Ivan Krastev: Enlightenment. Reflection on a Divorce

Friday, July 1 2022 at Einstein Forum, Potsdam
In the early 1990s, the German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger prophesied that what would follow the end of the global Cold War is an endless series of never-ending local civil wars, a kind of civil war epidemic. He saw the race riots in Los Angeles and the wars in Yugoslavia, Chechen commanders and Liberian warlords as expressions of one and the same disintegrative trend. What brings them together are “the autistic nature of perpetrators, and the inability to distinguish between destruction and self-destruction…Violence has freed itself from ideology”. Violence has stopped to be an instrument for achiving certain political goals, it has become the way to express one’s identity. The smashing of the hospital in Mogadishu in Enzensberger’s view is the best example of this new molecular civil war. The armed band destroyed every X-Ray machine and killed all doctors and nurses, knowing well that this is the only hospital in the region and that if they need a medical help, there is no one left to help them. “One is tempted to call this the reduction ad insanitatem”-wrote Enzensberger-“In the collective running amok, the concept of ‘future’ disappears. Only the present matters. Consequences do not exist”.
It is in this context that I want to reflect on Améry’s idea from “Enlightenment as Philosophia Perennis” that Enlightment at the end of the day is the art of not being afraid of the future.
Ivan Krastev is Chair of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and other publications. Latest books: After Europe (2017), The Light That Failed. A Reckoning (with Stephen Holmes, 2019), Is It Tomorrow Yet? Paradoxes of the Pandemic (2020).

[@LenaHerzog]

None of it makes any sense outside some pseudo psychological analysis and a self-projection, in itself a giant stretch and frankly, nonsense. If any of it held up, then Russians would not be asking for specific and very clearly defined terms of security guarantees. Meaning: de-facto NATO based Ukraine was a problem for them, not some resentment. Actual military infrastructure on their actual border.
Let's imagine a reversal. Say, Russia (or China), trained ... say ... Cuban military for a decade. Then Cuba (correctly!) demanded back the annexed by the US Guantanamo (still a site of illegal detention and torture by the US). Then Cuba'd say they will become a nuclear armed state. What is your feeling, prof Krastev? What would United States do? Would it say "Sure! Cuba has a right to its own security structure! we completely understand and very cool with it!" or ... ? I'd say, Cuba would be at the bottom of the Gulf by now.
So US + NATO have been training Ukrainian forces for over a decade (now openly admitted by them). Both Ukraine and NATO said Ukraine will be part of NATO, and unlike Sweden, they have actually been creating a military infrastructure against Russia. And you are psyche-analyzing Putin and Russia? Really? and you are being serious? This is not to justify Russia's invasion, but you have to be real about the reasons for it. Otherwise it will never end. Or is that the very point?
And by the way. That whole story about sailors saying "fuck you" before getting hit is a complete 100% fake. Never happened. I mean, nice script, just never happened. I strongly advise to walk over and speak with Jeffrey Sachs, or John Mershheimer to get real. Even Kissinger would do. Curious how liberals now out warmonger Kissinger. WHAT a sight! Do Raytheon, LM, GE, Boeng pay them? if not, they ought to.

[@P.Aether]

Stop with this narrative that NATO is spreading like a plague. Democratic nations are deciding to join NATO, not the other way around - the Russian way. The Georgian referendum in 2008 with 50+% turnout is 77% For joining NATO. People want to join EU and NATO and they vote for it in real elections, not such where you have a man with a gun next to you.

[@mushroomspecial]

Are you good? Sounds like you're having a breakdown.