if it were a support, but in the divine relationship this concept should be expanded and explained.
The term pericoresis emerges in this Patristic Theology, as the articulation between unity and communion of the Trinity, but going further, so the Father is one in the Son and the Son one in the Father, and both are one in the Holy Spirit, so there is an interpretation, it is more what a pure relationship it is to be in the Other.
The problem with some religious interpretations is the static relationship of the three, which is the dualistic relationship that comes from idealistic philosophy, where subject and object are separated and are relational by a type of transcendence, which actually has nothing to do with the Divine mystery nor is it religious.
In a deeper spiritual asceticism is the effort to understand and love the Other who is different, who is not my mirror, does not have my concepts and judgments, does not classify the world as I do, the great tragedy of our days is the lack of pericoresis , and thus of Trinitarian relations.
I think that the pandemic shows us this, even though there is a great pain that kills everyone and that sensitizes many people, that opens the heart to look at the suffering of the other, there are those that close themselves in groups, ideas and schemes to not look at the pain , the hunger and despair that the pandemic has generated, or we wake up together or perish together, staying in our trench is non-relational
Corona vírus plateau in Brazil
01
Jun
We defend the use of LockDown here, since last week it would be late, now
what the curve shows is a plateau in 1 thousand deaths during 14 days, depending on when it will start to fall it is possible to evaluate the extension of the plateau and the prospect of a fall, as a week-long holiday was made, with a small result, some response is expected in a week.
The outlook will be as slow as the rise, counting only from March to make the projection easy (March, April and May) we will have the curve retraction only in August (June, July, August) which even coincides with the end of winter, so the “new normality”, because there is no way to predict what may happen afterwards even if there is a second wave of infection, only even in September.
Any plan that intends to open up more, with the collaboration and education of the population that has not happened until now, is an adventure, a plunge into the dark.
The sensible thing would be to allow the opening of trade with severe restrictions and punishments, the collaboration is at most half the population, which is insufficient to contain the contamination, and we still count on the disinformation sometimes aided by government officials.
We will come out of the pandemic more divided than before, with low morale because we were not led and we were not even able to unite, and looking for culprits will be worse than the pandemic itself because we will have to face a serious economic situation to follow.
Hoping that we will learn something from this, the thousands of doctors, nurses, assistants, drivers, rescuers and security guards who helped save lives, the solidarity of those who help the unemployed population and the institutions that struggle to maintain this aid.
It could be worse, if there were no social isolation and field hospitals that expanded the capacity of the health system, if there were no emergency aid for the unemployed and informal workers, in addition to the help of the family allowance (plan for poverty), but it is in the people the impression that a stronger decision for greater social isolation was lacking.
The pandemic has not passed, and the drop in the curve will depend on the population and surveillance.
The post-pandemic and spirituality
26
May
The life of exercises that led us to the “Society of Burnout” (Byung Chul Han)
despite the pandemic and quarantine in many places has not stopped, accustomed to the frenetic pace of modern society, continues behind the action, the agitation and the fill the void with nothing.
In a hurry there are already those who predict a more closed society in frontiers, strengthening nationalism and protectionism in business, those who proclaim a “new world order” (a new conspiracy theory) and those who are always ready to defend ideologies: it is our turn .
However, just as the pandemic nobody predicted what will come is out of the great theories and a novelty will be a search for refuge in forces beyond the human to support the new and real news that have already happened: greater recollection at home and time for inspiration and contemplation, a poorer or at least more austere life, and new forms of living together.
Those apocalyptic of the network society, have rediscovered the new media, but due to the delay the use is still irregular and more curious than fruitful, but with time it will mature, there is a gap without doubt that is online education and little thought and if planned on this.
However, one thing has already changed, something we did with our “free time”, cooking the house, sharing daily tasks, looking with new eyes at people close to us and for many a new look at nature and our own nature: the complex human phenomenon.
If we made great theories of dialogue, now we have to practice it or we will be stuck in our closest relationships, because when we leave them we face a different and unthinking Other.
Those who survived the pandemic, and it may even return, Spain and China present new worrying cases, will require a new lesson from each and from society: rethink everything that has been the foundations of our lives, including the religious, we can wake up or not.
