Enter the Construction Sites of History

I would like to come back on one sentence in pope Leo's encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas that inspired me particularly. Remember Nehemia was put forward as being an example of trust in God, patience, responsibility and leadership. He united the Jewish people as a team and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in six months, which should make him the ideal patron of the project leaders. Being a project leader myself, I tend to become desperate at times, but I realise now what a privilege it is to have this difficult but honourable responsibility.

“In this era of digital transformation, I see in Nehemia a striking parable of our own vocation, which is not to be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history — research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities — in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened.”

In this magnificent paragraph, pope Leo touches on the core problem of our time. All too often, people stand at the more secure side lines of the construction sites and limit themselves to be ‘mere commentators on what is crumbling’ in the social media. This leaves them unsatisfied and unhappy with the society and with themselves. Only by defying the fear to be ridiculed as Christians or as supporters of the common good, we can participate wholeheartedly to the construction sites of our time and by practicing solidarity, make the world a better place.

We need people who stand with both feet in the construction yards of our time: the named research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities. In our complex role, we are called to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened. If you read the encyclical well, you know this means demonstrating team spirit and solidarity with our fellow human being who may be exploited or lost in the information society. In his own way, Leo XIV encourages us to follow Jesus and to expose ourselves to the world.

I also refer to my blogs 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and The Engineer’s Social Role.

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

Magnificent Humanity

It had to happen at some point. For the first time in my life, I have read an encyclical. Three things struck me.

First, the wonderful comparison that Pope Leo XIV makes between the story of the Tower of Babel and the story of Nehemiah. Both are stories from the Old Testament. With the Tower of Babel, humanity wants to erect a building that reaches into the heavens. But human hubris towards God leads everyone to speak their own language. It's not teamwork; Every person takes care of himself as is customary in our meritocracy. The structure is doomed to fail. On the other hand, there is the story of Nehemiah. He is the Jewish adviser to the Persian king Artaxerxes and, despite much opposition, has the city walls of Jerusalem rebuilt. It is a wonderful story of project leadership and team spirit. It is remarkable that Nehemiah's story is mainly a long detailed enumeration of all the people who contributed to the project. You feel that this is a main concern of the writer: credit where credit is due. The two stories are striking metaphors for the dilemmas that technical project leaders in information technology face. This is particularly inspiring for my daily work.

Secondly, there was the expected integration into the living tradition of Rerum Novarum, the encyclical of predecessor Pope Leo XIII on the social doctrine of the church. Magnifica Humanitas is not an isolated document on artificial intelligence. More broadly, it is also about digitization and the use of technological tools. Are they used for the exploitation of fellow human beings or for the common good? The answer is an integral part of the social doctrine of the Church. We have to name the injustice. The text explicitly opposes postmodernism, the contemporary relentless denial of goodness, truth and beauty. Magnifica Humanitas resolutely opts for a positive view of humanity.

Finally, I was struck by the thoroughness and care with which this document was written. Many nouns were coloured with appropriate adjectives. For example, there is the adjective magnificus – magnificent or splendid. It does not mean the same as magnus – great. Magnificus is what was made great, and for the Church that means made great by God. The word also refers to the Magnificat, a Marian prayer that has taken on a special spiritual meaning within the Church in recent years, thanks to a revaluation of Marian devotion.

I also refer to my blog Church under construction of 2013, in which I express the wish that the Sagrada Familia may not become a Tower of Babel, very appropriate in this context. Furthermore, the trap of technology may be relevant in this context.

Picture: Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, picture from Lusia via Pixabay

Could the clock be ticking backwards?

Are we living in a so-called society regression, an era of social decline? Twenty years ago, we could not imagine that the United States of America would adopt a "back-to-the-middle-ages" policy: elimination of vaccinations - promotion of meat and fat - promotion of household weapons - denial of climate change – blocking of accessible health insurance. Politics is not only directed against scientists, but also against science itself. Virtue is dismissed as weakness. Nobody cares about blatant lies anymore, as is customary in dictatorships. On the international stage, too, we see a regression to the law of the strongest.

Looking into the eye of the snake can have a paralyzing effect. The democratic forces have so far reacted with disbelief and immobilism. Europe is slowly but certainly getting back on its feet. I refer to my blog The Re-Emergence of the West.

Picture: Galileo clock source ESA Navipedia.

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

You may feel relieved after having defied the dangers of professional life and you may cherish hope for a peaceful Christmas time with family and friends. Peace on Earth, however, seems beyond reach in these awkward times.

The sad news is that peace at your family’s Christmas table is equally threatened. In this time, everybody tends to have a strong opinion on political matters and even within families, we tend to have polarised viewpoints on almost everything. We may have academics and populists around the table. The only thing we could agree upon, is the decline of the West, and it looks like this drives our concern about everything else.

On the left-right axis, we have different viewpoints on almost everything: treatment of refugees, social security, property taxes, war in Palestine, deforestation in Brazil, etc. The left-right divide is essentially a socio-economical divide: do you promote the interests of the stronger or the interests of the weaker? The problem would be easy if the stronger felt strong. In times of upheaval and economic decline however, the strong feel threatened by the weak and opt for solutions that keep the weak away.

On the conservative – progressive axis, we have different viewpoints on immaterial values. The conservative viewpoint is that our ancestors have worked hard to establish immaterial values and that we should honour these. The progressive viewpoint is we need progress as the status quo proves our inherited values are not adequate to establish a fair society. Consider gay rights, abortion, the use of obligatory vaccination, the quality of education, the tolerance for life philosophies and the treatment of animals. Very often, conservative viewpoints resonate well with the right, and progressive viewpoints resonate with the left. The reason is our social order is based on possession, not on needs. Therefore, the protection of possession has a somewhat conservative character, whereas the standing up for the needs of the weak tends to have a progressive character.

The discussions are often not based on rational arguments, rather on belly feeling, sometimes even admiration or disgust for famous representatives of each side. Whatever you want to discuss at the Christmas table, keep in mind two things. First, the people at your table mean well, they are of good will, and they are concerned about you and about the entire planet.

Secondly, and this is the most important: resist cynicism. Don’t give in to the temptation of claiming everyone is stupid or selfish. Let there be peace on Earth. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, like Saint Joseph in his dream.

I also refer to my blog Why Do the People Imagine a Vain Thing?

Picture: Joseph’s Dream, Gerard Seghers, MSK Gent, artinflanders.be, photographer Hugo Maertens (public domain)

Brothers in Arms

One of the most touching monuments in Flanders’ fields is the Brothers in Arms Memorial Park near the Polygon woods of Zonnebeke, in the vicinity of Ypres. It shows Australian soldier John Hunter dying in the arms of his younger brother James. James buried John carefully in the forest in September 1917, survived the war but could not find back his brother's grave after the war. In 2006 however, the remains of five Australian soldiers were found in the forest. One of the five soldiers was identified by DNA research as being the lost John Hunter.

Touching as this monument may be, I feel an inner resistance to attend public praise events to fallen victims, especially when political powers are present, claiming the boys had given their lives for their country. What the officials should say is: “We failed in diplomacy and have taken the lives of these young people to uphold our doubtful reputation…”. What on Earth is worth more in a country than the lives of young people? Abstract principles like ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’ are of no use for people who have died already, nor for the numerous family members who stay behind, dead from sorrow.

In these times of belligerent talk, we prefer silence or the wonderful Brothers in Arms song of Dire Straits.

I refer to my earlier blog Pray for peace.

Dedication: I dedicate this blog to ir. Marc De Jonghe († 15 November 2025), friend and brother in arms.

