Philosophy has long ceased to be a way of being and has become a field of research, a detached analysis, a “philosophical speech” or simply chatter; it no longer thinks in primary terms, no longer deals with the transformation of thinking, the formation of the mind and soul, the inner transformation of man. It has lost its influence on the world. Philosophy no longer generates ideas capable of changing the course of history. Today many people talk about philosophy, study philosophy, and even teach philosophy without having any philosophy.
It is a known fact that almost all the early Greek philosophers were public figures, legislators, and, some of them, poets too. According to Plato, the state should be ruled by a philosopher, and only a philosopher. But where are the philosophers for whom thought and action are inseparable? Where are the philosophers who think, not in isolation from the world, but in terms of changing the world? Nowadays, such philosophers are hard to find. It is not easy these days to assume the role of a philosopher, ready to question the world order, the modern system of values, society, humanity, and what we used to consider the foundations of being. Wherever 2+2=4 is a fundamental law, novel, genuinely groundbreaking ideas run the risk of meeting resistance. But it is these ideas that will eventually shape the image of the future.
Few philosophers can claim they have no teachers and that the wisdom they share with the world comes from an inner source. Those who have such courage are carriers of an original world view and have a clear plan for reconstructing the world. Their task is to prava corrigere et recta corroborare et sancta sublimare (Latin: to correct what is wrong, to strengthen what is right, and to sublimate what is sacred).
After philosophy was humbled to the rank of “servant of theology” in the Middles Ages, when philosophy degenerated into the “gibberish” of the New Age and, finally, after the speculative manipulation of the Postmodern Era, philosophy is rising to the status of the “Art of Thinking”. This is the way in which Hares Youssef sees philosophy. And for him, it is not reduced to one of its attributes – logic. On the contrary, Hares considers logic such an imperfect tool of thought that it reduces it to “limiters” that deprive the mind of the freedom and desire to search for the truth. It often happens that something that is recognised in the scientific world as an unshakable law may one day be questioned (or even wholly refuted) by a new generation of scientists. As a result, it becomes clear that there are no constants in the world of racio.
Hares Youssef does not take scientific laws as truth, for him they are like traps into which human thinking falls. One might say that he gravitates toward the form of cognition that the French thinker René Guénon called “intellectual intuition. It is not the kind of intuition that is associated with the sensual, subrational sphere or with the [Cartesian] concept of rationalist epistemology. Intellectual intuition is supra-rational; it implies the ability to penetrate the mental world not by constructing a chain of logical reasoning, but by “momentary insight. This insight is akin to Plato’s anamnesis.
Hares often says that he came into the world with this knowledge. It was given, received and obtained by “remembering”, and was always kept within him, without the need for an external source. Language plays a huge role in the process of cognition for Hares. It is through language, through the comparative analysis of meanings, that he reveals the true sense of words. Thus, economics in his picture of the world takes on an unusual form for most of us since Hares advocates a complete rethinking of such concepts as money, value, currency, capital, price, law, etc. Language gives him the key to restoring the original meaning of words.
Strictly speaking, we are talking about the creation of a new economic model. In its origins, economics was inseparable from the ethical, philosophical, and political views of thinkers who contributed seriously to its formation. Therefore, of course, economics is a much broader concept than is commonly believed, and it includes not only philosophical, ethical, political, scientific, but also psychological aspects. Hares’s “new economy” can be called a “science of human existence,” based on the laws and principles that underlie being itself. And in this economy there is a reassessment of all basic concepts (in fact, a reassessment of values), where cognitive linguistics plays the most important role, and language itself acts as the key to the processes of cognition.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle distinguished between economics and chrematistics. If by economics, he meant the creation of the benefits necessary for natural human needs, then with the term chrematistics, he was referring to the science of enrichment, the cult of profit. There is no doubt that today we are dealing exclusively with chrematistics masquerading as economics. Chrematistics rests on the foundation of the shadow financial system, which is opposed by Hares Youssef’s New Economics.
In the book Gaiia, Hares has outlined the contours of the world he plans to create. In this rather short book, fundamental ideas are expressed, each of which has the goal of being implemented. Moreover, every idea is a challenge. A challenge to the modern system of values, a challenge to the shadow financial model and its architects, a challenge to the approach to raising children, a challenge to the attitude to women in society, a challenge to science, a challenge to civilisation. These challenges can pull the ground from under your feet, call into question everything that yesterday seemed to you indisputable. To accept and comprehend these challenges, you need to have cognitive flexibility and the ability to make the transition from logical thinking to creative or lateral thinking. To understand these ideas, you need intellectual freedom.
The fundamental idea for Hares is “duality. In Gaia he writes that in the universe all things exist in pairs, and “every object acquires its exclusivity only in symbiosis with its own copy”; each of us has an inner ideal double, through which we can find our way to ourselves, to know ourselves, as the ancient Greeks taught (Greek Γνῶθι σεαυτόν – Know Thyself). Duality is the foundation of individuality and the foundation of identity. Our duality is what makes us human, contributing to our development and growth. Transparency is a prerequisite for our contact with our inner twin. It is worth noting that the principle of transparency is at the center of Hares’ philosophical, economic and scientific ideas. Transparency is the key to the complete transformation of human life.
Another fundamental idea is found in the book Gaia (one might even say that it is the main axis of the philosopher’s entire worldview model). It is the idea of HYOUMO. HYOUMO is “the name of all of us, the manifestation of each in all and all in each. It is the name of the pronoun WE. It is the mediator between each and all, the mediator between man and the planet (Gaia). HYOUMO is “the totality of the souls of all the prophets and gods. It is impossible to know oneself, one’s Self, until one knows WE, HYOUMO.
