Tulip Mania

The Tulip Mania was een economic bubble in in the trade of tulip bulbs in and around the town of Harlem in Holland in the seventeenth century.

Tulip bulbs and purchase options on tulip bulbs became as expensive as a series of houses along the main street. The Tulip Mania reached its peak when the exchange course of the tulip bulb crashed on the 3rd of February 1637.

People tend to claim this was unexpected - not true. A citizen of the town of Hoorn wrote a clear warning “Claere ontdeckingh der dwaesheydt” ("clear discovery of folly") . Today we have the paintings of Jan Bruegel the younger and of Hendrik Gerritszoon Pot as testimonies. you can admire both paintings in the Frans Hals museum in Harlem.

Such collective folly is, sadly, very recognisable. The question is, however, why man behaves like a herd beast. One rich neighbour is usually convincing enough to try it. Even worse, it is the one who doesn't participate in the folly who is declared mad. It is worth considering what else is today's collective madness? You are kindly invited to name a few as a comment to this blog.

Anyhow, the behaviour of masses is unreliable. Never follow a mass without criticism. This must have been the birth of Socrates' wisdom.

I refer to my blog: "Senatores boni viri" and to my Dutch blogs: ”De Waanzin van het Intellect” and “Lof der Zotheid”.

Picture: Tulip Mania - Jan Bruegel the younger

Gute Technik ist immer schön

“Good technology is always beautiful” is a maxim from Claude Dornier, the founding father  of the Dornier aircraft industry in and around Friedrichshafen at the lake of Konstanz. The sentence reveals some important truths.

The first truth is about ‘good’ technology. It needs to be reliable and simple. And in simplicity we can often recognise a certain beauty.

The second truth is about beauty. We look for beauty in art. Sometimes, we also see beauty in nature and even in science. But there is certainly a lot of beauty to be discovered in technology. As technology education is often very demanding and time-consuming, very few teachers take the time to uncover this beauty in class. And this is a pity, because good technology is often very beautiful, as Claude Dornier said. We need more teachers who point to this beauty. And we need more boys and girls who recognise this beauty and who want to build more.

I refer to my previous blog about the beauty of the engineering profession.

Picture was taken with permission at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen.

The Engineer’s Courageous Mastery

On December 4th, the engineering faculty at KU Leuven celebrates Saint Barbara, the patroness of the engineers. After my graduation, I discovered that the old mine region around Esch-sur-Alzette and Dudelange in Luxembourg (the so-called Minette) also celebrates Sainte Barbe on this day, as she is also the protectress of the miners. So it is a good day to reflect on the nature of the engineering profession.

The older I get, the more I realise what a privilege it is to be an engineer. Like all professions, it is a vocation and a suffering at the same time. Let me start with the drawbacks: the relative absence of the female gender, the difficult education and the relatively hard work (on average). The good things are: the education is wonderful; you get an insight into the wonderful working of so many things, that you become about capable of understanding almost anything else (except fiscal declaration forms and fiscal calculations – Einstein said he couldn’t understand them either; let that be our comfort). And last but not least, engineers have a constructive role; they contribute in many ways to the value creation in economy and to the general well-being.

When you get older, you realise also that the daily life of an engineer is rarely filled with differential equations. It is rather filled with attempts to master chaos. On this picture, made by Jan van Eyck, you can actually see the engineer at work. Behind Barbara’s back, you can see the chaotic wharf of a cathedral in construction. The engineer gives instructions to a man on top of the tower who is heaving a load of stones upward by means of a crane driven by men in the tower. In the lonely landscape, a group of noblemen is approaching the cathedral to see how things are going  😊.

In the 21st century, engineers don’t build cathedrals anymore (except in Catalonia). We now build satellite communication and satellite navigation systems. But we still need to manage chaos. Let us hope Saint Barbara will stay with us.

Inspiration came from an article by Eric Rinckhout in Davidsfonds Cultuurmagazine.

Globalisation

Looking at recent election results, it seems like people have enough of globalisation. When the European Union started, free trade was believed to be the way to paradise. The fact that we don’t see it like that today, is not because our globalisation went too far. It is because our globalisation is one-sided.

Indeed, we see some negative consequences of globalisation. But we forget we are buying a lot of consumer goods for a price that is ridiculously low. We travel to the other end of the globe for almost no money. Take the plane in the middle of the month of November and you would expect to see only businessmen travelling? Actually, as a businessman you might feel very lonesome between the hurdles of tourists around you. The reason is: the tickets are too cheap; we don’t pay the environmental impact of the plane traffic. The government pays the bill in return for a doubtful social peace.

The reason we are still unhappy is because our economy falters and our jobs are unstable. Our economy falters because globalisation did not touch the people sovereignty in matters of budgetary household, fiscal policy, social security, unemployment rules, environmental laws, …In all these matters, we did not get a decent globalisation. As a result, high capital – multinational firms graze the best pastures worldwide and leave deserts behind.

Let me be clear with you: I am in favour of globalisation. But it needs to be a full globalisation. The climate agreements need to be accepted by all countries. All countries should implement a world-wide agreed social security. All countries should gradually harmonise their tax policies. Europe should give the example. We need more Europe, not less Europe.

I refer to my earlier blogs: “Local versus Global” and “The European Paradox”.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

I got fascinated recently by the many causes of perception differences between people. One of the most misunderstood “properties” of people is their motivation. This is important. Motivation is considered to be a key economy driver, certainly in a knowledge society, where the internal motivation, the drive, the passion are needed to make progress. Recruiters do not only assess a candidate’s knowledge and experience, but also his/her motivation to do the job. And motivation is also understood as an important factor of well-being and happiness at work, therefore essential to keep the employee in a positive, constructive mode.

Yet the Harvard Business Review published in 2003 an interesting article  entitled "Why we misread motives". We are very bad at  assessing what drives somebody else. We all know our own intrinsic drivers: creativity, pride about our work results,  recognition, new challenges, … Yet when it comes to understanding the drivers of other people, we believe they are driven by salary prospects, yearly evaluations, work result control, etc. We claim we are driven by intrinsic motivation whereas others need extrinsic motivation to get going. The study casts justified doubt on the usefulness of evaluation conversations and points out that the way we run our businesses today, with a lot of control, leaves a lot of potential unused. Control needs effort from both the controller and the one who is being controlled. Moreover, the article suggests the controlled one may even lose his intrinsic drivers if you chase him/her with external drivers.

I believe this finding is not only valuable for companies. It is also valuable in the education of children. Perhaps even for our politicians: are they really motivated to improve our society? How can they be motivated if they know that once elected, they will almost certainly be defeated by the opposition around four years later, when the next elections take place?  When we complain about politics, perhaps we should think of more “spirit” and a more inspiring way for politicians to communicate with the public and for the public to communicate with politicians.

Picture: sculpture made by Wouter Mulier near the Leuven railway station.

Utopia - Thomas More

In 1516, exactly 500 years ago, Sir Thomas More published his “Utopia”, actually a seafarer’s story in which an ideal society is portrayed. Utopia, ancient Greek for “no-place” or nowhere, is a word that stands since then for the society we can only dream about, but which we will never be able to realise. It is worth reading the Utopia, the society vision is surprisingly modern. In Utopia we find equality between all people, education for men and women, six hour working days, distribution of wealth based on needs rather than on power, selection of public officials based on competence and an early vision on social security.

There is yet another reason why the Utopia is so interesting. We have lost the capability of dreaming and imagining. Yet you need a vision if you want to move forward. Whether it is at the political, the economic or the social level, we need new visions on how our society could work in the future. This would also make sense at a more technical level, where we urgently need to improve our urban planning and construct ‘smart cities’, so that our quality of life can become acceptable again. (I believe it is not acceptable today.)

As the first “Utopia” was printed on Dirk Martens’ press in 1516 in my home town Leuven. I can recommend you to come and visit the wonderful Utopia exhibition in the town museum and in the university library (picture).

I refer to my more extensive Dutch blog “Utopia - Thomas More”, written 4 years ago.

Animal Harm at Animal Farm

As Saint Francis of Assisi showed a special respect for animals, his commemoration day, the 4th of October became World Animal Day. It is good to see there is an increasing awareness about the well-being of animals, although the implementation tends to follow the awareness with a number of decades of delay. It is now widely recognised that neglect or bad treatment of animals should not be tolerated anymore. Questions are also raised about necessity and methods of animal slaughtering. Does it really need to be this much? Many people still resist to this awareness. There are four arguments that people give to justify our habits related to animals:

1) An anthropological argument: mankind has always done this, because it needed to survive in a tough world. We can do with animals what we like because we have always done this. This is really a bad argument. Mankind has also known war, slavery, and even human sacrifice to name a few evil things. This does not justify anything. You can abolish an old habit when you come to the awareness that this habit is not right. Archaic religious habits should certainly be questioned and modernised if they are increasingly felt to be a nuisance to everyone.

2) An argument related to the consciousness of animals. Animals have no consciousness like humans or at best a ‘lower’ consciousness. This is also a bad argument. First, it is clearly not true, every horse rider knows this. There are very strong indications that animals have a consciousness. It is not because you can’t communicate very well to the other side, that there is no consciousness. Moreover, nobody can tell what a ‘lower’ consciousness may be or why such a ‘lower’ consciousness should deserve less respect. Someone asked me once an interesting question: how can  we be so sure an atom doesn’t have a consciousness?

3) A similar argument related to hierarchy: humans are ‘superior’ to animals, therefore they have the right to exploit them. This is really a poor ethical argument. Superiority is no justification for ruthless exploitation. Moreover there is no objective reason to limit ethical behaviour to humans alone. Remember this analogy: we have bad memories about limiting ethical behaviour to the own tribe or race.

4) An argument that animals don’t feel the pain of being slaughtered if you do it right. This is a ludicrous argument. Has anyone already undergone the test? If so, this person must now be slaughtered and unable to tell about his experience. How can you tell if your death was painful or not? How could you ask a slaughtered sheep whether it hurt or not?

Of course we still have the right to defend ourselves against mosquitoes or snakes, to mention a few nasty ones. And we may not want to abolish all meat right away. But we probably need much less than we think, let us say only 10% to 50% of what we use now? In some years from now, we may be capable to synthesise a steak from a tank of organic molecules. Meanwhile, let us be moderate and reasonable with animals, as they are just “far family” to us.

See also my blog: "Science saves us from our anthropomorphism".

The Course of Love

Writing about love (the Greek Eros, the love between partners for life) is as difficult as the subject is. Alain de Botton writes about love by means of a concrete love story, a maturing relationship between two people. As a professional philosopher, he still analyses nevertheless, almost in forensic detail, what happens in a typical relationship in the 21st century. But his analysis is not cold, on the contrary, it is warmhearted and compassionate. His deep-digging considerations aim at helping his 21st century readers develop another view on the things that may torment them in daily life. I can imagine that many people like myself, seek comfort in his wise books, with the sole purpose of releasing themselves from the unfeasible expectations our culture imposes on us.

The author pinpoints some contradictions in our romantic view on love. The unreasonable importance we assign in our culture to the early moments of love, whereas we somehow ignore the romance of later life. There is also the role of coincidence and freedom in the establishment of a relationship, which is somehow contrary to the idea of “a good match” and the heavy commitment we make when we get married.

Another problem is the fact that we don’t recognise sufficiently the glory of the daily duties of family life (“spoon yoghurt into small mouths”). When also children come into play, it is clear that the expectations on husband and wife, two totally different, vulnerable creatures, can become cruel and unbearable. In his ironic style, the author comes to the conclusion that our romantic view on love is actually a recipe for disaster. “Coping” with the cruelties of everyday life is in the end the only realistic basis for a maturing relationship.

I marked a few sentences to remember, the ones about children were particularly hilarious.

1. “An ability not to care too much is a critical aspect of unruffled and successful pedagogy.”
2. “It is a wonderful thing to live in a world where so many people are nice to children. It would be even better if we lived in one where we were a little nicer to the childlike sides of one another.”
3. "…, if they weren’t his own children, they would strike him as being unremarkable, so much so, that were he to meet them in a pub in thirty years’ time, he might prefer not even to talk to them. The insight is unendurable.”
4. “…children, a class of beings constitutionally uninterested in the daily satisfactions of those who created them.”

Vulnerability and acceptance are keywords in relationships. Alain de Botton comforts the tormented modern citizen, who can’t stop feeling hurt by the daily triumph of the fools around him.

Other comforting books from the same author are:  Status Anxiety, De Troost van de Filosofie and Ode aan de Arbeid (the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work). I also refer to Time and Energy in Households.

The Foundations and Wings of a Museum

Visiting a museum with your kids while travelling in vacation time can sometimes be a challenge. But it is a challenge worth accepting. After all, if you oblige your kids to go to school, why couldn't you oblige them to visit  a museum from time to time? And museums nowadays do much more effort to be hospitable to children.

While visiting the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht recently, my daughter asked me the difficult question what we should visit: the ancient art section or the contemporary art section of the museum.

For me, the ancient art section is more in my nature to start with. I am more familiar with it. I recognise much more things, I can explain the history and the relevance better. Somehow, I have it under control. I may see a sculpture of a woman with a tower and explain my kids this must be Saint-Barbara, the patron saint of the engineers. Or I may explain them the difference between Charlemagne and Charles V. So in the ancient arts section, I have a certain 'advantage' over my children. I can talk a lot to them and get the feeling I introduce them into something valuable, something they can take with them to lead a meaningful life.

The contemporary arts section is completely different. In the contemporary art section, I usually need to remain speechless. My advantage is gone. In contemporary art, there tends to be a meaning-disconnect between the artist and the observer. When my children ask me what it means, I can give my opinion or impression, but it may be pointless. I rather tend to ask them what they think. Of course I can still recognise things and give them a few hints. But basically I need to discover myself and my findings may not be more relevant than my children's findings.

So the answer to my daughter was that we needed to visit both. I discovered that both museum sections have their value. Raising kids is, as they say, giving them roots and wings at the same time. The ancient art wing gives them roots, so that they know where they come from. And the contemporary art wing shows them the unlimited possibilities of creative work, it gives them wings and some desire to fly away from the dark rooms of a museum.

I refer to my earlier blog: "Raising kids in the 21st century".

Probably the finest town halls in the world

My home town Leuven - Louvain is as close as 25km away (East) from Brussels. Brussels and Leuven look quite different today but in the Middle Ages they were rather on equal terms, as they both served as residence for the Dukes of Brabant. No need to tell there was a lot of rivalry between the towns.

They probably have the finest town halls in the world. In the pictures above (Brussels) and below (Leuven), you will notice their resemblance is striking. The late gothic architecture is very rich in detail, the statues were added later in time. The most striking difference between Brussels and Leuven is that Brussels has one large tower, whereas Leuven has six small towers.

The Brussels tower is magnificent, harmonic and elegant. The 6 Leuven towers give the building a lightness and the outlook of a shrine. It seemed that the chosen architectures have been the result of the rivalry and the local constraints. I leave it up to you to choose what you like most. I love both of them very much.

This is an attempt to convince my friends abroad to visit us sometime. Fill out a comment box below to tell us whether you would agree to the title of this blog or not.

Picture 1: www.shutterstock.com
Picture 2: Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

A Lifelong Understanding of William Butler Yeats

To A Child Dancing In The Wind

Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind!

W.B. Yeats (°13/6/1865 - †28/1/1939)

I didn't need a book or website to write this down. I remember this beautiful poem from secondary school. At the age of 17, I discovered I knew it by heart and I have rehearsed it since then all my life, especially in moments of woe. The odd thing is that the meaning revealed itself only after many years and it still does !

The first five verses seem to be about untroubled childhood, but then the poem takes a sudden turn to the opposite: the pain of adulthood:

• The fool's triumph
• Love lost as soon as won
• The best labourer dead and all the sheaves to bind
• The monstrous crying of wind

I remember well our English teacher explaining these aspects belong to adulthood, and I accepted that, but I considered it at that time rather as "occasional inconveniences" adult life may bring: some idiots around you, occasional idiocy in yourself, did Yeats have bad luck in love - was it 'real' love?, 'sometimes' we all have too much work, we are all afraid of the power of nature.

