A Balanced
Intercultural View Can
Awaken Our Civilization
to Global Ethics
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
The
Iberian Peninsula
Brazilian
Sociologist Gilberto Freyre thinks that Spain and Portugal are not quite
European nations. They stand as a cultural combination of Europe and Africa, of
Christianity and Islam, having a strong Jewish presence.[1]
The Iberian Peninsula is seen as a cultural synthesis
of three religious views of the world and a complex, paradoxical combination of
different ethnicities.
Portugal became nominally Christian in the 12th
century, and the Peninsula played a leading role in the discovery of the
Americas. The dynamic combination of contrasting cultures got deepened in the
16th century. The colonial expansion of Spain and Portugal towards the
Americas, Asia and Africa brought about miscegenation and integrative trends
which also included cruelty, racism and anti-Semitism.
Freyre says that the Peninsula has much in common with
Russia. Just as the land of the Czars is a cultural and ethnical bridge between
Asia and Europe, the nations of Iberia constitute a transition between Africa
and Europe, with the Jewish influence being quietly central in the process.
Indeed, Judaism constitutes the source from which
Christianity and the Islam emerged, and to which they owe much. If the two
religions have political reasons to deny the parental role played by Judaism in
their history, this is something they must learn to deal with. Emotional resistance
to parents does not change the fact of parenthood.
It is only natural that well-known Jewish thinkers as Isaac
Abravanel and his son Judah Abravanel - better known as “Leone Ebreo” - play
central roles in the history of Portuguese and Iberian philosophy. Also
influential in Portugal are Baruch Spinoza and Uriel da Costa. Jews are present
in the Iberian Peninsula since the 6th century, Christian Era, and they were both
numerically and culturally important in the formation of Brazil.[2]
Speaking of the unconscious preparation of the Spanish
and the Portuguese for the cycle of the Conquests, Freyre quotes Fernando de
los Ríos to mention the “marvelous periods of understanding and co-operation”
among Arabs, Christians and Jews in the Peninsula, as in the fact that the
three religions celebrated in the same temple, Santa María la Blanca, in Toledo,
during the thirteenth century.
According to Freyre, the living paradoxes present in
the souls of Iberian and Russian nations and individuals make them more
dramatic, and psychologically richer than the would-be homogenous cultures of “pure-blooded” Europe. The intense contrast
in national life has strong advantages and disadvantages. It develops a special
ability to live with contradictions and to harmonize them; or perhaps to merely
disguise them, paving the way to the process of split personality. [3]
Christian dogmatism and blind faith strongly stimulate
hypocrisy, which leads to violence. It is fortunate that Portuguese
Christianity was marked by Pagan and Jewish influences, being more easily
inclined to integration. On the other hand, the relative homogeneity of some
European nations must be respected and has its own positive, and negative,
characteristics. In the planetary dialogue we need, every individual culture
has something to teach others. Real globalism must be truthful, transcendent,
and must not destroy local cultures.
Paradox is inevitable in life, for contradictions move
everyone ahead. The ethnic heterogeneity of Russia, Spain, Portugal and the Iberian
countries in the Americas must share with the “pur-sang” varieties of human
experience a couple of lessons in cultural diversity, and in the science of
building a sort of oneness that includes nonviolent forms of contrast.
It is essential to the world today to have a respectful
cross-culturalism that preserves individual cultures while stimulating the
dialogue among all points of view. There is a universal wisdom permeating the most different religions and
philosophies, and it constitutes their common source and their destiny.
Combined with social justice and environmental ethics,
a balanced intercultural dialogue will heal the sense of separation and despair
generated by a sort of globalism that reduces human beings to the condition of automatic
humanoid machines, carefully programmed
to follow the vicious circles of money circulation and concentration.
Political Leaders, Freud and a Sea of Horror
It should be most unlikely, of course, that the ladies
and gentlemen who are now responsible for the Western banking system, the mainstream
media-controlling companies and nuclear weapon industries would ever launch
mankind into an unprecedented sea of suffering and horror.
Such leaders are too humane, too well-educated, too
sensitive to the interests of their fellow citizens, for that. They are not the
mere puppets of organized ignorance.
Or - are they?
We better watch and remain vigilant. Historical cycles
frequently include avoidable disasters. Ignorance transcends words and must be
fought in one’s own heart, first.
Whenever a society fails to listen to the voice of
individual and collective conscience, it loses common sense. It then becomes
gradually dysfunctional, until it disappears. Its end takes place in scarcely
elegant ways, as History shows with numerous examples.
