The Knowledge of the City & its Rationality: Deconstructing “Elites”

The Knowledge of the City & its Rationality: Deconstructing “Elites”


Ylli Përmeti



Abstract*


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. Being in this context has to do with the acquired knowledge by each individual not of what has been given by nature. And in order to acquire knowledge one has to use h/her mind. This quality belongs to them who have been endowed by nature with feelings and nous. Feelings and nous are exposed the same time into the consciousness of nature and into the consciousness of otherness. Thus we have to cope with two kinds of consciousnesses: Nature’s one and otherness’s one. These are the first two elements that someone will confront in h/her life, on the surface of the Planet Earth. Thus we are exposed simultaneously to otherness’s consciousness and to nature’s consciousness. We may add of course ― if we wish ― that we are exposed to our own consciousness, as well. This is called self-observation, as in the case of the doctor, who, in order to understand his/her art has to be inductive and deductive the same time. In short: Every art or knowledge is result of self-consciousness and simultaneously other-consciousness. No one can be excluded from this axiom. Thus each one does something for itself by using full-consciousness: 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.

Thus, up to here, we constructed the figure of the doctor ― that is, his knowledge is because of otherness. If there doesn’t exist the “otherness” then doctor would never be a doctor but instead nothingness. On the other side, we do not have to forget the phrase of Plato, who says: Necessity is the real inventor in our life. (see chapter two when we discuss about virtues) But necessity for the doctor is nothing else than to be healthy and to survive, the same as his/her patient. Thus both have the same goal in their life: To keep each-other healthy. Doctor cannot feed himself with his art because he produces knowledge through his patients’; he does not produce real production or commodities. Commodities are probably part of patient’s life. Therefore they fulfil each-other in an absolutely necessary way of life. Of course we have to acknowledge at this point that a doctor in order to be a doctor has to devote energy and power to his tacit skills, that is, knowledge. At this stage, h/her knowledge it’s axiomatic and self-evident, which means that the goal of being a doctor is to maintain itself in vivo. This would result in problem solving for both the protagonist of the knowledge and for the society, where someone belongs. Therefore this is the first axiom that we have to extract from, that is, each one “fulfils” the other for the sake of the existence.


On the other hand, our doctor has got a wife who at the time the doctor was trying to heal the diseased she is struggling to keep her science in order, which is as I have argued elsewhere — 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’s 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 other patients, 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 becomes richer. What he has done is called in a conventional jargon, epistemology or, science that can be applied in a greater number of beings. But, we don’t forget Derrida’s axiom, at this point, that is: The arbitrariness of the knower; which means, that it could be challenged later on by another doctor under the thinking of not being experimented to other beings and therefore have not been in advance objectivised. Or we do not extend our scenario to the steps taken by the doctor when produced the remedy, which is of course result of contextual and self-motivated actions.

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’s 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 it’s first to keep his richness in preservation because the monetary system established does not offer certainty; and second, to be famous, as his nature predetermines. Behold, he’s already 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 axiom, the ‘arbitrariness of the knower’. This constitutes our second axiom of our knowledge of the city. In other words, this is called the paradox of the knower. It is called a paradox because this knowledge was not under scrutiny of otherness, i.e. of the inhabitants of the city. Thus this kind of knowledge later on, as said above, could be challenged by another doctor in whose eyes the previous knowledge does not fulfil experimentation, that is to say, knowing a priory the results of the new application in human’s organism.

At this point, we have already forgotten that his knowledge is the result of the otherness or of necessity, as stated previously. Also, we didn’t examine his knowledge regarding the capability to manage the city. Either we examined the comparability with otherness’ rationality that derives from their context-knowledge. 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. And this happened because her husband lost his rationality through the possessed power.

Therefore, our third 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” 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 and power-measured in all its operation in order to maintain rationality. And in order to be pure democratic or power-measured — our city — we have to introduce more rationality. Next section therefore will be dedicated on that part.

Thus, we extracted three different axioms in our research of knowledge, which is developed under a system that promote individualism and consumerism, without forgetting sensualism, and these are:

1.first axiom: Each one fulfils the other for the sake of the existence;

2.second axiom: Arbitrariness of the knower’; and

3.third axiom: Power leads to immorality or corruption; or in other words, to irrationality.


This insert proves that though we are born equal and we live together for the sake of the existence in time we change direction: We create a hierarchical society. We exclude therefore the first axiom in our societies, that is, each one fulfils the other. Thus the root of this mis-interpretation in our societies lies on the first axiom. As a conclusion, our universities have been established upside-down, that is, pyramidal institutions. Deans, Rectors, Professors, Philosophers, Presidents etc, sees themselves as a different class and today they call this class as an Elite. They differentiate themselves under the justification that our society is hierarchical and being so, they pose-accept the question: Why shouldn’t we be an Elite, since the whole social structures are based on this proposition? But can they justify themselves when we apply the above scenario? Of course, not! In the second axiom, no one can doubt about the arbitrariness of the knower. We don’t have to refer to adventitious discoveries which have been done in the past by different scientists in different fields, because knowledge, although not contested by Aristotle, is context-dependent, which on the other side, has been highlighted by Aristotle, as an Art, that can be done in one way or in another, or not done at all. Therefore, “knowledge” when is not under the scrutiny of the whole “limbs” of a society can be rejected easier than when produced by one person. On the third axiom of our journey we reached a point on which our societies are based on, that is, power, which starts from the first steps of our life to be mis-interpreted. At this point no one can deliberate about the social structures which have been created perpendicular because they would be considered rational given. And this is because social structures lack the “instigation” of applying value-rationality. This value-rationality has been highlighted by Flyvbjerg, following Aristotle, as phronesis. We will challenge this conception of human being, in order to be sure of what our society lacks and how to empower it. Also, we will challenge it in order to satisfy our wisdom, so that, to counter-measure our rationality.




*This is part of the first chapter of the book: Phronetic and Demotic Manifesto...