Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio
(Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro)
I do not know anymore what I am am, what I am doing [translation PH])
Categoria: quotes
We Tend To Forget
Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.
Karl Marx: Grundrisse. Notebook VII
Slippery Ground: Committee Society
Addiction searching for never-ending reflection, undermining in an equivocal way practice, leaves, as Kierkegaard sees it, in a fatal danger. If nobody takes a decision anymore and thus nobody emerges with such decision as self, nobody is distinct from anybody else in a true way; we face a dreary leveling. Togetherness of human beings emerges as ‘public’, being an impalpable, anonymous ‘publicity’. Its characteristic is ‘babble’; every responsible speech drowns in ‘ramblings’. “Nobody decides anymore him/herself; one is content with setting up committees; at the end the entire era emerges as committee.” “But the mass is the falsehood.”
(WILHELM WEISCHEDEL: Die philosophische Hintertreppe 34 große Philosophen in Alltag und Denken – from audio book – my transcript and translation)
mixed up
Saw on a website the following
of an object. The society has social structure. The concept of social structure was pioneered by G. Simmel, then developed by K. Marx, E. Durkheim but became most…
Another site, employed with the outstanding thinking of Simmel says
After his dissertation, his first publication, entitled On Social Differentiation (1890), was devoted to sociological problems, …
Can anybody do the maths?
How Much Changed?
How Much Changed?- Although the exact source – and with this the date – remain in the dark the question is justified. We can say then that the situation didn’t really get worse and the current lament is just another old generation being unhappy with their own life. We may also say, however, humans, societies are not able to learn.
These people are rigid as they do not possess any spontaneity anymore, as they are actually not really alive anymore but experience themselves as those things, the robots as which they are used in this world.
They have to be at any time ready to function in any position and only if they permanently show this readiness they escape the universal threat of unemployment.
______
Starr sind diese Menschen, weil sie eigentlich keine Spontanetiaet mehr haben, weil sie eigentlich gar nicht mehr ganz leben,sondern weil sie selber sich bereits als die Dinge, die Automaten erfahren, als die sie in der Welt verwendet werden.
Sie muessen in jedem Augenblick bereit sein, an jeder Stelle zu funktionieren, und nur wenn sie diese Bereitschaft ununterbrochen unter Beweis stellen, dann entgehen sie der Universalen Drohung der Arbeitslosigkeit.
(Adorno: Der Verwaltete Mensch (The Administered Human Being; from: denkentutgut on youtube – my transcript and translation)
Social Spaces as man-made History
We must take seriously Vico’s great observation that men make their own
history, that what they can know is what they have made, and extend it to
geography: as both geographical and cultural entities – to say nothing of
historical entities – such locales, regions, geographical sectors as
‘Orient’ ad ‘Occident’ are man-made. Therefore as much as the West itself,
the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought,
imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence for the
West.
(Edward Said)
change
Through consciousness spirit intervenes in the way the world is ruled. This is its infinite tool – then there are bayonets, cannon, bodies.But the banner [of philosophy] and the soul of its commander is spirit. Neither bayonets, nor money,neither this trick nor that, are the ruler. They are necessary like the cogs and wheels in a clock, but their soul is time and spirit that subordinates matter to its laws. An Iliad is not thrown together at random, neither is a great deed composed of bayonets and cannon: it is spirit that is the composer.
(Hegel)
Though the question may be asked: Is this valid in times that are vacuous, and where the actually existing, hegemonic spirit is based on some form of violence?
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 