The debate concerning the legitimacy of awarding reparations for historical injustices focuses on the issue of finding a proper moral justification for granting reparations to the descendants of the victims of injustices which took place in the remote past. Regarding the case of Romanian communism as a more recent injustice, and analyzing the moral problems entailed by this historical lapse, within this paper I argue that overcoming such a legacy cannot be carried out, as in the case of (...) historical injustices situated more remotely in time, through the means of selective reparations, such as restitutions or compensations. For, even though they are justified from the perspective of rectificatory justice, selective reparations do not fulfill the requirements of social justice. Rather, I argue that the fall of the Romanian communist regime should have been followed by an equal distribution of all properties illegitimately seized by the state, to all adult Romanian citizens at that time, in order to attain the imperative of equal distribution of property among all citizens. The equal distribution thesis is the only way through which the Romanian society could have complied, at that moment of political and social renewal, with the requirements of justice. I also aim at explaining why other principles of justice, which either have or could have been implemented, cannot be properly justified. Finally, I analyze two main objections which could be invoked against my thesis, namely the economic efficiency objection and the legal realist objection. (shrink)

The problem of trickster leadership is discussed in this chapter in the context of the Romanian experience of modernity. This experience has emerged as a Post-Byzantine condition; it was strongly marked by the forty years of communist regimes and was loaded with a high amount of duplicity and ambivalence. The chapter argues that the communist type of trickster leadership in Romania was the outcome of a clash between two types of corruption: a domestic one and a global one. The (...) idea of ‘forms without substance’, coined in 1868 by the historian Titu Maiorescu, is shown to be indicative of the exilic condition in which Romanians remained caught even after their country became independent. The description of this paradoxical condition is followed by a review of the main eras of Romania as a modern state, arguing that this condition has led to an accumulation of disharmony and the absurd in the social fabric of the people. (shrink)

Some Romanian feminist scholars argue that welfare policies of post-communist states are deeply unjust to women and preclude them from reaching economic autonomy. The upshot of this argument is that liberal economic policy would advance feminist goals better than the welfare state. How should we read this dissonance between Western and some Eastern feminist scholarship concerning distributive justice? I identify the problem of dependency at the core of a possible debate about feminism and welfare. Worries about how decades of (...) communism have shaped citizenry feed feminists' suspicion of the welfare state and fears of paternalist policies. I criticize the arguments in favour of neoliberal policies and I suggest a crucial distinction between legitimate, universal forms of human dependency and dependencies that result from particular social arrangements. (shrink)

In the present chapter I try to determine to what extent the public policies adopted by Romanian governments following the fall of the communist regime contributed to alleviating the most egregious past injustice, the Holocaust. The measures taken for memorializing the Holocaust will be analysed through the lens of a mixed reparatory justice – relational egalitarian account. Employing such a framework entails a focus on symbolic reparations, meant to promote civic trust, social solidarity, and encourage the restoration of social (...) and cultural capital in societies affected by historical injustices. Such symbolic reparations can include public atonement, changing street names, establishing memorials, funding museums, including Holocaust study in the national curriculum, setting national days for the commemoration of the Holocaust, etc. The need for symbolic reparation has become increasingly clearer in the literature on Holocaust memorialization, and the present paper intends to go a step further, by providing researchers with a theoretical approach that can be used to make better sense of the effects of measures taken as part of the process of Holocaust remembrance. In the chapter I also address the issue of determining who the duty-bearers should be. I argue that there could be several indicators for reparatory justice, including in this case compensation programs and the establishment of institutions that would allow dialogue between descendants of the victims and descendants of the perpetrators, a sine qua non condition for restoring social trust in communities marked by violations of human rights, especially of such a scale as the Holocaust. (shrink)

In this study, we want to analyze the relation between two Romanian internationally-renowned men of culture: Mircea Eliade (often considered one of the greatest historians of religion of all times) and Nicolae Steinhardt (whose name and memory have been mentioned by Pope John the Second in his visit in Romania). Though they had about the same age (a difference of 5 years), they had little connections in the interwar period (a few meetings and, later, Steinhardt’s volume The Way of… (...) the Young [În genul… tinerilor] from 1934, where he parodies Eliade, among others). A strong influence (which changed destinies) occurred during 1958-1960, when Steinhardt was imprisoned for having read and spread writings of Romanians found in exile, including the novel Midsummer Night (The Forbidden Forest) [Noaptea de Sânziene (Pădurea interzisă)] by Eliade. After the release in 1964, Steinhardt was continuously watched by the communist Securitate and reports have been written about him, where his main guilt was his friendship with Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Eugen Ionescu, Virgil Ierunca, Monica Lovinescu, et al. Beyond these biographical intersections between Eliade and Steinhardt, there are also connections with regard to the Romanian culture, literary ideas, and visions on religious life. Steinhardt brings appreciations to the scholar in Chicago for the fact that he presents the beauty of the Romanian culture in the Western desecrated world and considers Eliade – and he’s one of the few who does this – influenced in his thinking by Christian ideals (in this direction, memorable are Steinhardt’s appreciations of the role played by Eliade in the Western culture, especially with his volume From Zamolxis to Genghis-Kahn [De la Zalmoxis la Genghis-Han], but also with his fiction, marking a direct reference to the novella A Fourteen Year Old Photograph [O fotografie veche de 14 ani]). (shrink)

This article intends to show the distance between work-life balance as a political and social issue at the EU and Romanian level, through the lens of the local gender equality policies following the process of EU accession. The article provides, in its first part, a brief presentation of the main theoretical axes structuring the available literature, followed up by the analysis of the occurrence of the work-life balance issue at the European level. Then the study examines the normative dimension (...) of work-life balance in post-communist Romania, seeking to understand to what extent work-life balance policies have been designed and implemented in the last 25 years. (shrink)

Over the years, as the all-encompassing processes of globalization and neoliberalization unfolded, the Popular Republic of China increasingly deepened its developmental policies intended to grow its technological and economic competitiveness. Chinese universities experimented with various forms of managerial techniques imported from the West, including those inspired by the neoliberal ideology. Their achievements in the field of tertiary education were so impressive that they easily became a source of inspiration for neoliberal managers aspiring to „excellence” all around the world. On the (...) other hand, in post-socialist Europe, stuck in an unsatisfying and unfulfilled search for ideal neoliberal productivity models, Romanian university managers are still obsessing with pushing their institutions among the ones listed by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), while many Romanian researchers are seeking to publish in Chinese journals. Some of them look up with envy to the generous incentives that Chinese public universities are providing in order to increase their publication output. However, the interest for debating or critically understanding the governance behind all these trends is barely visible. More often than not, researchers and experts alike are happy to believe that their academic work has nothing to do with politics or ideology. Few are questioning the political bases of neoliberal reforms at home, and even fewer are trying to find out more about what really happens in China. In this paper I will try to incite questions or working hypotheses about the ideology of neoliberal competitiveness, encouraging Romanian readers to reflect upon issues and debates informed by the prestige-driven university reforms experimented over the last three decades by the Popular Republic of China. Also, the paper will provide some useful bibliographical suggestions for those who want to dive deeper and better understand recent policy directions adopted by the Communist Party of China in this field. (shrink)

The Movement of the „Burning Bush” in Apologetically Context -/- Following the historical context of a very hard period in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the communist period, our research has some important directions regarding the apologetically specific of the Movement of the “Burning Bush”. Starting with the Christian journalism of Nichifor Crainic, who phonated the Periodic “Gândirea”, the passion for the dialogue between theology and culture had grown up. Therefore, we remember here the direct implication of Sandu Tudor, a (...) very important cultural presence in Bucharest. After two or three visits in the Holly Mont Athos, Sandu Tudor decided to enter in monasticism. From this point he created the Movement of the “Burning Bush” at “Saint Antim” Monastery from Bucharest. The program was based on discussions and prayer. In this concern we can remember here the presence of the Father Ioan Kulaghin. Anoter very important member of the Movement was Alexandru Mironescu. His entire work was confiscated and burned by the communists. His implication denotes that we can speak about the dialogue between theology and science. (shrink)

The analysis performed in connection with religious education in Romania has pointed out that after fatal atheist communist period in which religious denominations were excluded from social life and religious education was restricted and then completely excluded from public education in most cases being only present in families who passed it on ancestral beliefs, in our time, with the establishment of democratic regime in Romania, religion has regained the place it deserves in society. In the last 25 years were made (...) considerable efforts to correct the mistakes of the past and at the same time, attempt to respect religious freedom, as they are present throughout Europe, without abandoning the Romanian national values. Religious education has come to be again part of the educational structures, being introduced in the public schools, although currently there are voices that want to exclude it from the everyday life of people. This is just another atheist challenge that Romanian society should respond promptly and seriously, showing that Romanian national values have been built on traditional religious values. With these values the Romanian people appears before Europe, trying to meet the challenges of any kind in the world today. (shrink)

Father André Scrima is one of the most enigmatic figures of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Everything related to him passes as extraordinary. He was an exception among the Romanian intellectuals who suffered under communism. Beyond that, his journeys and spiritual experiences possess something indescribable, almost sacramental. His presence overwhelmed those who met him and his writings retained this trait. The present study focuses on Scrima’s Christology, highlighting its uniqueness and its practical implications. Although Scrima does not dedicate (...) a book to the subject, all of his writings refer to it. However, due to his distinctiveness, it is difficult to organize his Christology in a systematic way. The most lucrative approach is to group his texts along the hermeneutical moments that define his writing: images, stories and stances. In Scrima’s logic, all words/signs are the very synthesis of a spiritual experience, all stories develop the theo-logical synthesis of the signs, and the relation between the stories forms the tradition as a set of interrogations and communitarian commitments. If we evaluate Scrima’s Christology in this manner, we do not come to a system, but to a succession of images. The core of these images re-mains the same, Jesus Christ, yet it is seen in nuances that unveil His beauty – Stranger, Gate, Logos, Name above all names –, in an unpredictable play of perspectives. It can be said that Scrima’s approach resembles a kaleidoscope, which, by using mirrors and light, gives an insight to the unsuspected possibilities of all fixed forms. (shrink)

