Na Modrovousově hradě – Steiner George (2020)

On Bluebeard's castle, there is a relatively short essay in terms of length, but it is immensely dense in thought and striking in both language and argumentation, through which George Steiner has positioned himself among the leading cultural philosophers of his time. Thematically, it follows T. S. Eliot's 1948 study, which examines the essence of culture and its place in Western society. However, Steiner goes even further and poses neglected and, in many cases, previously unspoken questions, presenting 'our' culture in a completely new light. The reader thus has the opportunity to embark on a unique historical-philosophical-literary probe into the history of Western civilization, revealing exciting yet significantly disturbing connections between advanced civilization and cultural barbarism. The central thesis that Steiner seeks to defend is the assertion that we should not understand the Holocaust as an excess, but rather as a concomitant phenomenon of modernity, stemming from an excessive bet on humanity, and that certain causes of inhumanity and the general crisis of values that led to the current reevaluation of culture can paradoxically be found at the very heart of civilization.