In the summer I started reading the work of Pierre Ado, "Philosophy as a way of life". Although philosophy is in my heart, I rarely read original philosophers, rather synthesized theses in the essays of philosophy professors. Like 'tič, my friend would say, it's easier for me to understand when a philosophical work is reworked, and then "chewed down in my beak". With Ado, I liked the intimate dimension it gives to philosophy, which is not only speculative, abstract, directed towards the impermanent, while we suffocate in the everyday. In contrast to Western philosophy, mystical experiences, as Ado notes "oceanic feelings", in moments make us "part of an infinite and mysterious reality". Ado states that the ancient Greeks had an interest in nature, but very rarely talked about immersion in the whole. Daniel Cohen in his work "Homoeconomicus" observes that for the ancient Greek - "I exist because I eat and run; I never draw my existence through self-awareness”. Cogito has no meaning for a Greek, according to the author. "He is a man within the city, in the eyes of his equals". Aristotle says: "He who is outside the city, by the nature of things and not by chance, must have lost honor or is a supernatural being." With Christianization, the people of antiquity became more introspective. "Thanks to the Christian God, that life achieved the unity of the magnetic field, where every action, every inner movement gained meaning, be it good or bad," concludes historian Paul Venn.
Pierre Ado states that the oceanic experience is nevertheless different from the mystical Christian or Plotinian experience. "Certainly, we could say that these two experiences have something in common: in both, the self goes through the feeling of a certain presence or merging with something else". It seems that in the mystical experience of the Christian or Plotinian type there is a personal, personal relationship to the "divine".
The next book I started reading was "The Little Pantheon", by the philosopher Alain Badiou. The book is a collection of tributes to deceased French philosophers of the 20th century, which were created for various reasons in the last thirty years. In his tribute to Jean Hippolyte, Badiou tells an interesting story. Namely, Hippolytus "translated" Hegel, although he was not the best connoisseur of the German language. By translating the "Phenomenology of Spirit", he carried out a "radical attack" on Hegel. There is an opinion that Hegel's work, youthfully "formless and crumpled", gained its monumentality only with the translation of Hippolytus. This is what Badiou states, the German philosopher Jürgen Brankel recommends that Hegel be read in French. It is an interesting observation that in this case, "the languages were at the service of the translator, not the driving force of the translation itself".
In a tribute to the dedicated leftist Jean-François Lyotard, Badiou makes a synthesis: "Politics does not belong to the order of power, but to the order of thought." Its goal is not transformation, but the creation of possibilities that were previously impossible to transform. It is not derived from situations, it must be prescribed by the situation". The leaders of the domestic opposition were never aware of this quote by Badiou, and that is why they have been in the opposition for decades. Instead of proactively creating the opinion of the electorate, it is more important for them how to raise low national passions, and if possible kidnap voters in the game of "opposition cannibalism", as the journalist Vlado Žugić beautifully defined.
When the terrorist attack happened in Paris, I realized that I was constantly reading French authors. Then, of course, it was the turn of Michel Houellebecq and his latest book "Subjugation". Impression is a very immediate work. While reading, you have the feeling that you yourself are "living" the main character, his dilemmas, feelings, emotions. In the novel, Houellebecq emphasizes: "The only literature awakens in you that feeling of contact with another human spirit, with that spirit in its totality, with all its weaknesses and greatness, its limitations, lowliness, fixed ideas, beliefs; with everything that incites, interests, excites or repels that spirit".
Skillfully Houellebecq puts forward the thesis about Western decadence through the main character's immersion in a hedonistic lifestyle. That atmosphere of a "softened" Western spirit paints the background of the novel's controversial plot, the Islamization of France. The dominant cultural and even religious concept is imposed by the elite. The descendants of Arab emigrants are not the dominant elite of the West and France, rather it will be the opposite, that they are closer to the social margins in the increasingly sharp stratification that Western societies are going through.
In the already mentioned work "Homoeconimicus", Cohen states that the non-democratic regimes of the Middle East had the support of the West to fight against radical Islamism. Leaders like Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali used this support to suppress all opposition at the same time, while the elite close to them increased their wealth and privileges. This kind of policy has led to accumulated social frustration and anti-Western attitudes, which will escalate during the "Arab Spring". While my generation was counted among the youth, in the 90s of the last century, most of us politically active were oriented towards the West, advocating for the restoration of the independence of Montenegro. It seems, 10 years after the referendum, things have changed, politically minded young people are more oriented towards conservative, traditional values, such as: Orthodoxy, Russia, Serbia... This change should not be surprising, 40% of young people are unemployed, social stratification are sharp. On the other hand, descendants of members of the political elite study in the West, or start lucrative businesses. The reports of the European Commission testify to the progress of Montenegro in the process of integration. Although only last year several thousands of citizens from the north of Montenegro left the country seeking political asylum due to poverty. Sometimes I wonder if the attitude of the USA and the EU towards Montenegro is superficial, even hypocritical!? Be that as it may, social frustration, feeling of injustice, discrimination, lead people to look for a way out in traditional, original beliefs and values, but also in radical expressions of political struggle. I am grateful for the experience of reading French authors. Immersion in their works was a kind of spiritual asylum, in contrast to the anti-intellectual expression of the domestic political scene.
Bonus video:
