To say that I was unprepared to do a post today is something of an understatement. I suppose I could bullshit and talk about what I'll be talking about on Monday but that seems something of a cop out.

What I can tell you is this:

I've started reading Calvin and Hobbes again. A friend of mine has a few of the collections and while I was staying at his house this week I read through a couple of them.

Let me just say that Calvin and Hobbes is one of the best strips to come out of the funnies in the last 30 years. It seems to me that even some of the "classics" were they introduced today would fail. Maybe not peanuts, everybody likes cynical kids.

There was an intelligence behind Calvin and Hobbes that you just don't get in the vapidity that is the dailies anymore. I mean, I like Get Fuzzy but even that's a more sophisticated Garfield. Actually, anymore I only read Get Fuzzy, Peanuts, and Zits, sometimes Bizarro but I feel like Bizarro is too preachy.

I suppose that you're supposed to read Calvin and Hobbes for the inherent laughs, these days I don't laugh as much at them. They're funny but unlike many comic strips Calvin makes you think. Even some of Watterson's more preachy strips are at least set up in away that you don't feel as though his message is being shoved down your throat.

The art while fitting in the Sunday papers was still very well done. Watterson's expansive alien worlds for Spaceman Spiff, always reminiscent of the Grand Canyon, were amazing too look at especially when surrounded by the less filled in panels from Garfield or even Peanuts. 

You always knew where you were in Calvin's world and it never felt as though details were missing or that the characters were the only things in their worlds. 

In my mind, unlike many comics each character feels fully developed and you can picture how they would react in other situations. Except maybe the Principal, I imagine he drank after work and heavily. 

I'm pretty biased towards Calvin and Hobbes so I'll leave off with that and the following:

If you've never read Calvin and Hobbes, shame on you. Go check it out. If you have read the strip than go to your bookstore and pick up a couple collections. Get reacquainted. Remember what it was like opening the paper just so you could read the funnies as a kid. Hell, get a cup of coffee and some breakfast and read it in at the table in the morning just like you used too. It's worth it.

Scyo.

SHAPIRO e a ABORDAGEM PÓS-ESTRUTUALISTA

• Há coerência em afirmar que a política global deve ser tratada como um texto?
• Tentarei relacionar a construção de Estados Nacionais à produção cinematográfica. Além de ilustrar o argumento com exemplos a fim de ressaltar a validade da abordagem pós-estruturalista de Shapiro.

 Sim, há coerência em afirmar que a política global deve ser tratada como um texto. Podemos apreciar a relação intima entre práticas textuais e política quando damos reconhecimento adequado aos textos em que o mundo emerge e provido um entendimento da política que foca nessas imposições de significado e valor. São as práticas textuais dominantes e sobreviventes que originam os sistemas de significado e valor dos quais as ações e políticas são dirigidas e legitimadas.

Se um dado aspecto da realidade social é uma questão de contenção ou é tido como natural e não-problemático, o significado é sempre imposto, não descoberto, uma vez que o mundo familiar não pode ser separado das práticas interpretativas através das quais ele é feito.

Por exemplo, se referir à "América Latina" não significa somente se referir a uma área no globo, é ajudar a reproduzir uma forma institucionalizada de dominação, na qual a minoria, parte Hispânica da população na região controla os grupos indígenas originais. Até mesmo o uso do nome de uma nação reconhecida é um gesto político (o autor cita a Guatemala), onde o indivíduo se deixa conduzir pelo modo de representação geopolítico prevalecente.

Textualizar um âmbito de análise é reconhecer que qualquer "realidade" é mediada por um modo de representação e; que as representações não são descrições de um mundo de faticidade (‘facticity'), mas são modos de fazer faticidade. Os modos de análise textualista ou pós-estruturalista enfatizam o "discurso" ao invés da linguagem. O conceito de discurso implica numa relação com práticas produtoras de significado e valor na linguagem ao invés de estritamente a relação entre formas de expressão e seus referentes.

Entender o mundo como mediado por práticas textuais significa encorajar modos de questionamento e inquirição que não são familiares dentro de caminhos mais tradicionais (empírico e interpretativo). Shapiro afirma que a própria análise é uma prática textual.

O Cinema, por exemplo, funciona como "Diplomacia de Hollywood". Cinema é muito mais do que contar estórias. Em muitas produções norte-americanas, os vilões são latino-americanos traficantes, árabes terroristas e asiáticos tiranos. Bom exemplo é o conjunto dos filmes do agente 007, recordistas de bilheteria. Essa "leitura dupla" (ou alternativa) das produções cinematográficas não é exclusividade dos pós-modernos. Hans Morgenthau sustenta em uma de suas premissas do Realismo que a política é autônoma de outras esferas e que nada é mais importante do que a política, sendo ela o único fim; Maquiavel em "O Príncipe" fala da amoralidade da política. O que se observa é que o Cinema está se valendo dessas premissas. Em tempos onde a censura faz a censura de seu próprio poder, tudo vale em prol da arte. Os fins justificam os meios! Cinema e artes são amorais, mas como toda ação gera uma reação é importante estabelecer controles. O mesmo Morgenthau afirmou que na luta pelo poder, além da Política de Imperialismo e Status Quo, a Política de Prestígio tornou-se uma arma política particularmente importante em um período em que a luta pelo poder é travada não somente mediante o recurso de métodos tradicionais de pressão política e força militar, mas também, em larga medida, como um combate pela conquista das mentes dos homens (manipulando avaliações). O grupo acredita que esses argumentos ditos realistas têm características da "corrente" pós-moderna, pois como eles próprios afirmam, a leitura (interpretação) realista de Clássicos como Tucídides, Maquiavel e Hobbes é uma tentativa de estabelecer uma linhagem intelectual que dê credibilidade aos pressupostos realistas.

Os pós-modernos desconfiam de todas as tentativas de classificação, de todas as categorizações e de todos os esforços para encontrar verdades universais; um empreendimento que consideram incompatível com a alteridade, a abertura, a pluralidade, a diversidade e a diferença em todas as dimensões da vida social. Através da difusão dos chamados valores universais e o apoio da mídia, tem crescido ainda mais a utilização da indústria cultural como instrumento da grande diplomacia. Este fenômeno é extremamente preocupante, seja para a cultura Ocidental, para as relações internacionais, ou para os povos visados por este tipo de produção e pelos interesses político-econômicos que lhe dão suporte, e de modo claro, as influências e determinismos na construção de Estados Nacionais.

A mobilização constante da política externa como prática de produção de perigo e diferença assume lugar central na reprodução do Estado como o local da realização da identidade política e de legitimação da exclusão de subjetividades alternativas que não se ajustem ao regime dominante de poder/conhecimento (Foucault).

Sabe-se que toda verdade é afirmação de uma posição de poder e reflete estruturas de dominação que pretendem, por meio do discurso cientifico, apresentar-se como neutros e naturais. Por isso, a desconstrução trabalha com o intuito de questionar as dicotomias (anarquia/soberania; guerra/paz; cidadão/estrangeiro; identidade/diferença; idéias/interesses; etc) nas quais as teorias dominantes se baseiam para construir sua representação da política global.

Paulo Vizentini, em artigo no site Terra, fala de como é surpreendente como em plena era da informática, milhões de pessoas se deixam levar por uma construção virtual que encobre a realidade, sentindo-se particularmente atraídas pelo idealizado e exótico. E que na luta enérgica contra o terrorismo tem-se esquecido, porém, de lutar contra o terrorismo intelectual. Esse, supracitado, que quase imperceptivelmente adentra as mentes humanas é tão perigoso quanto todas as formas mais alardeadas.

