European Malaise

Via No Left Turns, 2 articles by Will & Weigel documenting explaining the spiritual malaise behind European politics.

Will on the symptoms:

The sinister ingenuousness of Putin’s nostalgia for the Evil Empire. The surreal weirdness of Chirac’s rhetoric. The radical disjunction between the mind of the much-celebrated John Paul IIâ€???whose disciple Benedict XVI isâ€???and the way Europeans think and live. These are three symptoms of interestingâ€???and dismayingâ€???facets of the contemporary European mind.

Weigel on the symptoms:

Europe’s below-replacement-level birthrates have created situations that would have been unimaginable when the European Common Market was being created in the 1950s. As recent demographic studies show, by the middle of the 21st century, 60% of Italians will have no personal experience of a brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle or a cousin; Germany will lose the equivalent of the population of the former East Germany; and Spain’s population will decline by almost one-quarter.

We’ll let Weigel explain the roots:

A free European public square, Europeans have convinced themselves, must be radically secular. That is why the 70,000-word European constitution awaiting ratification could not find room within it for one word â€??? “Christianity” â€??? in describing the sources of European civilization. That is why the French government â€??? the embodiment of secularism in public life â€??? was attacked for flying the flag at half-staff in honor of John Paul II. That is why Europeans can only debate grave issues in biotechnology in utilitarian terms; “will it work?” completely trumps “is it right?” European high culture’s conviction that to be adult, mature and free is to be radically secular has led to a vast and withering spiritual boredom â€??? a drastic shrinkage in personal and social aspiration.

That spiritual boredom, I suggest, is why Europeans seem content to leave all hard political decisions to courts and bureaucracies, as they seem content to leave most questions of international security to the U.N. That spiritual boredom is why Europe is depopulating itself. Europe, bored, asks only to be left alone with its pleasures.