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We're talking about fundamental (European vs. American) values, so why not? The whole concept may be flawed, but if we accept their existence - for argument's s
by V-2 9y ago
We're talking about fundamental (European vs. American) values, so why not? The whole concept may be flawed, but if we accept their existence - for argument's sake - then they shouldn't be assumed to change every ten years or so.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoEvery hundred years? Every thousand? The people who hold European values today, whatever that might mean, today aren’t the same people from 100 years ago.
- V-2 9y agoI agree that the very concept of "European values" is vague and of limited use. The continent is very diverse to begin with.
- wsy 9y agoThis incident happened because after WWII Germany distanced itself from all practices that were misused by the Nazis. If at all, it is maybe representative for Germany's reaction to its own Nazi history. It is surely not representative for fundamental European values.
- V-2 9y agoFirst-hand experience of various dictatorships - not limited to the Third Reich, whose impact reached well beyond Germany anyway - has played a strong role in shaping European mindset, and is a significant difference between the US and Europe.
- wsy 9y agoWould you care to elaborate which European values exactly have been shaped by of dictatorship experience, in your opinion? The only one that comes to my mind is shared with US: that power must be distributed among several institutions so that it becomes difficult to establish a dictatorship.
- V-2 9y agoEg. much greater ease of banning fringe political groups, ideologies, websites etc. This is one example of "freedom to" (everyone has right to express their opinion, even if it's hateful and extreme) valued less than "freedom from" (these loonies might get to power one day, we gotta protect ourselves against it). Off the top of my head: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2012/03/22/simply-visiting-terrorist-websites-could-mean-jail-time-in-france https://www.theblaze.com/news/2012/03/22/simply-visiting-ter...
- ben509 9y agoGerman anti-Semitism was very much reflective of fundamental European values, and in countries where there wasn't a big denazification effort it's quite persistent. And, alas, steadily coming back.
- dullgiulio 9y agoWe were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU. Even if the EU already existed, it would be better to talk about more recent facts as the "spirit of the times" (there must be a word in German for that) changes.
- Lev1a 9y ago> "spirit of the times" (there must be a word in German for that) There is. It's "Zeitgeist", a term that AFAIK has also been introduced into the English language.
- V-2 9y agoThe comment that sparked the discussion referred to Europe, not just EU: > I think this is quite indicative of European and the US values. The US generally values the freedom to, while Europe values freedom from The reply that prompted me to jump in didn't question this view; just generalized it in a way I'm very sceptical about: > I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people. It's easy to poke holes in this generalization, even without needing a clear-cut definition of what European values are, exactly. > We were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU. The laws reflect the spirit, so to speak, and while the EU as such didn't exist in 1950s, its "alpha version", the European Coal and Steel Community, of which Germany was a founding state, did. The process was already on. The Paneuropean modern idea of a united continent is almost 100 years old. The EU is an outcome of a long and difficult process, not something that just came to existence in 1992, in a form that happened to trendily reflect the spirit of the 90s ;)