Demons

 Here's the thing: the history of ideas is a very exciting

field, but it is - at the same time - a history of false ideas

or terribly unattractive ones. Take 'race', as an example. It

was a breakthrough to become objective enough about ourselves

to recognize that similarities and differences between people(s)

could be talked about in an objective manner. But notions of

racial superiority, funnelled by religion or interpreted as such, did a lot

of damage. Nobody would want to endorse racialist ideology, today.

Looking back, one can see as well how communism and fascism opposed

each other in the 19th century in trying to show a way forward for societal 

developement. The working class, or the European educated were meant to show 

the way. In effect, neither without the other but it was a struggle for our self-image 

to get there. 

Today, the 'we' being talked about is struggling to become a global one. The

current situation in Ukraine is shuffling a lot of old demons. It could easily

create new ones...