Recently somebody, i.e. a surely historically meaningful figure passed away – his name at birth reads as follows: 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). There is some evidence from Historical Research by Andrea Maria Dusl, an Austrian multiple expert, writing for Falter, giving evidence to the fact that the actual and final name of this person had been Dr. Franz Matfried. This subsequently follows from the following: the Austrian ‘law abolishing nobility’ did not allow further use of any titles and reference like this. Also: The Habsburigan root actually died off in 1740; Lorraine had been governed by the house of Châtenois, bearing since 795 the family name ‘Die Matfriede’, thus the name Dr. Franz Matfried. [Franz recently spoiled a little bit my lunch here in town – well, his last visit in town (i.e. currently Munich) meant that I had to make a change in my lunch plan as if the world would not be turbulent enough without such things]. Anyway, the arithmetic problem now: The name at birth (German version) has 225 characters (incl. spaces), the final name has 18. Calculate the meaning of the environmental of the Austrian law abolishing nobility under the condition that the person in question would have signed just two letters per day during his adult time.
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 ...
Science and Truth
Ed elli a me: “Ritorna a tua scïenza,
che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta,
più senta il bene, e così la doglienza.
Tutto che questa gente maladetta
in vera perfezion già mai non vada,
di là più che di qua essere aspetta.”
********
And he replied: ‘Return to your science,
which has it that, in measure of a thing’s perfection,
it feels both more of pleasure and of pain.
‘Although these accursèd people
will never come to true perfection,
they will be nearer it than they are now.’
(From Dante’s Inferno, scene VI)
But should these people walk each on his/her alone – ON THEIR OWN? True knowledge is only knowledge owned by all – and can only emerge from collective and cooperative endeavour.
Narrowing the Gap between the World’s Richest and Poorest
That had been the title of the workshop to which I contributed during the Global Media Forum, organised in June by the Deutsche Welle. In the meantime the recording is available from a site containing material from (nearly?) all workshops.
The workshop in question, organised by the attac-network, namely its German branch took place on Wednesday the 22nd. In my contribution (from about minute 24 – before Fabian Scheidler, kontext -tv, later then discussion) I emphasised the need to take up the challenge of addressing human rights issues not only and not even primarily as question of distribution. Breach of human rights is primarily an issue of the global mode of production and has to be addressed as such. This has also implications for the way in which we defined these rights.
Some of the questions are also addressed in a book which is currently with Rozenberg publishers where it is prepared for publication. Its title:
God, Rights, Law and a Good Society. Overcoming Religion and Moral as Social Policy Approach in a Godless and Amoral Society (title tbc)
Anthropology and more
Anthropology – how it works or: once it is always the first time
Create an image of your superiority; then behave according to the image and confront with “the other” – but do so after creating the other as inferior. If you do not make a mistake on the way you will be in (I guess) 80+ percent of the cases be able to maintain your prejudices.
Advanced version: To show your superiority return to your own tribe of white people and say that “the other” also should have rights – refer to the universal declaration and highlight the importance of article 23 and 25, especially highlighting the implication of a capitalist system, based on employment etc..
Further possible advancement: upload this proof of your superiority on youtube (or the like) to let the world know about your wisdom – as the world won’t be able to follow the entire story, make sure that you tell only half of it – don’t worry that it may cause some disorientation as half of the truth may be a complete lie.
Peak of wisdom: you do it not as anthropologist but as school and advise your government – as Mr. Rostow (and many others) did in the spirit of a non-communist manifesto. Even go a step further: Rather than accepting the need for real and critical confrontation you declare your work as part of the war against evil and terror.
NB: working as academic, make sure to use fancy titles and expressions like Clash of Civilisations or End of History. By such (sometimes publisher-provoked) modes of flattening actually highly interesting arguments you will lessen the impact on truly academic debates but you will increase sales figures and you will also scale up on impact and ranking lists.
Conclusion: this principle pattern can be used in various situations, not only the one depicted inn the clips. It can also be applied in debates on religion, ethnicity, social class and not least in justifying the lack of democratic processes. As Nira Yuval-Davis writes
Different social divisions, such as class, race and ethnicity, tend to have certain parameters. They tend to be ‘naturalized’, to be seen as resulting from biological destiny linked to differential genetic pools of intelligence and personal characteristics*
Recommendation: make sure that you avoid education.
