I want to write about a part of history, a part of the history of knowledge. And while I may not have all the knowledge of history, I have a history with knowledge, which is why I searched and found some pieces of history and some pieces of knowledge that I must share before I develop my thoughts based on my own knowledge of this part of history. I am not mentioning these pieces of knowledge to teach you history, nor to show you the way to knowledge. However, if I want us to communicate in the brief period of history that you will be reading in the following lines, I must mention some of them, which are not pieces of general knowledge for a wide audience. Moreover, the history that concerns this article is not general, if there is such a thing as general history. It is the history of the birth of the first universities in Europe, and it is also the history that we live in our days and concerns how the way knowledge transfer is organized meets the need that made history … that initial history of organizing knowledge. A History of Knowledge To set the context for the development of ideas, we must take a journey through history. One that is geographically close, but chronologically distant by 10 centuries. We find ourselves in the 11th century AD, at the dawn of the 2nd millennium, which was probably not celebrated with the corresponding fanfare as the beginning of the 3rd was, as there were numerous other concerns for the medieval world of Europe to deal with. A world that had long since left behind its Roman past, holding it only as tradition and cultural foundation, to add to this the dominance of Christianity and the entry of Germanic tribes in the formation of European civilization, in the centuries that intervened from the fall of the Roman Empire. Europe no longer had “barbarians”, or at least that’s what Europeans decided, who considered themselves and each other civilized enough as they knew how to read the Gospel. However, in order to read the Gospel – and other religious texts – they had begun to organize knowledge across a large area of the continent. A knowledge that had been extensively reorganized in antiquity, but had been dissolved by those who took the Gospel in their hands to overthrow the barbarians who had organized knowledge. If there was one Great person who cut the thread of the history of knowledge, named Theodosius, there was another Great person, who for his own reasons, perhaps did not know what would follow centuries later, was the one who brought it back to life, Charles, known globally as Charlemagne, for linguistic reasons that I do not have the historical knowledge to explain. Charlemagne, of course, is at the forefront of history 300 years before the history covered in this article, as his reign marked the developments in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. What he generally did and who he ruled over is not the essence of our story, so I won’t elaborate on it, but he is the first name mentioned because during his reign, he showed particular zeal for the development of religious schools, which would organize the personnel of religious officials who were essentially the basis for governing a new empire that had a very big idea of itself, so big that it was called the Holy Roman Empire. The truth is that in one way or another, this empire survived for a much longer period than the Roman Empire, but that too is a part of history that does not concern our story. What concerns our history is that in Western Europe there appeared schools, or at least religious institutions of education, which necessarily transmitted knowledge. If a few decades under the reign of a monarch were enough to establish enough of these religious schools, three centuries, until the 11th century, were more than enough to make them a cultural element of what is called Western Europe, the Western Christian World, which geographically speaking, by today’s standards, included half of Italy, Germany and all the countries in between, the Low Countries and a significant part of France. East of Germany there was a conglomerate of peoples who did not have clear borders and were more spread out in vast and relatively cold areas, while in the Southeast there were Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire, while in the Iberian Peninsula the Arabs were located, with the great civilization of the Andalus. In this small part of Western Europe, which 10 centuries later decided to also have a grand idea of itself and be called the European Union, there were schools, which were usually housed in the large churches, the so-called cathedrals. In these schools, the philosophy of God, namely theology, as well as the law of God, namely canon law, were taught. Canon law not in the sense of the Greek word for normality, but in the sense that the word acquired through its Latin adventure, to denote its direct correlation with the divine, the holy, and the sacred. Students who learned theology and canon law gained prestige in the medieval society of the 9th and 10th centuries because they could become officials of the most powerful institution that determined the fate of the Western European world, the Papal Church of Rome. “Papal” because it had not yet doctrinally split, but the term is probably needed because it had split from others politically. The passage of the 9th and 10th centuries AD brought history and knowledge, which were spread in religious schools, at the dawn of the so-called High Middle Ages. The High Middle Ages is the period from 1000 to 1250 and constitutes the chronology that our history focuses on, the one that I am describing in this article. The other, less interesting, develops in our days. The High Middle Ages is an era considered by historians as an important period of progress, at least in relation to the centuries that preceded it, focusing on Western Europe. It includes a period called the “12th-century Renaissance,” which is the most significant of the three so-called medieval renaissances that preceded the main Renaissance, with which the Late Middle Ages ended. Its importance lies in the fact that it was a period of resurgence of sciences and philosophy in Western Europe, which had fallen into decline since the dissolution of the Roman Empire. This evolution is closely linked to our history. There are historians who argue that a temporary change in climate in the continents around the North Atlantic, corresponding to a relative increase in temperature around the years 950 to 1250, partially contributed to the emergence of the 12th century Renaissance. As I personally do not have the necessary knowledge of history to judge the historical information, I mention it as additional information that concerns the general approach of historical knowledge. However, what is certain is that the network of schools that was being created for three centuries had become an institution with great social and economic significance. Its importance was so great that it defined through the process of disseminating knowledge, the very history of some places. Bologna One such place was a town that began to develop at the intersection of the main road arteries of the Italian peninsula. The Etruscan Felsina, which had been named Bononia by the Boii Celts with their name, was a point of great military importance and therefore a place of army installation. At the end of the first millennium, the activities taking place in this place were of little importance. One reason was that until then, the great process of urban settlement and life had not begun, and production was scattered in the great and fertile countryside of the Po Valley. However, the change in way of life in the 11th century also changed the cultural course of places located in strategic geographic positions, such as the intersection of the Italian peninsula. The development of Bononia, which we know today as Bologna, was either helped or aided – something that remains an open question for historians – by the parallel flourishing of schools teaching the law of God, canon law, in the 11th century. However, another event came to change the quality of this progress and transform it into a revolutionary change for the evolution of knowledge transmission, not only for Bologna, nor only for the Middle Ages, but for the entire world, literally the whole planet, as we know it today. In the year 1070, a copy of the Justinian Code, also known as the Corpus Juris Civilis, was discovered in Ravenna, which is 75 kilometers away from Bologna. It is believed to have been there since the time of the Exarchate of Ravenna, having been transferred from an early Roman law school according to historians. The timing was perfect, as the return to scientific and philosophical texts of antiquity allowed for the development of an interest in studying such a legal text. Thus, with the transfer of the text to Bologna, a series of legal scholars who wanted to study the text were also transferred, teaching their knowledge to students who flocked from every corner of the Western European world. These students become the pupils of a higher education scale, as they are in a spectacularly privileged environment for the time, to learn the analysis of the historical text of a secular law from the most knowledgeable. For this reason, they organize schools that now resemble more academic institutions and pay experts to transmit this unique and elusive knowledge. The reference to the early academia of this process is not accidental. The experts, known as glossatori, are those who comment on the legal text itself through a process that is recorded, while at the same time they record and systematize the process that explains the development of this commentary to their students, the students of the schools. The importance of schools is enormous for the city of Bologna, which experiences economic growth from the influx of intellect and future intellect of the era. For this reason, all necessary conditions are created to facilitate the work of these schools. Very quickly, the students of the schools decide to organize themselves and accordingly organize the learning process. The reasons they organize are primarily social, as the status of a student in a unified institution gives them privileges against the law and local authorities, because they are now treated as a community with rights and strong influence in the city, and not as foreign citizens, exposed to the complex medieval exercise of every authority. For example, a common feature in the treatment of foreign nationalities at that time was that if a crime was committed by a member of an ethnic community, not only the individual criminal was punished, but all of his fellow countrymen as well. This practice historically found a first obstacle from the organization of those students. If the organization of students was mainly provoked by social reasons, its historical impact on the history of academic knowledge and knowledge in general is much greater. This organization, in addition to being an organization of individuals, also becomes an organization of schools, which constitute a unified institution under which all the processes of higher education in the fields of civil and canon law, theology and arts, which include a range of modern sciences, operate. Thus, the first university in history is born, in the form we know today, on a date that was decided to be 1088 in the late 19th century. The so-called Studium is geographically scattered throughout the city, but operates with a unified structure and begins one of the most impressive journeys of humanity that continues to this day, serving as an indicator of the development of civilization in every era. With the establishment of Studium, as it was called at the time, which later evolved into Alma Mater Studiorum, the University of Bologna, a series of processes appear for the first time in history, such as the award of a degree upon completion of studies, the recognition of student status as a social condition, the academic promotion of professors who make up the body of experts, with the right to teach their subject at the highest level of