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Quando a realidade supera o Inimigo Público

por Samuel de Paiva Pires, em 06.09.12

«Comissão Europeia quer mais licenciaturas como a de Relvas: A Comissão Europeia emitiu orientações para que os Estados-membros reforcem a aposta na certificação através do reconhecimento de competências. Por outras palavras, a Europa quer que a experiência possa ser traduzida num diploma universitário.»

 

Enfim, a UE e as suas preocupações habituais, levando à letra aqueles que dizem ter estudado na "Universidade da vida", continuando a atacar uma das instituições basilares do Ocidente. Recomenda-se a leitura de "The Idea of a University", de Michael Oakeshott:

 

«This, then, to the undergraduate, is the distinctive mark of a university; it is a place where he has the opportunity of education in conversation with his teachers, his fellows and himself, and where he is not encouraged to confuse education with training for a profession, with learning the tricks of a trade, with preparation for future particular service in Society or with the acquisition of a kind of moral and intellectual outfit to see him through life. Whenever an ulterior purpose of this sort makes its appearance, education (which is concerned with persons, not functions) steals out of the back door with noiseless steps. The pursuit of learning for the power it may bring has its roots in a covetous egoism which is no less egoistic or less covetous when it appears as a so-called “social purpose,” and with this a university has nothing to do. The form of its curriculum has no such design; and the manner of its teaching – teachers interested in the pupil himself, in what he his thinking, in the quality of his mind, in his immortal soul, and not in what sort of schoolmaster or administrator he can be made into – the manner of this teaching has no such intention.»

publicado às 18:05

Eu que não faço greve relembro Oakeshott

por Samuel de Paiva Pires, em 24.11.11

 

Do artigo "The political economy of freedom", de Michael Oakeshott (Rationalism in Politics and other essays, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1991, p. 401):

 

«Collectivism is indifferent to all elements of our freedom and the enemy of some. But the real antithesis of a free manner of living, as we know it, is syndicalism. Indeed, syndicalism is not only destructive of freedom; it is destructive, also, of any kind of orderly existence. It rejects both the concentration of overwhelming power in the government (by means of which a collectivist society if always being rescued from the chaos it encourages), and it rejects the wide dispersion of power which is the basis of freedom. Syndicalism is a contrivance by means of which society is disposed for a perpetual civil war in which the parties are the organized self-interest of functional minorities and a weak central government, and for which the community as a whole pays the bill in monopoly prices and disorder. The great concentrations of power in a syndicalist society are the sellers of labour organized in functional monopoly associations. All monopolies are prejudicial to freedom, but there is good reason for supposing that labour monopolies are more dangerous than any others, and that a society in the grip of such monopolies would enjoy less freedom than any other sort of society. In the first place, labour monopolies have shown themselves more capable than enterprise monopolies of attaining really great power, economic, political and even military. Their appetite for power is insatiable and, producing nothing, they encounter none of the productional diseconomies of undue size. Once grown large, they are exceedingly difficult to dissipate and impossible to control. Appearing to spring from the lawful exercise of the right of voluntary association (though as monopolistic associations they are really a denial of that right), they win legal immunities and they enjoy popular support however scandalous their activity. Enterprise monopolies, on the other hand (not less to be deplored by the libertarian), are less dangerous because they are less powerful. They are precariously held together, they are unpopular and they are highly sensitive to legal control. Taken separately, there is no question which of the two kinds of monopoly is the more subversive of freedom. But in addition to its great power, the labour monopoly is dangerous because it demands enterprise monopoly as its complement. There is a disastrous identity of interest between the two kinds of monopoly; each tends to foster and to strengthen the other, fighting together to maximize join extractions from the public while also fighting each other over the division of the spoils. Indeed, the conflict of capital and labour (the struggle over the division of earnings) is merely a sham fight (often costing the public more than the participants) concealing the substantial conflict between the producer (enterprise and labour, both organized monopolistically) and the consumer.»

publicado às 13:10

Ainda a questão da indumentária na UCP

por Samuel de Paiva Pires, em 22.07.11

Por motivos profissionais, isto é, por me encontrar até dia 30 no 16.º Seminário da Associação da Juventude Portuguesa do Atlântico, não posso agora continuar a alimentar este debate, pelo que apresento as minhas desculpas aos respectivos interlocutores. Voltarei ao mesmo no início de Agosto. Entretanto, registo apenas que talvez muitos devessem ler On Liberty de Stuart Mill e os vários ensaios de Oakeshott sobre o que é ou deve ser uma Universidade. Em Portugal, como mostra esta atitude da UCP, são cada vez mais, apenas e só, um prolongamento do tipo de ensino do Secundário. Num país onde a cultura e o modo de pensamento universitário são o que todos sabemos, subverte-se completamente a ideia de universidade. O mesmo é dizer que os estatutos de presunção artificial continuam a fazer escola num país onde importa mais o parecer do que o ser. Eu que até sou um tipo conservador no que à indumentária diz respeito, não deixo de notar que a UCP e muitos outros parecem ter-se esquecido de uma ideia chave do liberalismo anglo-saxónico (o tal que gerou as melhores universidades do mundo), a da tolerância. E posto isto, deixo-vos apenas esta breve passagem de Stuart Mill: "To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of others, developes the feelings and capacities which have the good of others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, developes nothing valuable, except such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint. If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as this latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men."

publicado às 21:00

 

Do artigo "The political economy of freedom", de Michael Oakeshott (Rationalism in Politics and other essays, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1991, p. 401):

 

“Collectivism is indifferent to all elements of our freedom and the enemy of some. But the real antithesis of a free manner of living, as we know it, is syndicalism. Indeed, syndicalism is not only destructive of freedom; it is destructive, also, of any kind of orderly existence. It rejects both the concentration of overwhelming power in the government (by means of which a collectivist society if always being rescued from the chaos it encourages), and it rejects the wide dispersion of power which is the basis of freedom. Syndicalism is a contrivance by means of which society is disposed for a perpetual civil war in which the parties are the organized self-interest of functional minorities and a weak central government, and for which the community as a whole pays the bill in monopoly prices and disorder. The great concentrations of power in a syndicalist society are the sellers of labour organized in functional monopoly associations. All monopolies are prejudicial to freedom, but there is good reason for supposing that labour monopolies are more dangerous than any others, and that a society in the grip of such monopolies would enjoy less freedom than any other sort of society. In the first place, labour monopolies have shown themselves more capable than enterprise monopolies of attaining really great power, economic, political and even military. Their appetite for power is insatiable and, producing nothing, they encounter none of the productional diseconomies of undue size. Once grown large, they are exceedingly difficult to dissipate and impossible to control. Appearing to spring from the lawful exercise of the right of voluntary association (though as monopolistic associations they are really a denial of that right), they win legal immunities and they enjoy popular support however scandalous their activity. Enterprise monopolies, on the other hand (not less to be deplored by the libertarian), are less dangerous because they are less powerful. They are precariously held together, they are unpopular and they are highly sensitive to legal control. Taken separately, there is no question which of the two kinds of monopoly is the more subversive of freedom. But in addition to its great power, the labour monopoly is dangerous because it demands enterprise monopoly as its complement. There is a disastrous identity of interest between the two kinds of monopoly; each tends to foster and to strengthen the other, fighting together to maximize join extractions from the public while also fighting each other over the division of the spoils. Indeed, the conflict of capital and labour (the struggle over the division of earnings) is merely a sham fight (often costing the public more than the participants) concealing the substantial conflict between the producer (enterprise and labour, both organized monopolistically) and the consumer.”  

 

(também publicado no blog da Causa Liberal)

publicado às 16:01

 

Deixo à consideração dos preclaros leitores uma breve descrição do conceito de liberdade no entendimento inglês, da autoria de Michael Oakeshott ("The political economy of freedom", in Rationalism in Politics and other essays, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1991, pp. 388-389). Em Portugal é mais ou menos o mesmo:

 

“Liberties, it is true, may be distinguished, and some may be more general or more settled and mature than others, but the freedom which the English libertarian knows and values lies in a coherence of mutually supporting liberties, each of which amplifies the whole and none of which stands alone. It springs neither from the separation of church and state, nor from the rule of law, nor from private property, nor from parliamentary government, nor from the writ of habeas corpus, nor from the independence of the judiciary, nor from any one of the thousand other devices and arrangements characteristic of our society, but from what each signifies and represents, namely, the absence from our society of overwhelming concentrations of power. This is the most general condition of our freedom, so general that all other conditions may be seen to be comprised within it. It appears, first, in a diffusion of authority between past, present and future. Our society is ruled by none of these exclusively. And we should consider a society governed wholly by its past, or its present, or its future to suffer under a despotism of a superstition in which forbids freedom. The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail, none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free. Further, with us power is dispersed among all the multitude of interests and organizations of interest which comprise our society. We do not fear or seek to suppress diversity of interest, but we consider our freedom to be imperfect so long as the dispersal of power among them is incomplete, and to be threatened if any one interest or combination of interests, even though it may be the interest of a majority, acquires extraordinary power. Similarly, the conduct of government in our society involves a sharing of power, not only between the recognized organs of government, but also between the Administration and the Opposition. In short, we consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited power – no leader, faction, party or ‘class’, no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organizations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole.”  

 

(também publicado no blog da Causa Liberal)

publicado às 02:33






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