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More about...
The last sentences in my home page have
caused some confusion. That confusion was intentional, though.
(This is a work in progress. I am trying to summarize many years of
thoughts, and I have very little hope of being able to organize all
these thoughts in linear form anytime soon...)
Each sentence has several levels of meanings; every sentence, like
a physical gesture, expresses a world-view, a way of being, of
communicating, of believing and distrusting, a choice of language,
values, taboos, alliances and rejections ("I am this"; "I am not
that"), a choice of subject and tone... and each sentence wakes
up some parts of the imagination of the listener/reader, and turns off
other parts -
I don't live in a place where the written law matters much. My
feeling is that here, in Brazil, we don't have logic, law and reason
above us; we have no absolutes that we can rely on, and no way to
really know what is going on... The News speak a pathetic doublespeak that tells a lot about the language that they had to find
to survive financially, and too little about "facts", whatever that
means -
In some other countries people often take things literally - here
too, actually, but that doesn't matter. Anyway: they believe that
there is only one way to take things literally - their way.
They attribute their meanings to things that could have other
meanings, entirely different -
Most sentences also have tone information that say which parts are
central, and which are auxiliary; which parts contain new information,
and which parts are just to assure that the reader (or listener) has
the right context. And sometimes a sentence can also indicate that
some parts of what it says is safe, while other parts are secret, or transgressive -
In 2001 most of the people that I had contact with knew that
the United Stated had to be in war against one at least one country at
any given time - and everything seemed to indicate that the next
country was going to be Colombia. Then the 9/11 attacks happened. I saw the attacks on TV and
I thought: (1) this looks like an inner
job (but we'll never know, and it doesn't matter) (2), this is so
incredibly beautiful on so many levels - these people on TV don't
look like people, they look just like numbers - it was like
watching a war
on TV and thinking: "this is a small price to pay" ("for freedom and
democracy", say) - and: this looks like TV - everyone will have
to think again how we react to the news on TV in the way we do - we
sometimes listen passively to news of 30000 people killed in Africa,
but we get upset by news of, say, 4 Americans hijacked in the Middle
East... (3) well, it must be a matter of "us" vs. "them" - we get
worried when people that are "like us" suffer or are in danger, but we
tend to accept any justified killing of people that are "them"...
however, at that moment it was impossible to look at the Americans as
"us": someone who felt our pain, and shared our fears - someone who
knew that at any moment the United States could decide that "your
country is a menace to the world, and must be destroyed" - had decided
to do something, and to be heard...
Condolence: "we feel your pain"
vs. initiation, welcome: "you feel our pain"
some emotional barriers would have to fall
the US would have to stop seeing itself as detached
from the rest of the world (and surrounded by savages)
spring day
not 3000 _people_, 3000 _americans_
what is a person? when does a person matter?
mirror game: someone who treats the others as non-persons
is tagged a non-person
blurry concepts:
blue vs. green, male vs. female behaviors, innocent, just
why is it that in some cases hundreds of thousands of people may be
killed - or left to die - without no one worrying so much?
an internal action, to blame someone else
cite Sérgio Macaco
I didn't have a way to access the "real truth"
I had to choose what to believe
What are the consequences of believing one way or another?
What do I learn in each case?
Are the perpetrators like me? Or enemies?
the suicidal terrorist as a modern koan
suppose you live in a favela etc
who would you rob?
not someone you'd look in the eye and see an equal
it's easier to rob someone you hate.
envy and anger
reducing hate
consequences of hate and fear
one step before physical violence
how do we buy safety?
carros blindados, grades; ou estar cercado de iguais
the enemy is not a person
(and the government is not a person)
the enemy is an attitude - that I also have
the enemies: depersonalization
inconsequence
mob attitude
omission
excess of though and rationalism
coldness
my uncle the fascist
kill, kill, kill!
war seen through the eyes of a child:
all the dead and wounded are either enemies or heroes
violence making everyone and everything more pure
keep secrets from the family
just following orders
a good provider, doing his duty.
I am not a number. I've tried to be, and failed
we're not living _in_ a capitalist society -
we're living at the margins of capitalist society
draw the line: what can I do?
I can just judge
drinking, psychiatrical drugs, apathy
"nothing can be changed"
Galdino: practical jokes
who is innocent?
what's the meaning of "innocent" when there is no justice
and no social pact?
wolf: the rabbit is not "innocent", it is "food"
attention span
what can I say in four lines?
the spectacle, subverted
it was beautiful, great
a small price to pay
better die spectacularly than to die anonymously
even worse: to die and be blamed (loser, communist)
se a polícia bateu nele algo de errado ele fez
(ou estava no lugar errado na hora errada;
não é uma pessoa educada e bem-comportada;
não é boa influência, nem boa companhia,
e está dificultando o trabalho da polícia)
Intellectual elite
don't even get jobs anymore
education rottened away
RH only wants efficiency
who gets hired:
winners
evangelicos, competidores
pessoas com o psicológico bom
polish rats
queer and non-consumist, with a bizarre ethics, and a
tendency to depression. how would I handle stress?
how people can buy my work and my loyalty?
why would a normal HR manager hire someone like me?
unmanageable, unpredictible, disruptive
studying at the right schools give you the right language
and codes and lets you play golf with the right people
and marry the right people - you learn how to negotiate
By principle we (brazilians) don't trust the government
Torture, corruption
It would be easy to just decide that these people are bad & evil
but things are not that simple. In a sense, they are doing their
best: they _believe_ that their actions are exactly what is needed -
and that someone needs to be tough and do the dirty work. It's a
"cleaning job"
losers are invisible
"if you don't like this then go look for another job"
I'm whining, I know
almost all my friends are either on psychiatrical drugs,
or drinking and using drugs frequently, or dead. (I'm not)
surrounded by impunity -> panic.
bullying and rape
why is rape so bad? did it use to be so bad in ancient Greece?
it destroys something precious and fundamental
I have fantasies with torturing people
causes: hormonal? social? exclusion?
http://angg.twu.net/gender.html
it should be a shame to be a corrupt policeman
sowing seeds: a dream of a thousand cats
delegative democracy
using the politically correct language
means aligning oneself with the mass and the mafia
Nurenberg convention in Triumph of the Will
having very little, not being respected, being irrelevant
beings freedom to say anything (but to no one)
I blame macheza
we need a new ethics
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