education. The status of being a member of the academic community is so important that many students do not even complete their studies, not due to laziness, but because their goal is not to obtain a degree title. Participation in the process of higher education gives tremendous prestige to every member of society and translates into an improvement in the social status of the participants as students, no matter at what point their studies are interrupted. The academic community appears as a guild within the feudal system, among other guilds that develop means of manual and intellectual production, in order to claim the transformation of societies into a system where they, as a unified bourgeois class, hold power, many centuries later. But is this guild characteristic a permanent feature of the academic community? Perhaps such a conclusion is too simplistic and hasty, because over the centuries the social class origins of both the students and the academic teachers themselves change. The difference that the academic guild has in relation to all others is that it holds a tool that is very easy to democratize when it is not under the strict control of every authority. Thus, in the feudal system, the position of this part was next to the parts of society that were sowing the seed for social evolution towards capitalism, and the same thing can happen in other conditions, in more advanced social and economic formations. These innovations, however, serve more for the definition of the University itself. A series of other developments that concern that first in history academic world have a particular content of inspiration even today. As students essentially constitute the founders of the University, they also support it financially and manage it. The State and the Church, although later on they supported the academic process and the university institution, still did not have a role in the developments that concerned it, at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century. The students take care of their professors having a salary, remuneration that will keep them within the framework of the newly established institution, and organize its administration, organizing their own guild. Initially, at Studium there were three large student guilds, each with the not-at-all unfamiliar name in our times, Universitas. The first two were for students of law, one for those from regions of the Italian peninsula, called Universitas citramontanorum, and one for those from other regions of Europe, called Universitas ultramontanorum. The third guild was for students of arts and medicine, known as Universitas artisarum et medicorum. These guilds elected one of their members, a student who became the Rector and represented what in Greek we would translate as “university.” The first Rectors in the history of universities were students, and perhaps this is an element that shows the importance of the student community in the academic community. A university without students does not exist, and without students, there probably would never have been a university in the history of humanity. With this organization, the University of Bologna establishes the archetype of the “University of Students”, which as a model will become the basis for the establishment of other institutions in the course of the historical evolution of the Old Continent. Students, with their guilds and rectors, define the rights of the academic community within society. They know that their presence’s contribution to the city’s development is particularly significant, as it is now called Bologna La Dotta, Bologna the Wise, describing the basic activity that takes place within its walls. Through a process that involves many conflicts, mainly with the authorities and rulers, they create a framework for protecting the academic community from the law. Essentially, the law ends where academic identity begins, defining a framework that will survive for centuries, as academic asylum, with fluctuations. The power of the intellectual youth is so great that with their demands, they align not only with the teachers of their time but also with the Pope himself, who recognizes the importance that such an institution has for his territory, as it creates a new generation of capable leaders for administration, but also develops the theoretical process that leads to the social evolution of the backward medieval societies, perhaps giving for the first time after many centuries an element that Western Europe begins to surpass Byzantium, the “legitimate heir” of the Roman Empire, but also the competitive Arab world, which for centuries had bowed over the knowledge of antiquity. This process leads to a peculiar nationalization of academic teachers’ salaries, as the Pope believes that this way he will protect the existence of the University within his sphere of influence. Nevertheless, the management and organization of the academic community continue to be determined by the student unions. Therefore, one can observe that a necessary component accompanying the University as an institution from its inception in human history is the assurance of its freedom from the laws that exist in the society that hosts it. Of course, this includes all social activity of the members of the academic community. Although freedom of thought and academic discussion is still at a very early stage, given that the concept of law and God leaves little room for heretics, in the literal sense of the word, the steps taken in analyzing the commentary of the law, as well as the processes of recording the development of other sciences, form the basis for a methodology that will gradually transform into the scientific methodology we know today. Paris The “Student University” of Bologna is a model that one rarely encounters in the centuries that follow. But why is it so important and why was it not just a first spontaneous movement that inspired the development of higher education, but essentially the way in which the foundation was laid and still functions today? The answer is already given by the second university that was founded at another crossroads of Western Europe in 1150. That is when the University of Paris was founded, which later became known as … Sorbonne. In Paris, the birthplace of academic education could be characterized as perhaps the most famous cathedral in the world, Notre Dame. About three centuries before the date of Victor Hugo’s novel, the theological school of Notre Dame takes the example of Bologna and organizes the teaching process according to the standards of the Italian city. The whole organization is a copy except for one element, which, however, was to play a crucial role in the development of academic institutions. Given that the establishment of the University of Paris is not a response to a historical need, so as to become the result of pioneering thinking and organization of students, its founders, owners and administrators are the teachers, the so-called magistri, who should not be confused with the magistri of the offices and other administrative leaders of different eras. The university teachers are organized in a guild, exactly the same way that the establishment of the university essentially corresponds to the date of its foundation. 50 years later, in 1200, the University is also recognized as an institution of the state by royal decree and papal bull. The student guilds, which are also formed with the establishment of the new institution, are initially four: the French, which includes the areas of the Italian and Iberian peninsula, due to Latin kinship, the English, which includes Germany due to Saxon kinship and later became known as the German, the Norman, and the Picardian. These guilds are often in conflict with each other, which is not recorded prominently in the activities of the guilds at the University of Bologna. In Paris, some other characteristics of Universities meet for the first time, which may express a more conservative approach to academic knowledge and society. The most important may be that numerous levels of degrees appear, such as the baccalarius artium, which is taken by 20 to 40 percent of students, the master of arts, which concerns the sciences of medicine, theology, and law, taken by 10 to 20 percent of students, and the highest degree, licentia docendi, which only a few students obtain, and then have the right to teach their subject at the University. Examinations for this highest degree are only held upon recommendation of the interested student by the administrator of the early college of the Notre Dame de Paris. In addition to students who obtain degrees, half of those who start their studies either do not care or never manage to obtain any degree and are characterized as scholaris simplex, freely translated as “simple students.” Finally, a special characteristic is the presence of some feudal lords who “invade” the University with all the pomp of their otherwise noble origin, as they need quite a few servants to be able to attend their lesson insolently. This intra-academic categorization is a traditional approach in French higher education, which in the centuries that followed, faced each democratization of the Universities by establishing new academic institutions for the social elite. If the University of Bologna was the one that showed the way, through the organization of its students, for the acquisition of critical freedoms to the benefit of the academic community, even if it was treated as a medieval guild, in Paris, the control by the few teachers who were also religious officials led three centuries after its foundation, to one of the biggest scandals in French history. The fact that the rulers of the University were not representatives of mass institutions, but a few select officials, helped create even smaller cliques (because they cannot be characterized as guilds), which supported the current social power. Thus, when the Anglophile professors were called under English administration to examine and judge Joan of Arc as a heretic, they arrived very easily at a conclusion that was exactly the opposite of that of their Gallophile colleagues a few years later when Paris had been liberated. Essentially, the University of Paris had put its seal on the burning of Jeanne d’Arc in 1431, creating a useful example, which can be generalized, especially when compared to the developments that the original establishment of the academic community wrought in human history. One major contribution of the early medieval period of the University of Paris was the revival of neo-Aristotelianism as the dominant philosophy of the High and Late Middle Ages. Although there were hints of this in the commentary of Averroes, the Arab scholar who studied Aristotle and is perhaps the greatest representative of his medieval revival, they could not be studied in depth for fear of heresy. Neo-Aristotelianism was easily assimilated into the accepted ideology of the Catholic Church, which by now we can call Catholic as we refer to times after 1054, which in previous centuries had similarly accepted Neoplatonic teaching. In this light, one could argue that the loss of necessary freedom in medieval universities threw many more into the fire of heretics for several centuries, with Giordano Bruno, who was burned in Rome in 1600, being the most prominent example. Continuing this balance between comparisons and examples, it is perhaps worth mentioning that Copernicus gained his perception of the Heliocentric Universe during his years studying astronomy at the University of Bologna, where he had the opportunity to come into contact with the writings of Ptolemy, which he managed to study after first learning Greek. Paris, as a city, however, was not Bologna, it was not a small military fortress in an important crossroads. Paris of the High Middle Ages was already a city with great economic and cultural development, and at times it was either the capital of large kingdoms, with its first designation as the Capital of the Frankish Kingdom by Clovis in 511, or the most important urban center of the territories of the state entities to which it