John Hartley, at The Blogs

Apr 3, 2025, 4:52 PM

Hungary Quitting the ICC and Wallenberg’s Legacy

Hungary announced today its intent to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in defence of national sovereignty. PM Kovács criticized “external interference” with Hungary’s domestic legal affairs, stating that “we cannot allow foreign institutions to dictate the parameters...

Dec 13, 2024, 5:32 PM

Ukraine’s Search for Legitimacy

Meeting with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister D. Kuleba - Visit to a Monument of fallen defenders of Ukraine. Wikipedia Commons License

Building on Part 1 A Cultural and Spiritual Vision of Russian Unity, this essay examines Ukraine’s search for legitimacy. The first indication of Ukraine’s attempt to establish itself as a distinct entity was the evolution of its name in Western...

Dec 5, 2024, 11:36 PM

The Spiritual Vision of Russian Unity

Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016. www.kremlin.ru licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

On May 17, 1948, just three days after Israel declared independence, the Soviet Union officially recognized the nation of Israel, becoming one of the first countries to do so. During the UN debates, Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko endorsed the...

Nov 28, 2024, 12:15 PM

If God does not exist, everything is permitted

This article continues the exploration begun in Russia’s Contention with Western Rationalism. While the earlier discussion outlined the philosophical divergence between Russian thought and Western rationalism, this second part examines how these ideas played out in practice, particularly through...

Nov 21, 2024, 5:56 PM

Russia’s Contention with Western Rationalism

At the heart of the ongoing geopolitical conflict between Russia and NATO-backed Ukraine lies the collision of two irreconcilable worldviews: tectonic plates, grinding against each other for centuries. The physical warfare witnessed today is predicated upon entrenched fault lines,...

Oct 2, 2024, 9:42 PM

Antisemitism and the Fall of Tsarist Russia

Reading A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes’ magisterial account of the Russian Revolution, one is confronted with the plight of Russia’s Jews, scapegoated for the empire’s failures. It is noteworthy that a surge of virulent antisemitism immediately predicated the Tsarist...

Jul 31, 2024, 2:49 PM

Natan Sharansky: Historical echo of Haredi draft refusers

In an era where the consequences for non-compliance with governmental mandates stir profound debates, the plight of Haredi draft refusers finds an unlikely historical echo in the meditations of a 1970s Soviet refusenik. Incarceration, Natan Sharansky's experience suggests, does not...

Jul 20, 2024, 3:51 PM

Haredi draft refusers: Truth carried on the shoulders of individuals

Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Haredi Jews have refused to serve in the Israeli military for religious reasons. Typically, they study Torah in Yeshivas, and as such were legally exempt, until June 2024, when...

Jul 9, 2024, 11:28 AM

Haredi Education as adherence to the Torah

Haredi philosophy of education acknowledges the sacrosanctity of the individual conscience. Such a view is predicated on an absolute belief that the truth pertaining to the nature of reality contained within the Torah as ontologically definitive. While secularism is...

Jun 26, 2024, 3:22 PM

Rene Girard: Haredi draft crisis scapegoat theory

Polymath René Girard (1923–2015) identified the universal propensity to unite around the victimization of a scapegoat as a trait inherent to human sociality. Fixation upon a single object of scorn temporarily suspends the capacity for intragroup conflict. As a...

About Me

John Hartley is a teacher and a part-time doctoral student. His research focuses on the philosophy of religion of the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Regents Theological College, a Master's in Theology from Maryvale Institute, a Licentiate in Divinity validated by the Faculté Notre Dame de Paris, and a Postgraduate Diploma from Birmingham University. https://johnhartley.uk

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