Categoria: thoughts on life and its philosophy

preparing … – slowly but surely

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

As the time here is coming to an end, and as there will be many things just before leaving – a conference on education, a skype-participation in an event that is linked to the G20-summit, a ‘larger birthday party’ – not only Smith in Beijing [see also here], but also the Royal House in ChangSha – I started already grabbing things together, this way hoping to reduce end-of-time hectic. Part is the ‘selection’, the question: what to take with me, what to leave here, not least about the little presents and memorabiles …, little souvenirs, presents as the figurines Jenny nearly dedicated to me, from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, Jiaying’s handwritten [or does one say hand-calligraphyied] poem: a copy of the ancient piece.

 

Well, looking at the translation I have[1], reading the last lines, I am wondering, I am wondering if it had been written for me, written for these days:

Younger than they, I have my hair all turned gray.

Life is but like a passing dream,

I’d drink to the moon which once saw them on the stream.

…

There is also a box with photos – Gerhard gave it to me as present, when we once met during the last years, on one occasion, when I had to visit Europe. Another poem, on the lid of the box, reading it I hesitate:

Tidying up

Here some letters, manuscripts,

mostly fragments, photographies –

but who can, after I left,

name the persons?

(Hans Bender)

Some other ‘souvenirs’ – immaterial, though very real as the seeming eternal replay of the Trials and Tribulations: memories, thoughts, fears, hopes, disappointments and appointments –  – a few answers and many questions …, the replay, lacking the reply …

and you can, after I left,

and you have to find the answers!!

=====

[1]

“The Charms of Niannu”

Su Shi

The great river eastward flows, with its waves are gone all those gallant heroes of bygone years.

West of the ancient fortress appears the Red Cliff.

Here General Zhou won his early fame when the Three Kingdoms were all aflame.

Jagged rocks tower in the air, swashing waves beat on the shore, rolling up a thousand heaps of snow.

To match the hills and the river so fair,

How many heroes brave of yore made a great show!

I fancy General Zhou at the height of his success, with a plume fan in hand,

In a silk hood, so brave and bright, laughing and jesting with his bride so fair,

While enemy ships were destroyed as planned like shadowy castles in the air.

Should their souls revisit this land, sentimental, his wife would laugh to say,

Younger than they, I have my hair all turned gray.

Life is but like a passing dream,

I’d drink to the moon which once saw them on the stream.

Academia Today — and also the rest of the world

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

Sometimes I get the impression that there all the outperforming which we are facing and which we are asked to join is best captured by Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker‘s Guide to the Galaxy. I recently found a nice version of the little story concerning the magic 42, translated here:

A well advanced extraterritorial culture strives to answer the ultimate question, namely the question concerned with the foundation of and reason behind ‘life, the universe and everything’. The supercomputer Deep Thought is built. After calculating for 7.5 million years Deep Thought comes up with the answer „42“.

Deep Thought replies to the baffled constructors that the question had not been sufficiently clear, and proposes to build an even large computer, able to find an appropriate question to which „42“ is the answer. it turns out that this larger computer is actually the planet earth.

Here the original:

Eine weit fortgeschrittene außerirdische Kultur sucht die Antwort auf die Frage aller Fragen, nämlich jene nach „life, the universe and everything“. Dazu baut sie den Supercomputer Deep Thought. Nach einer Rechenzeit von 7,5 Millionen Jahren erbringt Deep Thought die Antwort „42“.

Auf die Ratlosigkeit der Erbauer hin entgegnet Deep Thought, dass die Frage nicht präzise gestellt worden sei und schlägt vor, einen noch größeren Computer zu bauen, der fähig ist, die zur Antwort passende Frage zu finden. Dieser Computer wird gebaut und das Programm zur Suche der Frage auf die Antwort wird gestartet. Es stellt sich heraus, dass dieser noch größere Computer der Planet Erde ist.

