Dr. Peter Herrmann is a sociologist of German origin -- well, he was, before moving forward, being now ..., well, some say: social philosopher, permanently crossing borders between arts, economics, jurisprudence, philosophy, political science and .., yes, still sociology ... and having lost many links to the origins as fasr as nationality is concerned, trying to imagine that there is no border ...
… it is also the time for essential questions .., and they are asked, advertisements guided us and academics, the good boys and girls of the profession at least, ask the correct questions — concise, limited on what is answerable, guided by a clear method and ethics: publish or perish … . and of course the essential questions of our economy (and social quality, of course), can be put in simple ways – it is all about
Artificial Christmas trees have gained an increasing market share, causing concern to natural Christmas tree producers. Primary data was used to test a hypothesized sequential probit model of buyer characteristics. The model predicted the probability of using or displaying a Christmas tree, then if a use decision was made, the probability of displaying a natural tree. The people who are likely to display trees are Christian, practice other secular Christmas rituals, have children, and spend Christmas at home. Those who use natural trees are younger, white, have a higher income, and live in a single-family dwelling.
One is wondering if some people or an entire profession or even academia may miss the point …
… but then again, one can see, there is good reason for in-depth research, helping us to enjoy our meal … – so before you are off for the Christmas dinner, here is the way to make even more out of it.
It had been a quick trip, probably a 3/3 trip: 2 days going there, 2 days working, 2 days return trip. While travelling, I am marking student’s essays and still preparing a tomorrows 8 hours lecturing – don’t say “hard working”, it is not least about gaining time to have the day of return free from work, just doing something nice. Returning early, it means there will be a long day of pleasure-leisure-time ahead.
Approximately 5 a.m. the aircraft is touching Chinese ground, Beijing – the state aircraft returning to the state. Admittedly I am a bit tired, after the usual long-haul flight sleep deprivation. There is not much time to catch the connection flight due to some delay, and due to the fact that I do not have a boarding pass yet. Waiting in the endless “one queue for all”, expecting the visa control is not my favourite activity anyway; under these conditions and standing next to a Yank who is permanently mocking does not lift my mood. Being through, I have to run: trough customs, leaving into departures … – thinking about the good old times when on such occasions the European then state-airlines offered some special support, bringing me occasionally the fast-track to the aircraft. Yes, it sill happens today on some occasions – on some …
I asked the board assistant and she said there is sufficient time, and I also asked at the boarder control, admittedly keen to jump the queue: “No no, there is plenty of time.” But while running, while leaving through the departure gate, looking helplessly around I am not entirely convinced. A small light of hope, I remember the words of the board assistant who said that, if there would be a problem, the ground staff would help …, and so there is a kind of natural relief when next to the gate a friendly person asks me if I have to transfer … – all goes so fast, he pushes the staff only sign aside, helps me with the suitcase and I feel safe … until he says “It is hundred dollars.” We pass a security/help desk, next to the exit to the parking desk, I grab the suitcase, turn to the uniformed security girl. Her kind help … does not really help due to the language barrier. But at least she points into the direction, where to go fro transfer, just he opposite direction … – and I GO, I RUSH, the guy is still behind me for a while. So I am eingekesselt xyz now: in the back the service robber, in front of me the time pressure. “No wait, wait …”, sorry, my dear, I won’t – just forget your 100 dollar. Another desk to ask, for the right desk to check in. “No, here is still the wrong terminal …” – well, a bit of exercise is good in the morning – so … I arrive at the terminal, and … yes, help is at hand. Unerring I am brought to the check-in desk, jumping with his help the queue, I hold the boarding pass in my hand, off to the security check …, it seems to be hopeless, but … my helper goes to the staff only sign, just while he is reaching out asking for money, “service charge” … I am wondering about free decisions on free markets and the agreement between two parties, the voluntary agreement based on in advance complete information … – The good thing: I really get the flight, without the last service robber I surely would not have managed. It is “privatisation the cold way” I suppose, through the backdoor: reduce service, make “state service” competitive – externalise the cost by allowing a windfall profit, now called service charge.
While changes brought by the internet and the free flow of people have made life more convenient, they also pose new challenges in maintaining public security, according to the 2017 Blue Book of China’s Society, released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Wednesday.
Merry Christmas I meant …, it is the time of joy and happiness … and of giving. Where we do not give to the “loved ones”, we make donations to … to those who are not loved, not by anybody, at least not by us, taking the liberty of buying our peace of mind … – ploing, ploing … the cents drop into the charity’s tin, one piece for “them” and piece for “us”, for our peace of mind.
