Small question on my readers ( if i have any regulars)

One of my resolution is to be more open on my writings. I was wondering if anybody would mind short stories on this blog ?

Small post on cultural studies and elitism

So this article is the result of a discussion with a french scholar and a french student for whom I both have esteem, and through our disagreements, I tend to develop certain ideas. This one is on our culture and the easy rejection sometimes made by the intellectuals of our world. It started with a television program on astrology. And jokes were made on the comment made by the astrologers on the show.

I was a bit uneasy at the jokes made, since the student and the scholars had both no knowledge of astrology. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on it either. But I am victim of this curiosity for every kind of knowledge and sciences made throughout the ages. That is where our disagreement started. The student had a problem with the term astrology I guessed. Since he does classical studies and philosophy, there was no apparent logos in this term, since it was based purely on invented concepts, and the facts were improperly studied. To which I retorted that metaphysics was more or less the same. But in his opinion, metaphysics are based on some facts. Something I yet need to see, if that's possible. His second argument was that just like alchemy, astrology was an outdated science for our world to still consider it relevant in any way. Which I thought was funny coming from a classical study student.

The scholar had a problem on the fact that astrology was a belief, therefore not being a subject of quality for a study. I proposed theology to that. And he explained me that most of the important scholars in this discipline would never believed in miracles, but would interpret the miracles in the bibles to explain concepts inside the religion.

I actually agreed on both these points, but I still wouldn't accept there objection of astrology. Astrology is actually one of the oldest science on earth. It has the interesting aspect of having existed in most of the important cultures on earth.

Though it is not a science since it's theory are hardly provable, it is too stupid to reject it. I'm not saying that we should believe in it. I'm not saying that every astrologers are worth listening to. I guess most of them are charlatans. But I would listen to someone who studied astrology, who would explained me the different concepts developed by astrologers throughout history, its evolution and the difference in the angle taken towards this belief in the different cultures.

But astrology is here only an example of this presumption of people to know what is worthy of knowledge or not. These people I had these arguments with are both guys I respect. They are not pragmatist as such. They do favour culture over practice I'd say. But it is the culture of the elite more that a widespread view on culture. It is in a way restrictive. I understand the fear of letting the unworthy culture, if such a thing exists really, enter the realm of the intellectuals. But I think that such a fear shouldn't really be. What should be feared is only the person pretending to be master of a certain culture, and be rejected for his knowledge of the culture for the sole fact it is not recognised as a valuable culture, instead of having qualified authorities in this certain culture that can properly judge each other, under a proper epistemological scrutiny.

In a way, every angle of our culture is worthy of being known, but there is a certain minimum to be known every time to be able to properly talk about it. I wouldn't reject an astrologers as long as he knows well his subject, nor would I reject a good alchemist, a good lawyer and so on. As Jet Li said in Fearless, as Huo Yuanjiia, “ Every martial art is good, it is the knowledge the fighter has of his martial art that would make him a suitable fighter or not”. And this is true for every aspect of our culture.

The too bearable lightness of being

God is dead and with him is our salvation for eternity. Eternity died, and the present is constantly in our life. Which hollywood star got drunk last night is more worth knowing about rather than what happened in Venezuela in 2002. With the disappearance of this quest for truth in the past, the use of the irrelevant truth today, a vision for the future is now considered the dreams of the fool. Yet, people like Huxley and Orwell did manage to present dystopia which are closer to reality than ever before. But isn't the dream of the future the essence of mankind, or are we running for the sake of running ?

With the industrial revolution came the idea that economic growth is the answer to our problems. The use constant calculation of the cost and profit of our actions is acting without purpose. It destroys slowly values defended by the great thinkers of our past. All the economy works on a negation of the past: forget that Nike used child labour to sell low cost shoes but be reminded they sponsor big sport teams and videogames, forget that McDonalds was just a practical fast-food, be reminded that it is now a family entertainment place.

We are asked to forget our past, how near it is, so we can't learn from our mistake, therefor not asking for a better future. This behaviour we get from the economic sphere influences the economic sphere too. If a government can't solve every problems society have in 6 month, we consider it unworthy of governance, though it is true it's never the best. But who cares about long-terms political programs ?