However, “that misery which is not yet come can be
warded off”, says Patanjali, II, 16. A popular saying in Brazil clarifies that “everything
is worthwhile as long as the Soul is not small or narrow”.
Nuclear proliferation, religious intolerance, mass
murder, organized financial crime, social injustice and environmental
destruction are all basically limited to narrow and blind states of human soul.
Psychoanalysis observes and offers an explanation for these
states of mind. From a theosophical point of view, ignorance exists but to be
healed and left behind as the soul grows in knowledge. By being defeated one
learns precious lessons, and Freud wrote an essay on the disillusionment caused
by World War I (1914-1918) among those who thought that civilization had
transcended mass murder already.
In 1915, Freud referred to the moral failure of the
“white nations”:
“We had expected the great ruling powers among the
white nations upon whom the leadership of the human species has fallen, who
were known to have cultivated world-wide interests, to whose creative powers
were due our technical advances in the direction of dominating nature, as well
as the artistic and scientific acquisitions of the mind - peoples such as these
we had expected to succeed in discovering another way of settling
misunderstandings and conflicts of interest.”
“Within each of these nations”, Freud went on, “there
prevailed high standards of accepted custom for the individual, to which his
manner of life was bound to conform if he desired a share in communal
privileges. These ordinances, frequently too stringent, exacted a great deal
from him, much self-restraint, much renunciation of instinctual gratification.
He was especially forbidden to make use of the immense advantages to be gained
by the practice of lying and deception in competition with his fellow men. The civilized state regarded these accepted
standards as the basis of its existence; stern were its proceedings when an
impious hand was laid upon them; frequent the pronouncement that to subject
them even to examination by a critical intelligence was entirely impracticable.
It could be assumed, therefore, that the state itself would respect them, nor
would contemplate undertaking any infringement of what it acknowledged as the
basis of its own existence.” [4]
And the statesmen lied, cheated, and made war; and
they created a situation in which Europe became similar to a slaughter house.
Freud saw the First World War. He did not see the
second one, and never heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Yet he wrote this warning, valid for 21st
century:
“We welcome illusions because they spare us emotional
distress, and enable us instead to indulge in [short term] gratification. We must not then complain if now and
again they come into conflict with some portion of reality, and are shattered
against it.” [5]
One practical lesson from these lines is that citizens
of the 21st century should examine the way they look at the process of nuclear
proliferation right now taking place under the karmic responsibility of the
distinguished ladies and gentlemen who are in charge of the international
banking, of “scientific researches”, of the leading “white nations”, and global
institutions.
There is no need to blindly believe such ladies and
gentlemen will necessary act as the loving mothers and fathers of their nations
and of mankind. Actually, history shows those in power often behave like
spoiled children who have no sense of responsibility whatsoever, except in the
world of the media and appearances.
The Integrative Civilization
Gilberto Freyre establishes an Iberian type of
civilization, which he calls “integrative”, as opposed to the Northern “White” European
nations. The integrative and “mixed blood” civilization encompasses both the
Americas (South and Central) and the Iberian Peninsula.
The starting-point for Freyre’s view is an
“instinctive” feeling of universal compassion and cross-cultural solidarity. He
grasps the fact that humanity is one. He thinks that the attempts to deny the
natural community of nations have no future.
In his book “The Portuguese and the Tropics”, Freyre says:
“The Portuguese and Brazilians of today require, from
[the dominant materialist countries],
national, logical, chronometric and superiorly technical values. But they also
need to continue to be a community capable of transmitting to the [the dominant empiric countries] those values which in mixed integrated
peoples, such as the Brazilian, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Russian, the
Chinese, the Mexican, the Hungarian, the Indian, the Israelite, the Arab, are
only able to develop or be preserved when there is belief and irrationality
even, in the myths that contradictorily bind the present to the past and the
future of those peoples, in an integration of social times and cultural times
that will complete the other integration: that of regionally different
cultures, of ethnic groups of different origin, of populations differing in
their original characteristics and, although distant in physical time, one from
another, bound together by the same dominant life motives and by the same
ecologic conditions in the social and cultural fields.” [6]
The integrative view of humanity transcends ideologies
and gives the lie to lower-level forms of rationality. A sharp Freudian
critique of materialistic civilizations is present in Freyre’s approach. For
him -
“One might almost generalize, that only those
civilizations which are strongly poetic besides being technically superior,
will last long. The purely logical and dryly rational fade through lack of
poetry and irrationality.” [7]
In other words, civilizations need a soul. Human
beings cannot be reduced to the condition of machines.
