Será que os da dita 'Geração à Rasca' já ouviram falar do movimento autonomista (de Negri et alii?). Uni-vos, precários. Pensem, teorizem, reflictam. Agir não é vir para a rua gritar ao som de palhaços como o Jel.
A causa é justa, mas a massa encefálica é fraca...
17.5.11
Zizek e o capitalismo chinês
De um blogue a seguir atentamente. Sobre o que pensa o Pensador -- não o Mário Crespo -- do momento -- e que será mais do que o "deste" momento histórico -- sobre um aspecto assaz "curioso": Slavoj Zizek: Zizek e a China.
Antonio Negri
Excelente documentário sobre um dos mais brilhantes e corajosos intelectuais vivos:
(Over the years, few intellectuals have experienced as much admiration and hatred as Antonio Negri. His international best-selling book, Empire, a critical analysis of the new global economy coauthored with Michael Hardt, was hailed as a new manifesto for the 21st century, and turned Negri into a leading spokesperson for the international anti-globalization movement. Antonio Negri: A Revolt that Never Ends profiles the controversial life and times of this important moral and political philosopher, militant, prisoner, refugee, and so-called “enemy of the state.” It traces his roots in the radical left-wing movements in Italy during the 60s and 70s, illustrated through incredible archival footage of strikes, factory occupations, terrorist actions, violent street confrontations, and government trials of dissidents. During these tumultuous decades Negri spent ten years in prison and fourteen years in Parisian exile, where he contributed to philosophical debates with authors such as Gilles Deleuze. The film features interviews with Negri (conducted following his April 2003 release from confinement), public speaking appearances, plus commentary from his coauthor Michael Hardt, and Italian and French colleagues. Antonio Negri explores this visionary theoretician’s lifelong political struggle, now being expressed in works of contemporary relevance such as Empire and its sequel, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, a powerful intellectual project in protest of the new global order.)
16.5.11
(Anti-)aggiornamento (PT)
Já decorreram seis meses desde a minha última entrada.
O silêncio nem sempre é de ouro, mas permite, ou concita, uma maior abertura à contemplação e à maturação. Assim se espera.
As coisas neste país transformaram-se de forma indizível, para (o) pior, e são meramente confirmativas de que tudo irá, por força das "coisas", permanecer inalterado. O mundo ultrapassa-nos. Nós ultrapassamos o -- ou ultrapassamo-nos ao -- mundo.
É mister dizer. Intervir. Pronunciar o verbo que antecede o agir com norte.
Outrora escrevera apenas em inglês, por razões de proximidade ao meu "público" diminuto e aos temas de natureza transcultural que abordava.
Embora não querendo abandonar as metas que determinaram a criação deste blogue, sinto-me obrigado a mudar de agulhas em pleno trânsito, para que possa dedicar alguma atenção a áreas da maior premência: as brutais crises que ora afectam Portugal e a Europa.
Encontramo-nos numa encruzilhada decisiva e cada ser pensante tem o dever de tentar reflectir sobre o mar de mutações que a todos ameaça afogar.
É inteiramente natural que, face ao enunciado, comece a redigir este blogue tembém em português. Sempre que pertinente, todavia, publicarei versões bilíngues de futuros textos.
O silêncio nem sempre é de ouro, mas permite, ou concita, uma maior abertura à contemplação e à maturação. Assim se espera.
As coisas neste país transformaram-se de forma indizível, para (o) pior, e são meramente confirmativas de que tudo irá, por força das "coisas", permanecer inalterado. O mundo ultrapassa-nos. Nós ultrapassamos o -- ou ultrapassamo-nos ao -- mundo.
É mister dizer. Intervir. Pronunciar o verbo que antecede o agir com norte.
Outrora escrevera apenas em inglês, por razões de proximidade ao meu "público" diminuto e aos temas de natureza transcultural que abordava.
Embora não querendo abandonar as metas que determinaram a criação deste blogue, sinto-me obrigado a mudar de agulhas em pleno trânsito, para que possa dedicar alguma atenção a áreas da maior premência: as brutais crises que ora afectam Portugal e a Europa.
Encontramo-nos numa encruzilhada decisiva e cada ser pensante tem o dever de tentar reflectir sobre o mar de mutações que a todos ameaça afogar.
É inteiramente natural que, face ao enunciado, comece a redigir este blogue tembém em português. Sempre que pertinente, todavia, publicarei versões bilíngues de futuros textos.