This negation of the mistakes of our past has also got some twisted logic which is dangerous for society. The news show today's human drama, humanity is denounced for its evil deeds. The result is that we forget where society is coming from. Social trust is in decline because we look at the state of society today, but because we don't consider how it was a century ago. If we consider that society is bad today, how can we hope it could be better tomorrow ? We get strangely give ourselve the salvation of our minds. Stating or knowing the horror like we see on t.v., we all consider that we are better human beings. We are good, the others are horrible, therefor why care about the others. In a way I appreciate the mission of the missionaries on a deontological point of view. i don't support the fact that they thought that their religion was the best, but their was a real interest in helping people you didn't know.

Our individualist society, the overvalued present and the fact that we all play along, and so is the economic and political orders, without making any critic, destroyed the possibility of presenting great designs for a harmonious society.

The opium of our society

What about the general presentation of my thoughts on the way societies politics is seen nowadays.... I needed a retreat, away from everything, and my books and notebooks to understand the general picture. I tried to get the picture. Our world has evolved and it is what it is nowadays. US of A are is the country that has, from economics point of view, the best competitive country and yet, is one of the worst to live in. Yet, all the countries wish to have such an economy. The example I m always given is China, which has a great economic growth, to sustain a quasi-dictatorial country. And in this last sentence lies the infrastructure of the end of our society nowadays : Economic Growth. It is what all governments promise their inhabitants.

This is not going to be a small article, but I ask you to bear with me.
Economic growth is the calculation of the potential output in products and services of a country. To vulgarize the meaning, it is the augmentation of the cake that exist for a whole country. The biggest achievers for this growth are big companies, since they can produce more than an independent, that is why countries try to attract them. To achieve this growth, companies don't go 50 ways about it, they create a product, try to manifacture it the easy way, so it can be produced in large quantity, and don't try to vary it to much. We get loads of the same product, everywhere.

For this product to be economically rentable for companies, it has to have a demand, thus a creation for consumers for the companies. We are in a consumerist society, because without consumers, these companies can't survive. Companies create wishes from us, they advertise they product, or create, more viciously a wish for these products by making them unattainable for us, but only for a certain part of society ( the richer). Because it is in our nature to want what we can't have. And then they make it attainable, so we do get what we dreamt of having, to finally discover (or not if we are that blind) that it doesn't fulfill us as much as we thought it would.

Of course, this system creates also a simulution of production and services. Industries or businesses that have no sense ecept in our system e.g. advertising. Which our society still "needs" because these industries are creating output, therefor growth.

So where does that leads us.

Well companies are competing to get more clients. But countries are actualy the main competitors. SInce economic growth is what countries wish, they have to offer companies and corporations enough so these companies are willing to produce in their country. Countries have to compete to be the one that offers the more than the neighbouring country, whatever the cost, since it will give them the growth they want.

The other form of competition that exists is the competition of the workers in the system. Companies and corporation are seen as the first employers in this world, therefor we are to be fit to be engaged by these companies. Even a shopkeeper has to be competitive to another shopkeeper, not for it's client, but for it s retailers.

All in all, our standards have to be lower down as human or as a society, so corporations are willing to work with us.

Are corporation thus evil ?

No, it is a clear answer, corporations have no will to corrupt the world and make them theirs. BUT, corporations abide by only one rule, be profitable to attract shareholders, so they can invest more money to create more money for them, whatever the costs ! And this is where lies the evil, which cannot be blame on corporations, since they only do what they are meant to do. So shareholders are evil because they are too demanding ? No again, shareholders, just like corporations, are not people making choices. Shareholders nowadays are funds, investments of thousands and millions of people who want more money, not knowing exactly where and how it is invested. They just know that it is investements which are bringing money, so they can spend more. All in all, no one in this system makes an ethical choice, no one is actually guilty, everybody is suppose to do what they do, in this system.

So is society suffering from that system in the end ?

1) To be more competitive, countries have to take back rights to the workers, companies, to make more profit too. A recent example is the draw back on working hours in France. Because France want to augmnent it's growth, they decided to erase the law on the 35 hours work a week. They want people to work more, so companies can make more money. They make more money too, but they don't make time to spend that, if there is actualy a need to make time to spend money. If you look at the evolution of music for example, songs are getting shorter by the years. Our leisure time is shrinking, and so are our hobbies. Books are getting shorter. The production of popular art is not worked on, bands have to produces album every year to satisfy the production companies. Nothing takes time anymore, except work.... And have less time in our life to know what we want to be.

