Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A very interesting and engaging perspective “The political thought of John Gray provides an unblinking vision of the world, a  perspective of unclouded realism which reveals the intractability of today’s most pressing problems. Both Christian and Enlightenment ideologies have perpetuated the myth that humanity’s problems can be overcome, that history is a narrative of man’s progression and perfectibility. According to Gray, such ideas, which were typified by the Positivist movement, have come to rest at the core of liberal political philosophies, and are exemplified by Fukuyaman assertion that the ideals of Western liberalism represent the historical end-point of man’s ideological evolution. For Gray, however, claims to this effect are grounded on a number of flawed assumptions. In the first instance, they reproduce a Christian anthropocentrism which elevates the ‘story of mankind’ to a position of unparalleled significance. Secondly, they assume that ‘humanity’ exists, that diverg...

One o f the lessons o f the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness.  How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood  of Hitler's rise, when it was already as clear as daylight. I recall a  conversation with an economist who demonstrated the impossibility of  Germany's militarization from the interests of Bavarian brewers. And in  any case, according to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the  West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid.  It is the well-informed, farsighted judgments, the prognoses  based on statistics and experience, the observations which begin: "I  happen to be an expert in this field," it is the well-founded, conclusive  statements which are untrue. Hitler was against intellect and humanity. But there is also an intellect  which is against humanity: it is distinguished by well-informed superiority. —Max Horkheimer and Theo...

Free yourselves from the indoctrination presented to you as innate knowledge. My generation lived through war and fascism. Through this experience, we reached the conclusion that there should never be war again. My generation experienced fascism, which at first we accepted. We didn’t know about what was going on in the concentration camps — there were no Jews in my Pomeranian village, and we didn’t know what was happening to Jewish people. These were all realizations that I had to come to later. It was then that I came to the conclusion that this fascism — which was, of course, also an outgrowth from humanity — had an economic base supporting it. Where did the cannons come from, who built the bombers, who desired this? And who is alive today and profiting from war? Where do new developments come from? Anyone sitting in their car today with their sat nav should be aware that this is a by-product of the production of weapons for war. So, the only advice I can give is to critically qu...

This an adapted rewriting of Heinrich von Treischke’s statement. “International law becomes meaningless when any attempt is made to apply its principles equally to barbarian nations. The only way to punish the Palestinians  is to make them pay tens of times for what they did; it is the only sort of example they understand. For the Israeli state and its backers to apply international law in cases like this would not be either humanity or justice; it would be shameful weakness.” The original quote: In 1898, the German political scientist Heinrich von Treischke stated what many of his contemporaries would have regarded as the obvious: “International law becomes meaningless when any attempt is made to apply its principles equally to barbarian nations. The only way to punish a black tribe is to burn their villages; it is the only sort of example they understand. For the German empire to apply international law in cases like this would not be either humanity or justice; it would be shame...

I think it is a very good review of Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer .

 “ These are not the refugees we are used to…These people are Europeans…These people are intelligent, they are educated people…This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists." The limitations of humanity

“Il y a d’étranges possibilités dans chaque homme. Le présent serait plein de tous les avenirs, si le passé n’y projetait déjà une histoire. Mais, hélas ! un unique passé propose un unique avenir – le projette devant nous, comme un pont infini sur l’espace. On n’est sûr de ne jamais faire que ce que l’on est incapable de comprendre. Comprendre, c’est se sentir capable de faire. ASSUMER LE PLUS POSSIBLE D’HUMANITÉ, voilà la bonne formule.” André Gide, Les Nourritures Terrestres , 1897, pp. 13-14 “ There are strange possibilities in every man. The present would be pregnant with all futures if the past had not already projected its history into it. But, alas, a one and only past can offer us no more than a one and only future–which it casts before us like an infinite bridge over space.  We can only be sure of never doing what we are incapable of understanding. To understand is to feel capable of doing.  ASSUME AS MUCH HUMANITY AS POSSIBLE–let this be your motto.”

Beautifully written by Gabriel García Márquez in 1987. Let it be known that we knew love

A very good summary by an athropologist: What is the way forward for Muslims living in the West? I do not think there is a single answer to that question because Muslims in the West are not a single homogeneous group, sociologically or theologically. Nevertheless they are seen, and will continue to be seen, as a minority within the Western nation state. And given the widespread violence perpetrated by heavily armed Western states and lightly armed jihadists (a symbiotic relationship if ever there was one) Muslim minorities in the West will continue to be the object of suspicion and discrimination. Our concern in this matter should not be to find someone to blame but to try to understand the limits of action facing Muslim minorities. The very common suggestion that Muslims should undertake a reform of their own religious tradition to help prevent “Islamic extremist violence” assumes that Muslims constitute a single political subject, that they are entirely self-contained, and that refor...

"There is a powerful impulse within the electorates of the NATO states for their governments to give a lead to the world and really help the less fortunate overwhelming majority of humanity to improve their lives and strengthen their security and welfare. But we must bear in mind two unfortunate facts: first, that the NATO states have been and are hell-bent on exacerbating the inequalities of power and wealth in the world, on destroying all challenges to their overwhelming military and economic power and on subordinating almost all other considerations to these goals; and second, the NATO states are finding it extraordinarily easy to manipulate their domestic electorates into believing that these states are indeed leading the world’s population towards a more just and humane future when, in reality, they are doing no such thing."  —Peter Gowan, NLR, March-April 1999

I usually do not read the "gutter press" as Oscar Wilde called it, but I should make an exception this time of attractive headline on The Sun's front page: PM's ultimatum to MP's - BACK ME OR BACK BRUTALITY." One needs to learn that in life there are only two options: "You are either with us or with the terrorists" (George W. Bush). Here is how that great German novelist, Thomas Mann, would have replied to Theresa May, Trump and Macron who have been "foaming at the mouth monotonous catchwords". " This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervish-like repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstasy . . . and reason veils her face." — Thomas Mann, “An Appeal to Reason” in  The Be...

"Other critics, especially on the left, complain that Morton’s conception of the Anthropocene glosses over issues of race, class, gender and colonialism by blaming the entire species for the damage inflicted by a privileged minority. The focus on the human enshrined in the term Anthropocene is a particular target for critics. By referring to humans as a unified whole, they argue that Morton effaces distinctions between the affluent west and the other members of humanity, many of whom were living in a state of ecological catastrophe long before the notion of the Anthropocene became trendy on campuses in Europe and North America. Others say that Morton’s notion of politics is too woolly, or that the last thing we need when facing ecological challenges are abstract musings about the nature of objects."

Forbes or how to save capitalism and therefore humanity Unless it changes, capitalism will starve humanity by 2050

" At this critical moment in history, three questions need to be answered: What does the latest scientific evidence tell us about the approach of climate catastrophe? How is today’s monopoly-finance capitalism—with Donald Trump as its authentic representative—contributing to this impending planetary catastrophe? And what possibilities remain for humanity to avert an Earth-system calamity?"