Used Butterfly Sailboat

Arbeit und Enthusiasmus. Der Kaukasus in der Geschichte des menschlichen Denkens

by Dr. Frank Tremmel


"All we take with warmth and enthusiasm, is a kind of love you. "

Wilhelm von Humboldt



On 23 September 2010 gave the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili before the 65th UN General Assembly in New York, a remarkable speech. In it he outlined the crossroads to which the Caucasus region is. In a nutshell it is a description of the location of Georgia in the history of human thought. For Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia by the present historical situation, a "revolution of hearts and ways of thinking" is characterized. Before this assessment can be interpreted in more detail, then at this point, first a fundamental question to be answered: What is a history of thought or what they would have to pay? The French economist Jean Fourastié then gave the mid-1960s following response:

"They would simply be a registration of larger and smaller and more or less dynamic groups of people recognized and perceived as true ideas. First, the correlation between each idea would be to determine, after which the connection between the ideas and the concrete situations of those people from whom they were accepted in the end, and that would be perhaps most importantly, the impact of these ideas to the everyday life of people and their Evolution "(Fourastié 1966, 277).

There are few, often unconscious ideas, in which people align their actions. "Ideas are often perceived, felt and anticipated by many in a diffuse, still unformed state" and they arise "[...] in this still vague Not in the form of science, but first in individual moods, inclinations, tastes, fashion (Megrelidze 1973, 326). By "historical ideas" (Rothacker 1966.267), this peculiar social alloys of heart and mind, can the historical personalities and civilizations develop differentiated.

"In such a history," said Fourastié, "the time 1830-1985 (possibly 1750-1985) in the West appear as an economic phase" (p. 278). This is an era in which man, the very fact that he thought his world on the economic and technical Progress depends, discovered the non-economic values. It is above all a tremendous mental revolution, in which humanity turns to work through the medium of the vegetative needs of the people. Therein lies the deeper meaning of capitalism: "He is the first time the producers at the head of the company" (Jouvenel 1971, 71). In the ancient and Oriental civilizations, even in the European feudalism, the idea of work was regarded as something inferior. In the era of the economy however, disappears the traditional distinction between working and not working people. The telos of this development is manifested instead affiliated with the "contrast between working and non-working time "(p. 72). The total activity of the human race is apparently tantamount to bring the conflict between work and culture to the explosion.

One of the paradoxes in the history of thought, that especially in the so-called socialist societies of the East, who saw themselves as dictators of the working class, saw the value of labor's most extreme devastation. If Fourastié sees the coming economic era for the Western European world in 1985 to a relative end, is moved to Russia, the economy as a civilization task at this stage for the first time in the consciousness of society. Although there were intellectual debates, The reported previously in this direction, so after the first revolution of 1905 (Vechi 1909), after the end of the civil war in 1922 (Nikolai I. Bukharin, Nikolai D. Kondratieff, Isaac I. Rubin and others) and in the thaw period from 1956 ( Evsej Liberman), but the peculiar dialectic of violence and work that characterizes the Russian history, was not broken. In Georgia, by contrast, had the Social Democrats (Messame Dassi) under Noe Schordania (1868-1953) very early turned against the ultra-left and Asian despotic repealing the "law of value" and had assumed that "economic progress as the main condition for the development of society " would consider (Guruli 1997, 45). This Western European basic orientation characterizes the small country between Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe today. Just as the Georgian Social Democrats already a model for "all of Eastern Europe and the Orient" (Kautsky 1920) created, there could be a mental revolution in Georgia in fact be of far reaching significance.

is doubtful in some respects, whether with perestroika was a transformation of the socio-economic and cultural practice in Russia. The extra-economic power which ruled the redistributive economies of the Asian empires (Immanuel Wallerstein) has always been set, apparently always again by: Geopolitical land acquisition instead of a modern competitive society. Nevertheless, distinguished himself in 1985 from a trajectory of thought that can no longer pause and continues into the Georgian consciousness revolution. Georgian President is, therefore, agree with, if he assumes that the Georgian laboratory of political, economic and social reforms for the entire Caucasus region and beyond is crucial. Under the terms of a "catch-up revolution" (Habermas 1990) exsowjetischen in space, the economy, combined with the rule of law and meritocracy to the central task. The attention to basic necessities of life is under the conditions of a region that was dominated like no other by the East West opposites, in itself is a little innovation to be underestimated. Efficient labor, goods production and modern forms of transport are not an end in itself but a vehicle for transformation of thought. In economics, a logic is applied the process of civilization that would unfold but culturally and politically. Politics in the 21st Century that is primarily a policy of cultural, "a policy of mentalities" (Lepenies 1997, 38f.) Be.

The formation of the peoples and nations of the Caucasus is a region in the context of such a global rationality is indeed a challenging cultural task. As must now be designed, the conditions under which the economy can actually fulfill a civilizing mission? If President Saakashvili in his speech, rightly pointed out that modernization possible without liberty, no sustainable development and diversification of the economy, so that a response is at least implied. The specific relations of culture and freedom remain undetermined. This raises the question whether cultural rises at all in conditional rules and whether it includes in addition to its functional aspects but not a spontaneous moment which culminates in purposeless self expression of individuals and peoples. Cultural phenomena are not their technical and economic dimensions reduced. They are first symbols, "one-time, on a general development objective hinsteuernde among themselves unique and exclusive expression structure of something mental, the` soul 'of the respective historical body, they sit down in the world. "In (Alfred Weber 1951, 90) This theme was German culture and history, sociology discussed intensively. It was not merely the "economic ethic of world religions" (Max Weber 1920, 1988), but the "cultural problem in the age of capitalism" (Alfred Weber 1911/12, 2000). If the culture as a condition of the civilizing process is considered It is perfectly legitimate on the other hand, they check on their functionality. From this perspective, it is in the plurality of concrete forms in particular traditions, their compatibility with the universal process of modernization is under discussion. This poietic (focused on the production) perspective on the cultural features of the speech Mikheil Saakashvili. In the speech of culture is indeed next to education, civil society and the energy a central role in the regional formation of the Caucasus given - the culture appeared essentially only as a historical or ethnological phenomenon. Mikheil Saakashvili is especially liberal thinkers civilization. The Means of regional integration is the economy, their derivatives is just the culture. Economy and technology are supposedly neutral media to raise the ethical and communicative problems seem less. That is quite a traditional position, but it is a self-sufficient in the global era?