Marry Christmas, join in … walking around the one morning, a few days only left to the holy day my mind could be in peace, I was “safe” so to say – it was too early for the collectors of the good, the good collectors and could be wondering, while my thoughts wondered around: SALES, SALES, SALES … clearly telling us to join …, now even for the special price: reductions … reductions of prices here, reductions of the income and worming conditions of those who produced the commodities … somewhere on the globe … . It is that part for the party who truly is homo oeconomicus, buying without warm thoughts of the loved ones but with the true thoughts of the times: look for the best offer, be rational actor on the market.
Merry Christmas … –
It is about entering the new temples:
The archetype of that particular race in which every member of a consumer society is running (everything in a consumer society is a matter of choice, except the compulsion to choose – the compulsion which grows into addiction and so is no longer perceived as compulsion) is the activity of shopping. We stay in the race as long as we shop around, and it is not just the shops or supermarkets or department stores or George Ritzer’s ‘Temples of Consumption’ where we do our shopping.[1]
Merry Christmas … – I see, while walking these early hours of the day, those who are waiting for the charities collections being opened for them …, those sleeping rough in so many entrances of those shops that will later open their doors for the pre-Christmas sales …, yes, many of those shops have something for everybody …, even if it is only the sheltered areas that offer some comfort for the night.
– I feel a bit like ridiculing myself or the matter, but still “I have to do it”, the wee bit I can: and I carry the bag, instead of allowing the noise, coming from the comfortable “4×4-suitcase”, disturbing them even more – or is it about hiding myself, hiding the comfort, the comfort of having slept in a hotel-bed …?
Merry Christmas for those who are protected from all this for instance in London’s noble corners:
for the price of a house in Heritage Park you will buy your entry to a community. ‘Community’ is these days the last relic of the old-time utopias of the good society; it stands for whatever has been left of the dreams of a better life shared with better neighbours all following better rules of cohabitation. For the utopia of harmony slimmed down, realistically, to the size of the immediate neighbourhood. No wonder ‘community’ is a good selling point. No wonder either that in the prospectus distributed by George Hazeldon, the land developer, community has been brought into focus as an indispensable, yet elsewhere missing, supplement to the good restaurants and picturesque jogging courses that other towns also offer.[2]
– all this
entrusted to hidden TV cameras and dozens of hired gun-carrying guards checking passes at the security gates and discreetly (or ostentatiously, if need be) patrolling the streets.[3]
Dear Mary, my little Christmas celebration that morning: a coffee and a Simit: the latter from a small shop, its smell lifting my spirit which was admittedly a bit drowsy after the nearly 20 hours flight and the 3 hours sleep that I got before heading on. It was a real Simit – it reminding me of the campus-restaurant I visited every morning when I worked many years ago at ODTU-university in Ankara: so nice to get them immediately from the oven, “baked with love” and brought to me with tenderness. And yes, I enjoy the espresso – the “Italian coffee” that can be bought every where now – machine-made, admittedly that is what it was also in the bar, around the corner of my Roman domicile …, and I don’t know exactly the difference between here and there – perhaps it is simply in the mind, defined as mindset by the way we stand here and there in the queue … – the shop here a kind of corridor, inviting to move faster; the counter in the bar inviting to slow down, to take a breath in the small group standing, mixing, chatting … – the difference between express-o and espresso …
And while enjoying both, I return with one thought to Salzburg: the very local shops in the Getreideasse now pushed aside, away even by the global retailers that unit the colours … – does this thought come to my mind because I see one “speciality bakery”, with the one stall …, now having a second stall … and perhaps …
A bit later I have time, sitting in the train for the last leg of the journey … Merry Christmas …, no high-speed train but a local train, inviting to adapt to its speed: slow down … it is direction to Leipzig – and I remember the delicious roles we got every morning when I studied there, in a country that does not exist anymore, not anymore “as such” … .
– I am listening to Rousseau, the audiobook of his Confessions, the text reading in book 1:
I never thought money so desirable as it is usually imagined; if you would enjoy, you must transform it; and this transformation is frequently attended with inconvenience: you must bargain, purchase, pay dear, be badly served, and often duped. I buy an egg, am assured it is new-laid- I find it stale; fruit in its utmost perfection’tis absolutely green; a girl, and she is tainted. I love good wine, but where shall I get it? Not at my wine merchant’s — he will certainly poison me. I wish to be universally respected; how shall I compass my design? I must make friends, send messages, come, go, wait, and be frequently deceived. Money is the perpetual source of uneasiness; I fear it more than I love good wine.