___________________________
* Yuval-Davis, Nira, 2006: Intersectionality and Feminist Politics; in: European Journal of Women’s Studies; London et altera: Sage; 13/3: 193-209: here: 199, with reference to Cohen, Philip, 1998: The Perversions of Inheritance; in: Cohen, Philip/Bains, Harwant S. (eds.) Multi-Racist Britain; London: Macmillan
Education
People who blindly subordinate themselves in collectivities, degrade themselves to some kind of material, a sort of thing, obliterate themselves as self-determined beings. This concurs with the readiness to treat others as amorphous mass … Democracy that does not only function in a mechanical way but that works according to it’s meaning requires responsible citizens. We can imagine realised democracy only as society of mature beings. … The concretisation of such matureness that some people who feel destined aim with all energy on defining education as education provoking dissent and resistance.
Theodor W. Adorno, 1966 – translation P.H.
All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change
All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change
Finally I am really working on this book⏎ , meaning: I am working on finalising the work. It is only editing a book, writing just one contribution myself. The work with the contributors: commenting and you know what is involved is done. And there is some time to come I concentrate on it: after the recent workshops and conferences and … and the visit to Vilnius to where I had to go for two PhD-students, well, since then: two doctors (they are now. Right though – never really get over the confusion with doctors, medical doctors, PhDs …).
Anyway, though an extremely short trip, leaving Munich around Lunch time on Tuesday, returning around lunchtime on Thursday, had been sufficient time to visit also the Opera House, staging Otello. Seems I entered a contemporary piece:
And leaving the love story aside, the “Shakespeare/Verdi collaboration” is very much also about the definition of a very specific hegemony – in a nutshell we my say that Shakespeare’s piece is about a crusade without talking much about religion. There is a tiny point that is, in some respect, too small to be even recognised: real hegemony exists only where its reason does not need to destroy the other – be it that it is already completely diminished or for the simple reason of being consistently … , well …., tamed is probably the appropriate, at least the commonly used term. Is it by chance that this is probably in some way Verdi’s most innovative opera, not working with highlights of the grand arias, not aiming on the da capo but following throughout the entire piece, nearly disrespecting even the of the (surely existing four) distinct acts.
– It is worth to mention in a side remark that going to Lietuvos Nacionalinis Pperos ir Baleto Teatras was again the special pleasure of that place: surely a stage that can well keep up with some of the most famous places, offering especially exciting arrangements. And indeed it had been a performance that surely did justice to Verdi’s strive to maintain a permanence of the tension, going through the entire performance – the accomplished hegemony as the domestication is with this something that is and that is not: a feature of daily life of which we are not aware due to its lack of highlight. We complain, protest, justify, defend positions only when it comes to the headscarf, the cross in classrooms, the war again terror … – and accept exactly these tensions because they are deeply engraved. However, there is a BUT …. as
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d.
So, looking at the origin, namely Shakespeare he presented another reality – another facet of the reality. (Likely) a year after publishing Othello, he published in 1623 The Taming of the Shrew
A harshly misogynistic piece? Or a piece that works with a kind of alienation, ridiculing a reality … ?- Leaving aide if it is misogynistic or not, the topic is surely going much beyond, and at the same time is closely linked with others – gender, …, and surely the modern crusades follow all the same principle, suggesting a war against evil, Goethe’s words unwillingly capturing in his Erlkoenig.
“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.” —
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!**
One year between Shakespeare’s two pieces …, Goethe writing these words in 1782, roughly 150 years later and perhaps they can both seen culminating in Verdi’s opera. Why this: 1871 had been the year of national upheavals in Italy and elsewhere, the era of nation building – and this is surely nothing else than striving for hegemony, for (redefining it).
And this is currently the ‘grand narrative’, against defiance of postmodernist ‘openness’ and vacillation. The attempts and failures of establishing a new hegemonic order – looking for its structures by looking at the clash of civilisations, by looking at the structurations by accumulation regimes and the role of financialisation – and by confronting ourselves with the topic:
All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change
All this is surely not least a question of openly dealing with nearness and distance – Petruchio telling his friend Hortensio of his strive for seeking the future
farther than at home/Where small experience grows”
The words are taken from The Taming of the Shrew but would surely be most appropriate also somewhere in Othello.
