



Posted by: adonis49 on: February 18, 2021
Posted on October 23, 2014
Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803) is famous for his book “The Dangerous Liaisons“. Many considered him a scandalous writer at par with the marquis de Sade or Restif de la Bretonne.
Very few knows that he was the mischievous brain behind the French Revolution that managed to clench victory and ripen its fruits.
Chaderlos de Laclos was the mastermind behind the massive women march from Paris to Versailles.
He figured out that unless the center of power (King and Constituent Assembly) transfer from Versailles to Paris then the revolution might falter.
Chaderlos de Laclos incorporated famous women who used to organize orgies such as Theroigne de Mericourt, and most importantly, transvestite men carrying weapons for the next phase of the march purpose.
As the women marched, the initial slogan was “We want bread“.
Actually, Chaderlos convinced his patron Duke Philip of Orleans to refrain from distributing wheat in Paris for a couple of days to give the impression that the King is failing in his duties. Duke Phillip of Orleans hated the King and the Queen and believed he was better for that position. He is better known in French history as “Equality Phillip”
The King received a delegation of women and promised them to distribute wheat and bread immediately.
The women stayed overnight outside Versailles and the next day the slogan changed to “We want the King in Paris”
The transvestite men with weapons managed to infiltrate inside the Versailles walls and committed a slaughter hood of the surprised guards and almost broke inside the King and Queen quarters.
The King had a wake up call and decided to pleasure the masses and return with all his family to Paris.
La Fayette (the general who participated in the American revolution) was chief of the National Guards and secured the safe passage of the King to Paris.
From then on, the king and his family were practically prisoners to the revolutionaries and unable to leave Paris.
Born in Amiens, Chaderlos , as the second son, was destined to the sacerdotal. Luckily for him, the first son died and Chaderlos could join the military career. He opted for the artillery since he was excellent in math.
He slowly climbed the ranks due to lack of real battle engagements and was promoted Captain in 1771
For the next 17 years, he was still captain, but he took several sabbaticals in order to finish his book.
He married Marie-Soulange Dupre in 1786. She was 24 and he was 42. This was a love marriage that endured and they got 2 kids.
In 1788, after quitting the army, he sided and joined the party of the Duke of Orleans in Paris.
When La Fayette summoned the Duke to go to exile in London on temporary basis, due to his involvement in the women’s march, Chaderlos joined the Duke in exile.
Chaderlos would be promoted General by Napoleon in 1800 and he died of dysentery at Tarente. He was quickly buried in a common grave .
A few maxims of Chaderlos:
1. Hate is more clairvoyant and more ingenious than Love
2. I was taken by surprise to notice that we can feel pleasure by doing good deeds
3. Our ridicule increases proportionally the harder we defend it
4. For him, pleasing is a means. For her it is success itself
5. For man, infidelity is Not inconsistency
6. In love, we can permit excesses only with persons we plan to leave very soon
7. Nature extended constancy to man. And obstinate tendency to women
8. I love her too much to feel jealousy. I have taken the option to be proud of (her foibles)
9. A missed occasion can be recaptured. We never return after a precipitated demand (of marriage?)
10. It is good to accustom someone destined for great adventures by him getting the habit for great events.
Read: Gonzague Saint Bris “La Fayette”
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 3, 2021
Posted on September 21, 2012
In 1794, the young and radical French revolutionary Saint-Just proclaimed at the Convention: “Happiness is a new idea in Europe“.
Saint-Just was a learned man and must have read the documents and discussions of the leaders of the American Revolution and the concept that happiness is a natural right for every citizen.
Was this idea of happiness similar to the one understood in Europe?
After the French Revolution, there were ideas thrown around that all citizens were entitled to , like to eat properly, enjoy health, free time for leisure, appropriate retirement conditions…
What substituted to happiness in Europe before the French Revolution?
Before the revolution, the little people were invisible and were of no concern to the nobility in these absolute monarchies, except when famine hits and the power feels the heat…
The ancient philosophers and the succeeding thinkers viewed happiness as “a way of living”, guided by virtue and reason, in relative indifference to material possession and worldly successes.
It was out of the question that idiots can be considered to be happy…
It was not conceivable to claim happiness if you believed that it could have an end: Happiness was a concept directly linked to a faith in eternity and immortality.
Happiness was irreducibly an elitist acquisition, reserved for those who had the mental and material means to become wise and leisurely contemplate nature and the living people…
What could be the meaning and value of Happiness in modern time?
The “utilitarian” vision of happiness (Jeremy Bentham) proclaimed that happiness is in essence the absence of pains and aches, and the satisfaction of individual preferences can come in any order…The goal of the activities of individuals is the greater happiness possible within the greater number of mankind “the common good”.
This “democratization” of happiness, at the reach of the little people, was denuded of its sacred meanings, detached of its religious connotations, Not opposite to ephemeral and artificial pleasures…
Like what kinds of modern pleasures?
Smoking marijuana, taking cocaine, morphine, hallucinogenic products, Prozac…watching action movies, scary movies, science fiction movies…all kinds of musics, concerts, all kinds of variety of food, visiting remote regions, seeing new cultures and civilization…wearing variety of clothes…engaging in a variety of physical activities and sports…
The German philosopher Kant tried to demonstrate that happiness bears No Moral meaning.
For example, there are so many objective desires that people aspire to, such as wealth, glory, power…Can we agree that these “values” are at best controversial and not evident to the little people? So many exploiters and tyrants have been swimming in happiness…
How happiness was characterized before the French revolution?
