“We all believed our thoughts could save the world.”

Agnes Heller on her life, Lukacs, and Habermas

Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller, also 90 years old, is friends with Habermas. And yet, she disagrees with some of his ideas. The philosopher of Jewish descent just barely survived the holocaust. In 1986, she took over Hannah Arendt’s teaching position in New York. --- DIE ZEIT: How did your paths cross with West ...
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Hungary: How Liberty Can Be Lost

Tyrannies always collapse, but whether Hungarians will escape with their sanity and sufficient clarity for a new start remains to be seen

As the Bible (Exodus) teaches and, more recently, Hannah Arendt warns, liberation is not yet liberty. The institutions of liberty must first be constituted, and people need to learn how to make them work while breathing spirit into them. The years 1989–1991 were a time of liberation for all the people ...
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