Presentation Feb. 22, 2022:
“My Two Weeks with the Atheists of Prague” by Gary Wedgewood
Atheism and Philosophy, PHIL 3310, Spring 2022
We attended several worship services at the enclave of the United Methodist Church during our two weeks in Prague. In conversations with church members & ministers we heard about experiences under communist rule when the church services would have visitors who were spying for the government & recording names of those attending the services. Their purpose was intimidation and suppression. Their reports resulted in young people of the church being prevented from pursuing higher education. The implication was that the only official and acceptable “religious” view under communist rule was Atheism.
Discussion Questions:
- What percentage of Americans do you think would claim to be Atheists? If that number is growing, why do you think that is happening?
- Would you read passages of Nietzsche to someone on a first date?
- What feelings are evoked in you after seeing the images of the Terezin prison camp? Can you imagine how you would react if you found yourself in such a place?
- Based on the history of the Czech Republic, do you think Atheism there is a rejection of belief in God, a rejection of the Church and it’s claims to power based on supernatural beliefs, or both?
William James, with obvious approval, quotes James Henry Leuba as saying, “God is not known, he is not understood, he is used—sometimes as meat-purveyor, sometimes as moral support, sometimes as friend, sometime as an object of love. If he proves himself useful, the religious consciousness can ask no more than that. Does God really exist? How does he exist? What is he? are so many irrelevant questions. Not God, but life, more life, a larger, richer, more satisfying life, is, in the last analysis, the end of religion.” Richard Rorty in “Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism”
Fun fact, i did quote Nietzsche on a first date one time. Needless to say, i didn't get a second date. This Ubermensch walks alone.
ReplyDeleteFrom an interview with MARGARET ATWOOD (Notice her experiences in Prague under communism and after that time in 1989): Oh, well, this was one of the things from East Berlin. And after I’d written “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it got made into a movie. And we launched that movie in Berlin, just as the wall was coming down. And we launched it twice. We launched it in West Berlin. And the after-party was talking about the acting, talking about the set design, talking about the usual things you talk about in movies when there aren’t any other considerations. You’re talking about how good a movie is it, are you not?
ReplyDeleteAnd then we went across to East Berlin, and we launched it there and it was packed. People watched it very intently and threw bouquets up on the stage afterwards and said, this was our life. And they didn’t mean the outfits. They meant you couldn’t talk to anybody because you didn’t know if they were spying on you. So it was that sort of eerie feeling of, that things look normal, but who is really actually who?
Prague was similar, similarly, rather, shut down. And similarly, you didn’t know just who was listening in. But when we got checked into our room in the hotel, the bellman pointed to the chandelier and put his finger to his lips. In other words, that’s bugged. Whenever we wanted anything in the hotel room, we would just stand under the chandelier and say, I wonder why they haven’t changed that light bulb. And knock, knock, knock, there would be the light bulb. But after telling us about that, he then took us into the vestibule and said, want to change some dollars?
Anyway, everything was sort of underneath. So we went in search of Kafka at that time in Prague, trying to find Kafka, because I’m a big fan of Kafka, and couldn’t find any Kafka things. Graham actually went to his addresses, trying to find Kafka. Knock on the door, Kafka. No, no, no, no, no Kafka. No, goodbye. Slam. So, very verboten, Kafka, at that time.
We then went back in ’89, and already, there were Kafka handkerchiefs, Kafka playing cards. Kafka tchotchkes were already beginning to appear. And then I went back a little bit later, and it was full-blown Kafka. Oh, you sort of couldn’t avoid Kafka. There was a statue. There’s an award. I’ve got the award. I got the Kafka award. I was thrilled. And in the hotel where I was staying, they had a whole sort of display of sort of Kafka’s pencil, Kafka’s typewriter, Kafka’s chewing gum. You know, just anything that they could collect was in there.
So this is a story about two things, number one, about how some literary figures get repressed under certain kinds of regimes. Why Kafka? Because he wrote stories about impenetrable bureaucracies, the justice of which could not be figured out. And that was a bit too close to the bone, I suppose. And the other part of the story is how something can disappear but then reappear, how you can be a villain for one regime and a hero for the next. And that can work both ways.
Link to the full interview with Margaret Atwood: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-margaret-atwood.html
ReplyDeleteThe interview is titled: "Margaret Atwood on Stories, Deception, and the Bible"
ReplyDeleteThousands of Russians in Prague protest against war in Ukraine
ReplyDeleteBy Jason Hovet
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-russians-prague-protest-against-war-ukraine-2022-03-26/
PRAGUE, March 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of Russians marched through Prague on Saturday, waving the white-blue-white flag that has become a symbol of protests against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Carrying signs that read "Killer" over a picture of President Vladimir Putin and chanting "No to War", protesters walked from Prague's Peace Square through the centre of the Czech capital. Police put the number of marchers at about 3,000.
"We are against Putin," said Alexander Sibrimov, a 19-year-old student who attended the protest with his father.
"We don't agree with his politics. This is a way to show the world that the things happening in Ukraine are not right."
Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour, and denies targeting civilians. Ukraine and its Western allies have called that a baseless pretext for an unprovoked invasion.
The Czech Republic is home to 45,000 Russians, the fourth largest foreign community in the former communist-ruled country.
Nearly 200,000 Ukrainians lived in the Czech Republic - making them the biggest foreign community - before Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The Czech government estimates 300,000 Ukrainians have fled to the country.
"This is an act to show the Czech Republic and the Czech people that Russians (are) against Putin," protest organiser Anton Litvin said.
The protesters in Prague said they believed they were reflecting what many people in Russia feel but are unable to say.
"Just because we are Russians doesn't mean we are automatically for the war. We are against the war," said protester Oleg Golopyatov, a former soldier who has lived in Prague for 15 years. "Ukraine is a normal country. It is terrible (what is happening there)."