Realitatea este o conspiratie

Am ignorat o vreme continutul comunicarii, in ideea ca in fantasy bond-ul intre followerii anxiosi si leaderul narcisic (postari anterioare) orice constructie ideologica merge, rationalizari individuale si colective adaugate in sprijinul unui obiectiv sau alegeri deja facute (si da, e adevarat ca toti facem asta, mai mult sau mai putin, dar parca avem in fata o oarecare extrema).

Nu este asa, pentru ca teoria conspiratiei este unul din mecanismele prin care cetatenii sunt infantilizati si redusi la 'popor', dependent de niste parinti care sa il protejeze de dusmani si sa ii asigure linistea sufleteasca, exprimandu-i frustrarile si mangaindu-l pe cap. Aceste mecanisme sunt usor de contra-argumentat punctual, dar schimbarea de paradigma dureaza sute de ani, at best (ex. razboiul rationalismului iluminist and the vengeful return of the Illuminati)

In alte cuvinte, constructia altei realitati, a papusarilor, utila propagandistic si catastrofica pentru buna functionare a unei societati (social capital anybody?), dezvoltare economica si sociala etc. Pentru argumente mai detaliate, la nivel de individ cel putin, intrebati un psiholog. Eu am mai gasit multe citate, dintr-o carte draguta care poate fi foarte usor gasita cu google and other.

Teaser quote: "Radical anti-Semitism rested on the belief that the Jews were a cohesive, politically active subject—that is, a group united on a global scale by racial bonds that transcended any allegiance to nation-states. In the Nazi view, this powerful and autonomous entity, international Jewry, controlled assorted stooges and accomplices who served its evil interests."

The JEWISH ENEMY NAZI PROPAGANDA DURING WORLD WAR II AND THE HOLOCAUST

Jeffrey Herf, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, ISBN 978-0-674-02738-1 (pbk.)

Why did European, especially German, anti-Semitism, which had never led to an effort to murder all of Europe’s Jews before, do so between 1941 and 1945 in the midst of World War II? What changed to make anti-Semitism a rationale for mass murder rather than for a continuation of centuries-old patterns of persecution? The answer lies in what Hitler and his leading propagandists and ideologists had to say about the “Jewish question” in the midst of the war and the Holocaust and in their efforts to shape the narrative of events through propaganda in the controlled press. Rather surprisingly, in view of the vast literature on the subject, The Jewish Enemy is the first book to examine in depth the Nazis’ paranoid anti-Semitic account of the world war. Their story of an innocent Germany besieged by international Jewry intent on its “extermination” served as both the public announcement of and the justification for the Final Solution.

In the jargon of historians, this is a work of modified intentionalism. That is, it examines the ideological intentions of key political actors in the historical conjuncture that was World War II. The Holocaust, however, was not the inevitable outcome of the continuities of German, or of European, history. The long tradition of elite and popular anti-Semitism created a climate of indifference in which the murderers could operate but did not per se inspire a policy of mass murder. The historians’ search for ideological origins has taken us toward but not to the Final Solution.

For it was only in the historically specific circumstances of the war that the most radical and paranoid current of European and especially German anti-Semitism, which Hitler had adopted from the beginning of his political activities, became the key to the German dictatorship’s explanation of ongoing events and thus a causal factor in the evolution of the Holocaust. Hitler and his associates had long believed that anti-Semitism offered the explanatory framework for world history. First in 1939, then still more in 1941, and on up through the last days of the Nazi regime, he and his leading propagandists argued that it was necessary to “exterminate” the Jews before they were able to exterminate Germany and the Germans.

What is characteristic of Nazi propaganda is less the lie than the imposition of a paranoiac pattern on world events. —E.H. Gombrich, Myth and Reality in German Wartime Broadcasts, London, 1969

A quarter century later, Gombrich wrote that Nazi propaganda had created a mythic world by “transforming the political universe into a conflict of persons and personifications” in which a virtuous young Germany fought manfully against evil schemers, above all the Jews. The Jews were the cement for this myth, first in the political battles within Germany and then on the international plane. It was “this gigantic persecution mania, this paranoiac myth that [held] the various strands of German propaganda together.” Gombrich concluded that what characterized Nazi propaganda was “less the lie than the imposition of a paranoiac pattern on world events.”3 During World War II, the propaganda of the Nazi regime repeatedly asserted that an actual political subject, an actor called Jewry or international Jewry, was “guilty” of starting and prolonging the war and that a Jewish international conspiracy was intent on exterminating Germany and the Germans. These statements rested on a paranoia inherent in the Nazis’ radical anti-Semitism. In the context of World War II, these beliefs transformed the centuries-old European anti-Semitism from a justification for traditional forms of persecution into what the historian Norman Cohn called a “warrant for genocide.”

