18. avgust 2007

Počitniško branje

Arto Paasilinna: Zajčje leto

V Vatanonovi hotelski sobi je medtem potekal živahen pogovor. Povzročil ga je listek sredi mize, na katerem je pisalo: "Pustite me pri miru".

Sončni Mikkeli, popolna svoboda. Vatanen je sedel na klopi v parku sredi mesta, zajček si je na travniku poskušal najti kaj užitnega...

Ena od cigank je po vsej sili hotela Vatanenu prerokovati. "Velika življenkska sprememba", je prerokovala. Pojasnila mu je še, da je občutil hude pritiske, zato je sprejel veliko odločitev. Srednja črta na dlani mu je napovedovala živahno prihodnost, veliko potovanj se je obetalo, pa nobenih skrbi.


Mark Leonard: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century

Europe is a journey with no final destination, a political system that shies away from the grand plans and concrete certainties that define American politics. Its lack of vision is the key to its strength.

Once the governments of Germany and France were sucked into endless negotiations, they were less likely to go to war.

As this process continues, we will see the emergence of a New European Century. Not because Europe will run the world as an empire, but because the European way of doing things will have become the worlds.


Jeremy Rifkin: The European Dream

Europe is 18 months ahead of the USA in the introduction of grid computing.

The European Dream emphasizes community relationships over individual autonomy, cultural diversity over assimilation, quality of life over the accumulation of wealth, sustainable development over unlimited material growth ...

Much of the world is going dark, leaving many human beings without clear direction. The European Dream is a beacon of light in the troubled world.

The European Dream ... has all the markings to claim the moral high ground on the journey towards a third stage of human consciousness.

The urgent intellectual task of the coming global era is to create a new synthesis that unites faith, reason and empathy in a powerful mix that allows each to be a door to the other.

If the personal sense of accountability and responsibility is not deep enough and thick enough ... then all of the legislative and executive actions and intellectual support notwithstanding, the European Dream will fail.

Post modern sociology emphasizes pluralism and tolerance ... For the post-modernists there is no one ideal regime to which to aspire, but rather a potpourri of cultural experiments, each of value.


Simon Blackburn: Truth, A Guide for the Perplexed

We can take the post modernist inverted quotes off things that ought to matter to us: truth, reason, objectivity and confidence. They are no less, if no more, than the virtues that we shall all cheris as we try to understand the bewildering world about us.

Relativism chips away the right to dissaprove of what anybody says. Its central message is that there are no asymmetries of reason and knowledge, objectivity and truth ... Relativism claims there is his truth, your truth, my truth.

The problem with people who loose belief in God is not that they end up believing nothing, but that they will believe in anything.

We must not believe that anything goes ... that there is not truth to prevail. Without defenses against postmodern irony and cynicism, multiculturalism and relativism, we will all go to hell in a handbasket.