Rationalism and the Inhuman Nature of Capitalism:

(A Critique of Western Civilization)

2011, seems to be a special year by its character of housing spontaneous political changes
which have more democratic character than ever. We can mention the Wikileaks phenomenon,
North African, Middle East uprisings, US working class protests.

The intrinsically driven communication between Egyptian and Madison protests via electronic
social media is especially characteristic by its’ positive energy contributing to world peoples’
democratic union which I believe is being based on a general change in the perception of life in
general.

This positive energy leaded me to write on how peoples’ cultural differences are inferior to their
universal, natural similarities. (‘From Tahrir to Madison, it’s a Global World!’)

Today I feel the need to make an attempt for another contribution to depict the twofold character
of the rationality of the Western Civilization which is dominating the global economy, hence
our lives. The twofold character is that, while supporting logical progress, rationality excludes
emotions, and should be carefully used when morals is a concern.

When Libya case did not follow the Tunisian and Egyptian examples, people on electronic social
media started to look for external help, and proposed establishing a forbidden air zone to protect
the Libyan protesters from Gaddafi air forces. After a week or so a coalition which was lead by
US, pioneered by France and supported by UN took the decisive action to establish a forbidden
air zone and protect the protesters. The enterprise evolved to a much more serious case of war.

My analysis will be concentrating on the ‘rational’ of this multinational decision.

The people who proposed forbidden air zone were very logical in their solution idea by its merit
of being a minimum and ‘passive’ intervention. The coalition was very happy to get the support
of people in addition to UN.

When I compare the initiative of people who supported ‘no fly zone’ and that of UN states
which took the decision, I conclude that the seemingly common rational is not so common.
The difference lies in the fact that the good will of people, being rationalized and realized by
means of power lost its’ purity. Power has no good will. It has interests, a rational and, effects.
The superstructure of politics thinks in terms of weapons, money, interest and, similar concepts
which are totally abstracted from humanly emotions and, became rational tools.

Now the people who are the owners/supporters of the proposal are (perhaps) disappointed.
They are disappointed as much as they are conflicted. They would not support neither Gaddafi,
nor the coalition forces anymore. Now the coalition forces are developing new tools to reach the
result of expelling Gaddafi and guarantee the petroleum reserves safety for West, and keep the
people’s support ever after if possible, but this is secondary.

Rational but not humanly.

Summarizing; the issue started with a universal empathy for democracy and peace on earth,
and seems to end in political, economic hegemony of the rulers.

Can we then say , rationalism is freed from emotionality at the very outset, so that it has no
limits other than its own principle?

Then the question is; what is rationalism good for?

A second question could be ‘How did it dominate a whole civilization?’.

Simplifying my answers, I hope, will serve the purpose of testability.

As for the first question...

Rationalism is valid in its’ own semantic universe, like all concepts. Therefore it is good for
the set of facts which reason, or more clearly logic, can function independently. It’s good
for disciplines which are ‘created to be rational’; like math, logic, game, finance etc. I will be
careful about uttering ‘science’ because it is, a paradigmatic discipline. Paradigms are not
only effecting the scientific universe as they are not independent from other social contexts.
When we consider politics, economics, sociology, philosophy or daily life as a whole, we can
see the ideological context in which they exist . This fact of being ‘biased’ make the set of
facts inappropriate for rationalism. The fact that we don‘t really care about the crystallization
of the areas applicable for rationality is a cultural issue and poisons rationality when used
inadvertently. The daily life dominated by capitalism, especially in western countries, has a big
pressure on how we use rationality. The pressure of course is in the direction of consuming
all potential of rationality to maximize efficiency, profits, and speed up time to mean the same
thing. Rationality is the most appropriate tool for capitalism because it excludes human as
an individual with emotions. Perhaps it is better to be careful about being rational on human
relationships. You can’t just say: “Ok. He needs money to be happy. Therefore I give him
money, and he will be happy.” No!

As to the second question we already have a clue: Capitalism!

Western civilization now means capitalism in its global meaning. The historical process that
lead to capitalism involves a continental crisis at the middle ages. The simple schematic of
the process reveals itself by the tracing of the conquest of Istanbul by Ottoman Empire on 29
th of April, 1453. This historical milestone caused two major conflicting effects; the paralysis
of Europe economics, and the opening of Pandora’s box to release Byzantium cultural
treasures which were really consisted of almost the whole western intellectual legacy. Both
facts contributed to a very specific effect of progress, enlightenment, modernization. This
sequence of phenomena was enabled by virtue of rationalism mainly. Reason was in order.
Life’s secrets were unfolded one by one. Any conflict was destined to be solved by rationality
for progress and, it worked. The fact that Capitalism is the child of Western Civilization owes
much to rationalism. Science and Capitalism had a very good cooperation through Technology
in the support of ‘democratic’ political power especially after French Revolution. This would
not stop until rationalism would stop to be the magical key to open all the doors. The process
is going on, but we are at the dawn of a totally new era. Time is now at a stop that we can see
the potential end results of vulgar rationalism. Capitalism, inevitably, is so accelerated that the
world resources are not able to support this progress any more.

Now what?

We are already hearing the bells of a new brave world which is globalizing from the bottom
and learning to communicate with each other for a sustainable, free, equal and beautiful life on
earth.

Omer Haluk Yilmaz

May 1st, 2011
Yoncakoy