1. Epicure (341-270 BC) taught in his Garden to oppose the rigor of stoicism, and to converge toward a moral of moderation “Let’s not jump into any kinds of pleasure…There is no agreeable living without a hefty dose of prudence, honesty and justice…”
2. Seneca (4 BC-65) The individual should be capable of combining reason and character in order to find pleasure from his physical faculties “I am after happiness of man and not of his stomach…”
3. Leibniz (1646-1716): “Evil exists. Considering Creation as a whole, God did his best…The grain suffer in the soil before bearing fruits…Our suffering lead the way to the good, to the greater perfection…”
4. Spinoza (1632-1677): “The essence of mankind is the desire to be happy, to live good, and to act good…The only access to happiness is to know what determine our passions in the natural order of the universe…”
And what are the visions of happiness after 1789?
5. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). All the pleasures are Not of equal values. It is better to be an unhappy Socrates rather than a happy imbecile. Individual happiness is not complete if the common good is forgotten and neglected…
6. Nietzsche (1844-1900): “Who cannot learn to take a break to forget the past, to enjoy the moment, will never appreciate happiness, and will never learn how render others happy…There is a level of insomnia, of rumination, and of historical meaning that ruin the living person and annihilate his happiness…”
7. Georges Bataille (1897-1962): “If happiness is a reaction to the call of desire, and if desire is a caprice incarnate…then happiness is the sole moral value…”
8. Michel Foucault (1926-1962): “Abstinence that leads to individual sovereignty is happiness without desire and without trouble…”
Many modern critiques and thinkers made it a business (publishing books of how to be happy…) to fall back into the archaic version of “learning to be happy…”
Kind of “if we know how to enjoy life in the cheapest way possible…” happiness can be in the reach of everyone…(except those dying of famine and of common diseases…?)
All that talks of ancient and modern ideas of happiness have no sense if not described and explained within the proper context of the period and culture.
For example:
1. How an individual with a life expectancy of no more than 30 years can conceive of happiness?
2. How an individual living in the harshest conditions to survive may experience happiness?
3. How the European under absolute monarchies and with a life expectancy not surpassing 40 years could comprehend the idea of happiness?
4. How all those cow-boys of the Far West experienced the meaning of happiness?
5. Was happiness the same before, during and after the Chinese revolution?
6. Was happiness experienced in the same quality before, during and after the British dominion of India?
7. Has happiness the same meaning and value before and after the “Industrial Age“?
8. Has happiness the same meaning and value during this instant communication and traveling facilities?
9. Don’t you think as life expectancy reaches 80 years that happiness requires extensive planing and preparation as we hit retirement age?
What can you do without talent after 60? How can you be happy if your eyesight goes and your hearing capacity dwindle?
The next article intends to describe the feasibility of experiencing “happiness” within the proper context…
Note: Post inspired from a study by Ruwen Ogien in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur #2490
Posted by: adonis49 on: July 21, 2020
What’s your concept for a Nation?
The Nation is relatively a new concept that developed after the French revolution when every “citizen” was forced to join the war activities, especially during Napoleon expansion in Europe..
For long time, frequent wars were launched to acquire “rights” of a monarch to other parts of countries as a result of marriages and other excuses to expand territories.
Countries that experienced frequent wars managed to give the illusions to soldiers that they belong to a Nation and must expect to be asked to join the war activities when required, him and his family members.
Apparently, this notion of Nation has withstood the turmoil in the last 2 centuries: 2 World Wars, Communism, multinationals, The European Union, the End of History… and kicking madly to conserve their “identities”
This article is comparing Antoun Saadi and Michel Aflak (Baath) notions of what constitute a Nation
مفهوم شخصية الأمة ما بين عفلق وسعادة
بقلم: نضال القادري
إن النظرة الإيديولوجية لمفهوم الوحدة والأمة هي أساس التباين بين الحزب السوري القومي الإجتماعي من وجهة نظر مؤسس حركته أنطون سعادة، وبين حزب البعث العربي الإشتراكي من خلال أفكار الأستاذ ميشيل عفلق الذي تأثر بالشيوعية وانخرط فيها وسرعان ما تركها لينهي حياته مسلما.
إن أهمية الطريقة العفلقية في الطرح الأديولوجي أنها خاطبت العقل العربي بمقولة جمعت بين المنطق والعاطفة حتى ليصح فيه قولا أن المهادنة المنطقية العاطفية كانت حاضرة وبقوة في أفكاره،
ورغم التناقض الحيوي بين اللفظين فهما تحملان خصوصية العقل العربي الذي عمل له إغراقا لنتائج رعت تطلعاته الفكرية والعاطفية، فإن توقه نحو التحرر من الأجنبي كان حلمه الأول،
ولكي تتم عملية التحرر، وجب أن يتوحّد ومن أجل أن يتوحدّ بسرعة، حتما وجب إزالة الرموز العميقة التي تعيق هذا التوحد،
ولكن كل هذه العملية لم تكن سوى بإسقاط حتمية الأمة العربية في فكره، فهو الذي نادى بالعروبة، وبالعلمنة.
ميشيل عفلق الذي اضطر تحت التعذيب إلى كتابة رسالة يعتذر فيها لحسني الزعيم ويتعهد له بعدم ممارسة العمل السياسي تعتبر إهانة لديمقراطية الإنقلابات والجنرالات في الشام.