It is only after years you discover the teacher was right in another way. The fool's triumph, love lost as soon as won and all the sheaves to bind, rather belong to our human condition, and they are not "occasional" but perpetual struggles we have to deal with in our adult life. And nobody really escapes.

This is the gradually self-revealing truth of William Butler Yeats, born on this calendar day 151 years ago.

On material progress and welfare

I often write about spiritual matters, but in this blog, I want to focus on material progress and welfare. The subject is equally important, as according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, spiritual well-being can hardly exist without material welfare.

How would you measure the material progress of a country or a population? The question may be relevant for us  in order to know if we should be happy or unhappy about our progress versus perhaps the progress of other “developed” or “developing” countries. I also want to look at the idea if war speeds up progress in some way or not. This idea has been raised after World War 1 and 2, when progress had been discovered in fast manufacturing techniques as well as in aviation (jet engine and rockets). Today, it is exactly 76 years ago since World War II started, at least for my home countries Belgium & Flanders.

An interesting question to ask is: what improved the human welfare most in the last 500 years? Which discovery? Which invention? You may be surprised by this answer: the thing that improved our welfare most was the general production and distribution of drinkable water, together with the creation of underground sewerage. Before that time, our life was hell. Living in town was unbearable because of the odour. People died from plague, cholera and poisoning. The creation of hygiene through water infrastructure works constituted the largest step in the improvement of our welfare. If you doubt about this, ask people who went to Afghanistan recently.

Other types of infrastructure (utilities) followed. We added electricity, gas and fuel distribution. Now we are adding mobile phone and Internet connectivity. At the same time, we are discovering that there is one type of infrastructure that still doesn't meet our demand: the road infrastructure or more generally the mobility related infrastructure. The reason why we are unhappy is that things go too slow. There is a lack of public money; most technical people are now working on ICT developments and not enough people are appointed by the government to work on road and rail infrastructure. Today, our spiritual well-being is negatively affected by a lack of stress free transportation.

The effect of war is not only that houses are destroyed. Also general infrastructure is destroyed. As a consequence, engineers and construction people face a double task. They have to rebuild the utilities' infrastructure and they have to rebuild the houses. This prevents them from doing more creative things. The idea that war brings progress is a stupid myth. In fact, war destroys infrastructure and knowledgeable people. Moreover, for the few inventions that have been made during a war, we can list much more inventions that were made in peace time (albeit with military money). Think of the computer, the mobile phone, satellite navigation (GPS), and the Internet.

The Delusion of Immanent Justice

I refer to my previous blog on optimism and pessimism. We would probably be happier if we could get rid of our natural belief in Immanent Justice. Immanent Justice is the idea that the world is somehow fair. If we do our best, we should be rewarded with a good life. If we don't, we don't even deserve a good life. The idea of Immanent Justice also works in the opposite direction: if someone leads a fantastic life, he must have deserved it. And if someone leads a miserable life, he must have deserved it as well. (This has the advantage we don't need to help him any more, it is his own fault.) As Voltaire and Seneca already knew: Immanent Justice is a nice idea, but it is false.

We may think belief in immanent justice stems from animistic cultures or from a medieval view of the world, but even the most enlightened soul will sometimes ask in his life: "Why does this happen to me?" We all think the world should reward our goodness better; in reality however, the world doesn't care. The idea of Immanent Justice is somehow linked to religion in the sense that the 'Providence' was supposed to promote justice, not only in the hereafter but also in this 'valley of tears'. Immanent Justice was God's small counterweight to the big injustice of this world. Otherwise the faithful would lose all hope before they could acquire eternal happiness.

Jewish and Christian religion have promoted, but also contradicted the idea of Immanent Justice. There is the very old and marvellous book of Job, that deals with, but doesn't really answer the question why good people need to suffer. And Jesus points out to his people that neither the blind nor his parents were sinners. He also redefines justice: the workers in the vineyard are rewarded according to their needs, not to their merits. Jesus was essentially against meritocracy.

Of course, diligence and hard work can still be rewarding in life. And this is also a kind of Immanent Justice; we don't want to plead against that. But arbitrary coincidence will still play a major role in our life, whether we are diligent or not.

