A.M.: But was it not precisely the adversity around, the impossibility to do authentic work in the official space, that created the need for, and made imperative the existence of, a solution like Păltiniş?

Andrei Pleşu: One thing needs clarifying, especially today, when there is no end to interpretations of the Păltiniş episode: we did not make a choice then. We were not faced with several options for our lives. We did not say to ourselves: what shall we choose? Do we go out in the streets, do we venture acts of personal dissidence, or do we set for Păltiniş? No! To us, Păltiniş appeared as a destinal offering. It loomed up as an occasion. It was a kairos. The lucky thing for us was that we happened to be perfectly open to this occasion, that we let it seize us, aware that it was a gift and grateful to find that this gift grew within and made us happier men. Păltiniş was not a reaction ? be it one of refusal, protest or evasion. It is only now, on looking back, that it can be analysed as one of many alternatives for a life under communism. But at that time we were not faced with a choice. The only thing we opted for was to respond to that occasion.

A.M.: Also, I find it inadequate to analyse the options, movements and decisions made at that point using criteria that are specific to a democratic society. Without placing things against their right context, one can only end up with false images. It was, after all, a different sort of world.

Andrei Pleşu: It is wrong to judge any moment in the life and history of a reality by the data of another moment. It is even wrong to judge the Romania of 1990 by today?s criteria. It is even less appropriate to use the same criteria in judging the period of the ?80s. Unfortunately, this is what we constantly do. I would like to say something here that I have already said on several occasions, but I feel the re-statement is welcome. It is not only criteria that must be adequate. We must never forget that any world, any type of world, including the concentration universe, the jail world, let us call it, is ? potentially at least, yet often actually ? a whole world, a world in its entirety, containing all the elements of a complete world. Certainly, the proportions differ, the recipes vary, but the inventory of elements, the ?chemical? inventory of the ?worldly? is present in any type of universe. Well, the Romanian world in the communist years, which we condemn today, and rightly so, was nevertheless a whole world, in which joy was possible, and love was possible, and culture was possible. Not that it was the regime that made them possible, not that ?it wasn?t as bad as they say?. It was very bad! But even a very bad world has its fissures, its resources, its opportunities that make possible the saturation of the global recipe of a world. So in Păltiniş we lived the tonic episode, the episode of joy and free commitment that was possible in that sort of world.