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Profile of Rodrigo Baggio
We should encounter hatred and violence with [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We should encounter hatred and violence with love. If we could canalize this sort of reaction into our hearts and control ourselves and react more positively and with more quality, then we could maybe reduce this type of violence. In my country we have a dictum that says: when one doesn’t want to, two don’t fight. I believe that there is a profound truth in this popular expression. When somebody doesn’t want to give love, then we can transform or convert this hatred and violence into a more positive feeling. It would be very important that all of us could improve and form more our personality so that our behaviour gets better and that we improve our interacting with other human beings in order to improve more each time our personality, being change-makers. Then we can effectively through microactions and even small personal examples make a contribution. The pedagogy of examples is very powerful and very important. If we could through our microactions make a part for the transformation of our relations, then we could balance more our existing relations in our work, in our quarters and cidade and maybe also in our countries and in our world. To give more love, to give and to receive, to exchange more positive energies, to convert negative energies into positive energies. This way we can have hope and give more hope to the persons that are coming back to us.
No. We need to have this balance also [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: No. We need to have this balance also between all forms of living: human beings, animals, plants and minerals. It is very important to establish this balance. Not only an excessive valuation of the human being will be able to develop our country. Nowadays we live with natural catastrophies, Tsunamis and all these big problems and climatic changes, fruit of a disharmony of our planet, of an overestimated valuation of the human being like the one to whom it has to be invested in and the one who has got more conscience or more power. The fundamental balance of our planet, so that we can live in a better society, so that we can have a future with our planet. I like very much the theory of Gaia: The living planet. It is this balance between all species, the respect of all living species that leads to the possiblity to get a way in direction to a bigger harmony of our country, of our continent, of our planet. It is very important that people can respect these differences between the species and that they can perceive that only a balance between the especies of men in connection with the environment, to fight against the extermination of various animals and forests, it means that people can have a more qualitative attitude, and this more qualitative attitude can promote a development of the human conscience, so that people can have a bigger balance of our planet.
What will come after capitalims? This is an [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: What will come after capitalims? This is an important question, a question of the strategical development of our planet. And as we were talking about before, we are going with high speed [] into a destruction of our planet. What comes after has to be a system that eliminates this failing which has the capitalism, which means that the capitalism values those persons who have the power of competition, which [] products and enterprises because they are competetive and so they get their position and are being appreciated for the power, for the increase of their [] power, their capacity of increasing. It is very important that people can change this picture and have like the philosophy of natural capitalism or neosocialism, a more balanced form in which we can balance this hectic in pro of consume and wealth in order to get to higher values. And I see that this should be the future which comes after the capitalism. A form of social, environmental, spiritual and economical organization which is more sustainable, more equilibrated so that we can live in a better world, contribute to the construction of a society with more equality, more freedom and more solidarity.
The economic globalization was created by [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The economic globalization was created by the appropriation of information and communication technologies of the companies and the private sector. Because of that, industrial capitalism has evolved into informational capitalism, creating the effect of globalization.It is very important that people can perceive that the third sector, the sector of the citizenship has to appropriate itself in the same way to the new technologies of information and communication, and then contribuate effectively to the construction of a better society. If the new information and communication technologies would be used also for the creation of nets, for a popular participation, for having budgets, governments constructed by budgets in a participative way, plebicits, then we could use the globalization also for sustaining the democracy. The technology itself isn't neither good nor bad. What is good or bad are we human beings. If we would use in a good way these technologies, we could have a citizenship tool which could serve for the development of people and the development of cities with a low rent.
This sort of violence of gangs, groups of [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This sort of violence of gangs, groups of young people, of traffic criminals should be interrupted through actions that give some opportunity to these young people who are in situations of social risks. They are young people who are on the fringes of our society, who ar being forgotten because they are black and because they are from the slums and this is the fringe which the society offers. To give some opportunity is the most efficient way which helps us to break this circle of misery and poverty to which people are being submitted. To give opportunities means to give conditions of life, to give financial resources through programmes that stimulate to get professional through compromises with these young people in situations of social risks so that they can enter into educational processes. It is very important to break this cultivation, this circle of violence, traffic and death that exists in these societies and in all the societies of low income. To give opportunities is one of the most beautiful and strategic problems that we have to solve in order to eliminate this sort of violence of the gangs and of the young people in situations of social risks.
The opression and racism happening in our [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The opression and racism happening in our countries are absurd. Nobody should be considered different because they're black, indian or because they have a different religion or tradition. It is absurd what happens in our country, for example in Brazil, that people are marginalized and discriminated because they're black, because they live in slums or for example because they're people of the third age. It is very important that people can stop with this sort of limitation. The DNA of a black, a white or an asian person is extremely similar, 99,9 % of it is identic. Should people be less appreciated only because they have a different skin color or a different race? This is absurd. And it's even worse when a person is opressed, underestimated or other people have racist behaviour. We have to realize that we are equal. We have to realize that we are equal in our difference, appreciate this richness which exists in our societies and learn from this. This is very important and fundamental. We have to stop any sort of racism. This is not sustainable for the future of our countries and of our societies.
I feel that this is one of the most [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I feel that this is one of the most strategic questions. Imagine that [] or one trillion dollars which are wasted in wars, arm industries or bellicose processes would be completely used for processes of peace in order to reduce hunger and this social distance which exists strongly between people of the same race, of the same specie and even of the same nature. This is really absurd. So much many is being thrown away in a bellicose process that isn’t of any value for nobody. It would be very important that we use these resources for processes of development of our countries and of our developing countries. There we would have a big financial resources which could be used for processes of social, economical, technological development of the less developped countries. These would be the perfect funds for the use of the transformation of our country, our world into a better world in which people could live in a dignified way. We should pay more attention and produce energies to work in this direction. It is absurd that we have funds even [] of financial resources dedicated or invested in []. It is very much and financial resources that are being thrown away literally. It is a toxic waste which should be taken from our world and used for investment in the development, in the human beings and in the [] of nature. This should happen each time mre in a pragmatic way so that people can analyze this sort of situation and make the right and correct decisions for the improvement of the destiny of our world.
There is no peace. There is no peace because [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: There is no peace. There is no peace because there isn't a process of justice of the relations between the countries, of the big interests in petroleum, in the petroleum industry. And this impacts also the processes of peace. The difference between religious traditions and commercial interests of petroleoum - or of the petroleum industry - causes in that region a big effect, a huge gunpowder barrel about to be exploded. It is important to protect in many ways that part of the world from this sort of conflict by minimizing this kind of challenge and by looking for solutions, communication and dialogue for the resolution of this problem – through the actions of mediators or other people who can effectively contribute to solve of this kind of conflict in that part of the world.
This is another very estrategic question. [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is another very estrategic question. How can we inhabitants of a country control these external politics and avoid, when our governments are beginning a war..., which is the power that we have to do this? There should be created legal mechanisms in order to avoid that a popluation of a country which has been enraged by an external violent action will not use this kind of action. What kind of observing control of external public politics can we establish as an organized civil society in order to avoid that this happens? Or at least we can position ourselves and maintain ourselves. Recently it has been absurd to see that in the war of the United States against the Iraq so many people had protested against the United States and had manifested on the streets, for example artists, businessmen, social militants and social activists, but they didn’t have effectively somebody who listened to them. It would be fundamental to create rules and very clear mechanisms that gives people the possibility to interfere in moments of unfair decisions and decisions which lead to war against a country, or which uses force or brutality. I know that in many cases it is necessary to make a fast decision. But how can one make it possible that this fast decision will be taken and at the same time can be avoided, redressed or prohibited in good time to cause a much bigger damage. This is the big question.
There are a lot of fundamental dignities [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: There are a lot of fundamental dignities like the right to food, to habitation, to life. And it is very important that we can search for ways in the public politics, in the participation of the society and in the mobilization of society so that it may be garanteed that dignity exists for everybody in our society, for the more privileged and for the less privileged persons. And today we experience o very big abyss between those who have the right and who have access to a lot of questions and those who don’t have it. There really is an abyss in this process. We have to reduce these distancies. It is fundamental that people can have more productive, more efficient and more caring relations that permit a balance of this situation. Everybody should be equal in the eye of law, of God and even of ourselves. And it is very important that people can conquer this equalty in every sector of our society, in all social classes. It is necessary that people mobilize themselves and that they can fight stronger for a safeguard of these values, of these dignities in all sectors of our society.
This is a very good question, very strategic [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is a very good question, very strategic for the future of our countries. Yes, we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world. We don't do it because of economic reasons of the companies and enterprises which produce this food practically only with the objective to make more profit. It is important that we try to create conditions for an even distribution of these products. Yes, it is important that these enterprises make profit for their shareholders in a responsible way. But it is very important that more social responsability can be developed within these enterprises, global politics and global strategies of food distribution. It is very sad that we live in a world in which people die day by day because of hunger. It is very important that an effect of solidarity, a strong mobilization can sensibilize and show these enterprises and companies that it is fundamental, yes, to create internal and corporative politics of food distribution, the distribution of these alimentary products. This can inclusively support and strengthen the market of these enterprises, simply because the consumer will perceive that the entreprises, from which they buy products, are contributing to the construction of a better world and reducing the hunger which exists in our world. Our world is so rich.
We have to think about this question with [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We have to think about this question with more calm and tranquility. Many times I think that a global government may be interesting in which it is possible to think about the questions of many countries with more distancy. Maybe a [] that would better function and that would have less burocracy and more action could sustain this process. What makes me frighten a global government is the question of unification and of the limits that may come. And when this comes, it has to be a global government hat respects the differences and that exerts a real democracy respecting the complexity of the different cultures. This is a question which we have to value with more calm. It is the working itself of the [] that could be a very constructive agent in pro of thinking about our planet and his future and many times less practicable and less pragmatical and more burocratical actions get lost. I see that this is a strategic question of thinking about this future process about how the political and social development of our country could be. How would the evolution of a democratic government be that could [] our country. Maybe not one government, but different governments that have a minimum of ethic values and for this reduce possibilities of corruption and bad actions of the public thing.
Corruption is one of the biggest challenges [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Corruption is one of the biggest challenges to our countries. World organizations like the International Transparency want to combat more and more efficiently this type of vice, this type of unimaginable sin for any society that wants to be just. Corruption: politicians and governors overpricing products and corrupting themselves for their personal enrichment and not for a development of our cities, states or countries. Corruption needs to be effectively combated. I don’t think that it exists..., that our economical system is inherently corrupt. Those who are corrupt are the people who create this system in which we are living. And it is necessary to create mechanisms and very clear rules that combat and immediately identify those who may be corrupt so that they can be identified and punished in an exemplary way. This is one of the only ways we have to show people in general that it is not worth being corrupt; that people just don’t win and don’t get punished with it. And this is why they get along with it and serve as examples for a part of our population. We need to have a more efficient and effective monitoring by civil society and follow what these people in power are doing. It is necessary that the political accounts and the budget can be each time more communicable and that people can follow, supervise and control it. But it is important not only to have punishment, but also preventive campaigns so that each time more people of good personality may want to candidate for political charges. This is something very important. In many cases people who don’t have a good personality are those who want to get into politics. And actually we have to change this situation. We have to create a culture through educational campaigns, preventive campaigns, create a culture in which people can improve their personalities.
It is absurd this semantic difference [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: It is absurd this semantic difference between forms of categorising violation with violence in our countries. Powerful denominate selfdefense with a process of strong violence and aggression for promoting a hegemony of thoughts, of belief and of traditions of the countries. Already the weakest actions that are used without any violent reason and as a form of protest are called terrorist actions of the mass media, of the big communication and of the powerful countries. In my opinion both actions are terrorist. What the United States and the big nations do with other countries is terrorism in the same way as [the actions of the terrorists are called terroristic]. So they are actions which should be classified as terroristic and they are unnecessary and bad for our nations. It is very important that we can create bridges of dialogue and communication between people and only then we can define limits and process of external mediation in order to combate and to judge the excess. But we can call both actions as terroristic and absolutely unnecessary for our countries and our nations.
This question is very important because it [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is very important because it is really not tolerable how the human being tolerated this sort of action, millions of civil people that are involved by politicians, governors and businessmen in unnecessary wars in which people don’t have to do anything with this only the persons who die in the front of the battles, who die in a very brutal way in this sort of battle. Why don’t these governors, businessmen or people who start these wars fight, too? This is absurd who we human beings tolerate this sort of action. It is not tolerable. It is imaginable that in some centuries people look back and perceive that the human being or the human race has gone through moments like these. This is absurd, simply absurd that millions of people have died in the last century because of absolutely unnecessary wars. We should have a form of punishment that also condemns historically decisions that have been made and that had this type of cruel behaviour. This is absolutely not tolerable.
This question is interesting. In my country [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is interesting. In my country some people say that the more money you earn, the higher the wall of your house has to be. So until which point our liberty is not affected by this whole process of security. People that need to walk with security, armed or accompanied or with steel-clad cars, this affects a litte bit or in some cases a lot the right to go and to come. I see that it is fundamental that we have security in the countries where we live, especially in those countries that are more affected by violence or that don’t have any security. But how do we balance it to have an acceptable level of liberty for the living standard and at the same time treat the question of security. So how to arrange the level of liberty that we want and that we [] with the level of security that we need in our lives in order to have a sustainable live, too.
This question is relative because finally... [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is relative because finally... . People can get aggressive concerning the occidental culture in countries with dictatorships because of absence of information or [censorship] of this information that the dictators themselves bring. But I don’t think that we live more or less afraid the whole time. In some countries yes, we don’t have a dictatorship but we live anxiously because of violence, drugs and marginal groups and those are other forms which make us feel afraid in democracies. So I see that this question has to be regarded from a more complexive perspective. Not only people in countries of dictatorships feel like this. And this is a question which we have to think about a little bit more and [] in this process of answearing.
This question is very important and very [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is very important and very strategic for the future of our country, of our planet. How can we develop this natural capitalism or neosocialism, how can we balance the economy with social and economical development of our nations? It's very important that we appreciate the value of citizen rights and also respect and balance it not only between the human beings, but also between the beings living on our planet, the plants and animals. There is and there must be a limit for destruction of the environment and saturation of our lands and our planets. I live in a country, in Brazil, where we have decades of destruction of the Amazon Forest, where the economic interest is used to clear the Amazon Forest for the construction and the promotion of an economy based on the animal husbandry in which people try, besides raising the cattle, also to make agriculture, and then they cause forest fires, eroding soil. It is very important that responsabilites and rules be accomplished. I feel that our Earth today is like a car in high speed going to abyss. We have to slow down and change the direction of this car. Every day Earth produces three "Sugarloaf" Mountains of rubbish. “Sugarloaf” is in the city of Rio de Janeiro one of the highest mountains. And so, this kind of using Earth, the indifferent production of rubbish, the killing of animals, the destruction of our forests and the disrespect for the rights of the human beings, this limit needs to form and compose, in a balanced way, a new economical and political system which has a long-term view toward the humanity of our planet.
Corporate social responsibility is not only [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Corporate social responsibility is not only possible, but as it is very much desired, I see that each time, and this is very good, principally in the last decade, more organizations of the civil society appear, urban organizations that have as their objective to promote the corporate social responsability, to teach, to create cultivation in conjunction with the private sector about how much it is essential, how much it is fundamental that enterprises take part in the construction of a better world. And it is the most beautiful to see that the enterprises, and a lot of enterprises, not only perceive how the social responsability makes part of the corporate vision, makes part of business, and so there is an evolution inside of the practice of the social responsability, the question of social marketing. The responsable social marketing is very important. The social responsability attributes a value to the enterprise, it makes that the product of the enteprise, the image of the enterprise may be improved. And this is a situation of multiple profit. It means that the enterprise profits, the society profits and the comunities and the persons with a low income also profit. So it is very important that we can more each time develop this cultivation of corporate social responsability. This cultivation is changing our countries. In Brazil we have two organizations that have just finished an excellent work in this area: the “institute of social responsability”, ETHOS, and the “group of corporate studies and foundations”, GIFE. Organizations like these have to be disseminated for the development of our countries.
That is true. But it is very important to [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: That is true. But it is very important to see that the feminine participation in the enterprises, in the whole society in general is growing. And it is growing due to a very important richness in this type of practice. And it is also fundamental to perceive that some of the women in positions of power assume a masculine characteristic of power, of cohesion when they are in positions of power. It is just this feminine side, this side of the feminine which not only women have in a very beautiful way, but men should also to let flow this side, this feminine side which stimulates the intuition. Finally it is very important that we can, concerning our attitutes, develop to balance our masculine and feminine side. I really hope that each time more women can develop this posture and win space and conquer space in our society. Women that can be presidents not only of big corporations and big urban organizations, but also of countries. So I see that this is part of the future of the development, of the evolution of our country, the bigger balance also between the feminine and the masuline in our society, leading a more harmonic society in which these two fundamental sides, these fundamental sides which have to reflect themselves in the governments of our countries, of our enterprises and urban organizations, can be reinforced.
In the theory of Darwin one affirmation is [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: In the theory of Darwin one affirmation is very interesting: The especies who survive are not those who use the power or force but those who use the capacity of adaptation. From this process of the beginning of life on our african planet happened the process which we are also discussing, of an evolution, an economical development which is not sustainable. This leads to what is now happening in the countries of development like Africa, Latin America or Asia, this strong feeling in parts of the developed countries of exploration with economical, natural and environmental systems. In Latin America a famous writer, Galeano, wrote a book who has a very impressive title: The open veins of Latin America. In reality, what we perceive is that the under-developed countries had their veins openened and our sucked blood, African, Latin American and Asian blood, sucked in pro of an unsustainable expansion of richness and power for the parts of the more developed nations.
Somebody once said that in any society there [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Somebody once said that in any society there are between the inhabitants 10% which are good and 10% which are bad and 80% which are between these two worlds. I particularly believe that people in their inside are good and that processes of education, marginalisation, processes of culture and lack of opportunities make people get bad. I believe strongly in the power of the personal transformation and in the molecular revolution. It is very important that people before thinking about the transformation of our planet, country or city think about the possibility to change themselves first and search for a personal development. This way we can guarantee a better development of our country and finally of ourselves. In the same way people that are searching for a high preferential treatment in the public police and of the companies could go through the same process that infects and that contaminates our society. We have to create a positive virus of the good that can infect and a social virus that can mobilize people to want the best for themselves and for the others that live in our society. This way we can have the effect of a big snowball that can be leveraging a transformation of our society. I believe, I am an optimist, and I have the hope that one day we can have a sort of this evolution in our planet.
I think that yes. I see that this is a [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I think that yes. I see that this is a situation in which every one of us should have the right not only to choose where to live, but also to make decisions and make important choices concerning our lives. I think that during this process of choosing where to live it would be also very important that we respect where we were born, were we were educated and that we respect the culture in which we were raised so that people will not only choose between living in another country or in a better country, but that they will also have a stimulation for the transformation of the reality in the country, in the society and in the city where we are living. This process of choosing where to live should be accompanied by a process of reflection about the compromise where we were born and educated and what our part is in this process of transformation of the locations which at the end are parts of our history and which will help ourselves to form our personnality.
[Actually, the defiance of the ego and the [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: [Actually, the defiance of the ego and the support of our planet] It is very important that we be conscious that our society in which we live today, the society of consumption, values that people need to consume each time more. It means not to have a car, to have an apartment, to have clothes, it means to have the car of the year, the newest clothes and the clothes of fashion, to have the biggest apartment, and to have each time more, to consume each time more, and this way entering into a descending spirale in which people want to have and not to be. This logic leads to the situation that each time fewer people are having more, and that each time more, more people can have less. There doesn’t exist a balance in this process of consumption. If we would develop a new culture of balance, of consuming a little bit... . There are so many more important things in our lives than consuming and having, and having the newest, the actual, the modern. It is this process which creates a chaos in which we live today in our society. People should desire more to be, desire more to develop their internal personality and to want to be each time more an human being, more a homo of perfection, and this way to want to improve our personality. This is really the most important thing. It is this process of personal development which is a chemical process, not of the transformation of metal into gold, but the transformation of an human being into a better human being.
This question is really interesting because [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is really interesting because it makes us exercice creatively our mind when we think about a possibility that would be absolutely interesting for the destiny of our planet. Imagine if the black Africans would not have been comercialised like animals, like slaves and been brought to other countries, would we then have another development in the African continent as there is today? I believe that yes. Only this action of evitating that a group of people think that they are apt to enslave other people and then are abt to sell and commercialise them, if we would have evoluated concerning this situation in this moment of history and if there wouldn’t be this action, then certainly we would have won a lot, as human beings and concerning the quality of life of our planet. The question of racism could then be reduced a lot and finally I think that it would be very more productive or better if this wouldn’t have happenend. Perhaps we could then today live in a better world, as equal beings where people of race and different colours could be considered as absolutey equal people and live together in schools, in cities, in companies, at work and in the governments as absolutely equal people, what they are.
It would be necessary to break the law if it [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: It would be necessary to break the law if it is unfair, if the law oppresses people and if it creates problems for the freedom of speech and for the good living togehter between people. We already experience societies that are completely unequal, dictatorial and unfair. And it is always very important, as Ghandi teaches us, to act in the sense of breaking the laws by using no violence. This is one of the most efficient ways that we can search for, breaking the laws without using violence. And it is important that we can always when we encounter a law which seems to be unfair, mobilize and organize ourselves so that with the help of a popular mobilization and a claim of our laws we can transform effectively laws and our society.
Human rights are fundamental and it is [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Human rights are fundamental and it is fundamental that the human rights are respected in our society. And it is also very important that the religious and traditional values can be respected. But how can we make it possible that in moments of conflicts and confrontation of religion and tradition a form of interference of the human rights takes place? It is very important that a dialogue can be established. An open dialogue, not a monolateral dialogue, but a multidialogue, so that people listen to each other and understand each other, respect each other and negociate limits so that human rights can be respected and preserved. It is very important that in situations of conflicts of this type of vision a mediator can appear who can open a dialogue or a process of reflection and negociation so that we can have a clearer vision that can turn into every kind of infraction or respect of human rights. It is fundamental that we can respect human rights more , but also respect religious, moral and traditional values of our cultures of our countries and search for an evolution for these traditional, moral and religious values.
The democracy is the most important form of [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The democracy is the most important form of government that we test and practice until today. Not everybody can participate, and this is a challenge. It means that democracy is based on the vote of the majority. And it is very important that we establish more participative ways in this democratical government. The democracy is a government which works and between those governments who are tested it is the one who works out right. That is why we have to establish a more stimulating process for democratical processes for example in our nations of our planet.
War. I think that wars should be avoided at [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: War. I think that wars should be avoided at the maximum. When people who believe or who have their traditions, their moral and faith lead to war between nations because of religious motives, then this should not be considered a religious action. This is a violent action and it should be avoided and condemned. I understand just war as the existence of powers that will defend people, populations of a country or victims of an extremly violent or aggressive politics in case of a violent action. Then I understand or conceive a war action against a nation as an extremely violent situation of extreme impact against the human rights. Then we can think of justification. But we need international tribunals that act more and that can conduct these processes of categorization and also interfere if necessary with the right of interference to end this war process which is a war industry and one of the biggest and more rentabel industries of the world which survives because of stimulation of this sort of action and this sort of war. This is really absurd this sort of situation in which we live today and which is very difficult to categorize what is a holy war and what is a just war. There are some historical examples but we have to minimize this sort of action [which abuses violene or use of aggression] for the conquest of their objetives and victories.
I believe that there can be profound changes [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe that there can be profound changes without problems for innocent people or victims. It is very important and I believe in molecular revolutions and in the power of every one of us to do something for the improvment of our existing reality and for a better relation and situation. Imagine if every inhabitant of our planet would make this effort, then we could have a peaceful and silent revolution. I don’t think that the United States [have to keep] the power because because it could restructure other countries. I think that the question of the United States of wanting to keep their power has to do more with a country that has a certain arrogant attitude concerning this process of wanting to keep the power and not wanting to give up and to share this power. I see that the future of our planet and humanity will go through this sort of experience of sharing the power. This is fundamental. The power doesn’t have to be concentrated. It can be diffused. Every one can be exercing sane power in a civil or harmonious way so that the power can be used for the transformation of our reality in which we live.
It’s obviously the big illegal industries in [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: It’s obviously the big illegal industries in the world that commercialize and deal with weapons, drugs and other things in the world, but also the gun industry as one of the most rentable and criminal businesses in the world are those who profit and get rich from terrorism. It is very important to create global mechanisms in order to avoid it to happen. By the way, it is absurd that today in 2006 we are talking about an action like this. There are still a lot of people in our world that earn much money through these extremely wrongful and illegal actions like the question of the gun industry. This should be completely avoided through a synergetic action between governments, organizations of the civil society and enterprises in order to prohibit this sort of action.
Yes. Brands are more powerful than [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Yes. Brands are more powerful than governments. From the ten biggest brands, from the ten biggest economies in the world, the majority are brands, are companys. And we have to equilibrate this situation. The brands should work more for the construction of a better world, should work more for the creation of a compromise for the transformation of our society. This way we will have the possibility to live in a better world in which people can through a conscient consume buy products from brands which really aggregate value for the public welfare.
In my opinion to be courageous today means [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: In my opinion to be courageous today means to fight constantly for our beliefs, for our ideals and this is our possibility to dream and to believe in our dreams and to suceed fighting with courage for the realization of our dreams. It means not to abdicate our values and our beliefs of ethic behaviour and []. To have courage and to be permanently fighting for our ideals and our beliefs. And to fight with love and tenderess means to counter governments and enterprises that have a negative practice and the attitude of not paralizing and benumbing before an obstacle but to estimulate in order to overcome the obstacle and the challenge. This means to me to have courage, to get into something and to have passion and to search continously for the realizing of our beliefs.
