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 ...

The World – Perhaps Unexpected Impression from an International Meeting

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

ENA – the European Network Academy for Social Movements took place in Freiburg. An opportunity also for ATTAC’s academic council to be involved and also to have one of its regular meetings. For me an interim stop to take part, also taking part in the ceremony during which the hugely important contribution by Joerg Huffschmid to the development of political economy had been acknowledged.

Leaving the different facets aside there had been an impression that came probably rather unexpected – and it surely is unexpected as issue popping up as part of the various reporting on the event which will be done by the organisers, participants and many others. I lived a little bit outside of Freiburg – possibly a little bit comparable with the place in which I live in Ireland. A tiny, little bit dozy village (sure, in the positive sense). My first impression hadn’t been great – though arriving in a lovely spot I thought: here you are caught, you’ll spent a fortune for taxi-transport. I could spend several bits and bites now …, but to keep it short I’ll jut leave it with Saturday morning’s  impression: I took the bus at 6:10 – we arranged an early meeting with some people and I wanted to go for a nice coffee and a bite to eat before, and perhaps a stroll through the old town in the black forest (yes: town; still also more or less tiny, dozy … – black forest, which is still a little bit the world of fairy tales where one may expect gnomes and fairies at least lurking around some corners (surely not Saturday afternoons though, when the entire place is packed with people: shopping, and speaking a language which makes me believe I lost at least 60 percent of my knowledge of speaking German). The bus trip took about 8 minutes. And it had been a small bus – actually a taxi (8 seater or so). The three people had been dropped off at the tram station: line 1, the end stop, seen in the morning: the start of the tram heading to Freiburg. I stamped the ticket, took a seat, looked out of the window …, about three other small busses arrived, people walked across the small square of the bus stop, the door of the tram had been opened … – it didn’t take long – probably half ano hour after leaving the guest house I arrived in the centre.

Sure, much is about moving from the periphery to the centre – like the mosquito to the light: from the small villages, the remote areas, the detached farm houses … . And one may discuss such a move in more general terms – in this small  perspective of commuters and in the larger perspective of global world systems. But one may also discuss the way of moving – and the actual direction. Option one: the strict divide – the centre remaining the centre, the periphery being periphery – and all living in their own way and place and pace. Option two: reaching out from the centre: huge buses, like steamrollers: an offer to those who are living int he periphery and being able to withstand the pressure, better to say: to keep with the strength of such huge mashines. Said again in a different way: Those who are in the centre of the periphery. Those living a little further back – the periphery of the periphery …,

There are some who are in darkness
And the Others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness from from sight

Option three, though the centre is still point of reference, the way of bringing centre and periphery together is one of looking after the needs of the centre, adopting to space and pace.

…..

I go for a lovely espresso, have my croissant (still miss my simit with which I fell in love the months I spent in Ankara, especially as the Freiburgian croissant is much more distant to the real French pastry than the distance between Freiburg and the French border may suggest), meet the others later: Baerbel first, Gunter … – we sit down for the meeting …, I have to leave little bit early – Brigitte kindly agreed to transport some stuff for me to Graz where I will collect it end of September when I go  there for the OFEB-congress, before finally returning to Ireland. After leaving here, I head back: ENA, discussing the development of strategies bringing people from the different local groups from the different countries together, diffuse impressions, opinions, various topics, seemingly not going well together, slowly merging, like little rivulets, coming together, merging to a stream  …

_____________

Sure, until finally arriving in Graz, it is not really the quite life, my space and pace trying to keep the space and pace of the global …

And in Ireland I will see, if I find a bus, bringing  me home. If things changed since the last time that I had been there? I do not know if these small buses do exist elsewhere in Germany nowadays. If so it is a new development. Perhaps something, Germany learned from countries in the periphery: personally I saw them the  first time in Moldova, the Ukraine …, recently so common again in Ankara … and now they reached the centre …

…; learning is possible.

May be all this is just another Kantian story – he once defined

Law is the  epitome of the conditions under which the caprice of the one can be brought together with the caprice of somebody else by observing a general law of freedom.

Recht ist der Inbegriff der Bedingungen, unter denen die WIllkuer des einen mit der Willkuer des anderen nach einem allgemeinen Gesetz der Freiheit zusammen vereinigt werden kann

And as the same author wrote elsewhere

That what people cannot decide for themselves cannot be decided by the legislator for the people.

