Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, I am having a job interview for a staff position for a Model United Nations conference, which has me thinking about some of the events after WWII as a reaction to WWII. The United Nations in its main “organs” or UN Organs are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat. It’s a huge, bureaucratic juggernaut. That’s undeniable. Potentially, it’s the most bureaucratic organization in the history of the world alongside global phenomena such as the Vatican as a center of the humongous Roman Catholic Church and its laity and hierarchs. These are gigantic bodies of semi-functional operations. They can do good by achieving some of the stated ideals and aims, whether on purpose or by accident; also, they can do bad, whether in negligence or in incompetently carrying out particular tasks. The simulations environment is exciting as a delegate, as a staff member. Very, very few students within a particular cohort attend the major MUNs. Most of the students are in international relations, political science, or business. I am in none of those. Yet, the experiences, by accident, have been invaluable. Let’s start on the neutral, then bad, and finish off with a happy ending, the United Nations, the Catholic Church, various international civil society organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and so on, what is some stuff operated on by them, conducted by them, maintained by them, amounting to a net neutral outcome at once or over periodicities?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: I think that both, the United Nations and the Vatican, or the non-governmental organizations, to name the main ones, are what I will denominate infrastructures determining a superstructure, that is to say, respectively, they are material bases, constituted by organizational skeletons, which conform various categories of resources, communicational flows and outputs in order to configure ideational systems of beliefs and values, ​​that are in turn, subject to history. In other words, I think that there have been factual phenomena, and therefore material historical circumstances, that have led as a way of responding to the needs that have been arising from unedited global issues, to the emergence of such mega structures, and simultaneously have developed ideational satellite systems, which although they give a sense of particular identity to their infrastructure, at the same time they turn around subsidariately to it, as a sort of base. Consequently in my opinion, the aforementioned is a dialectical process, that I will denominate historical materialism of the fittest, therefore, globalized destinies, are going to be to unfolded through the tension that derives from the permanent opposition of contrary elements, which although can change places among them, they cannot nevertheless modify their meaning or purpose.
Jacobsen: What are some negative outcomes at once or over periodicities?
Sorensen: I think that since it’s the material structure that determines the ideal superstructure, and not the opposite, it is possible to understand the reason why there is a sort of dissociation between the guiding principles as ideals, which would represent the ought to be, and the policies as outcomes or outputs, that are in turn, the material basal structure, in terms of underlying needs, that determine the previous two. In this way, it’s found for instance, that organizations such as the United Nations, which should be governed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the principles of the Geneva Convention, in practice proceed, almost exclusively according to contingential political quotas that lack of any major foundations, therefore the last, actually reflects more the affinity they have towards certain ethnic castes, to the detriment of others, which also represent minorities, than equal and equitable treatments, for all those who have been victims of threats and violations of their fundamental rights. In this manner, probably what happens with the Vatican, due to the fact of facing a downcast and agonizing Roman Catholic Church, is that they desperately utilize populist policies and rhetorical arguments, for intending through them and by the damping of manipulative communication strategies, to re-enchant the consciences of the secular world, that exhibits among other aspects, the facade of a renewed, empathetic and tolerant church, that evidently seems more in line with the times, but that’s far from reality, since they forget the other side of the coin by doing so, because simultaneously and deep down, they’re not aware, that behind the sensationalist language of seduction, they do nothing more than to hide the hierarchical conflicts within their walls, and for this reason, act as if they were denying the tradition of their own ecclesiastical magisterium, and in consequence, as if they were occulting the dirt under the rug. In any case, globalized organs such as those mentioned above, or with even more diverse purposes like the World Health Organization, regardless of their nature, in my opinion, practically apply in fullness, the rule through which, acts must be followed always by means that justify their ends, to the extent that generally, the unmoved motor, is represented through the underlying of primary needs, which although they may not be explicitly expressed, they are more intrinsically related to the multiple forms of ambitions and the pursuits of power, than with the achievement of the commonwealth, therefore they are synthesizable, in common entities, which lastly consist in the expression of the desire for oneself.
Jacobsen: What are the positives coming from them?
Sorensen: I think it is necessary to apply a criterion of differentiation, between the Vatican and all the remaining globalized organs, since if the aims of the last are supposedly supernatural, and its mission is purely spiritual, because they seek through proselytism, the salvation of every soul, then it is soapy and complex, to evaluate their positive aspects, due to the fact that both, their goals and mission, are in an ethereal and intangible plane, where in addition, it would be necessary to weigh subjectively the relative importance of these, since the spiritual has different connotation values for each one, and the approach to this as an extra empirical dimension, can be done from different vanishing points perspectives. The remaining phenomena, on the other hand, pursue goals and have missions, that although they can be nuanced, they nevertheless have mainly the same identity and nature, because they respectively promote the well-being of man, in relation to the satisfaction of needs which even if they transcend the merely material, and reach the spiritual realm, they are operationally defined, and duly empirically quantifiable as assumptions. Likewise, systematically speaking, the fact that such organizations, have a globalized and synergistic presence, allows them theoretically, to manage adequate communication mechanisms of feedback, and therefore of control as well, in order to introduce changes and variations, that are needed for achieving better states of equilibrium and homeostasis, depending on objectives, since in this manner they can actually improve substantially the general state of affairs, and reach a new global order, more focused on what I will denominate the desire for the other.
Jacobsen: As a Belgian-Israeli, what are the nonsensical conspiracy theories you’ve heard or read about the Belgians if on a global level?
Sorensen: Belgium, because it’s a country that geographically is located in the middle of Western Europe, which additionally represents a passageway between countries that doesn’t give to it almost any identity as a nation, and politically speaking, due that throughout history, and especially during the Second World War, has always sought to maintain a position of neutrality, is that Belgium will be determined by these references, which in turn, are currently going to be reinforced by means of been the capital of the European Union, and because of having in my opinion, the most multicultural capital in the world. As a whole, the aforementioned are backgrounds, which incline Belgians, not to formulate conspiracy theories in terms of value judgments. I would say, that they search rather the opposite, and because of this, they demolish conceptions of such nature. In other words, what they do, is to seek formulas of political consensus and agreements, since according to them, these would be fundamental to preserve European cohesion and cooperation, and for gaining a global peace. In this sense, and in very simple terms, I think that Belgium, has an intrinsic devotion for eclecticism, and therefore for the integration of antithetical aspects of different matters or realities, in comsequence it could be said, that the Belgians, not only discredit conspiracy theories, but also give them little credibility as potential threats, due to the reason that are a priori from their point of view, networks of lies, which may restrict in some manner their freedoms.
Jacobsen: What are the nonsensical conspiracy theories you’ve heard or read about the Israelis if on a global level?
Sorensen: In my opinion unfortunately and unlike others, when talking about Israeli conspiracy theories, the factual weight of these is relevant, since I think that Israel represents for the world not only the Jewish state, but also what I’m going to name as the ghetto country, that is to say, and globally speaking, it is believed and wished that Jews should be confined within that land, just as they used to be secluded in other times, within stigmatized neighborhoods of prejudice and hatred, before the shoa. The aforementioned, which is my way of thinking, perhaps in different terms, is also thought by other Israelies and Jews in the diaspora. In other words, I consider that the same history of the past, especially of the recent one, is currently being rewritten day over day, because of some, that believe that due to the forty years in which the people of Israel wandered in the desert, that then they may presume and be firmly convinced, maybe not with words but with deeds, that Jews have no right to live anywhere, since what it’s read between the lines, is that as other rejected minorities, they do not belong to the world, like the rest of humanity does. The last, is enchained with two more conspirational link, which symbolize not only for me, the novel global anti-Semitism. The first of these, is related to the mask of anti-Zionism, as an excuse to boycott Israel, nevertheless what they seek, is to basically repress any sign of Judaism within the diaspora, and the second one, refers to the retrograde and fantastic theory, of the protocols of the wise men of Zion according to which, Jews aspire to control and seizure not only the world’s natural resources, but also communications, and the elites of global economic and political powers. In this regard, outstands the paradoxical fact, that when the history is rewinded, it’s possible to verify among other things, that most of the events which gave origin to these fears, rest in Europe and in the Christian values ​​of the Roman Catholic Church, which both before and after Pope Pius XII, have ironically done, nothing more than to manifest feelings of pain and grief, with intentions to do penance, due to the constant suffering of the people of Israel, which has always reached their hearts.
Jacobsen: Does every country of the world bear responsibility for making the world a better place? If so, why so? If not, why not?
Sorensen: I think that to bear responsibility for this, there is always somebody who should do so, and no country will ever be someone, since in themselves they’re collectives, that as such would be and not be, and no existing thing is capable of both simultaneously. In this sense, I consider that responsibility as well as forgiveness, are always individual, and therefore it is necessary that both start from each one of us, and not from an abstract construct, which as such, only exists in an ideal world, but not in a world like ours, where perfection does not exist.
Jacobsen: What countries are making the world worse, the most?
Sorensen: I think that all those countries, which have subjected their fellow citizens, to the yoke of totalitarianism, in any of its facets, and therefore, have deprived them of rights, as fundamental, as the freedom of choice and conscience, and secondarily have alienated them, to the point of dehumanizing their beings.
Jacobsen: What nations are making the world better, the most?
Sorensen: I think that all those democratic countries focused on freedom and tolerance, that see in the state a controlling entity which guarantees the commonwealth, and grant in turn a subsidiary role to it, at the same time, that they’re more centered on the social needs, than on the individual self-referential ones, and ultimately search the humanization of society, by promoting civic values ​​of cooperation and solidarity.
Jacobsen: Hey you! Cya around.
Sorensen: Until next time!
Photo by Davi Mendes on Unsplash