Categoria: Espiritualidade

Características do novo paradigma cosmológico emergente

Leonardo Boff19 Comentários

Muito se fala hoje de quebra de paradigmas. Mas há um grande paradigma, formulado já há quase um século, que oferece uma leitura unificada do universo, da história e da vida. Ousamos apresentar algumas figuras de pensamento que o caracterizam.

1) Totalidade/diversidade: o universo, o sistema Terra, o fenômeno humano estão em evolução e são totalidades orgânicas e dinâmicas construídas pelas redes de interconexões das múltiplas diversidades. Junto com a análise que dissocia, simplifica e generaliza, faz-se mister síntese pela qual fazemos justiça a esta totalidade. É o holismo, não como soma, mas como a totalidade das diversidades orgânicamente interligadas.

2) Interdependência/re-ligação/autonomia relativa: todos os seres estão interligados pois um precisa do outro para existir e coevoluir. Em razão deste fato há uma solidariedade cósmica de base que impõe limites à seleção natural. Mas cada um goza de autonomia relativa e possui sentido e valor em si mesmo.

3) Relação/campos de força: todos os seres vivem numa teia de relações. Fora da relação nada existe. Junto com os seres em si, importa captar a relação entre eles. Tudo está dentro de campos pelos quais tudo tem a ver com tudo.                                                                                            4) Complexidade/interioridade: tudo vem carregado de energias em diversos graus de intensidade e de interação. Matéria não existe. É energia altamente condensada e estabilizada e quando menos estabilizada como campo energético. Dada a interrelacionalidade entre todos, os seres vem dotados de informações cumulativas, especialmente os seres vivos superiores, portadores do código genético. Este fenômeno evolucionário vem mostrar a intencionalidade do universo apontando para uma interioridade, uma consciência  supremamente complexa. Tal dinamismo faz com que o universo possa ser visto como uma totalidade inteligente e auto-organizante. Quanticamente o processo é indivisível mas se dá sempre dentro da cosmogênese como processo global de emergência de todos os seres. Esta compreensão permite colocar a questão de um fio condutor que atravessa a totalidade do processo cósmico que tudo unifica, que faz o caos ser generativo e a ordem sempre aberta a novas interações (estruturas dissipativas de Prigogine). A categoria Tao, Javé e Deus heuristicamente poderiam preencher este significado.

4) Complementariedade/reciprocidade/caos: toda a realidade se dá sob a forma de partícula e onda, de energia e matéria, ordem e desordem, caos e cosmos e, a nível humano, da forma de sapiens e de demens. Tal fato não é um defeito, mas a marca do processo global. Mas são dimensões complementares.

5) Seta do tempo/entropia: tudo o que existe, pre-existe e co-existe. Portanto a seta do tempo confere às relações um caráter de irreversibilidade. Nada pode ser compreendido sem uma referência à sua história relacional e ao seu percurso temporal. Ele está aberto para o futuro. Por isso nenhum ser está pronto e acabado, mas está carregado de potencialidades. A harmonia total é promessa futura e não celebração presente. Como bem dizia o filósofo Ernst Bloch: “o gênesis está no fim e não no começo”. A história universal cái sob a seta termodinâmica do tempo, quer dizer: nos sistemas fechados (os bens naturais limitados da Terra) deve-se tomar em conta a entropia ao lado da evolução temporal. As energias vão se dissipando inarredavelmente e ninguém pode nada contra elas. Mas o ser humano pode prolongar as condições de sua vida e do planeta. Como um todo, o universo é um sistema aberto que se auto-organiza e continuamente transcende para patamares mais altos de vida e de ordem. Estes escapam da entropia (estruturas dissipativas de Prigogine) e o abrem para a dimensão de Mistério de uma vida sem entropia e absolutamente dinâmica.

6) Destino comum/pessoal: Pelo fato de termos uma origem comum e de estamos todos interligados, todos temos um destino comum num futuro sempre em aberto. É dentro dele que se deve situar o destino pessoal e de cada ser, já que em cada ser culmina o processo evolucionário. Como será este futuro e qual seja o nosso destino terminal caem no âmbito do Mistério e do imprevisível.