Was das Volk nicht ueber sich selbst beschliessen kann, dass kann der Gesetzgeber auch nicht ueber das Volk beschliessen.(Kant, 1793)

An easily misinterpreted sentence from his work ‘Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis’. And still a sentence that may be worthwhile to think about – as it is worthwhile to think about bus services and the like.

Four Apostles

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy

The usual reading – better to say: viewing – is the Christian one. And there it is a rather affirmative one: Duerer, the time of reformation and the apparent personal inner disunity – a universal artist, comparable in so many ways with Leonardo, remaining Catholic and nevertheless sympathising with the upcoming movement as promoted by Luther.

One of the well-known paintings is the one mentioned in the title: Four Apostles. And as much as it the artists appreciation of these key figures of Christianity and their specific merits for this social movement, as much it can be seen in a more psychological way, as representation of the four humours or four temperaments … – though surely not referring to the scientific works on these topics. I took a couple of times the opportunity to visit during a short break the Alte Pinakothek, just a couple of minutes walk from the office at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich’s Amalienstrasse.

There may be another reading – a more sociological interpretation; or even better: a socio-demographic perspective of its own kind.

One may say four temperaments is about four allowed temperaments, ‘roles’ defined societally and determining what we are allowed to do and what we are not allowed: expectations, though not written in stone being carried on the strong pillars of hegemonic systems.

Frequently over the last days and weeks I had been thinking abdout it – travelling through different worlds: Poland, Turkey, Russia, Germany. Travelling in and moving on different ‘national scenes’ – though often not really knowing in which ‘representative role’; or being excitingly lost with others in floating spaces, cosmopolitan, referring to roots as  something that …, I try to recall the way I expressed it talking today with my Bolivian colleague:

accepting the difference as something from which something new, a new unity emerges which does allow, creates new differences. Relationships not as being in relationship with others but being relationship as such.

Frequently over the last days and weeks I had been thinking of it: me, being the junior,  the senior, the cosmopolitan or the country-boy, the weird person from the little island, by many still seen as laid back, parochial …

And with all not least the person representing different ages, and engaging with different ages: young people, engaged, striving for change, innovation … standing up with their visions – sanguine as apostle John. Having visions and looking for what is in the widest sense ‘formally possible’, what appears to be possible even if only by way of thinkable.

The middle aged, here the younger striving for positions: individual careers, looking for options: realism if one wants, the dictatorship of the presence …, somewhat choleric, trying ‘to get there’, as they didn’t have a choice from where to start … Choleric at times like St. Mark. And then moving towards a somewhat phlegmatic stage – St. Petrian: standing in life where life out them – striving for standing: like a stone – unswerving, the ‘vision of fulfillment in the given framework. Tribulation as price paid for …, hope. In some way the protestant who once elevated him/herself, convinced of having reached the utmost possible, convinced that all the rest is about performance – and hiding the acrimony.

Old age then: vision merging with experience now, the ongoing strive for a better world, now based on at least more knowledge, the knwoledge as acknowledgement: freedom as insight, based on the acknowledgement of facts and on acknowledgment of the value of knowledge as value in itself. Vision as  following the latency and tendency which is inherent in the presence in its elementary form. Melancholy … – possible just about the consciousness of being part of an ongoing movement, knowing about the fruit and knowing that one will now be able to take part in the harvest. Paulean – or Platonic?

In any case, having been in  contact with so many different colleagues, it is always again interesting to see how we ‘define our roles’ by accepting hegemonic expectations: ‘roles’ and standards of behaviour: change – in a ‘jestery way’ – obvious left for those who are changing themselves: growing ideas for and from those who are obviously themselves growing; stability: doggedness – the subservience, the servility of those who stopped living,  how are alive, kept on the leash like dogs, the lead taken by the master. Freedom seems to be with the elder: old, grey and not looking for permission. Permitting themselves by following experience and allowing themselves to be a little bit like … jesters. – Let us all be jesters, at least to some extent. To the extent and in the way in which Ernst Bloch spoke

of four different kinds of possibilities, allowing us with this an informed approach to understanding them in their objectivity. He points on (i) the formally possible – what is possible according to its logical structure; (ii) the objectively possible – possible being based on assumptions on the ground of epistemologically based knowledge; (iii) the objectively possible – possible as it follows from the options inherently given by the object; (iv) and the objectively real possible – possible by following the latency and tendency which is inherent in its elementary form.*

***************

The Pinaktohek – the long building – standing in front of Duerer’s painting and turning the back to it, one sees at the the other end another painting: Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, épouse Le Normant d’Étiolles, Marquise de Pompadour – the painting  by Francois Boucher. Another time looming – not envisioned  by the tame Duerer, envisioned by people, much younger …, much older … than this great artist.

