Categoria: thoughts on life and its philosophy

Mysteries of Progress …

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

There we dare to ask and wonder ….

… about sustainability, simple life styles and overconsumption, greed and modesty and what we really need – Skidelski/Skidelki publishing under the title

 How much is Enough?

 promising to look at

Money and the Good Life[1]

and Thomas Piketty writing about extensive inequality[2] – surely important, and shocking in its way. And in this way surely talking importantly about the Capital of the 21st century. But this way is denying that capital, in which century ever, is established on inequality – which is paradoxically emerging from contractual equality of the one who sells and the other who buys the labour power. This equality and even freedom, presumed by the contract is defined in very simple terms: Two parties engaging freely, i.e. without being forced by the other, with each other and defining ex ante the exact conditions – cost and benefits – of the interaction, defining this way exactly what they can and have to expect from each other – and both parties having the same rights.[3]

And although we may say that everybody talks about it, and is even reasonably honest, the question of the we is a bit tricky.

We the commoners? We, the decision makers, defining what is common – [in former times these people had been called members of the noble classes]? We, the people with common sense [which the German language translates into something that is linked to health: a healthy way of thinking …..]? We, the people whose life, attitude, belief, need is defined by a common standard?

Well, in one way or another there is a paradox, a trap, which is well described in an article I read the other day. It had been in a book looking at poverty and shaming.[4]

The respective sentences that caught my attention much beyond the actual topic of the book and the issue of employment are concerned with the “work-oriented culture”. In these societies

having a job is not just a matter of economic security. In a social sense, it is a primary arena for attaining the dignity associated with social normalisation.[5]

And in another article of the same book we find a quote, from somebody who lives in poverty – a person in Pakistan:

it is the rich who should be ashamed, not the poor.[6]

Isn’t it also that we as academics should be ashamed for not sufficiently highlighting this dimension of shame; for not sufficiently questioning the standards of normalisation

*****

There is a real problem – not only characterising recent developments

Pronta sempre a disporsi per tutte ugualmente, come quella, che non si satia né si contenta d’una forma sola; ma havendo appetito a tutte, non ha prima l’una sopra di se, che quasi pentita&infastidita, comincia ad aspirare all’altra; non essendole più propria questa che quella: di maniera che molti l’assomigliano ad una publichissima meretrice: percioche, si come una donna tale, della conversazione di qualsivoglia huomo non si satia mai, & non più di questo che di quello essendo amica; non prima sta sotto l’uno che desiderando l’altro, cerca dal primo scostarsi: cosi questa prima materia commune atta, & pronta per natura sua à desiderar tutte le materiali forme,& a poter conseguirle, non essendo possibil che più d’una in un’istesso tempo sostenga mai; è necessario che mentre che sta sotto l’una, per l’appetito c’ha delle altre, so spogli di quella al fine;&quindi della nuova vestita poi, tosto per altre, il medesimo faccia di mano in mano; mentre seccedon le forme l’una dopo l’atera perpetuamente.[7]

The Faustian tragedy, later reflected by Marx in his work Capital (mind, not of the 21st Century or any other century – just the Capital), where we read in chapter 24 of the first volume:

At the historical dawn of capitalist production, — and every capitalist upstart has personally to go through this historical stage — avarice, and desire to get rich, are the ruling passions. But the progress of capitalist production not only creates a world of delights; it lays open, in speculation and the credit system, a thousand sources of sudden enrichment. When a certain stage of development has been reached, a conventional degree of prodigality, which is also an exhibition of wealth, and consequently a source of credit, becomes a business necessity to the “unfortunate” capitalist. Luxury enters into capital’s expenses of representation. Moreover, the capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes out the labour-power of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments. Although, therefore, the prodigality of the capitalist never possesses the bona-fide character of the open-handed feudal lord’s prodigality, but, on the contrary, has always lurking behind it the most sordid avarice and the most anxious calculation, yet his expenditure grows with his accumulation, without the one necessarily restricting the other. But along with this growth, there is at the same time developed in his breast, a Faustian conflict between the passion for accumulation, and the desire for enjoyment.

Indeed, as we learn right before,

 original sin is at work everywhere. As capitalist production, accumulation, and wealth, become developed, the capitalist ceases to be the mere incarnation of capital. He has a fellow-feeling for his own Adam, and his education gradually enables him to smile at the rage for asceticism, as a mere prejudice of the old-fashioned miser. While the capitalist of the classical type brands individual consumption as a sin.