Picture taken in Grimbergen Abbey church

On optimism and pessimism

A French author once wrote: "Parce que j'attends le pire, l'inattendu peut être meilleur". As I expect the worst, the unexpected could turn out to be better. Indeed, pessimism, expecting the worst to happen, has one advantage: it saves us from disappointment. If things turn out better than anticipated, we might even be glad about the outcome.

Voltaire already pointed out that real life offers no reason to be optimistic, as there is no "providence" that is ruling the world to make us happy. In his famous story Candide ou l'optimisme, the main character walks through a world full of atrocities and calls it naïvely the best of all possible worlds. More recent news events also tend to make us pessimistic, as we are potentially facing a totally new type of war, right at a point in history we thought we got rid of it. And if Candide had been written in our time, Voltaire would have taken him to the Greek - Macedonian border.

In technical development work and in project management, a pessimistic view is sometimes useful. If you anticipate that something is not going to work, you will take measures to prevent this, and this may save your project. A project manager must know that if he didn't take care of something, probably nobody did. The disadvantage of this pessimism is that it can become completely discouraging, you may identify so many problems that you might even be tempted to give up. You would also need some optimism to believe in a project. Belief creates the actual fact.

Seneca attributed good or bad luck to Lady Fortuna, and as a good Stoic, he didn't see a reason to be sad about the evil that struck him. In traditional Christian faith, the godly Providence has often been the guiding principle in the positive / negative outcome of things. No wonder few Christian philosophers have expressed themselves on optimism or pessimism.

Bertrand Russell wrote: "Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naïve humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy."

Even if there is indeed no "providence" to protect us against evil, we may find comfort in the fact that some "good" fellow human beings around us do protect us against evil and in this way, these 'angels' can somehow play the role of the "absent" Providence, however not in an almighty way. We will still need "luck".

Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic will also depend on your natural character. On the other hand, it is possible to steer your thoughts somehow and sometimes this is really needed to find your way in life. Pessimism in your short term expectations, combined with optimism on the ultimate feasibility of something, may be a wise attitude at work and in life.

It is really worth watching Alain de Botton's Sunday lecture on pessimism. I also found inspiration in Brainpickings.

The Importance of Being Gentle

There are a number of values that have no other utility than showing our fellow human beings that we care about them and that we can be trusted.  I'm talking about politeness, attentiveness, cordiality, gentleness and kindliness. They have no immediate economic use. You can argue whether they are values or merely social skills. In the good old days, they were simply good manners; they were seen as key to climbing the social ladder.

Nowadays, they don't do well at school and on television. Towards children, the message is rather to be 'cool', 'tough' and 'authentic'. As if being polite or kind could not be authentic. The problem is indeed that these old school values have lost some credibility because they were not always lived in an authentic way. It would take another blog to explain why this happened.

Yet these values still play a very important role in climbing the social ladder. They should return to the schools' attention. They play a role where people meet to influence, to convince and to decide, in all places where trust is needed: in commerce, in politics, in about any aspect of daily life. Where rudeness is encouraged, e.g. by the press in politics, we notice trust becomes impossible  and collective decisions can't be taken decently.

Now that society has become more complex and involvement of "knowledgeable" people is always required, you may still force a decision with rudeness, but you can't convince your people any more to do something they don't believe in themselves. You need buy-in from people and you can't reach that without the mentioned social skills.

The reason is that these social skills are just an expression of something deeper: genuine respect. They are actually the only good way to show respect and without respect, you don't reach anything wholeheartedly from anybody. Most management literature confirms this. You should be very authentic and clear. But you should also stay kind and never lose control over yourself. Gentleness and kindness are the lubricants in society's economic engine.

I refer to my earlier blogs about education.

Picture: Oscar Wilde en Eduard Vilde in Tartu, Estonia: Dmitri Mehh / Shutterstock.com

The European Paradox

If we look at European achievements, we can list liberalisation of the market, monetary union, and budgetary austerity rules. These are all typical right wing party goals. If we look at left wing party goals: harmonised social security, harmonised tax system, etc, none of these has been achieved. In other words, we have a strong or advanced Europe in 'liberal' matters and at the same time a weak or slow Europe in matters of social security.

Yet in the northern countries, the right wing parties want to leave Europe! The left wing parties would rather stay in Europe. In the southern countries, some left wing parties would like to leave as well, but that is because of the harsh austerity measures.

Europe has never been able to touch the national competence in controlling the incomes and the expenditures, apart from some imposed symptom reduction measures. The reason is that national sovereignty is still a sacred principle. In times of growth, inter-regional and international solidarity is usually not much of a problem. But in times of decline, solidarity goes down and meritocracy rules.

Let us look at Flanders. Around 25% of its income is directly related to the harbour activities in Antwerp. The province of Antwerp could tell the province of Limburg that this 25% is Antwerp's merit and that Limburg should not parasitize on Antwerp's work and should find its own revenues. This will not happen because this interregional solidarity is now self-evident in Flanders.

Let us look at Belgium. There are two visions. The Flemish nationalist vision is that Flanders and Wallonia are distinct people and distinct regions which should be in charge of their own revenues. Some Flemish nationalists are not against solidarity, but it should be a transparant solidarity. The Belgian patriottic vision is that Flanders should show solidarity with Wallonia, as Flanders is nowadays by nature a richer area than Wallonia. Interregional solidarity is self-evident in Belgium for some, and not self-evident for others. In the end, this remains a political choice to make.

Suppose solidarity may or should play within Belgium, why could it not play within Europe? If Germany is "by nature" more prosperous than Greece, why could Germany then not show solidarity to Greece, or perhaps to Wallonia? Why should  solidarity to Wallonia be the privilege of the Flemish people? Why should Luxembourg not show solidarity to Wallonia - not just a little - but to the same extent as Flanders?

It will take a while before we Europeans see it this way, especially in this time of economic uncertainty. The refugee question and the migration question will not be solved without such a paradigm shift.

We may think our problems are typically Belgian or European. But who would have thought similar problems - including a mental retreat to the trenches - would occur in the United States of America? I refer to Donald Duck's unexpected success in the presidential pre-elections.

I refer to my earlier blog: "Europe, quo vadis?"

The driverless Car

The car of the future will be a driverless car. Computers will take over your driver duty and it is only a matter of time before these computers drive better than you.

Many people will object. We know computers and software are all but perfect. Can they guarantee us that no accidents will happen? No. We could, however, build a system that is quite safer than what we have today.

The advantages are important:

1. We avoid the human factor in accidents: fatigue, foolhardiness, aggression, lack of experience, alcohol abuse.
2. We drive the vehicles closer together so that the road capacity increases. Less traffic jams is good for the environment.
3. We can reduce the dependency of people who don't have a driver's license. We would theoretically no longer need to bring them where they need to be. 
4. We would have more time to do something else than driving.

Think how much lives we could save. Could we trust a machine? We do this all the time, when we take a train or a plane.

There are some psychological challenges to this. Many people believe they are good drivers; other people are dangerous. That is why other people seem to have accidents, and "we" never have an accident. Many people believe they will be better off without computers. Still they will be wrong in the long term. Driverless cars will come some day.

I also refer to my blog: "Cars, ships, trains and planes connected".

Picture: Yauhen_D / Shutterstock.com

The wealth of voluntary poverty

Voluntary poverty and sobriety are among the purest sources of happiness. Voluntary poverty is releasing yourself from your addiction to “worldly” things, usually things that were scarce in the old days, and abundant now. Christians are invited yearly to enjoy this happiness in lent (this word means “spring” in Dutch). Usually we associate this time with imposed rules concerning food and drinks, but this is not the essence. Lent is not an obligatory diet. Nowadays, the worldly things are “opportunities”, “activities”, sport performances, Facebook jokes, likes, tweets and other instant successes.

