24 ms·

I don't agree with that, the EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident t

by antirez 10y ago

I don't agree with that, the EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident that, for example, there is no state in EU with death penalty. This makes states within the EU very similar at certain levels, otherwise a claim could be made that the cultural delta is the same between two different EU states and between an EU state and US, but this is not true, if you check a bit the fundamental values you'll see that EU nations have a lot in common.

dharma1 10y ago
Language, national identity. The US and EU are not the same
- hacksonx 10y ago
  I could be wrong but even the French are still a monarchy. In fact the only case of a dissolved monarchy I've read of lately is the Spanish monarchy.
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    Ahem. France is a republic, and Spain is a constitutional monarchy.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    When Napoleon took the reins of government, he decided to call himself an emperor rather than a king. Emperor is a temporal title, it's not intended to be passed down to heirs the same way a throne is. French emperors rule at the will of the people, and it's up to them to decide whether they want a monarch or not. Napoleon III, the last French monarch, was captured during the Franco-Prussian war, and after his death, the French decided they'd had enough of monarchs and the third French republic lasted until WWII. It was replaced by the Germans with Vichy, and then after the war, the fourth and fifth republics. It's highly unlikely that the French will ever accept another monarch. There are Bonapartist and a Orléanist (Bourbon) pretenders to the throne, but none hold any public office. If the government falls apart again like it did in 1958, it should be replaced with another republic as it was then. Nobody can really rule out a third French empire, but the trend of democracy worldwide has been towards devolution of power rather than centralization, France is more likely to break apart than it is to re-imperialize.
sievebrain 10y ago
There are of course lots of principles that European citizens all share. But there are also some principles that they don't. France, for example, is significantly more socialist than the UK. Unfortunately the EU sees differences as a disease which must be wiped out with always the same prescription: more EU. Literally so. They talk of voting as a "contagion".
- teh 10y ago
  I'd like to see some evidence for your statement. Subsidiarity is a general principle taken into account for all EU decisions. It's the opposite of "seeing difference as a disease" IMO.
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    Just look at how they talk. Voting is a contagion that might "spread" to other countries, as if it was the bubonic plague. The EU has constantly increased its power. The goal of the people who actually run it is federalism. They hate the idea of countries picking and choosing integration from a menu, they are literally dead-set against the idea. And why would you insist on a deal being all or nothing, bad with the good? Because you know that's the only way to get the bad ideas through. Same reason Congress attaches riders to bills they know will be strongly supported, when those same riders got rejected earlier.
    - teh 10y ago
      As an immigrant living in London the "bad" ideas are in the eye of the beholder surely? Can you enumerate a few ideas that are bad? Also, to me an institution keeping the peace also trying to contain the "contagion" of instability makes perfect sense. It's what I want and I contacted all my representatives to that end.
      - sievebrain 10y ago
        Of course they are in the eye of the beholder. A few that I personally think are bad: - Recent VAT reforms - Cookie law - Treating low taxes as "state aid" (EU Commission will be setting tax rates across the EU soon, just wait) - Having a Parliament that can't make its own laws But if you asked others you might get an answer like "the euro". The EU has no relevance to peace or war. The USA is a much more strongly federalised union than the EU and had a brutal civil war. Most wars today are civil wars. There is absolutely nothing that'd stop the EU having a civil war even if it was incredibly federalised and had become practically a single country, like the USA. What has kept the peace in Europe was avoiding a repeat of the Treaty of Versaille, nuclear weapons, NATO, and the fact that European countries are now all mature democracies (the latter is imo the most important).
reitanqild 10y ago
Careful with the French Revolution. I'm sure you know but I was an adult before I understood how insanely brutal that thing was, not only towards former monarchy and nobility but also, or possibly even especially, towards common people.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- return0 10y ago
  The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc. etc. For countries that are hanging on the edges of europe, which weren't strongly ethnically homogeneous, like my country, Greece, that style of government was vital for the definition of the nation. That said, let's not derail the conversation with irrelevant historical anecdotes that are out of time anyway.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ern 10y ago
    The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc I'm fairly certain that the US was already independent and had adopted the current Constitution by the time the French Revolution happened.
    - id 10y ago
      The US is not the world though.
      - gcatalfamo 10y ago
        Thank you. US people just don't get it.
      - 10y ago
redthrowaway 10y ago
What culture do Germans, Greeks, Latvians, Bulgarians, Fins, and Spaniards share? It takes more than vastly differing attachments to a vague sense of liberalism and a desire to not blow the continent to high hell again.
- dalore 10y ago
  Latin
  - esquivalience 10y ago
    Greek =/= Latin!
    - seabass 10y ago
      !==
      - noobermin 10y ago
        /= (well, js is popular on HN, but Haskell nerds have been making rounds...)
  - seesomesense 10y ago
    Finnish is one of the few European languages with no connection to Latin
    - Spearchucker 10y ago
      One of two, I believe. The other being Hungarian.
      - fulafel 10y ago
        Celtic languages, Estonian is another Fenno-Ugric one, Sami, there are lots.
Shivetya 10y ago
I would think two World Wars fought over the continent would be more incentive to make it work. Considering how long ago the French Revolution took place it does seem no one there learned much until so many were killed it appalled all involved. One major advantage the US has is a single main language. That is something that will in time possibly occur within the EU but language is a barrier that cannot be over estimated
jules 10y ago
