It is worthy of notice that some key words have a double edged meaning.
If I remember correctly, someone said: change, we can.
Oh well, change.
To illustrate its double edge, I'd like to tell a story, so to speak, I often heard from my mother (forgive me, but I'll have to translate from Italian): that of a gravestone, on which was written
"I was all right, to get better, here I am."
HP
"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor," were Obama's words in Texas at the funeral of the thirteen victims of a jihadist. "And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world and the next."
That's right! No just and loving God looks upon such acts with favor: it is what we have been taught in our Christian tradition.
PUTUS, and with him the majority of the MSM, seem to hold it true for all religious traditions, and in particular for that of Major Hasan.
I am not sure, however, that Major Hasan thought it the same way. According to his tradition he was earning paradise for himself, because God – they call it Allah – was looking favorably to him.
To put it rather bluntly: POTUS, and with him the MSM, can well refer all faiths to a "just and loving God", because God is always just and loving… for his faithful.
But only for them.
For them the world is divided in two: friends, belonging to the same human group to whom God's love goes, therefore to be loved, and enemies, those outside the group of the beloved ones, therefore to be hated.
There was one, though, who said: love your enemies as your friends.
Already before him, however, God's law was: thou shall not kill – without any limits set to it.
Thus Jews and Christians have been taught to recognize the humanity of every man, as being all God's children.
Wars, as we all too well know, didn't cease. However, at least in doctrine, it was out, save for the case of "just war", run in self defense.
No easy concept, I grant. But enough, I should think, to be careful in assessing when and where we are in the presence of a real threat.
Not to look indiscriminately at everybody outside the circle of the "true believers", as a threat against God's blessed ones: which means "us", which means "me".
HP
I am appalled by what passes as science, when it concerns "man".
So, while my friend LD discusses the battles of the day, I keep on the issues of the war.
It makes my heart cry when I see how American universities waste their money to finance research and teaching on nonsense.
First question: why does a man desire any woman? The answer is easy: evolution played on our apelike ancestors the trick of developing "lust" so that they could be brought to search for a partner and release the tension (I am not sure of what is included in the category "partner").
Second question: why do a man and a woman feel attachment to each other? Again the answer is easy: it is another trick of evolution that made our apelike ancestors develop the neural functions necessary to feel "romantic love", so as not to have to go roaming in looking for partners, and be able to dedicate themselves fully to mating with just the one to whom they are now attached.
Third question: what makes this attachment endure? By now you know the answer: it is still a trick of evolution working on our apelike ancestor's brain to make them wanting to raise the children born from their mating.
It seems that this is what teaches a certain biological anthropologists of Rutger's University, a woman who is known as one of the most prominent of her field (I leave her anonymous, "to name the sin but not the sinner").
Some call it just anthropology, without qualifications. It might even be, given the fact that she claims to explain in this way the origin of our moral feelings. Too bad that no such a thing exists outside of the mores, the habits or customs by which a group lives and perpetuates itself by passing them from a generation to the next. Her explanations fall therefore into the classical vicious circle, of presupposing that which they have to explain.
Too bad, in short, that a biological anthropologist feels authorized to ignore completely that other field of research on man called "socio-cultural anthropology".
The trouble, with bio- and psychological anthropology, is to take men as "individuals" of a species, in the same sense that any kind of animals (bulls, horses, pigs, dogs) are individuals of their species: which juman beings are not, because no one has ever seen a "man", who were not an Italian, a French, an American, a Chinese, or whatever.
What worries me, is that I discovered the existence of that woman "anthropologist" by reading an essay by a cardinal (again "the sin but not the sinner"), previously teacher of theological anthropology, who didn't simply dismiss her as I have done for the lack of any sense of what science is, but thought her worthy of being taken seriously, enough to deserve a reply.
HP
In a web article denouncing the administration's failure to recognize the meaning of what happened in Fort Hood, I read this sentence: "Conservatives are individualists", prefacing an invitation "to do something unusual: organize, organize, organize. Local and national. And even international".
A good project, but I don't agree with the premise from which it was drawn.
In the States "conservatives" like to style themselves as "individualists", to mean that they are against an invasive government styled as "socialist".
To do so, however, weakens their case. It allows their adversaries to make it sound like "we don't give a shit about our neighbors", or any such maligning.
Actually the real "individualists", who care just for themselves, are the smart people for whom everyone should be able to do anything he pleases, with the State to take care of everybody, assuring to each the freedom of doing so.
In other words: big government is only the other face of individualism.
It would seem, then, that we have "individualists" from the left and "individualists" from the right.
How confusing: the same word would apply to both the opposite sides. We need some way to distinguish between them.
Individualist is not the right word for people capable of caring: for their neighbors, for their community.