Os desenhos animados também devem ser notados como fonte diplomática e idealizadora. Sobretudo, se relacionam com crianças - matérias-primas -, olhos atentos e absorvedores de conteúdo. Há os acreditam em mensagens subliminares. È comum, os heróis dos cartoons norte-americanos, orgulhosos de pertencer à sua pátria, constantemente se verem envolvidos pela bandeira dos EUA. Os heróis são sempre o cidadão-típico americano, de Batman a Superman, com superpoderes ou ferramentas inusitadas, todos vivem uma espécie de "sonho americano", com residência fixa em algum estado do dito país. Há uma batalha de audiência e preferência entre esses heróis conhecidos e os ineditismos trazidos pelos asiáticos. Na programação televisiva é corriqueiro se deparar com produções do gênero vindas do Leste Asiático, os mangás fazem sucesso num amplo leque de idades; e independente da ‘falta de receptividade' estadunidense têm tido muita notoriedade. Lembramos de Arrighi, seus ciclos hegemônicos e sua sutil referência à possibilidade de uma nova potência hegemônica se originar no Leste Asiático...

Ainda no tema de desenhos animados: O Brasil durante o governo Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945), tinha um projeto político que consistia na industrialização política e militar do país. O duplo jogo de Vargas, mantido face ao imperialismo norte-americano e alemão era a decorrência desse projeto. Getulio muito matreiro, conhecendo a germanofobia americana, dissimulou uma aproximação com o 3º Reich. Logo os americanos começaram a negociar com o governo. Fizeram várias concessões para que o Brasil pudesse fechar um acordo pró-aliado. Em todos os sentidos os Estados Unidos buscaram uma integração com o povo brasileiro. Do cinema ao rádio. Em 1941, Walt Disney iniciou uma peregrinação pela América Latina, como parte da política de boa vizinhança adotada pelo governo dos Estados Unidos desde o início dos anos 1930. A viagem também carregava o claro objetivo de angariar a simpatia dos países candidatos a integrar o grupo dos Aliados na Segunda Guerra Mundial. Foi desse caldo de interesses político-militares que surgiram personagens como Zé Carioca (Brasil) e Panchito (México). Walt Disney criou o Zé Carioca como uma maneira de integrar a ave símbolo do Brasil com o famoso Pato Donald americano. Carmem Miranda (portuguesa de nascimento) com o seu "o quê que a baiana tem" passou a ser a namoradinha da América. Esses entre outros recursos foram utilizados pelos americanos para seduzir a opinião publica brasileira. Fechado o acordo, o governo brasileiro cedeu aos americanos o terreno para a construção da base militar americana de Natal no RN. Mesmo enquanto usavam essa galeria de personagens a favor de suas tropas ou contra os Aliados, os países do Eixo proibiram a circulação de quadrinhos Disney em seus territórios. A exceção coube à Itália, por um motivo tão simples quanto irônico: o ditador fascista Benito Mussolini era fã declarado dos personagens de Walt Disney.

O que a análise pós-estruturalista aponta é que a ortodoxia de nossos mundos, social e político, é recriada no processo de escrita, no estilo dos textos através dos quais nossas compreensões dominantes do mundo têm sido construídas.

Shapiro conclui com a elucidação valiosa de que uma prática textual politicizadora é, portanto, não meramente uma questão de introduzir um vocabulário epistemológico alternativo, mas está intimamente conectada com uma oposição radical aos moldes de significado que destextualiza e, por meio disso, remove formas de poder e autoridade.

 xxx

Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (1651)

"Lerne dich selbst kennen":

"die Gesinnungen und Leidenschaften der Menschen, so verschiedenen sie auch immer sein mögen, haben dennoch eine so große Ähnlichkeit untereinander, daß jeder, sobald er über sich nachdenkt und findet, wie und aus welchen Gründen er selbst handelt [...] auch anderen Menschen Gesinnungen und Leidenschaften kennenlernt."

Wissen: "wer sich dabei nur auf andereverläßt, deren Urteil blindlings annimmt und nicht aus einzelnen Begriffen selbst entwickelt, der tut soviel als nichts, er weiß nichts, sondern glaubt nur."

Macht ist "jede solche Eigenschaft, welche viel Liebe oder viel Furcht erweckt, ja schon den bloßen Ruf einer solchen Eigenschaft, ist Macht, weil uns dadurch viel Hilfe und Dienste verschafft werden."

"Es mag jeder seinen eigenen Wert so hoch annehmen, wie er will; wirklich bestimmt wird er nur durch das Urteil anderer."

der Naturzustand: "Hieraus ergibt sich, daß ohne eine einschränkende Macht der Zustand der Menschen ein solcher sei, [...] nämlich ein Krieg aller gegen alle."

"Freiheit begrift ihrer ursprünglichen Bedeutung nach die Abwesenheit aller äußeren Hindernisse in sich."

Analyst when they look at the various failed nations in the post-colonial period have recognised some similar patterns. Nations that are run by people focussed on the powers they inherited rather than on rationalising the need for government, let alone determine what type of government they require. First world nations - who are not superior - experienced the lengthy period of rationalisation through the change of think progressing the industrial age. They had to confront what was to be better government - the commitment to it (Rousseau), the solidity necessary in it (Hobbes) and the limitation of it (Locke). There were repeatedly failed governments, but these governments in their failing still kept on being colonisers who were not as keen to let their conquests to experience similar process of rationalisation. Upon independence the keys were given the most reliable inhabitants to their colonial masters, unless of course a revolution made that redundant - like in Indonesia and Vietnam.

The failure to internalise the process post-independence cripples nations.

Malaysia’s story

Malaysia has survived and thrived - economically - for the half century. If to analogous to saying we have a very sturdy body, but a dishevelled soul. It is uncertain of its own purpose and meaning.

A nation’s meaning must extend to more than just uttering, “Malaysia has three races, Malays, Chinese and Indians and they live together.” At best you are describing race-relations, while ignoring the 30 other races in Malaysia. But it does not come close to saying what Malaysia represents at the concept level.

Prussia in the 1870s through the leadership of Otto Von Bismarck got 100 plus principalities, provinces and states to consolidate under a Germanic people’s state. Ethnicity was the basis, and the homogeneity of its people aided the effort. A rampart focus on ethnicity and its supremacy, led them down the track of two defeats in two world wars. They reached the zenith of race think, and their humbling in 1945 forced them reexamine their race think. Yet it took them decades to come around.

A nation must mean more than its physicality or its demographics. It must mean a common promise.

Ideas for government

The recurring centralisation of think in modern functioning governments: that the Labour Party in Britain is pro-business, that the Democratic Party is so friendly with tech-czars etc, only underline the fact that sensibility has a way of cutting through the fat of all ideological divides. And in the heart of their ideological purity is the want to benefit man. And that is why as nations become more reasonable, so will their divides reduce.

At a principle level, government has to be a arm of good that is not detached from its people. Its policies, ambit of power and execution must be mandated by its people, whose acquiescence to these government decisions must be monitored at all times. People must feel they run their governments, through their representatives.

But more so, government benefits its people. Government is not the master of its people - and that is why Umno is so vile to me. Government have to facilitate lives to better living.

How do we let our people with capabilities to best exploit their talents to benefit their economy, and in doing so benefit themselves? How do we allow persons to have the drive and motivation to sustain his or her talents to uncertain endeavours - these entrepreneurs?

What type of education would set people of to better lives. An education can only spur people to learning, the choice to learn is always an individual’s. An overly prescriptive education limits the ability of a person to grow, and makes the person a prisoner of a system of domination. The Malaysian government has repeatedly affirmed that they want public education to increase national unity before increasing literacy.

It is likelier that national unity, and every other good would the affectation caused by a good education, rather than being the education itself.