Christ, what a mess … – Merry Christmas, Marry Christmas, Mary Christmas …
– though personally I found the presentation too stagy. The core remans unchanged and valid
Turandot.
Prinz, noch ist’s Zeit. Gebt das verwegene
Beginnen auf! Gebt’s auf! Weicht aus dem Divan!
Der Himmel weiss, dass jene Zungen luegen,
Die mich der Haerte zeihn und Grausamkeit.
– Ich bin nicht grausam. Frei nur will ich leben;
Bloss keines Andern will ich sein; dies Recht,
Das auch dem allerniedrigsten der Menschen
Im Leib der Mutter anerschaffen ist,
Will ich behaupten, eines Kaisers Tochter.
Ich sehe durch ganz Asien das Weib
Erniedrigt und zum Sklavenjoch verdammt,
Und raechen will ich mein beleidigtes Geschlecht
An diesem stolzen Maennervolke, dem
Kein andrer Vorzug vor dem zaertern Weibe
Als rohe Staerke ward. Zur Waffe gab
Natur mir den erfindenden Verstand
Und Scharfsinn, meine Freiheit zu beschützen.
-Ich will nun einmal von dem Mann nichts wissen,
Ich hass’ ihn, ich verachte seinen Stolz
Und Uebermuth-Nach allem Köstlichen
Streckt er begehrlich seine Haende aus;
Was seinem Sinn gefaellt, will er besitzen.
Hat die Natur mit Reizen mich geschmückt,
Mit Geist begabt-warum ist’s denn das Loos
Des Edeln in der Welt, dass es allein
Des Jaegers wilde Jagd nur reizt, wenn das Gemeine
In seinem Unwerth ruhig sich verbirgt?
Muss denn die Schoenheit eine Beute sein
Fuer Einen? Sie ist frei, so wie die Sonne,
Die allbeglueckend herrliche, am Himmel,
This modern equality, based on the conformism inherent in society and possible only because behavior has replaced action as the foremost mode of human relationship, is in every respect different from equality in antiquity, and notably in the Greek city-states. To belong to the few “equals” meant to be permitted to live among one’s peers; but the public realm itself, the polls, was permeated by a fiercely agonal spirit, where everybody had constantly to distinguish himself from all others, to show through unique deeds or achievements that he was the best of all. The public realm, in other words, was reserved for individuality; it was the only place where men could show who they really and inexchangeably were. It was for the sake of this chance, and out of love for a body politic that made it possible to them all, that each was more or less willing to share in the burden of jurisdiction, defense, and administration of public affairs.
It is the same conformism, the assumption that men behave and do not act with respect to each other, that lies at the root of the modern science of economics, whose birth coincided with the rise of society and which, together with its chief technical tool, statistics, became the social science par excellence. Economics—until the modern age a not too important part of ethics and politics and based on the assumption that men act with respect to their economic activities as they act in every other respect—could achieve a scientific character only when men had become social beings and unanimously followed certain patterns of behavior, so that those who did not keep the rules could be considered to be asocial or abnormal.
Arendt, Hannah, 1958: The Human Condition; Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press: 41 f
After 1945, frequently people claimed “But we did not know” … – if this even may be true in some individual cases, they surely could have known … . And so we can know today about the tomorrow – and still can prevent THAT tomorrow to become real.
Across Europe, there is growing support for far-right candidates who are aiming for Trump-like victories in what has been dubbed the “post-truth” era of politics.
France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen called Thursday for cuts to free education for foreign children. “Today the United States, tomorrow France,” she said following Trump’s shock presidential win.
Looking at the results of the resent votes – e.g. BREXIT, TRUMP(uns)IN(n), HOLLANDENIXIS, REXIT, – the following may come to mind:
For assessing political events, the following rule may be applied that a large plan can be made out behind everything what appears to be innocuous whereas everything that seems to be based in a plan usually does not have any setting that is any more than pure thoughtlessness
Bei Beurteilung der politischen Ereignisse kann als Regel dienen, dass hinter allem, was den Anschein des Unverfänglichen hat, ein geheimer Plan steckt, wogegen das, was planmäßig zu sein scheint, gewöhnlich keinen Hintergrund hat, als die vollkommenste Gedankenlosigkeit.
And in times where the rest of there world moves the other way …- this will be maintained … that is what Isabelle replied to me from Havana the other day:
… Be sure the country will keep his legacy. Is an incommensurable lost. My gratitude for your condolence. …
