Instructor: Janusz Wrobel
Course Time: R 5:30-8:20
General Education: Global Perspective
Term: Winter 2013
DESCRIPTION
Students will look for the answers to important questions that the past century has left for us. How were the leaders of the time able to seduce hundred millions of people to follow their inhuman orders? What kind of social and economic systems create a proper ground for the growth of totalitarian or nationalistic ideologies? How did European cultural, religious, and ethnic fabric make the continent vulnerable to turning dangerous ideas into deadly realities that cost Europe millions and millions of lives? Have we learned a lesson from the tragic experiences of the 20th century? Are the European societies ready to challenge Fromm's statement?
The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity of being independent, to be rational to be objective,. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that mane is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself.
This course is divided into 3 parts. The first discusses the way in which Marxian utopian ideas were turned into the oppression of communism, the second examines how the economic crisis of the 30's led to the running away from freedom, and the acceptance of fascism, and the final part tells a story of the tragic misuse of freedom in former Yugoslavia.
TEXTS
- Escape from Freedom. E. Fromm. Henry Holt & Co.: New York. 1969.
- The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. S. Courtois, N. Werth, j. Payne, A. Paczkowski, K. Bartosek, J. Margolin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1999
- This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, T. Borowski. New York: Penguin. 1992.
- Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation L. Silber. Penguin, New York, 1997.