For this study, we will present the most important ecumenical activities of Patriarch Justinian Marina. He was the third Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church between 1948 and 1977. During this period, he was very concerned to establish a relationship with the main ecumenical institutions. We will speak about his dialogue with one of the most important ecumenical group, namely the World Council of Churches, founded in 1948 in Geneva, Switzerland. Of course, the dialogue with the Church of England (...) must to be mentioned. His ecumenical activity was very important for the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Justinian being one of the most important Church leaders who tried and succeeded to be in contact with different religious leaders from Romania and abroad. We do not have to forget that during his time the communist regime ruled our country. In the first part, we will give different historical information about his ecumenical activity and in the second part we will explore his theological thinking about the ecumenical dialogue and movement. (shrink)

In section 1, I develop epistemic communism, my view of the function of epistemically evaluative terms such as ‘rational’. The function is to support the coordination of our belief-forming rules, which in turn supports the reliable acquisition of beliefs through testimony. This view is motivated by the existence of valid inferences that we hesitate to call rational. I defend the view against the worry that it fails to account for a function of evaluations within first-personal deliberation. In the rest (...) of the paper, I then argue, on the basis of epistemic communism, for a view about rationality itself. I set up the argument in section 2 by saying what a theory of rational deduction is supposed to do. I claim that such a theory would provide a necessary, sufficient, and explanatorily unifying condition for being a rational rule for inferring deductive consequences. I argue in section 3 that, given epistemic communism and the conventionality that it entails, there is no such theory. Nothing explains why certain rules for deductive reasoning are rational. (shrink)

The communist norm requires that scientists widely share the results of their work. Where did this norm come from, and how does it persist? Michael Strevens provides a partial answer to these questions by showing that scientists should be willing to sign a social contract that mandates sharing. However, he also argues that it is not in an individual credit-maximizing scientist's interest to follow this norm. I argue against Strevens that individual scientists can rationally conform to the communist norm, even (...) in the absence of a social contract or other ways of socially enforcing the norm, by proving results to this effect in a game-theoretic model. This shows that the incentives provided to scientists through the priority rule are sufficient to explain both the origins and the persistence of the communist norm, adding to previous results emphasizing the benefits of the incentive structure created by the priority rule. (shrink)

Karl Marx states in Capital that “man, if not as Aristotle thought a political animal, is at all events a social animal” (Marx, 1992, 444). That Marx draws from Aristotle’s work has been long-recognized, but one could argue that Marx’s very conception of man—what he calls “species-being”—is a derivative of Aristotle’s theory of the good life. This article explores the Aristotelian underpinnings of Marx’s political philosophy and argues that Marx’s theory of species-being and human emancipation supervenes upon Aristotle’s theory of (...) eudaimonia. The consequence of such a rethinking suggests that the Aristotelian good life itself is possible only in the communist society of Marx’s imaginings and, as such, is a state that must be realized—whether by nature or revolution—for human flourishing. Inspired by Aristotle’s assertion that “friendship exists to the extent that what is just exists” (Aristotle, 1991a, 527), this article draws from several of Aristotle’s and Marx’s texts to situate man as an inherently social being, whose need of other men serves both to edify and realize a common end toward which the state is oriented: the life of virtuous activity performed by and in an association of equals. (shrink)

Higginbotham argued that certain linguistic items of English, when used in indirect discourse, necessarily trigger first-personal interpretations. They are: the emphatic reflexive pronoun and the controlled understood subject, represented as PRO. PRO is special, in this respect, due to its imposing obligatory control effects between the main clause and its subordinates ). Folescu & Higginbotham, in addition, argued that in Romanian, a language whose grammar doesn’t assign a prominent role to PRO, de se triggers are correlated with the subjunctive (...) mood of certain verbs. That paper, however, didn’t account for the grammatical diversity of the reports that display immunity to error through misidentification in Romanian: some of these reports are expressed by using de se triggers; others are not. Their IEM, moreover, is not systematically lexically controlled by the verbs, via their theta-roles; it is, rather, determined by the meaning of the verbs in question. Given the data from Romanian, I will argue, the phenomenon of IEM cannot be fully explained starting either from the syntactical or the lexical structure of a language. (shrink)

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash income paid to all without a means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely that UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping to bring about communism. It argues that previous answers to this question have paid insufficient attention to a logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communism? In reply, it distinguishes two different accounts: a left-libertarian version that associates (...) communism with the freedom to live and work how one wants, and a perfectionist version that associates communism with the overcoming of alienated labour and self-realisation in work. It argues that UBI would make steps towards the left-libertarian account but not the perfectionist account. Ultimately, then, the question “should Marxists support basic income?” is shown to partly depend on which account of communism Marxists want to bring about. (shrink)

The very first permanent Romanian representation to the United States of America was established in Washington D.C. pursuant to the Royal Decree no. 1027 of 24 September 1917, led by Dr. Constantin Angelescu (1869-1948) in capacity as of head of legation with the rank of plenipotentiary minister. The game of history made it so that he took office on 15 January 1918 – the birth anniversary of our great Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. The Secretary of the legation was (...) Prince Anton (Antoine) Bibescu (1878-1951), the ambassador-to-be of Romania to the United States between 1921 and 1926. (shrink)

