Simply retreating behind national borders is not an adequate response to the challenges of our time. Why the people of Europe have long since left the political elite behind.
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most influential thinkers of our time. He studied philosophy, history, psychology, literature and economics and wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the works of German philosopher Friedrich Schelling. His two-volume work entitled “The Theory of Communicative Action” was published in 1981. Habermas (89) has long been a passionate defender of the European idea, for which he received the German-French Media Prize this week in Berlin. These are excerpts from his acceptance speech.
I will refrain from addressing the symptomatic clamouring coming out of Bavaria, a ruckus that triggered a government crisis while shoving the more pressing issue – the lack of cooperation in the EU – into the background.
The culpability lies with that sort of pro-European who shies away from admitting to the real reservations they in fact hold against a Europe of practiced solidarity.
Right-wing populism may feed off anti-migrant prejudice and the fears of modernization rampant in the middle class, but symptoms are not the illness itself. The underlying cause of political regression is the palpable disappointment that the EU in its current state is more than merely lacking the necessary political efficacy to counteract the trends of growing social inequality within and between its member states.
First and foremost, right-wing populism is benefiting from the widespread perception that the EU lacks the political will to become politically effective. The currently crumbling core of Europe would – in the form of an effective Euro Union – be the only conceivable force able to prevent the further destruction of our oft-invoked social model. In its current condition, the union can only accelerate this dangerous destabilisation.
The cause of the Trumpian dissolution of Europe is the increasing – and, God knows, realistic – awareness among the European population that the credible political will to break out of this destructive spiral is lacking.
Instead, the political elites are being sucked into the timid, pollster-driven opportunism of short-term power maintenance. The lack of courage to form even a single idea of one’s own for which a majority must first be won is all the more ironic because a majority prepared to demonstrate solidarity already exists as a fleet in being.
I believe that the political elites – first and foremost the despondent social democratic parties – underestimate the disposition of their voters to engage themselves for projects reaching beyond narrow self-interest.
Germany’s position within this scenario:
Jean-Paul Sartre explained the term mauvaise foi (to act in bad faith) as an elegant contradistinction to bonne foi (to act in good faith). Who among us is not familiar with this quietly murmuring uneasiness?
We act bona fide, in good faith, but in moments of reflection, we sense a gnawing doubt about the consistency of the assertively argued convictions we hold – as if there was a weak spot in the river bank over which the waters of our argument are flowing unnoticed.
My impression is that Emmanuel Macron’s appearance on the European stage has exposed just such a weak spot in the self-image of those Germans who patted themselves on the back during the euro crisis, convinced as they were that they remained the best Europeans and were pulling everyone else out of the quagmire.
Many critics not only considered the German-inspired austerity policy to be misguided, but also suspected a bias lurking behind the façade of the vociferous claims of solidarity. But the tenor of the leading media outlets ensured for years that the population’s faith in the solidary role played by Germany in times of crisis went unquestioned. Broadly speaking, the German government’s altruistic role as vigilant crisis manager and generous lender was seen as credible. Did it not consistently have the welfare of all member states at heart – even including the unsuccessful attempt to show the Greeks the door?
But now, in the face of the completely unanticipated challenges associated with a radically transformed global political situation, the first cracks in this pleasing self-image have become visible.
In the old West Germany, there really had been good reasons for the German self-image as good Europeans. Those reasons were born out of the country’s military as well as moral defeat – and yet they still weren’t entirely self-evident. In my view, the shift in mentality toward the celebrated normalcy of a reunified nation-state since 1889/90 has lent and perpetuated a new inflection to this self-image.
Ultimately, in the course of the banking and sovereign debt crises along with the noise of contradictory crises narratives in different countries, this image became more and more self-centered and entrenched – and increasingly took on the characteristics of a mauvaise fois. The rotten stain in this good-faith self-deception is our mistrust of other countries’ willingness to cooperate – particularly when it comes to southern Europe.
If you listen closely to the German chancellor, it is striking that she makes rather peculiar use of the words “loyalty” and “solidarity.” During a recent appearance on a talk show hosted by Anne Will, Merkel demanded joint political action on asylum policy and in the tariff conflict with the United States, and in this context called for the “loyalty” of the EU partners. Generally, it is the boss who expects loyalty from her employees, while joint political action generally requires solidarity rather than loyalty. Depending on the constellation of interests, it is sometimes the one, sometimes the other, who must subordinate their own interests to those of the whole.
When it comes to asylum policy, for example, not all countries – because of their geographical locations, for example – are equally affected by migration nor do they all have the same capacity to take people in. To take another example, tariffs on automobile imports threatened by the U.S. would hit some, Germany in this case, harder than others. In such cases, joint political action means that one party takes the interests of others into consideration and takes on its share of responsibility for the jointly approved political resolution. Germany’s interest is obvious in these two examples, just as it is in the insistence on a joint European foreign policy.
The fact that the chancellor speaks of “loyalty” in such cases is likely a consequence of her having spent years using the world “solidarity” in a different, strictly economic context. “Solidarity in return for each country’s own responsibility” is the euphemistic slogan that became familiar in the course of the crisis, a reference to the conditions imposed on credit recipients by those granting the credits.
What I am getting at is the conditional redefinition of the term solidarity: that is the semantic breaking point where cracks are now showing in the certainty that we Germans are the best Europeans.
“Solidarity” is a term that describes the mutually trusting relationship between two actors who have become part of a joint political project of their own free will. Solidarity is not charity, and it certainly isn’t a form of conditioning for the advantage of one of the actors. Those who engage in solidarity are willing to accept short-term disadvantage in the service of their long-term self-interest and in the knowledge that the other will behave the same way in a similar situation.
Reciprocal trust – in our case, trust across national borders – is just as important a variable as long-term self-interest. Trust bridges the time span until a service in return is due, though it is unsure when or if it will ever come due. The compulsory, rigid conditions for so-called solidarity aid clearly exposes the lack of such a foundation of trust – and the hollowness of our self-image as good Europeans.