(Anti-)aggiornamento (EN)
It has been nearly six months since my last post.
Silence is not always golden, but is does render one more open to contemplation and inner growth. Hopefully.
Things have undergone untold transformations in my country, for the worse (and worst), only to confirm that everything shall, per force, remain the same. The world is too much for us. We are too much for the world.
It is time to speak up. To intervene. To propound the verb that must precede coherent action.
Heretofore, I have written solely in English, for reasons of proximity, both to my diminutive "audience" and to topics of a cross-cultural nature.
While not wishing to abandon the aims that led to the creation of this blog, I feel obligated to switch lanes in mid-traffic, to delve into other areas of concern: the enormous crises which are affecting Portugal and Europe. We are at a decisive crossroads, and each and every thinking person has the duty to (attempt to) reflect on the sea of change that is drowning us all.
It is only natural, as such, to begin blogging also in Portuguese. Whenever pertinent, however, I shall present bilingual versions of future posts originally written in that language.
Silence is not always golden, but is does render one more open to contemplation and inner growth. Hopefully.
Things have undergone untold transformations in my country, for the worse (and worst), only to confirm that everything shall, per force, remain the same. The world is too much for us. We are too much for the world.
It is time to speak up. To intervene. To propound the verb that must precede coherent action.
Heretofore, I have written solely in English, for reasons of proximity, both to my diminutive "audience" and to topics of a cross-cultural nature.
While not wishing to abandon the aims that led to the creation of this blog, I feel obligated to switch lanes in mid-traffic, to delve into other areas of concern: the enormous crises which are affecting Portugal and Europe. We are at a decisive crossroads, and each and every thinking person has the duty to (attempt to) reflect on the sea of change that is drowning us all.
It is only natural, as such, to begin blogging also in Portuguese. Whenever pertinent, however, I shall present bilingual versions of future posts originally written in that language.
2.1.11
No choice
2011. Another year. A step forward or one more wasted moment in a time without momentum?
Let's be frank. Things are going to get much worse before they can become any better.
Europe is at a crossroads, dangling over a financial abyss and a political crevasse.
China is moving, leaps and bounds, through uncertain paths towards 'greatness'.
The US is torn between a progressive, but timid, leadership, and the constraints of a feckless population and the incredible greed of corporate America.
The rest of the world tags along, amidst sweat shops, growing inequality and emulations of the worst that capitalism has to offer.
Since the tribulations of 2008, we have been living on borrowed time, borrowed money, borrowed hope.
We are feeling the full force of the foreseen -- and the unforeseen -- ramifications of the sub-prime crash, a veritable whirlpool which has pulled in sovereign finances, government expenditure, private debts and global confidence.
Less income, higher taxes, lower social benefits, more unemployment and greater hardship. In a word: more poverty. In an age of plenty, the poor get poorer, the middle class is impoverished and the well-to-do become richer.
We know how all this happened. We understand the direct and efficient causes, as Aristotle would say. But we do not fully grasp the depths of the root problem: capitalism in and by itself, as a system where markets are kept unregulated to satisfy the non-productive generation of wealth.Speculative capitalism plainly counteracts the positive features of the keynesian model of socialised market economies. The real 'third way', the blending and trading-off between the State and free enterprise, has all but been replaced by the 'invisible hand' of market 'forces'.
This development, brought along by the bullish 1990's and early 2000's, reenacts, as if by déjà vu, the errors of the 1890's, 1920's, 1970's and 1980's.
When will we learn to avoid the same mistakes?
When will we see that a model that breathes on cyclical crises, and has become totally dematerialised in a financial Alice in Wonderland, is alienated from the palpable world, from the production of real value?
When will we recognize that capitalism, in its current stage of 'evolution', encourages the multiplication of parasitic investment and the accruing of profit beyond the 'realities' of the 'real' economy?
We should stop being complacent and all-accepting of the 'inevitabilities' of the status quo.
We must do something, each and every one of us, to start a movement for change. Transforming social and economic systems in a peaceful and democratic fashion is the ideal rite of passage for a truly civilised epoch.
Are we up to the challenge of belonging to such a brave new world?
We have no choice. As the Orator pointed out: "Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare." (Anyone can err, but only the fool persists in his fault.)
I shall return to this issue shortly.
Meanwhile, happy new year!
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