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Articles
How to Deal With Modernity?
Jose Porfirio Miranda
“La Jornada Semanal”, No. 233; Noviembre 28, 1993.
Obviously to answer this question we first have to define modernity. It is a definite historical fact; we are not interested in the vague sense where everything new is called modern. The historical fact consists of a series of life altering radical changes which occurred, in the West from the 16th century until now and that now extend to the entire world. Aside from Max Weber, hardly anybody in sociology has done anything but analyze this historical fact. Fortunately the bibliography is large; nevertheless the series of changes can be reduced to six headings: technology, education, administration (and laws), politics, society and the intellectuals (1). But before defining them it is indispensable to be aware of three possible preconceived ideas that would make it impossible to have an objective appreciation of modernity.
The first, unfortunately, is very prevalent; it is the supposition that all that is new is good and therefore better than the old. This method of reasoning is not only irrational but anti-rational; it means we are not using reason when looking at things for what they are; that it is enough just to know the date of production, institution or ideology to decide if it is good or bad: if it is more recent then it is automatically better than the previous one.
The second method of reasoning is to suppose that Humankind by nature is good and that civilization corrupts it. As with the first idea, where we decide without examining it that we must embrace modernity, with the second we are against modernity without analyzing it - supposing that Humankind is naturally good and does not need to change. This is not the time to demonstrate that this popular belief is entirely false (2), it is enough to cite Nietzsche in brief about the conduct of human beings: to offend, to be violent, to despoil, to annihilate (3). This statement is indisputable as Nietzsche is the most avid advocate there ever was on what is natural. The human being, as Hobbes warned us, is a predator of its fellow being. Only Nazis can say that this is good.
The third prejudice consists in supposing that modernity is indivisible, a system in which no part can exist without the other. Having to see it as a block impedes all analytic and objective appreciation. Fortunately, systemic sociology has shown precisely that, between the parts (subsystems) of modernity there are interrelations and influences. The function that each subsystem plays with respect to the others could be fulfilled in another way; (4) each subsystem treats the other parts and the whole as something that must be manipulated, and not as something fatalistically determined in order to determine how it should be. Luhman says this very well: “No complex system can afford the luxury that everything depends on everything" (5). The integration of the whole is actually negative: it consists in “ avoiding that the operation of one subsystem leads another subsystem to unsolvable problems" (6). Nothing obliges us then to pronounce in favor or against modernity, warts and all. We can appreciate it with insight.
Part One
1) Technology. Today ecological damage has made this part of modernity the most controversial, but there are certain undeniable facts that should be stated before any discussion. For example, agricultural productivity. Since the beginning of agriculture, 10,000 years ago and through the 15th century, ten families produced enough food for themselves and one more family. By the middle of the last century 50 families produced enough for themselves and 50 more families. These facts allowed Marx to declare: the future of humanity is assured. Half of humanity can dedicate themselves to thinking, cultivating the arts and sciences, and inventing. This process did not stop here. Twenty years ago five families produced food for a hundred families in the more developed countries and today three families produce for a hundred. This abundance of food accounts for the spectacular demographic growth we have today. A second example is industrial productivity: the cost of producing cotton cloth has gone down a hundred times. This has permitted the general use of underclothing. It is not necessary to emphasize the advantages of this advance. A third example of modern technology is the use of electricity and refrigerators in homes, along with running water, toilets and showers. Also consider the inventions of Pasteur and Fleming: I am not exaggerating when I say that vaccinations and penicillin have saved hundreds of millions of lives. Enough of undeniable facts.
In modern technology there are two indefensible positions: the myth of progress and naturalism. It is not my idea here to show the middle road. The myth of progress says all inventions are good. Logically, as it is a universal affirmative proposal, it is enough to make exceptions of the refined techniques of brainwashing and torture by Don Mitrione. Concretely, what was happening was that the followers of this myth were looking only at the immediate effect and outcome of these inventions whereas today the secondary effects, which were not then contemplated, e.g. the erosion and destruction of the earth around us, have undermined this myth. In the future, humanity will have to minutely examine each new invention if we do not wish to destroy our planet and with it human life. But to conclude from this that modern technology has produced negative results is far from the truth. We are not going to idealize the earth. It is the means to an end for human beings. This traditional metaphysical thesis is still true. Technology, we say, has allowed the survival and betterment of millions of people, who under normal conditions would not have done so. There are people who say that it is not good that so many people are alive today, but one should ask these people, themselves, if they would have preferred not to have existed? It is cheap literature, not those who now exist, that answer yes.
