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Prof. Fred Dallmayr.-Photo: Innsbruck University
Prof. Fred Dallmayr, Emeritus Packey J. Dee Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA; GCGI Board of Advisers, and Co-Chairman, World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations
KAMRAN MOFID’s GUEST BLOG: Here on The Guest Blog you’ll find commentary, analysis, insight and at times provocation from some of the world’s influential and spiritual thought leaders as they weigh in on critical questions about the state of the world, the emerging societal issues, the dominant economic logic, globalisation, money, markets, sustainability, environment, media, the youth, the purpose of business and economic life, the crucial role of leadership, and the challenges facing economic, business and management education, and much more.
A GLOBAL STATE OF NATURE?
PLEADING FOR A RENEWED COVENANT
'Our time illustrates a state of increasing brutalization.'- Tzvetan Todorov
These days, whenever one reads a paper or watches the news on television, one is faced with an avalanche of atrocities and mayhems. For example, on January 27, 2015, these were the main news items: U.S. drone kills 12 years-old Yemeni boy; Shiite militias accused of executing 70 unarmed civilians; eight die in attack on Libyan hotel; nine Ukrainian soldiers die; thousands protest in Mexico over disappearance of students. These are just the headlines on one day. Other, equally grim stories were reported on the previous days. And we know: the flow of horror stories will not stop during the following days. So, what is happening in our world? Is world history really the relentless slaughter bench—as Hegel once surmised?
This verdict does not concur with mere hopeful scenarios depicted by some students of international politics. According to the latter, the world today is at the cusp of a momentous “paradigm shift”: from inter-state relations to a genuine “global politics.” Whereas traditional inter-state politics—inaugurated by the Peace of Westphalia—was marked by the constant rivalries among sovereign states, the new paradigm of global politics would usher in a more peaceful era released from the war-mongering ambitions of the past. While Hegel’s verdict may have applied to the state-centered Westphalian system, it would no longer hold true for the emerging global scenario. But how plausible is this assumption? The expectation clearly is predicated on two factors: first, the retreat of powerful state actors; and secondly, the upsurge of a viable global civil society. As it happens, neither of these factors is presently in place.
Regarding the role of state, it is true that many of the older nation-states have been reduced to the role of satellites or (quasi-colonial) client states. Their military capabilities are restricted to performance in so-called “proxy wars.” However, the shrinking of older states to subsidiary status does not eliminate the role of state sovereignty. On the contrary, what has happened is the rise of super-states, of hegemonic super-Leviathans endowed with sheer limitless war-making capacities. To this extent, Westphalia has given rise to a new super-Westphalian order. The so-called “clash of civilizations” is to a large extent a clash of super-Leviathans clustering around themselves an aura or penumbra of client civilizations.
What is still more disturbing is the fact that the practically unlimited war-powers of super-Leviathans is accompanied by the absence or decay of civil society, especially of what is sometimes called “global civil society.” This decay is due to the erosion of ethical civic bonds and the growing “atomization” of society—an atomization which has been spearheaded by Western countries but is now being globalized around the world. What is happening as a result is not the upsurge of a robust global civil society—functioning as a possible antidote to super-Leviathans—but the decay of social life into a Hobbesian “state of nature”—now a globalized state of nature. According to Thomas Hobbes, the state of nature was (and is) characterized by the lack of binding ethical rules and the claim by every member to an unlimited right to do as he/she pleases for the sake of security. Hobbes called this right or freedom the “right to everything” (ius ad omnia), the right to do anything perceived as required for security, including the unlimited right to kill opponents. The exercise of this absolute right by everybody inevitably leads to an absolute condition of terror or fear of death, a condition which renders life “nasty, brutish, and short.” It is this condition of universal terror which increasingly is gripping both domestic and global civil society.
On the global level, this condition of terror is illustrated by the pretense of a global right to kill anybody anywhere—and this quite outside the bounds of traditional warfare. This pretended right to kill is evident in the use of drones anywhere in the world, resulting often in mayhem among civilians. It is also evident in the use of para-military mercenary forces in many parts of the world, forces which—though wielding lethal power—are not accountable to any legal authority.[ii] This war obviously has its heroes; in a new Hollywood movie, the new super-hero of Western civilization is called “American Sniper.”
The prevalence of a global state of nature is demonstrated not only by military or para-military operations, but also by violent or harmful conduct stopping just short of physical killing. The demeaning and slandering of opponents in the global arena testifies to a total lack of global civility and elementary standards of conduct. Too often, “freedom of expression” is used not to criticize the powers that be but to abuse the powerless and the stranger. Basically, anybody who claims an “absolute” right or freedom outside any social bonds thereby commits an act of violence (what Gandhi called himsa). Any assertion of a Hobbesian “ius ad omnia” inevitably constitutes the mainspring and basic source of terror and fear. But for Hobbes there was also a possible exit from terror—namely, through a social covenant where people relinquish absolute freedom in favor of relational civility. As Henry Giroux rightly observes: “As the bonds of sociality and social obligations dissolve,” the state of nature lurks. “Older discourses that provided a vision” have been cast aside; and “as Hannah Arendt once argued, the very nature of the political in the modern period has been dethroned” (or else been replaced by a brutal friend-enemy formula).[iv]
In his conduct, Gandhi exemplified what it means to cultivate a social covenant through non-harming (ahimsa) and justice-seeking (satyagraha). Inspired by his example, the World Public Forum-“Dialogue of Civilizations” is committed to the cultivation and steady renewal of the global social covenant. In the face of the ongoing global mayhem, this commitment is an urgent and categorical demand.
[1]. See Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control (New York: Verso Books, 2012); John Kaag and Sara Kreps, Drone Warfare: War and Conflict in the Modern World (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2014); Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2013), and Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (New York: Perseus Books, 2013).
[2]. Nick Turse, “The Golden Age of Black Ops: US Special Ops Missions Already in 105 Countries in 2015,” Information Clearing House, January 23, 2015. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40759.htm
[3]. Henry A. Giroux, “Death-Dealing Politics in the Age of Extreme Violence,” Truthout/News Analysis, January 26, 2015. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28721-death-dealing-politics Giroux also traces the state of nature in the form of “death-dealing politics” in the American domestic scene, stating: “The war on terror has been morphed into a form of domestic terrorism aimed not only at whistleblowers, but all of those populations, from poor people of color to immigrants, who are now considered disposable.”
[4]. See Fred Dallmayr, “Gandhi and Islam: A Heart-and-Mind Unity?” in Peace Talk-Who Will Listen? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), pp. 132-151.
Prof. Fred Dallmayr:
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Paradise Stolen: Don't Show Your Children
Photo: maxresistance.com
I thought you might be interested in watching this short video on ‘Paradise Lost’: the destruction of our environment, ecology, hope and life; turning paradise into hell.
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Photo: africanexecutive.com
“In the beginning, woman was truly the sun. An authentic person.” Today more than ever, the global economy needs precisely this kind of radiant sun—to provide light and nourishment. To provide healing. To dry out the swamps of poverty and unrest”*
“I urge everyone—all women and men of goodwill—to dare the difference and bet on women. I promise you this: you will not be disappointed. For when women shine like the sun, their radiance will be forever undimmed.”*
‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest When Adam Smith wrote that all our actions stem from self-interest and the world turns because of financial gain he brought to life 'economic man'. Selfish and cynical, economic man has dominated our thinking ever since and his influence has spread from the market to how we shop, work and date. But every night Adam Smith's mother served him his dinner, not out of self-interest but out of love. Today, our economics focuses on self-interest and excludes all other motivations. It disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, then that's because their labour is worth less - how could it be otherwise? Economics has told us a story about how the world works and we have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Now it's time to change the story.’..
Heather Stewart, the Observer's economics editor, in a recent article eloquently reminds us of the many major shortcomings of the “Economic Man” which is at the heart of the modern economic thinking and ideology.
Stewart notes that today we have increasingly come to see ourselves as “aspirational”, atomised individuals, scrabbling to make our way in a world without the support of the society and community.
‘This approach was underpinned and apparently vindicated by the proliferation of economic models that conceived of people as cool, rational, drastically simplified robots who beetle around trying to maximise their utility. The market became seen as the ultimate expression of this calculating rationality, and its values – competition, self-interest, even greed – as the fundamental driving forces of life.
Stewart then introduces us to a forthcoming book by journalist Katrine Marçal who notes Economic Man’s major shortcoming: he’s not, and never could be, a woman.
‘In the excellently titled “Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?”, Marçal argues that a swath of traditionally feminine activities – cooking, cleaning, caring, changing nappies – have been systematically excluded from economists’ view of the world, which has become the lens through which just about everything is scrutinised.
‘Smith and his fellow pioneers in economics asked themselves how a loaf of bread got to their table – through the unpleasant-but-useful self-interest of the farmer who grew the wheat, the miller who made the flour, the baker who kneaded the dough, and so on (most of them chaps in those days, naturally). But they simply took it for granted that someone would nip out to the shops to buy a loaf, slice it, toast it, butter it and pop it on a plate. And make the beds. And cook the kids’ tea. Care, which is still overwhelmingly carried out by women, was effectively a natural resource.
‘That helps to explain why roles such as nurse, cleaner, carer are still undervalued today; but it also leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of human motivations. Economic Man has nothing as troubling as emotions, family connections, class loyalties or friendships. He’s a lean, mean, utility-maximising machine.
‘Marçal argues that the rationalist worldview has had extraordinary sticking power because it appeals to a desire in us to detach ourselves from the messy world of love and duty, and make decisions in a clean, rational way.
‘It’s also elegant and apparently powerful: it allows the number-crunchers to construct models apparently encompassing entire economies.
‘As Marçal puts it: “Economic science should be about how one turns a social vision into a modern economic system. It should be a tool to create opportunities for human and social development. Not just address our fears as they are expressed as demand in the market.”
‘Hope, and a whole slew of other messy emotions – fear, greed, loyalty, even love – need to be brought back… right into the heart of economics.’
Read the original article:
Syriza’s cleaners show why economics needs a new broom | Business | The Guardian
Buy Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?A Story About Women and Economics
Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? | Guardian Bookshop
*Read more:
The African Executive | The Economic Power of Women’s Empowerment