Categoria: thoughts on life and its philosophy

Awkward Fame

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

A note had been sent today, somebody proudly announcing that he had been mentioend in speech of a high ranking politician. And isn’t indeed that we all have a little it of this: like the midge being drawn to the light – there seems to be the strive to be part of the grandesse of power. As much as we stand on the sholders of giants, allowing dwarfs to look far afield, we seem to be glad seeing ourselves contributing as footnotes in the thoughts of others.
So, being recognised by the highest figure in the state is surely enviable – notwithstanding the critique one bring forward to the very same state and representative.
And in my own way I enter the arena for competition: I am moving towards some hectic days ahead (some info here), into the middle of trouble. Solidarity meetings in Athens with striking workers, meetings with trade-unionists and activists, talks in the parliament and also talks about the need to provide sound scientific answers: perception, evaluation, classification, interpretation, conclusion – never forgetting the very basic toolbox of research in daily life. hectic and challenging but good to be able to do something that may also be quoted by presidents etc.,though probably more interpreted there as rioting, agitating and asking for too much of a change.
But in which way ever, we need a really fundamental change – and we need to take up the question of political responsibility. As Aristotle states in his Politics

For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.

But what he did not say is that there will not be a philosopher king – we are not living in Kallipolis. In the real world values, theory, analysis has to mean something different – as Marx said already in 1843, in the Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical.

Thus, at the end the question will be who the giants are and how the footnotes really contribute meaningfully the body text.

The Celtic tiger revived – now taking shape of paper tiger

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

Sure, there  had been some danger Mr Murphy could have been hit by the brick he dropped – but he stumbled briefly, and the attempt to regain balance nearly increased his speed though unfortunately not changing the direction. And now it seems that he lined up to revive the Celtic tiger and smart economies surely require smart societies and smart universities and only smart people will be able to move Ireland towards a big society – finally big brothers are not only there to watch but they are also there to be followed.
So, a recent mail to all staff in the ivory tower of the academic savour reminded that

The first half of 2013 will mark Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union.

and stated

This is an opportunity for UCC to enhance its international recognition.

The following content then said:

I will be grateful if each of you would consult with your local management teams on themes for conferences or symposia that might be organised here during the first half of 2013.  You might then send a one pager to me by the end of January and thereafter we will prioritise those projects that are likely to have maximum impact, likely to acquire support and enthusiasm from the relevant Minister, government department, state agency etc.  An indication of pragmatic budget requirement will also help.

Yes, it is admittedly difficult to outline in such a letter to so many different department, schools, disciplines – and people – the substantial side of it. However, the entire mail doesn’t even mention really even the honest question if we, UCC, departments and schools thereof have anything to say that is “outstanding”. It is not to say that we don’t have anything to say. But there is another point which makes me thinking.
I just finished reviewing “tons of abstracts” for a world congress later this year – something with social science, social development, social policy – doesn’t play a role here to say more. There had been many submissions. My general comment, sent to the organisers:

I just completed the review. Somewhere in the foregoing process the reviewers had been asked to be generous, not least in the light as not all submitters would have an academic background. My point would be more that some of the contributors are so much caught in very tight academic frameworks of a “technicist minimalism” they they fail seeing new, real questions. They are very much basic standard presentations, probably by young academics. Though I accepted them, I think the most important contributions are actually coming from those who are open and bring new perspectives into the debate – academic or not. I look very much forward to taking part in the debates

And another point coming to my mind: two days before I submitted a paper for publication – some time back I had been asked to write it. And it took longer than expected. AndI sent the document also to some close colleagues, writing in an accompanying mail:

…. , some reading – the draft of a chapter I just submitted – and some short remarks: the topic and approach is rather unconventional and in particular this approach is somewhat unusual as it contradicts to a more or less large extent the traditional “regime analysis”, aiming on linking into the traditional social policy debate, however, also adding a different dimension to it by looking for the link of social and welfare politics into a wider framework of the mode of production. This allows making the economic perspective much clearer than especially Esping-Andersen does without falling into the trap of seeing social policy and the link to the economic system only by way of ‘productive social policy’. As such it is not meant to give an alternative view by way of an exclusionary perspective. But it may well be useful as adding to other perspectives of the debate. And it may also serve as contribution to a debate on the future of the ‘welfare state’ – not a revolutionary perspective but nevertheless a perspective that is reflecting the current stage of development of capitalism and a scenario that can be developed (as one option) from there.

Please, note that this text is not for further distribution.
….

Not well advertised, and it will not be part of mainstream-publishing and going beyond “smart solutions” it will be most likely not easily recognised by such “high-level” enterprises as the EU and the respective presidencies. But I admit I feel touched by the expression of interest by some colleagues – from different continents, showing interest. And I am actually somewhat touched (if this is the right term), reading in one of the mails:

I have two main comments.  The first relates to your use of Marx in your analysis.  While you write in English you do not write for Americans. Reading your Marxist analysis would bring about two responses from an American audience.  The first is that they have no idea what you are talking about.   Second, it is the enemy and if not that, irrelevant. My position to your writing is that to be useful it needs to be debated and in our world today and that needs to be done on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Thank you – and thank the others for these nice encouragements. And thank you, my Hungarian friend, writing today, in a completely different context:

things are worse than turmoil, I am very sceptic to see the reactions to all the errors of the past years

We see, there is surely more needed than inviting people to take up an

opportunity for UCC to enhance its international recognition

Though it is an old joke it is still true:

….. but I would not start from here ….

It is not about saying something; it is still about what to say.

Sure, some postmodernists claim that we are in principle all experts for everything. Though I am not denying the actual problematique of post-modernism, I see a simplified understanding of such statement simply as problematic. The many Mr. Murphys, well trained medical experts, getting the unbelievable high income of medical consultants, should work in that field where there specific qualification is required.
Would he trust me if stand in front of him, the scalpel in the hand …?

SMART – Silly Move Against Reason – Tautology

Not the Time to Say Good-Bye

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

January 15th, looking back over the many years, one may even say: over an entire era that seems to be behind us, overcome – looking back to the 15th of January 1919 shows so clear that an era ended but this end is far from being the end of history.

