'Re-Arming' Europe A civilization capable of the worst atrocities as well as the most sublime creation cannot examine itself only from the perspective of a guilty conscience. Genocide is far from a Western specialty, and it is the West which has allowed us to conceptualize certain acts as crimes against humanity; it is the West which since 1945 has distanced itself from its own barbarity to give a precise meaning to the term crimes against humanity. Europe's genius is that it knows too well the fragility of the barriers separating it from its own ignominy. This lucidity, pushed to the extreme, keeps Europe from calling for a crusade of Good against Evil, inspiring it to substitute instead the battle of the preferable against the detestable, to use the excellent formula of Raymond Aron. Europe is constituted inside the very doubt which denies its existence, seeing itself with the pitiless gaze of an intransigent judge. This suspicion weighing down our most notable successes risks degenerating into self-hate, into facile defeatism. (...) Europe does not need to blush because of its history. Here is a civilization which raised itself up from the apocalypse of World War II, representing today the peaceful marriage of strength and conscience -- it may indeed walk with head held high, serving as an example to other nations. The time has come for a new generation of political leaders to mentally re-arm Europe, to prepare the Union for the confrontations which will soon be coming. We need a veritable intellectual revolution if we do not want the spirit of penitence to stifle in us the spirit of resistance -- to give us up with bound hands and feet to the fanatics and the despots.
A civilization capable of the worst atrocities as well as the most sublime creation cannot examine itself only from the perspective of a guilty conscience. Genocide is far from a Western specialty, and it is the West which has allowed us to conceptualize certain acts as crimes against humanity; it is the West which since 1945 has distanced itself from its own barbarity to give a precise meaning to the term crimes against humanity.
Europe's genius is that it knows too well the fragility of the barriers separating it from its own ignominy. This lucidity, pushed to the extreme, keeps Europe from calling for a crusade of Good against Evil, inspiring it to substitute instead the battle of the preferable against the detestable, to use the excellent formula of Raymond Aron. Europe is constituted inside the very doubt which denies its existence, seeing itself with the pitiless gaze of an intransigent judge.
This suspicion weighing down our most notable successes risks degenerating into self-hate, into facile defeatism.
(...)
Europe does not need to blush because of its history. Here is a civilization which raised itself up from the apocalypse of World War II, representing today the peaceful marriage of strength and conscience -- it may indeed walk with head held high, serving as an example to other nations.
The time has come for a new generation of political leaders to mentally re-arm Europe, to prepare the Union for the confrontations which will soon be coming. We need a veritable intellectual revolution if we do not want the spirit of penitence to stifle in us the spirit of resistance -- to give us up with bound hands and feet to the fanatics and the despots.
This is a fascinating piece, because the starting point, about Europe as the worst sinner but also that which was able to acknowledge its crimes, repent, and change tis behavior, is quite correct.
Where he strays is in thinking that this process should be used as an excuse to go again on a rampage - on a fighting posture, he says, but the slope is slippery, as we know and Bruckner should know.
This is the 'we've learnt from our evil, so we're good, so we can do anything again' posture - that of exceptionalism, of missionary superiority which also inspires Podhoretz.
What's strangest is that perception of all these threats around us. That's close to paranoid. Some of that posture is linked to fears for Israel (grounded in both the history of the last century and the current absence of peace in the region), but it becomes a self-sustaining source of hate-mongering and conflict. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Podhoretz, far from being a radical dingbat, is employing that most useful political talent and sensing a strong current of largely unspoken public opinion that flows beneath the surface of rationality. The vengeance that might have stilled the atavistic clamor for blood that whispers in the veins of the American people (and perhaps all people) has been spoiled by the fact that---we lost. They, the evil ones, the enemy---once again, kicked our ass. Podhoretz may have been put up to this- it really doesn't matter, does it? The Overton window shifts.
That matters. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