ميشيل عفلق الذي مات مسلما دون أن يترك أثرا ثابتا في كيفية الجمع فيما بين اللفظين (المنطق والعاطفة)، وزاد من جرحه أن أخرجته أجنحة البعث السياسية إلى النفي والعزلة والموت فيما بعد، مشوها بالعسكرة والإنقلابات والتصحيحات التقدمية تحت ذريعة الأنسنة والوحدة بشعارات القومية المبتكرة،
ويجدر أن عفلق كان قد ترشح في 17/7/ 1947 حين حصلت أول انتخابات نيابية بعد الاستقلال، فسقط فيها مع رفيقه صلاح البيطار كممثلين عن البعث.
لقد برزت المسألة القومية المرتبطة بمفاهيم البعث في كتابات عفلق، وهو الذي علل في البدء تقديمه للقومية في مضمونها الإنساني الإيجابي قائلا:”لم نر أن من واجبنا البدء في تقديم البراهين على قوميتنا ومبررات وجودها، لأننا لم نتصور هذه القومية تصورا سلبيا، لم نتصور أنها وجدت لتخاصم غيرها، ولكي تثبت وجودها وحقها إزاء قوميات أخرى، أو لكي تدعي التفوق وحق السيطرة على غيرها أو لتدفع التهمة عن نفسها”. ثم أضاف لاحقا: “إن مشكلة القومية ليست في البرهان على وجودها، وإنما في تحقيق مضمون إيجابي حي لها”(1).
ثم أضاف في محاضرة تحت عنوان (القومية حقيقة حية ذات مضمون إيجابي إنساني) قائلا:” لم يظهر لنا التاريخ الإنساني بعد أن القومية شيء طاريء عابر سطحي يمكن أن يتلاشى تبعا لتبدل الظروف السياسية أو الإجتماعية أو الإقتصادية، بل إن ما يرينا إياه التاريخ هو أن القومية تتغلب على شتى التبدلات الساسية والإجتماعية وغيرها، وتظل حية حتى في حالة ضعفها وتراخي روابطها. والنظرة المتعمقة ترينا أن القومية،
وإن كانت تتأثر وتتغذى بكثير من العوامل الإقتصادية والإجتماعية إلا أنها تظل أعمق من هذه العوامل وأرسخ قدما وأبعد غورا في التاريخ، فهي من صنع أجيال وقرون وهي نتيجة تراكم طويل وتفاعل عميق أوصل إلى خلق صفات مشتركة وروابط روحية ومادية بين مجموعة من البشر أصبحت هي الشخصية المعبرة عن هذه المجموعة وهي المجال الطبيعي والحياتي الذي تنطلق فيه هذه المجموعة في تحقيق إنسانيتها”(2).
لقد رأى الأستاذ ميشل عفلق شخصية الأمة دفعة واحدة، لكنه لم يناقش أو يبدي البرهان على وجودها، ورأى أنها تتغذى بكثير من العوامل وبخاصة الإقتصادرية والإجتماعية.
أما المفكر أنطون سعادة، فهو لم ينظر إلى الأمة التي تكلم عنها غيره من ناحية اللغة أو الدين أو السلالة، ولم يطرح فكرة أسلمة الشرق كحل شامل لقضايا هذا المجتمع ليمكنه من الذوبان أو التفاعل مع غيره من بقاع “الأمة”
بخاصة عندما قال الأستاذ عفلق في نقده للواقع العربي:” ثمة ثلاثة تحديات تواجه الواقع العربي هي: التجزئة، والتخلف وفقدان الإتجاه الحضاري الواحد. فعندما تحسم مسألة القومية بإقرار وحدة الأمة، وعندما تحسم مشكلة التخلف بالخيار التقدمي الواضح الحاسم، يبقى موضوع روح الحضارة، وعندئذ نقرر الحقيقة التالية: أن الإسلام يشكل النسيج الروحي والحضاري للأمة العربية. فحركة الوحدة العربية، وهي حركة تاريخية، لم تتعثر حتى الأن، إلا لأنها لم تطرح بمضمونها الكامل على الجماهير العربية. أي بخياراتها الثلاثة: القومية العربية، والتقدم، والإسلام الحضاري”(3).
وهنا أسقط سعادة رهان الأستاذ عفلق، وذهب إلى العكس من ذلك تماما،
فأصر قولا أن حيث تخيب الرابطة القومية، لا يمكن أن تصيب الرابطة الدينية، لأن الرابطة الدينية تهمل الجغرافية والتاريخ والسلالة والاجتماع والاقتصاد والنفسية الاجتماعية، أي جميع العوامل التي توجد الواقع الاجتماعي وتتكفل بحفظه وسيرورته الواحدة في جغرافية الزمان والمكان،
ثم ربط فكرة الأمة بقيام وحدات على أسس علمية واضحة تتشكل فيها دورة التواصل المجتمعي على أسس إقصادية وسياسية لها مدلولها وشخصيتها المستقلة. أيضا،
لم يسقط سعادة مفهوم الأمة بطريقة عاطفية دون أن يناقش محتواها أو يهادن في مقدمات أو أسباب تخلفها، فلقد أقر بواقع المجتمعات العربية وشخصياتها المنفصلة عن بعضها، ووضع السيل الأيلة للتعاون فيما بينها على أسس السيادة الوطنية مقرا بشخصية الأمة السورية التامة كواقع علمي وإقتصادي وسياسي المكتسبة لشخصيتها عبر التاريخ.
ولأنه أعتبر أن لهذه الأمة رسالة عظيمة وضعها في غاية الحزب وخطته من حيث المبدأ قائلا:”إننا لن نتنازل عن مركزنا في العالم العربي ولا عن رسالتنا إلى العالم العربي. ولكننا نريد، أن نكون أقوياء في أنفسنا لنتمكن من تأدية رسالتنا. يجب على سورية أن تكون قوية بنهضتها القومية الإجتماعية لتستطيع القيام بمهمتها الكبرى”(4).
إن هذا لم يكن تنظيرا أو سهوا أو محاباة لأحد،
لقد فسرها سعادة على الشكل التالي:”النظرية السورية القومية الاجتماعية في هذه المسألة هي: النهوض القومي الاجتماعي بسورية أولاً، ثم سلك سياسة تعاونية لخير العالم العربي. ونهضة الأمة السورية تُحرّرُ القوة السورية من سلطة الأجانب وتحوِّلها إلى حركة فعالة لإنهاض بقية الأمم العربية ومساعدتها على الرقيّ.
وهذه العروبة السورية القومية الاجتماعية هي العروبة الصحيحة الصريحة غير الملتوية. هي العروبة العملية التي توجد أكبر مساعدة للعالم العربي وأفعل طريقة لنهوضه.
إنها ليست عروبة دينية، ولا عروبة رسمالية نفعية، ولا عروبة سياسية مرائية: إنها عروبةٌ مثليّةٌ لخير العالم العربي كله”(5).
إنها عروبة سعادة التي تجمع ذوي الأصول السريانية والكردية والأشورية والفينيقية والداغستانية والكلدانية واليزيدية والتركمانية والكنعانية والشركسية،
وتمنحهم الشعور بالإنتماء إلى وحدات قومية يستميتون من أجلها في عالم عربي تكون فيه الأمة السورية التامة صاحبة دور ريادي في التكامل والرقي والتقدم. أيضا،
إنه سعادة الذي جمع الماروني والسني والشيعي والرومي والدرزي والبروتستنطي والنصيري،
وهو القادر على جمع ابن رام الله، والحسكة، وانطلياس والبصرة، وأربد ودمشق..
وهم الفلسطينيون والشاميون واللبنانيون والعراقيون والأردنيون، الذين مزقتهم مقدمات التخلف والنكبات الكيانية في عالم عربي،
لا خلاص له إلا بالعلمنة المؤمنة بالقومية شعارا وممارسة للحياة، كما أرادها سعادة من دون خوف في الولوج بأسباب السبات والتخلف.
إذا، لا يمكن أن نسقط التاريخ لصالح أهدافنا دون النظر إلى إرهاصاته الأولى ومكسباته عمليا،
من هنا أقول أنه لا يمكننا أن نجعل حدود اللغة والدين “حدوداً جغرافية”،
وكذلك الشعوب التي لم تكتسب وعيها القومي أو التي لا قدرة لها على اكتساب الوعي القومي، فهي ليست أمماً ولا أجزاء من أمة، بل جماهير لا شخصية لها، تنخر تاريخها وتتقدم نحو مستقبل الفشل الحتمي، وهي كارثة على مجتمعها من كل النواحي.
من هنا، إن نعتها بالجماهير ليس شانا إنشائيا بحتا، إنه الأساس في المبنى الذي قامت عليه مدرحية سعادة التي قالت بالإنسان ـ المجتمع، وربطتها بالعقل الوالج نحو التطور والإرتقاء، وبعملية المعرفة التي أناط الشرع الأعلى (العقل) عند سعادة مصدر القوة بها
فقال:”إن المجتمع معرفة والمعرفة قوة”.
وإن الإشتراك في بعض مناحي الحياة، قد يخلق إجتماعا بسيطا لا يرقى بمفهوم سعادة إلى مستوى الأمة التي لها وعيا لشخصيتها المكتسبة والموروثة (الأنسنة الملازمة للأمة والعقل الذي هو الشرع الأعلى)،
وأبرز موضع يدلك على ذلك في رسالته إلى السيدين أنيس ومحي الدين النصولي عندما يقول:”إن الأمة ليست الشعب وأن الشعب جزء من الأمة، وأن هذا أصل وذاك فرع”. أما نحن فنقول للسيدين النصولي أن اعترافهما بوجود شعوب في العالم العربي لا شعب واحد، يوازي الإعتراف بوجود أمم في العالم العربي لا أمة واحدة. ذلك لأن كل أمة شعب..
فإذا كان العالم العربي شعوباً لا شعباً واحداً فهو ليس أمة واحدة لأن الأمة هي الشعب الواحد المستفيق لنفسه والمكتسب شخصية سياسية.
وقد اكتسب الشعب السوري وعيه القومي فهو أمة. واكتسب الشعب المصري وعيه القومي فهو أمة أيضاً. أما الشعوب التي لم تكتسب وعيها القومي أو التي لا قدرة لها على اكتساب الوعي القومي فهي ليست أمماً ولا أجزاء من أمة، بل جماهير لا شخصية لها”
Posted by: adonis49 on: July 15, 2020
Attempted suicide stories
Suicides never helped the living to have a better chance in this world.
