Categoria: Idiomas

How the culture of capital is perpetuated

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

In the previous article –The capitalist culture is contrary to life and happiness– we attempted to show theoretically that the strength of its perpetuation and reproduction lies in emphasizing one aspect of our nature, namely, the urge for self affirmation, for strengthening the ego, so that it neither disappears nor is assimilated by others. But this diminishes and even denies another aspect, equally natural, namely, the integration of the self and the individual into a whole, into the species, of which it is an example.

Is not enough however to end with this type of reflection. Along with this original point there exists another force that guarantees the perpetuation of the capitalist culture. It is the fact that we, the majority of society, internalize the “values” and the basic purpose of capitalism, namely, the constant growth of profit that allows for unlimited consumption of material goods. Those who do not have, want to have, those who have want to have more, and those who have more say: there is never enough. And for the great majority, competition, rather not solidarity, and the supremacy of the strongest prevail above any other value in social relations, especially in business.

The key to sustaining the culture of capital is the culture of consumption, of constantly acquiring new products: a new cell phone with more apps, a more sophisticated computer, a different style of shoes or clothing, more bank credit to facilitate buying and consuming, the uncritical acceptance of product advertisements, etc.

A mentality has been created whereby all of these things are taken as natural. In parties among friends or family and in the restaurants one eats to satiation, while at the same time the news speaks of millions of people who are going hungry. Not many notice this contradiction, because the culture of capital teaches us to care for one’s own self first, and not to worry about others, or about the common good. This, as we have already said many times, has existed for a long time.

But it is not enough to attack the culture of consumption. If the problem is systemic, we have to put forward a different system, one that is anti-capitalist, anti-production, and anti-unlimited lineal growth. To the capitalist credo: «there is no alternative», we must posit a humanist credo: «there is a new alternative».

Alternatives can be seen everywhere, of which I will only mention three as examples: the concept of “living well” of the Andean nations, which has endured for centuries, notwithstanding many attempts to eliminate, subordinate, or assimilate them; but which some sectors of society have recently come to acknowledge and appreciate for their gifts to humanity, including the harmony and equilibrium within all the sectors of the family, within society (community democracy), with nature (the waters, soil, landscapes), and with Pachamama, Mother Earth. The economy of the Andean nations is not guided by accumulation, but by producing only what is enough and decent for everyone and everything.

A second example: eco-socialism is growing daily. It is unrelated to socialism as it previously existed (that in fact was state capitalism), but stems from the ideals of classical socialism, of equality, solidarity, subordination of exchange value to the value of use, together with the ideals of modern ecology. It has been brilliantly presented by Michael Löwy in, What is Eco-Socialism, (Qué es el ecosocialismo, Cortez, 2015) and by others in several countries, including the significant contributions of James O’Connor and Jovel Kovel. They postulate the economy as a function of social needs and the need to protect the life-system and the planet as a whole. The objectives of democratic socialism, according to O’Connor, would be democratic control, social equality and the prevalence of the value of use. Löwy adds that «such a society presupposes collective ownership of the means of production, democratic planning that allows society to define the objectives of production and investments, and a new technological structure of the forces of production» (op.cit. p.45-46). Socialism and ecology share qualitative values, such as cooperation, reducing work time so as to live in a state of freedom to coexist, to create, to pursue culture and spirituality, and to restore an impoverished nature, values which cannot be reduced to market value. This ideal is in the realm of historical possibilities and embraces practices that anticipated it, (such as those of the Andean nations, mentioned above).

A third model of culture I would call, “The Franciscan Way”. Francis of Assisi, updated by Francis of Rome, is more than a name or a religious ideal; it is a project of life, a spirit and a mode of being. The Franciscan Way understands poverty not as the condition of having nothing, but as the capacity for always being able to detach from oneself, so as to give and give. It embraces the simplicity of life, of consumption as shared sobriety; of caring for the destitute, of universal fraternizing with all of nature’s creatures, respected as brothers and sisters, of the joy of living, of being able to dance and sing, even Provencal cantilenae amatoriae, songs of love. In political terms, it would be a socialism of sufficiency and decency rather than of abundance; consequently, a project radically anti-capitalist and anti-accumulation.

