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Moving along the path of an increasingly obvious arms race, Europe is ultimately betraying its best tradition – the tradition of peace born after World War II. A tradition that was once a perfect canvas, woven from Greek theories of friendship and the means to achieve justice, Roman law, Christian brotherhood, and the common sense that Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote about. All of this intertwined and led to an extraordinary rethinking of human coexistence.
In a book with the title containing the entire program, From Athens to Auschwitz, the distinguished German historian Christian Meier in 2002 quotes Peter Esterhazy’s phrase: “Lowering your gaze is what it means to be European today.”
Auschwitz is not a German problem, but a Western one, because there were many opponents of Nazism in Germany (from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Willy Brandt), and there was a lot of sympathy for Nazism in the West, especially in the English-speaking environment, from Lord Londonderry to Edward VIII, from Henry Ford to Charles Lindbergh. The Nazis were fans of the racial segregation system then in place in the USA.
From Adorno to Bauman, Auschwitz appears as a consistent stage in the West’s journey throughout world history. However, in Meier’s view, World War II was an epochal turning point; after Auschwitz, a new Europe was born, very different from the colonial, racist, militaristic, war-mongering, fascist, and Nazi Europe of the past.
It has been said that the experience of Auschwitz, however unique, should still be considered along with Hiroshima, Gulag, and other things that are said to be of the same type. As a premise, it would be wrong to see the Gulag or Hiroshima as non-European experiences: communism and the atomic bomb were extensions, in different geographical contexts, of ideas born in Europe. The Hiroshima bomb was built in America, but its architect, Enrico Fermi, was not an American. It took Christopher Nolan to reignite at least a public debate in the West about the possible use of nuclear weapons, while the Gulag was being widely and critically reimagined domestically as a national disgrace. In the center of Moscow, what was once called Big Communist Street has now been renamed Alexander Solzhenitsyn Street.
The path of rationalization has occurred in so many areas, including public morality
Any one-sided emphasis on the triumphs or failures of the West will ultimately be false. Cancel culture is a farce, but its opposite would also be a farce. However, distinguishing between negative and positive experiences is difficult but necessary: there is something to be accepted and something to be rejected.
From Archimedes to Newton, from Galileo to Einstein, we know the glorious history of European rationalism, particularly in science. Sewers and streets feed an ancient and arrogant pride. Pliny says that aqueducts are far more valuable than “useless pyramids.” In fact, the evidence for the application of scientific rationalism is impressive and challenges the ages, like the aqueduct at Segovia. This peaceful and constructive rationalism is expressed in many areas of life, starting with everyday life. H.R. Trevor-Roper wrote about wine: “Our vineyards are a Roman monument, one of the best-preserved Roman monuments.”
Reliable Western rationalism is also present in crucial policy areas. What is visible in Europe is a perfect cobweb woven from Greek theories of friendship and the golden mean, Roman law, Christian brotherhood, Erasmian common sense, all of which, intertwined, led to an extraordinary rethinking of human coexistence. Verdun and Auschwitz left their mark. The path of rationalization has passed in many spheres, including public morality, through the definition of an ethic of responsibility, whether to God or to the starry sky.
From 1945 to 2022 there was a reworking of the system of equilibrium that Europe found from 1815 to 1914, which Karl Polanyi defined as “Hundred Years’ Peace.” After that, the overwhelming industrial revolution has combined with the market and the balance of power: a mechanism of regulation and social pacification that brought great political successes from above and below, such as Bismarck’s social security and English cooperatives. Since 1945, Colbertian Europe has been revitalized by the restoration of its best traditions of rationalism, cooperation, and appeasement.
There is responsibility in experiencing horror
However, today Europe is not creating reconciliation mechanisms and is strongly emphasizing its transition from a peace economy to a war economy, for what we have experienced on this earth alone is a heinous betrayal.
Much literature emphasizes that we are ashamed in front of others. And guilt is a personal experience related to an inner judgment of conscience. Consequently, one could feel guilty for actions commended by others and feel ashamed even if you think you are right. You may feel both shame and guilt at the same time. The worst criminal is said to be “shameless,” and the worst psychopath is said to have “no sense of guilt.”
However, it is always a painful trial of conscience. In The Question of German Guilt, Karl Jaspers concluded his reflections on the responsibility of those who (even simply as spectators) participate in a crime.
The responsibility is not only on those who kill. There is also accountability for those who disapprove and say so openly. There is responsibility in experiencing horror.
In this sense, more than one European feel shame for not doing everything possible against the recurrence of the horror in the heart and borders of Europe. We are witnessing a brazen, intolerable, unpunished betrayal of Europeans and humanity.
In that sense, the more innocent you are, as in Dostoevsky, the more you can feel guilty – the shame of being European.
