Don't see why, it's true. See above. There's no such thing as "European" culture. Only national cultures, which may in some limited and usually accidental ways be similar to one another in certain instances.
What a load of tosh. London is booming right now. Like a rewind to the 80s. It's just sucks if you don't have a job Things are far better there than Germany and Co which are completely tight this year.
There's quite a lot of common culture actually - it's just that most stuff that is pretty much universal, and has even been exported to the rest of the world during the time of colonialism, is less obvious than the differences. Even the idea that there is, or could be, something like national cultures is pretty new as well.
As you say - commonality of culture is universal, not regional. Europeans share cultural traits with one another in the same way they share cultural traits with the Japanese or Argentines. Beyond that global cultural seam, there is no commonality. As to national culture, I disagree. As both concept and fact of life, it's as established an idea as the nation itself. I was careful to be distinct: national culture exists, but that doesn't mean that all nations have entirely different cultures. The best that can be said for the idea of some conglomerate sense of being that is uniquely European is that we have, in the past 100 years or so, subjected ourselves to common miseries and that these have forged some small measure of a shared, reflexive view of what life should be.
Well, I think that the idea of a nation, as we understand it, is a very new development either - and didn't come into existence until the age of mass media (and not long after people started to have clearly defined borders, something that was also impossible for much of human history) - Religion, estate or social class have been equally or more important distinctions before. And whatever happened in one European country had effects on the other countries as well, the French Revolution is as much a part of German, British or Polish history as it is of French. The Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, colonialism, religion, the worker's movement, tea and coffee (and a lot of other things), the printing press, newspapers, museums, universities - all that (any many things more) had a profund impact on pretty much all of Europe (of course Europe and the other continents have influenced each other as well).
An interesting notion. I suppose all matters of historical context need to have a common understanding of time. I would argue that the concept of a nation state is not "new" at all. As in, it dates back several millennia in specific instances and at least several centuries in a very large number of instances. I studied Cicero's "De Republica" in my Latin classes at school and that addresses the concept of the nation state in lengthy detail. The text dates from around 50BC, if memory serves (I always remembered it as being about the same time in history as Asterix ). Samuel Johnson's "Political State of Great Britain" was written in 1756 (I studied this at university in my "Theory of Discourse" subsid) and according to the full text that Google just provided me, the introduction alone contains the word "Nation" 28 times. The USA is an all too easy example to quote of a true nation that has had consciousness of itself as such for well over 200 years. Etymologically speaking (again, my Uni specialism), it's correct to argue that the meaning of "nation", in popular European discourse in any case, only became universally associated with the political, rather than the genetic or racial sense some 250 years ago ... but that hardly renders it "new". To be honest, I think yours is a uniquely German view. The reality of a genuine Nationalstaat obviously goes back no further than 1877 and Bismarck. But generations before that, the idea of national identity was a hot topic in German thought. You could argue it actually fuelled the Enlightenment in Germany, late as it was by European standards. Certainly, by the 1820's the German Kingdoms, Principalities and statelets were sufficiently engaged with the idea of National Identity (anything by Goethe serves) that the writings of liberal counterpoints to prevailing thought (people like Heinrich Heine) were later said to have foretold the rise of nationalism within what eventually became Germany. History isn't culture. In fact, the French Revolution - or, more accurately, the wars of conquest that followed it and which led to a generation of European conflict, is the perfect example of cultural dissonance. The French sought to impose a hegemony that was military in nature, political in objective and only ever tangentially cultural (French fashion and culinary traditions spread and found roots most conclusively in the Napoleonic era). The Middle Ages, kicked off by the Italian re-awakening of scientific, artistic and religious enquiry, are arguably the high-point of a genuinely pan-European cultural consciousness. This is the age when Erasmus and Luther exercised minds from the nascent middle classes to the court of Henry VIII, when the Medici spread their patronage of thought across all Christendom. But back then the very concept of "culture" was the preserve of a tiny and isolated social strata. It's not really comparable to today.
