Categoria: general

There is much more in it …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general
… or one may also say: there is much less in it.
This year’s development of the relationship between Cuba and the USNA came surely for many as surprise – and though I discussed aspects of it since some time with the colleagues from CIPI in Havana, I did not foresee this speed and depth of the development, and surely nobody in the room did.
Still, there is something that let’s many of hesitating when it comes to the overall assessment – and the skepticism had been conformed another time, namely on the 27th, when
economic sanctions, which have caused some US$833.8 billion in damage to the Caribbean island
making the life of people harder, before they allow them to continue their work of further developing the country?
There is another detail that is worthwhile to be considered in this context and that clearly allows us to see what US-politics are about: put negatively it is definitely not about the interest of any people, not even the Americans. The day they voted against the Cuban people, they voted against their own people by another decision:
 In this light, the is surely much less in the honesty and respectability in USNA-politics than it seems to be at first glance.

Christianity – caught in the cogwheel …

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

Sure, we still speak of Modern Times though those times seem to be backward if seen from today. Sure, in one way or another they meant that we all would be caught between the cogwheels of this machine so well captured by Antonio Gramsci in his work and visualised by Charlie Chaplin.

In Quaderno 22 Gramsci gives a concise insight:

Registro di alcuni dei problemi più importanti o interessanti essenzialmente anche se a prima vista paiono non di primo piano:

1) sostituzione all’attuale ceto plutocratico, di un nuovo meccanismo di accumulazione e distribuzione del capitale finanziario fondato immediatamente sulla produzione industriale;

2) quistione sessuale;

3) quistione se l’americanismo possa costituire un’«epoca» storica, se cioè possa determinare uno svolgimento graduale del tipo, altrove esaminato, delle «rivoluzioni passive» proprie del secolo scorso o se invece rappresenti solo l’accumularsi molecolare di elementi destinati a produrre un’«esplosione», cioè un rivolgimento di tipo francese;

4) quistione della «razionalizzazione» della composizione demografica europea;

5) quistione se lo svolgimento debba avere il punto di partenza nell’intimo del mondo industriale e produttivo o possa avvenire dall’esterno, per la costruzione cautelosa e massiccia di una armatura giuridica formale che guidi dall’esterno gli svolgimenti necessari dell’apparato produttivo;

6) quistione dei così detti «alti salari» pagati dall’industria fordizzata e razionalizzata;

7) il fordismo come punto estremo del processo di tentativi successivi da parte dell’industria di superare la legge tendenziale della caduta del saggio del profitto;

8) la psicanalisi (sua enorme diffusione nel dopoguerra) come espressione dell’aumentata coercizione morale esercitata dall’apparato statale e sociale sui singoli individui e delle crisi morbose che tale coercizione determina;

9) il Rotary Club e la Massoneria[1]

Leaving the cogwheels aside and not thinking too much about the body being reduced to an annex of the machine, one may still see the undeniably positive side of the “project industrial modernity”.

* We are talking about the independent individual, the personality as it emerged from the great enlightenment which, if we want to say so, gave the starting signal from the different angles – the trinity of the enlightenment represented by the central powers: the Scottish enlightenment with its emphasis of the liberty of the utilitarian market citizens; the French national unity of equal individuals as for instance highlighted by Montesquieu; and the Germans contributing by the idea of a rational fraternal political system – fraternity for those who ate the carrot and avoided the stick by anticipating its blows.

* We are also talking about ‘wealth for all’ – of course, it needed German fascism to avail of the ‘blessing’ of the Volkswagen, the people’s car. But it did have earlier the ‘Emporio Ford T‘ to become a simple reality. Yes, not for the people; and not for everybody – but for many as part of the programme had been the orientation on the domestic market, with this the orientation on relatively high income of the workers.

* Still, the system remained in need of two emergency breaks: The one is mentioned by Gramsci: the Rotary Club and the Masons. We can also translate this into a broader terminology, namely a capitalist anthropology which Herbert Marcuse characterised nicely in a presentation titled Man in a Socialised World. He highlights the following as characterising the current anthropological Zeitgeist, pertaining in modern capitalist economies:

  • life is presented and perceived as plight and alienation
  • however, there is a ‘better life’: the satisfaction of needs and wants as remuneration of labour – though suffering is the irretrievable foundation of happiness
  • life is a matter of striving for being – and the substance of life is productivity with and in favour of society
  • refined values are separated from ever day’s life, from the daily performance. Finding to yourself is left for the time outside of work.[2]

We usually do not think much about how frightening this really may be – and perhaps permanently thinking about it would leave us unliveable. Still, we should occasionally pause – not least as we are today again facing this strive of exception, for excellence, for greatness. The presentation of Wilhelm Klemperer’s thoughts on the truth of language  (listen to 23:00 ff) can serve as an eye-opener. Paradoxically it had been German fascism that used an Americanised language: speaking in figures and in superlatives.

