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of intellectuals versus the rest of the people, the masses, the attitude of
thinly-veiled contempt toward the masses. There was much applause for
the revolutions of 1989, when the masses rose behind grand, liberal uni–
versalist slogans. And yet, one year later, when the masses are no longer
united behind liberal intellectuals, there is a kind of triumphant yet
defensive mood. There is triumph at the great things that liberal intel–
lectuals and liberal democracy have brought about, without any
awareness of some of their limitations. We have Mannheim's kind of
applause for a free-floating intelligentsia without Mannheim's sociology
of knowledge, without his understanding of how intellectuals may
benefit from the changes. It seems we have to understand the new kind
of political arrangement, to understand that opposition to intellectuals is
more than something to be feared. Is there nothing intellectuals have
done wrong? Is it only that there are some who are hate-mongering?
There are certain dynamics, from the Communist and the post–
Communist periods , that intellectuals have not adjusted to well. In
Tatyana Tolstaya's theme of nationalism versus imperialism, with her
defense of imperialism, I saw a kind of se lf-irony that has not been
sufficiently developed on a larger scale. It is a theme that I would like
to
point to and would like to see addressed here.
William Phillips:
Would anyone here like to comment?
Mircea Mihaies:
My position is far from being one of contempt.
would call it rather a bitterness and a desperate compassion. Perhaps we
intellectuals have no more patience, because we read foreign papers and
watch foreign television. So on occasion, we see and understand earlier
than the rest of the population what is happening everywhere else. Per–
haps what is going on in Romania right now is quite normal, but we
have waited for such a long time. All of our lives we have lived with
Communism and now, for the first time, we have seen that it is possible
to change the political situation. We want it to change right now, this
very moment. I think I share this feeling with many intellectuals of my
still-young generation in Romania. Weare eager and impatient to have
things change, to finally consider ourselves Europeans. I think you have
to understand my comments from that point of view.
Eda Kriseova:
I would like to add that we are somehow surprised that
some of our values are not shared by everyone . We thought that people
wanted to be free, but in fact, I'm very disappointed that not all of them
want freedom. Instead, they are looking for their country to be a parent.
They are like children in the wild forest looking for an adult who will
