It is difficult to think of anything approaching the extraor-dinarily rapid political collapse of the important series of countries constituting the so-called Soviet bloc. . . . The dimensions of this political collapse are evident when it is realized that these countries comprise roughly half the population of the entire world. Although history records many examples of countries that disintegrated under intense pressure in time of war, there is apparently no real precedent for the series of events that has befallen official Marxism in less than a decade, in a time of peace and without so much is a single shot being fired.

A second group undertakes the constructive process with a brilliant study by Anna Krasteva of the root dynamic of the self and the other, "the own" and "the alien". She analyses the components of each separately and in terms of Bulgarian culture and then suggests the ambiguous dynamics to be dealt with in creating democratic societies in the face of disintegrative forces. Pleman Makariev looks in greater detail into the crucial problems of interethnic peace in a Balkan context and relates to this contem-porary discussions in the West developed, on the one hand, on the basis of the primacy of the individual and the nature of rights and, on the other, the basis of the primacy of the community and the common good. Tom Rockmore urges incisively the need for any such discussions to proceed not a priori, but in terms of concrete engagement with the socio-cultural dynamics of the peoples involved.

A third group treats a remaining, but most fundamental challenge. There is an emergent consensus with Habermas, reflected in Rockmore and Makariev, that the reconstructive process must be carried out through dialogue. But there remains the issue of whether this is going to go beyond simply a consensus between peoples built upon a shared bad faith — conceivably, a past upon evil made among thieves — or whether this is going to be an unveiling of at least some part of the real good to which we feel obliged in our various cultures and in which we find ourselves on convergent paths. This is the argument developed through the exclusion of alternatives by Asen Davidov, related to the situation of Orthodox religion in Bulgaria by George Kapriev, and elaborated through analyses of freedom and culture by George F. McLean.

Let us look more in detail into the work of these studies, the insights they suggest, and the problems they raise for further investigation.

If this be based on experience that this is the good way to live then we seem to be heading rather into the natural law position about the way (nature) to live (of being) reflected rather in Locke then in Rouseau. If, however, one insists on founding social ethics in human reason precisely as affirmed by the will then social order can result only from the primacy of some wills over others, on our will over all — which is the essence of totalitarianism.

This indeed becomes the great challenge of our times. For if we recognize a plurality of cultures and hence of world visions and of the values these entail, then the search for a universal ethics becomes in fact the effort to affirm one culture and enslave all others. This is the totalitarian writ large. (See D. Pavicevic, "Democracy and Stability," in Models of Identity in Post-Communist Societies [Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999]).

Andrew Blasko in "The Power of Perception: The Case of Soviet-style Aesthetics" provides amazing insight into the manipulation of the mind in a totalitarian context. He does so by moving beyond the level of science, at least if this be taken to be concerned with the conceptualization of reality. In the totalitarian context that would leave one at the level of ideology, or even the opposing ideologies of the Cold War. Blasko’s interest is rather how such an ideology becomes interiorized and especially how it becomes the basis for action schemas and their actuation in ways so frightful as to surpass all comprehension from the outside. This issue is important not only to understand the concentration camp executioner, but the indispensable acquiescence or at least positive accommodation to the system on the part of the general populace.

Central to Blasko’s position is the embodied condition of human consciousness whereby the situation in all its social complexity becomes a constitutive element in the work of the aesthetic imagination. I suspect that more needs to be done on this in order to preserve the realm of freedom and responsibility, but he elegantly describes how the self can turn into a virtual "other" along lines delineated by a superior or absolute social power. Here, what is "taken-for-granted" becomes the formative force, while precisely as "taken-for-granted" it is not engaged or questioned.

This insight is especially important today. For, if we have become aware of the destructive effects of technical reason in this century, we are much less aware of how the focus upon such reason constitutes the process by which we are blinded to the effects of its manipulative powers and hence how we become effective accomplices in the dehumanization of society. Blasko’s chapter points out how this works and thereby constitutes an implicit call for the development of an aesthetic consciousness in terms of which effective self-liberation of the contemporary consciousness becomes possible. This will be essential if we are to respond positively to the newly emerging sensibilities which bear the legitimate hopes for the new millennia.