***************

Four temperaments – for dimensions of production to: the manufacturing in the strict sense, the distribution, the productive consumption and finally the exchange? I think I will leave that for another time.

***************

And of course, there is a rights perspective entailed. It is easy to speak of rights, saying that some are fundamental, indivisible and universal.

The Declaration of Human Rights states in article 23

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Is that then all? The right can be easily seen as obligation – though this is surely debatable. But even if we do not see it as obligation, it sets a certain norm: work as employed, ‘paid’ work – and thus as part of a capitalist economy as norm.
And in fact, from here we come nolens volens back to Christianity: the founding stone and at the same time the later established pillar: either way the stronghold of the system with which inequality and subordination is intrinsically linked** – looking at the Second Epistle to the Thessalnoians in the  New Testament where we read
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. (2 Thess., 3:10)

***************

The last evening, after the concert in the cathedral I sit down at the Odeons-Square fro an espresso – music from the other side, strange: in its remoteness determined, determining and reminding that there are new tasks ahead, on already now planned for the collaboration with a colleague from the colleague at the institute. Sure not three tasks, not a Trinity. But will I just Take Five instead?

 

The way will have to show …. – perhaps here, perhaps there – today here, tomorrow there.

________________________

* with reference to Bloch, Ernst (1959) Prinzip Hoffnung; Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp [written in 1938‐1947; reviewed 1953 and 1959]: 258-288 from: Herrmann, Peter, 2011: ‘New Princedoms‘: 197)

** I know, I discussed liberation theology as well the afternoon of the other day – and there are many different kinds of ‘liberation theology’, not all even under such name and explicit ambition …

Yes We Can

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Friday I received a nice postcard from Eva, showing the Øresund Bridge

What can be more correct than saying

in these times full of terror I think it is important to build bridges between people.

Sitting Saturday evening in the Brunnnenhof of the Munich Residence, Adrasteia sitting next to me – we arranged to meet at the entrance as I had to working during day time (what is new). It is good being together for a while. I am asking myself what is in a name, in her name, meaning “inescapable” and also “not running away”. Like my thoughts: The time here in Munich is coming to its end now – and though I will be soonish back at the Institute I have piles of work on my desk: piles that are waiting to be cleared before I leave rather than staying here, looking forward meeting me later the year.

My thoughts are not employed by the work – but by bridges, strange bridges, bringing spotlights of life, of personal and general history together that are seemingly much further apart than Malmö, Skåne län, Sweden and Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, Denmark.

Being here for the concert of Maria Farantouri I am of course thinking about Greece: The long history, suggesting Greece as one of the main cradles of our European civilisation – the medium historical level: only in 1974 chasing the regime of the colonels, which established its despotic rule in 1967 by a coup d’état, away: establishing democracy, now facing another turmoil: the coup d’état by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF. – Though saying it this way is possibly a little bit unjust as this most recent coup had been prepared for some time: the generals left, and as many democrats came as much they had been embraced by the lethal kiss of the viper, darting its tongue in and out: the stick and carrot policies of a (now) European Union (Greece joint in 1981). My mind is caught in a whirlwind of history: The Homeric epics of the Iliad and Odyssey

written in the form of ‘cantos’, the songs, the unforgotten Canto General and the recent socio-economic developments, events and also protests which I discussed so many times with Ioanna with whom I am still in touch since she asked me to write the article (“Greece and Ireland in the same crisis shaken boat”), and, which is of course frequently popping topic here with the Greek friends.

Bridges … – before coming here to Munich I worked in Ankara – and arriving there I looked for ‘local music’, and leaving Dede Efendi and also the excellent new Turkish Jazz aside, I frequently listened to the music by Zülfü Livaneli – his music as insightful and challenging as the books I red some time ago already.

As said, sitting there, a mild late summer evening, waiting for the open air concert to begin, my flickering mind is building bridges much linger than the one spanning between the two countries in the North. Greek dictatorship cam to an end in close connection with the invasion of Cyprus and thus the intensification of the conflict between Turkey and Greece ….

… on the other hand Livaneli and Farantouri showing the harmony, tensions striving towards solution …, productive tensions building bridges.

