Being and doing in Europe since 1945

contrasting dichotomies of identity and efficiency

Jolyon Howorth

pp. 85-96

in: Joe Andrew, Malcolm Crook, Michael Waller (eds), Why Europe? problems of culture and identity I, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

The definition of "European identity" is a major headache. As Edgar Morin (1990, p. 37) has stressed, there was never any internal founding principle. The Greek and Roman bases came from the periphery, Judeo-Christianity from Asia Minor. Successive waves of migrations and invasions produced a hopelessly confused ethnic cocktail. European values have always existed as contradictory dichotomies: right and might, democracy and tyranny, socialism and liberalism, spirituality and materialism, communism and fascism. At the turn of this century, Paul Valéry's imaginary Chinese scholar had already noted the "insane disorder of Europe":

Cited authors

Valéry Paul