* The other had been presented in 2010 with an amazingly naïve or bold frankness by James Wolfensohn, who worried about the ’80/20-rule’. Expressing his fear, he stated

By 2030, two-thirds of people in the world’s middle class will be Chinese, Wolfensohn said. “These are not trivial changes — they are tectonic changes in the way the planet works. In my generation we didn’t have to think about it. We knew we were a rich country.”

But today’s students will have to confront a new world in which Africa is no longer an isolated continent but the fastest-growing market for cell phones.

Yes, even if modern times had been geared to mass-production also for the domestic markets, this world depended still fundamentally on the division which Andre Gunder Frank characterised as Development of Underdevelopment.

And indeed, it should not be forgotten that the enlightenment and its expression in the French trinity of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (mind the sequence) had been standing on another pillar, one that is often forgotten. The complete parole reads

Unité, Indivisibilité de la République; Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ou la mort

And it would be an easy task to turn the death into a strategy of Development of Underdevelopment.

Of course, Development of Underdevelopment is one side of the medal though, and the other is the shift mentioned by Wolfensohn – and as usual, each of these issues deserves intense debates. And still, we should not forget impressions, prejudices … – the world is complex and exactly this complexity gives permanent raise to debating convergence and divergence, sameness and difference – also looking for heuristic means. Indeed, one thing seems to be clear

… a wing does not make an angel …

Ernst Bloch elaborated on different facets of ‘possibility’, 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.[3]

Recently I went to a concert – something there caught my special attention. A young pianist – as people say: one of the two top pianists here, playing mainly Chopin. People sitting there, making photos (as everywhere), some using flash though not allowed to do so (as everywhere), some chatting (not as everywhere) … – and something else: some people say that a problem of many Chinese artists, when playing ‘Western music’ is the lack of emotional engagement. It links to the wider picture, suggesting that Asian economies and their success is very much based on copying and producing cheaply. I do not want to engage with this argument; I do not want to generalise. Still, Chopin, for me, saw better pianists. Really interesting are two other points though: During the technically really difficult parts Yundi really performed well – but in other parts …: well, I occasionally got from his play the impression that difference of emotions seems to be translated into simple difference of volume, evoked by the strength of the key-stroke (I admit that, listening later on youtube I got a slightly better impression of the musician).

I remembered videos, presenting Daniel Barenboim in the masterclass with LangLang histories, life stories finding an impression in how a person is playing and living, living and playing. So much more in it than ‘technique’. And this brings me to the second remarkable point: the encore. It had been a little Chinese piece. The best part of the evening I think, not because it had been for me something ‘exotic’, ‘new’, but because there was the ‘drive’ one would expect.

A critical statement on globalisation if you want – something we also see in learning and teaching that is pressed into an electronic blackboard frame: the corset fitting to students, the students requiring the corset …, an endless story, without real end and without real beginning. The enlightenment ending in the eclipse of reason, we unlearning to write notes on the thing Zuszsa refers to, asking does it

mean what it did in my childhood?

No, though at this stage we still have it; and I always suppress my slight temptation to curse: dust, the dirty clothes, and the fear to lean against it … – Yes, I see you smiling …, you know about the odi et amo here too.

All this is surely also part of a somewhat strange development of social thinking – the difficulty may be not primarily to smoothen the contradiction, or even to surmount it. Instead, only by fully acknowledging the tension we can truly solve the problem. It is the old tension of ‘objectivity’ and ‘value’ as structural factors determining historical development. I discussed this in the work on the Vatican Spring and Liberation Theology; and recently I was getting aware of it again and perhaps even more, when looking a bit into the reformation. It is too often that we forget the extremely conservative factor of this reformist movement, (cl)aiming to be a movement of renewal. Leaving all the other facets aside, reading the last sermon in Wittenberg on the Second Sunday in Epiphany by its main protagonist Martin Luther is enlightening – and it is so well captured in a collection of quotes and sayings:

Vernunft und Verstand sind des Teufels Huren. Ein altes, tüchtiges Pfaffen-Wort, Allen denen zu Lieb und Ehren, denen Vernunft und Verstand im Wege stehen. Sie sagten auch: ‘Verstand und Vernunft können Gottes Wort nicht verfechten; sie sind nur große Wettermacher und Hagelsieber in der Schrift! Freilich machen sie anderes Wetter in der Schrift, als es die Pfaffen gerne haben, welche lieber im Dunkeln munkeln und immer nur vor dem Teufel warnen, aber nicht anders, wie jener Dieb auf der Flucht, der immer aus Leibes-Kräften rief: ‘Haltet den Dieb!’ – damit man ihn selber nicht dafür erkennen möchte.[4]

Really, are reason and intellect the whores of the devil? One of the problems will be that we do not easily recognise that such valuations are in some ways evaluations of a historical situation, of a phase of transition that deals with the entirety of the value system that defines and redefines human existence. Indeed,

