Europe Is Falling Apart

The last time we Americans heard about French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi— known in France by his acronym, BHL—he was beating the drums for war in Libya. BHL had gotten the ear of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Sarkozy managed to persuade President Obama—BHO—and his hapless Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton—HRC—to support the Libyan rebels who wanted to overthrow the regime of  Muammar Qaddhafi.

At the time  the world was reveling in the Arab Spring and imagined that democracy would soon be busting out all over the Middle East. So, following the lead of BHL the American military supported Libyan rebels, overthrew Qaddhafi and made HRC look tough. 

Democracy did not break out in Libya, but chaos did. Most savvy commentators had predicted the same. And then there was Benghazi and the murder of an American ambassador, crime that HRC brushed aside as though… tough luck. Rather pathetic for the individual who was responsible for ambassadorial security.

Anyway, BHL believes that Europe is falling apart. That it is losing its great democratic traditions-- the ones that Middle Eastern nations did not adopt. He also believes that London Bridge is falling down. So, he has written an impassioned cri de coeur, as they would call it in Paris, to beg the British to have another referendum and not to exit Europe.  A passel of European intellectuals signed his letter. They sent it to major European publications, among them, the Guardian. (via Maggie’s Farm) Here is a link to the text. 

They believe that Europe is falling apart, because Europe is falling apart. One point for them. I have often noted the facts on this blog. More than one point for me. Thus, it is not news. And yet, the philosophers do not mention that immigration policies have caused this falling apart. One demerit for them.

They had the chutzpah to call it a manifesto, as though their manifestly overblown emotions would sway public opinion.

Anyway, they frame their manifesto as an attempt to salvage liberal values. And to salvage what they call the idea of Europe. Really. Are these great minds saying that they do not understand that Europe is a continent, not an idea? It is not a nation, either. The confederated states that form the European Union are certainly not aligned on immigration policy.

If anything, one is reminded of Voltaire's quip about the Holy Roman Empire-- that it was neither holy, nor Roman not an Empire.

The philosophers are fighting for the great European ideal and they are fighting against Great Britain and America… especially against the American leader. 

The Guardian opens its article:

Liberal values in Europe face a challenge “not seen since the 1930s”, leading intellectuals from 21 countries have said, as the UK lurches towards Brexit and nationalists look set to make sweeping gains in EU parliamentary elections.

The group of 30 writers, historians and Nobel laureates declared in a manifesto published in several newspapers, including the Guardian, that Europe as an idea was “coming apart before our eyes”.

“We must now will Europe or perish beneath the waves of populism,” the document reads. “We must rediscover political voluntarism or accept that resentment, hatred and their cortege of sad passions will surround and submerge us.”

They might be great thinkers but they sound like children who fear that they have been abandoned by their parents, and thus that they might have to defend themselves on the world stage. They are fighting for their own relevance in a world that is passing them by. In France, the only thing that matters is the influence of France on the world stage. 

They write of their regret that Europe has been “abandoned from across the Channel” – an oblique reference to the drawn-out Brexit process that has arguably brought Anglo-European relations to their lowest point since the second world war.

And they say that unless efforts are made to combat a rising tide of populism, the EU elections will be “the most calamitous that we have ever known: victory for the wreckers; disgrace for those who still believe in the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe, and Comenius; disdain for intelligence and culture; explosions of xenophobia and antisemitism; disaster”.

“Abandoned from across the Channel and from across the Atlantic by the two great allies who in the previous century saved it twice from suicide; vulnerable to the increasingly overt manipulations of the master of the Kremlin, Europe as an idea, as will and representation, is coming apart before our eyes,” the text reads.

Yes indeed. The Anglosphere saved Europe from itself in World War II. Now the philosophers call upon it to save it from its stupidity. You might have noticed, BHL, in a spasm of pseudo-sophistication, echoes the title of an important philosophical work, Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation. I hope you are suitably impressed.

How about a nod toward reality? How about a nod toward the question of national borders? How about a nod to the masses of migrants who have especially flooded Western Europe, and from whose onslaught Britain and American want to spare themselves.

Apparently, being a great continental thinker means not knowing how to think. After all, the values espoused by BHL and Co. are under attack on a daily basis by migrant hordes that have no interest in adopting Western values and that are plying weak Western leaders to their will.

Pamuk said the idea of Europe was also important to non-western countries. “Without the idea of Europe, freedom, women’s rights, democracy, egalitarianism is hard to defend in my part of the world.

“The historical success of Europe made it easier to defend these ideas and values which are crucial to humanity all over the world,” he said. “There is no Europe besides these values except the Europe of tourism and business. Europe is not a geography first but these ideas. This idea of Europe is under attack.”

To blame this on Great Britain and on Donald Trump is to miss the point entirely. But, that is what makes philosophers into philosophers. Anyway, BHL declares war on those who are trying to preserve European culture and customs. In a singular act of moral blindness he blames them for Europe’s problems:

Despite its “mistakes, lapses, and occasional acts of cowardice”, Europe remains “the second home of every free man and woman on the planet”, they say, noting with regret the widely held but mistaken belief of their generation that “the continent would come together on its own, without our labour”.

Pro-Europeans “no longer have a choice”, they say. “We must sound the alarm against the arsonists of soul and spirit that, from Paris to Rome, with stops in Barcelona, Budapest, Dresden, Vienna, or Warsaw, are playing with the fire of our freedoms.”

If all these heavyweight thinkers cannot see the problem... what hope is there for Europe. Eastern Europeans have made a different choice, even a different wager. When they see the way so-called liberal democracy is destroying Western Europe, who can blame them for wanting to opt out. The manifesto demonstrates one salient point: Western Europe has run out of philosophers who can think straight.