Matter

Some time in the autumn of 1994, Sorin Alexandrescu asked in an interview in 22 magazine why, in the canonical battle between the various radical-democrat and nationalist structures of the opposition (and of the government), more attention is not paid to the real traditions

excerpts Unfortunately, in this country we talk, but do not communicate, in the sense of a science of communication. This is particularly obvious in the public area, where people do not express thanks, do not salute, and address each other on familiar terms without justification.

III. The Culture of Jackasses When an ass leaves his village to go live in the city a wonderful change occurs in him: his asininity leaves the body and sets straight into the soul. In donkey parlance this means the respective jackass becomes cultivated. Thus, an educated

excerpts Many were the reasons of marriage in the countryside once, but the most important was the family of the chosen one. If the family – the seedling – was bad, the young people from such families had a hard time getting married, and only exceptional personal merits

When Mark Twain published the elaborate account of his Old World tour, The Innocents Abroad, America was still young, as a nation, and not yet proud of its culture. To avoid any tasteless outcry of admiration, driven by the contact with the vestiges of lost civilizations

*excerpts THE SOPHISTICATED PEASANTS The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on

excerpts Chapter IIIThe Nature of the Being  (…) Anybody who knows this nation will agree that the Romanian is a born opponent. Whatever is proposed to him, his first reaction, the first temptation of his thought is to oppose it. But, strangely, his opposition does not

Starting from the fact that the Romanian intellectual – as any other – speaks a foreign language, and is delighted to give information to traveling strangers, some foreigners jumped to the conclusion that Romanians do not prefer their language, a ridiculous and wholly

Chapter XII. The Current [1907] Psychological Traits of the Romanian PeopleAll foreigners that visited the Romanian countries were unpleasantly struck by the negative traits of our character. They don't care, says Mr. X. Marmier, for the name of their master. What they

Discussing the character of a nation is as complicated as describing a species of insects from prehistoric times. How can one enumerate its features? How can one analyze its morphology? How can one categorize its behavior? Any large-scale analysis will in fact reduce the

I will begin by quoting myself. Talking about the polemics between two people whose intelligence and moral stature I admire (the polemics took place, in its major parts, in the very pages of the 22 magazine), I used to say with a certain regret and doubtfulness: On whose

excerpts There are quite a few psychological complexes which seem to shape nowadays the popular, maybe even intellectual mentalities and to badly distort people's behavior, as well as their political judgments. It won't hurt pointing our finger at them, speaking