The “Trap” of the Mind vs. ''Consciousness''
By Ylli Permeti
Abstract*
Can a society well-function when the whole its social structures are based on its lowest spirit level, that is ― sensualism and consumerism? Of course, cannot. Western politics nowadays are dependent on these two social structures; consequently, without them they will die. The model of “Parliamentarian Democracy” that our politicians, philosophers or “our bracketed mind’ provide to us as successful, is becoming basic foundation for the “undemocratised” countries, in the rest of 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. [1] (Emphasis added). And this is merely the beginning of social destruction, demotion and consequently of perversion.
As long as these Parliaments — all over the world — adopt the industry of sexism, sensualism and consumerism — as their basic policy — the crisis will deepen further. And this is — as stated above — because of man’s mind picture; therefore, there have been created 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. [2] All the pursuers are in an extremely bad condition. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize in economics, almost a decade ago, in his paper, talks about this trap of liquidity. [3] In addition, Fotopoulos, more than fifteen years ago warns us for this trap of finance. [4] No one heard about them! No governance existed to take into consideration these theses. No international institutions or universities took the effort to take into account these cautions. Now, the trap of the mind is present (!). However, we will examine in the second chapter the causes that create unsustainability in our economics around the world, with an extensive analysis in economics; and proposing thus a new conception of economics and finance. We will apply rational economics in order to avoid such a trap in the future: Rational in the sense of being sustainable in order to “fit as a fiddle” to human nature. We will examine economics in detail ― from the ancient times ― because, economics in our time is the major component than concerns our societies, politicians and human nature.
On the other side, another trap 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 an unsustainable system 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’. Ironically, this phenomenon was well-known by the ancient fathers ― who warned us, in all their tales and myths, however and despite their warning, we, do not reflect on it. And this phenomenon gets even worst when it is relied on media propagandistic methods — that is, sexism and consumerism. Therefore, the “theory” ― either we like or not ― of rational human behaviour by Nash is the fundamental sublation of human nature. 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 ― either by our tales or by governments’ bureaucrats’ ― have nothing to show as ‘rational’ — regarding Nash’s discovery. Nash’s axiom will be as well in our attention in our investigation regarding truthfulness and otherness in the social domain. And this, for one simple reason: Human being has not changed at all with the “progress” that our politicians promote to us. Hopefully, we are the same, as in ancient times and we will be the same forever. This “sameness” has its implications in the real life and we witness today an abstruse of human activity. Abysmally, our governance throughout the world suffers accountability and reflectivity in the social realm, regarding our sameness.
Further, 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 research, ‘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 the present 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, then we can determine: Human beings are defined as democratic beings, or in the words of Habermas, as “homo democraticus,”or in the words of Aristotle, as “homo politicus”, and as such, human beings need to take on their hands their fate. On the other side, Habermas’s discourse on ethics and on communicative rationality, leaves us without any established power in his discourse, because he puts his discourse after the event, i.e. after the juridical event, which pre-supposes a rational law. He’s far from the Aristotelian ― followed later on by Foucaultean, Fotopoulean and Flyvbjergean concept, that is, placing power in the decision-making of an affair. However, the notion of “democracy” needs — as it looks — the trap of the mind in an elite level to come up afterwards in its real nature, that is, the axiom of “practical wisdom”. This axiom of human being has been destroyed by our institutions and our pseudo-democracies ― which in order to reach rationality have been established after the event, that is, an event on which “communicative rationality” is excluded. Instead, according to Habermas, in the words of Flyvbjerg, “communicative rationality” must be established in all discourses of ethics after the constitution writing. And this is totally wrong, because consciousness in order to be in full rationality has to use its natural power, that is, self-consciousness.
In addition, since democracy (in its pre-paradigmatic period) 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 are creatures of irrational powers, in the words of Foucault and consequently they have lost their mind (!). Natural sciences, as regard the requirement of accountability have nothing to show to us any satisfactory conviction. This is because they are all under the requirement of competitiveness and of individuality. Thus, in spite the fact that they have reached to a satisfactory level as regards the intersubjectivity and communicative ethics, they still suffer full rationality. I will attempt to provide a pre-supposed case in the next section, in order to understand the axiom of Derrida’s, that is, the arbitrariness of the knower, being the knower in the above context, i.e. under competitiveness and individuality. However, natural sciences according to Flyvbjerg, in some points are strong and where they are strong social sciences are weak, and vice versa. The weak point of natural sciences, will be illustrated in the following section, which is actually the absence of power, or to put it otherwise: The lack using power without its counter-power, that is, full rationality. Accordingly, there is another trap. As regards social sciences the world becomes more and more dependent in few hands, who monopolise the whole system into one. This phenomenon except that is not compatible with the notion of democracy and of the autonomy of a state it becomes more and more uncontrollable and dangerous throughout the world, because they will concentrate the whole power of commodities to their discretion.
