Autore: Peter Herrmann's Blog

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 ...

So Slow ….

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general
A recent press release from the Irish Minister for Justice states
Dáil to debate Bill to provide free access to health services for Magdalen survivors
• Government is committed to full implementation of the Quirke Report
• Bill provides for an enhanced medical card for Magdalen survivors
• To date a decision has been made in 87% of cases. 495 applicants have received payments totalling €18 million.

22nd January, 2015 Frances Fitzgerald, T.D., Minister for Justice and Equality, today stated that the Dáil is scheduled next week to commence consideration of the Bill (the Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions Bill 2014) to provide free access to health services for Magdalen survivors. …

Nothing wrong with such a law. Still, there is something about speed.
Sure, the one side is
Fai di fretta e male – act fast, without thinking and do not worry about bad results.
– this seems to be too often the rule under which we live, the rat race in which we are caught. But there is another side, where the lack of speed is a bit worrying:
The Catholic Church needed until 1992 to fully acknowledge that they had been wrong in the case of Galileo Galilei – though even in 1990 the then still Cardinal Ratzinger actually condemned him when speaking at La Sapienza, the university in Rome.
And it took a long time for the Irish government not only to rebuke morally what happened but to provide a committed answer — even worse: to think about it with the debate on the bill.
And there is still a further dimension to it:
The Irish government — and all other governments — should finally acknowledge that free and qualitatively appropriate health care is a fundamental human right. This is what we may call the required rule of the day, instead of continued austerity policies in Europe and elsewhere.
And there is surely urgency in this!!!
I just finalized two papers,
  • Developing a Social Quality Perspective in relation to the Debates on Ethical Economy and De-Growth (elaborated in connection with a recent event in collaboration with the Angelicum, EURISPES and the European Academy of Science and Arts
and
  • Employment Crisis or Crisis of Employment, notes in preparation of a conference next month in Moscow.

Both documents can be obtained on request.

Truth and Salt

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

It is good – only human beings as such are relevant …. — … at least this is what the statistics suggest.

I am just working on a report about recent developments in Ireland and looking at the CSO-figures for migrants. The table on the Components of the annual population change, 1987 – 2014 provides the figures for
  • Births
  • Deaths
  • Natural increase
  • Immigrants
  • Emigrants
  • Net migration
  • Population change
  • Population
Now, if it would be really this way
ONLY HUMAN BEINGS COUNT
 
independent of their status, religion … etc. it would be great.
If, as in reality there is surely a difference between well-off immigrants obtaining secure jobs, migrants who are desperately searching for work and refugees who are ending up in so-called Direct Provision (see on the latter for instance Herrmann, Peter/Dorrity, Claire: Racism – the State’s Fear of Loosing Control Over the Own Citizens; in: Okyayuz, Mehmet /Herrmann, Peter (eds.): Migration – Global Processes Caught in National Answers; Vienna: WVFS, 2014). And it surely would be honest though not to include but at least it make directly visible those who are refused entry before they even arrive – as we learn from the INIS-website
Deportations/Removals from the State. Approximately, 2,360 persons were deported/removed from the State in 2014. This figure comprises some 2,147 persons who were refused entry into the State at ports of entry and were returned to the place from where they had come. In addition, 111 failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants were deported from the State, 87 EU nationals were returned to their countries of origin on foot of an EU Removal Order and 17 asylum seekers were transferred under the Dublin Regulation to the EU member stated in which they first applied for asylum.
And with the famous grain of truth the same can be applied for emigrants: there is a difference between those who are – for different reasons – “forced” and those who leave voluntary – and in both cases the question is again: where do they end up.
The grain of truth – the Latin expression reads cum grano salis, the grain of salt. And this salt is what gives the special taste to the soup. That may also be applied when it comes to statistics …. Leaving the details out, means denying the colour and taste: be it the adventurous and exotic pleasures of the privileged or the blood and mordant sweat of those who loose their freedom and possibly lifes.

a remarkable date

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy

According to a press release of the German party Die Linke, the 20th lot March is remarkable. Women earn 22 % less than their male colleagues. Statistically it means, that they have to work 79 days “without income” if related to a pay policy that respects equality.

A long way – and I hope than many men use the time one may calculate as excess time to fight together with women for equality that reaches beyond the letters on the legal documents

Presenting an agenda for Europe at AMBROSETTI (Lake Como, 14th March 2015)

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in Uncategorized

Indeed we have to think about Europe and not about nation states!!!

Avatar di yanisvYanis Varoufakis


Dear All, Ministerial duties have impeded my blogging of late. I am now breaking the silence since I have just given a talk that combines my previous work with my current endeavours. Here is the text of the talk I gave this morning at the Ambrosetti Conference on the theme of ‘An Agenda for Europe’. Long time readers will recognise the main theme – evidence of a certain continuity…

View original post 2.879 altre parole

How to bring them together ….?

