ABSTRACT
3At the very end of the twentieth century, after the defeat of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, in the course of gradually deepening European integration, and as a result of the technical revolution that has created unlimited access to information, one may hope that a new age of rationality and prosperity would come about worldwide or, at least in the Western world, as all the conditions for well-informed decisions on essential social and political issues appear to be given.
