Dilema veche 292, 17 September 2009

Lucian Mîndruta
God in elementary school
Lucian Mîndruta attended the festivities held at the beginning of a new school year where a priest told the children that they should all acknowledge God. Mîndruta is against this and says that faith and knowledge have nothing in common. He considers that knowledge is based on science and proof and as there is no physical proof of God's existence, no links between divinity and knowledge should be claimed. Hoping God will take care of you no matter what is the same as assuming no responsibility for yourself. He also thinks children should be taught that there is no such thing as destiny, only hard work and good marks.

Cristian Ghinea
Spunesitu.ro drives me mad
Spunesitu.ro is a web site where people are invited to answer the question "Do you like what your country has become?" and to post all the things they dislike or hate about Romania. Though he was attracted at first by this site (as he was hoping for a campaign telling people "It's high time we did something to make things better"), Cristian Ghinea now considers spunesitu.ro just a boring collection of self pity. He says he's sick of people wailing all the time without doing anything to change the situations they complain about. Self-pity is completely useless and does nothing but annihilate the energy of those who really want to make things better.

Cristian Ghinea
"The Romanians would immigrate to Great Britain, while the British always complain about their country" – interview with Rupert Wolfe-Murray.
After he graduated from Liverpool University, Rupert Wolfe-Murray went to Tibet where he taught English and wrote a book. He worked as a journalist for BBC Scotland, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, and then as a humanitarian volunteer in Romania and Bosnia. He presently lives in Romania where he directs documentaries. He says he left Great Britain to free himself from a system which became boring to him, though tempting for others, and went to Romania, a country where he felt he could do something to make a change.

Adina Rosetti
The country where moose are shy
In Ottawa, says the author, both time and life go slowly and quietly. This is why she writes a serene text about this place where, she says, everything happens as planned, with no surprises. One of the things she was mostly stricken by were the little wooden placards she saw in a national park asking the tourists to excuse the inconvenience of being able to see moose along the roads. The rangers explained that the animals were quite shy as they were taken from their habitat and brought here. She also describes Ottawa as an odd combination of urban space and zoo: each night marmots come out of the bushes and walk along the streets accompanied by wild turkeys, and each tree is full of squirrels fighting with the pigeons.

Carmen Gavrila
Fascinating Korea
Whether we talk about its dynamic economy, successful transition from dictatorship to democracy or its advanced technology, South Korea is a fascinating place, both humble and striking. Carmen Gavrila writes about Korean food (traditional cooking consist of an entire ritual) about Nanta (a show also including food, inspired from Korean cooking art and old music traditions) about the popular mask dances and the Red Devils, South Korea's football team supporters.

Weekly dossier:
Postcommunism: 20 years after

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Democratization without decommunization
The author states that one of the reasons why the transition to democracy did not completely succeed is the fact that Romanians are not separated from communism yet. Both the mentality and the institutions are still haunted by the communist past. At the beginning of the 1990's, many people still wanted a leader such as Ceausescu. As for the present, lots of former security officers who served the oppressive communist system continue to work in state institutions. Alina Mungiu says that deconstructing communism is a long term process and unfortunately not a forerunner for democracy.

Adrian Cioroianu
Post communist Romanian intelligentsia
Right after the fall of the communist totalitarian regime, the freedom of speech – which also meant the freedom of ideas – made the Romanian intellectuals separate into distinct groups. Given the diversity of those groups and implicitly the lack of a constant and systematic dialogue, it only led to conflicts and threw a pale shade over the intellectuals.

Dilema veche 293, 24 -31 September 2009

Mircea Vasilescu
General cacophony
Given the equality of cultural and intellectual materials displayed on the Internet, an intellectual like George Bernard Shaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson or Jurgen Habermas is just another voice in the general cacophony. Blogs where anybody with a nickname can make comments about anything are major contributors to this cacophony. The danger is not the mixture itself but the replacement of traditional learning with the Internet information. Quoting the sociologist Franco Ferrarotti "we'll become a nation of well informed idiots".

Sever Voinescu
What is our status?
Once every two years German Marshall Fund conducts a huge opinion poll in the EU, US, Canada and Turkey over major world issues: transatlantic relations, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, terrorism, economic crisis and climate change. The answers led to the following conclusions: EU citizens have homogenous opinions; the differences between Europeans and Americans are only quantitative; Turkey's image in the EU is better than EU's image in Turkey; Barack Obama enjoys great popular support in the US as well as in the EU however Europeans are more realistic about his ability to solve major issues such as Afghanistan or Iran; cooperation with Russia is largely wanted and under no political or military conditions by many; NATO is still getting good marks; Romania's profile is compatible with the EU however on climate change fatality wins over general enthusiasm.

Weekly dossier:
Evil and malevolence – an eternally young couple

Norbert Dodille
"Is it good? Is it bad?"
Diderot's famous question "Is it good? Is it evil?" applies to each of us. However, unless we are a Mother Teresa or an Al Capone we are somewhere between good and evil. Dawkins introduced the term meme: equivalent of a gene at mind level. We believe we think, but instead we combe or reproduce memes. Good and evil are the result of our memes. There were "pure" times when evil was fashionable and kindness was a weakness, and "impure" times, the present (we stopped going to church or observe any rituals) when good is fashionable. "The idea of being the result of the manipulation of memes does not revolt you?" Dodille was asked by a friend. His answer was negative. He is just playing evil, transmitting ideas belonging to others, hoping we get trapped.

Ioana Pârvulescu
Authors and their shady alliances
Really good authors make sure they avoid the exclusive projection of good or evil. What really matters is the authenticity of the feeling. Agatha Christie did not witness all the crimes related in her novels but she lived the evil on a small scale. Good authors should be in control of the situation by being either devil or angel, and after visiting either heaven or hell they should remain on earth.

Svetlana Cârstean
Teeth
Svetlana Cârstean confesses her interaction with the concept of evil in childhood and later on at work. The child could not understand the concept, evil was everywhere as she was told, but nowhere to find if you asked her. Reality bites later on, at work, when she is confronted with the malevolence of a colleague which later on resulted in her resigning the job. The innocence is lost, our author now has teeth, she can bite, she can defend herself.

Dilema veche 294, 1-7 October 2009

Andrei Plesu
Stand above!
Andrei Plesu thinks we must keep our heads and our hearts in a higher place, in order to better see the world. "No longer lead your life from the underground of your fretful soul". He urges us to not let ourselves drown in daily conflicts (TV talk-shows, for instance). "There are other joys than that of your enemy choking", he thinks.

Sever Voinescu
Negotiating with Iran
Sever Voinescu notes that Barack Obama has to face the Iranian nuclear programme challenge. The American president must decide how to approach this problem. Starting long negotiations with the Iranian authorities can be a waste of time for the Occident and a respite in which Teheran can make a nuclear weapon. A dialogue can be initiated only if the Iranians do not intend to make nuclear weapons (which is unlikely). If Iran is intent on obtaining a nuclear weapon and not on just producing energy, the American president's prestige can be in ruins.

Tudor Calin Zarojanu
The fourth crisis in the state
Tudor Calin Zarojanu writes about the press crisis in Romania. He thinks the journalistic profession has no equal in Romania because there is no trade union in this area; many journalists have five or even ten jobs, in different places; many of them are always threatened with dismissal by their employers and most of them don't have employment contracts that provide a secure pension.

Adrian Cioroianu
Obama in Eastern Europe
Adrian Cioroianu, former Romanian foreign minister, explains why Eastern Europe is worried by the recent White House decision to abandon the project for an anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. He writes that the official reason for President Obama's decision was that the Iran threat is not so great. Cioroianu thinks the real reasons are the high costs of the project and the Russian reaction. He has noticed that Obama's policy towards Russia is more uncertain than at any other point in the past. This is likely to arouse much anxiety in Eastern Europe.

