As usual, Chomsky is only half-right.
Opportunities shouldn’t be provided. Period!
In fact, nobody should be able to control/provide sizable amounts of opportunity!
On the other hand, making it so that only a small number of people enjoy all the opportunities in the world is, indeed, criminal.
Unsustainable for the longer time frame, actually!
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate
their own understanding of their history.”
George Orwell
I have spent the first 30 years of my life under communist rule.
Under a communist yoke, actually.
I have witnessed Trump being elected President of the United States.
Thrown out by popular vote.
Then I watched Mike Pence being spirited away by the Secret Service. Some of those convinced by Trump’s Big Lie were chasing the Vice President inside the Capitol in an attempt to…
The US Supreme Court reversed Roe vs Wade.
Prigozhin, also known as Putin’s chef – and lately the mastermind behind PMC Wagner – had become so pissed that organized a field trip. Then turned his troops around and went to Belarus.
What’s going on here?!?
The world has become a battle-field.
A political battle-field where ‘right’ and ‘left’ fight for control.
Both sides oblivious to the fact that politics is, or more exactly ‘should be’, about solving people’s problems.
Given my experience – half a life spent under communist yoke – people expect me to root for the right side of the political spectrum. Which I do.
But I’m also fully aware that the left would have had no chance, absolutely no chance at all, if those on the right had been just a tad more considerate.
And here’s the catch.
There’s no such thing as a good left but there are a good right and a bad right.
The bad thing about the left – about the entire left – is the fact they ‘know better’. All of them. The left is choke full of solutions. Whenever somebody says ‘I noticed there’s a problem with… What are your thoughts about this subject?’ somebody from the left will surely grab the opportunity: ‘we’ve already told you that this and that had to be done a long time ago in order to solve this thing before it even happened’!
The bad thing about the right, the militant portion of the modern right, is that they’ve become just like their sworn enemies. They’ve somehow convinced themselves that ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ and that’s what they did. They joined the left in battle. Using the very tools they have borrowed from the left and adopting the very same attitude.
The bad kind of right are also convinced that ‘they know better’. That you have to be a moron in order to be a ‘liberal’. Or, at least, a ‘greenhorn’. “If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain”.
In fact, it’s exactly this infatuation with their own ‘brains’ which is the worst thing about the left. And about the bad right.
I see no difference between Marx’s “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” and Trump’s ‘truthful hyperbole’.
You see, Trump isn’t a self made man, as he pretends to be.
He would have never become what he is today if Tony Schwartz, a liberal, hadn’t ghostwritten the Art of the Deal.
Furthermore, Trump would have never become the 45th President of the United States of America without the support of the ‘activist republicans’. The ones convinced that Roe vs Wade must be reversed. At all costs.
The ones convinced, just like the ‘liberals’ are, that they ‘know better’.
And, by the way, this is a fake.
Something that Orwell would have agreed upon but was never actually written by him.
“As a man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.”
James Allen
Sometime ago – more than 45 years, when food was still plentiful in communist Romania – I heard for the first time that ‘many people dig their graves with their teeth’.
I was too young to understand the deeper meaning of this. That sooner or later each of us will meet the consequences of our previous decisions.
15 years ago I read a book written when I was a toddler. Almost 60 years ago.
The Social Construction of Reality by Berger and Luckmann.
Nowadays, the social media is full of messages stating that the posters actually don’t care about what other people think of them.
What happened to “society is, in fact, habit”?
Have we become self-sufficient enough to live, each of us, on their own?
Really?
Do we really think like this?
Cocky enough to give the finger to everybody else?
Don’t we realize that we’re building a new pattern here? A new habit?
Will our children say that we’ve built the hell they’ll be living in by carelessly talking about it?
After all, the most dangerous enemy is that who worms its way from within.
Conceit cannot be survived!
“Propaganda machines give too much power to symbols;
they tell you the confederate flag is offensive!”
The fact that propaganda machines give too much power to symbols doesn’t mitigate the fact that some people find that flying the confederate flag is intended as an offense.
On the contrary, actually!
I’m convinced Putin still believes he might get away with it.
With whatever he wishes to accomplish…
Why?
Because he is convinced that the only thing which might prevent him from achieving his goal is ‘the West’.
You see, he is adamant that without the ‘western influence’ he would have imposed his will upon Ukraine a very long time ago. After all, he’d already done that in Russia, didn’t he?
And the West seems to be loosing its focus….
A lot of ‘distraction’. Trump is indicted on 37 counts, mainly for mishandling highly sensitive information, while Boris Johnson quits his MP chair claiming he is the victim. ‘I did mislead the Commons but I didn’t do it on purpose’.
According to Putin’s book, there’s no difference between him and these two guys. All three of them have nothing in their mind but their own interest. In this respect, Putin is absolutely right.
What he fails to realize is that Trump being indicted and Johnson being investigated by the Commons are signs of strength. The US and Britain, respectively, seem to have came back to their senses. And started cleaning up their act.
He, Putin, also fails to realize that the Western help might come in handy. For the Ukrainians.
But what keeps them fighting is their will. Their quest for freedom!
The very same thing had happened during WWII.
The West did carry huge amounts of weaponry to the former USSR. Which weapons had helped the Red Army resist – and then defeat – Hitler’s attempt to enlarge the German Lebensraum. But without the ordinary Russians putting up with the war… all western help would have been lost!
Same thing is happening under our own eyes. The arms beefing up Ukraine’s army might come in handy but it’s the Ukrainian determination to lead their own, independent, life which will eventually douse Putin’s ambition.
One final thing.
Nazi Germany had ultimately failed because it was an ‘imperium’. A socio-political arrangement where all decisions were made in a highly centralized manner. Where mistakes accumulated and eventually made it impossible for the arrangement to survive. Because unsolved past mistakes make it impossible for a system to evolve. To solve present day challenges.
Any resemblance to what’s going on in present day Russia is nothing but yet another proof that failing to understand history forces you to repeat the lesson.
For something to become a resource, it has to be identified first. As such…
Coming back to Kissinger, we need first to accept that he is the product of the world before him and one of the factors who continues to shape the current one.
We can learn from him – and coldly assess the present situation in order to avoid past mistakes going forward – or … we can let him win! And follow in his footsteps: Divide et impera, manipulate people into doing things against their own nature, despise everybody who thinks differently than what we consider to be right …
Evoluția nu este despre ‘supraviețuirea celui mai puternic’.
Evoluția este despre supraviețuirea celui capabil să facă față schimbărilor!
Ernst Mayr
Până acum cinci minute, aveam o mare nedumerire!
Știam, din fragedă pruncie, că există două feluri de obiceiuri. De ‘culturi’, în limbaj sociologic/antropologic.
Într-una copii primesc tot ce e mai bun de mâncare, în cealaltă ce rămâne după ce se satură ‘capul familiei’.
OK, știu că unii dintre voi s-au oripilat deja. Și că ceilalți – adică cei care mă cunoașteți în carne și oase – vă întrebați ce m-a apucat!
Cert este că aceste două seturi de obiceiuri există. Încă!
Eu, de exemplu, port numele unui străbunic celebru. Celebru în interiorul familiei mele… nu foarte numeroasă!
Omul ăsta, Sarkis, avea o gospodărie frumoasă. În Rumelia – adică în Turcia, pe malul European al mării Marmara. De unde a trebuit să fugă, la un moment dat. Dar nu despre asta e vorba în propoziție.
Tipul era foarte priceput. Și foarte întreprinzător. Atât de priceput și de întreprinzător încât atunci când a trebuit să fugă din Turcia avut suficiente resurse să ajungă – din prima și fără ajutor – până în România. Pentru un țăran amărât, chestia asta era o adevărată realizare. În 1923….
Omul ăsta se ocupa cu de toate. Avea o grădină în care străbunica creștea o mare parte din legume. Câțiva pomi din care străbunica făcea tot felul de gemuri. Câteva rânduri de vie din care făceau tot felul de dulciuri. Poveste lungă, erau în Turcia. Găini pentru ouă… și cam atât în afară de caii de povară. Era și priceput. Dulgherie și tot ce mai putea face pe lângă casă la începutul secolului. Dacă ar fi avut curent sau apă curentă, probabil că s-ar fi băgat și la astea.
Din ce și-a ținut copiii la școală? Bunicul făcuse câțiva ani de profesională la Istambul… Străbunicul făcea vara cărăușie în port – cu căruța – iar iarna contrabandă cu alcool. Cu aceiași căruță… Bulgaria era aproape iar turcilor le plăcea rachiul bulgăresc.
Și ce legătură are chestia asta cu diferența dintre culturi?
Ei bine, străbunica nu mânca niciodată la masă odată cu el.
Statea în spatele lui și-l servea.
Întâi pe el și, după ce îi umplea lui farfuria, pe copii.
Abia după aceea, după ce toți ceilalți se declaraseră mulțumiți, își punea și ea de mâncare. Avea ce, că străbunicul era suficient de ‘productiv’, dar asta era altă poveste.
Vorbeam despre două culturi.
