Phronetic Manifesto
Introduction
By Ylli Përmeti
The specter of Europe is a long and endless specter on the planet earth. The same specter is America’s one: both these continents symbolize or represent democracy. But none of these two continents has yet accomplished to be ruled by the sage and rational mind of human being —therefore; none of them has yet accomplished to create relative or absolute predictive social sciences. Sciences that would lead to parties that would compete with each other to show their exactness or meticulousness in their actions, consequently —to sustainable societies. Not a single one, today, of world’s parties, in the system of the «monetary capitalism» have distinguishable characteristics and explicit opponents; none of these parties have political explicit vision; none of these parties represent the indispensable desire, of the society, of the individuals or of human being.
None of these parties have adopted the emergent necessity that menaces our globe: the first one is the «peak of petroleum» and the «depletion» of the «nonrenewable» energy, where according to individuals and devotional studies —this peak will be very soon —and the second one —is the risen of the temperature caused by the uncontrolled emissions of carbon dioxide by the industrialized societies; and overall —the drastic curtailment of the world’s commodities in relation with the «irrational increase» of the global population . None of these parties do not see the emergent necessity that is threatening the main foundation of our life —that is family, human mind, reason, morality, rationality or consciousness —where all these attributes or virtues have been inalienably perverted. This «mind perversion» has never existed on the planet earth: neither in the Stone Age nor in the Middle Ages.
Even so, the policy today has been converted in an object of Machiavellian self-promotion, irrational, which is not financed by its own effort that had been created in time and space but instead by its corruptive policies. Also, alas, none of these parties do not see today that our earth, animals, nature or the whole offspring’s of the planet earth is in emergency. Thus, should manifest, emergently, in this world, that these corrupt policies or the destruction of the planet earth to come to an end —with the accomplishment of a new party that would be called: «The Rational Party».
This party will confront in its actions hard work with rational mind: work that would lead to exactness in their acts. The acts that this party has to enhance must be explicit: Every party’s acts must have as matter of highest priority, the earth, which means in other words: the financial-construction acts should be taken by the democratic consensus, (far from today’s democracy […]); should have genuine study and continual pondering; for the sake of the common good and of the living creatures on the planet earth. But in order to happen this, we have to operate in a completely different way: building democracy and not speculate with it. No one has the right to speculate with this nomenclature: Earth needs «rational mind» and not speculation. Speculation in time and space is in direct detriment of the «mother earth» and therefore of «human being». Speaking spatiotemporally, this detriment has been narrowed, quite much, and the «Spirit of Europe» must return to its own place, thus «Rational Mind» must turn back to «Human Being».
Consequently, our concern hitherto, in our investigation must be something totally different from the past ground of history and must derive from the questions: Does Democracy is immortal and where from comes this notion to our life?-Does family as an institution have something else to teach us regarding democracy than a simple relation between a male and a female with the only aim to give birth to their offspring’s?-Can democracy be applied in a different way other than the «Parliamentarian Democracy»? -Does human brain can be mirrored with other images than the present? And does the Athenian democracy can be a cornerstone of our investigation and what would be after democracy? What constitute power? And our most important question must be: what is the vector of democracy in space and time based on our mind rationality? These questions and a lot of others will follow us in this historical investigation. Evidently, our goal is on how to balance tow historical corps, and that is: Demos against Cracy; in other words, citizens against power or government.
Additionally, in this essay we will try to elaborate extensively and in greater detail the power of knowledge; and our most crucial point will be the rationalization of our acts in every domain of our social and natural life; and also, will offer some alternative ways on how to organize our communities having base of datum phronesis, which is philosophical concept —that is not part in any dictionary around the world; and which means in the first place: “Practical Wisdom”.
The Phenomenology of Democracy: Demos vs. Cracy
‘Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that [or "how"] they are, and of things that are not, that [or "how"] they are not’.
Protagoras
I. Family as an institution and its power.
The History of human being from the cradle to the grave is full in Calvary, pain, uncertainty, insufficiency, insurrections, ideologies, wars and governments. Being upon these scenes, philosophers from the old times have dedicated their life to give answers and solutions to the above dolorous phenomenology. Thus, stone by stone it looks that our wall of knowledge has been built up; but there still remain unanswered the following question: What is phenomenology regarding democracy?
Does Husserlean’s phenomenology give us any conclusion through intuition or through eidetic science in building democracy? It looks that, not; and we still occupy ourselves in these historical controversies of phenomenology; and as such, controversies have point of departure the ancient thinkers of the society “against” the coexistent philosophers and the opposite. It is certain that this struggle of ontological phenomenology will continue endlessly.
After all, Husserlean’s concern was about knowledge and its application whereas ours is about who possesses the power and how to divide it —thus reversing the question— not on how we acquire knowledge but how to rationalize it. Indeed, we have been told that phenomenology comes from the Greek world just because the fathers of philosophy like Thales, Plato or Aristotle ed.al commenced to wonder about what we see, hear or feel and how to interpret it or to use it —in a positive common good.
Thus phenomenology, according to the ancient thinkers, is the subject which lies before us and constitute wonder, from which we acquire knowledge. Accordingly, what lie before us —is the nature; and the whole its subjects including in this cosmological heritage our being. Noticeably, should not be confused at this point that we are looking to find out an object that will serve to our life on earth the magic eye, i.e. being the upper power; and thus man to be infinitely just subject.
Therefore, naturally arisen the question: what is subject in our life and how can we perceive it and get into it, for example; into human mind, and ‘most important’: who has the right to be the object and who has not the right to be the object? Or to put it in other way: who is said to be the subject and who is said to be the object? For example: if A is an object who try to observe B why B should not observe A? Thus in our context seems that there are two powers: on the one hand is the observed i.e. the crowd and on the other —is the observer; which in our times is called government —using as an instrument to achieve it, the term democracy.