It cannot be denied that to make serious estimates about demographic growth should not be deferred, but we must realize that the only argument for us to preserve the Earth is to facilitate the survival of future generations. The basis of our argument is life for humankind; so we cannot see as negative that, thanks to modern technology, so many people are alive who would not have been in the ordinary way.
It was necessary to fell many trees to have land to cultivate, but those who use this reasoning against modernity forget that today the regions where this is happening are regions where modernity has not arrived: The Amazons, Africa and Asia. The Canadians, Germans and the Scandinavians plant three trees for every one they fell. This is modern technology. This is the crux of the matter: to save the planet, we need more technology, not less. All the ecological concern is insufficient; we need more technology, not less. We must also remember that if humans do not intervene, it is a myth that nature by definition has an ecological balance. Elephants uproot thousands of hectares of forests in Africa. From studying fossils we know that thousands of species became extinct before the arrival of the human race. More technology is needed, but not a technology taken in by the myth that all inventions are good.
We must be discerning not only about future inventions, but also those that are already being used. For example if the Chinese had the same number of cars for every 100 inhabitants as they do in the USA it would add another 300 million vehicles to those already circulating on the planet; the atmosphere could not absorb that. Also, if the whole of the world population produced the same amount of garbage per person as the USA, we would drown in garbage. Humanity has no option but to simplify its lifestyle as was recommended (in theory) by Fourier in the last century and in practice by the Mennonites since the 16th century. Many of the frivolities that abound today in the First World are completely unnecessary; they are pseudo-necessities created by the publicity of businesses for their own gain. To eliminate them we need neither to live like monks nor be austere. On the contrary, we need to learn to enjoy life. The vacuum in our lives created by this publicity is constant and makes us incapable of really enjoying life.
2) Education. This point about modernity is more important than the previous one; if we treat it briefly it is because there is nothing controversial here. It is about something that had never existed before in any civilization: modernity introduced education for everybody. Before and all over the world, education and culture was the privilege of 1% of the population.
It must be pointed out that modernity does not include technical and productive education when it is against the idea of education for the masses. It is not about training, nor acquiring abilities (mental or manual) as in Japan. It is about thinking for oneself, reflecting adequately with order and opinions, appreciating art, acquiring learning and knowledge (such as history and philosophy) all of which do not have any pragmatic use. Western education has this end, nothing more. It means you are someone.
The dissemination of this type of education for all the world naturally comes up against difficulties which the spreading of technology does not. Not only is it necessary to have an enormous number of teachers but that it is their calling. Vocation and a love of learning and reading is impossible to create in one or two generations. All this is inherited by modernity from mediaeval times, the Renaissance and the intense intellectual thinking of the 18th century. In passing we must add that some of this happened in Mexico during the colonial period. First they destroyed the good in the educational system and then came the obligatory mediocrity of the last 60 years.
Also difficulties have appeared in recent decades: the commercialization of knowledge, that salaries depend on your academic diplomas. This second point (Education) is influenced by the fifth point (Capitalism) and threatens to ruin higher education in the short run. Nonetheless, this degenerative process is not necessarily irreversible.
3) Administration and Law. Sociological analysis of modernity gives this point the upmost importance: a government department of unparalleled efficiency was created. If it is discovered that certain things are necessary for the public good, they are done regardless of whom it affects. We would not have the hospitals, the police, the reservoirs, the schools or the highways that we have today if it had been necessary to obtain the consent and the voluntary monetary contribution of each and every one of us. Without the modern central government (started by the absolute monarchies) and without the settling of disputes authoritatively by the judges, it would have been impossible to have the social peace that the word “civilization” implies and that was necessary for production and education to reach higher levels than they had previously. It is a fact that all the countries in the world are copying the governmental and legal apparatuses of the West.
However, it is not a rosy outlook. It is enough to mention bureaucracy, the myth of individual rights, and the possibility (recently created) that governments through the use of computers can control and spy on the population down to the last detail. This tendency of certain rulers to believe that “mandatory” does not mean he who rules but ‘he who cannot be told what to do’. Similarly “loaning” means ‘he to whom we loan’, and tenant ‘ he who rents’, etc. Those who rule and those who are ruled have become etymologically synonymous. The myth of rights consists in believing that a positive law is to be obeyed despite its content, i.e. independently of whether it is moral or immoral. But it is one thing to punish someone who violates the law and another to say that the law is obligatory. Confining is not the same as obliging. If philosophy returns to its principles in the coming years, I believe that the myth of rights will disappear. On the other hand, bureaucracy is showing no signs of disappearing, and it can take away a great part of the efficaciousness of any government apparatus.
