Ethics and values

“Eutopia 15” Abstract photograph 2015 © Jan Oberg David R. LoyTFF Associate October 21, 2020 “Hell is truth seen too late.” (Anonymous) Why would a small group of people want to crash hijacked airplanes into skyscrapers, killing thousands and terrorizing millions? Perhaps only religion can provide the motivation and collective support for such heinous deeds (occasionally including our dominant secular God, the modern nation-state). Does this mean that religious terrorism can be dismissed as just another example of religious fanaticism? Or is there a “logic” to fundamentalist terrorism, which makes it a regrettable but nonetheless understandable reaction to modernity? Mark Juergensmeyer and Karen Armstrong have shown that religious fundamentalism is not a return to premodern ways of being religious. Jewish, Christian and Islamic fundamentalisms are all recent developments reacting to what is perceived – to a large extent correctly, I shall argue – as the failure of secular modernity. Such...

By Maria Popova October 8, 2020 In the mid-1950s, as the icy terror of the Cold War was cloaking the embering rubble of two World Wars, the BBC producer and cartoonist Hugh Burnett envisioned an unexampled program to serve both as a cross-cultural bridge and a mirror beaming back to a dimmed and discomposed humanity the noblest and most beautiful ideas of its noblest and most beautiful minds. Originally published at brainpickings Face to Face — a series of intimate conversations with people of genius, influence, and exceptional largeness of spirit, interviewed by the British broadcaster and politician John Freeman — began as short-wave radio broadcasts to listeners in the Far East and soon became a BBC television program. Television was then a young medium, aglow as any young medium with the promise of its potential and blind to its peril — something reflected with chilling clarity in Burnett’s own...

Jørgen Johansen argues that, like terrorism before it, the Covid-19 pandemic is being used by politicians across the world to normalise exceptional restrictions on basic rights with political consequences that will long outlast the health emergency. In his book State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben examined the consequences of policies and regulations introduced in exceptional circumstances, which then become institutionalised as ’normal’, the state of exception becomes the rule. An illustration might be the USA’s Patriot Act of 2001, enacted after the 9/11 attack, which resulted in a massive expansion of government surveillance. Likewise, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp set up in 2002 as part of George W. Bush’s war on terror, where detainees have been held for indefinite periods without trial and subjected to torture. Originally published at rethinkingsecurity.org Proponents of such exceptional measures justified them by reference to the extraordinary context in which they were introduced – they were...

(Photo: Art by Mr. Fish/Original to Scheerpost) Regardless of the outcome, the election will not stop the rise of hypernationalism, crisis cults and other signs of an empire’s terminal decline. By Chris Hedges September 1, 2020 The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark yearnings among the white working class for vengeance and moral renewal through violence, the unchecked greed and corruption of the corporate oligarchs and...

Erni & Ola FriholtTFF Associerade och Fredsrörelsen på Orust 26:e augusti 2020 Obesvärat av coronatidens bromskrafter ökar historiens tåg farten. Vi märker i våra kupéer hur det förbisusande landskapet ändrar karaktär, med torra brandhärjade slätter och skogar, avlösta av slagregn och översvämningar under en blixtrande mörk himmel. I skrivande stund står en tredjedel av Bangladesh under vatten, ett land med 150 miljoner invånare. Människor på flykt söker skydd där de kan, här och där undsatta av stater som samarbetar för allas säkerhet. Samtidigt rapporterar den holländske journalisten Geert Mak om hatfyllda utfall från USAs ledande militärer, som pekar ut de skyldiga i Ryssland, Mellanöstern och allra mest Kina. Han talar om vikten av att hålla samman ett insiktsfullt, fredligt EU som motor i en utveckling i fred och samarbete. Vi sitter alla i historiens framrusande tåg, en del med gardinerna fördragna i hopp om att kunna stiga av i en...

Gordon Dumoulin July 27, 2020 While most people all over the world are debating the current health, geopolitical, and economic developments in the COVID19-era, the history train has already left the station quite some time ago for a drastic new destination as this era is a transformative time for humanity and earth; whether we like it or not, the train is already moving and shall not stop for a while – hopefully as that would not be good, to say the least. Although each cultural and geopolitical region having their own wagon and nations having their compartments, we are all onboard the same train. While people are discussing if tea or coffee should be served on the train, whether the train should run electrically or on fuel or if and how WIFI should be allowed, few people talk about the train’s destination. However, the destination will be the historical event...

Some may remember way back when US President Obama said that the US had now isolated Iran. The only problem was that on the very same day, some 130 leaders from the Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, were meeting in Tehran. The more the US withdraws from international treaties, imposes sanctions, threatens wars and otherwise antagonizes the rest of the world, the more that rest will search – and find – new partners and create a future world order that is not Western- or US-dominated. That’s what Iran is now doing. After sanctions since 1979, verbal harassment, a broken JCPOA (nuclear deal), accusations of being the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, maximal pressure policies, threat of massive war, bombings, liquidation of a top government representative, infiltrations and much else – why on earth should the leaders in Tehran (no matter what you may think about them and their policies) continue to seek...

Another tragic turning point for the – falling – West as civilization. Its moral irresponsibility is expressed by its roaring silence on this crystal clear and gross violation of international law and evil done to the Palestinian people for decades. It can be seen as a particularly nasty, nationalist form of a victim psychology à la Sigmund Freud’s Wiederholunszwang and Alice Miller’s repetition compulsion – you project onto others today what was done to you earlier. Add to that exceptionalism (like the US), state formation through ethnic cleansing (like the US), a belief in being a Chosen People (like the US), being an extremely militarist, over-armed and nuclear power (like the US) and seeing enemies everywhere without the thought that your own behaviour may create some of them – leading to constant fear/paranoia – and you have most of a recipe for self-destruction (like the US). Two leading countries, with...

Världen efter Corona – konstruktivt Hur kommer världen att se ut de närmaste årtiondena?Vilka val har vi? Hur kan fred och rättvisa fortfarande bli möjliga? 11:e juni 2020 Jan Öberg I maj höll jag en internationell föreläsning i två delar om förändringarna i världsordningen och om hur framtiden kan bli bättre för oss alla. Den var på engelska. Jag har nu spelat in en svensk version, dock med viss anpassning här och där till svenska förhållanden och en svensk publik. Det är en föreläsning som var tänkt att hållas i Henåns Kulturhus för Fredsrörelsen på Orust, Nordens bästa. Men den fick ställas in med anledning av Coronan. Här har du den i två delar – som den också finns på på TFF:s Vimeo-kanal: Del 1 Del 2 Stort tack om du kan hjälpa sprida budskapet eller återanvända föreläsningen i dina sammanhang – t ex i seminarer, undervisningsförlopp eller på din...

June 9, 2020 John Scales Avery In written Chinese, the word “crisis” is represented by two characters. One of these, taken alone, means “danger”. The other, by itself, means “opportunity”. A crisis nearly always leads to great change. There is a danger that this will be a change for the worse. But there also is the opportunity to change society for the better – to reform and improve it. Both paths are present in a crisis like our present one. We must strive with all our strength to make society take the right path. Our present crisis In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is in itself a crisis, many American cities have erupted in massive protests over the senseless killing by police of yet another black man – George Floyd. The country is deeply divided. Throughout the world there have been anti-racist protests, partly in sympathy with the...

On March 21 this year, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) published an article headlined Coronavirus in Russia: How Putin’s disinformation efforts could backfire at home and written by Judy Twigg, professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Take a look and get a sense of its quality, balance and bias. Having read it, I submitted the following comment underneath: I’m dismayed by this article. While there is no doubt that Russia is (mis)using information, this sort of thing must be seen as a tool, or weapon, in a conflict – a conflict Russia has with the 29-member NATO alliance. It is normal praxis for such high-ranking, respected and reliable media as yours to not talk about “the other” side’s weapons but looking at armament dynamics on both (or all) sides of a conflict formation. Just pointing fingers at one and keep quiet about the other side risks to...

The author in front of a part of his photo-based, multi-media installation, “Silk Peace Art Road – SPAR” which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2019 and will be shown in China 2020. Yesterday, The Necessary Teacher Training College, DNS, in Denmark held its annual conference on peace and justice. As a couple of times before, I had the honour of being invited to be the keynote speaker. Because of the Coronavirus, it was online and not onsite – and I had produced the lecture in advance and then there was a Q&A session in the afternoon via Zoom. The two-part lecture is now on TFF’s Vimeo Channel here: Part 1 Part 2 The discussion that followed after group work If you found this lecture interesting or useful, please help us do more in the future. Remember, TFF is 100% people-financed and therefore completely independent of the government and corporate...