Additionally, we can add another component at this context: the male is the «measure of knowledge» or the female or the opposite, or none of them, or both of them —which in our context this interrelation could be called: «the shared power between a male and a female»; and with this we mean the battle that is taking place in the corpus of our society; and thus, never in our human history has been applied proportionate power.
Furthermore, what is democracy and how can be divided it into two equal pieces? That is to say, one piece to the crowd and one piece to the government, i.e. fifty percent the former and fifty percent the latter. What we are trying to divide here is the phenomenology, so to say, what we see and what we have in social terms. If we accept that in our life we have just men then the problem is solved or can be divided between men; and if we accept that in our life are just women then again the problem doesn’t exist. But just because life accepts two sexes, we have to find the solutions into these two genuses. In other words: the relationship between a man and woman. Putting it in a different way: what constitute family and how is it divided in relation with the inherent and acquired power which is knowledge?
Immediately, should be explicit our basic institution: Family without a male and a female is not a family; even if tomorrow natural science discover for the sake of mind perversions —that male is capable of giving birth to offspring’s in a technical way. In this latter dilemma which has been subject of extensive commentary in the west laws, and has given terrain to “mind perversion”, nature gives us the answer; and that is: ‘man without a woman cannot be family’.
On the other hand there is certainty the other option and interpretation of this statement; that one cannot obstacle the feelings, the desire or the affections of someone else; but just because of that “feelings failure” —because they fail to perpetuate their genes; and as such human life stop to give birth to other generations; and therefore human species dies —so there cannot be other interpretation but for determining a priory and consciously your destiny in the struggle of the selection of species.
On the opposite side; one might ask at this point: what is the reason of being? Of course as biologists point out: “the power of our genes” to perpetuate forever our life on earth; and as such is not just a sexual affection; but is a natural obligation.
Whereas the former can be seen as “nihilistic affection” which lead with the disappearance of human race; the latter evidently is life. Therefore, the former statement may seem to us homophobic; but is not so. Despite the latter statement that scientists try to understand the power of our genes that guide us to transmutation and to other births; there is also the configuration of our «pure logic» phenomenology: All of us in our baby life had a cradle and a mother that shaken our body. Consequently, in this context cannot be doubt for this human or natural phenomenon; and these appearances are the two major constructions of the mother earth: on the one hand is the male and on the other is the female; our two historical constructions with totally different “anatomic needs”.
Again, at this point should be mentioned explicitly that we are trying to build up or to find out power in a smaller context, that is to say, family, i.e. between a male and a female which is context-dependent therefore closer to our human rationalism. Thus, concluding in short on what has been indicated previously: the power of the family is its knowledge possessed by the two beings; and being so, “knowledge is rationality” on which we have unavoidably to analyze our anatomy with «man’s measurement».
II. Human anatomy and ontology as the point of departure of rationalism.
‘Who disregards the natural power of the “two” social beings can never find the truth’.
Remarkably, historical datum regarding the social phenomenology for all philosophers has been the subject of citizenship —bypassing thus the core of our life that is the relationship of a man with a woman; and which historically has been called family. Maybe the roots of this misinterpretation have point of departure Aristotle, who says: ‘…[O]ut of these two relationships between man and woman, master and slave, the first thing to arise is the family, and Hesiod is right when he says: "First house and wife and an ox for the plough "...’. Accordingly, it is the same by saying today: ‘First house and wife and some “knowledge” to reign’. So what is missing Aristotle at this point? Is there any gap in his discussion? Of course there is! By talking in the singular noun he is excluding from the possessed knowledge his wife (or his “mother”); and he is considering her as a “marginal rudiment” or as a tool that will serve to his life as a companion rather than as an “alter ego” or as an “interalternator”.
However, in the following discussion Aristotle points out:...‘[f]or the ox is the poor man's slave. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard,' and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger...’.
By reading the last discussion he gives us the impression that on the one hand —Aristotle is not educated by his mother’s paedeia (because she is excluded already from his discussion); and his wisdom is the result of men’s society; and on the other hand, he speaks ex cathedra and over all he is considering his statement ex post —vis-a-vi— with the subject under discussion. It is true that considering your subject ex ante you risk to be criticized because of the hypothesis or presuppositions given. But without considering the knowledge that someone acquires during his/her life and his/her natural development on both sides we can never find the truth. His discourse gets even worst when he support the words of Homer in relation with the governance and association of the village by saying: ‘Each one gives law to his children and to his wives’.
Accordingly, what is a man and what is woman? — Or is there any difference between them ontologically and anatomically? Since ontology is concerned with the character of real rather than phenomenal existence, one might ask: What is the character of a real man? Then, one might answer: The character is the particular attribute that one either inherences or develops or acquires in his/her life. Then, what are the common attributes of all men and what are their differences?—Or are there more common or differences attributes between them? Inferring deductively by the social data one can find easily the truth: That social structure today suffer more than ever in the history of human being. Therefore it looks that there are more common attributes than differences; and which will be explained in the following discussion.
Furthermore, a man is said traditionally that is the result of a positive or adequate education by his parents and particularly by his mother. But why should a man be educated by his mother and not by his father? It is said as well that when someone is well educated you can have successful results. But as far as the tradition says that all men are the result of mother’s education: Why then the social sciences have failed?
To answer all these questions we have to proceed further: Dividing piece by piece all our attributes. So, (clarifying our statement): the features or the particularities of our character are either inherently or results of our parents; or stating it in medical jargon: Are “completely” and “part” result of the fecundation between a man and a woman. To consider it further one has to extend his knowledge on the existent medical literature. Our point here is different: Is ontology that concerns us and later on anatomy; and not the way and inferences that our being comes to life.
