I sure hope those legacy systems survive Damir, because I've been asking myself the exact same question for a while now. What do you rally around when pluralism is everywhere??
This book seems apt for my next read. I just finished The Long loneliness, and I'm curious how these two would interplay with ideas of equality and justice, especially with regards to the poor, and the dregs of capitalism.
As to the other question, I'm sure people would want to define 'fulfilling,' but I don't believe life can be meaningful without some infrastructure of belief. Even the atheists and agnostics around me create little mythologies/theologies to get through the day. If I hear: "everything happens for a reason" one more time I may lose my mind.
Ypi's 'Free' was maybe the best book I read last year. And, yes, she would make a fabulous guest. Her current series on "Freedom" in David Runciman's "Past, Present and Future" podcast is also fascinating. As for believing in something; it seems what she has found to believe in, or at least rehabilitate, is the German idealistic philosophical tradition: 'relations' define us, no one is free unless everyone is, etc. I haven't heard anyone interview her who was qualified to challenge her on that belief.
Dehumanizing is the key. It explains the inevitable cruelty of 'ideologies' from collectivism in its many manifestations to climate change. Collectivists think they are God. Climate activist have a disdain for humanity that they capitalize on for power and wealth. Hate to say it but it is a feminine way of thinking to take from the one who has worked for it to give it to the person who 'needs' it. Tree of knowledge stuff, and why Ypi reverted back to an ideology that has always failed.
I'm from Eastern Europe, namely Poland. Poland still believes in God and traditional conservative values. Anything barely changed in this matter for centuries. I'd rather say that America has a larger problem with believing in something than Eastern Europe as everything you guys had, including freedom of speech was squandered. Poles never believed in freedom of speech because they never had it anyway.
Croatia Catholicized a bunch during and after the war. But it always felt to me as tied more to identity than anything transcendent. But as a non-believer, I am not really in a position to comment definitively.
Interesting. The Croatian side of my family arrived before the War, and from what I can tell, they aren't the source of religious piety in the family tree. The Italian side brought that.
"But she thinks that you absolutely have to believe in something. What is most striking about large parts of Central and Eastern Europe (and probably even Russia) is that people legitimately don’t believe in anything any more. Communism took away their religion and then collapsed on itself, she said."
There is nothing in here about believing in yourself. Maybe that's the problem.
I spent a year teaching in inland China and experienced the same sense of disorientation among the people as Communism exists now in tension with capitalism. The people don't believe in anything because faith is forbidden...but the youth believe only in themselves.
I sure hope those legacy systems survive Damir, because I've been asking myself the exact same question for a while now. What do you rally around when pluralism is everywhere??
This book seems apt for my next read. I just finished The Long loneliness, and I'm curious how these two would interplay with ideas of equality and justice, especially with regards to the poor, and the dregs of capitalism.
As to the other question, I'm sure people would want to define 'fulfilling,' but I don't believe life can be meaningful without some infrastructure of belief. Even the atheists and agnostics around me create little mythologies/theologies to get through the day. If I hear: "everything happens for a reason" one more time I may lose my mind.
Ypi's 'Free' was maybe the best book I read last year. And, yes, she would make a fabulous guest. Her current series on "Freedom" in David Runciman's "Past, Present and Future" podcast is also fascinating. As for believing in something; it seems what she has found to believe in, or at least rehabilitate, is the German idealistic philosophical tradition: 'relations' define us, no one is free unless everyone is, etc. I haven't heard anyone interview her who was qualified to challenge her on that belief.
Dehumanizing is the key. It explains the inevitable cruelty of 'ideologies' from collectivism in its many manifestations to climate change. Collectivists think they are God. Climate activist have a disdain for humanity that they capitalize on for power and wealth. Hate to say it but it is a feminine way of thinking to take from the one who has worked for it to give it to the person who 'needs' it. Tree of knowledge stuff, and why Ypi reverted back to an ideology that has always failed.
I'm from Eastern Europe, namely Poland. Poland still believes in God and traditional conservative values. Anything barely changed in this matter for centuries. I'd rather say that America has a larger problem with believing in something than Eastern Europe as everything you guys had, including freedom of speech was squandered. Poles never believed in freedom of speech because they never had it anyway.
That's an interesting point, Nat. I do wonder whether secularization has been more radical in the Balkans than in the rest of Europe.
Croatia Catholicized a bunch during and after the war. But it always felt to me as tied more to identity than anything transcendent. But as a non-believer, I am not really in a position to comment definitively.
Interesting. The Croatian side of my family arrived before the War, and from what I can tell, they aren't the source of religious piety in the family tree. The Italian side brought that.
This is a huge insight, so much of religion is identity politics and not belief. Gives us poor genuine Christians a bad rap.
"But she thinks that you absolutely have to believe in something. What is most striking about large parts of Central and Eastern Europe (and probably even Russia) is that people legitimately don’t believe in anything any more. Communism took away their religion and then collapsed on itself, she said."
There is nothing in here about believing in yourself. Maybe that's the problem.
Fascinating!
I spent a year teaching in inland China and experienced the same sense of disorientation among the people as Communism exists now in tension with capitalism. The people don't believe in anything because faith is forbidden...but the youth believe only in themselves.