Tata este armean, maică-mea era româncă. Bucovineancă, mai precis. Pe meleagurile alea, primii se satură copiii. Abia după aceea mănâncă și părinții/bunicii. De, obiceiuri nemțești…
Până acum 10 minute – scriu deja de vreo cinci, credeam că ‘de, fiecare popor/regiune cu obiceiurile lui/ei’.
Brusc, mi-am dat seama că e vorba despre ‘supraviețuire’. Depre supraviețuirea familiei!
Despre situația în care întreaga familie depinde de ‘bărbatul din casă’.
Care trebuie să fie puternic pentru a putea ‘pune pe masă’ pentru ceilalți!
Bineînțeles că pentru noi, cei care trăim acum, chestiile astea par absurde.
Cum adică să mănânci tu, bărbat în toată puterea, înainte ca restul familiei să-și fi potolit foamea?!?
Pentru noi, viitorul este mai important decât prezentul. Copiii devin centrul atenției! Cel puțin declarativ…
Păi da, doar că acum – dacă mori de foame – poți să te duci în prima intersecție și să speli un parbriz. Sau să stai cu mâna-ntinsă!
Pe vremea aia, dacă bărbatul cădea la pat – din varii motive, restul familiei murea, efectiv, de foame. N-avea cine să-i ajute! Nici măcar rudele apropiate, dacă existau, nu puteau să rupă de la gura copiilor lor ca să-i hrănească pe-ai altora. Urzeala socială era atât de ‘rară’ – și productivitatea atât de redusă – încât oamenii efectiv nu-și permiteau să se ajute unii pe alții.
Statistic vorbind și făcând diferența dintre viața unei minoritați defavorizate care trăia într-o țară ‘străină’ și situația/obiceiurile dintr-o zonă destul de bogată – pe vremea aia. Care aparținuse – până nu demult, tot pe vremea aia – direct de imperiul Austriac.
Și să nu uităm că obiceiuri din astea ‘paternaliste’ nu erau chiar atât de rare în părțile rurale ale vechiului regat…
‘Eu te-am făcut, eu te omor!’
Până la urmă, nu a fost o mare diferență între viața țăranului din Bărăgan – mai ales pe vremea fanarioților, adică nu foarte demult – și ce a celorlalți supuși de rând ai padișahului.
“To set a wolf to guard sheep“
Latin proverb.
A first glance, it doesn’t make much sense to put an oilman in charge of a COP conference.
Nothing more than setting a wolf to guard sheep, right?
On the other hand, shepherd dogs are nothing but ‘converted’ wolves.
Wolves who had somehow figured out that it’s more sustainable to live with the humans than in the wild.
Former wolves who had somehow figured out that’s far more sustainable – for them, to protect the sheep than to prey on them.
OK, the agent driving the process had been human. But the facts remain. Dogs have evolved from wolves.
What are we waiting for?
If the descendants of the wolves had been able to ‘cross over’, why so many reasonable people continue to believe that the ‘Global Warming’ is a hoax?
After all, we’re the ones supposed to be reasonable…
And the way I see it, it’s unreasonable to believe that burning fossil fuel accumulated during millions of years can be ‘sustainable’. Forget about ‘peak oil’ and ‘peak gas’ and remember how hot the Earth was when the first drop of fossil fuel had been set aside by Mother Nature.
‘Self awareness’ is how we call our ability to observe ourselves while observing others.
Humberto Maturana
First and foremost, existence is a concept.
Something our forefathers had coined. A mental construct built by talking about it.
Nothing existed before we saw it AND talked about it!
Think about the stars nobody knew about until we used Hubble to peek into the history of the Universe.
Think about the stars which ‘sit’ there and no man will ever see. Or otherwise perceive.
Think!
Do they, the stars, actually exist?
In the sense that has their being been ‘measured’ into existence by a self aware observer?
Has that observation been communicated by the observer to anybody else? Who had confirmed that that observation was anything more than a mere illusion?
You see, both actually – my rantings on your monitor – and figuratively, I don’t need to be told about the existence of the steps I have to climb up and down when I leave my bed each morning. On the other hand, I know that the Amazon exists because I’ve been told about it. Further more, I see for my self the steps in my house but I have a name for them – and I can write about them – because our forefathers had learned to speak. About the world they were discovering around themselves.
My point? We speak things into existence, not into being.
‘How about the things we talk about before we’ve ‘seen’ them? Neptune, the planet, had been ‘calculated’ before ‘seen’ and all mass manufactured things are first discussed and only then launched into production.
Which was the exact moment when each of them had started to exist?’
Good question!
I’m afraid I have no valid answer. This is a matter which will remain open for further debate!
After all, how else to justify our existence?
How else to find our own meaning? Other than by talking about it?
nicichiarasa 