To those convinced of the near future, I remember that they did not foresee the pandemic, perhaps a war or a prophecy, or an irrevocable historical path, an invisible and unknown virus shook life
#LockDown didn’t happen, brazilians didn’t do our homework
25
May
The social isolation rate rose to 51% in the State of São Paulo and 53% in
the Capital, which is very close to the advance of Covid 19, although the numbers indicate they are stabilized at a level around a thousand deaths, the fall may be very slow if there are no ways to increase the level of social isolation, today is also an anticipation´s holiday in São Paulo.
Little by little we are drawing harsh lessons from the pandemic in Brazil, even with the government meeting with governors the already planned day after happened and in the worst possible way, the video of the ministerial meeting caused perplexity across the country and increased the distance between powers and the government. with governors and mayors. The cold also came, although it is still autumn in the southern hemisphere, and Latin America is already the new epicenter of the pandemic
While Europe is slowly returning to its new normality (Spain have any problems), and with hopes of eliminating the infection rates from falling further.
Health´s deds in the capital are running out, they reached 91% occupancy on Sunday, so either a tough measure is taken or a new breakthrough in the death curve will be inevitable.
The hope of the vaccine advances in the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca of England, its CEO Pascal Soriot affirmed this Sunday (24) that the United Kingdom will be able to have access to the vaccine in September of this year if the tests are successful, now with 10 thousand volunteers that begin to be vaccinated.
Although social isolation is below what is necessary, its effectiveness is proven, the curve that is exponential for deaths and infections, must be analyzed on a logarithmic scale (see figure), where it can be observed, decreasing inclinations that may remain on a horizontal inclination when this number stops at a level, which would be desirable to not exceed the limit of the Health system, depending on the #LockDown measure we can vary from 30 to 100 thousand deaths.
About São Paulo, the scientists evaluate, the analysis was made by researchers from USP according to the G1 portal, which instead of having a peak may have a plateau where the maximum peak remains for several days before retreating, this would also exhaust the system already at a high rate.
Some states already show an attenuation of the curve, as is the case of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catariana, but Amazonas remains serious, while Ceará and Maranhão State due to #LockDown had improvements while Pará still not even with radical isolation, and Amazonia has many problems.
The truth, the method and the life
19
May
The contemporary concept of truth, although quite attached to logicism
and idealism, arises from Socrates’ maieutics, a technique for valuing dialogue for the parturition (in sense of childbirth) of ideas that are consolidated according to the concrete conditions of knowledge (it is said material, but the Greek hilé is something different from matter today) where it is questioned what is unshakable and absolute.
Among modern truths strongly influenced by Hegel, there is a high dose of subjectivism, said in the following way in Phenomenology of the Spirit: “… everything comes from understanding and expressing the true not as a substance, but also, precisely, as a subject. At the same time, it should be noted that substantiality includes in itself not only the universal or the immediacy of knowledge itself, but also that immediacy which is being, or the immediacy of knowledge. […] “, so it seems to refer to Being and Spirit, but it is subjective and fluid.
What resulted from Hegelianism was the formulation of the idea of Power exercised by the State and from it it will derive a large part of modern formulations, until reaching general relativism, that is, in rough terms “each one has his truth”, we return to the Greek doxa, mere opinion.
It is therefore necessary to discuss the method, but also modern methodologies are permeated with dogmatism, the mere repetition of abstract concepts, the logical-theoretical construction of formal theories, empiricism, according to Popper, the greatest modern danger, and idealistic rhetoric.
Hermeneutics initially and later the hermeneutic circle starting from Heidegger and consolidated in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, reconstructs a modern maieutics, where not only the dialogue becomes viable, but also the possibility of a fusion of horizons becomes possible, including in dialogue with classical ontology and modern historicity.
The hermeneutic method has a profound relationship with life, Husserl’s lebenswelt, is effective for dialogue with different world views, thus it favors the relationship between people who express different cultures, and thus it is crucial for the interpretation of texts in the fields of law , theology and literature, without fundamentalism and false orthodoxy that hides error and doxa.
Hermeneutics in a pandemic relationship makes people act together even with a different visions about political, medical and social reading, it is it that helps distant discourses to show solidarity for life, the common good and in the near future outlines plans for the recovery new horizons of post-traumatic society.
#LockDown although late, in Brazil
18
May
Countries that performed a #LockDown earlier were successful not only in
combating the coronavirus, as is the case in New Zealand and Slovenia, the first European country to not register any deaths by covid-19, but also had a return to new normality more early.