The UK does not have that shared French Revolution tradition at all, and neither do a large number of European countries that are still monarchies. Instead of a violent French Revolution, the UK had a nonviolent change of power from royalty to the people. Instead of a civil war over slavery, the UK had a peaceful transition where the state bought the slaves from the slave owners. This referendum fits in a great tradition of nonviolent change.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Just to expand on this, because it isn't often mentioned in contrast to how awful colonial England was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 The UK abolished slavery, and even fought commonwealth territories that resisted. Maybe if parts of the US had still been in the commonwealth, slavery would have ended sooner there too.
  - hartpuff 10y ago
    It's even less mentioned that the French abolished slavery about 40 years before that.
- douche 10y ago
  Not that England/Britain didn't have their own bloody, violent civil wars along the way to get there. The English were ahead of the curve by just over a hundred years, as far as executing their king and instituting a military dictatorship goes.
- stangeek 10y ago
  Let's be honest, it is actually the brutality of the French revolution which forced the British royalty to hand over power to the people. And before doing these "peaceful" transitions, all neighbouring countries tried to smother the French with war in order to preserve the priviledges of the remaining monarchies.
  - golergka 10y ago
wtbob 10y ago
> I don't agree with that, the EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident that, for example, there is no state in EU with death penalty. The conjunction of those two sentences is a bit hilarious, considering the wanton abuse of the death penalty during the Reign of Terror. And I think that the lack of capital punishment is an indicator of one of the EU's problems: it's stunningly undemocratic. Polls (until recently?) have shown for decades strong popular support for capital punishment, and yet countries have been forced by the EU to ban it.
- yardie 10y ago
  I am unaware of anyone in any of the EU countries who support the death penalty nor capital punishment. It is overwhelmingly frowned upon. Now I admit I haven't asked everyone in every EU country. And I'm sure there are those in Central/Eastern Europe who still support it (I know life was especially brutal under the communist regimes). Polls (until recently?) Which polls? I'm honestly curious.
  - hartpuff 10y ago
    > I am unaware of anyone in any of the EU countries who support the death penalty nor capital punishment. It is overwhelmingly frowned upon. No it isn't. (And I post as someone who is against it, BTW.) In every right-wing party in the EU (and the world) there are almost certain to be elected representatives who support the death penalty. > Polls (until recently?) Which polls? I'm honestly curious. Obviously not curious enough to make a simple Google search. Here's a BBC item from last year showing support for the death penalty in the UK dropping below 50% for the first time: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32061822 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32061822 > And I'm sure there are those in Central/Eastern Europe who still support it (I know life was especially brutal under the communist regimes). I fail to see what regimes that disappeared a quarter of a century ago have to do with anything.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Well, I'm in an EU country, and I support the death penalty for the most severe crimes; as execution method I only propose that the condemned shall be kept in prison until he or she dies. A lethal injection or bullet in the neck is too easy. (However, this is forbidden by EU.)
ThomPete 10y ago
It's not enough to have things in common. The point the previous post make is that it requires a common enemy to forge unification as strong as the US and even here there are talks about some states wanting to go independent from time to time. Without this external factor it's hard to find something to really feel the same about.
- geon 10y ago
  Is that why the US seems so hell-bent at creating new enemies for themselves? Would one of the states exiting the US be thinkable, were it not for the unity in waging wars against external (and some internal) enemies?
  - p_eter_p 10y ago
    Yes. I believe Texas Republicans call for independence with some frequency.
    - emp_zealoth 10y ago
      Let them go and watch the hellfire of their economic explosion i say.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-secession-idUSKCN0ZA3F4 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-secession-i... And yes. Leo Strauss was of that opinion and you will find a whole suite of argument that talk about how the middle east became the new enemy out of need rather than actual threat. This was part of the PNAC (Project for New American Century) which identified the need for a new enemy after the fall of the wall. Now whether they were actually successful is another discussion but it was part of the Bush administrations fundamental belief as several of it's key members where students under Strauss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss
unsigner 10y ago
Adjacent EU nations do have a lot in common, but the differences add up across the continent.
- cLeEOGPw 10y ago
  It's all relative. I live in Eastern Europe part of EU and I can tell that either it's London, or Stockholm or Vilnius, they all look and feel very alike. Biggest difference is amount of non-white people in western cities.
eternalban 10y ago
French Revolution or Emperor Napoleon & the Napoleonic Code? Italy was hugely influenced by the latter, as I am sure you know.
irrational 10y ago
Wait, hold on. Are saying that the EU doesn't like the death penalty because of French Revolution principles?! This is the same French Revolution that famously involved the guillotine, no?
- mioelnir 10y ago
  No, we all agree that, both historically and presently, our political leaders are incompetent and not to be trusted with such a sharp blade. They get children's scissors and should be happy about it.
392c91e8165b 10y ago
I'm skeptical that Europe will ever be as united by culture as the US is as long as Europe is divided into different language communities. (Although there are millions of Americans who do not speak English, only the tiniest fraction of those have any influence on American culture.)
ptaipale 10y ago
> EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident that, for example, there is no state in EU with death penalty. This is a somewhat funny thing to say, considering how many people were given the death penalty in the French revolution and its aftermath. Executions for "crimes against liberty" and whatever are estimated to have been between 16,000 and 40,000. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