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, most consequent members of the German left, fundamentally opposing against militarism not only by words but also by their political action had been killed on that day – after a trial: briefly pretending that everything would be dealt with according to the rules of the proverbial German law and order they had been stabbed and thrown in the river, showing to which extent the German law and order had been ready to bend the law in favour of ‘order’. It had been the order or normality – the mad normality. The 3rd commandment (see comments for correction) – here from the Exodus-version

Though shalt have no other gods before me

– had been translated by German law and order politics into the sovereignty of the state, disjoined from the people, disjoined from truth, opening the way to any arbitrary ruling within an illusionary world of rational-legal authority. It had not been by accident that one of the most pronounced analysis of the development of different systems of authority, ruling and governance had been presented by the German sociologist MaxWeber, not least pointing out the complex contradictions, highlighting the dangers of a development towards an iron cage in which we may be easily trapped; law and order – the seedbed and fruit of an authoritarian personality as analysed by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford (1950), the dangers “eclipsed by the light of reason“.

It is true:

With the finest leaders of the German Communist movement murdered, the gates of rising German facism opened unhindered.

And it is equally true that shooting people, throwing them into a river as it happened to Rosa and Karl, is not the only way of killing. The Silent Revolution which Ronald Inglehart had in mind after wrapping everything into figures surely shows something as all statistics say something. But it easily lets us forget its companion: the silent killing – performed on the catwalk, in the statistical offices, and the careless orientations on an alleged elitism…, and the hesitant agreement with critical voices: remaining on the surface level or limited to agreement behind the closed doors …. all this should makes us think of the two and what happened to the world after they had been silenced.

It may sound distant – but it may sound obvious and challenging at the same time, not least for working in academia: we have to be brave, looking for powerful points even if they are not obvious, not matching the powerpoint-format.

Yes, it is time to look back – not in order to say good-bye, but in order to move forward.

that’s mad … – sure, but what?

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

Greetings from the ivory tower of academia 😉
Off now to theatre: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ – Leaving ivory tower to see the real world

Of course, it had been meant to be a joke when I wrote in an e-mail, before leaving office yesterday.
And being there in Munich’s Volkstheater, sitting next to the director, I read the short text accompanying the program, written by Manfred Lütz – only a few sentences and paragraphs being reproduced here in translation:

Watching as psychiatrist and therapist the evening news, one is frequently irritated. You hear about war mongerors, terrorists, murderers, white collar criminals,  stone-cold accountants and bare-faced egomaniacs – and nobody is treating them. Well, such guys are even considered as completely normal. Thinking then about those people I am the entire day dealing with, touching dementia sufferers, sensitive addicts, highly sensitive psychotics, harrowing depressive people, thrilling maniacs I am often caught by the a suspicion. We are looking afer the wrong people! Our problem are not those who a considered as mad – our problem are the normal people.

Oiginally I thought about reproducing Lütz’s entire text, on a few pages bringing back to mind all the experiences, the work, the protests …., all the things from the time way back, when I worked in a psychiatric hospital. Following the excellent performance I thought how much changed over the many years: open wards, community care, modern therapeutic approaches rather than a psychiatric clinic with about 2,000 patients, two therapists, many psychiatrist and ball-rollers end one key, for every door. – We, a few of the people working there, had been fighting, in the spirit and at the side of Basaglia, Laing …, fighting like Don Quixote against windmills, but also having some success: some clear successes and some that are more on the dubious (just the day before I discussed with a colleague here in the institute over lunch the huge difficulties we have [had] in Sweden: opening doors is not establishing social spaces).
Sure, there is still tremendous maltreatment, ignorance and breach of human rights in particular in psychiatric hospitals and also in the way of non-integration of people in ordinary every day’s life.

But what may be more worrying is how uncontested we have to state the truth of something else Manfred Lütz highlights, writing about the ‘normal madness’ and not least the ‘madly normal’, those who are obsessed by normality:

No wonder then that everything that does not comply with the norm is a terrible nuisance for this extraordinary normal people. Sure, nobody dares disrespecting the norm against those who are at the top, being a small grey mouse. So every furious feeling against those at the top turns easily to aggression against those at the bottom.

Sure,  we see ‘occupants’, can nearly celebrate an increasing protest in different veins – globally. But we are equally witnessing increasing nationalism, xenophobia and narrow-minded elitism, going hand in hand with number-crunching in search for evidence.

We need more though: not opening doors, but demolishing walls. We do not need a tamed capitalism, but a thorough analysis of what this new capitalism actually is about: the shift from accumulation to appropriation; the replacing of capitalist accumulation on grounds of the metabolism between human beings and nature, the relationality with the four dimensions of

  • auto-relation
  • group-relation (as general sociability)
  • ‘other’-relation (as ‘institutionalised and ‘defined’ socialbility – including class relationships etc.) and
  • environmental (‘organic nature’) relations,

moving to a new mode of production, generating value on grounds of the dominance of abstract processes in the sphere of distribution and circulation. The organic whole, Marx had been talking about in the Grundrisse is … – is it dissolved? Turned on its head?

Only then, with a clear analysis, we will be able not restricting ourselves on another interpretation of the world’s surface but on finding a way to change the world’s essence.

– Presidents should rethink what they are doing. Rather then talking to chamber members about the loss of elitism the Mister Murphys should talk to people who gained their expertise from life and it’s anomalies. Normality is dangerous as long as it is the normality of accepting what temporarily may (have) work(ed).

Well, there is occasionally indeed more realism in theaters than we can find in ivory towers, being the heavy oak furniture of today’s high level officers. We only have to bring it from ‘Luhmann’sche’ background noise’ to the main speech on the stage. not by radicalist action, but by truly radical analysis.

Sir …. – Yes, Milord ….

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

And one surely could enter with this a more or less exciting excursion on the use of the different salutations, the hierachies and also the ways in which forms or substance is carried over different eras. Don’t we all know the landlord? And don’t we all appreciate the awareness of the home as the castle? (and if it is the case, don’t we all appreciate our status as client, protected and looked after by the patron, hoping for the lord being our servant?)
Sure, plays with words; and nevertheless not only a matter of play in the sense of Schiller’s ascendence to a state of freedom, the elevation from the blunt realm of need, reaching the realm of insight, and foresight and re-sight …, ops: the sight is here spectation, the term is then respect.
It is beyond this play also a matter of the rules of disguise, the permanent crossing of borders and at the end the loss of ground. The world is a stage – and occasionally we may loose out of sight if we are moving in the real world or on a stage, or if the world is actually truly not more than a stage.