Picture: Brothers in Arms monument Zonnebeke, Ypres 2025 ©Wim Lahaye

The Re-emergence of the West

A century has passed since Oswald Spengler wrote his Decline of the West. Prophesies may become self-fulfilling, therefore I opted for a more positive title. Admitted, the Decline of the West is the only belief the political left and right seem to have in common. A cultural pessimism dominates the media, and there are indications other geopolitical powers support such pessimism through social media propaganda as they know it weakens us.

It is true that the West doesn't seem to get rid of the pain of postmodernism, which halted our belief in progress. And as belief creates the actual fact, non-belief destroys the actual fact. Very few European leaders (one of them was the Belgian prime minister) have sufficiently pointed to the fact that economic welfare is in our hands and needs to be re-established. This requires a sacrifice from all of us. In his book Against the Tide, Roger Scruton points to the fact that anything worth pursuing, requires sacrifice. The Left and the Right however, believe the sacrifice should be brought by the political opponents at the other side.

Here is the truth, not generated by AI:

1)      We will see more poverty entering Europe through migration. Whether that migration is legal or illegal, we may be able to slow it down a little, but we won’t be able to stop it.

2)      Some of us may open the door a little for humanitarian reasons, but the imported poverty is not an enrichment in the economic sense. Our economy falters and our integration capability is too limited. As a result of this, we will need to work harder for less money. Being human can be costly; don't deny it if you claim to be human.

3)      We will face more mental risks in life. Loss of jobs is the most bearable one of these risks.

4)      We will be more exposed to safety threats, be it physical threats, environmental threats, technological threats. Some of the upcoming threats we don’t know yet.

The re-emergence of the West will depend on our willingness to bring sacrifices. Clinging on to old certainties, such as untouched pension schemes, company cars, four holiday trips/year, not-in-my-back-yard vetoes against the industry etc… will only make the insecurity worse for the generations after us. It will turn us into a prey for other more autocratically led geopolitical powers. 

Picture: Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Centre, NYC 2015 ©Wim Lahaye

The Measure of a Man

This autobiography of Sidney Poitier is certainly worth reading. First, it sheds an interesting light on the conditions in which a black man could reach the top in the Hollywood film industry. Being raised in a poor tomato farmer environment on the Bahamas, in a simple, almost idyllic environment where everyone was poor, he hadn’t undergone the ‘conditioning’ in the back ghettos in American suburbs. In spite of the racial tensions and the underlying social injustice, he never felt inferior and could keep up a modest pride as a human being to be respected. In this way, he developed a ‘character’ of authenticity and integrity in full accordance with the actor roles the film industry needed at that time. He testifies he wasn’t that much aware of his race before he left his idyllic youth environment on the Bahamas as a young man.

The other reason why this book is worth reading resides in the title. What is the measure of a man, the author asks himself. We know we should be mild on people. Do we have the right and the capability to take the measure of a man? The author refers to his father, who repeatedly claimed the measure of a man resides in his ability to provide for his children. As his father was a poor man, he certainly must have meant provision in the material sense, but it was much more than that. It was also the education he gave and his example of a decent life in courage and integrity. Sidney Poitier sees the greatest part of his father’s legacy as the knowledge that in discipline and commitment lies hope. Nevertheless, Poitier remains realistic enough to see this will not solve all problems in society.

We tend to measure a man by his income. As a result, we live in idolatry for billionaires. The measure of a (wo)man should actually be estimated by what (s)he brings to society, not by what (s)he gets from society.

It seems like Poitier's education didn't burden him too much with status anxiety. I also refer to my Dutch blog Elitaire of egalitaire samenleving?

The Secret of Simple Sound World Economics

In this merciless world, we observe chaos, corruption, trade barriers, extortion and exploitation of the weak. We wonder if there exists any solution to the unsurmountable problems of world economics. We acknowledge there will always be shortages. There is simply not enough for everybody on this planet.

