EUROPE: A HERITAGE, A CHALLENGE, A PROMISE Jan Berting 1 2 ISBN 10: 90 5972 120 9 ISBN 13 : 978 90 5972 1203 Eburon Academic Publishers P.O.Box 2867 NL-2601 CW Delft Tel. :+31 (0)15 – 213 14 84 /Fax:+31 (0) 15 – 214 68 88 info@ eburon.nl / www. Eburon.nl © Jan Berting. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronicmechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the permission in writing from the proprietor(s). 3 PREFACE Europe is a patchwork quilt, a diversity of national and regional cultures. But Europe is also a common cultural heritage. And it is a culture in the making. The creation of the European Union would not have been possible without this common heritage and the endeavour to have a common future. Paradoxically, Europe’s specificity, its common heritage, is threatened by one of its major exponents, the ideology of modernity and modernisation. So a very important task Europe is confronted with is to be at the same time both modernising and preserving its specificity and variety. This task is the more arduous because we have, in order to fulfil it adequately, to shrug off outdated interpretations of modernity and modernisation, and to look at tensions and conflicts which are inherent to ongoing modernisation, like the increasing opposition between individual freedom and system-rationality. In front of ongoing modernisation and the supremacy of the ideology of modernisation or globalisation, it certainly will not be a revival of nationalism that will lead us to the Promised Land. As we will see, the ideology of modernisation is strongly deterministic and as such it restricts political action largely to adaptation measures to a course that is largely fixed beforehand by scientific and technological developments and international market forces. The future, seen from this perspective, seems to be an ongoing economic progress, of individualisation of social life, and of increasing individualism and liberty. Nevertheless, present collective representations of the world we live in, including the ideology of modernisation, are time-worn and they can lead us easily, in several respects, in the wrong direction. We have to reflect about the possibility to develop other types of collective representations which can guide our future-oriented actions. To prepare the ground for this, we have to analyse Europe’s specificity or ‘identity’, its common heritage and its diversity. We have to discuss the major concepts we need in order to understand the nature of this heritage and the sources of Europe’s variety: civilisation, culture, collective identity and specificity. We have to analyse the common core of Europe and its diversity on still another level: the collective representations of our societies as they emerge from the ongoing debates in political life. Again, we see, on a different level, a common core and diversity, both within de European nation- states and on the level of the European Union. Here the common core seems to be the ideology of modernisation and the diversity is connected with the different types of adaptation and resistance, both individualist and collectivist ones. But also this diversity of reactions exhibits more or less the same pattern in the different European nation-states. This situation is certainly not an unavoidable fate, it is a challenge . We have to develop representations of a future in which the coming society is not considered to be the product of deterministic forces, but instead as something that can be brought about with the increasing potentialities of the means that we have at our disposal. A future that is dependent on the political choices that are based on a substantial understanding of the world we live in, not on myths en delusions. 4 Approached in this way, the future can be for us, and the coming generations, a promise. A promise that we will live in an open, modernising world that respects our common heritage, our cultural diversity and that is able to recreate itself in an ever continuing process. Writing this book, I could rely on critical comments on a first draft of this book, or on specific chapters, of former colleagues of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam: dr. Leo d’Anjou, dr. L. Cachet, dr. Dick Houtman, and Prof. dr, Bram Steijn. I thank them for their candid remarks. Moreover, I also wish to express my gratitude to drs. Santo Koesoebjono, Dr. Laurent van der Maesen (Director of the European Foundation on Social Quality in Amsterdam), Mr. Stephen C. Mills (former secretary-general of the International Social Science Council in Paris), whose contribution also enhanced considerably my use of the English language, Prof. Em. Dr. A.L. Mok (University of Antwerp) and dr. Christiane Villain-Gandossi (CNRS-Université de Provence). Christiane’s influence is reflected by the many articles we wrote together on Europe and on collective representations. To my grandchildren Sjoerd, Rik, Marlotte, Bram and Stijn, Europeans in the making. 