Andrei Pleșu: Alexandru Dragomir about our politics

Unfortunately, few know who Alexandru Dragomir was. A graduate in law and philosophy from the University of Bucharest (1933-1939), then a doctoral student of Martin Heidegger in Freiburg im Breisgau, and after 1948 (until his death in 2002) a survivor, in anonymity, of a regime under which he did not consider it appropriate to intellectually practice. He lived from humble jobs, without any connection to his formation, but continued to "philosophize" "clandestinely," for himself, filling entire notebooks with analyses and metaphysical reflections, without the slightest intention of making them public. No one, in our culture, has worked with such grace, in pure gratuitousness, for the idea. I met him through his friend, Constantin Noica, and I benefited, together with some other friends, from a multitude of private seminars on themes or texts that concerned him. Only after his disappearance did Gabriel Liiceanu, sometimes accompanied by some younger collaborators, edit, with generous meticulousness, the texts left from his lifelong endeavor. From one of the volumes (Meditations on the Modern Era, published by Humanitas, in 2010, by Gabriel Liiceanu and Cătălin Cioabă) I have extracted, below, a few fragments (indicating the page). These are comments written after 1989, as a discreet witness, (melancholic or amused), to the local political comedy.

Greek democracy (Athenian):

1. The Demos (the People) votes for "the best" (aristoi), that is, votes (chooses) aristo-cratos - aristocracy (the power of the best). Not procedurally, but rather the political conviction of the voters is that they must choose the best, because the best must govern. Therefore, aristocracy.

It results that democracy is the political system that establishes aristocracy.

2. Voters do not vote (choose) for those who are actually (in fact) the best, but for those whom they believe to be the best.

3. Thus, since the best are not voted for, but those who are believed (doxa - opinion) to be the best (therefore it is opined), the result is an oligarchy (the power of the few), and the governance is oligarchic.

4. Oligarchy, not being the rule of the best, but only the rule of the few (elected by opinion) over the many, leads to a progressive worsening of the state of affairs, to a downward dynamism.

5. The worsening goes up to the conflict between the oligoi (the few) and the demos (the people), "resolved" either through tyranny or through overthrow, new elections, and history starts over. (op.cit. p.198).

6. The political mafia seeks to seize political power with a view to seizing economic power which, once achieved, will dominate political power. It has the advantage of tending to promote a capitalist economy and the disadvantage that economic power is entangled in a communist style, as a privilege of an organized clique. (op.cit. p. 208)

7. Our governments are doing as poorly as any state enterprise. (op.cit. p.163).

8. Our politicians: operetta singers trying to be in an opera. (op.cit. p.164).

9. Before we were the margins of Europe, now we are its slums. (op.cit. p.203).

10. Some die, some are guilty, some are caricature-like, some are stupid. (op.cit. p.163).

11. In our current politics, we live with the belief that we solve everything rationally, when in reality the reasoning (thinking) of politicians is either crippled or enslaved to interests, while the people appreciate affectively, according to mentality, in any case, but not rationally. (op.cit. p.211).

12. Dialogue: Its two extremes: those with whom one cannot dialogue and those with whom - being of the same opinion - there is nothing to dialogue about. (op.cit. p.209).

Read (again) for you. Andrei Pleșu

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PS 1. Obviously, we also have politicians who do not fit into the "portrait" above. One example, from my point of view, is Ilie Bolojan. He is different, from at least two points of view: he lacks voluble inefficiency and unshakeable egolatry. He knows how to do what he has to do and does not rejoice in himself as a champion of the species...

PS. 2. A special case is the Minister of Culture, Mr. András Demeter. Of Romanian culture, obviously, who cheerfully says that he "sticks his p... because he is Hungarian." The party that proposed him asked for his resignation, rationally. But he remained minister. Otherwise, he is consistent with his own statements: he tried to block Romania's presence as the guest of honor at the International Book Fair in 2028, Frankfurt. He did not succeed, due to an undisciplined subordinate (Alexandru Popescu, praised by all foreign collaborators) and the prompt intervention of Prime Minister Bolojan. But, despite being a resigning minister, Mr. Demeter is still a minister.

https://www.dilema.ro/situatiunea/alexandru-dragomir-despre-politica-noastra_4290