Puzzled by these questions and by feelings of guilt two thousand years ago, people asked John the Baptist what they should be doing. You would expect a very demanding list of charity related duties. The answer was astonishingly simple, minimalistic even. To the public officials, he said: “Don't ask more than what has been established for you.” To the soldiers he said: “Don't rob anyone. Don't extort or fine anyone falsely. Be satisfied with your pay.”

Especially the idea of showing satisfaction with your pay seems unworldly strange in this era of never enough. Showing satisfaction with your pay sounds like asking to be robbed.

Nevertheless: could we try this? And see where we end up in this chaos. In combination with modest generosity, this is the best simple cure for a sound world economy.

I refer to my blogs Temperance saves the World and to Economics of Good and Evil.

Picture: retable ‘The Life of John the Baptist’ from the Notre-Dame cathedral of Amiens 2019 ©Wim Lahaye

Pray for Peace

Together with pity, peace is the most requested gift from God. Does it make sense to pray for peace? Perhaps the efficiency of praying is unmeasurably low, but our aversion of war and our longing for peace is so strong that we can't stop praying, even if our own homes are safely far from the fighting front lines.

More worldly solutions to motivate war lords in making peace are embargos, exclusions from international events and travel limitations. The problem is that these predominantly affect the ordinary people. Apart from weaponry embargos and confiscation of high capital, they don't affect the decision makers that much. Economic embargos and exclusions could even have an adverse effect. People feel excluded by the rest of the world and start adhering even more to their war lords who give them a feeling of protection against the rest of the world.

What we can do, is stop voting for belligerent politicians and refrain from our own war propaganda. Stop demonization of other people and maintain cultural connections with the people we tend to call our enemies. The world religions can play a positive role in the required diplomacy, in peace preaching and in praying for peace. Let us keep Jesus’ name clean. “Peace be with you!” was his most quoted wish and let us repeat it as if it were our own.

I refer to New Peace Carillon and to my last post on De Zwijger: Oorlog, hoelang nog?

Picture: Saint Michael’s peace church, one of the marvels of my home town Leuven 2023 ©Wim Lahaye

A New Chance for Europe

Europe is often criticised. In this time, Europe is even being criticised for being a moral reference in the world in aspects like ecology, adherence to dialogue and peace and social protection. When shameless stupidity rules, moral behaviour is considered a weakness.

Even in academic circles it has become ‘bon ton’ as they say in French to criticise political authorities from the side line in choir with the bullies. It's all going too slow. As highly educated people we tend to put ourselves at the same height as the political authorities and by means of a sharp tweet or a witty post we believe we can save the world from the politicians’ ignorance and incompetence. 

At least the sharp tweets and witty posts free us a few seconds of our general feeling of being totally unimportant. The breakdown of authority has gone so far that anybody carrying power should be ashamed of how badly things are going and how weak Europe is against the other geopolitical powers. We should be grateful for our freedom of speech, but we tend to look too negatively at things.

Europe is collaborating better than ever since it got under pressure to take a new course. Collaboration is the key to every successful step in space, defence, ecology or social advancement. If Europe now succeeds in putting aside the national interests in favour of the general European interests, we are on our way to success. 

I refer to earlier blogs about Europe.

Picture: The Abduction of Europa by Zeus, statue in the town of Leuven 2023 ©Wim Lahaye

Poise, Bravery, and Hope

New Year’s resolutions usually aim at doing something, either more or less. We may intend to do more sports, eat less, smoke less, or even work less. Could we also aim at changing our attitude and state of mind to a certain extent? It may be needed in this time when everyone around us seems to be in deep despair about our future, whether it relates to work, war, immigration, climate, or the dangers of eating Christmas trees.

In this valley of tears, there is really a lot to worry about. Although there is always a slight irony in my blogs, our common tendency to be pessimistic is not totally unjustified. Our fears are triggered by the incredible rate at which everything changes. We are missing solid structures in our lives. The solid structures of religion, marriage, family, work often turn into liquids, and it sometimes looks as if we always need to restart reconstructing them like Sisyphus. It makes us extremely vulnerable. Even worse, pessimism may become self-fulfilling.

