Fåraktigt

Jag känner mig fåraktig. Det är en tråkig och skavande känsla. Jag är djupt upprörd över våldet, vilsenheten och den militära upprustningen i världen.

Jag försöker skriva om krigets förbannelse och fredens nödvändighet och det klingar bara hjälplöst. Jag försöker meditera och be och känner mig söndrig, trolös. Jag vet att vi är väldigt många som känner samma oro och samma hjälplöshet. Varför går vi inte samman och försöker göra mer än vad var och en ensam kan åstadkomma? En total uppgivenhet?

Men hur kan vi ge upp all denna ljuvlighet som världen bjuder när fred råder? Skönheten på ängarna, glädjen hos de lekande barnen, samtalen bland vänner, famntagen hos älskande? Växande liv, framtidsdrömmar, nya insikter för varje dag?

När jag inte orkade arbeta och ännu mindre tänka öppnade jag TV-apparaten.

Det borde jag inte ha gjort. Först såg jag ett program där det avslöjades hur en militärt farlig och hemlig kod sålts från det fredsälskande landet Sverige till det i alla avseenden expanderande landet Kina. Koden kan användas för utvecklande av massförstörelsevapen. Om det inte vore för ämnets föga skrattretande natur skulle man haft mycket roligt åt de ansvarigas bortförklaringar, åt blandningen av listigt slingrande och aningslös enfald. Forskning, heliga forskning – strunt i var forskningens resultat hamnar och hur det används – så löd budskapet.

Jag tänkte på Harry Martinsons essä om den kosmiska frågan: Att den ene nobelpristagaren i fysik efter den andre förklarar att hans intresse för atomsprängning och kedjereaktion är av helt vetenskaplig art, lugnar oss i detta sammanhang inte, hur mycket tidningarna än vidarebefordrar och beskriver dylika pilatiska handtvagningar. Ty vi måste utgå ifrån att det vetenskapliga intresset för gnistors uppträdande i en krutdurk har följder som strålar ut i själva livsintresset hos dem som sitter på denna krutdurk.

Senare såg jag ett program om småbarnsföräldrars förhoppningar och bestyr. Med babyn, den ljuvliga, i fokus. Små, praktiska bekymmer kring LIVET.

Diskrepensen mellan de båda TV-programmen blev mer än jag klarade av.

Vad då klarade? Jag sitter ju här, vid datorn, en lugn och fredlig kväll i Nordeuropa.

Och känner mig fåraktig.

Well, yes, also I am upprörd about the state of the world, but instead of fåraktig I rather feel angry, especially because the deplorable state of the world is (considering all that information we have meanwhile about all those problems) so really UNNECESSARY.
The information we have is the fruit of science, and I do NOT share some humanists’ seeming contempt for ”forskning, heliga forskning”, but of course there is always, e.g., the question what forskning is ABOUT. It could in fact interest that since a while there is quite officially research into human happiness and its preconditions – as e.g. reported in Richard Layard’s book of 2005 ”Happiness – Lessons from a New Science”.
Of course our system is not very interested in this type of research (our present government will presumably never mention it), but there is at least one country in the world (Bhutan in the Himalayas) which quite officially thinks ”gross national happiness” more important than ”gross domestic product”. In 2006 Business Week rated Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia and the 8th happiest country in the world.
Now Bhutan is not any typical Western country; the population consists of mostly Buddhists and Hindus, the monarchy became a constitutional one only rather recently, literacy is 59,5 %, the income per capita unimpressive, but the life expectancy still 62,2 years overall. Interesting also for us might be the observation that after the introduction of TV in 1999 ”quite soon … a sharp increase in family break-up, crime and drug taking” was observed …
I do not think that we shall easily get rid of TV, and I also see the possibility that Finland is to some degree protected by its language (YLE will not easily pay translators to write the subtitles for every piece of shit produced in USA), and anyway it is certainly not only a problem of TV that our Western society goes its way – which makes people only moderately happy and is for the globe as a whole a disaster (according to the scientists who have looked into the matter, we should need three Earths to support the Finnish way of life for everybody on the globe).
Anyway we are already aware of some problems: if Alexander Stubb invites for a ”strategidag” a foreign expert who had earlier gone public with the opinion that ”Finland skulle behöva fler sådana som Antti Herlin och Björn Wahlroos” (this for ”skattebetalarnas bästa”) plus another one who ”ledde nedskärningen av 50 000 jobb i den offentliga sektorn i Kanada på 1990-talet”, but seemingly not a single less neoliberal expert, then Alexander Stubb is very obviously a problem. And the fact that he was not ripped apart in midair for this by the media is another obvious problem. And also the mechanisms which let somebody like Alexander Stubb reach the position of a statsminister are an obvious problem …
Obviously we have to re-think our whole system and build a convincing alternative to neoliberalism (my personal contribution would be Freudarxism – which would need a bit very much explanation in this place -, but I am also happy to have heard that Ny Tid will soon present the work of Ha-Joon Chang – who is in fact an established professor of economy, but ripping neoliberalism to pieces). And in addition one should of course have a close look at the science of happiness, at the example of Bhutan (and other happy countries – Bhutan was only the 8th happiest worldwide), at possibilities of degrowth, and presumably still at some more.
And one should organize and keep up a discussion about these matters. In this blog?