In the Critique of Gotha Programme, Karl Marx famously argues that a communist society will be characterised by the principle, ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!’ I take up a question about this principle that was originally posed by G.A. Cohen, namely: what makes communism (so conceived) possible for Marx? In reply to this question, Cohen interprets Marx as saying that communism is possible because of limitless abundance, a view that Cohen takes (...) to be implausible for ecological reasons. I develop a new interpretation of Marx's position. On this interpretation, people in communist society achieve self-realisation through providing others with the goods and services required for their self-realisation. Coupled with a reasonably high (but not immense) development of productive power, self-realisation generates conditions in which people can produce according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. I defend this view as an interpretation of Marx and I argue that it represents a more plausible account of what makes communism possible than Cohen's interpretation in which technological advance and limitless abundance play the predominant role. (shrink)

Boris Groys’ suggestion is that after the historical experience of the Soviet Union and the passage to the market economy in China, the communism goes back to the state of theory. Such theoretical communism is not a theory of the communism though, nor a resumption and reinterpretation of the great theoretical apparatuses of the communism. It is instead a theory melted from the facts, literally ab-solute: not because the facts are “idealistically” resolved into the concept, but (...) simply because they are “already happened”. In the scene of the posthistoire the communism reveals its ancient linguistic nature: its task is to preside to the concert of the contradictions. The communism is the common house of the contradictions, where the contradictions coexist all together; and in this sense, it is also the last theory of peace. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that there are two more or less distinct theories of the State in Hegel. The first, and better known, is developed in the Philosophy of Right, wherein Hegel endorses the notion of a coercive, centralised, and hierarchical 'Ideal State'. This is precisely the theory which certain radical Hegelians of the nineteenth century (e.g., Marx and Bakunin) viewed with such deep suspicion. The second, which has not received as much attention by commentators, appears in the Phenomenology (...) and other early writings. Although this theory introduces many of the key components of Hegel's later political philosophy, it is nonetheless far more radical in its political implications--most important, in its gesturing toward a society which makes room for the realisation of the stateless, classless vision of anarchist communism. The point is not to demonstrate that Hegel is inconsistent or self-contradictory, but show that there are elements of creative tension within his political theory which are not only sufficient to vindicate him from the criticisms of Marx and Bakunin, but also to re-contextualise him as a radical precursor. As I shall argue, the kind of society that emerges in the final chapters of the Phenomenology need not contain the elements of coercion and class struggle which appear in the Philosophy of Right and repulse Marx and Bakunin. On the contrary, such a society may be understood as prefiguring the classless, stateless society which both Marx and Bakunin ultimately endorse. (shrink)

During the three decades since Albania overthrew the communist dictatorial system and began its democratic changes, the existence of a line of thought in Albanian society has been noted, which tends to explain the behaviour of Albanian politicians during the transition period based on the assumption of a “communist mentality” carried by them. This line of thought has often been dominant and has been reflected in the Albanian media and public space as a form of “main” explanation to show many (...) of the failures that Albanian democracy has faced during these 30 years, the authoritarian behaviour of political elites, the “state capture” by political parties, the crisis of state institutions, etc. Applying the concept of “communist mentality” in the Albanian media and public space and explaining through it (almost) any kind of negative phenomenon, problem, or behaviour that contradicts the idea of democracy or prevents it from developing, is very problematic, therefore it has served as an impetus in undertaking this study. In this paper, a critical approach will be offered to this discourse that has often dominated the Albanian media and public space, questioning whether is this “communist mentality” the determining factor for the behaviour of Albanian politicians and the failures of Albanian democracy or there are other factors that may explain these phenomena. (shrink)

Socialism is a political ideology that proposes that the state should control the means of production to manage a planned economy. The possibility of realizing this thesis has been debated throughout the 20th century. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) includes technologies such as artificial intelligence or big data that could reopen the debate through the formulation of new digital models of planned economy. This qualitative research presents some theoretical models proposed in academia to update socialism in the 4IR. It describes (...) six new theoretical forms of digital socialism: Platform Economy, Socialist Feedback Infrastructure, Algorithmic Central Planning, Cyber-Communism, Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC), and Open Loop In Natura Economic Planning. The study concludes that the study of political ideologies and the debate about the future of society would benefit from further analysis of these models. (shrink)

What differentiates scientific research from non-scientific inquiry? Philosophers addressing this question have typically been inspired by the exalted social place and intellectual achievements of science. They have hence tended to point to some epistemic virtue or methodological feature of science that sets it apart. Our discussion on the other hand is motivated by the case of commercial research, which we argue is distinct from (and often epistemically inferior to) academic research. We consider a deflationary view in which science refers to (...) whatever is regarded as epistemically successful, but find that this does not leave room for the important notion of scientific error and fails to capture distinctive social elements of science. This leads us to the view that a demarcation criterion should be a widely upheld social norm without immediate epistemic connotations. Our tentative answer is the communist norm, which calls on scientists to share their work widely for public scrutiny and evaluation. (shrink)

In order to graduate, Florida's high school students by law must learn that Communism is evil, dangerous, and fallacious. All students must learn that the U.S. produces the highest standard of living and more freedom than any other economic system on earth. State universities in Florida are creating a curriculum to implement the Americanism versus Communism Act of 1961 and the Free Enterprise and Consumer Education Act of 1975. ;The Florida Department of Education says that ideology, noncritical thinking, (...) is superior to critical thinking and that the superiority of the U.S. political economy and the dignity of the individual rest in part on peoples' being able to express themselves freely. ;Florida's A.V.C. and F.E.C.E.A. proponents have a special way of convincing audiences that they will develop loyalty while at the same time imposing a set of ideas not open to question. ;This work argues that, intentionally or not, Florida's legislature and Department of Education have set up an official ideology and the mechanism to purvey it. This ideological approach defeats the aim of comparing systems objectively. While the stated aim is to promote critical thinking, the D.O.E.'s special philosophy underscoring words like "democracy" results in indoctrinating students with a questionable description of the U.S. system. (shrink)