Yeah, as I briefly mentioned, the term nation is older. Historically it means something like a tribe (while I am not an expert here I think that's the Roman usage), or an ethnicity, a group of people with a (at least imaginend) common ancestry. But the term can't be clearly defined in use. One definitely has to make a distinction bewteen nation and state here. The state existed in pre-modern times already, e.g. the Roman Empire, but this was build on the concept of civitas and not a nation state. During the middle ages concepts of national identity started to develop (at the beginning of the middle ages people still thought mainly in tribal terms, or depending on the context in terms of religious communities). England is one of the earlier examples here. The nation state is a modern invetion, which came into existence with French Revolution, as well as the emerging of mass media - the majority of people in France didn't even speak French [but regional languages] until the 19th century. In the middle ages, and in the early modern period, sovereignity was strictly personal, feudal - and most "states" were multi-ethnic, defined by having a common ruler (in case of Austria, or the Ottoman Empire such states existed well into the 19th century). The idea of national identity, and the modern state with clearly defined borders developed basically at the same time, starting arround the 16th century, until becoming fully realized in early 19th century. Even in areas that didn't have a nation state yet nationalist movements started to form (either as unification movements, as in Germany [modern German nationalism is basically a reaction to the Napoleonic occupation], or as independence movements, such as in Austria-Hungary). That being said - while mine is by no means a fringe view (I'd dare to call it mainstream ), there are theories who disagree. I don't think it's uniquely German, though - the founders of this school of thought are actually British historians . In my opinion you can't seperate history and culture. And the French Revolution had a profound impact on the thought of people in Europe - it influenced the British debate on slavery, it made the British ruling class fear that the new emerging working class in Britain could start a revolution (and so it influenced political discussions there), it created the idea of modern nationalism, it heavily influenced the desire of people for political reforms. Things didn't happen imediately everywhere - but finally the French Revolution did let the Ancien Régime crumble everywhere in Europe. Even during the age of restoration rulers couldn't go back to the status quo pre-1789. The German states had to write constitutions, then we got the liberal revolutions of 1848 and today the idea of universal human rights is pretty much mainstream in Europe. Which goes back to both the American and French Revolution, although I would say that the French Revolution had the bigger impact. The effects are still felt, though - the arts, museums, universities, forms of media, sports [the list could be continued endlessly], all this is stuff that did not develop seperately in each country. Not to mention political or philosophical views. The philosophers and scientists always worked across borders and influenced each other. Hume was read in France, Voltaire was read in Germany, Kant was read elsewhere as well... at first this onlc affected an intelectual elite, but sooner or later ideas of secularism also affected the culture at large. And Darwin was inspired by German scientists (according to Darwin it was Humboldt who made him become a scientist), and later he himself had a huge effect [not only, of course] on German culture in return. Tea time is a huge, and very important tradition in East Frisia - but of course tea was introduced there from outside of German. Football is an important part of many countries' modern culture - of course that was imported as well (well, unless you're British).
The events of the 16th Century caused it to be in common parlance throughout Europe. It may not have applied to all parts of Europe's patchwork of sovereign territories, but we can reasonably separate meaning and application. So as I've said, labelling the concept "new" depends entirely on your definition of "new". In political thought it dates to Classical Greek times, in universal political reality it dates to the Middle Ages. Anyway, we risk of turning this thread into Pseud's corner. The opening point was that whilst of course some facets of our daily existence share characteristics across the continent, Europe (like any other part of the world) is ultimately a collection of distinct political, cultural and social entities, each with their own consciousness of these things. One final point, however: You're separating history from culture.
Well, my position is that before modern times people meaned something different when refering to nations. However, I can just link to this site, I guess: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/gellner/Warwick0.html There you have the positions of two major thinkers on this (both pro and con), as well as references to other important works (such as those by Benedict Arnold). Hm, I seperate them insofar as history and culture aren't the same thing - but both influence each other. Values and traditions are the product of historical developments, but also shape the way humans act. One problem might also be that, when writting English, I'm not always as clear as I'd like to be in expressing myself .
Not since the Middle Ages. This I can agree with - events shape behaviour, behaviour cumulatively can at least in part be labelled culture, past events are history, ergo history influences culture. Very Socratic ... Versteht sich. Wir können auch gerne auf Deutsch weitermachen.
During the middle ages the term nation is still a very vague one, and people thought mostly in tribal terms. Arround 1500 this started to change, and the idea of cultural nations developed (the term Teutschland (still written with T) was used for the first time then as well). But as mentioned before - I'm skeptical that you can speak of nations in the modern sense before people started to speak a common language, before nationality became at least as important as class or religion, and also before people actually began to think of themselves as part of a nation - before mass literacy and media there wasn't much connection between people from different parts of the country. But in the end, this boils down to what theory you consider to be more plausible, as there is no way to proof this. Nicht nötig, ich glaube ich komme doch noch ausreichend gut zurecht .
