060520_Deconfinement eve - (link): Just to show the educational of French politicians... [put it into Google translate]

Monsieur le Président,

Monsieur le Premier Ministre,

Mes chers collègues,

Déconfiner ou ne pas déconfiner, telle est la question. Je suis fasciné de découvrir que nous avons autant d’experts pour y répondre sur toutes nos chaînes de télévision.

Les grands experts, très assurés. Les petits experts, qui manquent d’expérience sur Zoom et dont on ne voit que le nez, le menton et les lunettes en gros plan. Les soi-disant experts qui répètent ce qu’ils ont entendu une heure avant sur une autre chaîne ou à la radio. Et enfin les faux experts qui lancent des craques en espérant faire le buzz.

A force de tous les regarder, j’ai découvert un théorème, que je vous propose : Plus il y a d’experts moins on comprend.

Heureusement, il reste les politiques. J’ai suivi le débat à l’Assemblée Nationale mercredi dernier, Monsieur le Premier Ministre. Il y a là-bas des virtuoses du coronavirus. Ils vous ont expliqué ce qu’il fallait faire hier, ce qu’il n’aurait pas fallu faire, ce qu’il faut faire aujourd’hui et ce qu’il faudra faire demain. Je revois encore le Professeur Mélenchon, de la Faculté de médecine de La Havane, pointer sur vous un doigt vengeur et vous lancer d’une voix de stentor : « Il y aura un deuxième pic de l’épidémie, et vous le savez ! ». Impressionnant. J’étais au bord du retweet. Devant tant de recommandations de spécialistes, je n’ose pas vous proposer les miennes, moi qui ne suis qu’un simple médecin épidémiologiste.

Je voudrais juste me borner à quelques réflexions sur certaines idées qui me paraissent fausses.

La plus absurde, c’est que le libéralisme est la cause de la pandémie. Dans ce pays où beaucoup préfèrent Robespierre à Tocqueville, où l’on préférera toujours se tromper avec Sartre qu’avoir raison avec Aron, c’est toujours le libéralisme qui porte le chapeau. Même les plus ignares des antimondialistes, des populistes et des complotistes devraient pourtant savoir, puisque même Google le dit, que Périclès, mort de la peste en 429 avant J.C. ou Saint Louis mort du même mal en 1270 n’avaient jamais ne serait-ce qu’entendu les mots de capitalisme ou de libéralisme. Le Covid n’est pas une maladie de la mondialisation, c’est une maladie tout court. Napoléon disait : « l’histoire est une suite de mensonges sur lesquels on s’est mis d’accord », aujourd’hui il dirait : « l’histoire est une suite de mensonges qui ont le plus de like ».

Il fallait trouver le responsable du complot. Au Moyen Age, c’était la colère divine, les sorcières ou les juifs. Aujourd’hui c’est la mondialisation.

La vérité est l’exact contraire. La grande nouveauté c’est que c’est la science qui est aujourd’hui mondialisée. Jamais dans l’histoire on n’a donné une réponse aussi rapide à une nouvelle maladie. Le génome du virus séquencé en une semaine. Les premiers tests produits un mois plus tard. Les essais cliniques de traitement et de vaccins déjà par centaines. A ceux qui s’impatientent il faut rappeler que les épidémies d’avant faisaient cent fois plus de morts, qu’il a fallu des milliers d’années avant que Pasteur en 1885 ne découvre le vaccin contre la rage et que Yersin n’isole le bacille de la peste. Et que c’est grâce à la démocratie libérale et à ses progrès scientifiques qu’elles ont été vaincues comme celle-ci le sera demain.

Deuxième idée qui traîne, celle des prophètes qui nous expliquent que demain rien ne sera comme avant. Mais dès qu’on les écoute on s’aperçoit que leur monde futur est celui qu’ils prêchaient avant. L’avenir radieux avec les lunettes du passé. Ils annoncent des révolutions, mais on s’aperçoit qu’ils profitent de la crise pour recycler leurs idéologies archi-décédées : mort du capitalisme, haine de la technique, décroissance, éloge du populisme, retour des frontières, nationalisme. Ils courent les télévisions pour annoncer l’avènement d’un monde nouveau, mais leur besace ne contient que la poussière du prêt à penser qu’ils ressassent depuis des décennies.

La réalité c’est que personne n’a jamais vu demain. C’est à nous de préparer l’avenir et il sera sans doute différent. Mais ce qui est certain, c’est qu’il ne ressemblera sûrement pas à un remake des thèses de Karl Marx, de Maurras ou de Malthus.

Troisième ineptie : les régimes autoritaires seraient les grands gagnants de cette pandémie car les plus efficaces. C’est le contraire qui est vrai. La cause de la maladie est le virus. La cause du drame est le régime chinois qui a caché la vérité pendant un mois. C’est pour cela qu’il y a aujourd’hui 25 000 morts en France et des centaines de milliers dans le monde.

Les seuls pays qui s’en sont bien sortis sont les quatre démocraties asiatiques, Taïwan, Hong Kong, Singapour et la Corée du Sud, qui bénéficiaient d’expériences antérieures. J’espère que personne ne va me dire : « Et la Chine ?». La Chine qui annonce 4500 morts sans avoir jamais expliqué à quoi servaient les 50 000 urnes funéraires livrées en urgence, de nuit, dans la seule ville de Wuhan. La Chine dont on ne connaîtra le nombre de morts qu’un jour lointain, comme on n’a connu les 40 millions de morts du grand bond en avant que 30 ans plus tard, à la mort de Mao.

Quant aux populistes en Occident, Trump qui restera comme le Président du « Make the virus great again », Bolsonaro qui laisse s’infecter sans protection les habitants de ses bidonvilles, et Johnson, sauvé de peu de ses propres théories sur l’immunité et dont le pays détient désormais la palme européenne des victimes.

Je préfère l’exemple de l’Allemagne démocratique. C’est bien sûr un peu irritant, ces allemands qui savent toujours où sont rangées les affaires. Mais attention. D’abord l’Allemagne nous suit de dix jours dans l’épidémie et ses chiffres montent. Ensuite les résultats allemands sont hélas beaucoup plus proches de ceux du reste de l’Europe que de l’Asie. C’est bien chez les démocraties d’Asie du Sud qu’il nous faudra chercher les exemples si nous voulons réussir le déconfinement et en tout cas pas chez les dictateurs.

Vous vous apprêtez, Monsieur le Premier Ministre, à prendre la plus grande décision de cette crise. Parce que le déconfinement sera beaucoup plus difficile que le confinement.

Vous serez tenté de le faire très prudemment. D’abord parce que dans nos régimes libéraux, qui s’attachent à rendre impossibles leurs propres décisions, les épées de Damoclès politiques, juridiques et médiatiques vous menaceront à la moindre erreur. Les sycophantes ont déjà ouvert leurs dossiers.

Mais votre Rubicon est là et vous n’avez d’autre choix que de le franchir sans trembler. Jusqu’à ce jour, entre laisser mourir des hommes et tuer l’économie, nous n’avons pas hésité et nous avons choisi le confinement. Le 11 mai, en ouvrant les rues, les maisons, les entreprises et les administrations, ne laissons personne dire que nous ferions le choix inverse, celui de l’économie contre les hommes. Au contraire. Poursuivre le confinement ou déconfiner trop timidement ferait aujourd’hui beaucoup plus de victimes. D’abord les victimes, bien plus nombreuses qu’on ne le croit, d’autres pathologies qui depuis deux mois ne se soignent plus. Ensuite parce qu’une crise économique, et celle qui vient sera l’une des pires, fait bien plus de victimes que le virus, même si le fait de ne pas pouvoir les chiffrer permettra à tous ceux qui n’ont rien compris à l’économie et qui ne l’aiment pas – ils sont nombreux en France – de vous accuser de préférer les profits à la santé de nos concitoyens.

Il faut ouvrir les portes et le faire sans hésiter. Et cela veut dire faire confiance aux français. Ils ont montré, personne ne l’aurait parié, qu’ils étaient capables aussi bien que des coréens ou des allemands, de respecter un confinement drastique. Ils ont compris les gestes, la prudence et la distanciation. Ils ont aussi compris les risques, et c’est d’ailleurs pour cela que s’ils souhaitent le déconfinement, ils le redoutent en même temps.

Il y aura des bosses sur la route, Monsieur le Premier Ministre, mais il faut prendre la route. Richelieu disait : « Il ne faut pas tout craindre, mais il faut tout préparer ». C’est la tâche qui vous attend aujourd’hui. C’est la tâche qui nous attend tous.

160420_Allowing the voices of the past to speak to our future:

Les médias devraient régulièrement reprendre ces lectures..

FRANÇAIS, VOUS AVEZ la MÉMOIRE COURTE !

Un texte de Mr Olivier Becht. Député du Haut-Rhin

Coronavirus : que nous enseigne l’Histoire ?

             Pour ma génération, cette épidémie mondiale est un événement encore jamais connu, jamais vécu.Pourtant, en discutant avec mes parents, il apparaît que le monde en a déjà connu et pas seulement dans les siècles passés.Nul besoin de remonter à la peste, au choléra ou encore à la grippe espagnole de 1918.D’autres épidémies, ressemblant fortement au Coronavirus ont frappé le monde en 1957 et en 1969.

               En 1957, le monde connaît une pandémie nommée « grippe asiatique ». Mon père s’en souvient encore car toute sa famille (père, mère, 5 enfants) va alors rester couchée presque sans possibilité de se lever pendant plus de 15 jours. Cette « grippe asiatique » fera 100 000 morts rien qu’en France et plus de 2 millions de morts dans le monde.

En 1969, à nouveau venue d’Asie, la « grippe de Hong Kong » frappe le monde. Elle va faire 31 000 morts en France et 1 million de morts dans le monde.J’ai retrouvé un article du Journal Libération qui comparaît en 2005 le traitement de la canicule de 2003 avec celui de la « grippe de Hong Kong ».

Voici ce que l’extrait de cet article disait de la situation en 1969 :

« On n'avait pas le temps de sortir les morts. On les entassait dans une salle au fond du service de réanimation. Et on les évacuait quand on pouvait, dans la journée, le soir.» Aujourd'hui chef du service d'infectiologie du centre hospitalo-universitaire de Nice, le professeur Dellamonica a gardé des images fulgurantes de cette grippe dite «de Hongkong» qui a balayé la France au tournant de l'hiver 1969-1970. Âgé alors d'une vingtaine d'années, il travaillait comme externe dans le service de réanimation du professeur Jean Motin, à l'hôpital Edouard-Herriot de Lyon. «Les gens arrivaient en brancard, dans un état catastrophique. Ils mouraient d'hémorragie pulmonaire, les lèvres cyanosées, tout gris. Il y en avait de tous les âges, 20, 30, 40 ans et plus. Ça a duré dix à quinze jours, et puis ça s'est calmé. Et étrangement, on a oublié.» - Fin de l’extrait-

Ce n’était pas au Douzième Siècle, c’était il y a 50 ans ! Étrangement on a oublié.

Encore plus étrange furent les traitements politiques et médiatiques qui en furent faits.Alors que l’hôpital fait face à une crise sanitaire majeure : afflux brutal de malades, impossibilité de les soigner, mortalité par dizaine de milliers, nul ou presque n’en parle.La presse parle à l’époque de la mission Apollo sur la Lune, de la guerre du Vietnam, des suites de mai 1968... mais pas ou peu des dizaines de milliers de personnes qui meurent dans des hôpitaux surchargés. Pire, le monde continue de tourner, presque comme si de rien n’était.

Alors que nous enseigne l’Histoire ?

          D’abord et c’est une bonne nouvelle, que nos sociétés en ont « connu d’autres » et qu’elles se remettent de ces épidémies. Malgré la mortalité de masse provoquée par elles, nous n’allons pas tous mourir et la vie gardera le dessus.

           Ensuite, qu’en 50 ans, les progrès techniques ont profondément modifié notre société. En 1969 encore la mort de millions d’individus semblait une fatalité alors qu’aujourd’hui elle nous paraît juste inacceptable. Nous attendons de la science qu’elle puisse nous protéger de toutes ces maladies, les vaincre voire peut être un jour vaincre la mort elle-même. Je parle bien sûr pour nos sociétés occidentales car 100 000 morts nous paraissent un choc majeur et inacceptable en Europe ou en Amérique du Nord alors que personne ou presque ne semble hélas s’offusquer que le Palu puisse tuer chaque année un demi million de personnes en Afrique...