belonged. Thus, the University had to face a much stronger society, against which it had to gain rights corresponding to those of the academic community of Bologna. This was a process that was quite arduous, with losses and harsh political games involving the local, state, and religious authorities, up to the Pope himself. Essentially, the support of Rome, that is, the Catholic Church, was what gave the academic guild the power to confront the very powerful local Parisian authority. However, the process of conflicts also had losses. Sometimes the losses were students who fell victim to the anger – and perhaps the inferiority – of local authorities enforcing order. There were many cases where students were killed by police officers under circumstances whose origin and inspiration remained unclear. Oxford According to the historian Hastings Rashdall, a conflict between the state and religious authority was the reason why a part of the academic community in Paris withdrew to create another large European university, however, this conflict took place far from Paris. According to this account, the King of England, Henry II, had strong disagreements with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in a development that led to the king’s decision to prohibit the studies of English subjects at the University of Paris, which was considered an institution under the auspices and influence of the Catholic Church. This approach does not find all historians in agreement, but what is certain is that in that year, 1167, it acquired royal protection and recognition and was organized in a manner similar to Bologna and Paris, the University of Oxford. In fact, Oxford was founded on the model of Paris, that is, on the model of the “University of Teachers”. Today, the University of Oxford cites the first recorded teaching process in the English town in 1096 as its founding date, perhaps not to claim the title of the oldest university in the world. However, it comes third in this historical series, precisely because it adopted the organization of the University as it had been shaped in Paris. The reason why teaching began in a small town with a population of about 4,000 in comparison to London’s 40,000 in the 12th century is that the seat of royal administration and religious courts were located there at that time. Thus, a network of law schools developed around the state and religious institutions of power, similar to what had happened in Bologna due to the discovery of the Justinian Code. At this point, the reference to Oxford could have ended if there was not a characteristic that appeared as an innovation and still characterizes Anglo-Saxon universities and perhaps the Anglo-Saxon perception of higher education. The student or teacher guilds, the Universitas of Bologna and Paris, in Oxford acquire a different way of functioning. Gradually, the Colleges, which existed in Paris as well, are transformed into closed clubs, which develop their own particular rules of operation, partially turning academic life into an activity that resembles that of secretive organizations, and often competing with each other, but above all, they are built in a way that promotes solidarity among their particularly privileged members who metaphorically acquire academic blood ties. The introduction of categorizing students, as happened through the multiple levels of degrees in Paris, is evolving even more by touching the very process of academic life, through acceptance into one or the other college of the oldest British and generally Anglophone university. The term college, later adopted by other universities in Europe, including Bologna and Paris, to some extent alters the character of the academic guild as a social class or group. Frictions with the local society do not always find the academic community united with a consciousness of academic bonds, but in many cases are sufficient to create splits within it. Such a conflict, in fact, created a major schism at the University of Oxford, causing several members to leave and found the perennial rival university of Cambridge in 1209. Some knowledge of our history This was the part of historical knowledge that concerns the history of knowledge, which I needed to present in order to develop the thoughts that were born in my mind through the journey I took as I came into contact with this knowledge of history. Since I do not have all the relevant knowledge, I present some of the resources I used for this journey in the references section of this article, where one can find even more knowledge about history than what I shared with you in order to develop my next thoughts. Perhaps, in addition to the journey through history, the main journey, that is the geographical one, is a help. The fact that I studied in Paris, work in an institution of so-called academic research in Bologna, and had the good fortune to stay for a week at a college in Oxford, helped to compose historical images in my mind. When you walk a path, it is easier to bring to life the figures who walked it in the past. For this reason, I would say that beyond the right to knowledge, we must also have the right to travel and movement, and if this does not exist, some guilds should claim it with the support of the Catholic Church. Perhaps, it is a need for the corresponding organization to turn it into a universal right. Bringing the historical retrospect to our own history, namely the very recent European history, I leave behind the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the great Revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, and I arrive at the post-Cold War European world, the European Union, which, in its perception, as an institution, finds its cultural roots where our present history began, with Charlemagne, thus declaring with its European aspiration that it is the evolution of the common understanding and common tradition of a geographical area that includes Germany, France, the northern part of Italy and has walked hand in hand with the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries. In 1998, 910 years after the birth of the University of Bologna, as recorded in the historical archives, the then Minister of Higher Education of France, Claude Allegre, invited his counterparts from Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to Paris to discuss his great inspiration, the formation of a unified space for higher education in Europe. At this meeting, they agree on a series of ideas that a year later, in 1999, they agree upon at a conference attended by all the ministers with portfolios that include higher education in the European Union. This conference, for probably symbolic reasons, takes place in Bologna. At the Bologna Conference, the corresponding treaty is agreed upon, which serves as a map for each member state of the then 15-member Union regarding its policy on Higher Education. Thus, in an ironic way, we move from the “University of Students” and the “University of Teachers”, which are the two models of European history for Higher Education and therefore elements of European culture, to the “University of Ministers” or, to be more precise: the University that was conceived by 4 Ministers and agreed upon by 15. Oh, the wonder, history is sometimes ruthless against such ironies and against the invisible hand of the market. The visible hand of historical necessity is embodied in the student movements that, during the decade 2000-2010, in a series of European Union countries, opposed the mutation of Higher Education systems as attempted in each country separately. However, students are no longer characterized as a guild, as the very mode of production has evolved and with its democratization, or rather with its massification, it also leads to the massification of the academic body of students, which has therefore been democratized. The so-called Bologna Treaty, which does not spare any honor for the cradle of the academic world, employs an inspiration that was formed by the University of Paris during its early years of operation and later shaped the French perception of higher education: categorization. Low-quality higher education for the many, high-quality education for the few, literally for the chosen ones, perhaps not for the head of the religious administration of Notre Dame, but for those who can adapt to a series of political and secular philosophical views on science and its function. In France, this is of course a tradition – and for this reason, it may not be a coincidence that the idea comes from a French minister, a geologist by profession but a climate change denier for years. During major social revolutions in France that led to the democratization of the higher education system, the State created new academic institutions, even in the prestigious city of Paris and at the expense of the historic University of Paris, in order to host the social and thereafter the educational elite. The Écoles system was an idea to develop brilliant scientists, often under the auspices of the French army itself, who were and still are the leaders of the power system of this great European state. In France, perhaps due to the excessive rationalism of the Enlightenment, the State did not hesitate to dissolve the historic University of Paris itself, dividing it into 13 universities of different categories in 1970, in the aftermath of the events of May ’68 and the symbolic and historical significance of the occupation of Montagne Saint-Genevieve, the historical seat of the Sorbonne. The French system of creating an educational elite has created the social phenomenon of educational nepotism, as historically the majority of the descendants of families who themselves had done something similar in the past have passed through the gates of these top academic institutions. In France, this phenomenon is known and defined by the term “The Great Gate”, through which pass the informal feudal lords of our post-feudal era – and some more. In the British College system, this evolution was embraced with fanfare, but without affecting the Colleges themselves. A large number of academic institutions could welcome millions of students seeking a degree with the least prestige worldwide, and the use of the English language gave the greatest advantage in this race for the conquest of the educational market. In other countries, some institutions were excluded from this process, thus sealing the top-down categorization mandate, which some advocates of European culture prefer to dress up with the wrapping of another word, excellence. Twenty or more years after the Bologna treaty, the allocation of community and state funds for research shows mercilessly that this categorization aimed at probing and manipulating that famous invisible hand of the market, which may not be visible through relations of production, but everyone can predict its trajectory, replacing papal infallibility with ministerial, presidential, or any non-heretical for the current economic and power system. In the poorest countries, which could be called patriae simplex to remind students who did not graduate from medieval Paris, neither community nor state funding is available – and because the hungry bellies dream, excellence becomes a slogan on the lips of feudal lords who passed through the Great Gate to return and become masters in their small village. Regarding the freedom and protection of higher education from every local authority, the “University of Ministers” has neither students, nor teachers, as rectors to protect it. Today, the rectors give orders to the police authorities to invade the spaces of academic havens of knowledge and ideas, in order to drag the heads of the students on the pavement who finally do what is their historical duty, as they learned from Bologna, Paris, Oxford and all the great institutions throughout European history. It is worth wondering how the defenders of the reactionary and essentially medieval view of higher education, who desire its return to a essentially school model, are the first enemies of Academic Asylum while at the same time donning the mantle of Europeanism, out of