4) Politics. The political invention of modernity consists of democracy and human rights. The Greeks invented the word “democracy” but the reality is that it is recent and typically Western; so recent that women did not receive the right to vote until the twentieth century. In Athens four fifths of the population were slaves; they did not believe that all humans had infinite dignity, which is the only logical basis possible both for democracy and human rights.
According to T.H. Marshall, the sociological study of modernity has divided human rights into three chapters, which surely have come into being and become officially recognized in the following order. First, civil rights, then electoral, and finally labor rights, though these are not the actual words used by Marshall (7). Civil rights protect individuals against governmental intrusions in their lives, their freedom and their property. These are the most well-known and most mentioned of human rights in the English Declaration (1689), the American (1776) and the Universal (1948); e.g. the freedom of conscience, of movement and of a place of residence, of meetings, profession, marriage, etc. Electoral rights (according to democracy) allow the individual to participate in forming opinions and a collective decision; this includes the right to vote and be voted for. Apart from protection against work related accidents, labor rights guarantee minimum salaries, unemployment pay, health coverage and pensions. Remember that gaining the right to vote and be voted for was a long, slow process all through the 19th century, and that labor rights (in reality also called the welfare state) were gained in the twentieth century. Also remember that in Mexico the second chapter has not come, nor the third, as we still do not have a democracy and that the minimum salary and pensions are a farce while unemployment benefits have not been even nominally introduced here.
A. Giddons disputes with Marshall, denying that these three chapters or groups of rights have been an evolutionary process that developed on its own internal dynamics. Giddons reminds us that the second as well as the third chapters were obtained by very hard struggles and bloody clashes (8). Also it is untrue what Marshall seems to uphold that the process has been caused by the internal dynamics of capitalism; the capitalists opposed with all their might the official recognition of many of these rights. But Giddons’ argument seems superficial to me. From the beginning the true internal motor of all this process was not capitalism but the conviction of infinite dignity for the people. This conviction is the only possible basis of the thesis of equality of humankind; equality is not empirical in any way; and on the other hand those that say that we are equal as far as intelligence is concerned do not know what they are talking about. To say that the intelligentsia and the idiot are equal in intelligence is frankly a paradox; aside from that we need the insane, those lacking in intelligence, to be respected in their infinite dignity. The conviction of infinite dignity originates in that cauldron of mediaeval thought. Hegel writes: “The Scriptures say that God created man in his image, this is the concept of man” (9). This is what Westerners thought during the Middle Ages for a thousand years, and they have institutionalized this during modern times; we should not be surprised that they took so long to see the consequences of such a unique and anti-natural conviction in human history. It is not an historian’s exaggeration to state that the people of mediaeval times came to this conviction through meditating about the passion of Christ: as Christ died for everyone, so everyone has infinite dignity.
5) Society. Modern Society is called capitalism and basically is incompatible with the second and fourth points (Politics and Education). In the introduction we noticed that modernity is in no way indivisible. Capitalism is characterized by three elements: the search of one’s own gain as the only motive for one’s actions; privatization of production, and the stratification of society and of salaries, and therefore of people’s lives. The motive of one’s own gain is obviously incompatible with the respect of human rights of one’s neighbor.
The stratification of society on different levels is based on a slightly modified form of slavery; the original conviction said some should be masters and others slaves; today it means some should be rich and others poor and to make sure it stays this way, each job receives a different salary. As always there will be ‘lowly work’ (metal workers, turners, farm workers, carpenters, etc.), and there will always be management (managers, engineers, etc.), it is sufficient to say each will receive different salaries which will ensure that there will always be rich and poor in our society. In a strict economic analysis it is impossible to demonstrate that one type of job or another is more important to the overall work (10). If the workers of today have accepted that they will receive a lower standard of living than the company owners, it is because they have no choice as well as the fact they are convinced (a throw back to the days of slavery) that certain jobs should receive a lower salary. But this conviction, we repeat, is scientifically unjustifiable; it obeys an inertia of centuries: it was the slaves who did the humble jobs; those that do them today have simply inherited the habit of living at a lower level and as second class citizens. Also the atavistic conviction that women’s work (pregnancy, child rearing, housework, cooking, washing, etc.) is not as worthy as that of man. Even women persist in this error as well as Marx; following Smith, Marx says that domestic work is unproductive.
