Fragments 15: Rwanda and Bulgaria – Fragments
We consider ourselves very smart, but even in the heart of Africa there are smarter than us
Because last time I promised to talk about sophistry as a great art of (philosophical) manipulation: I should not reveal how, but I can not refrain.
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The very essence of sophistry is to be seemingly “nihil”, ie. nothing. The thing itself contains the negation that it exists – otherwise we, the “sect” of sophists since the 5th century BC, would not have been able to do it.
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Sophism, in general, is the most intelligent ability possible to defend magnificently any thesis – without being enslaved to the ethical paradigm. If you are a sophist, you “serve” yourself and you are there beyond the moral Kantian law – and you use your intellect (mine in Mensa was measured at 158, my dispatcher) for the sake of the intellect itself.
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I will reveal a little though: you are part of the highest possible layer, international. Not Masonic, not truly sectarian, nothing like that: it is a secret movement that started from this Thales, passed through Socrates in ancient Greece and Sextus Empiricus in the Western Roman Empire. But our eternal idol – if we do not count Gorgias – is Protagoras.
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Plato, rightly, condemned the practice of sophists to participate against intellectual instruction (desolate, but we still do). But Protagoras proposes something else: to create a sophistic school, partly derived from Orphism, which at the time was very similar to “heresy” in the later Christian sense.
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The smartest of you will understand me: I cannot say anything existential about sophism, because sophism is above all a kind of thinking technique. It is not “taught”. You either have it or you don’t.
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What the Sophists originally taught, according to them, was not registered with religion and virtue. Suppose that Protagoras and his disciples taught the art of arguing, as well as the knowledge that would facilitate them in this direction. In general, to make it somewhat understandable, they were something like modern good lawyers – to show their arguments “for” and “against”, and they kept the knowledge without good. And especially without political sanction.
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The hatred – according to Russell – that the sophists have succeeded, especially among the Platonists, is due to their intellectual merits. In this sense we see it even now – the search for truth, when it is sincere, would not be told for moral reasons; we cannot know in advance whether the truth will turn out to be what is considered instructive and “good,” especially in our society.
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But my cultural ancestors, the Sophists, and especially Protagoras, somehow logically came to skepticism, just like your submissive servant. I am a successor to Calicles from the Platonic dialogue Gorgias – according to him the law of nature is the law of the stronger, but Protagoras is also the first enlightener to warn that there must be human servants to limit this law.
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Before explaining why we are in a tragic liberal context, let me remind you of something else important – the creation of Euripides was influenced by the sophistry of Protagoras. His Medea is immanent to sophism – the type “I know best”. Colleague Jason simply “slammed” into a sophistic, inimitable, God-man woman. Me too, 2500 years later, but that’s another topic.
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To summarize: sophistry is the Protagoras “ratio” that we will see later (albeit in a completely different way) in Descartes, Leibniz, and Hobbes. But it remains something of a public “nous” because of something very simple – it is high public thinking, the ability to use your intellect, even beyond Kantian moral law.
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Which we are not happy about, because Botyov also said, “fall to your knees and thank, my dear sparrows and tsantsugers, your father Dobri Voynikova, who tried to write you a Theory of Literature and who set out to make you people. “
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Botyov also said something important, such as a sentence for the transcendently stupid Bulgarian people – “except those who have no talent to endure”, every servant of God with Christian peace will answer: “No, today we live well with the Turks, they were educated and we are relieved. “
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Such was the Bulgarian people, and this is still clean of all high thinking, again with this patriarchal life, again with this primitiveness…
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But let me also tell you a modern “tale” – and you can judge whether we are bad. And whether we are worthy of Botev.
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The exclusion of the continent of Africa in the context of vaccinations is Rwanda. There, more than 90% of the adult citizens of the capital have already been vaccinated. When the first vaccines arrive in Kigali on March 3, this country is ready for them. The delivery is already in the distribution center of the Ministry of Health, where cars with refrigerators from each of the 47 regional hospitals in the country are waiting for them. Vaccine transportation has already been repeated on dry land and cars are ready to reach the fastest and most accurate route, and there are waiting helicopters for hard-to-reach places in the country.
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Like the Minister of Health, Dr. Daniel Ngamidje, “it’s all a matter of preparation. Our experience in preparing for an epidemic of communicable diseases (Ebola) in the past has not helped to create a detailed crisis plan, which occurred immediately after Kovid-19 came to Rwanda. Vaccination planning was also quickly implemented after we declared a state of emergency in the country. “
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On a continent where less than 5% of the total population has been vaccinated, Rwanda’s experience is ruled out – almost a complete success, not only in Africa but also in a global context. Rwanda is currently ranked 7th in the Covid Achievement Index in the world, according to the Lowey Institute.
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Like both countries in Africa, Rwanda receives large supplies under the COVAX scheme. But when those deliveries stopped in April – because most of them left for India, Rwanda made deals directly with Pfizer and AstraZeneca for an additional 4 million doses.
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Once they land in Kigali, you reach people directly within an hour. The administration of President Paul Kagame, which has ruled for 27 years – from the 1994 genocide to the present day – is proud of its efficiency and technological expertise.
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There is even a saying that “vaccines are not stored in warehouses and refrigerators, but in people’s shoulders.” And even before the first vaccines came, the state secured helicopters and bought cars and trucks for each of the regional hospitals so you could get to where you needed to go quickly.
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The first in line for vaccines were the elderly and reported the most at risk of the virus. Then everyone was on the front line, including the taxi drivers. Then came a mass campaign in the capital. Precisely because the capital was the center of the pandemic, the government decided to concentrate in Kigali and managed to vaccinate 90% of the total, because according to them, the protection of the capital will lead to the protection of the nation.
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Yes, in all of Africa – as in our country – there is an extremely large amount of “fake news” and it is not aimed at Kovid-19, but Rwanda must pour out of this quagmire. Their country there has chosen to build on the trust in vaccines it has built over the years – with child vaccine and Ebola campaigns – and mobilize everyone. From the heads of families of local “clans”, through village elders, to regional leaders who provide accurate information and promote vaccines (they had hired a Western advertising agency to build the communication campaign even among the simplest and most superstitious sections of the population).
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Radio and television channels broadcast interviews and answer the most important questions for visitors in local languages, the state for participation and a huge resource, to provide accurate and accurate information every day and on social networks. The country’s top leaders – the president, religious leaders, teachers, scientists and show business people – are being vaccinated in public, and their videos are being aired on all media channels. That’s why everyone in Rwanda wants a vaccine, and the problem is not how to convince people to get vaccinated, but how to provide enough vaccines for everyone.
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Rwanda, for God’s sake. You can’t even get it new on the map.
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Tell me something again about smart and stupid countries.
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