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8 November 2026

About the conductors of our world

For decades we've been trying to make up for the gaps and dissonances of a symphony to which our world "dances" in an increasingly perversely chaotic and self-destructive way, by replacing the "conductors" leading the orchestra… although the musical piece is disastrously bad, we stubbornly continue to believe and hope that a "providential" conducting "talent", absolutely indifferent to his own success or even survival, will give us an "innovative" and "revolutionary" interpretation of the very same chords. It is said (I don't know by whom: Albert Einstein? Rita Mae Brown?) that stubbornly taking the same path while hoping to reach a different place is a sign of madness… or of stupidity! Will we keep taking the same path? Are we mad? Are we that stupid? Or…

Mozart's Requiem. Splendid! Absolutely splendid! But… the same symphony, two conductors - Celibidache and von Karajan, two completely different experiences: Celibidache approached the Requiem as a transcendent experience, using extremely slow tempos and letting the sound breathe and acquire spiritual meaning within the acoustic space. In contrast, with von Karajan we find absolute aesthetic perfection - almost mathematical, a grandiose orchestral sound, fluid, intensely polished and dominated by an impeccable legato. In one we find the sublime, in the other perfection — a perfect complementarity!, for the fundamental difference was one of purpose: the former sought the transcendent and organic truth of the unique moment, while the latter built a monumental sonic architecture of unmatched technical refinement. Celibidache - a "priest-philosopher" of music, von Karajan - an engineer of genius.
And yet we're talking about one and the same score!, yes? The same one!

What I want to say in the current political and geopolitical context (for I won't suddenly try to set myself up as an Iosif Sava - the older among us know who I'm talking about) is that, invariably, the producers of the absurd show in which we live keep offering us all sorts of "conductors", more or less talented… in fact, increasingly weak, or even tone-deaf! And this isn't just happening at home…

Let's take for example… the "beacon of democracy worldwide" and the "leader of the free world" – the USA!
What offer did they have on the alternative posters of the last presidential elections? Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Each promised something completely different, spectacularly different, right? And I believed the posters… I really believed Donald Trump would bring something "new", something "different" from Kamala. I would have voted for Trump with both hands if I had been American.

The reality? Just differences of emphasis, with heavy stress on the note "there are only two sexes" — wow, amazing, who would have thought… — and with long chords on the minor aria called "peace"! otherwise, the same "score". Nothing truly "new": the same imperial line with accented tones on "because that's what I want" and "if I can, I do it, because I can", the same ample war-like aria — true, with different accents — pressed down on the Middle East and softer, but always present, on Ukraine… the same total indifference to the "background noise" called the genocide in Gaza. And the examples could go on. As I said: the same score! In fact, some performers were even poached from the "competing" orchestra, like Scott Bessent — married in 2011 to John Freeman (yes, a man!), "father" of two children, born with the help of surrogate mothers, a formerly successful Wall Street investor who, moreover, worked as an investment director for George Soros's fund… QED!

Now, the American "spectator", whose entrance ticket to the concert conducted by Donald Trump keeps getting more expensive with every note played, vexed by the counterproductive banality of the conducting act he's witnessing, rushes to leave the hall and buy tickets to the "concert" he had originally fled from… but which, I say it again, performs the very same score — the pitiful symphony describing the tragic history of a dying empire that is ready to drag the whole world into the pit it dug for itself.

Europe? The same story, variations on the same scores in other "concert" halls! everywhere "Other masks, the same play, Other mouths, the same scale", as the Poet brilliantly put it some 150 years ago.

What do I mean? In order to change the "artistic experience", the "spectator" must not choose the same show, the same symphony led by new "conductors", however "providential" they may seem… in the end they will all reach the same feeling of "déjà vu", but with ever greater expenses for the "tickets" to the "new" "conducting shows".
European spectators seem to have understood this: that's why they are loudly, sometimes even violently, demanding a radical change of the score! People want and demand a different "symphony", not just new "conductors", more or less "talented" or even "providential".

Now, such a score must be written from scratch… from a blank sheet of paper on which it is imperative that the "spectators" themselves start to build and compose the new "symphony"! If we don't make this "composition" ourselves — we, the citizens who pay for everything, from the orchestra to the conductors and the concert halls — it will be made by the very same people who have already written the all-too-well-known "scores" and who also choose the "providential" "conductors" offering us "new" "revolutionary" interpretations of the same wretched score.

This is roughly what the book «The Third Republic» was about, which you can buy by visiting https://atreiarepublica.ro/en/index.html or the Alexandria Bookstores website.
And no, this post is not meant to promote a personal work, a book which, alas, I assure you will not only not enrich me financially, but won't even bring a single leu into my pocket… it is merely an invitation to search together for the melodic line of the new symphony which we have a duty, for ourselves and for our children, to write, a symphony written more to our own taste and in our own interest… and one that is less dissonant with those already written in the rest of the world, that world which we consider less, or so very little, "civilized"!

Otherwise, we will have to learn to accept that, after every "innovative" performance by a new "conductor", we must tell ourselves, as the Poet said:

"Deceived so very often
Hope not, and do not fear."