Alice in Wonderland and Other Tales

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , Alice faces the impossible task of reasoning correctly in a world where every logical rule, when applied with perfect fidelity, produces nothing but chaos. This novel unearths the dangerous illusion that reasoning power alone can anchor us to reality—an illusion exploited by figures like Vladimir Putin, who manipulate language and law to justify tyranny.

Carroll’s world reveals how the very machinery of logic, when divorced from shared practices and stable references, can serve as a tool for disorder rather than understanding. Both the myth of reason as an infallible guide and the ruthless assertion of will—embodied in authoritarian regimes—share a horrifying convergence: they assume that power and logic are interchangeable, that authority can impose meaning where none exists.

Carroll’s masterpiece warns: when reasoning is divorced from its grounding, all that remains is the illusion of coherence hiding a profound collapse.