Frequently this had been an issue for me not least in reflections on the current changes of the economic system – in its very fundamental patterns, going far beyond neoliberalism and austerity policies etc. – for instance when reflecting on the Ode of Joy and the Tragedy of Europe

The difficulty of fully understanding what is going on in the political-economic development, the social policy and the emergence of new mechanisms of governing ad governance – mechanisms that emerge in front of our eyes as New Princedoms is not least one of being ‘tempted by disguise’.
Capitalism today is at least not hesitating in any way to step into any saucer standing in the way in order to allow the impression that this capitalism is not capitalism anymore but the renaissance of politics dominating the economy, accumulating power rather than capital – and actually not accumulating it but appropriating it by the means of violence and sham.

Indeed, have a look: he is a chip of the old block.

But still, there is one thing that deserves further thought: arts in the olden times had been more a matter of showing monetary wealth and ‘investing’ excess money. Today it is not least a means of making money.

The analysis still needs to be completed. Not least as it would be much too easy to look at it out of context. Rather, this just a tiny piece of a jigsaw. Another piece can be seen in something that is at first sight rather distant: a new law, currently initiated by the Geman government. It is about empowering private security firms to protect ships sailing under German flag – not such a new thing as private security firms are alreaday since some time employed with matters that had been strictly defined as state duty.  This new advance is not about anything more or less than the transport of such ‘liberalisation’ into ‘international realms’: Like the self-elected currency watchdogs of IMF and World Bank we find now the erosion of state sovereignty in a different realm.

But again not a simple thing to assess. At first glance it is of course something that has to be rejected. However, we may also ask: why should the military forces continue participating in ‘private wars’. Finally we have to recognise that acts of priacy against the merchant fleet is … a private matter. So in any case we are facing a dilemma. This dilemma is about the very principle of sovreignty which is in the ‘modern’ state itself deeply engraved by an irresolvable contradiction: the people as supposed sovreign is governed by the state … which is (a) sovreign. Even in a ‘perfect democracy’ this cannot work without problem. – Even more so, it is doomed to fail in the light of another move across borders: one of the supoosed achievements of modernity is the separation of powers as we usually see it based in the ideas of Montesquieu. But looking at his ‘ideal state’ of balanced control we have to acknowledge two other important moments: Montesquieu himself had been equally important in his emphasis of the ‘new individualism’ – he had not been thinking of a state as people but a state of people. And not less important is the fact that he errected his vision on the ideas of Bodin who outlined a little bit earlier (1576) in his Six Livre de la République the state (république en Franch and Commonwealth in the English translation [I cannot access the Latin version now – could be interesting]) being the sovreign over both what would be the civil society Hegel had been talking about (i.e. the bourgeois economy) and also the ‘private realm’ or what we name civil society in the spirit for instance of Tocqueville. Remember, for Jean Bodin the state is characterised by centralisation of teh structures of decision, th bureaucratisation of the channels of decision and the emergence of a structured legal order – in particular the latter being a point of reference for Montesquieu.

Be it as it is – and that means: be it something that needs to be further explored in depth, we should be aware of what is centrally development before our eyes: it is not primarily about the scandals, it is not so much about the obvious impoverishment or the elitism of particular systems – well designed by the new nobility and badly defended by self-nominated noblemen who think they can cure educational systems with a sclapel. It is about the fundamental change of the mode of production. Naming and shaming this as neoliberalism and austerity policies would, I am afraid, be garment dyeing.

– And some scepticism may be allowed when new Robin Hoods claim to serve as rescuers.

The World is a Stage or Felix Krull Enlightening the View on Capitalism Today

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

And frequently it is suggested that the sociologist Erving Goffman coined this phrase. Without disregard: what my great colleague Erving did, is nothing more than sociologising what William Shakespeare outlined already around 1600 in his comedy As you like it, (first published in 1623).

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women, meerely Players;
They haue their Exits and their Entrances,
And one man in his time playes many parts,

And before Erving Goffman presented his Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (published in 1959), Thomas Mann dedicated time to this topic, writing the Confessions of Felix Krull (the genesis of this unfinished novel spans between 1905 and the middle of the 1950s).

In some respect one may say, it is all one topic: the roles we play, the images we present – a reality that is fictive by presenting its reality in certain images as much as it is real to the extent to which it is a combination of fictions, stories we tell and combine in different ways. Own stories and our stories, interweaving with the narratives told by others.

The Seven Ages to which Shakespeare refers, in 1838 depicted by William Mulready; the confidence, which is a misleading English translation of imposture about Thomas Mann, is actually talking: the mendacity of a time that at the first instance moved towards WWI, and later, when Mann took up the work again, lost itself in the emerging German post-WWII economic miracle; everyday life Erving Goffman has in mind when analysing a society that suggests its own modernity in Rostowian sense as archetype of development’s ultimate goal.

All the Same – All Being New.

The Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change are surely not a novel or a play for the stage of any theatre let alone a comedy.
Nevertheless, the supposed fictive character that seems to provide the foundation of today’s economy shows exactly the withdrawal not into an illusionary world but on the contrary the establishment of a real world that follows entirely different rules: the rules not of a fictive accumulation but the rules of a real appropriation.
The theory becoming a material power (as Marx mentioned it in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right from 1843/1844) can only merge into this new realm if it fully acknowledges this seemingly small difference between accumulation and appropriation.

________________

Bastian Kraft staged his version of Felix Krull in Munich’s Volkstheater in a masterful way, showing exactly this difference. Felix – the ‘three Felix’ – appear smart like today’s economy, likable and handsome – and they do it to such an extent that some kind of participation offers immediate conciliation. And only leaning back allows to recognise that all the camouflage is a seductive play, not allowing us to escape or forcing us to abscond completely.