fear that the Pope might come and label them heretics. Perhaps the fact that the inability to obtain research funding through Eurospeak functions to some extent like the Inquisition, as it can lead to academic death, is part of the reason. However, we do not live outside of history, so that we can only comment on it and occasionally, when we have the necessary knowledge, interpret it. We are children of history, subjects that live within it and are obligated to shape it. How we will shape it in our time is something that future generations will discuss, just as we have reason to discuss the universities of the Middle Ages today. At the University of Bologna in the 11th century, the so-called trivium and quadrivium were taught, which included rhetoric and dialectic. What dialectic is it that today shows the position that academics and the intellectual world in general should have in society? What is the organization, equivalent to the medieval guild, that can lead to social development with the current economic, political, and productive relations? It’s a rhetorical question. With the European culture as our guide, let us create the necessary Studium of our time, in contrast to the theories and institutions that led scientists to the stake. This is to avoid remaining in a social stagnation equivalent to the geocentric universe. Our Alma Mater is the history we live in… References Bonazzi, G., 2011. Bologna nella storia: Volume I – Dalle origini all’unità d’Italia. Pendragon. Haskins, C.H., 2013. The rise of universities. Cornell University Press. Janin, H., 2014. The university in medieval life, 1179-1499. McFarland. de Ridder-Symoens, H. and Rüegg, W. eds., 2003. A history of the university in Europe: Volume 1, Universities in the Middle Ages (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. Sarti, N., 2018. Scuole, studium, ateneo: i primi nove secoli dell’Università di Bologna. Bononia University Press. Pedersen, O., 1997. The first universities: Studium generale and the origins of university education in Europe. Cambridge University Press. Rashdall, H., 1886. The origines of the University of Paris. The English Historical Review, 1(4), pp.639-676. Rashdall, H., 1895. The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages: Salerno. Bologna. Paris (Vol. 1). Clarendon Press.
Since 2017, one of the most powerful political positions in the world is occupied by a person who created a shock when he was a elected and it is a very common perception in the western world that he behavior is increasingly dangerous for millions and millions of people. This is not a statement, this is just a fact. However, another fact is that in the territory of the superpower that he is leading, more and more people, since the early days of his presidency, were saying “sorry about our president”, in a symbolic address to the rest of the world. Worrying news, this is not enough! Very soon, within a year, a new election will happen through a daedalic electoral system which doesn’t seem at all to a direct democratic process, in order to elect the president of the USA for the following 4 years. Despite the apparent unpopularity of the current leader, there are still chances that he might be reelected to his position. Therefore, something is fundamentally wrong with the political behavior of those who control the outcome of this election. How it can be corrected? Is it soon or late? Fighting him as a person is enough? I’m really impressed by the targeted political debate during the time before the election. The traditional bipartisanship of the American democracy is being converted to a dilemma, a question “him or not him”. It’s not my personal impression, there is even a slogan, promoted by the opposite Democratic Party, saying “blue no matter who”, declaring the necessity to replace this person who is holding such a crucial political seat. Furthermore, there is a constant question within the American society (and in an extension all over the globe), without a clear answer yet: “how did we end up like this?” In the following lines I’ll try to draw a scheme and explain through a very simple logical process, how things are happening, how things are understood and discussed and how things should be changed. There are three steps on this: understanding the outcome of an election, understanding the actual strategy for winning an election and understanding those two as a result of the ideological battle within the society, not as the reason. The conclusion is a suggestion of a different approach about winning the ideological battle and consequently any election. 1. Who wins the election In our logical process I will initially introduce some theoretical features. The first is the characterization of a policy. This can be located in a spectrum from absolute humanity to absolute monstrosity, with a dividing line in the edge between them. The second is the candidates, a blue candidate, positioned on the left side of the figure and a red candidate, positioned always on its right side. The colors are just schematic, however they were chosen to reflect the American bipartisan system. We all know that political colors that correspond to ideologies are very different in the rest of the world. Finally, there is a curve, or if you prefer THE curve: a gaussian curve which corresponds to the normal distribution of people’s ideology. Every person is located in the spectrum of humanity/monstrosity in the same way that the candidates are located. The ordinate value corresponds to the number of people who are located in any point of the political spectrum, defined on the abscissa. How this curve is made and why it is a normal distribution? Unfortunately this curve is a normal distribution because in the current political debate there is a false notion of extremes. The dominating power of the argument of avoiding the extremes is defining the battleground and then propaganda mechanisms, like the mass media, are playing on a very specific limited space of political thought. However, features that define this shape of the curve are going to be better analyzed in the following lines. So, let’s take first a very theoretical example. Imagine that we have two candidates, one fundamentally human and one fundamental monstrous. They are sitting on both sides of the dividing line of our ideological concepts. The curve in this occasion should have a peak exactly on this dividing line, the reason is very interesting. Political candidates try to win an election, so they fight for the peak of this gaussian curve. The largest number of voters is there and therefore the winner will be the one who is going to win just a bigger fraction of this large amount. By adapting their policies they push each other, their own dividing line (the dashed line on the curve) toward the opposite direction, in order to win more voters. This push toward the opposite direction corresponds to some kind of political reconciliation. The monstrous candidate tries to be more slightly more human in order to win the election, the human one tries to be slightly more monstrous. Doesn’t all this sound paradoxal? Why a human candidate should become monstrous in order to win the election against a monstrous opponent? Actually, it is paradoxal but this is one of the main arguments of politicians who want to keep their relatively progressive profile while adopting a more conservative policy. The “reconciliation in order to avoid the worst scenario” is generating a change in policies toward the “bad” direction. In this case, the blue candidate wins the election, as shown in the following figure. However, adapting the policy is not the only way that one can win the election, convincing people that their policy is right is something more “traditional” and for some reason closer to a real ideological debate. Therefore, the politicians try to keep their position close to the line and move a percentage of the voters towards their side. Just a small adaptation of their rhetoric is enough in order to win the preference of these high numbers near the peak, which comes usually by a rhetoric against the opponent. As one can see in the following schematically figure, if the curve is just slightly transposed, the blue candidate can win the election by a large margin. However, there is also a necessity, for both candidates, to make their policy more effective. This means that a flat curve is not good, because the ability to gain a crucial number of voters is more effective through their concentration in a very limited ideological space. Therefore, this is one of the reasons why the “extremes” argument is used. In the following figures you can see how more “powerful” can be an elected candidate by narrowing the curve, while keeping exactly the same position in the ideological spectrum. However who is the reason and who is the result of this process. Does the position of the politicians define the shape of the curve or the opposite? Let’s take another hypothetical example, an optimistic one. In this example the candidates fight for the peak of the curve which is by far on the left side of the spectrum. If they have an equal battle, they will be both in the human side of the spectrum. If one wins by a small margin it is because this candidate convinced people with a much more human policy than the one that was proposed in the first example. Now let’s think otherwise. The curve is the one shown in the second example but one candidate, the red one, is a monster, while the blue one remains a true human, far from the dividing line of the political spectrum. If we suppose that each one wins the voters that are closer to their side of the political spectrum, the blue candidate is going to win not only with a landslide, but with a phenomenal, historical percentage as shown in the following picture. However, this never happened. Now let’s keep the curve as it is, with its peak in the human part and place the candidates near the dividing line of the human and monstrous side. In this case the result is just unreal, the blue candidate is going to win by a percentage that means that the red candidate doesn’t exist. Therefore, this can be used as a proof that this example is false. Let’s try now the opposite example, a pessimistic one. The blue candidate is the worst case scenario for a good, human one, however the curve has a peak on the side of the monstrosity. If the red candidate is an evil candidate, the fact that people are thinking like monsters will provide a victory with an unreal margin, something that never happened too. If the blue candidate struggles to approach the peak of this curve, there will be a scenario of two monstrous candidates. They will struggle for the voters on the side of the monstrosity and their rhetoric will target to balance the peak on their side. Even a monstrous blue candidate can lose this election. If the blue candidate wants to win this election, the peak should be more easily moved and therefore the curve should be narrowed. The rhetoric will become adapted to a strong bipartisan terminal war and with a slightly more conservative position the blue candidate is going to gain the small necessary advantage in order to win the election and give an end to the era of monstrosity by being a monster. With these examples anyone can understand two things: 1. The candidates are fighting for the peak of the curve, 2. The curve is defining the position of the candidates and not the opposite. Therefore a new interesting question is raised. 