Tuesday, June 08, 2004



This is the topic which is the important achievement of Karl Popper who showed that dictatorship from Sparta in Ancient Greece to Communism and Fascism of industrial world, has been in lack of acceptance of open society, and showed that from Plato's Republic, with its rule of Philosopher-Kings, to Hegel's theory of state, and finally Karl Marx, with its rule of the proletariat, the issue of allegiance to a closed society is the reason for creating despotism. In fact, even Ayatollah Khomeini in his book Velayate Faghih has used Plato's thought, and he even mentions Plato by name.
Why the problem is not utopianism, but the lack of an open society...

Repeating History Classes: How the Czech Story Plays Out
Western knowledge of 'contemporary' Czech culture often hackneyed and limited to Kundera, Klima, Havel, et al.
Today, the global prestige of mitteleuropean culture in the last years of communism and the immediate aftermath of the 1989 revolutions is a distant memory. No creative stars have emerged from these countries since the coming of democracy. Where are the books that insist on being read by an international audience? Where are the books from behind what used to be the Iron Curtain, which used to produce a classic a week?

· There [i.e., in communist Eastern Europe] nothing goes and everything matters; here, [i.e., in America and in the democratic West] everything goes and nothing matters [[The Richest writer of all His Story: Cold River]]
· · See Also Literary tango: Franz Kafka bookended by two significant dates: June 3, the anniversary of his death, and July 3, the anniversary of his birth [ via What Has Happened to Historical Literacy?]
· · · See Also There are no more villages to burn: Why Darfur's agony is the world's shame [ via The Task of the Modern Historian ]
· · · · See Also Bloody history: Historians used to ignore violence and horror, but a new generation places it centre stage [Link Poached from Historians and Economists]
· · · · · See Also Let's Get Serious About Getting Serious [Link Poached from By Lenin, from Pravda, April 11, 1913: tag cui prodest? Meaning "who stands to gain?" ]