Filosofický časopis (Sep 2022)
Postmodernismus a střední Evropa
Abstract
The text printed here was originally a contribution that Hejdánek made in 1991 to a Dutch magazine for a thematic issue dedicated to the relationship of Central and Eastern Europe to postmodernism. In his piece, Hejdánek starts from questions that revolved around the challenges the European continent was facing in that moment, and rejects the idea that the countries of the former Soviet bloc should simply assimilate themselves to Western Europe. Central Europe, in his opinion, was not, in opposition to the West, returning to the abandoned ideals of modernity. At the same time, Western postmodernism, in Hejdánek’s understanding, did not represent the overcoming of the modern era, but only its final phase. Following after Nietzsche, Hejdánek sees the core of modernity as lying in nihilism, the result of its devaluation of all existing values. He interprets this idea as an insight that values cannot be considered to have existence, because we cannot encounter them among varied objectifiable entities. However, it is possible to approach values differently, as Hejdánek suggests in the case with human rights: these should not be understood as a property of humans that belongs to them from birth, for it is also necessary to guarantee the rights of people who have not yet been born. With the perspective of a new, viable concept of human rights, Hejdánek connects the Hebrew idea of truth as an actuality that stands above all that exists, and points to its life and historical significance as they are present in Central Europe (especially in the Czech lands).
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