2 - Some Europes in Their History

Summary

I shall try to give some answers to the questions “What is Europe?” or rather “What do we mean by Europe?” The second question implies that “Europe” is something we have invented, and there is a habit at present of putting the words “the invention of” before the name of anything we want to discuss. This implies that there is nothing to discuss except the reasons, very likely discreditable, that have led others to invent whatever it is and impose their construction upon us, so that the point of discussion is to liberate ourselves from the construction by subverting the dominant paradigm, as the bumper stickers urge us to do. This is, of course, a very healthy skepticism, and I intend to adopt it in this essay. I do, in fact, perceive that a construction called “Europe” is being invented and imposed upon me in language that suggests that I must accept it without asking too many questions about what exactly it is, and I am very skeptical about the motives with which this is being done. I like to characterize myself as a Euroskeptic, in the proper sense of the term; meaning that I am skeptical, indeed, about the use of “Euroskeptic” to denote that sort of person. Why is it being suggested that we cannot be a skeptic about Europe without being a fanatical opponent?