Reflecting on the place and role of women in society, Hares believes that women “should be full-fledged economic donors on a par with men. On the planet Gaia, it is the woman who makes history. “On Earth, a woman is not realized in the West or in the East because she did not get her share of power in society in her time. Your economy is male-dominated. There is no place in it for a woman. That’s why your civilization looks like a bicycle with one wheel,” this is what Helena, the very woman who makes history by telling the story of peace on planet Gaia, tells the inhabitants of Earth. “Gaia is the soul of Nature, and Nature is the soul of life, and life, in turn, is our soul. Both Gaia and Nature and life and soul are Woman. Woman gives birth to both woman and man.
If we recall the role that Plato assigns to women in his Ideal State, we will find that the philosopher insisted that the nature of women is no different from the nature of men, and the relationship between them should not be based on gender slavery, where women are destined to be oppressed. In Plato’s State, women can become guardians on an equal basis with men, which means they can distance themselves from household chores, which are usually imposed on them as “women’s duties”. Furthermore, they can engage in political activity and “the arts of the Muses”, which include not only poetry, rhetoric and music, but also philosophy. A woman can receive the same education as a man. Being inferior to him only in physical terms (although there are many exceptions here), a woman who has received an education based on Paideia’s idea will not be subordinate to a man in any other area. A man and a woman in Plato’s State are companions, not rivals.
Modern society makes a great mistake with respect to women. It boils down to the offensive habit of believing that all women have the same task and purpose, that all women without exception achieve true fulfillment through motherhood. This is a great delusion. There are women whose self-realization has nothing to do with motherhood and marriage. In Gaia, Elena emphasizes that the days when a woman’s only purpose was to bear a child are far in the past. A woman’s task is more than just a biological role. There is a difference between “giving birth” and “being a mother,” between “mother” and “mother. The former is giving birth, while the latter is raising. Being a mom (as well as a dad) is not a biological role, but a profession. You didn’t misunderstand – a profession. And in order to acquire it, you have to be trained and get a diploma. Hares often cites the example that we can’t drive a car without a driver’s license, but isn’t raising children a more important process? That, too, must be learned.
Historically, humanity has come to realize its impasse only when it is confronted with global challenges to which it is incapable of responding. Until recently, no one could even assume that such a challenge would be a sudden pandemic coronavirus. In a matter of weeks, Covid-19 shattered the established model of the global world order, revealed the problems in the health system, put the world economy on its backs, launched a mechanism of social transformation. The face of the world left its smug smile and humanity witnessed its mournful grimace.
We have reached an impasse. The old world has already cracked and the new world has not yet emerged. We are in an in-between state where, on the one hand, we have lost many illusions and hopes and, on the other, are facing new possibilities. What the leading thinkers of our time propose can hardly be called a way out. Rather, it is an invitation to step on familiar rakes. Obviously, the way out of the impasse cannot be a repetition of old scenarios. We need a new one.
“Every revolution began with the thought of one man; and when that same thought took possession of others, it became preeminent for its time,” these words belong to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The Latin word revolutio, meaning “turn, overturn, transformation,” indicates a fundamental breakthrough, a transition to a qualitatively different level. Here we can talk about a shift in values and, moreover, a change in paradigms. When the hourglass is turned over, a new countdown begins. There are people who come to start it. They are called pioneers, innovators, free thinkers, architects of the new world. But whatever they are called, they bring change with them. Humanity, on its way to the evolutionary transformation of society, has gradually lost any notion that our development cannot be limited to biological nature and technical progress; evolution that bypasses cognitive processes inevitably brings humanity to a dead end. The straight becomes curved, the convex becomes concave, authentic meanings give way to distorted notions, chaos replaces order, lies displace truth. Everything gets a price, but it also loses value.
Humanity needs a moral revolution. A revolution that will change the mentality of man and of our entire civilization. This is what Hares Youssef talks about in his book GAIIA, which he wrote during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It was during that period, in forced self-isolation, that I discovered the worldview of this thinker by engaging in a philosophical dialogue with him.
GAIIA offers not only a model for the fundamental transformation of the entire economic system, based on the principle of financial transparency, but also the key to a new model of social behavior that will fundamentally change our approach to the scientific, cultural, educational, and political spheres. The author does not follow the analysts who insist on preserving and reinforcing an unsustainable model of the world, but forms a fundamentally new paradigm centered on the highest human value, namely man himself. Man, not as a “two-legged habit,” but as a creator capable of realizing his deepest potential.
With a wide range of interdisciplinary knowledge, Hares Youssef puts his philosophical, scientific and economic ideas into the form of a fascinating fiction novel, in the pages of which the reader will meet both Nikola Tesla and Josef Stalin, as well as the powers that be that are making history these days, he will learn about the fact that the Earth has a twin planet and all things in the universe exist in pairs, about the role of language in the process of human self-knowledge, about the three stages of civilization development, about architecture becoming philosophy, about the moon generation and the mysterious Pideums, which perhaps the sage Plato dreamed of.
Gaia predicts the behavior of a world ready for radical change. Predicting means revealing aspects of reality that will set in motion tomorrow’s events of a historical order.
Hares Youssef’s ideas have transformational potential, as they are aimed at making significant changes in all areas of human life. He has his own view on economics, ecology, psychology, society, art, time, the problem of consciousness, new technologies, human relationships… Every thought expressed by him is always inextricably linked with action and, moreover, with projects to change the financial system, educational model, scientific picture of the world, value system, attitude to language, etc. He gives you the assurance of being a person who knows exactly what needs to be done with this world. Hares has a unique ability to recognise the global challenges and problems of this century, to view them through the prism of philosophy (as “the Art of Thinking”), and to find a way to solve them. This philosopher, poet, artist, writer and teacher has come to write a new page in the history of humanity.
Natella Speranskaya