There is not much that has to be added to Michael Weiser’s critique in the Kukturvollzug, a digital feuilleton for Munich:

It is Felix Self-Threesome, a Krull-trinity, that orders power onto the stage: one may say Mühlenhardt, Fritzen and Fligg embody different facets of Krull’s real character. The three do not agree in their respective version of their own history; again and again they interrupt each other and repeat scenes of the story of imposture. … . What is the essence, the true character of the human being? This is the question one poses again in the next story which probably again doesn’t lead anywhere. It may be already revealed that at the end the three show real intuition before Felix Krull’s imposture ends in a complete crash.

(Here the German original text)

Es ist ein Felix Selbdritt, eine Krullsche Dreifaltigkeit, die Kraft auf die Bühne beordert: Mühlenhardt, Fritzen und Fligg verkörpern quasi verschiedene Facetten des Krullschen Wesens. In den Variationen ihrer Geschichte sind sich die Drei durchaus nicht einig, immer wieder fallen sie sich ins Wort und spielen zur Selbstvergewisserung Szenen jener Hochstaplergeschichte nach. … . Was ist des Menschen Kern? Das fragt man sich und ist schon wieder in der nächsten Geschichte, die vermutlich wieder nirgendwo hin führt. Im Finale, so viel sei verraten, beweisen die furiosen Drei nochmals richtig Fingerspitzengefühl, bevor Felix Krulls Lügengebäude einstürzt.

This crash, its charcter and cause, are important. It is the crash of a tower, erected in a sensible way by putting block on block, changed in a seemingly reasonable way: taking one block away from the bottom and putting it onto the top and taking one block away from the bottom and putting it onto the top and taking one block away from the bottom and putting it onto the top and taking one block away from the bottom and putting it onto the top … and, yes: towers, societies and economies are not established in a way that they can survive without the foundation they stand on ….

And the performance had been nothing of a crash – and exciting adventure, the music by Arthur Fussy adding to an experience of a sociological didactic play that makes for a most pleasant …, learning.

_________

Coming briefly back to the title of Erving Goffman’s book: The Presentation of Self ….

The Presentation, living in a world of presentation is as such not the problem. The real problem is the presentation of presentation, the duplication of the process.

And as much this is a matter of the economic development, it is also a matter of academic life today: the thinking in models, the suggesiton of blueprints as reality …. –

– … the European model worked, until it distructed its own foundation …; the liberal economy suceeded as long (well: as short) as it could claim to a reasonable extent its liberalism …; finance capitalism could maintain its profitability as long as it managed to pretend to have its foundation in the real economy ….

But fiction remains fiction – even if it develops by griping the masses.

Europe Ancient and Present

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

– Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus had to climb up a hill …

…. and from the elevation he looked down on The Burning of Rome, devastating one of the cities we consider as major source of what we call today EUrope, devastating the living space for uncountable lives, and also being a factor in the crumbling away of the overcome powers. It is said that he had been satisfied, laughing by the outlook.

Today we do not have to climb up a hill to see what happens – too clear are the signs of the developments taking place on the upper echelons of society, today even literally above our heads: on the upper floors of the finance centres, in airport-lounges of the international jet-set and in the modern ‘clouds’ if we take them as metaphor of a technologically developed global society that employs these means as instruments for advancing financialisation and speculation.

Another criminal offense that provides the foundation of modern Europe can be taken from another ancient source – the country of reference now Greece.

According to the Greek myth, Zeus, the Thunder-God residing on the Olympus, in the shape of a bull abducted Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and carried her over the sea to Crete. Agenor sent his sons out to search for their sister. One of them, Kadmos, landed in Greece and was told by the oracle of Delphi that he should wander around, armed with his spear till he reached the cowherd Pelagon in the land of Phokis. He should kill Pelagon – the man of earth, “born to die” – and choose the cow with the sign of the moon on both her flanks and follow her, till she would lie down, with her horns on the ground. On this hill he should kill and sacrifice her to the earth Goddess and then found a big city on this spot, Thebes.

Kadmos followed the oracle and became the founder of Thebes. He married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, the War God, and Aphrodite (…). It is not clear from the myths whether he killed the moon-cow, obviously his sister Europa, or not. In any case, one does not hear of her again. She, the raped and abducted woman was only the means to lead the warrior and new culture hero into the foreign land and to his greatness.

(Maria Mies: Europe in the Global Economy or the Need to De-Colonize Europe; in: Peter Herrmann (Ed.): Challenges for a Global Welfare System: Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.; 1999: 153-171; here: 160 f.)

Today this may be translated into a political dilemma – that between national supremacy and sovereignty and true international and global solidarity and integration. The weekend’s Financial Times (10/12/2011) states

Mr Cameron will receive plaudits from Conservative MPs when he returns to the Commons on Monday. But back in London he may reflect on former prime minister Tony Blair’s bitter observation in 2006: ‘Co-operate in Europe and you betray Britain, be unreasonable in Europe, be praised back home and be utterly without influence in Europe.

But it is not only about the farewell by and from Britain.

It is also about the behaviour shown by the German Bundesbank. Accordingly – and again with reference to the FT:

It was exactly the rhetoric used by Germany’s famously conservative Bundesbank, to which Mr. Draghi paid tribute.

As such, it not only put pressure on governments but build is credibility among Germans, many of whom remain wary of handling control of their currency to an Italian.

As much as the two latter references resonate some form of abduction – at least the abduction of responsibly choosing points of reference of politics and policies we find the reference to the Nero, his will to establish power on the debris of the past and present, reflected in another statement from the same edition of the FT (though in a different article):

Britain was ‘as isolated as somebody who refused to join the Titanic just before it sailed’, said Terry Smith, chief executive of Tullet Prebon, the interdealer broker.

Taken from here it seems to be clear: the ship is sinking. The new steps are not more than an empty promise.

At least looking at Germany, the strong and supposedly reasoning power, shows that there is indeed little reason for optimism and trusting that cointry’s ability to balanced and strategic action. ‘Cracks spreading through Europe’s banks’ we read as if attentive observers didn’t knew this already – and as if it would be new that also the ‘strong political and economic powers’ are facing a serious threat: ‘Bail-out could be on the cards for Commerzbank’ and in France ‘Moody’s downgrades lender’s credit ratings’.

__________________

In this situation surely only few are really leaning back like Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. On the contrary, new programs show up, new efforts are made public and …

… and apparently forlorn admonishers are another time turning up, vehemently claiming the right of reason – or are they claiming the reason of right?

One of these apparently forlorn admonishers is Juergen Habermas, recently called in an article in the Spiegel as ‘the last European’, and looked at in terms of ‘a Philosopher’s Mission to Save the EU’.

As such, indeed

he accused EU politicians of cynicism and turning their backs on the European ideals.

So, according to Georg Diez, author of the said article

Europe is his project. It is the project of his generation.

And surely one may approach it this way. However, there is a catch with such an assessment. At the time of Europe’s early institutionalisation Habermas and ‘his generation’, namely people like Max Horheimer and Theodor W. Adorno had been actually highly critical about the approach towards integration based upon instrumental reason. In an earlier work, Habermas states the problematique of the incremental and piecemeal capitalist reformism as

in its own terms the struggle between classes constituted itself only on the basis of the capitalist mode of production and with this it constituted the objective situation on the basis of which the class structure of the politically constituted traditional society could be recognised. Capitalism regulated by the state as it emerged as answer on the manifest class antagonism which resulted in threats for the system, leads the class conflict to a standstill.

(Habermas, Juergen, 1968: Technik und Wissenschaft als ‘Ideologie’; in: Technik und Wissenschaft als ‘Ideologie’; Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp: 48-103; here: 84)

In this way, systems are not ‘rational’ in the sense of an abstract and generally acknowledge rationality. Rather, they

exist as long as the development of the sub-systems of instrumental action remains within the realm of the legitimising virtue of cultural traditions.

(ibid.: 67)

Looking at this position we have to say that it is against this Europe to the extent to which this Europe is not at all based on what Habermas would see in a later perspective as the general principles of rationality – and it is important to note that at this stage we are dealing with an entirely different historical situation. Any rationality – limited by the self-reference of the ruling, hegemonic class – had to be historically limited to maintaining the functionality of the given system. As such it had been not least a matter which I characterised myself later by pointing out

The different involved actors have in part the same, in part different, even contradicting interests. Subsequently we find the emergence of specific criteria of success, reflecting the substantial determination by the respective position within the process of reproduction.

(Herrmann, Peter, 1995: Movements and Organisations in the Cyclical Processes of Socialisation; in: Swiss Journal of Sociology; volume 21/1 :85-106; here 97)

In 1995, Habermas himself acknowledges, pointing in the same issue of the Swiss Journal of Sociology on the tension between fundamental rights and their regulation, emphasising that

the materialisation of law shows itself in side-effects

(Habermas, Juergen, 1995: On the Internal Relationship between the State of Law and Democracy; in: Swiss Journal of Sociology; volume 21/1: 11-20; here: 18)

In principle, we are still dealing with the same pattern of distinct rationalities behind which the fact of multiple hegemonies is hidden and by which it is blurred: the ongoing principle of class interests and its expression by the reference to the nation state on the one hand and the reference to the supranational level on the other hand. Habermas indirectly addresses this issue in a contribution on the Concept of Human Dignity, referring to relevant conceptualisations as

universal legal concepts [as] facilitate[d] negotiated compromises

(Habermas, Juergen, 2010: The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights; in: Metaphilosophy; Oxford/Malden: Blackwell: 474-480; here: 475; see also Habermas, Juergen, 2011: Wie demokratisch ist die EU? Die Krise der Europaeischen Union im Licht einer Konstitutionalisierung des Voelkerrechts; in: Blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale Politik 8/2011: 37-48; here: 37)

However, he remains caught in the irresolvable contradiction between the different claims of sovereignty. The problem can be seen in the fact that he insufficiently differentiates within the multilayered systems. Rather than clearly spelling out the various contradictions as such:

  • the contradiction between [i] the suggested people as sovereign on the one hand, [ii] the sovereignty of the actual hegemon (i.e. the ruling class) on the other hand and – as mediator – [iii] the sovereignty of the nation state as third realm
  • the contradiction between [i] the suggested people as sovereign, [ii] the actual national hegemon, [iii] the nation state as relatively independent power and [iv] the inter/supranational level
  • the contradiction between the now four suggested sovereigns ([i] national people, [ii] national ruling class, [iii] national institutional system [iv] inter/supranational level) and in addition [v] the different other relevant national systems, each of them again existing as such complex unity

Habermas escapes into a realm of abstract reason and hope. So we read in a contribution on Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights:

On the one hand, human rights could acquire the quality of enforceable rights only within a particular political community—that is, within a nation-state. On the other hand, human rights are connected with a universalistic claim to validity, which points beyond all national boundaries.20 This contradiction would find a reasonable solution only in a constitutionalized world society (not necessarily with the characteristics of a world republic).

(Habermas, Juergen, 2010: The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights; in: Metaphilosophy; Oxford/Malden: Blackwell: 474-480; here: 475)

Again, this leaves us with a very general plea for reason – and as such Habermas shows another time what he showed over a long time already: the individualist and voluntarist shift. At the end, Habermas’ earlier orientation along the lines of class struggle and class justice moved first to a general principle of discoursivity and ends – for the time being – at the point of an absolute idea. As such it is caught in the danger of

  • being squeezed between individual responsibility, the duty if emerging as good-doer (see Michaela Haas: Es geht nicht um viel. Es geht um alles. Die Rechnung ist ganz einfach: Wenn jeder von uns nur ein bisschen was beiträgt, ist die Weltarmut so gut wie beseitigt. Also: Was hindert uns daran?; in: 09.12.2011 SZ-Magazin|Magazin: 34-38),
  • disappearing in an abstract and idealist cloud, impossible to be controlled as it can claim its value from ‘pure reason’
  • emerging as a new Herrenmensch, pleading to individual politicians and countries to behave responsible, using the power for the suposed general interest.

Finally Habermas addresses the – in a contribution in the Blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale Politik –

federal government that holds in conjunction with the German-French cooperation the key to European future and it has the responsibility for the date of Europe.

(Habermas, Juergen, 2011: Wie demokratisch ist die EU? Die Krise der Europaeischen Union im Licht einer Konstitutionalisierung des Voelkerrechts; in: Blaetter fuer deutsche und internationale Politik 8/2011: 37-48; here: 37)

It is only consequent, that we then find for instance the German Die Zeit drawing a parallel between Kant and Habermas as we learn from the article by Georg Diez. However, if something like it is suggested it is probably more reasonable to highlight the affinity between Habermas’ Euro-euphoria and Kant’s three works on reason rather than the latter’s work on ‘Perpetual Peace’.

