martes, 4 de febrero de 2014

Hace falta una tercera España con fuerza electoral

Llegábamos en un anterior artículo (“Oligarquíay Separatismo, dos males de la actual Democracia española”) a la conclusión de que era urgente y necesaria la existencia de una fuerza electoral de centro y basada en el voto de la minoría que constituyen en España las clases profesionales ilustradas. Minoría electoral que actuase de balance of power entre los dos grandes partidos mayoritarios, conservador y socialista, para sustituir al arbitraje chantajista que han venido ejerciendo las minorías separatistas vasca y catalana, y que nos ha llevado a una crisis de desgobierno del poder central, imposibilitado por estar dividido ante la cuestión de cómo mantener la unidad de España. Un poder central que  además parece incapaz de dibujar un nuevo proyecto económico nacional que nos permita salir de la crisis en que nos hallamos e incapaz de controlar y corregir los escandalosos excesos de corrupciones y abusos del poder que están aflorando continuamente en los medios, afectando a la entera clase política, sindical, bancaria, industrial, etc, dominante en las últimas décadas. En tal sentido manteníamos la semejanza de la actual Restauración Monarquica con la llamada Restauración Decimonónica en la existencia de una Democracia mezclada con la Oligarquía; pero veíamos la diferencia en que el rasgo que destruyó a la Restauración Decimonónica fue el caciquismo electoral, en tanto que ahora, debido a la desaparición del ruralismo tras el duro y dictatorial, aunque finalmente exitoso, proceso de industrialización de España bajo el franquismo, el defecto político que amenaza con destruir el actual régimen político ya no es el pucherazo electoral de los caciques rurales sino que es el bien organizado y electorálmente poderoso secesionismo separatista catalán y vasco.

Según nos vamos metiendo más y más en las futuras batallas electorales tengo la sensación de que solo hay dos Españas que cuentan, que ocupan de forma abrumadora los medios de comunicación, sobre todo los telediarios de las grandes cadenas, en  los que el tuya mía, tuya mía, entre el PSOE y el PP, se impone de forma aplastante. Realmente esto no es nuevo, sino que viene sucediendo desde el fin de la UCD de Adolfo Suárez, cuando el bipartidismo se impone. Lo nuevo es que, hasta Zapatero, los dos grandes partidos asumieron, por lo menos en su propaganda, los valores democrático-liberales que eran propios de aquel proyecto de una España liberal y democrática de los Ortega, Madariaga y demás. Aunque, de hecho, se fueron introduciendo ya algunos deslizamientos y perversiones como la muerte de Montesquieu, proclamada por Alfonso Guerra y plasmada en la politización de la Justicia, -muerto que Aznar, con mayoría absoluta, no quiso resucitar y que el actual ministro de Justicia, Gallardón, ha vuelto a rematar-, o las concesiones excesivas en materia de competencias lingüísticas y educativas a los micro-nacionalismos insaciables. Pero en general no se tocó en sus bases el pacto constitucional, fruto optimo de la transición a la democracia desde el franquismo.

Con Zapatero todo esto empieza a cambiar y se intenta que reaparezcan las dos Españas machadianas. En el PSOE se impone su ala más radical y antiliberal, como ya ocurrió en la II Republica y, como toda acción provoca una reacción en sentido contrario, el PP, aunque sin muchas ganas de batalla, se apresta a defenderse, como es natural. En tiempos de Zapatero no se quemaban Iglesias, como en la República, pero se empieza a atacar sedes del PP, o a boicotear sus mítines o conferencias en la Universidad, ante la pasividad y poca contundencia de los instrumentos policiales y judiciales.  Si esta situación continuase al agravarse la crisis económica, lo más probable es que la derecha española, que no se deja amilanar fácilmente, como sabemos por la historia de la República, comenzara a organizar o tolerar una respuesta que se tome la justicia por su mano. Situación sumamente peligrosa, como sabemos por experiencias pasadas, debido a las tendencias cainitas que padecemos los españoles.