by antirez 10y ago

dharma1 10y ago

Language, national identity. The US and EU are not the same

hacksonx 10y ago
I could be wrong but even the French are still a monarchy. In fact the only case of a dissolved monarchy I've read of lately is the Spanish monarchy.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  Ahem. France is a republic, and Spain is a constitutional monarchy.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  When Napoleon took the reins of government, he decided to call himself an emperor rather than a king. Emperor is a temporal title, it's not intended to be passed down to heirs the same way a throne is. French emperors rule at the will of the people, and it's up to them to decide whether they want a monarch or not. Napoleon III, the last French monarch, was captured during the Franco-Prussian war, and after his death, the French decided they'd had enough of monarchs and the third French republic lasted until WWII. It was replaced by the Germans with Vichy, and then after the war, the fourth and fifth republics. It's highly unlikely that the French will ever accept another monarch. There are Bonapartist and a Orléanist (Bourbon) pretenders to the throne, but none hold any public office. If the government falls apart again like it did in 1958, it should be replaced with another republic as it was then. Nobody can really rule out a third French empire, but the trend of democracy worldwide has been towards devolution of power rather than centralization, France is more likely to break apart than it is to re-imperialize.

sievebrain 10y ago

There are of course lots of principles that European citizens all share. But there are also some principles that they don't. France, for example, is significantly more socialist than the UK. Unfortunately the EU sees differences as a disease which must be wiped out with always the same prescription: more EU. Literally so. They talk of voting as a "contagion".

