For many people change the world and fight many of the social injustices of today, it is simply a matter of making a policy change, or a change in social and economic system, and even for many it is simply a matter of increasing income and the welfare in general of people. However, beyond the economic systems and social organizations, the truth is that a material change that doesn't involve an ethical change will not solve many of the problems that have long been known to mankind along its path through history.
Sure, economic systems and social organizations are human creations, so each has its own range of defects and bad directions. So to improve social justice we must not only work in the forms of social organization or in public and social political that obviously are essential and fundamental, also we should work on the same unfoldment of the human, in the unfoldment of the human in terms of what concerns social harmony and to harmony with nature.
About increasing revenue for that society have more welfare, we may well quote the famous Easterlin paradox of the social studies economics (1974). According to this paradox, even though people with higher incomes are happier, the fact is that as a country's income increases don't necessarily increase the happiness. In a similar and comparative way, we can also find countries in developing who say to be much happier that many of the countries of first order. So the income, for example, is not an absolute matter with regard to human welfare, without saying, of course, that a material existence with the resources needed to pursue a more or less comfortable life, is not really essential and extremely important.
About those who wish to change the current systemic and social order, we have to ask for a moment of what serves to them oppose the terrifying and savage neoliberalism or something so inesencial and so human and so contextual as the industry, if after it will go buy the latest electronic gadget. A gadget that will almost certainly cease to be fashionable in a matter of months. In this sense, it is daily action of all persons the that reproduces and feeds the defects of social systems. Something that can also be seen in terms of social coexistence and in the same manner in which they are stratified human societies.
It is a simple fact. So simple as say that it is useless to oppose a war or want a more just society if we continue to act with hatred toward one or another person of a particular group. This aspect is ignored or rarely frequented in the academic and social studies. So much so that many of the speeches that speak of ethical and personal overcoming are considered inferior. Fortunately, in philosophy an important and prominent figure like Emmanuel Levinas (1993), he came to speak within their theoretical framework on ethical overcoming of ontology, ie, an overcoming of all those theories that want to enclose in Lo Same all essences.
For this philosopher, the individuality of the Self emerges from the Other. Unable to save distance to the Other, hence we has a responsibility with him, even more in the fact that is in the Other, where we find the full realization of our freedom and of our own being. However, today, this responsibility with the Other doesn't manifest itself in the form and with the interest which should manifest.
The Ecological and Some Others Aspects that Should Be Emotionalized Positively for a More Just World
Our responsibility is also with to nature, and many of its current problems, could be solved if all people as consumers we choose not to purchase that massification elements that the industry puts on the market daily. In fact, the same industry and the same neoliberalism could disappear as exist today if we could all have an ethic that lead us to be thoughtful and responsible consumers. Similarly, if all abogáramos by the end of all forms of violence and hatred, the mere mention of war or confrontation, it would be something that would be analyzed carefully. Of course, these ideas do not cease to form nothing but a utopia, a utopia realy ideal and practically difficult to achieve within of the human society, however, back of all these ideas, underlying the fact that social changes must also be ethics and in values.
In an article entitled "The virtuality of emotions and their communication in the digital age" (2013), I talked about that human emotions and the metaphysical aspects of our inner vitalities have been a subject of study very little addressed by sociology and non-social psychological studies in general. In that article, I also mentioned that this metaphysical aspects might get to be objectified for their academic understanding, and talked a bit, by the way, and very schematically, about of concept of emotional innovation. Well, I bring this subject up, due to the fact that social studies have been little concerned by the human emotions, this lead us to disregard them as regards to how to achieve an appropriate and fair social change. Emotions don't just are divided in sadness or happiness or others similar categories, is a complex issue, and every day can come, in a mediatic world, new ways of expressing those feelings or feelings.
Hence a ethics that emphasizes ecology, healthy living and life as life, and not life in their limited view of possession should not usurp, should emphasize a new way positive emotional that can achieve it. Hence that in these lines I speak, of a form merely reflective and with the aim of encouraging debate, that nature, life, responsible consumption and the end of all hatred, are matters or issues to be much more positively emotionalizing. Historically, the social situation has been so dark that for many cultures hatred toward another group has given them identity and to many people have even given them guidance in a determined government posts. Hence, the main idea of this text is that you can get to change a system, not just to change the institutions that characterize it, but the values that guide these institutions (without saying of course, other than of the everything necessary to change the current organizational structure). Moreover, do not forget that the lack of understanding of the emotions in the social field is a kind of dynamo and engine of much social injustices.
Bibliography:
– Easterlin, Richard A. (1974) “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” in Paul A. David and Melvin W. Reder, eds., Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramovitz, New York: Academic Press, Inc: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/16/business/Easterlin1974.pdf
- Guerrero Ramos, Miguel (2013).La virtualidad de las emociones y su comunicación en la era digital: las emociones humanas como un proceso comunicativo de potencialidades interiores, En: El mundo de hoy y los entornos virtuales, Eumed.