The Iranian Nuclear bomb is not more [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The Iranian Nuclear bomb is not more dangerous than the others. They are tecnically equal. The big problem is that the United States of America have their allies who have nuclear bombs. And the Iranian bomb is not a part of this process of allies of the United States, quite the contrary, what makes is potentially more dangerous for the United States and their allies. So here we have the danger based on a difference of perspective between political options and groupings and unions between different countries. It is very important that we perceive that the action of war of the United States against the Iraq, when he bombed the whole Iraq, caused a worse action, not only for the image of the United States, but it also caused a very negative action in a country which all its challenges like the Iraq and this should not be a solution neither a hipotesis. So the question of difference between the nuclear bombs is more connected to the perspective not to the technique.
This question makes me think about how we [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question makes me think about how we can efficiently apply the legislation in force in our countries. We can often see in many countries, for example, very just and good laws in their constitutions. But the big challenge is really to create those efficient mechanisms of enforcement of the laws. How is it possible to create and guarantee these efficient law mechanisms and at the same time having them supervised by society to be updated? I often see our tribunals and our judicial powers still acting in a less practical and less efficient archaic way. We have to change it and make the legal and judicial processes faster and not only more efficient, but also faster and also enforcing the sentences and penalties in a more correct and equal way– not only the poorest or the richest who can afford better lawyers..., in short, to make possible the equality of the enforcement of sentences and laws. This could lead to a better development of agility of our countries and our states – and through this experience to guarantee a more efficient global or international tribunal, more agile and faster in the enforcement of their sentences and penalties.
The relation between politics and violence [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The relation between politics and violence is connected with the definition of rules or political forms or public politics that are not fair. This can produce violence. And violence should be avoided by means of people that should search for behaviours that are based on no violence. It is very important that we can reduce in [] processes or rivalizations between the politicians and the candidates and violence also throught external, more invasive politics, so that a country is opening a war against another country, it is very important that a process of discussion and of a strong communication is established so that war can be avoided and violence will be a historical register in which people won’t have to live with this type of action whichis absolutely unnecessary for the development of our world.
I see that this question has nothing to do [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I see that this question has nothing to do with criticizing China because of the fast industrialization. China today is part of the BRIC which is this group of countries with a big potential of development: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The big question I see here is the question of freedom of speech. It means how to make compatible a rapid industrialization with a process of participation in which the society has got time, vote and the freedom of speech. We all are following the big question concerning the big enterprises of the Internet like Yahoo and Google who censored or created a mecanism of censorship of their webpages because of a request of the Chinese government with the condition to be able to expand and grow in China, in this big industrial market. And this is as I see a big challenge. The industrialization is positive. It is very important that we can produe products in the world that are cheap and of good qualitiy. This is for me a positive aspect. If we could have a process of industrialization accompanied by a process of more participation of the civil Chinese society and of the whole society, then we would be on a right way, on a better way.
I believe that we are living a new version [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe that we are living a new version of colonialism in which the richest countries and groups of a big economical interest exploit other groups and nations in the most developed countries. This colonialism is an addiction that we have since a long time in history. In many moments of the history of humanity we've been through disrespectful and violent processes like this type of atrocity for developing countries and for defenseless groups - or groups with less power of reaction. Inside this capitalist process of competition we should create a new sort of action which would be "coopetition" or a more collaborative competition in which people think in a way to create value for the well-being of everybody. "Coopetition" and not colonialism.
Liberty is the possibility to do what we [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Liberty is the possibility to do what we want if it doesn’t hurt other people. The limit is the damage of our next ones, of the human beings that are next to us. [I think that liberty doesn’t depend on the area.] It is obvious that in countries of more or less liberty you put your image of liberty a little bit into perspective. But liberty is a feeling, a virtue. Liberty is a necessity that we human beings have in order to create, to work and to think this process of development and evolution. I think that it is very important that people have liberty. And liberty should be something estimulating and creative, finally since school, estimulating by the parents, by school and governments. Finally, to execute all of our potential of the human being into liberty is one of the ways to enrich ourselves and to change ourselves. Human beings are like trees that yield fruits, that can give fruits who contribute to a developing process. Liberty is really fundamental for our lives and in the times of today it has always been fundamental.
The division of personal liberty and social [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The division of personal liberty and social responsability is between which things you can and want to do that may damage other people. This should be the limit or the division between the right you have to do something and how this could affect your next ones. Who is the one who decides? There are judicial instances that do this. But they have to be improved. Mecanisms of more intense discussion have to be created so that they can be improved. And so that we can be in this dialectic going into a vision, into a world in which people can live their liberty with responsability and not by damaging other people, by having distances that can make this mediation and judge this process in order to guarantee a quality in this process of estimulating liberty without damaging other people.
Unfortunately our educational system is not [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Unfortunately our educational system is not efficient. Teachers are badly remunerated in public schools. In many cases teachers don’t have equipment, don’t have proper material to give lessons of good quality. In many cases in our developing countries the teachers or directors of the school are an indication, a political orientation. This leads to a vicious circle in which there exists each time less quality, less quality in our public schools of the developing countries. And so we have an education which is a repeating education which teaches the people to decorate and not to create and not to realize their potential. I see that today our whole educational system is very [] for questions of consume, egoism, of forming people who are not prepared to realize their potential. This is a big lack of vision. In my opinion public schools should teach young people to dream, to believe in their dreams, to fight for the realisation of their dreams. This is one of the most efficient ways of us to be happy and to help to construct a better world.
This is very related to the former question. [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is very related to the former question. – The wealth [] of our humanity [depends] on the poverty of the third world. The base of this process of enrichment of the economy and of the power of the developed nations had as a base the submission, the [] of the natural wealth, of the exploration of the manpower in the developing countries. And this has happened until today and this is a situation which has to change. Like one of the former questions, it is necessary to create o new political, economical and social model that can have as a base the balance of our planet, of our planet earth, of [Gaia], the living planet. It is very important that humanity perceives this net of dependance which is happening in the whole universe, in our planet, between the human beings, the animals, the plants, clima, ground, nature, finally of the whole environment and in the urban region exists and has to exist a very good balance. It would be great if we could understand this question, our wealth depends on the poverty of the world world, till today as: yes, but we have to change this situation in pro of the support, in pro of the survival of our planet called earth.
We should not consider some lives to have [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We should not consider some lives to have more value than others. This is really absurd. We should have a sense of equality in our diversity. People are different, and it is rich and beauitful to see this difference between people. But we should encounter the same treatment. We should not privilege some people because they are white, men, have money or status and position in society. We should respect each human being, each creature. This equality in the diversity is creative. It stimulates complexity and it makes of our world, of our life a complex system which learns. Each time we should stimulate more this sense of equality in our diversity. And it is absurd that there exists this type of behaviour exists in which some people are more similar than the others and can consequently have more privileges , can have more things than others. How can we create mechanisms that establish this type of equality? How can we make it possible that people with a low rent, people of isolated indigenous communities, of rural areas and marginalized people can participate in this process of equality, in this complexity? How enriching it is to listen and to learn from those people who think differently, who are different and who have different cultures and traditions. It would be much better if we established a process in which people lived more harmoniously and respected each person in his difference and if we could be equal in our difference and complexity.
The development of the developing countries [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The development of the developing countries should be processed in a supporting way. Micro- or macro-finances should in every situation created on the base of the reality of each country in each sector of the population. Microcredits are very important for comunitys with a low income, for people who have got a low income. To have any income, to get a microcredit is in most of the cases one of the ways in which you end like the profiteers and make and potentialize the production of people with a low income so that they can have an increase of their income. But it is important to establish politics in a balanced way so that they can be sectorised and adjusted for each segment of our population.
During decades every process of leadership [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: During decades every process of leadership and development formation focused on this chauvinist society, men being at the top of the society. Women were persecuted by the catholic church. Thousands of women who distinguished from others at the time were burned at the stake through an inescrupulous action of the catholic church in this medieval period. It is important to give more and more power of equality to these women who are absolutely intelligent and who are persons that have a power of competition at the same level and in an balanced way as men. In reality God reveals himself and the human being is creative, brillant or productive independent of being a man or a woman. In reality, we are only one, and it is very important that every one with his femine or masculine side has the possiblity to demonstrate themselves and so we are going to be able to declare that we are constructing a better world. Women and men together should and can contribute to the construction of a better world.
