![]() ![]() ![]() Modern slavery, organized rape, a superpower that invades other states for more Lebensraum. Innocent people, who are beheaded or burned alive in front of running cameras – and these atrocities are thereupon sent into the world for everyone to see editors, who are murdered in cold blood for their satirical cartoons fanatics, who torture and desire to die as martyrs for their cause. It is already here and we are in the midst of it for wherein does barbarism consist unless in not appreciating what is excellent?’ A few years later, in Democracy in America (1840), Alexis de Tocqueville observed: ‘Because Roman civilization perished through barbarian invasions, we are perhaps too much inclined to think that that is the only way a civilization can die.’ In 1794, in his eighth letter in On the Aesthetic Education of Man, while enjoying the blossoming of a new European civilization, the result of Enlightenment ideals coming to fruition, Friedrich Schiller unexpectedly posed a painful question: ‘Whence then is it that we remain still barbarians?’ A few decades later, his old friend Goethe gave the following answer in a conversation with Johan Peter Eckermann in 1831: ‘ Niebuhr was right in predicting an era of barbarism. The Nexus Conference 2015 addresses this theme within our society: how powerful is our current ideal of civilization? Poetically, Cavafy has illustrated the argument put forward by Edward Gibbon in his superb historical epic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1788): that Roman civilization primarily withered as a result of decay from within, waiting for the barbarians that eventually came. The arrival of the barbarians would have offered a way out of the spiritual emptiness, lethargy, boredom and laziness that the city had fallen prey to. Those people were a solution of some kind. Cavafy’s description of this imaginary city ends with the following haunting lines:Īnd now, what’s to become of us without barbarians. Then the barbarians do not come, and the disappointment is felt deeply. The Greek poet Constantine Cavafy portrays a fictional city grown decadent in times of plenty within a Roman Empire, in which the emperor, senators, rhetors and citizens almost eagerly look forward to the arrival of the barbarians. Robert Putnam, Amin Gemayel and Anne Applebaum, Ahmed Gaaloul ( about his motives to study the jihadi extremism), Azza El-Kholy ( speaks harsh words about our supposedĬivilization), Amos Oz ( introduced his book of Jude), Zeev Sternhell ( refers to his personal experiences under Nazism to explain his position in the Palestinian conflict), Michael Shermer ( talks about his interest in moral issues) Leon Wieseltier ( reflects on the influence of technology on our society and on the responsibility that we have as human beings), and Abderrahmane Sissako ( stresses with the film 'Timbuktu' the existence of different visions and Islam). Robert Putnam (NRC Handelsblad October 2015).Įrodes the Western ideal of civilization? On this theme, the NEXUS Institute organized the conference " As a political scientist I know that conflict is important in politics. ![]()
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