Twenty years ago next week, the Berlin Wall came down. And so did the collapse of a destructive ideology that divided nations and peoples between embracing a way of life that was based on abstractions involving nothing less than a reconstruction of human nature based on communist ideals and living out reality as it is. In an op-ed piece, “Murderous Idealism,” published November 2nd by the Washington Post, Paul Hollander, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, looks back (he lived in communist Hungary as a young man) and outlines the moral and philosophical arguments 0n the untenability and failings of communism.
Atlas and many other organizations are planning to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This piece summarizes for us what it is that is being celebrated. While the world is not rid of communism (its reemergence apparent in places like Latin America), it is good to know that this ideology collapses under its own contradictions. Hollander puts it this way:
” . . . communism’s collapse also suggests that under certain conditions people can tell the difference between right and wrong . The embrace and rejection of communism correspond to the spectrum of attitudes ranging from deluded and destructive idealism to the realization that human nature precludes utopian social arrangements and that the careful balancing of ends and means is the essential precondition of creating and preserving a decent society.”
(Professor Hollander worked with Atlas in arranging the translation of his books with the help of an Earhart grant.)
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