Elliot Ritzema

Author: Elliot

  • On Reading Pride and Prejudice for the First Time

    Before this month, I had never read anything by Jane Austen. There was no reason for that, other than I had never been required to in school. Sometimes the contrarian in me takes a perverse pleasure in having not read a book or seen a movie that is very popular (for example, I have never seen The Lion King, and probably couldn’t be convinced to at this point), but when it came to Pride and Prejudice, my inner contrarian was strangely silent.

    I finished it last week, and I liked it. I can definitely see why so many Jane Austen fans are female: even though there is no first-person narrator, the story is definitely told from a woman’s perspective. In case you have been hiding under a rock, I will tell you that the plot centers on the Bennet family, which consists of a silly mother, a sensible (and quietly hilarious, I thought) father, and five daughters. The father’s modest estate is entailed, which means that none of his daughters may inherit it. This in turn means that they need to marry well if they want to ensure their future financial well-being (as a side note: entails sure do have dramatic possibilities, as the popularity of Downton Abbey can attest). The “pride” and “prejudice” of the title come mostly from the attitudes that Elizabeth Bennet, the second-oldest daughter, and Mr. Darcy, a very wealthy young man who comes into the Bennets’ circle of acquaintance early in the book, have toward one another.

    I enjoyed this book a great deal. It has what all great novels have: a ring of truth. Even though the characters and events are fictional, the characters’ thoughts, emotions and actions are what real people would think, feel, and do in the same circumstances. That recipe for a great novel sounds simple, but anyone who has ever tried to write fiction knows how hard it can be. To be a good novelist, you have to know people extremely well. This trait isn’t all that common. But one way to fine-tune this trait is by reading great novels. Theologian Victor Shepherd says (in a lecture to a class full of seminary students):

    The instrument that the best social scientist wields is a very blunt instrument compared to the instrument that a good novelist wields. A good novelist is a far finer diagnostician of the human situation than the best sociologist or psychologist. Therefore never, ever, ever neglect the reading of fiction.

    Jane Austen was indeed a fine diagnostician of the human situation, which is I suppose why her novels have such enduring popularity. The cultures of early 19th-century England and the early 21st-century United States are very different, but the human situation doesn’t change. Even two centuries and an ocean apart, I can read Austen’s fiction and it feels familiar.

  • Moneyball: The Book and Movie

    Michael Lewis certainly has a sense for a good story. Lewis is the author of The Blind Side and Moneyball, among other books, and the thread that seems to run through his work is an interest in value and a talent for telling a story about how it is created.

    In The Blind Side, the value that he was interested in was that of a football lineman who plays on the left side of the offensive line, thus protecting the “blind side” of a right-handed quarterback. To explore that value, he told the story of Michael Oher. In Moneyball, the value that he was interested in was that of baseball players. The story he told was that of the cash-strapped Oakland Athletics and their general manager, Billy Beane.

    I read the book last month, and saw the movie last week, so the “moneyball” concept is fresh in my mind. The idea behind “moneyball” is twofold:

    1. When evaluating baseball players, measurables should be valued above intangibles. This means, for one thing, that you tend to draft college players more than high school players, because college players have a larger body of work.
    2. When you are a baseball team without a lot of money, you need to look for players with measurables that are undervalued. Players who have measurables that are highly valued tend to be paid more, and so they tend to play for teams that can pay them more, like the Yankees. So you look for players like Chad Bradford, who was a good relief pitcher, but who was undervalued because he had an unusual throwing motion—he threw underhand.

    Lewis followed Beane around during the 2002 baseball season and interviewed him several times. The fun thing about reading Moneyball all these years later, as someone who follows baseball, is that I know how things turned out for many of the players mentioned. Nick Swisher, for example, was the player that the A’s wanted most in the 2002 draft. They got him, and he played for them for several years, but now he plays for the Yankees. Another player the A’s drafted that year is Joe Blanton, who now plays for the Phillies. Most of the other players selected by the A’s that year did not make it to the major leagues for long, as pointed out by this article on espn.com. As Paul DePodesta—who was Beane’s assistant GM in 2002—points out, that is more of a reflection on the nature of baseball’s draft than the A’s philosophy. Lots of draftees, even in the first round, just don’t pan out.

    The movie was generally faithful to the book. The one major change was that, since DePodesta did not want to be portrayed on screen, Beane’s assistant GM in the film is a composite character named Peter Brand. Also, Beane’s daughter does not feature in the book, but she does in the movie.

    One problem with “moneyball” is a problem that it shares with all other forms of empiricism: It tries to turn everything into a measurable quantity. This probably works better in baseball than it does in most sports, because of the sheer number of statistical categories, but eventually it reaches its limits. It tries to be objective, when it is impossible for humans to be completely objective. Lewis points this out in the book, as he describes Beane’s quirks and the ways in which he behaves that are not entirely rational.

    Another problem with “moneyball” is that eventually you run out of statistics that are undervalued by other teams. This has apparently been the case with the A’s over the last several years, as other teams have seen their success and adopted their methods. Former Red Sox G.M. Theo Epstein, for example, wholeheartedly adopted Beane’s style of player evaluation, but with an important difference: the Red Sox have way more money than the Athletics. Since Moneyball was published, the Red Sox have won two World Series, and the Athletics have won none.

    That’s not to say I don’t like the book or the movie. I enjoyed both; it’s a fun underdog story about challenging the status quo. I’d recommend both, and I look forward to reading more Lewis.

  • Book Review: The Hunger Games and the Myth of Redemptive Violence

    In a post-apocalyptic future, 24 teenagers must participate in a reality show in which they must kill or be killed. That is the premise of The Hunger Games, a young adult (!) novel by Suzanne Collins.

    The book is set in the country of Panem, which occupies what was once North America. In Panem, 12 districts surround the Capitol, the seat of government and power. The protagonist of the book is 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in District 12 (formerly Appalachia), one of the poorest districts. Her father has died five years before, and her family now consists of her younger sister Prim—whom she loves—and her mother,whom she has contempt for. In fact, with a few exceptions, Katniss has contempt for most people she meets.

    For the benefit of those who would like to read the book, I won’t get into many plot details. I will say that Collins is a skillful storyteller, and it was easy to keep reading. I will also say that, for reasons other than Collins’s storytelling skills, the book was a disappointment for me. I felt that Katniss was not a likable protagonist from the beginning, and she did not change significantly over the course of the book. The book comes across as deterministic in the way that it presents the world. There are no surprising twists (Actually, let me clarify that. I shouldn’t say that there are no surprising twists; I should say that I was not surprised by the twists that were there. I don’t want to ruin it for people who haven’t read the book, so I won’t go into details. But there were a few points in the book where it seemed like Collins wanted the reader to be surprised, and I wasn’t.) The Capitol is in charge and no one can do anything about it. The only thing anyone can do is look out for the welfare of themselves and the people they care about. In this way, it reminded me of Thomas Hobbes’s description of the state of nature, where it is a war of all against all, and life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes says this condition obtains where there is no single power to keep everyone in awe. I heard Collins saying, through her story, that this condition also obtains where there is a single power, but it is in that power’s interest to deprive others of any kind of security.

    One positive aspect of this book is that, although there is lots of violence, it isn’t glorified. Violence–even violence that is “necessary”—is terrible, and that comes through loud and clear in The Hunger Games. There seems to be no myth of redemptive violence at work here. For those unfamiliar with the concept, here is Walter Wink:

    The belief that violence “saves” is so successful because it doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience- unto-death.

    This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today….

    No other religious system has even remotely rivalled the myth of redemptive violence in its ability to catechise its young so totally. From the earliest age, children are awash in depictions of violence as the ultimate solution to human conflicts. Nor does saturation in the myth end with the close of adolescence. There is no rite of passage from adolescent to adult status in the national cult of violence, but rather a years-long assimilation to adult television and movie fare….