teh 10y ago
I'd like to see some evidence for your statement. Subsidiarity is a general principle taken into account for all EU decisions. It's the opposite of "seeing difference as a disease" IMO.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  Just look at how they talk. Voting is a contagion that might "spread" to other countries, as if it was the bubonic plague. The EU has constantly increased its power. The goal of the people who actually run it is federalism. They hate the idea of countries picking and choosing integration from a menu, they are literally dead-set against the idea. And why would you insist on a deal being all or nothing, bad with the good? Because you know that's the only way to get the bad ideas through. Same reason Congress attaches riders to bills they know will be strongly supported, when those same riders got rejected earlier.
  - teh 10y ago
    As an immigrant living in London the "bad" ideas are in the eye of the beholder surely? Can you enumerate a few ideas that are bad? Also, to me an institution keeping the peace also trying to contain the "contagion" of instability makes perfect sense. It's what I want and I contacted all my representatives to that end.
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      Of course they are in the eye of the beholder. A few that I personally think are bad: - Recent VAT reforms - Cookie law - Treating low taxes as "state aid" (EU Commission will be setting tax rates across the EU soon, just wait) - Having a Parliament that can't make its own laws But if you asked others you might get an answer like "the euro". The EU has no relevance to peace or war. The USA is a much more strongly federalised union than the EU and had a brutal civil war. Most wars today are civil wars. There is absolutely nothing that'd stop the EU having a civil war even if it was incredibly federalised and had become practically a single country, like the USA. What has kept the peace in Europe was avoiding a repeat of the Treaty of Versaille, nuclear weapons, NATO, and the fact that European countries are now all mature democracies (the latter is imo the most important).

reitanqild 10y ago

Careful with the French Revolution. I'm sure you know but I was an adult before I understood how insanely brutal that thing was, not only towards former monarchy and nobility but also, or possibly even especially, towards common people.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
return0 10y ago
The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc. etc. For countries that are hanging on the edges of europe, which weren't strongly ethnically homogeneous, like my country, Greece, that style of government was vital for the definition of the nation. That said, let's not derail the conversation with irrelevant historical anecdotes that are out of time anyway.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ern 10y ago
  The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc I'm fairly certain that the US was already independent and had adopted the current Constitution by the time the French Revolution happened.
  - id 10y ago
    The US is not the world though.
    - gcatalfamo 10y ago
      Thank you. US people just don't get it.
    - 10y ago

redthrowaway 10y ago

What culture do Germans, Greeks, Latvians, Bulgarians, Fins, and Spaniards share? It takes more than vastly differing attachments to a vague sense of liberalism and a desire to not blow the continent to high hell again.

dalore 10y ago
Latin
- esquivalience 10y ago
  Greek =/= Latin!
  - seabass 10y ago
    !==
    - noobermin 10y ago
      /= (well, js is popular on HN, but Haskell nerds have been making rounds...)
- seesomesense 10y ago
  Finnish is one of the few European languages with no connection to Latin
  - Spearchucker 10y ago
    One of two, I believe. The other being Hungarian.
    - fulafel 10y ago
      Celtic languages, Estonian is another Fenno-Ugric one, Sami, there are lots.

Shivetya 10y ago

I would think two World Wars fought over the continent would be more incentive to make it work. Considering how long ago the French Revolution took place it does seem no one there learned much until so many were killed it appalled all involved. One major advantage the US has is a single main language. That is something that will in time possibly occur within the EU but language is a barrier that cannot be over estimated

jules 10y ago

The UK does not have that shared French Revolution tradition at all, and neither do a large number of European countries that are still monarchies. Instead of a violent French Revolution, the UK had a nonviolent change of power from royalty to the people. Instead of a civil war over slavery, the UK had a peaceful transition where the state bought the slaves from the slave owners. This referendum fits in a great tradition of nonviolent change.

Chris2048 10y ago
Just to expand on this, because it isn't often mentioned in contrast to how awful colonial England was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 The UK abolished slavery, and even fought commonwealth territories that resisted. Maybe if parts of the US had still been in the commonwealth, slavery would have ended sooner there too.
- hartpuff 10y ago
  It's even less mentioned that the French abolished slavery about 40 years before that.
douche 10y ago
Not that England/Britain didn't have their own bloody, violent civil wars along the way to get there. The English were ahead of the curve by just over a hundred years, as far as executing their king and instituting a military dictatorship goes.
stangeek 10y ago
Let's be honest, it is actually the brutality of the French revolution which forced the British royalty to hand over power to the people. And before doing these "peaceful" transitions, all neighbouring countries tried to smother the French with war in order to preserve the priviledges of the remaining monarchies.
- golergka 10y ago

wtbob 10y ago

> I don't agree with that, the EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident that, for example, there is no state in EU with death penalty. The conjunction of those two sentences is a bit hilarious, considering the wanton abuse of the death penalty during the Reign of Terror. And I think that the lack of capital punishment is an indicator of one of the EU's problems: it's stunningly undemocratic. Polls (until recently?) have shown for decades strong popular support for capital punishment, and yet countries have been forced by the EU to ban it.