In other words – more in the formulation of systems theory: we re producing an increasing number of empty spaces, in order to fill them with the same emptiness. And instead of really arriving at public spaces, we establish in two ways pseudo-and quasi-public places

  • by charismatisation of individuals and institutions, leading to the ‘obligation’ that being part of it is the main thing – one has to publish in THEIR vicinity, one has to GO TO the events WITH THEM, one has to know HERHIM … – name dropping as the other, i.e. personal droppings are considered to be and are made meaningless.
  • and then there is the perpetuation of this charismatic fields of hegemony: who did not read THAT, who had not been THERE, who did not know ALREADY … – All this is, of course not about the factual but the somewhat virtual. If WE write and say something, it becomes only meaningful if THEY stated it already , and if WE say something meaningful it remains an empty phrase as long as it is not quoted. – I am not talking about the gained meaning by spreading the word – that is a purely quantitative aspect and as true as it is that things we think without letting others know are equally meaningless as the most stupid things even of they are published ‘properly’. It is better to be a footnote that everybody can see than being a sapience crawling serpently in the stash. And who does not belong to this and that who-is-who-social-network, can prove a certain number of friends, fans, supporters, follower is nearly non-existent – the social-network-death, which can only be beaten by brain death.

But how much is really new and how much is really limited to the academic world?

Protestocatholicism …. or … Cathoprotestanism …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, works, projects, publications
Teaching is over now – most of the exam papers corrected and time …, to look forward. Teaching always is caught in the tension: dealing with the ‘real realities‘ on then hand and with ‘clear’ theories and the supposed ‘objective, value-free’ analysis of the reality on the other hand – and in economics it is even worse than other disciplines: the ‘objective reality’ being the reality of rational individuals. If it would be only for my neighbours and colleagues: I know that humans are not rational actors. Some are not acting, some are solely actors, some are not rational – and the worst category are the irrationally acting actors …
Well, leaving this aside …, or actually no: taking it from here, there is always also the point that even the ‘rational systems’, as central banks, money, exchange values etc are never following the books – it is not because they have their own lives but more because text books create ‘an own life’: the life of a world as it should or could be, the life of a world that had been imagined by some as political programs etc.
Two issues, the one like to pure doctrine when it comes to banking and central banks: be they independent or not, they are usually considered to be public bodies, committed to the common wheal etc. Still, in one way or another, i.e. more or less explicit, these banks serve – in most if the cases – public AND private interests, usually without being specified.
However, sone specification can be seen in the generally agreed upon ‘holy trinity’: maximisation of employment, stabilisation of prices, moderating interest rates.
But ….. where is the challenge addressed that Dani Rodrik poses as irresolvable trilemma: we cannot have democracy AND sovereignty AND global integration.
In fact – this is indeed part of the story –  we see that over the recent years and even decades the overall goal of controlling inflation is positioned over the goal of maximising employment. Stating this, it is necessary to ask as well: why maximising employment if we are already producing large surpluses?
From there it is worthwhile to look at the second issue: the question of value, valuation and valorisation. It haunts me for a long time, always asking myself and perhaps even more so: talking about values, calling for living along the lines of the cardinal virtues …- beh, forgotten what the quarterly reviewer said?
“Capital is said … to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital es- chews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vac- uum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent, will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent, certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., posi- tive audacity; 100 per cent., will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade have amply proved all that is here stated” (T.J. Dunning, 1. c, [Trades’ Union and Strikes,] pp. 35-36; from: Marx, Karl, 1867: Capital; Volume I; in: Karl Marx/Frederick Engels. Collected Works; Volume 35; London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1996: 748, footnote 2)
Still, working currently in the ‘mainstream’ [or to be more precise: trying to swim against it], I am looking at questions of digitisation, all the new economic forms emerging in that context, linked to primarily in the issues about technical developments but more about relations of procession and the mode of production. Profitability plays a role and …, exactly the issues around value, valuation and valorisation. in the context of a paper I am still developing not least in connection with the preparation of the G20-discussions I am wondering of it is time to change perspectives in political economy. Famously Max Weber centre-staged an issue that was already issued – more en passant – by Marx: the question of the protestant ethics. Marx saw it, of course, as matter of the superstructure, without denying its importance whereas Weber saw the emergence of this ethics system as driving force.
My question is a different one at this stage: instead of counterpoising catholicism and protestantism, we may have tops of a merger, we may call it
Protestocatholicism …. or … Cathoprotestanism …
The reflection behind it? Well, quoting from the paper – work in progress –
Early capitalism was characterised by the fundamental ambition to follow the principle of exchange of equivalents – inequality existed at the point of departure but after ‘free individuals entered the economic sphere of exchange – they had been equals. The ten new capitalism stood against the feudal system that was based on violence. However, looking at the situation today, we see that the foundation is not simply and solely about the different points of departure. The economic process of the data economy is itself a violent relationship that has little to do with equivalence: it is the violence of withholding information, utilising the directional power of information, the enforcement of conditions, perfectioning of control etc.
A world which has lost much of the foundation in reality and where, indeed, values seem to be virtual, even if they are presented by concrete numbers as Peter Wahl pointed out already some time ago:
Even if every business transaction was protected by derivatives, the real economy-based proportion would still be less than 5%. Therefore, by far the largest portion is used for speculative trading. Buyers and sellers no longer have anything to do with each other. Dealers with not the slightest interest in wheat purchase large quantities of grain forwards in order to sell them profitably when the contract matures. Only a very small proportion of this business actually refers to material objects such as grain, gold or oil – the BIS assumes this proportion to be approximately 1%. The predominant proportion concerns financial products. There is practically no end to fantasy in developing derivatives: meanwhile, the system has achieved such a complexity that there are derivatives dealing with derivatives of derivatives.
Protestocatholicism …. or … Cathoprotestanism … – just another form of indulgence payments, from old violence to new violence.
And in any case, this violence is real.

