Small Map of Experience: Reflections & Aphorisms

To entail, scan and embrace more knowledge of "what is" and "what ought to be done" in fewer words -- to make a statement as short, concise, terse and pithy as possible while rendering the sights it opens as vast as possible -- is the principal intention of the practitioners of the difficult art of the aphorism. Many writers have tried it, few have succeeded. A successful aphorism, true to its mission, allows a small step to go a long, perhaps an infinitely long, way. But as knowledge needed to find one's way in our increasingly crowded and complex world grows at a mind-boggling pace, so do the difficulties on the road to success. In our liquid-modern times horizons tend to break up or dissolve as soon as they are drawn. It is this unprecedented quality of our condition that Leonidas Donskis attempts to grasp and convey by resurrecting the badly missed and badly needed art of the aphorism, injecting into it a new impetus, a perfect match to the vertiginous pace of our life, and bringing that art up to the gravity and grandiosity of the challenge we confront. We should all be grateful to him for this exquisitely harrowing task he has performed.

About the Author :
Dr. Leonidas Donskis is a Member of the European Parliament (20092014). He has written and edited over thirty books, thirteen of them in English. Donskis combines political theory, history of ideas, philosophy of culture, philosophy of literature, and essayistic style. Among other books, he is co-author (together with Zygmunt Bauman) of Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity (2013, forthcoming), and the author of Modernity in Crisis: A Dialogue on the Culture of Belonging (2011), Troubled Identity and the Modern World (2009), Power and Imagination: Studies in Politics and Literature (2008), and Forms of Hatred: Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature (2003). He acts as a visiting professor of politics at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. Donskis holds an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Bradford, Great Britain.

Review :
?This is a powerful original contribution to the philosophy of culture. Donskis shows that modernity is perforce always troubled, for we are confronted with competing cultural and political traditions from which we have emerged, while we are obliged to face divergent directions for our next steps. The result of Donskis's bold exploration is an impressive travelogue of the human spirit in which the reader takes an active part. This is truly what must be called an engaging book.?--Robert Ginsberg, Director, The International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry