CHAPTER II

 

RECONSTRUCTING AND REINVENTING

THE MEANING OF MORAL OBLIGATIONS

IN THE ROMANIAN CULTURE

 

J. STEFAN LUPP1 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This essay evolved out of a lecture I presented at a conference in Bucharest in 1999.2  Several weeks earlier I had attended a conference in Iasi, where I spoke about the convergence of three social forces in the United States in order to explain the events surrounding the recent American impeachment drama.3  I must confess, as someone who was a teenager in the United States in the 1970s, criticism of my own society seems to be almost second nature to me. I have to say that I felt significantly more uncomfortable casting the same critical eye on Romanian society in front of a live audience of Romanians. This is especially true since I am extremely conscious of what is perceived as American arrogance. What saved me then and now again with this essay, is that though I am American only by naturalization, being born a German citizen, I still have assimilated the American trait of unlimited optimism. Therefore, I am forced to believe that there are solutions to the problems faced by both American and Romanian society.

Many of the generalizations about Romanian society that I will make are based predominately on my own personal experience, rather than on statistical studies. Nevertheless, I believe few will disagree with the accuracy of the picture that I paint. In any event, I am not attempting to convince those who disagree with this image, but am striving to confront it for those who share my concerns.

 

THE ATTEMPT TO CREATE ‘THE SOVIET MAN’

 

I will attempt to examine the problem of moral obligations faced by Romania today. Romanian traditional society, as most other traditional societies, presented its members with a rather developed set of moral obligations. While there were obviously other moral traditions present in Romania, the Orthodox Church represents the most important. While Western societies are today faced with their own moral crisis, the former Communist states, and more particularly those which are also predominantly Orthodox, are facing additional hurdles.

The most important reason for this development is the Communist attempt to establish the ‘Soviet Man’ as a new ethical model. The introduction of this ideal was accompanied by the systematic destruction of all prior views. This attempt was doomed to fail from the very beginning, since, like all true revolutions, the Communist model declined to build on the past, but insisted on sweeping it away, in order to make room for an entirely new construction. In this context, the American Revolution was not a revolution at all, since it was quite consciously constructed upon English historical experiences.

It might be useful at this moment to turn away from the Romanian experience and to look at the most extreme of these attempts. Let us take a moment to examine how the attempted introduction of this ideal affected a culture far removed from the Carpathian Mountains. What I have in mind is Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The latter seemed to stop at nothing in their efforts to sweep away the past. They marched the population out of the cities to eliminate the corruption of urban life. The fact that many died of exhaustion or starvation on these forced marches meant little. They killed the intellectuals, the doctors, the teachers, and even taxi drivers, anyone who had contact with the outside world. They killed the Buddhist monks in order to wash away the ancient religious heritage of this country. They killed the adults because children had less of a memory of the past. The chief Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, when interviewed by Newsweek during these events, was confronted by these mass murders. His response was that to start over, Cambodia could afford to lose a few million people.4  In fact, possibly as many as two million Cambodians eventually lost their lives in this project.

The Khmer Rouge attempted to create a clean slate on which to construct their new society. But, what did they construct? The brutal leaders at the core of the state could not actually control events out in the countryside, since communication with the various camps had been reduced to a minimum. Therefore, the local military commanders functioned something like dukes in a simple feudal society. The teenage thugs with their machine guns played the role of the knights in the beginning of the European feudal period, but were completely untempered by the restraints of chivalry. Everyone else played the role of a peasant. They created a primitive feudal society, but one without any of the humanizing qualities which made feudal life bearable. This is the society that existed in Cambodia at the time the Vietnamese forces invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. Instead of creating a clean slate and destroying history, the Khmer Rouge simply took Cambodians back in time to an earlier stage in human history. My point is that the raw material on which to build a society is always the past. I am obviously embracing a Hegelian perspective. I believe that all one can do is go back to some extent, to an earlier stage of development. However, then the wisdom of history has to be relearned. All the Communist states attempted more or less similar projects, the main differences being those of scale. The Cultural Revolution in China and the Stalinist purges were only the most famous examples. Clearly, similar efforts were attempted in Romania, most notably after Ceausescu felt inspired by the Chinese and North Korean models.

