Learning to love Europe

Learning to love Europe

 

Essay by Michael Breisky, published:May 7, 2021

 

 

Abstract at the end of the essay

 

Dreaming of a strong Europe was yesterday. Not only has the commitment to a “never again war in Europe!” faded after the watershed year of 1989, but above it is the political homogeneity among the member states that has diminished in the course of EU enlargements. Because none of Europe’s external threats appear to be so dramatic as to make us close the ranks, there is no longer enough European solidarity to bridge the divides of difference. Thus, today, the elation of Sunday speeches on Europe is ground down as early as Monday morning by the travails of bureaucratic and antisocial everyday experience. (more…)

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2017: Vision for less Efficiency but more Resilience

Vision for less Efficiency but more Resilience

Artikel in Rotary Magazin, Hamburg, August 2017:

Brexit, Trump’s electoral victory and populist inducement point to a growing sense of anti-establishment coupled with reluctance and fear of over-reliance – all signs of a deep upheaval. Was Kurt Tucholsky right when he said: “the people often think wrong, but always feel right”?

At least the second part of this sentence is correct; because with efficiency and resilience there is a conceptual pair that has fallen out of balance and can well explain the emergence of this feeling: efficiency – that is, the pursuit of an “ever better” relationship between input and output – combines materialism with linear rationality. Thinking and has become the comprehensive guiding principle of Western society; Resilience, on the other hand, expresses lasting robust resilience and above all requires holistic thinking. In short, we will starve to death without efficiency, and without resilience, we’ll soon hit the wall. Sustainability is best served (according to resilience researcher Bernard Litaer), when resilience is greater than efficiency – which is clearly not the case today.

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