Globalization and Crisis of Values: Promise and Total Disappointment

What should be called (at least according to the views supported by modern moral philosophy schools) the ‘modern moral world’ can be depicted nowadays as an environment in which we consider relations to the community to be morally significant, even when the individuals within the reach of these duties are in fact unknown. So we can blame or we can praise, even in the notorious absence of any identifiable subject of ‘moral obligation’. The fundamental difference is in perceived obligations, not in entitlements: duties versus rights. At first glance, moral entitlement is nothing but an abstract right seeking recognition. Not so the obligation, as the ‘right-bearer’ is waiting for the commitment to be honored. The work of Onora O’Neill, Charles Fried and Thomas M. Scanlon rounds out the argumentation of the normative frame that operates in today’s strongly supererogatory moral world. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man [...] To meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts. (Melville 1988, pp. 117– 118) This text has been made possible and inspired by the following research projects: Philosophy of History and Globalisation of Knowledge. Cultural Bridges Between Europe and Latin America: WORLDBRIDGES (F7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES: PIRSES-GA-2013-612644); Prismas filosófico-morales de las crisis: Hacia una nueva pedagogía sociopolítica (FFI2013-42395-P); the NEW TRUST-CM. Programa en Cultura de la Legalidad (GITcP), led by Prof. Dr Jose María Sauca (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); and last but not least, the Proyecto de Innovación Educativa (Innova-Docencia) at Universidad Complutense entitled Emociones políticas y virtudes epistémicas en el siglo XVIII: Innovación en la enseñanza de Humanidades (PIMCD-60), with Prof. Dr Nuria Sánchez Madrid as Lead Researcher. The methodology, sources and contents have all been enriched by regular collaborations with the members of these research groups and their invaluable help. Ricardo Gutiérrez Aguilar, Instituto de Filosofía del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IFS-CSIC) OpenAccess. © 2018 Ricardo Gutiérrez Aguilar, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492415-022 Introduction: The Hero with a Thousand Faces Let me, for argument’s sake, recall here a treasured memory of a prolonged and enjoyable research stay in Berlin. I landed there in the early winter of 2010, when journalists were especially attached to the term außergewönlich (‘extraordinary’) —‘an extraordinary winter’. A born-and-raised Berliner (let alone a German columnist) would not dare to use these words lightly. I remember leaving my apartment in the frigid morning, flakes drifting here and there, to find my dorm’s threshold clearly isolated from the world by means of a vast snow blanket. Flabbergasted, I looked around in search of help. Then I looked down—and there they were, those thin layers of snow-soaked paper at my door that promised the first solid step out of the cave. Day after day, the brochure left almost unnoticed on my doorstep helped me out into Berlin life, clearing the initial path to tackling the day’s meetings and readings. That very stitched-together set of pages constitutes to this day—or so they tell me, as I’m now far from Berlin—the Boulevardzeitung (BZ). But don’t be fooled by its described weight. A quick view of its history points out to those of us who don’t yet know, that even in its slenderness we have before us a hundred-and-forty-year newspaper in its prime. The BZ was awarded ‘Paper of the Year 2016’—a well deserved prize, considering its half-million readership. On 12 October 2009, the merry people of Berlin woke up to a brand new social initiative within the pages of the 132 anniversary edition: the Berliner Helden [Heroes from Berlin], devoted to good deeds and to be featured six times a week.1 The one-page feature is an homage to all those citizens who render service to the Berlin community, who it names Ehrenamter (‘honorary civil servants’). It offers particular cases of unselfish civilian management, educational ventures for disadvantaged children, or social inclusion projects. In 2016, for example, the lists of awards were crammed with references to the Syrian refugees. Other mentions include recycling and sustainability initiatives, the implementation of new green areas in the city’s neighborhoods. and people who out of sympathy help others in need of medical aid, not to mention those who find animal shelters for our four legged friends. The awarded are always among the aforementioned ‘merry people of Berlin’—private citizens with some extra motivation and implication in what makes a city a shared space. Space creates a ‘shared life’ beyond the matter of simply occupying it. Rather than a matter of mere presence, it is a space thought to be administered in common, jointly—and these are its ‘heroes’.  The project can be checked on-line at http://www.bz-berlin.de/berliner-helden (visited 23 December 2017). 302 Ricardo Gutiérrez Aguilar