Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI
Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.
Finally, to prevent the ascendance of a resurgent far right, we need to get past our red hangover and recognize the pros and cons of both liberal dem… - Kristen R. Ghodsee
" "Finally, to prevent the ascendance of a resurgent far right, we need to get past our red hangover and recognize the pros and cons of both liberal democracy and state socialism in an effort to promote a system that gives us the best of both. Like the sudden collapse of communism, the days of liberal democracy may be numbered, and the West could soon face its own equivalent of November 9, 1989. Twentieth-century communism failed because the ideals of communism had been betrayed by the leaders who ruled in its name. When the reforms came, they came too late: ordinary people had already given up on the system. Today, democratically elected leaders too often betray the ideals of democracy and those who are calling for reform may also be too late. Citizens across Europe and the United States have lost faith in the system, and global capitalism's final crisis could be just around the corner. Perhaps in this moment of dramatic rupture, we will have the opportunity to rethink the democratic project and finally do the work necessary to either rescue it from the death grip of neoliberalism, or replace it with a new political ideal that leads us forward to a new stage of human history.
English
Collect this quote
About Kristen R. Ghodsee
Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee (born April 26, 1970) is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the known primarily for her ethnographic work on post-communist as well as being a contributor to the field of postsocialist .
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Kristen Ghodsee
•
Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Kristen R. Ghodsee
Stubborn and perhaps a bit naive, I persisted and spent the late 1990s living and dong research in Eastern Europe, watching firsthand the slow and painful transformation of a state-owned economy into one of unfettered free markets. I observed that women were more likely than men to express a longing for the state socialist past because of the many tangible benefits women lost with the coming of democracy and capitalism. The privatization and liberalization of the economy had disproportionately affected women who lost access to once generous social safety nets that allowed them to more easily combine work and family responsibilities before 1989. Since those early days interviewing chambermaids and receptionists on the Black Sea, I have spent the rest of my career studying the lived experience of state socialism and the effects of postsocialism on ordinary lives in Eastern Europe.
Older citizens of Eastern Europe fondly recall the small comforts and predictability of their life before 1989: free education and healthcare, no fear of unemployment and of not having money to meet basic needs. A joke, told in many East European languages, illustrates this sentiment:
In the middle of the night a woman screams and jumps out of bed, eyes filled with terror. Her startled husband watches her rush to the bathroom and open the medicine cabinet. She then dashes to the kitchen and inspects the inside of the refrigerator. Finally, she flings open the window and gazes out onto the street below their apartment. She takes a deep breath and returns to bed.
"What's wrong with you?" her husband says. "What happened?"
"I had a terrible nightmare," she says. "I dreamed that we had the medicine we needed, that our refrigerator was full of food, and that the streets outside were safe and clean."
"How is that a nightmare?"
The woman shakes her head and shudders. "I thought the Communists were back in power."
Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
In addition to the desire for historical exculpation, however, I argue that the current push for commemorations of the victims of communism must be viewed in the context of regional fears of a re-emergent left. In the face of growing economic instability in the Eurozone, as well as massive antiausterity protests on the peripheries of Europe, the “victims of communism” narrative may be linked to a public relations effort to link all leftist political ideals to the horrors of Stalinism. Such a rhetorical move seems all the more potent when discursively combined with the idea that there is a moral equivalence between Jewish victims of the Holocaust and East European victims of Stalinism. This third coming of the German Historikerstreit is related to the of global capitalism, and perhaps the elite desire to discredit all political ideologies that threaten the primacy of private property and free markets.
Loading...