Therefore, why man traditionally is known as an outsider and a woman as an insider of the family life —is the proceeding question: The answer seems to be that historically man has been the hunter of the house and the woman has been the science of the house —housekeeper; or man has been the ploughman and woman the baker. Therefore, can we reverse this natural and historical phenomenon? Of course not! Then undoubtedly woman was, is and will be the master of the family science. Aristotle this latter point illustrates it with the chicken regarding on what constitute phronesis: ‘...[S]uppose that someone knows that light flesh foods are digestible and wholesome, but does not know what kinds are light; he will be less likely to produce health than one who knows that chicken is wholesome. But prudence is practical, and therefore it must have both kinds of knowledge, or especially the latter...’[1]. Consequently, who is possessing prudence in our context: A woman that all her dedication is the “housekeeping” or a man that is an outsider? Putting it in a different context: Man as a hunter all he knows is how to catch hunting; and the woman as a housekeeper all she knows is how to make it digestible for her husband and her children; or even for herself.
The next question that derive from the above discussion is: If food at the time was the result of hunting or ploughing; and these duties were inherently and naturally done by the husband or by the man and the rest was the duty of the housekeeper, who in our context is the wife: who then, of our protagonists have to confront in his actions the most rational work? We do not have to answer at this point; but instead we have to proceed further by giving other examples of our family-social life. Our examination will lead us at the end of this analysis in some very strange gestalt.
However, as we know inherently and intrinsically woman is the “brood hen” and man is the “rooster”. Therefore, the relation with the “birds” is closer and determined by nature on the mother’s duty. So far, in human life woman caries on her baby in her body; and her relationship is completely different from that of the husband. Her body is also made entirely different from the male. Her pelvis is made sensitive by nature. The basement of her body is her pelvis where she concentrates her attention. The most quantity of her blood is at this point. Blood is the liquid the causes muscular and brain pressures. Brain has the trait to lose its rational functionality when blood pressures it. That explains the word: Hot-blooded! But in her body blood is concentrated in her pelvis and is far from her brain. Therefore she can keep herself in absolute tolerance: that explain the aphorism that woman has got the ‘tolerance of a mule’. So far we have examined blood-pressure: The reason is to know the functionality of our body and its efficacy regarding rationality of our brain.
On the opposite side is standing the man with his attention to his shoulder blade being admired by women. Therefore, his mind-concentration is at this place; having it as “broad” as much he can. His blood therefore is concentrated at this point; closer to his brain and having in this way nothing else to think than to lose his rationality oftener than a woman; because his body-basement is his shoulder. Imagine an architect to design a building with the shape of the male’s structure: It would be very destructive and irrational. In contrast, woman’s basement is closer to the ground; therefore her body is endowed with resistible features.
On the other hand, a woman grows up in a completely different way: Having more warmth than a man; having more attention to her house than a man; having senses that are given to her to be more habitually clean than a man; having senses that she sees more colours the a man; playing less aggressive games than a man; being the dresser of the house or she adorns everything in her house, etc. Her spirit is full in colours and beauty. She is the beauty itself and the beauty of our nature.
When the lion fights with another lion for the leadership of the flock, afterwards the lioness goes there to depressurize his anger: She is per se the peaceful creature of our nature; and the same time the cause of the battles. Whereas man, starts and ends his day by swearing like a trooper. His anger is immense. He always competes with the others to have a woman, to be loved and powerful; just for the sake of reputation. In this interrelation of our two creatures, woman has been said, that loves only once, whereas man many times. This difference is related and called as monogamy whereas the latter is called polygamy. This justification might look very superficial but is worst: Is that, «woman is more “rational” than a man». She is inherently and experiencely more human than a man. She is humanity itself.
Thus after deducting onto these results —we have to determine our virtues according to our character —which will serve us to apply rational thinking in the social domain; and if we find the woman’s one then the man’s one should be the opposite. Then our rank according to our analysis is as follows:
1)A woman loves once in her life and therefore is true love and if someone wants to find out what is love —would be of a good idea to ask a woman. Therefore the truth-love of a woman is that we have to keep in our mind; and because she loves just once she is the symbol or representative or the being of our morality. Is the most crucial value that a man has to endow himself in his social life. If there are some, then they are the result of their mothers. It is an inherent and cultivated value. Must be the first pillar of our society.
2)Second virtue of a woman is her hospitality: This virtue is the result of the housekeeping in which she provide care to her children and the rest; is real science in which a woman gives her best part of her life to cure or feed the members of the family. Is part of the family-morality and is context-dependent. Its beneficial is in the real social life.
3)Tolerance is our third star of woman virtue: It is result of reason. Imagine for a moment an unreasonable person with tolerance: Would be imbecile. Tolerance is derivation of reason and of learning; its consequences are useful in social life. Tolerance is the virtue of phronesis that knows a priory the consequences of praxis. It is value-rational virtue.
4)Our forth virtue is temperance: it is moral value and derives from inherited and acquired values. It is the art of being moderated in every single act of our life and is the most important value of human being. It is quantitatively and qualitatively woman value because she has the duty to provide care to her children or to the members of the family; and it is the ‘absolute emission of human morality’.
5)The weak point of a woman is her fragileness and is our fifth star of our rank. Is what we call “Achilles’ heel” and can be improved because it is the result of reason. Is at this point that man’s “unbendableness” replaces her fragileness.
