We are all Stoics now | The Vineyard of the Saker

By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission

The Philosophical Silk Road as celebrated at an Italian airport: a meeting of Chinese and Greek/Latin stoicism

Stoics would approve: Following a decree issued by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on March 9, all commercial activities have been required to close after 6 pm with the exception of food shops. The squares of Italian cities have emptied; bars, restaurants, cafes and covered markets are now deserted. Movement is allowed only for business purposes and home deliveries and for close personal reasons. The streets are patrolled by police forces. This photo was taken at Piazza Capitaniato, Padua, on Monday. Photo: AFP / Roberto Silvino / NurPhoto

Earlier this week a delegation of Chinese medics arrived at Malpensa airport near Milan from Shanghai on a special China Eastern flight carrying 400,000 masks and 17 tons of equipment. The salutation banner the visitors rolled out on the tarmac, in red and white, read, “We’re waves from the same sea, leaves from the same tree, flowers from the same garden.”

In a stance of supreme cross-cultural elegance, this was inspired by the poetics of Seneca, a Stoic. The impact, all over Italy, where people still study the classics, was immense.

The Chinese were consulted in advance and they preferred Seneca to a Chinese saying. After all, for China, a 5,000-year-old civilization-state that has confronted perhaps more than its share of instances of luan (“chaos”), there’s nothing more rejuvenating than post-chaos.

China is donating coronavirus test kits to Cambodia. China sent planeloads of masks, ventilators – and medics – to Italy and France. China sent medics to Iran, which is under unilateral, illegal US sanctions – and to Iraq, which the Pentagon is bombing again. China is helping across the (Eurasian) board, from the Philippines to Spain.

President Xi Jinping, in a phone call with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, pledged in the wake of Covid-19 to establish a Health Silk Road, a companion to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative.

Thus, finally, there’s the Philosophical Silk Road celebrated at an Italian airport, a meeting of Greek/Latin stoicism with Chinese stoicism.

Slave, orator, emperor

Stoicism, in Ancient Greece, was pop culture – reaching out in a way that the sophisticated Platonic and Aristotelian schools could only dream of. Like the Epicureans and the Skeptics, the Stoics owed a lot to Socrates who always stressed that philosophy had to be practical, capable of changing our priorities in life.

The Stoics were very big on ataraxia – freedom from disturbance – as the ideal state of our mind. The wise man cannot possibly be troubled because the key to wisdom is knowing what not to care about.

So the Stoics were Socratic in the sense that they were striving to offer peace of mind to Everyman. Like a Hellenistic version of the Tao.

The great ascetic Antisthenes was a companion of Socrates and a precursor of the Stoics. The first Stoics took their name from the porch – stoa – in the Athenian market where official founder Zeno of Citium (333-262 BC) used to hang out. But the real deal was in fact Chrisippus, a philosopher specialized in logic and physics, who may have written as many as 705 books, none of which survived.

The West came to know the top Stoics as a Roman trio – Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. They are the role models of stoicism as we know it today.

Epictetus (50-120 AD) was born as a slave in Rome, then moved to Greece and spent his life examining the nature of freedom.

Seneca (5 BC-65 AD), a fabulous orator and decent dramatist, was exiled to Corsica when he was falsely accused of committing adultery with the sister of emperor Claudius. But afterward he was brought back to Rome to educate the young Nero, and ended up sort of forced by Nero to commit suicide.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (The Younger) c5 BC-65 AD. Roman Stoic philosopher, committing suicide in his bath, having antagonised Nero. Photo AFP / rom Hartmann Schedel ‘Liber chronicarum mundi’ (Nuremberg Chronicle), 1493 woodcut, Nuremberg

Marcus Aurelius, a humanist, was the prototypical reluctant emperor, living in the turbulent second century AD and configuring himself as a precursor of Schopenhauer: Marcus saw life as really a drag.

Zeno’s teachers were in fact Cynics (the nickname affixed to them came from a Greek word meaning “dog-like, currish, churlish”) whose core intuition was that nothing mattered more than virtue. So the trappings of conventional society would have to be downgraded to the status of irrelevant distractions at best. Few of today’s (lowercase) cynics would qualify.

It’s enlightening to know that the upper classes of the Roman empire, the 1%, regarded Zeno’s insights as quite solid, while predictably deriding the first punk in history, Diogenes the Cynic, who masturbated in the public square and carried a lantern trying to find a real man.

As much as for Heraclitus, for the Stoics a key element in the quest for peace of mind was learning how to live with the inevitable. This desire for serenity is one of their linkages with the Epicureans.

Stoics were adamant that most people have no clue about the universe they live in. (Imagine their reaction to social networks.) Thus they end up confused in their attitudes towards life. In contrast to Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics were hardcore materialists. They would have none of that talk of “Forms” in an ideal Platonic world. For the Stoics, these were nothing but concepts in Plato’s mind.

For the Epicureans, the world is the unplanned product of chaotic forces.

The Stoics, in contrast, thought the world was a matter of organization down to the last detail.

For the Epicureans, the course of nature is not pre-determined: Fate intervenes in the form of random swerves of atoms. Fate, in ancient Greece, actually meant Zeus.

For the Stoics, everything happens according to fate: an inexorable chain of cause and effect, developing in exactly the same way again and again in a cycle of cosmic creation and destruction – a sort of precursor of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence.

Resigned acceptance

The Stoics were heavily influenced by Heraclitus. Stoic physics dealt with the notion of interpenetration: the physical world as a stirred concoction of intermingled substances, quite an extraordinary precursor of the equivalence of energy and matter in Einstein.

What the post-modern world retains from the Stoics is the notion of resigned acceptance – which makes total sense if the world really works according to their insights. If fate rules the world, and practically everything that happens is out of our hands, then realpolitik means to accept “everything to happen as it actually does happen,” in the immortal words of Epictetus.

Thus it’s pointless to get excited about stuff we cannot change. And it’s pointless to be attached to things that we will eventually lose. (But try selling this notion to the Masters of the Universe of financial capitalism.)

So the Way, according to the Stoics, is to own only the essentials, and to travel light. Lao Tzu would approve. After all, anything we may lose is more or less gone already – thus we are already protected from the worst blows in life.

Lao-Tzu (c.604-531 BC) on his Buffalo, Qing dynasty (ceramic) by Chinese School, (18th century); Musee Guimet, Paris. Photo: AFP

Perhaps the ultimate Stoic secret is the distinction by Epictetus between things that are under our control – our thoughts and desires – and those that are not: our bodies, our families, our property, our lot in life, all elements that the expansion of Covid-19 has now put in check.

What Epictetus tells you is that if you redirect your emotions to focus on what is in your power and ignore everything else, then “no one will ever be able to exert compulsion upon you, no one will hinder you – neither there’s any harm that can touch you.”

Epictetus the Greek Stoic philosopher. Photo: AFP / ©Costa/leemage

Power ultimately irrelevant

Seneca offered a definitive guide that we may apply to multiple strands of the 1%: “I deny that riches are a good, for if they were, they would make men good. As it is, since that which is found in the hands of the wicked cannot be called a good, I refuse to apply the term to riches.”

The Stoics taught that to enter public life means to spread virtue and fight vice. It’s a very serious business involving duty, discipline and self-control. This goes a long way to explain why over 70% of Italians now applaud the conduct of the prime minister in the fight against Covid-19. Conte did rise to the occasion, unexpectedly, as a neo-Stoic.

The Stoics regarded death as a useful reminder of one’s fate and of the ultimate insignificance of the things of the world. Marcus Aurelius found enormous consolation in the shortness of life: “In a little while you will be no one and nowhere, even as Hadrian and Augustus are no more.” When circumstances made it impossible to live up to the ideals of Stoic virtue, death was always a viable Plan B.

Epictetus also tells us we should not really be concerned about what happens to our body. Sometimes he seemed to regard death as the acceptable way out of any misfortune.

At the top of their game the Stoics made it clear that the difference between life and death was insignificant, compared with the difference between virtue and vice.

Thus the notion of a noble suicide. Stoic heroism is plain to see in the life and death of Cato The Younger as described by Plutarch. Cato was a fierce opponent of Caesar, and his integrity ruled that the only possible way out was suicide.

According to Plutarch’s legendary account, Cato, on his last night, defended a number of Stoic theses during dinner, retreated to his room to read Plato’s Phaedo – in which Socrates argues that a true philosopher sees all of life as a preparation for death – and killed himself. Of course he became a Stoic superstar for eternity.

The Stoics taught that wealth, status and power are ultimately irrelevant. Once again, Lao Tzu would approve. The only thing that can raise one man above others is superior virtue – of which everyone is capable, at least in principle. So, yes, the Stoics believed we are all brothers and sisters. Seneca: “Nature made us relatives by creating us from the same materials and for the same destiny.”

Imagine a system built on a selfless devotion to the welfare of others, and against all vanity. It’s certainly not what inequality-provoking, financial turbo-capitalism is all about.

Epictetus: “What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? ‘I was practicing for this, I was training for this.’” Will Covid-19 show to a global wave of practicing neo-Stoics that there is another way?

ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 7:12 pm EST/EDT

thank you for battling through it with all its mistakes. I appreciate that

the most salient lesson that may be gleaned through the history of revolutionary activity is the question of class interest and how these manifest themselves relative to social positions to product of society. those who do not work in the production of the means of society but decide on it are the parasites..the capitalists, politicians, bureaucrats and organizations to whom allocations are made from the wealth produced by workers

there are professionals who are not like that, who earn their own keep and are concerned with truth in their professions and in social relations..the centralityof truth in the survival of humanity. but those who feed off the people will never work in the interest of truth and democracy, will always support hierarchical expploitative social organization. which makes all they do anti-social and anti life in society. hence the danger of political parties in particular..and all other minority organizations supposedly concerned with the peoples interests..organized around those interests. these betray those interests all the time

these are front and center in the peoples movement, usurp the peoples movement all the time, betray the peoples interest to the elites. which is why during precious revolutionary times the people move and successfully take over society only to be led astry by the supposedly great intellectuals who have been ‘fighting’ the status quo for so long

they were in fact bever fighting the status quo at all. they in likelihood were paid for by the rich, paid directly by the rich all along to do what they were/are there to do..lead the people astray. they and their parrties and groups,are often created by the rich, set up to take over the progrsssive popular social movements of the people and betray then all..everywhere in the whole world

so it is not in the peoples interest at all to follow leaders without question. it is in the peoples interest to develop their own individual facility in history/politics/money-economy etc., so that they can function at their highests levels at all times in society, be able to question their leaders and tell who they are..traitors or not. and when the time comes to deal with them most effectively relative to whom we have proven them out to be.

there have been times when workers in unions for eg., knew their leaders were traitors.. so when these workers wanted to do anyting relative, especially strike actions, the workers never told them, simply decided among themselves and on the way out the door, told their leaders they were on strike.

the workers conducted all their business that way. their leaders were there but they were made redundant. change them? all who went up there were likely to be bribed and become traitors.. if they were not already.

and so in all facets of life especially in the politics ther is that potential to betray by class interest relative to ones job and place on the feeding line, at the trough of the overall pile of worker production. and when it comes to revolutionary time these are the people who insert themslves at the head of the popular movements that overthrow the state…the revolutionary ordinary people, working class etc

these traitorous folk..all of them need the workers to remain right where they are, en place, so they can these folk can continue their lives in ‘leadershp’ of them’ they are going to place themslves at the head of the revolution and betray the revolution comprehensively, as they have done time and again in historical experience.

so it is important for ordinary people, the working classes to understand this totally..who there enemies are collectively..all of them and so develop the means to deal with them routinely in regular life, and how to proceed relative to them, when the ordianry people decide to move to change fundamentally their state of life in the society

the ordinary people, working classes must be able to move ‘spontaneously’ without benefit of such leadership, and to move to take over society, and do so as completely when they move..by creating forms of running society in the interest of the people..all of them without the benefit of input by those traitorous social factors called leaders..of unions andpoliical parties, bureaucracies and the like. by developing popular forms of social organization, the people at once eliminate any need for bureaucracy and political parties etc. by establishing such popular forms of social organization, political parties die, redundant, unnecessary, no role to play. that ends any chance that political parties can betray the people by creating hierarchical state capitalisms bureaucratic dictatorships and the like

that is what the people must do to win and keep their democracy..the utter removal of sustenance for all forms of social parasitism. there must be no way, no nieche for any such to exist in society, as the people proceed with working out the ways they can run things in the interest of society as a whole. the process the people create must be totally democratic, requiring the partricipation of all in the governng process. and all this is possible, easily… has been discussed and analyzed by many thinkers, the results of their work there for all to see and avail themselves of

it must come from the people in creative political/revolutionary action, out in the streets taking over society and removing the capitalists and their supportive officialdom from power… the people creating in place, the organizational means that will take humanity forward in democracy

it is quite unnecessary to tolerate any party/group that is not part of the general productive forces/rocess of society..that is the production of the means of survival of the society.

no one/group must be able to live off the production of society unless they participate in production, save the old.. who are pensioned, having given a life time of work in the general developmenht of the society.

it is the work of, the responsibility of the people in collective political action..rather social action to solve societys problems, needs and requirments from the total wealth of society now available to all the people..because they took it over from the parasites who now feed off it in largess, while the people suffer because the product of heir labour has been taklen away from them

now is the time to take it back and in the process completely revolutionize the way society functions: and in the process continuing, end all social evil..like war..that the elites use against the people, to shut them down, to tax them, to waste their lives.. especially the lives of young men and women who in the flush of youth are likely to be more progressive, revolutionary, than not, totally disatisfied with the awful social inequality that exists, and the torment they are tasked with, to visit on the poor people of color the world over.

88 Comments

Elten on March 21, 2020 · at 3:31 pm EST/EDT

Concerning Stoicism…. Is Pepe referring to Bruce Hornsby….That is just the way it is…?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=GlRQjzltaMQ

Then I concurr with his post, no matter how much learned it looks. I mean stoicim is a simple man’s outlook.

But….the reference to Lao-Tzu (c.604-531 BC) is not clear to me (unless Lao-Tzu was a pre- stoic), then everybody is a stoic, before and after the stoics. So we are all stoics.

All claims of having control are vain. Contrary to Pepe’s assertion that:

‘The Stoics, in contrast, thought the world was a matter of organization down to the last detail.’

I can hardly find that an expression of stoicism, which ( to me) would be more like ‘going with the flow’ and take the currents on your way.

Thus, finally, there’s the Philosophical Silk Road celebrated at an Italian airport, a meeting of Greek/Latin stoicism with Chinese stoicism.

Removed. Mod.
- Alfred (Cairns) on March 21, 2020 · at 5:07 pm EST/EDT
  
  I thoroughly agree.
  
  Has Pepe ever worked checked how much it would cost to a standard container from Shanghai to Venice overland? And compared it to the cost of sending it by sea?
  
  Is the two weeks faster really worth it?
  - Nev on March 22, 2020 · at 12:40 am EST/EDT
    
    The sea routes are controlled by the hegemon and the container may not make it at all. The land route is intended to reduce that risk
- MC on March 22, 2020 · at 10:46 am EST/EDT
  
  I like your thought: ‘The Philosophical Silk Road celebrated at an Italian airport’! What a great sentence for Pepe’s philosophical article.
  
  Perhaps, there is certain optimism around us… I feel that we are becoming more creative.
Pamela on March 21, 2020 · at 4:00 pm EST/EDT

Who is this “we” of whom you speak Mr. Escobar? :-)

You say that “the Stoics were heavily influenced by Heraclitus” but it’s difficult to find Heraclitus major thesis in this exposition of “acceptance of whatever”. To decide to die like Cato, on the belief that all life is is a precursor to death does not resonate with Heraclitus view of the one constant in the Universe being change, yet that change is around an unchanging centre.

It was a remarkably prescient, even insightful, knowledge, that of Heraclitus. He pre-empted Biochemical knowledge of homeostasis and Chaos Theory sub theory of Complexity. .

From the activity of homeostasis in living bodies, to the Universal Law that all complex entities, from molecular up to social groupings occurring by the formation of a central core of Like drawn to Like, and maintained at it’s optimum by the free flowing feed back loops, this claim of the Universal is demonstrated

Surely the most important activity we can engage in is to learn what are the natural feed back loops to all things and then learn how to fit our life choices around them in order to find balance.

I dont quite see that ability to face change – whether disastrous or wonderful – by learning how to live within a natural feed back loop to maintain the balance, as equal to the stoic belief that all we have to do is suffer and die :-)
- Anonius on March 22, 2020 · at 11:52 am EST/EDT
  
  I suggest searching the Internet using “Ηράκλειτος” and you will get, among other things:
  Kλεμμένα, άλλα όχι καλά φυλαγμένα (Stolen, but not hidden) quotes stolen, modern “philosophers” from ancient Greeks (the names are in latin letters):
  https://klemena.blogspot.com/2009/02/quotes.html
  His page in wikipedia
  https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ηράκλειτος
  Italian pages?
  http://treccani.it/enciclopedia/heraklitos_(Enciclopedia-dell'-Arte-Antica)/
  http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tag/sosos/
  The Dark Philosopher:
  https://www.huffingtonpost.gr/2015/12/26/heraclitus-philosophia_n_8878296.html
  From Stanford?:
  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/
  Video by some Chinese fellow (Heraclitus the Dark):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGYasfQoEYg
  
  Unfortunately, unlike in previous centuries, the real philosophy is kept in secret, this is why all aristocrats in those were fluent in Greek in Latin.
  Regards
Larchmonter445 on March 21, 2020 · at 4:16 pm EST/EDT

Philosophy Course by Pepe.

Fate, virtue, health and others. Selfless behavior in a crisis.

Our only possessions that we can control are our thoughts and our desires.

It takes a pandemic to force us to accept the limits of existence, and to see the beauty within the limits.

Pepe Escobar should have a video course online. He’s a marvelous intellect.
- Pamela on March 21, 2020 · at 4:34 pm EST/EDT
  
  It’s a mistake, I think, to leave control over our bodies out of this.
  What we eat, when, how, exercise, sleep, are all in our control – although i guess a split hair could be that those choices derive from thought anyway.
  But I prefer to make it a separate area, in order to make sure it doesn’t get left out.
  - Larchmonter445 on March 21, 2020 · at 5:29 pm EST/EDT
    
    Well, you are right to think that way.
    
    After all, the Stoics tended to fatalistic suicide.
    
    Philosophies are a buffet of ways to journey through life. You have to be selective, a little of this, a little of that.
    
    Definitely, this pandemic reminds us that taking care of our immune systems changes our life potential.
    - Babuška on March 21, 2020 · at 5:44 pm EST/EDT
      
      My 91 year old mother with Alzheimer Disease is in a supremely caring nursing home which at this point has nil cases of infection.
      
      My almost fifty year old son yesterday had us in fits of laughter when he declared: no virus -Corona or otherwise, is going to kill Oma!
      
      Simply because his grandmother has practiced healthy nutrition all her life. And no philosophy. No religion. Just healthy survival. Not so healthy was her relationship with her husband. That is another story. She finally found her freedom- Happy and Healthy in her nursing home.
      
      My son has only ever known her to be indestructible with unfailing good cheer- to this day.
      - Anonymous on March 22, 2020 · at 2:31 am EST/EDT
        
        I surmise that she didn’t shun a shot of the universal disinfectant which ‘burns’ the bugs, known as ‘little water’ or ‘water of life’. To your health.
        
        Oū Sī / 區司/ Usman on March 22, 2020 · at 10:19 am EST/EDT
        
        And “na zdaroviye” to the old laydie’s health as well. My own old mother (93) keeps up another way altogether , however: She goes around the world to fight for peace, women’s rights and the environment against the super.rich and (North-)Atlantisist and Zionist imperialism, racism and general scumbagishness: Keeps her fully occu-ied!
        She retains her socialist ideals and the christian beliefs of her youth — never bothers others with the latter, though!
        
        Babuška on March 22, 2020 · at 4:54 pm EST/EDT
        
        Thank You
        
        Respect to you and your Grand (as in impressive) mother – this world needs good people of integrity and courage
        
        Very best wishes and on-going success to you and your family
        
        Babuška on March 22, 2020 · at 5:02 pm EST/EDT
        
        Thank You
        
        I’m sorry to shatter your surmise- no, no water of life; just a glass of red with dinner every night while my father lived.
        
        Most people do or use what works for them, until it doesn’t work anymore. My father died as he lived and my mother is doing/will do the same.
        
        They each got what they wanted.
        
        Peace and good health to you too
        
        Babuška on March 22, 2020 · at 5:37 pm EST/EDT
        
        This is for Anonymous at 2.31am
        Thank you again
        
        Bewildered Babuška must have pressed the wrong button
        
        Anonymous on March 24, 2020 · at 7:22 pm EST/EDT
        
        God made ‘wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil that makes his face to shine and bread that sustains his heart’, in that order (Psalm 103:15).
    - Pamela on March 21, 2020 · at 6:27 pm EST/EDT
      
      With all philosophies, it pretty much comes down to finding a guide to the choices we make.
      Where we have no choice, nothing matters. It must be pretty much what happens to those in a totally, dystopian like, control system. All choices are removed, therefore there is no need for any philosophy anyway.
      In such a case, I think the story writer for the Sci-Fi move “Serenity” was correct: people would once again, just give up and die.
      The consideration of that which we see as being in our control still comes down to the choices we make: shall I eat this good food, or that junk? shall I smoke or not? Exercise, play sport, or couch potato? We have these choices and need to act on them.
      That was, I think part of the simpler world we had. As I child in a village, that was all I knew of what everyone did; make your own good food, eat little of it, spend hours out in the long summer days on your feet, grow things in a garden, all because this was a healthy way to live and therefor an honourable way
      So much has been taken away by destroying any idea of philosophy among the mass of people I feel.
      - tomo on March 21, 2020 · at 8:11 pm EST/EDT
        
        My favorite tool in life is elimination:
        contrary to how most people are trained to always want more – a few years ago I realized the most impressive changes I have ever achieved came through not acquiring extra stuff – but editing and eliminating what I already have in abundance:
        eliminating fake friends (often psychopaths – when i lived in London and LA etc)
        eliminating sugar, coffee, grains…
        eliminating bad habits etc
        
        I remember when I stopped drinking coffee a few years ago (and also sugar) – after about 3 weeks I felt and looked 10 younger at least and I slept much less and used to wake up ready to do anything at 5 am.
        The first thing that came to my mind when I realized we may have food shortages was that it would be a great opportunity to fast (that always makes me feel good and light and I know we are biologically adopted to fast every now and then and our bodies love it).
        
        So yes- that has been my favorite tool ever – and I ‘discovered’ it myself
        
        Pamela on March 21, 2020 · at 10:20 pm EST/EDT
        
        Yes, agree tomo.
        I have moved around a lot the last 10 yrs. One time i hauled a huge food processor out of a cupboard, and looking at it, thought ” I dont know why I have you. I lug you from place to place, shove you in a cupboard until the next time I have to pack you up. I think you need another home” I had a “garage sale” at that, realising how much I had that I never used nor needed.
        
        A few years later I packed my few remaining things from a house to 7 boxes and moved to Ecuador.
        
        I agree with you about the “less food”. In the UK during WWII there was little food – the island was under siege and UK makes and grows only about 50% of it’s food. They brought in rationing, And then discovered that, in spite of all the stress and worry – people were healthier than ever. And than they have been since.
        
        As you say – we need a fraction of the stuff we allow to cling to us, from objects, possession, food. Letting go is a good notion :-)
        
        Marko on March 22, 2020 · at 12:06 am EST/EDT
        
        Beautifully presented by Pepe. Tomo, that is exactly my point. I have three small kids. I hope to have food for them, but for me and the wife fasting is definitely an option. We practiced that during the days of opulence in order to be ready for the rainy days such as now. I live in Sydney Australia and it is scary to see what just a couple of days of crisis brings up in people: selfishness and disregard even for the elderly is setting in, the prices of staples such as potatoes have gone up when they are available. I hate to imagine what it is going to look like after the Government stimulus runs out and the banks stop being so nice and polite the way they are now. I have a feeling that this crisis is designed in order to mask a controlled-to-the-extent demolition of the system that really died in 2007 in Munich during that famous speech and definitely stoped moving on March 1, 2018 during Putin’s revealing of the weapons system to which they do not have an answer and which marked the end of wars on the cheap like Saker puts it. The rape and pillage of the planet has to stop and that can only happen if you force people to stop worrying about purchasing a fourth car, third house or 9th TV set, or keeping up with the Joneses and concentrate more on how to survive.
        
        Dimitar on March 22, 2020 · at 1:10 am EST/EDT
        
        Tomo, it’s called ‘the law of economy’, and I entirely concur… attachment to useless possessions and habits are like dead-weights that drag us down into a hell that many simply think of as normal.
        
        sean the leprechaun on March 23, 2020 · at 10:53 am EST/EDT
        
        I call it “Getting Zen”
  - Katherine on March 22, 2020 · at 8:54 am EST/EDT
    
    “Perhaps the ultimate Stoic secret is the distinction by Epictetus between things that are under our control – our thoughts and desires – and those that are not: our bodies, our families, our property, our lot in life, all elements that the expansion of Covid-19 has now put in check.”
    
    Pepe does appear to state here that we cannot control what happens to our bodies.
    Of course we can steer a lot of our physical fate.
    But I think the point is still valid that ultimately we cannot control our bodies, beyond treating them as well as we can according to our understanding of physiology, metabolism, etc.
    
    But ultimately our bodies are a black box governed by our brains.
    We have little or no conscious awareness of how our brains are directing every biochemical process in our bodies. Many attempts to interfere, from a “know better” stance, backfire badly.
    
    Well before that, though, the physical plant we have to work with is handed to us by our antecedents’ genes, and accidents of birth.
    
    Those “accidents” concerning how our parents fed and raised us, any genuine accidents we may suffer, and “accidents” of world history such as some inconvenient plague popping up or a major hurricane.
    
    And of course we now know that “our” bodies actually are home to trillions of bacteria and virus that actually are major subcontractors of the brain.
    
    And death comes to every person.
    
    So, the basic maintenance regime is to feed and treat the body well. Doing this does not, however, mean that we thereby “control” the body.
    
    Many thanks to Pepe, and the Saker, for this wonderful thought-provoking and timely essay.
    
    May the Health Silk Road prosper!!
    
    Katherine
RATM on March 21, 2020 · at 4:35 pm EST/EDT

My clairvoyance tells me that

1. The police hours / lockdowns in Europe are used to shuttle Idlib refugees over the Balkan route, without the locals taking notice and objecting. Hint: Talk about the refugees disappeared from the news cycle completely.

2. This deliberate destroying of EU economies equals mandated austerity for the masses and money for the banks. This time it’s not just Greece but Europe-wide. Recall the 10-part article series from Ramin Mazaheri and that he said that if the banks don’t get any more free money from the FED/ECB that they start fleecing the masses using austerity. Well that is happening right now, ain’t it?

What say you, dear readers?
- the master on March 21, 2020 · at 5:29 pm EST/EDT
  
  I say, finally someone who has not let him distracted – because the elites surely follow their agenda.
  However, I enjoy the fact that people are not killing time in shopping malls, getting drunk in bars, working overtime as for earning more money to be spent on useless shit Made in China etc.
  Indeed a lot of them have realized that their wifes/spouses are still nice persons to talk with and these conversations will not always end in deep analysis of stoicism but surely in a kind of baby-boom! 😘😁
  - Alabama on March 21, 2020 · at 5:46 pm EST/EDT
    
    No one can afford, nor should they willingly (or unwillingly) attempt to bring into this hell hole of a world a child so the state can control it thru poor education and a financial controlling means. This is absurd in these useless and difficult times.
    - jiri on March 21, 2020 · at 9:19 pm EST/EDT
      
      “No one can afford, nor should they willingly (or unwillingly) attempt to bring into this hell hole of a world a child so the state can control it thru poor education and a financial controlling means. ”
      
      Any one born brings his own life with him.
      
      Projecting your own fears on them is pointless.
      - Alabama on March 22, 2020 · at 4:06 pm EST/EDT
        
        This is simply not true, we are all products of our environment, no one has a born skill of any kind, it must all be taught and then grown from experience. Even then that experience be attacked or targeted for destruction if a group of larger like minded thinkers feel it will threaten their approved ways of administering ones life. These are the facts, if you consider them fears, so be it, they have plenty to fear, but to deceive then go into a denial stage is not productive, and that’s where your thoughts are derived from my friend.
  - RATM on March 21, 2020 · at 5:52 pm EST/EDT
    
    Sorry, no baby boom, cuz ‘social distance’. And I always listen to my caring government.
- Platon on March 22, 2020 · at 1:30 pm EST/EDT
  
  The Boy-King of Canada, and his Ukro-Fascist (Deputy Minister) Chrystia Freeland have decreed that:
  1. “It is time for Canadians to come home.” – Justin Trudeau, and…
  2. “If you are showing signs of Coronavirus you will not be admitted into Canada.” Justin Trudeau.
  
  So, without recourse or parliamentary debate, one’s Canadian Citizenship has been made conditional on the appearance of wellness. One is then de facto and to all intents and purposes de jure a stateless person.
  