Lin Yutang on Blind Materialism
Chinese thinker Lin Yutang (1895-1976) brings to the
discussion the poetry and philosophy of ancient China, which is an ethnically “integrative”
nation itself according to Freyre.
Yutang says:
“Who can deny
that economic thinking has superseded all other forms of thinking, that
economic issues have obscured all other issues, that we are thinking of nothing
but applying poultices to our economic sores, and that our highest spiritual
hope is good business and plenty of consumer goods for all? And who can deny
that this power and profit motive contains in itself the seeds of future wars? (…..)
Far from being an empty phrase, materialism colors 95 per cent of our effective
thinking. In fact, it is strangling our thinking.” [8]
In order to tackle the disease of nuclear
proliferation which the media, big business ideology and statesmen stimulate one
way or another, one must listen to the Chinese thinker:
“Materialism is
the very stuff and fiber of modern thinking, which dominates all postwar
planning and makes a philosophy of peace impossible. Is it not true that almost
all our proposals for the future peace stem from the one assumption that the
cure for the ills of economic progress is more economic progress? Are we not
thinking of peace merely in terms of a free exchange of trade, free flow of
material, and ‘prosperity’? In other words, peace is canned goods, bigger and
better canned goods. Peace is a condition where we may sell and sell
abundantly. ‘Heaven’ itself is a concrete, fire-proof warehouse stocked to the
ceiling with canned goods. For the world is now business, political business
and economic business.”
Yutang concludes
his diagnosis:
“A nation is a
concern, a government is only its shop counter, and its diplomats are its
traveling salesmen trying to outsell its competitors and beat them to a new
market, and its publicists and thinkers are its expert accountants. The
audacity of these thinkers of peace hurts my soul.” [9]
Once the search
for money is considered everyone’s supreme goal in life, the way is paved for
future wars, atomic or not, and for all forms of social decay. Wars are seen as
good for business, as long as Life is despised and Money is our god.
If the Iberian
point of view gets together with the Russian, the Jewish, the Arab, the South
and Central American perspectives; and with the Chinese, the Indian and other
cultural and civilizatory experiences in order to re-evaluate the now
dysfunctional money-adoring materialism of the “white nations”, then the
hysterical or nonsensical aspects of nuclear proliferation (the psychotic dimensions
of irrationality) get clearer and easier to defeat.
When the poetic
“irrationality” of human communities is too harshly repressed by the
“rationalizing impulse”, then psychotic episodes like mass-murder, religious
terrorism and preparations for atomic war may occur.
Freyre
formulates a Sociology of civilizatory integration which helps preventing the
sources of psychotic behaviour on the part of heads of state and political or
religious leaders, and paves the way to universal brotherhood in our planet.
The Philosophy of Peace
There is a step ahead mankind needs to take in the
present century - the sooner the better -, in order to dispel the clouds of
nuclear war danger. It involves not only having an idealistic view of life, but
reducing the distance between dream and fact, thought and action, when dream
and thought are noble.
Lin Yutang writes about the philosophy of peace that can
heal an ailing civilization:
“What we need
above all is a theory of the rhythm of life and of the unity and
interrelatedness of all things. Without that faith, the doctrine of force
cannot be destroyed. The dichotomy between ideals and action must be resolved,
and an all-inclusive, comprehensive philosophy must be produced whereby ideals
may be brought down from the clouds again to activate the affairs of men on
earth. High-flown idealism and pedestrian realism must be joined together, so
that idealists are no longer regarded by businessmen as impractical and ‘realism’
is no longer an excuse for dispensing with ideals in men’s plans for action.
The rhythm of life and the unity and interrelatedness of all things must be
shown and shown conclusively, so that they become a part of our faith for daily
action.” [10]
Yutang’s view
of the world is theosophical. Seen as a tool, his philosophy makes it easier to
liberate mankind from the nightmare of nuclear weapons. The challenging task
needs a knowledge of human soul: the psychological source of the nuclear
nonsense has to be understood before one becomes fully able to remove it.
Iberian Countries and Atomic Warfare
The five
officially recognized nuclear-weapon states - China, France, Russia, United
Kingdom and the United States - committed themselves in 2000 to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the
total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” [11]
They must still forcefully act in that direction.
Ninety percent of the nuclear weapons belong to Russia
and the United States. The two should take the lead towards a healthier future.
It would give them the moral strength necessary to invite other states to
action.
Meanwhile, peaceful countries must be heard.
