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Man and Work
The need for a New Humanism
Today, all those who feel a sense of disorientation
before an ideology of false liberalism and progressivism, as
administered by the Pulpits of Power, must conduct a firm but
pacific protest to express their dissent. We have to retake
control of this vessel which, pushed by the winds of personal
affairs, risks to become stranded on the rock-cliffs of false
ideologies and historical lies. This vessel is the role of man
in the present world and the sense that today a certain culture
attributes to it, seeing man as a commodity or as a cog in an
assembly line. This vision is strongly in contrast with the
rules of a universe that, like it or not, is the base of every
essence, from the most elementary particle up to the boundless
depths of the immense spaces. Our world is based upon rules and
principles that are written, enacted and unalterable. Our world is
based on laws of physics that no economist or sociologist can
overturn. Man is, and will increasingly be, the intermediary
between the energies of the universe (Solar, the earth's resources,
ecosystems, etc.) and their use. And here lies the first
problem: how can a model that is consumerist, liberalist (in the
sense of not having rules), and disproportionate exist inside
another (the World System) which is based on rules, principles,
roles, specificity, reciprocity and systems of great moderation that
conserve resources (all of Nature is based upon these principles).
In order to live, progress and exist, human Society has to
necessarily draw energy and matter from the World System. Those
energies that it then transforms have to be compatible with the
regenerative ability of the Planet. There cannot exist any principle
and any ideology that can push us over this limit. When we lead
man over the limit imposed by the universe we create two
aberrations: • we Degrade the World System; • we Degrade the
Man System; The first one (The World) is degraded because it is
accelerated at a non-sustainable speed (greater than its
regenerative ability); the second (man) because it is unhinged from
the fundamental reason for the existence of work itself: the
educational and formative characteristic that the transformation of
stable matter conducts. Just as matter is specialized and
varied, so too man finds his maximum fulfilment when the contact
with matter is more permeant and true. To consider man simply as
a speculator of the transformed products of matter (through currency
and finance) is tantamount to detaching him and alienating him from
the role of Lord of the universe. To consider man just as a
simple tool and as a speculator of resources is tantamount to
removing that Dignity which Rules not written by hand of man impose.
We can be Catholics, Hindus, Moslems or Agnostics, the essence
does not change because the rules have already been written and to
refuse to acknowledge them is like damaging the Tree of Life with an
axe. Eco-sustainability is not an ideology, just as quantum
numbers are not an ideological discovery of the physics of the
elementary particles. Work, interpreted as an intermediary tool
between the resources of the universe and humanity, can not be
subject to principles that decrease or remove human dignity.
Considering work simply as the ability to produce and to introduce
goods onto the market is the greatest heresy of all time. It is not
compatible with any political ideology and not justifiable by any
philosophical or ethical model. The ideology that subjects man
to the interests of capital or of work (as a simple productive
ability) is contrary to the rules on which our Planet, which until
today is our only common house, is based. It is no coincidence that
the Economy (today massacred by the tyrants of Finance) derives its
original etymology from the Greek: οἱκονομία, composed by οἶκος
(oikos), "home", also understood as "family goods", and νόμος
(nomos), "norm" or "law" and therefore "rules of the house" but
also, more extensively, "management of one’s property",
"administration". We are very distant from this concept. And we
dangerously tend to get further and further away. Do not trust,
therefore, all those people who have the tendency to see
liberalization as a principle of development for society; it is an
oxymoron, a conceptual antithesis. This does not mean that
limits should be placed on Man or on his activities, but that there
must be rules whose ultimate aim is to better the management and
promotion of the Planet-Humanity Patrimony. I want to conclude
with an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling, who, as chance would have it,
was a fundamental voice in the struggle against colonialism in
India: “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty
seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and
everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my
son!” All of us, whoever is not subject to corrupt power, want
the Earth back along with everything in it, given that it does not
belong to anyone but to everyone, without distinction of colour and
religion.
Guido Bissanti.
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