           L’Histoire nous enseigne encore que nos exigences vis à vis de l’Etat ont beaucoup changé. Nous sommes désormais, et c’est le prix de l’Etat providence, dans une société qui « attend tout de l’Etat ». En 1969 personne n’attendait de Pompidou qu’il arrête la « grippe de Hong Kong » ou encore organise le confinement de la population pour sauver des vies. Aujourd’hui le moindre accident est nécessairement de la responsabilité d’une autorité publique et si l’on n’arrive pas à un résultat immédiat et satisfaisant, c’est forcément que les élites ont failli. Que l’on soit bien clair, je ne cherche à excuser personne et il est vrai que le niveau des impôts n’est pas le même qu’en 1969 donc le niveau d’exigence peut légitimement être plus élevé. Je pose juste des constats.

           Enfin, l’Histoire nous enseigne que la sphère médiatique a beaucoup changé et influence terriblement le traitement des événements. En 1969 les médias étaient encore pour beaucoup sous le contrôle de l’Etat. Comme on ne pouvait pas arrêter la maladie on n’en parlait quasiment pas. Et la vie continuait tant bien que mal. A l’ère des chaînes d’info continue et des médias sociaux on ne parle plus que de la maladie, du traitement sanitaire, politique, économique. Tout devient très vite sujet à polémique et à scandale. Pire, on a l’impression que notre vision du monde se limite désormais à ce qui défile sur nos écrans. Et comme il n’y a plus que la maladie sur nos écrans on oublierait presque que la vie continue avec ce qu’elle a de plus merveilleux (l’amour par exemple, mais aussi la création, l’innovation...) mais aussi de pire (la haine, la violence, la criminalité, la bêtise...). Bref la saturation de l’info autour de la maladie fait qu’on a l’impression que le monde s’arrête et comme la conscience crée en partie la réalité, il semble vraiment s’arrêter.

        Alors vous me direz « autres temps, autres traitements de la maladie et des événements ». Oui, vous avez raison et quelque part heureusement. Ces enseignements de l’Histoire ne nous obligent pas à traiter les choses comme dans le passé. Bien au contraire.

Mais ces voix venues du passé nous disent néanmoins :

- que les épidémies ont toujours existé et existeront probablement toujours car elles ne sont pas issues de complots de savants fousmanipulés par des militaires dans des labos secrets, mais simplement des virus qui font partie de la Nature, au même titre que nous.

- que l’on pourra déployer toute la science et posséder les meilleurs Gouvernements du Monde, il y aura toujours un événement naturelque nul n’avait prévu et que l’on ne pourra pas totalement éviter.

- qu’il faut toujours garder l’esprit positif car l’Humanité s’est toujours relevé de ces épidémies. La France s’en relèvera aussi et cela d’autant plus vite que nous saurons faire preuve de résilience et de fraternité dans l’épreuve.

               Essayons donc de ne pas perdre nos nerfs et notre moral rivés sur le compteur des morts qui monopolise nos écrans, restons unis plutôt qu’à accuser déjà les uns et les autres, concentrons nous sur les vies que l’on peut sauver chacun dans son rôle et à sa place, continuons de vivre, d’aimer, d’inventer car ni le monde ni la vie ne se sont arrêtés et profitons peut être, pour ceux qui en ont, d’utiliser le temps pour imaginer le monde meilleur dans lequel nous voudrions vivre à la sortie de cette crise.

Regarder le passé, c’est parfois prendre le recul nécessaire qui permet de mieux construire l’avenir.

Courage et espoir ! Prenez soin de vous …..

O.BECHT

Fall 2019 - The generosity of student voices (Thank you for this, Laura!)

140519_From Bill Nye-- "The planets on fire..." : https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1128179665842114560

130419_From SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE

Emolument’s Claws

Erik

57 mins ago

“Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument.”

-Thomas Gaisford

Few clearer proofs of the instrumentalization of knowledge can be given than the question, routinely posed to all students of the liberal arts, “What are you going to do with that?” This reification of knowledge as a discrete entity (a ‘skill set’) represents a fundamental error in the conception of knowledge on the part of those who see its primary value as an instrument.

Since the revival of learning (i.e. the Renaissance), the study of antiquity has never been practical in the sense of yielding concrete and tangible products in the world, yet it did nevertheless confer immense practical advantages on those who had studied it. From the Renaissance through at least the end of the 19^th century, classical learning was the key to both civil and ecclesiastical preferment. Amidst the debates about the purpose and accessibility of classics today, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the regression away from an open and democratized classics is in effect simply a return to the discipline’s status quo – a return to classics reserved for the elite as a ticket to social advancement.

For many people, majoring in classics or any of the humanities at less than maximally prestigious schools is not an indulgence in idle caprice, but a seizure at what may be their only opportunity to truly study these subjects before being broken upon the wheel of relentless employment. Some students may be fortunate enough to attend public or private schools which offer instruction in Latin. But often, the halls of the university are the first and only place in which young students have the opportunity to study such recondite subjects. Formal university study thus serves a much more practical purpose than its detractors would concede by providing the basic civic and human education for people who are never able to acquire it earlier in life. Paradoxically, the study of the humanities becomes more practical and, indeed, more necessary as opportunities to explore them are more severely curtailed in elementary and secondary schools. In an age when students could be expected to have received a thoroughgoing humanistic education, the study of antiquity at university may have indeed been little more than the rarefaction and refinement of one’s literary and aesthetic sensibilities. Rich elites with access to educational opportunity may feel that the humanities are an idle indulgence because they are now (or still?) the only ones allowed to enjoy them from an early age. Consequently, humanistic study will continue to become more practical in the way that it has always been ‘practical’ – as a social marker granted to and recognized by an elite class, which paves the golden avenue to social and economic advancement. Benjamin Rush and Thomas Paine both campaigned actively against the primacy of classical language instruction:

The study of the Latin and Greek languages is improper in the present state of society and government in United States. While Greek and Latin are the only avenues to science, education will always be confined to a few people. It is only by rendering knowledge universal, that a republican form of government can be preserved in our country. [Benjamin Rush, Essays Moral, Literary, and Political]

—

No more Latin should be learned in these schools than is necessary to translate that language into English, and no more Greek than is necessary to read the Greek Testament. One half or two-thirds of the time now misspent in learning more of those two languages should be employed in learning Hebrew and in studying Jewish antiquities. Eastern customs. Eastern geography, ecclesiastical and natural history, and astronomy, all of which are calculated to discover the meaning and establish the truth of many parts of the Scriptures. No one of the Latin nor Greek poets nor historians should be read in these schools, by which means a pious ignorance will be preserved of the crimes of heathen gods and men related not only without censure but often with praise. [Benjamin Rush, Letter to Ashbel Green May 22, 1807]

—

The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the same manner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of a linguist; and the language thus obtained, was no other than the means, as it were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the Greeks had. It made no part of the learning itself, and was so distinct from it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the persons who had studied Greek sufficiently to translate those works, such, for instance, as Euclid’s Elements, did not understand any of the learning the works contained. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]

The peculiarity of Benjamin Rush’s crusade against the classics is that it demonstrated just how useful they were in colonial American society – not, indeed, in the sense of producing anything, but as a mode of communication and exchange, a common intellectual currency. Rush himself could inveigh against the classics because he had at least been granted sufficient education in them. His engineered assault on the classics is a testament to their strength in his day. In our own time, the development of more narrowly technical education has rendered the classics (and the humanities more generally) obsolete as anything but markers of class and wealth (or, for those of us outside the privileged echelons, as markers of foolhardy impracticality). Yet, we have lost something valuable in that common intellectual and cultural currency, and it is not clear that it will ever be replaced as culture becomes increasingly fragmented and ephemeral. The dominant technical and scientific modes of discourse have given birth to this exaggerated ephemerality, but the increasing speed with which cultural products gain currency and lose relevance also poses a significant question about who (i.e. what demographic) ought to be the arbiter of that relevance. I once had a friend who dismissed everything written or produced before the 20^th century as irrelevant. Yet, for many of my students, the period of one day is enough to make something feel played-out, hackneyed, and irrelevant. (A meme which is widely circulated in the morning may be dead and overdone by the evening.)

The educational project of Rush and Paine has largely been achieved through the organic process of classics becoming apparently irrelevant to modern life. Yet, this demotion of classics from its primacy in education has increased what Rush and Paine saw as the most pernicious aspect of classical study – its tendency, as an ‘irrelevant’ study, to create a class distinction between those with sufficient wealth and leisure to study dead languages and those who must ply themselves to some more apparently practical study. The liberal arts have once again reclaimed and justified their designation, but only at the expense of much of society submitting to the servitude of purely commercial interest.

The humanities as formalized university study are undoubtedly in peril, but the reasons for and nature of this peril are matters of contention. Where Jordan Peterson might see the humanities as threatened by Theory, a more data-driven analyst might note that English departments thrived under the early heady days of Theory in the second half of the 20^th century, when lecture halls were packed by students enjoying a new and exciting mode of engaging with old texts. Reactionaries have long been attracted to the idea that the collapse of the humanities can be attributed to one or two pernicious intellectual trends, but this gross oversimplification masquerading as dispassionate analysis is in itself just the promotion of a particular conservative theoretical framework for understanding humanistic disciplines. Yet another faction attempts to circumvent the political altogether by arguing that the humanities are peculiarly ennobling and thus ought to be studied for their own sake. But this argument is both untenable and wholly ahistorical, resting on rhetoric which has never gone out of fashion since antiquity.

At some point in the ancient world, literature was just literature. In the centuries following Homer, however, literature began to reflect back upon itself in a self-conscious and meaningful way, which may be seen as the seminal form of scholarship as we know it today. By the time of Plato, at least, it is clear that many thinkers were engaged in what we would recognize as humanistic and literary study: poetry is cited and analyzed for linguistic content, its bearing on history and morality, and even its relation to other literary exempla. Plato’s dialogues, taken as cultural records, suggest that these were pleasant and salutary pastimes for the leisured class as well as a way to achieve some measure of practical success in the world. The Sophists with whom Socrates speaks do not study literature for its own sake. Rather, poetry it studied for the utilitarian purpose of moral improvement or the weaponized use to which it may be put in disputation. Even Plato himself views literature as something instrumental or utilitarian, a part of a broader educational program designed to form the complete human.

The Greeks were keen on rhetoric, and their literary studies were often made to serve that enthusiasm, but the Romans went a step farther in institutionalizing rhetoric as the primary branch of education. Though it seems strange to modern sensibilities, a well-educated Roman would have received years of rhetorical training as the basis and aim of education, and may have finished off the larger project with ‘ornamental’ studies like astronomy, mathematics, and others science such as it then was. Literary study was an important part of their program, but not because it was the window to the human soul – rather, a knowledge of the best literature was meant to carry one’s point in debate in addition to forming the character through moral exempla – creating the ideal vir bonus dicendi peritus.

The educational institution of the trivium and quadrivium formalized by Martianus Capella gives primacy to what are thought of as the humanities, but this is an inheritance of the Greco-Roman traditions which made these subjects out to be supremely practical modes for political and personal advancement.

Despite their primacy in the trivium, the humanities experienced some decline during the Middle Ages due to the ambivalence toward pagan authors manifested by Christians such as Augustine, Jerome, and Tertullian. Consider Jerome’s nightmare of being denied access to heaven on the basis of his fondness for Cicero. Augustine laments that in spending so much time reading about Dido’s tears, he was ‘fornicating away from God.’ A certain amount of this ambivalence was retained by Christians of later centuries, but many continued studying pagan authors for two reasons: knowledge of pagan literature could be weaponized to counter the arguments of the irreligious, and the language of pagan authors could serve to improve the eloquence of the Christian message.

Petrarch is given credit for inaugurating the Renaissance not only because of his manuscript hunting, but because we sense in him a genuine enthusiast who was enamoured with antiquity for its own sake. Yet, for all of Petrarch’s ardent enthusiasm, the humanities as reconceived by him were not aimed at studying literature ‘for its own sake’. For Petrarch, Leonaro Bruni, Coluccio Salutati, and others, the study of literature and history may have been pleasing in and of itself, but underlying their progress was the support of money and political interest. Few of the important humanists of the Renaissance did their work independent of temporal power – indeed, they began to revive the old Ciceronian ideal of the active scholar/politician.

Of all historical periods, the Renaissance contributed most to our own sense of the humanities as a distinct arena of study, as well as to the conception of the study of literature as singularly ennobling or worthwhile for its own sake, yet it was also a period during which the study of literature was instrumentalized in an exceptionally striking degree, both for the attainment of tangible political ends as well as being the object of conspicuous consumption and lavish display on the part of wealthy and powerful patrons. In his essay in the Cambridge Companion to the Renaissance, James Hankins notes that much of the intellectual energy of 14^th and 15^th century humanism was channeled into the broad project of reforming and improving humanity because “Politically, the Renaissance was an age of tyrants and oligarchs, rulers with often questionable titles to legitimacy.” As such, attempts at reforming political systems, or even political theory itself, were of limited value in such an entrenched political climate. The only hope for governmental improvement lay in cultivating the character of the tyrants and oligarchs internally. This represents a revival of the old Platonic ideal of the philosopher king, and accounts for the apparent upswing in rapturous encomia on the study of polite letters. The entire humanist project could, through harnessing the moral-exemplar mode of education borrowed directly from antiquity and combining it with a renewed emphasis on cultivating politesse – especially in the form of refined Latin expression – serve the aim of bringing about a more peaceful, just, and refined society. Who could doubt the value of literary and historical study at a time when it promised the surest route to the improvement of civilization itself?

Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, wrote in his educational treatise de Liberorum Educatione: “The study of literature offers a great aid to attaining virtue, and this befits no one more than a king. […] Once learning was abandoned, all virtues fell into decay, because the strength of the military and the imperial office was weakened as though cut at the root.” Piccolomini outlines here the importance of learning and study as a prop to virtue, which is seen as the foundation of political strength and viability. He does not see the decline of ancient Rome’s political fortunes as originating from economic or military problems. Rather, the relative prosperity of the early empire is attributed to the learning of the early emperors, and all later social and military setbacks coincided with the decline in learning among the rulers. He then adds that all who attain temporal power “should strive with the utmost effort that they perform their public duties and engage in philosophy.” In his educational treatise On Studies and Letters, Leonardo Bruni makes effectively the same point about the conjunction of humanist study and action when he speaks of “a real liberal understanding, which joins experience in literature with knowledge of the world.”

This conception of humanistic study as practical training survived the Renaissance and continued unabated into the 18^th century, where we read John Adams advising his son John Quincy to ply himself to his classical learning: ‘In company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus, and Livy, you will learn wisdom and virtue. […] You will remember that the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.” Among the Founders, there were few of what we might consider pure intellectuals. Though in their own provincial way they were possessed of a certain erudition, they were for the most part hard-headed utilitarians who in literary study appear as Philistines when set against their contemporaries in Europe.

John Marshall claimed that Cicero’s de Officiis was “a salutary discourse on the duties and qualities proper to a republican gentlemen.” There were, however, cracks forming in the traditional system. Benjamin Rush was initially a supporter of the old classical language curriculum, but in 1789 he began to campaign against the study of the ancient languages, arguing that “the human understanding was fettered by prejudice in favor of the Latin and Greek languages.” Yet it is important to note that Rush’s crusade was not meant to displace the humanities from the educational curriculum. It was, rather, supposed to make the study of the humanities more efficient by freeing time for learning modern languages and helping to eliminate class distinctions which were fostered by the classical education system. Even for the study of religion, Rush argued that time would be more profitably employed in the study of eastern languages and history. Rush was a man of applied science and made the most forceful and revolutionary attacks on the traditional humanist-fostered mode of education in early America, but importantly, he did not intend to jettison what we would think of as “the humanities” more generally – all of these were still seen to have practical value in forming the character and contributing to civic prosperity.

As classical language study declined in the mid to late 19^th century America, a new set of “humanities” not requiring Latin and Greek began to emerge as electives were first offered on campuses and the concept of a college “major” was created. Early American reformers like Franklin and Rush would no doubt have been well pleased by the development of university courses in history, art, philosophy, and literature which did not require years of preliminary grammar grinding in dead languages as a prerequisite. Yet, in our contemporary culture, the study of these subjects is commonly considered just as frivolous as the ancient languages which preceded them. During this period of curricular expansion in the 19^th century, there was simultaneously a shift away from the utilitarian justification rhetoric employed so often in the early days of the republic, toward a new conception of the study of literature as a mode of spiritual self-improvement.

Notwithstanding the shifts in the rhetoric used to advocate for their study, the reasons for pursuing the humanities have not actually changed over the millennia. Rather, our conception of what constitutes utility itself has changed. Where once it was possible to see the formation of mind and character – the creation of a complete and responsible citizen – as supremely useful, our society has begun to opt for a more narrowly mechanistic and industrial definition of utility. It would be easy to ascribe this to something depraved in the character of our times or the rapid and astonishing success of physical science in the past two centuries, but the shift in thought about utility and education did not occur accidentally. The managerial mindset which took over in the administration of both higher education and grade school in this country can be traced back to a readily understood urge within the capitalist framework: the urge to make money. It has long been supposed that America has no class system because social distinction is not strictly inherited. But I remember being told from the earliest stage of my education that the primary benefit of education was to ensure that you did not end up flipping burgers at McDonald’s. The elimination of mandatory classical language study can hardly be said to have democratized education if the only actual effect was to imbue children with the belief that certain ways of life (such as burger flipping) constitute personal failure, and that the chief value of education lies in helping the student to avoid relegation to an undesirable socioeconomic class.

In this way, the actual structure and purpose of education (and higher education in particular) has not changed through the ages. It is meant to serve as an entry point to higher classes and privilege, though now it is devoid of the antiquarian and mystical self-improvement baggage. Who orchestrated this shift in subject matter? Corporate executives. Where the university previously served as the training ground for clerics, ministers, and civil servants angling for a sinecure, it is now a glorified vocational school designed to generate a class of new technologists who will both produce and consume a supply of even more rapidly obsolescent gizmos. One need only look at the emphasis of outreach for STEM education to see the way in which business leaders have convinced the university to prostitute itself for material gain. When students are encouraged to pursue STEM, the goal is not to increase enrollment in classical biology, paleontology, or pure mathematics. The hope, rather, is to maximize the supply of engineers and technicians, understanding that a glut on the market of technical wizards will reduce their cost. The university was intended to be largely immune to this type of pressure, but the ominous shadow of the ‘business community’ has long been cast over the groves of Academus, and – as though business did not already have the loudest voice in this country – administrators hasten to peddle the propaganda of technical education as a way of advocating for the interests of CEOs.

I do not mean to deny that technical education has its import, and I hope that it is clear that I am not arguing for a wholly anti-utilitarian pursuit of the humanities. For more than two millennia, what may be termed “humanistic study” has been deemed eminently useful. But as our knowledge of the world has expanded and the pace of commercial culture has outstripped all else, we have adopted a radically restricted notion of utility – one that cannot see anything useful in the intangible, the immaterial, the human.

Dismissal of the humanities as useless reflects, however, a kind of cognitive dissonance, because the humanities still loom large in contemporary culture. In recent years, classical antiquity has been the focus of an intense proxy battle in the culture wars. The far right and various reactionary monsters see it as a justification for racism and misogyny, while others see the potential for revolutionary improvement in the study of antiquity. The revolutionary power of the Classics was noted by Hobbes: “Hobbes calumniated the Classicks, because they filled young Mens heads with Ideas of Liberty, and excited them to rebellion against Leviathan.” [John Adams to Benjamin Rush, October 13 1810]

For all of the hostility directed against the humanities in popular discourse, people take ancient history and narrative seriously, and regularly employ it to justify systems and actions today. When Trump stole the election, we were assured by the media of Steve Bannon’s intellectual seriousness on the basis of his reading Thucydides. One may detect in the puffery of Steve Bannon’s reading a hearkening back to the time when classical attainment automatically conveyed a kind of social distinction. As access to opportunity to engage in classical reading becomes more restricted, its power to serve as a marker of social and intellectual distinction is increased. Classics, and the humanities more generally, are no less useful than they have ever been. Today’s harnessing of classical antiquity for social ends does not differ materially from the Colonial American habit of employing classical pen names, or the Renaissance compilation of commonplace books to weaponize ancient authority, or the support of Christian messages by repurposing pagan learning. Rather, our conception of utility has changed, and has prepared us for a new age of pure mechanization and exaggerated class distinction. Much is made of the appropriation of classics for evil ends, but this is not unique to our discipline. Any study can be productive of evil when profit is its primary aim.

Sonsuz Ark: SA6116/ÇY4-DB128: Thukididis'in Peloponez ...

Questions From a Worker Who Reads

Who built Thebes of the 7 gates ?
In the books you will read the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock ?

And Babylon, many times demolished,
Who raised it up so many times ?

In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live ?
Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?

Great Rome is full of triumphal arches.
Who erected them ?

Over whom did the Caesars triumph ?
Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants ?

Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it,
The drowning still cried out for their slaves.

The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone ?

Caesar defeated the Gauls.
Did he not even have a cook with him ?

Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down.
Was he the only one to weep ?

Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War.
Who else won it ?

Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors ?

Every 10 years a great man.
Who paid the bill ?

So many reports.

So many questions.

210117_

201216_Jean de la Fontaine on the inequality of justice. It turns out that Lady Justice is not blind after all...

Les Animaux malades de la peste - Jean de La Fontaine

Un mal qui répand la terreur,
Mal que le Ciel en sa fureur
Inventa pour punir les crimes de la terre,
La Peste (puisqu'il faut l'appeler par son nom)
Capable d'enrichir en un jour l'Achéron,
Faisait aux animaux la guerre.
Ils ne mouraient pas tous, mais tous étaient frappés :
On n'en voyait point d'occupés
A chercher le soutien d'une mourante vie ;
Nul mets n'excitait leur envie ;
Ni Loups ni Renards n'épiaient
La douce et l'innocente proie.
Les Tourterelles se fuyaient :
Plus d'amour, partant plus de joie.
Le Lion tint conseil, et dit : Mes chers amis,
Je crois que le Ciel a permis
Pour nos péchés cette infortune ;
Que le plus coupable de nous
Se sacrifie aux traits du céleste courroux,
Peut-être il obtiendra la guérison commune.
L'histoire nous apprend qu'en de tels accidents
On fait de pareils dévouements :
Ne nous flattons donc point ; voyons sans indulgence
L'état de notre conscience.
Pour moi, satisfaisant mes appétits gloutons
J'ai dévoré force moutons.
Que m'avaient-ils fait ? Nulle offense :
Même il m'est arrivé quelquefois de manger
Le Berger.
Je me dévouerai donc, s'il le faut ; mais je pense
Qu'il est bon que chacun s'accuse ainsi que moi :
Car on doit souhaiter selon toute justice
Que le plus coupable périsse.
- Sire, dit le Renard, vous êtes trop bon Roi ;
Vos scrupules font voir trop de délicatesse ;
Eh bien, manger moutons, canaille, sotte espèce,
Est-ce un péché ? Non, non. Vous leur fîtes Seigneur
En les croquant beaucoup d'honneur.
Et quant au Berger l'on peut dire
Qu'il était digne de tous maux,
Etant de ces gens-là qui sur les animaux
Se font un chimérique empire.
Ainsi dit le Renard, et flatteurs d'applaudir.
On n'osa trop approfondir
Du Tigre, ni de l'Ours, ni des autres puissances,
Les moins pardonnables offenses.
Tous les gens querelleurs, jusqu'aux simples mâtins,
Au dire de chacun, étaient de petits saints.
L'Ane vint à son tour et dit : J'ai souvenance
Qu'en un pré de Moines passant,
La faim, l'occasion, l'herbe tendre, et je pense
Quelque diable aussi me poussant,
Je tondis de ce pré la largeur de ma langue.
Je n'en avais nul droit, puisqu'il faut parler net.
A ces mots on cria haro sur le baudet.
Un Loup quelque peu clerc prouva par sa harangue
Qu'il fallait dévouer ce maudit animal,
Ce pelé, ce galeux, d'où venait tout leur mal.
Sa peccadille fut jugée un cas pendable.
Manger l'herbe d'autrui ! quel crime abominable !
Rien que la mort n'était capable
D'expier son forfait : on le lui fit bien voir.
Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable,
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir.

Which gives us this in English:

THE ANIMALS SEIZED WITH THE PLAGUE
(VII, 1)
          An evil that spreads terror round,
          An evil heaven in fury found,
To scourge the crimes of nations lost to shame ;
The plague—since we must call it by its name,
That in a day can glut the throat of hell,
Made war on animals, and sick they fell.
All did not die, but all were struck with death,
And no one cared to hold the parting breath.
Careless, and ready to expire,
       No dish excited their desire ;
       The wolf and fox no longer stray,
       To seize the mild and harmless prey ;
       The turtles fled each other, coy.;
       No more love was then, nor joy.
"Dear friends," the lion, holding council, cries,
" This scourge, I fear, must from our crimes arise ;
Let then the blackest of us all in vice
Self-offered, straight to heavenly vengeance fall,
       Which may bring health again to all.
We learn from history, some nobly great,
Thus freely died to save a falling state :
Then let us all, without disguise, begin
To view the state our consciences are in.
To satisfy my gluttony, I own
         Many a sheep I've gobbled down :
They, weak and harmless, never injured me ;
Nay, I have ate sometimes—in murder deeper—
                      Their honest keeper.
If need, I'll therefore now the victim be ;
But let me say that all, as well as I,
Should spread their crimes before the councils eye,
Because the guiltiest only ought to die."
" Sire," cried the fox, " you are too good a king,
Your doubts from too much delicacy spring.
Eating mere mutton, worthless silly sheep,
Is that a sin ? Should that disturb your sleep ?
Far from your majesty these humble tones ;
You did them honour when you cracked their bones.
As to the shepherd, were he here, I'd tell him
He well deserved the evil that befell him ;
As one of those who hold a fancied sway
Over the beasts that are a common prey."
Thus spoke the fox, while flattering peers stood round.
           They did not therefore dare to sound
The lesser crimes of chiefs assembled there,
          Such as the tiger, wolf, and bear ;
The wrangling race, to curs of common kind,
All passed for saints, as each explained his mind.
The ass came in his turn, and thus did say :
" I have some slight remembrance, that one day,
Passing some meadows that to monks belong,
Hunger was urgent, and the grass was new,
Pushed on, I fancy, by some demon too,
I cropped therein the bigness of my tongue ;
Since I must speak, I own that I was wrong."
" Stop thief ! " they cried, and all the ass impeach.
A lawyer-sort of wolf proved by a speech
That they that cursed animal must kill,
A scabbed wretch, the cause of all their ill.
What dreadful crime ! eat other people's grass !
So for a hanging case they made it pass ;
Nothing but death could for the deed atone,
       Which to the ass was quickly shown.
According as you're feeble, or have might,
High courts condemn you to be black or white.

011216_The Responsibility of Intellectuals, by Noam Chomsky, The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967 -- (https://chomsky.info/19670223/)

141116_2016 Election Thank You Notes; from Ethan Coen in the NYT.

2016 Election Thank You Notes

Loose Ends

By ETHAN COEN NOV. 11, 2016

Such a surprise! So many people to thank!

1. Jill Stein voters: You helped elect a man who pledges that he will, in his first hundred days, cancel contributions to United Nations programs to fight climate change. If your vote for Ms. Stein did not end up advancing your green agenda, it did allow you to feel morally superior to all the compromising schmoes who voted for Hillary Clinton. And your feelings about your vote are more important than the consequences of your vote. So — thank you!

2. Gary Johnson voters: Thank you, for similar reasons. You, too, may now reward yourselves with feelings of warm self-approval, and your libertarian agenda will now be advanced (or not) by someone who admires the governance of Vladimir Putin. And to Mr. Johnson himself: Not only can no one blame you for this outcome — we’re all free agents, man! — but you can stop looking for Aleppo.

3. James Comey: Your publicity coup may have affected the outcome of the election. Or it may not have. But it will certainly breed speculation that it did. Such discussion will in some way serve the reputation of the F.B.I. Or not. You had to bravely contravene bureau protocols to make your contribution, so to you we owe a special thanks!

4. Anthony Weiner: You also found a surprising way to contribute! Thank you, sir — your act never gets old!

5. Jimmy Fallon: How did you manage to shine a nonthreatening light on someone who alarms so many women, frightens so many undocumented families and slurs so many minorities? Can’t have been easy! Thanks! Maybe now you could have the Grand Wizard on your show: He leans his head to you, you slip his hood off and ruffle his hair. Could be a cute bit!

6. All our media friends. Thank you for preserving reportorial balance. You balanced Donald Trump’s proposal that the military execute the innocent families of terrorists, against Hillary’s emails. You balanced pot-stirring racist lies about President Obama’s birth, against Hillary’s emails. You balanced a religious test at our borders, torture by our military, jokes about assassination, unfounded claims of a rigged election, boasts about groping and paradoxical threats to sue anyone who confirmed the boasts, against Hillary’s emails. You balanced endorsement of nuclear proliferation, against Hillary’s emails. You balanced tirelessly, indefatigably; you balanced, you balanced, and then you balanced some more. And for that — we thank you. And thank you all for following Les Moonves’s principled lead when he said Donald Trump “may not be good for America, but he’s damn good for CBS.”

7. The Electoral College. Thank you, for being you.

I cannot thank: Hillary Clinton. She is not a morally perfect person — her fault! She was not the perfect candidate — her fault! Misogyny may have magnified her failings so as to show them balancing the outsized failings of her opponent — and that might not be her fault. But she fought to the very limits of her ability to deny us Tuesday night’s surprise, so I do not thank her. Pooh on you, Hillary Clinton!

I do thank, lastly:

8. The American electorate. Because in the end, we all did it together. We did it! We really did it!

101116_Michel Onfray's analysis of the U.S. elections... and what the French might learn from America's Trumpism. From Le Point, 09//11/16

Le Point.fr : Quelle est votre analyse de l'élection de Donald Trump ?
Michel Onfray : Elle montre que Marx avait tort de croire que le capitalisme travaille à sa fin et que la révolution s'avère dialectiquement inéluctable ! Le capitalisme est plastique et change en fonction de l'histoire. Il s'avère increvable. Trump en est la forme contemporaine : cet homme, qui est un pur produit de la télé-réalité et de l'argent, ignore la morale et manifeste un franc cynisme en tout. Il est la figure grossière de nos petits marquis poudrés et policés de la politique. Son premier discours après qu'il a gagné les élections a été indigent, vide, creux, insipide, comme lui : des remerciements comme à la cérémonie des Césars – à mon père, à mes parents, à ma femme, à mes filles, à mon frère mort qui me voit de là-haut, etc. Rien qui ait à voir avec la grande histoire, tout qui ait à voir avec la petite, la toute petite histoire de sa petite personne. Trump est le nom du capitalisme nu. En ce sens, les médias, les élites, les sondeurs, les penseurs comme il faut le haïssent parce qu'il montre la vérité du capitalisme cynique pour lequel l'argent est le fin mot de l'histoire. Ceux qui haïssent Trump lui reprochent de montrer ce qu'est le capitalisme sans fard et de leur gâcher le travail pendant qu'eux avancent masqués. Trump est la poupée gonflable du capital.

Qu'est-ce que son élection nous dit de l'état de nos démocraties ?
Qu'elles n'ont de démocratie que le nom : le battage médiatique éhonté pour nous le présenter comme le Diable, les sondeurs qui le donnaient perdant, les économistes qui le montraient comme une catastrophe, les politologues qui le méprisaient ouvertement ont été désavoués par le peuple de l'Amérique profonde qui a dit à la nomenklatura, sinon à la mafia, dont elle ne veut plus. La désillusion viendra pourtant ! Cette élection est l'occasion de reculer pour mieux sauter. Car la brutalité du capitalisme qui produit des victimes ne sera pas remise en cause par Trump. Au contraire. Le prétendu remède que le peuple se prescrit va s'avérer un véritable poison pour lui. Le président des États-Unis est toujours l'homme de paille des lobbies, du complexe militaro-industriel, des vendeurs d'armes, de Wall Street. Il n'y a aucune raison pour que Trump s'émancipe de ces pouvoirs véritables. En régime capitaliste libéral, c'est l'argent qui fait la loi. Trump ne dérogera pas.

Trump symbolise-t-il le triomphe des passions en politique ?
Les passions sont partout ! Trump n'en a pas le monopole. Il n'y avait pas d'un côté les passions avec Trump, de l'autre la raison avec Clinton. On ne gagne pas des élections avec la raison et l'intelligence, des raisonnements et de l'analyse, mais en mobilisant les passions : la haine, le ressentiment, la vengeance, le mépris, l'agressivité, la parade, la vanité, l'arrogance, l'orgueil font la loi. Je vous renvoie à l'actuel spectacle pitoyable des primaires de la droite et du centre… L'éthologie est la discipline avec laquelle il convient de décoder le jeu politique. On apprend plus en la matière en regardant la chaîne Animaux que la chaîne Histoire !

Existe-t-il un trumpisme français ?
Oui. Mais il n'est pas chez tel ou tel plus que chez tel autre. Car il est partout distillé en plus ou moins grande quantité dans le personnel politique français.

L'élection américaine peut-elle rebattre la présidentielle française ?
Non, je ne crois pas. La présidentielle française nous invite à changer le ruban du paquet cadeau, mais pas son contenu : le prochain président de la République française sera un libéral. Libéral de droite, libéral du centre, libéral de gauche, libéral d'ailleurs, mais libéral. Il restera dans le cadre de l'Europe libérale pour laquelle le marché doit faire la loi. Après avoir parlé de la France avec des trémolos dans la voix pendant la campagne, le président nouvellement élu ira prendre ses ordres à Bruxelles. Et la France sera dans la rue dans les mois qui suivront…
Propos recueillis par Sébastien Le Fol

120916_This Vortrag was presented by UCR graduate Roland Bolt, and is found on his blog @ http://roland9000.com/?p=432. Congratulations! And, nicely done!

Warum kann die Mathematik zur Lösung von Kants Problem der transzendentalen Synthesis nichts beitragen?

Vortrag gehalten auf dem studententischen Kant-Kongress der Humboldt Universität, 10-11.3.2016

Für Kant gibt es genau zwei Wissenschaften, deren Anliegen es ist, synthetische Erkenntnisse a priori hervorzubringen. Diese sind 1) die Mathematik und 2) die von ihm vorgetragene Metaphysik, welche den Namen „transzendentaler Idealismus“ trägt. Die Rollenverteilung zwischen diesen beiden Wissenschaften bestimmt Kant sehr sorgfältig. Jede hat ihre eigenen Fragen und Methoden. Kant nennt die Methode der Mathematik „intuitiver Vernunftgebrauch“ und die der Metaphysik „diskursiver Vernunftgebrauch“. Ganz wichtig ist außerdem, dass die Mathematik laut Kant bestimmte Begriffe und Verfahren voraussetzt, welche sie mit ihren Mitteln selbst nicht erläutern kann. Die Frage „Wie ist reine Mathematik möglich?“ zu beantworten, kommt also der Philosophie zu. Die Metaphysik ist der Mathematik in der Hinsicht übergeordnet, weil sie sich mit noch „tieferliegenden“ epistemologischen Fragestellungen beschäftigt, als die Mathematik.

Wenn dem in der Tat so ist, leuchtet ein, warum zur Lösung der spezifisch metaphysischen Probleme aus der KrV die Mathematik nicht zur Hülfe gerufen werden kann. Denn, wie Kant die Mathematik verstanden haben möchte, hat diese selbst vielmehr den noch zu erforschenden Gebrauch der reinen Vernunft immer schon zur Voraussetzung.

Das Ziel meines Vortrags ist folgendes. Ich möchte so genau wie möglich die folgende Frage beantworten: Was versteht Kant unter Mathematik, und warum kann sie nach diesem Verständnis zur Lösung der Probleme der transzendentalen Analytik nichts beitragen? Unter Beitragen verstehe das aktive Formulieren einer theoretischen Lösung. Ich beantworte diese Frage jetzt in 6 Punkten.

Mathematik ist eine Wissenschaft, welche es schafft, synthetische Erkenntnisse a priori zu erlangen. Darum ist sie für die Metaphysik, welche den Schritt zur Wissenschaftlichkeit vor Kant noch nicht geschafft hatte, ein Paradigma, an dem letztere sich abarbeiten muss. Metaphysik muss den Schritt zur Strenge, zur Apodiktizität, den die Mathematik schon getan hat, für sich vollziehen.
Mathematische Erkenntnisse sind synthetisch a priori, weil mathematische Begriffe in der Einbildungskraft konstruierbar sind. Eine Mathematikerin denkt nicht bloß über Begriffe (wie gleichschenkliges Dreieck) nach. Auch zeichnet und misst sie diese nicht bloß. Wesentlich ist, dass sie Begriffe in der reinen Anschauung konstruiert. „Einen Begriff aber konstruieren, heißt: die ihm korrespondierende Anschauung a priori darstellen. Zur Konstruktion eines Begriffs wird also eine nicht empirische Anschauung erfordert, die folglich, als Anschauung, ein einzelnes Objekt ist, aber nichts destoweniger, als Konstruktion eines Begriffs […], Allgemeingültigkeit für alle mögliche Anschauungen, die unter denselben Begriff gehören, in der Vorstellung ausdrücken muss.“ (B 741) In den Prolegomena nennt er diese Anschauung auch „in concreto und dennoch a priori“ (Par. 7)
1. Mathematische Begriffe sind a priori konstruierbar, weil wir über die reinen und daher leeren Anschauungsformen von Raum und Zeit verfügen. Wir konstruieren reine mathematische Gegenstände wie Linien und Dreiecke in der Anschauungsform des Raumes, und Zahlen in der Anschauungsform der Zeit.
2. Reine mathematische Erkenntnisse sind auf empirische Gegenstände anwendbar, weil mathematische Erkenntnisse für Gegenstände überhaupt gelten. Mathematische Erkenntnisse werden durch Konstruktion von Begriffen in einer reinen Anschauung gewonnen. Reine Anschauung ist aber die Form aller möglicher Gegenstände. Darum sind mathematische Erkenntnisse auf raumzeitliche Gegenstände überhaupt anwendbar.
3. Mathematische Erkenntnisse sind synthetisch, und dies ist möglich mittels Konstruktion ihrer Begriffe in der Einbildungskraft. Dies leuchtet an Hand von einfachen Beispielen ein. (7 + 5 = 12 und das gleichschenklige Dreieck.)
Bemerkung: Mathematik geht insofern über die aristotelische Logik hinaus, als sie die Methode der Konstruktion von Begriffen in reinen Anschauungen einsetzt. Sie ist Verstandesgebrauch plus reine Konstruktion von Objekten, welche extensive Größen sind.
Mathematik hat den Sprung vom Herumtappen im Dunkeln zur Wissenschaftlichkeit mittels der Einsicht in diese Methode geschafft. Kant nennt dies eine Revolution der Denkart. Seine Vorstellung von dieser Revolution scheint folgende zu sein: vor ihr hat man ohne klare Methode hin und her probiert, gemessen, und ab und zu mal etwas mehr oder weniger klar eingesehen. Als die Griechen dann die Methode der Konstruktion in Anschauungen a priori fanden, verwandelte die Mathematik sich sehr schnell in eine sich ewig erweiternde Wissenschaft.
1. Die Metaphysik soll diesen Sprung in die Wissenschaftlichkeit irgendwie nachahmen. Der wesentliche Zug daran ist folgender: Anstatt anzunehmen, dass Erkenntnis sich nach den Gegenständen richtet, wird Kant versuchen, mit der Annahme anzusetzen, dass die Gegenstände sich nach unserer Erkenntnis richten. Insofern Kant diese Zentrierung des Erkenntnissubjekts als eine Nachahmung des Anfangs der Mathematik versteht, ist also klar wie er den Anfang der Mathematik sieht:
2. Kant interpretiert den Anfang (oder die Erfindung) der Mathematik als die Entdeckung der Macht eines Vermögens a priori, welches dem menschlichen Subjekt zukommt. Insofern es laut Kant um ein Denkvermögen geht, wird es also die Aufgabe seiner Erkenntnistheorie sein, zu klären, wie reine Mathematik möglich ist. Aus Kants einführender Beschreibung der Mathematik wird klar, dass Kant selbst das Subjekt in der Mathematik gefunden zu haben glaubt. Es ist also nicht nur der Fall, dass die Metaphysik den Sprung der Mathematik nachahmen muss, sondern man merkt zugleich, dass Kant den Anfang der Mathematik auch schon aus Sicht seiner Metaphysik deutet.
Zwischenbemerkung: Kants Verständnis von Mathematik ist stark an der Euklidischen Geometrie orientiert. Denn diese mathematische Praxis bedient sich eines konstruktiven Beweisverfahrens und bleibt jederzeit kompatibel mit unserem intuitiven Verständnis von Raum und Zeit. Kritik an Kants Theorie der Mathematik setzt normalerweise hier an, da sie auf neue Paradigmen in der Mathematik hinweisen kann, welche weder konstruktiv noch intuitiv zu sein scheinen. Ich möchte hier darauf nicht eingehen.
Die Mathematik hat mehrere Bedingungen, welche nur transzendentalphilosophisch befriedigend erörtert werden können. Dieser Punkt führt uns zur Beantwortung des zweiten Teils meiner Frage: warum kann laut Kant Mathematik, obwohl sie eine apriorische Wissenschaft ist, zur Klärung der Probleme der transzendentalen Analytik nichts beitragen? Die Antwort muss darin liegen, dass die Mathematik selbst Voraussetzungen hat, welche erst in einer transzendentalphilosophischen Untersuchung geklärt werden können. Ich gebe jetzt die Voraussetzungen der reinen Mathematik an, wie ich sie bei Kant vorfinde.
1. Reine Mathematik ist nur a priori, insofern wir berechtigt sind, die reinen Anschauungsformen Raum und Zeit a priori anzuwenden. Wie gesagt sind letztere zentral für die Konstruktion mathematischer Begriffe wie Dreieck, Zahl, usw. Die Begründung dafür, dass sie in der Tat a priori anwendbar sind, gibt die Transzendentalphilosophie in der Ästhetik. Diese Begründung ist nicht mathematisch, sondern transzendentalphilosophisch, da sie sich mit Anschauungen, Sinnlichkeit, Begriffen, Erscheinungen, usw. befassen muss, also mit Begriffen, die in der Mathematik nicht vorkommen. Die Philosophie erklärt somit, warum das Medium des mathematischen Beweisverfahrens a priori ist.
2. Reine Mathematik ist nur a priori, insofern wir berechtigt sind, die mathematischen Kategorien und Urteilsformen objektiv anzuwenden. Denn: letztere kommen in ihr ständig zur Anwendung. (Beispiel: Alle gleichschenklige Dreiecke haben zwei gleichgroße Winkel.) Auch hier gibt die Mathematik selbst keine Auskunft über den Gebrauch dieser Kategorien, sondern es ist die Philosophie welche diese im Rahmen einer erkenntnistheoretischen Untersuchung erörtert. Urteile werden dort z.B. als einheitliche Handlungen des Verstandes hinterfragt. Insofern Urteile also unter Bezugnahme auf den Verstand behandelt werden, fallen sie außerhalb der Mathematik und in den Bereich der Transzendentalphilosophie.
3. Reine Mathematik ist nur a priori, insofern wir berechtigt sind, dort, in der Mathematik, einen Objektbegriff anzuwenden. Denn: Mathematik konstruiert ihre Begriffe als Objekte der Anschauung a priori. (Zitat Seite 270) Ich denke nicht nur an den Begriff eines Dreiecks, sondern ich konstruiere dieses als Objekt in der Anschauung a priori. Die zentralen mathematischen Begriffe sind für Kant alle als Objekte der Anschauung a priori konstruierbar. Der Mathematiker setzt also einen vertrauten Umgang mit Objekten voraus, da die anfängliche Handlung des mathematischen Beweisverfahrens die Konstruktion eines Objektes ist. Die Frage, wie das Mannigfaltige der Anschauung des Dreiecks in einem Objekt vereinigt wird, ist also der Transzendentalphilosophie anheimgestellt (vgl. Seite 140).
4. Reine Mathematik ist nur a priori, insofern sie berechtigt ist, mit jeglichen Formen der transzendentalen Synthesis zu hantieren. Wir wissen, dass für Kant die sogenannte „ursprünglich-synthetische Einheit der Apperzeption“ der Anker ist der die Berechtigung der objektiven Anwendung der Kategorien und der Anschauungsformen auf Gegenstände möglicher Erfahrung sichert. Diesen komplizierten Zusammenhang zu plausibilisieren oder herzuleiten war die Aufgabe der transzendentalen Deduktion. Wir wissen auch, dass Kant den Grund für diese ursprüngliche Synthesis, oder diese transzendentale Affinität, in das (Selbst)Bewusstsein, also in das Subjekt, legt. Warum finden wir in allem Vorstellen, Wahrnehmen, Anschauen, Denken schon eine implizite Affinität des Inhalts, ganz abgesehen davon, ob wir ihn explizit verbinden? Wie Kant betont, ist diese Affinität, dieser reine Immanenzplan der Gedanken, vielmehr Vorbedingung für explizite Verbindung im Sinne der Kategorien. Kants Antwort auf dieses Rätsel lautet: Das transzendentale Subjekt IST die aktive und zuverlässige Tätigkeit dieser Verbindung.
  Wenn das der Fall ist, wird auch die Mathematik die Formen der Synthesis anwenden, ohne diese selbst erläutern zu können. Ich versuche jetzt nur noch, die wichtigsten Formen der Synthesis darzustellen, welche die Mathematik laut Kant braucht.
  1. Die mathematische Praxis setzt voraus, dass wir berechtigt sind, in Urteilen über mathematische Objekte verschiedene Begriffe objektiv zu vereinigen. Wenn ich z.B. urteile, dass ein Dreieck gleichseitig ist, spreche ich dem von mir konstruierten Dreiecksobjekt dieses Prädikat der Gleichseitigkeit objektiv zu. Zu klären, warum ich berechtigt bin, diese zwei Begriffe (Dreieck und gleichseitig) zu vereinigen in einem Objekt, ist Aufgabe der Transzendentalphilosophie; die Mathematik hat dazu nichts beizutragen.
  2. Die mathematische Konstruktion von Begriffen als Objekten der reinen Anschauung setzt jederzeit die Synthesis der Einbildungskraft voraus. Diese heißt in der B-Deduktion auch die „figürliche Synthesis“. Zitat aus der A-Deduktion: „wenn ich eine Linie in Gedanken ziehe, […] [muss] ich erstlich notwendig eine dieser mannigfaltigen Vorstellungen nach der anderen in Gedanken fassen […]. Würde ich aber die vorhergehende […] immer aus den Gedanken verlieren, und sie nicht reproduzieren, indem ich zu den folgenden fortgehe, so würde niemals eine ganze Vorstellung […] entspringen können.“ (A 102) Das wir für Konstruktion Synthesis brauchen, liegt daran, dass wir verschiedene Teile eines Objekts nacheinander in der Zeit konstruieren. Kant nennt dies auch „Bewegung als Handlung des Subjekts“. Dies gilt für alle konstruierbare Grundbegriffe der Mathematik, wie Zahlen, Einheiten, Linien und Figuren. Diese Synthesis liegt den Umgang mit mathematischen Objekten zu Grunde.
  3. Raum und Zeit als leere Anschauungen a priori, worin geometrische Objekte konstruiert werden können, setzen selbst die reine Synthesis der Apprehension voraus. Raum und Zeit sind nicht nur Anschauungsformen, sondern auch Anschauungen selbst. Wir können den reinen Raum oder die reine Zeit anschauen. In ihnen wird demnach ein Mannigfaltiges vorgestellt, auch wenn dies eine Leere sein mag. Insofern die Anschauungen von Raum und Zeit beinhalten, dass es nur einen Raum, und nur eine Zeit gibt, entdecken wir in beiden reinen oder leeren Anschauung schon wieder eine Synthesis der Apprehension. Insofern aber jeder mathematische Beweis im leeren Raum oder in der leeren Zeit konstruiert wird, setzt die Mathematik dadurch von Anfang an die Synthesis der Apprehension voraus.

Somit bin ich in der Lage, die Antwort auf meine am Anfang gestellte Frage zu geben. Die Mathematik als einzige andere Wissenschaft a priori kann nichts an der Lösung der Fragen der transzendentalen Analytik beitragen, weil sie, nach Kants Interpretation, alle zentrale Ergebnisse der Analytik in ihrem Verfahren bereits voraussetzt. Insbesondere baut ihr charakteristisches Verfahren der Konstruktion von Begriffen in reinen Anschauungsformen auf die transzendentale Synthesis der Apperzeption auf. Um die Voraussetzungen der mathematischen Praxis zu untersuchen, bedarf es einer Methode, welche Begriffe untersucht die nicht konstruierbar sind. Dies ist die Methode, welche die Transzendentalphilosophie eigenständig für sich entwickeln muss.

010416_Eric Emmanuel Schmitt on Hebdo cover

Eric Emmanuel Schmitt added 2 new photos.

23 hrs ·

LA RÉPONSE DU BERGER À LA BERGÈRE

La couverture de Charlie Hebdo pour évoquer les attentats de Bruxelles ne m’a pas fait rire – ce qui n’est pas grave – mais elle peut faire pleurer certains – et là, c’est grave. Elle montre le jeune chanteur belge – et génial- Stromae disant « Papa où t’es ? », le titre d’une de ses chansons, avec des morceaux épars de son père répondant « ici ». Lorsqu’on sait que le père de Stromae a été massacré et découpé au Rwanda, on se sent mal, et on a mal pour lui et sa famille. Les humoristes de Charlie Hebdo le savaient-ils ?
On peut rire de tout, certes, mais il faut que ce soit drôle. On doit rire de ce qui nous fait pleurer – c’est même la fonction de l’humour – mais on ne doit pas faire pleurer en prétendant faire rire. Rien ne remet en question la liberté d’expression, et je serai toujours prêt à me battre pour elle. Je regrette seulement parfois qu’elle soit utilisée comme liberté de blesser. C’est un bien précieux de pouvoir dire n’importe quoi. Sauf que ça n’exclut pas de passer le «n‘importe quoi » au filtre de la compassion ou de la morale. Un dessin belge, que je vous mets dessous, répond avec élégance à la bourde de Charlie.

250216_From former UCR student turned international jet-setter_Willem van den Berg in The Brussels Times.

http://www.brusselstimes.com/opinion/4937/a-glass-half-full-europe-s-2015-in-perspective

221115_A letter from Judith Butler... from Paris (posted 16 November, by Sarah Shin)

"Mourning becomes the law"—Judith Butler from Paris

Letter from Judith Butler, Paris, Saturday 14th November

I am in Paris and passed near the scene of killing on Boulevard Beaumarchais on Friday evening. I had dinner ten minutes from another target. Everyone I know is safe, but many people I do not know are dead or traumatized or in mourning. It is shocking and terrible. Today the streets were populated in the afternoon, but empty in the evening. The morning was completely still.

It seems clear from the immediate discussions after the events on public television that the "state of emergency", however temporary, does set a tone for an enhanced security state. The questions debated on television include the militarization of the police (how to "complete" the process),, the space of liberty, and how to fight "Islam" - an amorphous entity. Hollande tried to look manly when he declared this a war, but one was drawn to the imitative aspect of the performance so could not take the discourse seriously.

And yet, buffoon that he is, he is acting as the head of the army now. The state/army distinction dissolves in the light of the state of emergency. People want to see the police, and want a militarized police to protect them. A dangerous, if understandable, desire. The beneficient aspects of the special powers accorded the sovereign under the state of emergency included giving everyone free taxi rides home last night, and opening the hospitals to everyone affected, also draws them in. There is no curfew, but public services are curtailed, and no demonstrations are allowed. Even the "rassemblements" (gatherings) to grieve the dead were technically illegal. I went to one at the Place de la Republique and the police would announce that everyone must disperse, and few people obeyed. That was for me a brief moment of hopefulness.

Those commentators that seek to distinguish among sorts of Muslim communities and political views are considered to be guilty of pursuing "nuances." Apparently,the enemy has to be comprehensive and singular to be vanquished, and the difference between muslim and jihadist and ISIL becomes more difficult to discern in public discourse. The pundits were sure who the enemy was before ISIL took responsiblity for the attacks.

It was interesting to me that Hollande announced three days of mourning as he tightened security controls - another way to read the title of Gillian Rose's book, "mourning becomes the law." Are we grieving or are we submitting to increasingly militarized state power and suspended democracy? How does the latter work more easily when it is sold as the former? The public days of mourning are to be three, but the state of emergency can last up to twelve days before the national assembly has to approve it.

But also, the state explains it must now restrict liberties in order to defend liberty - that seems to be a paradox that does not bother the pundits on television. Yes, the attacks were quite clearly aimed at iconic scenes of daily freedom in France: the cafe, the rock concert venue, the football stadium. In the rock concert hall, there was apparently a diatribe by one of the attackers committing the 89 brutal assasinations, blaming France for failing to intervene in Syria (against Assad's regime), and blaming the west for its intervention in Iraq (against the Baathist regime). So, not a position, if we can call it that, against western intervention per se.

There is also a politics of names: ISIS, ISIL, Daesh. France will not say "etat islamique" since that would be to recognize the state. They also want to keep "Daesh" as a term, so it is an Arabic word that does not enter into French. In the meantime, that organization took responsibility for the killings, claiming that they were retribution for all the aerial bombing that has killed muslims on the soil of the Caliphate. The choice of the rock concert as a target - a sight for assasinations, actually - was explained: it hosted "idolatry" and "a festival of perversion." I wonder how they come upon the term "perversion." Sounds like they were reading outside of their field.

The presidential candidates have chimed in: Sarkozy is now proposing detention camps, explaining that it is necessary to be arresting those who are suspected of having ties to jihadists. And Le Pen is arguing for "expulsion", having only recently called new migrants "bacteria." That one of the killers of Syrian origin clearly entered France through Greece may well become a reason for France to consolidate its nationalist war against migrants.

My wager is that the discourse on liberty will be important to track in the coming days and weeks, and that it will have implications for the security state and the narrowing versions of democracy before us. One version of liberty is attacked by the enemy, another version is restricted by the state. The state defends the version of liberty attacked as the very heart of France, and yet suspends freedom of assembly ("the right to demonstrate") in the midst of its mourning and prepares for an even more thorough militarization of the police. The political question seems to be, what version of the right-wing will prevail in the coming elections? And what now becomes a permissable right-wing once le Pen becomes the "center". Horrific, sad, and foreboding times, but hopefully we can still think and speak and act in the midst of it.

Mourning seems fully restricted within the national frame. The nearly 50 dead in Beirut from the day before are barely mentioned, and neither are the 111 in Palestine killed in the last weeks alone, or the scores in Ankara. Most people I know describe themseves as "at an impasse", not able to think the situation through. One way to think about it may be to come up with a concept of transversal grief, to consider how the metrics of grievability work, why the cafe as target pulls at my heart in ways that other targets cannot. It seems that fear and rage may well turn into a fierce embrace of a police state. I suppose this is why I prefer those who find themselves at an impasse. That means that this will take some time to think through. It is difficult to think when one is appalled. It requires time, and those who are willing to take it with you - something that has a chance of happening in an unauthorized "rassemblement."

Judith

201115_Also from Eric Emmanuel Schmitt: "Paris triomphera, mais à une condition : c’est que vous, moi, nous tous qui sommes ici, nous ne serons qu’une seule âme ; c’est que nous ne serons qu’un seul soldat et un seul citoyen, un seul citoyen pour aimer Paris, un seul soldat pour le défendre." -- (Actes et paroles - Victor Hugo, 1870)

151115_From the Mayor of Paris:

101115_In memoriam: "Mort du philosophe André Glucksmann à l'âge de 78 ans"

181015_It is an unqualified good, and a pleasure, when (former) students find their own voice in the world....http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/oct/11/weekly-good-to-meet-you-dan-hamilton?CMP=share_btn_fb

050515_A timely word:

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

020515_Kennedy, on truth, lies, and myths: "For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

Yale University Commencement (June 11, 1962)