Indeed (from Otello again):
Questa è una ragna dove il tuo cuor casca***
And being caught in such spiderweb it arises as phenomenon of a very peculiar kind that we may not even know about it, moving with it and along its single single fathom, perceiving the glutinous support as savour … – as one of the PhD-candidates lauded: ‘We are experience only 20 years of independence …’, not even thinking about the following:
By totalling up pages in the many volumes of the EU’s Official Journal of legislation we found that the EU has passed a staggering 666,879 pages of law since its inception in 1957.
The figures as such …, who knows if this is really the total – and do numbers really matter? Doesn’t another fact matter much more? The fact of seeing this as independence – a “this” which is a true hegemon standing against the people, the demos as the supposed sovereign?
Sure, it may sound strange, but after enjoying Verdi on Wednesday in Vilnius and just having left a most enjoyable performance of The Taming of the Shrew on Sunday in Munich, strange people may leave the Bavarian State Ballet, return to the office, thinking that it may be time to return to Kant’s works, looking at his Reflections on Anthropology rather than Habermasian good-will-voluntarism. In volume 15, containing the Handschriftlicher Nachlass: Anthropologie he contends:
We are inclined to wish that vice faces more obstacles. But authoritarian and other extrinsic force would be noxious in this case before the way of thinking is generally improved. Philosophers are already by their undertakings most independent of statutes. They have to make true conventions general. Their pupils, the clergy have to mould their religion accordingly. And the education of the rulers. Rulers will attempt to institute world peace. After that the inner establishment of freedom, law and power. Subsequently educations will follow under the auspices of the common character.
Sciences do not belong to the determination of the individual but to that of humankind. The individual being has his primary determination by animalism. However, the species finds it in completion of reason, braking with the first. ****
Idealism, sure – but allowing to enter the search for realism … – enabling it to stand on its feet by looking what actually is the same and what did really change. Surely we should be careful: Muley Hassan‘s bitterness, saying
Der Mohr hat seine Arbeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen *****
is only the answer on the arrogance of one who claims to be the one rather than being just one of many others. And such bitterness needs … education – something to be looked at one of the next days.
The only thing that remains for a while – for me – is the memory of two most beautiful events and the privilege to be one of the cobblers, working with others for the shoes of such peace which at some stage may allow people to live a life, being educated to live it like an untamed dance ….
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⏎ TOC so far
Peter Herrmann: Deciphering Globalisation – An Introduction
Paul Boccara: “We must incriminate the basic rules of capitalism
John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney: Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation
Arno Tausch: Paul Boccara’s Analysis of Global Capitalism
Paul Boccara: The Global Crisis and Africa : Struggles for Alternatives – 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
Judit Csoba: Goals and tools of Public Employment Programs in Hungary
Paul Boccara: Labour market, employment and unemployment policies in the European Union
Paul Boccara: What needs from Marxism?
******************************
* “Rejoice! The Mussulman’s pride is buried in the sea
** “I love you, your beautiful form entices me; And if you’re not willing, then I need force.” “My father, my father, he’s grabbing me now! Erl king has done me some harm!”
*** This is a spiderweb in which your heart is caught”
**** Denn wir sind schon so dazu geneigt zu wünschen, daß dem Laster mehr in den Weg gelegt würde. Aber der obrigkeitliche und andere außere Zwang würde schädlich hiebey seyn, bevor die Denkungsart allgemein verbessert würde. Die philosophen sind durch ihre Geschafte schon am meisten unabhangig von statuten. Sie müssen die wahre Grundsatze allgemein machen. Die Geistliche, ihre Schüler, müssen die Religion darnach modeln. Und die Erziehung der regenten. Regenten werden den Weltfrieden zu stiften suchen. Hernach die innere Einrichtung der Freyheit, des Rechts und der Macht. Und denn werden die Erziehungen auch unter den Augen des gemeinen Wesens geschehen.
Die Wissenschaften gehören gewiß nicht zur Bestimmung des einzelnen Menschen, aber zur Bestimmung des menschlichen Geschlechts. Der einzelne Mensch hat seine vornehmste Bestimung auf die Thierheit, aber das Ganze Geschlecht auf die Verstandesvollkommenheit, doch mit Abbruch der ersteren.
