Reflexões breves

1. Speaking English is a sign of ‘intelligence’? Don’t be an idiot. This is only a question of where you’ve born. “English native speakers” are such a regular person as you.

2. You have a body, right? Of course, you have. Ok, so let’s take a geographic perspective. The ground is the reference point, ok? Then, from bottom-up, we have, (1) shit (your stomach and so forth), and … (2) your brain.

3. Around one “smart guy” (basically, someone that has managed to deal with valuable symbolical resources, because he or she is a professional hoax), there are always a lot of other “small guys” trying to benefit or be as “smart” as their “master.” As Rorty once said: only one or two are really innovative (intellectually speaking). The rest is only trying to copy and find some justification to fill the space between their foot and their brain (I mean: that thick layer of shit).

4. What if the cynism was the best (or the only) way to deal with the nonsensical conditions of modern (and, especially, academic) life?

5. Your life would be completely different if you could listen to music, take wine and, then (and only then), was able to use what is located above the shit-deposit I’ve mentioned before (of course, doing everything at once). The “raw” life is too much tough and meaningless to support.

6. Marx, I bet, is laughing in his grave. Because we think we are free spirits walking around the world. When you come to realize that you only need to render account to those who pays your bills, your feeling of being free (or captive) would much be more realistic.

***Final remark: we speak more than we should. Have you already realized how noisily the world is? I´m doing my part…

After some time here in Denmark, I came to realize a certain Danish cultural trace (at least this is what I’m able to catch as a foreign). Walking down on the street, it is not uncommon to be surprised by someone smiling at you. Yes, people that are completely unfamiliar to you can look at you and … smile to you! It has happened to me at the supermarket, at the park, and at the street. Typically, it is a glance of a smile, but even so a smile.

First, of course, I thought that it was something addressed to me. Then I started to check out which kind of person used to do that more frequently. The result of this rough “survey” was that older woman used to smile more often that the younger ones. Well, but eventually I was also gifted by some young girl smile.

In a self-centered culture, where the face is a proxy to, obviously, the self, I think my first reaction was entirely understandable. The person somehow only exists to the other when she is seen by the other. More specifically, when their eyes meet. Social encounters – like at public spaces – are ruled out by an impersonal code according to which, if my eyes turn out to meet your eyes, immediately I’m supposed to shift them away – for instance, to the sky or the other’s shoes.

But what should I think when in addition to eyes contact, the experience comes with a smile? Both as quick as lightning? When my eyes glance off someone’s eyes as we walk past on the street, a sort of “relationship” is immediately settled. What kind of relationship? Well, you feel like beeing recognized, but not as Pedro, a particular self (even if I’d prefer the opposite), but as a person like the other. Second, you may feel some kind of reciprocity. Levinas, in a book about the Face, said that the face (not necessarily the physical or even psychological one) is a way to “face” the alterity – but, in Levinas’ account, I recognize the other’s suffering face. Here what I’m looking at is a smiling face, something quite different from a suffering face.

Over time, I finally came across with a hypothesis, an explanation for this (I guess) typical Danish behavior. Smiling is as much impersonal as swift eyes away. Here’s my guess: it is the way that the local culture found to regulate the social behavior, the borders between the intimacy/strangeness. In the social encounters, I unconsciously tell you: “Don’t be afraid, I’m a kind person, and I’ll not hurt you.” But, in return, “I hope you do the same to me.”

My question is: what happens when someone wants to demonstrate some particular “interest” in someone else, as when you are trying to get on with someone? There will be a different nuance in the way they smile, or look at one another? Could be the opposite, I mean, if I’m interested in you as a singular person, should I “ignore” you, or maybe could I have any trouble in staring at you?

Plastic is, probably, one of the most ingenious discoveries of our advanced, scientific and industrial era. We depend heavily on plastic to the well-functioning of our daily life – a toothpaste tube, a medicine bottle, all the pieces that compound the computer I’m now using to type this post, plastic bags we use to pack our stuff – there are so many applications to plastic-made objects that would be hard to sum up here. In a word: I can’t imagine our life without plastic.

But is well-known that plastic can be, at the same time, one of the worst enemies of nature. Plastic is difficult to degrade. And if we add to this characteristic the fact people are sometimes irresponsible in the way they throw out their no more useful plastic objects, then we can imagine the problem. Indeed, each year, tons of plastic debris are simply dumped into the ocean – the natural habitat of many species of seabirds.

One of these birds is the Laysan albatrosses. What a gracious creature!

These birds have a long wingspan, and they fly vast distances without flapping their wings. They can also spend years without touching land, living for more than half century. As if were not enough all the threats we human beings are causing to their environment (breaking the balance of their habitats), now they face a new menace: tons and tons of plastic that are dropped into the ocean every year. The problem? A recent study shows that this plastic is confused as their natural prey. This happens due to a chemical process that misleads these birds – the plastic debris generates a dimethyl sulfide signature that is the same trace these birds use to identify their ‘food.’ The result: they swallow this debris and then…. they die as a consequence. The photographer Chris Jordan has captured this tragic outcome in images like the next one.