This question is very interesting. I am [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This question is very interesting. I am completely in favour of non-violent actions of resistance. It is very important that we can answear to actions in a non-violent way, also if they were violent I think that this question of biodiversity of non-violent resistance is very interesting. To resist in a non-violent way with creativity, love and passion but not with a creative violence. This complexity and biodiversity of actions can lead to extremely unimaginable reactions of the persons that use violence or that act not constructively. It is a way to surprise those people who are waiting for a logical or rational action. They can be suprised by a completely different action and finally ingenious or creative action that can establish new models of peaceful resistance. This is really ingenious. We should explore, think and meditate more about this sort of action or reaction. This is really absolutely curious and intelligent and gives people possibilities of new forms and new paradigms of thinking. These reactions could be more qualitative and contribute to a better development of ourselves as human beings.
The question of drugs or the question of the [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The question of drugs or the question of the relationships between human beings are an important challenge. The industry of drugs, which is one of the most rentable industries in the world, as well as drug dealing, account not only for consumption and drug sale but also for violence and marginalization which are also very big challenges. In cities like Rio de Janeiro, where I live, we have more than 600 slums; these territories are really dominated by drug dealers. There’s a parallel power which has its own rules and oppresses people by doing a very specific type of violence. The question of drugs is very important, but the vice of all relationships – and there are a lot of other vices, problems and challenges – makes each human being in their majority have a lot of different addictions. How can we combat this? How can we live in a more balanced and harmonious way? How can we appreciate freedom of choice among what people can choose the best for themselves, respecting other people too? This type of limit has to be negociated and created. We have to combat this drug dealing and industry. This is really important. And it is very important to define this limit so that the drug addiction can stop destructing so many lives and relationships like it happens today.
AIDS is a big challenge concerning diseases. [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: AIDS is a big challenge concerning diseases. It is a big challenge, a gigantic challenge, simply gigantic. To know that a big percentage of children in African countries die because of AIDS. It is fundamental to change this situation. I don’t know how. But it is fundamental to change this situation.
My heroes are the social entrepreneurs, are [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: My heroes are the social entrepreneurs, are those unselfish people who invest their lives, their time to transform our society into a better one. These could or should be the true heroes. These people who are working with passion, with enthusiasm, bringing together different aspects like eyes shine and results, or like enthusiasm and evaluation, the passion for the quality of our social work. If we could create a mantra like “quality is result without losing tenderness” this is part of our day-by-day, this would be something important and something that we could transmit to the others. I see that the new heroes can be the social entrepreneurs.
This is a very important and strategic [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is a very important and strategic question. At this moment we are living a new society, the information society, if we stimulate, for example, the creation of products that could be patented or even free softwares, we could make their use democratic. This is a very interesting question. If we analyze the question of free software, for example, we can realize that this knowledge production can be multiplied by our countries and by thousands of people as volunteers who can help with the development of this new kind of software. I believe this idea would be quite interesting to break with this monopoly and patent view, let’s say a monopolist view of creativity and of what is used. This is a view I consider very romantic and idealistic, but a very interesting one that can in fact improve our society. Books for example, it seems that books which were produced 70 years ago became world heritage. And it seems quite interesting such a purpose in which a medicine, a substance or a product can have a period of time to be commercially explored with responsibility, of course, by their creator or inventor, but which can be open after a period of time as a knowledge for humanity. Let’s study further this question, because it’s worth it, it can be quite interesting for the development of our society.
Yes, we have to define an ecological limit [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Yes, we have to define an ecological limit to economic growth. Economic growth must only happen in a sustainable way. It’s more and more often essential to have this kind of limit quite clear. If economic growth starts polluting the environment or creating some kind of negative impact for people this will be the limit. Once this limit is identified, active and well defined actions are necessary to punish the enterprises or organizations that commit these crimes. And this must be an example so that these cases don’t happen again. Those preventive awareness measures are very important to find out this limit and also to know what we can effectively do to stop people from thinking and making such an economic growth that is unorganized and dissociated from environmental and human dimensions. Sustainable economic growth.
I don’t think so. Actually I’m affirming [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I don’t think so. Actually I’m affirming it’s not. This is a good example of how we should properly use this technology. If we have Internet at home, it doesn’t mean we are going to have a power without precedent to it, like George Orwell’s image of the “big brother” can be destroyed if we use these new information and communication technologies, like broadband Internet access from our homes, to be knowledge producers and not only users or consumers. If we start making use of this technology to produce and ask questions through internet blogs, through local information we could be able to have a revolutionary weapon that could change our lives. It’s very important to realize that technology itself isn’t good or bad. It’s us human beings that are good or bad. Depending on the use we make of these technologies we can have a tool for social transformation. This is important to realize. And also important is to know that it’s possible to have at home some forms to protect and defeat ourselves from challenging questions of the new technologies like pornography and pedophilia. These are questions to make us, parents, worry about how these new technologies are being used in our homes. But this is indeed a very important form of transforming our reality, if we use it in a positive way.
I don’t believe this analogy of domesticated [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I don’t believe this analogy of domesticated animals and domestication by technology is the rightest one. I see that we are actually being domesticated by this consumption culture, which we learn since young at the schools. The schools end up by teaching us how to be “domesticated ducks” staggering under the rhythm of social utility. How could we break with this negative impact that consumption society makes in our lives? This is really important and strategic. As I said, technology itself is not good or bad, but we human beings. We could use this new communication and information technologies as a citizenship and social transformation tool. I think we should work more on questions regarding the media, which is one of the biggest opinion makers we have nowadays in our society. So that what is written here in this question – creating domesticated, fat people who are addicted to this less-productive way of life – should catch our attention. Technology can be a transformation and improvement tool, it would be important to focus on this changing potential side which new information and communication technologies have.
This is a big paradigm nowadays of humanity. [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is a big paradigm nowadays of humanity. How to make our cities, our towns and human groups grow and keep it in a sustainable way, replacing to the environment what is consumed? This is a big challenge that is going to point out to human survival. There are interesting examples, like the eco-villages, which exist all over the world, are multiplying and which have this very philosophy: what is consumed is replaced to the environment. This view should be part of the thought and education in the schools, in all processes of creating a new mentality, this global mentality that we must always care about the future of our planet and also take responsible and sustainable attitudes toward human beings and the environment.
Through these water care works we need to [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Through these water care works we need to create forms of reaching the most part of world population. These forms, created through international conventions, must avoid political or government disputes for the access of this important resource of our planet. It’s very important to create culture, politics and real actions of recycling and retreating water, so that we can permanently in a clean and healthy way give back to the environment what we have consumed .
We should be more specific with this [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We should be more specific with this question. Are we talking here about for example the technology that created the atomic bomb – and this is a very destructive and impacting technology which creates huge challenges and problems, as the cold war and this confronts between the countries nowadays – or are we talking about technologies apparently less harmful but could save millions of people in the future? What are these technologies? I believe that specifically in this case if we think about a technology that nowadays may seem harmful, but if it can – or still if there’s hope or potential for that – save millions of lives, then I believe we should develop it under control, so we could emphasize the positive side of this new technology.
We need to slow down the speed humanity is [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We need to slow down the speed humanity is living at in the sense of making possible to have a better future in our planet. Awareness campaigns and movies were made telling what could happen with such a climate change. But the attitude of every one is quite important, in a micro perspective, in a sustainable way toward life and toward our planet. This daily personal responsibility is fundamental and I believe this is what will make the difference and can impact on those themes, on those big questions of humanity. We, the consumers, have a big power, because it’s we who buy the products. And we have to make sure that the products we buy don’t affect the environment and are ecologically correct. It’s very important to have further explanations about what we consume so that we can consume only products that won’t damage the balance of our planet, and won’t cause more pollution of nature, but products that could generate a sustainability and a longer life for our natural and human resources.
This is very important information. We often [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is very important information. We often consume information as if we were consuming garbage. It makes part of this consumption society not to think a lot about what we see. People also become indifferent in front of a TV screen. How many soap operas, movies, advertisements and useless programs do we see everyday that don’t add anything to our knowledge? It’s very important that we pay more attention and give more audience to those programs which are really more important, creating a more productive way of life, choosing better among so many channels the most of us have, quality programs that could add some value to our lives, and not only to be a sort of mental anesthesia for distracting us from our problems and everyday challenges.
We should deeply research and demand a [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We should deeply research and demand a better inspection in order to know exactly what kind of challenge or problem these technologies or genetically modified food bring to our health. Would we be underestimating or overestimating this kind of question and challenge? It’s absolutely necessary to create forms of further researches so we could safely know if what is happening is bringing a risk to our society or if it’s just a way of changing genetically a product that is going to benefit people. In short, this is a question that should be deeply investigated so that we don’t take risks of creating a problem even bigger than the one we have today. Then we need to know more about this question to be effectively sure about the potential or non-potential this action of transforming food genetically has.
