The Science Of Sleep | Somnologie

WDR 5 Das philosophische Radio: mit Jennifer Windt über Träume und Neurobiologie (Sendung vom 29.02.08)
»Wann ist man wach und wann befindet man sich im Traum? Das ist eine Frage, die die Geisteswissenschaften seit Jahrtausenden beschäftigt. Schon der Philosoph Aristoteles entwarf eine Traumtheorie, innerhalb der er den Traum als das Seelenleben während des Schlafes bezeichnete. Seitdem gab es viele verschiedene philosophische Reflexionen zum Träumen, denen eines gemeinsam war: Sie mussten sich immer auch daran abarbeiteten, wie viel vom Traum Bewusstsein ist - oder nicht. Die Philosophin Jennifer Windt wirft im Philosophischen Radio einen Blick auf das Träumen und die Philosophie, und zwar unter Berücksichtigung neuester hirnbiologischer Erkenntnisse. Insbesondere wird es dabei auch um so genannte "Klarträume" gehen, die in den letzten Jahren in den Blickpunkt der Wissenschaft geraten sind: Träume also, in denen das Subjekt bewusste Gedanken und Empfindungen hat.« (wdr5.de)

"Rule, Britannia!" - A sense of imperial mission

clipped from www.oxforddnb.com

‘If Christ were to return to this world today’, the Oxford-based historian Lionel Curtis asked in 1910, ‘where would He find the principles of His teaching best followed?’ He unhesitatingly gave his own answer: in the British empire. Few even of his contemporaries shared the same degree of enthusiasm for empire. Emily Hobhouse, the exposer of Britain's ‘methods of barbarism’ during the South African War, Agatha Harrison, the supporter and follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and Rita Hinden, secretary of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, certainly did not. Yet the fact that Curtis could pose such a question and give such an answer reminds us that, for part at least of its existence, many British people saw their empire not as something embarrassing, nor merely as the object of pride and loyalty, but as the outcome of an imperial mission, which in turn was a key element in contemporary constructions of British identity.

A sense of imperial mission characterized the outlook of many of the imperial proconsuls of Curtis's age—men like [...] Lord Curzon, the unbending viceroy of India. ‘To me the message is carved in granite, hewn of the rock of doom’, Curzon wrote, ‘that our work is righteous and that it shall endure’. Such sentiments would have seemed as absurd to earlier generations of British colonial governors as they do today. ‘Our object in conquering India’, Sir Charles Napier wrote in 1840, ‘the object of all our cruelties, was money … Every shilling of this has been picked out of blood, wiped and put into the murderer's pocket … We shall yet suffer for the crime as sure as there is a God in heaven.’ Yet Napier himself went on to conquer Sind, with great loss of blood; and as governor did much to wipe out suttee, thuggism, and infanticide (all in the name of righteousness).

When Britain first, at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."


The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

"Rule, Britannia! ..."


Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.

"Rule, Britannia! ..."


Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.

"Rule, Britannia! ..."
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.

"Rule, Britannia! ..."


The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.

"Rule, Britannia! ..."


James Thomson, 1763

According to this poem, Britons will rather rule the waves (which, of course, is not related to the British sailors' skills) before they will be slaves.
That's a justified prospect.
But its immanent message is, not to rule out the possibility of dominating and enslaving non-Britons or, to be precise, non-English peoples, including e.g. the Scots.
So the above jingoistic hymn has a shady underbelly and differs clearly from that proud Friesian "Lever duad as Slav!" ("Rather die than being a slave!") and, as well, from that wonderful Negro spiritual:

O freedom after a while,
And before I'd be a slave, I'd be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.
There'll be no more moaning, ...
No more crying,
No more weeping ...
No more bowing,
No more kneeling after a while ...

Now tell me something about nobleness and moral high grounds.

Bruno Bozzetto: Italians vs. Europeans

This film is dedicated to those who believe that Italians behave the same as other Europeans.

Morality of the market

I am not at home in the mindset of economists, nor in their language, but I know a thing or two about philosophical thinking and terms (if coming up in German, in Latin, and, to a minor degree, in English).
In the abstract: a behaviour, whenever it is appropriate to see it from the angle of morality, can be jugded as morally justified (in common speech: as moral, better: integer, virtuous, righteous, just, fair, ...), or as morally ambiguous, or as morally not justified (in common speech: as immoral or amoral). Considered that way, morality is a category of judging, not a (positive) judgment.
On this understanding, it is senseful (and, furthermore, important) to talk about (and question) the morality of "the market", for example the morality of the arms trade, organ trade, slave trade, girl trafficking, cheap imports (e.g. child-labor-made carpets from India, starvation-wage-harvested tea, coffee, bananas), the market of subcontracted labor, the equity (ha ha ha! commercial English is fun) market et cetera.

Morality of the market? A matter of highest importance! Take, for example, the case of the arms trade. Order new infantry fighting vehicles and sell the older models to XYZ. That will do your labor market and trade bilance good, and it will enable the XYZ forces to steamroll the villages of a mutinous minority. Money has no smell? Depends on the hands you receive it from.

When economists talk about "morality" you can almost always be sure that they don't talk about morality (or ethics) but about cleverness, for example:

The morality of the market stems from its ability to make use of good contingencies and to reduce the influence and transform the bad contingencies of risk. The market is the societal form of coordination that maximizes the use of the good contingencies and tames the danger of the bad contingencies or risks of the economic process.
(Koslowski, Peter: Morality and Responsibility - Contingencies, the Limits of Systems, and the Morality of the Market. 1999)

Theodor Adorno said:

There is no right life in the wrong one.
(Minima Moralia - Reflections from the damaged life, Part One, 18 "Asylum for the homeless")

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↗Jerry Z. Muller: Is the Market Moral?

Summary:
Muller discusses the moral effects of capitalism. He enumerates five positive moral effects of the market.

• The link between individual autonomy and self-support through legally free labor.
  
• The moral quality of self-support arises in good part from the fact that it so often extends beyond the individual, to his or her family and descendants.
  
• The market leads to a self-interested concern for others, to what one might call non-altruistic reciprocity.
  
• Capitalism creates ever wider forms of association.
  
• Capitalism creates new and more complex forms of individuality.

↗Jerry Z. Muller: Ist der Markt moralisch?
↗Which is worse: regulation or deregulation?