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In 1930 was published the Zygmunt Freud's book "Civilisation and Its Discontents". This one was a great challenge to our civilisation and self-knowing of age he lived in. In this book he states his views on human nature and the question of man's place in the world. This one Freud describes as being in the permanent conflict between the individual's quest for freedom and society's demand for safety and conformity. As a result, civilisation and its culture inhibits man's instinctual drives, which can (and perhaps must) result in guilt and unfulfillment.

Freud maintains that human beings are inherently aggressive. That love for all of humanity is far from an inherent state of the human mind. Freud wrote that "...happiness, in the reduced sense in which we recognise it as possible, is a problem of the economics of the individual's libido." In order to live in a civilised society, humans must take their aggression and turn it on themselves in the form of a conscience. "...One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be 'happy' is not included in the plan of 'Creation'." - he said and added that "... the question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one." Of course, what is very important, this work should be also understood in context of contemporary events and main ideas and paradigms of age.



Of course civilisation gives the human being something good but at the same time it takes us something else. What it gives? So, modern civilisation solicits the BEAUTY, CLARITY, HARMONY and SAFETY. Freud wrote that the man, from his nature, does not want to take care about beauty, clarity, harmony and safety. People must be pressured to take care about ones. The whole civilisation is based on the instinct's giving away. It is the big compromise between man's instincts and the need of above-mentioned ones. Therefore, the civilised man must resign partly the chance of being happy in the name of developing the chance of safety.


Zygmunt Bauman 70 years later in an essay on the dark sides of post-modern society tries to answer whether the Freud's rules are in force or not. In an allusion to Freud's book "Post-civilisation and Its Discontents" he challenges these rules. Our time is another. Today the most important value is boundless freedom. Freud's necessity of giving away the man's instincts we perceive as an attack on freedom. It prevails boundlessly. And such values as the BEAUTY, CLARITY, HARMONY and SAFETY the man has to look for by himself. And it is the source of our pain. Bauman writes: "The pain and anguish typical of the post-modern world are hatched in society, which offers an extension of personal freedom in return for a shrinkage of the range of security for the individual. The post-modern anguish is born of freedom, not of oppression". For Bauman the postmodernity has never been seen as in any way teleological, or relativistically, but rather he characterised it as the posthumous form of modernity.

books

books

Based on the last industrial output dynamics our GDP estimate for Q2'06 at 5.2 - 5.3 % y/y. To make sure that the GDP growth is closer to 5,3 % we would needed to wait for retail sales data, but if it comes out above consensus, as we expect, then we would tend to revise GDP for Q2'06 to 5.3 %. Today data seems to be slightly negative for the market due to much higher than expected PPI. In our view this will not translate directly to higher July CPI, however, it might result in lower corporate margins. If the longer term, if the tendency of rising manufacturing prices continues, it will be a firs signal of pass-through of demand pressure on prices. If this tendency holds, then we could expect it to be reflected also in CPI with a lag. So, such a great language...

books

books

About the power of languageand word. Ludwig Wittgenstein taught that what can be shown, cannot be said and. But on the other hand proved that the limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Born in 1932 Wieslaw Mysliwski is one of the greatnes contemporary writer in Poland. All his novels have been always discussed in the context of "peasant literature," dealing with the problems of the identities and also the limits of language of villages in times of historical change. The apotheosis of the peasant tradition and its language was the novel STONE UPON STONE. Reading this book we are convinced that peasant culture includes eternal values of human existence and the most universal forces and language that allow these people to shape their own lives (tilling the soil, building houses, passing on family traditions). The philosophical underpinning of book is the conviction that people achieve self-knowledge by rebelling against their fate and creating their own culture using their particulare language. The power of language. In contrast to the universe that is created by above mentioned langauage the world which appears when I use my official language is totally different. For example:

The government said Friday it has agreed to sell its remaining 8% stake in KPN for about 1.7 billion euros ($2.17 billion) in a move that will allow the country's largest phone company to determine its own future without the threat of political interference. The government is selling 80 million shares back to KPN for cancellation and has placed 87 million with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. It plans to use proceeds to lower debt. KPN had previously expressed its intention to repurchase shares in order to reduce the overhang in the market. It paid 800 million euros for the shares. KPN shares fell 1.8% morning trading because of the increased supply. The broader market was down 0.7%. Analysts for SNS Securities said the sale was good news.
"With solid free-cash flow in the second half, we expect KPN to remain well within its net debt targets," the broker said. SNS analysts added that the earlier reduction of the state's stake and the removal of the golden share in December had already taken out most of the hurdles to potential takeovers. Credit Suisse analysts told clients the new government of Sweden plans to sell down its stake in incumbent phone company TeliaSonera. The broker, however, cautioned that a gradual approach could trigger a bid for the company. "While its [the government's] current plans are to sell down gradually over time, we see the possibility that this approach is overtaken by events: knowing the government is a seller may mean an unsolicited bid approach; alternatively the government may conclude that an auction is likely to realize better value for its stake," Credit Suisse analysts said.

Returning to Mysliwski. In his last novel he tries to ask us about the power of ... word. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s opinion: what can be shown, cannot be said. But what cannot be shown must be said. In what kind of situation ? For example before the death. Then it has to be said all what we had wanted to hide before. Then we schould and must feel the power of word. Haw it can be realised ? By shelling the onion. The old ritual of shelling the onion becomes the process of self-knowledge and calling all taboos we took care during our life. Via word we can become free. It is unforgotten lesson of these novels. It is unforgotten lesson of our masters.

Czeslaw Milosz said: when one man is dying the whole universe is dying. Reading the Macel Proust's masterpiece it seems to be known what he meant. And what is more, it turned out that even a piece of cake can evoke a tremendous and sensual world that you knew before. Can you remember this kind of experience? So, can any music you heard before create a big and touchable space that you experienced and explored before and now you can recognise? Does any smell cause that you are suddenly transferred in one second into another universe you touched, tasted, saw and knew before? Can you feel as a hub of this one? Can you look for an another time. So, in the looking for the lost time...? In my opinion it is essential to be able to profit from this gift from time to time to ... escape from our daily being.

books: August 2006

books: August 2006

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Hello everybody. I've finally managed to join you!