No major war or act of mass killing in the twentieth century began without the aggressors or perpetrators first claiming innocence and victimhood. - Timothy Snyder

In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction.

Since late November <nowiki> </nowiki>, millions of Ukrainians have campaigned for a pro-European course, only to find themselves branded extremists, foreign agents and criminals.

Our appetite for the secret, thought Arendt, is dangerously political. Totalitarianism removes the difference between private and public not just to make individuals unfree, but also to draw the whole society away from normal politics and toward conspiracy theories. Rather than defining facts or generating interpretations, we are seduced by the notion of hidden realities and dark conspiracies that explain everything. As we learned from these email bombs, this mechanism works even when what is revealed is of no interest. The revelation of what was once confidential becomes the story itself.