[t]he qualitative leap from the animalistic to human = societal existence is thus given by the new quality of the relations of inner and outer nature. While even the most developed species reach at most the individual adaptation to the given living conditions, humans change the outer nature in an in independent, socio-historical process, thus creating the conditions of their own development. So human existence means much more than striving for individual survival under the given conditions; it is identical with overcoming dependence … . As part of this process of anticipating change of relevant living conditions we see that human abilities, cognition, needs and relations are also developing.[5]

And indeed, this defined also part of enlightenment – the part that had been enlightening in a very literary way, namely when Michael Kohlhaas showed in the 16th century his understanding of freedom that would be only much later accepted as part of the bourgeois revolution. And indeed, all this was not least about putting Anselm’s dictum on its feet. For him it had been clear:

Ergo Domine, qui das fidei intellectum, da mihi, ut, quantum scis expedire, intelligam, quia es sicut credimus, et hoc es quod credimus.

In other words, he accepts ‘understanding’, ratio, as understanding the reasons for subordination under god. The question gains a slightly different turn if we turn it towards on open understanding of ends and means. Of course, we may agree in some way with Antonio Sabetta when he says

Anzitutto, in quanto due ali, fede e ragione si presentano come necessarie in vista dello scopo; propriamente esse hanno lo statuto del mezzo rispetto al fine, il quale, oltre ad essere più importante del mezzo, ne qualifica l’identità e il valore, poiché il mezzo è per sua natura ordinato ad un fine, senza il quale perderebbe significato. Il fine in questione è la verità che lo spirito umano desidera conoscere o, più esattamente, contemplare; infatti, la conoscenza di cui si parla nel testo non ha un carattere astratto ma concerne la vita dell’uomo.

But latest when he ultimately insists on the dogma, linking truth to abstract ideals, saying

La tensione alla verità, ovvero, in definitiva, a Dio, nella cui conoscenza l’uomo incontra la verità su se stesso e comprende chi egli sia, costituisce il segno distintivo della sua creaturalità.

It is not by chance that the protestant reformation had been reluctant to reforms, and aggressively combatting those who, like Kohlhaas, did not see the end in god but in the change needed in reality, in the change of the mode of production – the words Luther used are testimony of misanthropy, oppression, violence, support of the rulers and plea for drabness:

Drumb sol hie zuschmeyssen, wurgen und stechen heymlich odder offentlich, wer da kan, und gedencken, das nicht gifftigers, schedlichers, teuffelischers seyn kan, denn eyn auffrurischer mensch, gleich als wenn man eynen tollen hund todschlahen mus, schlegstu nicht, so schlegt er dich und eyn gantz land mit dyr.

history establishes, indeed, a weird pattern when forgetting that the real struggles are not those between values but those between ‘ways of life’ as matter of productive relationships in wich humans create themselves as social individuals, though too often still caught in the idea that social is nothing more than superior individuals looking after others. Indeed – and as said earlier – the attentive reader of Marx Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy will surely know it:

For one thing, the object is not simply an object in general, but a particular object which must be consumed in a particular way, a way determined by production. Hunger is hunger; but the hunger that is satisfied by cooked meat eaten with knife and fork differs from hunger that devours raw meat with the help of bands, nails and teeth. Production thus produces not only the object of consumption but also the mode of consumption, not only objectively but also subjectively. Production therefore creates the consumer.

Without doubt, it has a bit of the Gordian Knot … – respecting individuals who are individuals only because they are …., just a cogwheel in a systemic setting.

********

Eclipse of the moon, the recent noonday, mid autumn festival … I did not see much of it. There were different reasons, the ‘difficulty’ to access this world which is to some extent the personal laziness and lack of the spirit of adventure. It is also about the development being so fast that those things that are specially worthwhile to see and to experience are more pushed to small corners, nearly invisible, or visible in passing, in small corners – showing up by accident, randomly roaming, roaming randomly …. – … and showing up in the small remarks, as for instance when the driver pointed at the moon, being excited … – such a meaningful, telling gesture for somebody coming from a world of cogwheels where moon and sun lost somewhat their meaning ….

… well, caught in cogwheels – at least it seems that we are still enough we, ‘independent’, personalities that can be caught …. Only death and decay of the thousand superlatives lost all its faces whereas, to use the words of Daniel Barenboim

[e]very great work of art has two faces, one towards its own time and one towards future, towards eternity.

__________________________________

[1]            See in this context as well The Gramsci-Reader. Selected Writings 1916 – 1935; edited by David Forgacs; New York: New York University Press; 2000; http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/gramsci-reader.pdf; see here for a short presentation of Fordismus

[2] Marcuse, Herbert, 1966: Der Mensch in einer sozialisierten Welt. Aufnahme: 03.10.1966, BR Technik: Schmitt Laufzeit: 47:13; CD 2: track 1: 2.45 min; from: Der Mensch in einer sozialisierten Welt. Originalvorträge von Herbert Marcuse. Autor: Herbert Marcuse. Sprecher: Herbert Marcuse. Aus der Reihe: O-Ton-Wissenschaft. Thema: Soziologie, Wissenschaft. 4 CDs – ca. 200 Minuten; see in this context also for further discussion: Herrmann, Peter, 2014: Social Policy – Production rather than Distribution. A Rights-Based Approach: 92 ff.