  The fact that border guards are unable to distinguish between Corona virus and other flu (the test takes days, if it is even available) is irrelevant. If in their opinion, you are ill, you will not be allowed into Canada… unless you are a foreigner and have just lost (burnt) your documents and go through the US from New York to Roxham Road, Quebec, to the illegal border crossing there. You will then be allowed in as a refugee, with full access to the health care system and the Surete de Quebec or RCMP will even carry your suitcases.
  
  So there you have it! The New World Order at work in the former sovereign state of Canada, declared recently by its Boy-King to be “the first postnational state [sic].” [The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, articulated this when he told the New York Times Magazine that Canada could be the “first postnational state”. He added: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.”] The Guardian.
  
  Perhaps he meant ‘entity’. Too bad neither he nor the Deputy Prime Minister know the difference.
  But from now on, a Canadian passport is issued, and honored, at the pleasure of Justin the Boy-King.
  - Conjecture on March 22, 2020 · at 2:39 pm EST/EDT
    
    Boy-King is just veneer, Bandera-Girl Freeland and the Deep are the real power projected in Canada.
Grieved on March 21, 2020 · at 6:12 pm EST/EDT

A beautifully poignant piece from Pepe Escobar, and very useful for this moment of time.

Some situations are so large that only a philosophical view can comprehend them, or at least do them justice. And we have to decide what we think not only about this momentous event we are trying to get through, but also about what comes after.

This event can prompt us to judge anew what is sacred and what is profane. Out of these deliberations and judgments will come our actions as we move forward – just as some of the best in western society came after the world wars, and by the demand of the oppressed.

So even in the midst of crisis, it matters that we circle the field from high above, with the view of a bird of prey, so that when we’ve seen what we need to make our decisions, we can more accurately dive and swoop on what seems the heart of the matter.

~~

Underneath the anxiety and uncertainty that everyone is gripped with currently, there lies waiting a complete and perfect rage, a rage so total that it manifests with a deadly, unwavering calm.

There will be action after this event presents its butcher’s bill. But who can say what action?

One hopes, as always, that the sacred will overthrow the profane. The rage may be strong enough. The world has changed forever. Perhaps the balance has tipped.
- RATM on March 21, 2020 · at 7:52 pm EST/EDT
  
  “But who can say what action?”
  
  The responses will differ. In the West, where they follow government orders and have higher trust in the gov, not much will change. In the South/East where they are more distrustful of the gov, heads will roll. Literary.
  
  And it will come out, sooner or later, that this was a coordinated hysteria. The responses and the talking points are all the same. I was comparing CNN, local news channels, other countries newschannels – they are all following the same script.
  - jiri on March 22, 2020 · at 9:04 am EST/EDT
    
    Yes. They are all following the same script.
    
    It would be interesting how much grant money the poorer countries are getting to follow the script under cove of helping deal with the corona virus.
    
    Check out the World Bank, USAID and similar organisation’s websites.
- Larchmonter445 on March 21, 2020 · at 9:04 pm EST/EDT
  
  Good thoughts, Grieved.
  
  However, the tragedy of human existence in this epoch is that the people get what they settle for.
  
  This is a pandemic, but not as bad a killer as it could be. Mostly, it is overloading inadequate health care systems, hitting people who have suffered disease and impairments to their immune system, and all those who have abused their lungs or who suffered lung disease from occupational activities.
  
  It is scary what effects it is causing. The recession and possible depression is a brutalizing effect. Millions around the world’s developed nations will have no jobs when the emergency ends.
  
  To think the people who rule us will then deliver us from the errors of their way, the corruption, the waste, the debts, the financialization of all sectors of the economy and the greed they have institutionalized is more than wishful thinking.
  
  And most people will take whatever they get and not demand the changes necessary for better life for all.
  
  World Wars and Atomic bombings have taught this class of elites nothing.
  
  I’m not cynical. I think this likely outcome is the result of people fearing change. Change seems to be an impossibility unless it comes from some disaster or catastrophe. Then the result which changes things is accepted. The Elite know this and use that as a tool of management, governance.
  
  Look at the irrational shopping for toilet paper. The masses fought each other for it in some places.
  
  Even with the example of the calm of the Chinese in a two-month lockdown stringently enforced, the people elsewhere reacted like there would never be another shelf full of the basics.
  
  And who is doing all the speaking during this crisis? The elites who failed to build a system, though we have had several viral epidemics far deadlier than this one, and science tells us this is the system of microbial organisms, they evolve, mutate and spring forth as new threats to humans. We should be ready. We weren’t.
  
  Science, Nature, the way of the Planet, accepting the Spiritual that teaches us how to live may be beyond the human race unless some new teachers, models soon appear and challenge life as it is now constructed.
  
  President Xi has already declared that he will construct a Health Silk Road along with the New Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. He sees the interconnectivity of all the nations that need development and infrastructure with the global need for good health systems and practices.
  
  Russia, Cuba and China have been sending teams of doctors, virologists and tens of tons of medical equipment and supplies to Italy, drugs and test kits and supplies, too and similarly, to Iran. These are dwarfing the efforts of the West (the dominate civilization we are told) who barely can help themselves much less anyone even next door, like Italy. So, I look to these efforts from Russia, Cuba and China to change minds and energize people to examine other civilizations that show their connection to anyone without demanding anything in return.
  
  Humanity is capable of heroic, generous and enlightened behavior. With all the hell brought by this virus pandemic we can see clearly on every continent that goodness, sacrifice and love is overpowering the scourge.
  Whether Covid-19 is transformative to global relations we won’t know for some time.
  
  But it is an opportunity, not just a crisis.
  - RATM on March 21, 2020 · at 11:07 pm EST/EDT
    
    “all the hell brought by this virus pandemic”
    
    Hell is not brought by the pandemic but by humanity’s decision to fear and accept the elite’s narrative about ‘a pandemic’. Understanding the difference is understanding the future.
    
    Fear won. This will bring new hellish implications for the fearful.
    - Vasco da Gama on March 22, 2020 · at 1:19 pm EST/EDT
      
      No one, neither humanity, much less “decides” to become fearful. At best someone overcomes it with rationality, collectively acts on it, decides not to give in to fear. Apparently it has already won, but only over some alike.
  - ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 8:39 am EST/EDT
    
    I saw RATM’s last comment below befoe I saw this here
    
    RATM is altogether too negative. Coronavius is likely a transformative event, a socially catalyzing event. I anticptaed such an ecebn in out time to have been a catastrophic global war-filled thing that would bring humanity to the brink, if not take us over. this is way less than I expected, much less destructive and more hopeful
    
    Capitalisms and its contstructs must be destroyed anyway, transformed. economic collapse brought on by Corona is much better than war as transformative these days.
    
    I am an old man now but back in the day we used to tell the ‘white bwoys’ at college that capitalism would get them too..that that was the basic social contradiction not race. they were doing well so we nig nogs were spitting in the wind. and in the meantime white radicalims such as it was has been tamed, nuetraliuzed in the rise of Zionist Chosen based nonsense that they are are above cricicism and the have the right to embed such undemocratic nonsense in the laws of every nation.
    
    the Chinese response and responsible and progressive movement is indeed exemplary and the most positive factor in global life at this time. The Cubans are not a staep behind the Chinese but alongside them moving in the world progressively. Iran, Venezuela..Italy in Europe now front and centre adds to a growing momentum which as financial capitalims cannabilzes the west, literally eating, consuming western society to generate profits and keep capitalism going, exposes the utter failure of capitalism..again in human history.
    
    how many times have we arrived at this point previously..when the tue nature of capitalism, its total inability to meet human need, its capacity to produce only human disaster?
    
    Capitalism has always been so far able to reset itself and come again to create disaster, and disatrous potential of and ever increasing level and power, to currently when the capitalist created disastrous potential is terminal for humanity period.
    
    at this point capitalisms can go no more without qualitatively changing human society and humanity itself in ways that would produce a true existential human nighmare, on our way to a quick extinction under capitalist direction in their effort to make themselves and their social power permananet. as a result the options for humanity is clear…end capitalism finally and totally, or go on to total capitalist disaster that will in all likelihood end human existence. and in ending capitalism the social organizational way forward is popular democracy created by the people of the world, fr the people, in their nations/cultures according to nationalist reality and social/existential needful determination.
    
    all would be popular but each would have to create in their own ways and relate on their diversity, create international organizational and cooperation based on such national social diversity, upwards to global needs.
    
    ending capitalism, ending all forms of social exploitation and hierarchically organized society will put an end to Jewish power and neutralize the Jewish people as constant threat to human peace and survival, leaving them to work out their relations to and with everyone on the new global principles of socual functioning
    
    we still have some pretty good teachers, philosophers out there telling of a lot like it is. Pepe is one! the economists Wolff and Hudson are 2 more. but we are looking only in spefici areas for humans doing effective teachig and leading jobs for society. there have always been the unsung, the quieter types, those who have settled for comnunity stages and small places which makes no less effective and important
    
    we must not miss this opportunity of the total failure…AGAIN!..of capitalism, to bell it utterly this time, to go all the way this time, relentlessly making clear to the people the truth, and how the people can build their social and material life successfully, way beyond anything capitalism could possibly offer and create for the people.
    
    the philosophers, teachers, cultural leaders.. using the most simple yet erudite language, must in tandem with the people, in sync with their collective movement, write and speak the clearest truth..explaining the options fully and the consequences, reuslts and potential of all directions humanity can take..and that the most beneficial line would be that in which the people have full hands-on social totally democratic controlof their societies..systems tthat they themslves created.. must create.. and so be best able to effect or run them all the time..that is to be able to run society themslves creating the most efficient social organizational ways they can do this by and with, adjusting the systems as they go and develop and learn making it more efficient systematically all the time.
    
    the people must understand that that is what they must do in order to be safe socialy permanently..that active participation also develops them fully as humans, is a basic factor in the development of humanity as a whole, our fitness to survive in nature and our progress to whatever destiny we might achive or whatever awaits us. we must go thet, get there, achieve our destiny or create it. whatever it require shuman fitness in nature to get there..and it is aefe to conclude that a personal fortune of many quads of millions of dollars wont mean a god dam thing at such a jucnture in human evolution
    - Grieved on March 22, 2020 · at 3:37 pm EST/EDT
      
      @Ben Sampson
      
      Agreed. This is better than war. Thank you for that wonderful perspective – it offers great hope.
      