I don't know a word that could be idiomatic enough in English to take its place, so to make the distinction immediately understandable. It should be a word apt to convey the sense of a man of virtue, capable, on his own, of taking responsibility for the surrounding world of neighbors and community.
Any suggestion is welcomed.
HP
LD and I were looking forward to a nice blogging conversation on a rather metaphysical topic like feasting and fasting, but have been kept from it by events of the day. First, I had to commemorate a man to whom am indebted for what his books taught me concerning men's acting and thinking in society; but that didn't really take me away from the topic, because feasts come as moments of human exchange in which people come together to celebrate. But now…
An Army major, and a psychiatrist at that, picked up guns and shot thirteen people dead and thirty wounded at Fort Hood. And this, given the identity of that major, would require some comment.
The House voted a text of health care reform, in whose favor there is at least to be said that it is acceptable for anti-abortionist. Whether it also suits the general public's demand for the best possible health care system, to be made accessible to the greatest number of people, it is another story, also worthy discussing.
Events of the day are pressing on the front, while metaphysical conversations go more to the heart of the war being fought.
I'll try, to my best, to keep them together.
I'll keep away from the second issue, on which I am no expert. (I can only say that here in Italy, where there is health care directly run by government, people are not particularly happy with it. People, when they want to have a speedy and fairly reliable treatment, tend to resort to the private sector. Not to speak of the waste and the corruption to which the government run health care system lends itself.)
I revert then to the shooting spree at Fort Hood.
Lévi-Strauss helped me to understand human exchanges, by recognition of the principle that rules them: reciprocity. However, as we have positive reciprocity, so we have negative reciprocity.
There is discussion on the press and in TV whether major Nidal Malik Hasan's deed ought to be considered as an act of jihad. This risks being an hair splitting question on the definition of what makes jihad.
I prefer to ask the question: why so many leading newspapers and TV channels seem so preoccupied to find justifications, so to speak, for major Hasan's deed, that minimize the import of his quite strong Islamic faith?
In more general terms: why so many smart people tend to be so over respectful of Islam, when not in outright sympathy with it?
It is actually strange, considering that Islam goes against everything that they otherwise say to cherish: one thing for all, women's equality and emancipation.
A short and (relatively) simple answer could be: because of a lack of understanding the reciprocity required by communication among people – in order not to have positive reciprocity turn into negative reciprocity.
Another anthropologist, the American Marshal Sahlins, stressed the unilateral character of what he called "the mystique of western superiority". Remarkable is that he used this expression not to stigmatize nineteenth century colonialism, but while commenting on the widespread idea that contact with western civilization brought disruption into the life of natives all over the world, as if, before, people were living everywhere in some kind of earthly paradise without any history of peaceful or warlike communication.
The same sense of superiority turns from self affirmation into self negation: if Arabs, then, and in general Islamic people, show such anger against us, it must be because we have victimized them.
The most vociferous Arabs or Islamics do actually feel victimized, whether it is true or not. Thus they mirror their western sympathizers. With no greater understanding of reciprocity than these have, they show to know just negative reciprocity. Such appears to be the case for jihadists: they feel other people as negating them, so they negate those people in turn.
It would be metaphysically worthy pursuing further the point, to ask whether there is something intrinsic to Islam as such that goes in this direction. Also in the other event mentioned, however, we could easily find a metaphysical side worthy discussing, to make thus possible the prudential judgment LD advocates.
HP
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan House coalition voted Saturday to prohibit coverage of abortions in a new government-run health care plan that Democrats would establish to compete with private insurers.
The 240-194 vote on an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., was a blow to liberals, who would have allowed the Obama administration and its successors to decide whether abortions would be covered by the government plan. Sixty-four Democrats joined 176 Republicans in favor of the prohibition.
Stupak's measure also would bar anyone from getting federal subsidies to help cover their premiums for private insurance polices that would include abortion coverage.
"Let us stand together on principle — no public funding for abortions, no public funding for insurance policies that pay for abortions," Stupak urged fellow lawmakers before the vote.
The amendment would bar the new government insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is in danger. The Democrats' original legislation would have allowed the government plan to cover abortions, if the Health and Human Services secretary decided it should.
The amendment also would prohibit people who receive new federal health subsidies from buying insurance plans that include abortion coverage.
The Democrats' original bill would have allowed people getting federal subsidies to pay for abortion coverage with their own money. Abortion opponents dismissed that as an accounting gimmick.
Abortion rights advocates called the measure the biggest setback to women's reproductive rights in decades.
"Like it or not, this is a legal medical procedure and we should respect those who need to make this very personal decision," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.
Some Republicans considered voting "present" in hopes that might unravel support for the underlying health care bill among anti-abortion Democrats, but only one did, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz.
"If I felt that the (health overhaul) bill could be killed by not advancing the Stupak amendment then it seems it would be prudent to vote in such a way that wouldn't advance the bill, but it doesn't appear that that's a possibility," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said before the vote.
The National Right to Life Committee and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied lawmakers in both parties on the abortion measure. The bishops said they would oppose the bill if it lacked a strict prohibition on any federal funding for abortions.
Stupak's language applies to policies sold in a federally regulated insurance exchange that would be set up in 2013. The overhaul bill envisions both private companies and the government offering policies in the exchange.
Under the Stupak amendment, people who do not receive federal insurance subsidies could buy private insurance plans in the exchange that include abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies could buy separate policies covering only abortions if they use only their own money to do it.
Companies selling insurance policies covering abortions would be required to offer identical policies without the abortion coverage.
Abortion-rights supporters say private insurers will not likely offer policies with abortion coverage in the exchange because many potential buyers will be getting federal subsidies.
Around 21 million people are expected to get coverage through the exchange by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The majority of Americans who get their insurance coverage from their employers would not be affected.
Abortion-rights supporters say the restrictions in the amendment go further than current law.
A law called the Hyde amendment — which must be renewed annually — bars federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life is in danger. The restrictions apply to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortions for low-income women to pay for them with state revenues. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and the military.
Currently abortion coverage is widely available in the private market. A Guttmacher Institute study found that 87 percent of typical employer plans covered abortion in 2002. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in 2003 found that 46 percent of workers in employer plans had abortion coverage. The studies asked different questions, which might help explain the disparity in the results.
Abortions in the first trimester typically cost between $350-$900, according to Planned Parenthood.
A health overhaul bill pending in the Senate also bars federal funding for abortion, but the language is less stringent. Discrepancies between the House and Senate measures would have to be reconciled before any final bill is passed.
Few nights ago, between Saturday and Sunday, died a great man.
Claude Lévi-Strauss was born in Brussels the 28th of November 1908: a few days more, and he would have been 101.
He is numbered as one of the most prominent anthropologists ever. Bull shit! To say so is just a nice way to encase him in a department, sparing people from other departments the trouble of having to deal with his work.
Sparing first of all the so called philosophers from taking into account the work of one of the few real philosophers of last century.
It is true that his work was entirely based on the investigation of all the available ethnographic evidence collected on archaic peoples, a little fragment from himself in Mato Grosso in the Thirties of last century, the great mass from all the anthropologists who had lovingly reported their field work among American Indians, and aborigines of other continents. But that was his way of doing philosophy: i.e. tackling the ultimate questions raised by our peculiar capability of including ourselves amidst all other things we know.
We are all aware of that nonsense called "multiculturalism" which from the Sixties of last century spread through America and Europe becoming almost (in Europe, alas, without almost) dominant. It draws from a certain image of anthropology, summarized in an expression like "the study of the other as other", the other being peoples from other countries, of other costumes, "values" and "beliefs", tastes, and at the end gender and sexual orientations.
Now, Lévi-Strauss' teaching was exactly the opposite: anthropology appears in his work as "the study of the other as non-other".
Since the time of his field work in Brazil, that he narrates in his beautiful Tristes Tropiques, he realized that about the "other as other" we can neither know nor say anything, save that it is other, and to the limit not even this.
The beauty of what he writes, then, about archaic people (I prefer to call them so, rather than primitive), is that he sees ourselves mirrored in them. And he can do it, because he doesn't look at men (male and female, adults and children), as separate entities, but as involved in exchange relations among them, in which they define who they are. So, what they do can be intelligible for us, because it represents a principle of exchange that remains the same with all people, a constant, if I may say so, recognizable as such in the variables of social life.
He calls it "the principle of reciprocity".
It is not the simple do ut des, "I give to you, and you give to me", because it extends to all the generalized exchanges making up our life in society, that never involves just "you and me", but always also "them".
It is therefore, instead, an "I give today on one side, what I received yesterday on the other". Reciprocity is established, then, when the two sides close on each other like in a circle, and everybody has received what he has given, and vice versa.
Lévi-Strauss has recovered thus, by way of the study of what he calls pensée sauvage (which is not, he says, the thought of savages, but thought at a savage state, before being tamed in order to achieve a result), all the classical philosophical reflection on identity and diversity, constancy and change.
He has reopened the classical question of justice, potentially leading to a recovery of the doctrine of natural law: that lost today in the affirmation of natural rights, allegedly pertaining to any single biologically human individual, imagined in a social vacuum where everybody is really "other" for everybody else, with the State however that should warrant to each (only God knows why) the space to exercise his rights.
After a period of wide renown, Lévi-Strauss has been left aside by the individualistic and "multicultural" trends of dominant academic culture. Against the self-contradictory nonsense in which have fallen philosophers, and with them lawyers, it would be worthy to take up again his work: it is a good antidote.
HP
Posts
All Comments