As to the privatization of production remember that, if modernity says that democracy is morally obliged, it is because of this: if there is no democracy, some would make all the decisions and thus they would treat the rest as objects, not subjects, which would refute the idea that everyone has infinite dignity. So, privatization means that economically some would make the decisions affecting the rest and would be treating them like objects not subjects. For this reason we say that capitalism is logically incompatible with the fourth point of modernity. The clearest symptom of this irreconcilability is the silence of the liberal thinkers on the rational ‘why’ of democracy; they have decided to defend democracy without giving reasons, just because that is the way it is. This ‘why’ not only is against the dictates of politics but also against economic privatization.
6) The Intellectuals. To the intellectuals, modernity brings confidence in reason, the assurance that there are truths (both ontological and moral) that can be proven equally or with better astringency than the thesis of natural science. For two reasons it seems to me this has an immense future. First, we need the confidence in reason to keep the rights as something that do not depend on the positive laws of any country; that is something that can be objectively demonstrated. And second, because if humanity in the future does not want to depend on the use of force and powerful imposition to reconcile differences, the only way would be to have a growing belief in rational demonstrations.
But you must really believe, knowing that reason can show reality in a definite way; do not half believe as Habermas proposes, (which surely refers to a consensus - a consensus not based on truth and therefore provisional and fallible); that if I accept it, I will have no moral or absolute obligations and can therefore deny it when it is convenient.
It cannot be rational to have a consensus that presupposes that truth does not exist. Habermas says: “ These strong concepts of theory, of truth and of the system, at least during the last 150 years, belong to the past” (11).
It is self-deceiving to say that rationality means that the method is rational whatever the reality is; we can only call a method rational for its ability to show us the reality, the truth. If reality is unknown, if truth does not exist, we lack all criteria to distinguish between rational and irrational methods.
Also, if we ask why should there be consensus in all this? Habermas is logically incapable of responding, and therefore his insistence in a consensus is an arbitrary whim. In effect, if we ask why have a general referendum, the only possible answer is: because we are all subjects and if we proceed without consulting them they become objects. So, this objective truth (that all are subjects) cannot be put to vote, nor depend on a consensus taking into account that the necessity of a consensus depends precisely on that. In order to defend the consensual theory of truth there is a need of a non-consensual truth, and for that reason is false.
It is a passing and quantitatively insignificant phenomenon that scepticism of some intellectuals has today become the fashion, where they declare that modernity is finished or near its end. We will analyze this interpretation in parts. Technology will be indispensable for us to fight contamination, and universities are thinking of abolishing everything except technical careers. The plan for education for everyone has a long way to go. State and judicial apparatuses are still deemed necessary. Human Rights is on a roll which, if we do not look at its history, we could say was just beginning. Capitalism, unfortunately, gives no sign of ending. Urban concentration is not an easily reversible process. The mass media is at its height. Then it can only mean the intellectuals themselves predict the end of modernity. But all of this is a strange prophecy: it is only to be found among a small group of intellectuals. Of course, this group is the most noticed because editors, always the salespersons, only publish the shocking and new; but this in no way represents the majority of the intellectuals of today, much less the majority of the population. For this group the belief in reason and the knowledge of absolute truths is finished, and what has happened to them in their private lives they apply to society in general and say that modernity has become sceptical. It is ‘wishful thinking’ so they do not feel alone.
Let us put forth an outstanding example of this mirage. Habermas says: “ In Western industrial societies religious conscience is disappearing” (12). Precisely at the moment in which new religious movements are multiplying as never before in Western history, this group of thinkers say that religious mentality is disappearing. Not only do the people still believe in the absolute truths like the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the objectivity of fundamental moral judgment, the creation of the world by God; but that this same structure of historical phenomenon known as modernity gives these truths a central role. A more impartial witness than Karl Poper, I could not find, just remember that Poper gives the word individualism a strange (though plausible) significance.
Individualism, united with altruism, has become the basis of Western civilization. It is the central doctrine of Christianity (“love thy neighbor”, says the scriptures, not “ love thy tribe”); and it is the nucleus of all ethical doctrines that have sprouted from our civilization and has stimulated it. It is also, for example, Kant’s central practical doctrine (“ Always recognize that human individuals are the end, and do not use them as the means for your own ends”). There has been no other thinking that has been as powerful in the moral development of humanity (13).