Other things floating in my mind, from the recent terror in Norway to the ongoing crusades: crusades between Rome and Mecca and Mecca and Rome, between Westminster and the Oireachtas and Oireachtas and Westminster …  – and though I am not thinking of it in terms of work now, I briefly think about last week’s discussion with Lorena, and the book she mentioned – a small, short text by Rudolpf von Jhering. He rejects the Savigny-Puchta approach that claims a pre-existing harmony from which law, rightfulness, right emerges like a result of Platonic love. In his work on “The Struggle of Law” he sees sword and scale as inextricably linked. Right needs to be fought for. And this is an eternal effort, a striving for the permanent ‘renewal’.

Law can only rejuvenate by doing away with its own past. A concrete right, which, after once emerging claims unlimited, this eternal persistence, is equal to a child, that raises the hand towards his/her mother. It ridicules the idea of law, by calling to her as the very idea of law is permanent becoming, but what once emerged has to open a space for new becoming.

Recently, when presenting to the Institute my ideas about Human Rights, Law and Economics a colleague from the audience said after I finished, during the discussion:

But aren’t these rights we are talking about today very much still the same rights that had been claimed – and breached – 50 years, 500 years, and even longer times ago?

Of course, many old debates – also the history that seems to be repeating on a personal level. Sitting here for the concert with Maria – after having listened to her 20, 30 of even more years ago. – Did really nothing change?

I turn to Adrasteia – “inescapable”, “not running away”.

Maria, comes onto the stage – not hiding that she has difficulties to walk, not hiding her age. But the voice still full of power …, moved and moving, full of power and empowering. I look around – the typical audience: the ‘old left’, surely rebellious at times and many now civilised, settled, sedated. One may say, reaching the end of their life’s fight. Many clearly showed

Yes we can

trying to hide a tiny disguise, the mutation of the we, having been swiftly transposed to the I – the letter I and the Roman figure I as the sole unity.

Maria is captivating, enchanting:

Yes we can

As long as we face the inescapable, as long as we don’t (allow) to run away.

Maria’s long silk orange shawl moves in the light wind, hides and leaves the view on the purple dress, a long necklace – simple and good looking. The voice is strong, behind it the devotion and warm passion for another world that is possible.

Cats and Enlightenment

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

The other day I sent a mail to a colleague and friend: after he let me know about the “very latest” Apple’s laptop; and after I came across the very latest software (OS) …. and after I sent him a devastating negative critique on that software I saw by accident – he replied, saying that he could not share  the critique after installing the OS … Fair enough – maybe that I install it soon myself …, but …: there is a more complicate answer to it, one that is not really about computers …. – so here it is:

Take your point, Kenneth; and not knowing the Lion, the cat itself had not been really my point. Nor Mac/apple or any special brand … . However, I am already since some time and receptively concerned about all these “the latest” and “the best”, quickly moving on to “very latest and the very best” and moving on to … – take food, take washing powder, take computers …, well, and take education and financial markets (of course, subsequently the crisis from 2007, though predictable since 2??? – not sure when exactly in the early 2000s I published something predicting its emergence), getting obvious in 2008, being bemoaned in 2009 (after overcoming the first shock) and now a matter of usage or something like it [perhaps even habit]. Due to the complete crash of my database which until today is not sorted, I installed office I don’t know what (the latest version) – it is so complicated that I cannot handle it, things are so easy, so much “supported” with macros etc. that many things are awkward … – I am now back to the previous version, and for mail I am using mail … – this apparently doesn’t allow me to use BE, at least the spellcheck highlights everything as wrong that doesn’t follow “big brothers” AE-rule.

Talking about rule – brings me to my current position, working on law. Though most of my own work is around philosophy of law, a look at more current issues has to be part of it. As usual, I forgot the figures. Roughly then just one example: the German Social Code – BSHG – had been established in 1962, serving as foundation for the area until 2004. Be assured, there had been many serious problems around the law, and with the BSHG itself and also with the implementation. I remember my own engagement on relevant issues – criticising relevant issues …, long stories, I could tell many and long stories (though I cannot tell you out of hand the dates). At stake had been very fundamental, systemic questions, matters of implementation – and all in between. – Still, for the good or bad this law had been in place until 2004 – changes had been made but only relatively few and not changing fundamentals. In 2005 Hartz-IV changed fundamentally the entire situation. I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything? But there is something which really is of concern for me: The same minute when the institutions of the parliamentary democratic system approved Hartz-IV, the very same law had been already discussed in the special committees – and the important point is: they discussed the need for fundamental changes.

As said, I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything.

And I surely would be the last who would say: Oh good god. There is no divine power to trust:

No Saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

….