teaching about realities?

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

Sometimes, when teaching about harsh realities, I admittedly ask myself if I am not exaggerating, making things looking worse than they are. Sometimes, when writing about economic and social facts, I am wondering if it is really about facts or about vested interests that are suggesting some biased interpretation. At least, when looking at the OECD-countries there is the assumption – or proposition –  that we are living in enlightened countries, developed on the basis and for the sake of wealth and well-being of their people, now even ‘thinking-tanking’ about an Inclusive Growth Opportunities Index 2017. And indeed, reading what the OECD member-states suggests as Our Mission suggests that we can put our minds to rest – rest assured that things are not perfect but at least moving towards perfection:

The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
The OECD provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. We work with governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change. We measure productivity and global flows of trade and investment. We analyse and compare data to predict future trends. We set international standards on a wide range of things, from agriculture and tax to the safety of chemicals.
We also look at issues that directly affect everyone’s daily life, like how much people pay in taxes and social security, and how much leisure time they can take. We compare how different countries’ school systems are readying their young people for modern life, and how different countries’ pension systems will look after their citizens in old age.
Drawing on facts and real-life experience, we recommend policies designed to improve the quality of people’s lives. We work with business, through the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC), and with labour, through the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC). We have active contacts as well with other civil society organisations. The common thread of our work is a shared commitment to market economies backed by democratic institutions and focused on the wellbeing of all citizens. Along the way, we also set out to make life harder for the terrorists, tax dodgers, crooked businessmen and others whose actions undermine a fair and open society.

Well, often the small print is overlooked, when putting minds resting assured …, so often it is overlooked that people, humans are put to rest – or even more: that people are not even considered to be human beings. So we read for Australia, on of the OECD-countries:

In the past, Australia’s Indigenous communities were administered under fauna and flora laws, according to Reuters.

Indeed, teaching about realities is not only a matter of teaching about more than models – it is also about teaching something that can be very different.

truth

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

Of course, there is never then side or the other only, never the ‘deep-black’ or the ‘bright-white’[1] – and there remains and increases the concern when it comes to Mr Trump. There is another concern – and the reader may know that it haunts me in very general terms.

Trump then …, or actually today not but Francis and both in Rome. We learn from telesurtv

Trump curiously gifted the Pope a book of Martin Luther King’s writings, while the Pope returned the gesture by giving the U.S. president a copy of his climate change encyclical.

