Categoria: English

A culture where the heart is at the center

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Since the so-called Century of Lights, (1715-1789), our culture has rigorously applied the understanding of Rene Descartes, (1596-1650), that the human being is “lord and master” of Nature and can dispose of her at his whim. Descartes gave absolute value to reason and the scientific spirit: whatever cannot pass the test of reason, loses legitimacy. From this there followed a severe criticism of all traditions, especially of traditional Christian faith.

This also closed many windows of the spirit that permit knowledge without necessarily passing through the rational cannons. Blaise Pascal already noted that reductionism in his Thoughts about the logique du coeur, (“the heart has reasons unknown to reason”), and in the esprit de finesse, that differentiated itself from the esprit de géométrie, this is, from the calculating and analytical instrumental reason.

But what was thoroughly relegated to the margins and even defamed was the heart, the organ of the sensibility and of the universe of emotions, with the pretext that from the scientific point of view, it would spoil “clear and distinctive ideas” (Descartes). Thus arose a knowledge without heart, but functional to the goal of modernity, that was, and still is, of making knowledge a power, a power as a means of dominating nature, peoples, and cultures. That was the metaphysics (the understanding of reality) underlying all of colonialism, slavery, and eventually, the destruction of the different, such as the rich cultures of the original peoples of Latin America (remember Bartolome de las Casas with his History of the Destruction of the Indies).

Curiously, all modern epistemology that incorporates quantum mechanics, the new astrology, the phenomenological philosophy and analytical psychology have shown that all knowledge comes impregnated with the emotions of the subject, and that subject and object are indissolubly linked, sometimes by hidden interests (J. Habermas).

Starting from these observations and with the pitiless experience of modern wars, it was thought to rescue the heart. After all, in the heart resides love, affection, compassion, the feeling of respect, the bases of human dignity and inalienable rights. Michel Mafessoli, in France, David Goleman in the United States, Adela Cortina in Spain, Muniz Sodre, in Brazil and many others around the world, have worked hard to rescue emotional intelligence, or sensible or cordial reason. Personally, I believe that facing the globalized crises of our lifestyle and of our relationship with the Earth, without cordial reason, we will not move to safeguard the vitality of Mother Earth and guarantee the future of our civilization.

What appears new to us, and a conquest –the rights of the heart–, was the axis of the great Mayan culture of Central America, particularly in Guatemala. Since they did not experience the circumcision of modern reason, they faithfully kept the traditions that came through the Grandmothers and Grandfathers, throughout the generations. Their principal written texts, the Popol Vuh and The Books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, bear witness to that wisdom.

I have participated many times in Mayan celebrations, with their priests and priestesses. They are always done around the fire. They start by calling to the heart of the winds, of the mountains, the heart of the waters, the trees and the heart of the ancestors. These calls are made in the middle of a native perfumed incense that produces a lot of smoke.

Listening to them talk of the energies of nature and of the universe, it seemed to me that, except for the differences of language, their cosmic vision was very much like quantum physics. Everything to them is energy and movement, between formation and disintegration (we would say: the dialectics of chaos-cosmos) that give dynamism to the Universe. They were eminent mathematicians and had invented the number zero. Their calculus of the course of the stars approximates in many ways what we have attained with modern telescopes.

Beautifully they say that everything that exists was born from the loving encounter of two hearts, the heart of Heaven and the heart of the Earth. The Earth is Pacha Mama, a living being who feels, intuits, vibrates and inspires human beings. Humans are the “illustrious sons and daughters, the investigators, the searchers of the existence”, affirmations that remind us of Martin Heidegger.

The essence of the human being is the heart, that must be cared for to be affable, understanding and loving. All the education that continues throughout life consists of cultivating the dimension of the heart. The Brothers of La Salle have in the capital city of Guatemala an immense College –Prodessa– where young Mayans live in a bilingual internship. There the Mayan cosmic vision is recaptured and systematized at the same time that ancestral knowledge is assimilated and combined with the modern, especially linked to agriculture and respectful relationships with nature.

I am pleased to end with a text that a wise Mayan woman passed to me at the close of an encounter with only Mayan people: “When you have to choose between two paths, ask yourself which of them has heart. Whoever chooses the path of the heart never will be wrong” (Popol Vuh).

