Milan Kundera

Memory’s Resistance: Defying Power Through Remembrance

Looking back through history, totalitarian regimes have frequently tried to erase or rewrite the past. George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) famously depicts a society where the past is continually altered to serve the present regime, encapsulating Kundera’s warning. Similarly, the Soviet Union’s alteration of photographs and records demonstrates how controlling memory underpins authoritarian power. In both fictional and real-world cases, the assault on memory facilitates the consolidation of power and the suppression of dissent. [...]

Freedom: The Essential Ingredient of True Paradise

This theme resonates through utopian literature. In Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ (1516), society is carefully regulated for common good. Yet, later thinkers such as Aldous Huxley in ‘Brave New World’ (1932) caution that contentment engineered by control robs individuals of self-determination. Thus, history repeatedly warns that paradise manufactured at the expense of freedom ultimately devolves into stagnation or oppression. [...]

When the Heart Speaks, the Mind Finds It Indecent to Object - Milan Kundera

Love and passion often make people act against reason. This quote underscores how powerful emotions can be in shaping decisions and actions, even when they defy logic. [...]