[You’ll find it somewhere here ;-)]

But the reason had been – so far I am indeed not too far from the humanist thinking as it finds its roots in the citoyenitée, revolutionary at its time, though at the end conservative in its idealism – the force to be guiding: guiding by circumspection, at least striving for providence.

Further a brief note on the law: legal provisions in the US (laws, acts …) are enacted and remain in place for a very short term only – the European had been different and increasingly changes, developing an ever shorter time of turn over. in in some way o the same point: Yesterday I have had a lengthy talk with Lorena, a colleague from Brazil who works here at the institute (really enjoyed it, really brought me forward in my own thinking. We discussed a text which I wrote as part of the book mentioned the other day.

As said, I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything. But something is surely remarkable. At one stage she said: most of the literature you refer to, are the classics. There is not much you use from what had been published more recently [though I actually made reference to Hart, Luhmann and other youngsters ;-)]. She mentioned – as missing – for instance Habermas. Sure, I could have included part of his work – but what did and does he really say what had not been said much better already by Kant, Weber … ?

There is good reason for change – but it should be reasoned, not rushed ….

But I have to rush now …, going to the bookshop, getting something to read when I don’t have the privilege of the use of the library here anymore.

And have to read, red, read and write, write, write … – but all with the one point in mind: it is not anout another interpretation, it is about change – that is then the focus next week ….

All The Same …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, works, projects, publications

Something done – timely. Well, saying timely is not absolutely correct as I actually mean: time to get it out of the way after spending extensive time on the work: bringing the different contributions together, working,discussing drafts … – and writing something that is more meaningful than saying that a crontrubuted by saying … and be contributed by saying … Well, still couple of weeks left before it can be bought.

But actually having said ‘timely’ is actually correct too: after so many publications on the crisis since 2008ish (and many good, important contributions without any doubt) the present volume aims on showing the need to go beyond the ‘standard proposals’ – those that are remaining in the structural cage of the growth economies – and this includes to some extent also the post-growth-orientations, as critical and productive many f them are. Actually, via the work in the scientific committee of attac I am involved in these debates too – and there will be surely interesting and challenging debates during the upcoming meeting of the European Network Academy for Social Movements (ENA) – for my part it means leaving Munich-office end of next week, joining at least for some of the debates in Freiburg, also preparing the Euromemo-conference in Vienna, planned for September, and then heading for my Finland job.

Sure, all this travel and these different activities are very much “a private thing” – but they are at the very same time exactly a matter that is at stake also in the book: a new way of work, of living, the actual meaning of what economy is about – ….. AND THE WAY OF ANALYISING IT. At least for me, living globally and working in the different fields – here on Munich it had been very much law, shifting now to political movement (if you want “governance”), and then working again more on economics … – in a way you may say: the privilege  of living what I am working on and writing about – and what Paul called for to think about in new terms: the  modèle anthroponomique

BTW, it is a special pleasure for me that I have been invited to join the Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting at the Lomonosow Moscow State University as as Associate Member.

Anyway, some information on the book now:

All the Same – All Being New

Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change

Peter Herrmann (ed.)

Contributors
Paul Boccara, Judit Csoba, John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney, Peter Herrmann, Arno Tausch

 

For Paul Boccara

Friendship, Openness, Trust

In Advance……….. 4

Peter Herrmann……….. 5

Deciphering Globalisation – An Introduction……….. 5

Paul Boccara……….. 58

“We must incriminate the basic rules of capitalism”……….. 58

John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney……….. 63

Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation……….. 63

Arno Tausch……….. 85

Paul Boccara’s Analysis of Global Capitalism……….. 85

Paul Boccara……….. 115

The Global Crisis and Africa : Struggles for Alternatives……….. 115

Alternative Financial System for North and South and Struggles to Master the Market, and for Common and Public Services or Goods, from Local to Global Levels……….. 115

Judit Csoba……….. 126

Goals and tools of Public Employment Programs in Hungary……….. 126

Paul Boccara……….. 144

Labour market, employment and unemployment policies in the European Union……….. 144

Paul Boccara……….. 155

What needs from Marxism?……….. 155

Annex……….. 160

And Still Not Found The Answer

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it

May be it is as simple – perhaps not telling the entire story though at least a major chapter. Tantalus and Eros – Sigmund Freud and his followers first excited us with the analysis of the adversaries, and reached boredom with the exaggeration of such claim to sole representation. The entire life subordinated under the unconsciousness and the fight of these apparently insoluble contradictoriness.