***** The moor has fulfilled his duty; the moor can leave.
It could be different …
It could be different, but it is possible this way too ….
These are words of the last e-mail before the INKRIT-meeting, gathering for some general debates, and mainly working on the Historical-Critical Dictionary Marxism, referring to Brecht’s Three-Penny Opera.
The location of a rather intense couple of days: Esslingen, a small town, or even village in the proximity of Stuttgart, in Southern German. Writing: or even village means that I actually didn’t see it. Arriving there by train Wednesday night, I took the bus to a remote conference-hotel, not really seeing anything of the place. And remote means remote, giving an exciting view: the (low) mountains, the valley covered by the raising fog – a carpet – seen from the height, a ceiling from the other side … It actually is different, depending on the side from which we look.
The usual ‘regular verb’ behaviour, the meeting in of the editorial board of The Argument as new field of activities and then the workshops. A rather interesting, not to say exciting work. Discussions that seem to be as remote even from our daily academic work as the Jaegerhof and even Esslingen. And although the debates are intense, it is in some way relaxing: concentrated on such a wide range of areas as Human Rights to Laughing, as life conduct to courtesan ….. And ranging as wide rural exodus – a term in itself so varied if looked at by the colleagues from Germany or Cuba and Brazil.
And relaxing in any case, being directly engaged – ex officio so to say – with Étienne Balibar on whose draft I comment or as listener, just ordinary participant. And as relaxed as all this is, as open the debate is there is surely also the tension. How to describe it? Between those who own all the experience simply due to age and those who have all impartiality on their side – sure one may also say: the claim of authority versus, or going hand in hand with gormlessness, and the deadlock engaging with innovativeness. The productive tensions as well, growing out of so different people meeting there: Brasil, Cuba, Germany, Italy, France …; villages, large cities ….
Yes, all could be different. And perhaps that is what makes it so inviting: A tension one can perceive as relaxing in its open way, as it aims on producing something new, aims on making a difference rather than continuing to move along, the dogtrot. So remote, even the tensions being so remote that I only mentioning its actual meaning after Mehmet dropped me at Stuttgart’s train station. First plans for future collaboration – the hug when we say farewell – knowing it is this way possible too. And emerging in relaxed atmosphere around Stuttgart’s train-station: people enjoying the sun, licking ice or sitting in the sun” the German Sunday-tradition: “coffee and cake” ….
… and the flowers in front of the station: a reminder: Stuttgart 21 – not always as peaceful as it appears on the Sunday afternoon, not always as remote from daily quarrels as it suggests this sunny afternoon. And I feel as well how important all these apparently purely academic debates are in order to make sense, to change such reality.
It could be different, but it is possible this way too …. – and to make it possible that the daily, centered around commodities, consumption, so-called performance possible in everyday’s life we need the remoteness: clear, concise thinking: exhausting, focused, provoking to contradict and not allowing any contradiction.
It is also something that is so simple, and so difficult to achieve. An excellent, energising experience – though showing how remote we are ourselves from really living it, maintaing so many illusions, voluntarily chosen subordinations and authoritative deification. But at least there is an open field for contest – from which academic life distanced itself so much.
All has to be different, it only pretends to be possible this way too …
Precarity
If you want you can term it a little bit pretentious the legacy of the research stay and visiting professorship at ODTUe: the new book which had been just after leaving Ankara sent to the publisher and will not take long to be available:
Sibel Kalaycioglu/Peter Herrmann (Eds.)
Precarity – More than a Challenge of Social Security
Or: Cynicism of EU’s Concept of Economic Freedom
It will be published in Bremen by the Europaeischer Hochschulverlag as part of the series Studies in Comparative Social Pedagogies and International SocialWork and Social Policy.
The following Table of Contents gives some overview.