My New Year’s resolution would be to stay steadfast in the face of uncertainty. We can’t really decide never to be afraid. Fear is an emotion and usually catches us unexpectedly. We can however try to keep our poise and stay brave in the face of what is coming. The brave attitude is certainly less comfortable than the ‘run away’ or ‘blame it on the others’ attitude but it is the one which we regret the least later on. What keeps us going is the hope. The pessimists may be right but hope never dies.

Picture: pedestrian bridge in Tours, France 2019 ©Wim Lahaye

International Women in Engineering Day

Every year on June 23, the world celebrates International Women in Engineering Day. I noticed on an old picture there was only one girl in my 30-student thermodynamics class of 1986. The reason I write this blog however, is that people tell me the M/F ratios have not changed that much since, whereas we were all convinced, back in 1986, that things would change soon.

You could ask why this matters. This is a justified question. Why does it matter that one gender is underrepresented in a particular subject or faculty? Couldn’t we just live with that? The classical answer from the point of view of industry/ society, is that some potential is underused: the underrepresented gender may contribute more than it actually does. This ignores the fact that there may be an overrepresented gender, the men. Perhaps the overrepresented gender is contributing inefficiently to the bottom line, assuming that each gender has specific inherent qualities the other gender may have to a lesser extent? There is however another reason why imbalance is bad. An unbalanced ratio may make studying at a particular faculty less attractive for the students themselves either because of too many of your own gender or because of too many of the opposite gender. Gender imbalances may lead to boring study places and boring work places.

As for the causes, I have been reading a lot of articles about this. Most articles spend too much attention on why girls / women don’t study engineering, but they don’t spend sufficient  attention on the boys/ men motivation, as if that doesn’t matter much. Moreover, the articles focus too much on career impediments, like glass ceilings and salary differences. These career impediments equally exist in other professions, so why should there be a bigger problem in engineering? The choice for a scientific or engineering profession is made at secondary school, long before these career differences are actually experienced.

Most articles agree on a few things. There are hidden forces in education which drive boys / girls in divergent directions, and this is not so much related to school orientation, but rather family role related. It is interesting to note that this divergence is worse in industrialised countries. In poorly industrialised countries, men and women are equally forced to look for a job with sufficient revenue, whereas industrialised countries offer the luxury to women to accept somewhat less paid, but stable part-time or 9-5 jobs. As a result, paradoxically, industrialised countries seem to have more imbalance in the M/F engineering participation ratio.

Another finding is the role of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the degree to which you are confident you will be able to solve a difficult task. For technical challenges, girls/women seem to have a lower self-efficacy than men, but the question is whether this low self-efficacy is sufficient ground not to start the studies. Men with low self-efficacy exist as well and are kindly asked to study engineering anyway and suffer the consequences of their lack of self-confidence. “Bite on your teeth!” we say in Dutch. I'm joking a little but our society is tough on men as well.

I’m in favour of general STEM actions to encourage young people in general for science. However, I’m not in favour of girls-only actions, as these may have an adverse effect.

I refer to my blogs: ‘The Engineer’s Social Role’ and to ‘European Young Engineers’.

Afbeelding van Dee via Pixabay

The Balkan Countries Belong to Europe

When I was a pupil at primary school, I got fascinated by the dichotomy of Europe created by the Iron Curtain. As a child, I found it incredibly sad that Eastern Europe could not be visited easily and that Eastern Europe citizens could not visit us very easily. (I found out later the former Yugoslavia was an exception to this rule.) Around the end of my university studies, a dream came true. The Iron Curtain opened and West Europeans could unite with East Europeans.

Only five years later in December 1994, the European Young Engineers were born and I remember well how Hungarian young engineers visited us soon after in Belgium. Last year I was very proud to see as a founding member that our latest successors had succeeded in organising a European conference in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.

