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Start by following Παναγιώτης Κονδύλης.
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“Οι κοινωνίες τότε μόνο βεβαιώνονται ότι υπάρχουν πραγματικά, όταν φαντάζονται τον εαυτό τους ως μυθικές υποστάσεις.”
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“Η σημερινή Ελλάδα αποτελεί περίπτωση φθίνοντος έθνους, το οποίο αναλαμβάνει τις έμμονες μυθολογικές ιδέες για τον εαυτό του ως ρεαλιστική αυτεπίγνωση.”
― Πλανητική πολιτική μετά τον Ψυχρό Πόλεμο
― Πλανητική πολιτική μετά τον Ψυχρό Πόλεμο
“Προσωπικά δυσβάστακτη μου είναι μόνον η έλλειψη χιούμορ – και χιούμορ δεν σημαίνει την ικανότητα να γελάς εις βάρος των άλλων, αλλά την ικανότητα να γελάς μαζί με τους άλλους εις βάρος του εαυτού σου, την ικανότητα να σχετικεύεις τον εαυτό σου. Ωστόσο, ακόμα και η παντελής έλλειψη χιούμορ φαίνεται κατανοητή και συγχωρητέα, αν σκεφθούμε πόσο βαθειά είναι η ανάγκη να έχει κανείς μια ταυτότητα και πόσο άτεγκτη είναι η λογική της περιφρούρησής της. Υπό τις συνθήκες αυτές, η ιδεολογική πλάνη συνιστά τη φυσική κατάσταση, και είναι δευτερεύον, συχνά τυχαίο μάλιστα, αν η πλάνη θα έχει «δεξιά» ή «αριστερά» πρόσημα.”
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“Μια από τις κρίσιμες ανακαλύψεις στην πνευματική μου ζωή, την οποία έκαμα –ευτυχώς όχι πολύ αργά– όταν ακόμα αισθανόμουν και ο ίδιος στρατευμένος, είναι ότι ο απέναντι σου, εκείνον που εσύ θεωρείς αντίπαλο ή εχθρό σου, εκείνος που ίσως είναι διώκτης σου, μπορεί να έχει εξ ίσου καθαρή συνείδηση και εξ ίσου αγνά κίνητρα όσο και εσύ, να διαπνέεται από την ίδια ακλόνητη πεποίθηση για το δίκαιο του.”
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“There is also a still deeper reason for which a growth in the tensions in the human universe - and indeed not despite, but during the simultaneous spreading of universal-ethical principles - can be presumed. The ethically-normatively charged word "human" functioned linguistically as an honorific adjective so long a one demarcated it against other adjectives which seemed to indicate the merely historically determined, abolishable and to be abolished distinctions between humans; in the language of ethical universalism "human" always meant something nobler and higher than words like Jew or Greek, Christian or heathen, black or white, communist or liberal.
If all particular counter concepts in respect of the universalism "human" cease to apply, the word "human" will no longer constitute an adjective, that is, it will no longer point to a higher quality, but it will be converted into a noun for the description of a certain animal species. Humans will all be called "humans" just as lions lions and mice - mice without further national or ideological differentiation.
It may sound paradoxical and yet it is so, that man differentiated himself from all the other animal species exactly because he was not merely man free of all other attributes (i.e. without any other predicate or complement). Not only did culture come into being through the overcoming of bare humanness and the gradual attainment of historically determined attributes, but also altercations and the struggles between humans gained, thanks to the presence and the effect exactly of these attributes, emotional and ideological dimensions which went far beyond the what is merely animal.
That is why it is not excluded that the reduction of man to his mere humanness will inaugurate and will accompany an epoch in which humans will have to fight against one another for goods which are absolutely necessary for the naked survival of the animal species "man" - in the worst case for air and water. In accordance with a well-known paradox of historical action, the imposition of universal ethics will then bring about effects entirely different to the originally intended effects.”
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If all particular counter concepts in respect of the universalism "human" cease to apply, the word "human" will no longer constitute an adjective, that is, it will no longer point to a higher quality, but it will be converted into a noun for the description of a certain animal species. Humans will all be called "humans" just as lions lions and mice - mice without further national or ideological differentiation.
It may sound paradoxical and yet it is so, that man differentiated himself from all the other animal species exactly because he was not merely man free of all other attributes (i.e. without any other predicate or complement). Not only did culture come into being through the overcoming of bare humanness and the gradual attainment of historically determined attributes, but also altercations and the struggles between humans gained, thanks to the presence and the effect exactly of these attributes, emotional and ideological dimensions which went far beyond the what is merely animal.
That is why it is not excluded that the reduction of man to his mere humanness will inaugurate and will accompany an epoch in which humans will have to fight against one another for goods which are absolutely necessary for the naked survival of the animal species "man" - in the worst case for air and water. In accordance with a well-known paradox of historical action, the imposition of universal ethics will then bring about effects entirely different to the originally intended effects.”
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“As is known, natural law thought went through a real resurrection as a result of the experiences with National Socialism, since for many thinkers the impression came into being of an, if not intentional, then at any rate objective complicity between the relativism of legal positivism and totalitarian amoralism. Under the same impression and with a similar motivation, modernised reformulations of Kantian and idealistic ethico-philosophical ideas were undertaken.
On the other hand, ethical universalism still does not prevail unchallenged. Skeptical meta-ethics, in which the efforts as regards the moral philosophy of the Analytical School had to lead to, and so-called cultural relativism, which relies above all on ethnological findings, continue to assert themselves in the Anglo-Saxon world, whereas in the Romance-speaking countries of Europe, the jovial-indifferent and tolerant gospel of postmodernism has spread. Germany's intellectual in-crowd indeed willingly flirt with postmodernistic painless inanities, yet the reasons are also generally well-known that a more or less unambiguous confession of faith in ethics and Reason in this country has become a compulsory exercise.”
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On the other hand, ethical universalism still does not prevail unchallenged. Skeptical meta-ethics, in which the efforts as regards the moral philosophy of the Analytical School had to lead to, and so-called cultural relativism, which relies above all on ethnological findings, continue to assert themselves in the Anglo-Saxon world, whereas in the Romance-speaking countries of Europe, the jovial-indifferent and tolerant gospel of postmodernism has spread. Germany's intellectual in-crowd indeed willingly flirt with postmodernistic painless inanities, yet the reasons are also generally well-known that a more or less unambiguous confession of faith in ethics and Reason in this country has become a compulsory exercise.”
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“Mass democracy, which in the meantime has appropriated certain life forms and ideas of the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s in a watered-down form, indeed allows value pluralism and permissiveness, in fact mass democracy partly even lives off them, however on the other hand, mass democracy may not and cannot let unbounded freedom in ethico-philosophical thought be followed by unbounded freedom in social action.
That is why it ought not therefore be expected that the verbal Nietzscheanism of postmodern ideology inside of postmodern reality will be transformed into the form setting the tone of social praxis. Not only has universalistic ethics imbued the broader social consciousness, in which universalistic ethics of course mixes with various versions of "live and let live", but also national and international institutions, which base their work on ethical principles with universal validity, increase in number and are consolidated.”
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That is why it ought not therefore be expected that the verbal Nietzscheanism of postmodern ideology inside of postmodern reality will be transformed into the form setting the tone of social praxis. Not only has universalistic ethics imbued the broader social consciousness, in which universalistic ethics of course mixes with various versions of "live and let live", but also national and international institutions, which base their work on ethical principles with universal validity, increase in number and are consolidated.”
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“The universalization of ethics constitutes a concomitant of the progressive unification of the world market and of planetary politics in the same sense and to the same degree as, for instance, the gradual standardization of economic and legal rules or customs. The unification of ethical discourse makes mutual daily understanding easier and promotes international physical and intellectual mobility just as a unified semiotics also does. In this respect, the common places of universalistic ethics constitute a part of the international lingua franca already being formed, and whoever disseminates the said common places of universalistic ethics has good prospects of rapid international success.”
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“In all its variations, universalistic ethics is therefore characterised by an effacement of the difference between Is and Ought (polemics against this difference between Is and Ought in recent years has not by chance become all the more fierce) as well as by the detachment from empirical anthropology and history.
Compared with the classical ethical tradition - from the pre-Socratics up to the Enlightenment via Plato, Aristotle and Christianity - a loss in the content of reality and the sense of reality is to be noted in so far as that tradition started from the fact and from the necessity of the unremitting struggle of Reason against the escalating yearning of ineradicable drives and passions, and directly or indirectly placed this struggle at the center of its considerations.”
