An ever closer union of the peoples of Europe
Mar 21, 2013 2:25:39 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2013 2:25:39 GMT -5
Good morning to you all! If we see World Government as a goal, Sydney Grew, we probably need to start with something more local. How does your local community work, for example, and how is it integrated into a greater whole? The European Union (EU) is a deliberate attempt, since the Treaty of Rome (1957), to create an ever-closer union of the peoples of Europe. The end point, by definition, is a European people! Over more recent years, the European project has been running into trouble, particularly with the ill-conceived introduction of a single currency to the eurozone.
Nevertheless, let us not underestimate the need for a positive common purpose, for something more exciting than the price of houses, more constructive than the allocation of accommodation; a need for an European mystique. The unity of European culture is, in my view, simply the end product of thousands of years of labour by our diverse ancestors. It is a heritage which we spurn at our peril, Sydney Grew, and of which it would be a crime to deprive future generations. Rather, it seems to me to be our task to preserve and renew it.
The link between the concepts of Christendom, a united Europe and our shared heritage is historical, and the conversion of Europe to Christianity has been called the first, greatest and still most successful of all European integrations. The great Anglo-American poet, TS Eliot, broadcasting to a defeated Germany in 1945, described "the closing of Europe's mental frontiers" that had occurred in the years when nation-states had asserted themselves to the full. "A kind of cultural autarchy followed inevitably on political and economic autarchy." Europe should appeal as something organic. "Culture is something that must grow. You cannot build a tree; you can only plant it, and care for it, and wait for it to mature... ". Friedrich Nietzsche famously concluded that "God is dead". What did he mean, Gerard? In the very first of his books, 'The Birth of Tragedy', Nietzsche uses this phrase three times:
(a 'c' translation)
What he is saying, I think, is that the greatness of the early Greeks, before Socrates, lay in their tragedy. He never really forgave the trivialising practice of rationalising everything with Socratic argie-bargie, or indeed, Plato for setting up a hero whose main qualities are those of talking everybody else into the ground, as has occasionally been attempted here in The Third. So is the whole world really to be taken seriously, or is it not a great game, a great play like 'Hamlet' or 'Faust', some kind of drama played out by we know not whom, as a spectacle for we do not know whom? Can we make sense of such an aesthetic justification for mankind?
Whereas the great philosopher Immanuel Kant demands that all moral action should be 'universable', so what kleines c does, should be right for everyone, Friedrich Nietzsche demands that kleines c should embrace life unconditionally. In this spirit, I commend 'The Ascent of Man' to everyone reading The Third. Jacob Bronowski was not afraid to tackle the very greatest of challenges humanity now faces. Perhaps the most salient moment was in the eleventh programme entitled 'Knowledge or Certainty' when Bronowski visited Auschwitz, at which many members of his family had died:
In the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, let us therefore do so today!
Nevertheless, let us not underestimate the need for a positive common purpose, for something more exciting than the price of houses, more constructive than the allocation of accommodation; a need for an European mystique. The unity of European culture is, in my view, simply the end product of thousands of years of labour by our diverse ancestors. It is a heritage which we spurn at our peril, Sydney Grew, and of which it would be a crime to deprive future generations. Rather, it seems to me to be our task to preserve and renew it.
The link between the concepts of Christendom, a united Europe and our shared heritage is historical, and the conversion of Europe to Christianity has been called the first, greatest and still most successful of all European integrations. The great Anglo-American poet, TS Eliot, broadcasting to a defeated Germany in 1945, described "the closing of Europe's mental frontiers" that had occurred in the years when nation-states had asserted themselves to the full. "A kind of cultural autarchy followed inevitably on political and economic autarchy." Europe should appeal as something organic. "Culture is something that must grow. You cannot build a tree; you can only plant it, and care for it, and wait for it to mature... ". Friedrich Nietzsche famously concluded that "God is dead". What did he mean, Gerard? In the very first of his books, 'The Birth of Tragedy', Nietzsche uses this phrase three times:
"It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that the being of man and the world are eternally justified."
(a 'c' translation)
What he is saying, I think, is that the greatness of the early Greeks, before Socrates, lay in their tragedy. He never really forgave the trivialising practice of rationalising everything with Socratic argie-bargie, or indeed, Plato for setting up a hero whose main qualities are those of talking everybody else into the ground, as has occasionally been attempted here in The Third. So is the whole world really to be taken seriously, or is it not a great game, a great play like 'Hamlet' or 'Faust', some kind of drama played out by we know not whom, as a spectacle for we do not know whom? Can we make sense of such an aesthetic justification for mankind?
Whereas the great philosopher Immanuel Kant demands that all moral action should be 'universable', so what kleines c does, should be right for everyone, Friedrich Nietzsche demands that kleines c should embrace life unconditionally. In this spirit, I commend 'The Ascent of Man' to everyone reading The Third. Jacob Bronowski was not afraid to tackle the very greatest of challenges humanity now faces. Perhaps the most salient moment was in the eleventh programme entitled 'Knowledge or Certainty' when Bronowski visited Auschwitz, at which many members of his family had died:
" ... We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people."
In the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, let us therefore do so today!