The utterance of morals or morality within a communist space is one that may, in the best of cases, raise a few eyebrows or, in the worst of cases, summon calls for condemnation or accusations of being unscientific. The subject of communist morality is one that is often ignored within the broader revolutionary left, while at the same time—especially within our current insurrectionary moment—beckons to be engaged with. As the hydra of neoliberalism begins its inevitable collapse, throwing capitalism once more (...) into a global crisis—and thusly its imperialist head begins to twist fascistically from the periphery back inward toward the United States and Europe—these categories that before seemed abstract and idealistic suddenly become vivid and tangible. Evil is how these injustices are described—in a non-hyperbolic fashion—by those engaged in the frontlines of revolutionary activity. So why is morality eschewed and denounced in left academic discourse? Are morals solely the provenance of the reactionary right or the dreamy idealist? (shrink)

Games, play and gamification are essential for all ages because they allow players to develop useful 21st century skills such as digital literacy, critical and scientific thinking, problem solving, comprehension and communication skills, storytelling skills, etc. The new generation of digital natives requires a different approach in learning new things and libraries could take advantage of that by using gamification on learning content. In this way, libraries could become more welcoming spaces, more open to the public and much more interested (...) in what the public wants. To find out what people think about the idea of playing games at the library, the idea of libraries using gamified activities or if the public would like to use gamified apps on the library websites, a questionnaire-based survey was administered on Facebook and WhatsApp between February 2 and February 8, 2024. Analysis of the answers obtained shows that the Romanian public is open to the idea of libraries where reading, communicating, socializing, acquiring knowledge in various fields such as literature, history, geography can be combined in a fun and enjoyable way with play, games and gamification. Respondents would also like to use gamification on library websites such as a book lending app. (shrink)

This article proposes a phenomenological interpretation of nostalgia for communism, a collective feeling expressed typically in most Eastern European countries after the official fall of the communist regimes. While nostalgia for communism may seem like a paradoxical feeling, a sort of Stockholm syndrome at a collective level, this article proposes a different angle of interpretation: nostalgia for communism has nothing to do with communism as such, it is not essentially a political statement, nor the signal of (...) a deep value tension between governance and the people. Rather, I propose to understand this collective feeling as the symptom of a deeper need at a national level for solidarity and ultimately about recapturing a common feeling of identity in solidarity. This hypothesis would be in line with a phenomenological approach to memory as a process of establishing shared codes by rewriting the past in such a way as to strengthen social bonds and make possible a reimagining of a common future. Nostalgia for communism does not need to be ultimately an uncritical stance as it has been depicted, instead one could interpret it as a form of critical reflexion about our current forms of life. Instead of seeing communism nostalgia as a specific form of being stuck in the past, one could explore its potential for pointing at the things that are still not working in the current neo-liberal regime. (shrink)

This research examines the most important historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and religious factors before, during, and after the reign of Communism in Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 2021 and their effect on the extreme increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, in the present-day Czech Republic. It devotes special attention to the role of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii) and the changing policies of the Holy See vis-à-vis this Church, examining these policies' impact on the (...) continuing decline of Roman Catholicism in the Czech Republic after the collapse of Communism. The article also deals with Pope Pius XII's Secret Mandates of 1948-1950, the Second Vatican Council, and the Holy See's Ostpolitik. Scholars, who previously relied only on the views of the Czechs, blame the unprecedented drop in Christianity, the near-total destruction of the Catholic Church, and the rise in atheism on the Czechoslovak communist government's four decades of totalitarianism. Although the increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity were substantial during the era of Communism from 1948 to 1989, our data indicate that the decline in Christianity, particularly the historically predominating Roman Catholicism, did not commence with the 1948 communist coup d’état but traces its origins to the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the conclusion of WWI and the establishment of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918. What's more, this research shows that the most significant and unprecedented steep deterioration of the Christian Faith, namely Roman Catholicism, did not occur during the era of Communism but only after the Czechoslovak communist government collapsed in 1989. This massive decay did not happen even during the most extraordinary communist persecution of the Catholic Church during the era of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. This research further finds that the Holy See's ill-advised policies and systematic, sustained, and prevalent failures in leadership, guidance, and teachings are responsible for the near destruction of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the end destruction of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii), in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the fall of Communism. These failures furthermore contributed to the Czech Republic, the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia that once were in the center of Christendom, degenerating into the most atheist country in Europe and the world today. (shrink)

Romania and the United States of America share some history that is similar in many respects. Both states have struggled to gain their independence, their sovereignty, and historical recognition. That in which they have followed a different path was about the civilization pattern in which each of the two states was established. We need to remind here and pay all the due respect to them, the Romanian and American historians who have dealt with the early issues of the US- (...) class='Hi'>Romanian relations, that is Paul Cernovodeanu, Cornelia Bodea, Ion Stanciu, Dumitru Vitcu, Constantin Bușe, Keith Hitchins, Stephen FischerGalați, Radu R. Florescu, James F. Clarke, and many others. (shrink)

