7 Comments
Jul 17Liked by Russ Roberts

I have some thoughts but will share most privately except to say that the line about the Nazis and communists and developers is you at your best.

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Have you been to Budapest? I found the Jewish history there - and the way it is marked through tourism - even more disturbing, precisely in the way you describe. Thanks for this.

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No, but soon, I hope.

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Russ, did you accidentally omit "not" from the line below?

> In 2021, 48% said they did have a religion.

Either way, thank you for these thought-provoking--and nuanced--reflections.

WIth respect to what inspires great works: I wonder how much overlap of inspiration there is between the people envisioning and designing the architecture and art, the people developing and extrapolating the theology and ethics, and the people policing the boundaries and ideological / social purity.

And whatever the degree of overlap of the religious inspiration: how much of the art, of the ideological development, and of the boundary policing is motivated by personal drives & personal character that is independent of (and layered on top of) the religion?

This isn't a rhetorical question. And I think it's relevant to any religion, in fact to any social institution.

Shabbat Shalom.

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Russ, you may be interested in reading some Rod Dreher: he's an American expat living in Hungary and often writes on the rapidly fading shadow of Christianity in Europe.

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Thank you for your thoughtful insights. I will now add Prague to my list of future destinations. I'll also need to study-up before I go.

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I love your writing. But I wonder if the beauty of the art was worth the ugliness of the actions. Maybe the ugliness was inevitable. If you’re going to murder Jews anyway with the right hand, why not make some nice music with the left? The artists don’t do the murdering, but the murderers can appreciate the art and even calm their conscience (such as it was).

Still, I deeply understand the sense of loss, of what might have been, if those people had not been murdered.

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