*****

So, coming back to the questions about sustainability, simple life styles and overconsumption, greed and modesty, there are the “other people”.

The other day I went to my phone service provider, saying that I would have some problems with my phone.

I know that the battery of this model is extremely weak.

– Oh, yes, indeed ….

She thought admitting the weakness would be enough to get rid of me but …

– … but since some time …, actually I can literally see how the battery is drained.

Exchange of few words …, and 2 percent less power.

 – Please, can you check of there is something running in the background ….; I already made sure that Bluetooth is switched off and localisation  service ….

Indeed, she checked …

– No, I cannot find anything …. – but perhaps you should switch off the 4G service. This really kills the battery.

And I could only confirm that this problem occurred since this service had been introduced.

– And can I switch it off?

She nodded, did so and I left, not necessarily  happily, the shop, heading to the gate at FCO to go just for a two hour meeting to capital of the old Hapsburg empire.

Well, as I have had a little bit of time left, I stopped …: whoever had been at an airport knows the name of the shop, selling electronics and accessories and …

… and I resisted to by one of these “mobile battery chargers”, being still somewhat proud of my phone: slim, small, “handy” as the Germans say (though they actually don’t really mean what they say – but that is another story) and in “allowing me in a small shell doing nearly everything.”

Sure, many reasons to decide this way: lack of greed (I think some would call it avarice); the fear that with another new gadget, or gadget accessory I am again closer to the threshold for hand luggage; the aversion to buy a new suitcase; the fear that I would forget it frequently at home, loose or forget it somewhere, or at least would not find it in my rucksack, bag, pocket or suitcase; the annoyance by having another adapter and another cable ….

Sure, in this context technology plays a role. But looking at battery power of computers today, and comparing the development of computer and phone batteries ….

… in fact, though the exact figures  may be contested, there is surely great truth in the supposition that more than half of today’s production is the production of waste, directly or in form of “services” that occur in consequence of mechanisms that make things more complicated by their supposed simplification   ….

At the end so: it is not primarily the trap of overconsumption which puts me off, but the subordination under the rule of overproduction, the permanent and ever-present iron grip into our pockets.

Sure, as Swantje Karich writes on the  18.07.2014 in the F.A.Z. there is an alternative, namely the bench in the park being equipped with a power socket (Die Steckdose in der Parkbank)

In Boston müssen sich die Nomophopie-Geplagten nicht mehr fürchten vor einem längeren Spaziergang abseits von Steckdose und Stromversorgung. Die Parkbänke der Stadt sind jetzt solarbetrieben, haben Anschlüsse zum Aufladen von Akkus, kosten 3000 Dollar, heißen „Soofas“ und sind so konzipiert, dass sich auf ihnen nicht einmal ein sehr müder Bänker querlegen kann. Aufrecht sitzend behält man hier Anschluss an die Welt. Vier Bänke sind auf dem Campus einer Bostoner Universität aufgestellt – damit die Pause auch Arbeitszeit bleibt, man sich bloß nicht mit seinem Nachbarn unterhalten muss.

*****

Yes, sure, there is an alternative. As I saved time, not buying the additional battery, I could sit down at the gate on a bench without power socket, the phone switched on “slow motion”, G3 (which had been high speed a short while back) …

…

A short while, I just wanted to open the book, somebody asked me if I could take the bag from the seat, next to me.

– Certo. …. Per favore, siediti …

I did not open the book …

…

 – And did you have a nice time here?

– I simply loved it. You know it had been the first time that I had been in Rome. People are so friendly, so relaxed …

I could see, feel the excitement

Sitting there and chatting with the person next to me had been so pleasant, relaxing … – and we exchanged addresses. Written on a piece of paper, the old-fashioned fountain pen requiring a bit of time, allowing the ink that had been used to write down where we live, how we can reach each other by email and of course the mobile phone numbers.

So relaxed .. – yes, that is what we think nearly everyday, walking round, having learned not to fall on the same streets which had been used by Jesus, Cesar, Augustus, Nero …,  Pliny, Plotinus … that is what we think nearly everyday, walking round, having learned that there are cars parked in the second and third line – of course, who would dare to park in the proper parking slot and not paying the parking fee?

Sure, the term hoax is actually mostly known from the IT-world, but originates in the world of information without technology, the real world as we frequently name it. May well be then that we actually didn’t really mean what we said – sad enough then. But may be we actually meant exactly what we said. Formulas are not primarily a matter of algorithms but sometimes just a matter of the sound of a voice and what the eyes tell.

[1]            I am not entirely convinced that they kept their promise though it is surely an inspiring reading: Skidelski, Robert/Skidelski, Edwards, 2012: How much is Enough? Money and the Good Life; Allen Lane

[2]            Piketty, Thomas, 2013: Le Capital au XXI Siècle; Paris: Éditions du Seuil

[3]            Ah, sure, considering freedom and equality we remember of course Marx, writing in a footnote:

Proudhon begins by taking his ideal of Justice, of ―justice éternelle, from the juridical relations that correspond to the production of commodities: thereby, it may be noted, he proves, to the consolation of all good citizens, that the production of commodities is a form of production as everlasting as justice. Then he turns round and seeks to reform the actual production of commodities, and the actual legal system corresponding thereto, in accordance with this ideal. What opinion should we have of a chemist, who, instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the ―eternal ideas, of ―naturalité and ―affinité? Do we really know any more about ―usury, when we say it contradicts ―justice éternelle, équité éternelle ―mutualité éternelle, and other vérités éternelles than the fathers of the church did when they said it was incompatible with ―grâce éternelle, ―foi éternelle, and ―la volonté éternelle de Dieu?

[4]            Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.), 2014: The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press

[5]            Gubrium, Erika K./Lødemel, Ivar, 2014: ’Not Good Enough’: Social Assistance and Shaming in Norway; in: Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.): The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press: 111-132; here:102

[6]            Choudhry, Sohail, 2014: Pakistan: A Journey of Poverty-Induced Shame; in: Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.): The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press: 111-132; here: 126

[7]            Piccolomoni: Della filosofia naturale, lib 1, chap. 6, fol 14v

Relationality …. forest – trees

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

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

The New World – Nearly There?

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

Friday night I retuned from another visit in Hangzhou, China. It had been less than a year ago that I visited that place (btw with the most beautiful scenery of the Westlake and a pleasant surprise visit by 吕思, who came from Shanghai. To be mentioned because of dimensions.

The new line travels between the Shanghai Hongqiao Station and Hangzhou East Station. The trains travel the 150 kilometer distance in about 45 minutes. It reaches a top speed of about 350 kilometers an hour or 217 miles an hour.

It is surely something one would not even think about in Europe, especially as the longest part of the trip had actually been from her home to the train station itself. Dimensions … – she said to me:

Coming to Hangzhou, it always feels like coming to a small town.

Well, this you may judge, or try to judge: coming from a metropolis with about 24 million inhabitants surely qualifies a place with 5 million people. But speaking of a small town …. Well, then you can imagine that distance and trip to meet a friend for a couple of hours is measured and assessed in different ways. But also time and development takes new dimensions. As stated ‘It had been less than a year ago that I visited that place’. And the development is one that one could imagine for a couple of years. It is the building, the reshaping of the city, the economy and politics (“social politics” in the sense of shaping everyday’s life) and indeed everyday’s life, still caught by some form of the communist, and also traditional Asian perspective; but also totally emerged in the new capitalism. Including the increasing criminality, drug abuse …
May be we see there something that the world saw in respect of religion at some stage: the reformed catholicism (well, the term “reformationated” does not exist) being the better bearer of the tradition than the dogmatics. So the “reformed (or reformatted) capitalism” may in this case be the “better capitalism”. I am not sure if one can say it this way, but at least the breakthrough of a very specific capitalism is amazing and also challenging in analytical terms.
I am just trying to elaborate the question – far from being able to find an answer. I have to prepare a paper for Moscow and in some way you may say all that: China, Russia … is very much about working in some way in the future. The same is – possibly – also the case with my occasional engagement in Cuba. While having been in China, I received an invitation from the Cuban embassy here in Rome: an information session on “Investing in Cuba”.

I think and have the impression that all this is not just a matter of globalisation in terms of sprawling of capitalism. This may include the development of a “new human” – to some extent reminding me H.G.Wells’ Time Machine: an upper class, living kind of leisurely, privileged, even acknowledging that they are privileged but not doing anything about “the others”, invisible …, untouchable … – and there we may then come back to some form of “new feudalism” – I titled once a publication as “New Princedoms” (World’s New Princedoms. Critical Remarks on Claimed Alternatives by New Life; Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers, 2010; New edition: Bremen/Oxford: EHV academic press, 2012 [as: Writings on Philosophy and Economy of Power, 1); and just a day before having left Europe, I returned from Budapest. Just a tiny remark, not saying anything about the awful situation and the frightening real politics, instead a metaphor: Orban intends to move to Buda Castle; and he is still aiming on getting the Karl Marx statute out of the building of my university (Corvinus).

– No hope then? Flying back, I watched a film which I found in youtube. A “novelist documentation” on Giordano Bruno. This narrative presentation made it especially comprehensible what happened – and at the same time absolutely elusive. Sure, we do not need martyrs – if we may see him as such. But we surely need people who are, as he had been, ready to complex thinking – and people who are ready to enter the process of ‘making society’, instead of engaging in politics – and that is something Bruno showed for his time, now the monument on the Piazza Fiori reminding those how know …, those who are ready to accept the importance of not accepting …

The intellectual power is never at rest; it is never satisfied with any comprehended truth, but ever proceeds on and on towards that truth which is not comprehended. So also the will, which follows the apprehension; we see that it is never satisfied with anything finite.

A long and winded road …

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

… but in some ways this may be a wrong impression.

It is not often that I go to the Porta di Roma, one of the main shopping centres in Rome. And though many of us don’t like them, we all have to admit at least some kind of fascination.

Not often that I enter that temple, but I had to go there today. It means starting more or less from the Porta Pia. And following the Via Nomentana to the “paradaise of consumerism”.

And in the light of it, it is so easy to think of the good old times. But wait a while. Sophokles already said:

Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money – you demolish cities, rot men from their homes, you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime – money.’

And though Protestant Reformation wanted to break with the rule – 1517 the theses had been published by Luther – the selling of indulgence did not come to an end at the time.

And perhaps the famous “branding” of so many products is similar to the shift from seeling of indugence to absolution through good deeds.

And talking about good deeds is also today a major topic.

That may today then be shifted to what is called Corporate Social Responsibility. Good words coming from the palaces and temples of finance-, trade- and surely also production centres. But it is not new – don’t we know this pattern?

‘Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff,’ Christ had commanded his apostles. He had sternly warned, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter into the kingdom of God.’ And he had instructed one of the faithful, who had asked what he needed to do to live the most holy sort of life, ‘if you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.’

(Bailey, Michael D., 2003: Religious Poverty, Mendicancy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages; in: Church History; Vol 72.3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 457-483; here: 457; with reference: Mathew 10:9-10, 19:10, 19:24, and 19:21 respectively; quotes taken from the New Revised Standard Version)

Sure, not least we know from a famous colleague of mine that what is needed is not the change of interpretating reality, but the change of the reality itself.

La bella addormentata nel bosco

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

Can we move further down? – Even the lowest level of THE comedy (Dante) appears as plateau.

Today Habermas suggested at Elte university that the USNA should serve as model for the future of Europe.
Well, since Obama pleads for less war, more negotiation …. But:

Here’s my bottom line: America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will

Less war then.., sounds like being a bit pregnant or bit dead.
The good thing: mr JH did not suggest concrete candidates: Orbán, Berlusconi, Le Pen, …
So it is open for any others offer ….

Something else:
Today’s

La bella addormentata nel bosco

At the moment I don’t want to talk about the performance – though it had been beautiful enough to be talked about.
Somewhat remarkable: the little applause …., and the many flashes from the smartphone cameras.

Sure, not at first glance – but there may be a link: we lean back, decorate the niceties with ribbons, celebrate them in protected areas – as lecture halls and living rooms, easily forgetting real beauties, real tensions and real dangers …
Living in worlds, only captured in photographs is as far from paradise as counting on the USNA as savour of peace and democracy.

… because we have always done it that way …

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

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

Time – On Whose Side?

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

The problem surely is one of change, and thus of time – and this, metaphorically, may be seen in the change of art. There is the famous failure of Leonardo: the fresco, applying a wrong formula. The problem with the technique is that one is not allowed to make any mistake: the paint goes immediately into the ground and nothing can be changed. Leonardo (as far as I remember for reasons of time pressure), wanted to take a short-cut to a majestic goal – and a short time after he finished his most beautiful painting it “collapsed”. Compare Zivny with this: there is now majestic goal – a modest one of creating, or even only shaping ephemeral beauty:

“Sand is one of the few materials I work with, and I like that it is ephemeral and the sand sculpture disappears.”