Posted by: adonis49 on: July 9, 2020
Is it a Modern idea? Happiness. A term spread around like cheese cake
In 1794, the young and radical French revolutionary Saint-Just proclaimed at the Convention: “Happiness is a new idea in Europe“.
Saint-Just was a learned man and must have read the documents and discussions of the leaders of the American Revolution and the concept that happiness is a natural right for every citizen. Was this idea of happiness similar to the one understood in Europe?
After the French Revolution, there were ideas thrown around that all citizens were entitled to eat properly, enjoy health, free time for leisure, appropriate retirement conditions…
What substituted for Happiness in Europe before the French Revolution?
Before the revolution, the little people were invisible and were of no concern to the nobility in these absolute monarchies, except when famine hits and the power feels the heat…
The ancient philosophers and the succeeding thinkers viewed happiness as “a way of living”, guided by virtue and reason, in relative indifference to material possession and worldly successes.
It was out of the question that idiots can be considered to be happy…
It was not conceivable to claim happiness if you believed that it could have an end: Happiness was a concept directly linked to a faith in eternity and immortality.
Happiness was irreducibly an elitist acquisition, reserved for those who had the mental and material means to become wise and leisurely contemplate nature and the living people…
What could be the meaning and value of Happiness in modern time?
The “utilitarian” vision of happiness (Jeremy Bentham) proclaimed that happiness is in essence the absence of pains and aches, and the satisfaction of individual preferences can come in any order…The goal of the activities of individuals is the greater happiness possible within the greater number of mankind “the common good”.
This “democratization” of happiness, at the reach of the little people, was denuded of its sacred meanings, detached of its religious connotations, not opposite to ephemeral and artificial pleasures…
Like what kinds of modern pleasures?
Smoking marijuana, taking cocaine, morphine, hallucinogenic products, Prozac…watching action movies, scary movies, science fiction movies…all kinds of musics, concerts, all kinds of variety of food, visiting remote regions, seeing new cultures and civilization…wearing variety of clothes…engaging in a variety of physical activities and sports…
The German philosopher Kant tried to demonstrate that happiness bears No Moral meaning.
For example, there are so many objective desires that people aspire to, such as wealth, glory, power…Can we agree that these “values” are at best controversial and not evident to the little people? So many exploiters and tyrants have been swimming in happiness…
How happiness was characterized before the French revolution?
1. Epicure (341-270 BC) taught in his Garden to oppose the rigor of stoicism, and to converge toward a moral of moderation “Let’s not jump into any kinds of pleasure…There is no agreeable living without a hefty dose of prudence, honesty and justice…”
2. Seneca (4 BC-65) The individual should be capable of combining reason and character in order to find pleasure from his physical faculties “I am after happiness of man and not of his stomach…”
3. Leibniz (1646-1716): “Evil exists. Considering Creation as a whole, God did his best…The grain suffer in the soil before bearing fruits…Our suffering lead the way to the good, to the greater perfection…”
4. Spinoza (1632-1677): “The essence of mankind is the desire to be happy, to live good, and to act good…The only access to happiness is to know what determine our passions in the natural order of the universe…”
And what are the visions of happiness after 1789?
5. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). All the pleasures are Not of equal values. It is better to be an unhappy Socrates rather than a happy imbecile. Individual happiness is not complete if the common good is forgotten and neglected…
6. Nietzsche (1844-1900): “Who cannot learn to take a break to forget the past, to enjoy the moment, will never appreciate happiness, and will never learn how render others happy…There is a level of insomnia, of rumination, and of historical meaning that ruin the living person and annihilate his happiness…”
7. Georges Bataille (1897-1962): “If happiness is a reaction to the call of desire, and if desire is a caprice incarnate…then happiness is the sole moral value…”
8. Michel Foucault (1926-1962): “Abstinence that leads to individual sovereignty is happiness without desire and without trouble…”
Many modern critiques and thinkers made it a business (publishing books of how to be happy…) to fall back into the archaic version of “learning to be happy…”
Kind of “if we know how to enjoy life in the cheapest way possible…” happiness can be in the reach of everyone…(except those dying of famine and of common diseases…?)
All that talks of ancient and modern ideas of happiness have no sense if not described and explained within the proper context of the period and culture.
For example:
1. How an individual with a life expectancy of no more than 30 years can conceive of happiness?
2. How an individual living in the harshest conditions to survive may experience happiness?
3. How the European under absolute monarchies and with a life expectancy not surpassing 40 years could comprehend the idea of happiness?
4. How all those cow-boys of the Far West experienced the meaning of happiness?
5. Was happiness the same before, during and after the Chinese revolution?
6. Was happiness experienced in the same quality before, during and after the British dominion of India?
7. Has happiness the same meaning and value before and after the “Industrial Age“?
8. Has happiness the same meaning and value during this instant communication and traveling facilities?
9. Don’t you think as life expectancy reaches 80 years that happiness requires extensive planning and preparation as we hit retirement age?
What can you do with your life without talent after 60?
How can you be happy if your eyesight goes and your hearing capacity dwindle?
The next article intends to describe the feasibility of experiencing “happiness” within the proper context…
Note: Post inspired from a study by Ruwen Ogien in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur #2490
Notes and tidbits posted on FB and Twitter. Part 82
Shortly after the revolution, this ingrained reasoning of the old story of catering first to current elite classes in order to smooth out transition is a plausible short-term tactic that kills the revolt for sustained transformation
The elites classes reap the benefits under all situations and conditions, in the short, medium, and long-term, and quickly orient the revolution toward the old-time structure… Robespierre and Marrat changed the trend, until Napoleon took over
“Authority is reduced to almost nothing, the day it becomes an object of discussion for lack of instinctive respect” (Alexis de Tocqueville)
“The spirit that guided the French Revolution was the books and pamphlets written in the abstract.