2. How is the curve shaped As mentioned earlier, this curve is shaped by the ideological battle within a society. In societies where people are reading books, this curve is shaped through the ideas that are published in books. In societies where there is free speech and the means of expression are widely available, this curve is made through a process of a variety of ideas. In societies where people watch TV, the curves is shaped by the TV networks. In societies where people are informed through means of communications owned by big corporations, the curve is shaped by the interests of these corporations, depending in some level on the regulations of any given sovereign state where these corporations are located. As mentioned earlier, an interest of the candidates and all those who are interested on the shape of this curve is to define its limits. Therefore, a narrower curve can define and control much better on what side of the political spectrum will be any winner candidate. For this reason, a very paradoxal arguments is initiated, the right of the middle ground, or more simply, the right of the moderate. However, let’s see how good it is to be a moderate. Let’s take first the initial example, where things are in a fragile balance between humanity and monstrosity and suppose that every political side, supporting one candidate, has its own moderates. The blue arrow defines the blue moderates and the red arrow the red ones respectively. When a moderate is considered someone who is positioned further from the dividing line, it means that the curve is more flat and therefore more ideas are discussed, more unpredictable is the outcome of the election. On the other hand, when the moderates approach the dividing line, the curve becomes more narrow and consequently the outcome will be a winning policy closer to the side of the opponent. Let’s take the optimistic example of the previous part and see how a “moderate” crowd by becoming less moderate in the general population, which means moving away from the dividing line, can give the win to their candidate. In this occasion, the blue arrow is in the middle point of the blue voters. If this blue arrow moves to the left, it means that blue voters become more human and therefore their candidate will win. Why? Because this move of voters is not happening independently from the rest of the curve. The ideas that gain popularity in a society affect the way of thinking of other people that are confused ideologically in a given debate and therefore near the peak of the curve. However, let’s see now why the “moderate” argument can be catastrophic. When this argument is used it means that the moderate is not someone who occupies the middle ground in a given situation, but someone who wants to make their position to be the middle ground. Therefore, in the pessimistic example of two monstrous candidates, the blue moderates try to push their side of the curve, near the dividing ling, higher and higher in order to give the win to their candidate. This doesn’t happen through ideological battle, but only through an argument that corresponds to a fundamental philosophical fallacy. Therefore, this is the only way to disturb the normal distribution of the curve, make one candidate’s policy accepted in a higher level by people who need to believe that they’re wrong or they just have to act as voters in a different way that they would desire to act as citizens. The result is to drive the peak and the people’s mind towards the side of the monstrosity, just in order to win by a little margin the election. However, they also might lose this election and wonder “how did we end up like this”. A very obvious question based on the previous two figures is why acting like this as a “moderate” in order to secure the win and not only keeping the curve as it was, with more people on the left side of the spectrum. The answer is the addition of one parameter that was not used in all the previous examples, which makes some of the outcomes impossible. One key parameter in order to win the election is to have the largest amount of voters closer to one candidate’s actual position, otherwise they won’t be enough motivated to support any candidate. This is the reason why landslide wins are so rare in this bipartisan system. However, this behavior contributes to move towards dystopian realities. This is the strategy of the established political parties. 3. The important question So, if you wonder “how did we end up like this” in America and why we might “end up like this” again in some months, you should better look the answer on the shaping of this curves and not on the strategies of the candidates. By looking how a candidate can be more attractive to the people who voted for the opponent, by looking who is a more preferable by the moderates and by leaving apart the real discussion of what society do we need, the human side is weakened and the reason is that this is happening because YOU’RE MISSING! So, the important issue is to define your own position on the curve! Is it enough? No! But this is the only way. By stop thinking on how you should choose a candidate who will win this small margin, this small fraction of a predefined peak of the curve, you should think on how you can shape the curve, the one that really matters. Think first, read, find the fundamental knowledge that shapes the evolution of ideological debates through the history of humanity, be informed about the scientific advances and the actual knowledge that we have, as humans, after thousands of years of civilization and think forward, how our world should be, how it is rational and realistic to live the next day, how it can be a good day for more. Then act, speak, make your side stronger and let the others do the same for their side. No matter the result, at least you will never again wonder “how did we end up like this” by trying to avoid the worse.
My experience from social life proves to me more and more every day that many of our political disagreements are mainly based on the different historical scale we use to develop our political arguments. When the questions are not philosophical, someone, in some way, uses a different scale from someone else in order to interpret the world, human societies, economic theories, and systems. Often, the disagreement is simply a matter of knowledge on specific issues, and as such, it is difficult and impolite to expose the ignorance of one's interlocutor, as no one has absolute knowledge on any issue anyway. However, it is quite important to use the right tools, and perhaps discussing how these are chosen is equally useful. The evolution of politics is nothing more than the history of our societies and the thought that shaped them, which is fueled by reality, generating new ideas. The interpretation of causes and outcomes is of paramount importance in order to be able to interpret the future and propose solutions for a better one. Many of us agree on the present, some on the past, and very few on the future when it is larger than the next day. Whether we talk about the past or the future, we perceive the present as a moment in this evolution. All of us? No! This is a first level of historical scale, or the level of complete absence of any historical scale in political thought. Each thought, of every individual, is political, regardless of how immature it may be. Thus, the thoughts of people who see the present as an eternal state are political and contain the complete absence of the historical scale of social evolution. They do not know and are not interested in learning about yesterday, even if it concerns a few years ago. They cannot predict how the proposed solutions might work in the future, because they only see the absolutely necessary solution of today. These are people who are more easily swayed by populism, very likely the majority of modern societies. If we want to see the first, primary level of political thought under a historical scale, we find those people whose ideology is their personal experience. Obviously, this approach lacks many aspects, such as the ability to combine social experience or the experience of humanity in a series of issues and concerns, yet it focuses only on a moment that corresponds to the time span of a person's life. Whether it is a teenager or an elderly person, many people judge solely based on what they have seen in their lives, always being absolutely certain about the facts, without wondering if these are part of a larger historical curve or even data points within the limits of statistical error. The obstacle one encounters when talking to these people is the answer they give, which resembles "these things happened, they are in the past," referring to historical events that played a dominant role in shaping modern societies. The next level, which is the first one that can be encountered in political and economic theories considered serious by a broad audience, is the scale of the current socio-economic system. In every political system, those who benefited from it wanted to believe that the current socio-economic formation would be eternal. They contemplate tomorrow with scientific tools, but with limited data and countless axioms for the boundary conditions of human societies. They judge the prosperity of a society based on its ability to function well on a specific economic basis, considering it eternal. Even if they know well that each system began at a given moment, they want to believe that there is no end. Today, this happens with capitalism, which is described even as a reflection of "human nature" in many serious discussions, but earlier in history the same was done in other systems. Perhaps the most remarkable example is that of Plato and Aristotle, who believed that slavery is a natural state. This retrospective brings us to the next level, which contains similar arguments, however on a much larger historical scale. There are people who take the known human history to date, with the findings that have been revealed and the progress from the first societies to today, as the absolute known curve of evolution. They associate exploitation with the nature of human societies. A very characteristic example is that in several cases they refer to writings from antiquity in order to support that "it has always been like this, we have never changed," obviously referring to writings from exploitative societies, since there is no writing before them. However, there is another historical scale, which takes into account the entirety of our species' evolution, from our first steps on our hind legs to our expansion across an entire planet, an evolution that includes only a small fraction of known history and a small part of it concerns the period of human exploitation. On the subject, being passionate about history, when someone asks me which history I like the most, I answer "the modern one, the last 6,000 years." When we start to see our species through this lens, exploitation begins to look like just a phase, from one type of behavior, nomadic, to another, social. Every beginning is difficult, and in about 300,000 years of Homo sapiens' existence, only a small percentage corresponds to the timid start of social life. As we believe we will exist as a species for much longer than we have managed so far, who can say that we have found everything for the continuation of our presence in the world? The absence of any certainty on this question is simply scientific maturity and the assumption that we will find a way to untangle ourselves from any self-destructive behavior that seems more natural than any "eternal economic theory." Finally, there is the real historical scale, the one we know to date, the truly natural one, the history of the universe. Only when we see everyday, contemporary, historical events as a moment, a passage from one time to the next, do we begin to acquire the ability to design the curve of our political evolution. Thus, in this question, there are others, such as what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is unfair, however, the perception of what is possible and natural changes completely in relation to the first or last levels of absence of the natural historical scale. If we want to understand anything in human societies, we need to examine it as a moment, a passage, extending the known scales. If we want to understand human nature, we must extend our scale to life itself, then to the known universe and all the knowledge we have about what may exist beyond it. In this way, we can talk to each other and openly express our views on the evolution of tomorrow that needs to take place today, not to provide a final solution to our historical evolution, but to bring the next step closer, a step unknown but certainly one of progress.
I gave a great deal of thought to the title of this article, which is, in fact, the answer to a question I had been asking myself over the past few years: essentially, “What happened to France?” Eventually, I decided to give this bold answer to such a strange and unusual question. Feelings are irrelevant. There is only one truth: France, as we knew it, with all the symbolism it carried for the entire world, at least as far as political and social processes are concerned, officially no longer exists. It has been a long process, and a long period of confirmation, beginning with last year's presidential elections. But we can now confirm that the country which enlightened the world has entered a dangerous and dark era. All of humanity has reason to mourn. The Nation That Enlightened the World Have you ever wondered why France, and its capital Paris, are so attractive to visitors? Have you ever considered why the Eiffel Tower exists, why there are so many museums, such extraordinary architecture, urban history, cultural legends and human-made beauty in this corner of our planet, which was once the centre of the civilisation of a species that managed to establish its dominance over it? There are only a handful of examples in the history of human civilisation that represent truly fundamental transformations. That very short list might include Ancient Athenian Democracy, Dutch Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution and, of course, everything we have come to know as France since the middle of the 18th century: a country in which intense political struggle was constantly present, shaping an identity that characterises not only its society, but also its tangible and intangible cultural heritage. On many occasions, I used to say that France was not a country or a nation, but an ideal for humanity. Anyone attempting to approach the matter cynically will struggle to distinguish the particular characteristics of this European state from those of others. But if one thinks a little more deeply and tries to compare what makes each European society interesting, it becomes easy to discover that France is by far the most fascinating of all its neighbouring countries in terms of its social evolution, which has so often involved the word “Revolution”. France was the arena of a continuous and profound political battle. The French Revolution, one of the defining events in the history of our species, was a process marked by the clear emergence and confrontation of a new and an old political consciousness, representing the future and the past of human societies at that historical moment. The following century, the 19th, retained these same characteristics, with revolutions following one another until they reached their culmination in the extraordinarily fascinating political struggle of the Paris Commune in 1871. Finally, in the 20th century, this struggle was embodied by the famous May of '68, when the movement, although not ideologically coherent, was nevertheless, once again, as profoundly political as it could possibly be, with ideological confrontation taking place both within its own ranks and beyond them. A politically conscious nation never fell asleep… at least until quite recently. One can find this distinctly French spirit of political struggle expressed in a particularly powerful slogan written on the walls of Paris during the Commune. The slogan was “Mort aux voleurs” (“Death to thieves”), and it was not an expression of some particular affection for private property, but a remarkable declaration of the necessity to drive lumpen, apolitical elements out of any movement. During those days of tremendous upheaval, many people, mainly from the poorer sections of society, attempted to take advantage of the situation, stealing for their own personal benefit. Yet the broad and politically diverse movement of the Communards did not fight only against the ruling class of its time. It also treated these parasites as what they were: another enemy to be confronted. This history created extraordinarily fertile ground for the development of a country capable of accommodating every political ideology, with a unique tolerance that, for decades and even centuries, allowed ideological refugees from across the globe to arrive, particularly in Paris. They transformed the capital into a place where political thought flourished, in turn helping modern philosophy and even scientific thinking to make enormous strides forward. This is what France represents to the rest of the world. No other country has ever enjoyed such a privilege, while simultaneously serving as a compass, an ideal for the creation of other societies by people who had been inspired by, and in many cases educated on, this exceptional ground. The Nation That Switched Off Its Lights I have written publicly before that, during the 20th century, particularly after the magnificent uprising of May '68 and, above all, following the “socialist spring” of the 1980s, certain factors pushed France towards ideological and nationalist conservatism. It is no coincidence that Le Pen's far-right party, once known as the “National Front”, began gaining popularity in the late 1980s, managed to reach the second round of the presidential elections at the beginning of the new century, and became a significant political force during the 2010s. This was the result of Gaullist nationalism and the transformation of the trade union movement, traditionally associated with the left, and of the broader popular movement. France in our century is no longer the country capable of welcoming a Camus and a Sartre, or of giving someone like Marie Curie, arriving from another country, the opportunity to shine in the sciences, at a time when nothing comparable was happening anywhere else. In short, France is no longer exceptional. Alongside this shift of ideological confrontation towards the “ultraviolet end of the political spectrum”, the great political struggle was transformed into an “apolitical” one. There is no better evidence of this than the election of Emmanuel Macron as President of the French Republic. A politician was turned into a popular idol by the media just a few weeks before the elections, despite having previously served as a largely unpopular minister in an unsuccessful government under François Hollande. An “apolitical” movement came to power, and its principal opponent appeared to be the far right, the racism and fascism of French politics. The moment had arrived when the only answer this great nation could offer to fascism was… a banker from the City of London. This formula of the “new”, which was in reality “older than the oldest”, was obviously doomed to fail in its supposed objective of calming the anger of a people who had watched their lives deteriorate for decades, following the Trente Glorieuses, those three decades that followed the Second World War. It seemed obvious that the “major force on the right” would become the next choice of an enraged population. Yet that far-right party proved incapable of taking on this responsibility. The fact is that even these fascist politicians, however desperately eager to seize power, can prove remarkably incompetent when the time comes to turn their destructive dreams into reality. Unfortunately, however, this immature and “apolitical” anger remained ever-present, while progressive forces proved incapable of giving it an ideological direction, having long since abandoned serious ideological struggle. History, then, repeats itself both as farce and as nightmare. Anyone who fails to read the history of the previous century and understand the anger of the petty bourgeoisie is condemned to relive it. An “apolitical” movement emerged within a matter of weeks and gained popularity through the media. At first, it was so immature that one could only laugh at it, as it seemed little more than a joke. Yet media coverage helped it become stronger… and more dangerous to the people. An “apolitical” movement that concealed its political colours beneath a “yellow vest” occupied and almost paralysed the… roads of an entire country during the least productive hours of the week, at weekends, on the basis of one demand and one demand alone: “Stop the increase in fuel taxes.” Even a brief historical analysis is enough to reveal the nature of this demand, which has nothing to do with the struggle of the working class, but rather reflects a superficial need of the petty bourgeoisie, the consumers of capitalism who find themselves under growing economic pressure. Can you think of another petty-bourgeois movement in history that managed to seize power in powerful capitalist countries? Unfortunately, History can. And unfortunately, History repeats itself. Within this “apolitical” movement, groups even further to the right than the “National Front” are playing their thoroughly political game remarkably well. Moreover, the movement enjoys support from virtually every political force outside government: the “left-wing” Mélenchon, Le Pen's far-right camp and the former “socialist” President Hollande. There is nothing new about this in Europe, a continent suffering from the growing popularity of fascist parties. All those movements of the “indignant” that enjoyed favourable media coverage a few years ago harboured precisely such fringe groups, providing fascist parties with the opportunity to accumulate power, enter the institutions of government and come close to seizing political power, just as happened in the 1930s. This account is, to say the least, deeply disappointing, and is naturally accompanied by profound pessimism, not only about France, but about the future of humanity. Yet the people taking part in the demonstrations on French streets every weekend are not all fascists, nor are they all enemies of democracy, at least no more so than the undemocratic government they are confronting. And that is precisely where the problem lies. They are so politically immature, so petty-bourgeois and so enraged that they are ready to repeat the nightmare. They will become both the authors and the actors of the drama of this new, dark chapter of history. The problem is that this is now happening in France, on the very soil that once illuminated our modern civilisation, and hope does not seem to be coming from anywhere else. These days, this alarming situation, the shattered dream of the City of Light transformed into the City of Political Darkness, a darkness that cannot be concealed behind the fires burning along the streets of the famous Champs-Élysées, is the alarm bell that is finally ringing for all of us, wherever we may be. I can now write it plainly: that famous line from Casablanca, “We'll always have Paris”, no longer corresponds to reality. We need to rediscover and rebuild the France that once enlightened the world, whether that happens in France itself or somewhere else. For France is dead, and now, more than ever, we need to cry out: Long live France!