Governments have to persuade economics that work for most of its people, without reducing the potentials of any of its people. A piecemeal decision is fine as long it is done with a firm realisation of the larger principles which makes-up for the concept of this nation. Otherwise they benefit a few with the hope it might benefit the rest.

The private beast

The person is private, and in preserving his or her space - you allow people their sanity.

Government makes broad choices for its people, with a keen eye of not disrupting the personal choices of individuals. The government is not your keeper, the government is largely a computer programme improved over time to facilitate your benefits.

Governments must get its people to recognise its nation concept, but governments cannot force it down the collective throat in order to have a submissive population. It is the energy and drive of personal independence that makes the state vibrant and strong. Kill the individual, then the nation concept is a mere aberration.

Artistic freedoms and the right to make choices of conscience colour these. A nation that predetermines our values is one that derogates the human spirit. Families are free to share their values to their members, but the state must remain steadfast and not be quick to make value judgements.

That is government too me. They are not details, they are holding principles. The details will only matter if they remember the holding principles. If not they just become expedients decision by a bunch of intellects, whose outcome is indeterminate, and even perhaps selfish.

Was würde wohl passieren, wenn man Hobbes kriegerischen, egoistischen, habgierigen und auf Selbstverteidigung ausgelegten Menschen des Naturzustandes auf Rousseaus „edlen Wilden", den Gefühlen gehorchenden freien Menschen, der erst durch Kultur verdorben wird, trifft? Hat der gute gegen den bösen überhaupt eine Chance? Der „böse" würde den guten sicher als Bedrohung sehen und versuchen sich zu „verteidigen", mit allen Mitteln. Aber den „guten" würde es ab dieser Stelle wohl gar nicht mehr geben, da er selbst laut Rousseau nur eine nie wahrhaft existente Idealform war, der wie gesagt durch die Kultur verdorben wurde. Und ein treffen auf den „bösen" wäre doch bereits so eine Kontamination. Insofern könnte man wohl sagen, dass sich Rousseaus abstrakter Naturmensch nun in den konkreteren von Hobbes verwandeln würde. Denn dieser hatte nie bis zum absoluten Urzustand abstrahiert, sondern sich nur an realen Gegebenheiten orientiert, bei ihm namentlich die Beobachtung des Bürgerkrieges in England. Sind auf diese Art denn nun nicht beide Theorien vereinbar? Oder sollte man versuchen damit Hobbes zu widerlegen, da er nicht weit genug ging?

Doch die Frage ist auch, wie realistisch Rousseaus Auffassung ist. Denn so wahrhaft abstrahieren bis zum absoluten Ursprung kann man doch gar nicht. Wie denn auch? Man kann es niemals real beobachten (da selbst Naturvölker bereits in Gesellschaft leben) und wird auch durch Abstraktion niemals auf die richtige Lösung kommen. Denn selbst Descartes abstrahierte ja nicht weit genug, als er nur bis zum Ego zurück ging.

Insofern lautet meine Antwort in Übereinstimmung mit Rousseau, dass es sowieso niemals einen Naturzustand gab. Es ist lediglich eine mathematische und abstrakte Spielerei, die aber kaum weiter führt.

In this paper I will claim that the savage man that Rousseau describes is not a noble creature as in other works of the Enlightenment period as there is nothing noble or virtuous to be found in the life of a savage. Within the story of the ‘Savage’ state one finds the idea that Non-European peoples are simpler and thus reflect an earlier history of humanity. As natural goodness, here, is equated with ignorance or innocence the individual savage is inferior to the civilized man however the human species is in a better stage. And it is for this reason that it is the most durable period.

The state of nature as the most durable period of mankind is not only to be understood historically but also ethically. For Rousseau the state of nature is the foundation for ethics and political philosophy as it gives us guidelines which are functional to our personal development. Morality, on the other hand, incorporates the general idea of being mutual advantageous for rational beings and thus, the savage finds himself in a pre-moral stage yet with an ethical implication.

I will commence by describing the epoch of nascent society and the characteristics of the savage whilst disclosing the separations between what is natural in the state of nature and what Rousseau says is natural in the civil state even though civil and savage man differ so much. Hereby, I will differentiate between the physical dimension and the moral dimension of this savage creature which is an exercise in conjecture and reconstruction. Following from the moral dimension of the savage the concepts of pity, perfectibility and armour de soi will be examined in brief in allusion to what it means for natural goodness.

Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality first becomes a powerful critique of modernity when one analyzes the concept of natural goodness in the way replaces the doctrine of original sin and runs contrary to the picture of pre-political society in Hobbes’ Leviathan.

When describing the ‘Savage’ state one must bear in mind that this epoch is that of youth within human history. Rousseau believed that humans were actually made to live in that state[1] in which in which humans are essentially peaceful, content, and equal. Here, human nature is and remains unaltered. The savage does not prey fall to socialization processes which produce inequality, competition and an egoistic mentality as we will see in the course of the characterization. With no idea of the future the savage man’s concern is that of self-preservation and the avoidance of evils that he fears such as pain and hunger. His faculties are useful for defence and attack.

On the other hand, the noble savage is described as a being which lives in harmony with nature, is generous and selfless, innocent, is incapable to lie, owns enormous physical health and moral courage, has a disdain for luxury, and untutored wisdom. These virtuous character traits are not affirmed in Rousseau’s work as we will see. Some of these qualities however apply to Rousseau’s savage state whereas some are unthinkable. Through describing the physical and moral dimensions of Rousseau’s savage one will obtain a clearer picture.

The physical dimension of the savage resembles that of an animal as they are toughened by the exposure to the elements. Man is in the stage is like yet unlike animal. There is one crucial difference between man and animal: animal is led by instincts whereas man is free to choose. “I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all. I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and thus all his needs are satisfied.”[2]

In other words, man is wild, undomesticated and untamed in this state. If you strip man of all artificial faculties endowed by society Rousseau argues that one will see an animal that is less strong and agile than other wild animals with his only tool being his body which is stronger than the one of a civilized man.[3] An analogy that should be drawn at this place is to that of a feral child. A feral child is a human child who lies isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no experience of human care, loving or social behaviour, and crucially of human language. When completely brought up by animals, the feral child exhibits behaviour (within physical limits almost entirely like those of the particular care-animal, such as its variety of instincts, fear of or indifference to humans.

Thus, without any contact to other human beings the savage does not resemble a human but an animal. “Alone, idle, and always near danger, savage man must like to sleep and be a light sleeper like animals which do little thinking and, as it were, sleep the entire time they are not thinking. Since his self-preservation was practically his sole concern, his best trained faculties ought to be those of that have attack and defence as their principle object, either to subjugate his prey or to prevent his becoming prey of another animal.”[4]

As we see self-preservation was his only concern. Food, sleep and sex sufficed to fulfil his basic needs and were readily available to him.[5] Sex is mentioned as a basic need as mankind cannot exist in solitude as the union of the two sexes is necessary for the propagation of the human race. Yet, this must be understood independent of love or any kind of feeling of affection. It is merely carnal as even the two evils he fears – pain and hunger – do not have a metaphysical or moral dimension.

Rousseau’s description of the savage as non-communal being living with himself [6] runs contrary to Aristotles conception of the political or social animal for whom it is part of nature to belong to a community. As the solitary savage though shows quarrels did not arise as there were no notion of property or vengeance.