And still, we come across it again and again – and if we are open enough we see it not so much and not primarily as personalities (and the lack) but also and predominantly as matter of social interests, of social patterns reflecting different interests and powers. Sure, the short version is the individual interest against the interest of social interests. The dissoluteness, set free at a stage where people lost any hope, where they draw back from a society which lost the capacity of providing anything: Like the pure lust of the seven young women and three young men, who wanted to escape the black death, left Florence and emerged in the telling of stories, overcoming the restrictions of a society that lost the power over them, positive and negative, supporting and controlling power … .This apparently generic struggle of the two different patterns of control: instinctive acting on one’s feelings, standing in such detrimental way against society can also be seen the other way round: the oppression of individual lust by a society that actually lost control over itself – I quoted earlier Immanuel Kant and his rejection of pure reason.

It may look far-fetched and may still be also reasonable – the pure reason as control of a society that lost any true reason, that lost cognition in a wider sense. This gives another background then for the vendetta of which we learn in Alighieri’s canto 6 of the Purgatorio: two families, Montecchi and Cappelletti, standing against each other and the tension overshadowing the love of a couple that we may consider today as one of the most famous couples in literature: here in the purgatory we find the origin of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, surely without that we should accuse him of plagiarism, took up a story that originated in Italy – and he took up a topic that went much beyond the love of the couple, went beyond a family feud, reflecting the different patterns, the different leading morals that up to then and thereafter shaped in totally different ways the process of civilisation.

By way of soci(et)al development and personal sensations alike we can see Romanticism as one of the forces taking up the ‘spiritual level’, frequently reappearing and not least carrying with it egocentric notions: like George Gordon Byron: Don Juan of his time, living the lost paradise and making it up for himself, rejecting any claim as it is still brought forward in Milton’s Paradise Lost where we read:

What in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great Argument

I may assert th’ Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Milton looking for the solution in God (1667), Bryon suggesting the ego as the ultimate solution (in the early 1800s) and today the new romanticism in painting, perhaps a little bit reflecting 19th-century impressionism in the widest sense – from Goya to Cézanne, as a frequent guided tour in the New Pinakotek shows. – But let us not forget the difference. May one see impressionism as a specific reflection of romanticism (though one does not have to follow this interpretation) looking very much for a retreat, whereas today’s romanticism being more an audacious, desperate cry for help of those who lost hope?

And although these romanticisms in their different appearances and meanings are not simply about the too often kitschy love relationships, they find a battleground that expresses the entire story from an unexpected side: finding its one pole in the mariage de convenance and its counter-pole in the emotional devotion – both actually very specific, very different expressions of both: equality and otherworldliness in the here and now. The formal equality of the law, the otherworldliness of an entirely formalised system of pure reason on the one hand – the equality of love, of understanding, going hand in hand with the otherworldliness of absorption by the rapture of blinding affection. – Una poetica della meraviglia as Rudolfo Celletti termed it, bringing together the contradictions in only one tense time. And expressing it in the compositions by Bellini: mellifluous melodies, still absorbing us in permanent tensions.

A ‘timeless’ piece: Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi obviously something that gains its value, its inspiring character not least by being inspiring for so many times.

And We Still Did Not Find The Answer

On Reason and Peace

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

Something we may have to think about as well when we look at the terrible incidents that happened in Norway the last days – I had been re-reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason while working on defintional issues of law. I found something that is important enough to be thought about, also as matter of thinking about the connection between ‘managerialism’ (as another form of ‘pure reason’) and the (re-)emergence of (here: Christian) fundamentalism and neo-fascism:

Philosophical cognition, accordingly, regards the particular only in the general; mathematical the general in the particular, nay, in the individual. This is done, however, entirely a priori and by means of pure reason, so that, as this individual figure is determined under certain universal conditions of construction, the object of the conception, to which this individual figure corresponds as its schema, must be cogitated as universally determined.

The essential difference of these two modes of cognition consists, therefore, in this formal quality; it does not regard the difference of the matter or objects of both. Those thinkers who aim at distinguishing philosophy from mathematics by asserting that the former has to do with quality merely, and the latter with quantity, have mistaken the effect for the cause. The reason why mathematical cognition can relate only to quantity is to be found in its form alone. For it is the conception of quantities only that is capable of being constructed, that is, presented a priori in intuition; while qualities cannot be given in any other than an empirical intuition. Hence the cognition of qualities by reason is possible only through conceptions. No one can find an intuition which shall correspond to the conception of reality, except in experience; it cannot be presented to the mind a priori and antecedently to the empirical consciousness of a reality. We can form an intuition, by means of the mere conception of it, of a cone, without the aid of experience; but the colour of the cone we cannot know except from experience. I cannot present an intuition of a cause, except in an example which experience offers to me. Besides, philosophy, as well as mathematics, treats of quantities; as, for example, of totality, infinity, and so on. Mathematics, too, treats of the difference of lines and surfaces—as spaces of different quality, of the continuity of extension—as a quality thereof. But, although in such cases they have a common object, the mode in which reason considers that object is very different in philosophy from what it is in mathematics. The former confines itself to the general conceptions; the latter can do nothing with a mere conception, it hastens to intuition. In this intuition it regards the conception in concreto, not empirically, but in an a priori intuition, which it has constructed; and in which, all the results which follow from the general conditions of the construction of the conception are in all cases valid for the object of the constructed conception.

