Akadeemia
Eurozine
Akadeemia
2011-04-27
Abstracts for Akadeemia 4/2011
Mart Orav
Estonian Memory and Estonian memory
In the presentation made at the closing event of the book series Estonian Memory (Eesti mälu), issued by the newspaper Eesti Päevaleht and the journal Akadeemia, Mart Orav, one of the editors of the series, spoke about the underlying principles of its compilation.
The primary aim was to educate the readers and to strengthen the collective identity of the nation and the state by bringing to them the history of Estonia and its culture. When preparing the series, the editors' wish was to present a picture of Estonian life during the last 150 years at home and abroad. Proportionally less space was given to the most recent past.
The series contains both classics of memoirs and first editions, including translations from representatives of other ethnicities that have lived and acted in Estonia. An attempt was made to include members of different trades and professions among the authors.
Daniel Vaarik
When my people are stupid
Daniel Vaarik paraphrases a well-known speech in Estonia by the local rap musician Chalice. The text was labelled "My people" and was performed in front of the festive audience at the anniversary of the Republic of Estonia in 2006. Using references to Jürgen Habermas, Harold Innis, Benedict Anderson and others, Vaarik reiterates the case for common public sphere as the basis for shared information sphere as a basis of national identity.
According to Vaarik, Estonia looks good on the map of press freedom, but this cannot be taken as a guarantee for free speech. He points out an incremental process that has started to take place in Estonian media that has its roots in political astroturfing and whose aim it is to silence opposing voices. He suggests that small but constant attacks on authors in the media by unmoderated anonymous commenters drive the sources away from general media. He also shows that in the end it is not possible for any author to ignore such attacks.
Based on experience as a communication adviser to several institutions in Estonia and his own media observations, Vaarik claims that hostile online practices in Estonia are indeed forcing minority voices to leave the public sphere. According to Vaarik, many organizations do not take part in public debates as part of their communication strategies any more, since there is less to win publicly and economically.
He also points out that astroturfing works in concert with online practices that are mainly driven by the need for user clicks or views. This has brought about tendencies to misquote people in order to get more controversial headlines, leaving the sources with even less motivation to participate in the media.
As a conclusion he finds that if the process goes on, the Estonian society will miss out on variety and, therefore, the proverbial "my people" will become "more stupid" if not something worse.
Jüri Allik
The world through the mirror of languages
In 1969, anthropologist Brent Berlin and linguist Paul Kay published the book Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution where they claimed that colour names have appeared in all the languages of the world in the same way, undergoing several consecutive stages. The book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages (2011) by Guy Deutscher, an expert in old Semitic languages, analyses the complex of ideas that Kay and Berlin introduced into the humanities and psychology.
The main watershed runs between the principle of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, and the view Deutscher calls the Boas-Jakobson principle. According to the former, the thought is imprisoned by language, but the Boas-Jakobson principle states that language does not set any limits to what a human being can think about.
Deutsher's book reconstructs the history and logic of this intellectual collision where the main figures were William Evart Gladstone (1809-1898), Lazarus Geiger (1829-1870), Hugo Magnus (1842-1907), Franz Boas (1858-1942), Edwar Sapir (1884-1939), Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941), Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), W. H. R. Rivers (1864-1922) and Robert Woodworth (1869-1962).
Poem of the Righteous Sufferer
Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (Ludlul bel nemeqi) is one of the classical texts of Akkadian literature; its main theme is human suffering. The poem concentrates on the relation between the suffering human and the god, in this poem the Babylonian main god Marduk (in other words "Lord"). Ludlul bel nemeqi is not a philosophical text about theodicy, which discusses human suffering in an abstract or generalizing way; the sufferer is personified in the character of Sub-Simesre-Sakkan who survived a number of social and physical ordeals and was finally rehabilitated by Marduk's mercy. It's a first-person account of Marduk's anger and mercy where a significant place belongs to praising the god (doxology). The main character in the poem is a supposedly historical person and one can assume that the lore about the righteous sufferer Sub-Simesre-Sakkan was recorded in writing a few generations after the life of the historical person, i.e. 1200-1000 BCE.
George Santayana
A religion of disillusion
The essay was inspired by the collection of thoughts La gloire du néant (The Glory of the Void) by Jean Lahor (real name Henri Cazalis, 1840-1909, a French doctor, writer and poet). The three influences that shaped Lahor's outlook were Hindu pantheism, achievements of natural sciences in his era, and the ideal of the Greek civilization. The principle of subordination, which forms the basis for combining these strains of thought into a unitary philosophy, is a moral principle. It is the inherent ability to create an ideal and the inherent fidelity to the ideal once created.
While the elements of Lahore's philosophy, both Oriental and scientific, tend to depict the humans and their intellect as a product and a prisoner of the irrational machine called the universe, then the cycle "cosmos" is a triumph amid illusions, order among chaos, la gloire du néant. This surmisable reconciliation between the practical optimism natural for an active being and the inevitable speculative pessimism of an intelligent being is more successful than the solutions offered to the same problem by philosophical systems. Humans do not achieve happiness by adapting to what is hostile to them; this would only mean their demise. However, by using what is hostile for their own goals as much as their energy allows them, they can create themselves an oasis in Nature, and at peace with themselves they can be at peace with Nature.
Santayana considers this direction of thought an exceptional step towards wisdom, which consists in giving up one's illusions in order to better achieve one's ideals in society, art and science.
