The Pandemic of Tyranny

This chapter deals with some of the dangers of the “pandemic” of tyranny that can be made worse during a time of a medical pandemic. In any event, it can result in an attempt to subvert a democratic regime towards more conservative and reactionary political forms. The author studies the case of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens (a result of Athens´s defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War and after the death of Pericles during the pandemic that decimated Athens when it was sieged by Sparta) who substituted democracy with an oligarchy. A fierce repression ensued in which Socrates died, a symbol of the free thought of democratic Athens. The author analyzes the effects of tyranny on people and the Renaissance humanists´ desire to always be vigilant about tyrannical government. He focusses on the civic humanists Francesc Eiximenis (Valencian Kingdom, Crown of Aragon) and Coluccio Salutati (Florence).

The Poetry and Prose, as Well as the Impact of Communist Ideology in the Albanian Literature of the ’80

Albanian literature has come a long way through the many historical events it has passed and managed to survive. One of the harshest periods for Albanian literature, has not come as a consequence of external invasion, but from within. The communist dictatorship in Albania, which started in the remains of the Second World War, and lasted up until 1991, besides controlling the politics, foreign relationships, economy and social structures, used art and in particular literature as a weapon to demolish free thought and enforce its ideology through the canonized structures and cliches, such as the martyrdom. This led the Albanian authors to find new ways hidden inside literary figures, which they mastered, to spread their message and express their true thoughts and feelings beyond the censorship, and trained the readers to read through and understand the intentions of the authors.

Democracy, Freedom and Truth at a Time of Digital Disruption: An Equation with Three Unknowns?

Knowledge-based societies rely to a large extent on intangible outputs and digital technologies, and these are having a growing influence on information systems, media, governance and citizenship. At the same time, the increasing role played by online platforms in manipulating transnational public debates, legitimising algorithmic non-transparent decision-making and inciting hate speech and violence through misinformation, disinformation and propaganda are warning signs of the negative repercussions such digital ecosystem can have on rule of law, political systems, free thought and critical awareness. There is a clear need for international regulation in this area. Rooted in an interdisciplinary approach, this chapter combines an examination of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological frameworks with an analysis of various relevant public and private archives. The aim is threefold: to outline the issues and challenges in terms of human (and labour) rights, freedom and democracy; to identify the regulatory provisions adopted at European and international level to promote accountability, civil participation, and digital literacy; and to identify future prospects, risks and uncertainties in the era of artificial intelligence.

New technologies, Social Media and Democracy

This article aims to consider the impact of new technologies in the Brazilian elections of 2018, questioning about the possibilities of its transformation with the prominent use of social networks to directly connect citizens and candidates, without the customary intervention of political parties and traditional media. It also aims to discuss the role of fake news in the electoral process and the means to fight it, so it does not denature the free thought formation as a human right essential to the practice of citizenship in the new digital age.

From Mental Slavery to Brainwashing: Anti-Catholic Legacies in Anti-Communist Polemics

This chapter examines the constitutive role of nineteenth and early twentieth-century anti-Catholic polemics in shaping anti-Communist rhetoric during the early Cold War. It charts how crucial anti-Catholic tropes, according to which Catholicism denied free will, perpetuated psychological and spiritual enslavement, and perverted follower’s emotional lives, resurfaced as an anti-Communist tropes in 1940s and 1950s. Anti-communist writers, both consciously and unconsciously, drew on these anti-Catholic tropes to declare that Communism denied free thought through brainwashing, expectations of total obedience, and spiritual enslavement. These conceptual and rhetorical continuities, we argue, help explain why many thinkers conceived Communism as a threat not only to economic or political orders, but also to the psychological and emotional foundations of civilization itself.