The same fondness for general theories, complete systems of legislation, and exact symmetry in the laws.
The same taste for the original, ingenious, and novel in institutions.
The same urge to remake the entire constitution in accordance with the rules of logic and a uniform plan…
What is meritorious in a writer is more often than Not a flaw in a statesman.” A de T.
Isn’t the same path that Lenin undertook in the soviet revolution? Isn’t what happened in 1848 when the republicans failed to deliver what the people demanded after ousting Louis Phillip from power? Is the EU Constitution also mainly based on abstract notions?
“Free access to tools that permit private and individual power to tailor-made education, find inspiration, model our environment and share our adventure with all who need them…”(Stewart Brand in his Whole Earth catalogue, 1968)
Sound that the less fortunate can make good use of these opportunities.
That was half a century ago, many are applying this opportunity when available, though only the elite class is mainly profiting from any of these facilities.
L’ ennui fait un lent travail de sape de notre envie de vivre et de notre energy. Ecoutez les vieillards et les jeunes qui non pas le sous for modern entertainment
C’ etait la librarie de ses reves: la plupart des livres avaient ete’ lus
Les injustices du terrorism des Blancs sont peut-etre historiques: c’ est justement que je n’ ai pas l’ impression que nous en sortions
Qana of Gallile (Qana al Jalil) is a town in south Lebanon, by Tyre. It is where Marie was born and lived most of her life before moving to Nazareth with Joseph, and returned after he passed away. Current Gallile was included in the judicial province of Tyre before and after the Roman Empire.
Jesus performed his teaching in East Sidon before moving south to spread his message after he performed the wine miracle in Qana Jalil (current Lebanon).
The place where Jesus transformed water into wine is in Qana (current Lebanon). A town called Jalil (Gallile) facing Qana on the south side. Qana is where Marie was born and her parents lived
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 19, 2014
Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792) who published “The Amorous Devil“, which started the fantastic kind of literature, was a member of the group that met in 1788 with La Harpe and several illustrious people at a dinner. Many were academicians and of the aristocratic sphere. La Harpe stated:
“You, Condorcet you’ll die in prison. Chamfort, you’ll cut your veins to death. Nicolai, you’ll end at the scaffold (echafaud, guillotine), You, de Malesherbes on the scaffold. You Bailly sur l”echafaud.
You, duchess of Gramont along with many of your genders you’ll end at the echafaud…
Only the King Louis 16 will be granted the grace to confess before being beheaded…
“Cazotte too will end up at the guillotine.
The reign of Terror of the revolution during Robespierre lasted 2 years (1792-93) and witnessed 17,000 citizens of all classes being decapitated. Only 15% of these victims were from the noble or aristocratic classes.
Every morning, two to three carriages filled with convicts were sent to the guillotine.
Marshal Rochambeau, hero of the Yorktown victory during the American insurgency was saved at the last minute. The carriage was already full and the guard shoved Rochambeau aside saying: “Your turn is tomorrow old Marshal”.
Tomorrow happened to be the day Robespierre himself was guillotined and the old Marshal lived a very comfortable live in his castle.
“The lover of former king Louis 15, Madame du Barry said to the butcher: “Please, give me a minute more
Many illustrious scientists were decapitated such as Lavoisier
The butcher kissed the hand of his Queen Marie-Antoinette before activating the guillotine.
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 23, 2014
The Mastermind behind the French Revolution: Chaderlos de Laclos
Pierre-Ambroise Chaderlos de Laclos (1741-1803) is famous for his “The Dangerous Liaisons“and many considered him a scandalous writer at par with the marquis de Sade or Restif de la Bretonne.
Very few knows that he was the mischievous brain behind the French Revolution that managed to clench victory and ripen its fruits.
Chaderlos de Laclos was the mastermind behind the massive women march from Paris to Versailles. He figured out that unless the center of power (King and Constituent Assembly) transfer from Versailles to Paris then the revolution might falter.
Chaderlos de Laclos incorporated famous women who used to organize orgies such as Theroigne de Mericourt, and most importantly, transvestite men carrying weapons for the next phase of the march purpose.
As the women marched, the initial slogan was “We want bread“. Actually, Chaderlos convinced his patron Duke Phillip of Orleans to refrain from distributing wheat in Paris for a couple of days to give the impression that the King is failing in his duties. Duke Phillip of Orleans hated the King and the Queen and believed he was better for that position. He is better known in French history as “Equality Phillip”
The King received a delegation of women and promised them to distribute wheat and bread immediately.
The women stayed overnight outside Versailles and the next day the slogan changed to “We want the King in Paris”
The transvestite men with weapons managed to infiltrate inside the Versailles walls and committed a slaughter hood of the surprised guards and almost broke inside the King and Queen quarters.
The King had a wake up call and decided to pleasure the masses and return with all his family to Paris.
La Fayette was chief of the National Guards and secured the safe passage of the King to Paris.
From then on, the king and his family were practically prisoners to the revolutionaries and unable to leave Paris.
Born in Amiens, the second son was destined to the sacerdotal. Luckily for him, the first son died and Chaderlos could join the military career. He opted for the artillery since he was excellent in math.