Just as Spain, Portugal and a number of nations around
the globe, the Iberian Americas have an integrative approach to the future of
mankind and are free from the nuclear weapons’ disease.
Former Brazilian President Michel Temer defended his country’s policy during the Third Nuclear Security Summit, in the Netherlands, in 2014. At the time he was still the vice-president of the country.
“Brazil is a Party to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which
established the world’s first nuclear-weapon-free zone among States”, Temer
said. “We defend, most of all, the launching of multilateral negotiations on a
convention banning nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination - in a
transparent, verifiable and irreversible manner - with realistic goals and
timelines.”
According to Michel Temer, “a world that accepts
nuclear weapons will always be insecure. It is essential to eliminate such
weapons, which, because of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of their
use, remain a permanent threat to humanity.” And he adds:
“The most effective way to reduce the risk that
non-state actors make use of nuclear explosives or their materials is the total
elimination of all nuclear arsenals.” [12]
The view is shared by a number of governments and millions
of citizens around the world.
Temer is a legal scholar and a long-standing
politician and statesman. As a Constitutionalist, he has several books
published on Law and Legal Consciousness. Brazil is the fifth-largest country
of the world by both area and population, and has 205 million inhabitants.
Mexico, Argentina and Brazil play a central role in
keeping Latin America free from such a nightmare. The Iberian Peninsula and the
Iberian Americas seem to have been saying something to the world, more in
actions than in words.
It is mentally insane to plan and prepare actions that would destroy
cities and nations in minutes, and provoke an unthinkable planetary catastrophe.
The act of making such preparations should be
submitted to a public psychoanalytic examination.
The scientists, politicians and heads of state
responsible for such institutionalized
insanity in thought as well as in preparatory actions would better heal
themselves and their institutions from this shameful illness in the soul. One first step in that direction would be to
study the lessons human community can learn from a sane psychological view of
human conflicts.
It is emotionally healthy and morally beautiful to
have respect for life: it is also necessary.
Everyone must have enough balance and common sense to
feel personally co-responsible for the bright future of our planet; and politicians
and heads of state are no exception to the rule.
NOTES:
[1] “Brazil an
Interpretation”, by Gilberto Freyre, published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1945,
1951, New York, chapter one.
[2] See for instance “Don Isaac Abravanel”, by B. Netanyahu, Cornell University Press,
fifth edition, 1998, 350 pp.; “Dialogues
of Love”, Leone Ebreo, The Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Library, University of
Toronto Press, 2009, 440 pp.; “Gabriel
da Costa, Rebel and Dreamer”, a novel on Uriel da Costa’s life written by
Jacob S. Minkin, A.S. Barnes and Company, 1969, 460 pages; and “A Filosofia Hebraico-Portuguesa”, by
Pinharanda Gomes, Guimarães Editores, Lisboa, 1999, 678 pp.
[3] See pages 2-4 of “Brazil an Interpretation”, by Gilberto Freyre, or pages 43-44 of the
Brazilian edition: “Interpretação do
Brasil”, Livraria José Olympio Editora, RJ-SP, 1947, 323 pp. On Santa María la Blanca, see p. 4, “Brazil an Interpretation”.
[4] “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”, in “Great Books of the
Western World”, a collection published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume
54, “Freud”, 1952 edition, 884 pp., see
p. 755.
[5] “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”, in “Great Books of the
Western World”, volume 54, “Freud”, 1952 edition, 884 pp., see p. 757.
[6] “The Portuguese and the Tropics”, Gilberto Freyre, translated by
Helen Matthew and F. de Mello Moser, International Congress of the History of
the Discoveries, Lisbon, 1961, 298 pp., see p. 296.
[7] “The Portuguese and the Tropics”, 1961, Gilberto Freyre, p. 295.
[8] “Between Tears
and Laughter”, Lin Yutang, Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1943/1945, 216 pp.,
p. 62.
[9] “Between Tears and
Laughter”, Lin Yutang, 1943/1945, 216 pp., pp. 61-62.
[10] “Between Tears
and Laughter”, Lin Yutang, Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1943/1945, 216 pp.,
p. 59.
[11] Source: a report by Arms Control Association.
[12] See in our associated
websites the article by Michel Temer entitled “Brazil on Nuclear Proliferation”.
000
The above article
was first published in October 2016 at our theosophical blog at “The Times of Israel”.
000
Readers are
invited to see in our websites the text “Old
Prophecies and Atomic War”, by
Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
000
In September 2016, after a careful
analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided
to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
000