Por ello es necesario que, ante el empate de fuerzas que volverá a ocurrir tras la previsible perdida de la mayoría absoluta por el PP de Rajoy, surja una nueva o varias fuerzas electorales que recojan la política de una España liberal, como era la denominada tercera España, que hoy ni el PSOE ni el PP toleran prefiriendo la alianza con los nacionalismos totalitarios y secesionistas. Esta nueva fuerza que parece perfilarse con mayor posibilidad de obtener algún escaño, como anticipa las últimas encuesta del CIS y de diversos medios periodísticos, es la del partido fundado por la eurodiputada Rosa Diez, el filósofo Fernando Savater y otros intelectuales a imitación de Ciudadanos de Cataluña. Por fín parece moverse algo en el mundo de ciertas minorías intelectuales españolas, que parecían haber desertado para siempre de su necesaria función crítica, adormecidas por los cantos de sirena y las prebendas de unos poderosos y despóticos grupos político-mediáticos como lo fue durante décadas el imperio de Polanco y el grupo PRISA. El diario El País fue su buque estrella despues de traicionar el espíritu liberal orteguiano que presidió su proyecto fundacional.

Es curioso observar en los últimos años como los intelectuales, como Fernando Savater, desertan del PSOE, siendo sustituidos por los que podíamos llamar los “sentimentales”, esto es, los artistas de la farándula y el espectáculo que son hoy los que firman los manifiestos antaño reservados a aquellos. Manifiestos más sentimentales que intelectuales, puesto que sus tomas de posición están más orientadas por la víscera, ayuna de estudio y de poco sentido común, que otra cosa. La derecha ya hace tiempo que se ha quedado huérfana de su tradicional “intelectual orgánico”, la Iglesia católica, pues los nuevos tiempos democráticos imponen ciertas distancias ideológicas necesarias. A su vez los intelectuales liberales, como Jiménez Losantos o Pio Moa, empiezan tambien a  recelar de los acomplejados líderes del PP. Por ello el nuevo partido de Rosa Diez tiene posibilidades de convertirse en el nuevo partido de los intelectuales españoles. En tal sentido recuerda al Partido Reformista de Melquíades Alvarez o a la Agrupación de Intelectuales al Servicio de la República de Ortega, Marañón y Ayala.

La comparación no es superficial ya que puede tener un calado más hondo, en el sentido de que una preocupación esencial de aquellos partidos republicanos era dar presencia en la vida política nacional a las minorías intelectuales, las “elites”, que Ortega echaba de menos en España, en comparación con lo que ocurría en nuestros poderosos y avanzados vecinos franceses, ingleses y alemanes. Dichas minorías intelectuales, integradas por profesores, humanistas, científicos, médicos, abogados, lo que se denomina personas cultas en general, que parecen coincidir con el perfil de votante del partido de Rosa Diez, debían aportar a la dirección política del país un peso de seriedad y competencia, avalado por el conocimiento de la historia y de las complejidades de las modernas sociedades industriales, que pueda influir, por el peso arbitral de sus votos, en la dirección última del destino de los españoles, para que este no se configure únicamente por fuerzas económicas y sociales polarizadas en una lucha ciega, sorda e irreflexiva, como ha ocurrido en trágicos enfrentamientos pasados.

Precisamente, una de las causas que condujeron a la guerra civil fratricida entre españoles, llena de ignorancia y fanatismo, fue la dificultad y el retraso de España en sustituir a una élite intelectual medieval, como era la Iglesia, la cual todavía en la Restauración decimonónica, que pretendió modernizar el país, ostentaba la mayoría de las cátedras universitarias, por una élite científica e intelectual ya entonces con importantes figuras como Ramón y Cajal, Clarín, o el movimiento krausista, que permanecieron marginados por los políticos del famoso turno entre Canovas y Sagasta. A pesar de los esfuerzos de acciones aisladas como la Extensión Universitaria en la Universidad de Oviedo, el pueblo, en progresivo proceso de proletarización, permanecía en la ignorancia más absoluta sobre la nueva sociedad industrial que se estaba abriendo camino, un poco tardíamente, en España. Dicha ignorancia le conduciría a caer en manos del fanatismo proletario fomentado por los partidos revolucionarios obreristas que se constituían entonces. 
                                                                     
La organización de unas minorías intelectuales que asumiesen los principios de la sociedad moderna había dado un paso muy grande, con respecto al siglo XIX, por obra de lideres intelectuales como Unamuno y Ortega. Fue la primera vez que España pudo ofrecer al mundo, agrupados en la institución cultural de la mítica Residencia de Estudiantes,  un conjunto de nombres en los diferentes campos de la cultura y la ciencia moderna, desde Ortega hasta Dalí, pasando por Buñuel , Ramón y Cajal o Severo Ochoa, con amplia resonancia y efecto internacional. Pero el intento de reconducir la República, por la intervención de tales intelectuales, señaladamente las agrupaciones de Ortega y Melquíades Álvarez, evitando el enfrentamiento trágico entre los extremistas antidemocráticos, fracasó. La guerra civil y la dictadura franquista fueron los corolarios de aquella esperanza que trajo la II Republica.

Hoy nos encontramos en una situación en que una nueva Restauración democrática está conduciendo, en su desarrollo bipartidista, a nuevos enfrentamientos, ya no tanto en torno a un radicalismo social organizado, sino en torno a la cuestión territorial y lingüística, con amenazas serias de secesión de algunas partes de España. Esperemos y confiemos en que la irrupción del nuevo partido de Rosa Diez y Savater, y de otros que buscan ocupar el verdadero centro, permita que el poder moderador de los votos de tales minorías intelectuales se imponga, por su posibilidad de hacer de arbitro moderador, (desplazando al nefasto arbitrismo de los nacionalista vascos y catalanes) sobre las tendencias bárbaras, ignorantes y fanáticas que amenazan con apoderarse de nuevo de un pueblo al que se pretende, desde la llamada Transición, mantener alejado  de la ilustración y el progreso por medio del monopolio de los grandes medios de comunicación, singularmente la televisión hoy dominada por la cultura de la banalidad y el entretenimiento. Es la única esperanza de regeneración que vislumbramos a corto plazo. A medio plazo se requiere algo más profundo, como sería el cumplimiento del programa orteguiano de introducir, por medio de las minorías culturales que han resistido a la corrupción cultural y política del actual Sistema oligarquico, pagando el precio de una especie de muerte civil y un desplazamiento de las altas magistraturas por los intelectuales arrivistas del PSOE o del PP, una filosofía que de nueva vida y racionalidad al pensamiento y a las Ideas que deben presidir y dirigir la necesaria crítica filosófica, sin la cual debe abandonarse toda seria esperanza de regeneración y progreso.

Manuel F. Lorenzo

lunes, 3 de febrero de 2014

Hegel and Aristotle

It is a common place among German Philosophy historians to consider Hegel as the culmination of Modern Philosophy and to compare him with what Aristotle meant for Ancient Philosophy. In this sense he was called by some of his contemporary followers the “German Aristotle”. Marx himself as a member of the so-called “Left Hegelians”, echoes and takes this denomination seriously in his doctoral thesis (See David McLellan, Marx before Marxism, Macmillan, Edinburgh, 1970, p. 52 ff.). Hegel, with his speculative System, would mark, according to Marx, the end of a classical period and the beginning of a very different one, the period that we call Contemporary Philosophy, in the same ways as Aristotle was with his encyclopedic philosophical work the speculative culmination of Greek Classical Philosophy placing himself at the gates of a new period, the Alexandrine or Hellenistic period, that followed the previous philosophy and marked the preponderance of the practical philosophical interests of the new schools of Stoics, Epicureans, etc. Marxism, Vitalism, Positivism or Existentialism, would be the modern equivalent of such Hellenistic schools likewise more oriented to action than to pure speculation.