Utopias? Yes, but necessary, so as not to drawn into crass materialism. They are utopias that may turn out to be inspiring reference points, after the great systemic socio-ecological crisis that will inevitably come as a reaction of the Earth herself, that can no longer endure such devastation. These cultural values will sustain a new experiment of civilization, finally a more just, spiritual and human one.
Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU..

The capitalist culture is contrary to life and happiness

Leonardo Boff5 Comentários

The demise of the theory underlying capitalism as a form of production started with Karl Marx and grew throughout the XX Century, with the emergence of socialism. To realize its main purpose of accumulating wealth in unlimited form, capitalism speeded up all available productive forces. But as a result, from the beginning capitalism paid a high price: a perverse social inequality. In ethical-political terms, it causes social injustice and the systematic growth of poverty.

In recent decades, society has also come to realize that not only social injustice exists, but also ecological injustice: the devastation of whole ecosystems, the depletion of natural resources, and, lastly, a general crisis of life and of Earth-systems. Productive forces have been transformed into destructive ones. Money is sought for its own sake. As Pope Francis warned in well known sections of the Apostolic Exhortation on the Ecology: «in capitalism it is no longer man who rules, but money and hard money. The motivation is profit… An economic system centered in god-money requires the depletion of nature in order to maintain its inherently frenetic rhythm of consumption».

Capitalism now has shown its true face: we are dealing with a system that it anti-human life and anti-natural life. And we face a dilemma: either we change or we risk our own destruction, as the Earthcharter warns.

Nevertheless, capitalism persists as the dominant system around the world, under the name of neo-liberal market macro-economy. On what do its permanence and persistence rest? In my opinion, they rest in the culture of capital. The culture of capital is more than a mode of production. As a culture, it embodies a way of living, of production, of consumption, of relating to nature and human beings, a way of creating a system that manages to constantly reproduce itself, regardless of the culture where it is installed. It has created a mentality, a form of exercising power and an ethical code. As Fabio Konder Comparato emphasized in his book, A civilização capitalista, (Saraiva, 2014), that deserves to be studied: «Capitalism is history’s first world civilization» (page 19). Capitalism proudly affirms: «there is no alternative».

Let us quickly review some of its characteristics: the end goal of life is to accumulate material goods through unlimited growth produced by limitless exploitation of all natural resources, by marketing everything and by financial speculation, all realized with the least possible investment, seeking to obtain the greatest possible profit, through efficiency, and within the shortest possible time. The motor is competence, stimulated by commercial publicity; the final beneficiary is the individual; the promise is happiness in a purely crass materialistic context.

To this end, capitalism takes over the whole lifetime of the human being, leaving no space for gratuitous activities, for fraternal coexistence among persons and with nature, for love, for expressing solidarity and experiencing the joy of life through simply living. Since those realities are not important to the culture of capital, but are the realities that make happiness possible, capitalism destroys the conditions ncessary for that which it proposes: happiness. And thus, capitalism is not only against life, but also against happiness.

As can be deduced, these ideals are not properly what are most needed for the ephemeral and only time we have for our life on this small planet. The human being is hungry not only for bread and wealth; the human being also carries other hungers, such as for communication, enchantment, loving passion, beauty, and art, and the hunger for transcendence, among many others.

But why does the culture of capital appear so persistently? I would say without hesitation that even though it does so in a distorted form, it persists because the culture of capital realizes one of the essential dimensions of human existence: the need for self affirmation, for strengthening the ego. Otherwise, it would not subsist and would be absorbed by other dimensions, or would disappear.

Biologists and even cosmologists (let’s just mention Brian Swimme, one of the finest) teach us that in all beings of the universe, especially in the human being, two forces prevail that coexist in tension with each other. One is the individual’s will to be, to persist and continue within the process of life; for which the individual must self affirm and fortify his identity, his “ego”. The other force is of integration in a greater whole, within the species, of which the individual is a representative, forming networks and systems of relationships, outside of which no one can subsist.

The first force revolves around the ego and the individual and creates individualism. The second is based in the species, the “us”, and fosters community and society. The first is the basis of capitalism, the second, of socialism.

Where is the genius of capitalism found? In the exacerbation of the ego to the maximum possible extent, of the individual and of self-affirmation, neglecting the greater whole, integration and the “we”. In this way it has thrown off balance all of human existence, due to the excess of one force, ignoring the other.

In this natural fact resides the force perpetuating the culture of capitalism, because it is founded on something that is correct, but accomplished in a disproportionately unilateral and pathological form.

How can we overcome this situation, that comes to us from centuries long past? Fundamentally, by recovering the equilibrium of the two natural forces that form our reality. Perhaps an endless democracy would be the institution that does justice simultaneously to the individual (the “ego”), but within a greater whole, (“we”, society), of which the “ego” is a part. We will return to this theme in the future.
Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

A revolution within evolution

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

A general perception exists that the human being of today must be superceded. Creation of the human being of today is not yet finished, but is latent in the dynamism of the process of evolution. This search for the new man and the new woman is perhaps one of those longings that never was achieved throughout history.

Two examples. The Mesopotamian thinking produced the Gilgamesh Epic of the VII Century, BC, that is very close to the Biblical narrative of the creation and the flood. The hero, Gilgamesh, distraught over the drama of death, seeks the tree of life. He wants to find Utnapishtim, who had escaped the flood, had been made immortal, and lived on a marvelous island where death did not rule. On his way, Shamash, the Sun god, counseled him: «Gilgamesh, you will never find the life you seek». The divine nymph Siduri warns him: «when the gods created humans they included death as their destiny; the gods kept eternal life for themselves. You would do better, Gilgamesh, by filling your stomach and enjoying life, day and night; be happy with what little is within your grasp».

Gilgamesh does not desist. He arrives at the island of immortality, grasps the tree of life and returns. On his way back, the serpent blows its evil breath on the tree of life, and steals it. The hero of the epic dies disillusioned, and goes «to the land of no return, where one eats dust and mud, and the kings are dispossessed of their crowns». Immortality continues to be a perennial search.

Our Tupi-Guarani and Apopocuva-Guarani envisioned the utopia of the “Earth without Evil” and the “Motherland of Immortality”. Those two nations lived in constant motion. From the coast of Pernambuco, they suddenly would move towards the interior of the jungle, near the headwaters of the Madeira river. From there, another group would go to Peru. From the border of Paraguay, another group would go to the Atlantic coast, and so on. The studies of myths by anthropologists revealed their meaning. The myth of the “Earth without Evil” inspired a whole nation into motion. The shaman would prophesy: “It will appear in the sea”. There they would march, filled with hope. Through rites, dances and fasts they believed in making their bodies light so as to go to the encounter with the “Motherland of Immortality” in the clouds. Disillusioned, they would return to the jungle until they heard another message, and move on, in search of the desired “Earth without Evil,” yearning for a never ending hope.

These two example express, in mythical form, the same concept that the moderns express in the language of science. They do not wait for the new being from heaven, they want to create it through genetic manipulation. We continue searching, and in spite of that, we always die, sooner or later.

Christianity also subscribes to this utopia, with the difference that for Christianity, it is no longer a utopia, but a topia, that is, a blessed and unprecedented event that occurred in history. The oldest testimony of paleo-Christianity is this: “Christus ressurrexit vere et aparuit Simoni” (Luke 24,34): “Christ is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”.

They understood the resurrection not as the reanimation of a corpse, such as Lazarus, who after all ended up dying again, but as the emergence of the new human being, “novissimus Adam” (1Corinthians 15,45), the “newest Adam”, as a full realization of all the potentialities present in the human being.

They did not find words adequate to express that unprecedented phenomenon. They called it “spiritual body” (1Corinthians 15,44). That appears to contradict the prevailing philosophy of the times: if it is a body, it cannot be spirit; if it is spirit, it cannot be body. Only by uniting the two concepts, according to the early Christians, could they do justice to the new reality: it is body but transfigured; it is spirit, but liberated from the material limits and with cosmic dimensions.

They say more: the resurrection is not simply a personal event that occurred in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It is something for everyone, including the cosmic, as it appears in the epistles of Saint Paul to the Colossians and to the Ephesians. This is why Saint Paul reaffirms: “He is the hope of those who have died… As all died for Adam, so for Christ, all will come to life again” (1Corinthians 15,22).

This is a discourse of faith and religion, but it also has anthropological importance. It represents one of the many answers to the enigma of death, perhaps the most promising one.

If it is so, we are facing a revolution within evolution. It is as if evolution anticipated its positive ending, in the zenith of the realization of its hidden potentialities. It would be a model that would show us the glory and the extremely wonderful destiny to which we are called.

Thus it is worth living and dying. In reality, we do not live to die. We die to resurrect. To live more and better.