+++

Faced with expressions of such views by Nazi Germany’s national political leaders, most contemporary Marxists, liberals, and conservatives of the time, as well as a good number of postwar scholars, were skeptical that the Nazis truly believed their own propaganda. And yet an examination of modern political culture draws attention to the causal significance of many irrational and illusory ideological perspectives. In the case of Nazi Germany, historians have amply documented what Saul Friedlander has called Hitler’s early “redemptive anti-Semitism,” which combined paranoid fantasy about an all-powerful international Jewry with promises of redeeming and saving Germany from that pernicious influence.5 Ian Kershaw notes “the all-devouring manic obsession with the Jews” that Hitler displayed in his beer hall tirades in Munich just after World War I.6 This obsession is evident in a speech to a Nazi party meeting of April 6, 1920, when Hitler said, “We don’t want to be emotional anti-Semites who seek to create a mood for pogroms. Rather, we are driven by a pitiless and fierce determination to attack the evil at its roots and to exterminate it root and branch. Every means is justified to reach our goal, even if it means we must make a pact with the devil.” Hitler was the central, decisive historical actor driving events toward the war and the Holocaust. Yet the propaganda of the Nazi party and Nazi regime presented Hitler and Germany as merely responding to the initiatives, injustices, and threats of others. It was a propaganda that trumpeted innocence and self-righteous indignation and turned the power relations between Germany and the Jews upside down: Germany was the innocent victim; Jewry was all powerful. From 1933 to 1939, the translation of anti-Semitic ideology into a policy of persecution was presented as a justified response to what the Jews had done to Germany and the Germans. On January 30, 1939, a distinct shift occurred, as Hitler depicted the war that he was preparing to launch as the last in a long series of acts of aggression by international Jewry against Germany. According to Hitler’s paranoid logic, the Jews had launched the war so that the Nazis would be compelled to wage a war of retaliation against the Jews of Europe. In his speech to the Reichstag on January 30, Hitler made his first unequivocal public threat to exterminate (that is, murder)—not merely to remove, deport, or defeat— “the Jewish race in Europe” in the event that “international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe” brought about a new world war. He publicly repeated the genocidal prophecy on at least six subsequent occasions between January 30, 1939, and February 24, 1943.16 In contrast to his public practice between 1919 and 1939, in the ensuing years Hitler spoke and wrote with unprecedented clarity, bluntness, and frequency about acting on his threats to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

He cast himself in the role of the prophet: the outbreak of World War II was further proof that international Jewry had indeed been out to destroy Germany and the Germans.

Hitler and his leading propagandists were able to entertain completely contradictory versions of events simultaneously, one rooted in the grandiose idea of a master race and world domination, the other in the self-pitying paranoia of the innocent, beleaguered victim.17 Grandiosity and paranoia were two poles of one fanatical ideology.18 The Nazis projected their own aggressive and murderous intentions and policies onto their victims, the Jews most of all. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno captured this aspect of Nazism when they wrote in 1944 that the “blind murderer has always seen his victim as a persecutor against whom he must defend himself.”19 From beginning to end, the narrative of paranoia displayed in the propaganda accompanied and justified the Nazi regime’s grandiose war of aggression and its genocidal policies.

The radical anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany’s wartime propaganda also constituted an interpretive prism through which Nazi leaders viewed and misconstrued events as they unfolded. Indeed, the misperceptions of reality deriving from the anti-Semitic agenda contributed to major blunders and eventually to the Allies’ ability to defeat the Nazis, albeit at horrendous cost. In The Jewish Enemy, I examine the process of translating anti-Semitic ideology into a narrative and tailoring the weekly and daily news to fit that narrative. Like other practitioners of paranoid politics before and after, the Nazis believed they had uncovered deep secrets of modern history and politics, secrets that the great mass of humanity, mired in events, failed to grasp. At the same time that they entered an utterly mythic world, they convinced themselves and millions of others that their Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) was educating the masses about the people behind the scenes and the realities that were the driving force behind events. Within the “delirious discourse” of radical anti-Semitism, all riddles were solved, all historical contingency was eliminated, and everything became explicable.

