CROSSING THE ELBE OR WHY WE NEED A NEW CULTURE OF DISSIDENCE

Abstract

The essay argues that forms of thought and contestation associated with Central and Eastern European Dissident thinkers and writers have been unjustly consigned to the past. In particular, a line of critical thought that traces its origins to a Husserlian critique of rationality remains as relevant and resonant as ever. In order to demonstrate how this is so, a reconceptualisation of the notion of production in social anthropology is linked to the historical practice of translation to argue for the severe limitations of forms of political thought and cultural practice based on a notion of the transitive. This paradigm of transitivity is then related to forms of instrumentality that underlie the extension of neo-liberal economic rationale to all forms of social existence. It is only through the convergence of critical thinking across Europe, both from the present and the recent past, that Europe can be saved from market capture and populist repudiation.

Keywords:

• Europe
• dissidence
• translation
• neo-liberalism
• phenomenology