John W. Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus, oil on canvas (1903) This brief essay, structured in three short sections, aims to show how mythical figures from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses can help us better grasp our distorted political self-perception. There is no scholarly consensus on a definition of the ancient Greek term μῦθος (“mythos”). Scholars […]
Trotz der lobenswerten Bemühungen von Präsident Donald Trump und Außenminister Marco Rubio, die amerikanische Öffentlichkeit auf die zunehmende Unterdrückung der Meinungsfreiheit in der EU aufmerksam zu machen, sind sowjetische Rechtspraktiken in bestimmten Bereichen der EU-Justiz nach wie vor weit verbreitet. Um es klarzustellen: Der Zweite Weltkrieg ist nie wirklich beendet worden; er befindet sich lediglich […]
Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), Two Lawyers Conversing Despite the commendable efforts of President Donald Trump and Secretary Marco Rubio to alert the American public to the rising tide of free-speech suppression in the EU, Soviet-style legal practices in certain segments of the EU judiciary remain very much alive and kicking. Let us be clear: The Second […]
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), “The Survivors” (charcoal on toned paper) Introductory Note: The article below is adapted from segments of my speech, L’Histoire victimaire comme identité négative (“Victimhood History as Negative Identity”), delivered in October 2007 at the XII Round Table of Terre et Peuple, in Paris-Versailles. Nearly two decades later, I think it is appropriate […]
First published in July 1995 in Chronicles, but still relevant today, To the old popular proverb, “The only good communist is a dead communist,” we should perhaps now add: “Once a communist, forever a communist.” Although as a muscled ideology communism is dead, as a way of life it is still very much alive. Similar to […]
For a new-born state, the quest for identity means a relentless struggle against a rival victimhood. This can be called a pursuit of “negative identity,” requiring the demonization of the Other and a quasi-necrophiliac fixation on its own dead rather than its own living. No people or nation willingly cedes its dead to the competing […]
In the study of politics, two schools of thought converge: the school of stability and the school of change. The former emphasizes dominant political ideas that shape weak or strong leaders, while the latter highlights the role of a charismatic and strong political figure who drives social changes. In reality, these forces interact to shape […]