+++

Radical anti-Semitism rested on the belief that the Jews were a cohesive, politically active subject—that is, a group united on a global scale by racial bonds that transcended any allegiance to nation-states. In the Nazi view, this powerful and autonomous entity, international Jewry, controlled assorted stooges and accomplices who served its evil interests. One way in which this view of a Jewish global conspiracy was distinct from less radical, and nongenocidal, forms of Jew hatred was the relative lack of importance it attached to Jews’ presumed physical appearance. Indeed, the Nazis claimed that the Jews were experts at camouflage and that as a result a massive effort at “public enlightenment” was needed to expose them and their aim of world domination. If not identified and destroyed, the Nazi propagandists feared, Jewry would annihilate the German people. As a result, Hitler and his associates publicly declared on numerous occasions that they would “exterminate” Jews before the Jews could exterminate the Germans. The idea of a Jewish a conspiracy was popularized by the mass publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the decades preceding the Nazis’ arrival in power. The accomplishment of the Nazi propagandists was to bring the idea of this conspiracy up to date and to flesh it out with the names and faces of recognizable prominent figures in mid-twentieth-century Europe and the United States. The theory of an international Jewish conspiracy supplied answers to such seemingly difficult questions as, Why did Britain fight on in 1940 rather than negotiate? Why was it likely that the Soviet regime would collapse like a house of cards following the German invasion of June 1941? Why did Franklin Roosevelt oppose Hitler? Why did the anti-Hitler coalition remain intact as the Red Army continued to push toward Central Europe after spring 1943? In the idea of a vastly powerful international Jewish conspiracy operating behind the scenes Nazi leaders believed they had found the answer to these and many other riddles of modern history.

When the Nazi leaders, in private conversations, office memos, or public statements, drew a connection between the Jews and World War II, they were referring to World War II and the Holocaust taken together as one apocalyptic battle. They did not limit the meaning of their war against what they called international Jewry to the Final Solution. Instead, they viewed the Final Solution, the details of which they never discussed in public, as a necessary campaign of retaliation in the context of a broader war of defense waged by Nazi Germany against international Jewry, world Jewry, and less frequently “the Jews.” In the minds and public assertions of the Nazi leaders, they were fighting a single war that pitted Germany and its allies against a colossal international conspiracy of nonequals driven by Jewish figures working behind the scenes, while their non-Jewish accomplices, primarily the Allies, were the enemy’s public facade. The Nazi narrative attributed enormous autonomy and power to the Jews, while denying those attributes to the nominal leaders of the most powerful nations in the world, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, whom it identified as the Jews’ puppets, accomplices, stooges, and servants.

+++

During the Weimar years, Nazi propagandists learned how to translate fundamental ideological postulates into a continuous narrative of events, a heavily slanted story of good and evil, easily accessible to mass audiences.

+++

Jews had made economic and social advances for which there were plausible commonsense explanations that had nothing to do with con-spiracy. The Nazis rejected the plausible in favor of the paranoid. As conspiracy theorists had done in blaming the Jews during the Weimar Republic, Nazis propagandists convinced themselves and their followers that commonsense explanations for developments were deceptive and illusory. The Jews’ small numbers, economic vulnerability, and lack of political influence were mere surface phenomena. The truth was that a small number of unseen conspirators controlled the course of national and international events from the shadows of the wings. The speed and ease with which the Nazis’ blizzard of anti-Semitic legislation destroyed the economic and social position of Jews in Germany did not change the Nazis’ view of Jewish power.75 By the end of 1933, 37,000 of the 525,000 Jews in Germany had already left the country.76 To anyone not imbued with Nazi ideology, it was obvious that the Nazi regime had launched a campaign of persecution against a small minority that had no access to the instruments necessary to wage “war” against Nazi Germany or any other nation-state.

Respira castore

Revoluția bunului-simț trebuie să continue. Au fost foarte mulți oameni care au crezut în revoluția bunului simț. Oameni care au votat Crin Antonescu în numele acestei viziuni, nu anti-sistem și anti-politicieni, ci pentru reforma statului și a societății prin și de către cetățeni. Oameni dezamăgiți de politică, care înțeleg poate necesitatatea îmbunătățirii sistemului mai degrabă decât a persoanelor și care au votat speranța bunului simț.

