And it is precisely for this reason that revolutionaries seek to erase or distort the history of events (either by attacking old customs or ridiculing old conventions), in order to break the continuity of social institutions, and to implant their Earthly Paradise(?). It is extremely important not only for society and for the individual, but also for the very existential sense.

Russell Kirk, another political philosopher, says continuity is a way of tying generations. Therefore, the changes, according to Burke, must be measured, by the prudent man, starting from the probable long-term consequences, and not only by the temporary advantage and by the popularity, that they may, possibly, produce to its creators. Which seeks, always in an incremental way, for better levels however, never moving abruptly and without proper care. This apparent contradiction - between continuity and change - can best be explained by the word prudence. Although changes, he admits, are the means by which it is possible to preserve all of our civilizing advances. It is known that through processes of socialization and social interaction, man is the only animal that produces and reproduces knowledge and information which are converted into learning and, lately, passed down through generations.Īccording to the political philosopher Edmund Burke, the continuity of the learning of a certain people offers a much better direction for politics than abstract plans elaborated by pseudo-intellectuals.

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit for each tree is known by its own fruit”. Luke, chapter 6, verses 43 to 44, which brings the following:

I also want to complement this line of reasoning with an excerpt from the Gospel according to St. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe”. “The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome - from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. We will try to understand in depth what, in fact, forms the intimate identity of Europe - using as a starting point a speech given by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, during a visit to the Federal Parliament in the Berlin Reichstag Palace, and addressed on 22 September 2011: Or, in other words, we can conclude that the culture of Europe was responsible for the civilizing advance of at least half of the entire planet Earth.Īnd what, after all, would this culture of European civilization be? What made this huddle of peoples perform such extraordinary human exploits that the great navigations, for example, are compared, in terms of technological advances, to the space exploration that took man to the Moon? What was the combination of existing factors that allowed these peoples to start, at the end of the 15th century, what we now know as globalization? So, can we occasionally think that America, the “New World”, is a prodigy of European civilization? The answer is that not only is the American continent a European prodigy, but also Oceania and much of Africa which have a huge European heritage in their current cultural fabric. Today, however, “New World” can refer to other, more specific contexts, such as, for example, the discovery and colonization of America by Europeans. The term, originally coined by Pedro Mártir de Angleria, in a letter he wrote in November 1492, referred to Columbus’s first trip to America. We can say that the greatest achievement of that time, of the great navigations, notably, was the discovery of the so-called “New World”.

Perhaps because Pessoa thought of facing the multiple options, fears, forces, insecurities, persistence and life transitions, with dreams, daring, planning, entrepreneurship, delivery and, of course, achievements. In the 14th century, the Italian poet Petrarch transformed and updated this expression to “Navigate is necessary, living is not necessary.” And, six centuries later, in 1914, in honor of the great Portuguese navigators, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa ended up immortalizing this creation, by writing that “I want the spirit of that phrase for me”. To encourage frightened sailors, who refused to navigate during the war, the Roman general Pompeu, in the 1st century BC, inaugurated the phrase “Navigare necesse, vivere non est necesse”. Yes, cyclical, because it is endowed with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, times of prosperity and crises, times of war and peace. And, as waves come and go, life would also always be cyclical. I remember what I felt when I first heard the verse that says that “life comes in waves, like the sea”… It was a kind of omen for me, for which, to live life well, it is necessary to know navigating - both in turbulent waters and in post-storm calm. Photo: Vinicius de Moraes by claudiolobos (license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)