Have you ever had a discussion on politics, trying to find out what’s going well and what’s going wrong in this world, in its history and finally try to find out what could be a viable solution for humanity’s future? I guess you have. I’m sure that you will share the experience that many of these discussions end with the conclusion that something named “human nature” is the greatest obstacle which forbids the creation of a society where the wealth will be distributed to all the members of our civilization and nobody will exploit others. Good news, this is nonsense. Surely, people who share this kind of opinions are not so original, this argument is a kind of a “mainstream” way to avoid any further discussion and feel confortable in actual conditions of social life. It’s based on the eternal behavior of ruling or dominant classes in our history, who try to explain the world as it is in their time as eternal, unchangeable. There is no better example than Aristotle, who even dared to explain why it’s “natural” for somebody to be slave or to be free. Fortunately today the mainstream thought evolved, at least in many places of our world, and these arguments seem more than silly to be repeated. But the basis of the arguments who explain why we can’t move on, why there can’t be revolutionary progress in our societies, is exactly the same. When somebody describes in detail the structure of a society whose members produce wealth and enjoy it equally, or almost equally but without a direct exploitation of some by others, there goes the reaction: “This is impossible, you cannot change the human nature”. Then this argument is supported by many others, in order to claim that there is some kind of “natural equilibrium” in the way that we behave today towards our communities and that it can’t change. Many times these arguments are coming from the analysis of animal societies, as they try to explain that we are condemned to follow this rules because of our animalistic nature, even if it’s named “human nature”, the one that “we cannot change”. Good news again, in our evolution we changed the animalistic nature AND the human nature! Let’s elaborate… There are two characteristic examples of animal communities with a sort of hierarchy that are used as examples of social structure, one that we’re supposed to be unable to escape from. The first concerns the wolves. According to the argument, in wolves’ herds there is a certain role to every person, in respect with their age, sex and physical power. The equilibrium provided by the developed relationships into them is shown as a paradigm to follow in our human societies. The second, is the presentation of ants’ societies, where there are leaders, workers, hard-workers and lazy ones. According to our knowledge in an ants’ society there should always be an equilibrium between the number of hard-workers and lazy persons, proving that this is a natural equilibrium who should characterize any society of any species of the animalia kingdom. There are two points concerning this part of the argument. First, are humans biologically the same with the animals? One of the most characteristic distinctions between human and other forms of life is the fact that contrary to them, newly born humans aren’t able to be autonomous and be part of our society. Actually, humans are developed biologically in our societies. If you take any animal, in a relatively short period after its birth it will be able to walk, to communicate, to be equal member of its society. This is something that doesn’t concern humans, as we don’t use only our animalistic instinct to manage situations and control our social behavior. Take the example of ants. They build enormously completive systems to live, but for this they just use something that nature gave them, orientation with organs sensitive to magnetic field. On the other hand a human should use a compass, and guess what, in order to do it, instinct alone isn’t enough. Second, biologically, our nature is different. Our brain is different. Have you ever heard of the external part of our brain, named vortex? Nature, biological evolution provide this tool to our bodies in order to use it. Otherwise we wouldn’t ever had elections, laws, ideology, economy and mane other unique features of our civilization. If this nature could never change we should still live alone, by using only the reptilian interior part of our brain. So, the next time that somebody raises this argument a good answer would be to ask him to try to respect the nature, and live alone from societies, by using only the R-complex. Then, if nature distinguishes us from animals, can this apply from other humans? What do you think? In order to give an answer to this question we should define the first “human” in our questioning. Do we talk about primates? Australopithecus? Homo erectus? Homo sapiens? All these species are part of an unstoppable evolution and genetic changes happened many times as result to the social behavior. Even if the latter is strongly dependent to our physiology, it can affect it and the existence of our ancestors’ communities changed also our physiology and nature. It was a long and hard fight in order to move on and what we live today isn’t the state after its end, but just a part of this unstoppable process. Even in very short periods, that means from the first raise of our civilization, we achieved as species to create amazing societies, leave our trace on our planet, reform its surface and even obtain the knowledge how to destroy it. Do you think that this isn’t an evolution, a change in the “eternal human nature”? Fortunately we aren’t imprisoned in our instincts. We can build a better society, a harmonic civilization for all of us. Don’t be afraid of mother nature, it’s historically proven that she helps us in every step towards this direction!
