The Dadaist poet Francis Picabia put forward an interesting and painful thesis during the First World War: "What is indispensable is useless." This denunciation was recovered, almost a century later, by the German-Latin American philosopher Franz Hinkelammert, in a book where he argues how what is indispensable—which is coexistence, the common good, peace, care of the Earth—does not enter and does not can enter into the calculation of utility made by the modern world-system, since it is based on the maximization of the profit rate and the growth rate of a market economy.
From a deep reflection, the renowned decolonial teacher points out that no calculation of own profit (as a purely individual interest) reveals the useful and indispensable of the "useless." For example, preserving life on Earth is essential; But, when calculating their own utility, almost all States decide "very rationally" to continue applying the economic model that allows them to use nature as they please, because the important thing is to guarantee the "progress" of "humanity." Even more alarming: when someone or some State decides that economic alternatives must be sought, they are declared "crazy and irrational." The world upside down! That is to say: politics acts as a servant of dominant reason, without looking at the negative effects. Unfortunately, «the economists of the dominant economy (Hinkelammert points out) dream that they are the absolute owners of rationality: they destroy nature, they destroy human relationships; They take us to the abyss. But they will never doubt that all of this is extremely rational.
En of the book What is essential is useless. Towards a spirituality of liberation, Hinkelammert makes us note that the dominant rationality that fuels the pretensions of "development" in current societies has its reference "in the central value of the calculation of one's own utility." For Hinkelammert, yes! We live in crazy times; But, for this madness, what Hamlet says applies: "Though it be madness, there is method in it." Stripping the games of this madness is essential to reveal how behind all politics and behind all production, there are utopias, there are ideal models, which determine our existence.
Hinkelammert – valued as the most prominent philosopher of the 21st century in Latin America – affirms that, in the modern world-system, nature is useless, unless it is transformed into natural capital to exploit it; The human being is useless, and even "disposable", unless it is transformed into human capital to be exploited based on its own utility or by others, who want to exploit it based on their respective own utilities.
This dominant rationality, with its constellation of anti-values, permeates the feeling, the thinking, the faith of individuals and groups, and as they tend to act and feel "always (refers Hinkelammert) what is indispensable—the human being as a human being." and nature as nature—is useless. That is why we see that the actors can change, but, even so, the rationality remains the same. In fact, we never question why our greatest horizon of meaning is to "grow", "be developed", "achieve progress" and "modernize", although this desire contradicts our original cultures.
From this perspective of internalized ideal models, we understand what the Bolivian teacher Rafael Bautista says: «It is one thing to believe in the Indian and another, different, is believe in what the Indian believes». One can believe in indigenous things, even be devoted to the need to go to our ancestral roots to seek other paths, but as an individual —on whom the modern/colonial/capitalist world-system imposes as a unique life project, "to modernize", so that he makes "development" and "progress" his reason for existence—, under the progressive mask, It can consecrate the horizon of beliefs, prejudices and values of modernity/coloniality, as the only one possible, and even as the most rational. Therein lies the contradiction.
It is easy to say that we want to preserve life on the planet, but... what happens when, at the same time, we propose to "grow" and achieve the production of a powerhouse country. Proposing to "grow" requires the import or development of cutting-edge technology. This technology means, in turn, a large amount of resources, human and financial; but, above all, raw materials and energy resources; that is: more non-human nature.
The imaginary of "development" implies a sociocultural configuration around "infinite progress", which is proposed by a society under unlimited economic growth. In fact, the greatest triumph of modern/colonial rationality is to have all levels of society brought together based on a supposed technical-scientific progress, which always promises more for the future. The unlimited production of material goods is its most eloquent manifestation,” says Rafael Bautista, in his book From the myth of development to the horizon of «live good». Why does socialism fail in the long 20th century?―, and they call this a “technological leap.” The ideal of the left and the right seems to have a common point: "be developed", "grow"; even though this means the sacrifice of several planets on Earth.
It is urgent to review the reason and utopia behind our actions and our aspirations! We are committed to reviewing the ideal model that we embody in our struggle processes. Hence, the importance of political-cultural transformation. As liberation philosophers insist, our concept of wealth, as a quantified accumulation of things, must be transformed; but also our concept of poverty. Changing these concepts requires, at the same time, another concept of science and technology, which does not respond to the irrationality of the society of having, nor to the coordinates of colonial interpretation.
Before growth, "progress", living better, we must put living well first. The paradigm of living well contains satisfaction, fulfillment, and being at peace. In living well, being together is the supreme good. On the other hand, "development" (which is the infinite development of modernity, and presupposes better living) is empty in itself, because it entails the contradiction of infeasibility, due to being at war against non-human nature. If we have a finite planet, we cannot and should not consider infinite growth. Enough of being trapped in the paradigm of modernity and its model of growth and "progress"! Growing infinitely is not only unfeasible, but it is irrational: it brings with it the suppression of life.
Thinking about the "useless" is part of the transformation. Thinking about transformation means thinking about an ethic of an indispensable "useless" thing, the common good; but one that is not just a slogan, but a concrete ethic of the common good (in Hinkelammert's words), one that starts from the reality of reality to continue making possible the reproduction and development of all life: "It is rather an ethic whose need we experience every day... [Because the commercial relationship produced by the modern market] cannot discern between life and death, but rather turns out to be a great steamroller that eliminates all life that gets in its way [...] The ethic of the common good arises as a consequence of this experience of those affected by the distortions that the market produces in human life and in the life of nature [...] On the other hand, those who are not affected by these distortions do not perceive any need to resort to the common good. They may say: 'Business is going well, why talk about a crisis?'"
This ethic of resistance, of questioning, of transformation, of revolution is an ethic of responsibility for the common good, as a condition of possibility for human life. In the opinion of Bolivian philosopher Juan José Bautista, "What we are trying to do is recover ethics in these other radical terms that Hinkelammert is discovering; that is, it is no longer enough to speak only of an ethic of the common good; moreover, it is no longer a question of formulating an ethic of the good life, but rather of the condition of possibility for conceiving any form of human life." Therein lies the foundation: the ethics necessary for us to live. To this end, JJ leaves us with a question: "How must we behave so that human life is possible, regardless of what we think the 'good life' should be?" This is what this ethic is about: an ethic committed to community, because life is communal.
To think deeply about transformation is to assume conscious nature to make ourselves responsible for the reproduction of life: to understand that nature is neither in front nor below us: it is in us... it is to understand that we are nature; Not doing so is continuing to be trapped in the modern/colonial logic of seeing non-human nature as an object for our "well-being." To think, in depth, is to recognize that a transformation that is not ecological would not have the capacity to respond to the current challenges, of the present historical moment. This is community ethics, a political ethics that fights for the Dusselian postulate of perpetual life... that redeems the life of the oppressed, including that of Mother Earth. An ethics that allows us to understand that murder is suicide. An ethic that aims at a transformation of production relations and dominant consumption models, as well as human relations. “It is about the ethics of coexistence that needs to be promoted,” explains Hinkelammert. It is about coexistence at all levels: of humanity and of each of the human groups that, when constituted, institutionalize and develop the law and the calculation of their own utility with their respective curses. […] It is the transformation of the entire society, but always thought of in terms of confronting the curse that weighs on the law and the calculation of one's own utility. It is about a society in which everyone fits, and all nature too.
Thinking about transformation, as transmutation, not as reform (reformism, as Enrique Dussel warns, is based on an apparent change, which perpetuates a particular institution or system), is only possible if it starts from another ideal model. In other words: to think about transformation is to stop seeing "progress" as the banner of the advancement of humanity and to assume mediations of ancestral cultures, until now despised, which can really mean for us an important compass to make paths of survival in the planet; Not doing so would imply falling back into the same horizon of what is questioned and we would not transcend towards what is different.
Today, more than ever, we have a commitment to the present, to those who fought and dreamed before us, as well as to future generations, to rethink the spirituality of the revolution we want. Let us remember that what remains in time is what has roots; The community has roots! «Without this ethical and spiritual dimension, any political action becomes a springboard for power (reiterates Hinkelammert), which corrupts participation in liberation movements from within. A calculation of self-utility appears, which corrupts any commitment to a liberation project.
Perhaps some find this approach a bit "flower-eating" or "useless." But, in the midst of today's crossroads, "today we are seriously proposing (the Venezuelan historian Luis Cortés Riera would say) a "re-enchantment of the world", since the goddess reason has only brought atrocities" - I would add -: and the global crisis of our time. The pedagogy of transformation for the full liberation of people requires awareness of the reality of the domination of the entire current order, so that victories in one field of struggle do not tend to coexist with defeats in other fields. It is impossible to make transformations with dominant rationality (read: irrationality)! It is impossible to make revolution from a reason that kills!