The "Rose Revolution" (2003) was used in it all political revolutions, initially part of the universal elite circulation. After the old Nomenklaturintelligentsia to the "white fox" on the "graveyard of aristocracies" landed, the "Reserve-elite" (Vilfredo Pareto) the overdue liberal Transformation initiated and carried the Georgian vanities before the tribunal of global rationality. The unique symbols have now been made comparable. What no one could so far, the young guard to the new President succeeded: Georgia submitted to the international logic of economic rationality, and moves since then towards a modern competitive society. But this revolution in thinking has actually taken the hearts as suggested Mikheil Saakashvili in his speech? The new liberalism is one of the "cold teachings of behavior" (Helmut Lethen 194). It keeps the inner life of man at bay, allowing performance. This "birth of freedom from alienation "(Arnold Gehlen, 1983, 366ff.) could prove more as a miscarriage of consciousness story if it is not the midwife possible to bring the child's heart to beat. What of the masses as well as of model support, or at least acquiescence learned threatens the "pathos of distance" (Nietzsche) to exhaust. Culture is not just only meritocracy, not just civilization differentiation of individual performance. This rational or instrumental function belongs to the periphery of the technological culture. The imaginative and creative phenomena, which are expressed in the symbols remain the center of culture, her heart. "In this respect, culture is a creative response to needs, emotions and other problems of the people, a reaction that this initial motivation to overcome (at least in part) to be a willful action, a creative act, where she buys a self-worth and man creates self-fulfillment, both the creator as well as the recipient. "(Bystřina 1992.260) culture is in its concrete historical manifestations always an integral of creation and objectification of charisma and rationality. It is grace and power at the same time.

is the deepest source of the culture of enthusiasm, this "transmission of the divine" to humans. Liberalism began his triumph as enthusiastic social religion, as an expressive individualism. As this went out the charismatic movement, ie the citizen, the breath, it manifested itself in the "Prose of the World" as economic citizens, that is, as bourgeois. "The word enthusiasm is as old as mankind" (Fourastié 1964, 54), whereas "was the word" work only a few hundred years "(ibid. 53). Under the conditions of the Georgian ensuing contrast of culture and civilization through the historical situation awareness between East and West is even worse. The concern, in a shady area between the history of thought to advised to arrange for the Western-oriented reformer to increasingly violent attacks on the heritage of the East. Thus, while sexual-like political campaigns, as they took place against the orthodoxy to bring the ugly face of religious obscurantism to the fore, but they will be able to unlock their own sources of cultural productivity? Especially under conditions of semi-peripheral, colonized the region is the enthusiasm, in addition to the thymotischen needs, the most powerful energy to a "reflex modernization" (Darcy Ribeiro, 1983, 281f.) Escape. It remains to be borne in mind that culture is a strange creature that all too obtrusive look or cut off access. Any attempt to exploit it, is so far failed. Its content is exhausted either in religion or in economic or technological rationality. If we want to know how it arises, we need to ask the artists who we will refer to the numinous of the creative act.

The "revolution of hearts and ways of thinking" can not succeed if it is not self-willed "logic" of culture considered. This "logic" is based on the enthusiasm that is not the work of new creative sense. Georgia's integration into the world economy requires a cultural policy that is not only adaptive, civilization Mechanisms installed. On the promotion of labor discipline, economy of time and self-control may be the heart of culture is not forgotten. "In other words, one can not apply for a part of human activities enthusiasm, but only for a synthesis." (Fourastié 1964, 55). The Georgian intelligence has so far done little effort to prepare such a mental integration. The old intelligentsia fled to tradition, the new intellectuals dreaming of a world market. They fall so far behind the claims and achievements of Dimitri Uznadze, a Konstantin Megrelidze or Geronti Kikodse back. The lack of a modern cultural policy involves also incalculable risks for the economic development of Georgia. So far, the economic success of the reforms based on a substantial borrowing and the high foreign investment, which created an attractive climate. This Georgia in the history of thought but does not remain in the economic era, we need a "Cultural Freedom (Liberty) Act" to promote the productive power of human identity. Cultural policy in this sense would not resort policy, but company policy that also would make corrections to obvious mistakes in economic development. If the "mountain of the people" as a region to form within the meaning of the notorious Article 52 of the Charter of the United Nations, the regional cultural policy not only meet the "needs of the global rationality", but "its roots in the deep layers of humanity and the earth" (Sombart, 1965, 65) dip. It remains to be seen whether the Georgian politics can muster as much enthusiasm for the upcoming Georgia can do the next step in the history of thought. Only in this way, the "impact of these ideas to the everyday life" would ensure that - so Fourastié - is a crucial factor in the evolution of thought.

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