      The imperative that arises now will always be here, and will always arise. Capitalism will end or the world will end.
      
      A path of error is a path of error. We’ve walked down one and the voices calling for the correct path are plentiful, as are the various examples in existence right now of how to create a more friendly society.
      
      Social involvement as you describe is the way to live in society. We will learn now or we won’t. But the time to study our lessons is now, and the time to take our exams is the proximate future.
      
      I suspect the global conversation is already changing.
      - ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 7:12 pm EST/EDT
        
        thank you for battling through it with all its mistakes. I appreciate that
        
        the most salient lesson that may be gleaned through the history of revolutionary activity is the question of class interest and how these manifest themselves relative to social positions to product of society. those who do not work in the production of the means of society but decide on it are the parasites..the capitalists, politicians, bureaucrats and organizations to whom allocations are made from the wealth produced by workers
        
        there are professionals who are not like that, who earn their own keep and are concerned with truth in their professions and in social relations..the centralityof truth in the survival of humanity. but those who feed off the people will never work in the interest of truth and democracy, will always support hierarchical expploitative social organization. which makes all they do anti-social and anti life in society. hence the danger of political parties in particular..and all other minority organizations supposedly concerned with the peoples interests..organized around those interests. these betray those interests all the time
        
        these are front and center in the peoples movement, usurp the peoples movement all the time, betray the peoples interest to the elites. which is why during precious revolutionary times the people move and successfully take over society only to be led astry by the supposedly great intellectuals who have been ‘fighting’ the status quo for so long
        
        they were in fact bever fighting the status quo at all. they in likelihood were paid for by the rich, paid directly by the rich all along to do what they were/are there to do..lead the people astray. they and their parrties and groups,are often created by the rich, set up to take over the progrsssive popular social movements of the people and betray then all..everywhere in the whole world
        
        so it is not in the peoples interest at all to follow leaders without question. it is in the peoples interest to develop their own individual facility in history/politics/money-economy etc., so that they can function at their highests levels at all times in society, be able to question their leaders and tell who they are..traitors or not. and when the time comes to deal with them most effectively relative to whom we have proven them out to be.
        
        there have been times when workers in unions for eg., knew their leaders were traitors.. so when these workers wanted to do anyting relative, especially strike actions, the workers never told them, simply decided among themselves and on the way out the door, told their leaders they were on strike.
        
        the workers conducted all their business that way. their leaders were there but they were made redundant. change them? all who went up there were likely to be bribed and become traitors.. if they were not already.
        
        and so in all facets of life especially in the politics ther is that potential to betray by class interest relative to ones job and place on the feeding line, at the trough of the overall pile of worker production. and when it comes to revolutionary time these are the people who insert themslves at the head of the popular movements that overthrow the state…the revolutionary ordinary people, working class etc
        
        these traitorous folk..all of them need the workers to remain right where they are, en place, so they can these folk can continue their lives in ‘leadershp’ of them’ they are going to place themslves at the head of the revolution and betray the revolution comprehensively, as they have done time and again in historical experience.
        
        so it is important for ordinary people, the working classes to understand this totally..who there enemies are collectively..all of them and so develop the means to deal with them routinely in regular life, and how to proceed relative to them, when the ordianry people decide to move to change fundamentally their state of life in the society
        
        the ordinary people, working classes must be able to move ‘spontaneously’ without benefit of such leadership, and to move to take over society, and do so as completely when they move..by creating forms of running society in the interest of the people..all of them without the benefit of input by those traitorous social factors called leaders..of unions andpoliical parties, bureaucracies and the like. by developing popular forms of social organization, the people at once eliminate any need for bureaucracy and political parties etc. by establishing such popular forms of social organization, political parties die, redundant, unnecessary, no role to play. that ends any chance that political parties can betray the people by creating hierarchical state capitalisms bureaucratic dictatorships and the like
        
        that is what the people must do to win and keep their democracy..the utter removal of sustenance for all forms of social parasitism. there must be no way, no nieche for any such to exist in society, as the people proceed with working out the ways they can run things in the interest of society as a whole. the process the people create must be totally democratic, requiring the partricipation of all in the governng process. and all this is possible, easily… has been discussed and analyzed by many thinkers, the results of their work there for all to see and avail themselves of
        
        it must come from the people in creative political/revolutionary action, out in the streets taking over society and removing the capitalists and their supportive officialdom from power… the people creating in place, the organizational means that will take humanity forward in democracy
        
        it is quite unnecessary to tolerate any party/group that is not part of the general productive forces/rocess of society..that is the production of the means of survival of the society.
        
        no one/group must be able to live off the production of society unless they participate in production, save the old.. who are pensioned, having given a life time of work in the general developmenht of the society.
        
        it is the work of, the responsibility of the people in collective political action..rather social action to solve societys problems, needs and requirments from the total wealth of society now available to all the people..because they took it over from the parasites who now feed off it in largess, while the people suffer because the product of heir labour has been taklen away from them
        
        now is the time to take it back and in the process completely revolutionize the way society functions: and in the process continuing, end all social evil..like war..that the elites use against the people, to shut them down, to tax them, to waste their lives.. especially the lives of young men and women who in the flush of youth are likely to be more progressive, revolutionary, than not, totally disatisfied with the awful social inequality that exists, and the torment they are tasked with, to visit on the poor people of color the world over.
    - Bawelisa on March 22, 2020 · at 6:44 pm EST/EDT
      
      Thank you for this,Ben.Your words are in tandem with Pepe’s and Larchmonter’s.
      Coronavirus happening now truly give the World a chance of re-set.
  - Bawelisa on March 22, 2020 · at 6:36 pm EST/EDT
    
    Larch,thanks for this thoughtful answer.
    I just bookmarked it.
  - Rubicon on March 22, 2020 · at 7:24 pm EST/EDT
    
    Regarding Russia, China, Cuba, you wrote: “These are dwarfing the efforts of the West (the dominate civilization we are told) who barely can help themselves much less anyone even next door, like Italy.”
    
    It’s glaringly obvious WHO the culprits are in the Western World: Capitalists/Capitalism. Their only motive: to enrich the wealthy few who have lost their bearings to serve GOD$$$.
    
    And who is paying with our lives with that evil concept: all those in the Western World, living under this Reign of Evil and to Hell. This present Greed simply won’t last.
    
    Thank God for Russia, China, Cuba,Venezuela, even Egypt and others who still have something of a Moral Compass towards Humanity.
Rodion Romanovic on March 21, 2020 · at 8:10 pm EST/EDT

Good article, but Cato has never been one of my favorite.

For me he shielded himself with his area of incorruptibility, but acted in several occasions like a hypocrite.

Like his ancestor Cato the older several generations before, he had a big share of responsibility in the chaos that emerged.

Both of them hated somebody successful and much more capable (Scipio the African in Cato the elder case, Caius Julius Caesar in Cato the younger case).

It is true that Caesar used corruption and broke the rules, but the Optimates (the political group to which Cato belonged, even if he had common origin) was the party of the rich and privileged (what we would call now the party of the 1%) and against the need of the common people.

The civil was not only a war between dictatorship and democracy, and also among the “optimates” there were a lot of corrupt people as well, and Pompeus was also guilty of many of the same irregularities attributed to Ceasar.
Cato was out for destroying Ceasar, and the hell the consequences.

Caesar of course did not want to be condamned and be exiled, but would have preferred to avoid a crisis and kept the fundaments of the republic.

Before the civil war actually started, another great politician (and one of the greatest Men in history), Cicero, found a deal that was then accepted by everyone but Cato and would have prevented the war (a sort of win win scenario, where everyone had to compromise a bit, but preserving the republic and the future of both Pompeus and Caesar), but Cato was blinded by his own agenda and was a fanatical and uncompromising zealot.
jiri on March 21, 2020 · at 9:10 pm EST/EDT

Will Covid-19 show to a global wave of practicing neo-Stoics that there is another way?

No. The effect of the monotheistic, one book/one prophet/one church concept is too strong to make any significant impact.
jiri on March 21, 2020 · at 9:23 pm EST/EDT

Pepe may talk of Lao Tzu but the Chinese government prefers Confucious.

They have Confucious Institutes and not Lao Tzu Institutes.
- Tor Quinn-Darke on March 22, 2020 · at 11:52 am EST/EDT
  
  Confucious philosophy could be summarized in contemporary American English as “get your head out of your ass and FFS look at the facts instead of building castles in the air”. It’s hard to see pessimism or even stoicism in there.
Anonymous on March 22, 2020 · at 1:10 am EST/EDT

Beautiful. With some little corrections.
Seneca was an extremely wealthy man (wealth accumulated in the service of the most reviled tyrant of Antiquity, Nero) who was accused (besides of being a “hypocrite almost without equal in the ancient world” – leading a lifestyle of outrageous consumption – and sexual peccadilloes – boy-lover, that is) of ‘impoverishing the provinces by his usury’. The famous Britons’ rebellion under Boudicca was provoked by his recalling the loans to the Briton kinglets (forty million sesterces!) and the unusual harshness of the methods of collection. There is little doubt that he was implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy. If you believe Tacitus, the Stoic paragon of detachment was coveting the Imperial dignity for himself: “It was rumoured that Subrius Flavus and the centurions had decided in private conference, though not without Seneca’s knowledge, that, once Nero had been struck down by the agency of Piso, Piso should be disposed of in his turn, and the empire made over to Seneca; who would thus appear to have been chosen for the supreme power by innocent men, as a consequence of his distinguished virtues” (Annals 15.51.1).
Marcus Aurelius was a fierce persecutor of Christians, sadly because of his Stoicism. Among the standard accusations was that Christians were spreading the plague (the Antonine Plague).
Epictetus remains the closest to Lao-Tzu and to Christianity.
Alain on March 22, 2020 · at 1:37 am EST/EDT

This is the kind of journalism we deserve and we need. Thank you.
Stand Easy on March 22, 2020 · at 2:30 am EST/EDT

I’d watched a short video a while ago on YT by CGTN (PRC TV network). Apparently the Italian ambassador to the EU said not a single EU country responded to Italy’s call for help, and only China came to its aid (same as in Serbia’s case, I came to know later).

Three medics from Sichuan province in China also volunteered to go to Italy. Why they decided to go to Italy is interesting: apparently Italy had sent people to Sichuan after it was hit by an earthquake in 2009. The Sichuanese remember that act of kindness and were grateful. They decided to show their gratitude and repay the favour.

Not being a philosopher it never occurred to me that they could be Stoics. I just put it down to basic human decency — something that’s obviously missing in the US regime looking at it’s on-going sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.

At any rate, thanks Pepe for another interesting article.

https://youtu.be/bwDxo3wZxDY
Anonymous on March 22, 2020 · at 2:53 am EST/EDT

the present is a watershed moment ,this mad society is breaking down,as it should inevitably ,if anybody here in this blog think they did not sin, consider this ,- in this modern time when information is freely available we allowed the powerful to kill,- vietnamese,yugoslavians,ukrines,libyians,palestinians,iragis,iranians,afghanistans,yemenies,syrians and so on and so forth,did anybody here at least pray and say,”i do not allow this act and i pray it ends”?…and not participate in any ”we vs them” toxic to the mind koolaid reaction verbally or outwardly on behalf of this ‘side’ or the other ‘side?’. Human reality is created by the collective thought stream field of all humans, if one identifies one self as belonging to a particular group and defend it than that thinking contributes to the sorrow of mankind.

the late j.krishnamurthi a man like no other and the late Dr.Bohm the physict laid it all out in their work,”ending time” and ”the limits of thought”….we are the world,the crisis is in the consciousness there is where it can be dealed with, not outwardly.,what one thinks is what one is.,be a human not an identity and contribute to this madness.
- RATM on March 22, 2020 · at 6:11 am EST/EDT
  
  “this mad society is breaking down,”
  
  It’s not breaking down, quite the opposite, it is hunkering down & tightening its grip. All freedoms are incrementally removed. ‘boiling the frog’ meme comes to mind. And the ppl aren’t pushing back.
  
  Any virus outbreak (or biowarfare) could have been dealt with more discreetly. China f***** up by being too open about it. This instigated the mass hysteria. Peer pressure has done the rest. Now the outfall will be enormous. Dead economies. Higher unemployment. Worse off health services. Broken supply lines. Widespread desperation. Depression. Etc… Which will lead to more crime, more suicides, more misery.
  - ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 7:41 am EST/EDT
    
    I am not that despaired. a treatment has been found that looks capable of elimianting the Pandemic. it seems likely that the panic part may be over more quickly than we imagined.
    
    now for the poltical enconoic part. its time to put and end to capitalism permanently. it is time for all nations and cultures to return to themslves in democracy to come forward again in a real globalism contructed on the popular interest.
    
    it had to happen anyway, must happen! the death of all capitalist generated scial organizational construction, on national and global levels and their ultlimate reconstruction on democratic basis, generated from the colletive popular inerest first organized in the nations, then outward relative to and disciplined by real collective international need in response to real global issues humans must deal with in collective ways… like climate change etc
    
    I do not see that China had any optin but to be open to the wprl in its responses, the way it deal with theri situation. they were under serious global attack, the world did nto know what was going on. and what China did was positive, massive, positive and popular. China had no ulteriors in the mix and nothing to hide.. and a massive and capable responsive demonstration model to give to the world. and all such would..has indeed made China stronger in the world. China is now on top of its situation and is making massive, unprecedented material contributions to the world in dealing with the international situation stemming from Corona
    
    I wish this did not happen but it has and today, right now I am not in despair at all. there is nothing that can save american capitalism. they are done. the american people can wise-up and overthrow their dilapidated, utterly dangerous social system and start again in the world in popular social organizational fashion. the USA is full of capable people and resources, properly focused that nation wont be down long..but can rise again only in real popular organizational popular participatory democracy, created by the people and for the people. americans must simply clean up what is old and inefficacious socially, rebuild on what is. and there an off again.
    
    the principle is clear but effecting such solution will be more difficult. but the general popular principles on which the society is to be reorganized should do much to eliminate the potential violence in the that can result in hostilities, eliminate, mute the violence inrealations, or mute them enough promoting debate, discussion diplomacy and development of compromise and agreement.. giving society a real chance of modernizing itself safely, without all the pain that might normally produce…giving the rest of the world that same opportunity as wel
    - Alabama on March 22, 2020 · at 7:58 am EST/EDT
      
      Only problem there is that the people in charge of say letting a thing like that occur, will feel the pain of their greatness diminishing, ergo, will not let it occur.
    - RATM on March 22, 2020 · at 8:37 am EST/EDT
      
      Total delusions. No realistic proposal, just utopian thinking. Like fear & hysteria, such thinking is only a misdirection, that weakens real solutions.
      
      Real solution: mass disobedience, mass arrests of real panic makers (gov, msm, pharmaceutical ceos).
      - ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 1:53 pm EST/EDT
        
        mass disobediance, arrests etc!?
        
        sure all of that if they happen..some is likely to happen. but I expect that there is great social clarity already and that people… if not in the USA certainly everywhere else can move in such a massive ways, fully purosed with the job at hand, know what they must do, that the weakend capitalism cannot withstand them for any lenght of time
        
        I dont know what you mean, and your level of analysis – what it is..but capitalism is collapsed, has been collapsed for some time now. Usury globally has cleaned out all liquidity and replaced all popular spending by debt that increases usury and dries out the economy..all economy. the capitalists are now consuming the the last bits of he economy, the established economy, the whole society, eating the woodwork and all infrastrucutre. the exploitation is so exhaustive that the social, existential wasteland, the urban desert encroaches broadly. people seek warn regions of the nations so they can live on the streets and not freeze to death. their shit on the streets dries up an becomes aerosols to poison the air..and spread diseases
        
        arrests! nonsense. in your systematic capitalism you know there could never have been, and that there is not now solution for the peoples interests in capitalism, from start to finish. that is not what capitalism is about. there is no answer for the people period save the cemetery and slavery, prior to the crematory ovens. there is one answer for us all..right now! out in the sreets for sure but with far, far far more at this time much more than you have in mind
        
        that is what I mean, what I am talking about: out in the streets now on the way to directly taking over society, nationalizing society in the purpose and name of the people, by the people…and the immediate start on creating systematically forms of government that place social control in the hands of the people..right now, today, this minute..the people move on the basis of the truth I listed.
        
        you see that is the way to eliminate any interim into which the parasites can slip, to try to create some form of state goverment that maintains parasitism in place. that is why you move immediately to create the form of popular control that takes over society immedialy into popular hands, gives the peope social control. if you do not do that and maintian it, there will be a power vaccum into which will slip the political parties and all such interests, NGO’s etc. the capitalist and the govermnet under the intense pressure you talk about will ultimately giv- in to such parasitic options..the parties all across the political spectrum..because they know that these interest, not productive actors they are not, dependent on taxation of the people to feed themslves, would betray the people and allow the capitalism back in, in a million ways. you will have a Russian situation again..the rise of the bureaucracy, a terror to kill off the revolutionaries-the people.. and stuff the people ‘back into their place!’
        
        [edited by mod] what you actually face and the total perplexing reality that will emerge in revoltuonary times. that is why the answer is in the people rise up and taking over dirctely and creating the form and going ath relentlessly killing in practise all pardatory parastic power and potential.
        
        if yu do not do that you are creating the failure of the very revoluton you may be advocating. this is what revolutionary experience has taught over generations. so forget arrests and disobediance and all the static thing. all that is giving the system too much opportunity to survive. the people must directly, purposefuly move to take the whole dam thing over, to TAKE OVER SOCIETY AS A WHOLE! to eliminate the political parties, ALL OF THEM! to eliminate the bureaucracy and address the work, the problems of society, the needs of the people direclty.. by the creation of hands on popular creative forms of governing that the people run, find ways to run… that eliminates the need for any and all parasities and parastic formations..classes of people who do not do work directly in the producion of the wealth of society, of the sustainance of the society in some form in all areas of life..who get paid huge salaries for running things by giviving order and nothing else. actually that is watse of the peoples money and resources on the parasties, the support of exploitative classes of people who work against the peoples interest
      - ben sampson on March 22, 2020 · at 2:12 pm EST/EDT
        
        you must make sure that the people understand all of this..its the only chance we have..to build a real democracy.. by creating forms of social organization that produces such democracy in the process of changing society from the ground up, purposing society to meet the needs of all the people by taking it over completely and so purpose social activity.
        
        ultimately it does not even matter if the people fall short but you must know the truth, that we learn as we go..and that we must update ourslves constantly as experience clarifies reality, brings increased understanding of life. there never are absolute answers to anything, all issues save that the people must survive and we are invoved in ways to understand how that can be accomplished
        
        the people must survive..if they do not then human life ends. and as far we know at this time the best form of social organzation to accomplish the survival of the people is democracy… oranized by the people: and because they are the people and must function on the collective interest of the people, or sabotage their effort… then by the people becomes for the people.
        
        no sectarian or minority interest can meet the popular need. you see if here are laws at all they are like these social interests. we must be secure and those who have interest going that meet their needs no matter how it functions, wo it exploits and how.. wont give them up. so you know that then you know that the capitalist nbterest for example can nver meet the popular interest.
        
        so informed then you rmovement as an ordianry person, a working man is to take over society and eliminate the social basis for capitalism. if you do not the capitalist will develop extend their social control to make sure they never lose power. if you take that to is logical conclusion only Brave New World and worse awaits ordinary people. so what do you want to do…get arrested in disobediance to go to court and all of that?
        
        sure that may happen, ok! but your purpose is to end that whole thing…to not get arrested at all but to end capitalism and start a new popuar way immediately, with forms of organization that permits the creation of and development of your collective popular interest
subhuti37 on March 22, 2020 · at 5:37 am EST/EDT

The notion of interpenetration and confluence of matter and energy is also seen in The Heart Sutra.
“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.”
This ‘deep perfection of wisdom’ means the mind is no hindrance…without any hindrance, no fears exist. That is the way to Nirvana….which means cooled, as in passions not inflamed.

