Pelagea Vlasova:
Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht: The Mother (1930)
Categoria: quotes
Gramsci on human being(s)/human existence
È questa la domanda prima e principale della filosofia. Come si può rispondere. La definizione si può trovare nell’uomo stesso; e cioè in ogni singolo uomo. Ma è giusta? In ogni singolo uomo si può trovare che cosa è ogni «singolo uomo». Ma a noi non interessa che cosa è ogni singolo uomo, che poi significa che cosa è ogni singolo uomo in ogni singolo momento. Se ci pensiamo, vediamo che ponendoci la domanda che cosa è l’uomo vogliamo dire: che cosa l’uomo può diventare, se cioè l’uomo può dominare il proprio destino, può «farsi», può crearsi una vita. Diciamo dunque che l’uomo è un processo e precisamente è il processo dei suoi atti. Se ci pensiamo, la stessa domanda: cosa è l’uomo? non è una domanda astratta, o «obbiettiva». Essa è nata da ciò che abbiamo riflettuto su noi stessi e sugli altri e vogliamo sapere, in rapporto a ciò che abbiamo riflettuto e visto, cosa siamo e cosa possiamo diventare, se realmente ed entro quali limiti, siamo «fabbri di noi stessi», della nostra vita, del nostro destino. E ciò vogliamo saperlo «oggi», nelle condizioni date oggi, della vita «odierna» e non di una qualsiasi vita e di un qualsiasi uomo.
Gramsci, 10: 54
Rousseau on Learning
Mon esprit impatient de toute espèce de joug ne peut s’asservir à la loi du moment; la crainte même de ne pas apprendre m’empêche d’être attentif; de peur d’impatienter celui qui me parle, je feins d’entendre, il va en avant, et je n’entends rien. Mon esprit veut marcher à son heure, il ne peut se soumettre à celle d’autrui.
Rousseau : Les Confessions ; 122
Rousseau on Money II
Cela compris, on comprendra sans peine une de mes prétendues contradictions : celle d’allier une avarice presque sordide avec le plus grand mépris pour l’argent. C’est un meuble pour moi si peu commode, que je ne m’avise pas même de désirer celui que je n’ai pas ; et que quand j’en ai je le garde longtemps sans le dépenser, faute de savoir l’employer à ma fantaisie ; mais l’occasion commode et agréable se présente-t-elle, j’en profite si bien que ma bourse se vide avant que je m’en sois aperçu. Du reste, ne cherchez pas en moi le tic des avares, celui de dépenser pour l’ostentation ; tout au contraire, je dépense en secret et pour le plaisir : loin de me faire gloire de dépenser, je m’en cache. Je sens si bien que l’argent n’est pas à mon usage, que je suis presque honteux d’en avoir, encore plus de m’en servir. Si j’avais eu ja- mais un revenu suffisant pour vivre commodément, je n’aurais point été tenté d’être avare, j’en suis très sûr. Je dépenserais tout mon revenu sans chercher à l’augmenter : mais ma situation précaire me tient en crainte. J’adore la liberté. J’abhorre la gêne, la peine, l’assujettissement. Tant que dure l’argent que j’ai dans ma bourse, il assure mon indépendance; il me dispense de m’intriguer pour en trouver d’autre ; nécessité que j’eus toujours en horreur : mais de peur de le voir finir, je le choie. L’argent qu’on possède est l’instrument de la liberté ; celui qu’on pour- chasse est celui de la servitude. Voilà pourquoi je serre bien et ne convoite rien.
Jean-Jaquees Rousseau: Les Confessions; 1782
Rousseau on Money
Je la crains plus que je n’aime le bon vin.
Jean-Jaquees Rousseau: Les Confessions; 1782
Relationality …. forest – trees
We, working on social quality, thought for many years now how to explain properly what it is about, the social, defined as
an outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.[1]
Perhaps it is easy – at least grasping one decisive part. It is a poem which I actually quoted already many years ago, when writing my doctoral thesis:
Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi
tek ve hür ve bir orman gibi
kardeşçesine,
bu hasret bizim.
(Nâzım Hikmet)
_____
To live in solitude and free
like a tree but on the same time
like a forest in solidarity
this yearning is ours.
(Nâzım Hikmet)
How often do we forget the essentials – also in daily life, even if we try to improve it. Or especially then …
[1] van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan, 2012: Social Quality and Sustainability; in: Van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan (eds.): Social Quality. From Theory to Indicators: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 250-274; here: 260
what can we expect: allowing only a couple of days …
I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
(Oscar Wilde)
Perhaps the resulting imperfection is the structural problem behind the failure that humans, now frequently allowing themselves taking more time, fail to overcome what went wrong …
normalities
May well be that the terms used are not pc, but what can one expect in a world that isn’t pc?
To a philosopher and historian the madness and imbesility and wickedness of mankind ought to appear ordinary events.
(David Hume)
… because we have always done it that way …
It had been in 1648, that the Treaty of Westphalia had been signed (actually it had been a package on the Peace of Westphalia, comprising of different parts. This is also the explanation for ). Not 3,000 years ago, but surely a long time. And surely an occasion to maintain the insight into the importance of historical thinking, or should I say: thinking historically, in historical terms, considering the historical character of realities – taking change and changeability as serious matter?
Commonly it is understood that it is the most decisive date when it comes to the emergence and establishment of the modern nation state. And in so many cases we get still aware of the importance, the nation state being foundation for social insurance systems, for ongoing conflicts in international relationships and also the usually intergovernmental relationships, many of which we consider wrongly as being “global”.
In any case, being aware of the wider historical context, the “3,000 years” we may finally grasp that there is no reason to maintain the idea of nation states as indisputable foundation for politics and policies:
Let him who fails and to learn and mark
Three thousand years still stay,
Void of experience, in the dark,
And live from day to day[1]
(Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1814-1819: West-Eastern Divan; London/Toronto: J.M. Dent&Sons Ltd., 1914: 74 f.)
Sure, seemingly … we have always done it that way …; but actually it is not true. And we surely can change again.
_____________
[1] Original: Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren // Sich weiß Rechenschaft zu geben, // Bleib im Dunkeln unerfahren, // Mag von Tag zu Tage leben. – West-östlicher Divan – Rendsch Nameh: Buch des Unmuts
Reality – complex and contradictory
Preparing mentally for the conference at the University of Pavia, where we will discuss tomorrow and Friday
Perspectives on Agency and Participation
Such topic surely has to acknowlegde the complexity of existence, and its contradiciton – something we as intellectuals easily forget. Seneca’s words may be taken as reminder:
Teniamo sempre questo verso sul cuore e sulle labbra: sono un uomo, e non guidico a me estraneo nulla di ciò che è umano.
Let this verse be in your heart and on your lips: I am a man; and nothing in man’s lot do I deem foreign to me.
Will then have the pleasure to work with Nadia on Saturday on a new publication on the topic. The challenge is to look for ways – gaps and bridges – between capability approach and social quality approach.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 