2) Education is getting more pragmatic. Our society asks today that education prepares us for work. Education use to be to bring knowledge to the people, but not anymore. The sole purpose of education nowadays is to prepare us to this system of competition. Knowledge is back at the rank of leisure. Education nowadays just represent a skill on paper so we can get a job later on. An example is the secondary school certificate in UK. A school kids have to select from 2 to 7 subjects at their end of secundary school to pass, so they are prepared to go to universities. I think the general choice is of four, practical, subjects. Which means that they have no general knowledge. I came across this years of english students who had no idea who the Tudors were, who didn't know that there prime minister wasn't directly elected, and such basics lacks. How can we have a democracy that doesn't bring an education that prepares to make civic choices ?

3) We are living beyong our basic needs, and even beyong our wishes of life, without knowing it...

4) Inequality in distributions and of chances. Since countries have to be competitivie, their can't ask as much from the companies, or from the people, to help for everybody in the society to developp. Countries have to invest in what is good for the companies, and cannot be asked to let people sustain other people as much. The companies profit from the competition, and lower the wages because people will compete on their wages too. So people which don't have the skill on paper will receive a lower wage, and cannot help to the education of their kids. Also, people with lot of money are the one receiving more money from their investment in the corportations, a sum of money which is not taxed as a revenue, so not as much. A clear example of this lack of social elevation is the US of A, which has the lowest rate of social elevation in the western world.
Education system getting privatised too, only rich people come out of the good universtities, and do donation so there kids are the only one to get into it...

All in all, we have today no time for self-development, self reflection, time for ourselves, the understanding of what is making time. Spirituality and philosophy are no use in this pragmatic society, so why spend time on them. And yet, we hide to ourselves, but we do need it.


What is the problem exactly then ?

I call it the Economic Growth Myth, the dogma on which our society is build on today. It is the infrastructure on which our society has created itself the last century. The corporations, the marketing system, the consumerist mind, are suprastructures, institutions which are reliant on this dogma. The worst part of this myth is while religions promised us heaven, this dogma doesn't give us any promess for the end. We want economic growth, without knowing where it leads us...

But is there some truth behind it ?

Just like religion has a truth behind itself, economic growth sustain some truth :
Production is a way for every human to self-fulfill itself. We do need to produce so we know we've lead a useful life, a life where we did something, where we created something. What the infrastuctures of this economic growth didn't give us is the individual choice to know what to produce, and in final, what we want to be.


Is there a solution ?

Well, there are some. A revision of our social system, try to promote social trust. If everybody is ready to understand that we can evolve as a society, not as an economy, we could give way to changes in our society. Promote social trust, so people would be ready to install a universal welfare system, so everybody has the same chances in life. Promote independent workers, real creators of productions, which are the substances of our culture. And give perspectives to our life to know what we want, need and should have, for everybody.

Gangster´s paradise, their friends the government and reality of Midsumner Murders - Utopia 3

This subject is actually a delicate one, so I’ll try to work on it gradually. An Austrian dad confined his daughter in a cellar and gave her kids that he confined too, gangs fight in the streets of Paris, teenagers get knifed by their school mates in English schools; those are the news given by daily newspapers. Crime is something that mesmerizes us, it is something that shocks us and we want to be protected from it. But I don’t know if the existence of criminality can ever be erased by fighting it.

To start with, we have to be concerned with the problems of criminality. The first one to my eyes is its representation through news media. Media will report any crime event if a press agency has a good article on it, and if the authorities PRs release enough information about it to make it interesting. This is why, in recent decades, the representation of crime has augmented, while the crime rate has fallen. Of course, we can’t blame it only on the authorities, the media corporations are guiltier. For example, the crimes reported have to be more and more violent, toward a common person and near our place. Media outlets will always try to make us identify with the victims, just like a Stephen King’s book. And the “Daily Mirror” sells more than any book of Stephen King, but it is a distorted mirror. The reality of the crimes is never objectively reported. We can never feel sorry for the criminal, who’s guilty before being proven so. We never hear the criminal’s story, we never know, and don’t want to admit that he is like us, with less chance and was given different choices.

I’m not saying we should automatically feel sorry for him (in the most common case reported, the offender is a young man whose “origins” will always be defined as the country of his grandparents, as if it was the reason of his misbehaviour). So yes, we do receive a bent reality, but mainly because we like to feel as victims of the wicked wrong-doer, it makes us feel like righteous saints.