This is another interesting question: “how [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is another interesting question: “how objective is science?”. Couldn’t a bigger objectiveness, a bigger focus of the science on the challenges we are living nowadays in humanity add more value to this transformation and development process that we need so much? In how far can so many scientists have their attention diverted from these questions and do interesting experiments, but that aren’t aimed at life improvement? Science has a strategic power on this process of determining stages, new solutions and new alternatives for the improvement of our life quality. It’s important to always recognize lives of scientists who created vaccines for epidemics and diseases that used to kill hundreds of thousands of people. This is a beautiful side of science, a fundamental side that we need to develop. We need to develop this positive, constructive side of science, focusing on solutions for the common good and for developing the human being as well as our planet.
We have to pay more attention to the big [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We have to pay more attention to the big questions of our planet and the environment. It’s very important to collect information in order to create this consciousness that each one of us is able to do something to avoid challenges like global warming. It’s important that we spread this information so that we can effectively take measures and clear attitudes, in small and big scales, to avoid this kind of challenge which is global warming.
Planet Earth is in constant growth. We have [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Planet Earth is in constant growth. We have more and more new inhabitants in our planet, competent new inhabitants. In almost every country, since their procedures of education, there’s a culture of consumption that characterizes capitalist society. This culture of wild consumption, more and more often, make people want to consume, but not in an equilibrated and balanced way. In some of the most developed countries, like The United States as previously said here today, there’s a sort of psychosis and mania for consuming, which is so extreme that we can see thousands of fat people there. We need to find equilibrium between what we want to consume and what we can consume. It’s very important to create and spread these ideas around these countries. It’s absurd to see how we are in such a planet where the most part of people have limited acquisition power and a very small amount of people are on the top of the pyramid and consume wildly and absurdly. We need to balance – this is one of the words I used the most here: “balance” – it's important to balance people’s action and attitudes so that we could live a more sustainable life on planet Earth.
How could architecture be used for the [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: How could architecture be used for the production of buildings and monuments, focusing on a development process of our society, an artistic project in which non-polluting and non-toxic materials could be used and that could through the design of buildings improve life quality, ventilation and luminosity? Through an architecture with soul and with love, by constructing buildings and monuments that stimulates this kind of contact, this kind of development of people’s relations.
I would love that our planet Earth could [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I would love that our planet Earth could exist without inequality, without racism, without social differences, a planet with equality, freedom and solidarity in which the human beings could be proud to say that we are part of humanity. Imagine a future where people don’t have these problems, these challenges as famine, children mortality due to starvation, diseases or epidemics. Imagine a planet where every one of us will be walking to a direction of evolution of this planet, focusing on a developing and improving process not only of our planet and its natural resources, but also improving us, human beings, in the sense of developing a better way of living on this planet – in a physical, emotional or spiritual way. I often imagine a future where we can have this kind of view, where there won’t be difference between dreaming and living, where we can freely make all good things inside us come true and work in this sense, through an alchemy process and constant changes as well as constant improvements of each one of us as human beings and as inhabitants of this planet.
This is the kind of question we could use [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is the kind of question we could use the metaphor of the glass with half of water. People can look at it and say: “this glass is half-empty” or they can look at this glass with half of water and say: “this glass is half-full”. The ubiquitousness of media can become a chance of transformation in people’s culture. But this is going to happen only when the information producers of this media have the attitude of searching and accomplishing these positive agendas, which are going to help in the construction of a better world. If we – media consumers, people who use television, radio, internet – can also create more audience for those news and programs that talk about the common good, then we can have a big opportunity. It’s very important also to think about how to react when, for example, the media doesn’t focus on positive subjects and positive agendas. It’s very important to create an educational awareness process so we can effectively have the media by our side and by the side of those who are fighting and investing their lives, our lives, for the construction of a better world.
I think so, yes, it will be possible. With [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I think so, yes, it will be possible. With the development of nano-technology the processors are getting more and more often smaller, the power of processing got bigger for a smaller size. This makes us think that in the future we are going to be able to plug, for example, chips in our brain and have very large memories. Imagine, for example, the “Barsa” Encyclopedia or other encyclopedias plugged in your memory through a chip that you can be able to access a huge quantity of information and that you can save or record important moments you have in your life. It’s also important to realize that humanity is walking to a process of individual connectivity, in which you can, for example, through an earring have broadband internet access and talk with people in different positions of the globe while you do common everyday activities. It’s interesting to observe experiences, like I did for example at the MIT Laboratory in Boston-MA, glasses that when you wear them you can see from one lens the normal things and from the other you can see a virtual world, Windows and other programs you could develop for that. So, I see that there’s a tendency of developing information and communication technologies so that the human being can wear or implant this technology himself. And once more, can it be good for the development of humanity in a positive way? Of course, and we need to guarantee that this process of developing technologies can add more values for the common good.
Well, this is a very complex question, in [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Well, this is a very complex question, in its simplicity. What concrete steps can we take? We need to give more priority to education, create a pact for education and reinvent education. Make from education something useful for the development of the human being into a better one. We need to make that every inhabitant of our countries can be educated and pass through a minimum period of education. And we need to make the contents of this education to be something quite practical in the sense of stimulating the development of human potential, developing the creation of people who are going to work with joy, with love to develop socially and economically our planet, people who are going to be educated to help transforming our world into a better one.
I think that the way our society is living [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I think that the way our society is living stimulates all of us to live in big urban centers, or almost all of us, lots of people, at the same time isolated in our own homes anesthetized by television, let’s say, by these individual or egoistic pleasures. People walk through the cities and look at the other people as if they were strange, as if they were afraid. It’s beautiful to see in smaller towns this “neighborhood spirit”, in which people can stimulate friendship among themselves. It would be quite interesting if we could get back this collective spirit, this neighborhood spirit and get out of this process that of contemplating our navels, and may we able to effectively break with this “narcissist bubble”, may we be able to get out of this shell and establish relations with other people, in a quite healthy and productive way.
The way to promote more efficient digital [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: The way to promote more efficient digital inclusion is promoting sustainable digital inclusion, by creating computer science and citizenship projects in low-income communities, working first of all with the question of sustainability. Creating helping projects has no continuity. Sustainability is important to guarantee the seriousness and the continuity of the project. We must create projects that work with self-manage and self-administration. People from communities can be their own managers, including educators of the call center or of the compuer science and citizenship project. Creating structures of evaluation and follow up is very important, but the application of a new pedagogic propose which values the reflexion on the community, on the reality people are living, by using technology is the key. The pedagogic purpose of “CDI” at the schools we have in low-income communities was inspired on Paulo Freire’s pedagogy. I mean, talking about the reality of that community, our students are going to learn how to use the computer tools through a work of acting and impacting in their communities, by using information technology as a “citizenship tool” to transform lives and develop those low-income communities.
If I was a tree, I would be a big broadleaf [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: If I was a tree, I would be a big broadleaf tree, with lots of fruits, but also with deep roots on the ground so I could have stability. The aspect in my life I need to develop is the ability of balancing, of being with my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds, linking these two dimensions of our lives. Another aspect that could be bigger, bigger than people think it’s possible, is the continuous ability of reinventing ourselves, the continuous ability of creating solutions for obstacles that often seem to be very big. This ability of reinvention and transposing obstacles needs always to be a little bigger than the obstacle itself.
This consumption society we live in is [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This consumption society we live in is projected to always be offering each one of us not better quality products, but different or slightly different products, because they’re new, because there’s a new edition, a spring, summer or autumn edition. These are strategies created to keep this flame of consumption alive. The shopping malls were made with the objective of making people walk and watch shop windows and creating the desire or the need of buying compulsively. This impregnates our lives and makes part of everyone’s background. This consumption culture is quite negative, because instead of paying attention and focusing on bigger values and more important questions for us, like human beings, questions about the future and present of our planet, our attention turns away for thinking on what to buy and to buy more and more. This vicious circle has to interrupt, has to make people realize that this is not a healthy way to live.
I feel this is one of our challenges [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I feel this is one of our challenges nowadays. People don’t feel like being part of the planet. People live their isolated lives, focused on their own personal questions, in this “narcissistic bubble” that everybody is used to live in. They’re few worried about the fellow-men, about people living in low-income communities, handicapped people, indigenous, afro-descendents and they are still less worried about nature in general, this big waste and the pollution that exists in our countries. So, I see that this more global view that allows us to think and act locally and globally should be the attitude and the view we all must have, a most systemic view. This systemic view in my opinion is a requirement for the next phase we are going to live in humanity. More integrated to these chains of values, this web that there is in our planet nowadays and is like this. But we insist on having this isolated, individual, local view. So, I think this new perspective of thinking and acting locally is very important, knowing that everything we do in this life has an impact, a reaction somehow in the environment or in people’s relations. So, let’s live in a more integrated way, having a more systemic mentality and view of everything around us.
