Monday, June 7, 2010

Quoting myself

One of my favourite blogs is The Gypsy Scholar. He is always worth a read.

Anyway, he has a number of posts up now about the future of Europe. I have no idea what that future will be like myself except that it will be different, probably very different, from what Europeans were hoping for. I did post a response over there, however, because I think an awful lot of intellectuals have analyzed the European model not based on any realistic assessment of its chance of success but rather on their hopes it would succeed.

And thus I quote here what I said there:
For a long time I had a belief in Europe that was based not on any analysis of the facts on the ground but on what I hoped a successful Europe would say about how we ought to live generally. A belief not that different from that held by a maiden aunt of mine who hoped that certain more modestly inclined female stars would succeed because of what that would say about where cultural ideas of womanhood were going.

Feeling disabused of my hopes, I now wonder to what extend similar hopes drive an analysis like that of Moravcsik.

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