Communist discourses are resurging in various disciplines across the globe. Philosophy has its share of this resurgence especially after the global financial crisis of 2008 made a number of its thinkers convene in various conferences and intellectually meet in a host of publications. In these intellectual engagements, the idea of communism is once again interrogated as the moribund capitalist system failed humanity its promise. Alain Badiou is among the leading figures in the philosophical task of (re)interrogating the idea of (...) communism. Badiou raised the urgency of reformulating what he calls as the communist hypothesis for it to both reconsider its supposed failures of the past and better suit the current conditions. Badiou is particularly guided by the lessons of the May ’68 of France, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China, and various contemporary popular uprisings to develop a reformulation of the communist hypothesis. In advancing a laborious task of reformulation, Badiou inevitably rejected a core category of the Marxist-Leninist tradition: the party. The rejection is supported by a view of the party that reduced it to its supposed fusion with the State, i.e., the party-State fusion. Such a fusion is characterized by either parliamentarian or insurrectionary politics. In this politics, Badiou argues that the party is obstructed from advancing further the proletarian revolution as it is tied to a Statist procedure. This work develops a Maoist reformulation of the communist hypothesis. Along the course of the socialist constructions of Russia and China, certain moments of what can be called as indigenized and mobilizational politics characterized periods that escape what Badiou reduced the party into, i.e., the party-State fusion. The Maoist notions of the mass line and protractedness come out as indispensable requisites in developing the concepts of indigenized and mobilizational politics. These moments depicted what can be called as the party-masses fusion and provided practical resources not only for the rectification of the supposed failures of the past but also for a reformulation of the communist hypothesis. Through the development and employment of the category of the party-masses fusion and the politics that determine it, the reformulation of the communist hypothesis is supported by a discourse of success rather than of defeat. (shrink)

Technical reproduction in general, and photography in particular have changed the status and practices of art. Similarly, the expansion of Web 2.0 interactive spaces presents opportunities and challenges to artistic communities. Present study focuses on artistic activism: socially sensitive artists publish their creation on the internet on its most interactive space – social media. These artworks carry both artistic and social messages. Such practices force us to reinterpret some elements of the classical art paradigm: its autonomy, authorship, uniqueness (as opposed (...) to copies and series), and the social role of art. The analysis is aimed at Hungarian and Romanian online artistic projects from Transylvania region of Romania, relevant as intercultural communication endeavours. Our research question is the way they differ from the traditional artistic paradigm. (shrink)

Every year, the member Churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) are called to actively participate in the meetings organized in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. From my perspective, these moments are an extraordinary opportunity to share in the richness of the Orthodox tradition, which means an act of confession and authentic witness. In the first part, I will present critically the canonical synthesis of the Orthodox, the concept of “Ecumenical Eucharist” and of Lima Liturgy, followed by (...) the recommendations of the Special Commission for Orthodox participation in the WCC regarding confessional and interconfessional common prayer. Then, this article will make a historical presentation of the week of prayer. It is very important to know how this initiative started and how it was accepted at the beginning and over the years. At least in Romania, where we have an Orthodox majority, this week has become a controversial issue produced by those who are against ecumenical dialogue. A special attention is for the actual practice approved by the Romanian Patriarchate. Finally, the article will present the statements of the new Orthodox documents and it will end with some conclusions about this moment of common Christian witness. (shrink)

In this study, we metaphysically discuss how societal values will change and what will happen to the world when superintelligence is safely realized. By providing a mathematical definition of superintelligence, we examine the phenomena derived from this thesis. If an intelligence explosion is triggered under safe management through advanced AI technologies such as large language models (LLMs), it is thought that a modern form of broken communism—where rights are bifurcated from the capitalist system—will first emerge. In that era, the (...) value of humans will ultimately eliminate external factors, and beings without superintelligence will converge into irreplaceable existences possessing only intrinsic value. The world will be divided into those who possess superintelligence and those who do not. For better or worse, global standardization will progress, and due to over-simulation accompanying the intelligence explosion, we may become unable to distinguish whether the reality we inhabit is original or a copy created through augmented reality. -/- Note: In the creation of this paper, we have undertaken all writing ourselves and have not used generative AI for text generation except for translation purposes. (shrink)

A Philosophy for Communism Rethinking Althusser.

This paper aims to measure the quality of all Romanian cities’ websites in 2019 and 2022, before and after the disruptive event of COVID-19. Since the official websites are the core instrument of e-governance, the changes in the quality of Romanian cities’ websites reflect the changes in the development of urban e-governance in Romania. The COVID-19 lockdowns and contact restrictions and the moving of most activities into the online environment had the potential to impact the performance of (...) class='Hi'>Romanian cities’ websites significantly and catalyze the progress of local e-governance. The quality of Romanian cities’ official websites was measured using an adapted survey instrument proposed by Holzer and Kim and Manoharan, Melitski, and Holzer. The tool covers five critical criteria of website quality or performance: personal data security, usability, content, services, and citizen participation. The research results may seem contrary to expectations: the improvements of websites have been incremental rather than transformational. Although our research provides only a case study, we may assert that the reform of traditional administration remains a step-by-step process. Our study’s main contribution consists in showing that the progress of e-governance is an incremental process even in a situation of emergency that requires the moving of most activities into the online environment. (shrink)

