Today, Mr. Mihai Shori turns 106 years old. By the grace of His Majesty, I understand that you are speaking against far-right fundamentalists, often clericalists, xenophobes, fascists, allergic to otherness, fixated on conventions, emotions, disgust and superstitions of the past, obsessed with the purity of the nation, the protection of the ancestral line, the borders of the passemites, which are threatened the influx of “allogens” makes you not a leftist, but a centrist. The fact that you oppose the radical left, collectivist, false egalitarians, maniacally hostile to the market economy, an anti-Semite under the guise of “anti-Zionism” who wants to justify and update the libertarian “communist hypothesis” makes you not right-wing, but centrist.

Volodymyr TismanyanuPhoto: Hotnews

Similar to Boris Suvarin, Panait Istrati, Francois Furet, Arthur Koestler, Tibor Dery, Edgar Moren, Agniesz Heller, Anna Kriegel, Alexander Watt or Leszek Kolakowski, Mr. Mihai Shora illustrates with extraordinary nobility the apostate tradition of that Enlightenment. it forced many intellectuals of the twentieth century to overcome their doctrinal limitations and enter the realm of truth with dignity.

In today’s Romanian culture, Mr. Mihai ล ora is a symbol and embodiment of the ethics of responsibility. I visited him in his office at the Ministry of Education in early March 1990. I asked him what he thought was the biggest weakness of the democracy being established in Romania. His answer at the time is relevant: “The lack of a common vision of the public good.”

I learned from Mr. Mihai Shora what epistemic modesty means, the refusal of an oracular posture, of apodictic prophecies. He was the target of several vile attacks. It stood with decent verticality. I learned from his majesty that one should not stoop to the low level of some ignorant, ungrateful and arrogant pygmies. I learned the true meanings of the verbs reflect, protest and resist.

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