Dacă vrei să pui acești oameni să aleagă între a vota PSD și a vota Traian Băsescu, respectiv între pericolul oligarhiei și pericolul tiraniei în numele poporului, trebuie să le oferi în continuare speranța că se va schimba ceva. Iar această speranță este consistența în urmărirea unei viziuni. În politică nu te poți aștepta la mai mult de atât, nu poți să trăiești în fantezia puerilă a gândului că la un moment dat vei avea toată puterea pentru a face singur tot ce ți-ai dorit. It’s all about voice, și o succesiune de pași înainte spre un viitor mai bun.

Sunt liberal pentru că cred în doctrina liberală, în ideea că reforme liberale la nivel de sistem pot produce un bine social superior deciziilor unor oameni providențiali. Sunt liberal în cadrul unui sistem politic în care există și socialiști, și nu mă pot decât bucura de asta, pentru că există alți oameni a căror principala preocupare doctrinară este echitatea socială și nu sunt pus în situația ipocrită de a spune că îmi pasă de echitate la fel de mult ca de libertate. Un politician este în egală măsură un avocat al unor interese și idei, pe care le poată urmări liber și până la capăt știind ca decizia aparține judecătorului, respectiv voturilor cetățenilor. Un politician corect înțelege că este în interiorul sistemului, și că a fi deasupra lui înseamnă a deveni procuror, judecător și călău în același timp, în numele poporului dar împotriva intereselor cetățenilor.

Sunt puțin dezamăgit de partidul pe care îl votez și de cei mai recenți doi lideri, ceea ce nu îmi schimbă nici motivația, nici opțiunea politică generală și nici votul anti-Băsescu din 6 decembrie. Pe rând, cu urmatoarele argumente.Guvernarea PNL-Tăriceanu nu a reușit să schimbe suficient de multe chestii la nivel de sistem, de organizare a statului. A crescut în loc să reducă aparatul de stat, nu a ajutat suficient de mult justiția să fie independentă, nu a combătut suficient de bine posibilitatea fraudei electoral (exemplul vestit al sistemului electronic de verificare a votarii). A fost poate imaturitate, sau poate tentația de a folosi mașinăria de exploatare a resurselor făcută de ceilalți. Revoluția bunului-simț nu are nici ea întotdeauna destulă substanță sau coerență perfectă. În fine, e acceptabil totuși dacă pașii înainte sunt mai mulți decât cei înapoi.

Liberalismul în România nu are însă, social și economic, baza pentru a avea majoritate. Orice implementare a unei idei liberale înseamnă foarte multă răbdare pentru un context politic și social care o face posibilă, înseamnă compromis cu o altă forță politică. Altfel spus, liberalismul în România înseamnă a munci, moment cu moment, în cadrul sistemului, cu forțele politice cu care se poate negocia în mod credibil (încrederea în cuvântul dat și încrederea în lipsa cuțitului în spate). Înseamnă a purta viziunea liberală înainte, piece by piece, în numele voturilor liberale exprimate, cu oricine se poate ajunge la un acord.

De ce nici un om care crede în doctrina liberală și în democrație nu îl poate vota în bună conștiință pe Traian Băsescu?

1. Populism anti-democratic și incompetență administrativă, asociate lipsei unei orientări doctrinare coerente. Traian Băsescu discută cu poporul, planifică asfaltul si ameteste criza cu vorbe.

2. O temporară lovitură de stat, prin păstrarea timp de două luni a unui guvern demis în condițiile existenței premiselor pentru formarea unui guvern legitim.

3. Orientarea propagandistică anti-sistem, în practică pentru capturarea integrală a sistemului existent, periculoasă cel puțin pentru consensul democratic, exemplificată cel mai recent de referendumul ”foot-in-the-door”, stindardul luptei împotriva unui Parlament în care TB nu are o majoritate convenabilă.

4. Încercarea de distrugere a PNL.