[3] see Bloch, Ernst, 1959: Prinzip Hoffnung; Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp [written in 1938-1947; reviewed 1953 and 1959]: 258-288

[4] Die Sprichwörter und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Deutchen: nebst den Redensarten der deutschen Zechbrüder und aller praktik Grossmutter, d.i. der Sprichwörter ewigem Wetter-Kalender; Wilhelm Körte; F.A. Brockhaus, 1847; 567 pagine; hier: Seite: 450; see in this context not least Martin Luther’s Last Sermon in Wittenberg … Second Sunday in Epiphany, 17 January 1546.Dr. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe; Weimar: Herman Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1914), Band 51

[5]            Osterkamp, Ute, 2000: Hat der Marxismus die Natur des Menschen verkannt oder: Sind die Menschen für den Sozialismus nicht geschaffen? aus: Schriftenreihe der Marx-Engels-Stiftung 20; Kommunistische Streitpunkte – Zirkularblätter – Nr. 6 – 15.10.2000 – Onlineversion; 1

 

Stop googling …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

(Leonardo da Vinci)

The other day a friend of mine sent me a link to an article — indeed, a very interesting article, raising many questions, and perhaps also some puzzled thoughts. One of the latter is on “the seven minute rule”. Spontaneously “speed dating” came to my mind. Never did it, cannot even imagine doing it — though I can imagine or even experienced if not love, so “attachment”, “sympathy”, “attraction” at first sight — and first sight is surely less than 7 minutes.

But there are two main points I am thinking about now:

First:

Of course, all these gadgets etc. are supporting this “turning away” from “deep communication”. At the same time I think there may well be a general shallowing of communication that supports the development of the reference to such means. If (taking an example) we (not necessarily as individuals but as “system”) ask for “power point knowledge”, nicely wrapped, offered in multiple choice packages … … can we expect people to think and engage in wider terms? I mentioned it frequently when teaching, and in different places: Often my students showed huge difficulties in the beginning; but after a while at least many had been attentive, engaged and liked the exercises of “eye opening”. After a while = after they learned that they will not get “slide-wrapped info” and after they learned and accepted: I am not interested in “tick-box” knowledge when they participate in class or when they are sitting their exam. I hate the term knowledge-based society, as in my opinion those, using the term, are actually often talking about skills and information based functioning. At times, the results of such tick-box-orientation is weird: I received the other day a “peer review” of an article I submitted. Some reasonable points. One …, simply stupid, sorry. The reviewer said:

With a reference to such classic thinkers as Marx and Bordieu, and new leftist thinkers such as Pikketty, the author calls for a revaluation of class-based analysis …

And then he criticised that I actually contradict in the following of my article Bourdieu’s class analysis. Leaving the question aside, if we can “qualify” and “classify” Marx, Bourdieu and Piketty (yes, with one k, not with two, dear reviewer) “in one pot”, the point is: I did by no way mention Bourdieu’s class analysis, let alone affirm it. Bourdieu wrote on other topics too and it is not enough for reviewers to show off by throwing names of authors into the debate, without recognising why they are turning up in the first instance …

Part of all this is also the overproduction: of students, of publications, of …. — I am very much in favour of mass education. But what we currently see is not mass education. We have more BA-graduates, but is their educational attainment really so much higher than the attainment of previous leaving cert attainments … ? Is not the MA today very similar to the previous BA, the PhD very similar to the previous MA …. — now we have post-docs and soon post-post-docs, and then ….

Sorry, I loose occasionally some patience here — it is all about increasing productivity of exchange values, completely forgetting the dimension of use value. It is about input and throughput and output …., every hen shows more sense with the put put put … in the chicken run —…

But there is surely a very serious thing about it — and it is for me a “problem”, a question. I am born BB, i.e. belong to the “before Bologna generation”, obtained a diploma in Germany. When I came to Ireland many years ago (I have had my doctorate at that time too), somebody said:

Your diploma is more than our PhD.

My first thought: nice, flattering …, but nonsense. I am not sure if I would maintain this “nonsense” today. And it is not about the German versus Irish but about the old-fashioned doctorate versus the new and highly commercialised PhD.

Complex and complicated issues. And part of it is the control of teaching by “blackboard”, by computerised systems …. — Then the frequently asked question:

But can we turn back the clock?

gains a new slant. Do we really want to turn it back? Do we have to look for another clock that allows “educating the masses” and doing it in a way that I would see as qualified (= really qualifying) way?