Now I am posing the question again: honesty, symbolic politics and meaning: what is the possible meaning of a pope’s words on climate change, as long as he allows a person like Trump to cross the doorsteps? A person, passing on words of a pacifist who pursued the ideas of non-violence, while building violent walls of nationalism against his opponents. And actually the formulation should be more precise: as long as the Vatican is itself a fortress, securing its ‘monarchial power’ behind a high and barely surmountable wall (leaving aside that I occasionally walked in and out without hassle, though hardly entering its centre).

– BTW, it should not be forgotten that a large part of the ‘black movement’ in the USNA actually pursued the ideas of a strong world power, however one that is black and white … obviously a long way to go for the really colourful for all.

—-

It may be seen as tiny detail, though of huge interest – symbolically. Looking at Frances schedule for the 24th we see the following:

24
Mer

What does it say? First the leaders – then the people. And in the rome case, ‘audience’ means two sides speaking, in the other it means: one side talking, the other listening … – In the one case it had been about

… cordial discussions, satisfaction was expressed for the good existing bilateral relations …

In the other case it was about bringing two brothers together:

Il segreto della strada che conduce a Emmaus è tutto qui: anche attraverso le apparenze contrarie, noi continuiamo ad essere amati, e Dio non smetterà mai di volerci bene. Dio camminerà con noi sempre, sempre, anche nei momenti più dolorosi, anche nei momenti più brutti, anche nei momenti della sconfitta: lì c’è il Signore. E questa è la nostra speranza. Andiamo avanti con questa speranza! Perché Lui è accanto a noi e cammina con noi, sempre!

– may be as excuse for previous meeting or may be as hoping for the cunning of reason?

Well, walls …

  • —-

[1]            not talking about bride, bribe bridling ….

… trapped …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, joys - what we usually take for it, quotes, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Not avoiding the hazard actually means being trapped, condemned to the worst of all things: eternal life …. – is that what Hesse meant in his novel Steppenwolf?

“Gentlemen, there stands before you Harry Haller, accused and found guilty of the willful misuse of our Magic Theater. Haller has not alone insulted the majesty of art in that he confounded our beautiful picture gallery with so-called reality and stabbed to death the reflection of a girl with the reflection of a knife; he has in addition displayed the intention of using our theater as a mechanism of suicide and shown himself devoid of humor. Wherefore we condemn Haller to eternal life and we suspend for twelve hours his permit to enter our theater. The penalty also of being laughed out of court may not be remitted. Gentlemen, all together, one-two-three!”

On the word “three” all who were present broke into one simultaneous peal of laughter, a laughter in full chorus, a frightful laughter of the other world that is scarcely to be borne by the ears of men.

At least somewhat ‘strange’ or: occupying the occupied

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

At least somewhat ‘strange’ – or at least remarkable: the fact of being occupied by social spaces and occupying social spaces, namely cities.

It is several years ago that I visited Vienna the first time, and I returned a couple of times. The first time was somewhat unpleasant – unpleasant in terms of disliking the place as exhibiting imperial power. Indeed, having known Budapest already, I joined in the popular saying: Budapest is the ‘nicer Vienna’. The nicer Vienna because it was seen as the city where people, real people, would live. One could surely move towards issues like the ‘Hungarian soul’: a bit of permanent resistance and suffering going hand in hand – Leiden, dass dann führt zu Leidenschaft und Leidenschaft, die Leiden schafft.

Vienna … a space that presented itself to me as occupying, remaining unapproachable, remote … . Anyway, what did it matter? It had been another business trip amongst many. Not so on one later occasion. Actually it may be that I went there for business but in the meantime a friend of mine, Viennese whom I knew for many years from Brussels, lived in Vienna again and I remember that I stayed in his apartment. Another district, in short: Working class Vienna. Much could be said … In a nutshell it was the experience that allowed me to occupy space. Sure, local knowledge helped – the ‘local guide’ who showed me also those places next to the ‘imperial exhibits’: the people’s park, one or the other coffeehouse: and as much as Vienna is shaped by the gallant Cafe Centrale, Vienna is characterised by those Kaffeehäuser that are a bit dingy, humming along with the croaking sound of the violin, the waiters apparently competing in ignoring the guests, the Volksbuhne and those spaces that are occupied the peculiar charm of bohemian, intellectual, critical debates …

Anyway, I returned later on different occasions, stayed in different quarters, though mostly in district VII and VIII. The city gained space, I gave it space in my life even if only for the short times of my stays, always remaining visitor even barely coming as tourist – it had been about short business trips to the government, to conferences, or as the last time for teaching … and of course unforgettable: one year the visit with my students and my friend Joe.