This is already well known. What remains to be specified is in what sense, not merely historical or external, can the similarity between Hegel and Aristotle be grasped. And so, from an internally philosophical point of view, we believe that the greatness of both philosophers resides in having elaborated a conception of reality under the shape of a very simple structure, but that can be applied to every existing thing, closing a rational and global comprehension very difficult to overcome. In fact, Aristotelean philosophy was unsurpassed in its fundamental structure for centuries. It is also said (as Derrida did) about Hegel's philosophy that all contemporary philosophical rebellion against it is a futile task, for when the rebels finally thought that they had definitely freed themselves from Hegel, he appeared again when turning around any corner. Proof of this would be that the Marxist rebellion itself would have also failed with the triumph of liberal democracy and the return to Hegel that Fukuyama advocates. But lets see, then, what is that powerful structure that both philosophers would have created.

In Aristotle's case, it is the Idea of individual Substance understood as a hylomorphic compound. Against Plato, he held that the Forms or Ideas do not exist separately from the matter and in another world, but rather that the individual substances themselves, the existing beings are compounds of Matter and Form. This conception of the Substance could have been taken by Aristotle from the observation of craftsmen activities so humble and quotidian as pottery in which an at first formless matter, such as clay, is modeled or given formed. But its interest resides in that Aristotle manages to apply it in the manner of a fractal repetition to all the parts or strata in which reality is presented. In such a way that when he considers physical objects he understands them as compounds of matter and form. When he deals with living beings he interprets them as compounds of body (matter) and soul (form). When he deals with a social entity, such as a City-state, he understands it as featuring a matter, the civil body of the citizens organized according to a determinate form of State (Monarchy, Oligarchy or Democracy). In this way, Aristotle managed to elaborate a vision of reality that covered in a rational manner all that exists. He even thought of the Idea of God as a especial immaterial entity, as a Pure Form separated from all matter.

In Hegel's case, the fundamental Idea is not that of a static Substance, but rather that of a dynamic Substance, that of a Being that is Subject, something whose existence consists in becoming, in being realized in a temporal process. Hegel himself expresses this very well in his Prologue to his most famous work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, when he says that what is at stake is to understand that which exists absolutely, that is, the true ultimate ground of reality, not only as a Substance but also and mainly as a Subject, as Spirit (Geist). However, the essence of subjectual realities is not grasped through static divisions such as Aristotelean hylomorphism, but through dynamic divisions given in time. It looks like Hegel, in order to figure out the essential structure of subjectual processes, was inspired by his predecessor Fichte, who postulated the dialectic of the Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis in order to understand reality (although Hegel would modify this Fichtean scheme) and in an observation of the revolutionary processes, as the one that occurred in the neighboring France in his youth, in which a struggle or social movement appears whereby there is a transition from one situation (the Bourbon Monarchy) to its opposite (the Convention of Jacobin terror) and after which comes an overcoming of terror (the Thermidorian Directory). Hegel understands such a political process as following a ternary logical order that he will fractally project to all reality. Heraclitus with his panta rei (everything flows) is preferred by Hegel to Aristotle's Parmenidean fixism.

However, in a similar fractal way as the Stagirite, Hegel will use this basic ternary structure to organize all reality in the repetitive manner of the whole in the parts. This way he divides his System in three parts, following such dialectical order: Logic, Nature and Spirit, which represent three phases whereby reality is considered as identified with rationality (“all that is real is rational and all that is rational is real” claims Hegel), In itself (Logic), For itself (Nature) and In and for itself (Spirit). In turn the Logic is subdivided in three parts: the Logic of Being, of Essence and of the Concept. Nature is studied in three strata or logical moments: mechanical, physical and organic. The Spirit is analyzed as Subjective, Objective and Absolute Spirit. In turn the Subjective Spirit is subdivided in Anthropology, Phenomenology and Psychology. The Objective Spirit in Law, Morality and Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit). The Ethical Life in Family, Civil Society and State. The State itself appears in History as Oriental State (only one is free: the despot), Greek City-State (some are free) and the modern democratic State (all are free). Finally, the Absolute Spirit is subdivided in Art, Religion and Philosophy. Each of them in turn is subdivided in three, etc.