Since the Cambodian example was so graphic, it may cause us to miss the subtler ways the moral foundations were undermined in many Communist states. One of the most fundamental concepts in all moral traditions is the obligation to the truth. This can not be overstated. In a recent book by Francis Fukuyama entitled Trust: the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity,5  he examines how a large reservoir of public trust was largely responsible for the prosperity of such culturally diverse states as Germany, Japan and the United States. In fact, he argues that radical individualism is undermining public trust in America, which if it is allowed to continue to develop unchecked, will ultimately weaken American society.

More than any other practice, the Communist habit of subverting the truth did incalculable harm to the societies in which it existed. The government’s frequent habit of lying, destroyed all trust in governmental institutions. Unfortunately, since the state had been cast in the role of the only community that was permissible, it destroyed to a great extent the trust in the larger community. However, more damaging is the governmental practice of coercing citizens to regularly spy on their friends and family. This destroyed trust in the most intimate of human relationships, way beyond the realm of public trust. When trust breaks down at this level, the human personality itself is radically undercut. A recent Der Spiegel article examines how such Stasi6  practices compromised such a large section of East German society that its ramifications are difficult to gauge.7  While many heroes can be found in these stories, just as many Germans can be found whose moral nature was radically contorted by these pressures. While Germans are struggling with what Stasi files continue to reveal, Romania still has some way to go before it can even begin this process. A law to open the files has only recently been enacted8  and the slow pace of the cumbersome Romanian bureaucracy will undoubtedly hinder its implementation. Yet undoubtedly, the Securitate caused similar damage to Romanian society.

 

JOURNEY INTO THE WASTELAND: EVERYONE FOR

HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL9 

 

It seems quite apparent that the Communist attempt to create a new morality on the ashes of the past has left a moral wasteland in its wake. What remained by the time of the collapse of the Communist system was a social order based exclusively on the state’s coercive power. Then, after the strong state was destroyed, there was no community available to take its place to maintain social order. As I have already noted, no real community was allowed to exist outside the confines of the state.

So what type of consensus is there in Romania today in regard to moral obligations. The only identifiable moral philosophy that appears to have significant allegiance in the country today is a form of radical individualism. [While former Communists and others are, of course, nursing a resurgent political nationalism, this does not seem to have had significant ethical or moral ramifications other than an increase in intolerance against certain ethnic groups.]10  The radical individualism of which I speak is one that embraces only negative liberty. In other words, liberty that results from restraints placed on the state. While I am a strong proponent of the concept of negative liberty. I see its primary value as a political and legal concept. I firmly believe that the state should not be significantly involved in the production of values for society. Therefore, individuals should be at liberty to freely think, speak, write and associate, as well as to have basic due process protections if the state threatens their life, liberty or property. Nevertheless, no matter how important such negative liberties are from a legal or political perspective, they do not advise an individual on how to lead his life. They make it possible for him to develop his values and to share them freely in a community with others, but the impulse for these values has to come from elsewhere. A more perverse form of this radical individualist philosophy is promoted on a daily basis by Hollywood movies and television programs, which are readily accessible to the vast majority of Romanians.11  In terms of moral guidance, this philosophy has given Romanians nothing beyond the knowledge that they are free to follow their own inclinations.

What is missing from the moral landscape is any sense of community, duty or any recognition that the meaning of an individual life must be found in something greater than oneself. Everyone feels free to pursue whatever opportunities present themselves to further their own material well being. Though, there is a general feeling of frustration over a lack of such opportunities, few voices, let alone organized efforts, are directed at enhancing the general welfare.

The introduction of this form of radical individualism into an environment devastated by the Communist experience has resulted in an accelerating social disorder. There is a general deterioration of most public or semi-public spaces [such as streets, parks, apartment common areas, and especially vacant lots]. Much of Bucharest and parts of other Romanian cities are drowning in a sea of garbage. While the garbage problem could be addressed to some extent by legal changes [for example the enforcement of the responsibility of property owners to clean up and maintain their properties], this may be only the symptom of a much deeper problem. Some might suggest that what Romania needs is simply the development of an environmental consciousness, similar to what began to take hold to some extent in the West in the 1970s. Nevertheless, I would argue that this is an overly simplistic approach to the problem. To make my point, I would argue that the problem is not confined to the debasement of the physical environment.