5. Cinci ani deja pierduți în vânători de vrăjitoare.

6. Pentru că, after all is said and done, potul în România este guvernarea, iar PDL-ul nu va renunța la nimic din acest pot. Dacă cu un PSD egal PDL-ul a reușit să păstreze toții banii și practic toată puterea guvernării și să-i dea și eject, PNL-ul nu are nici un motiv de a crede că are ceva de câștigat, politic, ideologic sau material, din orice formă de cooperare, chiar ignorând propriile experiențe anterioare.

Votul meu pe 6 decembrie nu va mai fi unul politic. Candidatul pe care l-am votat a ieșit deja din cursă. Votul meu este ca cetățean, pro-democrație și împotriva demagogiei, providențialității și luptei de clasă. Votul meu este pentru un sistem politic în care toată lumea câștigă din competiția corectă dintre partidul și candidatul pe care eu îl votez și celelalte opțiuni; în care cetățenii și politicienii înțeleg că politicianul populist și anti-sistem sacrifică democrația și dezbină și corupe întreaga societate pentru un câștig electoral și financiar propriu. Votul meu este pentru șansa de a construi, atât prin competiție cât și prin cooperare, într-o democrație reformabilă mai degrabă decât într-o dictatură a majorității populare șantajată, manipulată, înfricoșată și hrănită cu resturi de niste oameni fără scrupule și fără cuvânt.

Dizbats

cum poti sa NU demolezi logic, faptic, rational, elegant si politicos un om care a dominat/dezbinat/aburit din varful statului timp de cinci ani cu rezultate vizibile?

Incercam de ceva vreme sa gandesc altceva interesant despre dezbaterea de astazi, si la un moment dat s-au facut mai multe, dintr-o data, deci:

1. Dupa ce mi-am digerat dezamagirea simtului bun, mi-am dat seama ca de fapt strategia de comunicare a celor doua parti a avut totusi un obiectiv impartasit, respectiv convingerea nehotaratilor celuilalt. Banuiesc ca e o chestie de cifre, cati nehotarati exista, cati inclina etc, pe care nu o comentez. Observatia mea e pornita doar de la inversarea rolurilor/imaginii - un TB civilizat, om de stat responsabil si moderat (pana spre sfarsit cel putin), care raspunde direct la intrebari, cu argumente si propuneri de politici publice cu sens SI un CA agresiv ad hominem, cu acuzatii vechi din ce in ce mai devoalate spre final. Invers deci, dar e mai trist pentru ala care coboara decat pentru ala care urca (ca si choice of character, nu altceva, sa nu exageram totusi cu dezamagirea:)).

2. Continut si substanta prea putin; singurul punct ideologic atins a fost reducerea taxelor (nu foarte argumentata doctrinar totusi) cu un raspuns bun al lui TB ("prudenta") si un contra-raspuns CA ("vaicareala dinainte de cota unica"). Clashul pe argumente de la inceput a fost totusi castigat de CA ::> depolitizarea administratiei (recent wrongdoings), reforma clasei politice (nici o legatura cauzala intre reducerea numarului si a costurilor si imbunatatirea calitatii politicienilor). Acelasi CA nu a avut nimic interesant de spus pe planurile de politici publice ale lui TB (educatie, agricultura), la care incumbentul avea avantaj. Ce m-a deranjat cel mai mult la CA a fost ca a evitat cateva intrebari importante. Din ce vad acum la TV, doar Parvulescu mai merita vazut, iar pe acest subiect: "nu am vazut programe si orientari, politica inseamna ratiune, inseamna constructie", "o asemenea dezbatere putea sa contina elementele de spectacol de care AVEATI nevoie (re presa adica)".

3. Realitatea altfel - orice minima substanta s-a pierdut insa intre varfurile emotionale (pentru mine cel putin), care au fost clar pe atacurile la persoana. Atacuri care nu au fost pe fapte (adica da, ma asteptam ca CA sa-l acuze pe TB pentru guvernul Boc sau pentru violul lui Nutzi), ci pe povesti vechi mult mai irelevante decat infractiunile la nivel de sistem . Cand am vazut ce s-a intamplat la TV dupa am zis ca sunt complet sarit - "good show, dezbatere buna, candidati vioi, prestatie buna a lui CA, TB care si-a pierdut talentu, politete, fairness, maini intinse de la fiecare la fiecare, super actori si vorbitori"... WTF!?!? as in, WTF?!?!?!?!??!!? Dupa care l-am auzit si pe Ionita ca suntem mici copii la campanie negativa fata de americani. Serios? My imagination fails me on that one, desi incep sa vad totusi cat de mare e falia irealitatii (sau cum fardu cu care unii oamenii si-au ingrosat atatia ani obrazul a umplut si mintile unde era prea mult loc liber).