It is said that although Aristotelean hylomorphism kept the coherence and broadness of its systematic philosophical vision of reality for centuries, many particular aspects of its ethical, political or logical conceptions started to be overcome by Hellenistic philosophy, and Marx in his doctoral studies saw in them and not in the Aristotelean philosophy the germs of the modern world with his humanism, which comes from the Stoics, etc. In a similar way it could be said of Hegel that what will surely remain for a long time in the future is his systematic dialectical way of considering reality as a process, as a becoming that is making itself moved by its internal contradictions. That which can be overcome in his philosophy, such as his Idealism, long since began to be overcome by his most eminent critics such as the old Schelling, Schopenhauer or Marx himself.

Manuel F. Lorenzo

(Translated into English by Luis Fernández Pontón)

The Hellenistic Philosophical Schools and Contemporary Philosophy (III)

After having emphasized in a comparative analysis between the Greco-Roman Hellenistic philosophical world and Contemporary Philosophy, in a previous article with the same title, that Stoicism had been the philosophical movement of greatest influence and importance in the ideological unification which occurred at the end of the Roman Empire with Constantine's triumphant Christianity, and that a similar functional role, in the globalizing ideological tendency which seems to start to impose itself in the most advanced democracies of the world, could correspond in Western thought, under the North American supremacy, to a renewed positivist philosophy, we will try to complement such analysis with the consideration of the role, likewise positive, although less fundamental, that the contributions of the other great Hellenistic philosophical school had, that of the Epicureans, in the configuration of that resulting new religious ideological conception which was the mentality or way of understanding and giving sense to the world of medieval Christianity. And this, in relation to the humanistic ideological virtual unification, not anymore theist monotheist, that is beginning to powerfully crystallize in Western societies under the aegis of North America.

Regarding Epicureanism we must point out that its initial failure is usually situated around  the second century AD, in which the number of followers of such doctrine, spread through a vast number of Hellenistic cities, remarkably diminishes at the same time that the number of Christians considerably increases in an unstoppable manner: “[The Church] had by the end of the second century become a much stronger and influential organism than Epicureanism had ever been” (B. Farrington, The faith of Epicurus, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967, p. 146). Later the Epicurean movement would completely disappear after the Edict of the emperor Constantine which legalized the Christians, their direct competitors, converting to Christianity even many of its followers. The Christian movement, which had taken the Idea of Equality of the human genre from the Stoics, especially took, nevertheless, from the Epicureans the way of organizing the basic communities sustained in the personal relationship of fraternity, very similar to the friendship which grounded the communes or “gardens” founded by Epicurus, following the model of the Garden in Athens. The forthcoming monastical medieval life, especially in the conventual Cistercian version, follows this model of organization, in a functional comparative sense similar to the one which also sustains the similarity between the first Christian hermits, who went to live to the desert (the film Simon of the Desert by Luis Buñuel is a humorous reconstruction of those anchorites) despising the comfortable life of the polis, and the Athenian Cynic philosophers who intended to live a more authentic and wise life dispensing of the superfluous citizen comforts.

Furthermore, Christians imitated also the propagandistic techniques created by Epicurus: “In the Christian era before the age of Constantine Epicureans and Christians had much in common. Their method of propaganda, by word of mouth; and their method of holding their scattered communities together, by an epistolary literature were common to both; and since Epicureans were the earlier in the field by three centuries the pattern was probably of their making. Both communities faced the problem of the style to be employed in addressing themselves to a wide public. Epicurus tried to use words in their ordinary acceptation. Cicero complained that the Latin popularizers of Epicureanism wrote in a uncultivated style. The Christian Fathers, in order to be understood by all often avoided the politer forms of speech” (B. Farrington, op.cit., p. 144-5). Christianity incorporates such organizational techniques with Saint Paul. For this reason, it is not accidental that the main works of Epicurus are the letters to Menoeceus, to Pythocles, to the friends of Lampsacus, to the friends of Egypt, etc., and those of Saint Paul are the epistle to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to Philemon, to Timothy, etc. 