We do not need to look too far to confirm my position in this regard. While violent crime is not particularly widespread, corruption is ubiquitous. The latter exists in both the public and private sector. Some public officials feel justified in squeezing money out of those they serve, since their meager earnings are often not a living wage. Some employees of large companies similarly feel justified in supplementing their incomes by soliciting ‘tips’. In the business world there is a general preoccupation with fast profits, which results in products being assembled for a fast sale, but not meant to last. This and other practices result in the purchase of overpriced Western products by those who can afford them, rather than even giving a chance to moderately priced Romanian products. Few Romanian jobs are produced by these consumer practices. Here again we see the radical individualism at work, traces of a public spirit or civic-mindedness, or just plain long-term thinking, seem to be largely missing from the landscape.

There are few real leaders evident in the political world. Liberal politicians jockey for power within their parties, while the liberal parties maneuver for position in relation to each other. On the other side are the nationalist and neo-Communist parties looking for every opportunity to make the liberal government look bad. What is largely missing is the motivation to transcend personal interest in order to serve the public good.

All of this encourages what I choose to call ‘the Great Escape’: students pursue grants with the hope of emigrating, intellectuals seek positions in the West, the best and brightest are often not motivated to reinvest themselves in Romanian society. While the brain-drain phenomenon is widespread among the less developed economies, it takes on a special quality in Romania. Everywhere in the world those who have unique talents tend to seek out the best place to exploit them, which often tends to be in the more developed countries. However, in Romania the sense of immanent departure seems to be on the minds of a significant segment of the population, including those who have little or no reasonable opportunities for emigration. Furthermore, not only are those people interested in leaving who have embraced the ‘everyone for himself’ philosophy, but serious intellectuals who see a value in Romanian culture and tradition seem to have sunk into a general pessimism about Romania’s future and desire only to leave. This general feeling of impermanence only deepens the reluctance to build communities.

 

MORAL RECONSTRUCTION

 

Is there a way out for this land that is increasingly being left behind by those who can and abandoned spiritually by many that cannot? Let us consider some conceivable solutions. Clearly there must be an attempt to reconstruct the Romanian moral heritage, which has to some extent been destroyed by the Communist project. If we return to the decades immediately prior to the Communist takeover, we will find a world where a traditional Orthodox perspective confronted the ideas of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.12 

If we try to reconstruct a possible meaning of moral obligations from a traditional Orthodox perspective, we immediately come up against a difficulty. As noted by the late Professor Alexandru Dutu, the Enlightenment in Romania did not contain the ethical urge of the Protestant Reformation.13  A significant feature of the Orthodox faith is that it emphasizes the mystical over the ethical. This could explain to some extent the greater difficulties faced by post-Communist Orthodox societies when compared to those where the Catholic and Protestant faiths were more significant. More specifically, if one attempts in broad strokes to compare the major subdivisions of Christianity with each other, one can contrast the Orthodox emphasis on the mystical with the Protestant emphasis on the ethical,14  and note that Catholicism seems to take a more balanced approach in between the two perspectives. On the positive side one can clearly see how the Orthodox faith could arguably provide a deeper spiritual dimension to religion than either of the other two, but that this focus would tend to remove the power of religion somewhat from the ethical or moral realm. Therefore, in the predominately Catholic states the Church was able to play a stronger role in preserving community during the Communist period than was the case in the predominately Orthodox states. One should at this point also consider, as the previous paper does, whether there is actually a predisposition by Romanians toward a certain form of extreme individualism. Professor Czobor-Lupp argues that Romanians actually entered modernity with a sense of freedom from obligations, with a perspective that excluded "any obligation to the other."15 

Therefore, simply reconstructing the Orthodox moral universe is not enough. The Church, in its traditional role of serving man’s spiritual needs, will not regenerate the missing community. Nevertheless, the Church may still be a vehicle to this end. Professor Dutu argued that the Orthodox Church needed to not only re-evaluate its relationship with the state in order to truly promote pluralism, but to also to address the vacuum of ethical prescriptions. He urged the Church "to develop a social and political code that would inspire those who do not harmonize easily the Orthodox tradition with contemporary efficiency nor the intimate life with public activity."16 

 

HIDDEN TREASURES

 

Since so much damage was caused during the years of Communist rule, we should not forget to search for what can be gained from this experience. The life histories of those individuals, who struggled to maintain moral standards in the face of unimaginable pressures from the state security services are a tremendous Romanian national treasure, which can not be overestimated. In fact, as Professor Dutu noted, all the former Communist states had these heroes. Therefore, the common effort to pay homage to their sacrifices could create common modern myths, which in turn can serve to unite the disparate nationalities rather than the divisive features of the old national myths.17  More importantly, all of these individuals chose a meaning larger than themselves to which they were willing to sacrifice their immediate personal interest. This is clearly a model for those who are now being presented only with a hedonistic individualism. There is a spiritual richness to be found here, which could not have developed under the benign liberal-democratic governments of the West.