yardie 10y ago
I am unaware of anyone in any of the EU countries who support the death penalty nor capital punishment. It is overwhelmingly frowned upon. Now I admit I haven't asked everyone in every EU country. And I'm sure there are those in Central/Eastern Europe who still support it (I know life was especially brutal under the communist regimes). Polls (until recently?) Which polls? I'm honestly curious.
- hartpuff 10y ago
  > I am unaware of anyone in any of the EU countries who support the death penalty nor capital punishment. It is overwhelmingly frowned upon. No it isn't. (And I post as someone who is against it, BTW.) In every right-wing party in the EU (and the world) there are almost certain to be elected representatives who support the death penalty. > Polls (until recently?) Which polls? I'm honestly curious. Obviously not curious enough to make a simple Google search. Here's a BBC item from last year showing support for the death penalty in the UK dropping below 50% for the first time: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32061822 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32061822 > And I'm sure there are those in Central/Eastern Europe who still support it (I know life was especially brutal under the communist regimes). I fail to see what regimes that disappeared a quarter of a century ago have to do with anything.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Well, I'm in an EU country, and I support the death penalty for the most severe crimes; as execution method I only propose that the condemned shall be kept in prison until he or she dies. A lethal injection or bullet in the neck is too easy. (However, this is forbidden by EU.)

ThomPete 10y ago

It's not enough to have things in common. The point the previous post make is that it requires a common enemy to forge unification as strong as the US and even here there are talks about some states wanting to go independent from time to time. Without this external factor it's hard to find something to really feel the same about.

geon 10y ago
Is that why the US seems so hell-bent at creating new enemies for themselves? Would one of the states exiting the US be thinkable, were it not for the unity in waging wars against external (and some internal) enemies?
- p_eter_p 10y ago
  Yes. I believe Texas Republicans call for independence with some frequency.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Let them go and watch the hellfire of their economic explosion i say.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-secession-idUSKCN0ZA3F4 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-secession-i... And yes. Leo Strauss was of that opinion and you will find a whole suite of argument that talk about how the middle east became the new enemy out of need rather than actual threat. This was part of the PNAC (Project for New American Century) which identified the need for a new enemy after the fall of the wall. Now whether they were actually successful is another discussion but it was part of the Bush administrations fundamental belief as several of it's key members where students under Strauss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

unsigner 10y ago

Adjacent EU nations do have a lot in common, but the differences add up across the continent.

cLeEOGPw 10y ago
It's all relative. I live in Eastern Europe part of EU and I can tell that either it's London, or Stockholm or Vilnius, they all look and feel very alike. Biggest difference is amount of non-white people in western cities.

eternalban 10y ago

French Revolution or Emperor Napoleon & the Napoleonic Code? Italy was hugely influenced by the latter, as I am sure you know.

irrational 10y ago

Wait, hold on. Are saying that the EU doesn't like the death penalty because of French Revolution principles?! This is the same French Revolution that famously involved the guillotine, no?

mioelnir 10y ago
No, we all agree that, both historically and presently, our political leaders are incompetent and not to be trusted with such a sharp blade. They get children's scissors and should be happy about it.

392c91e8165b 10y ago

I'm skeptical that Europe will ever be as united by culture as the US is as long as Europe is divided into different language communities. (Although there are millions of Americans who do not speak English, only the tiniest fraction of those have any influence on American culture.)

ptaipale 10y ago

> EU has a very strong cultural union that was created by the enunciation of the French Revolution principles. It's not by accident that, for example, there is no state in EU with death penalty. This is a somewhat funny thing to say, considering how many people were given the death penalty in the French revolution and its aftermath. Executions for "crimes against liberty" and whatever are estimated to have been between 16,000 and 40,000. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine