#versia

By Versia Abeda Harris

Recently, some friends and I kept joking about how the answer to everything can be found by Google. Typing: ‘How to code a website’, ‘How to make alfredo sauce’, ‘I fell and now my tail bone hurts’ and, with this review in mind, I Googled ‘how to love’.  A 30 step guide—with pictures—was one of the first solutions the search engine provided. Resisting the urge to roll my eyes too much, I browsed the guide. Step by step, I increasingly noticed similarities between this ‘how to love’ and The Art of Loving.

The Art of Loving is a small book about love written by Erich Fromm in the 1950s. A social philosopher and psychoanalyst, he discusses types and effects of love and goes so far as to identify ‘real love’ and even how to put it into action. For example, two of Fromm’s biggest issues were the way humans saw love and how they saw each other. He asserts that most of us don’t know what the word ’love’ really means and consequently are incapable of loving. Further, he talks about the effects of the capitalist era and how this resulted in people seeing everything, including themselves, as a commodity. You are bought, sold and valued according the market. Humans think of themselves and their emotions and actions as consumable packages: MY LABOUR IS FOR SALE--MY HELP IS FOR SALE--MYLOVE IS FOR SALE.

Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation in the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume. Fromm, 97 

We think in terms of presentation, consideration and possession, like going into the supermarket and looking at the shelves of bread. The types of bread are all in different shapes and packages, with various brands. We consider which ones suit our desire best and then we take them into our possession. Fromm believes we have transferred this way of seeing objects to ourselves, therefore contaminating honest emotion and action. Humans are put into neat categories and marketed as desirable or discarded as not, and so love is treated the same way. Fromm believes that this is how we have lost sight of the essence of love and of ourselves. But this book is also (and I guess it is inescapable) a neat package to be consumed. It is prescriptive, as plainly said via ‘The world famous psychoanalyst’s daring prescription for love’ on the cover of the book. Fromm believes in the value of love and feels the need to reconnect others with that value. Yet, if love has turned into a saleable product to be cheaply consumed and discarded depending on the market in this capitalist society, how is creating a small neat product on this complex emotion, to be sold, the solution?  

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying that Fromm has said nothing valuable or that I wouldn’t recommend this book. However,  by the end it becomes nothing more than, for example, a 30 step guide one can find through google filled with the do’s don’ts and what is not true from what is true love. It seems like another quick way to fix ourselves.

Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row, 1956. Print. 

Versia Military Design Meron Bullpup

The next-generation Tavor, perhaps? It’s called the Meron, named after an Israeli mountain and there are reportedly two prototypes. This from Mako.co.il. Pardon the shoddy translations, but Google Translate is Google Translate.

“Does it look like the assault rifle of the future? Meet Huron.”

After years, revealed a new concept assault rifle based on the mechanism of the Tavor (Tabor), but has new features not seen before by the fighters. The manufacturer believes that gun is a worthy competitor in the market for guns.

Compact unit with a futuristic look Photo: Versia Military Design

Company “and Rasia” (Versia Military Design) Concept unveiled a future assault rifle configuration Bolfaf based on H”tbor gun complexes “. Independent venture designed rifle and design characteristics, ergonomic and material, and is designed to combine the utmost elements and functions currently available in a compact unit assault rifles and futuristic looking. Main characteristics of the tool are integrated polymer shell of aluminum components, diameter 5.56 mm, complete ergonomic compatibility right and left, four tracks Fiktini, integral bipod removable handle multiple options, telescopic butt cheek support, Buy and hidden flash hider, the ability to anchor the optical instruments, silencers Sound and projectors. Although in recent years have some attractiveness Hbolfaf withdrawal, and although there is a traditional American reluctance in this configuration, at Versia believe that there is still room for the development of this unique family of rifles, and to upload the rank competing veteran tools such as M-16.

I WILL ALWAYS GIVE HUGS!

Lima Syndrome comes out on July 24, two weeks after my birthday and the start of the second summer semester of college because apparently, I am a masochist.