Moral Assessment of War in Russian Marxist Thought in the 1910–1930s

This article precedes a large-scale study of the ethics of war in the USSR. The text deals with the problem of finding moral argumentation in the Russian Marxist tradition of under­standing of war in 1910–1930s. Lenin, developing the ideas of Marx and Clausewitz, formu­lated that war is continuation of politics, which in turn is an expression of the class struggle. This thesis was sometimes taken as evidence of a rejection of the ethical consideration of war. However, a closer study of the literature and comparative research of the Bolsheviks theorists’ attitudes to militarism and pacifism, can lead to the conclusion that the ethical view on war was not completely alien to the Soviet authors. The typology of war, peculiar to the Russian Marxism of the specified period, is given, and the main strategies of moral legit­imization of war are also designated. At the end of the article, the question of the complexity of studying the soviet ethics of war in the context of the homogenization of philosophical and military discourses in the USSR is considered. However, it is concluded that this institu­tional feature of Soviet science and philosophy manifested itself over time, that the reduc­tion in the possibility of free thought and discussion gradually increased. Accordingly, in the writings of the 1920s and 1930s, we can try to discover the original Soviet ethics of war and fix various points of view and positions on the issues of the moral limitation of war. The ar­ticle ends with the definition of the directions of further develop­ment of the subject. These tasks are: differentiation of the generalized views on the moral dimension of war presented in this article, clarification the dynamics and forms of the Soviet moral theory of war canon, and identification the differences between Lenin’s and Stalin’s approaches to understanding the war.

Keys to Human Development: The Baltic Miracle

The three Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania—are the only units of the former Soviet Union to deal effectively with the complex challenges of transitioning to free market democracy with advancing levels of human development. These countries have developed high levels of societal fitness—defined in complexity science as the ability to cope with multifaceted challenges and opportunities. What are the sources of these achievements? Many factors intertwined to produce what some call the “Baltic miracle.” One key element has been the three revolutions stemming from the Protestant mandate to read and discuss the Bible: mass literacy, free thought and repression, and respect for individual dignity. Protestant influences were strongest in what is now Estonia and Latvia, but they reached Lithuania as well. Religiosity in now low in the Baltic republics, as in the Sweden that once nurtured both Christianity and literacy in its Baltic provinces. But the sparks it ignited in centuries past have shaped the rationalist and humanistic ethos of the region. Religion, of course, is just one of the European influences that conditioned economic and other cultural development in the region. But the dates when the Bible reached all of Europe in the vernacular are strong predictors of human development today. Balts also gained from not being occupied by the Golden Horde. On the other hand, they had to overcome several centuries of Russian and then Soviet domination. Fifty years of Communist rule dimmed but did not extinguish the positive qualities that reemerged with great vitality in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The Baltic transformations were not "managed" from above or from outside—not from Brussels, not from Washington. They were encouraged and supported by Sweden and other European powers, but each transformation emerged from the bottom-up rather than from the top-down or from outside-in. Balts acted synergistically to contribute to the self-organization that is crucial to meeting complex challenges.

Personality. Development of Thought Throughout Time. Existence

Each personality contains a part of the fullness and depth of the World and the completeness of it depends on personality’s own abilities and talents. Each «I» has the right to consider itself valuable and can claim to have a dialogue with another personality. A personality can evaluate and contain various cultures, knowledge and beliefs, science and religions. Each personality actualizes what can be called the development of thought throughout time. Moreover, not only «in the time» in sense of Newton’s and Einstein’s physics, but, mainly, in what we call «the time of the appearance of the Savior», «Shakespeare’s time », «our time». That is, a set of conditions under which historical events occur. All these times are characterized by their own way of thinking and their own level of knowledge. And their own laws of existence. This means not only the factual existence, but also that exists in the imagination of the individual. At the same time, imaginary reality can more affect a person’s worldview than actual reality. The development of thought throughout time brought a lot of useful things to a person, but also a lot of disastrous ones, such as conflicts and wars, global catastrophic risk, world-wide pre-crisis ecology problems, and a lot of other troubles – all these that can direct a person’s thought towards dreams and imagination. Current problems of time, of course, disappear and are absorbed by Eternity. Eternity embraces and completes all time and existence. However, if you connect your imagination, then an inquisitive, free thought can assume the existence of the Pre-Eternal. Absolute, God. Just assume that He controls us, but we must trust Him with many of our concerns. Existence is a fundamental category. You can exist in reality or in imagination…or in the reality of imagination. The author considers the conversation about existence for himself not yet complete...