The tension, it only comes right now to my mind, is one of fascinating depth: it is the tension between living for the majestic goal of humankind and the ephemeral vision of individuals.

Sure, both have their value, and beauty …. – or at least truth.

But the challenge an question is: (How) Can we bring this together? – The other day I read in an article by John L. Allen Jr.

Americans await things to happen immediately, and generally interpret delay in terms of denial, incompetence, of cover-up. Rome[1], to put the point charitably, is a culture that puts a high premium on patience, and often interprets ‘rapid response’ as immaturity, superficiality, or going off half-cocked.[2]

And just having read

Skidelski/Skidelski

on

How much is Enough? Money and the Good Life

recently, I am wondering if there is really not more to say than directing moral appeals? After economics – as matter of science and politics – obviously failed, the only way out seems to be in some kind of prayers and quest for morality?

The reality came (another time) to my mind when I went for my earlyish round – the 1st of May 2014, about sixish passing Termini, the central train station:

All fine, but … – Italy, the country of kisses and light heartedness – but at that time in the morning at the said place: facing the homeless; if one leaves the shops at day time – the shops for ordinary people or those where people buy who do not know what to do with the money – it means too often looking into the faces of beggars; if one then is getting aware of the country’s lack of a revolution, the nobility still having the remote places for their festive gatherings (which in fact are part of daily life), …

Well, May-Day then: a huge people’s gathering, in the park. At least something: free sunshine for all.

No, I do not blame anybody: at least not those who enjoy as long as they can enjoy.

And though I am seemingly talking about Italy and Rome, I actually do not really talk about this place. What makes it – perhaps – special is a higher degree of visibility of certain problems …, problems that are also visible in other places, “wiped away” by some kind of “silent militarism”: the war that is at the external borders arguing with noisy sabre-rattling, has many disciplinary forms when directed internally. Later this year I will address this during a conference against militarism. My part will be looking at

The inner mobilisation of Europe – youth unemployment, racism and modernised forced labour.

Enough is enough – indeed it is not such a difficult-to-answer question: enough of violent policies, of policies that are utilising human beings as a kind canon fodder for profit-first-economies.

A reminder, a famous passage in a footnote in Chapter 31 of the first volume of Capital

―Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. 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., positive 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, l. c., pp. 35, 36.)

 

[1]            meant to be the catholic church

[2]            John L. Allen Jr., 2013: The Church’s Message and The financial World: Lost in Translation; in: Institutions, Society and Markets: Towards a New International Balance?; A Cura di Alberto Quadrio Curzio/Giovanni Marseguerra; Vatican City: Libreria Editirice Vaticana: 141-155; here: 141 f.

moving – settling – borders

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

Moving, settling, exploring spaces … such ways of overcoming borders and habits are, possibly paradoxically, all about drawing borders. Questions of individual responsibility by some, issues of management and coordination, intercultural mis-understandings …, and in addition other things play a role and all are coming together. And of course, in some way the most important things are at the end “positions and titles” as means of distinction, possibly of increasing meaning in a world where the material means of distinction re apparently fading away: income being increasingly precarious for an increasing number of people, thus inept to serve as distinguishing factor; employment is for a growing number of people and for long times of life a matter of projects and grants, and subsidies and temporary incomes … – a rather bleak future if we think about the social welfare systems still being bound to nationality and industry patterns of employment. Surely, at least for many somewhat exciting times: living in different cultures, exploring different work and also lea sure time activities – I mean settling and exploring, surely different from living for some time in another place. Worlds that had been previously hidden, simply exotic being now part of the hoc and nunc. Part of the one and global capitalism? Or part of the one and global silent move against it? Latin-America – a spring of hope? Really becoming the new, or even the new-new world?
Leaving personal contacts and experiences aside – or limiting them on exploring Rome, this new-new world is something that is actually also relevant, present … … – well, it is surly a new challenge to learn now about the reality of a world that is so full of contradictions and anachronisms that goes far beyond my pervious experience. I am not sure yet …- Rome, the Vatican, their interwoveness ….?
It would be too much even for a long letter: a state (Italy) that didn’t have a revolution – and in consequence a city where even today members of the “nobility” have their special places and palaces where they are having their “clandestine dinners”; vestiges of a fascist system that had been so completely different from the German, though being part of the society that is characterised by an unworldly political ruling class that seems to be more “theatralic” than anything else (the more or less recent experience with the comedian as successful candidate being the tip of that iceberg) – and on the other hand devastating poverty, a bureaucracy that is so stark that is paralyses everything – paradoxically in this  way undermining itself, so that there seems to be no rule at all; an economy with some positive performances in some pockets, but as national economy simply being a disaster.
The need for a new, a moral economy? In a smart society or as condition for a smart society?