Asen Davidov in "Values, Norms, Individuals: Modern and/or Post-modern: Twenty Theses on Post-totalitarian Individualism" provides a series of meditative insights regarding the struggle to proceed beyond totalitarianism to reestablish the place of the human person, without falling into a typically modern individualism. This requires that he move beyond the modern paradigm but without dissolving the person as would the "post-modern" perspective. The effect is to move him via a phenomenology of values to a deeper level, an ontology of values. It is fascinating to see him work inversely in terms of participation to the essential character of community and beyond this to the divine and hence the religious community as the living sign of unity in diversity. In this light the situation of the Church as object of past external oppression by totalitarian powers and of present internal conflict takes on special significance as the people try to evolve its stance for the future. In this light his reference to the Polish Church is of special philosophical interest if it be noted that K.Wojtyla, its leader in the 1970 (and now Pope John Paul II), was working on this precise synthesis which Davidov suggests between the traditional metaphysical (Thomistic) and phenomenological existential (R. Ingarden) types of anthropology.

Serghei Stoilov Gerdzhilov in "Communism and Its Explosion in the European Life-world" takes the reader on a happy, but ultimately disastrous journey. It begins by pointing to a pheno-menological path which takes one beyond the usual more surface level of analysis in terms of the measurable factors of space and time, the clear and distinct factors, to the life world. This is familiar territory; it is the place where I was born and lived my childhood, where I meet friends and relatives; it is a world brimming with meaning — at times with personal crises, but also with life’s achievements and celebrations. One awaits its unveiling, articulation and fruition as the source of new life for society. But not yet.

First it is important to review the realm of logos as clear rational structure and Communism’s attempt to build in its terms a modern utopia. One is happy to note with Prof. Gerdzhikov that human life is not an artifact and cannot be made artificially, and hence that any attempt to do so will be humanly catastrophic.

At this point one looks for a better way ahead, one that will improve upon the unthematized life world and for the work of logos to play a positive role within a richer whole. But there awaits only "explosion and storm". Even the Marxism which as logos was too simple and clear becomes suddenly in its consequences unclear and unfathomable. The minimal liberal project built upon open space for the exercise of freedom is trashed. In the place of all the above is substituted a mindless physical model of blind states of equilibria blindly and violently sought.

Thinking back from this elegant journey into darkness one concludes either that there was never any real value in my life world nor any reality to the long philosophical and scientific tradition of work in terms of logos, or that the paper ends when it is still at the beginning. Typical of post-modern thought it establishes a critique of the modern which should open the way to the rich development of a new era. But that would require a new way of thinking. For lack of this it remains in modern thought, but only in its negative, critical mode. Convinced rightly of the terrors it has generated and anxious to stop them at all costs it proceeds to destroy all truth and value, meaning and hope after the death of Communism. It carries out intentionally the destruction which the false utopia may have entailed, but could never foresee nor ever would choose. Seldom has the experience of post modernism been so seductively and vividly expressed as in this chapter of Professor Gerdzhikov, which deserves long to be included in philosophical readers.

But not all is so negative. If the forest has burnt down, it has released new seeds, new hopes, new dynamisms and new values which previously were trampled on the forest floor. There is a new agenda (culture, women, minorities) and new means (phenomenology and the aesthetic) and these have the genius of recuperating and integrating what was known (logos) with what was ignored and suppressed (personal freedom). Life has not exploded forever, for the work of creation goes on and philosophies should feel called upon to play an important role.

George Kapriev in "Christian Values and Modern Bulgarian Culture" provides a focused, but too brief, overview of the character of the Orthodox spiritual culture in general and its role in the history of Bulgaria, with a view to identifying its present state and future prospects for that nation. The context of its struggle to be independent from Rome without being absorbed by the political regime has both necessitated and encouraged the development of its exhalted spirituality. This treasure of the Christian heritage bears much that is particularly needed in the context of this post-Communist and hence post-atheist period.