7) Bem com cósmico/bem comum particular: O bem comum não é apenas humano mas de toda a comunidade de vida, planetária e cósmica. Tudo o que existe e vive merece existir, viver e conviver. O bem comum particular emerge a partir da sintonia com a dinâmica do bem comum universal.

8) Criatividade/destrutividade: O ser humano, homem e mulher, no conjunto dos seres relacionados e das interações, possui sua singularidade: é um ser estremamente complexo e co-criativo porque intervem no ritmo da natureza. Como observador está sempre inter-agindo com tudo o que está à sua volta e esta inter-ação faz colapsar a função de onda que se solidifica em partícula material (princípio de indeterminabilidade de Heisenberg). Ele entra na constituição do mundo assim como se apresenta, como realização de probabilidades quânticas (partícula/onda). É também um ser ético porque pode pesar os prós e os contras, agir para além da lógica do próprio interesse e em favor do interesse dos seres mais débeis, como pode também agredir a natureza e dizimar espécies (nova era do antropoceno).

9) Atitude holístico-ecológica/antropocentrismo: A atitude de abertura e de inclusão irrestrita propicia uma cosmovisão radicalmente ecológica (de panrelacionalidade e re-ligação de tudo), superando o histórico antropocentrismo. Favorece outrossim sermos cada vez mais singulares e ao mesmo tempo, solidários, complementares e criadores. Destarte estamos em sinergia com o inteiro universo, cujo termo final se oculta sob o véu do Mistério situado no campo da impossibilidade humana.

10) O possível se repete. O impossível acontece: o Mistério.

 

Si conociéramos los sueños del hombre blanco…

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

La crisis económico-financiera que aflige a gran parte de las economías mundiales ha creado la posibilidad de que los muy ricos se vuelvan más ricos de lo que nunca antes han sido en la historia del capitalismo, lógicamente a costa de la desgracia de países enteros como Grecia, España y otros, y de modo general de toda la zona del euro, tal vez con una pequeña excepción, Alemania. Ladislau Dowbor ( http://dowbor.org), profesor de economía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) resumió un estudio del famoso Instituto Federal Suizo de Investigación Tecnológica (ETH) que compite en credibilidad con las investigaciones del MIT de Harvard. En este estudio muestra como funciona la red del poder corporativo mundial, constituida por 737 actores principales que controlan los principales flujos financieros del mundo, ligados especialmente a los grandes bancos y otras inmensas corporaciones multinacionales. Para ellos, la crisis actual es una oportunidad incomparable de realizar el mayor sueño del capital: acumular de forma cada vez mayor y de manera concentrada.

El capitalismo ha realizado ahora su sueño, posiblemente el último de su ya larga historia. Ha tocado techo. ¿Y después del techo? Nadie sabe. Pero podemos imaginar que la respuesta nos vendrá de otros modelos de producción y de consumo sino de la propia Madre Tierra, de Gaia, que, finita, no soporta más un sueño infinito. Ella está dando claras señales anticipatorias, que al decir del premio Nobel de medicina Christian de Duve (véase el libro Polvo Vital: la vida como imperativo cósmico, 1997) son semejantes a aquellos que antecedieron a las grandes destrucciones ocurridas en la ya larga historia de la Tierra (3,8 miles de millones de años). Tenemos que estar atentos pues los eventos extremos que ya estamos vivenciando apuntan a eventuales catástrofes ecológico-sociales, aun en nuestra generación.

Lo peor de todo es que ni los políticos ni gran parte de la comunidad científica ni la población se están dando cuenta de esa peligrosa realidad. Es tergiversada u ocultada, pues es demasiado antisistémica. Nos obligaría a cambiar, cosa que pocos desean. Bien decía Antonio Donato Nobre en un estudio recientísimo (2014) sobre El futuro climático de la Amazonia: «La agricultura consciente, si supiese lo que la comunidad científica sabe (las grande sequías que vendrán), estaría en las calles con carteles exigiendo al gobierno la protección de las selvas y plantando árboles en su propiedad».

