XXI amžiaus pradžioje beveik niekas neabejoja nei žmogaus teisių sąvokos teisėtumu ir prasmingumu, nei jos vaidmeniu formuojant modernųjį politinį bei moralinį jautrumą. Neaišku tik žmogaus teisių pobūdis ir prigimtis. Ar jos – tikrai universalus žmogiškosios egzistencijos elementas, pirminis, prieš visas teorijas ir metafizikas pasireiškiantis, tačiau giliai etiškos prigimties (Emmanuelio Lévino prasme) mūsų sielos judesys Kito (už kurio orumą esame atsakingi, to negalėdami paaiškinti) akivaizdoje? Žodžiu, ar tai išties visiems bendras žmonijos rūpestis? O gal žmogaus teisės – tik gerai suformuluotas, solidžiai pagrįstas vakarietiškojo liberalizmo ir liberalios demokratijos elementas, subtiliai primetamas visam likusiajam pasauliui? Gal žmogaus teisių pavidalu Vakarų individualistinės civilizacijos tik braunasi, kad ir labai moderniu, savo dvasia ir politinėmis implikacijomis pažangiu būdu, į nevakarietiškų civilizacijų, daug giliau įsišaknijusių savo tradicijomis ir hierarchiniu pasaulio supratimu, sielas? Kiek pagaliau galime visuotinai iškelti žmogaus teises kaip svarbų užsienio politikos ir tarptautinių santykių aspektą? Ar taip darydami nerizikuojame žmogaus teisių instrumentalizuoti ir jomis piktnaudžiauti? Šiame straipsnyje ieškoma atsakymų į šiuos klausimus, be kita ko, pakritikuojant daugiakultūriškumo (multikultūralizmo) sąvoką, tačiau labiausiai išskiriant ir išlukštenant dvi žmogaus teisių koncepcijas – ideologinę ir lengvai ideologizuojamą, iš vienos pusės, ir neideologinę, iš kitos pusės. Tik pastaroji leidžia įsteigti universalią žmonių bendrystę ir tikrą solidarumą – šią koncepciją gynė tokie žmonės kaip Andrejus Sacharovas, Jelena Bonner, Sergejus Kovaliovas, Aleksandras Štromas ir kai kurie vakariečiai, tarp jų André Glucksmannas.

The article is an attempt to map modern sensibilities and their emergence in early modernity. In doing so, the focus is on the great writers and thinkers of Renaissance and Baroque Europe: François Villon, Niccolò Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and William Shakespeare, whose thoughts and works best reveal modern cultural categories and moral concepts we live by. Since literature often exposes politics both as an art of government and as a mechanics of power better than any sort of political theory or political science based analysis, we always benefit immensely from an interpretive framework within which we can interpret modern predicaments not as something uniquely novel, but, instead, as something that emerged along with the great works of philosophy and literature. Hence, this is another focus on European little stories and grand narratives as constituent parts of modern politics.

In this thoughtful and subtle analysis of the totalitarian system of brainwashing and manipulative exchanges, Csesław Miłosz offers a new interpretation of Ketman, which, in his able hands, is transformed into a trans-ideological and trans-civilizational idiom that operates equally well within religious and secular ideocracies. Miłosz's provocative and thought-stimulating interpretation of Ketman enabled him to reveal different literary devices and interpretive techniques concealing one's true political, moral, aesthetic, and religious views. These devices and techniques appear to have been invented or perfected by Central and East European intellectuals who were desperately trying to survive and act decently in a world of cynical lies and severe censorship. The acceptance of an alien dogma while practicing one's religion secretly or keeping fidelity to one's values, Ketman appears to have originated as trans-civilizational phenomenon, instead of something easly reducible to Islam or the Stalinist phase of Communism. By and large, the history of philosophy is a history of Ketman as far as the pre-modern forms monotheism are concerned [...].

George Orwell played a decisive role in the struggle against totalitarian consciousness and organized hatred. It was through his satires, dystopias, and political essays that the literature of lonely humanists and skeptical liberals became the battleground where the cynical nature of violent politics and organized hatred of the twentieth century was revealed in a thrilling way. He exposed totalitarianism and ideocratic hatred inherent in the age of the making and unmaking of enemies. He also uncovered the trajectories of modern consciousness and imagination that were characteristic of Western societies and were deeply symptomatic of the fabrication of political and ideological adversaries. Orwell’s name may well be said to have become the banner raised by those who believed in the valid uniqueness of human life, individual reason, and individual conscience. The quest for enemies and the invention of adversaries may be said to have been the major themes that permeated Orwell’s fiction and political essays. He penetrated the politics of organized hatred that resulted from the phantoms and forgeries of the modern troubled imagination as nobody else in modern literature and philosophy. If Central and Eastern Europe may well be said to have become a litmus test in world history concerning the intensity and lunacy of modern political and ideological hatred, then Orwell can certainly qualify for the title of the honorary Central and East European. The article deals with Orwells’s concepts of nationalism, fanaticism, ideological bias, and hatred, which were explicitly discussed in his essay “Notes on Nationalism”.

As we learn from our political history, we can withdraw from our ability to empathize with other individuals’ pain and suffering. At the same time, we can get back to this ability – yet this doesn’t say a thing about our capability to be equally sensitive and compassionate about all troubled walks of life, situations, nations, and individuals. We are able to reduce human beings to things or non-persons so that they awaken only when we ourselves or our fellow countrymen are hit by the same kind of calamity or aggression. This withdrawal-and-return mechanism only shows how vulnerable, fragile, unpredictable, and universally valid human dignity and life are. This article is an attempt to map this mechanism theoretically through the concepts of guilt, adiaphora, and austerity.