The present article dwells on the idea of the empowerment of women as it was used by the Communist regime. Eugenics, a field much discussed in inter-war Romania, was the main tool in controlling women. The principles of this science, related to the idea of biology as destiny, were adopted and applied so that the private sphere became public. My thesis is that even if these principles were used in the communist strategy in order to strengthen the nation, in fact, (...) their core aspect – reproduction – became only a means for increasing work force and in the end weakened the family and implicitly the nation. (shrink)

This essay offers an overview of the diversity of women’s prose writing that emerged on the Czech cultural scene in the post-communist era. To that end it briefly characterizes the work of eight Czech women authors who were born within the first two decades after World War II and began to create during the post-1968 era of ‘normalization’. In this broad sense they belong to a single generation. With rare exception their work was not officially published in their homeland until (...) the 1990s. The writers included are: Lenka Procházková, Tereza Boučková, Alexandra Berková, Zuzana Brabcová, Daniela Hodrová, Sylvie Richterová, Iva Pekárková, and Eva Hauserová. The overview is followed by a concise comparative analysis of texts by three very different writers (Procházková, Pekárková, and Hodrová), using a feminist critical approach. There is also an appendix of works by these writers available in English translation. (shrink)

In this article I analyse one of the most important claims of the neoliberal policy prescriptions for Central and East European states in the early 1990s, that 'communist' property should be privatised. My claim is that this neoliberal policy prescription was based on a number of false assumptions about what it was 'communist' property, and a number of false assumptions about communist law. As a result of these assumptions, the post-communist process of privatisation was plagued by a host of unintended (...) and negative consequences. Nevertheless, based on these false assumptions, the neoliberal ideology was capable to portray the privatisation as 'rights based' and essentially a democratic process. I debunk these pretenses by showing that the reality of 'communist property' was totally different than that assumed by neoliberal policies. The distinctiveness of communist arrangements of property resided not in absence of private property, which was tolerated under communism, but in the organisation of property as an administrative matter, based on unwritten operational rules. Moreover, the communist corporate law was more or less the similar with the 'western corporate' law, so a simple change of formal law would not lead to the transformation of communist property into private property. If a transformation was desired, what needed to be changed was the operational rules accordingly to which the communist property operated. However, this was a level of 'reform' totally ignored by the neoliberal policies, with the result that post privatisation these operational rules continued to apply. The result was the great enrichment of the former communist managers who were able to benefit 'privatisation' at the expense of the public, in a process which was not 'right based' or 'democratic.'. (shrink)

This paper considers whether Marx's views about communism change significantly during his lifetime. According to the ‘standard story’, as Marx got older he dropped the vision of self-realization in labour that he spoke of in his early writings, and adopted a more pessimistic account of labour, where real freedom is achieved outside the working-day, in leisure. Other commentators, however, have argued that there is no pessimistic shift in Marx's thought on this matter. This paper offers a different reading of (...) this debate. It argues that there are two visions of the good life in Marx. However, it suggests that these two visions cannot be understood in terms of a simple shift between a ‘young’ and ‘mature’ Marx. Rather, it claims that Marx moves between these two visions throughout his writings. In this way, it suggests that Marx's intellectual development on this issue is best understood as an oscillation rather than a shift. Once this interpretive claim is advanced, the paper then moves on to consider some potential causes and implications of Marx's life-long oscillation between two different conceptions of the good life. (shrink)

The paper presents a critical evaluation of the existing anthologies of Romanian oratory and analyzes the pertinence of a new research line: how to trace back the foundations of Romanian versatile political memory, both from a lexical and from an ideological point of view. As I argue in the first part of the paper, collecting and editing the great speeches of Romanian orators seems crucial for today’s understanding of politics (politicians’ speaking/ actions as well as voters’ behavior/ (...) electoral habits). In the second part, I focus on the particularities generated by a dramatic change of media support (in the context of Romania’s high rates of illiteracy at the end of the 19th century): from “writing” information on the slippery surface of memory (declaimed political texts such as “proclamations,” “petitions,” and “appeals”) to “writing” as such (transcribed political speeches). The last part of the paper problematizes the making of a new canon of Romanian eloquence as well as the opportunity of a new assemblage of oratorical texts, illustrative for the 19th century politics, and endeavors to settle a series of virtual editing principles. (shrink)

Following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, Slavoj Žižek published a book called "Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World", which triggered a wave of reactions. In the book, he presents how the media ruthlessly exploited this subject, accentuating the panic. Many major studies have predicted the emergence of such a pandemic, but have been ignored by all governments, declaring them to be exaggerated. Žižek believes that the current pandemic has led to the bankruptcy of the current "barbaric" capitalism, wondering if the (...) path that humanity will take is a neo-communism (he describes himself as a "radical leftist" and a "communist in a qualified sense”). Žižek argues these ideas with the pandemic socio-political measures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the President of France, and the temporary nationalization of the railways by Boris Johnson. "Even [US President Donald] Trump transferred billions of dollars to the public. He issued calls to take over the private sector insofar as medical supplies are concerned." DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.12914.12484. (shrink)

This book examines the artistic policies of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) during the early post-war years (1944-1951), after the defeat of Fascism in Europe and the outbreak of the Cold War. It brings together theoretical debates on artists’ political engagement and an extensive critical apparatus, providing the reader with an historical framework for wider reflections on the relationship between art and politics.

