Final Word from Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A Renčín cartoon in Právo's magazine on Sat. pictured a dejected
intellectual surrounded by books who says that he's "tired and
worn out from fighting for 30 years to save a civilization that
isn't worth it." Put another way, the question might be whether
our civilization deserves to survive. Is it already too decrepit, too
beyond repair? If we're not willing to fight for it, or even to
acknowledge what its problems are, perhaps our civilization is
indeed rightfully on the way out and those with a greater
Darwinian survival instinct deserve to prevail. The big problem
with this thesis is that it assumes we're all collectively and
equally guilty of running our civilization into the ground. We
aren't, of course. The question for the intellectual in the cartoon
- and for all others who profess to be working in our interests -
is whether he's been fighting to save our civilization, or whether
he's one of the causes of its decline.[Czech Republic Vladimír]
Glossary of difficult words
dejected - sad and depressed; dispirited;
decrepit - worn out and ruined because of age or neglect;
to run something into the ground - to cause something to deteriorate;
to profess - to claim openly but often falsely.