So whatever culture, this idea has staying power. It sure beats panic.
Gunther on March 22, 2020 · at 6:23 am EST/EDT

The western view of greek philosophy misses a very central experience of most Greek philosophers.
Almost all of them were initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The Mysteries were the most famous religious cult of antiquity, almost the whole Athenian upper class and even plenty of Romans were initiated.
The Mysteries consisted of at least two stages of initiation. The second stage was called the great Mysteries and was done over ten days every fall.
After a thorough cleaning and getting out of the usual frame of referece initiates took a pychedelic drink “Kykeon” and got a life-changing experience.
In all likelihood the Kykeon contained a natural relative of LSD.
After taking the Kykeon the initiates went through a ritual that had for most participants life-chnging consequences.
There are some general descriptions that tell of greatest fear and highest joy, possibly it was a spiritual death and re-birth experience.
It was forbidden to reveal details to anybody not initiated, thus it is not well known what happened in detail.
When christianity took over the mysteries were forbidden and later the Visigoths destroyed the sanctuary and burned the Priests, directed by christian monks.
In my opinion this was done to enforce a monopoly; imagine a christian preacher stating believe in… and an initiate saying I experienced…
Why believe in unproven hearsay?
The Christians answered the question with the sword and the stake.

The general mythology:

Hilary Guise Eleusian Mysteries 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95jBt5cqJVo

The Chemist:
Albert Hoffmann – LSD and the Road to Eleusis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nx2hJ7ue_c

the murder of the pagan priests:
in German, scroll down to year 395
https://hellenismos.org/ethnozid/
- Anonymous on March 22, 2020 · at 8:53 am EST/EDT
  
  We came to the moment when the Christian mysteries are forbidden. The persecution has started in earnest:
  
  “Greek Orthodox Bishop Arrested for Keeping Church Open for Worship”
  @https://russian-faith.com/persecution/greek-bishop-arrested-keeping-church-open-worship-n2939?mc_cid=b68558bc20&mc_eid=eac227017e
  “Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythira is accused of the fact that during the service the doors of the temple were open to all comers, and the bell rang before the service.
  On March 21, 2020, it became known that the mayor of the Greek city of Kythira, Stratos Harhalakis, ordered the arrest of Metropolitan Seraphim (Stergiulis) of Kythira and Antikythera for performing the Divine Liturgy, reports Lifo.gr publication”.
  Australia closed all places of worship.
Guitton on March 22, 2020 · at 7:29 am EST/EDT

Hi Pamela:
Very, very good your comment. As a professor of Philosophy of Science, at a University in the interior of Brazil, I need to congratulate the correctness of your comments. Which defines in a precious and objective way what Philosophy is and what it is for; concept extremely difficult to complete, especially after reading the manuals; that most confuse that clarify. The dilemmas of our time are also wonderfully summarized. I agree with everything.
Thank you very, very much.
- Tor Quinn-Darke on March 22, 2020 · at 1:23 pm EST/EDT
  
  Perhaps it is because I have only two degrees in philosophy and not an academic tenure that I have trouble sharing your enthusiasm for pamela’s comments.
  
  What I see there is (uncredited) Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General System Theory, a metaphysics of science that captivated me even before I was an undergraduate, and which I tried to argue for with my professor of philosophy. Yet, after we had a stroll around the concept of ‘explanation’ he put it to me: “so what does GST actually explain?”. To which I couldn’t answer. The point here is that GST is a mere re-description of phenomena, and to re-describe something is not of itself to explain anything.
- Pamela on March 22, 2020 · at 2:38 pm EST/EDT
  
  Hi Guitton,
  
  Thank you very much for your kind words. I feel We all need that encouragement, from time to time, which tells us we haven’t lost touch with reality, and the warmth that comes from feeling we have been of use to someone, even in a very small way. Working our way through the confusion that exists in so much we have to live with can be a slow process – but, like walking up a mountain path – it’s worth it in the end.
  Thank you again.
Oū Sī / 區司/ Usman on March 22, 2020 · at 9:55 am EST/EDT

Confucius (Kŏng fùzǐ/Kŏng Qiū) believed in fate (necessity, even if dimly understood) and not in faith (superstition, gods, demons and ghosts). And to mage people follow correct ‘rites’.Thus laying some ground for rational progress.
Mecius (Mòzǐ/ Mò Dí) believed in supernatural retribution (i.e. ghosts, gods, spitits and demons) ao as to scare people to act ‘right’. THus controlling the plebs and scaring the slaves — no social progress, only technological tyrrany of ‘improved techiques and devices’.
Lǎozǐ (Lǐ Èr’) was scared and obscurantist and very intelligent — and then as such he chose to play dumb, ignorant and useless!
- Tor Quinn-Darke on March 22, 2020 · at 1:32 pm EST/EDT
  
  Strange comment, rather like addressing Newton’s interests in astrology rather than his achievement of the Law of Gravitation.
  
  What say you of the “rectification of concepts” and the push-back against the then prevailing mysticism of concepts, as exemplified in the deduction of Judgements in the I Ching, and the widespread use of the I Ching for divination?
  - Oū Sī / 區司/ Usman on March 23, 2020 · at 5:30 am EST/EDT
    
    Actually “correct (rectified) yous of namess” (zhèng míng). Cofucius is reported to have sayd that if he were granted a few more decennia to live, he might yous them to study “the changes (yì). Don’t know if he meant “The book of Changes” (Yì Jīng).
    The various ‘confucian’ (rú) strains of thought and schools of teaching following from Confucius and his many very different pupils is a fascinating subject, bessed systematized and analyzed in a work from the mid 1940ies by the later leader of Academica Sinica in Bĕijing Guō Mòruò in his book “The Book of 10 Critiques!” (Shí Pīpàn Shū)– unfortunately not available in English, but good French, Japanese, German and Russian language versions exist. Chines Communist Party chairman Máo Zédōng cept versions of this book by Guō avalable in his study/bedroom and on all his travels and mulled over its contents until he finally decided to critisize “Lín Biāo and Cofucius” in 1974 (Pī Lín pī Kŏng yùndòng).
    - Anonymous on March 23, 2020 · at 8:14 am EST/EDT
      
      Plato’s ‘orthotes ton onomaton’ (correctness of names) is the same thing as ‘zheng ming’ of Confucius. There is a ‘philosophia perennis et universalis’ or ‘sophia perennis’ or ‘religio perennis’, the eternal Wisdom, the Logos.
- mundanomaniac on March 22, 2020 · at 6:35 pm EST/EDT
  
  “Confucius believed in fate (necessity, even if dimly understood) and not in faith”
  
  A major distinction. What Confucius (to me) adds to human meaning is, he added excellence of one’s personal performance to the excellence by birth.
  
  “Lǎozǐ (Lǐ Èr’) was scared and obscurantist and very intelligent”
  
  If you mean Lao Tzu – he was nor scared.
Oū Sī / 區司/ Usman on March 22, 2020 · at 9:59 am EST/EDT

And Plato at least lay the groundwork with his idealist form realism for Marx’s later on to “turn Hegel upside down”. Marx wrote for his doctoral degree an analysis of early greek materialis natural philosohers.
MC on March 22, 2020 · at 10:09 am EST/EDT

Great philosophy lecture, Pepe! Once again you have surprised us with your erudition. Indeed, Stoicism is what all of us need to practice, now. By itself, it can help us to win over the evil that surrounds us: capitalism-imperialism. Overcoming this system will be for the good of all of us, and it has to be done. Perhaps, time has come. We can already see the signs…
ioan on March 22, 2020 · at 10:14 am EST/EDT

Guys, you can contemplate on whatever you wish, if the materialistic thinking is driving your mind – in the sense of egocentrism – things will not change a yota, even contrary, the new world will be much more “regulated” with a new reset being put in place, mostly with the same actors playing on the great chess table. Then you will witness a never ending “rapture” of your liberties flying away, look at the realities unfolding before your eyes, the world emergency state has changed everything in a sense that not even two world wars and the following cold war were able to do : the elementary human rights have been abolished thanks to a pandemic which kills only the body achieving sufficient global fear to put the whole world in standstill, mostly in a time when a change of paradigm in the world economy and politics was in full wing.

One can argue on the gravity of this pandemic up and down but where is the efficiency of science and most notably the cooperation on a global scale ? It can be said that the lack of trust among players is blocking it, or the bad will which could hide something pretty different among actual human gods. It isn’t true that the waters are so murky that no one can see some probable outcomes even though everything seems to be unpredictable as some actors may want to suggest. The pressure on global scale has its own limits, the density of fog will have its peak and we will see more clearly.
- MC on March 22, 2020 · at 3:28 pm EST/EDT
  
  ioan,
  
  Pepe is talking about the opportunity that this pandemic has created for changing behaviours. His superb article gives us a perfect understanding of what he means. If you pay attention, you will find in his article the answers to your questions.
  
  Just think about this: this is not just a health crisis, that is, a circumstantial crisis; this is a structural/systemic crisis of capitalism-imperialism. It will most likely be the last crisis of the system. At this stage, with highly developed technology, Russia and China are resolutely barring imperialism from their motherlands. The contradictions are present in all levels, and the system starts to disintegrate. The resulting recession, if not averted, has the potential to be the worst since the inception of capitalism, drastically worsening the conditions of billions of people who are already living in misery. Radical changes are needed, now.
  