In the face of recent field studies the sociological dogma of secularization seems to be evaporating for sociology itself. Luhman says about secularization: “It has become an ambiguous word, used wrongly, a widespread concept" (14) And Talcott Parsons had already said in 1978:
In my opinion protestant ethics is far from dead. It continues to shape our way in important sectors of life, the same today as in the past. We continue to value systematic and rational work in our ‘vocations’, and we are driven, at some level, by a religious base. In my opinion, the instrumental apparatus of modern society cannot function without a generous component of this type of values (15).
From a quantitative and sociological point of view it is not true to say that the intellectual element of modernity is coming to an end: the group of sceptical intellectuals is less than 0.1% of the population. And from a qualitative point of view, being strictly logical, we must say that a philosophy still holds as long as it is not disproved. So, this is precisely what the intellectuals in question do not do: they do not go into the actual logic of the argument: on the contrary, they only say that confidence in reason is out of fashion; thus it is only out of fashion for them and only in self-justification they, among themselves, say it is out of fashion. Notice how, with pseudo-sociology, they exempt Habermas from analyzing the reasons of philosophy: “The interpretations of a superceded stage, whatever the information concerning the content, stays categorically devalued with the following. It is not this or that reason that is not convincing; it is the type of reason that is no longer convincing (16). It is the preponderance of the sceptic who does not heed reason because he has already decided that reason has nothing to do with it”. This heavy blow is too irrational and arbitrary to last, and is why I said it is a passing phenomenon. I will also tell you why it is notorious that any statement by the sceptics contradicts itself (17). It becomes too uncomfortable and even embarrassing to back a thesis which is contradicted on all sides; implicitly or explicitly it is saying to these thinkers: Gentlemen, what can your interviewer do more than demonstrate that your position is contradictory? What hope have human beings to understand us if this demonstration is not argument enough?
Second Part
How to deal with modernity? I reply: insist on congruency. Congruency on the inside in all its various forms, and congruency on the outside, towards the Third World. We are not at the end of an epoch. On the contrary: modernity will go on whether we like it or not. It is only important that the best becomes known and extends, eliminating the elements that logically are not compatible with it.
As to congruency on the inside, maybe it is not convenient to persist after what was said in my fifth point (Capitalism). We will only mention a point that concerns point number three (the legal system), where the incongruity should have been obvious a long time ago: this is the famous contractual liberty that is central to the codes of civil rights. With his always vehement cynicism, Luhmann praises to the skies one of the best results (reduction of complexity) of modernity: “With this, the contract stays, in spite of being a figure of law, it is not obliged by the existence of internal justice" (18). It is enough that the judicial system condones the contract as well as sanctions those who violate it, the fact that both sides signed it; they are not interested in justice. Ignoring the moral aspect evidently reduces much of the complexity of the world and its actions. The most flagrant case is labor contracts where the worker ‘accepts’ a low standard of living for himself, his wife and children. But Luhmann has not seen that by disregarding justice, there is incongruity: the principles themselves of contract rights establish that a contract is invalid if any of the clauses are made under duress or fraud; what greater duress than the prospect of dying of hunger if you do not accept? A gun to your head is no worse than that. And what greater fraud than the conviction, derived from slavery, that certain types of work deserve an inferior way of living and having second-class citizenship?
Looking outwards: modernity has a strict moral obligation to help the development of the Third World, if it is to be valid. But to be able to do this, it is necessary to throw away useless concepts of justice that in theory have been used and that could never have been a base for human rights. Few things have as much importance for the future than this.
In the first place, Aristotle’s concept of justice is the most disillusioning there ever was, and could not be anything else. It is a perplexing way out: fairness is being neither a coward nor rash, nor wastrel nor stingy, nor hypocritical nor braggart, nor impotent nor lascivious, nor teetotal nor drunk, etc. Pure manipulations that never yield positive justice, “take the middle path” or so say those that have nothing pertinent to say. It was impossible that a thinker, for whom slavery is not objectionable, to say that this is justice, a thinker who still does not know that all men have infinite dignity.