Svara

1 kommentar på “Fåraktigt”

Ernst Mecke skriver:

6 september, 2014 kl. 20:28

Well, yes, also I am upprörd about the state of the world, but instead of fåraktig I rather feel angry, especially because the deplorable state of the world is (considering all that information we have meanwhile about all those problems) so really UNNECESSARY.
The information we have is the fruit of science, and I do NOT share some humanists’ seeming contempt for ”forskning, heliga forskning”, but of course there is always, e.g., the question what forskning is ABOUT. It could in fact interest that since a while there is quite officially research into human happiness and its preconditions – as e.g. reported in Richard Layard’s book of 2005 ”Happiness – Lessons from a New Science”.
Of course our system is not very interested in this type of research (our present government will presumably never mention it), but there is at least one country in the world (Bhutan in the Himalayas) which quite officially thinks ”gross national happiness” more important than ”gross domestic product”. In 2006 Business Week rated Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia and the 8th happiest country in the world.
Now Bhutan is not any typical Western country; the population consists of mostly Buddhists and Hindus, the monarchy became a constitutional one only rather recently, literacy is 59,5 %, the income per capita unimpressive, but the life expectancy still 62,2 years overall. Interesting also for us might be the observation that after the introduction of TV in 1999 ”quite soon … a sharp increase in family break-up, crime and drug taking” was observed …
I do not think that we shall easily get rid of TV, and I also see the possibility that Finland is to some degree protected by its language (YLE will not easily pay translators to write the subtitles for every piece of shit produced in USA), and anyway it is certainly not only a problem of TV that our Western society goes its way – which makes people only moderately happy and is for the globe as a whole a disaster (according to the scientists who have looked into the matter, we should need three Earths to support the Finnish way of life for everybody on the globe).
Anyway we are already aware of some problems: if Alexander Stubb invites for a ”strategidag” a foreign expert who had earlier gone public with the opinion that ”Finland skulle behöva fler sådana som Antti Herlin och Björn Wahlroos” (this for ”skattebetalarnas bästa”) plus another one who ”ledde nedskärningen av 50 000 jobb i den offentliga sektorn i Kanada på 1990-talet”, but seemingly not a single less neoliberal expert, then Alexander Stubb is very obviously a problem. And the fact that he was not ripped apart in midair for this by the media is another obvious problem. And also the mechanisms which let somebody like Alexander Stubb reach the position of a statsminister are an obvious problem …
Obviously we have to re-think our whole system and build a convincing alternative to neoliberalism (my personal contribution would be Freudarxism – which would need a bit very much explanation in this place -, but I am also happy to have heard that Ny Tid will soon present the work of Ha-Joon Chang – who is in fact an established professor of economy, but ripping neoliberalism to pieces). And in addition one should of course have a close look at the science of happiness, at the example of Bhutan (and other happy countries – Bhutan was only the 8th happiest worldwide), at possibilities of degrowth, and presumably still at some more.
And one should organize and keep up a discussion about these matters. In this blog?

Svara

Fåraktigt

1 kommentar på “Fåraktigt”

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