A last farewell to André Glucksmann, one of the most honest intellectuals in this dishonest age of ours! He wrote one of the books that helped many in my generation, East and West, understand how totalizing ideas, in other words grandiose ideological schemes, lead to totalitarianism. Intially a frantic leftist, he became a man of the anti-totalitarian center.”Les maitres penseurs” will endure as a great humanist book. My last article published in 1981 in the Romanian “Revista de filosofie” (I left the country in September) was about him and the other nouveaux philosophes. In spite of censorship, I emphasized the authenticity of their moral rebellion against the 20th century’s Caligulas.
I met him in Bucharest in February 1990 at the Group for Social Dialogue. I read if not all, definitely most of his books.He wrote about wars, utopias ,terror, political follies, and human stupidity. I admired his unflinching commitment to human rights.”When thought and action are separated, the space of freedom is in danger,” wrote Hannah Arendt. In Glucksmann’s case, they are merged forever.