Of course, we still find in Habermas’ writing the argument against instrumental reason, reading that

that power has slipped from the hands of the people and shifted to bodies of questionable democratic legitimacy, such as the European Council. Basically, he suggests, the technocrats have long since staged a quiet coup d’état.

(from the article by Diez)

But point of reference is now rationality as general pattern, independent of class struggles and differences in and contradictions between interests.

Consequently, there is some truth in the sentence that

the activists of the Occupy movement refuse to formulate even a single clear demand, [and] Habermas spells out precisely why he sees Europe as a project for civilization that must not be allowed to fail, and why the “global community” is not only feasible, but also necessary to reconcile democracy with capitalism.

However, the developments over the last years in general and in particular over the last days, culminating in Friday’s decision, clearly show that dreams do not offer a solution when it comes to a clash of interests.

__________________

So at least I have to admit for myself, being younger than Habermas and perhaps in some way still the same generation:

Europe is my project. It is the project of my generation.

I write this, trying to defend myself and also with some bitterness but not least with some energy aiming on maintaining it as my project – Europe, another Europe.

Coming back to the debate on sovereignty – and on Habermas – the difference and struggle between the perspectives on sovereignty and hegemony is currently focused around a potentially fatal trinity

  • finacialised utilitarianism and in tendency decoupling of the entire economy from actual use value
  • particularising individualism and isolationalism
  • strive for hegemony of this particularising force – taking the form of re-nationalisation and re-regionalisation, commonalisation, discoursation but also appearing in the form of governancisation, communitarianism, professionalism, functionalisation and formalisation.

This seems to be a vicious circle – the Faustian ‘vitalising circle’. We are, indeed, living in this society and we simply have to start from here – suggesting ‘but I would not start from here’ may said to be the saying in which the Habermasian plea for reason can be summarised. Working in academia and having worked on EU-issues for  some time, I lived sufficiently long moving within this trinity, trying to push for an alternative. It is about looking at a time of unsettling processes and debates; it is about moving on stages of dazzlement: areas of ‘good governance’ that emerge latest in hindsight as arrays of greasy ground, giving some security by golden chains [actually in hindsight it looks better than actually being on the battlefield]; it is about distraction from and artificialisation of needs and interests and it is about the isolation in alleged power positions. I still believe there is nothing wrong with the engagement in those democratic institutions to which I refer. On the contrary: today, these institutions are more important than ever. Entering into distractions by allowing laws of liquid modernity (Bauman) taking power over seems to be more dangerous than withdrawing from any engagement.

However, while moving on these stages one has to resist the temptation of looking for a new point of departure rather than starting from the existing point. And the given point of departure is a world that is not trinitarian, nor binary. However, we have to look for the real world and its contradictions. As much as words and ideas may shape the world, as much as issues that are located on the level of the superstructure play a role in shaping decisively the organic whole of social existence, we nevertheless cannot take this as an excuse for starting the analysis from there. It is still the real economy and the real political power-process that has to be point of reference. Such perspective does not allow us to stop at rejecting greed nor does it allow us to simply look for ‘better regulation’ alone. As important as such issues are we should take the current situation as challenge to thoroughly ask ‘What is the actual change of the productive forces and the mode of production?’

This means also that it is surely correct when the taz criticizes Angela Merkel in the weekend-edition (10/11.12.2011), stating

Evidently Merkle doesn’t think in a systemic way … . For her the problem the problem is located where it becomes manifest, visible.

Indeed, the problem is not about public deficits. However, the analysis provided by the taz (and by so many others) is not really looking at the fundamentals either. It is questionable

that it is a matter of the crisis of the banks/banking system. Dubious loans had been granted without restraint – be it to poor house builders in the USA, a venturer in Spain or careless credit institutions in Ireland. Public debt exploded only subsequent to this snowball effect.

This still sounds as if responsible and circumspect approaches on the finance markets and by the finance institutions (and the governments who failed regulating them) would have fundamentally changed the situation. To some extent only one should follow this. To a larger extent it is about the fundamental change of the system and a new circle of primitive accumulation or as for instance Harvey names it: of accumulation by dispossession. At least it is a point that allows to begin asking serious questions – and also looking for serious answers as it is now about about the process of relational appropriation, i.e. what (kind of) property is appropriate for what and who is and should be the owner.

It is my Europe – even this crisis-shaken Europe, apparently in danger of braking up – to the extent to which I have to admit: I failed thoroughly engaging in such debates that had been aiming on moving further, going beyond the given framework for reason as within this framework reason will barely move beyond technicist solutions, instrumental reason. – And the same is true for allowing academic debates drifting increasingly towards short-term orientations, engaging in bean-counting and finding administrative solutions for substantial questions.

And it is my Europe – and ‘my academia’ alike – to the extent to which I still refuse to engage in certain debates and/or to which I am ready to follow the stony path of resisting the search for simple answers to difficult questions and searching for a new varnish where a new grounding is needed. – No reason to look up, following the clouds in their move nor a reason to climb on up. looking for a spot from where one can look at the devastating fire. If Diez writes on Habermas

it should be mentioned that Habermas is no malcontent, no pessimist, no prophet of doom – he’s a virtually unshakable optimist, and this is what makes him such a rare phenomenon in Germany.

I may claim that I feel myself very much like that, even on the stony path of harsh and twisted way of reality rather than on the idealist way of an absolute idea of rationality.

And stating it this way it also a self-critique not only on the personal level. Also the left should critically look at what actually happened to the own analytical approaches. Orienting on practice – the practice of others and own practice does not mean looking at reality. Practice is only emerging as matter of reality to the extent to which it is able to develop a historical perspective.

_____

What remains? It remains the evidence that rats show empathy – a series of experiments evidenced this.

Since Wolfgang Borchert’s short-story ‘Outside, in front of the door’ we may live with the reassurance that rats are asleep at night.

And the saddening fact, seemingly completely out of context that in a small town near Hamburg an association of owners of allotment gardens decide that only 12.6 of the owners may have a non-German background.