Kant, Immanuel: Critik der Reinen Vernunft; Zweyte hin und wieder verbesserte Auflage; Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1787 (erste Auflage: 1781); Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag: 1956: 614) (I did not check the English translation reproduced here.)

enlightenment too – and the irony of historical un-reason

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As wise as it is, it counteracts its own claim of reason and enlightenment: Why are individuals only men?

No, I don’t claim to be better as the master – we are children of our time, caught in the language of the time … – and criticising those times and words may evoke the hope that our own limitations and errors are less bold, less harming, less offending …

Surely Provocative – The Staging of ‘Rusalka’

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log

A Retrospect – surely provocative (and from my side I mean it quite positive) – the staging of ‘Rusalka

by Marin Kušej, part of this year’s Munich Opera Festival.

And joining the guided exhibition on Rusalka – ‘watch and listen’ – the afternoon brought me into a specific mood to take up the provocation.

Generally it is seen and emphasised as a kind of psychodrama, focusing on the incestual rape as such. Surely a serious enough topic.

1901 is the year of the first staging – in Prague. It would take less than 15 years that in that region the first world war would find its point of departure: initiated by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the thrown of Austria-Hungary. Here is not the space to discuss details – as for instance the meaning of initiating the war by the deed of a Yugoslav nationalist. A bit more interesting is that it had been the first war that had been explicitly called world war, thus understood as ‘global’. It took about 13 years from the rape to the war – a ‘bewitched rape’ if one wants: the husband of the witch, with the knowledge of his life, had been the perpetrator. Rusalka became speechless, mute – and debarred: after having been exposed to, touch by a human being the other mermaid did not allow her to return. The division between worlds clear-cut, rigid and becoming more rigid again: the political and more: the economic opening, emerging from the young industrializing, capitalist world smothered by the new nationalism. More and stronger again than before.

– The son of the emperor dead …

Much earlier stood a ‘divine rape’ – the abducted young Europe, taken and raped by Zeus:

According to the Greek myth, Zeus, the Thunder-God residing on the Olympus, in the shape of a bull abducted Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and carried her over the sea to Crete. Agenor sent his sons out to search for their sister. One of them, Kadmos, landed in Greece and was told by the oracle of Delphi that he should wander around, armed with his spear till he reached the cowherd Pelagon in the land of Phokis. He should kill Pelagon – the man of earth, “born to die” – and choose the cow with the sign of the moon on both her flanks and follow her, till she would lie down, with her horns on the ground. On this hill he should kill and sacrifice her to the earth Goddess and then found a big city on this spot, Thebes.

Kadmos followed the oracle and became the founder of Thebes. He married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, the War God, and Aphrodite (…). It is not clear from the myths whether he killed the moon-cow, obviously his sister Europa, or not. In any case, one does not hear of her again. She, the raped and abducted woman was only the means to lead the warrior and new culture hero into the foreign land and to his greatness.

(Maria Mies: Europe in the Global Economy or the Need to De-Colonize Europe; in: Peter Herrmann (Ed.): Challenges for a Global Welfare System: Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.; 1999: 153-171; here: 160 f.)

A ‘divine rape’ – bringing unity: by exclusion and oppression and division. It is in some way the emergence of the world system that finds its roots here – also in some way of ‘the other’. Please note: the other within which is different to the total exclusion: the slave as ‘non-being’, ‘non-human’ gained (though surely not absolutely) a new status: being human and gaining a quasi-citizen status. Of course, all this needs qualification – the US maintained slavery (in historical terms) until recently; the ‘total exclusion’ had not been overcome just by establishing the then new European order …. – but it surely had been a ‘divine rape’ with the major consequence of establishing a new world order.

– The emperor, not yet born, had been conceived.