5 CONTENTS CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION 11 CHAPTER II : CIVILISATION AND CULTURE 17 The concepts of civilisation and culture: a difficult couple 17 The concept of civilisation 17 The concept of culture 19 A brief comment on the concept of civilisation and culture 22 Culture as a multilevel concept 23 CHAPTER III: COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES 27 Collective identity 27 Open and closed collective identities 31 The spirit of the people (‘Volksgeist’) 33 Use and abuse of collective identities 35 CHAPTER IV: PROGRESS, DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL CHANGE 39 The roots of Europe’s modernity 39 The ongoing rationalisation of the world 42 Rationalism and historicism 46 Liberty and determinism 47 Reason and sentiment 49 CHAPTER V: EUROPE’S CULTURE – CULTURES OF EUROPE 51 Europe’s culture in plural 51 1. Europe as a common ‘European heritage’ 51 with a specific cultural identity 2. Europe as a totality of ‘national cultures’ 53 3. Europe as a modern culture in the making 54 4. European culture as a totality of cultures 55 5. European culture areas 55 6 Is a synthesis possible? 58 CHAPTER VI: THE SPECIFICITY AND IDENTITY OF EUROPE 59 Europe’s specificity as seen in some major books and reports 59 A systematic outline of Europe’s specificity, especially in relation to the European Union 64 The European collective identity based on an inside view 68 The collective identity of nation-states 68 European collective identity 69 Collective identities, opposition and exclusion 72 Lukewarm Europeans? 73 Some further remarks on Europe’s diversity. 75 Culture areas 74 National differences 77 How regions see each other 79 North-South 80 Deeply rooted images of the Other: their political importance 81 CHAPTERVII: COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES (I) 83 Collective representations 83 Collective representations of Europe and European societies 86 Looking backwards 86 Reactions to unplanned change in Western Europe 94 Increasing criticism of the main perspectives on development: conflict and change 97 CHAPTER VIII: COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES (II) 103 1. The market society 104 2. The welfare society and the concept of social exclusion 105 the welfare society 106 7 the concept of social exclusion 110 3. The multicultural society 114 Departure-points of the debate on the multicultural society 116 Democracy and the multicultural society 118 Democratic societies and the specific role of multiple identities within it 121 An increasing interdependency in social life The dynamic side of intercultural relations 122 CHAPTER IX: COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES (III) 125 1. The risk society and the security society 125 The history of the risk concept 128 Types of collective adaptation to dangers and risks. 130 A plurality of views on risks 132 The European dimension of risks 134 Does the development of the European Union change the patterns of risks? 134 Six types of European risks 134 The risks of political crises and upheavals 139 A black scenario 139 2. The security society 142 3. The conservative society 143 4. The fundamentalist society 144 Main characteristics of the fundamentalist way of thinking 145 Fundamentalism and democratic values 147 CHAPTER X: MODERNIT AND MODERNISATION: TYPES OF ADAPTATION AND RESISTANCE AND IN OUR TIME 151 Individualist reactions 153 1. Substantial-rational (critical) individualism 153 2. Instrumental market-oriented individualism 154 3. Achievement-oriented individualism 155 4. Populist individualism 155 5. Immoderate assertive egoistic individualism 155 6. Personal identity individualism 156 8 7. The flight to virtual worlds 157 8. The pursuit of a hedonist way of life 157 Collectivist reactions 158 1. The re-collectivisation of society. 158 2. The retreat on collective identities 159 3. Universalistic fundamentalism 160 4. Particularistic fundamentalism 161 5. Collectivism within large organisations 162 6. Compliance with the temptations of the consumer market 164 In search for new parameters for development 165 1. alter-globalisation the protection of the global environment 165 In the whirlpool of contradictions and tensions 166 CHAPTER XI: IDEALS, VALUES AND NORMS 171 1. Europe and values 171 2. Debates on values: a rather muddled state of affairs 173 3. Tradition and modernity 175 The main values of the traditional ways of life. 176 The main values pf modernity 177 4. The problems which are inherent in modernisation 178 5. Values in relation with the main reactions to ongoing modernisation within populations 180 6. In what ways can ideals, values and norms function as a binding-force on the national and the European level? 182 The concept of value 182 Common values 183 Values as elements in a value configuration or in a value pattern 184 Value configurations and value conflicts 184 Ideologies and conflicts 185 9 7.