Man then is “unbendable”. Then hence the question: Why a man is unbendable and a woman is not? In order to provide an accurate answer we have to proceed on by giving an analytical example:
Imagine for a moment a being whatsoever that grows up in very risky conditions, let us say, in a jungle: His/her stimulus would be in very high positing. Imagine another being that grows up in modern cities which are less risky: Undoubtedly his/her stimulus would be in a lower positing. If we exchange their position at once, we will see that the one that grew up in the jungle will survive successfully in our cities whereas the other will (if not certainly die) will suffer. Now, the relation with man’s unbendableness is that human mind reflects as Husserl pointed out: by “excluding” and “parenthesizing” our thinking in relation with our actions [2]. What a man is doing in his actions is just excluding the risky phenomena and takes action before hand. At this moment he doesn’t act as a reasonable being but as an instinctive being; and hence the wonder: Why man takes this risk and a woman not? As indicated previously, man grows up in different conditions and all his little actions in all his childhood are instinctive actions. Of course woman’s actions are instinctive as well; but her instinct is essentially temperate and thinkable, therefore she reacts with imperturbability and takes out herself. Thus man is inherently risk-taking being.
Also, there is another component that we have to examine: That a man grows up with the virtue of generosity, with the duty of the protector of the woman, sister or whatsoever. By living in this context he is considered to be the “umbrella” of a woman or the saver of the beauty. Therefore he is experiencly offering relief; and being in this context he takes the burden of the life. This burden makes him to compete with the others and to be in the front of the social life and to take continuously risky actions. Hence the results of our society.
As a conclusion of this corollary we have to point out some important saliencies: Our aim is not to exclude a man from the social life but to reintegrate him in the pure reason; and pure reason is as pointed out previously —the ‘inherited values of a woman’. Through her reason she has the spirit of education; and her mission in life is to educate through her values. Therefore one should ask: What to do and how to sort out our society from this man’s bog? In the following chapters we will have plenty of time to analyse our institutions based on woman’s value. Before going from this society to the other we have to proceed further to analyse our sexual lust in relation with the presentation of reason. This analysis will give us a picture of our sexual life and will help us to determine the acts of the future human generations.
III. Sexual Life: Reflections of Babyhood, Rationality and Morality.
‘Philosophy must be the absolute justice; and as such must explore further the inner world of both human beings’.
What we did in the second section was the determination and the analysis of our value-rationality; analysis that would lead us to determine the future of our social structures; structures that would fit to the values that we have already indentified. The most of them are inherently and intrinsically endowed to women; without excluding in these positivistic virtues the man —who is according to our analysis result of a woman. These values are universal; and as such, our claim is to take concrete form and to be our substantial goal in life. Thus, we do not have to hide our virtues because our aim is to explore the truth; and to give birth to it. Only the truth will help us to fight our problems in the domain of social sciences. And as such, social sciences must be comprehensive and do not have to localise its knowledge in the social domain, but instead, have to extend its knowledge beyond its limit: truth should triumph the inner world of both human beings.
Also, philosophy as the higher level of social sciences cannot speak only one-sidedly; but instead should be comprehensive. Philosophy cannot speak in the name of the man and within it to give birth to theories that are detrimental to the inner world of human being or are out of it. Philosophy must be the absolute justice; and as such must explore further the inner world of “both” human beings.
Therefore as stated above, we worked on the “thing” itself and we found out pure knowledge; knowledge that is natural and immortal. Thus, it is not artificial but it is itself —respectful and pure reason. Our two beings are thus mutually endowed with totally different needs: hence the allurement. There is one being positive and the other negative —in its broader sense. Nature determined its creatures to be in this order: the same did with everything on its surface. The burden to bear this fatalism as a “negative fortune” felled upon man. The same fortune is our sexual life: Sex is feeling; or is thinking with the only aim to stimulate its sexual feelings; it is not reasonable thinking; and as such belongs to the world of unreasonableness.
Furthermore, sex is the nature of nudity which belongs to the nature of babyhood. Human goes in this mood (of not thinking) all his/her life and goes back again to rational thinking. Human reflects into these two moods all his/her life and balances its reason vis-a-vi with its feelings. Therefore, human life is flashbacks: One to babyhood and the other to reason’.
Sexual organs are primarily productiveness: Their productivity is to maintain race and genes to perpetuate forever. Human is not born to give importance to sexual pleasure or satisfaction: One third or less of his/her life is sexual activity; the rest is pure reason or productivity. Additionally, man is always cancelling and contradicting his late believes: On the one hand is standing his generosity to protect the beauty of our nature —woman; and on the other, is the massive lust to nibble away at his victims. Is this point, on which a mother has to give her attention and to say repeatedly: If you want to nibble away something from a woman then think your sister; or think your mother! This lesson must be the measure that has to be repeated in all his childhood life; hence to stop his lust for sexual pleasure; and to be the protector of all women. His generosity must be the goal of his life: Without it; ‘mother, sister or woman will pervert’.
This perversion as stated in the introduction can be confirmed today than ever: Human race is pacing through machinistic sexual pleasure; it is the man’s industry that has created this «libertine»; and that is, for his own profit and sexual pleasure. This is not the lesson of a mother but it is the lesson of a man. Then one should ask: If a woman loves just once; and it is called true love, then why our societies have established man’s nature, i.e. pseudo-love? - And if pure love concludes to sex: Why man has established the abandonment of ‘pure love’? These are very important questions and we have to answer them, for one reason: For the sake of the truth; and if truth has value then we have to proceed further.
Therefore, as it looks clearly from our analysis, truth has not been subject of our historical societies; and as such, truth has not triumphed. Human societies have established the reticence of profligacy; a strange hidden concatenation of savagery. This savagery has been commingled with the inherent nature of man and has created the absolute libertine. Libertine is the virtue of immoral and its goal is to give pleasure to man’s life; therefore do not belong to human basic positive virtues. Pleasure therefore is part of our life but with it should illumine the lucidity of our true love. If pleasure is the result of libertine then that is not pleasure but is slavery and as such is determined to die; and if man’s consciousness supersede the pure reason then the whole society dies morally.
Morality is the value that keep human race in true life, it is in Hegel’s words: ‘the highest stage in the life of finite spiritual experience as realized in the concrete form of a historical society’ [3]. And as such, morality is the inner world of our women; of our positive being that is struggling to survive from the man’s libertine. If man stops to empower his lust for power, stops his libertine, stops his marche through his negative values, stops to create brothels, stops to phantasize orgy; there thus, would never be “again” this global-orgy. But in order to stop it, we have/must to fight this plague; and if there is a revolution, that is «Women’s Revolution».
After all this sexual narratology our lessons are as follows: If man pastures without a stick in his dirty gang then the consequences are negative for the whole society. Therefore we have to empower women’s values and never, never again man’s values. To achieve it, we will go further in our construction of democracy. Next chapter thus is concentrated on what has remained from our ‘basic values’ in the today’s societies.
IV. Modernity: the Society of “Man’s” Mind Picture & “Cogito” as Subject.
All past truth of human being has been unabashedly nebulous, encrusted, hackneyed, iterated, lambasted, and disfigured for one reason; for the sake of “progress”: But still there is a long row to hoe! Due to this plight we witness today an abstruse of the mind and absolute post-hoc that marvels and angst the co-existent animals of the earth.
Then, it is not the case of defending women but it is the case of defending humanity; and within it —our values. It is not the case of vengeance but it is historical and natural restitution. As mother’s education says: Vengeance is the virtue of animals and of the domineering creatures whereas restitution is the virtue of shrewd human. Unfortunately, these values of mental acuity in the history of human nature have been neglected in all its intermissions of political, religious, scientific, natural and individual priority; and therefore, women’s morals are not part of our societies —which as stated above must/ought to be our pillar of our future social structures. Neither is their spiritual part of hospitality, tolerance or temperance: Their modern rudiment is the ‘humble fragility’. Why? To find out the way how this humble has been created in time—one has to have a view on the ground of our human history. Therefore, the history of words or languages, perchance(!), tells us, that; in its early time human being coined words like “God”; and envisioned a man: Hence the priests.
Consequently, they were the rescuer of their community or of the ancient world. In time, they created their myths and their power of knowledge with the only aim —to conquer the inner world of individuals by delegating this power as Kant pointed out: ‘to possible universal legislation through maxims of the will’.
Priest’s celibacy therefore was just the end of the “lost world” of women and the beginning of the “cruel emptiness”. Therefore Nietzsche in his research on the genealogy of morals is right when he says: ‘...[o]n the foundation of this basically dangerous form of human existence, the priest, for the first time the human being became, in general, an interesting animal, that here the human soul first attained depth in a higher sense and became evil—and, indeed, these are the two fundamental reasons for humanity’s superiority, up to now, over other animals’ [4].
Yet political science today has not adjudicated profoundly and definitely the need to refute these horrible creatures that are considered by political science part of positivistic sciences. This refutation has not been part of any government or social structure in the world of politics and therefore the genealogy of this phenomenon is deeper than that; that is in the heart of the indubitable being, that is, the animal man. Furthermore, our human tales are plenty of men’s heroes that serve to our social classes as a source of inspiration and prosperity; fostering in this way the vengeance of extreme nationalism. Along its history human social structures, up to now — the modernity; or as have been called in our past century in the international relations —post-modernism; with the most critical and dominant works of Michal Foucault, Richard Rorty and Jacques Derrida are based upon masculistic propensities.
Rorty in his book ‘Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature’ (1980); attacks all correspondence theories of truth and propose that there is possible to construct ‘neutral foundations of knowledge’. Whereas Foucault in his embryonic work ‘The Order of Things’ (1989); resists the power of knowledge and refute the concept of truth, as an empirically valid concept; but rather as tool of resisting power. On the other hand, Derrida’s work is deconstructive having point of departure the knower who is caught up in a language and mode of thinking which, far from interpreting the world, instead constructs it... ‘Margins of Philosophy’ (1982).
These three points will be the pillar of our thinking in the following analysis: (i), ‘neutral foundation of knowledge’; (ii); ‘resisting power’; (iii) ‘arbitrariness of the knower’. True, there is a profoundly arbitrariness of the knower; that explains the present mess. Therefore, once again: “what is knowledge”?
Let us start from the locus of knowledge where according to Sartre after his psychological analysis of Kant, Descartes and Husserl, concludes: Cogito is the result of four levels:
[T]here is an unreflected act of reflection, without an I, which is directed on a reflected consciousness. The latter becomes the object of the reflecting consciousness without ceasing to affirm its own object (a chair, a mathematical truth, etc). At the same time, a new object appears which is the occasion for an affirmation by reflective consciousness, and which is consequently not on the same level as the unreflected consciousness (because the latter consciousness is an absolute which has no need of reflective consciousness in order to exist), nor on the same level as the object on the reflected consciousness (chair, etc). This transcendent object of the reflective act is the I. [5] (Emphasis in the original)
We have to note here that the above levels do not constitute any element of our investigation; they are part of psychological research: so, on the forth one, starts our investigation, which is again according to Sartre: ‘...the transcendent I must fall before the stroke of phenomenological reduction. The Cogito affirms too much. The certain content of the pseudo-“Cogito” is not “I have consciousness of this chair,” but “There is consciousness of this chair.” This content is sufficient to constitute an infinite and absolute field of investigation for phenomenology’. (Emphasis in the original).
Therefore, “is” is knowledge. This last statement looks empty. So, we have to proceed further: Both human being, man and woman are endowed with the same senses and therefore can intuit the same thing, the same subject, the same object, etc. They can be subject and object the same time, observed and the observer, inductive and deductive, rational and irrational, etc; but our point is: who from our two beings can possesses more rational thinking than the other? As stated in the second section, nevertheless, woman has by genus a leaning towards rationalism; and that, by the very fact, of their nature. But, why women behave today as a man?—because they live in a society of man’s picture; and therefore they can never behave in a different way. They try to compete each-other —the same as a man, they fight the same as a man, they even, compete the sexuality of a man despite the fact that they know a priory that they love just once; and whatever they do, is for sexual pleasure, nothing less nothing more. Therefore they have lost their morality, their love, their temperance, their reason and eventually their natural mission on the planet earth; that is, healthy family. They have been part of the evil spirit in their community and try to be the leader of the world, exactly, the same as man. This similarity is so evident today than ever. Man is the evil of our world; and has created a language that has incarnated the perversion of morals, the most corrupt spirit of his nature. Due to this plight, one might ask: What is immoral? A stated in the second chapter immoral is that action that provokes feeling of unreasonableness, that is, babyhood for instance, in normal circumstances, or feelings that concentrate their social aesthetic to sexual feelings. According to this conclusion the whole social structures today are based on sexism; the lowest level of human spirit, on consumerism; the most animalistic spirit of all animals. Furthermore, this conclusion leads us that our societies have accomplished the “trap of the mind”; and with this latter statement we will occupy our attention in the next chapter.
V. The Trap of the Mind
Can a society well-function when the whole its social structures are based on its lowest spirit level, that is: Sexism and consumerism? Of course, cannot. Western politics nowadays is dependent on these two social structures. The model of «Parliamentarian Democracy» that they provide as successful in the rest of the world is becoming basic foundation for the “undemocratised” countries around the world. From 1945 to 1995 the number of “sovereign” States having a Parliament has increased seven-fold. The percentage of women MPs worldwide has increased four-fold. More than 1 billion people in the world today, 70 percent of which are women (according to the 2004 AFL-CIO survey), live in unacceptable condition of poverty, mostly in the developing countries [6]. And this is just the beginning.
As long as these parliaments all over the world adopt the industry of sexism and consumerism as their basic policy —the crisis will deepen further. And this is as stated above because of man’s nature; therefore, there is undoubtedly a multidimensional crisis, consequently a crisis that confronts: a trap of liquidity; a trap of governance; a trap of democracy; a trap of ecology; a trap of natural sciences; a trap of social sciences; a trap of technology; a trap of epistemology; a trap of freedom and finally a trap of the mind.
On November 15, of the year 2008, the G20 showed once again that the financial crisis and the debts of the participants in the summit are extremely high and the trap of liquidity is unavoidable. Since, each wants to borrow money from each other and no one has cash. The mountain of debts is going to be a second Babel. The leader of the debts in the summit was US - with $ 8.4tr public debt [7]. All the pursuers are in an extremely bad condition. Paul Krugman (Nobel price on economics) almost a decade ago in his paper, talks about this trap of liquidity [8]. No one heard about it! No governance existed to take into consideration this thesis. Now, the trap of the mind is present (!).
Another battle takes place in this pandemic condition: the trap of governance. No government today can speak with truthfulness on this account. No scientific econometric accuracy can predict the disaster. Governments have lost their confidentiality, their role and finally their mind. No non-cooperative equilibria, (now called Nash equilibria) can stop the “revanchism” of the governance which deals with the uniqulibrium or unsustainable systems that they have created consciously. Nash’s formula in ‘A Beautiful Mind’ was evident: ‘What I am doing is exactly what the others are doing and the opposite’. When this “doing” is relied on media propagandistic methods, sexism and consumerism the whole society gets blown up. Therefore, the theory of rational human behaviour by Nash is the fundamental sublation of the nature of human being. As Hegel pointed out: Sublation is the situation in which a term or concept is both preserved and changed through its dialectical interplay with another term or concept. Governments, despite the fact that there are too many discoveries in the social sciences regarding human behaviour, have nothing to show as ‘rational’ —regarding Nash’s discovery. Nash’s research will be as well in our attention in the following sections.
Since democracy has diffused and invented in Miletus as a concept (city on the western coast of Anatolia/Turkey) there has been a huge change. Democracy as Bent Flyvbjerg pointed out in his book ‘Democracy in Practise’: is exercised nowadays top to bottom and not bottom to top. This is well-known by the scholars of law affairs. Despite this fact, they insist on this model by furthering it to the European Union. Democracy is supposed to be exercised neither bottom to top nor top to bottom and if we use the axiom of Habermas: human beings are defined as democratic beings, as “homo democraticus” and as such human beings need to take on their hands their fate. Let this book to be a pathfinder of social equilibrium research. The ‘context of democracy’ needs as it looks -- the trap of the mind in an elite level to come up afterwards in its real nature.
Furthermore, since democracy (in this paradigmatic establishment) doesn’t work, the global problems have extended in its nature: natural sciences cannot control the catastrophe of the ecology. Both natural sciences and social sciences as Foucault pointed out: are creatures of the power and consequently have lost their mind (!). Evidently, there is another trap.
Technology and epistemology is another collapse: the automobile industry shows its telos. The famous system of the ‘Exchange’ in global level comes to an end. Banks in their expansion shows their irrational lust for power being these artificial institutions legislated by the west law-givers. Economy is the worst dream for all these human structures without having taken into account the necessity of wisdom: the need for a “pragmatic science” that is defined by Aristotle and is called phronesis. The challenge that Alborg (city of Denmark) confronted, in implementing democracy is now a model that should/must be a pathfinder of all these crisis. The thesis on this paper is that: there is a matter of highest priority —the need of implementing phronetic science in the social structures —as Bent Flyvbjerg and others implemented it in Denmark; or as this book gets further this iconoclastic conception, based on the present foundations; and which will provide in detail our power of knowledge. Let us introduce at this point, the knowledge of the city and its rationality.