4. Propria dezamagire sunt doua. A - in romania se voteaza cine conduce, nu ce e de facut si ce se face. Batalia pentru a schimba ceva insa e de fapt un razboi... in care e nevoie de multe batalii pierdute pana apare una cu sanse. Ca si crestinismul, e nevoie de multi martiri la implementare. B. Niste tarani.... daca nu le dai circul cu care au fost dresati nici nu te observa.

Poti, daca o dai in diverse

Vorbind totusi de viitor - ne putem imagina, ca pas logic (path dependence at least) al separarii alegerilor prezidentiale/legislative si curentei crize constitutionale, un sistem constitutional mai apropiat de cel american, in care guvernul este generat din exteriorul Parlamentului (prin alegerea presedintelui sau a primului ministru), iar Parlamentul ramane cu responsabilitatile legislative, bugetare/fiscale si de control al guvernului? Ce frumos ar fi:).

Eastern Europe's economic woes - Economist

Down in the dumps - Nov 5th 2009 - From The Economist print edition

The ex-communist economies have not collapsed. But finding new ways to catch up with the West will be hard

Fast growth eased dissatisfaction with corrupt politicians and bossy bureaucrats. It offered at least the chance of better health care and education, which lag far behind western standards. But the average decline in GDP this year is a whopping 6.2%; recovery is expected to be slow. So east Europeans face higher taxes, bigger debts, less public spending, lower pay and fewer jobs. They do not have the same shock-absorbers as in the west—which is where, in the eyes of many, the crisis originated.

That could prove a toxic mix, yet so far the fallout has been limited. Support from the European Union, the IMF and other lenders, after initial hesitation, was unprecedented in size, scope and speed. Tens of billions of dollars of outsiders’ money staved off a catastrophe. So far, no currencies have collapsed; no country has defaulted; no banks have faced runs, or been cut adrift by foreign owners. Politicians preaching protection, state control or other charlatanism have remained on the fringes. In its latest annual transition report, the EBRD says reform has largely stalled, but not reversed. In countries such as Latvia and Hungary, governments have shown a masochistic delight in following IMF prescriptions for fiscal tightening, even at the cost of likely electoral oblivion.

It makes little sense to talk of the ex-communist countries as a single region. Resource-dependent economies such as Russia and Kazakhstan have one set of problems (such as diversifying and spending export revenues wisely). Open manufacturing economies such as Hungary and Estonia have another (chiefly, maintaining competitiveness). Poland, bolstered by strong domestic demand, will be the only economy in the EU to grow this year (though its rising public debt is a worry). Two ex-communist countries, Slovenia and Slovakia, have already adopted the euro. Estonia may be next. Countries to the east and south tend to be poorer, glummer and worse-run.

For those in or close to the EU, growth came from strong exports of goods and services and big inflows of capital. The net effect was beneficial but the disadvantages are now apparent: heavy dependence on single industries (eg, cars in Slovakia) and on west European demand. Foreign capital inflows may have been too big or too quick, leading to a consumption and construction splurge, fuelled by reckless lending to firms and households, often in foreign currencies. Inflows of money from abroad have fallen dramatically, or in some cases even reversed. The volume of syndicated loans going to the region, for example, has fallen to roughly a sixth of the pre-crisis level. Restarting these capital flows is a high priority—preferably with more prudent rules for the credit market.

Alongside this problem is another: finding a way to share the pain of restructuring private-sector debts among governments, borrowers and bankers. Dealing with this product of past excesses causes much headscratching for policymakers. Debt overhangs—of over 100% of GDP in some countries—will curb growth in future years, hurting everyone.

Outside support has headed off a vicious circle of falling exchange rates, lower investor confidence and failing banks (though that may still loom in Ukraine, where vote-hungry politicians have just shredded a deal with the IMF). But many states face another grim outcome: years of low growth caused by uncompetitive exchange rates and sluggish productivity. That is what happened to Portugal after it joined the euro in 1999. For ex-communist countries in the euro, pegged to it or hoping to adopt it soon, the Portuguese example merits careful study.
The ex-communist economies’ competitive advantage may have shrunk, but it is still a big asset.