He slowly climbed the ranks due to lack of real battle engagements and was promoted Captain in 1771
For the next 17 years, he was still captain, but he took several sabbaticals in order to finish his book.
He married Marie-Soulange Dupre in 1786. She was 24 and he was 42. This was a love marriage that endured and they got 2 kids.
In 1788, after quitting the army, he sided and joined the party of the Duke of Orleans in Paris.
When La Fayette summoned the Duke to go to exile in London on temporary basis due to his involvement in the women’s march, Chaderlos joined him in exile.
Chaderlos would be promoted General by Napoleon in 1800 and he died of dysentery at Tarente. He was quickly buried in a common grave .
A few maxims of Chaderlos:
1. Hate is more clairvoyant and more ingenious than love
2. I was taken by surprise to notice that we can feel pleasure by doing good deeds
3. Our ridicule increases proportionally the harder we defend it
4. For him, pleasing is a means. For her it is success itself
5. For man, infidelity is Not inconsistency
6. In love, we can permit excesses only with persons we plan to leave very soon
7. Nature extended constancy to man. And obstinate tendency to women
8. I love her too much to feel jealousy. I have taken the option to be proud of
9. A missed occasion can be recaptured. We never return after a precipitated demand (of marriage?)
10. It is good to accustom someone destined for great adventures by getting the habit for great events.
Read: Gonzague Saint Bris “La Fayette”
Societies’ Blind Spots through the centuries and civilizations
For various reasons such as maintaining structural hierarchies, preserving privileges, class struggle, religious and ideological dominance, knowledge development, economic systems… societies through the centuries had particular Blind Spots that hindered its progress toward equitable and fair rights to all the people.
For examples:
1. In the French revolution of 1789, somehow the rights for women were totally forgotten in the equation of Liberty, Equality, and Human Rights. Historians prefer to attribute this neglect to the notion that women were not an issue in this struggle, since societies were patriarchal in their structure for centuries and women managed to tacitly navigate the system in order to maintain sort of a power balance withing the family foundation… Mind you that it was the women who marched on the Bastille prison on October 1789…
Prior to the French revolution there was the US revolution, independence, and Constitution and Bills of Rights… And still, women rights were no where to be found.
In the USA, women grabbed the right to vote in the 20’s after a long and arduous struggle of the Suffragists. This movement was successful as women from the highest ranks joined the fight. Women led the labor movements in the two decades 1840-60 https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/led-by-women-us-labor-movements-1840-1860/
The right to vote was secured in France shortly before WWII…
2. Slavery was an admitted way of life till the 18th century. Obviously, the darker the color the more evident it was that the person was more eligible to be worked as a slave, since the people Africa were theorized in religious circles to be denied the same kind of soul as the other lighter colored people… Giving the slaves the same rights as “free-men” was a “blind spot” that society could not fathom in any political discussion. The like of Spartacus movements were cruelly crushed as if bitten by rabid dogs…
3. The Industrial Revolution gave priority to hiring children for reasons entirely at odd with current laws. Children rights to safe and healthy environment was anathema in the political circles. Families would even encourage their children to go to work early on and supplement the resources instead of wasting precious time in school.
Fact is, through the ages, it was the tiny people, mainly children and drwarfs, who were used to dig tunnels in order to extract gold and silver: It was too time consuming to enlarge the passage of tunnels in the hard rock with hand tools…
4. Since the Industrial Revolution, the notion that environment degradation and air pollution were serious factors to consider in wealth generation was not considered. Commercial Whale Fishing went on for centuries before the idea that whales and fish can be depleted if marine life is not managed scientifically.
5. Four decades ago, the opinion that man is the main nemesis in earth climate change and degradation of water and air quality was not an issue in discussions.
6. Openly slaughtering animals was common occurrence and pretty natural to observe. Currently, laws and procedures are constraining how animals are killed and processed.
7. The term “paradigm shift” in field of sciences and sociology is synonymous with “blind spots” in mankind march toward higher levels of dignity and respect for human rights…
7. I ask you to send me a list of blind spots that you are aware of in previous centuries, and the ones that were Not Blind Spots previously and are currently blind spots.
Essentially, blind spots are common behaviors once a culture is stamped as the normal way of living and thinking. Once a culture is chiselled in rocks and common laws, it is hard to deviate and consider other perspectives…
The main hindrance in spotting beneficial conducts for improving society behavior is the built in ideosyncraties that limit communicating efficiently with other cultures.
Every culture is endowed with facilities to spotting the blind domains in other cultures. If a civilization denies the right to its people to listen carefully and seriously study the trends in other cultures, then it is almost impossible to overcome the built-in blind spots in a particular culture.
Questions:
1. Have you tried to research the blind spots in your culture? For example, saying “How I came not to see this obvious shortcoming?” “How this natural right was oblivious to my mind?”
2. Many blind spots look terribly a matter of common sense a couple of decades later, and we failed to see the obvious looking in our face. What blind spots do you think will be uncovered in the next decade?
3. Modern quick, efficient and global mass communication facilities should generate mass contacts with other cultures. Do you think that this enhanced communication will greatly facilitate the uncovering of blind spots in many cultures?
