<p>I was listening to the <em>Today</em> programme yesterday when on came a brief and moving item: a last interview with Professor Tony Judt, a combative academic laid low by motor neurone disease. Judt was paralysed from the neck down yet made great sense and seemed entirely devoid of self pity.</p> <p>Then I read his obituary in the <em>Daily Telegraph. </em>You can see it in full below. How about this for a quote that sums up much of the state of the world today?</p> <blockquote> <p>The security and stability of post-Cold War Europe had bred its own problem: “This is the second generation of people who can’t imagine change except in their own lives, who have no sense of social collective public goods or services, who are just isolated individuals desperately striving to better themselves above everybody else,” he said earlier this year. </p></blockquote> <p>Quite. <p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7933264/Professor-Tony-Judt.html">Professor Tony Judt - Telegraph</a></p>