Unfortunately, many Romanians would prefer to forget this period as a dark past, a past which is even more objectionable than the gray present from which many would like to escape. However, it is by examining how heroes illuminated the darkness that we may find answers for the present. These lost heroes must be sought out, so their spiritual greatness can inspire an attitude of self-sacrifice and sense of identification with the other.

This treasure also transcends the Communist experience. Those in the West who have never lived under a totalitarian or authoritarian regime can re-examine their own lives by considering choices which they were fortunate enough to have never faced. Nevertheless, this is an export that Romania can afford to share without losing any of its value for its own society.

Professor Dutu argued that the core value of the Orthodox tradition was actually enhanced by the barbarous acts perpetrated during the Communist period. He noted:

 

What some people from Eastern Europe got during this long period of isolation is a surplus of experience that gives a richer content to what we call ‘the real’: totalitarianism taught us that our civilization of the body is threatened by the excess of secularization and by the limits it imposed on our feelings and reasoning as a consequence of the use of a concept of ‘real’ with restricted meaning.18 

 

This spiritual discovery should be fully exploited, rather than lost in Romania’s impetuous rush to find material prosperity. This could be achieved if greater emphasis were made on the dehumanizing aspects of the Communist past, rather than simply on its failures in the field of economics and in regard to civil liberties. It is here where we can truly appreciate the value of the Orthodox emphasis on the mystical.

Starting from the premise that Orthodox civilization is an integral component of Western civilization, Professor Dutu paid homage to the undeniable value that the Orthodox tradition has brought to the latter:

 

. . . the Orthodox heritage brings into the modern world a concept of ‘reality’ with deeper and larger meaning than the one proposed by modern philosophy: the Orthodox rationalism of the 17th century, modernity and hesychasm in the 18th and 19th centuries, defense of inner wisdom against the pressure of political power in the era of totalitarianism represent a contribution to European thought and, more than that, to the European way of life.19 

 

Unfortunately, many Romanians are too overwhelmed by the values that are being thrust upon their society and are, therefore, unable to find the treasures buried beneath them.

 

REINVENTING MORALITY: PERSONS RATHER THAN

SIMPLY INDIVIDUALS

 

Even if we successfully recreate the morality and community of Romania as it existed before their clash with Communism, we will still be confronted with the same problems encountered by Western countries, which are experiencing the difficulties of adapting a pre-industrial morality to an industrial [or post-industrial] society. It is not possible to simply reconstruct the values that were prevalent in the predominantly rural Romania of the pre-Communist period,20  rather the meaning of moral obligations must be reinvented to be suitable to the much more urbanized Romania of today. Therefore, the traditional Romanian Orthodox community cannot be resurrected in its entirety. It was rooted in a pre-individualistic mindset. While Professor Czobor-Lupp hinted at a Romanian predisposition for an extreme form of individualism, this was not the liberal individualism to which we refer here. Urbanization and industrialization create a tremendous bias in favor of a modern individualism. Mobility of labor is extremely important for labor markets to function efficiently, as Fukuyama notes, ". . . workers cannot remain permanently tied to a particular job, locale, or set of social relationships, but must become free to move about, learn new tasks and technologies, and sell their labor to the highest bidder." 21  Traditional social groups are continually undermined by this process. They are replaced by bureaucratic forms of organization, where workers are supposed to gain entry based on factors other than family ties or other traditional criteria.22  Therefore, the status of the workers as individuals is reinforced. The atomistic world created by this process is clearly not one that is compatible with traditional Romanian rural communities, and the pre-modern individualism excludes the possibility of a language of obligations.23  Professor Barbu, in the following paper, seems to go a step further and seems to suggest that real ‘communities’ may never have existed and are only " . . . rural or urban ‘settlements’ . . ."24  Such indications would seem to confound our efforts even more.

Yet this is the most difficult juncture of our journey. We may again be able to find an answer in the Orthodox tradition, which could prove to be as helpful for Western societies as the spiritual greatness of the former dissidents. This tradition’s focus on the concept of ‘person’ rather than ‘individual’ might allow for a reinvention of moral concepts in a manner which could prove to be a moderating force limiting the excesses of modern individualism. While the concept of an ‘individual’ in the instrumentalist Protestant tradition has been at least partially responsible for undermining the idea of community and related concepts in the West, a refinement of the concept of ‘person’, as it is embraced by the Orthodox tradition, could be the answer. Western thinkers, such as Charles Taylor,25  have been asserting something similar, when they note that the individual must always find the meaning for his existence in something greater than himself. Nevertheless, in the Orthodox case the concept must be enlarged beyond the focus of the individual person’s relationship to God, to include a greater commitment of the individual to the community.

 

ROMANIA AND BEYOND: MORALITY BEYOND

INDIVIDUALISM

 

What emerges from our discourse is a prescription for Romania, which transcends Romania and may be a formula for the modern world. Nevertheless, this prescription may, at least in part, arise out of Romanian soil and is clearly, at least in part, not alien to Romania.

The Weltanschauung that is derived from Lockean individualism is at its core atomistic. Individuals are human atoms, which are the irreducible building blocks of society. This creates a firm foundation for the inviolability of the individual. These ideas have been enshrined in the constitutions of all liberal democratic states and the international human rights instruments. These are the negative liberties or civil liberties spoken of earlier in this essay. They are essential, preserving a space for free persons in societies dominated by the ubiquitous modern state. Attempts to move away from these concepts have proved disastrous, as the various authoritarian and totalitarian experiments of the 20th century have shown. Yet, those who note the difficulties posed by an empty individualism continue to propose modifications. Clearly, in the not so distant future, such proposals may again be taken seriously in Romania, if the current deterioration continues.26 

I believe that in the legal and political realms, the concept of an ‘individual’ is essential. The basic civil liberties posited by classical liberalism cannot be fundamentally modified without serious negative consequences. The acceptance of the idea that the state cannot violate the autonomy of individual atoms is a necessary abstraction, in order to limit the power of the ubiquitous modern state. Deviations from this abstraction in regard to modifications of the generally accepted set of civil liberties tend to destroy the possibility of the development of the human personality. Yet, this often leads to confusion of categories. People tend to equate this legal/political structure with a generalized morality of individualism. In this morality no one has any obligations beyond those contractually entered. Furthermore, even contractual obligations, which tend to limit ones freedom of action, are generally frowned upon. Beyond these perimeters all choices for each individual life are judged as being of equal value, destroying almost any hierarchy of values.

What I propose is a compromise of sorts. What is necessary is to divorce the ‘legal’ and ‘political’ concept of an ‘individual’ from the ‘moral’ concept of a ‘person’. This ‘abstraction’ of the existence of human atoms is of practical utility, rather than founded on the metaphysical reality of an absolute separateness. It is important to assume the reality of ‘individuals’ in the ‘legal’ and ‘political’ realms, while adopting the larger concept of ‘person’ for the ‘moral’ realm. This morality cannot be imposed by the organs of the state in any fundamental way. As long as its prescriptions are consistent with the maintenance of civil liberties, there is no problem. However, the main reason for the move to the concept of ‘person’ is to go beyond individualism in a way that might prove to be problematic in a legal or political setting. If institutions seek to promote such a morality, they can not aspire to become state organs, such as the Romanian Orthodox Church seems to be doing. Free institutions outside of the state must consciously promote such a morality.

What does it mean to adopt a morality based on persons rather than individuals? First of all it must mean that one seeks a source for meaning outside of personal inclinations, etc. a meaning somehow outside oneself. This will generally result in a recognition of the essential unity of the universe,27  a universe which has no truly separate human atoms, where each person is intimately integrated into the whole.28  Another approach is to realize that each individual consciousness creates an entire universe, each universe invariably overlaps with innumerable other universes. Each person has relationships that bind him in a way that makes each of his actions impact more than just on himself. This web of relationships creates obligations in a way that can not be analyzed from the perspective of individual human atoms, which have no fundamental impact on each other.