Cost-cutting in western Europe may produce more outsourcing to the east. Some also hope to find new niches, based on brainpower and creativity. But they must also make their countries work better. According to the EBRD, four areas stand out. One is improving the legal system. Slow and unpredictable justice is a turn-off for foreign investors worried about contracts and property rights (see article). Second is better regulation. Despite improvements from EU membership, businesses still battle with profit-choking red tape. Third is a better social safety-net. A feeling that life is unfair and precarious sharpens the divide between winners and losers and risks political upsets. Fourth is competition. Informal barriers to entry and old networks of communist-era pals keep bits of the economy off limits to outsiders, at huge cost to efficiency.

Getting state institutions to function better is easier to discuss than to accomplish. It has long been clear that intangible factors to do with national culture and levels of social trust play a bigger role than explicit rules in ex-communist countries’ fortunes. The EBRD highlights “values, attitudes and practices” in determining what constitutes “acceptable behaviour within a firm…or by government officials”. Economics offers little guide to that.

Privilegiul moral

Procurorul, care se considera organ al adevarului mai degraba decat avocat al cetateanului impotriva cetateanului, platit de stat, si deci avand privilegiul moral de a fi luptator al binelui. Un privilegiu moral care implica un drept superior in interpretarea si utilizarea legii. (Ok, si avocat al interesului public, dar asta lasa loc la interpretari pentru ca implica in anumite cazuri o generalizare fortata si anume cunoasterea interesului public mai mult decat observarea unei incalcari a legii. Dar daca pentru mine interesul public inseamna si apararea cetateanului impotriva abuzurilor statului?:)

Actorii politici apolitici, adica cei care se declara anti-politicieni sau nepoliticieni, poate fara functii politice dar cu opinii si simpatii politice, care isi aroga un privilegiu moral asemanator, chiar si dupa ce au devenit dependenti economic si social de un actor politic. Cei care isi importa autoritatea profesionala a unui domeniu specific, alaturi de orientarea anti-politica (a carei generalitate devine superficiala, daca nu direct falsa, in momentul in care vorbim de politicianul X, oponent politic), pentru a se pretinde judecatori morali.

Enervarea zilei: "Eu am dreptate pentru ca sunt luptator al binelui, si daca ma contrazici comiti o blasfemie impotriva a tot ce e bun si nobil in tara asta. Si oricum, ar trebui sa fii recunoscator ca am coborat sa vorbesc cu tine la nivelul tau. Ziaristule!!!"

Enervarea lunii: Intr-o tara democratica, un om care a patronat dezastrul ultimelor 10 luni si care este votat la rece de maxim 35%, santajeaza o tara cu cei patru cavaleri ai apocalipsei, respectiv foamea, razboiul civil (sau criza constitutionala, dupa gust), pandemia si parlamentul. De ce? Pentru bani, in timp ce toti fraierii alearga dupa cai verzi pe pereti. S-a strigat bullshit. Privilegiul moral? Iiiisus VINE baaah! (Pentru cine nu a vazut ultimul afis electoral - poza omului si jos scris cu litere mari "PRESEDINTELE").

Gripa in CSAT

*** un argument interesant despre relatia dintre frica si preferintele politice, mai complet decat Huxley acum 50 de ani. Destul de lung si lucrurile interesante sunt la sfarsit, dar merita zic eu:)

McCoy et al. (2000) have also called attention to the link between the fear of individuation and the fear of death in explaining why most people find it impossible to sustain a genuinely creative, individualistic way of being and living: “Independence from social consensus, creation of a truly individualized worldview, and a broad concern for all humankind
are difficult to achieve” (p. 58).

Many children grow up in families where the parents exert excessive control through rules and prohibitions that demand blind obedience and conformity. In these families the satisfaction of children’s needs for survival, security, affection, and love is contingent upon their unquestioning
loyalty to their parents, whether it is deserved or not. Thus throughout their lives, they are easily infl uenced and manipulated by other people.

They have been successfully programmed to be selfless, that is, to accommodate to the wishes, demands, and opinions of others at their own expense (R. Firestone & Catlett, 1999). Becker (1973/1997) cited Fritz Perls in arguing that the resultant conformity is part of a neurotic process that destroys critical thinking, yet people are mostly unaware of their conformity and submission.