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Compared with the classical ethical tradition - from the pre-Socratics up to the Enlightenment via Plato, Aristotle and Christianity - a loss in the content of reality and the sense of reality is to be noted in so far as that tradition started from the fact and from the necessity of the unremitting struggle of Reason against the escalating yearning of ineradicable drives and passions, and directly or indirectly placed this struggle at the center of its considerations.”
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“The Christian perception of human dignity was not originally connected to a notion of a material "minimum of living conditions", whatever "progressive" theologians like to think about that. In accordance however with today's opinion, a minimum human dignity and a minimum consumption belong together; whoever goes hungry is merely a human without rights, not for instance someone whom god-willed material deprivation gives the opportunity to be completely released from concern over material goods.”
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“But ethical universalism appears in another important respect as a genuine intellectual product of the mass-democratic age. The reduction of man to a mere rational humanity translates the fact of extreme atomization, which is constitutive for democratic mass society, into the idealizing language of philosophy.
Exactly this reduction and this atomization make the transition to universalism possible, since the proclaiming of Reason as the sole decisive aptitude or predisposition of man puts aside all substantial bonds (e.g. those with the family or with the nation) and consequently all barriers and boundaries between all individuals on this planet. Reason can set itself with ethical absoluteness and unite all individual humans with one another only after the process of atomization is well advanced.”
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Exactly this reduction and this atomization make the transition to universalism possible, since the proclaiming of Reason as the sole decisive aptitude or predisposition of man puts aside all substantial bonds (e.g. those with the family or with the nation) and consequently all barriers and boundaries between all individuals on this planet. Reason can set itself with ethical absoluteness and unite all individual humans with one another only after the process of atomization is well advanced.”
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“With the programmatic or actual putting aside of anthropological and historical factors, every binding teaching in respect of virtue and duty must also not apply, and the constructions pile up inside the vacuum of logical coherence; not by chance, the use of mathematical formulae has in the meantime become naturalized in respect of ethical tracts.
Man is in the process reduced to a single point, namely to his rationality and his ability at rational discourse or calculation, so that he, without resisting and as it were through a pre-established harmony, promptly joins in all the theoretical games of ethicists and at least on paper is able to behave in accordance with these ethicists' expectations.
Having been reduced to rationality, humans now resemble one another like pins, in relation to which, as is known, not even the heads are distinguishable from one another. Because if the heads or the individual rationalities are not identical to one another, then universal ethical aims can hardly be contemplated, let alone realized, that is, Reason cannot be the foundation and vehicle of universal mutual understanding.”
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Man is in the process reduced to a single point, namely to his rationality and his ability at rational discourse or calculation, so that he, without resisting and as it were through a pre-established harmony, promptly joins in all the theoretical games of ethicists and at least on paper is able to behave in accordance with these ethicists' expectations.
Having been reduced to rationality, humans now resemble one another like pins, in relation to which, as is known, not even the heads are distinguishable from one another. Because if the heads or the individual rationalities are not identical to one another, then universal ethical aims can hardly be contemplated, let alone realized, that is, Reason cannot be the foundation and vehicle of universal mutual understanding.”
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“This pressure will necessarily increase to the extent that universal human rights will be interpreted materially, in relation to which mutatis mutandis that which happened for the first time in the 19th century will be repeated, when the socialists demanded the material interpretation and realization of the formal freedoms and rights propagated by the bourgeoisie.
The Christian perception of human dignity was not originally connected to a notion of a material "minimum of living conditions", whatever "progressive" theologians like to think about that. In accordance however with today's opinion, a minimum human dignity and a minimum consumption belong together; whoever goes hungry is merely a human without rights, not for instance someone whom god-willed material deprivation gives the opportunity to be completely released from concern over material goods.
If now human rights are interpreted materially and are connected with expectations in respect of consumption, then human rights must come into conflict with the existing shortage of goods at the world level, i.e. they must be transformed into weapons in the struggle over the distribution of scarce goods.”
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The Christian perception of human dignity was not originally connected to a notion of a material "minimum of living conditions", whatever "progressive" theologians like to think about that. In accordance however with today's opinion, a minimum human dignity and a minimum consumption belong together; whoever goes hungry is merely a human without rights, not for instance someone whom god-willed material deprivation gives the opportunity to be completely released from concern over material goods.
If now human rights are interpreted materially and are connected with expectations in respect of consumption, then human rights must come into conflict with the existing shortage of goods at the world level, i.e. they must be transformed into weapons in the struggle over the distribution of scarce goods.”
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