Identity crisis
In this Sunday's New York Times magazine, A.S. Byatt wrote a very thoughtful article titled What is a European? I am yet to read Byatt's fiction; reading this article is certainly proving to be an incentive. It is a very ambitious piece that does not stoop to oversimplify complex issues, and at the some time manages to present the reader with information, which, while may or may not be considered conclusive to answer the question stated in the title of the article, leaves a sense of intellectual satisfaction.
What struck me particularly is the sense that a unifying concept of a "European Person" cannot be made in the positive, only in the negative sense. To wit, a Frenchman and a German do not view each other as belonging to one cultural entity (although they can conceivably view each other as members of one economic or even political entity). One cannot (maybe once should not?) clearly signify what makes a European a European. The clarity comes when a European visits America. It is vis-à-vis the America and Americans that Europeans most acutely sense their European identity. The same thing, apparently, goes for Americans as well.
Now, I don’t think anyone doubts that there is such a thing as being European, or feeling European (ask that as a Yes or No question of any European). It appears that when we try to analyze the phenomenon we get into trouble. Rather than dismiss the notion of the possibility of a European identity, I would dismiss the need, or even the validity, of an analytical approach to the elucidation of the concept. The best way to describe what it means to be European (or American or South East Asian) is to travel through the locale in question and to extend one’s finger towards local attractions, people and their behavior, newspaper headlines and dishes. It is the smells, the sounds, the immediate impressions of people and their behavior, that untranslatable zeitgeist, which gives us the sense what Europe is and what Europeans are all about. Any type of serious analysis for the purpose of understanding is tantamount to the shattering of Michelangelo’s David, thinking that the statue’s beauty is found inside the stone, rather than on the surface.
Please don’t get me wrong. I derive an almost coital pleasure from analysis. It is just that we must apply the right analytical tools to the right objects of analysis. One does not savor a meal with one’s ears, and one does not enjoy a symphony by chewing on the music sheets. A cultural identity is an irreducible primary to some degree (hence the zeal of cultural chauvinists against cultural relativism). If a national or a cultural entity is being discussed it exists – q.v. the idiocy of asking whether “Palestinians” are a national entity. Homo Europeus exists because an article has been written agonizing over the question. As to what exactly is the identity of such a creature? To find an answer, go and visit Europe. If you are short on time and funds, read Byatt’s article. In describing her travels and conversations in search for an answer, she provides us with everything much of what we need to know.
7:58:29 AM 
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