Weekley dossier:
The emo phenomenon

Simona Sora
Finding emo
Simona Sora tries to understand what it means to be an emo. She asked the emo community some questions. Is it a fashion or lifestyle? Does to be emo mean you can only have emo friends? Will you be emo until death? She didn't receive any clear answers so she asked some specialists.

Andrei Vasilescu
I am ten per cent emo
Andrei Vasilescu thinks emo is merely a fashion. A fashion for the immature. He suggests a test downloadable from the Internet which can show everyone's emo level.

Interview with sociologist Mircea Kivu
Adolescence as a risk
Mircea Kivu regards emo as a social phenomenon similar to the hippies of the 1960s. He believes teenagers can always be regarded as an aggressed social category. They easily feel under attack by the rest of the society. They are in a process of biological and psycho-social maturing and they seek models. If, during this period, they encounter intolerance from others (read: adults), things can get serious and then we have real reasons to worry.

Dilema veche 295, 8-14 October 2009

Mircea Vasilescu
Is culture dead – again?
Mircea Vasilescu continues to publish fragments from his next book, The Intellectuals and the Media. In this excerpt, he analyses the implications of viewers becoming the protagonists of TV reality-shows and Internet interaction.

Sever Voinescu
The Polanski case
One of the main themes of debate in recent weeks' mainstream media – the famous movie director Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland – is also the subject of Sever Voinescu's article: "I don't know the end of this story, but there are two things that I know. First: the talent of a great artist cannot be a reason of penal impunity. Second: prescription and forgiveness are the wisest institutions of the penal law".

Cristian Ghinea
The problem with referenda
The referendums in the EU countries related to the Lisbon Treaty had different results and triggered various comments. Cristian Ghinea presents the pros and cons of a referendum, as a means to measure the public opinion, regarding such a technical and complicated treaty.

Writer and essayist Alain de Botton interviewed by Andra Matzal:
"The airports should be places to seek out forms of modernity"
Alain de Botton, one of the most successful writers of the latest years whose books have been translated also into Romanian, is currently hosted by Heathrow Airport in London. Thus he intends to write his next novel about the everyday life of an airport. Andra Matzal interviews him about his original idea and about his literary views.

Dan Dediu
The neo-Ikebana style in musical management, or about the Enescu Festival, 2009
The international festival of classical music "George Enescu" has become one of the most important events of its kind in the Romanian musical landscape. Dan Dediu writes about the qualities and flaws of this year's festival.

Andrei Manolescu
Central and Eastern Europe – a complicated region
Andrei Manolescu, deputy editor-in-chief of Dilema veche, has participated in the sixth Forum of Central and Eastern European Journalists. He presents a synthesis of the discussions and opinions of the participants from all the countries in the region.

Weekly dossier:
Can the last solution still be a solution? The ethical implications of euthanasia
Dilema veche addresses one of the most controversial subjects of our time: the ethical and social consequences of euthanasia.

Anca Manolescu
"The good death": a debate on society
Anca Manolescu presents the theological aspects of such a complicated issue: "In such a debate, we have the right, along with doctors, philosophers and theologians, to give our opinion. We have the right to bring counter-arguments, as long as human life represents, in our societies, a supreme value. We have the right to invoke the conception of different religions regarding the person, his/her destiny and death, since spiritual traditions are a part of our culture."

Daniela Cutas
Too few words: about the ethics of euthanasia
Daniela Cutas's opinion is that a form of euthanasia will become unavoidable in the future: "Unfortunately, it is certain that decisions to euthanize – in some form - will have to be made, related to developments in the medical field, as long as those developments do not bring the unlimited capacity to cure us of all forms of diseases, forever and completely".

Published 2009-11-24

Original in English
Contributed by Dilema veche
© Dilema veche
© Eurozine