  What can be more powerful than the change in behaviour? Nothing can be more unmanageable than people caring about each other and uniting in solidarity. And if the Convirus pandemic is just a plot to bend us to further abuses, the Convirus can be turned into an agent of change and their plot will backfire.
  
  The uncontainable crash of the financial market has surprised the elites. Indeed, the Convirus pandemic seems to be their providential solution to divert attention from that crash. And, yes, with their ‘health policies’, the elites are doing all they can to save face, to demonstrate that they care about us. It seems that they are betting in their own salvation! At a certain stage, however, people will be able to see through the smoke screen what is really going on. United, they can start asking for change. This is when the table will turn. Wait and see.
  - ioan on March 22, 2020 · at 7:53 pm EST/EDT
    
    Yes ,the events are unfolding with such a speed that we will see those opportunities pretty soon, let’s see who are the protagonists and who will be the new opportunists. There will be a lot to gather and wash.
- mundanomaniac on March 22, 2020 · at 6:18 pm EST/EDT
  
  I’m a scholar of that Marx- saying: “The Philosophers …” Since I was a child I was very skeptical of the adult liars. Being 21, with Marx I’ve found my partner. The click word to my soul was ‘alienation’ – that was exactly what I felt. My family was o.k., but even in it, the general tone to children, was suspicion. Masturbation was a self-inflicted evil.
  
  I went that Marx-way in the sixtieth until finally 10 years Kommunistischer Bund (Communist Federation) when I, a teacher, worked in the docks.
  
  10 years after then I began to realize, we were establishing an other branch
  of bureaucracy to deal with given necessities, with the known buoyancy of the sociopathic
  type of manager.
  
  Ioan, like always I find myself at the other end of the spectrum while you are despairing.
  
  The bureaucracy is trying, to do, what normal people would expect from a good
  neighbor: manage the given, given by whom ever, God, CIA, Bat-Eater … and people living too close with another for the sensible DNA of human beings.
  
  I’m sure, in any developed country science of biological hazards and protection
  from them are undertaken. The biological aggression as well as the zoo-nose
  might have created this senior-killing disease. But we all are every time in
  the hazard of suddenly being taken away from breathing. I know what I’m talking about with my 78 years.
  
  To become usable, for the better, is the ratio of the second half of any life beyond any other mean.
  You will pass like me – you, like me, one- time- in -Universe, are a piece in the puzzle,
  we don’t overlook, hence I constantly have to disagree with you, brother, as you bet on the dark and I bet on the light possibility. The latter is no achievement of me, but, is confirmed by Lao Tzu, virtue is a positive bitch.
  
  I’m glad, to have you with us in Saker’s common house
  - ioan on March 22, 2020 · at 7:22 pm EST/EDT
    
    I was wondering to which one of your posts to answer (posted the same two times) so I decided to post my reply here at 6:18pm. That’s not true that we are disagreeing, only our approach is different. As living alone (with my companion) , not having relatives, I accept of course my departure from this world as natural consequence of human nature but I don’t accept and neither believe in death as total disappearance of an individual. That would be the most blatant Pessimism. In this sense I’m not pessimist because my hope is out there, not just in my mind but in my spirit.
    I’m also glad that you are here my friend, and God bless you !
Oū Sī / 區司/ Usman on March 22, 2020 · at 10:24 am EST/EDT

When Marx in his “Theses on Feuerbach” wrote thus:
‘Ontil now , philosophers have only interpreted the World. What is important is to change it’ , I do not believe he meant that ‘changing the World’ should be the task of the philosophers.
- MC on March 22, 2020 · at 3:54 pm EST/EDT
  
  Oū Sī,
  
  That is a wonderful quotation. Yes, Marx is saying that ‘interpreting’ the world is not enough; philosophers must find the means for changing it. It is implicit that only this way philosophers can take part of the historic block that will bring about changes. I think that his deduction applies to all intellectuals…
- Guitton on March 23, 2020 · at 10:31 am EST/EDT
  
  Hi Oū Sī,
  
  Who changes the world? Do you have an opinion?
Bill Burton on March 22, 2020 · at 11:50 am EST/EDT

Before the Roman Empire decided on Christianity, it considered using Stoicism as an official propaganda weapon to keep the Empire together. I’ve seen (translated) quotes from Roman aristocrats bemoaning the abolition of the works of Epicurus and his followers, e.g. Lucretius (you’ll have to trust me on this). Stoicism (which taught that authority should always be obeyed) formed the philosophical basis on which Roman Christianity rested, but not the popular Christianity. Both the Stoics Marcus Aurelius (emperor) and Epictetus (slave) taught that a slave can be as free as a freeman: the same as did Paul the Apostle. Stoicism was mainstream until the resurrection of Epicureanism in the mid-17th century at the hands of Pierre Gassendi, touching off the Enlightenment in Europe. The Enlightenment fostered Rank Materialism but also skepticism regarding the accepted European mores, and laid the groundwork for Romaniticism (as a reaction to its conservative side) and the Great French Revolution. Historically, Stoicism has been a tool in the hands of reactionaries, while Epicureanism has served revolution. Confucianism has embodied Taoist elements that are foreign to Stoicism and more akin to Epicureanism.
augusto on March 22, 2020 · at 4:01 pm EST/EDT

It ‘s a sheer matter of time.
In a matter of days, the Usa will take the second and then the first place in this mad, virotic planetary plague contest. In weeks for their turn, Brazil will grab the third and second position.
The northern humans have their achiller heel on the privatized, profit ridden system. Brazil on a terrible picture of inequality and poverty (boosted no doubt by a stupid immensily inept clown put its presidential chair.)
Both the northern and southern states will likely have the opportunity of their lives to change their
rotten human, society and political prevailing views – starting with the elites.
mundanomaniac on March 22, 2020 · at 6:22 pm EST/EDT

I’m a scholar of that Marx- saying: “The Philosophers …” Since I was a child I was very skeptical of the adult liars. Being 21, with Marx I’ve found my partner. The click word to my soul was ‘alienation’ – that was exactly what I felt. My family was o.k., but even in it, the general tone to children, was suspicion. Masturbation was a self-inflicted evil.

I went that Marx-way in the sixtieth until finally 10 years Kommunistischer Bund (Communist Federation) when I, a teacher, worked in the docks.

10 years after then I began to realize, we were establishing an other branch
of bureaucracy to deal with given necessities, with the known buoyancy of the sociopathic
type of manager.

Ioan, like always I find myself at the other end of the spectrum while you are despairing.

The bureaucracy is trying, to do, what normal people would expect from a good
neighbor: manage the given, given by whom ever, God, CIA, Bat-Eater … and people living too close with another for the sensible DNA of human beings.

I’m sure, in any developed country science of biological hazards and protection
from them are undertaken. The biological aggression as well as the zoo-nose
might have created this senior-killing disease. But we all are every time in
the hazard of suddenly being taken away from breathing. I know what I’m talking about with my 78 years.

To become usable, for the better, is the ratio of the second half of any life beyond any other mean.
You will pass like me – you, like me, one- time- in -Universe, are a piece in the puzzle,
we don’t overlook, hence I constantly have to disagree with you, brother, as you bet on the dark and I bet on the light possibility. The latter is no achievement of me, but, is confirmed by Lao Tzu, virtue is a positive bitch.

I’m glad, to have you with us in Saker’s common house
Bawelisa on March 22, 2020 · at 6:26 pm EST/EDT

Brilliant!
Another masterpiece, Pepe Escobar.

Does Technology, or it’s current use,promote “a selfless devotion to the welfare of others”?
Colin Gibbons on March 22, 2020 · at 7:51 pm EST/EDT

Hi Folks,

This applies in England, it will likely have similar equivlents all around the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESaO6I_mWDA

Gibbo.
Tom on March 23, 2020 · at 3:12 pm EST/EDT

I see a lot of people here bashing “capitalism”. Capitalism is a behavior, like drinking. It cannot be banished by education or Maoist coercion, or prohibition. It is also wrong to label our current systems as “capitalist”. if capitalist behavior runs roughshod over the weakest among us, it is the product of weak social cohesion. Bad behaviors flourish in the dark.
- Azorka1861 on March 24, 2020 · at 3:03 pm EST/EDT
  
  Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary
  
  Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff wrote a monumental book about the new economic
  order that is alarming. “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” reveals how the biggest tech
  companies deal with our data. How do we regain control of our data? What is surveillance
  capitalism?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw
  
  Shoshana Zuboff
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshana_Zuboff
  
  VPRO – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPRO
  
  VPRO Documentary channel
  Our globalized world causes societies, economies and cultures to seek a new balance.
  VPRO Documentaries reflects on this with new videos every week. We research subjects
  like politics, world economy, society and science with experts and try to grasp the essence
  of prominent trends and developments.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzIvzd0aftY
Hoyeru on March 24, 2020 · at 12:48 am EST/EDT

The ONLY reason the Chinese are doing all that charity work is because they KNOW VERY WELL what’s about to come after the fake Corona virus epidemic is over in 8 or 10 months or however long it takes.
The USA/West will try to get the whole world to turn against China by claiming the Chinese were solely responsible for both eh deaths and the economic chaos. USA was incredibly smart and evil once again; they knew they cannot fight China alone, but now they will have the backing of the “whole” world.
If I am the Chinese I am be very vary very VERY worried right now. Their Peking duck is cooked, big time.
You heard it from me first.
- Azorka1861 on March 24, 2020 · at 11:09 am EST/EDT
  
  I agree with you
  
  If You Don’t Know, Now You Know: Russia & China
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-iCaO-hxAk&t=6s
  - Anonymous on March 25, 2020 · at 12:42 am EST/EDT
    
    Video unavailable, of course.