European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

54 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYculture; antiquity and tradition versus novelty and change; reaction andrevolution; immanence and transcendence, and so on. We can witnessa constant clash of ideas in European culture: Faust’s thirst forknowledge, for instance, conjures up Mephistopholes, the spirit ofnegation. Negative thought —the negation of reality in Hegelian terms—is the energy which enlivens the spirit. Such negativity can be found inmany different guises —doubt, irony, rebellion or protest— but mustnever be confused with scepticism or pessimism. Doubt, for instance, isnot just present in Montaigne’s meditation but also in Descartes’method; it is a part of Hume’s empiricism and is inherent to Pascal’sfaith.In the theatre, Hamlet was the physical embodiment of doubt. DonQuixote, Faust 6 and Don Juan are all protagonists of a failed quest forthe absolute. Each one of them, in his own way, denied finitude,believed in the unlimited, and deliberately ignored the principle ofreality at the very moment when the world of science, capitalism andthe middle classes was experiencing phenomenal vivacity, based on theselfsame principle of reality. European literature has always bornenegativity, the result of failures and sufferings, a vision of undefinedprogress and of conquering the planet.European genius is the fruit of tension and of the communicationthat takes place between the diverse elements involved in historicalchange, and is present in both continuous renewal and in the tensionbetween old and new. Of crucial importance to European culturalevolution is the productive meeting of variations, coincidences andnegation. Opposing forces survive each dialectical crisis, but withoutever succumbing to one another; instead, the argument is pushedonwards and develops greater scope. European culture does not justexperience these oppositions, conflicts and crises, they are in actualfact its life-blood. Opposing ideas are no less important than dominantbeliefs such as Christianity, Humanism, reason and science 7 .6Cfr. Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air. The Experience of Modernity,London: Verso, 1983.7Díez del Corral, Luis. El rapto de Europa, 1974; Guillén, Claudio. Múltiplesmoradas, 1998; Horst Stuke, Aufklärung, in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. HistorischesLexikon zur politisch – sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Hrsg. Von O. Brunner; Conze,W.; R. Koselleck, 1979; Duroselle, J.B. L’Idée d’Europe dans l’Histoire, 1965; Schneider,P. … ein einzig Volk von Brüdern, 1987; P. Gay, The Enlightenment, v. I, The Rise ofModern Paganism, London, 1970; id. Dichter, Denker, Jakobiner. Aufklärung undRevolution, Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag 1973; Zu Begriff und Problem der Renaissance,August Buck Hrsg. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969; Paul Valery,Note (or L’Européen), in Revue universelle, Paris, 15 July 1924 - Oeuvres, Paris: