Cuba Mourns Fidel, Maybe

Reactions on the ground in the aftermath of the leader’s death

For nine days there was no alcohol sold on the island. Cuba is not a dry country, but it became one in mourning Fidel. “There was absolutely no alcohol being sold, not even to tourists,” Jenni, a visiting student from a US college on a study abroad program told me. ...
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Cuba Mourns Fidel, Maybe

The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Critical reflections on the long – running clash between left and right

In a knife-edge election, many are the causes that tip the balance between victory and defeat. Politics is, as Branch Rickey memorably said of baseball, “a game of inches.” Minor changes in a campaign scenario produce major differences. Surely Donald Trump’s victory derived in no small part from his appeal ...
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The Right’s Walls and the Left’s Commons

Hungary 1956

Sixty Years After

In a 1958 article “Totalitarian Imperialism: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution,” published in the Journal of Politics and intended as an update to her seminal Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt called the Hungarian uprising of 1956 a “spontaneous revolution”: a rare occurrence that erupted unexpectedly, without a preceding and destabilizing ...
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Hungary 1956

Marx’s Radical Development

Following Marx’s Train of Thought

There have been a few recent calls for a return to Marx, or openness to the thought that he “got it right.” To be sure, Marx got a lot -- a lot -- right, but simply peering into his writing desk -- as if setting things right for all time ...
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Marx’s Radical Development

Saint Simone

Simone Weil and Revolutionary Politics

In the November 1933 issue of the dissident communist journal La Critique Sociale, two nonconformists of the French left took sharply opposed positions on the “catastrophic” character of revolutionary struggle. Both connected to the Communist Democratic Circle, both friends of its founder Boris Souvarine, they disagreed about action. And they ...
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Saint Simone

Thoughts on the Hungarian and Polish New Right in Power

Eviscerating the Constitutional Court and purging the judiciary, complete politicization of the civil service, turning public media into a government mouthpiece, restricting opposition prerogatives in parliament, unilateral wholesale change of the Constitution or plain violation of it, official tolerance and even promotion of racism and bigotry, administrative assertion of traditional ...

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Thoughts on the Hungarian and Polish New Right in Power

Gianni Vattimo Interview

Gianni Vattimo is considered to be among the most important living European philosophers, alongside Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas.  Known for his interpretation of Nietzsche's and Heidegger's philosophies, he also developed a postmodern theory he calls "weak thought," meant to question the hard objectivity of claims in religion, politics, and ...

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Gianni Vattimo Interview

Memory and History: Harmony or Dissonance

On the basis of examples drawn from her own research in Central and Eastern European history before and after the collapse of Communism, Sonia Combe pointed out at this event how eyewitness accounts can improve our knowledge and understanding of history. Memory does not bring only emotion to the historical ...
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Memory and History: Harmony or Dissonance