At the same time, the history of the Church in Bulgaria has been so intimately tied to the national identity of its people that the establishment of its distinctive identity and hence its ability to make its proper contribution is variously compromised and rendered particularly difficult. This has happened in ways so distinctively proper to this people that no general formula could serve to help.

Kapriev sees hope in the development of interest in Orthodox theology by some among the intelligentsia, but fears that their position as well as the content of the theology renders improbable a concrete contribution from these quarters to shaping the social process of the nation. On the other hand, one might see something providential in this. For if there is an intellectual task to be carried out in order to draw out this meaning and articulate it for the present and future then this work must be done precisely not by the churchmen, but by the intelligentsia with their varied literary arts and social sciences. The task is to find or develop the instrumentalities which can bring their human resources together in an effective and productive manner.

On the other hand, Professor Kapriev recognizes that the Orthodox identity has been strongly affirmed by the more mass public movements, but seems resigned to its being manipulated to less worthy ends by a nationalism in terms of "blood and soil". A more optimistic reading might hold that while the Orthodox identity and vision remain part of that mix the game is not over. It is really a question of what will prevail, the higher or the lower motivation. Since any desirable outcome must wisely integrate both in order for the nation to be inspired and for the faith to be at work in the projects of the people, there is much work to do for both church and nation and in this the clergy should find a worthy challenge.

In the late 1970s, during a colloquium with the Bulgarian Philosophical Society, an audience was arranged with the Patriarch. When he finished his discourse on peace, it was asked what had been the role of religion in the history of the Bulgarian people. At that he lighted up considerably, took a deep breadth, exclaimed "Now that is a noble question!" and launched enthusiastically into a 45 minute response. The question is even more vital today!

Anna Krasteva’s "Bulgarian Cultural Identity" is a veritable tour de force. She distinguishes the notion of self-identity into its twofold dynamic. On the one hand, the constitution of the people’s sense of their own identity and of being one therein, and, on the other hand, the role of the other as helping to delineate the "own" and keep it from so embracing the self as to annihilate it.

To each of these, the chapter devotes a study sufficiently detailed to constitute a work in its own right. By setting them in dialectical relation to one another it is able to protect both from excesses and point the way to positive future development.

From this complex whose richness consists above all in the weaving together and integration of its many themes, it is difficult to sort out special elements. But because of the special light this sheds it is difficult not to point up the following which are of special importance to the work of this volume.

1. The modern social sciences have proceeded rather univocally to campaign against any ascriptive identities from family to nation. The near unanimity in this campaign against what the people hold to be most dear and sacred, and in the face of the most obvious objective fact that life is carried on in just these terms and that it manifests general progress, points to a factor of the subjective order controlling the methodology of these sciences. This is the analytic supposition of an atomic individual as that real and the relegation of all else to being interpreted as either a support and hence good, or an impediment and hence bad, with regard to the individual so conceived. This calculation that paints all ascriptive identities as detrimental to the individual as an atomic center of free choice corresponds, not incidentally, to the notion of the consumer in the economic order. The result has been a process of social disintegration and personal anomie in which the social sciences have been willing accomplices if not the major proponents.

Professor Krasteva points rather to the counter-fact that it is in relation to others and to the community of family, freedom and people that Bulgarians find their identity. "It is notable that the primacy of the communal is not seen as the totalizing homogenization and subordination of the individual, but rather as the interaction in which the individual attains a higher personal meaning through harmony with the community and unity with others." Community is not set against the person in a zero sum game: rather the two are related positively so that the community is the context within which individuals emerge and flourish. This is obvious to most parts of the world and to most dimensions of Western society as well, but it still needs to be taken into account by the analytical methodology of the social sciences.

2. Correspondingly the chapter points up the significance of considering the other/the alien for the process of freeing the person from the embrace of the community in order to make possible the criticism and creativity upon which change and progress depend. This could be left simply as an additional and countervailing force; Professor Kristeva proceeds instead to integrate the two in her notion of "assimilated objectivity": "It is objective as the framework of a guaranteed world, but it is also assimilated in the relationship."

She brings the two elements of self and other: "own" and "alien" together within the "us relation". This she sees in Levinas’s sense: not of a shoulder-to-shoulder relation that submerges both in a collective, but an eye-to-eye relation that unites proximity and distance and prevents one’s difference from dissolving in the collective.

3. A third dimension of the chapter of Professor Kristeva too rich to pass over is her sense of the basic ontology of the Bulgarian people. There is an almost mystical sense of identification with the land, not only as a generic source of fruitfulness as with the Andean Pacha Mama, but specifically with their land, the Balkan Range: "The highlander is not a regional, but a spiritual identity designating one who is lofty in the Bulgarian spirit, not one who merely lives on high ground."

But this extends to the nation as well, which is idealized and sacralized. This is true not only in older times, but even more today and to such a degree that Professor Kristeva wonders whether religion is being merged into nation. It is a question raised in the paper of Professor Kapriev as well and brings us to a crucial — perhaps the crucial — issue in the life of any person or people, namely, the basis of their meaning, their destiny and their hope.

On the one hand, it is possible to so identify the religious and the national spirit that the absolute character of the divine in transferred to the nation, whose political power then takes on an absolute character to which all is sacrificed. This is idolatry: perhaps more common and certainly more destructive in this last century than in the time of Moses. Both authors are rightly concerned.

4. On the other hand it is possible that religion at least in some areas so emphasized the transcendent character of God at the expense of His immanence that He became distant and lost His meaning in the life of the people. This it would seem is presently — and perhaps always — in the process of readjustment. Indeed it may be that the continual search for equilibrium in this matter is the driving force for human progress. This can be important for a number of presently needed projects, such as the dignity and hence the rights of the human person and of civil society vis-à-vis the overpowering human state, and the inherent sanctity of the life of persons and peoples as a basis for absolute commitment to family and patriotic service to the nation.

It would be wrong, however, to consider this to be a zero sum game so that what is recognized for one is taken away from the other; Professor Kristeva found that it was in community that the person truly emerged and that this required Levinas’s sense of an "eye-to-eye" relation of proximity and distance. This, of course, points back to the perennial discussions of transcendence and immanence, and of participation. Indeed, Whitehead considered all of Western philosophy to be a series of footnotes to Plato for whom participation was the central notion. In this light the life of society becomes once again too important to be left to the sociologists, and the metaphysical and religious issues come to the fore.

Plamen Makariev in "Promoting Inter-ethnic Dialogue in Bulgaria" approaches this issue through the prism of Western political theory. This is its strength and, it would seem, its weakness.

Among its many strengths is that it approaches the issue from within the Balkan social and psycho-social reality. Hence it is sensitive to the particular socio-cultural commitments of the people of the region, their ethnic origins and mixtures, their level of sophistication in industrial centers vs. mountainous regions and the history of their attempts to live together.

It is remarkable how in a few sentences he could summarize exactly the arguments for assimilation (and insensitivity) used by my own majority Irish culture vis-à-vis the French speaking minority in Lowell, Massachusetts, over 50 years ago, and now of groups vis-à-vis the new Spanish and Cambodian minorities when they want to begin their own charter school today. But I do not hear so clearly the humiliation and frustration which accented the words of my grandparents as they describe their efforts as minorities almost a century ago to establish their own families, nor the fears which drove the mass exodus of Turks at the proposal of a rebirth process in the 1980s. This gap of feeling between people of different cultures — whether majority or minority — is the seed of tensions that can descend into terror and which can be healed only by a countervailing love. It points to Aristotle’s recognition of the need for sunesis, the ability to, it were, live the experience of the other.