VI. The Knowledge of the City & its Rationality
You grow up in a family and, thus, with this, you will construct the family knowledge in your mind, by both your parents — this is morals and natural law, therefore true knowledge. You grow up in a family and simultaneously later on in a society; and by this, you can picture in your mind both these domain —this is called city, therefore, this is as well true knowledge, called today —epistemology.
But what is the knowledge of the city? Can a doctor for instance be a doctor without a patient? Can a mother be a mother without a father? Or can a child be educated without parents? Or can a patient heal himself without a doctor? Or can be there a government without its crowd? To deal with all these questions one might cast a glance to “being and otherness” of Sartre or we can answer all of them with one sentence: Being is the result of otherness and otherness is the result of being; and as such they constitute the whole beings of the city. Thus each one does something for itself: Doctor wants to be a doctor just because he wants to heal others or for the maintenance of his family; and patient wants to be healed just because he wants to feel normal and healthy. And if there is something that doesn’t heal, the doctor will force himself to sort it out, just because his mission is to heal or he’s got the other way, to give up. So up to here, we constructed the figure of the doctor that his knowledge is because of the others. If there doesn’t exist the “otherness” then doctor would never be a doctor but instead nothingness. On the other hand, our doctor has got a wife who at the time that the doctor fight to heal the diseased she is fighting to keep her science in order, which is as indicated previously —the housekeeping.
Therefore, both of them produce knowledge for the sake of the existence. Doctor will be paid therefore according to his needs; his needs are for the maintenance of his family, where in our context he is got, say, two children and has been paid by money. This money goes to the member of the family for their needs. In his research to find out the remedy — because of a rare disease —that had infected the patient, he was very successful and started to provide the same remedy to other patients with the aim, first to get some more money and second to heal them. His goal is very successful and he gets more money than he had previously; and therefore richer. What he has done is called epistemology or, science that can be applied in a greater number of beings. On the other hand our wife continues to do the same job as previously, i.e. to maintain the members of the family, including of course our epistemolog. But now he is famous and he’s very busy; and he’s getting powerful and wants to be a politician. His wife agrees and he suddenly becomes a politician. His goal is first to be richer and second to be famous, as his nature predetermine.
Behold, he’s a politician; and he’s managing the money of the entire city. That’s all the story of the knowledge; and this is called in Derrida’s words, the ‘arbitrariness of the knower’. This constitutes our first axiom of our knowledge of the city. In other words, this is called the paradox of the knower. At this point, we have already forgotten that his knowledge is the result of the otherness, as stated previously. Also, we didn’t examine his knowledge regarding the capability to manage the city. Either we examined the comparability and the rationality that derives from their routine. But despite this fact, we appreciate him for his arbitrary of knowledge; and we have him the coronation of our city. His wife is either in a corner of the city or she’s enjoying his money in different pubs of the city. But sometimes she’s getting abused by her husband because he has committed adultery many times with other women; and finally they divorced.
Therefore our second axiom: Power leads to immorality or corruption; or in other words, to irrationality. This is one scenario; there might be a positive one that would offer us a happy end, for the knower’s of the family, but there still remain the question: How could his wife predict a positive end for her family? This is unpredictable; and for this reason we have to operate in another way: Our city must be pure democratic in all its operation in order to maintain rationality. And in order to be pure democratic we have to introduce more rationality. Next section will be dedicated on that part.
VII. City & Rationality
Let us start at this section with the clarification and the meaning in our research of the word Rational. Would be of good idea to compare two situations in our life: Childish and adultery. As it is obvious to all of us, all children are more spontaneous that an adult; they behave in a manner that has not been planned in their mind before and therefore they act emotionally whereas an adult acts consciously. Conscious therefore makes the difference. In other words: Rational is that person who controls his/her actions and claims the same actions by the co-citizens. These actions therefore, in total, leads us to justice: If one citizen is rational and the others are the same, then the whole city do not need courts and power; but because they lose their rationality for various reasons —that would be explain later on, the master of the power from the antiquity till nowadays insist to keep their population under normative rational thinking. This normative thinking is what we call technical laws, or in other words: Regulation that derive from the power of the city for the sake of the smooth running of the citizenship. This power today and from the ancient time, is called government.
The representative of a government are usually called technocrats —word that derive from the Greek lexicology and means in the first place —knower of the techniques to manage the power. Without considering further their power, their tool therefore to manage the city from the ancient years till now, is money. Nothing less nothing more. Neither is the knowledge of the doctor, because as we have seen in our scenario he wasn’t the person that would lead the polity with the greatest results of rationalism, hence the divorce.