This article highlights the underlying themes or leitmotifs of anti-Ukrainian war propaganda that resonate in the Romanian media sphere. Utilizing the method of thematic analysis, we dissect the messages related to the war in Ukraine that have been disseminated in mass media and social media. Our research, which is primarily descriptive, focuses on the content of the messages, not their authors’ personal, financial, or ideological motivations. To achieve our research goal, we will present the essential features of propaganda messages (...) and apply the thematic analysis method to anti-Ukrainian messages written in Romanian and posted on the Internet after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army (February 24, 2022). Our commitment to objectivity ensures the credibility of our findings. (shrink)

During its first four congresses, held annually under Lenin, the Communist International went through two distinct phases: while the first two congresses focused on programmatic and organisational aspects of the break with Social-Democratic parties, the third congress, meeting after the putsch known as the ‘March Action’ of 1921 in Germany, adopted the slogan ‘To the masses!’, while the fourth codified this new line in the ‘Theses on the Unity of the Proletarian Front’. The arguments put forward by the first two (...) congresses were originally drafted by leaders of the Russian Communist Party, but the initiative for the adoption of the united-front policy came from the German Communist Party under the leadership of Paul Levi. This article explores the historical circumstances that turned the German Communists into the pioneers of the united-front tactic. In the documentary appendix we add English versions of two documents drafted by Levi: the ‘Letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany’ on the Kapp Putsch, dated 16 March 1920, and thekpd’s ‘Open Letter’ of 8 January 1921, which gave rise to the united-front tactic. (shrink)

Nowadays, mass-media represents a support for the Church in his process of communication with his believers. The liturgical and also the dogmatic message can reach easiest to the one who are far from the ecclesiastical and liturgical communion. In this case, we can say that the Church is very present in the life of the people and also much implicated in the modern society. For the Christians the communications (having here the mass-media channels) become communion because it represents the mission (...) of the Church in the process of teaching and confessing the truth of the Gospel. We can say that the Church must use the modern channels of communication in media because she has the possibility and power to transform them after the words of the Holy Scriptures. In this regard, in the periodic and religious newspapers from our country, besides the period in which they appeared or the area in which they were distributed, there were published pages of great interest for the believers, written both by great theologians of the Church and also by the cultural personalities with love for the Christian values and faith. At the same time, alongside the theological issues, there existed also memorable pages about the architectural monuments and about the priests and believers which confessed the Orthodox faith in different periods of the history of the Church. (shrink)

This article discusses the various dimensions of East Central Europe's closure with the communist past, and then assesses the impact of transitional justice measures in the closure with communism. Special attention is paid to the so called 'lustration', which in the view of the author performs important functions in transitions to democratic regimes, related to the reconstruction of a moral and rational community, and to the closure with the communist past. The article shows that the failures and controversies surrounding (...) 'lustration' were due to its radical potential of reconstruction of a moral–rational democratic community, and also to specific socio–political factors of the post–communist ECE. What specific features of ECE post–communist transitions and of lustration conducted to the recurrence of debates related to the communist past is a question that has not been addressed heretofore, despite a fairly well–developed literature on post–communist administrative justice. (shrink)

This article explores the transition experience of Croatia from 1990 to the present, with emphasis on social attitudes towards the free-market system and how the legacy of communism has influenced people’s expectations of and views towards the economy. The anthropological position of man as homo economicus is of central importance, if one is to properly understand the forces at work in a transition society like Croatia. This position also has far-ranging implications for ethics and morality, as well as for (...) the general culture. Assisted by the insights of Catholic social teaching, in particular Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, the article concludes with possible lessons from the failure of communism and the challenges of transition. (shrink)

The existence of a daco-roman Christianity in the carpato-danubiano-pontic areal is confirmed not only by the historians, but also by the Romanian theologians and philosophers. Inspired by the Scripture’s letter and by the teachings of the Holy Fathers, most of them developed this link in the purpose of argumentation of a “Romanian dimension of the existence”. From Nae Ionescu, Crainic, to Vulcănescu, Cioran, Ţuţea, and then Ioan Gh. Savin, Dumitru Stăniloae, I.G. Coman or Nestor Vornicescu, the entire (...) class='Hi'>Romanian cultural elite makes a very important confession about the Christian foundation of the Romanian existence. With the help of a theological and spiritual heritage, therefore enforced by daco-roman specific, the work of these illuminated people of our nation determinates “the eternal Romanian icon of understanding the world”, finishing in the end with the confessing of “a Romanian dimension of existence”. In their kind of thinking, these “prophets of Romanian nation” “the skyline of Romanian world lays down from ordinary as far as legend, from here to beyond, from presence to absence, from then till now, from now as far as eternity, with an entire variety of Romanian modulation of nature, like Constantin Noica named them in his Romanian Feeling of Essence. And among these worlds, the passing through comes senseless, in an organic way; through a custom, but custom like place of passing through, not like a forbiddance, personally integrated in the existence like a step, not like threshold. All these words: beyond, absence, eternity are for the Romanian people qualities of his own nature”. (shrink)