http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/10/schopenhauer-1/

Tom Sunic

The text below is the expanded version of Tom Sunic’s speech, delivered at the New Right conference in London, on October 23, 2010.

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There is a danger in interpreting the text of some long gone author, let alone of some heavyweight philosopher, such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860). The interpreter tends to look at parts of the author’s prose that may best suit his own conclusions, while avoiding parts that other critics may find more relevant, and which the interpreter may consider either incomprehensible or irrelevant. Continue reading “Schopenhauer and the Perception of the Real or Surreal Postmodernity (The Occidental Observer, October, 2010)”

“Les temps sont durs; les idées sont molles.” François-Bernard Huyghe, La Soft-Idéologie

GROWING imprecision in the language of political discourse has turned virtually everyone into a democrat or, at least, an aspiring democrat. East, West, North, South, in all corners of the world, politicians and intellectuals profess the democratic ideal, as if their rhetorical homage to democracy could substitute for the frequently poor showing of their democratic institutions(1) Does liberal democracy – and this is what we take as our criterion for the “best of all democracies”-mean more political participation or less, and how does one explain that in liberal democracy electoral interests have been declining for years? Judging by voter turnout, almost everywhere in the West the functioning of liberal democracy has been accompanied by political demobilization and a retreat from political participation(2). Continue reading “Liberalism or Democracy? Carl Schmitt and Apolitical Democracy THIS WORLD (An Annual of Religious and Public Life), vol. 28, 1993 .”

No political phenomenon can be so creative and so destructive as nationalism. Nationalism can be a metaphor for the supreme truth but also an allegory for the nostalgia of death. No exotic country, no gold, no woman can trigger such an outpouring of passion as the sacred homeland, and contrary to all Freudians more people have died defending their homelands than the honor of their women. If we assume that political power is the supreme aphrodisiac, then nationalism must be its ultimate thrill.
Continue reading “The Decline & Splendor of Nationalism (Chronicles of American Culture), January 1992,Tomislav Sunic”

While a massive amount of both critical and laudatory literature on America is circulating in western Europe, only a few critical books on America and the American way of life can be found in today’s postcommunist eastern Europe. This essay is my attempt to add to that literature.

Before attempting to tackle this complex subject (an eastern European account of America), one needs to define terms. People living in the Czech Republic, Hungary,Poland, or Slovenia do not like being called eastern Europeans; the term eastern Europe has a ring of an insult to their ears. Continue reading “America in the Eyes of Eastern Europe (The World and I) Vol. 16, November 2001 (The Washington Times) (Tomislav Sunic)”