    Redemptive violence gives way to violence as an end in itself. It is no longer a religion that uses violence in the pursuit of order and salvation, but one in which violence has become an aphrodisiac, sheer titillation, an addictive high, a substitute for relationships. Violence is no longer the means to a higher good, namely order; violence becomes the end.

    While the myth of redemptive violence pervades our world, it is not present in the world of The Hunger Games. There is no sense that violence from the “good guys” is an adequate response to violence from the “bad guys.” All violence in The Hunger Games is disturbing, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, though it does not glorify violence, the world in The Hunger Games is presented as a hopeless place. The cycle of violence cannot be broken, even though violence isn’t presented in a positive way. If I were the parent of young adults who read this book, I would probably want to help them appreciate the negative presentation of violence, but also talk to them about the deterministic (or possibly fatalistic?) worldview of the books, and whether it accurately depicted the world as it is. I don’t believe that it does, but I do believe that there are many determinists among us. Collins, apparently, is one.

  • Book Review: The Me I Want to Be

    Popular-level books on Christian living are not my favorite genre. Partially this is because I just prefer to read books on theology and biblical studies, and partially because a lot of what some of them have to say has been said better elsewhere by someone like C.S. Lewis. But I like John Ortberg a lot—maybe because we have a similar personality type (INFP, according to the Myers-Briggs temperament sorter). He is able to write straightforwardly about complex realities without over-simplifying, and he has a good sense of humor.

    The idea behind this book is that each person is made by God in a certain way, and that it is our task to find out how to flourish given the way we are made. Different things make us grow, and different things give us life. We don’t find out what makes us grow and gives us life by imitating other people. For example, although prayer is something that all people need to flourish, different people flourish most by praying at different times, in different ways, and in different places.

    The negative side of this is that each of has “signature sins,” ways of sinning that are connected to the ways we are gifted. Just as different things make each of us grow, different things keep each of us from growing and becoming the “me” we were meant to be. A temptation that one person finds very difficult to resist will be easy to resist for someone else. For example, people with great leadership abilities are tempted to use others.

    This book contains a lot of good advice, and each copy contains an access code to a spiritual assessment tool at Monvee.com. I’d recommend it especially for young people who are just beginning to figure out how they have been wired, but older adults can benefit from it as well.

  • 10 Books I’d Like to Read This Year

    In some ways I’m a desultory reader; I read what looks interesting or what is available to me at the time. I will continue to read that way this year, but I would also like to prioritize some books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Here is what is at the top of my reading list this year:

    1. Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi. It seems like this book is cited in every book written in the last 50 years that deals even a little bit with epistemology.

    2. God’s Word in Human Words by Kenton L. Sparks. I have a longstanding interest in biblical hermeneutics, and this one has looked interesting to me for a while.

    3. The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard Hays. Ethics is another longstanding interest of mine, and this is an important book on NT ethics.

    4. The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright. I’ve read the first two volumes in Wright’s series “Christian Origins and the Question of God.” I’d like to read this third one before the fourth one comes out—which is supposed to happen this year.

    5. Church History by Eusebius. A classic that I’ve never read.

    6. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, now it’s time to tackle this one.

    7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I’ve never read anything by Austen. I figured this would be a good one to start with.

    8. Autobiography by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read a couple of biographies of him, but I’ve never read his autobiography.

    9. Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by Daniel Koyzis. Not a bad book to read in a major election year in the United States.

    10. What would you recommend?

  • Book Review: Jesus and the Victory of God

    I started reading this about a year ago, and finally finished it early in December. N.T. (Tom) Wright has become a book machine over the last few years, sometimes publishing three or four per year. Some of these are popular level re-workings of ideas that he has written about elsewhere, but Jesus and the Victory of God is one of his more massive and academic works. Published in 1996, it is the second volume in his “Christian Origins and the Question of God” series (the first is The New Testament and the People of God, the third is The Resurrection of the Son of God, and the fourth, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, is forthcoming).