John F. Kennedy

Transcript

President Griswold, members of the faculty, graduates and their families, ladies and gentlemen:
Let me begin by expressing my appreciation for the very deep honor that you have conferred upon me. As General de Gaulle occasionally acknowledges America to be the daughter of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree.
I am particularly glad to become a Yale man because as I think about my troubles, I find that a lot of them have come from other Yale men. Among businessmen, I have had a minor disagreement with Roger Blough, of the law school class of 1931, and I have had some complaints, too, from my friend Henry ford, of the class of 1940. In journalism I seem to have a difference with John Hay Whitney, of the class of 1926 and sometimes I also displease Henry Luce of the class of 1920, not to mention also William F. Buckley, Jr., of the class of 1950. I even have some trouble with my Yale advisers. I get along with them, but I am not always sure how they get along with each other.
I have the warmest feelings for Chester Bowles of the class of 1924, and for Dean Acheson of the class of 1915, and my assistant, McGeorge Bundy, of the class of 1940. But I am not 100 percent sure that these three wise and experienced Yale men wholly agree with each other on every issue.
So this administration which aims at peaceful cooperation among all Americans has been the victim of a certain natural pugnacity developed in this city among Yale men. Now that I, too, am a Yale man, it is time for peace. Last week at West Point, in the historic tradition of that Academy, I availed myself of the powers of Commander in Chief to remit all sentences of offending cadets. In that same spirit, and in the historic tradition of Yale, let me now offer to smoke the clay pipe of friendship with all of my brother Ells, and I hope that they may be friends not only with me but even with each other.
In any event, I am very glad to be here and as a new member of the club, I have been checking to see what earlier links existed between the institution of the Presidency and Yale. I found that a member of the class of 1878, William Howard Taft, served one term in the White House as preparation for becoming a member of this faculty. And a graduate of 1804, John C. Calhoun, regarded the Vice Presidency, quite naturally, as too lowly a status for a Yale alumnus and became the only man in history to ever resign that office.
Calhoun in 1804 and Taft in 1878 graduated into a world very different from ours today. They and their contemporaries spent entire careers stretching over 40 years in grappling with a few dramatic issues on which the Nation was sharply and emotionally divided, issues that occupied the attention of a generation at a time: the national bank, the disposal of the public lands, nullification or union, freedom or slavery, gold or silver. Today these old sweeping issues very largely have disappeared. The central domestic issues of our time are more subtle and less simple. They relate not to basic clashes of philosophy or ideology but to ways and means of reaching common goals to research for sophisticated solutions to complex and obstinate issues. The world of Calhoun, the world of Taft had its own hard problems and notable challenges. But its problems are not our problems. Their age is not our age. As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality.
For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
Mythology distracts us everywhere—in government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs. But today I want to particularly consider the myth and reality in our national economy. In recent months many have come to feel, as I do, that the dialog between the parties—between business and government, between the government and the public—is clogged by illusion and platitude and fails to reflect the true realities of contemporary American society.
I speak of these matters here at Yale because of the self-evident truth that a great university is always enlisted against the spread of illusion and on the side of reality. No one has said it more clearly than your President Griswold: "Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones." Your role as university men, whatever your calling, will be to increase each new generation's grasp of its duties.
There are three great areas of our domestic affairs in which, today, there is a danger that illusion may prevent effective action. They are, first, the question of the size and the shape of government's responsibilities; second, the question of public fiscal policy; and third, the matter of confidence, business confidence or public confidence, or simply confidence in America. I want to talk about all three, and I want to talk about them carefully and dispassionately—and I emphasize that I am concerned here not with political debate but with finding ways to separate false problems from real ones.
If a contest in angry argument were forced upon it, no administration could shrink from response, and history does not suggest that American Presidents are totally without resources in an engagement forced upon them because of hostility in one sector of society. But in the wider national interest, we need not partisan wrangling but common concentration on common problems. I come here to this distinguished university to ask you to join in this great task.
Let us take first the question of the size and shape of government. The myth here is that government is big, and bad—and steadily getting bigger and worse. Obviously this myth has some excuse for existence. It is true that in recent history each new administration has spent much more money than its predecessor. Thus President Roosevelt outspent President Hoover, and with allowances for the special case of the Second World War, President Truman outspent President Roosevelt. Just to prove that this was not a partisan matter, President Eisenhower then outspent President Truman by the handsome figure of $182 billion. It is even possible, some think, that this trend may continue.
But does it follow from this that big government is growing relatively bigger? It does not—for the fact is for the last 15 years, the Federal Government—and also the Federal debt—and also the Federal bureaucracy—have grown less rapidly than the economy as a whole. If we leave defense and space expenditures aside, the Federal Government since the Second World War has expanded less than any other major sector of our national life—less than industry, less than commerce, less than agriculture, less than higher education, and very much less than the noise about big government.
The truth about big government is the truth about any other great activity—it is complex. Certainly it is true that size brings dangers—but it is also true that size can bring benefits. Here at Yale which has contributed so much to our national progress in science and medicine, it may be proper for me to mention one great and little noticed expansion of government which has brought strength to our whole society—the new role of our Federal Government as the major patron of research in science and in medicine. Few people realize that in 1961, in support of all university research in science and medicine, three dollars out of every four came from the Federal Government. I need hardly point out that this has taken place without undue enlargement of Government control—that American scientists remain second to none in their independence and in their individualism.
I am not suggesting that Federal expenditures cannot bring some measure of control. The whole thrust of Federal expenditures in agriculture have been related by purpose and design to control, as a means of dealing with the problems created by our farmers and our growing productivity. Each sector, my point is, of activity must be approached on its own merits and in terms of specific national needs. Generalities in regard to federal expenditures, therefore, can be misleading—each case, science, urban renewal, education, agriculture, natural resources, each case must be determined on its merits if we are to profit from our unrivaled ability to combine the strength of public and private purpose.
Next, let us turn to the problem of our fiscal policy. Here the myths are legion and the truth hard to find. But let me take as a prime example the problem of the Federal budget. We persist in measuring our federal fiscal integrity today by the conventional or administrative budget—with results which would be regarded as absurd in any business firm—in any country of Europe—or in any careful assessment of the reality of our national finances. The administrative budget has sound administrative uses. But for wider purposes it is less helpful. It omits our special trust funds and the effect that they have on our economy; it neglects changes in assets or inventories. It cannot tell a loan from a straight expenditure—and worst of all it cannot distinguish between operating expenditures and long term investments.
This budget, in relation to the great problems of Federal fiscal policy which are basic to our economy in 1962, is not simply irrelevant; it can be actively misleading. And yet there is a mythology that measures all of our national soundness or unsoundness on the single simple basis of this same annual administrative budget. If our Federal budget is to serve not the debate but the country, we must and will find ways of clarifying this area of discourse.
Still in the area of fiscal policy, let me say a word about deficits. The myth persists that Federal deficits create inflation and budget surpluses prevent it. Yet sizeable budget surpluses after the war did not prevent inflation, and persistent deficits for the last several years have not upset our basic price stability. Obviously deficits are sometimes dangerous—and so are surpluses. But honest assessment plainly requires a more sophisticated view than the old and automatic cliche that deficits automatically bring inflation.
There are myths also about our public debt. It is widely supposed that this debt is growing at a dangerously rapid rate. In fact, both the debt per person and the debt as a proportion of our gross national product have declined sharply since the Second World War. In absolute terms the national debt since the end of World War II has increased only 8 percent, while private debt was increasing 305 percent, and the debts of State and local governments—on whom people frequently suggest we should place additional burdens—the debts of State and local governments have increased 378 percent. Moreover, debts, public and private, are neither good nor bad, in and of themselves. Borrowing can lead to over-extension and collapse—but it can also lead to expansion and strength. There is no single, simple slogan in this field that we can trust.
Finally, I come to the problem of confidence. Confidence is a matter of myth and also a matter of truth—and this time let me take the truth of the matter first.
It is true—and of high importance—that the prosperity of this country depends on the assurance that all major elements within it will live up to their responsibilities. If business were to neglect its obligations to the public, if labor were blind to all public responsibility, above all, if government were to abandon its obvious—and statutory—duty of watchful concern for our economic health-if any of these things should happen, then confidence might well be weakened and the danger of stagnation would increase. This is the true issue of confidence.
But there is also the false issue—and its simplest form is the assertion that any and all unfavorable turns of the speculative wheel—however temporary and however plainly speculative in character—are the result of, and I quote, "a lack of confidence in the national administration." This I must tell you, while comforting, is not wholly true. Worse, it obscures the reality—which is also simple. The solid ground of mutual confidence is the necessary partnership of government with all of the sectors of our society in the steady quest for economic progress.
Corporate plans are not based on a political confidence in party leaders but on an economic confidence in the Nation's ability to invest and produce and consume. Business had full confidence in the administrations in power in 1929, 1954, 1958, and 1960—but this was not enough to prevent recession when business lacked full confidence in the economy. What matters is the capacity of the Nation as a whole to deal with its economic problems and its opportunities.
The stereotypes I have been discussing distract our attention and divide our effort. These stereotypes do our Nation a disservice, not just because they are exhausted and irrelevant, but above all because they are misleading—because they stand in the way of the solution of hard and complicated facts. It is not new that past debates should obscure present realities. But the damage of such a false dialogue is greater today than ever before simply because today the safety of all the world—the very future of freedom—depends as never before upon the sensible and clearheaded management of the domestic affairs of the United States.
The real issues of our time are rarely as dramatic as the issues of Calhoun. The differences today are usually matters of degree. And we cannot understand and attack our contemporary problems in 1962 if we are bound by traditional labels and worn-out slogans of an earlier era. But the unfortunate fact of the matter is that our rhetoric has not kept pace with the speed of social and economic change. Our political debates, our public discourse—on current domestic and economic issues—too often bear little or no relation to the actual problems the United States faces.
What is at stake in our economic decisions today is not some grand warfare of rival ideologies which will sweep the country with passion but the practical management of a modern economy. What we need is not labels and cliches but more basic discussion of the sophisticated and technical questions involved in keeping a great economic machinery moving ahead.
The national interest lies in high employment and steady expansion of output, in stable prices, and a strong dollar. The declaration of such an objective is easy; their attainment in an intricate and interdependent economy and world is a little more difficult. To attain them, we require not some automatic response but hard thought. Let me end by suggesting a few of the real questions on our national agenda.
First, how can our budget and tax policies supply adequate revenues and preserve our balance of payments position without slowing up our economic growth?
Two, how are we to set our interest rates and regulate the flow of money in ways which will stimulate the economy at home, without weakening the dollar abroad? Given the spectrum of our domestic and international responsibilities, what should be the mix between fiscal and monetary policy?
Let me give several examples from my experience of the complexity of these matters and how political labels and ideological approaches are irrelevant to the solution.
Last week, a distinguished graduate of this school, Senator Proxmire, of the class of 1938, who is ordinarily regarded as a liberal Democrat, suggested that we should follow in meeting our economic problems a stiff fiscal policy, with emphasis on budget balance and an easy monetary policy with low interest rates in order to keep our economy going. In the same week, the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, a conservative organization representing the central bankers of Europe suggested that the appropriate economic policy in the United States should be the very opposite; that we should follow a flexible budget policy, as in Europe, with deficits when the economy is down and a high monetary policy on interest rates, as in Europe, in order to control inflation and protect goals. Both may be right or wrong. It will depend on many different factors.
The point is that this is basically an administrative or executive problem in which political labels or cliches do not give us a solution.
A well-known business journal this morning, as I journeyed to New Haven, raised the prospects that a further budget deficit would bring inflation and encourage the flow of gold. We have had several budget deficits beginning with a $12 1/2 billion deficit in 1958, and it is true that in the fall of 1960 we had a gold dollar loss running at $5 billion annually. This would seem to prove the case that a deficit produces inflation and that we lose gold, yet there was no inflation following the deficit of 1958 nor has there been inflation since then.
Our wholesale price index since 1958 has remained completely level in spite of several deficits, because the loss of gold has been due to other reasons: price instability, relative interest rates, relative export-import balances, national security expenditures—all the rest.
Let me give you a third and final example. At the World Bank meeting in September, a number of American bankers attending predicted to their European colleagues that because of the fiscal 1962 budget deficit, there would be a strong inflationary pressure on the dollar and a loss of gold. Their predictions of inflation were shared by many in business and helped push the market up. The recent reality of non-inflation helped bring it down. We have had no inflation because we have had other factors in our economy that have contributed to price stability.
I do not suggest that the Government is right and they are wrong. The fact of the matter is in the Federal Reserve Board and in the administration this fall, a similar view was held by many well-informed and disinterested men that inflation was the major problem that we would face in the winter of 1962. But it was not. What I do suggest is that these problems are endlessly complicated and yet they go to the future of this country and its ability to prove to the world what we believe it must prove.
I am suggesting that the problems of fiscal and monetary policies in the sixties as opposed to the kinds of problems we faced in the thirties demand subtle challenges for which technical answers, not political answers, must be provided. These are matters upon which government and business may and in many cases will disagree. They are certainly matters that government and business should be discussing in the most dispassionate, and careful way if we to maintain the kind of vigorous upon which our country depends.
How can we develop and sustain strong and stable world markets for basic commodities without unfairness to the consumer and without undue stimulus to the producer? How can we generate the buying power which can consume what we produce on our farms and in our factories? How can we take advantage of the miracles of automation with the great demand that it will put upon highly skilled labor and yet offer employment to the half million of unskilled school dropouts each year who enter the labor market, eight million of them in the 1960's?
How do we eradicate the barriers which separate substantial minorities of our citizens from access to education and employment on equal terms with the rest?
How, in sum, can we make our free economy work at full capacity—that is, provide adequate profits for enterprise, adequate wages for labor, adequate utilization of plant, and opportunity for all?
These are the problems that we should be talking about—that the political parties and the various groups in our country should be discussing. They cannot be solved by incantations from the forgotten past. But the example of Western Europe shows that they are capable of solution—that governments, and many of them are conservative governments, prepared to face technical problems without ideological preconceptions, can coordinate the elements of a national economy and bring about growth and prosperity—a decade of it.
Some conversations I have heard in our own country sound like old records, long-playing, left over from the middle thirties. The debate of the thirties had its great significance and produced great results, but it took place in a different world with different needs and different tasks. It is our responsibility today to live in our own world, and to identify the needs and discharge the tasks of the 1960's.
If there is any current trend toward meeting present problems with old cliches, this is the moment to stop it—before it lands us all in a bog of sterile acrimony.
Discussion is essential; and I am hopeful that the debate of recent weeks, though up to now somewhat barren, may represent the start of a serious dialog of the kind which has led in Europe to such fruitful collaboration among all the elements of economic society and to a decade of unrivaled economic progress. But let us not engage in the wrong argument at the wrong time between the wrong people in the wrong country—while the real problems of our own time grow and multiply, fertilized by our neglect.
Nearly 150 years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects." New words, new phrases, the transfer of old words to new objects-that is truer today than it was in the time of Jefferson, because the role of this country is so vastly more significant. There is a show in England called "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." You have not chosen to exercise that option. You are part of the world and you must participate in these days of our years in the solution of the problems that pour upon us, requiring the most sophisticated and technical judgment; and as we work in consonance to meet the authentic problems of our times, we will generate a vision and an energy which will demonstrate anew to the world the superior vitality and the strength of the free society.

290415_Question: Can the existentialists teach us anything useful about love? Aeon's pick: "Lots. Like don't fall in love. (Leap instead.)"

240315_A UCR student voice: Ruben Hordijk

Bank voor de Klas: Bankers educating the young

In 2010, queen Maxima announced the project ‘Bank voor de Klas’ as part of the ‘week of money.’ During this week, bankers visit primary schools to ‘educate’ the children about money. The annual project has continued to grow, leading to the participation of approximately 50% of Dutch primary schools in 2015. Their website tells us that the goal of Bank voor de Klas is to acquaint children with financial matters and to teach them how to use money responsibly. Through interactive digital educational videos with an anthropomorphized bank card as guide, through competitive games and quizzes where they can win the latest phone or tablet, through apps where kids can learn to save up money for their desired consumer good (like a videogame), Bank voor de Klas tries to achieve its goal. The little ones are not forgotten either. The youngest children (4-7) are involved through colouring and face paintings of piggy banks and other money-related imagery. Parents are also encouraged to join by playing the free card game with their children and to download the app. The website further states that research has shown that (a) there is a need for financial education and that (b) the children benefit from this program: the percentage of correct answers is substantially higher after a week of education from bankers.

Based on this information we may conclude the following:

- Economic responsibility (something they strive for) is understood as individual consumerism. The message seems to be ‘if you handle your money responsibly, then you can get everything you desire.’

- The emphasis on ‘knowledge’ through quizzes shows that they portray one type of knowledge about money which is presented as the only knowledge about money. Knowledge of the money system does not cover how banks make and invest money, where the money comes from, who benefits and who loses out, the inequality it produces and sustains, the alternative ways of the past, present and future, etc., but about the functioning within the economic system. The financial system of banks, capitalism, and consumerism is fully taken for granted and presented as the only possible way of dealing with money.

- Together with the message ‘money is fun, you can win stuff, play games, and have a piggy bank painted on your cheek’ the education presented here is one of functionality: how to become a functional consumer in the current financial system.

I would be the first to advocate economic education for children. But I am quite shocked about the perverse celebration of the role of bankers in this scenario: Are bankers really the right people to teach us about the money system? Aren’t we forgetting that there are certain interests involved? I find the idea of bankers as the unquestioned good guys responsible for the wealth of our country, repulsive. We seriously need to reconsider how we want to educate our children, whether we want to create subjects that are merely functioning consumers, with a complete disregard for the global inequality and exploitation that sustains this system, or people that can critically assess the financial system, realizing their complicity in the global economic system, without being afraid to think about alternatives. The choice is ours.

As an appropriately sceptical and ironic antidote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgMn2OJmx3w

170315_A French professor of philosophy, Robert Redeker, published in September 2006 an article in The Figaro entitled "Face aux intimidations islamistes, que doit faire le monde libre ?" As a result of this article, in which he argues that the free world should not tolerate "Islamist intimidation," a fatwa was issued against him; and he was forced to leave his teaching position in France and to take his family into a clandestine way of life for their safety.

At a site called The Gauche R é publicaine there is a petition, started in October 2006 and signed by, among others, Michel Onfray, called: "Contre la barbarie, le soutien à Robert Redeker doit être sans réserve."

Phrontisterion today signed that petition as signatory 6146. (Aujourd'hui 17 mars 2015, il y a 6146 signatures électroniques enregistrées depuis le 1 octobre 2006.)

Professor Redeker's voice:

Les réactions suscitées par l'analyse de Benoît XVI sur l'islam et la violence s'inscrivent dans la tentative menée par cet islam d'étouffer ce que l'Occident a de plus précieux qui n'existe dans aucun pays musulman : la liberté de penser et de s'exprimer.

L'islam essaie d'imposer à l'Europe ses règles : ouverture des piscines à certaines heures exclusivement aux femmes, interdiction de caricaturer cette religion, exigence d'un traitement diététique particulier des enfants musulmans dans les cantines, combat pour le port du voile à l'école, accusation d'islamophobie contre les esprits libres.

Comment expliquer l'interdiction du string à Paris-Plages, cet été ? Étrange fut l'argument avancé : risque de «troubles à l'ordre public». Cela signifiait-il que des bandes de jeunes frustrés risquaient de devenir violents à l'affichage de la beauté ? Ou bien craignait-on des manifestations islamistes, via des brigades de la vertu, aux abords de Paris-Plages ?