The eastern Balkan countries are perhaps the last countries to join the European Union, although we can't know this for sure. Historically the Balkan countries played a very important role in the Roman Empire, be it that their distance to Rome was far less than their distance to Brussels. This makes it hard for Balkan country Europeans to come to Brussels and it may lead at times to local frustrations about the decisions taken in faraway Brussels. This frustration is certainly coming, but we should remain positive and welcome this unexpected human progress. Hope never dies.

Meanwhile, we were happy to receive last week two delegations of academic staff of four Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia) on a seminar about space economy in our beautiful town of Leuven.

I also refer to my blog Erasmus travels through Europe.

Afbeelding van Dimitris Vetsikas via Pixabay

Temperance Saves the World

Temperance is a virtue which doesn’t have a prominent place in economic textbooks. Yet the word economy refers to thrift and frugality. Economy allows you to be self-reliant and to survive with little means.

Our popular culture and our company culture seems to go the opposite direction, the direction of ‘never enough’, or is it simply greed? It is much easier convincing people to do something than convincing them not to do something. The reason is the imagined group loyalty. Pleading against something may be seen as a rebellious act, a result of laziness or complacency. Pleading in favour of something big is seen as positivity, energy, and good willingness. As a result, companies do too much and have a total lack of focus. Hyperactivity and Beschleunigung have become a plague.

Temperance is exactly what companies need now. Instead of asking what they should do, it may be worth asking what they should no longer do. The question is equally important in times of scarcity of resources. Leadership is also shown through temperance.

I refer to my blog: “Economic Justification in a Culture of Scarcity”.

Picture by Curtis Yancey via Pixabay

The Engineer’s Social Role

There is a history of the technical marvel IMEC in presentation form. In it, Professor Hugo De Man characterized his closest colleague the late Professor Roger Van Overstraeten as a ‘visionary Fleming’. According to Professor De Man, it had always been the intention "to put Flanders on the map of the industry of the future by training a generation of engineers who, in addition to a solid scientific basis, also have an eye for the social and economic progress of the people."

We did indeed have some professors at our University of Leuven who gave a little more than the sober lessons. On the one hand they tried to teach us a kind of entrepreneurship and on the other hand they reminded us of our social role and our social responsibility. Entrepreneurship was not an end, but rather a means to improve the socio-economic fabric of society and the common good. This may all sound rather obvious, but it never was, on the contrary. Not all colleagues showed the same interest in social themes. Deep specialisation threatened to suck many fellow engineers into the deep oblivion pit of the professional nerds. It didn’t end up that bad, however. The problems to be solved became so complicated that only good teamwork proved to have a chance of success. Furthermore, new developments are now being evaluated very thoroughly in terms of their social relevance. After my studies, at the engineering association and at the European Young Engineers,  I met many like-minded people.

The profession of engineer is indeed a wonderful profession, although it sometimes takes courage. It certainly deserves promotion among the various groups that are still underrepresented in this profession. But the beauty of it all is that I became more and more aware that I did not have a profession but a vocation. In "Science as a vocation" we already saw that this vocation can be described as a kind of apostolate in the industrial landscape.

I also refer to my blogs: "The Why of Technology” and to “The Trap of Technology".

Picture: Brussels Airport Runway, courtesy Jan Straus

The transformative power of berserker rage

The theme of anger or rage has only been discussed once in my blog. However, rage can be constructive and life-saving, because in certain cases it generates the necessary combativeness. In our country, the police were only properly reformed after the population was first inflamed in rage. We are talking about the white marches of 1996.

The Normans called that life-saving rage berserker rage. They discovered that in the heat of battle, especially when the situation was completely hopeless, they could fall into a 'level two' fighting spirit, a kind of trance in which they threw all remaining energy into the battle and in which they felt neither fear nor pain.

