Tufta,
It is hard to translate a Polish article or essay in understandable English, if you don't know the original Polish meaning. I am sure the original Polish text by Zygmunt Bauman from Gazete Wybrocza is better.
Cheers,
Pieter
What do we learn from Central Europe?
Polish sociologist profesor Zygmunt BaumanLecture by prof.
Zygmunt Bauman, who inaugurated the European Congress of Culture: The political future of the Union depends on whether Europe will learn to treat diversity as an advantage
What is central in central Europe? Before we answer this question, we must think about where to look in Europe and where to find it ... It is by no means as simple a task, as would at first glance, it seemed, and after all, have him take the bars if you want to know on what basis we can assign the "
centrality" of central Europe, and which is part of Europe that określnik "central "shall ...
In its modern usage the name "
Europe" refers to three distinct phenomena which does not overlap each other. One of them is
geography. The other is politics. The third one are cultural events. Let me look at them more closely in that order.
World War in Europe"
Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong, Europe is a geographical concept," ruled over a hundred years ago,
Otto von Bismarck - and you do not have especially sharp hearing, to hear the the tone of disdain and contempt in his voice.
Bismarck was a political animal through and through, no wonder, then, that geography as such, politics did not earned his respect. A Europe in the days of
Bismarck was indeed a political concept. Yet almost one hundred years after
Bismarck different racial policies,
Henry Kissinger, mocked himself that even though I would like to coordinate their moves to Europe can not do this because there is a phone to call you to talk to Europe.
"
Politics," both for one and another statesman associated with the royal palace or Presidential Chancellery of the Reich or the office of prime minister, the parliament building and a dense network of ministerial buildings - and none of those things had to do with Europe. Plots were divided into sovereign fangs and claws defending what is his own, and a suspicious, or a greedy eye on everything that was someone else's. Europe is first shredded by the Westphalian settlement, according to the rules: cuius regio eius religio, or une foi, un loi, un roi, and immediately afterwards, in an era narodobudownictwa, assimilating inherited formula to the new conditions by a simple substitution of '
natio' or "
nation" under "
religio," or "
foi".
Carl Schmitt, just because of investigators spirit of reality, a policy being considered to set a common enemy, and the main occupation policy, dragging the borders between "
inside" and "
outside". That Europe from the perspective of that spirit was merely a geographical concept, rendered so that the "
enemies" appointed by the sovereign, without exception, every piece of Europe were politically, geographically speaking, Europeans. The two world wars were reportedly clashes between Europeans, only that rolled on the world stage - because after all mainly European countries participated in those wars in the operation of the rest of the planet it was.
Bismarck was so right? In one sense, yes, but not in another ... He was wrong when omitted in reckoning the role that Europe is despised by him about the status of geographic concepts play in the global system - and so weighty, tangible reality, they play this role for nearly five centuries Europe. And that's what the reality!
Ryszard Kapuscinski, one of the smartest observers of twentieth-century farce and tragedy, noted that it is sufficient to be European, to feel ruler, lord and superior anywhere on other continents. Even the average person with quite a child at home position climbed to the top of society, when landed in
Malaysia and
Zambia.
I wonder why there was not. Europe almost had a military and economic superiority of over the rest of the geographical globe. The monopoly on the role of Europe's frame of reference for human value judgments and forms of life and its coexistence, even if only tacitly accepted, and nowhere unsaved, the prerogatives of the supreme court, whose judgments in this matter was final and not subject to appeal. Quite long ago (some in this room still remember those days), Europe was at that center, which made the rest of the planet's periphery.
Also, until recently, is still ongoing in Europe geographical Jeno modalities acted against the rest of the world globalizing the function, since using the enormous power differential. priority of his was able to find, and practice, global solutions, such as imperialism and colonialism, for locally-created problems - such as mass production of redundant people, or interlocking absorption capacity of countries of origin: a feat beyond the reach of dreams for the modernization of countries later doszlusowujących race, because of its delay sentenced to (obviously futile) search for local solutions to global problems of provenance ... And that I will add, also in Europe and beyond the reach of the twenty-first century.
Europe is a holy detailAnd I will add, because the source of "natural" would seem to geographical advantages of Europe did not survive the second installment of World War II and until now dried up almost to the ground. There is reason in this, that the initiative of constructing the political superstructure of geographical Europe, taken right after the war by Schuman, Monnet, Spaak, Adenauer and de Gasperi, seen as a reaction to the crumbling foundations of European self-confidence, for those sober-minded activists had to be obvious that the position of Europe in the world can not sustain the scattered, uncoordinated, and often mutually contradictory actions of densely relatively small and słabowitych, at least not very mighty territorial nation-states.
Too early to summarize the results of this historic initiative. After all, took on the political founding fathers of Europe quite a task: building a pan-European, supranational solidarity, which historically scaliłaby produced a lively sense of solidarity and local incumbents, which for centuries to replenish their existence to the plating and heating of hot or cold, but the ever-smoldering and threatening rozpłomienieniem hostilities with its neighbors by copper. There are people doubting the possibility of such a supranational solidarity, known sometimes as the "sense of European identity": the marriage of state and nation, they say, took place once and for all, because in heaven or in the impenetrable darkness of history, and therefore only in the framework of human solidarity is natural attribute of human coexistence, and while not historically shaped the fate of the national community, only a shaky, fragile and temporary alliances are inherently unthinkable, resulting from painstaking negotiations and rozsądkowo, but without enthusiasm acceptable compromise.
Claiming that the stable and able to samoodtwarzania the political system can not arise without already okrzepłego ethno cultural body is neither more nor less compelling than the fact that no body is unable etnokulturowe consolidate power and gain the self-play without the help of an efficient mechanism political.
Is not the place and time for a thorough consideration of values of these opposing views, and even add that it is not too fertile an occupation, as it can authoritatively settle the dispute and settle the case, political will and institutional make Europeans (unfortunately we know so far about giving their significance mainly by their invisibility), and not philosophical considerations, and even the subtlest and most appropriate. Let's face it - for now the fate of the political unity of Europe, yet they weigh, are far from being settled and it is not easy to rule, as here more: steps forward or backward. After the Lisbon Treaty establishing the European offices of president and head of European diplomacy, calling on both the position of persons distinguished by their lack of a mere chance for clarity and authority ... Not being a prophet or not nabywszy course of my studies in sociology skills to prophecy, since the issue is premature, however, courts will refrain.
One statement, however, to which sociological diagnosis of me as carcass, authorizes, I would like here to share with you. Well, no matter from which it grows roots and draws its power from where, a stimulus to political integration and a necessary factor for the progress of a common vision of a collective mission, the mission at a unique temperature to which the existing or projected only a political body and is particularly well suited to which he only is able to effectively take. Where in our case, in the case of Europe, AD 2011, look out for such a mission?
There is a field in which the historical experience of Europe and acquired skills are second to none. And as it so happened that this area is a matter for the future of the planet, literally, life or death, the value of dowry, which we Europeans can bring to the equipment rapidly globalizing world, it is impossible indeed to overestimate. This is a contribution which the globalized world, the world of universal interdependence, it needs more than anything else, to follow to zasygnalizowanemu already by Immanuel Kant allgemeine Vereinigung der Menschheit, and consequently universal in the global scale, peace.
Georg Steiner (3) says that the destiny of Europe is in the sphere of "the spirit and the intellect." I thought developing as though already half a century ago by François Guizot formulated (namely that what makes all Europeans like, is their ability to differentiate), explains that "the genius of Europe is what William Blake called the>> sacred smallest detail <<".
