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Europe and Its Others
In recent years we have been hearing European politicians say over and over
that Europe is not just a community of economically defined interests but
something more—namely, a champion of certain cultural values that should
be asserted and defended. But we know of course that in the language of
politics “something more” as a rule means “something less.” And, indeed,
what European politicians really want to say is that Europe cannot and should
not expand unlimitedly, but should end where its cultural values end. The
concept of culture defines de facto the self-imposed borders of economic and
political expansion, for the scope of the applicability of European culture is
thus more narrowly defined as the area of European economic interests.
Europe will thereby differentiate itself in relation to Russia, China, India, and
Islamic countries, but also with respect to its ally the United States, and at
the same time present itself as an internally homogeneous community of
values that possesses a specific cultural identity to which those who come to
Europe should conform, thank you very much. The question I would like to
raise here is not whether such a differentiation, such a definition, of European
cultural values is desirable or not. Rather, I would like to ask how exactly are
European cultural values defined by European politicians today, and how
successfully Second, what interests me is what effect this demand for European
cultural identity has on the arts in Europe.
The desire to situate one’s own culture in an international comparison
is surely completely legitimate. The question is simply how well this attempt
succeeds in Europe’s case. Now, as a rule, European values are defined as
humanistic values that have their origin in the Judeo-Christian legacy and in
the tradition of the European Enlightenment. European values are generally
thought to include respect for human rights, democracy, tolerance of the
foreign, and openness to other cultures. To put it another way, the values
that are proclaimed to be specifically European values are in fact universalistic,
and one could rightly demand that non-Europeans respect them as well.
Therein lies the entire difficulty that inevitably confronts those who would