Now, we don’t have to overstep to the science of monetarism at the moment; we will step on this domain, later on. Our issue here is the city and its rationalism. Aristotle this issue approaches in his way —as being phronetic, which as has been already explained, means ‘having practical wisdom’; a derivation from the Greek word, phronimos. So, Flybjerg in his research based on Aristotle’s words dictates and defends the meaning on what constitute phronesis:
[W]e may grasp the nature of prudence [phronesis] if we consider what sort of people we call prudent. Well, it is thought to be the mark of a prudent man to be able to deliberate rightly about what is good and advantageous…But
nobody deliberates about things that are invariable…So…prudence cannot be a science or art; not science [episteme] because what can be done is a variable (it may be done in different ways, or not done at all), and not art [techne] because action and production are generically different. For production aims at an end other than itself; but this is impossible in the case of action, because the end is merely doing well. What remains, then, is that it is a true state, reasoned, and capable of action with regard to things that are good or bad for man… We consider that this quality belongs to those who understand the management of households or states. [9] (Italics in the original)
At the first glance, the words of Aristotle convince us that the person talking about is endowed with the values of a philosopher of a state or of a philosopher of housekeeping. But this statement cannot live us without raising some questions and obviously answering them: How could one then, in the today’s states or societies be phronetic? – And, has anyone today the time to deliberate about things that are invariable? If this is the quality of a professor or of a philosopher or of a politician then, can one person in normal circumstances regulate all the actions of the others by proclaiming technical laws? What will be the instruments to rationalise a society that is created a priory unrationalised? As stated in our fifth section our societies are based on consumerism and within it, the whole bombardment of the mind by it; and on sexism and within it, the whole emotional emissions in human mind that is, the turning back in a mood that we described previously, as the “mood of unreasonableness”, i.e. childhood or babyhood, that is practised in the social domain with the worst results ever, ever seen in human history. Doesn’t look all this like, guiding or using us all our life till death, on how and what to do?
It is obvious then, based on the reasons given above that our society has been created in a way that people all the time will have someone on their heads to guide them on what to do and how to behave. But our goal here is to free the mind of the citizens and this, for one obvious reason: To profit as much as we can from the free mind of our citizens, because only when the free mind is totally free we can have the greatest positive results; and democracy is the point that will help us to achieve it. There is no other social system that can offer us the ultimate freedom at the moment. Therefore we proceed further.
On the other hand, how can one rationalise somebody when the science of his/her family (housekeeping) is different from the sciences of the others? Housekeeping is an art and therefore is different from one family to another. In our research in the knowledge of the family we tried to balance the power of both individuals (wife and man) and we will do the same in the following sections. Family as we have stressed in the previous sections is the institution that would lead us to the greatest positive results and for this reason let’s strengthen it by strengthening our social life and the opposite. To avoid then relativism that is the law proclaimed by the power of the city to its citizens we have to introduce at this point two options: Either we consider our polity as our family, i.e. common property or we live in it with the conventional paradigm, i.e. each one having his/her property —who all of them operate in the same city. Therefore our next section is considering the polity as a «common good» rather than as «private good»; because common good is compatible with social democracy whereas private good is compatible with the capital democracy in which the power has the last saying to the crowd and therefore is not compatible with the freedom. Freedom is then, compatible with our last social notion —the «autonomy of the city».
VIII. Plato, City & Common Good
To divide further the common good would be of a good purpose to compare our two institutions, that is: Family against city or polity. In a family everything in it is common for its members: Immovable property and movable property. The only property that is not common for them according to the west law is the ground bellow and the airspace property which belong to the crown or to the power. Now, let us consider at this point the people of the city: They would be homogenous as our nature predetermines but the same time heterogonous because they cannot marry with the same blood —therefore they will mix their homogeneity with other races (cities) to improve their race. But its basic concept will be homogeneity. After all, in all its history human being was heterogeneous. Therefore, homogeneity is regarded in our context as a larger family in which has been cultivated the natural law described above, that is —family.
Then, when the individuals of a family go to interact with other families in their city they will consider them, their family —which in reality they are their family, because they will share the same values; and the result will be the perfect cohesion of the city. Because family will have the major impact in the city and as such family is the locus of our ground. In this context the coveted social cohesion is unavoidable. Providing then in our city the values of our family which are almost the same, except the housekeeping which will differ in details and will not have any negative impact to the city, or will have an impact of emulation and therefore the improvement of the quality; its success thus is unavoidable. This is called today —tradition. So, in this way tradition will be our foundation of our cities. Therefore our city will be based on our human values mixed with our traditions and not on our money or whatsoever.
Now, let us consider at this point the spiritual incentive of the city. In other words, what would be the central core of the city, its activity and its realisation? Of course, Honour, which is the highest spiritual level. What would be then with the wisest people of the city, which is called today —meritocracy? Again Honour. There is no doubt that this is the highest spiritual level and the citizens that would live in this city would live in their highest spiritual level, that would be, respect, cohesion, love, tolerance, reason and will disappear forever the lust for power because would not exist one, except the power of knowledge that will be possessed by the citizens.
This social claim and realisation in the past has been achieved in part in the Athenian democracy and later on has been proclaimed by the communists’ parties, but they forgot the notion of democracy and instead their centre core was the central government. Both with the «conventional capitalism» that promotes to the individuals «cyclical consumption»; and as we have stressed in the previous sections, the «sexist consumption» and the allegedly socialist «central economy» (former Soviet Union, China etc,.) who promote regulations from the centre are indications that we have to abandon; because the former failed (and never would...) to promote our values and the latter failed to promote both our human rationalism and our values.
The consequences of it, were the dramatic vague of rationalism, that fostered the idea that larger a country more powerful is it. This point will be elaborate further later on. So, in his dialog about democracy Plato has intuited that ‘larger democracies fail to permit sufficient voice for their citizens’ but he has not determined the question that until now in all western politics or if you like —philosophy, has not been discussed and that is: How long is the vector of democracy in space? In other words, what is the geographic surface that rationalism can be applied having as basic concept —democracy? Because no one has been occupied until now with the question propounded —as far as my knowledge extend, our claim here is that: Rationalism can be applied according to human geographic spectre in space, which is according to our senses, i.e. eyes.
In addition to it, we can suggest the observation of Fotopoulos in his book about democracy: That is between 30, 000 and 50,000 [9]. The question then that comes to our mind is: Why not more? Because more the population of a city less the rationality and less the population of a city more the rationality. Compare a large family with a small family. The next question that comes to our mind is: How to solve the problem with the growing population? Therefore, this subject will be discussed in our next section.