The city gained space, I gave it space in my life …. – even visiting the imperial places as the museum of history of arts – a specifically lost ground which, by the way, hosts also a beautiful collection of Pieter Bruegel’s the older works –, the Albertina and its private collection, the state opera, the Burgtheater and yes, the Cafe Centrale, I visited as well the people’s park, the People’s opera, and the several small galleries and theaters, local stages, the Kaffeehäuser and restaurants … Mixing, merging … becoming a place where the different circles of debates, culture, ordinariness are emerging as a new normal, merging as living space, lived space for some time – not necessarily to be agreed with, but to a large part challenging, demanding to be … occupied again and again.

*****

And Budapest? – Yes, it is still, with its own eccentricities, the beloved place, also the place to meet a good friend …, and yes, there is the shadow of de-occupation: the city loosing its very specific charm which I learned to love, I tried to capture a little bit in the Diary from a Journey into another World: Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments.

Dulcinea …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, works, projects, publications
PS: why we all need our Dulcinea … – or: carrying on the dream.
May-day not anymore … – back to everyday …!! ??
Facts are the enemies of truth
as Cervantes says in his defense … – And he says
it is the most severe frenzy to see life as it is and not as it should be.
Sure, there are two versions of it … the one idealistically glorifying things by white washing, the other demanding, fighting for the visions that are hidden as germs in the dung heap through which, according to Dulcinea, we walk.
And this is, why at the end, she beckons to be Dulcinea, not Aldonza anymore ….
… nous sommes …
– at least we have to try! Try together … as
only when everything is said and done, one is alone
[as I found it remarked in the Schiele-exhibition, at the moment in the Albertina]

May-Day

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

or: learning and living and teaching Europe …

To be more precise: it is not May-Day but the evening before the 1st of May – Uli said the other day: it is in Vienna a special cultural event and if you are around you have to go to the town hall … – surely not the same as one year ago when I gathered on the Plaza de la Revolución in La Havana.

Indeed, I am around, teaching European Integration – latest on the 9th the recordings should be here.

So, may-evening then – I am sitting in a tiny park, munching my Simit while I am waiting for the volksoper – the people’s opera – to open its door.

Thoroughly enjoying the moment – anticipating the tale of the

Man from La Mancha

Sitting there, I am also thinking about the programme of the next days – teaching, writing, rushed trip to Bremen for a presentation and  … Vienna again …

Le nozze di Figaro

…. the upcoming performance …. – while waiting that day for the doors to open, I will most likely sit in the small resto-bar opposite of the venue, sipping some wine, tasting a canapé …

… May-Evening …. And I am asking myself if I am wondering or not: why is the one place named people’s opera, the other – the one for the higher echelons of society, the bourgeois – is called state-opera.

Les Distinctions

as Pierre Bourdieu called them – hadn’t been small at the end (as the German translation suggests) …, they had been about the nearness, even the identification with the centres of power.

L’état c’est moi

Not yet …. The evening of the first of May ….
…. And I am teaching about European Integration …. Indeed

Commodification of labour power and appropriation of surplus value cannot be thought of without an outside, by which they profit in social, economic and  ecological terms
(Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus: imperiale lebensweise; Muenchen: oekom: 63)

Which is another formulation of what Dulcinea probably meant:

The world is a dung heap and we are grubs walking through …

So it is a long way until we will say

Je suis e aussi moi es nous sommes le peuples

 

Post-Easter Message

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

This should not be forgotten, now, when returning from the mysteries of metaphysical celebrations.

At first sight, this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of so-called sound commonsense. Only sound commonsense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things, it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the woods for the trees.

From: Frederick Engels, 1880: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.