Nos falta un sueño mayor que galvanice a las personas para salvar la vida en el Planeta y garantizar el futuro de la especie humana. Mueren las ideologías. Envejecen las filosofías. Pero los grandes sueños permanecen. Ellos nos guían por medio de nuevas visiones y nos estimulan a gestar nuevas relaciones sociales, con la naturaleza y con la Madre Tierra.

Ahora entendemos la pertinencia de las palabras del cacique piel roja Seattle al gobernador Stevens del Estado de Washington en 1856, cuando éste forzó la venta de las tierras indígenas a los colonizadores europeos. El cacique no entendía por qué se pretendía comprar la tierra. ¿Se puede comprar o vender la brisa, el verdor de las plantas, la limpidez del agua cristalina y el esplendor de los paisajes? Para él la tierra era todo eso, no el suelo como medio de producción.

En este contexto piensa que los pieles rojas comprenderían el por qué de la civilización de los blancos «si supieran cuáles son las esperanzas que transmite a sus hijos e hijas en las largas noches de invierno, cuáles son las visiones de futuro que ofrece para el día de mañana».

¿Cuál es el sueño dominante de nuestro paradigma civilizatorio que colocó el mercado y la mercancía como eje estructurador de toda la vida social? Es la posesión de bienes materiales, la mayor acumulación financiera posible y el disfrute más intenso que podamos de todo lo que la naturaleza y la cultura nos pueden ofrecer hasta la saciedad. Es el triunfo del materialismo refinado que alcanza hasta lo espiritual, hecho de mercancía, con la engañosa literatura de autoayuda, llena de mil fórmulas para ser felices, construida con retazos de psicología, de nueva cosmología, de religión oriental, de mensajes cristianos y de esoterismo. Es pura engañifa para crear la ilusión de una felicidad fácil.

Así y todo, por todas partes surgen grupos portadores de nueva reverencia hacia la Tierra, inauguran comportamientos alternativos, elaboran nuevos sueños de un acuerdo de amistad con la naturaleza y creen que el caos presente no es solo caótico, sino generativo de un nuevo paradigma de civilización que yo llamaría civilización de la religación, sintonizada con la ley más fundamental de la vida y del universo, que es la panrelacionalidad, la sinergia y la complementariedad.

Entonces habremos hecho la gran travesía hacia lo realmente humano, amigo de la vida y abierto al Misterio de todas las cosas. Es el camino a seguir.

How “cordial” is the Brazilian People?

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

Calling a Brazilian a «cordial man» derives from the writer Ribeiro Couto. The expression was popularized by Dutch Sergio Buarque, in his well known book, Roots of Brazil, (Raices de Brasil, 1936), where he dedicates all of chapter V to it. To clarify, in contrast to Cassiano Ricardo, who would understand «cordiality» as goodness and delicacy, he said that «at its core, our ordinary form of social coexistence is exactly the opposite of delicacy» (from the 1989 21ª edition, page 107). Sergio Buarque understands cordiality in the strictly etymological sense: that which comes from the heart. Brazilians are ruled more by the heart than by reason. From the heart may come love or hatred. Well, says the author: «enmity can be just as cordial as friendship, because both are born in the heart» (page 107).

I write this so as to understand the «cordial» emotions that erupted in the 2014 presidential campaign. On the one hand, there were expressions, to the point of fanaticism, of enthusiasm and love for the candidates, and on the other, profound hatred, and haughty expressions by both sides of the electorate. What Buarque from Holland wrote was affirmed: the lack of delicacy in our social coexistence.

