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It has now been a quarter-century since the appearance of Signes, with its "Préface" which (in part) alternates between political despair and hope. And this time next year will see the same anniversary for the death of the author himself. Since that unexpected and tragic event, his has become one of "the voices of silence" in contemporary French culture, though not yet, as noted in the Introduction, on the other side of the Atlantic. This silence is certainly regrettable because, among other things, it is intriguing to speculate how, had he lived, he might have reacted to the current non-communist left government of François Mitterand. But it is even more interesting to consider how he might have judged the current world political (and legal) situation. Another way of saying this is to ask what lessons can be drawn from his phenomenology of the social world—as interpreted here to include the phenomenology of law—for understanding and judging the contemporary political landscape. Much might be said on this topic—indeed, far more than could reasonably be attempted here. Thus I shall restrict myself to only some brief remarks about the Soviet Union, France, and the United States.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-0707-7_9

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