OPINION

The new gods

Visions and high ideals are no longer in vogue, we are told these days. The market, today’s almighty god, has made people’s dreams uniform, we are told. There is allegedly only one way of thinking in the world, the neoliberal one. Whoever does not succumb to it and instead insists on defending the values of human societies as opposed to the societies of economic indicators, is automatically portrayed as a lone ranger, a missionary, or a Don Quixote. At best, he will be viewed as a dreamer who still believes in Maxim Gorky’s fairy tale about Danko’s burning heart – that disembodied heart whose glow lit a passage from the horrendous dark forest to the light of life beyond… Societies, however, are not uniform. They have many sharp edges which can cut off the hands of anyone who dares handle them in an indifferent or reckless fashion. This can be heard in the cries of the illegal migrants who find their death in the waters – a reminder that there are two completely different worlds on this planet and that we cannot afford to keep the poor masses outside the walls of our wealthy European fortress. It can also be heard in the protesting voices of those lonely human beings who saw a modernizing administration made up of 21st-century accountants about to plunder their purses by taxing their love for their pets…

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