Yesterday I saw an interesting documentation on Cuba: on the medical/health system. It is geared towards prevention. Very close to the patient as coproducer … — the doctors highly committed although they are not well paid. Amazing: a ratio of 1 doctor on 170 patients. When I had been in Cuba I “enjoyed” the medical service (well, one never really enjoys it, especially when one needs it after collapsing). It had been unbelievable, and it is a very long time ago that I experienced something comparable – it had been in Finland, with an excellent health care system that is now under huge pressure. On the other hand, one of the “highlights”, just before I left Ireland: I had to go for an eye test — and the doctor (GP) asked me what she should do. Short time before: I have had a pneumonia, went to the GP and he said: it may be that you have to go to hospital. Here is the referral – if it is not getting better, you can go to the hospital. BTW, it had been “the same GP”, a surgery, a medical centre and though it is the same you never know who will finally will be looking after you. finally they are not looking after you but after their money.

Doesn’t all this show that may of the gadgets and much of their use is simply a matter of “escape”, substitute, often due to US reinforcing it? US, i.e. we are doing it — any other reference of US may be accidental and accidentally relevant.

Second:

Yes, personal contact, face to face communication …. — I appreciate it, I miss it … and then there is a BUT. A BIG BUT. I suppose it is particularly felt by those who left home. No, I should not write “Who left home” — instead, I should write about those who truly consider the globe as a village and see the world as their home. Paradoxically, they may not have a home in the traditional sense of nation states, municipalities, family, parish etc. To some extent it is a matter of priests who spend their life on missions (though they are member of the family of god – and still, look at Aodhán’s kettle). To some extent it is a matter of comrades who spend their life, acting in different contexts (though they are member of The International, with all their difference as we can see them here and here and here and here and here.

To some extent it is a matter of artists who spend their life on tours (though they may be member of the avant-garde of thinking). Or to some extent it may be a matter of the business elite spending their life in private jets, hotel lounges, in the extreme case even living their own time, not manipulating their watch or their body clock and expecting others to adopt to theirs. All this is also a bit about New Princedoms.

Anyway, there is in general terms and in the different realms of life the phenomenon of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” — with the numerous variations: “One craw does not attack another” (a more suitable translation of the German saying than the usual “There’s honour among thieves” and even the “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”, indicating the need to personalise the other and making him/her very close to oneself. People making promises, people convincingly offering help and collaboration — and as soon as the door is closed, all seems to be forgotten, all and everybody. The concrete is concrete …, and any abstraction is for many difficult to handle.

It is an interesting phenomenon: xenophobia disappearing with the appearance of “the other”, “the stranger” in front of us. Note well: as individual.

In other words: there is always the problem that face-to-face communication can easily entail exactly this attitude, the one I mentioned and of which I said that there are numerous variations – I mentioned few, but the most dangerous remains to be added: NIMBY – not in my backyard.

This is surely one of the tensions we can observe now in connection with the phenomenon of migration. Instead of talking really about a general human right (as Rafael Correa did when addressing the UNGA did), we usually fundamentally maintain the idea of nationhood, of nationality, defining migration as flight only. Though it surely is currently for most such an escape, the very same attitude misses that only this basic pattern of nationalism, regionalism parochialism is nothing else than imperialism. I do not want to elaborate on this — Abby did this in her docu on the empire files; and in some veiled, though still frightening way Obama did this when addressing the 15th General Assembly of the UN   — It is a long time ago, I visited with two friends, Yitzhak and David, the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Just before reaching the exit a collection of “statements”, written on paper, had been exhibited …., impressions. One paper said something like this:

Why are we so empathetic with just one girl though her conditions had been actually relatively good — why do we not worry about the thousands who suffered the same or worse fate? The answer is that it is already difficult for us to deal emotionally with the one case — feeling the burden of all who suffered would break us completely.

It is not about heroism nor martyrdom ….; it may be the weakness to push the suffering, the joys, the strives and efforts of those who are not present, out of mind though …

Is it this attitude that made Leonardo da Vinci saying

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Hidden Slavery

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy
Chrystia Freeland, in her book
mentions something interesting, a bit sublime perhaps, and subtle, but surely more shocking than all the calculations by beancounters as Piketty – though their work may also be of some importance – at least for those who prefer the wooden hammer info of numbers instead of approaching harsh reality shows of life. So, the reality, the real meaning is grasped in the book I just mentioned, talking about Eric Emerson Schmidt, whom wikipedia sees simply as “Software engineer and businessman” and his “interesting views”.

If you traveled to Mountain View to visit Eric Schmidt when he was CEO of Google, you would have found him in a narrow office barely big enough to hold three people. The equations on the whiteboard may well have been scribbled by one of the engineers who works next door and is welcome to use the chief’s office whenever he’s not in. And while it is okay to have a private jet in the Valley, employing a chauffeur is frowned upon. “Whereas in other cultures, you can drive your Rolls-Royce around and just sort of look rich and have a really good time, in technology it’s not socially okay to have a driver who drives you to work every day,” Schmidt told me. “I don’t know why, but you’ll notice nobody does it.”