It’s the first time ever I’m so worried. We read the history books and the first thing wandered was almost always how people of these or other times couldn’t understand the tragic effects of political evolutions which lead to massacres, to total catastrophes. Our generation, never got involved in a war in Western World, has to compare now what’s going on in the most sensible corner of our planet, the one who born our first civilizations. Our species, since a few decades, has the tools to expand its dominance in unknown worlds but in the mean time to make our world unknown and eternally forgotten. This concentrated power is the greatest danger we ever faced, never expressed during the last century in worldwide dimensions, for reasons that are to hard to analytically explain here. A look into the military power which is getting prepared to fight at the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, with the Syrian terrain at stake, is enough to make anyone understand what is very probable to happen and very soon. Another look into how people react in the rest of the world is enough to born the pessimism for the unreadiness of our societies to face the danger of a total destruction, the damages of hundreds of thousands of lives. What our world doesn’t understand is a combination of two things, crucial to understand the dangers and the solution in the mean time. The first one is WHY the war happens in the Middle East and the second is HOW this can be stopped, whereas the second depends to the first. I’ll try to give brief answers to these two questions, as I got them in my mind, as a result of the point I’m seeing the world and the way I do it, based on some values, principles and in the mean time dreams for the perspective of human presence in our universe. WHY it’s done? I could use thousands of words to explain the propaganda which makes peoples approve decisions of their leaders to go to world, give examples from history, from the darkest pages of human history, but I’ve seen something better. There’s just a picture, from the TV series “House of Cards” which brilliantly discusses the political life in one of the superpowers of the world, for the time the most powerful. I will not discuss if this is one of the reasons that “House of Cards” will never exist again in the way we knew it, because this is another sensible issue and I don’t like the conspiracy theories. What can I show, on the other hand, is the position of Syria in a map, relatively to other oil-producing countries and mostly Qatar, considered evil even by its Arab brothers, who applied a blockade because of the instability this little rich country provokes in the Middle East. You can understand that the way from Qatar to Europe passes through Turkey and …Syria!!! Yes, but Syria in the mean time is the only land where there are Russian interests, as well a future pipeline from Iran, next to the “mare nostrum”, which is now plenty of US air-fighters and missiles. Given that after a long and world wide economic instability, who brought China in a position of advantage compared to the traditional powers of last decades, these two camps, have to fight hard for this part of land. It’s crucial for their survival in a monstrous world with borders, capitals, national bourgeoisies, international trusts and military organizations. That’s why they are there. That’s why the bigger aircraft carrier of the world, priced as much as 4 interplanetary space missions, is approaching this land. That’s why in some days there will be the start of a devastating destruction, with consequences that we should better avoid to think, even if we know. HOW can it be stopped? There’s just one way! The only player who doesn’t plays in the geo strategical chess as a decider is the most powerful one, the one who turns the wheels of all these war machines: peoples! Peoples have one of their last chances to save themselves and the world as well. How? Just fight the system of capitals, national bourgeoisies, international trusts and military organizations. Is it possible? YES, because the foundation of the existence of all those is the trust of peoples to them and the people who work for them. Is it simple? No, we need a doctrine, we need an ideology, able to convince today for the future, with very clear answers to every aspect of our social life and adapted to the modern, see actual, state of technology and human knowledge, as well the power and technology of humanity’s destroyers. Is it easy? Not at all, but IT’S NECESSARY. We need a new flower power, combined with true ideology, people able and ready to change the world, not only because they are dreamers, but just because they don’t want to be, because they realistically understand that we have to change this world if we want to survive. In order to put Barry McGuire’s lyrics in the museum of an unreturned era, when people worried for their future, in a world with borders and war. Otherwise, these lyrics will be the last to listen in a world that will maybe disappear with its borders, into its wars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfZVu0alU0I
One of the strangest French elections of modern times took place approximately two weeks ago in the Hexagon, the country of the Enlightenment and the world's fifth-largest economy. Elections held against a backdrop of constantly growing uncertainty about the country's future, its economy and, above all, the living conditions of its people. The year 2017 is now more than 30 years removed from the Trente Glorieuses, the “Glorious Thirty”, the three decades between 1945 and 1975 when prosperity characterised political and economic developments in the largest country in Western Europe. The “magical solutions” of the past no longer exist, and the French people must find a way forward. France is a country that was once a genuine economic superpower and, above all, the world's dominant international cultural centre. It was home to every kind of idea and intellectual spirit, from every continent, finding primarily in its capital, Paris, the space in which to develop their talents and thinking. Today, however, this is no longer the case. France is increasingly withdrawing into itself, rejecting its past and its uniqueness, almost feeling ashamed of them and developing an inferiority complex towards its own heritage. For the first time in History, a banker has become President of the French Republic. A golden boy, with no roots among ordinary people, raised in the test tubes of stock exchanges and banks, takes the reins of a heavy vehicle carrying one of the most remarkable civilisations humanity has ever known. It resembles a disease, it is paradoxical and disturbing, but in any case, it is historic. How did we get here? Why is the country that enlightened the world with new, progressive ideas and philosophical thinking about the evolution of human life in accordance with the development of technological means now looking backwards into the past? If you want to find an answer, you must go back many years and consider two fundamental factors in France's relatively recent history. The Destroyer of a Civilisation: General de Gaulle The first factor is a name: Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle was a military man who fled to the United Kingdom when northern France was occupied by Nazi Germany. Yet, surprise, surprise, a fugitive became a national hero at the end of the Second World War and, a few years later, President of the French Republic. De Gaulle was the man who gave France its modern-day complex. He managed to turn the peoples of numerous former colonies into genuine enemies of France, and he also managed to make France retreat into its shell for the first time in History. Until the Second World War, Paris had been an international centre of thought, the arts, economic activity and much more. De Gaulle was the first to introduce the idea of a country imprisoned within its borders and traditions, placing everything progressive in the enemy camp. That is why de Gaulle was also the President who found himself confronted by a large section of the French population, particularly the working class and intellectuals, with May 1968 remaining to this day a landmark in the popular struggles of the 20th century. But de Gaulle also had many supporters, capable of reconciling virtually any personal political belief with their admiration for the General. Thus, his presence in History was enough to destroy ideological clarity across the entire political spectrum, creating left-wing Gaullists, right-wing Gaullists, centrist Gaullists and every other kind of Gaullist imaginable, even people who describe themselves as communist Gaullists. The poison of transforming an international centre into an insignificant country was already flowing through the veins of the French people, and a great History, which had begun with the Enlightenment, was preparing to die. The Destroyer of Progressive Ideas: The French Communist Party The second factor is the evolution of the French Communist Party. The legendary PCF is one of the reasons why everything progressive is considered a source of evil, even in France today. Possessing enormous strength and even greater influence among the French people, at a time when anything French and communist was viewed favourably across Europe, with the existence of the USSR playing a major role in this perception and the wars waged by the United States in various parts of the world reinforcing the same tendency, the PCF was regarded as the guarantor of progress and prosperity on behalf of the people. The PCF did indeed play a highly significant role in improving people's living standards and working conditions, standing at the forefront of social struggles that achieved numerous victories for the working class and the broader popular strata. Yet the PCF left these achievements in the hands of the social democrats, who developed a destructive machinery of corruption and unchecked abuses, ultimately bringing everything progressive into disrepute. Trade unions became synonymous with laziness, while extremely important rights, such as unemployment benefits, were exploited in counterproductive and outrageous ways. Thus, the PCF effectively contributed to discrediting the very heart of the changes that had brought prosperity to ordinary people, helping to create a “national complex” against decent working conditions, satisfactory incomes, public social security, protection against dismissals and much more. Furthermore, the decline of a society and an economy, which led people to believe that their own achievements and rights were the source of that decline, gave rise to a self-destructive morality. The PCF also demolished the last protective wall, the defence it had maintained against a ruling class determined to take everything back. Following the overthrow of the socialist systems in Europe, it became a party that very quickly assumed the role of prosecutor when it came to the history of those countries, leaving the field open for the development of extreme anti-communism in France. The Consequences Are Visible Today These two factors contributed to pushing political thought in France towards the ultraviolet end of the political spectrum. If the ideas of the Enlightenment represent the visible spectrum, the filters that systematically polarised and concealed its progressive component have left the people with a limited number of available choices, all remarkably similar, conservative and alien to the very nature of French culture. Today, a bank-bred golden boy is regarded as a “centrist”, even an “anti-establishment” President, despite having received public support from figures including the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and organisations representing industrialists, and despite having already served as a minister in the most hated government, whose Prime Minister publicly called on people to vote for him. Today, a political descendant of fascism is gaining ever greater strength and increasing chances of being elected President, defending ideas that seem profoundly alien to French history, yet have been nourished since the years of de Gaulle. Today, a social democrat who voted in favour of imperialist interventions in foreign countries is considered “far-left”, enjoying the support of the PCF and even facing accusations from his opponents of being a “communist”. Of course, even if Marx himself were alive, he could never be sufficiently far to the left to satisfy the political perspective served up by the French media. The End Before a New Beginning? The question raised by this situation is whether we are ultimately witnessing the end of a great country, almost an ideal, that enlightened humanity for approximately two centuries. It is more than evident that France, as we knew it from the history books, is dead, and the question is whether the material conditions exist for its rebirth. History usually answers such questions in the affirmative, but the people must understand their own place within it. Thus, the question is not whether, but when this transformation, this return to normality for a great country, will take place. It will be a beautiful tricolour day, and people from all over the world, inspired by the ideals of this magnificent civilisation, will joyfully sing “le jour de gloire est arrivé”.
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