It may be that the latter is not really so much out of context – finally Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus had not just been ‘sitting and waiting’. He is also known as one of the most pronounced persecutors of Christians. So, we see in any case that there is surely no end of history; nor is there any reason to believe that the clash of civilisations, if it exists, really comes by accidental encounters of different faiths. It still is, as it always had been, about a clash of interests.

Before I stated the focus on a potentially fatal trinity

  • finacialised utilitarianism and in tendency decoupling of the entire economy from actual use value
  • particularising individualism and isolationalism
  • strive for hegemony of this particularising force – taking the form of re-nationalisation and re-regionalisation, commonalisation, discoursation but also appearing in the form of governancisation, communitarianism, professionalism, functionalisation and formalisation.

All these and other particularisations are in the better case a withdrawal from collective responsibility; in the worse case they are the justification of particularist interests which cannot mean anything else than the survival of the fittest …

At the end, we are not dealing with any of the trinities mentioned – at the end we have to define a clear alternative. Helmut Schmidt – in his writing on Ausser Dienst (‘Out of Office’) – contends in the last chapter that today individual rights are secured, however morals do not exist (anymore) and are actually questioned (from the last chapter of the audio-book-version). There is surely some truth in it. However, there is a fundamental catch. There will be hardly any relevant – appropriate – social moral as long as we do not achieve rights that are thoroughly understood as social rights. And this surely means not least a matter of looking to advance the process of relational appropriation. If this wants to evolve as real answer it has to go much beyond looking for questions in small spaces.

Taming of the Screw*

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

Taming of the Screw*

Mapu ñuke – Mother Earth

Mapu ñuke, mapu ñuke
tami rewkvleci jawe
coyvmkey kom puh ka kom antv
fvxa kuifi kakerume fvh,
wefkey bewfv reke
ka dewkey pehoykvleci xayen,
alofkvleci wagvben keciley,
dewmalekenmu, coyvlekenmu
fij kuyfike kekerumeci folil.

Mapu ñuke, mapu ñuke
mi pu pvxa jeqkey pu mapuce,
amuleci hegvmvwvnmu
naqvn antv meu ka pu liwen

Lelfvn mew ka mawida mew,
xiwe, peweh ka foye
leliwvlnieygvn ta kaifvwenu,
wixapvray tami pu toki
mi kisu gvnewam ka mi rumekagenuam
ka tami poyeatew ka ayvatew
mapu ñuke

**

Mother earth,
in your undulating body
the eternal germs
pullulate at day and night.
like rivers they debouch
and outpour in cascades
of enigmatic stars
sprouting, burgeoning –
the roots of the ancestors.

Mother earth,
in permanent change
elevating from dusk and daybreak
your inmost bears Mapuces.

In the valleys, in the mountains
Rewes, Pewenes and Canelos are standing
the countenance directed to the sky,
raise the Tokis
to liberate you, to protect you
to love you fondly.
Mother Earth

(Rayen Kvyeh; translation P.H.)

*****

A study trip – officially it came to its end on Friday night, when UCC’s Higher Diploma Course in Social Policy went together for dinner, returning to Cork then on Saturday lunchtime. For my part, I could not join, some work still needs to be done.
And as part of this I date the end of the study trip on Sunday afternoon – Orhan Akman, deputy of Die Linke in the city council in Munich, whom the student group met on Friday morning in the town hall, is again my host. This time it is in the building of the Trade Union – and it is on an entirely different occasion. The title of the event is

Struggle for Freedom, self determination and human dignity by Kurds and Mapuche.

While I go there I read Frigga Haug’s Die Vier-in-Einem-Perspektive. Politik von Frauen für eine Neue Linke (Four-in-One-Perspective. Politics by Women for a New Left). The book is a plea for recognising the need to approach different facets: employment, reproduction, politics and culture as organic whole.

Orhan welcomes me – as I am arrived before the official beginning I have the opportunity to talk a little bit with him. And also with Rayen Kvyeh, the writer, poet and activist of the Mapuche.
It is such a difference: the meetings during the week, all in their own way highly political, the reading of Frigga’s book – surely radical but nevertheless very much so much dealing with the reality as we know it from our daily experience – and now the confrontation with an apparently entirely different array. After Orhan’s general opening remarks – the personal welcomes of some participants and the speakers, after giving an outline of the event: the presentations, the open discussion and the ‘cultural event’ at the end – he gives a brief introduction into the topic, namely ….

Chile under Fire
…., the student movement, the massive protests against an educational system which is by its high costs extremely exclusive, not allowing ordinary people to access it … – and the fact that the students are expressing their solidarity with the Mapuche. But who did ever hear about the Mapuche, who knows that it is a minority living to a large extent in Chile, having been dispelled from their own land, resisting and asking to be recognised as ethnic group, claiming as such the recognition of their own rights. A people who resisted the conquest – first by Christobal Colón who arrived by a navigation error in 1492 in the Americas rather than in India, the subsequent ‘import of capitalism’. They resisted and continue to resist not least by maintaining collective property and sustainable economic development.
A people of the moon rather than the sun – the first being female, the second being male; a people not knowing pyramids – triangular, hierarchical constructions – but maintaining ‘levelled structures’ of collective governance. As such their resistance is not least geared against the establishment of reservations aiming on reocupación – re-occupation. – Rings a bell?

Something they have in common with the Kurds …, they have in common like the

Luna of Ashes
The eyes, blinded with a black bandage
the air compressed into a meter by a meter
captivated, tormented silence
between cables, bashes and blood

My comprehension goes astray
in endless labyrinths
made of the raw realities and its dark imaginations

Sweating cold, rage shivering
my skin
spans across the flayed skeleton
it begins leaving is life behind itself
in slow, pertinacious agony

My children are calling for me
under the chime they call
immersing my eyes, engrossing in drifty flood
my body purifying, laving in the warmth
my moribund thoughts

step by step, a small step
my blinded eyes stride
the narrow paths of my soil

Aside the loom
my grandmother gins the maize
a kiss from the auricaria, you are collecting
pignolias,
sweating in the oven
you shed tears
the streets conquered by the military forces

A forest of affection strikes roots
deep
in my body
and gives raise
to a rebellious fruit.

(Rayen Kvyeh; translation P.H.)