To all who believe, and to those who suspend judgement, have a good and happy Easter.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

How to dismantle social hatred

Leonardo Boff7 Comentários

We are seeing that too much hatred and anger now exists in society, either due to the general situation of dissatisfaction that humanity is experiencing, overwhelmed by a profound crisis of civilization, without anyone who can tell us how to overcome it or where this flight into the darkness will take us. The collective unconscious detects this malady, as Freud described in his famous text, Civilization and its Discontents, (El malestar en la cultura,1929-1930) that, somehow, foresaw the signs of a world war.

Our unrest is unique, and derives from the various victories of Workers Party, PT, with its politics of social inclusion that have benefited 36 million Brazilians and elevated 44 million to the middle class. The historically privileged, the upper class and also the middle class, have been frightened by the slight equality that has been achieved by those who were marginalized. The fact is that on one side there is a dreadful concentration of income and, on the other, social inequality that ranks among the greatest in the world. That inequality, according to Marcio-Pochmann in the second volume of his Atlas da exclusão social no Brasil (Cortez 2014), has significantly lessened over the last ten years, but still it is very profound, a permanent factor in social destabilization.

As Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, an excellent economist and social analyst of the PSDB party, noted and described in his dominical column (3/8) of Verissimo, this fact «caused a phenomenon to surge that was never before seen in Brazil: a collective hatred by the upper class and the rich for a party and a president; it is neither concern nor fear, it is hatred…; the class struggle has returned with force, not on the part of the workers, but by the dissatisfied bourgeoisie».

I consider this interpretation to be correct. It corroborates what I wrote in What lies behind the hatred for the PT?, that appeared in two articles in this space. It is the rise of millions of human beings, who used to be economical zeros and who began to acquire dignity and social participation, occupying places that previously were exclusively for the upper classes. This provoked rage and hatred against the poor, the Northerners, the Blacks and the members of the new “middle class”.

The problem now is how to dismantle this hatred. A society that lets itself be carried away by that spirit destroys the minimum bonds of coexistence, without which it can not sustain itself. It runs the risk of breaking the democratic rhythm and inspiring social violence. After our bitter experiences of authoritarianism and the painful conquest of democracy, we must avoid by all possible means the conditions that may cause us to return to the path of uncontrollable or irreversible violence.

In the first place, following the wise suggestion of Bresser Pereira, a new social pact that would go beyond that created by the 1988 Constitution is urgently needed; a pact that would unite businessmen, workers, social movements, the means of communication, political parties and intellectuals, a pact that better distributes the responsibilities for overcoming the present national crisis (that is a global one), and that clearly summons stockholders and the very wealthy, generally alligned with transnational capitalists, to give their share. They must also act like another Simon the Cyrenian, who helped the Master carry the cross.

Not just the music but also the lyrics must be changed. In other words, it is important to think of Brazil more as a nation and less in terms of political parties. We must give centrality to the common good and unite the forces around fundamental values and principles, seeking convergence in diversity, in function of a viable Project-Brazil that reduces inequality, which is another name for social injustice. I think that we have matured enough for this strategy of a collective win-win, and that we will be capable of avoiding the worst and thus not wasting this historic opportunity, which would hold us back even more as we face the global process of social and human development in the planetary phase of humanity.

In the second place, I believe in the transforming force of love, as expressed in the Prayer of Saint Francis: where there is hate, there I bring love. Love here is more than a subjective feeling. It acquires a collective and social form: love of a common cause, love for the people as a whole, especially those most downtrodden by life, love of the nation (we need a healthy nationalism), love as a capacity to listen to the reasoning of the other, love as an opening to dialogue and to interchange.

If we neither find nor listen to the other, how are we going to know what the other thinks and hopes to do? We would then start imagining and projecting distorted visions, nourishing prejudices and destroying the possible bridges that unite the borders.

We need to give more space to our positive “cordiality” (because there is also a negative one) that lets us be more generous, capable of looking ahead and upwards, of leaving behind that which belongs behind, and of not letting resentment feed rage, rage feed hatred and hatred feed violence, such as would destroy coexistence and sacrifice lives.

The Churches, the spiritual paths, the groups of reflection and action, especially the means of communication and all people of good will, can help dismantle this negative burden. And we also count on the integrating force of opposites, the Spirit Creator that traverses history and the personal lives of everyone.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.