Second, the concept of justice of the Roman jurists, “to each his own”, is evasive; it is a completely empty concept, it does not say anything, it leaves us completely in the dark as to what is his “own”. And there is something worse: evidently that concept gives us an objectiveness, because it has been honestly acquired; the present distribution of wealth is to be protected, that each keeps his “own”. It supposes that justice has nothing to say against what exists, what is already owned (however it was acquired), that in society there are some rich and others poor, let us say not even against a society where some are masters and others slaves; then the master can maintain that the slave is “his”.
Third, the mediaeval concept of a “fair” salary brings with it the conservative Roman malady of the status quo, because it means that a fair salary is one that is sufficient for the worker and his family to satisfy the specific needs of the social class to which he belongs. To be fair is to conserve the hierarchy and stratification of society as it is. Remember those that are determined to rely on that which exists, show signs of the same perplexity and lack of a positive content that we see in the doctrine of Aristotle. Mediaeval philosophers were unable to conceive this concept of justice that was ripening in mediaeval religion.
Fourth, Rawl’s perception of justice is the worst of the lot (19). To connect justice with the search for one’s own interest is to suppress the moral character of justice. It says the same as Hobbes. Rawls wants us to imagine that we put ourselves in the “original situation” with a “veil of ignorance” before our eyes so that, without knowing what role we will play in society, we gauge impartially what level of wealth and prosperity corresponds to each one of us. Having very much in mind, if we do not judge with objectivity, that it could be to our detriment if life puts us in a role that we had not judged we deserve. The motive behind being impartial is the search of our own benefits, to avoid being hurt. The “intelligent” egoism (even worse) becomes the supreme norm.
Obviously, Rawls’ image is bogged down by logic itself. If egoism was intended, then in real life I have no need to keep the word given in the “original position”. My entire strategy can include in its calculations the fact that everyone else had agreed to impartiality, and therefore take advantage of their naivety. Originally I also promised and they can therefore be exploited unresistingly as they are unaware of my original plan.
As well there are contradictions in the actual fact that Rawls published his book. His system is built on the presupposition that the true cause of humankind is the search for his own benefit; without that it lacks sense. But if Rawl’s own cause is for its own benefit, why warn us by telling us, it would be to his advantage that we do not know; he would gain more if he left us ignorant. His book is a vicious circle. And if all is a manoeuvre to defraud us, then let him stay away from picking up and reading the book.
But, we repeat, independently of his contradictions the intolerable thing about this intention of Rawl’s is that it is an injustice without morals. The future of humanity depends on our recognizing this: morals begin precisely where the searching for our own benefit ends. In this consists the categorical imperative in contrast to the conditional.
The Third World, appealing to the First, must make the true concept of justice prevail: respect towards the infinite dignity of all. This is simply to insist on congruity, for it is this concept, and not any of the four we have mentioned, on which the declaration of human rights is based. There must not be a separation between the concept of justice and demonstration that it is obligatory to have justice. Actions determine the content of the concept. So, in this case, the only possible demonstration is to comprehend the categorical imperative that directs us with reference to all people and translated means that everyone has infinite dignity. This is the content of the concept of justice. I say they should not be separated because it would not serve a purpose having the concept of justice if it did not show that it is obligatory to be just.
The inhabitants of the Third World are also people and therefore have infinite dignity. But the very omission of helping them sins against the concept of justice. The poor and underdeveloped did not ask to come into the world, they do not deserve their suffering, and it follows that it is an injustice that they suffer. It is immoral for people to see this and not feel, no more, no less. People from the First World should tell themselves: they deserve exactly the same respect as I do.
It is very important to be aware that only in this concept can the ecologists base their call to save the planet. To call upon instinct to conserve and to have one’s own gain does not work. If it meant that, I am let off the hook, the catastrophe will not touch me, what does it matter what happens to the next generations? The only solid argument is a consistent justice respecting the dignity of future persons. If this argument is not possible, there is no reason for the present generation to look after the earth. Now, the Third World argues thus: there is the same injustice in discriminating those who are far away in space as in discriminating those far away in time. They are both people. If there is no reason to look out for the underdeveloped countries there is also no reason to look after the planet.
We must denounce the injustices that I have just mentioned, and not a supposed exploitation of the Third World by the First, which probably does not exist and only serves to provoke a collective self-compassion that only pleases oneself. Instead of being an objective analysis it is a sick demagogue that forgets how frequently is the case that we blame others for one’s own faults. The only thing gained is that the undeveloped world is no longer undeserving.
