on the Inside

". . . For love he wanted to break all the rules . . ."
This week Poetry Editor Thomas D'Evelyn offers a poem by Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn, who combines poetic imagination with rock-solid realism and, in this love poem, gentle wit. Read in Poetry this week "In Love, His Grammar Grew."

"We will have to kill you!"
Eric Voegelin describes his experiences as a young tutor and teacher in Vienna in the '20s and '30s, the gradual deterioration of the situation, and later, the Nazi sympathies among middle class students. Finally he describes his work in Munich from 1958 to 1969, particularly the work of young scholars such as Arabist Peter von Sievers. Listen in Audio to Part 14 of "Autobiographical Reflections."

These Truths are Self-Evident
We welcome the return of Macon Boczek who reviews Scott Segrest's America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense. His theme, as she expresses it: "Common sense political thought is a unique American tradition that supports American civilization. It is a tradition dependent on both virtue and freedom motivated in experiences of higher reality."  Read in Book Reviews this week "Self-Evident Truths."

The US Government's Secret War
Sometimes fiction is too close to the truth. With that in mind we invite the reader to consider an imaginary law and its implementation that would have fitted seemlessly into the world of George Orwell's 1984 and, perhaps, into our own society as it is trending today.  Read in The Lighter Side "The War on Kudzu–Sic semper tyrannis."

"High Noon" and Polish Freedom
A History of Mutual Respect —Part 1
by Michał Kuz

Michał Kuz is a doctoral candidate currently studying at Louisiana State University and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. His research interests focus around Alexis de Tocqueville, modern federalism, and theory of political change.

The Poster that Symbolizes Shared Values

Not many U. S. political scientists I had the pleasure to read or otherwise communicate with know that a poster depicting a character from a famous American Western film became a symbol of the Anti-Communist transformations in Poland in 1989.

It was a hallmark of opposition during the election that, as it later turned out, transformed the whole Soviet bloc. A very young graphic artist (22 at the time) named Tomasz Sarnecki decided that a Polish variant of the High Noon poster could serve as an election poster for the democratic opposition bloc in the first semi-free election in Poland since 1945.

According to Sarnecki’s own record, the oppositionists initially were not thrilled, but he consistently lobbied for the idea and it finally gained acceptance.¹

Nietzsche and the Modern Philosophical Revolution –Part 1

by   David Walsh

David Walsh is professor of politics at Catholic University of America. He is the author of many books and has edited three volumes of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. His Guarded by Mystery has been serialized here at VoegelinView in its entirety. His most recent book is The Modern Philosophical Revolution: The Luminosity of Existence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Copyright David Walsh, 2008, from which this excerpt is taken. It appears with permission.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Philosophy can only be lived, not explained, as the powerful concrete­ness of Friedrich Nietzsche's Zarathustra makes clear.

The limit of aphorism is reached in the vividness of character. Zarathustra is born at the end of Nietzsche's The Gay Science through words that are repeated as the opening of Thus Spoke Zarathus­tra (1883), almost as if the personification developed by the author had taken over the literary enterprise.

Now it is Zarathustra who speaks, not Nietzsche, and it is this intensity of inspiration that accounts for the impact of the work.

In every respect this is a work of transformation. From its burning incandescence, Nietzsche will return to the more reflective philosophical implications, but now with an irreversible clarity of pur­pose.

from The Collected Works

Democracy and Industrial Society
–Part 2

This lecture was delivered to a German audience in 1963. President John F. Kennedy was still in office. While it is a commentary on the situation as it existed in 1963 it remains pertinent in 2012. The same obsolete class warfare clichés are being employed today as back then. He is talking about what the emergence of what we would today term the "post-industrial society," comparing the German and the American experiences. One is reminded Voegelin studied with Ludwig von Mises and knew something about economics.

The Psychology of Demonization

At this point a word of admonition is in order. This analysis could awaken the impression that the worker is being put down as the villain in the piece. Nothing could be further from my intention.

It is easy to see why a negative estimation of the worker could arise today. At a time when Western industrial society needs to overcome old clichés and reach a proper self-understanding of its order, the worker is frequently  portrayed as a "profiteer." And these labor-profiteers are always unloved because there is an all-too-human tendency toward paranoia that is exacerbated by situations in which the labor-profiteers may be said to bear responsibility and share guilt.

Of course they have contributed no more to the situation than have those who have accused them in such loaded terms.

Chesterton (and the rest)

On the Picket Line

by Max Arnott

Several weeks ago, as a result of certain . . . misunderstandings, your columnist and about twenty three hundred of his co-workers found themselves on strike, rather to their shock.

Librarians do not go on strike very often–the last time our local walked was 1979. In fact, going on strike is not something that many people do. Unions are not the commonplace reality they used to be.

So it was new to most of us. Most of our images of strikes and unions were gathered by osmosis from watching old black and white movies like On the Waterfront, but in fact, like many things, it hardly lived up to the stereotype. Everything was boringly civilized.

The evening before a strikes starts, the striker receives a robo-call to report to this or that location in the morning. First question: what to wear? Answer: good walking shoes. Don’t bother with a tie.