The idea that this period of humanity in which the human being is lazy, sleeps a lot and thinks little is the happiest and most durable period also runs opposed to Locke’s notion of what society ideally should look. For Locke, nature was there to till and plough, and man’s body was an instrument to work and appropriate property. But for Rousseau, as we see it is more important that mankind is healthy. “And since savage life shields them from gout and rheumatism, and since old age is, of all ills, the one that human assistance can least alleviate, they eventually die without being aware that they are ceasing to exist, and almost without being aware of it themselves.”[7]

The only operations of his soul are those of, firstly, to will or not to will or, secondly, to desire and to fear.[8] In the savage state he is amoral and indifferent to good and evil. [9] Thus, the moral dimension of the savage as described in the Second Discourse will show that the savage is not noble but merely endowed with certain qualities and found in certain material circumstances that are prior to the age of reason and thus, no value is attached to them. “[…] nature alone does everything in the operations of an animal, whereas man contributes, as a free agent, to his own operations. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the later by an act of freedom.”[10]

I cannot see anything noble in a savage man who sells his hammock in the morning because he has no idea of the future. In the most durable and happiest state of mankind “savage man breathes only tranquillity and liberty; he wants simply to live and rest easy”[11] The point here is that he simply is not conscious of himself in his state of liberty though in retrospective Rousseau is conscious of the fetters and shackles that were laid upon mankind and assumes that prior to reason mankind was free. When reading the above quoted lines in the Discourse of the Origin of Inequality J.S. Mill’s words echo loudly: “rather a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Is mankind meant to be a thinker? Rousseau does not directly address this problem but the fact that Rousseau ascribes pity a central role in the pre-communal stage is crucial to understand the why Rousseau does not believe that reason makes mankind better. “[…] they benefit from not being sophisticate thinkers. They remain close to nature because they have not allowed anything to obscure the principles that nature has engraved in all human hearts.”[12] Without the language or the ability to reason it never occurs to the savage to be evil. “[…] nothing would have been so miserable as savage man, dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own.” [13]

All social virtues generosity, mercy, humanity and even benevolence and friendship stem from pity. It is the strongest feeling in the savage man and is very weak within civilized man. Thus, pity is the origin of natural goodness for Rousseau. “It is therefore quite certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in each individual the activity of the love of oneself, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species.”[14]

To draw a picture like that of the savage does not only amplify his claim that inequalities are produced by society but moreover also reason. Thus, reason and inequalities are artificial. Reason is socially constructed and superstructural whereas self-preservation of and that of the species is the foundation. Reason re-enforces the existing inequalities. Pity, compassion or empathy does not have any value of superiority or inferiority attached to them.

It is armour de soi which contributes to the preservation of the species. As seen mentioned before the innocence of the savage is not derived from moral categories or concepts but from his instincts – as he is compassionate and sensitive to suffering. “[…] it is the savage’s armour de soi that makes him feel repugnance at seeing another suffer and that makes him refrain from needlessly injuring others. And it is armour de soi that ultimately accounts for conscience as well.” So far we have seen that the natural man lives by the concept of amour de soi, a solitary life. All his life is centered around himself and the means to gratify his instant and essential wishes, mainly hunger, sleep and sex. He is not evil, not because he is not capable of being evil, but because there is no point for him to be evil. The savage who is motivated by armour de soi seeks self-preservation and well-being but has not interest in hurting or damaging others.

The faculty of self-perfection or perfectibility is inherent in the savage man and is the source of enlightenment as well as vice. It encompasses both good and bad qualities. In the state of nature, perfectibility has the potential for moral improvement as well as corruption. Perfectibility is the power to self-rule and moral progress. It is the chief characteristic that distinguishes him from other animals. The development of reason and language are both functions of perfectibility.Thus, mankind is the only creature which can make its own history which separates man from animal. “Perfectibility, the capacity that has made history possible, is thought to imply infinite plasticity.”[15]

In other words, the positive characteristics of the original man are still to be found in the modern man. As he is shaped and formed by society in one way he can be shaped and re-formed in another way as well. On this premise, reason develops itself foremost through the passions. “[…] it is the real youth of the world, and that all subsequent advances have been apparently so many steps towards the perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the decrepitude of the species’.”[16]

Even though Rousseau presumes that humanity is naturally non-communal the decay of the species as a whole is something that has a negative connotation. This is somewhat paradoxical.

Rousseau does not offer us the same picture of the noble savage as described in other Enlightenment works. The savage lives in the forests, between animals and occasional meets with other men, and his life does not provide him any of the known luxuries of civilization. His ignorance of them means that he does not feel deprived of anything, therefore he is happy in the state he is. And it is due to his ignorance that we cannot speak of a noble act as such. Rousseau’s complex way of explaining the state of nature may mislead one to believe that the savage acts in a moral fashion all the time. However, Rousseau does actually believe that wickedness, vice, hate, and so simply do not exist as ideas or concepts in a pre-political society.

The state of the savage is a state of indifference and innocence as even “the spectacle of nature becomes a matter of indifference to him by dint of its becoming familiar to him. It is always the same order, always the same succession of changes. He does not have a mind for marvelling at the greatest wonders.”[17]

Innocence and goodness are two notions which Rousseau seemingly uses interchangeably. This must be beard in mind when analyzing the concept of natural goodness in the second part of this paper.

For Rousseau, natural goodness is the cornerstone of his argument why inequality stems from society rather than originating in nature itself. The notion of natural goodness does not exclude a human acting with force or the ferocity of an animal as this is simply natural and does not entail a metaphysical or moral judgement. In fact, it is an amoral act. Thus, natural goodness is derived from the innocence of mankind which is prior to bad and good as well as the state of reason. The savages are naturally and essentially good as they are self-sufficient and not subject to the needs and restrains of civilization.

As we have discovered before natural goodness is derived from the notion of pity which we find in Rousseau’s work. “compassion, a disposition well suited to creatures as weak and subject to as many ills as we are, a virtue all the more universal, and all the more useful to man in that it comes before any kind of reflection, and is so natural a virtual that even beasts sometimes show perceptible signs of it”[18]

In other words, the savage is not naturally good due to his good qualities but rather the absence of reason in his life. And from the discussion of the passages of the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality we moreover learn that there are three elements which make up the concept of ‘natural goodness’: by nature man is good for himself and others; a misanthropic characterization of the evil or civilised man; and, man’s present evil derives wholly from the corrupting effects of society.

Thus, natural goodness is not only a statement about man but it also entails a subjective view on nature and how man stands in relation to a deity and nature itself. “Goodness can be ascribed to nothing but the universe of non-moral things, and what it means, simply, is harmonious order.”[19]

When analyzing Rousseau in respect to the doctrine of original sin we will see man born as a sinner. When analyzing Rousseau’s natural goodness in respect to Hobbes we will see men born as enemies. Analyzing the concept of natural goodness in these two ways will ascribe the concept a negative as well as positive content.

According to Rousseau humanity is amoral species which hypothetically lived in an Edenic culture with plenty of resources able to satisfy everyone. In the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Rousseau offers an alternative to the biblical account. Rousseau tries to find out what man would look like if God had not drawn him out of nature.

Christians who believe in original sin consider mankind to be universally degenerate and sinful at heart, regardless of whatever people, group or civilization they are associated with. Rousseau’s ethical doctrine is the exact opposite to the one of the less appealing one of original sin. By saying “resume your original innocence” he fortifies his claim that man is naturally good.

He sees original sin to be dangerous concept as it condemns are spontaneous inclinations to be sinful. “Human beings are fairly sceptical, intractable, and resistant to morality, in Rousseau’s view, and therefore this extreme antinatural morality most often simply fails to take hold. And in failing, it casts all moral restraint into discipline.”[20] From original sin we derive an anti-natural morality which constraints us and demands compliance where compliance to nature seems more obvious. This causes humanity to be full of self-hatred, guilt and be accompanied by the feeling of failure. This in turn weakens morality and corrupts people even more. For him, this idea that we have plenty to be ashamed about simply through being alive and of a morality which demands too much of humanity and aims too high only constraints the human being which is free to choose. Thus, morality based on original sin rather produced sinfulness as it opposes natural sentiments. “There is also, however, a positive content to this goodness. By ‘identifying’ with others, natural man experiences rudimentary feelings of compassion which discourage him from engaging in unnecessary violence.” [21] Savage man does not actively attempt to do good towards others, but is rather restrained by the principle of pity from harming them.