Leonardo Boff is a brazilian theologian and ecologist, has written Christianity in a Nutshell, Orbis 2014

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Life of the spirit and ethics of the Earth and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

If it is true that climatic disturbances are anthropogenic, that is, that they have their genesis in the irresponsible behavior of humans (less of the poor, but much more of the great industrial corporations), then it is clear that the issue is more an ethical than a scientific one. This is so because the quality of our relationships with nature and with our Common Home were not, and they still are not, adequate and positive. Pope Francis says in his inspiring encyclical letter, Laudato Sii: on the caring of the Common Home, (2015): «Never have we mistreated and hurt our Common Home so much as in the last two centuries…These situations provoke the howls of Sister Earth, joining the wails of the abandoned of the world, with a cry that demands that we take a different path» (n. 53).

That different path urgently implies a regenerative ethic for the Earth. This ethic must be founded on principles that are universal, understandable and practical for everyone. It is the essential caring, the loving relationship with nature; the respect for each being because each one has value in itself; it is the responsibility shared by all for the common future of the Earth and of humanity; the universal solidarity by which we help each other; and, finally, it is the compassion by which we make our own the suffering of others and of nature herself.

This ethic for the Earth must restore her damaged vitality, so that she may continue giving us all that she has always given us during the whole of our existence on this planet.

But an ethic for the Earth is not enough. We need to supplement it with spirituality. This spirituality finds its roots in the cordial and sensible reason. From there we receive the passion for caring and a serious commitment of love, responsibility and compassion for the Common Home.

The well known and always highly appreciated Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in a posthumous text that was written in 1943, Letter to General “X”, (Carta al General “X” ), affirms with much emphasis: “there is but one problem, only one: to rediscover that there is a life of the spirit that is even higher than the life of intelligence, the only one that can satisfy the human being” (Macondo Libri 2015, p. 31).

Another text, written in 1936, when he was a correspondent for the Paris Soir during the Spanish Civil War, is titled, «It is essential to give meaning to life». In that article he retakes the theme of the life of the spirit. To that end he affirms, “we need to understand each other with reciprocity; the human being only becomes a reality together with other human beings, in love and friendship, however, human beings do not unite only by coming closer to each other, but by fusing together in the same divinity. We are thirsty. In a world turned into a desert, we thirst to find comrades with whom to share the bread” (Macondo Libri 2015, p. 20). And de Saint-Exupéry ends the Letter to General “X”: “We have such a great need for a God…” (op. cit. 36).

In fact, only the life of the spirit fully satisfies the human being. The life of the spirit is a beautiful synonym for spirituality, often identified or confused with religiosity. The life of the spirit is much more. It is an original aspect of our profound dimension, an anthropologic fact such as intelligence and will, something that belongs to our essence.

We know how to take care of the life of the body. That is now a true cult, celebrated in so many academies of gymnastics. The psychoanalysts of several tendencies help us take care of the life of the psyche, of how to balance our impulses, the angels and demons that inhabit us, to carry on that life with relative equilibrium.

But in our culture we all but forget to cultivate the life of the spirit. That is our most radical dimension, where the great questions are housed, where our boldest dreams nest and where the most generous utopias are formulated. The life of the spirit is nourished by intangible goods such as love, friendship, compassion, caring and openness to the infinite. Without the life of the spirit we wander around, rootless and without meaning to guide us and make life worhwhile.

An ethic of the Earth cannot sustain itself alone for long, without that supplément d’âme that is the life of the spirit, that calls us to the highest and to actions for saving and regenerating Mother Earth. Ethics and the life of the spirit are inseparable twin sisters.
Leonardo Boff Theologian-Philosopher  and Member of the Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine diz Jeffrey Sachs

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine

Jeffrey Sachs é  professor na Universidade de Columbia nos USA e se fez conhecido como economista que associa economia com a pobreza – o se livro O Fim da Pobreza – tem estudado as formas de controle da AIDS e o cancelamento da dívida dos países pobres. Tem clara preocupação ecológica e dirige o Instituto da Terra da universidade. Desvela quem é Hillary Clinton, suas vinculações com o aparato econômico-militar e a facilidade com que recorre aos meios da guerra para resolver questões políticas. Como poderá ser presidente dos USA é bom sabermos as críticas de um acadêmico reconhecdo por sua seriedade, para não sermos pegos de surpresa. LBoff

02/05/2016 11:25 am ET | Updated 2 days ago

JEWEL SAMAD via Getty Images

There’s no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy “experience” has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.