I often heard the argument that criminality is decreasing, so we do something good enforcing the security of our places, having more C.C.T.V. ( we didn’t learn anything from “ 1984”), being noted that crime exists and is making us paranoid. Well it is true; if crime is decreasing, we must be doing something right. But this again is a simulacrum of reality. Criminality is a number created by the government and the authorities. For example, if crime varies in London, it depends on the chief inspector of Scotland Yard and his policies. If he does not consider soft drug users criminals, the numbers are going down. Another illusion of crime is that it is mainly a statistic that can be shown and used varying on the numbers applied. A right wing party will show that the numbers are really high and we are living in a dangerous society and that security should be one of our rights. But it is only a point of view, and security is only a right if crime exists... It is my next point and might sound weird, so please hang on.

Durkheim explained it before me, crime is vital for our system. Authorities, our modern day Machiavellian Prince, exist to protect us. But we only need to be protected if danger exists. If we postulate that we are wolfs against ourselves, of course we need protection against ourselves. But it is a hypothesis that serves mainly the people in power. And they do know it and use it, unconsciously probably, but it can be observed in history through prohibitions. Prohibitions appeared whenever a government wanted more power and so had to compose a danger within society. The sixties were a booming decade that didn’t have many problems, and then the general crash of the early 70’s caused smaller incomes, so a problem was created: heroin was declared illegal. Anyone going to the hospital before that who suffered was given an addictive substance like heroin, and could ask their doctor to continue to receive it, without it interfering with their daily life.

Once outlawing it, a new crime was running the street, and could be considered as the base for all problems. A dependent part of the population became the victims of an oppressive government and greedy crime syndicates, but they were society’s “enemy” during the eighties, because authorities had to exist to protect us from them. And we started to hear the dramas of heroin addicts, but heroin doesn’t kill; it is the result of greedy drug dealers who want to sell more and thus cut their products with dangerous substances. Authorities created problems to legitimate themselves. If we’d legalize and control what we now consider as criminal activities, wouldn’t we feel more secure and less paranoid?

But crime is not only ruled by organizations, there are thieves and rapists and other horrible persons committing acts that shouldn’t be justified. What I am going to say sounds naive, but every crime is justified. They are all created by our society, or our personal interactions. For example, thieves don’t exist in societies that don’t understand the concept of property, of course they don’t. It is a simple fact that shows perspectives. Thieves don’t exist because they need to steal to survive, we are not in the 17th century anymore, but they exist because self-realization is not our problem. Thieves exist because they are in need of consummation. The objects of robberies change with periods, only because our general consumerist conditioned minds will put more or less value on different objects. A society that would search for self-realization and not wealth wouldn’t have someone stealing.

I know that it is a dream, but theft exists because people think they need to possess to be. But that’s only because we think so too. A beautiful car gives me pleasure, why wouldn’t anyone be jealous of this pleasure, but he can steal it from me because it doesn’t bring me happiness ( first of all because I don’t have my driver’s licence, but also because it is only an induced pleasure). Just like the objectification of the woman kills our empathy towards her, and gives legitimacy to a rapist.

So what about murders? Well for that, I turn to Inspector Barnaby, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes who surely know that all real murders (not the induced murders that defined the young thug because he wants to be seen as such) are passionate and reveal secret stories. They are private matters and actually, in a way, positive. They show that we are capable of over-passion, we are more than animals. But against those, we can’t do anything, except find the murderer and make him understand his wrong-doing. That is why in my Utopia, I would have only inspectors with a great sense of deductions, and a civil service that would be here only to help and not to check our behaviour, have “Lead by example” as a motto and be educated to do so.

French political system

The French political system is doomed to be regionnalist, elitist, technocratic and conservative.

It is simple to see that the french higher education is an elitist one. Students fight each other to be accepted in Grandes Ecoles, they are enslaved, worked till they bleed. They are taught the all the beauty of the french system, its magnificient history, how proud they can be of themselves. "Only the best can achieve it. ( Let s not give doubt on how people mature, everybody is equal in every aspect in the french system)"

Of course, the best prepared students come from cities and well-off families: since they have a standardised bacchalaureat at the end of their scolarity, which gives an illusion of equality, only the good schools prepare the students whose parents payed the fees for a good preparation.

