{"id":27503,"date":"2026-07-03T03:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/?p=27503"},"modified":"2026-07-03T03:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:39:46","slug":"27503","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/?p=27503","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Here, once again, as always in critical moments of history, the root contradictions of the two social and political systems on earth were laid bare.<\/p>\n

\u2014Chingiz Aitmatov, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years<\/em>, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 202<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I read this paragraph, reread it, reread it again. The assumption of there being<\/em> two social and political systems on earth was something completely taken for granted during my childhood and while I was a young adult. Thinking over the phrasing of news articles I read today I am struck by the extent to which the names of individual leaders are used, as if these leaders, not countries, were actors. When countries are considered they are presented as unitary forces of good and evil. There is no mention of political or social system, except as a form of schoolyard name-calling: the mayor of New York and the US Democratic Party are attacked as “socialist” or “communist”, The Radical Right-Wing\u2122<\/span> is a bogeyman ever threatening European “democracy”, a seemingly demonic Russian horde revs tank engines just offstage, however there is no general discussion let alone understanding of what terms like “socialism” or “democracy” or “rule of law” may mean in practice. It is an odd dystopia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here, once again, as always in critical moments of history, the root contradictions of the two social and political systems on earth were laid bare. \u2014Chingiz Aitmatov, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wehle.lt\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}