This egalitarian style can clash with the Valley’s reality of extreme income polarization. “Many tech companies solved this problem by having the lowest-paid workers not actually be employees. They’re contracted out,” Schmidt explained. “We can treat them differently, because we don’t really hire them. The person who’s cleaning the bathroom is not exactly the same sort of person. Which I find sort of offensive, but it is the way it’s done.”

This is also mentioned in a presentation that is available on the web.
Doesn’t this remind a bit of the treatment of slaves – we are frequently shocked when thinking about the blunt ignorance of ancient times, or the slave trade in modern times. And we may be shocked (only “may be” as not all are) when we hear about migration and the fortress Europe. But the day-to-day trafficking within this system is easily ignored, not even recognised by so many.
I remember, taking part in a conference organised several years ago by the European Commission, taking place in Birmingham. The event’s concern: labour market and using the ESF as means for the integration of the weakest. During the conference dinner a friend of mine asked the waitress a few questions – about income, working conditions … We learned that the lady had been underpaid, and “on call”. Whenever she heard (short notice) that she would be “allowed” to work few hours she had to do it: “you can say “no” once, but surely not more. She had to look then for somebody taking care of her little boy.
All this surely appalling – but it came worse: We went to somebody from the Commission – the organiser. “We cannot do anything. This service had been advertised. We looked for the best bid – and we can only check the technical correctness ….”
****
Switching scene, back to Eric Schmidt. Wikipdia also lets us know:

Schmidt was a campaign advisor and major donor to Barack Obama and served on Google’s government relations team. Obama considered him for Commerce Secretary. Schmidt was an informal advisor to the Obama presidential campaign and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Chief Technology Officer position, which Obama created in his administration. After Obama won in 2008, Schmidt became a member of President Obama’s transition advisory board. He proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the problems of the United States at once, at least in domestic policies, is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

He has since become a new member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology PCAST.

****
Switching scene, back to Europe again: there is something in all this, that reminds me of an article I read recently, talking about refugees and consumerism. The main argument: The crisis is not least a warning that we have to move away from consumerist attitudes – a bit of solidarity as sharing attitude. Yes, may be there is some truth also in that. But to be honest, the baseline of it is in my view not much more than a left good-doer attitude, not looking FIRST AND FOREMOST at the untouched relations and mode of production. The comments on the article are actually quote telling, and though I agree on many issues with the author, I see (and disagree) as well with the “quasi-religious attitude” behind it, pleading nolens volens for all of us tightening the belt …. Eating less meat and vegetarianism does not make a revolution.
And thus it easily leaves the old patterns intact – the following little episode could well be one that we find referred to in the works of Milton Friedman – I had been revisiting his work recently more or less extensively. There is no free lunch – but the “free market” surely guarantees that inequality remains:
In the journal distributed in Italian trains I saw this ad for luxurious transport bytrain:
Later then, in the same travel journal, the editorial or a dedication presented the move to make train stations public, offering space for those most in need – yes, and it is even free of charge:
And next to it again a fancy ad – but we know such clash from earlier. So to say, the free lunch, falling from the table of the super-rich ….
****
Switching scene, back to the world.
Currently we can follow the UN-debates on the New Sustainability Goals.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa made some valid and crucially important points in his speech, highlighting the necessity to change the foundations of the current system – not by changing the determinants of exchange (more just etc.), but by changing the foundations of the current system. And these foundations are not about changes of norms, of consumerism etc.: they are about the change of the mode of production. And though we are talking (rightly) about globalisation, and even if we criticise war-mongering, we forget that nationalism is still one of the fundamental features of the current system. It causes the externalisation of cost; and it causes the ongoing debate on migration as matter of “accommodating people from other countries” instead of acknowledging the need for a more fundamental re-thinking, looking for
human mobility laws based on human rights
In his speech, Correa  also criticises “social minimum approaches”, vehemently arguing for the need of moving to social maxima.
Indeed, religion, also in a modernised form, will not get us anywhere. Dealing with distribution, has to be about production.

Loss of character – Charakterverlust

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

Charakterverlust – Verlust der geprägten Eindeutigkeit des Ich in der Gegenwart zwischen Vergangenheit und des Hinübertragens in die Zukunft

Loss of character – Loss of the embossed clearness of the I (the personality) between past and carrying on into the future

Wenn eine heftige Liebe gefühlt wird, so geht man eben zum Analytiker und stirbt nicht dafür.