Individuality and nonconformity require unusual courage and dedication because there is always guilt and fear from breaking with tradition. It increases one’s sense of aloneness, loneliness, and sense of isolation; and, in addition, there are signifi cant prejudices, repercussions, and retaliation directed toward an outsider with different views. The uniqueness and free expression of the nonconformist threaten the conventional person because they raise existential anxiety.
Becker (1973/1997) and Fromm (1941) pointed out that most individuals seek an ultimate rescuer or idolized hero, whether within a personal relationship, in the entertainment, sports, or music world, or in the business or political sphere. People who are more submissive or conforming in their orientation transfer the desperate feelings and dependency needs that originally characterized their relationship with their parents onto new fi gures and ideologies and thus feel relief from existential fears. They are especially susceptible to the influence of charismatic, authoritarian leaders who promise them certainty and safety.

The authors contend that the fear of death drives individuals to support destructive, toxic leaders and embrace patriotic, nationalistic movements in a search for security and immortality. Dependence on a particular group, idolization of a leader, and mindless allegiance to a cause function as defenses against death anxiety (R. Firestone & Catlett, 2009). In her book The Allure of Toxic Leaders, Lipman-Blumen (2005) emphasized the fact that many destructive and ineffective leaders remain in power because they fulfi ll basic needs of their constituents or followers:

"The real tragedy of the human condition is not that we must die, but that we choose to live by illusions. . . . Illusions are the umbilical cord linking leaders and followers. Leaders understand their followers’ need for illusions. . . . In a terrifyingly uncertain world, the illusions that leaders spin offer us a lifeline. They free the other side of our natures—the creative, thoughtful, spiritual side—permitting even us small, short-lived creatures to become signifi cant fi gures in the grand universe. (pp. 50–51)"

By subordinating their views to those propagated by an idolized leader and by conforming to the group consensus, frightened individuals merge their identities with that of the group. This imagined fusion imbues them with a feeling of immortality and invulnerability. They imagine that although they may not survive as separate individual entities, they will live on as part of something larger that will continue to exist after they are gone (R. Firestone, 1996; R. Firestone & Catlett, 2009).

Ultimately people living within a functional democracy are accountable for their government’s policies, for the goals that their leaders pursue, for the actions taken on their behalf, and most importantly, for the means their leaders use to achieve these ends. Unfortunately, there will always be a large number of individuals who seek out irresponsible, toxic leaders in an attempt to compensate for their own failings and dependency needs and to protect them from facing their aloneness and personal mortality (Lipman-Blumen, 2005; J. Post, 2004).

Terror Management researchers, in their vigorous study of the effect of death salience on human attitudes and behavior, have empirically verified aspects of Ernest Becker’s theoretical formulation. Their experimental design involves the comparison of two control groups; one that is exposed to words that are designed to subtly arouse death salience, and one that is not. The researchers then observe how each group responds to various issues. (See meta-review in Solomon et al., 2004.)

Their findings indicate that after subjects were presented with the word death subliminally in an experimental setting, they more strongly endorsed the worldview of their own ethnic group or nation; at the same time they denigrated members of other groups whose worldviews differed from their own. Other studies showed that people tend to be more moralistic toward people whose behavior confl icts with society’s social or moral codes. For example, judges whose death awareness was raised set higher bails on prostitutes than judges in the control group. These reactions were also evident at the behavioral level: subjects whose death salience was elevated administered larger amounts of an aversive substance to people of a religious denomination and ethnic background different than their own.

These reactions to unconscious stimuli may also affect political choices. For example, two recent studies, post-9/11, found that subjects in the high death awareness group favored a candidate whom they perceived as charismatic and who insisted on an aggressive agenda toward their enemies over one who urged a more diplomatic path (F. Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005; F. Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004).

If the single word death introduced subliminally in an experiment can produce signifi cant changes in subjects’ attitudes and actions, one can only imagine the powerful effect of countless events in the real world that remind people of their mortality (R. Firestone, 1988). Witnessing a horrible accident on the freeway, or watching the fatalities of war on the evening news, or hearing about the death of a friend or famous person are reminders that seriously impact the nature of the sensitive human being. Even though we have become habituated and desensitized to the visual images of tragedy that we are exposed to everyday, these images still have a profound infl uence on our unconscious minds and significantly alter our motivations and behaviors.