In fact, berserker rage is a survival instinct. A Viking warrior then turned into berserker, literally bearskin warrior (implicitly also 'without-armor' warrior) and was deemed invincible, which earned him Odin's mercy and eternal fame. In English, the expression 'to go berserk' still exists. The film Erik the Viking made use of it with the inimitable Tim McInnerny as Svein the Viking. The Normans discovered that they could also put themselves in a trance before battle with all kinds of rituals and hallucinogenic substances. But why is this berserker rage so interesting? Because it has a transformative power. It pushes boundaries. It moves the thin grey line between the feasible and the unfeasible.

Those who find themselves in a hopeless situation (e.g. of exploitation, injustice, misery, depression,..) can therefore do well to cultivate that berserker anger in order to transcend the situation and put an end to the misery and injustice. This is especially useful where the hopelessness has to do with one's own fears and one's own complacency. But beware: berserker rage is a dangerous weapon. You can only use it once and then you have to win.

Shouldn't our society also cultivate some berserker anger to get out of the negative spiral of some lingering problems? I refer to my blogs Day of Wrath and Failed State. This blog should be used with caution.

Image by Mattias Styrman from Pixabay

Fear Of Missing Out – Verpassungsangst

There is no Dutch word yet for FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out. Germans have the word Verpassungsangst, but the literal Dutch translation 'misangst' doesn’t sound well and could give rise to ambiguities. Anyway, there’s no better time to feel FOMO than vacation time.

Vacation time never brings us what we hope for. We hope to have a chill time, enjoying the magic of places. This is rarely the case. The reason is we think we will be alone at our destination. Everyone we know, seems to go elsewhere. We want to visit another place as an observer; we want to see the place as we imagine it to be and we think we will come back with a unique experience, displayed on unique pictures. Be aware however, if everyone wants to visit this unique place, you will not be alone. You will also belong to the thousands of people who change the image of this place. This is already the case for Venice, Bruges and Barcelona.

It is like in quantum mechanics. If the object is small, the observer influences the observed object. If we don’t want this, we should consider a more ecological way of travelling, the most ecological one being to stay at home and travel in our head by reading books. Immanuel Kant travelled like that.

I refer to my blog Leaving Lazy Tasty Land.

Picture: St Christopher statue and tower of Ulmer dom 2018©Wim Lahaye. St Christopher is the patron saint of the travellers.

Onbeschikbaarheid – Unverfügbarkeit – Unavailability

Hartmut Rosa sharply describes tendencies in society that are typical for our time. We know him from his book Beschleunigung about the increasing pace of life in society. In this book Unverfügbarkeit, he explores how contemporary citizens deal with availability and unavailability of things and experiences. He explains how the new categorical imperative sounds like everyone should maximise his reach in the world. He should maximise his possession; he should maximise his impact; he should maximise his fame and maximise his ‘experiences’ in this world. Many things can be explained from other typical features of our time such as the fear of status loss (status anxiety) and the fear of being dumped into the losers’ pit of oblivion due to the power of the Matthew effect.

The author sharply observes the behaviour of city citizens. Like spoilt children they behave ‘blasé’ and cool. They do their utmost to give the impression they can never get impressed by anything. This leads to a kind of numbness and a kind of despair. If everyone performs the impossible to get recognition and nobody is prepared to give anyone else recognition, this leads to a society full of desperate losers. Moreover people tend to seek their happiness in material meaningless differences yet at the same time they can never be happy and remain restless after any material achievement, which happens to be temporary by nature.

Looking for unique experiences, we will always fail if we don't allow the resonant spaces in between the races we run daily. Always looking for news on our smartphone, we succeed in killing every authentic experience. Believing everything should be reachable and feasible, we fail in being grateful for anything achieved. If something goes wrong and proves to be unfeasible, we blame other people, we always find someone guilty and someone to be liable for today’s imperfections of society.

A book worth reading for all people interested in understanding the signs of our times.

I refer to my blogs Disaster and Sin and The Thin Grey Line between the Feasible and the Unfeasible.