A song concludes the first presentation – the sounds of Victor Jara.

****

Songül Karabulut, member of the board of the Kurdish National Congress, presents: the history of the Kurds, making the point that a people living according to their origins cannot be easily erased. As people of freedom they first contributed – during the Ottoman wars and the dissolution of the Empire between 1908 and 1918 – to the liberation of Turkey. However, it meant laying the ground for their own oppression by the new Turkish regime, the fate they shared with the communists. Genocide, psycho-genocide, assimilation – the traditions of the divide et impera – against the Mesopotamian people who stood at the crèche of civilisation.

***

On the way back I remember Frigga’s book, her reference to Marx’ Grundrisse, where he states that it is finally the economy of time that is at the core of all economy. She argues against glorifying the past, rebukes the neglects of developing the productive forces.

However, the oppression of women, structurally linked to the dominance of increasing profit as Leitmotif has to be limited in favour of “goals of quality of life”. (116)

***

It had been a long day – the conclusion of the study trip in its own way. Surely the end of a week with diverse impressions:

  • A quick overview over four-hundred year’s of Western arts: the development of Western culture in a nutshell: From Duerer’s Four Apostles to the work by Chamberlain.
  • The confrontation with the most barbarian derailing which may be the most pronounced culmination of the ambiguity of a modernism which turned a people of thinkers and poets into a people of judges and hangmen (a Volk of Dichter und Denker wurde zum Volk der Richter und Henker)
  • The various impressions of The Taming of the Screw*: the well-ordered system, its success peaking in the fact that Lenin described by saying that there surely will not be a revolution starting n Germany as the German’s will first buy a ticket for the Platform before they conquer the railway lines
  • And the insights in silent revolutions – germs of resistance, confessions and the adaption of rational rules in order to change …

A circle coming to a close – on a personal level: Monday it will come to a close, providing a stage for new steps. Not as means of strangulation but as point allowing a new departure: The collaboration on Human Rights I started with Mehmet from ODTUe some time ago; this Monday’s meeting with Lorena from the MPI, hoping that we develop cooperation on this topic and linking it to her country: Bolivia. Drawing a bow between the three of us – and in some way brought together by the activists: Rayen and Orhan.
Many facets, laboriously and playfully coming together like the different individual bars and melodies in a symphony. A process of relational appropriation – it may be a machine of alienation and oppression but it also may evolve as an artful symphony which allows individuals to develop with their own timbre, merging to a gorgeous masterpiece of humanism.

There is a good reason for thinking more about what taming may mean.

***************

by any means we should erase any negative undertone when talking of a screw, highlight instead the independence and resistance.

Where to go …? – Obituary for Vaeterchen Franz, Looking Ahead

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

It had been the first program day of this year’s study visit with a group of students from Ireland: The Higher Diploma in Social Policy. A small group of students, entering with entirely different backgrounds from their first studies, doing this postgrad-course in order to be able to move on in studying social work, social policy, or just to leave it there after obtaining some fundamental knowledge in social (political) science. I had been near to write “basic” but it is really more about fundamentals. Not so much about how this society works at the moment and what contemporary issues are about. It is more about gaining an understanding of the principles …
…, and of course this includes some fundamental issues on political economy – what do figures mean: from the changes of some figures we don’t learn much as long as we do not know that the profit rate is not just a different name for turn over, corporate income or the like) and philosophy of law (paragraphs and regulations may change more or less on a short term basis – but law, legal systems will maintain their character as means of control: oppression and establishing a very specific hegemony for a long time, lasting much longer than their frequent offspring). And for the first time I took the opportunity to include a little bit history of arts: the tour through the exciting exhibitions of the old and the modern Pinakothek.

(Sure, mighty proud that Martha and Lorena, colleagues and friends from the Institute, joined – aren’t we all glad if people listen who do not have to listen, people who just are interested in what we are saying?
And also glad that the students asked me if I would join them the afternoon – apparently they cannot get enough from me 😉 – so we went for a visit at the memorial: KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau)

… the first program day, visiting two agencies, one working with ‘unaccompanied minor refugees’, the other an umbrella organisation, supporting self-help.

In the evening I still have some time left, thinking about the insights from the visits, also thinking about the words I read the other day:

that one cannot write about social policy issues like writing a music score, with the different chimes coming together, building one large symphonic piece.

And then I come across a sad news: Vaeterchen Franz …

Franz-Josef Degenhardt, born in December 1931 in Schwelm in Westphalia passed away the afternoon. Our first study day – the day he drew his last breath:
bearing the academic degree of Doctor of Law – a great poet, satirist, novelist, and – first and foremost – folksinger/songwriter left us, standing for decidedly left-wing politics.

Remembering having met him, remembering his songs … – perhaps he had been doing the impossible with his songs as it is perhaps more in general arts we have to pay more attention to as it is about:

writing about social policy issues like writing a music score, with the different chimes coming together, building one large symphonic piece.

He is gone – so it is even more now up to us not to forget and to move on, looking for the truth.

And we have to continue – we can hear the challenge ahead here: ….

Aloof – Higher Education Authority and European Union

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

Good news – some money granted for some work abroad – it is financed and administered by the Irish Higher Education Authority and the European Commission, there the people ealing with all this stuff about education, research …, highly qualified….
…, apparently so high that they lost ground under the feet, are out of touch with reality.
Although we all know that air transport is in environmental terms the worst, especially when compared with rail transport the confirmation letter states:

Funding – Staff may only claim for the costs of air travel and subsistence:
Air Travel costs: Please book the most direct and cost effective flights.  You will be required to provide receipts.  Staff may only claim for air travel.  So for example if your flight departs from Dublin, and you travel to Dublin by train, please note that the train cost will be covered under subsistence.

In the present case it means:

219.657 flight instead of rail
1897.173 – flight
total km:  2,116.83

Juxtaposed with the following alternative:

1489.008 – flight
561.982 rail
total km: 2050.99

And it further means: There is actually no airport at the final destination – these are in any case 195.401 km that are not covered. Ever thought about centre-periphery in the world system? he European Commission has even its own section INFOREGIO – highly paid experts thinking about regional development ….

At least the experts on High Education, highly paid staff … – high above the ground …, aloof.