Another strength of this chapter is the precision and force of its analysis of the Western liberal position. Dr. Makariev follows incisively its development, the challenges it received and its response. But ultimately he points to its ever increasing formalism and sedulous abstraction as it attempts to establish a universal position around the rights of the individual at the explicit cost of the concerns of the community and questions of the good. But in this he may not pursue his argument far enough, for what kind of freedom is being provided by a theory which precinds precisely from the good involved. Is not freedom a characteristic of the will and is not the business of the will the pursuit of the good? Freedom that is not an engagement in the good must be superficial and/or forensic. Theories which set rights over against the good and provide for the former while precinding from the latter can be no real friends of freedom, or if these be its friends then surely it needs no enemies. This adds a third step to Makariev’s analysis of the cultural mismatch and the problems of the inner logic of liberalism for use in the Balkans. "Liberalism recognizes only individual rights, not collective rights, and eroding a community’s cultural identity is not regarded as damaging the rights of the individuals who comprise it. It is only natural that this approach is not taken seriously in the Balkans."

The chapter then turns to the communitarian perspective. But these seemed better asserted in the above critique of liberalism. Here they are not developed, but only problematized on the way to the concluding section of the chapter: "The Way to Dialogue". There Habermas’s discourse ethics is brought to the fore as the only way for diverse cultural groups to work out ways of living together which are mutually complementary rather than contradictory.

Professor Makariev seems to encounter here two main problems. First, that the discourse ethics of Habermas which could regulate the interchange is purely formal in character and hence too sophisticated for the peoples involved, and second that the cultures of the two or more parties are supposed to be different and conflicting. The first leaves Makariev with more of a challenge than a solution: the questions are difficult but not impossible and the introduction of the paradigm of discourse would enable the formulation of problems in a new way. Here I would make a suggestion, namely, that dialogue is important when people speak of what they have deeply experienced for generations and what stands at the center of their own efforts to build family and community. Then their words carry passionate insight, truths which are savored, and in the realization of which they have already engaged their entire lives. Paulo Freire, in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, points out the riches that this brings to a discussion and the ingenuity of the supposedly unsophisticated in its fruition.

But the greater potentiality would seem to lie in the other problem, namely, the supposition of the difference and contradictory character of the cultures involved. In the face of it this seems amazing, for if peoples are fully and successfully engaged in the same task of raising their families and of earning a living in order to do so, whence the supposition of the contrariety rather than complementarity of their cultures? It may well be that it is a supposition of the Western context within which the discussion is set, particularly the rationalist paradigm admitting only the clear and the distinct and smashing the idols (Bacon) that bore the traditions which were considered unworthy of the newly Enlightened age. In another chapter I will attempt to explore the nature of cultures to see if it cannot offer hope to Professor Makariev on his path of dialogue.

Tom Rockmore in "Social Values in a Time of Change: An Hegelian Approach" carries the discussion significantly further by breaking out of the closed circuit of liberal individualism to look rather at the values which move a people and orient their action. His question is whether there is any a priori set of such values which can be justified and which can be applied universally.The challenging context which he sets for this question is the uniquely radical character of the change in social life in Eastern Europe during the last decade. His answer, simply put, is: no.

The main thrust of his argument is against the Kantian project of deducing an a priori deontological ethics from the character of practical reason itself. His critique is that this leaves the ethics formal and empty, which of course seems to be what Kant intended. He wanted to say something essential about all moral acts, namely, that in which their essential morality lies; and he did so.

Rockmore wants more content for ethics, as do we all. He follows Hegel’s lead in pointing to the need to engage concrete social reality. Even Hegel knew that history cannot come from essence alone, so this chapter points to the need to engage the socio-cultural context and "to arrive at values that can be accepted by thinking through concrete problems in order to arrive at the widest possible consensus."