Work

James Suzman’s book title sounds to us like an order. This is exactly the subject of this book. How did we get to today’s attitude towards ‘work’, including our work ethic?

The author starts with nature. Work dissipates energy and increases entropy in accordance with the laws of nature. Strange things happen: male masked weavers (birds) make and break their nests endlessly for no other apparent reason than to show off for the female masked weavers. The energy they dissipate in doing this is in no relation to the functional outcome of their work.

The author then considers work in an anthropological view. Our ancestor hunter gatherers only ‘worked’ for meeting their instant needs. It is through the agricultural revolution that man started working for meeting his future needs and it is at that point that slavery originated. The author then describes the evolution of ‘work’ and its meaning in the industrial revolution with the intellectual contributions of people like Thomas Robert Malthus, Benjamin Franklin, John ‘Saint’ Lubbock, John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith.

The author points to a few aberrations in society’s attitude towards work. The agricultural and industrial revolutions have brought us to a certain work ethos and a corresponding belief in merit as the right measure for work reward. Yet the highest earners are not the hardest workers but the largest owners of assets, being thereby the largest receivers of dividends and bonusses. It is not the labour effort that pays off, but the market value of the ‘work’ one seems to offer to society. Other related aberrations are the silly ‘war for talent’ and the cases of karoshi in Japan.

The author also points to Parkinson’s law according to which work inevitably expands to fill the time available for its completion. Bureaucracies will always generate enough internal work to justify their existence. Many people don’t have meaningful work anymore but fill their time with the rope of their house mortgage around their neck. The author concludes that many of our core assumptions about economy and work are an artifact of our past and we could free us from them to imagine and create a better future.

I refer to my blogs: Ode to Industry, Full Time could be Less and Revolution is in the Air.

Against the Tide

This book is a posthumous anthology of Roger Scruton's writings, edited by Mark Dooley. Roger Scruton was an eminent British conservative thinker. Conservatism in his opinion is the awareness that many of the good things we enjoy now, are actually the fruit of self-sacrifice from our predecessors and therefore they require protection. It is self-evident that in times of change, this protection is highly needed.

The term sacrifice is all too often associated with abuse and exploitation, whereas sacrifice is actually essential to achieve anything worth pursuing. The mainstream press associates conservatism with populism, as this press considers itself progressive. Conservative thinkers like Roger Scruton also emphasise the fact that citizenship involves obligations for the people who reside here. Therefore also the benefits should return to the people who reside here.

By living among freedom fighters in Eastern Europe before 1989, the author became aware of the transforming effect of sacrifice on the human character. He explains the resistance of countries like Poland and Hungary against Europe. European institutions have no soul and their bureaucracy resembles the bureaucracy of the old communist party. Europe, Quo Vadis?

The author rightfully complains about the destructive work of postmodernism (my wording). The spoilt post-war children sneer at our ideals but never understood why we needed them. Truth, virtue and beauty no longer seem to exist. Our society can never degenerate to a point where vice alone has a following. “When we start to celebrate ugliness, we become ugly too”.

Roger Scruton is extremely critical against modern pedagogy. He detests the jargon created by ‘people who can neither write with skill nor read with understanding’. He is not willing to adopt the art of taking offence, the ‘woke’ or witch-hunt culture, which dominates the social media. He doesn't deny the possibility of injustice but he unmasks the sociologists who detect structural violence behind all power exercised, even power that is a legitimate outcome of consent and compromise.

Scruton also asks why holiness has not retained its meaning to us. Christian faith is now covered with ridicule by trivialising materialists and sarcastic cynics but as the author points out: Christian religion exactly teaches us to accept ridicule. The validity of the Christian message can never be affected by what others think or do. Those who read my blogs from time to time, know that this is a central theme for me.

I refer to my blog The Honour of Humiliation and The Chasm between Populists and Academics. Roger Scruton is also one of the thinkers in the Dutch book Denkers van vandaag voor de wereld van morgen.