Open society and the European union

Miloslav Bednar

pp. 237-244

in: Zuzana Parusniková, Robert S. Cohen (eds), Rethinking Popper, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

Popper's concept of the open society articulates and further develops the classical paradigm of the liberal human condition. The radical challenge of totalitarianism as an alternative mode of human existence motivated Karl Popper to define freedom, the very heart of democratic civilization, as the standard and criterion of human dignity. Dictatorships and totalitarian regimes suppress human freedom, which is the basic characteristic of open democratic societies and states. Today, the European Union has apparently evolved into a sophisticated post-democratic entity with a highly-regulated, closed, non-liberal, irrational, non-humanitarian, and consequently undemocratic nature. This relatively new historical phenomenon thereby represents a new type of serious threat to the freedom of individuals and open societies alongside those that we already know from history.

Cited authors

Popper Karl