We are living in a moment of exhaustion of [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We are living in a moment of exhaustion of hydric resources in our planet. We need to take more and more care to have them for the longest time possible. I see that big companies like Coca Cola have a global-scale production, and this is one of the most powerful brands in the world, but they also have distributions on the whole planet. But maybe this question is a little exaggerated. I see that water and water quality are one of the main challenges we have today and we need to take concrete measures in order to permanently recycle the water we consume and generate enough quantities of water in order to have sufficient water supply on our planet.
Africa is a very rich continent. “Mother [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Africa is a very rich continent. “Mother Africa”! Africa can teach us about culture, traditions, religiosity, habits and values. Africa is a very big source of knowledge and culture. And it’s very important that we open our minds to learn with the experience of this rich continent, that has such a beautiful history. We can also learn with what happened to the people and the animals of this continent. And by learning this, it’s important to create a constructive action. Let’s learn with our mistakes not to get wrong again. And let’s learn a lot with the spirituality of the African continent, which has so much to teach us.
This attitude of thinking and acting [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This attitude of thinking and acting globally and locally is very positive and productive because it makes us to have a global perspective without losing the perspective of specificities we have in our culture, in our tradition, in the communities we come from or live in. This large, holistic view is an equilibrium view which makes us able to have local perspectives without losing the local and global focus. This equilibrium is so important that we should practice it more often. Put ourselves in the other person’s place, and view the world from the perspective of another person. Then we could have this mentality, this more holistic view of humanity.
I believe that by spreading these answers [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe that by spreading these answers and questions, by making possible that other questions can be asked and answered by other people. But I see that the most important thing is to be practical. The most important thing is to take one of those advices, ideas or answers and use them as a strength or enthusiasm and make people feel like doing something to transform society. And people are going to listen to that if they are prepared or if they feel sensitive to it. Who knows if some people will do something effectively good for the transformation of our planet Earth into a better society, a society better to live, in which we could, in short, make a better future?
Thousands of children die from starvation [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Thousands of children die from starvation everyday. Thousands of people are homeless or in serious need everyday. People got used and indifferent to this kind of news and to this kind of information. At the same time there are thousands of other people who work everyday to help transforming our planet. For example, social entrepreneurs are people who give their life and dedicate it to transform or to cause some impact in the society we live in. This positive agenda is not very spread out. The impression I often have is that the media in general, usually report only tragedy and big problems. You have the impression that it will bleed if you twist the newspaper. We actually need to create a new culture not only for the press, but also for the consumers of information, for the people who read the press. It’s important to create a positive agenda so that the good practices and good examples could be spread out to create a contagious effect. And then, lots of people will be inspired, inoculated and transformed by this “virus of good”.
It’s this complexity that there is in our [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: It’s this complexity that there is in our lives, we have different perspectives, many times they’re different from the same fact, the same question. Perspectives can be different, but also right. The view can be different and still contradictory and help somehow to create a general view like a hologram of a situation or a fact. Maybe like this, thinking on the metaphor of a hologram, we can think about different and contradictory perspectives which are at the same time correct.
Be a social entrepreneur. Stop what you’re [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Be a social entrepreneur. Stop what you’re doing now and reflect about your life. See in your life what you could do to help with the construction of a better world. And do it now, in your profession, in your experience or interest area, do something to transform our society into a better one. Even if they are very small actions, in your neighborhood, in your work, in your school, in your company, in your city or in your country. The important is to start doing something to transform our society with a lot of passion, with a lot of enthusiasm, with the eyes shining. This is one of the most efficient ways to be happy and help with the construction of a better world.
This is a very interesting question. I [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This is a very interesting question. I believe that through the process of developing new equipments and new technologies we end up by getting more and more stressed. What about that productive leisure? Who doesn’t remember those times when we worked and we didn’t have this huge quantity of incoming e-mails, and we could reflect on websites or something like that? Actually we still can do it. And we can do it if we have a more balanced way of using these new technologies. The equilibrium way is often the most efficient one. We can’t use the new equipments and new technologies as maniacs, but we also cannot avoid it and just not use them. If we balance the use of the new technologies we can in fact have new creative moments, new moments to invent things, to have insights, to think about things like a “tele-work” or a way of producing information and being an information producer more efficiently. This is a side we need to focus more on: this efficient, qualitative use of the new equipments and new technological creations.
When we analyze the origin of the new [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: When we analyze the origin of the new information and communication technologies, since the first computer, the ENIAC, that used to fill a stadium with its valves, wires and cables, we observe that technology and internet development was only possible as a military strategy. So, through a military strategy it was able to create internet and new forms of connection. This is the threshold of the internet, for example. But we can also see that the appropriation which society has made of internet was a much bigger one, and then today internet is more accessible to society. It’s the same as the question of enterprises. The private sector has appropriated of the new technologies in such a way that industrial capitalism has evolved into informational capitalism, creating the globalization. Society was organized; the citizenship sector needs to evolve in the sense of appropriating more effectively of the new technologies. It’s very important to realize that during the tsunami, for example, the largest resource collection in the United States happened through the internet. In Mexico, while the Mexican army was fencing in the troops of the Zapatista army at the Chiapas Mountains, the commander Marcos, isolated, was communicating with the world through a laptop and via satellite connection. So, I see that it’s important too, that the NGO’s and the citizenship sector appropriate of the new technologies in order to give a citizen sense to it and to create a social globalization – or whatever the name it may have – but creating an effect also on making a social net in which society becomes more equal and more free, in a positive way, through a process of appropriation of these new technologies.
All of us should be responsible for what [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: All of us should be responsible for what happens in the world. It’s this systemic thought we need to have in each individual of our planet so we can realize this is a global question that affects everybody. All of us should be responsible for resources in our planet, in a small, middle or big scale. It’s very important to generate through our actions a sustainable behavior toward this planet. It’s important that in each moment of our lives, in each action that can make a difference, through this power of attitude and example we have, to take a more effective and more sustainable position toward the resources of our planet. And, of course, through big awareness campaigns that could effectively make people know what to do and also by creating more and more important and effective mechanisms to guarantee that this and awareness through education processes take place. And if possible and necessary, create punishments and laws to be effectively enforced and avoid abuses in this area.
I believe it would be quite desirable and [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe it would be quite desirable and quite funny to think about being an indigenous nowadays. We must think on the indigenous as someone free from these cultural influences, these addictions of the consumption society, these traditions which have been planted since we were born. And it’s important to realize that nowadays there are innumerable indigenous communities living and surviving in many countries of the world. Amazon is huge scenery of hundreds of those indigenous communities that are living nowadays and need to be protected and supported. Those indigenous leaderships need also to develop but they also need to be protected so we don’t think that we should teach an indigenous the culture of the white. It’s we who should learn with their culture, tradition, habits and religion. It’s very important to realize that it’s good to be in contact with another dimension. It seems the indigenous communities are living in another dimension, in another rhythm, in another state of mind. So I see it would be very useful and desirable for us to civilize to learn more with those traditional indigenous leaderships and with such a rich and precious culture, that we have to keep alive to inspire our actions here on Earth.
I believe that genetic engineering should be [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe that genetic engineering should be stimulated with a little precaution, and under supervision, so that we could effectively be able to use ethically based on moral and ethical values so the development of this genetic engineering can be good for making our lives better. This should be extremely necessary inside this process. It would be quite important if we could control it to avoid a bad use of this and the destruction of the use or the potential for improving our society. I think it would be important to follow it close stimulating, but under control of the productions of genetic engineering. When I talk about control, I’m not talking about a big control but about following step by step the process so it can be made in a positive way to make our way of life better.
Many people say that the most important [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Many people say that the most important thing is the version, and not the truth indeed, because the version is much more spread out. It’s very important that the people who see the facts can also, when possible, consult other sources. It’s common when you watch the news on TV, on a channel you know it has a certain tendency, and then you watch the same news on another channel which has another tendency and you can realize the small or big differences between them. So, it’s always important to have an attitude of realizing the relativity of the information we see and consume. And it’s very important that this process can help in the transformation of those people who produce the news, the media, so that we could always have a true version, or the truest version possible, and not an interpretation of what it could be - according to the perspective of the person who says it - the best form to communicate that truth.
Three? There are so many important things we [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Three? There are so many important things we should teach our children. Ethics, to be a human being, to be ethic people, hope, hope in the sense of dream, of creativity, of developing our own potential. I would say these are the questions we should teach the children and more and more often discuss it with them.