4. Can you research the current blind spots that were not that blind at all in previous ages and civilizations? Spots that were not that blind or dark to the common people because they practiced what is currently viewed as anathema to progress? Think of these multinational companies destroying the livelihood of billion of people and preventing them from eeking a significant profit from their small family entreprises…
With humility for accepting other cultures as sources for breakthrough in mankind cooperation, and a flexible mind to comprehend other cultures way of life… it is possible to face global obstacles for a sustainable life on earth.
Posted by: adonis49 on: September 21, 2012
Happiness is a modern concept? What the ancient philosophers were talking about…?
In 1794, the young and radical French revolutionary Saint-Just proclaimed at the Convention: “Happiness is a new idea in Europe“. Saint-Just was a learned man and must have read the documents and discussions of the leaders of the American Revolution and the concept that happiness is a natural right for every citizen. Was this idea of happiness similar to the one understood in Europe?
After the French Revolution, there were ideas thrown around that all citizens were entitled to eat properly, enjoy health, free time for leisure, appropriate retirement conditions…
What substituted happiness in Europe before the French Revolution?
Before the revolution, the little people were invisible and were of no concern to the nobility in these absolute monarchies, except when famine hits and the power feels the heat…
The ancient philosophers and the succeeding thinkers viewed happiness as “a way of living”, guided by virtue and reason, in relative indifference to material possession and worldly successes. It was out of the question that idiots can be considered to be happy…
It was not conceivable to claim happiness if you believed that it could have an end: Happiness was a concept directly linked to a faith in eternity and immortality.
Happiness was irreducibly an elitist acquisition, reserved for those who had the mental and material means to become wise and leisurely contemplate nature and the living people…
What could be the meaning and value of Happiness in modern time?
The “utilitarian” vision of happiness (Jeremy Bentham) proclaimed that happiness is in essence the absence of pains and aches, and the satisfaction of individual preferences can come in any order…The goal of the activities of individuals is the greater happiness possible within the greater number of mankind “the common good”.
This “democratization” of happiness, at the reach of the little people, was denuded of its sacred meanings, detached of its religious connotations, not opposite to ephemeral and artificial pleasures…
Like what kinds of modern pleasures?
Smoking marijuana, taking cocaine, morphine, hallucinogenic products, Prozac…watching action movies, scary movies, science fiction movies…all kinds of musics, concerts, all kinds of variety of food, visiting remote regions, seeing new cultures and civilization…wearing variety of clothes…engaging in a variety of physical activities and sports…
The German philosopher Kant tried to demonstrate that happiness bears No Moral meaning. For example, there are so many objective desires that people aspire to, such as wealth, glory, power…Can we agree that these “values” are at best controversial and not evident to the little people? So many exploiters and tyrants have been swimming in happiness…
How happiness was characterized before the French revolution?
1. Epicure (341-270 BC) taught in his Garden to oppose the rigor of stoicism, and to converge toward a moral of moderation “Let’s not jump into any kinds of pleasure…There is no agreeable living without a hefty dose of prudence, honesty and justice…”
2. Seneca (4 BC-65) The individual should be capable of combining reason and character in order to find pleasure from his physical faculties “I am after happiness of man and not of his stomach…”
3. Leibniz (1646-1716): “Evil exists. Considering Creation as a whole, God did his best…The grain suffer in the soil before bearing fruits…Our suffering lead the way to the good, to the greater perfection…”
4. Spinoza (1632-1677): “The essence of mankind is the desire to be happy, to live good, and to act good…The only access to happiness is to know what determine our passions in the natural order of the universe…”
And what are the visions of happiness after 1789?
5. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). All the pleasures are Not of equal values. It is better to be an unhappy Socrates rather than a happy imbecile. Individual happiness is not complete if the common good is forgotten and neglected…
6. Nietzsche (1844-1900): “Who cannot learn to take a break to forget the past, to enjoy the moment, will never appreciate happiness, and will never learn how render others happy…There is a level of insomnia, of rumination, and of historical meaning that ruin the living person and annihilate his happiness…”
7. Georges Bataille (1897-1962): “If happiness is a reaction to the call of desire, and if desire is a caprice incarnate…then happiness is the sole moral value…”
8. Michel Foucault (1926-1962): “Abstinence that leads to individual sovereignty is happiness without desire and without trouble…”
Many modern critiques and thinkers made it a business (publishing books of how to be happy…) to fall back into the archaic version of “learning to be happy…” Kind of “if we know how to enjoy life in the cheapest way possible…” happiness can be in the reach of everyone…(except those dying of famine and of common diseases…?)
All that talks of ancient and modern ideas of happiness have no sense if not described and explained within the proper context of the period and culture. For example:
1. How an individual with a life expectancy of no more than 30 years can conceive of happiness?
2. How an individual living in the harshest conditions to survive may experience happiness?
3. How the European under absolute monarchies and with a life expectancy not surpassing 40 years could comprehend the idea of happiness?
4. How all those cow-boys of the Far West experienced the meaning of happiness?
5. Was happiness the same before, during and after the Chinese revolution?
6. Was happiness experienced in the same quality before, during and after the British dominion of India?
7. Has happiness the same meaning and value before and after the “Industrial Age“?
8. Has happiness the same meaning and value during this instant communication and traveling facilities?
9. Don’t you think as life expectancy reaches 80 years that happiness requires extensive planing and preparation as we hit retirement age? What can you do without talent after 60? How can you be happy if your eye sight goes and your hearing capacity dwindle?
The next article intends to describe the feasibility of experiencing “happiness” within the proper context…
Note: Post inspired from a study by Ruwen Ogien in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur #2490
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