***
If one feels an intense love, one goes to the psychoanalyst instead of dying for it.
******
… weil dieses Ich gewissermaßen ein Ballast ist, der ihnen das Fortkommen innerhalb der gesellschaftlichen Riesenmaschine nur schwer machen könnte. Man könnte sogar soweit (.) sagen, dass in diesem Prozess die Menschen, die sich all dem anpassen nur um ihrer Selbsterhaltung willen eben in diesem Prozess der Anpassung genau dieses selbe ich, dieses Selbst verlieren, dass sie eigentlich erhalten wollen — darin liegt die satanische Dialektik …
***
… because the I (the personality) is in some way a burden, that could make progressing within this societal mammoth only difficult, one could even go further, saying that with this process the human beings, who adapt themselves just in order of self-preservation  loose within exactly this process of adaptation themselves, this personality which they actually want to preserve — with this we see the satanic dialectics

Migration: overestimation and underestimation …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general

I personally think that the German “good will” is occasionally much overestimated, for instance also in a blog post by Yanis Varoufakis. There is also in that country a huge pressure and one can hear Maximum Capacity to Take in Refugees Reached, Germany Says. In general one can easily get the impression that governments are much harsher than a greatly appreciative population, though it has to be acknowledged that for instance the president of the Italian Parliament, rebuked harshly and not only morally any hostility – she mentions this as question of rights and a matter of taken them seriously.

Even more so it is dangerous to underestimate to which extent we see a Hungarian dictatorship emerging under Orban, neglecting even basic principles of law. A EURACTIV report today is simply shocking:

EXCLUSIVE/ A Hungarian journalist has revealed government plans to create an airtight system designed to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country. The measures will be introduced on Tuesday (15 September).

Writing for Index, Kata Janecskó, disclosed shocking details of the Hungarian plan. Refugee Crisis in Hungary offers a crowdsourced translation. …

….

It is a disgrace and  one can only hope that the EU-institutions and other member states are seriously stopping this destruction of anything that may left from the idea of Europe as social and even progressive and peace oriented force.

Though I frequently made clear that one should not expect too much from the claimed European Social Model (see also the book, going back to the antimilitarist conference last year in Berlin), Orban is simply a immediate and great danger for any kind of peace and democracy.

The Murderer and the Victims

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

In particular in recent times remarks are concerning in particular the catholic church … . Though there is on the one hand the fear when it comes to religious fundamentalism, many initiatives taken by the current pope are celebrated – and indeed I joined a little bit in, asking in the title of a contribution for the Primavera vaticana?, i.e. Vatican Spring. Now there had been the one celebrated ‘Spring’ in the recent times which turned out to be the beginning of a hot autumn. And though there are the surely critical remarks and initiatives as not least in the Evangelli Gaudium and the Laudatio Sì and also the recent proposals in connection with abortion and divorce, one should not overlook that these can well be a threat: on the one hand a kind of Trojan horse; on the other hand a suicidal fuse, provoking fundamentalist catholics to start a palace coup. Well, in any case, much could be said and documented, also on the modern way inquisition – I found an article recently, and of course did not store it, post it …

With all this, I find another thing pretty interesting point: I received a hint on a BBC cast, specifically on China, even promising the unveiling of the Secrets of China. A young presenter. Indeed, she reveals some interesting stuff, gives some insight into real life of some people. I think she is much too positive in some way: on young people, the gambling addiction etc, youth issues – too positive and somewhat naïve. So I checked up on the presenter as I found it interesting to see such a young presenter being so …, well, in some instances ‘critical (which can be translated into conservative) about how young people live today’, the life of her own generation. The result – if this is her: she walked some … let’s say: ‘strange paths’, and if she would not have been as lucky as she has been, she would be at this stage in prison, undergo a drug detox treatment or already at the stage of addiction therapy – or worse: without it; in some way she is still behaving in the same way though she has now other ways with exactly the reputation these starlet producers provide and is now starting a career as ‘everything’: documentaries, fashion, activism …, as a veil and wrap of nothing else than the old habits, now ‘authorised’ by the Holy grail of BBC, fashion magazines and others ….

There is no reason to contest what is stated; and there are also some moments where one mentions the genuine approach and ‘empathy’ of the documentarist. The actually shocking about this is that it is not really about China: it is a ‘slow motion picture’ of many developments [including cosmetic surgeries, gaming and computer addiction, drugs, a lost youth, the pressure from careerism and (threat of) unemployment] which in western societies are now regretted, and faced with helpless despair, currently in part taken over in China, where inequality can easier be seen as ‘we’, the folks in the wild west are usually somewhat used to it, intoxicated by the Hello-press or to overlook it or are not able to see it easily as they happen in secret corners or where we cannot see them due to ‘commercial censorship’. We are somewhat used to it to such an extent that we often do not even hesitate when reading the paper like the Corriere della Sera: The edition of September 3rd showed on page 6 an article on Le tragedie in uno scatto, horrible photos, including the famous from the Vietnam war, showing the naked child, screaming and running away from the US-Napalm-bomb source of its pain and on page 7 we see an ad: Emporio Armani. – Yes, if reading the name it may sound a bit like the story about an armed empire, the arms being those of designer and finance capitalism – and we know that ‘this economy kills’ as Francis said. Sure, if you ‘join the wrong forces’ and are on the losers end, they will still gain, literally make profit after sending you to jail – saying all this in connection with a critique of the China-series is just saying this and has nothing to do with China, let alone the defence of any political past or presence. Still, it is worthwhile to read the ‘official critique‘ of the series … – there is surely some good reason for stating that

 

‘Professional media practice,’ the Xinhua commentary reads, ‘should be to interview sociologists… and education experts to give authoritative explanations; but the BBC has not done this.’ Instead, they say the programme ‘selectively uses non-mainstream phenomena to give subjective judgements the impression of objectivity.’