Hillary and Bill Clinton’s close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman’s collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.

Yet Hillary’s connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don’t want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.

Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support “regime change” in Iraq.

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.

Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members… “

After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb,” she told reporter Lucinda Frank.

Hillary’s record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.

Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died.”

Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary’s relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must “get out of the way,” backed by secret CIA operations.

Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.

The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary’s support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia’s violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.

It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it’s all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.

We need to build bridges between life and politics

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

We see today in Brazil a serious division among people for reasons of political party. There were those who stopped participating in the community celebrations of the Nativity due to divergent politics: some becuse of criticisms of the party in power for having lied in the electoral campaign; others due to the excessive corruption attributed to important groups of the Labor Party, PT. Some are strong defenders of impeaching President Dilma Rousseff. Others do not consider the famous “pedaladas” (pedal pushers) a sufficient reason to remove her from the highest position of the Republic, won by the vote of the majority of the people. Let us agree that the “pedaladas” are sinful, but it is only a venial sin, committed without ill intention. For a venial sin, in good theology, no one is condemned to hell. At worst, they spend some time in God’s purifying clinic, the purgatory. Purgatory is not hell’s lobby, but the lobby of heaven.

Let’s ignore these contradictions. The fact is that without doubt, there exists in society great irritation, racial intolerance, acid discussions and many strong words that children should never hear. Especially the Internet has opened the door through which all kinds of offenses pass. Some people remain anchored in the past and still think about the cold war. To call someone a communist is an insult. They forgot that the Soviet Empire collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The bridges between social spaces, different, but accepted and respected, have been damaged or destroyed. A healthy society cannot survive while its social network is being tore down. That is where the danger lies in the radicalism of the right (dictatorship such as those of the military) or of the left (as the totalitarian Soviet Socialism).

More than theoretical arguments, I believe that history can provide good lessons and convince us of the truth of things. I will relate a story that I heard long time ago and that has a strong effective conviction. Here it is:

Two brothers lived in good harmony in two farms that were closer to each other. They had good grain production, some head of cattle and well cared for pigs.

One day they had a small argument. The reasons were not that important: a calf from the younger brother had strayed and eaten a good part of the cornfield of the older brother. They discussed it with some irritation. Matters appeared to had rested there.

But it was not so. Suddenly, they did not speak to each other. They avoided seeing each other in the store or on the road. They behaved as if hey did not know each other.

One day a carpenter looking for a job appeared in the farm of the older brother. The farmer looked at him up and down and, with some sadness, he told the carpenter: “See that brook that flows down there? Is the division between my farm and the farm of my brother. With all the wood there is in that wood pile build a very high fence, so that I may not be forced to see my brother or his farm again. That way I will have peace”.

The carpenter accepted the job, took the tools and went to work. Meanwhile, the older brother went to the city to take care of some business.

When he returned to the farm, late that day, he was horrified by what he saw. The carpenter had not built a fence, but a bridge over the brook that united the two farms.

And he saw there walking by the bridge the younger brother who was coming saying: “Brother, after all that had happened between us, it is hard for me to believe that you have made that bridge just to find me. You are right, it is time to end our disagreement. Let’s embrace, brother!

And they embraced each other effusively and reconciled. The brother found his other brother..

Suddenly they saw that the carpenter was leaving. And they called him: “Hey, carpenter! Please do not leave. Stay with us for a few days… You have brought to us so much happiness…”

But the carpenter answered: “I can’t stay; there are other bridges to build throughout the world. There are still too many that need to reconcile with each other”. And the carpenter went away calmly walking until he disappeared in the distant curve of the path.

The world and our country need bridges and people-carpenters who generously would help solve the disagreements and build bridges so that we may rise above the conflicts and differences inherent in the unfinished humanity. We must always learn and relearn to teach each other fraternally, as brother and sisters.

Perhaps this is one of the most urgent ethical and humanitarian imperatives in the present historical moment.
Leonardo Boff is ecotheologian and writer

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.