User:ObeliskBJM
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Babel
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I'm ObeliskBJM, a fourth-year student at Haddonfield Memorial High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, USA and Wikipedia contributor since June 2006. I'm using the term "contributor" loosely, as I am an active editor only intermittently and certainly not to the degree that I would like. Nevertheless, I still use Wikipedia as a general reference and am very interested in the future development of the project.
My interests, or at least my specific interests, tend to be somewhat short-term, but most of them fall within the general fields of Russian and European history (particularly the French Third Republic), Russian language and culture, Continental philosophy, politics (especially political ideologies, political party systems, electoral systems, and parliamentarism), and international relations.
My reading, and my hobbies in general, tend to be hopelessly academic, for the most part, and mostly related to the above subjects. Good historical and political writing can really captivate me: William Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read, even if it does propose a somewhat misleading thesis. Academics and history aside, my favorite writer is Nelson DeMille.
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Politically, my views are center-left and oriented towards social democracy. I am also interested in, and to some extent admire, historical radicalism, especially some of its center-left manifestations in France (Pierre Mendès France, Parti radical de Gauche). My Political Compass scores, for reference, are −7.12 Economic Left/Right and −8.36 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian, both of which I consider somewhat immoderate relative to my actual views. Institutionally speaking, I support parliamentarism, proportional representation and a multi-party system ― all of which places me pretty squarely out of the mainstream of United States politics. In regard to which, though I am very slightly sympathetic to the US Democrats, and not at all to the Republicans, I consider both parties essentially, ideologically, and programmatically almost indistinguishable on the important (read: economic) issues.
Internationalism being another key principle of mine, I am a strong supporter of the European Union (as well as Europhile in general), and, more broadly, of all forms of supranationalism and democratic globalization.
Next fall, I will be attending Georgetown University's College of Arts and Sciences as a freshman, and plan to major in Russian, hopefully while keeping up my study of French.
[edit] Some quotations
The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it. In fact, men cling to the world and by far the majority do not want to abandon it. Far from always wanting to forget it, they suffer, on the contrary, from not being able to possess it completely enough, estranged citizens of the world, exiled from their own country. Except for vivid moments of fulfillment, all reality for them is incomplete. Their actions escape them in the form of other actions, return in unexpected guises to judge them, and disappear like the water Tantalus longed to drink, into some still undiscovered orifice. To know the whereabouts of the orifice, to control the course of the river, to understand life, at last, as destiny — these are their true aspirations. But this vision which, in the realm of consciousness at least, will reconcile them with themselves, can only appear, if it ever does appear, at the fugitive moment that is death, in which everything is consummated. In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist ... At this point is born the fatal envy which so many men feel of the lives of others.
– Albert Camus, The Rebel
Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.
– Peter Ustinov
...When revolution in the name of power and of history becomes a murderous and immoderate mechanism, a new rebellion is consecrated in the name of moderation and of life. We are at that extremity now. At the end of this tunnel of darkness, however, there is inevitably a light, which we already divine and for which we only have to fight to ensure its coming. All of us, among the ruins, are preparing a renaissance beyond the limits of nihilism. But few of us know it.
– Albert Camus, The Rebel
Osez! — ce mot renferme toute la politique de votre révolution.
– Louis de Saint-Just