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, social quality, works, projects, publications
Especially, though not only with the crisis, now lasting for a long time, showing only occasionally small and deceiving glimpses of improvement, the debate on two issues is increasingly gaining momentum:
  • a kind of renaissance, highlighting the importance of returning to a value basis of humane societies
  • a push towards a new economic model, suggesting in different ways to leave the traditional capitalist path of equalizing development and growth.

Each issue evokes in itself major debates, for instance reflecting on what humane orientations could be and if they ever existed; or if and to which extent capitalist development assumed per se such equation or if it is only THIS capitalism that kills – so the current pope.

These issues will be discussed on the symposium, organised by EURISPES, ANGELICUM and the EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The aim should be to develop a cooperation that looks how to bring the different perspectives together.
All this had been also part of discussions during the last week in Munich at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, where I spent some time, not least to commemorate the work (and my personal collaboration and friendship) with Hans F. Zacher and Bernd Schulte.
One issue that came permanently up during these days – and had not least issued frequently by Hans F. Zacher had been the fact that the call for justice is not sufficient without a string backing in law. And hit shad been also an issue that guided Bernd Schulte’s long engagement on European law. The community of values is only as god and strong as it is based in law and guarantees legal rights to its citizens.

Strangulation of humanism: departmentalisation and specialisation versus openness and complexity

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes
Dietro il modo, in cui noi tedeschi conduciamo le nostre scienze, so nasconde una a noi purtroppo innata o inculcata chiusura disciplinare, una passione per lo specialissimo, un fanatismo nel rinserrarsi in sé stessi, tutte cose che senz’altro producono risultati eccellenti e tecnicamente perfetti, ma che determinano al contempo una limitata scientifica e anche umana, dalla quale le nazioni di più antica cultura hanno saputo difendere, e che non capiscono neppure.
*********
The manner we as Germans approach scientific work is unfortunately very much coined by the innate or or instilled resortism, a passion vor specialisation, a fanatism of closure surely leading to excellent technical results, but leading at the same time to scientific and also human ignorance which ancient nations knew to avoid, and which they could not understand.

(Paul Fridolin Kehr, 1914)

complexity of historical and social research

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes
I ogni caso non è possibile, dal punto di vista scientifico, limitarsi alle fonti della storia tedesca. Non si può separare la storia di altri paesi, e specialmente la storia della chiesa, da quella tedesca. Non si può estrapolare dalle tradizioni storiche solo quello che rispettivamente si ritiene essere nazionale, ma scientificamente si può comprenderle solo nel loro complesso. Con ciò questo compito di un istituto storico non s’ingrandisce certo a dismisura, ma assume tutt’altre dimensioni.
*********
The limitation on sources of German history is for scientific reasons not possible. The history of other countries, then especially the history of the church cannot be operated from the German history, It is not possible to extrapolate from historical records what is then seen as national; it can scientifically only be understood in its entirety. But with this the task of a historical institute is not reaching unmeasured, but it surely gains completely new dimensions.

(Paul Fridolin Kehr, 1907)

… measuring success …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes, thoughts on life and its philosophy

… ogni giorno godo dello spettacolo offerto dal disgraziato Schulte, che per punizione della sua ambizione deve controllare fatture, stendere rapporti e commettere sciocchezze dalla mattina alla sera., mentre io le la spasso con i miei papi morti. Questi vecchi signori sono davvero affabili nelle loro antiche bolle.

*********
… every day I am gloating over looking at the unhappy Schulte who has to double-check the entire day invoices, write reports and perform in other mindless activities whereas I can amuse myself with the dead popes. The elderly masters are really amiable with their old bulls.

contemplation – action

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Il vient toujours un temps où il faut choisir entre la contemplation et l’action. Cela s’appelle devenir un homme. Ces déchirements sont affreux. Mais pour un cœur fier, il ne peut y avoir de milieu. Il y a Dieu ou le temps, cette croix ou cette épée. Ce monde a un sens plus haut qui surpasse ses agitations ou rien n’est vrai que ces agitations. Il faut vivre avec le temps et mourir avec lui ou s’y soustraire pour une plus grande vie. Je sais qu’on peut transiger et qu’on peut vivre dans le siècle et croire à l’éternel. Cela s’appelle accepter. Mais je répugne à ce terme et je veux tout ou rien. Si je choisis l’action, ne croyez pas que la contemplation me soit comme une terre inconnue. Mais elle ne peut tout me donner, et privé de l’éternel, je veux m’allier au temps. Je ne veux faire tenir dans mon compte ni nostalgie ni amertume et je veux seulement y voir clair. Je vous le dis, demain vous serez mobilisé. Pour vous et pour moi, cela est une libération. L’individu ne peut rien et pourtant il peut tout. Dans cette merveilleuse disponibilité vous comprenez pourquoi je l’exalte et l’écrase à la fois. C’est le monde qui le broie et c’est moi qui le libère. Je le fournis de tous ses droits.

continuer Camus