- Lévinas, Emmanuel (1993). Entre nosotros: ensayos para pensar en otro. Editorial Pre-Textos.
The most basic means of interculturalism, the true exercise of a participative democracy, and the Deleuzian method, may feature a common element amongst them - the importance of letting the ‘other’ speak, and appropriating the desired traits from such ‘other’, rather than substituting them and speaking in their behalf, a largely constructive perspective that emphasises intercultural communication. Today’s world, however, according to authors such as David García Casado (2010), exercises repression, or diffuse dominance which isn’t characterised, as in other times, by usurpation or transgression of fundamental rights, but by contention and homogenisation of our passions and desire, the control of which results in diffuse ways of modern domination holding back our participation in the world’s social and political reality.
In order to adequately develop this idea, let’s briefly remember first of all, the multicultural diversity management scheme alludes to sundry human groups that socially differ from each other, one of which, it could be said, imposes its vision of history and dissimilarity itself. The pluricultural scheme, by its side, proposes that a dominant group accepts the permanence of others in its (as opposed to their) society as a relative form of tolerance, but without fully assimilating them. Last but not least, the intercultural scheme, more than a rigid static concept, suggests a behavioural pattern, an attitude towards life consisting of accepting dialogue and free cultural blending, where cultures enhance one another instead of being constantly set apart.
Interculturalism, as a result, represents what French philosopher Guilles Deleuze called a flexible segmentation, which is something like a far more compliant distinction of the discourses classifying it. With reference to this, it’s important to keep in mind that Deleuze’s philosophy’s not based on rigid essential concepts such as the ones usually dealt with in the Western civilisation, but in more rhizomatic ones, or more malleable and interdisciplinary ideas, where the eclectic, adaptable and slightly protracted notion of schizoanalsis could be pivotal.
Let’s go step by step though: before briefly exploring schizoanalysis, let’s mention which are, in my opinion, two of the biggest problems of this society that controls our passions and desires and transforms them in an article of trade. Somewhat guided by authors such as David García Casado, the first of those issues is the right of enjoyment that’s been illustrated as purportedly the only inalienable individual entitlement, resulting in the constant fulfilment of our desires being given more importance in our society than participating in the assessment and social arrangement, brought in such a way that even radicalism and revolution are being sold as elements from the system, and are even products made for consumption or at least seek becoming thus, closely linked with the aforementioned right of enjoyment.
The second problem is the existence of rigidity in the classification of discourses, stances and social groups. The mistaken idea of race, for instance, is product of this problem, which catalogues avowals in academic, literary, etc. despite the fact that many years ago postmodernism would undermine and obliterate such distinctions (we’re yet to reach, consequently, a postmodern era), resulting in a set categorization. It’s difficult for your statements to be accepted in high academic milieus if you lack post-graduate- or doctorate-level studies. All of this is indeed still labelled today, even people and social groups. We need, therefore, flexible segmentation, which is why Guilles Deleuze’s schizoanalysis could well assist us in understanding our desires even in spite of being a shapeless initiative, as it’s just a procedure we can adapt at our will when dissecting reality and which could link psychoanalysis (rather than denying it) to politics and sociologic aspects of our comprehension and actions before civilization and which should be far more adaptable in academic circles, allowing for artistic and intellectual areas to be integrated and erasing discursive, ethnic and unyielding pigeonholing of human sectors and removing classifications such as nationality (without necessarily making the State disappear, since the idea is for this project to one day guarantee the sense of a true participative democracy).
This way a better treatment could even be achieved for migrant individuals, who carry a possible interculturalism from one place to another, although it’s worth mentioning that this idea of a more flexible way of thinking, valuing difference over identity, counters the modern view that’s currently globalised and immerse in each and every one of us. Yes, the human being seems to ineludibly have a tendency to classify, and while that remains, such categorizations will serve more as instruments of domination the more rigid they are, and the diffuse and yet ambiguous idea of a flexible segmentation or a study of reality through schizoanalysis will be pushed even further towards the facet of a utopia.
Bibliography:
García casado David. (2010). La resistencia no
es modelo sino devenir. Crítica de lo radical contemporáneo. Revista estudios
visuales.
Deleuze, Guille, and Guattari (1972).
Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Articles in French
(Articles en français)
L’impasse temporelle des structures sociales –Nous restons dans l’impasse ou nous avançons ?
(The Temporary Stagnation of Social Structures. Are We Stagnant or We Advance?)
Il est possible que, à partir de nos études sociologiques, il fausse arriver à une nouvelle façon de comprendre la temporalité ou le même devenir des phénomènes sociaux. Une nouvelle façon que nous permet de reconnaitre si nous vivons une époque de paralysie ou d’ankylose sociale dans le plus constitutive et fondamental des structures et des institutions de notre époque actuelle. Une nouvelle façon de comprendre ou d’apercevoir le tissu temporel en société qui nous fait concevoir un peu plus, au moins avec une complexité plus précise ou plus intégrale, le déroulement même du devenir social.
Les sciences sociales et la temporalité
Les sciences sociales en général, semblent avoir comme tendance, une perspective très concrète et spécifique devant le temps et le flux même des évènements sociaux. Notre psychologie actuelle, par exemple, provient d’une tradition très durkheimienne et très positiviste. La tradition d’étudier le « fait social », c’est-à-dire d’étudier une manifestation, un phénomène ou un changement qui est clairement identifiable, tant qu’au moment de chercher un objet d’étude, autrement dit, un fait social, nous choisissons d’identifier une manifestation ou un changement qui a des caractéristiques déterminées dans une ligne temporelle donnée.
Néanmoins, à l’égard des auteurs tels que Claude Romano (1999), la pensée occidentale a toujours eu une conception très limitée de l’évènement et du temps lui-même. Tant que nous pourrions bien nous risquer à dire que nous vivons actuellement une période d’impasse en ce qui concerne l’avancement des institutions et des structures sociaux. Une période de suspension et d’un dynamisme structurel très bas, bien que les transformations superficielles de la structure sociale actuelle, comme celles qui sont données par des innovations technologiques qui apparaissent chaque nouveau jour, nous font penser précisément tout le contraire. C’est-à-dire, bien que nous vivions une période des transformations très rapides qui sont guidées par des technologies de l’information et la connectivité, au sens fort et objective, il est possible que nous vivions une période d’un dynamisme social très bas qui ne signifie pas un changement institutionnel de fond.
Pour comprendre cette information que nous ne vivons pas une période de transformations rapides de fond mais, plutôt d’impasse, au moins de modification très lente de la structure sociale, nous pouvons bien faire une comparaison avec celle dénommé « époque d’obscurantisme médiéval ». De cette manière, nous pouvons dire que, bien que beaucoup d’auteurs soutiennent que le Moyen-Age n’as pas été une époque de recul total du savoir et de la culture occidentale, c’est le plus commun et le plus général que cette époque soit souvent identifiée comme une période dans laquelle une modification très lente des structures et institutions nationales a prédominé. En considérant pour un instant que cette hypothèse soit vraie, nous pourrions bien faire une analogie d’une telle situation avec l’actuel déroulement de nos sociétés dans le monde entier. En d’autres termes, nous pourrions dire que nous vivons une période d’impasse par rapport à, par exemple, l’avancement de fond de nos institutions sociales. Une période d´impasse ou paralysie dans laquelle il y a des transformations structurales significatives très basses ou nulles.
Quelques raisons qui nous mènent à parler d’un type d’impasse social très spécifique dans l’actualité
Il y a beaucoup de raisons qui peuvent nous conduire à proposer une impasse de la dynamique institutionnelle actuelle ou l’apparition faible des éléments qui modifient significativement notre structure sociale. Certaines de ces raisons ne sont que détails que, pourtant, deviennent cruciaux pour l’organisation et le déroulement de la vie sociale même. Des détails comme le fait que les partis politiques actuels continuent à travailler avec des structures organisationnelles d’il y a cent ans, ainsi que le fait d’avoir une carte nationale d’identité pour démontrer une citoyenneté, à cause de l’absence d’un tel document attestant le statut juridique de citoyen, une personne risque d’être déprotégée et privée des droits fondamentaux, principalement de la santé et de l’éducation.
Toutefois, quelques autres raisons que nous pouvons citer pour parler de l’impasse de la structure sociale actuelle, font allusion aux paradigmes extraordinairement globaux et qui sont en vigueur, quelques–uns, depuis des temps tellement anciens que la société-elle-même. D’entre ces raisons nous pouvons mentionner, en premier lieu, le fait que la compréhension de l’État et son structure se trouve, même aujourd’hui, très limité et restreint à la conception avec laquelle telle entité a commencé à s’établir il y a un peu plus de trois siècles. Autrement dit, il est rare que l’État soit contemplé comme une entité encore en construction, et plutôt toute la dispute et la réflexion sur ces transformations, ont porté sur le moyen dans lequel il faut s’orienter, c’est- à-dire, si l’État doit être de type socialiste ou capitaliste. D’autre part, il faut aussi dire que nous vivons aujourd’hui sous le paradigme que la politique est une question d’un groupe de personnes présélectionnées, et nous confondons l’exercice même de la politique avec l’activité des politiciens, c