Kaia Sisask
What is Jacques Derrida's reply to St. Paul?: On the Hebraist interpretation tradition in present-day literary theory
Jacques Derrida's vision of the omnipresence of the text [il n'y a pas de hors-texte] is a generally accepted viewpoint in present-day literary and translation theories. Estonian treatments have too often viewed post-modernism merely as a continuation and counterbalance to western modernism, discarding other traditions. Primarily I keep in mind the Judaic tradition that has continued throughout history in parallel with western thought, both defying and complementing the latter. The fact that Martin Buber, Sigmund Freud, Harold Bloom, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and many other key figures in the history of present-day thought have been Jews is not insignificant in understanding their creation. The current article attempts to draw attention to Hebraic roots in several nearly obligatory approaches and key concepts in present-day literary theory and to show how Jacques Derrida, while deconstructing the western onto-theological tradition, makes use of the Hebraist tradition as Hellenism's "other". Without trying to force Derrida's deconstruction under the first designation in the opposition pair Hebraism/Hellenism, I attempt to emphasize the connecting links between Derrida and the Judaic tradition, starting from Franz Rosenzweig, and to show the elements of the Hebraist interpretation tradition in Derrida's essay "Silkworm".
Proceeding from logos as the basis of Christian metaphysics, the interpretation of the world in western tradition is primarily metaphoric. If language is a sign, the sign always signifies something else, something invisible, which takes us back to the Platonic world of ideas. In the Hebrew Bible the utterance of God, the word, has a completely different meaning. The word is creative power. The Hebrew davar means both the word and the thing, without separating the one from the other. The Godly word conveys infinite perfection, the absolute. This message, however, cannot be understood without comments. A single dogmatized interpretation would be impossible in the Hebrew tradition, even for the reason that this would bring the transcendent into the immanent. The multitude of interpretations simultaneously clarifies and conceals the Godly message; interpretation is overwriting, bridging of gaps, filling of empty spaces, and thus, hiding of the original text. Being based not so much on the relation of correspondence but of adjacency, the Hebraist interpretation tradition is primarily metonymic. The Judaic and post-structuralist traditions have a somewhat similar basis -- both recognize the totality of the text, the only difference being that in the canonical text the infinite presence of the Author enables infinite interpretations of the text; modern hermeneutics, however, presents the text as an infinite play of signifiers, stressing the absence of the author. The current article discusses the thought of twentieth-century Jewish philosophers, which emphasises the absolute otherness and unobtainability of the transcendent signified. This rather diminishes than increases the gap between the two traditions and has sometimes enabled them to meet in modern literary theory.
Mari Järvelaid
Alcohol and its influence
Even in the initial years of the twenty first century, drinks containing ethanol continued to influence people's destinies. In Estonia the proportion of teetotallers is low; therefore, the quantities and the manner of consumption of alcoholic beverages have their impact on people's health and quality of life. Mari Järvelaid discusses whether alcoholism is a disease and whether the aggressiveness of a drunken person is caused by ethanol. She describes the alcohol policies of different countries and the origin and essence of the so-called French paradox. A short explanation is given why the great amount of ethanol is harmful to the liver, and how drinks of different strength produce different levels of intoxication. A question needing further discussion is whether the health disorders caused by alcohol are the sole responsibility of the individual. A different opinion is that subsection 1 of § 28 in Chapter II of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia ("Everyone has the right to health care") should be interpreted as the obligation of the state to protect its citizens, particularly children, from the perilous effects of alcohol.
Sandra Maasalu
The German army in Estonia during the Second World War
During most of the Second World War, Estonia was occupied by Germany. Although towards the end of 1941the Wehrmacht passed the governing of Estonia to the German civilian administration, it maintained a considerable part of its powers in Estonia. This was due to the special solution by which Estonia remained part of the rear area of the army group Nord. This was demanded by the military command, as the front and the besieged city of Leningrad were close. Historians, however, have so far paid more attention to the activities of the civilian authorities and combat in Estonia. This paper gives a brief insight into the German army's role, activities and interaction with the local population of Estonia during the war years.
The German front troops needed the territory of Estonia for short vacations and gathering supplies for the 18th Army. The security troops of the commander of the army group Rear General Franz von Roques were responsible for the security of the rear area, including fighting the Soviet partisans. Estonia was the area of operation for the 207th Security Division. Therefore, a considerable number of military personnel was stationed in Estonia. The locals had direct contacts with both security and front troops who had a brief vacation in the rear area. People's memories show that the contacts were mainly friendly. There are many accounts of relationships between German soldiers and local women.
The fact that the army did not hold direct administrative power in Estonia helped keep its reputation relatively high in the eyes of the people. In addition, the army in Estonia was not significantly involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The conclusion drawn is that the army and the people were both aware of the relatively positive attitude towards each other, and it can be said that both somehow tried to profit from that. For the army command, Estonia was important as a peaceful rear area and a source for manpower. The Estonian people, on the other hand, had a hope for renewed independence and viewed the German army as a power that could help to prevent the return of the Soviet occupation.
"All kinds of rumours are going around...": Reports about the situation in Estonia in 1943-1945. Part IV
Information summaries about the situation in Estonia in the last years of the German occupation, the beginning of the second Soviet occupation, and about the fate of Estonian refugees. The reports intended for Estonian diplomatic representatives in Finland and Sweden (in 1943-1944 also for the Finnish General Staff) were mainly compiled by journalist Voldemar Kures (1893-1987). He interviewed refugees, monitored letters from Estonia, newspapers, radio programmes, etc.