    The underlying argument of the book is that the “historical Jesus” and the “Jesus of faith” don’t have to be separated, as they have been in so much recent scholarship. You can do rigorous historical study and end up knowing something about how Jesus presented himself to his contemporaries. That’s not to say that the book is devotional in tone. It is academic through and through. Wright simply says that it is possible to know with some degree of confidence who Jesus believed himself to be, and who his earliest followers believed him to be. This means that he invites criticism from two sides: scholars who think that he is too confident that historical questions have answers, and believers who don’t like historical studies that seek to fit Jesus into a first-century milieu. Wright begins with an overview of Jesus studies over the past 100 or so years. Then he argues that Jesus’ public persona was that of a prophet, and the content of his proclamation was the kingdom of God. Then he looks at what Jesus believed his role was with regard to Israel, and the reasons for his crucifixion. Finally, he argues that Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem was intended to act out symbolically YHWH’s return to Zion.

    This is a fascinating book, and well worth the time and effort spent in reading it. Those less academically minded may find especially the initial review of Jesus studies tedious, but those already familiar with the likes of Schweitzer, Wrede and Bultmann will find it interesting. There are things about this book that I love and things that I am not sure about (e.g., that some of Jesus’ parables that the Church has traditionally thought are about his second coming are really about YHWH’s return to Zion as enacted by Jesus). Wright doesn’t talk much about Jesus’ resurrection in this book, but not because he doesn’t think it is important. It is because there was too much material to deal with it in one book, so he wrote The Resurrection of the Son of God over the next seven years. I’d recommend this book to anyone seeking to gain a greater understanding of how Jesus fit into first-century Judaism, and especially those who may be either enamored or troubled by proclamations from the likes of the Jesus Seminar or Bart Ehrman.

  • 2011: The Year in Reading

    I finished 44 books in the past year. There were a lot of good ones, and a few not-so-great ones. Here (in no particular order) are 10 that I would highly recommend:

    Biblical Studies:

    1. Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright. This is a large book, and not a fast or easy read, but it repays the effort spent on it.
    2. The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight. It challenges Christians to have a fuller understanding of what the gospel is (i.e., more than just salvation). I hope that it bears much fruit in the year to come.
    3. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God by Christopher J.H. Wright. If you’ve ever wondered what God’s instructions to Israel in the Old Testament have to do with Christians today, this is the book to read.

    Business and Leadership:

    4. Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud. An unusually strong and deep entry from the business/leadership genre.

    Cultural Studies:

    5. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. This was my first Gladwell book, and it won’t be my last. He’s a joy to read.
    6. Gods That Fail by Vinoth Ramachandra. Idolatry is not dead. It has just disguised itself. Another book in the same vein that I read this year was Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller.

    History:

    7. Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction by John Fea. A historian looks at a perennial question. What he says is sometimes surprising, and it won’t completely satisfy those who want to quickly say “Yes” or “No.” I’d recommend this to every Christian with an interest in American history.

    Memoir/Biography:

    8. Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans. Evans speaks for a lot of people in her/my generation who grew up in the church and came to decide that things in this world are not always as they seem.
    9. The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. Peterson has a lot of knowledge and experience when it comes to both writing and pastoring, and I’m grateful that he has chosen to reflect on his life as a pastor in written form.

    Theology:

    10. Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller. Christians especially ought to ask the question, “What does it mean to be just?” Keller gives answers for those who ask. Like many good biblical answers, they don’t make ideologues on the right or the left very happy.

    Honorable Mention:

    Okay, I said 10, but I got to the end and couldn’t leave off these two:

    Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber
    Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt

  • The Origins of Christmas

    Every year, I hear people talk about where Christmas came from. Here are two discussions of how there came to be a celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25.

    From Philip Schaff, in his History of the Christian Church:

    The Christmas festival was probably the Christian transformation or regeneration of a series of kindred heathen festivals—the Saturnalia, Sigillaria, Juvenalia, and Brumalia—which were kept in Rome in the month of December, in commemoration of the golden age of universal freedom and equality, and in honor of the unconquered sun, and which were great holidays, especially for slaves and children. This connection accounts for many customs of the Christmas season, like the giving of presents to children and to the poor, the lighting of wax tapers, perhaps also the erection of Christmas trees, and gives them a Christian import; while it also betrays the origin of the many excesses in which the unbelieving world indulges at this season, in wanton perversion of the true Christmas mirth, but which, of course, no more forbid right use, than the abuses of the Bible or of any other gift of God.

    Had the Christmas festival arisen in the period of the persecution, its derivation from these pagan festivals would be refuted by the then reigning abhorrence of everything heathen; but in the Nicene age this rigidness of opposition between the church and the world was in a great measure softened by the general conversion of the heathen. Besides, there lurked in those pagan festivals themselves, in spite of all their sensual abuses, a deep meaning and an adaptation to a real want; they might be called unconscious prophecies of the Christmas feast. Finally, the church fathers themselves confirm the symbolical reference of the feast of the birth of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the Light of the world, to the birth-festival of the unconquered sun, which on the twenty-fifth of December, after the winter solstice, breaks the growing power of darkness, and begins anew his heroic career. It was at the same time, moreover, the prevailing opinion of the church in the fourth and fifth centuries, that Christ was actually born on the twenty-fifth of December; and Chrysostom appeals, in behalf of this view, to the date of the registration under Quirinius (Cyrenius), preserved in the Roman archives. But no certainty respecting the birthday of Christ can be reached from existing data.

    From Craig Blomberg, in his Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey:

    In post-New Testament times, Mithraism (originally from Persia) amalgamated with the Roman worship of Sol Invictus (the unconquerable sun), and a festival to Sol was celebrated every December 25. Christians took advantage of this “day off” to protest against Mithraism by worshiping the birth of Jesus instead. After the Roman empire became officially Christian (fourth century), this date turned into the legal holiday we know today as Christmas. The celebration of the annual death and rebirth of the nature gods finds parallels and contrasts, too, with Christian teaching about the death and resurrection of Christ (34).

    It is important to note that Christmas did not start out as a pagan festival. It was the co-opting of a pagan festival. In this way, it is like Festivus, the holiday that Frank Costanza (A character on the TV show Seinfeld) created as an alternative to Christmas. There was already a holiday being celebrated, and Christians used the festive atmosphere to create their own holiday.

  • Book Review: Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics

    This is the second edition of Steve Wilkens’s introductory survey of ethical theories. Wilkens, who teaches at Azusa Pacific University in southern California, devotes chapters to cultural relativism, ethical egoism, utilitarianism, behaviorism, evolutionary ethics, situation ethics, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, narrative ethics, natural law ethics and divine command theory. The chapters on evolutionary ethics and narrative ethics are new in this edition.

    The idea behind this book is that various ethical theories can be summarized in short slogans, or “bumper stickers.” Even people who do not think about ethical systems organize their lives around one or more of these slogans, and Wilkens wants to bring the theories behind the bumper stickers out into the open so they can be evaluated. Wilkens writes from a Christian perspective, and places the ethical theories in the book into three categories: first he looks at ethical theories that contradict aspects of the Christian worldview, then theories that can be compatible with, but do not require, a Christian worldview, and finally theories that begin from a Christian standpoint.

    In each chapter, Wilkens introduces the reader to an ethical theory, primarily interacting with one or two proponents of that theory. For example, in his chapter on ethical egoism he interacts with Ayn Rand, in his chapter on evolutionary ethics he interacts with E.O. Wilson, and in his chapter on narrative ethics he interacts with Stanley Hauerwas. Then he gives the positive aspects of each theory—he believes that all of them have some truth; otherwise they would not be so attractive to so many people—and potential weaknesses.

    One potential weakness of the book is that dealing with just one or two proponents of an ethical theory can lead to oversimplification. Wilkens is conscious of that risk, but believes that it is a risk that must be taken in an introductory survey (217). Also, in the chapter on natural law, Wilkens talks about the U.S. Constitution setting forth the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He means the Declaration of Independence (185).