Pourtant, la non-interdiction du port du voile dans la rue est, du fait de la réprobation que ce soutien à l'oppression contre les femmes suscite, plus propre à «troubler l'ordre public» que le string. Il n'est pas déplacé de penser que cette interdiction traduit une islamisation des esprits en France, une soumission plus ou moins consciente aux diktats de l'islam. Ou, à tout le moins, qu'elle résulte de l'insidieuse pression musulmane sur les esprits. Islamisation des esprits : ceux-là même qui s'élevaient contre l'inauguration d'un Parvis Jean-Paul-II à Paris ne s'opposent pas à la construction de mosquées. L'islam tente d'obliger l'Europe à se plier à sa vision de l'homme.
Comme jadis avec le communisme, l'Occident se retrouve sous surveillance idéologique. L'islam se présente, à l'image du défunt communisme, comme une alternative au monde occidental. À l'instar du communisme d'autrefois, l'islam, pour conquérir les esprits, joue sur une corde sensible. Il se targue d'une légitimité qui trouble la conscience occidentale, attentive à autrui : être la voix des pauvres de la planète. Hier, la voix des pauvres prétendait venir de Moscou, aujourd'hui elle viendrait de La Mecque ! Aujourd'hui à nouveau, des intellectuels incarnent cet oeil du Coran, comme ils incarnaient l'oeil de Moscou hier. Ils excommunient pour islamophobie, comme hier pour anticommunisme.

Dans l'ouverture à autrui, propre à l'Occident, se manifeste une sécularisation du christianisme, dont le fond se résume ainsi : l'autre doit toujours passer avant moi. L'Occidental, héritier du christianisme, est l'être qui met son âme à découvert. Il prend le risque de passer pour faible. À l'identique de feu le communisme, l'islam tient la générosité, l'ouverture d'esprit, la tolérance, la douceur, la liberté de la femme et des moeurs, les valeurs démocratiques, pour des marques de décadence.

Ce sont des faiblesses qu'il veut exploiter au moyen «d'idiots utiles», les bonnes consciences imbues de bons sentiments, afin d'imposer l'ordre coranique au monde occidental lui-même.
Le Coran est un livre d'inouïe violence. Maxime Rodinson énonce, dans l'Encyclopédia Universalis, quelques vérités aussi importantes que taboues en France. D'une part, «Muhammad révéla à Médine des qualités insoupçonnées de dirigeant politique et de chef militaire (...) Il recourut à la guerre privée, institution courante en Arabie (...) Muhammad envoya bientôt des petits groupes de ses partisans attaquer les caravanes mekkoises, punissant ainsi ses incrédules compatriotes et du même coup acquérant un riche butin».

D'autre part, «Muhammad profita de ce succès pour éliminer de Médine, en la faisant massacrer, la dernière tribu juive qui y restait, les Qurayza, qu'il accusait d'un comportement suspect». Enfin, «après la mort de Khadidja, il épousa une veuve, bonne ménagère, Sawda, et aussi la petite Aisha, qui avait à peine une dizaine d'années. Ses penchants érotiques, longtemps contenus, devaient lui faire contracter concurremment une dizaine de mariages».

Exaltation de la violence : chef de guerre impitoyable, pillard, massacreur de juifs et polygame, tel se révèle Mahomet à travers le Coran.

De fait, l'Église catholique n'est pas exempte de reproches. Son histoire est jonchée de pages noires, sur lesquelles elle a fait repentance. L'Inquisition, la chasse aux sorcières, l'exécution des philosophes Bruno et Vanini, ces mal-pensants épicuriens, celle, en plein XVIII^e siècle, du chevalier de La Barre pour impiété, ne plaident pas en sa faveur. Mais ce qui différencie le christianisme de l'islam apparaît : il est toujours possible de retourner les valeurs évangéliques, la douce personne de Jésus contre les dérives de l'Église.

Aucune des fautes de l'Église ne plonge ses racines dans l'Évangile. Jésus est non-violent. Le retour à Jésus est un recours contre les excès de l'institution ecclésiale. Le recours à Mahomet, au contraire, renforce la haine et la violence. Jésus est un maître d'amour, Mahomet un maître de haine.

La lapidation de Satan, chaque année à La Mecque, n'est pas qu'un phénomène superstitieux. Elle ne met pas seulement en scène une foule hystérisée flirtant avec la barbarie. Sa portée est anthropologique. Voilà en effet un rite, auquel chaque musulman est invité à se soumettre, inscrivant la violence comme un devoir sacré au coeur du croyant.

Cette lapidation, s'accompagnant annuellement de la mort par piétinement de quelques fidèles, parfois de plusieurs centaines, est un rituel qui couve la violence archaïque.

Au lieu d'éliminer cette violence archaïque, à l'imitation du judaïsme et du christianisme, en la neutralisant (le judaïsme commence par le refus du sacrifice humain, c'est-à-dire l'entrée dans la civilisation, le christianisme transforme le sacrifice en eucharistie), l'islam lui confectionne un nid, où elle croîtra au chaud. Quand le judaïsme et le christianisme sont des religions dont les rites conjurent la violence, la délégitiment, l'islam est une religion qui, dans son texte sacré même, autant que dans certains de ses rites banals, exalte violence et haine.

Haine et violence habitent le livre dans lequel tout musulman est éduqué, le Coran. Comme aux temps de la guerre froide, violence et intimidation sont les voies utilisées par une idéologie à vocation hégémonique, l'islam, pour poser sa chape de plomb sur le monde. Benoît XVI en souffre la cruelle expérience. Comme en ces temps-là, il faut appeler l'Occident «le monde libre» par rapport à au monde musulman, et comme en ces temps-là les adversaires de ce «monde libre», fonctionnaires zélés de l'oeil du Coran, pullulent en son sein.

Professor Redeker's blogsite: http://www.redeker.fr/

300115_From our UCR colleague in Religious Studies, Ritske Rensma, "Wotan in the Shadows:Analytical Psychology and the Archetypal Roots of War."

Wotan in the Shadows: Analytical Psychology and the Archetypal Roots of War - See more at: http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/wotan-in-the-shadows-analytical-psychology-and-the-archetypal-roots-of-war-by-dr-ritske-rensma/#sthash.kSBbesZw.jE4sx6JD.dpuf

Wotan in the Shadows: Analytical Psychology and the Archetypal Roots of War
by Ritske Rensma - See more at: http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/wotan-in-the-shadows-analytical-psychology-and-the-archetypal-roots-of-war-by-dr-ritske-rensma/#sthash.kSBbesZw.jE4sx6JD.dpuf

220115_From French Philosopher Michel Onfray on the French '9/11' -- "MERCREDI 7 JANVIER 2015 : NOTRE 11 SEPTEMBRE"

170115_There have obviously been many responses to the various circumstances surrounding the birth of 'Je suis Charlie'. The following response, by invitation, is from our UCR colleague, French Professor Dr. Esfaindyar Daneshvar.

La colère des musulmans

Ceux que l’on appelle des terroristes islamistes veulent tuer et tuent au nom de l’islam (du fatwa contre Salman Rushdie en passant par le meurtre de Théo van Gogh aux Pays-Bas). Cette fois, contre les représentations humoristiques du prophète, l’islamisme a de nouveau sorti les armes et fait couler le sang des caricaturistes de Charlie Hebdo.

Dessins humoristiques et caricaturaux expriment l’essence même de la vision critique pacifique des sociétés sécularisées ou laïques. La désacralisation est un phénomène moderne issu de la démocratie, sans précédent dans les pays arabo-musulmans, puisque ces pays n’ont jamais connu de démocratie et la modernité (ne pas confondre avec la modernisation et la technologie !) Connaît-on un seul pays islamique avec un gouvernement séculariste ou laïc (le cas de la Turquie reste problématique et bien discutable, alors que la Tunisie et l’Egypte se battent contre l’islamisme) ? Les gouvernements des pays islamiques font toujours l’amalgame entre la modernité, la démocratie et le colonialisme et l’impérialisme. En Occident même, des intellectuels oublient parfois que la démocratie n’est pas en soi un « système » uniquement destiné à l’Occident (puisqu’il y a bien différentes formes de démocratie : Les Etats-Unis, l’Europe, le Japon et l’Australie par exemple) mais, bien qu’issu de l’Occident, elle est une acquisition humaine universellement appréhendable. On oublie que le pluriculturalisme n’est pas un déterminisme culturel, que la démocratie n’est pas un système fermé mais un combat continu.

Ces caricaturistes étaient avant tout des gardiens de la démocratie contre la démocratie. Pourtant, leurs dessins ne revendiquaient ni un acte politique, ni un engagement militantisme, et encore moins un activisme idéologique. Des sommets de la pure pensée, où le rire et l’intelligence révèlent aux hommes ce qu’il y a de plus humain en eux, ils plaisantaient avec toutes les religions, Jésus et les politiques. Car la liberté de l’expression est l’outil même de la démocratie et du droit. L’esprit libre de Rabelais et de Voltaire caricaturait déjà leur temps, y compris les croyances. Mettre des limites à la liberté de l’expression c’est non seulement s’autocensurer mais aussi amputer la démocratie. C’est donc un contre sens ! La démocratie existe dans le cadre des lois, et aucune loi n’interdit cette liberté tant qu’elle ne nuit pas à la liberté d’autrui. Caricaturer Mahomet ou Jésus ne nuit aucunement à la liberté de l’expression d’autrui, et ne porte pas atteinte à la vie des hommes.

Or, le nœud gordien entre démocratie et croyance a du mal à être tranché. On dit qu’il est interdit et abject de tuer au nom de la religion et apparemment tout le monde serait d’accord là-dessus sauf l’idéologue terroriste. Mais ce n’est pas l’idéologue islamiste qui tue et se fait sauter à la fin, c’est un jeune de la banlieue ! C’est à peine une semaine après les tueries que les musulmans du monde entier se ruent dans les rues crier contre un dessin. Rien d’étonnant car les religions ont toujours eu l’ambition de se substituer à la culture, et cela réussit parfaitement en l’absence de la modernité et la démocratie. L’identité et la pensée s’effacent face aux dogmes et cède à l’idéologie (islamique ou autres).

L’idéologie terroriste est un mouvement, une organisation politique dont les leaders cherchent avant tout le pouvoir. Cela est clair car nous avons vu la montée de l’islamisme en Iran depuis la révolution islamique de 1979. Or, que fait et que doit faire le musulman ? Quelle serait sa position face aux caricatures d’un côté et leur exécution de l’autre ? Difficile à relever, à généraliser bien sûr, mais il est certain que les musulmans qui dénonceraient la tuerie prendraient un grand risque de le réclamer, ou faut-il alors s’autocensurer. C’est pourquoi dit-on que ces musulmans sont bien les premières victimes de l’islamisme, mais cela n’est pas nouveau...

Ne serait-il pas juste et plus humain que de montrer son opposition en débâtant par les médias ? Dialoguer et dénoncer des choses par des mots ou des images et non des armes ? Pour cela il faudrait d’abord pouvoir prendre une distance par rapport à soi, sa « culture », ses émotions aveugles et ses ressentiments. A l’aune de quoi prendre cette distance ? De la raison, de l’individualisme, de la tolérance, de la penser par soi-même ? Mais ce ne sont là que les fruits de la modernité ! Le cercle semble enfin bien vicieux et fermé ; c’est l’histoire de l’œuf et de la poule... Samuel Huntington parlait de l’impossibilité du dialogue entre les cultures, aboutissant à la thèse du « choc des civilisations ». Or aujourd’hui la question de la possibilité du dialogue se pose plus que jamais. Mais avec qui et comment ?

La caricature du Mahomet est traduite comme une offense et un acte politique par les islamistes et ensuite par les musulmans partout dans le monde. Il semble que les germes de l’intolérance islamique ne se trouvent pas seulement dans les injustices et les inégalités sociales des pays pluriculturels occidentaux, mais aussi au cœur même de la vision du monde musulman (récupérée et instrumentalisée par les islamistes). Les manifestations agressives contre le dessin brouillent les frontières et montre l’unité de la pensée de la majorité des musulmans et des islamistes. Il n’y a pour le moment que des voix d’intellectuels musulmans éparpillées ci et là, mais aucune manifestation musulman contre ces assassinats.

S’il y a à postériori une telle colère et ressentiment, on comprend rapidement que les terroristes deviennent des héros et des martyres ! Comment expliquer donc les soulèvements et les ardeurs après que des présidents du monde musulmans ont défilé à côté des Français. Est-ce uniquement l’islamisme qui manipule la communauté musulmane, ou bien le même cordon ombilical les lie entre eux ?

Pourtant, il est certain que la lutte contre l’intégrisme a besoin de la liberté d’expression des musulmans anti-islamistes.

Esfaindyar Daneshvar 17 janv. 15

Phrontisterion

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