Richard Dawkins

A British, a biologist (genetics and ethology), a writer, an atheist, a social activist; his moniker is “Darwin’s rottweiler”. Why is this man so important? Or, better said, why is this man so important to Romanians?

Richard Dawkins is a voice in a silenced world. This “silenced” world is Romanian culture, which abandoned any scientific approach, in favor of a fervent (boiling) religious one.

What has really happened? It is very alike to what had been happening every evening to my bitch Turca: during the day, Turca was chained, so that she wouldn’t have bitten the people who entered our yard. At evening, Turca was let free, so that she could guard the yard and the house (and, of course, to bite anyone who would have jumped over the fence!). But between those two moments (the “unchain” moment and the “patrolling the yard” moment), Turca used to run all over the yard, the garden and even the house, expressing her joy: the daily captivity was over, the freedom of the night was coming! She was very excited and very playful during those few minutes of “tasting liberty again” – but nobody ever dared to rebuke her, as my grandfather used to say: “Let her run, she had enough in that chain!”.

Romanian culture is now like Turca: enough with the chain of rationalism, let us run all over the place!

Before 1989, religion was severely controlled, there were practically no religious studies, and no priest or religion teacher could have entered a classroom; meanwhile, biology was taught for six years (in schools and high-schools), and the final two years were dedicated to evolutionism and genetics.

Now, after 1989, no kind of evolutionism is studied in schools or high-schools, but religion is kept in great esteem: any school day begins with a prayer.

What about culture? Well, it has become incredible biased, like the whole of society: orthodox religion is the big winner, the other Christian churches are also flourishing, there is real tolerance towards Muslims and Jews, but great intolerance towards atheists, who are put in the same pot with communists and Satanists!

From my point of view, Romanian culture is a scaring place, which drifts to a theocratic society. In such a society, any scientist who doesn’t express complete devotion to the “alpha church” will suffer greatly and will become an outcast. Of course, this dark scenario couldn’t be possible if younger generations were smarter than older ones; but they are not, on the contrary!

This is why Richard Dawkins is very important for Romanians: only two of his books have been translated so far (“Rivers out of Eden” and “The God Delusion”), but they were an earthquake: “Look, look, there are people who are still thinking! Incredible! So, not every educated person is praying and publicly kissing relics, as we are doing?! How is it possible, after all the horrors of communism…?!”.

OK, boys and girls. You are in charge now, you, the believers, the non-thinkers, you the many, you salt of the earth. But not for long, I hope: there is still the scientific community, there is still an atheistic Europe, a secular one. There are labs, there is progress, there is ideas’ movement, and above all, there is genetics. You’re in for big surprises!

So, there is no time to waste: hurry up to Jassy and kiss Parascheva’s relics!

77 Year’s War

This is the title of Neagu Djuvara’s last book. His theory is simple: the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War were in fact different phases of a single war, that’s why he has coined this term, “77 Year’s War” (1914 – 1991). During it, some european and non-european powers (France, Germany, Great Britain, US, Japan, Great Russia) fought for the world’s leadership, and the war has been won by a non-european power (US). So, in his vision, we live now in a afterwar world, like europeans in the first two centuries of our era.

Of course, these are Djuvara’s ideas, not mine; I do agree with most of them, I do not with others (he believes that what comes next is a “New Middle Age”, a neverending little wars of warlords, one against the other, everybody fighting everybody, in absence of a recognized authority; he says that this new dark age will begin in the second half of this century, maybe a little latter, it all depends, he says, on oil, which is the core of “american way of dominance”; when oil will be no more, the US power declines and the New Middle Age begins. I don’t accept this prediction of his, although he writes very convincing, in a wonderful style. As a historian, he’s good, but as a writer, he’s marvellous!).

Why am I so sad, then, if I’ve come to put a post on the blog, on this topic? I am sad because nobody cares about Djuvara’s work. More specifically, his last book: had it been written in English, many people and scholars would have discussed his ideas. But in Romania?! No one gives a dime. After all, Romania is in Eastern Europe, and the widespread opinion here is “we have traded am Master for another, that’s all! This is the Cold War brought to us…”. In Russia (Djuvara makes a differece between Russia – today’s Russia – and what he names “Great Russia”, it means Soviet Union or Imperial Russia before 1918) the main opinion is “we did not lose the Cold War! I repeat, we did not lose the Cold War! What about Western Europe, let us take France, for instance? Their opinion is “what Cold War, what are you talking about?!”.

That’s why I am sad when a book like this appears in a language like Romanian and fathers no discussion. Pearl before swine!

Workshop Neagu Djuvara

I know you know nothing about Neagu Djuvara, the historian. I didn’t know either until a couple of years, so you don’t worry; I do, because it is not admissible for a Romanian intellectual to ignore his work and personality. Because he is the most renowned Romanian scientist alive – now see what I mean?
But what have he done to become so “renowned”?! Well, first of all he came with a theory in history science, a theory which was incredible validated by the collapse of USSR in 1991. He named his theory “the pattern of civilizations”, a name which in fact says everything about it: human civilizations follow a certain pattern.
Don’t look too complicated, does it? In fact it is, because the main difficulty is to agree what a “civilization” is. An almost equal difficulty is to establish those civilizations which matter in respect of human progress.
Professor Neagu Djuvara says a civilization is an assembly of cultures; a culture is an assembly of peoples (or “languages” in his terms); a people is an assembly of human beings who speak a common language.
It is clear that a human lives shorter than a language, a language shorter than a culture, a culture shorter than a civilization. He says that a civilization’s medium life term is about 2500 years, and it goes through same four phases in its life: heroic age, flourish age, “contending states” age and imperial age. Accordingly, he identified these civilizations:
- Egyptian
- Cretan (or OEC)
- Babylonian
- Indian
- Chinese
- Greco-Roman
- Islamic
- Byzantine
- Inca
- Aztec
I don’t know your situation, but as a Romanian, mine is this: my people was born in Byzantine civilization in the 6^th century and turned to Occidental civilization at the beginning of the 19^th century.

He also believes there are only two viable civilizations now on Earth: Occidental and Islamic. And other two who are dying, in the process of being absorbed by Occidental civilization: Chinese and Indian.
Just as my own, Byzantine, was absorbed and digested in the 19^th century.