    In spite of small weaknesses, I highly recommend this book. All people organize their lives according to some ethical system, and relatively few people take time to reflect on where their ethical system came from and what its implications are. After reading this book, some Christians may realize that the ethical system they have adopted is not as rooted in a Christian worldview as it ought to be. This is a book that is especially well suited as a textbook for an introductory ethics class in a Christian high school or university.

  • Václav Havel: 1936–2011

    Václav Havel, the playwright and dissident who became president of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the Czech Republic in 1993, died on Sunday.

    Havel was still president when I went to Prague to teach English in the fall of 2002. I was there in early 2003 when his term as president ended. For the last month of his time in office, he placed a large neon heart above Prague Castle (where the president lives and works) to show his love and gratitude for the Czech people. During my year there, I not only learned how to pronounce Václav (vahts-lahv), I read a collection of his essays, Open Letters: Selected Writings 1965-1990. I found many of his writings courageous and inspiring, and his idea of “living in truth” is particularly powerful. Here are a few passages I underlined in my copy of Open Letters:

    From “Letter to Alexander Dubček”:

    There are moments when a politician can achieve real political success only by turning aside from the complex network of relativized political considerations, analyses, and calculations, and behaving simply as an honest person. The sudden assertion of human criteria within a dehumanizing framework of political manipulation can be like a flash of lightning illuminating a dark landscape. And truth is suddenly truth again, reason is reason, and honor honor (48–49).

    From “It Always Makes Sense to Tell the Truth”:

    I believe that with the loss of God, man has lost a kind of absolute and universal system of coordinates, to which he could always relate anything, chiefly himself. His world and his personality gradually began to break up into separate, incoherent fragments corresponding to different, relative coordinates. And when this happened, man began to lose his inner identity, that is, his identity with himself… It’s as if we were playing for a number of different teams at once, each with different uniforms, and as though–and this is the main thing–we didn’t know which one we ultimately belonged to, which one of those teams was really ours (94–95).

    From “The Power of the Powerless”:

    Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them (133).

    If Western young people so often discover that retreat to an Indian monastery fails them as an individual or group solution, then this is obviously because, and only because, it lacks that element of universality, since not everyone can retire to an ashram. Christianity is an example of an opposite way out: it is a point of departure for me here and now–but only because anyone, anywhere, at any time, may avail themselves of it. In other words, the parallel polis points beyond itself and makes sense only as an act of deepening one’s responsibility to and for the whole, as a way of discovering the most appropriate locus for this responsibility, not as an escape from it (195–196).

    From “Politics and Conscience”:

    I think that, with respect to the relation of western Europe to the totalitarian systems, no error could be greater than the one looming largest: that of a failure to understand the totalitarian systems for what they ultimately are—a convex mirror of all modern civilization and a harsh, perhaps final call for a global recasting of how that civilization understands itself…. They are, most of all, a convex mirror of the inevitable consequences of rationalism, a grotesquely magnified image of its own deep tendencies, an extreme offshoot of its own expansion (259).

    It is… becoming evident—and I think that is an experience of an essential and universal importance—that a single, seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and all his life, ready to pay a high price, has, surprisingly, greater power, though formally disfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters (270).

    From “Six Asides About Culture”:

    The more an artist compromises to oblige power and gain advantages, the less good art we can expect from him; the more freely and independently, by contrast, he pursues his own vision… the better his chances of creating something good—though it remains only a chance: what is uncompromising need not automatically be good (281).

    From “Stories and Totalitarianism”:

    [The totalitarian system] began with an interpretation of history from a single aspect, then made that aspect absolute, and finally reduced all of history to that one aspect. The exciting variety of history was discarded in favor of an orderly, easily understood interplay of “historical laws,” “social groups,” and “relations of production,” so pleasing to the eye of the scientist. But this gradually expelled from history the very thing that gives human life, time, and thus history itself a structure: the story (335).

    From “New Year’s Address” (1990, after he had been elected president for the first time):

    Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would also be wrong to expect a general remedy from them only. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all (392).