Yet his conclusion does not seem fully to live up to his original challenge, namely, "to show that they are more than the expression of what a particular group or subset of the population happens to think at a given time and in a given place." This part of the challenge seems at first not to have been taken up. But on reflection this may not be entirely so. For he does refer to Plato’s sense of a transcendent level where, by definition, things must be different. And he does see all changing reality as participating in, and hence being normed by, this transcendent reality.

Unfortunately, he discards this too quickly as static when upon further investigation Aristotle would find it to be a living process of reflection, a noesis noeseos, which should be the envy of those engaged in "thinking through concrete problems," especially if they are in search of points of convergence with other participants.

The other area in which Professor Rockmore was engaged in showing that social values are more than "the expression of what a particular group . . . happens to think at a given time" was what he sees as the original religious form of which Kant would develop a more secular form. But a number of things seem to go wrong here and keep Rockmore from mining the rich religious vein which he has struck: (a) He sees creator and revelation as prior sources of subsequent conclusions requiring that freedom and history be eliminated; but freedom is precisely what creation and revelation are about. (b) It cannot be fair to the Rabbi or Imam struggling long over the implications of their revealed sources to reduce their work to a priori deduction, rather than to the arduous and delicate work of unfolding the meaning of their sources through history. (c) The Catholic Church had spoken almost 40 years ago and most solemnly in Vatican II of the many valid ways to God; its recent encyclical "Fides et ratio" describes at length the autonomy of reason and of philosophy and the need of such for universal principles for human interchange and effective principles for unfolding the meaning of the scriptures.

All this suggests that Rockmore was onto something crucial for his project of finding more than a passing consensus when he took up this reference to Plato and to religious meaning. His project calls, with Kant, for an element of authority in ethics, but will not allow that to be solely a self-justifying deduction either by or from reason. With Hegel, his project calls for engagement in the socio-cultural context, but in a way that is grounded not essentially, but existentially.

Studied absolutely or out of time and culture this would be a task for classical metaphysics and theology. But both of these sciences have moved with Professor Rockmore into the age of subjectivity and hence of relating this work to the process of culture. Thus, the chapter by G.F. McLean entitled "Identity as Openness to Others" studies the way in which cultures and cultural traditions are generated and how they evolve with time, how they gain their authority through their cumulative insight into the reality of life, how this authority is grounded not only in what people agree upon, but in what they come corporately to know and acknowledge, and how the multiple traditions when adequately understood converge rather than contradict each other.

This chapter argues that the approach to the issue of peoples living together generally is approached on the basis of a deficient ontology which sees identities as conflictual rather than as communicative and complementary. This is due to beginning from sense perception and its presentation of things in physical terms. Instead the reality of being in its source and goal is one, and things which participate therein are essentially related and complementary. In this light one’s identity consists most fundamentally in the way one participates in being and thereby is related to other persons and peoples.

Vessela Micheva in "Beyond Modernity" makes a particularly rich contribution to the overall study by analyzing in great depth the character of a small nation on the border of civilizations and closely attached to its land and traditions. Here the usual attitudes of self-affirmation are inverted. The people’s identity is rather a non-identity, similar to that of the chorus in a Greek drama, but its vision is lofty and essential to the workings of the world. She carries Masaryk’s study of the life of a small nation to a much deeper level, employing the full range of contemporary competencies from anthropology, to political science, to literary theory. The chapter is a tour de force, essential to anyone who would wish to understand not only Bulgaria but their own position in this complex world.

Joseph Margolis in "Liberalism and Liberal Democracy: Paradoxes and Puzzles" is concerned with the effort of liberalism to claim universality and thus wittingly or unwittingly to impose itself upon all parts of the world. In this it fails to recognize its own historical situatedness. Indeed for epistemological reasons the creature of enlightenment rationalism is incapable of taking account of the concrete nature of the human person and their second nature as born and raised in a language community. This directs it toward form and procedure which are empty and insensitive to content and hence to the historical and cultural commitments of peoples.

The prospects are for a re-emergence of these values of history, culture and community, but the means of doing so which will retain the gains of liberalism with regard to the recognition of the sacredness of the human person have yet to be developed.