Rousseau has a valuable lesson which is that evil can be avoided and that we are descendants from innocent people rather than betrayers and that moreover the see of wickedness is implanted within us.

Important to note is that it was the tree of knowledge that corrupted mankind in the biblical account. Thus, Rousseau does not detach himself totally from this story. Throughout the discussion we have seen that it was reason which Rousseau made responsible for the decay of the human species as a whole. “Reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him.”

Rousseau suggests that the savage man was not a social being or political animal as Aristotle put forward. In this respect he agreed to Hobbes’ notion of the Savage. Nevertheless, Rousseau runs contradictory to Hobbes as the savages life is not ‘poor, nasty, brutish and short’ but rather extremely healthy, happy, good and free. Hobbes claims that savage man is intrepid and only wishes to fight other men

In Rousseau we find disagreement with Hobbes’ ethical implications of the state of nature as the savage man who is unable to speak and is solely concerned with his self-preservation is seemingly uncapable of creating a ‘war of all against all’. “The primary meaning of this goodness is negative. By nature, man lacks all the needs, passions, and prejudices that now put his interests in essential and systematic conflict with others.”[22]

In this pre-rational state the savage man does not have any morals but this does not make him wicked as Hobbes describes the pre-political stage in human development. “men were not subject to very dangerous conflicts […] since they had not the slightest notion of mine and thine, nor any true idea of justice; since they regarded the acts of violence that could befall them as an easily redressed evil and not as an offense that must be punished.”[23]

As we have seen Rousseau’s picture of the savage and the state of nature as well as his concept of natural goodness echoes in the first line of the Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One believes himself the others’ master, and yet is more slave than they.”[24]

The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality is a powerful critique of modernity as it discloses how vain the morality of developed societies is and that the state of nature has ethical implications which are nobler than the state we find ourselves in today. The Fall of Man happened with the beginning of society and reasoning. “Now I would very much like someone to explain to me what kind of misery can there be for a free being whose heart is at peace and whose body is in good health?”[25]

Natural goodness and perfectibility has a positive effects upon human beings. It gives human beings a sense of freedom and moral self-determination. If evilness is rooted in the socialization processes which we all undergo our sinfulness is put into a context of weighing our lives up to those within our political community. We can improve our lives and those of others if we desire to do so. Here, pity and self-preservation serve as a basis for our actions even within the civil state.

“In principle, then Rousseau opens up radical new hopes for politics, utopian, messianic, and also potentially totalitarian, hopes that it can transform the human condition, bring secular salvation, make all men healthy and happy.”[26]

The discussion of the savage and the concept of natural goodness open up further questions in the philosophy of speculative history. Is the savage something like Marx’s proletariat in the sense of holding the key to solve the riddle of human history for an equal society?

Bibliography

Cooper, Laurence D. (1962) – Rousseau, Nature & The Problem of a Good Life

Garrard, Graeme (2003) – Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment: A Republican Critique of the Philosophes

Hobbes, Thomas (1644) - Leviathan

Meek, Ronald L. (1976) – Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (London and New York)

Melzer, Artur M. (1990) – The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought (Chicago and London)

Ogrodnick, Margaret (1999) – Instinct and Intimacy: Political Philosophy and Autobiography in Rousseau (Toronto, Buffalo, London)

Ed. O’Hagan, Timothy (1997) – Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Sources of the Self (Avebury)

Rousseau, J.J. (2007) – The Social Contract and other later political writings (Cambridge)

Rousseau, J.J (1992) – Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Cambridge, Indianpolis)

To help prepare us for talking about the roots of American government and the Constitution, we looked at four major Enlightenment thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu. A lot of our classes were interrupted by class meetings, so if you need a brief refresher course about these philosophers (or some of their associated vocabulary words), keep reading after the jump...

• Hobbes: Our eternal pessimist of the bunch. He believed that, without the protection of government, people lived in a state of nature - where life was 'nasty, brutish, and short.' To escape this perpetual state of war, people establish civil society, ruled by an absolute monarch.
• Locke: He's a political optimist who believes that people naturally have reason and tolerance. However, like Montesquieu, Locke believes in separation of powers.
• Rousseau: The wildest philsopher (at least of the ones we read today), Rousseau's biggest influence is the idea of the social contract, or the idea that people give up some rights to a government in order to preserve social order.
• Montesquieu: Believed that limited government and separation of powers could save government from corruption. He 'argued that [despotism] could best be prevented by a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law' (SEP). Unlike some of the other philosophers we studied today, he also believes in a republic, not a pure democracy.

But in the end it must be conceded that this sheds very little light on anything, and least of all on what it is to be a human being. It reduces meaningful thought to little more than "news."

Why is Putin really interested in Georgia, Poland, and the Ukraine? He offered a powerful clue not long ago when he let someone photograph him barechested. What did we see? Muscle, of course. We saw a man who clearly wants one thing more than anything else, namely respect.

Though it goes against the grain of materialist, reductionist thought, human beings really do want respect, and it isn't reducible to material gain. It may take one further against the grain of reductionist thought to understand exactly what "respect" is and means. Psychologists have recognized for some time that the affirmation of the individual is indispensable for psychological well being. But some psychologists have seen further still, understanding that the psychological necessity of human affirmation really leads back to theology.

Affirmation is a counterpart, an aspect, of love. Human beings come into existence (excluding aberrations) through an act of love, and the best of psychology has recognized that the act of love is meant to be neither exclusively physical nor of a mere moment's duration. The child who is to become an adult must be born emotionally as well as physically, and both take place through love.

And so there is a continuity of thought between Revelation, anthropology, and psychology. Christian Revelation holds that man is in the image of God via the natural order of the family, because the latter is the medium of love in which men and women are born and raised up to maturity.

But this theological anthropology has an important practical corollary as well, namely that affirmation cannot be replaced with self-affirmation. The substitution cannot be made because affirmation and love are fecund, capable of begetting, and this truth is inscribed in the very being of the human person. But one does not beget oneself.

And yet there is many an attempt to do just that. The endeavor to beget self-respect through self-affirmation is inherently anti-communal, and therefore frequently begets violence. The history of this unhappy fact can be traced to a very precise moment, in the relation between Cain and Abel, shortly after man's first rejection of God.

An anthropology which refuses to acknowledge the truth of God's existence will ultimately be incapable of understanding this. Hence one must suspect it is no accident that a culture steeped for the last century in radical and violent atheism produces, in the person of its leader, profoundly unhealthy -- not to mention dangerous -- psychological dispositions.

Os órgãos genitais feminino e masculino podem ser mostrados em revistas, no cinema e em galerias. Pode ser arte? Sim, pode. E se esses órgãos estiverem em funcionamento, no ato sexual? Isso é arte? Pode ser. A pornografia pode ser arte. Não é exclusividade do que é erótico ter o direito de ser arte, jogando o pornográfico para fora dessa área.

