Lecture I and Readings I - “EUROPEAN CULTURE” AS AN IDEA Flashcards
What is the “European idea”?
- A long historical tradition.
(shared language, history, culture, traditions, political thinking, …) - Discussed by Levy and Pieterse, and analyzed in the lectures
- used to protect the common identity and in the modern era to defend Europe against populism
Concept to fight for Europe (Identity)
- Wreckers can destroy it
- New fight after regimes of the 20th century
- Rise of populism dangerous for the European identity + civilization, Rise of nationalism, fascism, xenophobia
- Concern is partially legitimate: few countries led by populist gov., the European idea is facing some challenges
Levy and Pieterse conception of European Culture (def)
“Europe is formed by the community of nations which are largely characterized by the inherited civilisation whose most important sources are: the Judeo-Christian religion, the Greek-Hellenistic ideas in the field of government, philosophy, arts and science, and finally the Roman views concerning law.”
why is the story “Plato to Nato” wrong according to Pieterse?
“It is wrong as regards the origins of European culture; it is wrong in so representing European culture that European regional cultures and subcultures are overlooked; it is wrong in representing elite culture as culture tout court and in denying popular culture; it is wrong in defining European culture in terms of the past (‘inherited civilization’) and in totally ignoring Europe’s contemporary multicultural realities.”
Cultures and subcultures: rely on elite culture
How is Europe romanticized criticized?
- Culture shaped by antiquity and christianity
- Never understood as culture (Paul Valery)
- First used culturally to describe the territory of Latin Christendom (Charlemagne)
Charles Magne role of Europe
Holy Roman Emperor 742 - 814
- Father of Europe (Pater Europae): thought to have united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire (unifies france and germany = symbol)
- Thinking of him as the founding father of Europe
Considered important to European integration: prize of youth nowadays, reminiscence of his greatness and of his “lungimiranza” as a thinker and political influence
→ Vision of Europe as united and not achieving it soon, visionary
(Prize not considered as an inclusive reference)
European Identity and fiction of it
- Wrong to understand EU as elite
- Overlook popular and subcultures
- Wrong defining EU culture as past (‘inherited civilization’) and ignoring contemporary multicultural realities
Situation of Europe and the Countries
Threat of democracy, so Europe as well → countries threatening due to rise of right wing parties and new movements coming back such in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and France
EU Identity
- Nederveen Pieterse argues that European identity is weak
- Identity (from Latin: identitas, sameness)
“Identity implies a relationship to what is different and thus a statement of boundaries” Pieterse, 8
→ Identity is not as stable and pure as we think, def of identity = rational
- European identity = result of a construction of sowing boundaries with the others
What is Europeanness?
Max Weber on elements of culture considered european: science, the arts, capitalism
→ What essentially differentiate the Occident from other cultures is ‘rationalism’
Rietbergen critique of Weber: “A de-historicizing and de-historicized perspective tending towards a timeless universalism or Europeanism”
Vision of Identity and correlation with “Western Edge” by Rietberg
- Cultural concept on Elite and no precise definition of Western Edge
- Definition of ‘Western Edge’
“If anything, Europe is a political and cultural concept, invented and experienced by an intellectual elite more specifically whenever there was cause to give a more precise definition of the western edge of Eurasia, the earth’s largest land mass. When was there cause to give such a definition? Often in a moment or period of crisis, of confrontation. After all, it is only when self-definition is necessary that people become self-reflexive and describe their own identity.”
Main points of European Culture as an Idea?
The Europe Idea: the Judeo-Christian religion, the Greek-Hellenistic tradition, liberty, equality, law, Aristotle, Plato, rationalism etc.
- Pieterse: “from Plato to Nato” it is a fiction and wrong!
- European identity: “identity implies a relationship to what is different and thus a statement of boundaries” (Pieterse, 8).
- “When was there a cause to give such a definition? Often in a moment or period of crisis, of confrontation” (Rietbergen).