Perhaps we should consider the following sources of happiness:

• Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could have breakfast all together in family next Sunday?
• Wouldn’t it be a relief if we could switch off our iPhone then and watch the first signs of spring in the garden?
• Wouldn’t it be more relaxing if we decided NOT to participate in the next jogging , racing, sailing event organised by our dearest colleagues? 
• Wouldn’t it be better to refuse participation in the next project, which will cost the company a lot of money and which will turn us into a nervous wreck, and if we would just go home earlier?
• Wouldn’t it be great to know more about the new colleague and the work he is doing?
• Wouldn’t it be fine to stop tweeting and blogging at 22h and talk to the people who happen to be living in my house?
• Wouldn’t it be a great year if we didn’t go skiing? No broken legs, no traffic jams, no queuing, no costs, no worries.

You may have noticed that voluntary poverty today is something else than what it used to be. We have become so hyper-active that voluntary poverty today is choosing NOT to accept the thousand opportunities that come up every day and which cause choice-stress because we can’t reasonably accept them all. 

We have become frightened to death to miss opportunities. This one lack-of-interest, this one non-participation will give our competitor an eternal advance in the rat race. We totally neglect the huge costs that are inevitably associated with these participations: financial costs, traffic jams, lost friends, divorces and burn-outs. Could our hyper-activity be the real cause of the unresolvable economic crisis we have since 2008? 

Man knows mankind better than he thinks. If things evolve too much in a certain direction, if too much excesses occur, man will automatically look for something else. He will take a distance from the worldly things that turned him into a slave. Lent is opting for poverty; contemporary lent is opting for contemporary poverty.

I refer to my own blogs: “Poverty, source of all trouble” (about “real” involuntary poverty), “social web addiction” and “Defeat the seven-headed beast”.

This has been a very inspiring blog: In Praise of the Quiet Life  from the Book of Life (highly recommended).

Picture: Saint George's Monastery in judean desert, shutterstock.com

Ode to Industry

Industry comes from the Latin industria, which means a combination of diligence, zeal and assiduousness (in Dutch: vlijt, ijver, naarstigheid) and this title uses the industry word with this meaning. If we look at "our" society, we can safely say that "industria" has been a pillar value since centuries. It has laid the foundations of our current welfare and well-being. Agriculture, Industry and Services are just impressive manifestations of this original industry - industria.

You would expect that such an important value as industry can easily be traced back to the Bible, which is considered to be the foundation of our western Christian culture. Well, you might be terribly disappointed if you try that. The Bible does not encourage us to work at all. Let us have a look at the fine fleur of our christian stories in the New Testament.

There are a few metaphors referring to hard work like "the fishermen" and "the sower". But apart from that almost all stories plead against hard work. The workers in the vineyard who work least, receive the largest hourly salary. The Prodigal Son is celebrated more than his hard-working brother. Jesus recommends his disciples not to worry too much and look at the beauty of the birds and the flowers. He reproves the hard-working Martha and sets her "just-listening" sister Maria as an example. The only story where some entrepreneurial zeal is rewarded, is the story of the talents, which is paradoxically misinterpreted as a story about personal endowments. Jesus is not pleading for industria and he would not make an ideal son-in-law in our age.

Christianity invented the industria much later, when monasteries were founded (ora et labora - pray and work) and when the model-myth of Joseph the carpenter was reconstructed from a single disapproving sentence in the Bible: "Isn't he the son of the carpenter?".

If industria is so important as a value, why is it "not really" a core value in christian faith? The answer is simple: because of the nature of man. Man is naturally inclined to industria for his survival and christian faith has always served as a counterbalance to this inclination. The teaching of the gospels tries to bring some balance in our lives, we need a seventh day to rest mentally and to see things straight again. Work may require a lot of time, and it may absorb us but it is not the essence of life.

This is important in a time like this, when life in industry has become very demanding. We need to be aware that life has always been tough and demanding and that the noble industria keeps us going in a wonderful way and sometimes with astonishing results. But industria is not the same as workoholism. If we lose the counterbalance to work that is proposed to us on the seventh day of the week, we may end up with a loss of meaning in work and we may lose our valuable industria.

I also refer to my earlier blogs: "Ode to Discipline" and (in Dutch) "Ode aan de Arbeid" en "Onze werkbiotoop".

I dedicate this blog to my industrious and diligent friend Georges Amirza at the occasion of his birthday.

Picture 1: Shutterstock.com

Picture 2:  jorisvo / Shutterstock.com