Mas, e se a mostra dos órgãos sexuais forem algo que foge do que todos, todos mesmo, consideram belo, ainda assim é arte? Sim, pode ser arte. Como Arthur Danto tem enfatizado: no mundo contemporâneo a beleza foi para um lado, a arte para o outro. Não é pelo que é “belo”, com consenso ou não, que se diz que algo é arte após Warhol e Duchamp.[1]

Mas, se é assim, se não é pela ligação ou não com a arte, ainda não há a diferença entre ambos – o erótico e o pornográfico –, a partir da mostra ou não dos órgãos genitais, então, o que os distingue na medida em que se está falando em arte erótica? Qual a razão de Roger Scruton distinguir o erótico do pornográfico a partir da idéia de que no segundo caso há a presença clara dos órgãos sexuais à mostra, enquanto que no primeiro caso isso não ocorreria? Bem, no livro Sexual Desire, Scruton fala isso, mas atenua tal colocação dizendo que no segundo caso, a mostra dos órgãos sexuais aparece para induzir à atividade masturbatória. No limite, não é algo para o compartilhamento.[2] É algo que se sustenta para uma finalidade pouco estética – no sentido kantiano do termo estética, isto é, o que é admirado e causa prazer sem causar interesse.

Mas, então, diante dessas colocações, como é que distinguimos filosoficamente a arte erótica da pornografia? E para que fazemos isso?

Que a filosofia bote o bico nisso e ajude a encontrar distinções atinentes à filosofia  entre o que é o erótico e o que é o pornográfico não é perda de tempo. Fazemos isso para evitarmos que tais distinções se realizem de modo grosseiro, antes pela política e pela polícia do que pelo exercício de nossos poderes racionais melhores. E depois de feito isso, no meu caso, tenho também de aproveitar da distinção para exigir que ambos – o erótico e o pornográfico – tenham espaço e liberdade na sociedade, ainda que possam ocupar lugares distintos. Digo “no meu caso” porque estou convencido que não gostaria de morar em uma sociedade com censura.

O critério da aparência ou não dos órgãos sexuais não me parece bom para distinguir o que é o erótico e o que é o pornográfico. Eu preferiria lançar mão de algo mais útil e menos policialesco. Imagino que a literatura tem dado uma pista.

No campo literário, quando uma história é maniqueísta demais, sem qualquer autocrítica implícita neste maniqueísmo, temos a literatura simplista, e então dizemos que se trata de má literatura. Quando a narrativa se sofistica e tem o dom de surpreender o leitor, então dizemos que estamos diante de um autor inteligente, e que há ali os ingredientes básicos para a boa literatura (pode haver outros, para tornar a história melhor ainda). Assim, a previsibilidade (do maniqueísmo) é o elemento ruim. A imprevisibilidade de acontecimentos da narrativa é o seu elemento potencialmente virtuoso.

Quando lançamos mão dessas idéias da literatura e a jogamos para os campos vistos como limites – sempre os mais difíceis de avaliar – entre o pornográfico e o erótico, tudo indica que damos um salto de qualidade no nosso entendimento.

O que é previsível cansa, é enfadonho, não causa prazer e, se causa, é um prazer muito momentâneo e logo se torna algo dispensável. Podemos ficar horas diante de uma novela onde o bem e o mal lutam e os episódios se repetem, apenas mudando o figurino e, às vezes, os personagens. Mas o fato de ficarmos horas presos nisso não significa que estamos gostando. Não significa que se nos derem coisa melhor, não vamos gostar mais. E também não significa que, nós mesmos, escolarizados, quando estamos assistindo, estamos achando que estamos diante de algo artístico.

Do mesmo modo, podemos ficar horas, todos os dias assistindo filmes que passam, repetidamente, ângulos de pessoas fazendo sexo. Podemos, inclusive, ter algum prazer nisso. Um prazer visual ou mesmo uma motivação para a masturbação ou para o sexo mais tarde, com a parceira ou parceiro. Todavia, isso não significa que estamos gostando disso a ponto de não gostarmos de algo parecido, mas mais sofisticado e melhor. E o “sofisticado”, nesse caso, não quer dizer “sem a aparência dos órgãos sexuais”. Quer dizer apenas “o que pode nos dar asas”.

A arte erótica pode ser erótica na medida em que for algo que clame por Eros, o deus. Clamar pelo deus é clamar pelo mistério, pela imaginação, não pelo cacoete. E vou fazer uma brincadeira com as palavras, para que se entenda o que quero dizer. O “por no gráfico” é o colocar no gráfico – é o que se coloca em algo que é um gráfico, algo que é desenhado para que possamos avaliar e predizer eventos. Assim, “pornográfico”, nessa etimologia tosca e falsa, lembra a idéia de repetição ou de busca do que é repetido e, assim, o que pode destituir de função a imaginação. Essa associações que faço, em tom de brincadeira, tem lá sua razão: “pornográfico” nos lembra “por no gráfico” – essa lembrança não é à toa. Há algo subconsciente nisso, e a associação entre pornográfico e “por no gráfico” surge de ficarmos de certo modo impressionados com a distinção entre novidade e repetição.

Se pensarmos nesses termos, veremos que o erótico pertence ao espírito do Renascimento, enquanto que o pornográfico é próprio do espírito da Modernidade. O Renascimento cultua a imaginação. A modernidade cultua o entendimento e tem pavor da imaginação. O Renascimento clama pela imaginação e sua ciência ainda é a alquimia. A modernidade toma a imaginação como o que pode produzir as imprevisibilidades do que já não pode mais ser chamado de ciência, a alquimia, pois a ciência, agora, é só o que mostra a repetição – alquímia toma o lugar da alquimia.

Hobbes e Descartes tinham pavor da imaginação – e eles são os pais dos tempos modernos, na metafísica e na filosofia política. Isso deve ser bem lembrado!

A modernidade segue a idéia de que não podemos “ser pegos de surpresa”, como não somos pegos na pornografia. O Renascimento seguia a idéia de que a surpresa era o elemento essencial da vida, como o que ocorre com o erótico. O erótico, vindo de Eros, é a atividade daquele deus com sua seta: espeta-nos na hora que não esperamos. Somos surpreendidos pela flechada e ficamos inflamados, doidos para agir. A última coisa que o apaixonado quer fazer é dormir. A não ser que seja para sonhar com sua paixão. O pornográfico é o que não surpreende e, enfim, não nos espeta, mas nos empurra para o gozo rápido e para o sono, para a letargia. A alquimia nos leva para o esfuziante “ócus pócus”, a química nos leva para a horrorosa atividade de “balancear coeficientes”. A imaginação do químico industrial é como a imaginação de uma ameba, ainda que seja uma ameba de grande cérebro. A imaginação do alquimista é a imaginação de deuses, ainda que seja um que cometa tolices – e qual deus não comete?

Essa distinção não é boa?

Agora, não é porque o erótico está enaltecido no meu texto acima que o pornográfico deve ser desprezado. Nem há qualquer justificativa para dizer que o primeiro deve ser colocado no pedestal e o segundo posto sob a bota dos conservadores morais (leia-se: os hipócritas). Não há aqui um juízo meu sobre o que deve ser apresentado ou não em uma sociedade. Uma boa sociedade liberal sabe conviver com ambas as coisas, até por uma razão simples, elas ocupam espaços e tempos diferentes. Além disso, as fronteiras entre elas não serão fechadas por esse meu texto. Ao contrário, minhas distinções aqui visam única e exclusivamente chegar ao final e dizer para vocês: o quadro da Carol Castro (Playboy) associado a este texto é exemplo de arte erótica. E nisso, usei de meus critérios acima. É só.

© 2008 Paulo Ghiraldelli Jr. “O filósofo da cidade de São Paulo”

Eamon didn't see as he had much of a choice--either die here or die there, probably. So he eagerly appended his X to a contract of indenture (which, seeing as he couldn't read, signed off quite a few of his rights) and sailed off with Mr. Fair____. (I see the name "Fairfax" but I'm not sure that is the right name or not. Fairfield or Fairleigh or Fearelynn for all I know... I just know the ironic prefix Fair- begins the name.)

At first when he arrived, it was the same as most any new start to a place. There was a lot of adventure, though not as much as if he had been a part of the initial onslaught. The plantation had already been set up and most of the "detritus" (in other words, both Indians and white riff-raff) had been well cleared of the area. And our boy was sort of hoping for some of that kind of action, but unfortunately that was for other plantations that were closer to the frontier. The days of this plantation being "frontier" were not that long in the past, and some of the overseers and other I.S.'s were well-cognizant of the "Injun contagion."

The work was quite hard, though. And it was unrelenting. And he had to suck up his helpless rage at the abuses that were heaped upon him. To his dismay, there were a couple of moments where he couldn't take it, and he lashed out and had instantly come to regret it.

Eamon Brian Andrew Tracy didn't live too long once he'd set foot on British colonial soil. He had been only 19 when he had arrived, and the difficult times and the gamed system whereby the "noble" idiot-son Fair-______, had basically not really indentured, but rather enslaved my past-life self and wrested additional time to attempt to meet the financial burden heaped upon him due to appending that dadblasted X to the upfucked contract, conspired to bring Eamon's life to a brisk and cruel end. He contracted an influenza that went around and that little mercy ended his life that Hobbes would identify as "nasty, brutish and short" (though the esteemed militantly-ignorant (evil) philo-ilith would not describe as civilized, even though it means roughly the same thing).

And for lo, these 4 centuries, poor Eamon has been anonymously carrying his helpless rage with him through various lifetimes. He/I was a fellow named Josiah Cotton who knew my esteemed guide Ben Franklin and who disgusted the same with craven fear. I can look at the former colonist-self and have compassion though, because Eamon's brutish life may have been foremost in Josiah's karmic memory. That same rage has floated through all of my subsequent past lives, and perhaps was even foreshadowed by one wherein I was an Italian courtier who had inadvertently exposed a beneficent conspiracy for humanity to malevolent machinic ones, and who, to save face for a well-placed countess had to be officially dispatched as a heretic and a traitor. (Pietro/I was beheaded in that lifetime, and it was quick and anonymous and hardly even a footnote in the Italian province in which I lived this life of chagrin and silent ignominy.)

Eamon has been an aspect of all these lives, and of the life I currently lead. As a 6-Death I need to honor my past-life ancestor, and in so doing heal his karma. As I type these keys into the ether, I send Eamon Brian Andrew Tracy's restless spirit healing reiki energy. I envelop his spirit with the violet light to cleanse and acknowledge that he was a valued member of the human race, that his horrific existence did serve a purpose, and that someone does remember him. That in this acknowledgment of his simple and hard life and the mercilessness of his environment, as unnecessary and capricious and maleficent and "maliferous" as THAT was, that he counted for something. Even if it's to spotlight the awareness that I need not play the same game as the Fair-_____s of the vEmpire.

In other words the Succubank's game.

I choose to walk the path of beauty, and Eamon I salute you and say to you in all lovingkindness that you need not suffer anymore. You can release that ball and chain. It no longer serves you, and it certainly no longer serves me. In love I command you now to let go of that rod or rope that you have clutched onto, the hatred and rage that has kept you tethered here. You did well enough and now it's time, my friend to stop the self-torture. To release that shame, that fear, that guilt, that expectation that you will be mistreated and abused. That is done, for the vEmpire is ending its clutches, and your message has gotten through.

Be that as it may, it's time for different options. I for one can not continue the insanity, and yes, you can freely acknowledge both the Fair___ family's insanity as well as your own. For you accepted it as if it was your own, and they had so securely sheltered you from Indian influences that how could you know there was any other way?

Perhaps there was some karma to pay, but as a descendant of yours, if not by blood then by future-life descent, I am here to remember you and to give you the respect and admiration you deserve.

It is time now. Let the pleroma, let Sophia take you into her arms and hold and love you. It's the reward for the life you lived, and you can now accept it. Please do so--just fall into it. That's all you have to do. Easy as 1-2-

3.

Blessings my friend.
Ache'.

I've decided that the thing to do with these pages is try to make them work for me. To that end I'll proceed through my planned summer reading and do what I can to apply that to Dickens (and vice versa).

So I'll begin where my reading begins: Steve Shapin and Simon Schaffer's Leviathan and the Air-Pump. I haven't actually cracked into this book yet, but it is one of those inescapable works about which you know a great deal before you pick it up. Everyone uses it. The concept I'm interested in presently is “virtual witnessing.” Shapin and Schaffer elaborate this “literary technology” as it was developed in the work and conversations between Boyle and Hobbes over the development of the air-pump. “The technology of virtual witnessing involves the production in a reader's mind of such an image of an experimental scene as obviates the necessity for either direct witness or replication. Through virtual witnessing the multiplication of witnesses could be, in principle, unlimited. It was therefore the most powerful technology for constituting matters of fact." [http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/VirtualWitnessDiscussion/TheVirtualWitness.html] The implications for non-scientific literature are many, including the construction of reliable narrators, epistemological questions of fact and the importance of truth, and so on.

I immediately begin to think of Sketches by Boz here. To begin with, what is Dickens's initial reason for cataloging his city? What does the “sketch” do and is it anything like virtual witnessing? I turned to David Seed's article “Touring the Metropolis: The Shifting Subjects in Dickens's London Sketches.” Seed quotes Carol Bernstein: “the urban sketch is at once the locus of memory and the attempt to fix objects and events in the memory” (157). Seed goes on to say “Dickens resituated exploration nearer to the reader's familiar territory and engaged in a kind of local tourism that ironically implies both the proximity to the reader of the places visited and the unfamiliarity of those places” (157). It seems to me that the Sketches' project, then, is quite anthropological. Dickens's artistic defamiliarization is in part a product of a need for objectivity. To highlight the reader's “unfamiliarity” the sketch mimics the practices of virtual witnessing. The writing witness must be modest and disinterested if he or she is to be believed by the virtual witness. This means language that posits and suggests but does not declare or command. More from Seed: “the sketch implies a distinction between the writer and the human figures he describes.” Seed quotes Audrey Jaffe: Organization and identity are external matters; characters are caught within structures the cannot perceive from outside” (156). We see in the sketch a reflective and thoughtful observer who is careful never to get so close to his subjects as to blur their division (and thereby blur accurate perception).

Furthermore, factual and scientific knowledge after Boyle is never the product of a single mind, but is instead socially constructed and agreed upon. (This is not to say that facts do not have an identifiable point of origin. Rather it is to say that ideas do not become facts until the social group voluntarily agrees to them (after virtual witnessing or actual replication of experiment/observation.)) Along this line it is certainly noteworthy that Dickens uses “we” in place of “I” throughout Sketches, and also that he generally provides the reader with the specifics of his route through the city, as Seed observes, making the trip repeatable by the reader (158). The present tense of all of 'our' observations places us always at the moment of discovery, standing alongside the witness as he writes. The sketch serves the literate populace, allowing them to 'see' all of London without actually visiting the sites documented. Dickens would fail to connect with his audience if his rhetoric were built purely on Aristotelian pathos or epideictic prose. Instead he is our friendly guide, a Virgil clinical enough to be believed but comical enough to be liked.

Another interesting item in Seed:

Dickens [writing in The Uncommercial Traveller] predicts the impossibility of future ages being able to infer the grotesque contradictions within Victorian society: “If this mud could petrify at this moment, and could lie here concealed for ten thousand years, I wonder whether the race of men then to be our successors on the earth could . . . deduce such an astounding inference as the existence of a polished state of society that bore with the public savagery of neglected children in the streets of its capital city. (162)

Seed then points out that this is an interesting use of palaeontology, a use of “Victorian science against its own age,” (163) which nicely contrasts the modern and the savage. To accurately perceive his surroundings one has to imagine reporting to a virtual witness ten thousand years outside of those surroundings, to think about what details it would be necessary for the firsthand witness to record in order to best communicate an environment. Dickens's work fills the gap between the petrified mud and the future student of history.

Karl Marx considerava l'ideologia una sorta di deformazione ottica, una vera e propria costruzione teorica volta a distorcere e falsificare i rapporti e la realtà sociale. La "verità" della classe al potere che naturalizza ciò che è socialmente determinato, eternizza ciò che è in divenire, universalizza ciò che è particolare: una straordinaria macchina retorico-filosofica volta a giustificare il potere e le ingiustizie sociali. Molti trovano che Karl Marx sia ormai passato di moda, ma io penso che la sua concezione dell'ideologia sia più valida oggi di quanto non lo fosse ai suoi tempi (un mio amico disse una volta che in Marx ci sono verità che saranno vere soltanto dopodomani, altre che lo erano già ieri, alcune che non lo saranno mai...).
Si provi, ad esempio, ad applicare il suo concetto di ideologia a quanto va accadendo oggi nelle società occidentali, e nella italiana in particolare: il rovesciamento interpretativo che ne verrebbe fuori è impressionante. Lascio per ora da parte il tema (scottantissimo) della bioetica/biopolitica e della relativa ideologia della vita, per concentrarmi sulla questione più generale dell'emergenza. Da alcuni anni il potere (locale, nazionale, globale), con la complicità dei media da esso controllati, si manifesta in prima istanza nella prassi emergenziale del suo esercizio: emergenza clandestini/immigrati, emergenza terrorismo, emergenza ambiente, emergenza inflazione, emergenza petrolio, emergenza rifiuti, fino alle emergenze spicciole o stagionali (caldo, maltempo, inquinamento delle città, bullismo, zanzare, guidatori ubriachi, ecc. ecc.).

Questo non vuol dire che buona parte delle cose elencate non sussistano o non siano dei problemi; vuol dire semmai che la classe politica al potere traduce tutte le questioni - attraverso il meccanismo dell'ideologia - nella nuova semantica dell'emergenza. Innanzitutto si tratta di "semplificare" e ridurre i problemi alla dinamica amico/nemico, noi/loro, interno/esterno (in ultima analisi a una logica di guerra: l'attuale governo italiano, ad esempio, nel proclamare lo "stato d'emergenza" sulla questione immigrati, ha utilizzato non a caso il termine "contrasto").
Credo che ciò sia tra l'altro funzionale ai diversi possibili sviluppi o scenari della situazione socioeconomica: lo stato d'emergenza può essere esteso e applicato in qualsiasi momento alle situazioni di conflitto che via via si presenteranno (è successo in Campania e presto succederà sul fronte sindacale e lavorativo). A maggior ragione qualora poi la crisi economica dovesse aggravarsi.
Ma la logica emergenziale non può reggere in uno stato moderno se non si fonda su un certo livello di consenso: credo che oggi questo vada ravvisato nella paura sociale diffusa. Anche qui nulla di nuovo, noi sappiamo che il potere - ce lo insegna Spinoza - ha bisogno del timore sociale. Ma ancor più, come sostiene Hobbes nel Leviatano, del "terrore":

"egli dispone di tanta potenza e di tanta forza a lui conferite, che col terrore da esse suscitato è in grado di modellare le volontà di tutti i singoli in funzione della pace, in patria, e dell'aiuto reciproco contro i nemici di fuori" (Lev. cap. XVII).

Coesione interna, pace sociale, scarica esterna delle tensioni (un "esterno" che, come ho già scritto più volte, in epoca globale è paradossalmente un "interno"). Paura ed emergenza vanno qui di pari passo, si tengono, alimentandosi a vicenda. Ma paura di che cosa? Forse di perdere i privilegi, il lavoro, la casa, la famiglia, la vita, le ricchezze, anche se si abita una fortezza blindata? Dove si annidano i pericoli?
Poco importa, o meglio importa che siano disseminati un po' ovunque. E' cruciale innanzitutto che il pericolo e l'insicurezza siano "percepiti", avvertiti, e che si insinuino quotidianamente nella vita sociale, goccia a goccia, a piccole dosi omeopatiche. Lo si deve credere. La risposta a questa credenza sarà sempre lo stato di emergenza, ed ecco che il gioco è fatto e l'ideologia trionfa sul reale, il simbolico sul materiale. Un ideologico e un simbolico che con quel materiale possono anche non avere niente da spartire. Meglio quindi che tutto stia fermo, immobile, così com'è e che gli eventuali disagi vengano deviati all'esterno e fatti pagare agli "altri": pace in patria e guerra all'esterno, come ci avverte Hobbes.

Vi sono poi due risvolti della logica emergenziale che vanno sottolineati: la sistematica non-risoluzione dei problemi e l'incombenza di percorsi politici autoritari. Gestire le questioni solo in termini emergenziali significa cioè non affrontarle mai in maniera razionale e ponderata, con la discussione pubblica e l'elaborazione dei progetti risolutivi che il metodo democratico di governare (e di autogovernarsi) richiederebbe. C'è poi la questione temporale: i tempi dei governi e quelli della complessità sociale sono spesso divergenti; la politica in senso alto che richiede lungimiranza e periodi lunghi deve fare i conti con l'affarismo bottegaio della classe (pseudo)politica al potere (su questo tema tornerò presto).
E da ultimo, ma primo per gravità e importanza: quel che in verità vedo "emergere" all'orizzonte giorno dopo giorno, decreto dopo decreto, emergenza dopo emergenza, è il profilo di una nuova possibile dittatura che sguazzerà nel marasma dovuto alla non-risoluzione dei problemi, che invocherà la logica del "ci penso io, basta che mi lasciate lavorare" e che ci porterà a nuovi disastri. Dopotutto sia Mussolini che Hitler sono stati eletti democraticamente...

Da da da daa, da da daa. Da da da daa, da da daa daa daa.

Here's some outtakes so you can see JUST how thrilled Hobbes was with our antics.

Tocqueville dagegen sah, nach seinen Reisen nach Amerika, Gefahr in der Gleichheit, der Gleichschaltung und differenzierte den Freiheitsbegriff wesentlich stärker als Rousseau.

Hier nun eine Analyse der Auffassungen beider Autoren im Vergleich.

Quinta-feira. Segundo post. Dia de falar da edição.

Na edição 23 do ALT, tem uma matéria especial sobre o tão falado novo Batman, e também uma entrevista com a cineasta Heloísa Passos, que participará do Festival de Cinema de Cascavel. Também tem a contribuição do filósofo Ivanor Guarnieri, com um texto sobre Rosseau; e do filósofo José Luiz Ames, com um texto sobre Hobbes. E, claro, os sebos e os blogues têm lugares garantidos. A nova seção do ALT sobre música, que provisoriamente leva o título de Disco Compacto, traz uma nova empreitada de Anderson e Julliane, dessa vez descendo a lenha nos elogios e humilhações sobre a cantora pop Christina Aguilera. Imperdível.

Hoje não vamos colocar aqui os fatos do dia por livre e espontânea preguiça. Na verdade, por que tínhamos colocado e por um desastre no manuseio do computador, se foram, então, o de hoje, só amanhã.

- E não deixem de participar do encontro que estamos promovendo. Mais informações, no post anterior. Lembrem-se que têm de confirmar presença pelo e-mail alt@gazetadoparana.com.br.

Até

ALT

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