So once in this Grandes Ecoles, the supposed elite of France get to learn a little bit more, and get offered a job in the civil service. Most of them become civil servant, having more or less important job depending on their results. Perfect working machine are ready to serve.

Then come another comic point of the french system: civil servants are pushed to be in politics. During elections, if they present them-selves, they are still paid, they have the security to find their job back if they fail. They have all the advantages possible, and political parties recruit in the civil service.

So i have already shown how elitist-educated and technocrats come to power. I still have to show why they are bound to be regionalist. Politicians in France are allowed to accumulate mandates, and they do. They all start at the bottom, building bastion in town, to then grow in region and then on nationnal level. But if they want to keep they popularity, they have to keep in mind where they come from, and satisfy their voters, and their own power in a region or in a town. Nationnal interrest, and god forbid world interrest, are not that important to a politician, except if it conflicts with its own interrest or the interrest of their voters. They are regionnalist.

So voters are important to satisfy, but it is easy to see politicians are, most of them, populist, just look at Sarkozy. Also, the fact that they are all part of the system before-hand make them able to vote for legislation so technical that they actualy don't change much the system. It is an illusion of satisfaction given to the voters who are willing to see changes. For example, a constitutionnal amendment is proposed, that would allowed citizen to ask the constitutionnal council to see the interpretation of a law,but it would be possible only in a very very specific case, therefor it will never actually happen: Illusion of change - Conservatist values.

So most the politicians are big-headed, with nationnal values, without real perspective, heartless technocrats, with only the wish to keep their power, and great at manipulating people....

Good luck France !

Free Country - Utopia 2

Here is the all famous first article of the universal declaration of human rights, adopted by the U.N. in 1948. Countries are asked "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories" :

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

We are all aware that this is not the case, but still, we should be abide by that principle. We are not born equal in rights because of the where, when and of whom we are born. It is an injustice in this world that people do not seem to realize. " Fuck'em all, my parents worked their ass off for me to live this way" seems to be a good argument for not adopting a spirit of brotherhood. Of course, not everybody has such radical thoughts, but we do accept radicalism, because of our history, from which we seem to only keep the habits but not to learn the lessons. If you'd take a look at Italy now, you can observe another wave of extreme-right wing thought directed towards romanian gypsies, which scandalize countries like the U.K., Germany or France, which are actually no better, except that they are politically correct. Italy just adopted a law which said that illegal entry is an offence, just as the european countries mentioned above do, the difference of Italy though is that it has also allowed its mayors to expulse european residents judged unfit to live on their sacred land.

I could take the attacking position that everybody takes and propose the idea of putting an embargo on Italy, to let it realize how much it needs its foreigners, or not allowing Italians to reside in our "open-minded" countries. But we are not as good as we seem. We are still deeply stuck in our concepts of identity, nationality, protection, and fear of the other. We don't believe a bit in human rights. "Fuck humanity, I love my country." ( I'm sorry if I'm vulgar in this article, it's just that it is a sensitive issue to me. I sincerely don't swear often).

My country would have open-borders. Well, no borders except for the one the neighbouring countries would install. Even if everybody would be scared to see terrorrists coming in, lazy people profiting of the system or people stealing their jobs, I'll confront them with humanity and the help it needs. Coming from a inter-cultural environment, I can tell you that nothing gives such an open mind as that. Colliding cultures do push people to accept the other, and recognize the lacks in our own culture. I don't believe it would leave the country in chaos, because no-one emmigrates for no reasons, or for bad ones at least. So why should we think that immigrants create problems ?

It's a simple principle. Why would we, westerners, be allowed to live almost everywhere we want, and we are still so restristive on who's allowed to live in our countries. Supposedly we are richer so we have more to protect, but fuck that, we've distroyed cultures with our money(look at South-America, where the average family will spend more on a t.v. than on education), we stole the gold of our colonies and we still abuse deloping countries because we help them to have a better economy."But god forbid they try to live a better live next to us, they are savages". I don't know, I feel guilty for us, we are lucky to have our history, we are in a region that gave us the oppurtinity to develop like we did, and we don't share any of it, I don't think that's fair. I would allow everybody in. Anybody ready to live surrounded by others, and not in his well protected fish-bowl where he grew up, is good in my book and a true brother of mine.