Perhaps in no previous electoral campaign were the «cordial» gestures of the Brazilians better expressed, in the sense of the love and hatred encompassed by this word. Those who followed the social networks noticed the low levels of good education, the lack of mutual respect, and even the absence of a democratic sensibility, understood as the coexistence of differences. That lack of respect also affected the debates between the candidates, broadcast on TV. For example, the fact that one of the candidates called the President of the country «a loose woman and a liar» falls within this meaning of «cordial», but it reveals a great lack of respect for the dignity of the highest office of the nation.

To better understand this «cordiality» of ours, it helps to mention two inheritances that weigh on our citizenry: colonization and slavery. Colonization produced in us a feeling of submission. It made us adopt the political structures, language, religion and customs of the Portuguese colonizer. Thus, La Casa Grande and La Senzala were created. As Gilberto Freyre showed, it is not just about external social structures. They were internalized as an insidious dualism: on one side is the master who owns and orders everything, and on the other, the servant who owns little and obeys, or as in the social hierarchy exposed by the great divide between rich and poor. That structure persists in people’s brains, and has evolved into a code for interpreting reality.

Another very perverse tradition was slavery. We must remember that there was a time, between 1817 and 1818, when more than half of Brazil was composed of slaves (50.6%). Today, nearly 60% have something of the African slave in their blood. «Patience, resignation and obedience» was the catechism priests taught the slaves; the slave owners were taught «moderation and benevolence», which, to tell the truth, was not practiced much. Slavery was internalized in the form of discrimination and prejudice against the Black, who had to always serve. To pay a salary is still understood by many as charity and not as a duty, because slaves did everything for free before, and they imagine it must continue that way. In many cases, employees, domestic workers, or ranch hands are treated in that manner.

The result of these two traditions is found in the Brazilian collective unconscious, not so much in terms of class conflict, (that also exists), but of social status conflict. It is said that Blacks are lazy, even though we know that it was the Blacks who built almost everything in our cities. People from the North are unschooled because they live in semi-arid areas with harsh environmental limitations, but they are very creative, astute, and hard working people. The main writers, poets and actors come from the North East. In today’s Brazil, it is the region with the highest economic growth, on the order of 2-3%, above the national average, but prejudice dooms them to inferiority.

All these contradictions of our «cordiality» are on display in twitter, facebook, and other social networks. We are contradictory beings.

I also add an anthropological argument to understand the emergence of the love and hatred in this electoral campaign. It is about the essential ambiguity of the human condition. Each possesses a dimension of light and darkness, sym-bolic (that unites) and dia-bolical (that divides). The moderns say that we simultaneously are demented and wise (Morin), this is, people of rationality and goodness, and simultaneously, of irrationality and evil. Christian tradition says that we are both saints and sinners. Saint Augustine expressed it well: everyone is Adam, everyone is Christ, this is, each person is full of limitations and vices, and at the same time, is a carrier of virtues and a divine dimension. This situation is not a defect but a characteristic of la condition humaine. Each must know how to balance these two forces and in the best case, to give primacy to the dimension of light over that of darkness, to that of Christ over that of old Adam.

In these months of the electoral campaign, who we are within was revealed: «cordial» in the double sense of the word: filled with rage and indignation and at the same time with positive exaltation and serious and self controlled militancy. We must neither laugh nor cry, but try to understand. But to understand is not enough; it is urgent to seek civilized forms of «cordiality» where the will of cooperation for the common good predominates, the legitimate space for a serious opposition is respected and the different political options are welcomed. Brazil needs to unite so that together we confront the grave internal and external problems (wars of great devastation and the grave crisis of the Earth-system and of the life-system), in a project assumed by all, so that what Ignacy Sachs said of Brazil, «The Land of Good Hope», may become true.

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

To understand the victory of Dilma Rousseff

Leonardo Boff3 Comentários

In this Presidential election, Brazilian men and women confronted the Biblical scene spoken of in Psalm Number One: they had to choose between two paths: one representing success and possible happiness, and the other, error and inevitable unhappiness.

The conditions were in place for a perfect storm, with distortions and slanders spread in the mass media and social networks. One magazine in particular seriously transgressed journalistic, social and personal ethics, publishing falsehoods to undermine candidate Dilma Rousseff. Behind it all were the most backward elites, striving above all to defend their privileges, rather than to universalize personal and social rights.

Facing these adversities, President Dilma, who endured torture in the dungeons of the repressive organs of the military dictatorship, strengthened her image, grew in determination and gathered her energies to confront every attack. She portrayed herself as she is: a courageous and valiant woman. She emanates confidence, a fundamental virtue for a politician. She displays integrity, and does not tolerate things not done well. That evokes in the electorate a sentiment of “feeling firm”.

Her victory is due in large part to the militants who took to the streets and organized great demonstrations. The people showed that it has matured in its political consciousness and knew, Biblically, how to choose the path that appeared more correct, by voting for Dilma. She was victorious with more than 51% of the votes.

The people already knew the two paths. One, tried for 8 years, enabled Brazil to grow economically, but transferred the great part of the benefits to the already well off, at the expense of depressed salaries, unemployment, and poverty for the great majorities: good policies for the rich and poor ones for the poor. Brazil was turned into a minor and subordinate player in the great global project, led by the wealthy and militaristic countries. This was not the project of a sovereign country, conscious of her human, cultural and ecological wealth, and worthy of a people that is proud of its crossbreeding and richer for all its differences.

The people have also traveled another path, the correct one for possible happiness. And the people had a central role in this. With public policies focused on the humiliated and downtrodden of our history, one of its children, a survivor of the great tribulation, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, managed to incorporate a population equivalent to all of Argentina into a modern society. Dilma Rousseff carried on, deepened and expanded these policies, with democratizing measures such as Pronatec, Pro-Uni, the university quotas for students from public rather than private schools; quotas for students whose grandparents came from the dungeons of slavery; and all the social programs, such as Bolsa Familia, Light for All, My House, my Life, and More Doctors, among others.

The fundamental question facing our country is being addressed: to guarantee to all, but primarily to the poor, access to the goods of life, to overcome the dreadful inequality and through educational opportunities for the young, so that they may grow, develop, and be humanized, as active citizens.

That project awakened Brazil’s sense of sovereignty, and projected it onto the world scene with an independent position, demanding a new world order, where humanity discovers itself as humans inhabiting a Common Home.

The challenge for President Dilma is not only to consolidate that which is already working and correct any defects, but to inaugurate a new cycle of the exercise of power, embracing a qualitative advance in all spheres of social life. Little will be accomplished without political reform that eliminates once and for all the bases of corruption and enables an advance in representative democracy, incorporating participatory democracy, with councils, public audiences, consultation with the social movements and the other institutions of civil society. Tax reform is also urgent, to advance equality and help diminish the abysmal social inequality. Education and health care will be at the center of the concerns of this new cycle. An ignorant and sickly people will never be able to advance towards a better life. President Dilma will be obliged to address the social imperatives regarding basic sanitation, urban mobility, with minimally dignified transportation, (85% of the population live in cities), security, and combating criminality.

In the debates she proposed a broad range of changes. Through the seriousness and sense of efficacy she always has shown, we can be sure that they will take place.

There are questions that were barely mentioned in the debates, such as the importance of modern agrarian reform, that stabilizes the peasant in the country, with all the advantages that science has to offer. It is important also to demarcate and standardize the indigenous lands, many of which are threatened by the encroachment of agro-business.

The last and perhaps the main challenge comes from the realm of ecology. The future of life and of our civilization are seriously threatened, both by the man-made death machine that could eliminate all life several times over, and by the disastrous consequences of global warming. If the warming is abrupt, as entire scientific societies warn may occur, life as we know it perhaps could not continue, and a great part of humanity would be lethally affected. Given her ecological wealth, Brazil is fundamental to the equilibrium of our tortured planet. A new Dilma administration cannot not ignore this question of life or death for our human species.

May the Spirit of Wisdom and Caring guide the difficult decisions President Dilma Rousseff must make
Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.