New technologies like genome editing raise complex ethical questions that go the heart of debates over so-called “human nature” and evolution. Philosopher of science Tim Lewens considers how the latest innovations affect received notions of what is and what is not natural.
Perhaps the most serious problem with drones is not the state of mind they create in their operators, writes Arne Borge of Vagant (Norway); but that war has given way to never-ending police action, where the police force is no longer subject to common law.
As the struggle between democracy and a dream of some kind of return to the past deepens in Europe, Adam Zagajewksi contemplates the passage between ideas and action in the real world, wherein lies the old European – and not only European – wound.
Responding to the appalling violence that the machineries of war and economics unleashed during the twentieth century, Marcel Cohen concurs with Samuel Beckett’s mid-century remark: “To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now”. Based on a speech first delivered in 1998, Cohen’s essay remains hugely relevant today.
Like Yugoslavia, the European Union may well prove a failure in the long run, unless it can prevent the dominance of its most powerful member states. Hence the continuous need to find ways of embracing difference without giving up the cultural tradition in which one was born and raised.
Norwegian literary critic Henning Hagerup grapples with the notion of the uncanny in European language and literature. He also considers how today Marxist thought poses an unheimlich threat to the glorified, ahistorical arrogance of the capitalistic-neoliberal establishment.
The exile’s personal history can be compared to a shadow that he has lost and could never hope to recover, writes Olivier Remaud. Having acknowledged that life in exile tends to dehumanize, both inwardly and outwardly, Remaud explores a rich vein of literature dealing with the topic, from Ovid and Adelbert von Chamisso, to Hannah Arendt and Siegfried Kracauer.
It was Voltaire’s objective to make each individual conscious of their intellectual independence, writes Fernando Savater. Indeed, without Voltaire, it would be impossible to conceive of either modern intellectuals or their enlightened audiences.
In this excerpt from Andrzej Stasiuk’s latest book, one of Poland’s leading writers and critics explores what drove him to realize a lifelong dream, and strike out ever further eastwards, away from his childhood home. As Stasiuk remarks, he always was attracted to places “that lie at the end of the line, spaces from which you can only ever return”.
Just weeks after Ukraine’s parliament voted to remove Viktor Yanukovych from office, the country’s eastern regions descended into a senseless war, marking a grave new low in relations with Russia. Historian Olena Stiazhkina reflects powerfully on how the conflict has compromised Ukraine’s attempts to take its destiny into its own hands.
One almost wonders what Christianity has added to Roman writers’ reflections on old age, writes Andrei Plesu. The answer: a much greater emphasis on transcendence. But how might the dimension of transcendence contribute to a better understanding and use of old age?
In honour of Adam Zagajewski being awarded the 2016 Jean Améry Prize for European essay writing, Eurozine publishes Zagajewski’s defence of ardour. That is, true ardour, which doesn’t divide but unifies; and leads neither to fanaticism nor to fundamentalism.
As president of the European Council, Polish politician Donald Tusk has been at the centre of one of the most challenging years in the history of the European Union. Since taking office in December 2014, he has faced an economic crisis in Greece, the conflict in Ukraine and growing Russian aggression in the East, and, since last summer, the largest influx of migrants and refugees Europe has faced since World War II. Most recently he has struggled to reach a compromise with the British government to avert the possible withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
Born in Gdansk, the heart of the Solidarity movement, and a founder of Poland’s liberal Civic Platform party, Tusk was prime minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014. As president of the European Council, one of his main tasks is to reconcile the competing views of the various EU member states whose leaders – as members of the council – are responsible for the union’s most important decisions. Michal Matlak spoke to him at his office in Brussels.
Can Yanis Varoufakis turn his bid to democratize the European Union into a mass social movement? And if so, will it be able to deliver a political turn similar to Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s? Political scientist Michal Sutowski assesses the chances of DiEM25 succeeding.
When Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill met in Havana, for one part of the Catholic Church the past seemed to be repeating itself, writes Katherine Younger. In the nineteenth century, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church found itself in the middle of both diplomatic negotiations and ideological clashes between the Vatican and Russia – and it is again today.
Though Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 moved at breakneck pace, it followed a long anti-Ukrainian propaganda campaign. Katerina Sergatskova describes the growing mutual alienation between the inhabitants of the peninsula and mainland Ukraine.