Europe and the Question of Identity

During his recent trip to France, Pope Leo XIV warned European communities against closing themselves off in narrow identity trends defended by rising right-wing populist movements, reminding that Europe is the continent that created the idea of modern human universality in contrast to tribal, ethnic, and doctrinal affiliations. There is no doubt about this fact, but Europe also invented at the same time the notion of individuality in contrast to organic collective identities, which means the entrenchment of the idea of independent individual identity on one hand, and what it leads to in terms of considerations of sovereign national belonging, which is the foundation of the modern state. The specificity of modern European thought lies in its linking of the standard of individual subjectivity to universal belonging, considering that the intended subject relates to the human species in its entirety, and that national identity has been understood in contemporary European thought as an expression of universal ties, according to specific cultural and societal determinants. Even in the German case, where cultural and linguistic nationalism emerged, national specificity was understood in terms of being the spirit of the people embodied in the universal bond (Herder, Hegel, etc.). Although the European federal structure is new and still incomplete, the continental integration project appeared early in the 18th century, according to three major formulas drawn by Enlightenment philosophers: Europe as a cultural bond in which rational ideas and free opinions spread (Diderot), or as a unified civilizational system formed according to the principle of political and religious tolerance (Voltaire), or as a federation of states governed by laws that ensure eternal peace and human cooperation (Rousseau and Kant). However, the 19th century, which was the century of nationalisms, led to a long phase of wars and military conflicts, extending into the second half of the 20th century, before the continent abandoned the principle of sovereign nationalities, in harmony with the cry of former French President François Mitterrand, “nationalism means war.” In 1935, as Europe was on the brink of entering World War II, German philosopher Edmund Husserl asked, “What is Europe?” (the title of his famous lecture in Vienna), answering by saying that Europe cannot be merely a geographical area, but rather a “spiritual entity,” a way of seeing the world and a form of institutional and cultural-scientific life. Husserl warned against reducing European identity to ethnic-racial meanings, indicating that the roots of this identity go back to the idea of rational universality that was crystallized by Greek civilization, which previously took the form of demonstrative philosophy before taking the form of empirical science in modern times. However, Husserl noted at the time that European culture had entered a deep crisis, linking it to the dominance of exploitative utilitarian logic and objective naturalism over considerations of human values and open intentional rationality. Husserl expressed in his famous lecture the first deep crisis that the European sphere experienced, transitioning from a model of liberating rationality to violent technicalism, which led to devastating wars that destroyed the continent. It is clear that Europe is currently experiencing its second identity crisis, which differs in context and backgrounds from the first crisis. Despite the bleeding Ukrainian wound, Europe does not fear the return of the specter of war, civil strife, and political tyranny, but it is going through a real predicament represented in the unprecedented disjunction between the poles of individual subjectivity and human universality, as manifested in the rising narrow inward-looking tendencies that have completely abandoned the principle of human rational bond, which is the greatest discovery of the dynamics of European enlightenment. In his latest book, “A Continent Without Features,” German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk argues that Europe is no longer capable of creating a narrative that fits its collective identity; despite the existing institutional integration, Europe lacks a motivating political project or an inspiring political imagination, and thus its elites feel the decline of their civilization and tend to deny their history. The great challenge facing the European structure, according to Sloterdijk, is how to think of the unity of the continent outside the imperial model that previously allowed, since the Roman era, the imposition of the integration of the European world? Thus, the regression to specific national identities is driven by the tendency to exit the imperial imagination, with an awareness of the risks of squandering current integration gains. Pope Leo XIV explicitly stated that Europe, without its universal message, loses its distinctive conscience, and hence the growing predicament of the dominant narrow identity discourse currently prevailing over the political class.