However, technology and epistemology is another collapse: The automobile industry shows its telos. No politician today knows or has been educated by our global universities on how our global industry will cope with the demand of energy, in a world that is becoming more and more numerous. Obama’s or Cameron’s manifesto does not respond to such problems because our world is becoming more dependent on a consumer society. Thus, according to predictions, our world population is likely to reach 9.4 billion by 2070, and deep ecologists’ accept that these very high levels of production and consumption and therefore of energy use that we have in today's consumer-capitalist society cannot be sustained by renewable sources of energy. [5] Therefore, there is no doubt that even if we accept that our politicians want or desire a sustainable society, reports and serious studies ― as the already mentioned, proof the opposite. Thus, is not a case of the automobile industry that it will cope with very serious problems in the future but of the whole picture of our society. And this is the final trap of human mind!
On the other side, the famous system of “Exchange” in global level comes to an end. Banks in their lust for expansion show their irrational management and the world has become more and more uncertain for everyone. According to recent survey, Europeans feel more unsecured for their future than in the past where Europe has its borders... Europeans are pessimistic about the economic situation, and pessimism is strong…Europeans are more satisfied with the area where they live than with their life in general. [6] And this is not the first time, that our banks are causing such conditions. (see chapter two) These artificial institutions ― legislated by the west-law-makers, are undoubtedly the major causers for every single trap of human being. Economy is the worst dream for all these human structures because they lack the applicability of value-rationality in their attempt to keep social structures in peace and sustainability. In addition, our intuitions have not taken into account the necessity of wisdom ― that is defined by Aristotle and is called phronesis. However, the thesis on this paper is: There is a matter of highest priority — the need of implementing phronetic science, in building social structures — which will provide to us in detail our power of knowledge. We have to accept that knowledge is ― in the words of Rorty, “not like an architectonic structure but like a field of force, and that there are no assertions which are immune from revision.” [7] Thus, to avoid such revision of truth a society has to apply full consciousness otherwise it will cope with an unsustainable-dualistic society, and finally with the trap of the mind in an endless de-magnetised field.
Thus, in conclusion: Trap of the mind, starts with consciousness and otherness. Consciousness therefore starts with autonomy whereas otherness with dependence. Autonomy is result of our parents who try to autonomise them children. Autonomy is preserved when at the concrete place is used full consciousness. Autonomy does not accept dependence except otherness. Human beings have been endowed by nature with consciousness in order to attain autonomy. Autonomy is the virtue of every single animal. Without autonomy animals would not survive. They cannot attain themselves with the dependence to other animals. For this is why they succeed of being autonomous. Otherwise they would die. But animal’s autonomy cannot be compared with the autonomy of humans in a city. Thus, the autonomy of the city must be measured with the being and of the otherness. If autonomy leans on otherness then consciousness will contract. Consciousness is made by nature to be autonomous in order to avoid contraction. If autonomy leans on self-consciousness then self-consciousness will expand. Expansion of consciousness is pure rationality. Or if consciousness leans on autonomy then full rationality is preserved. Preservation of rationality leads to counter-rationality. And counter-rationality deals with equilibrium society.
On questioning therefore of what our societies have done in our social realm we can conclude without any doubt that our institutions have excluded autonomy, and instead of it, have created the pre-conditions of dependence. Dependence of course is otherness and results on contraction of consciousness. In order therefore to expand our consciousness we have to claim autonomy and otherness in proportional quantity. We must be autonomous and otherness the same time. Or we must be autonomous in respect to otherness. Or we must be autonomous in need to otherness. But consciousness defers from consciousness and autonomy is the main element that keeps human being in life and in harmony with other beings. If we approach our matter as being a single consciousness then our society would have the consciousness of animals’ desires. This is why our consciousness defers, because it seeks to equilibrise its being: Its being is result of otherness and otherness is result of being. They fulfil each-other in every single act.
Thus, trap of the mind is the quality of dependence not of the autonomy. Dependence contract consciousness and is detrimental to human being as a whole, and consequently, it is detrimental to our nature. If we wish to pursue the problem further, one has to deliberate, by questioning: Can a society create the pre-conditions of full-consciousness in order to keep full-rationality, i.e. being and otherness? In order to give a picture to our situation of knowledge let us introduce at this point, the knowledge of the city and its rationality. This analysis derives for one simple reason: To understand if full consciousness is practiced in our societies in order to rationalise its actions. And if not, could one today claim universal knowledge either in social sciences as in the case of economics or holistic democracy or in natural sciences, as in the case of medicine?
References:
1. Women’s-Problems and the Feminist Movements. By Ramon T. Ayco 2006. P. 2 and 12; pdf version.
2. The G20: Who is there and how desperate are they? The Guardian Saturday November 15 2008. By Ed Pilkington http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/15/economics-globaleconomy
3. THINKING ABOUT THE LIQUIDITY TRAP by Paul Krugman December 1999.
4. Development Or Democracy? By TAKIS FOTOPOULOS, SOCIETY & NATURE, Vol. 3, No. 1 (issue 7), 1995 http://www.democracynature.org/vol3/fotopoulos_development_PRINTABLE.
5. RENEWABLE ENERGY CANNOT SUSTAIN A CONSUMER SOCIETY by Ted Trainer, Synthesis/Regeneration. An excerpt from the introduction to the book Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society (Springer 2007)
6. The Social Situation in the European Union, pdf virsion, taken from Eurostat, pp 7-17
7. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, by Richard Rorty, p 181
*This is part of the first chapter of the book: Demotic and Phronetic Manifesto
