Choices: http://reflektion.weebly.com/choices.html
Crisis and 2010: http://reflektion.weebly.com/crisis.html
Death: http://reflektion.weebly.com/death.html
Dreams: http://reflektion.weebly.com/dreams.html
Fear: http://reflektion.weebly.com/fear.html
Freud and XXI Century: http://reflektion.weebly.com/freud.html
Life: http://reflektion.weebly.com/life.html
Men: http://reflektion.weebly.com/men.html
New World and Old Problems: http://reflektion.weebly.com/world.html
Truth and Religion: http://reflektion.weebly.com/truth.html
Women: http://reflektion.weebly.com/women.html
Crisis and 2010: http://reflektion.weebly.com/crisis.html
Death: http://reflektion.weebly.com/death.html
Dreams: http://reflektion.weebly.com/dreams.html
Fear: http://reflektion.weebly.com/fear.html
Freud and XXI Century: http://reflektion.weebly.com/freud.html
Life: http://reflektion.weebly.com/life.html
Men: http://reflektion.weebly.com/men.html
New World and Old Problems: http://reflektion.weebly.com/world.html
Truth and Religion: http://reflektion.weebly.com/truth.html
Women: http://reflektion.weebly.com/women.html
Choices [by profelipe]
What gives you reason to live? Religion, money, sex, power?
What life means to you?
First, you need to choose: men are the subject of the history in the material world or life is given for human being.
“Il carattere empirico, como mero impulso naturale, è in sé irrazionale.”(Schopenhauer L’Arte de Essere Felici, Milano, Adelphi, 1997, p. 32)
There are other questions here. Nature or society? Rationality or irrationality? What is reality today?
We live on a “rational society”. The majority believes money is the most important thing in the world. It is a capitalist world. It is also an ideology. Karl Marx was right when he wrote in 1848:
“Die Bourgeoisie hat durch ihre Exploitation des Weltmarkts die Produktion und Konsumtion aller Länder kosmopolitisch gestaltet.”(Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, Voltmedia, p. 18)
Karl Marx made some predictions too. However, how could scientists say what would happen in the future?Ernest Mandel thought that Marx was right. Mandel wrote in 1978:
“Following the social explosion initiated in the Western world by May ’68 in France, the severe generalizedrecession of 1974-75 has confirmed Marx‘s basic analysis. (…) The only possible remedy for economic crises of over-production and social crises of class struggle is the elimination of capitalism and class society. No other solution will be found, either in theory or in practice. This awe-inspiring predictionmade by Marx has been borne out by empirical evidence ever since ‘Capital’ was written. There is no sign that it will be contradictedby current or future developments.” (Introduction of Capital, London: Penguin, 1978, p, 79)
Ernest Mandel was right about the crisis in 1968 and 1974-1975. But what happens next? There was the end of Soviet Union. The communist world was in crisis. People have chosen the return of the capitalism after 1991. It was not the prediction of Karl Marx.
Francis Fukuyama thought that the communist crisis meant the end of the history. For him, it was the correct choice because liberal world was the best for humanity. However, Fukuyama was wrong. What about the misery of the majority? Viviane Forrester was also against the ideas of Fukuyama:
“Et il n’est pas question aujourd’hui d’une ‘fin de histoire’, comme on a tenté de nous en persuader; mais d’un déchaînement de l’Histoire, au contraire, comme jamais agitée, manipulée commo jamais, dans un sens unique , vers une ‘pensée unique’ axée, malgré l’élégante efficacité de certains camouflages, vers le profit.”(L’Horreur Économique, p. 131)
What about now? It depends on the point of view of each person. In other words, Michel Foucault was right when he wrote “L’homme est une invention dont l’archéologie de notre pensée montre aisément la data récente. Et peut-être la fin prochaine.”(Les Mots e Les Choses, p. 398) or men are still subject of the history.
Michel Foucault was wrong. It was an illusion to believe in the end of the history as it was told by Francis Fukuyama.