Sometimes I wonder that, not only in the [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Sometimes I wonder that, not only in the world of arts, but in any perspective of our lives, any profession, any area, if we channel this creative, professional energy into processes of social and economical development, this could be quite interesting. Art demands creativity, esthetic and thousand of other very important things. But imagine if people could make art as someone who thinks on the development of our society. Imagine if more artistic projects take place for low-income people and low-income communities all around the world. And if people could, not only be in touch with this wonderful world of art, but also produce and create art, in short, develop a process of commercialization and exchange which could help with the development of these people themselves. Art is essencial in our history and in our life for inspiration and motivation. Art is beautiful, seeing good art impresses, impacts and illuminates us.
What excites me, what I love the most in my [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: What excites me, what I love the most in my life is my work day-by-day, being a social entrepreneur, feeling that I’m investing my life to improve our society. What moves me is my family, my friends, my wife, in short, my family. This is also very very important: joining all these dimensions of my life, like work, family, spiritual practices, physical exercises, linking all these dimensions is what moves and excites me. In the other hand the big challenge for this is really the equilibrium between these entire dimensions of our lives which make us, human beings, complete inside this holistic and general view. But being a social entrepreneur is something absolutely lovely; it’s an enthusiasm that I consider to be very big. I consider myself a realized man for investing my life on this work and developing what formerly was a dream to me and now it came true and thousands of people take part of this dream, dream along and originate new dreams inside this continuous growing and developing process.
It’s very important to use the pedagogy of [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: It’s very important to use the pedagogy of example, to spread out actions of people who make something for the transformation of our society into a better one. For me, the social entrepreneurs are one of the best examples which should be strongly diffused on our planet. Social entrepreneurs are those who invest their lives with passion, excitement, dynamism and entrepreneurship to transform reality around us, to make it possible for us to be living in a new, better world. There are international organizations supporting social entrepreneurs. The first of them is ACHOCA, an organization that is 25 years old and promotes the culture of social entrepreneurship. These good practices and good examples should compose positive agendas and be spread out in the world media. One of the big challenges of social entrepreneurs is this convincing ability, of showing that it’s possible to do something to make dreams come true and change the reality we live in. When a social entrepreneur is talking, you know it’s someone who is investing his/her life to transform the world into a better one. And this excitement and passion are fundamental nowadays. So, a myth I would choose to spread out the culture that leads to the transformation of our planet is the example of social entrepreneurs.
My impression is that we are consuming more [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: My impression is that we are consuming more energy than we did in the past. These factors of consumption and growth in our civilization make people use more and more electrical energy. And the production grows to make an amount of energy according to the consuming public. A big challenge for us is, for example, the production of hydroelectric stations to generate a bigger and bigger amount of energy. Many hydro-electrics are created based on lakes or dams for energy development, which has a strong environmental impact. Once more we need to be aware of the ecological and environmental balance in the process of energy production.
I believe that we often tend to classify [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I believe that we often tend to classify people into categories we choose ourselves, like for example, a soccer team or a samba school we support for, a nationality or a regionalism. It’s important for our identity to know and recognize the origin of those choices. And it’s very important for our humanity to feel and act as citizens of the world, as true human beings, understanding humanity as a community, as a common identity among all our regional, traditional, religious, cultural or sportive differences. All in all we are human beings and this macro-perspective of humanity is a view that should be more and more spread out. We are all inhabitants of a planet, the planet Earth. And whatever happens to this planet will impact on our lives or on the lives of our future generations, our children and grand-children.
First of all, we do not have very healthy [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: First of all, we do not have very healthy eating habits. Eating much fried and high fat food is not healthy for our organism. We could even eat it but in a small and balanced quantity. Another important point is the “fast food”. Those restaurant chains are not adequate to a healthy nutrition, mainly to those who love this kind of food and make it their everyday meal. A third important point is that the quality of the food we eat should and could be more organic, with lots of special cares at the time of planting, seeding and harvesting. So, I see this is also a very important challenge that we should pay more attention to, how they are produced and to the production quality of the food we eat. Then we could maybe have a nutritional intelligence more aimed at the energetic balance of our body and so we could start living and thinking healthier.
God has no relegion. God is the inspiration [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: God has no relegion. God is the inspiration for the religions. And it's human beings who create the rules and the dogmas that make regilions possible. God is this inner strength we have or this outward strength that illuminates us and makes us want to be better human beings.
Stimulating and promoting the culture of [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Stimulating and promoting the culture of diversity and the culture of difference is very important and helpful so that our cities are not like each other, so that they don’t live sameness, so that we could produce different and creative attitudes and through this process learn and interchange with the reality of people who look at the world in a different way.
We should not categorize people by their [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: We should not categorize people by their race or country where they were born. Of course everyone has its own identity, its own culture and nationality. But when we create pre-judgments or previous impressions, we judge and label people like saying: “this one is white”, “this is black”, “this is African”, “this is Asiatic”. And then we lose the view and the dimension of humanity, forgetting that we are all human beings, that we are all equal in this sense. I think it’s very important that we can enlarge this perspective, this systemic way of viewing and recognizing ourselves. We are all equal and this brotherhood needs to be more and more spread out and extended in benefit of the existing relations between societies, between people and between cultures.
There are moments in our lives that we [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: There are moments in our lives that we suddenly realize something. Moments that awakes us to the feeling of acting in the sense of constructing a better world. Many people have been through experiences like limit situations, a disaster, a kidnapping, a violence problem or a experience of almost-death. Will it be necessary that people have limit experiences so they start realizing that they should change and start working hard with enthusiasm looking for the construction of a better world? Could literature, cinema, arts, through works that motivate this kind of transformation, be multiplied so that people have contact with this kind of transforming experience? Or how could we make this kind of literary or cinematographic creation that help with this process of awaking people to the necessity of helping the construction of a better world?
Internet, when used as a citizenship tool, [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Internet, when used as a citizenship tool, can not only transform lives and develop low-income communities, but also develop our society into one with more equality, more freedom and solidarity. It can be quite interesting to have low-income communities all around the world appropriating of those technologies and internet technology as a way of selling their locally developed products, in a strategy of market expansion. Internet, when used as a social integration tool or a digital bridge promoting a true social interaction, can make communitarian leaderships in many slums and low-income communities in many countries communicate and exchange their good practices or their not so good practices, creating an accumulative effect of sharing experiences. It’s interesting to see this integrating potential that internet has and we need to develop more this potential in low-income communities which need to have access to these technologies to give them a communitarian sense. It’s absurd to realize that the most part of humanity is out of information society. In Brazil, my country for example, only 16% of the population has access to computers and 12% has internet access. This creates an effect in which groups of digitally excluded people are making a new type of apartheid, the digital apartheid.
I often consider unsustainable the life we [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: I often consider unsustainable the life we live in the cities. A life where we consume, pollute and dirty much more than we recycle. This form of life tends to generate a situation of impossibility of survival on our planet. Therefore I believe that the future of the cities will be based on models of sustainable cities where people live in a really correct ecologically way, recycling what they pollute to give it back to environment. And may every citizen be aware of ecological, environmental and human questions in a community, in a sustainable, feasible city. This should be the big reflexion of mayors and politicians for the cities and villages in order to create preventable actions to correct it. Actually I think it’s already late for a correction, and this is why it should be so urgent. We need to create new cultures; I’m saying once more here the example of ecovillages, which are forms of living in a more ecologically and sustainable way.
This sounds like a joke, but a very [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: This sounds like a joke, but a very interesting one. If each Chinese or each inhabitant of a super populous country wanted to have the same level of consumation as the others, we would be causing a situation in which this kind of question would be unsustainable. The point is: we have to redefine our values; we have to redefine what we want for ourselves. And by making this process, we could change this consuming mentality that exists in our societies. We need to take care about those questions to effectively measure and balance our economy and our personal questions in a viable and equal level of having this sustainability in a global way.
Egoism is one of the big challenges in the [...]
Rodrigo Baggio: Egoism is one of the big challenges in the progress of the human race. I feel that the educational system as well as the family system started to form people who have a kind of egoistic behaviour. Always more people are born and raised into a narcistic bubble where the one’s next is in the best case one’s family members or one’s friends. It is very important to destroy this narcistic bubble, it is very important that there comes a moment in our lives where the register falls and people will understand that there is something bigger in the world. This is a kind of being reborn, a possiblity to liberate ourselves from this vice which is thoughts, attitudes of this egoistic life in which everybody thinks exclusively about oneself or in the best case about one's family or friends. To stop those attitudes, to stop with this practice is vital for a development of our societies, it is vital for that we people start constructing a better society.
