The Camps: Eastern, Western, Modem

Abstract

Abstract This much Hans Habe, musing-with the benefit of hindsight, on the moment our century was born; the same century, which was at its other end to be described by Eric Hobsbawm as the “age of extremes.” Indeed, there are many extremes this century has reached or dangerously approached. I believe, though, that the most extreme among extreme thoughts and events was the surprise: life-giving rain turning into the all-devouring flood, fresh and translucent streams joining into a muddy and murky mire, exuberant confidence shrinking into suffocating despair, only to dissolve in the end, as Jean Baudrillard suggests, in “a state of total illusion” with, let us add, nothing to distinguish it from the state of a total disillusionment.