It made sense when Jacques-Emile Miriel wrote: “Aprés quelques décennies passés sous le signe de ‘la mort de l’homme’, le travail qui s’ouvre aujourd’hui à la philosophie semble être de redonner une place plus essentielle à l’être humain.”(Magazine Littéraire, n° 394 p. 89)
It is always important to remember the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. In other words, the question is not aboutreligion. The point is:“(…) il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.”(Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanism. Paris: Gallimard, p. 77-78)
Men are responsible for their choices and their acts. There is not time to regret. It is here and now.
What gives you reason to live? Religion, money, sex, power?
What life means to you?
First, you need to choose: men are the subject of the history in the material world or life is given for human being.
“Il carattere empirico, como mero impulso naturale, è in sé irrazionale.”(Schopenhauer L’Arte de Essere Felici, Milano, Adelphi, 1997, p. 32)
There are other questions here. Nature or society? Rationality or irrationality? What is reality today?
We live on a “rational society”. The majority believes money is the most important thing in the world. It is a capitalist world. It is also an ideology. Karl Marx was right when he wrote in 1848:
“Die Bourgeoisie hat durch ihre Exploitation des Weltmarkts die Produktion und Konsumtion aller Länder kosmopolitisch gestaltet.”(Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, Voltmedia, p. 18)
Karl Marx made some predictions too. However, how could scientists say what would happen in the future?Ernest Mandel thought that Marx was right. Mandel wrote in 1978:
“Following the social explosion initiated in the Western world by May ’68 in France, the severe generalizedrecession of 1974-75 has confirmed Marx‘s basic analysis. (…) The only possible remedy for economic crises of over-production and social crises of class struggle is the elimination of capitalism and class society. No other solution will be found, either in theory or in practice. This awe-inspiring predictionmade by Marx has been borne out by empirical evidence ever since ‘Capital’ was written. There is no sign that it will be contradictedby current or future developments.” (Introduction of Capital, London: Penguin, 1978, p, 79)
Ernest Mandel was right about the crisis in 1968 and 1974-1975. But what happens next? There was the end of Soviet Union. The communist world was in crisis. People have chosen the return of the capitalism after 1991. It was not the prediction of Karl Marx.
Francis Fukuyama thought that the communist crisis meant the end of the history. For him, it was the correct choice because liberal world was the best for humanity. However, Fukuyama was wrong. What about the misery of the majority? Viviane Forrester was also against the ideas of Fukuyama:
“Et il n’est pas question aujourd’hui d’une ‘fin de histoire’, comme on a tenté de nous en persuader; mais d’un déchaînement de l’Histoire, au contraire, comme jamais agitée, manipulée commo jamais, dans un sens unique , vers une ‘pensée unique’ axée, malgré l’élégante efficacité de certains camouflages, vers le profit.”(L’Horreur Économique, p. 131)
What about now? It depends on the point of view of each person. In other words, Michel Foucault was right when he wrote “L’homme est une invention dont l’archéologie de notre pensée montre aisément la data récente. Et peut-être la fin prochaine.”(Les Mots e Les Choses, p. 398) or men are still subject of the history.
Michel Foucault was wrong. It was an illusion to believe in the end of the history as it was told by Francis Fukuyama.
It made sense when Jacques-Emile Miriel wrote: “Aprés quelques décennies passés sous le signe de ‘la mort de l’homme’, le travail qui s’ouvre aujourd’hui à la philosophie semble être de redonner une place plus essentielle à l’être humain.”(Magazine Littéraire, n° 394 p. 89)
It is always important to remember the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. In other words, the question is not aboutreligion. The point is:“(…) il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.”(Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanism. Paris: Gallimard, p. 77-78)
Men are responsible for their choices and their acts. There is not time to regret. It is here and now.
Selmane Felipe de Oliveira, PhD.
Professor and Historian.
Doctorate - PhD - at the Catholic University of São Paulo - PUC SP. www.pucsp.br/
Master at the UFF - Rio de Janeiro. www.uff.br/
Six books published.
Professor and Historian.
Doctorate - PhD - at the Catholic University of São Paulo - PUC SP. www.pucsp.br/
Master at the UFF - Rio de Janeiro. www.uff.br/
Six books published.