"The current European predicaments aren't new". Not so many more intriguing statements could Marcin Król choose to initiate todays conference. As he later pointed out the crisis that Europe's facing at the very moment originates as far as from the 18th century when the Enlightenment decompossed the premodern worldview.
To Marcin Król there're six core problems that Europe's trying to solve however it's not entirely sure if any solution has actually ever existed.
Thus the first question is the seemingly eternal opposition between the reason and religion. Enlightenment's children instinctively feel that while the reason conveys a demanded progress, the church provides nothing but obstacles to the glorious humanity's march. Even though such an obvious simplification possess many shortcomings, one may be taken for granted: even self-defined atheists cannot enjoy some comfortable indifference towards sacrum. "That's the central point here" - highlighted Marcin Król. Though many tried to solve or cut the knot, the most advanced answer is just a confirmation of the dense complexity of the question. Just to give as an example Pope John Paul II's "Fides et Ratio". Sadly, most of the answers are simply ignorant. As Marcin Król stated: "The only thing that the contemporary Europe is able to do with the Christianity is to push it off". According to him, it happened during the debates on the European Constitution preamble.
The second knot concerns the nation and nationalism. To Marcin Król, nation is "the most stupid invention of the recent 300 years". Coming from the sentimental romantic tales of Herder and Goethe, it has become a dangerous "political formula" in the last decades of the 19th century. Marcin Król sees nationalism as opposite to the European universalism (the concept of Europa Universalis). Nevertheless, following A. D. Smith, he argues that there are European (younger) nations that still need some nationalistic narratives to establish themselves as "genuine countries". To Marcin Król, some essential nation-building doesn't necessarily have to include the wrongs of nationalism.
Another Gordian opposition that Europe faces is the conflict between utilitarianism and communitarianism. To put it simply, the core idea of utlitarianism, as invented by Helvetius, is to maximise the pleasure. Thus, the mian principle of the social life should be based on fulfilling the whims of the hedonistic human nature. Indeed, people instinvtively look for pleasure. Nonetheless, as Marcin Król put that - "it should not be considered in normative terms". The fact that people want to enjoy their lives cannot become the only founding raison of society. "Not everything can be bought for money" - Marcin Król paraphrased Michael Sandel in conclusion.
This implies another conflict. Can democracy and liberalism live together? Well, even though a huge part of Euroatlantic world has practised these "dangerous liaisons" for quite a long period - they still don't seem to be well-thought. Following the famous Constant's distinction between the liberty of the moderns and the ancients, Marcin Król sketched the crucial opposition between the concepts of democracy and liberalism. On one hand democracy is based on an idea of a strong political community, on the other hand the aim of liberalism is the expansion of individual liberty. Marcin Król remains in favour of Hannah Arendt's point that a person might become genuinely human only within the community. Therefore, erosion of communities that doesn't seem to offend too many liberals is a thoroughly negative phenomenon.
Another fault of the dominant liberal discourse is the negation of the heritage of realistic thought. To "intuitional liberals" as most of the elegant Europeans would see themselves, there's nothing more dangerous than a war. Marcin Król called it "a spiritual capitulation". As he reminded, even though liberals have always been in favour of nations' right of self-determination - they were against Poles' January Uprising because it necessarily led to a military conflict. Indeed, ideas have consequences... Sometimes they even demand something more than retelling proper slogans.
Finally, there's something that Marcin Król termed as "liberal loop". He sees that some balance between the liberalised and conserved (so to say) areas of public life is essenatial. The problem of a decent integration of immigrants may serve as a good example here. Liberty has its limits. Marcin Król claims that they are evolving. Nevertheless, the legislator should be rather a reactive factor in this field.
The conclusion that Marcin Król gave isn't optimistic. To contemporary politicians who are responsible for solving (or just managing?) the seemingly current crisis in Europe, the only answer is some (comfy) status quo ante from 2006/7. Similarly, political philospohers also tend to prefer safer topics nowadays.
Ziemowit Jóźwik
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