What we can learn from the series, though not necessarily outspoken, is that there is a China that is now kept out of the roundelay of the centre states in different ways. Andre Gunder Frank’s thesis, suggesting the Development of Underdevelopment has surely not completely lost its value also for analysing today’s (under)developments. And surely the series could have shown (it is stated in parenthesis) that it is exactly this fact leading to many of the problems: an over-stressed youth extreme inequality and so on: the attempt to build another armed empire or even to take over the existing one even if the arms are not the traditional ones but now those of brands and designs. But when it comes to talking about empires, it is still too often forgotten that the Most Violent Nation is indeed to be found in another corner of the world – and the violence there is really penetrating the entire society, coined by a high degree of feeling supremacy as ultimate characteristic of the state and the nation. This surely is somewhat different to what we read in the Diplomatic Words of Wisdom.

It may be far fetched, but interestingly: the UN-resolution on Debt Restructuring (I did not find it, only reports on it) had been adopted by a majority but against countries where the most important forces are referring to be servants of religious faith, in particular USNA and FRG. And it is a country where Christianity plays a major role, also in the reference of the relevant power holder (Hungary), now beginning to move military forces to the border to ‘solve’ the problem of migration. And …, well, it was also the Christians who did not allow critiques in West Germany of the 1970s entering state services, Christians who are again attempting to close Corvinus university in Budapest (or at least the relevant part of critical work there) while they are putting up barbed wire and engaging the army against migrants … and who make (with reference to god and the good will and hope) empty promises which let people end up on the street…

Labyrinth — Dedalo

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

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Faust von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

______________________________________________________________________________________

Of joyous days ye bring the blissful vision;

The dear, familiar phantoms rise again,

And, like an old and half-extinct tradition,

First Love returns, with Friendship in his train.

Renewed is Pain: with mournful repetition

Life tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,

And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore them

From happy hours, and left me to deplore them.

 

Ihr bringt mit euch die Bilder froher Tage,

Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf;

Gleich einer alten, halbverklungnen Sage

Kommt erste Lieb und Freundschaft mit herauf;

Der Schmerz wird neu, es wiederholt die Klage

Des Lebens labyrinthisch irren Lauf,

Und nennt die Guten, die, um schöne Stunden

Vom Glück getäuscht, vor mir hinweggeschwunden.

 

Voi recate le immagini di giorni spensierati,

ed affiorano ombre che mi furono care;

simili ad un’antica, quasi svanita saga

ritornano con voi gli amici e i primi amori;

si rinnova il dolore, il pianto ripercorre

il corso labirintico di una vita errabonda,

e nomina i magnanimi prima di me scomparsi,

frodati dalla sorte di belle ore felici.

Coming Home

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

August 25th — actually just trying to cope with the hassle and bussle of leaving home, moving to another site. Anyway, coming home at about 7 in the morning, I cannot walk into the street where I still live, police stropping me and saying I have to enter from the other side — he briefly looks pass the van that is blocking the entrance. I turn around and a scary idea comes to my mind: of course, the house opposite of VAM 9. I walk and feel anger coming up: my dearest neighbors being threatened, part of what was at some stage my property being “under fire”. I arrive at the other end, facing a little army. The one of the police force asking me —  I say I am living there. He allows me to pass, to enter the zone where the weapons are still only firing symbolically, though provoking violence. And the anger is changing in some way: I feel that I am to just in another war zone — I am feeling at the very same time how helpless I am: war against against young people. Since I am living in VAM they were flying a flag: dégagé. The peaceful occupation of a previously empty house. I look across the street, see the face of the young woman standing at the gate, peaceful … – the rest is interpretation: disillusioned, frustrated, disappointed … — will she, will the lads from across the street remain as peaceful as they had been all the time? I talked occasionally to some of them, had been invited to their parties: nice folks: “We just want to work and study, and for that we need a place to live … — that is all.” — Nothing about fractious attitudes, so often seen in the seemingly peaceful surrounding of an Italian middle-class area, peaceful with the various nunneries around, people, being good and doing good and of course all being honest …

This is the future Europe, and Italy is part of it, offers to its youth. It is that future about which I talked during the conference against war in Berlin last year – as follow-up a book had been published. It is that future of which unemployment, homelessness and migration are just different sides. It shows that we all are still and increasingly Greeks. And it is a future that is in this way dangerously creating a tinderbox.
had been the slogan — and when Kaethe Kollwitz dedicated her poster in 1924 to the youth gathering in Germany, it had been not least a statement against these forms of war mongering.
And it had been always clear that burying a person (and here) does not equal getting rid of a system.