I know. I know. While this is happening, you are concerned with your life. What is the value of the Albatrosses’ life? Your son is infinitely more important. The paper I’m struggling to publish right now is more important. Even what I’m going to eat next is more important. Who, in the so-called “First World” is concerned with the destiny of the plastic waste they produce? Most of the people have a shit for that. And so we in the “developing countries”.

A snowing day here. I heard this year the winter will be the worse in 100 years in Europe. Well, I have no idea about this time last year, but I think it’s a little unusual snowing just in the beginning of the fall. Maybe this is expected or normal, but, to me at least, it’s a sign of what lies ahead…

Human beings are much more close to the ‘early man’ (primitive man) than might be expected. Imagine the following situation. You (or me) work all day long. You arrive at home and expect to have your meal prepared (by yourself our by someone else). You eat. If it is cold, as is the case here where I’m living, you also expect to be heated. Then you sit down on your couch. You may decide to watch the TV, or work a little more in front of your computer. Your mind could be busy – you could be anxious about the bills you have to pay in the next day. Or concerned about your kids (your younger sun is going badly at school), your wife or husband. Or you might be concerned because of an even more frivolous reason: let’s say because your football team lost the last championship. Or you are annoyed because of a bug flying around your head and buzzing in your face.

I’m not entirely sure, but I bet that most of our everyday activities show a degree of inertia. At best, your noblest personal project is raising your kids in the best way possible, or your dog, or help your old mother/father, keep your house, or car, or stuff in general. Or maybe you have put all your energy in your work – you’re concerned with the future of the company to which you work to. You truly desire that the firm goes beyond all its limits, and you’ll probably feel proud of this accomplishment.

Maybe you have an ‘inner’ voice telling you that your actions and achievements are indeed adding some value to the world. Somehow, you feel you are contributing to making this planet a better place to live -at least for the next generations. You throw your rubbish away every day. You pay your taxes. You buy your clothes, the fuel to our car, and eventually, you make the waitress working in your favorite restaurant happy with some generous (although occasional) tip. You think you are a good guy, a good person.

Yes, someone could say that keep our daily life is an act of courage. After all, affording our standards is not an easy task at all. It takes time, effort, labor, patience. However, I think that broadly speaking, we are far, but far, from a life based on, let’s say, ‘political values.’ I’m going to mention only the political surroundings in Brazil: I venture to say that 99% of the politicians decide to go to this life because of the status provided by this position, the money they earn (direct and indirectly). They hardly are concerned with the public good in a romantic point of view – that is to say, seeing beyond their self.

Well, I think that most people are conservative in a deep and unconscious level. They don’t want to ‘fight’ for anything except their personal and all-embracing way of life. I think this is related to the emergence of the ‘affluent societies’ over the past century, at least in the West. If I need something to eat (from the essential provisions to the most exotics products), for instance, I simply go to the supermarket and buy it. I don’t need to go to the forest or whatever to hunt my prey (Unless if I decide to hunt as a hobby or sport…). And we [middle class?] are also got accustomate to a comfortable life, with our little luxuries (a glass of wine, a warm meal, a private house, a private bedroom, etc.). Hard to get, easy to lose.

I’m not saying we are weak or that we became ‘coach potatoes,’ when compared to our ancestors. But maybe we are less prone to engage ourselves in acts that demand courage and, especially, self-sacrifice – perhaps because self-sacrifice is no longer considered as much as necessary to the perpetuation of our species. You could object that raising a kid or work hard in a line-based company or fast-food chain every day is a sort of “abnegation” or endurance (courage?). This could even be true but is an abnegation inside a narrow world: our world and the work of OUR family. Do you believe that each family is a cell of the society? Working in an interdependent and intertwined way? Private vices, public benefits (Mandeville)?

How much would you be ready to, let’s say, work freely for someone else in order to help them? How about receiving immigrants in your country and assist them restoring their lives, even if this implies some degree of self-sacrifice (let’s say, sharing something that belongs to you with them)? The Brexit: Have you ever imagined if, instead of saying goodbye to the Europe, the Britains had decided to remain and help to build a stronger Europe? In Brazil, do you can imagine ourselves helping some child on the street – giving them some food or even inviting them to stay in our house while we help her to find another place to live?

I’m portraying something far beyond a utopia. Engage ourselves in such a kind of abnegation or not interested behaviors challenge the central tenets of your society, our collective, and personal culture. This society relies on a value hierarchy where the individual is placed on the top; then, the proximal other (my relatives); and then the other that belongs to the same community as I do. We rarely can see further. One person indirectly helps another one only in a mediated way – for instance, through her work.

I mean: if I work for the State/Government, for example, and my job implies to assist homeless people, I do that because this is my job and I’m paid for doing that. Sometimes we heard a couple of histories about self-sacrifice from the part of these social workers, but this is not the case for everybody being paid to do something that was ascribed to them as part of their formal activities. Otherwise, we have no time, no physical conditions, and especially no deep and pristine desire to act towards the other in a abnegate way. We are not stupid, you could say.

Well, this is the ‘spiritual’ background behind what I tried to discuss in my previous post. I have no answer regarding how to overcome (if this is possible at all) this state of things. And, yes, I probably oversimplify the issue. It’s because I have no intention to argue based on “proved” facts or high-level theorization. I’d like just to share some current ‘feelings’ about myself, about the world where I live.

A modest street view (taken while I was walking)