***

Moving to another topic then:
Two days ago I retuned from a short trip: Euromemorandum – “alternative economists”. I returned late, arriving about midnight from the airport at the train-station. I sent a message to a friend:
“City well looked after, security increased – so ready for my short stay … the mind is now set for being surrounded by spirituality, though perception of reality cries more for mercy for the poor, less celebration of the holy …” – obvious alluding to the canonisation that took place yesterday.
Having written before “the reality of a world that is so full of contradictions and anachronisms that it is going far beyond my pervious experiences” is also a matter of the presence of the church. Leaving aside that

there are two churches at each junction – one to speak a prayer before crossing the street, allowing to to ask for mercy; one to thank god for having survived

(merci Jaqueline; guess this is the French way of characterising Italian enlightenment), I am now directly involved in some discussions about and also with the Vatican – surely for me as atheist remarkable: not just a new world, with at times (admittedly unexpectedly) open spaces for debate, and with major substantial questions that employed me already for a longish time, but are for different reasons now more pronounced. The one reason is the physical nearness, namely the direct contact to one of the Vatican universities; the other reason the current pope with statements “condemning amoral capitalism”, but also some real measures, for instance concerned with the Vatican bank. So, all this is about the somewhat new DIRECT confrontation with the old question: morality and economics. Aristotle, Smith, Mills, Keynes …. – just a few. And of course with all this the issues of social policy. No, I’m not getting religious with all this, I appreciate some thorough discussions and not least I face the challenge to “defend my position”, actual strengthen it in some respect and being challenged to extend arguments by looking for instance at Aquinas. So much I did not know – no surprise there; but also so many illusions even I have had about the church which is at least for me some surprise; and surely many insights that I should have had before editing the book on social policy and religion.

But honestly, it is not about a ‘hostile defense’ but a move further – may be it is part of the dialectical movment that we needed the failed enligthenment first to reach a new level of renaissance – I leave it open what it exactly it may mean, and some answers my be found in the book I am just preparing, the working title being

Opening Views against a Closing World View.

And with all this it is not just settling in the new world here – but it is the confrontation with the new global patterns.
As I wrote some time ago – after I visited Cuba – in a mail:

I get increasingly the impression that we have to think much further when analysing the economic challenges ahead: Indeed, as much as the organic combination of capital changes, we may also see the organic combination of means of consumption changing in the same direction: its shrinking. More means needed to achieve the same effect. Sure, there is not much new about this: theory of marginality, Pareto optimum etc. all worked on this. Though what may still be new is the following: this way we can econometrically calculate a kind of “double-helix” that reflects the two dimensions of the accumulation regime, i.e.
“[a] system of accumulation describes the stabilization over a long period of the allocation of the net product between consumption and accumulation; it implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of the reproduction of the wage earners. It also implies some forms of linkage between capitalism and other modes of production. [. . .] A system of accumulation exists because its schema of reproduction is coherent . . .” (Lipietz, 1986, p. 19)

***

It may be an oversimplified – but I thought about it the other day in Berlin, when I passed a shop in the middle of a densely populated housing estate.
The one poster in the shop announced the opening hours:

Monday from 7:00 until Saturday 23:00 24 h open

(yes, by the way: the new German word for offen is open)
The other poster ( I translate):

For reasons of noise control we kindly ask to use the trolleys only within the shop and the parking area.

Yes, indeed, the local residents have a right to be protected – and the question may be asked if the church does enough by keeping the Sundays for the prayers; while leaving the streets during the weekdays to the preachers of money …
… and leaving now even death openly to commerce. At least this is what some shop windows of funeral homes suggested:
Presented is a world that nearly invites to passing over to the world of …. – yes, actually it is not so expensive making yourself reappearing as diamond with certificate of authenticity …