Dutch historian Geert Mak writes in his book In Europe (about 20th century European history) that Europe in 1910 was more homogenous culturally than it is now. A teacher in Budapest led more or less the same life as a teacher in London, a French peasant had more in common with a Norwegian peasant than with his countrymen in Paris. Then two wars happened and everybody came up with their own version of events in an attempt to deal with the trauma. A national cultural identity is a new invention, and not a very productive one at that. It's interesting that there's a lot of discussion about it right now, Sarkozy started a discussion about it in France this year and in the end they couldn't come up with a clear answer to the question what the French identity really is and instead they ended up talking about the evil muslims (like any discussion seems to end up about in Europe these days). I mean can anyone really describe their country's culture and identity in the modern world? Things change, societies evolve, especially in a globalising world. It seems like people are trying to hang on to something that was never even there in the first place because they're scared of the unknown. Matt when I talk about the Brits not having something in common with the continentals, what I was referring to is a common belief that we're better off together and united than our own own fighting each other. I think that most continentals believe that to be the case deep down, even the Euro-sceptics. But I don't think they do in Britain. I've no research to back this up or anything, it's just what I'm led to believe, and if anything your comments on the subject underscore my belief.
Mak is guilty of the same confusion others (usually contintental European) have introduced into this debate. Daily existence and culture are only marginally related. The commonalities of existence between a teacher on one side of the continent and a teacher on the other are a generality that don't tell us much about the cultural map of the European region. Besides, such commonalities have far more to do with the sociological changes of the Industrial age than they do with the two World Wars. The emergence of a broadly understood and universally similar "Middle Class" is the main propellent in what you describe. Aspirationally and in terms of their means in life, that stratum of society had much in common throughout Europe. But then for millenia prior to that, the aristocratic classes had much in common at the material and political level (and at the very top of the aristocratic stratum, genes were shared about pretty liberally too). None of which supports the notion of some sort of amorphous and uniquely European cultural lodestone to which we all face. That, and here's the irony, is the recent invention, developed to underpin the concept of the European Community. It would appear odd, perverse even, to therefore persist with the same notion, but at a supranational level. Right. So not "culture" then. You should have said. All but a small fraction of people in Britian who have any kind of opinion on the matter believe that being in Europe is better than being outside of it. You only have to look at the electoral response the likes of the UKIP get. Lots of noise, not much action. The heart of the issue is pragmatism, rather than idealism. Do I believe we're better off pretending to be one big family, uniquely identified within the world by some common traits that define us but no one else? No - I don't believe that about Britain, why would I believe it about an entire continent (or rather, only the 27 nations who've formed a club on that continent). But at the economic, political, military level? Of course. Sometimes. And sometimes not Which is how it should be. And is all we need.
Why should this be about anything else than pragmatism? I wouldn't want all of Europe to be the same, cultural diversity is what makes this continent unique if anything. I've no idea what you mean by implying that the EU wants to impose common traits on us all to be honest, outside of on the economic, political and military level. In what area outside of those is the EU impacting your daily life then? Or what you believe is British culture? Does EU food labelling go against British culture? Does the EU human rights charter conflict with British culture? I mean is it the content of these EU directives that you don't like, or is it the sheer fact that it's the EU who imposes them rather than your own government? Of course the emergence of a middle class has had an impact. That doesn't make Mak's statement that Europe was more homogenous culturally a hundred years ago than it is now less true. National culture and identity is a fairly new concept, there's no way of denying it. Mak also points out that the majority of the French population didn't even speak French (proper French) a hundred years ago, for example. I mean these are things that make you go hmm in the light of how anal the French are today about the protection of their language.
Well, you began this by speaking of cultural commonalities. By the very nature of the beast, you're talking about something rather indistinct and philosophical. The effort expended on seeking to define and ascribe this apparently common cultural heritage "we Europeans" all have is not massively pragmatic, precisely because it's such a pointless exercise. And yet a goodly number of Euro-enthusiasts expend a lot of energy on such matters. The idea of "Common Cultural Identity" is even enshrined in various officiates of the institution itself. And it doesn't exist. What could be less pragmatic than spending a lot of energy and effort trying to identify and label something that doesn't exist? I think you misunderstand me. Ah, now there's a debate. Again, I think you're getting yourself confused. None of this has anything to do with the debate at hand. No, but then then statement itself isn't very true. As I've said previously - it's all about making a workable distinction between "existence" and "culture". The daily routine of a French peasant in pre-revolutionary France may not have differed wildly from the daily routine of a peasant in Norway, or England or the steppes of Russia. But that's got nothing to do with culture. So either you're not explaining what Mak actually said and meant very well or Mak was just wrong. Concepts. As discussed upthread, national identity as a philosophical construct goes back millennia. Its common application throughout what we now call Europe is obviously linked to the emergence of a political map predicated on areas of defined sovereignty. And that has been arbitrary in some places (Belgium or the Austro-Hungarian Empire being the most obvious examples), pained and recent in others (post-Bourbon Italy, the Netherlands, Greater Germany) and very distinct in others still (the British Isles, most of Scandinavia). But in many cases also goes back many centuries. Post-rationalising the concept of national identity to fit conveniently with "the European Century" and all it's disasters is all very cute, particularly where the European Union's need for an Urmotif is concerned ... but it's inaccurate. By the way, if you're interested in all this sort of stuff, I highly recommend Eric Hobsbawm's "Age of ..." series. Another great book - Graham Robb's "A Discovery of France".
