Category Archive 'Alain Finkielkraut'

07 Apr 2006

On the Self-Loathing of the West

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Fjordman has an interesting. must-read essay in Gates of Vienna, reflecting on the film V is for Vendetta, and the assimilation by pop culture of the Western elite’s accessorizing of Treason as an essential fashion statement. Fjordman refers to the views

of French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut, who thinks that “Europe does not love itself.” Finkielkraut says that it’s not forces from outside that are threatening Europe as much as the voluntary renunciation of European identity, its wish of freeing itself from itself, its own history and its traditions, only replaced by human rights. The European Union thus isn’t just post-national, but post-European. What characterizes Europe today is the will to define itself, not from an ideology, but by dismissing any sense of identity. Europe is now built upon an oath: Never again. Never again extermination, never again war, but also never again nationalism. Europe prides itself in being nothing. According to Finkielkraut, Auschwitz has become part of the foundation of the EU, a culture based on guilt. But this is a vague ideology saying that “We have to oppose everything the Nazis were for.” Consequently, nationalism or any kind of attachment to your own country, including what some would say is healthy, non-aggressive patriotism, is frowned upon. To remember is to regret. Europe rejects its past. “European identity” is the de-identification of Europe. Of the past, we are only to remember crimes. This didn’t just happen in Germany, but in all of Europe. “I can understand the feeling of remorse that is leading Europe to this definition, but this remorse goes too far. It is too great a gift to present Hitler to reject everything that led to him.” This is said by the Jewish son of an Auschwitz prisoner.


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