I am reading Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday which features a pretty big helping of "we intellectuals" were the good guys, back before World War I, who were building trans-national friendships and understanding and creating the idea of a united Europe, so how come the haters and the narrow-minded gave us World War I and the haters and the fascists gave up World War II?
Well, Stefi, I will tell it to you, straight. But I warn you, you won't like it.
You don't found political entities on the basis of international friendships and hoity-toity rich-kid writers all getting together in a cafés in Paris -- or in meetings up in Magic Mountain land.
You found political entities, Stefi, in the crucible of war. That's the only thing that can create the experience of unity that persuades people to give up their old allegiances for a new one.
Sometimes the sense of unity is created by the agony of defeat. Take France, within which was the semi-independent Duchy of Burgundy taking up about half the land area of modern France. La Wik.
When did Britain arise as a nation? Probably as a result of the Civil War of the 17th century, and certainly by the end of the Second Hundred Years War against France from 1688 to 1815.
The US? Obviously the sense of US nationhood was forged in the Revolutionary War, and then, for those that didn't get the message, in the Civil War. Did you know, by the way, that politicians that had served in those wars were always referred to by their Revolutionary/Civil War rank? As in Colo. Hamilton and Major McKinley. Those guys were brothers-in-arms forever after.
Now, Germany is the example that proves the rule and that, after many years of confusion, made the whole matter clear to me.
See, Germany was a collection of more-or-less independent states, ruled over by a collection of princes and bishops, and nominally joined together in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. But the empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. And you can imagine what the various princes would say about being subsumed into a Prussian-dominated German nation.
So what was Bismarck to do if he was going to unite Germans into a single nation that could take on the French nation that had been trampling Germans underfoot for the last two centuries, and very likely more?
Answer: fight and win three convenient little wars against Germany's neighbors, starting with the easy one, against little Denmark in 1862, continuing with the medium one against a decliningAustria in 1866, and finishing up with the big one against France in 1870. With each war Bismarck got more and more German princes to send their hometown troops to contribute to the effort. You can see why this worked: with each victory, the prince that kept his troops out looked like a pansy. And so the German Reich was announced in 1871 in Versailles.
Now, the reason that there is no European nation is that Europe has never fought a war as Europeans against some eevil anti-European foe. It really doesn't matter that elite Europeans all have friends across Europe, or that elite Europeans can get together in Brussels and cook up various bureaucratic dodges to force the nations of Europe into a European nation. Without the unifying experience of a war it will never happen.
Obviously, the only candidate for eevil anti-European foe is Russia. But somehow, I don't think that a nice quickie war against Russia would be a very good idea.
And then, assuming that the Europeans did unite against some dastardly foe, what about the aftermath? Who is going to be the Big Cheese? The French or the Germans? If you have the brains to solve that problem, you probably should not be in politics but working on the next Physics revolution that will make quantum mechanics look like a walk in the park.
Look, I think that Stefan Zweig is a great writer, and he can evoke the Zeitgeist of intellectual Europe magnificently. But in important ways, Zweig and Co. are idiots, the kind of idiots that have got Europe to its present state of dysfunction, where in various ways the people are rising up against the clueless cultural and political leaders that have led a continent whose women aren't much into having children, and whose men aren't much into shouldering manly responsibilities, and that think that the solution is to import millions of Muslims.
Our ruling class has got three things wrong during its dynastic domination of the past century. First, it has betrayed the migrants to the cities by encouraging them in their tribalism and by failing to teach them the ways of the responsible bourgeoisie. Second, it has failed to be tolerant of the great middle middle class, imposing its own religion and culture in a kind of soft Reign of Terror. Third, it fails to understand that the only way to get a united Europe is by a war. And, by the way, the only way to get global governance is through an interplanetary war. Think of that!
Other than that, our educated ruling class is tops. In other words, no better than any other stupid ruling class down the ages.
I admit I am prejudiced, but I think that the only ruling class that had more than half a brain was the US Revolutionary generation. If you ask me, the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, and Hamiltons were so miraculous that they constitute a proof of God's existence.
Well, Stefi, I will tell it to you, straight. But I warn you, you won't like it.
You don't found political entities on the basis of international friendships and hoity-toity rich-kid writers all getting together in a cafés in Paris -- or in meetings up in Magic Mountain land.
You found political entities, Stefi, in the crucible of war. That's the only thing that can create the experience of unity that persuades people to give up their old allegiances for a new one.
Sometimes the sense of unity is created by the agony of defeat. Take France, within which was the semi-independent Duchy of Burgundy taking up about half the land area of modern France. La Wik.
[W]hen Charles the Bold died in battle without sons, Louis XI of France declared the duchy extinct and absorbed the territory into the French crown. The daughter of Charles the Bold, Mary of Burgundy... refus[ed] to accept the loss of the duchy. The War of the Burgundian Succession took place from 1477 to 1482. Eventually, King Louis XI of France and Archduke Maximilian I signed the Treaty of Arras (1482). Maximilian recognised the annexation of the two Burgundies and several other territories.So, the King of France said: That's it, Burgundy is part of France, and after a couple of wars, the Burgundian rulers capitulated.
When did Britain arise as a nation? Probably as a result of the Civil War of the 17th century, and certainly by the end of the Second Hundred Years War against France from 1688 to 1815.
The US? Obviously the sense of US nationhood was forged in the Revolutionary War, and then, for those that didn't get the message, in the Civil War. Did you know, by the way, that politicians that had served in those wars were always referred to by their Revolutionary/Civil War rank? As in Colo. Hamilton and Major McKinley. Those guys were brothers-in-arms forever after.
Now, Germany is the example that proves the rule and that, after many years of confusion, made the whole matter clear to me.
See, Germany was a collection of more-or-less independent states, ruled over by a collection of princes and bishops, and nominally joined together in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. But the empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. And you can imagine what the various princes would say about being subsumed into a Prussian-dominated German nation.
So what was Bismarck to do if he was going to unite Germans into a single nation that could take on the French nation that had been trampling Germans underfoot for the last two centuries, and very likely more?
Answer: fight and win three convenient little wars against Germany's neighbors, starting with the easy one, against little Denmark in 1862, continuing with the medium one against a decliningAustria in 1866, and finishing up with the big one against France in 1870. With each war Bismarck got more and more German princes to send their hometown troops to contribute to the effort. You can see why this worked: with each victory, the prince that kept his troops out looked like a pansy. And so the German Reich was announced in 1871 in Versailles.
Now, the reason that there is no European nation is that Europe has never fought a war as Europeans against some eevil anti-European foe. It really doesn't matter that elite Europeans all have friends across Europe, or that elite Europeans can get together in Brussels and cook up various bureaucratic dodges to force the nations of Europe into a European nation. Without the unifying experience of a war it will never happen.
Obviously, the only candidate for eevil anti-European foe is Russia. But somehow, I don't think that a nice quickie war against Russia would be a very good idea.
And then, assuming that the Europeans did unite against some dastardly foe, what about the aftermath? Who is going to be the Big Cheese? The French or the Germans? If you have the brains to solve that problem, you probably should not be in politics but working on the next Physics revolution that will make quantum mechanics look like a walk in the park.
Look, I think that Stefan Zweig is a great writer, and he can evoke the Zeitgeist of intellectual Europe magnificently. But in important ways, Zweig and Co. are idiots, the kind of idiots that have got Europe to its present state of dysfunction, where in various ways the people are rising up against the clueless cultural and political leaders that have led a continent whose women aren't much into having children, and whose men aren't much into shouldering manly responsibilities, and that think that the solution is to import millions of Muslims.
Our ruling class has got three things wrong during its dynastic domination of the past century. First, it has betrayed the migrants to the cities by encouraging them in their tribalism and by failing to teach them the ways of the responsible bourgeoisie. Second, it has failed to be tolerant of the great middle middle class, imposing its own religion and culture in a kind of soft Reign of Terror. Third, it fails to understand that the only way to get a united Europe is by a war. And, by the way, the only way to get global governance is through an interplanetary war. Think of that!
Other than that, our educated ruling class is tops. In other words, no better than any other stupid ruling class down the ages.
I admit I am prejudiced, but I think that the only ruling class that had more than half a brain was the US Revolutionary generation. If you ask me, the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, and Hamiltons were so miraculous that they constitute a proof of God's existence.
Thanks for delivering cogent, enlightening analysis, Christopher.
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