Moreover, the Epicureans in contrast to the Stoics summed up the essential of their philosophy in a simple and easy to understand book, the Tetrapharmakos, used regularly in the teaching of the catechumens, women and men of any age, just as the Christians will do secularly with their catechesis: “Pupils could be male or female, old or young, even children were admitted, but not all were resident. Resident adults were called fellow-students in philosophy; elementary classes were taken all day long in any available corner of the garden. The pupils were said to be 'in course of preparation', for which the Greek term was kataskeuazomenoi, a forerunner of the Christian term catechumens” (B. Farrington, op.cit., p. 126). It is true that Epicureans and Christians differed philosophically, for the former were supporters of an atomistic materialism and the latter were creationist spiritualists. However, they agreed in two essential things: to overcome the fear of arbitrary pagan gods and not to fear death; although for different causes, the former basing themselves in pure reason and the latter in a new faith which strengthened itself relying on the Skeptic school's constant and increasing criticism of knowledge, both empirical and rational, of Stoics and Epicureans, from Pyrrho to Aenesidemus or Sextus Empiricus. For this reason, Skepticism was also incorporated to the ultimate Christian synthesis, insofar as it was critical and undermining of the rational dogmatism of such schools.

Accordingly Epicureanism, despite its failure as an alternative and radical movement of social change in the mid and long term, contributed with many aspects in its way of understanding philosophy to the constitution of the ultimate ideological synthesis of the Roman Empire which makes its way with the uprising of Christianity, not only as a mere official religion that substitutes pagan polytheism, but as something more important, as a new “spiritual power”, as Auguste Comte would say, of the so-called medieval organic society that finally substitutes the constantly ideologically divided, along its creative although also troubled and insecure existence, Greco-Roman society.

Such a comparative analysis leads us to think that the humanist positivist philosophy which has its origin in Auguste Comte, and that has succeeded in the USA against its Marxist rival or other less influential European philosophical movements, such as Nietzschean Vitalism or Existentialism, will not monopolize in the future, in the form of a Pensée Unique, the great synthesis of a sort of Comtean Religion of Humanity which seems to be breaking its way in the ideological horizon of the most industrialized countries. For many aspects of ideological organization, techniques of propaganda of a philosophy for everybody and not only for an elite of scientists and sages, moral aspects, etc., will surely be conserved, taken and imitated from the work of a great thinker as Marx. For, just as the great Epicurus made serious mistakes in his Physics when he claimed against Democritus the necessity of granting freedom to the atoms (the clinamen) in order to explain the formation of the Cosmos (granting a sort of freedom to the atoms or to the electrons would make many physicist laugh nowadays), we could seriously consider that also Marx made a mistake, e.g., in his scientific economic assumption of the existence of a surplus value that was taken from the worker to explain the value of the produced commodities. The rival theory of economics, Marginalism, explains much better and with a great mathematical precision the value that a commodity should have without resorting to such hypotheses of an alienation of value. Nonetheless, other aspects of the Marxist philosophy such as its insistence on the realization (Verwirklichung) of Philosophy in practical life, on extending philosophy to general education and popularizing it with that sort of Tetrapharmakos that is the Communist Manifesto, although with other contents, will surely persist and be necessary in order to configure the global ideological synthesis toward which we seem to move in the Western World. The so-called movement of the Indignados (the Outraged), the protest against the new economical and social abuses that appear in the stage of a global scale industrialization, will surely be motives enough for new ideological movements that will need to use many of those philosophical aspects which will be conserved as philosophical acquisitions and remain in the future. For this reason, we can conclude by saying that in the struggle of the main movements in Contemporary Philosophy, just as it happened in Hellenistic Philosophy, although in different measure, all of them will have something essential to contribute in the configuration of the Future Globalized Society that seems to be reserved to the inhabitants of planet Earth and that so many futurist series have begun to depict in the contemporary social imaginary. 

Manuel F. Lorenzo

(Translated into English by Luis Fernández Pontón)