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Post by benziger on Apr 25, 2020 12:47:51 GMT
European [African, Asian, Australian, and South American] societies do not live in isolation, and what happens here affects everyone. Ignoring such is perilous, though for what it's worth I don't know much. I'm the "fool" of the family after all. I'm aware of that. Our world is a network; not just since yesterday. There was the tulip bulb bubble in the Netherlands - and the world economy was on the ground. That was before our time. The dotcom bubble in California, Lehman Brothers, war in Iraq, drought in the Sahel: it always has a direct impact on Europe (that's where I notice it directly) and elsewhere. Yesterday, a long article in the newspaper said that crises always accentuate states of affairs. Nationalists become more nationalistic, democrats more democratic, socialists more socialist, charismatics more charismatic, clowns more clownish, ... and depending on what people want, they agree or the pendulum swings back. That may or may not come out well. And two or three days earlier, Roberto Simanowski from Nashville University wrote in an opinion piece - I thought of you when I read it this morning (longer articles have sometime to wait to be read):
"The interruption of the usual offers the chance to change course. The insight that many things in personal life can or should be different is just as much a part of the insight as the admonition that many things in the social system must become different: more human, more social. The obvious starting point is, of course, the health care system, whose thorough economization has led to the threatening shortage of hospital beds and nursing staff during the pandemic. The insight that the health system is a place of social services of general interest and not a commercial enterprise is soon followed by the criticism that commercial enterprises privatise profits but socialise losses. In my home country, Germany, this complaint takes place at a high level compared to the situation in the USA or Brazil (where, according to my wife's relatives, we should not go under any circumstances). In each case, these are social systems that are very poorly prepared for a crisis like this - not to mention the quality of their current top "crisis managers". How can a society where infected people have to go to work because any loss of earnings could end up on the street tomorrow, effectively combat an epidemic?
Some friends in the USA see this crisis as an opportunity for the upcoming presidential election. Now it is clear that the social system itself is sick and can only recover through a solidarity-based health and social security system! Now one must realize that the more a society takes care of its weakest members, the better it functions. Is this the time for a new New Deal? Is Corona moving the world to the left (or even to the right)?
The hope, it will later be said, that the government will safely manoeuvre society through the crisis changed the perspective on the relationship between the individual and the state. And not only in terms of political economy. In the crisis, people were prepared to make sacrifices in the public interest, even when it came to freedom of movement and assembly or informational self-determination. People were prepared to give up civil rights out of civic responsibility, at least if they lived in a stable democracy, where such restrictions were decided with many ifs and buts. The cult of the individual, the mode of competitive singularities that determines modernity and especially the 21st century, was suspended in favour of the interests of the social whole." (Translated with http://www.DeepL.com)
I read all kinds of allusions in these two articles, also with regard to the coming November in your country, Shinx-Cameron. In the sense of what you said, we here in Europe are watching what's happening in Asia and North America with suspicious eyes. Even though we don't always fully understand your political system (you may not always understand ours). However, I see the contributions much broader than day-to-day politics, much more socially relevant; after all, they are about fundamental issues in our societies.
(source: NZZ, following Wikipedia: "The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) is a Swiss, German-language daily newspaper (...) founded in 1780. It has a reputation as a high-quality newspaper and as the Swiss newspaper of record. The NZZ is known for its objectivity and detailed reports on international affairs.")
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 25, 2020 13:48:30 GMT
European [African, Asian, Australian, and South American] societies do not live in isolation, and what happens here affects everyone. Ignoring such is perilous, though for what it's worth I don't know much. I'm the "fool" of the family after all. I'm aware of that. Our world is a network; not just since yesterday. There was the tulip bulb bubble in the Netherlands - and the world economy was on the ground. That was before our time. The dotcom bubble in California, Lehman Brothers, war in Iraq, drought in the Sahel: it always has a direct impact on Europe (that's where I notice it directly) and elsewhere. Yesterday, a long article in the newspaper said that crises always accentuate states of affairs. Nationalists become more nationalistic, democrats more democratic, socialists more socialist, charismatics more charismatic, clowns more clownish, ... and depending on what people want, they agree or the pendulum swings back. That may or may not come out well. And two or three days earlier, Roberto Simanowski from Nashville University wrote in an opinion piece - I thought of you when I read it this morning (longer articles have sometime to wait to be read):
"The interruption of the usual offers the chance to change course. The insight that many things in personal life can or should be different is just as much a part of the insight as the admonition that many things in the social system must become different: more human, more social. The obvious starting point is, of course, the health care system, whose thorough economization has led to the threatening shortage of hospital beds and nursing staff during the pandemic. The insight that the health system is a place of social services of general interest and not a commercial enterprise is soon followed by the criticism that commercial enterprises privatise profits but socialise losses. In my home country, Germany, this complaint takes place at a high level compared to the situation in the USA or Brazil (where, according to my wife's relatives, we should not go under any circumstances). In each case, these are social systems that are very poorly prepared for a crisis like this - not to mention the quality of their current top "crisis managers". How can a society where infected people have to go to work because any loss of earnings could end up on the street tomorrow, effectively combat an epidemic?
Some friends in the USA see this crisis as an opportunity for the upcoming presidential election. Now it is clear that the social system itself is sick and can only recover through a solidarity-based health and social security system! Now one must realize that the more a society takes care of its weakest members, the better it functions. Is this the time for a new New Deal? Is Corona moving the world to the left (or even to the right)?
The hope, it will later be said, that the government will safely manoeuvre society through the crisis changed the perspective on the relationship between the individual and the state. And not only in terms of political economy. In the crisis, people were prepared to make sacrifices in the public interest, even when it came to freedom of movement and assembly or informational self-determination. People were prepared to give up civil rights out of civic responsibility, at least if they lived in a stable democracy, where such restrictions were decided with many ifs and buts. The cult of the individual, the mode of competitive singularities that determines modernity and especially the 21st century, was suspended in favour of the interests of the social whole." (Translated with http://www.DeepL.com)
I read all kinds of allusions in these two articles, also with regard to the coming November in your country, Shinx-Cameron. In the sense of what you said, we here in Europe are watching what's happening in Asia and North America with suspicious eyes. Even though we don't always fully understand your political system (you may not always understand ours). However, I see the contributions much broader than day-to-day politics, much more socially relevant; after all, they are about fundamental issues in our societies.
(source: NZZ, following Wikipedia: "The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) is a Swiss, German-language daily newspaper (...) founded in 1780. It has a reputation as a high-quality newspaper and as the Swiss newspaper of record. The NZZ is known for its objectivity and detailed reports on international affairs.")
Herr Benziger,
One thing I understand about many different political systems is that they exist to serve the societies they are a part of, and the better they serve all members of those societies the better the societies in question function.
Unfortunately in this country the political system is set up to better serve the top ten percent and best serve the top 0.1 percent of society. It doesn't really matter which party is running things because they're obverse and reverse of the same coin. If the system were truly set up to serve all of society, then there wouldn't be so many fundamental systemic issues adversely affecting so many people both here and abroad.
As an Information Analyst I tend to watch what's going on globally with a sense of dismay since the spouse and I are working to prepare our replacements. Humanity will either survive as a collective or leave an empty planet behind, and at present I can't tell which scenario is most likely to play out. Then again I'm only a pawn in the game of life with virtually no ability to sway the outcomes. Nach sechs Jahrzehnten bin ich müde.
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