Why should German culture have a different position towards a (pan)european culture than say Bavarian culture has towards German culture? And culture 200 years ago for the burghers in the cities was becoming centered on nationality, as opposed to before when it was centered towards christianity (see for example the fact that in many parts of Germany they would speak French at the time, not German), whereas the peasants until the French revolution in France, and then later and later towards the East and South of the coninent, where idenitfying with their community, their ruler and the people of the sdame confession, but not with peasants in the village next door.
I have not spent much time in Bavaria but my remark to my wife when there was "For a Freistaat they seem to have a lot of portraits of their former kings" "National identiity" depends on the country. Drawing broad strokes will not work on this. England and Scotland have each had a national identity for centuries. The UK really does not. Italy is still in many ways a mere "geographic expression". Since the effective destruction of the Holy Roman Empire as a polity during the Reformation, Germany has been united fare less than it has been divided. Even France, the European poster child for agressive national feeling has some areas that feel less French than something else. I often wonder if in 20 years my globe will have say Belgium or United Kingdom or even Spain. And what of Europe? The closest Europe ever got to being a united polity was under the swords of people such as Charles V, Philip II, Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin. But that is to me not really that much of an issue -- countries are often forged by conquest and other than Hitler or Stalin, the other would be universal monarchs were no better and not much worse than the other monarchs of the time. I do not think yet that Europe has a national identity. It does not mean it will not. But I think it will be harder to forge a European nation that it was to forge Europe's nation-states.
Our concept of culture is just different that's all. I don't think there is such a thing as national culture to start off with. And even if there is, it's bloody hard to define. That's why I'm not going to worry about the EU endangering my local culture - as I wouldn't even know what exactly that local culture is. My own country too has changed shape and size and rule so many times over the centuries. In my hometown we probably have more in common with the Germans next door than with our countrymen in Amsterdam. I don't think the EU is pressing for a European identity either. It makes perfect sense for pragmatic reasons to have certain rules, regulations and directions for the entire EU. I can't think of anything the EU has done though that even hints at them wanting Europe to have one homogenous cultural identity. Even the calls for including 'christian values' in the human rights charter was shot down if I remember correctly.
Arf ... well, yes. I suppose it is. You define culture in the way a biologist defines a bit of snot on a magnifying slide. I define it as an expression of being, rather than being itself. And in that, I'm expressing majority consensus. That still depends on your terms of reference. Is there "national culture" in a way that is uniquely and exclusively - and (this is crucial), wholly national? No, of course not. Humans have been around for too long for that to be possible. But is there a loose conglomeration of cultural traits, expressions and characteristics that can be more readily associated with one nation than another, even as it overlaps with other, similar conglomerations on a global scale? Of course there is. Good for you. No one was suggesting the EU did this, but never mind. You're meandering away from the origin of this discussion. Go back a few pages on this thread. This isn't about some European diktat from the EU as an institution that seeks to define and impose a common identity. This is about individuals, yourself included, peddling the myth of a common European culture, the commonality of which binds us together.
Well let's stop being vague about this and let's do this exercise then Matt, you start summing up what cultural traits, expressions and characteristics apply to British culture!
Again this all depends on your definition of culture and indeed on what you believe the EU's definition of a European culture is. What is thys myth of European culture then exactly in your view? I've already told you, to me the European ideal is not a cultural thing, it's believing that we're better off together than individually. The only lofty ideals the EU has ever expressed in this context as far as I know are in their human rights charter, and it's not like you can't see human rights as something that's supra-national identity can you! Unless you also want to tell off the UN for following their example in respecting a child's right to get an education and have a safe home.
Err .... yeah. Unfortunately, I already have a full-time job. Be serious. You're talking "life's work" levels of commitment. I don't know why you keep mentioning the EU. I've explained this - it is the myth that we can apply an inclusive, mutually understood and agreed definition of culture that is both uniquely European and exclusive in that sense to other cultures. As you yourself are very keen to stress, it's hard enough to do that at national level, so quite how this commonality exists at supranational level is beyond me. You're straying way beyond the point again. It's nothing to do with the EU, nothing to do with EU legislation and certainly nothing to do with the UN. As I've said, go back a couple of pages and refresh your mind as to the point of this conversation. matteo asserted that there is a commonality of culture amongst Europeans. I said there isn't, at least not in any way that makes us any different to any other loosely related set of peoples in any other geographically similar region of the world.