Even from an economic point of view it was better to take radical measures, to be able to resume earlier with social activities, as economic ones will have to be resumed gradually and in many cases they have already undergone radical changes, what are calling a new normal, cases like Sweden and South Korea (which is not true that it has not made strong restrictions on social isolation, although it is not a total #LockDown), have been isolated, but have a conscientious and organized people capable of complying with social rules.
Brazil already has some cities in the North and Northeast with a decreed #LockDown, in the Southeast it is more difficult both for the population volume and for a part of the population that insists on ignoring what stands out: the aggressiveness of the coronavirus and the death toll , in addition to the exhaustion of the health system.
We will enter a week of conflict, with another health minister leaving the central government, with measures to release the central government and restrictive measures by governors, in addition to the controversial use of hydroxychloroquine whose effectiveness has no scientific proof, in addition to the side effects.
The summary of the whole Brazilian problem is the impossibility of a rational discussion around a topic that affects the death of thousands of people, however, we continue to defend a #LockDown in the big centers, which are the main focuses of the virus in the country, so that the curve stops at a plateau, which is around 900 daily deaths, the number 485 on Sunday is underreported due to medical centers that cut staff on weekends.
We look forward to a very turbulent week, which, if not enough, is still more controversial in the political area, with a return to old practices already condemned by the society of physiologists, it is expected that governors and mayors will maintain a firm position in the face of the urgency of #LockDown
Pandemic and power
15
May
A catastrophe situation is faced with solidarity, compassion with those who suffer
it directly, support for those who must face it head on, and especially with all the support of those who can and must give conditions to face the catastrophe.
It is also a new situation, which requires everyone to review actions, concepts and the lifestyle itself can and must change, those who behave trying to avoid the new routine, hinder the coping of the catastrophe and worsen it personally and socially.
All of this involves power, central powers and micro-powers, the philosopher Foucault developed the concept of biopower, that is, the control of collective phenomena from the processes of birth, longevity, mortality and fertility, already in recent philosophy Byung Chul Han created the concept of psychopower, one that through the media and communication controls the social environment.
The pandemic seems to have combined the two, and even more deeply human anthropology on its return home, uses both the issue of mortality control and communication, especially digital, for tasks, shopping and work at home, as well as the control by power.
State institutions are mobilized as soon as the Modern State enters the scene, to sympathize or to open its contradictions to the social environment, hospitals, educational institutions and mass media are all mobilized by the forces of power.
The more fraternal and more hostile faces of the idealistic model appear, in an eagerness to replace the health and power of the family’s intrinsically fraternal solidarity, spirituality and the common good. It may point to a way out or put the whole of life in check. .
Religious power is also in check, with the temples closed or they give serious and concentrated responses or they stay in the spiritual subjectivism of known phrases and buzzwords that do not explain or solve anything, the subjectivism / objectivism dualism collapses and asks for a transcendent.
In the Christian reading of John (Jn 15,15) you can read: “I no longer call you servants, but friends because the servant does not know what his Lord is doing”, and this is fundamental in a pandemic, and generates solidarity.
And for those who go beyond friendship and generate brotherly love, there is a divine promise that consoles and strengthens us at this moment (Jn 14,21): “Now whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and I will manifest myself to him ”, and they will have inner peace to face the external war that the pandemic generated.
The pandemic and the sign of Jonah
14
May
Nínive (present-day Mossum) was one of the largest cities during the Assyrian
reign, by the standards of the time it had more than 100,000 inhabitants and was quite extensive since the Bible reveals that Jonas took 3 days to explore it and ask for the change of conduct of its inhabitants.
The date on which the preaching took place in Nineveh is uncertain and the author of the book that bears the name of this prophet is also unknown, but as it refers to the reign of Jeroboam II as king of Israel, the date must be between the years 700 and 742 BC, by writing the text in Aramaic typical of late Hebrew, both in style and in grammar, it is post-exile which means between 722 and 742 BC
From the end of the 17th century BC (when the Neoassirian Empire fell), until the middle of the 7th century, it was a geopolitical entity, ruled by other peoples, the Assyrians were known for their wickedness and violence, where they could even kill for debt, and the biblical narrative said that the prophet Jonah, who was to preach and ask for the change and conversion of the people, was afraid to do his mission.
It is not known for sure what was the plague that could come to the people there, but the people including the king all changed their attitude and converted, and the plague did not happen in that region, the current pandemic already has its sign of changing habits and the demand for solidarity with everyone, but there are still those who think that the pandemic will pass without any change in attitude.
The history books do not record exactly what the change was, but it was during the government of Assurbanipal, son Assaradão, who died in 667 BC, that Assiria lived its most profitable period, including the first Library of history, precisely the Library of Nineveh, which is where thousands of texts are found (chronicles, royal letters, decrees, religion, myths and many others) written on a baked clay tablet.
The change that we need not only to avoid the number of deaths that grows, ranges from personal habits to the concern with food and life maintenance of those who no longer had jobs, those who now do not have and those who must lose with the growth of pandemic.
For those who believe, they must also rethink what they believe and experience what they believe, otherwise it is just a legend or fable told as a beautiful story.
Media, networks and social isolation
12
May
The three factors now combine and unveil the reality that many “theorists” pointed
out, while neo-theorists stay in abstract philosophies that barely interpret the pandemic reality. One who foresaw reality, Manuel Castells who wrote “Sociedade em Rede” (Social network), explains why we were unable to foresee the virus, its potency and violence were not biologically possible to know, but the need for a health policy and education for the future did not only he pointed out, as well as Sloterdijk, Edgar Morin and many others.
About the current crisis Castells says it is necessary to understand the applause of the balconies of the buildings to doctors, nurses and health professionals and they take health more seriously, this could have been predicted and we would be in another stage, the defender of technology also blames her idolatry, but is necessary now.
He stated that the overvaluation of technology in the case of health has delayed the system as a whole, and at the same time the devaluation and misunderstanding of its application in education and at work has led to a delay that is now being tried to overcome but with a certain lag.
Social networks, whose media enhance, but are not the same thing, as is the case with tele-medicine as a secondary possibility now, as the patient with covid needs a physical place and to be assisted in person, even though decisions and online conferences are many useful.
Social isolation has boosted the use of media in the home and has now more deeply influenced the world of work, shopping and online services, and education runs after lost time, the most obvious finding is that online education is not simple and it is not the even if in person.
The global change must be made if we want to fight the virus efficiently, leave warnings on the ground and prohibit people from traveling, it is possible temporarily, and the worst favors the neo-nationalist view that led many countries to the pandemic crisis, it was thought the problem is in China.
Castells said in a recent interview: “An interdependent global system requires global governance, not necessarily global government. But nation-states resist losing their power and each uses supposedly global governance mechanisms to defend their national interests ”, despite the barriers I would say that the virus does not know that there are borders built, even with national“ isolations ”by protective barriers”.
What we need says Sloterdijk is a “global shield”, co-immunity, now with serious investments, like global co-governance and taking health, work and education seriously in a new normality, we can go back to the previous frivolity, but we will be irresponsible with the future that may come, or a new wave of this virus or its mutation, or another that is certain to come.
Lockdown and frivolity
11
May
As the virus expands and begins to arrive more in the interior of Brazil and in
many places life remains “normal”, while Europe is gradually trying to return to a new normality, that is, to return to trade and consumerism and the previous hectic life , which Sloterdijk calls frivolity (see in daily El país).
There are two scenarios, the Brazilian case while some bet that the curve reached the plateau, the new data point to an even greater expansion of the virus, betting that we can contain the serious pandemic situation with little radical measures is proving inefficient.
The reason for the pressure to open trade, more than economic, it is clear that it affects the economy of the whole planet, the real reason in the minds of many people is to return to the day to day of high stress, rush and consumerism to those who have the resources for this.
In Brazil, we have reached the level of 10,000 deaths, both in personal and social life, if we reach a seriousness of a disease or take radical measures or witness the total aggravation of the disease, in the social case, the viral expansion and the worsening of the pandemic.
In the reflection of Sloterdijk, who wrote, in my view, two emblematic books Spheres and Criticism of Cynical Reason, he presents two key concepts that are co-immunity and anthropotechnics.
The first concept of co-community means that we can establish an individual commitment towards mutual protection, which would mark a new worldwide way of facing problems and the concept of anthropotechnics means understanding that the techniques, in this case and is the main concept used by Sloterdijk, the biotechnology, this is genetic manipulation.
When launched, it generated a lot of controversy in Europe, due to the manipulation of genes for example, but now that the main researches in defense of the coronavirus show the importance of the use of antibodies for the production of the vaccine, and the first thing was the genetic sequencing.
The worsening of the Brazilian crisis will require a more serious confinement, or we will see the figures extrapolate and the Health System already practically exhausted.
Confinement is necessary and the return to frivolity must be rethought as a way not only to avoid a major economic crisis, but mainly fairer.