The implications for such a morality are immense. No longer can an individual simply refuse to interfere with the autonomy of others, in a limited and superficial manner, and feel that he is leading a moral existence. The world of negative liberty can easily inspire a perspective of an emptiness in one’s life, an emptiness which begs to be filled. The markets of all developed economies, and many developing economies, have quickly adapted themselves by providing countless distractions to fill this void. However, a morality based on ‘persons’ has no such emptiness. One will need to consider the impact of all of one’s actions upon not only oneself, but upon one’s family, friends, acquaintances, community, country and the entire world. Such a moral universe is more likely too full, than too empty. Rather than endless periods of time, which require novel distractions, there is more of a sense of urgency, a sense of a lack of enough time. While there are still no simple answers to life’s fundamental questions, it nevertheless invokes a tremendous sense of seriousness.

Most importantly for Romania, a morality based on ‘persons’ is more suitable for the reconstruction of communities. Suddenly those neglected common areas take on a more personal quality, which generates a demand that they be cared for, even when others do not take care of them. Corrupt practices are more difficult to justify, even in an environment filled with corruption. If one has obligations toward others, then a simple escape is no longer an option. If one belongs to every part of the world, one cannot simply shut off the part which seems less pleasant.

 

NOTES

 

 1J. Stefan Lupp, Civic Education Project Fellow/Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bucharest 1998-2000, and the University of the West, Timisoara 1997-99.

  2"Reconstructing and Reinventing the Meaning of Moral Obligations in the Romanian Culture," presented at the conference entitled "Changing Attitudes, Mentalities, and Habits in Post-Communist Societies," on March 25 – 26, 1999, sponsored by the Civic Education Project and the University of Bucharest.

 3Lupp, J. Stefan, "Convergenta celor trei Americi – o dilema a lui Clinton si nu numai atat" ["The Convergence of Three Americas – Not just Clinton’s Dilemma"], Revista de Teorie Sociala, Academia Romana: Institutul de Teorie Sociala, Tomul III, Nr. 1, 1999 [published in the Romanian language]; first presented on February 25, 1999, at the conference "Romanian American Relations in Politics, Economics and Culture" held at Universitatea "Al.I. Cuza", Iasi, Romania, sponsored by the Civic Education Project.

 4Interview with Pol Pot by Newsweek.

 5Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues & the Creation of Prosperity, 1995.

 6Stasi was an abbreviated term for Staatssicherheitsdienst, the East German secret police.

 7"Sehnsucht nach dem Totalitären," Der Spiegel, 46, March 15, 1999.

 8 Reported by CNN World News, December 8, 1999.

 9I believe I can be forgiven for borrowing the title of the Werner Herzog film Jeder Für Sich und Gott Gegen Alle.

 10See for example, Petre Berteanu, "Romanian Nationalism and Political Communication: The Greater Romania Party [Partidul Rominia Mare] a case-study" in this Volume.

11See also, Monica Ibram, "Romania in the Television Era or the Prison of the Fading Reality," in this Volume.

  12Alexandru Dutu, Political Models and National Identities in "Orthodox Europe", Editura Babel, Bucharest, 1998.

 13Ibid.

 14One can, of course, challenge the view that Protestants are overly concerned with the ethical side of religion by noting their emphasis on the importance of faith, and how some denominations have reduced the ethical to faith in Jesus Christ, thereby reducing the ethical to the mystical. Nevertheless, this is an overly technical complaint, since overall, Protestants clearly seem to emphasize the ethical, sometimes to the exclusion of the mystical.

 15Mihaela Czobor-Lupp, "Romanian Paths to Modernity – Culture and Moral Identity," in this Volume.

 16Dutu, supra note 11, p. 172.

 17Ibid, p. 189.

 18Ibid, p. 160.

 19Ibid, p. 172.

 20Again, see Czobor-Lupp, supra note 14; for a detailed perspective on community structures in pre-industrial rural Romania, see Laurentiu Vlad, "Rural Communities in Romania at the End of the 19th Century," in this volume.

 21Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, The Free Press, New York, 1992, pp. 77-78.

 22Ibid.

 23Czobor-Lupp, supra note 14.

 24Daniel Barbu, "The Ethics of Unanimity and the Still-Born Citizen," in this volume.

 25Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1991.

 26For an analysis of the historical background of this issue, see Constantin Davidescu, "Totalitarian Discourse as Rejection of Modernity: The Iron Guard, as case-study" in this volume; for a view of the contemporary potential danger see Berteanu, supra note 9.

 27For a good discussion of the essential unity of the universe – including ‘consciousness’ – by two physicists, see Menas Kafatos & Robert Nadeau, The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990.

 28See Errol E. Harris, Formal, Transcendental, & Dialectical Thinking: Logic & Reality, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1987.