Acknowledgements… 9
Peter Herrmann/Sibel Kalaycioglu…
Introduction… 11
Peter Herrmann…
Precarity and Precarisation in the Light of EU-Integration… 22
Marco Ricceri…
Europe and social precarity Proactive elements for system interventions… 52
Klaus Mehrens…
Precarious Work in the EU – What Can Trade Unions Do?… 77
Pietro Merli Brandini…
Globalisation and Solidarity. Regulatory reform for a more balanced system adjustment… 83
Alexander Sieg…
Theoretical thoughts for psychosocial interventions in precarious working and living conditions… 95
Sabine Kergel, Rolf Dieter Hepp…
Ways of Precarisation… 104
Sibel Kalaycioglu/Kezban Celik…
Gender dimensions of precarity in Turkey… 120
David Kergel…
Integration or Inclusion – Towards an alternative ‘European Gaze’ on the Roma… 134
Vyacheslav Bobkov, Еkaterina Chernykh, Ulvi T. Aliev…
Precarity in Russia and Labour and Employment Markets Transformation… 145
Appendix 1…
Ankara-10-Point-Memorandum… 164
Ending Precarity – Acting Now for Sustainable Future… 164
Appendix 2…
List of contributors… 167
The book gathers a wide range of contributions – reflecting the complex character of the topic – with its different causes and consequences and the various answers needed. However, the presentations also make clear that the EU which could and should well take a role reflecting the responsibility for developing a European Social Model that fundamentally reflects the need for a new economy rather than limiting itself to striving for a rescue of an outdated model of economic growth.
As editors we come at the end of our introductory remarks to the conclusion:
Thus, we can see how the pillars of such model crumble away in a situation like that of France, Kregel highlighting (in this volume) that it can on the one hand be seen as crèche of the ‘modern Europe’ but on the other hand now showing its inability – or lack of political will – to actually maintain this system which had been inaugurated not least by the supposedly all-decisive great revolution, claiming to be the Procrustean-bed not just of the modern French nation but much beyond of global modernity in general. We surely have to be careful, not throwing the baby out with the bathing water. But we have to be careful as well and look for a new realism. It is a realism that consciously intervenes into shaping a new mode of production.
Postmodernism ….
…, post-modernism can be seen as the discourse of cognition without an tention of intellectual reconstruction.
Kiss, Endre: The Dialectics of Modernity. A theoretical interpretation of Globalization; in: Journal of Globalization Studies. 1/2. November 2010: 12-26; Volgograd: Uchitel
Looking Back – Looking Forward: Responsibilty
It is so easy: Talking about Human Rights as matter of charity and good will and virtues. And it is so difficult: of course we find this blunt, brutal violation: open for everybody. And of course we have to everything we can against the killing of women for religious reasons, religious fundamentalism (which, by the way “we” enlightened people of the west, can easily see as serious issue when we look at them, though we are easily overlooking when it comes to religiously motivated violation in the christian traditions in every days life).
Some real issues are then easily left out – and can easily be seen not only here but also here – just mentioning two examples: Not just the gap between rich and the poor – but especially the fact that this growing is not least consequence of the rich gaining on the back of the poor. Just one of the interesting facts that had been mentioned during the one of the sessions of the conference that took place over the last days: tax evasion as one of the causes – and it is so easy. Another issue which cannot be easily issued is the fact that the mode of production is limited not least by its orientation on commodity production which is systematically, structurally fading out issues of producing the social as equity oriented system.
Of course, it is a complex issue – and I hope that I can make at least some contribution to the debate. It had been part of the work I undertook in Ankara and Moscow over the last month and will be part of the work which is planned for the next month – it is on the way under the title
Social Policy – Production rather than Distribution. A Rights-Based Approach.
The final publication of this publication will hopefully be announced some time at the end of the year, proposing the need for a fundamental change of the social policy debate. It is also meant to lay the ground for a shift in the social quality debate and its orientation on sustainability.
Indeed, human rights are about economics and the responsibility of the rich countries. – Surely something to be further discussed during the next days in Esslingen,where we will be working during the XVth International INKRIT-workshop on the Historical-Critical Dictionary on Marxism.
A short PS: on the positive, not to say delighting side: though not dominant in the published debate, sessions on such critical issues had been well attended.
On another positive side: the forum I attended and I mentioned in earlier posts took actually place in the building which in earlier years hosted the German parliament. It is now an international conference centre. Other buildings, formerly hosting parts of the German government, are now accommodating offices of the United Nations. Some shifts, at least ….
