Spain's used to be the Reconquista, which is a particularly mythical and ahistorical rendering of 8 centuries of history. I wonder whether that stays current or has been superseded by mythical views of the Transition.
Western civilisation has a creation myth involving a continuous succession of civilisations and empires all the way back to the first cities in Mesopotamia.
It is possible, though, that Europe (as in, the EU) doesn't have a creation myth yet, because it is also not a community yet. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
And its punch-line - despite Auden's second thoughts - is and remains:
"We must love one another or die".
So that - i.e. having understood that, AWOKEN to that - is our "European uniqueness"??... and what's more, it's our ... universal message = mission?
To testify that we've been there, done that, the whole imperial caper, rival empires caper, colonisations caper, whiteman's-burden caper, wars-of-conquest caper, nationalisms/religious rivalries caper, bombs and corpses caper, bigger-and-better-armaments caper - been there not once but countless times, done 'em and played 'em all every whichaway - so time and time again we've stared into the abyss and the abyss has stared back into us.. until at last, at long-long last, we-the-stained-survivors somehow stepped back from the brink, shook our heads and swore "Never Again".
(...cymbals, trumpets, rays of dazzling light ...)
At which point we-the-awakened can all/should all now stretch out our hands to those still unawakened, to try to pull them back out of the abyss of ignorance i.e. mutual devastation and destruction cycles to the newfound solid ground - and only hope of ultimate planetary survival - that acceptance of our salvation-through-reconciliation message can ensure?
If so - if this really is what's behind at least PART of Europe's self-image - this "European Gnosis" myth is totally discordant with the American narrative not only in PNAC version but in its "normal" versions - also re the way of reading WW2, war in general... which could explain some of the nerviness, the feeling of non-communication that sometimes sets in... as we're talking totally at cross-purposes - from different mythological foundations, different cosmologies ?? "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
It is important to make the difference between a creation-historical myth being basically structural myth and other narratives or "common places" which could be very much believed or recognized by the society.
THe reconquista, we as a christian nation, is a strucutral myth in Spain...the transition is still a narrative.. but a strong one.
Brilliant comment Migeru.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
In time must the Transition and the subesequent adoption of European identity supplant the earlier myth? And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