Let me cite in brief Johannes Berger’s objective analysis:
Developed countries on the whole trade with each other, having only a small volume of trade with underdeveloped countries, while the latter have very little trade among themselves the bulk of their trade is with the developed countries. This allows us to conclude that the developed countries can live perfectly well without trading with the underdeveloped countries but the latter cannot live without trading with the developed countries (20).
This possibility that the developed countries could be self-sufficient is corroborated by world statistics on food: together Europe, Canada, USA and Australia have 30% of the world’s population and produce 60% of the world’s food (21). Having food one can do without the rest of the world. On the other hand the Third World is not self-sufficient in food.
It would be evasive and a lack of objectivity to suggest that the volumes of trade put together by Berger is a mirage caused by price differences and that exploitation in effect brings down prices of Third World products and elevates prices of First World products. It was not Jimmy Carter and Europe that fixed oil prices in 1973; it was the Arabs, and it has had lasting effects: before 1973 a barrel of crude cost 2 dollars and today costs 17. And if all the tropical countries, instead of producing food for its people, produced coffee, there would naturally be over production and the price falls; but it is not the First World that fixes it. And the same could be said of bananas and sugar. As for the rest, the facts are precisely the opposite to what this demagogy supposes: American furniture is cheaper than the Mexican, American milk is cheaper than the Mexican, American rabies vaccines are three times cheaper than the Mexican, American telephone service costs half of the Mexican, American paper is cheaper than the Mexican, the same can be said of photography equipment, cutlery, china, clothes, small electrical appliances, meat, chicken, eggs, wheat, maize, sorghum, etc. How can someone, with these facts, sustain that the First World inflates its own prices and takes down ours? Also, how can you value surgical technology that the First World exported, the use of penicillin, the invention of electricity, science, the music of Bach, ideas, books, the formation of intellectuals?
No! Denouncing these injustices, of which some are doubtful, how can we do something positive for our countries, without warding off the true concept of justice and insisting on congruity with modernity.
Notes:
(1) The point called science could be reduced partly to the technical, partly to the educational and partly to the intellectual. Those that cannot be reduced are these two points: urbanization and the mass media. We omit these to be brief and because the philosophical side would not make our general line of argument any different. But I recognize that this omission is a sociological deficiency in what we do here. Nobody is perfect.
(2) See my book Hegel tiene razón (Hegel was right). UAM-Iztapalapa, México 1989, chap. VI.
(3) Friedrich Nietzche, Genealogía de la moral, trad. A. Sánchez Pascual, Alianza, México 1989, p. 86
(4) Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1991
(5) Niklas Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, Surkamp, Frankfurt, 1992, p. 184
(6) Ibid, p.242
(7) T.H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, UP, Cambridge, 1950
(8) A. Giddons, Profiles and Critique in Social Theory, London, 1982
(9) G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlosungen über die Philosophie der Religion, 2 vols., Meiner, Hamburg, 1974, Vol. II, p.127.
(10) L. J. Zimmerman, Geschichte der Theoretischen Volkswirtschaftslehre, Bund, Colonia, 1954, p. 135-140.
(11) Junger Habermas, El discurso filosófico de la modernidad, trad. M. Jiménez Redondo, Taurus, Buenos Aires, 1989, p. 253, n.7.
(12) Junger Habermas, Zur Rekonstruktion der Historischen Materialismus, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1976, p. 52.
(13) Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, 2 vols. Routledge, London, 1974, vol. I, p.202.
(14) Niklas Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, op cit, p. 225, see investigations cited in the notes for p. 225-226.
(15) Talcott Parsons, Action Theory and the Human Condition, New York, 1978, p.320
(16) Teoría de la acción comunicativa, 2 vols. Translation by M. Jiménez Redondo, Taurus, Madrid, 1987, vol. I, p. 101, Habermas in italics.
(17) Article by Jose Porfirio Miranda in the Jornada Semanal, 18th April 1993 called La Farsa llamada escepticismo (The Farce called Scepticism).
(18) Niklas Luhmann, Rechtssoziologie, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1987, p. 327
(19) Rawls, A Theory of Justice, UP, Harvard, 9th edition, 1978.
(20) Apud Johannes Berger (editor), Die Moderne-Kontinuitaten und Zäsuren, Schwartz, Göttingen, 1986, p. 84 and subsequent pages.
(21) H. Glubrecht apud Gadmer y Vogler (editors), Sozialanthropologie, Thieme, Stuttgart, 1972, p.56.
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