So far raped individuals, generations to suffer. This reversed: a generation had been raped – it had been a purely secular rape, and one that tried to disguise itself: seductive promises after WWII: reconstruction (sic!) at least in the Western hemisphere, development at least as promise. On the other hand, demon and Lord standing outside: actually already after WWI the emperor had to go – Dr. Franz Matfried had been born; at birth his name had been different: Seine Kaiserliche und Königliche Hoheit Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, Kaiserlicher Prinz, Erzherzog von Österreich, Königlicher Prinz von Ungarn (His imperial and Royal Highness Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, imperial prince, archduke of Austria, royal prince of Hungary).

Had he been god or demon? On the other side, the constructed god or demon: communism as danger of becoming real, playing at least as such an important role as incitement: “we” have to be better – we the West, we, the capitalist, now striving for what had been advertised as social market economy and welfare state (somewhat a contradiction in terms as the welfare state had been a child of Mr. Keynes, whereas Ludwig Erhard and Alfred Mueller-Armack had been children of Mr. Smith, their children and grand-children fro instance Mr. Friedman and Mrs. Thatcher.

With latest with the succession of those mentioned just before, the debauchery mutated, became pure self-rape. For some possibly and for a while bearing the virtual pleasure of masturbation on form of consumerism, the success of ‘young-egomaniac professionals’ and masochist self-exposure of a new mannerism oft post-modernist freedom without democracy, without society. After a while – and from the beginning for most people a real self-exploitation: alienation, loss of confidence and moreover: loss of any foundation on which confidence could be erected. ‘There is no such thing as society …’

In analytical terms surely not entirely wrong …

 – The emperor, chased out of office after WWII … – his son is buried now, and hopefully his spirit left.

Rusalka – A Lyric Fairy-Tale. Let us be that … – a provocation in its positive sense, encouraging to a new Kandinsky, a new Composition V.

Sure, much can be discussed on Kandinsky, the Blue rider and The Almanac and the transcendence (actually I did this today during a couple of hours in the Sammlung Schack attending a course. But equally sure is the need of courage to look in a constructive way forward rather than moaning about past and presence.

Friday, after the afternoon’s exhibition I talked on the way back to the guide – she asked me what I am doing – I told her a bit about this and that: economics, law, social policy and occasionally traveling  a bit here and there. “Such a variety. And then you still go to such an exhibition -make such a distinct step into an entirely different world …” – Not really though it looks at first glance – it allows me to look upon the forest – the vast area and array – and I step back then into the forrest, its different parts, touching the single trees. Don’t believe if anybody wants to tell you: “You cannot have it all.” It is the other way round: You cannot have one only, without taking all, without delving into the entirety.

Yes, she asked me what I am doing – the shorter answer: just enjoying life of work – just working through life ….

Human Rights – Law and Economy

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

But I wouldn’t start from here … – Contribution to Theorising Human Rights

Indeed, it is easy to say what we frequently suggest as solution to some of the problems – the Irish way: “But I wouldn’t start from here!” And indeed, it seems to be a simple thing, just starting from somewhere else and going a smooth part, just forward. The one thing is, of course, that we frequently do not really have a choice: we are just thrown into something, 18th Brumaire: history as nightmare, made by us but under conditions we find, that out of reach for us. But for the sake of truth, don’t we have to admit that we don’t think much about from where we start – not taking account of the variety of options as conceptualised by way of a counter-reality by Musil in his  “Mann ohne Eigenshaften” (“The Man without Qualities”)?

Human Rights – Law and Economy

is the title I gave to a public lecture I had been invited to give in the series of lectures at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, a lecture which is part of my stay in Munich – generously supported by the MPI (and giving work-opportunities in the library that are tempting to stay there over night) – will present some of the tentative results of the on-going research. The aim is to see the connection between Human Rights (legislation) and economy not in terms of the need to strive for just distribution of the wealth of this planet. Rather, at the core of the work are conceptual considerations. Sure, it is correct to say Human Rights begin at the breakfast table, the need to avail of sufficient resources for everybody. But we should not forget that the greatest ‘injustice’ is a system that can claim justice on the formal level. Although this is an underlying topic of the current research – and the presentation – at its heart stands the question of different modes of production and the way in which this has repercussions in the reflection on human rights and vice versa: in which way human rights perspective may impact on developments of the mode of production.

On a very pragmatic and really trivial level, working here again for a while, one has to strive with the every day’s decision from where to start: the library, the desk work (including the need to do the homework, following from teaching in Finland, Hungary and Ireland) or with meeting colleagues for shoptalk or simply for gossiping.