The man of letters with a Byronic hairdo....
Posted on 09/19/2005 8:09:36 AM PDT by Constitution Day
The European Right? By Mark Steyn Most of us are familiar with the subtle differences between even relatively compatible cultures. One notes, for example, that what’s known to Americans as “The Hokey-Pokey” is called in Britain “The Hokey-Cokey.” Just when you think you’ve figured out what it’s all about, it turns out you haven’t quite grasped all the nuances. Accustomed as I am to these linguistic variations, I was nevertheless brought up short browsing the Guardian the other day and reading that Angela Merkel’s election victory would make Germany “the 20th of the 25 EU nations with a centre-right government.” That’s right: The EU — you know, the EUnuchs, the Euro-weenies, the proverbial cheese-eating surrender monkeys, etc. — are four-fifths “center-right.” Half a decade ago, they were all center-left Third Wayers. But having put its left foot in, Europe pulled its left foot out, stuck its right foot in, and shook it all about. The Guardian is technically correct. At the moment, Europe is governed largely by politicians of “the right.” Jacques Chirac, for example, is in French terms a “conservative.” Granted, “conservative” is an elastic designation, and, in the hands of the media, it’s usually shorthand for the side you’re not meant to like. Thus, George W. Bush is “conservative,” and so are unreconstructed Marxists in the Chinese politburo and the more hardline ayatollahs. But even under those expansive rules of admission, I find it difficult to encompass President Chirac within the definition. If he’s “center-right,” where the center is doesn’t bear thinking about. Still, the fact remains that the transatlantic estrangement of the Bush era has occurred during a period of supposed political convergence between Washington and chancelleries of Europe — the end result of which is that the president’s closest ally is the center-left survivor Tony Blair. That’s why I’m unpersuaded by those Europhiles in Washington who are pinning their hopes on a Euro-American realignment under Frau Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. The differences between Europe and America are so profound that political labels are simply lost in translation. You know those showers where the merest nudge of the dial turns the water from freezing to scalding? Mainstream European politics is the opposite of that. You can turn the dial all the way from “left” to “right” and it makes no difference. Over the last half-century, Continental politics evolved to the point where almost any issue worth talking about was ruled beyond the bounds of polite society. Austria was the classic example: Year in, year out, whether you voted for the center-left party or the center-right party, you wound up with the same center-left/center-right coalition presiding over what was in essence a two-party one-party state. In France, M. Chirac isn’t really “center-right” so much as ever so slightly left-of-right-of-left-of-center — and even that distinction applies only when he’s standing next to his former prime minister, the right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-center Lionel Jospin. Though supposedly from opposite ends of the political spectrum, in the 2002 presidential election they wound up running against each other on identical platforms, both passionately committed to high taxes, high unemployment, and high crime. Americans often make the same criticism of their own system — the “Republicrats,” etc. — but take it from me, the U.S. still has a more genuinely responsive politics with more ideological diversity than anywhere in western Europe. On the Continent, the Eurodee and Eurodum mainstream parties are boxed into a consensus politics that’s no longer sustainable. The people are weary of certain aspects of this postwar settlement — permanent double-digit unemployment and the Islamification of their cities — but they’re not yet ready to give up the social programs, the short work weeks, long vacations, and jobs for life. They’re voting against the center-left consensus but there’s little sign they’re willing to vote for any medicine tougher than a modest tweak toward a right-of-left-of-right-of-center consensus. Remember Dominique de Villepin, the magnificently obstructionist big-haired French foreign minister in the run-up to the Iraq war? He’s a poet — a veritable Rimbaud to Bush’s Rambo. Well, he’s prime minister now and, in his first big speech in the job, he was at pains to reassure French voters that the internal contradictions of a pampered lethargic welfare society could all be resolved through “Gallic genius”: “In a modern democracy, the debate is not between the liberal and the social, it is between immobilism and action. Solidarity and initiative, protection and daring: That is the French genius.” Oh-la-la! C’est magnifique, n’est-ce pas? All those elegant nouns just waiting for a stylishly coiffed French genius to steer the appropriate course between the Scylla of solidarity and the Charybdis of initiative, between protection and daring, immobilism and action, inertia and panic, stylish insouciance and meaningless gestures, abstract nouns and street riots, etc., etc. The French electorate was in the mood to hear something about crime or jobs. But for a man of letters with a Byronic hairdo that’s all too dreary and prosaic compared with an open-ended debate between solidarity and initiative stretching lazily into the future. Tony Blankley’s well-argued new book, The West’s Last Chance, is among other things a heartfelt plea for the European political class to rouse itself before the canoe goes over the waterfall. I don’t think they’re ready to tell the voters and I don’t think the voters are ready to hear it. They put their center-right foot in, they pull their center-left foot out. But they don’t yet understand they’re about to be shaken all about.
Rimbauds, Not Rambos
Steyn ping?
bttt
The German vote result was pathetic. Almost as pathetic as 47% of US voters voting for Senator Kerry.
Bwahahahaha!
Just because the West is about to go down doesn't mean a greater civilization is to take it's place. After Rome fell the world regressed. It was in this power vacuum that Mohammed saw his chance. But still, compared to Rome, the Islamic empire, though vast ,was second rate. We are approaching a new Dark Ages. So it goes. I wonder what date future historians will pick as the "Fall of the Western World"?
And speaking of the Hokey Pokey..............
With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey," died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in.
And then the trouble started.
:~ D
The Islamics will eventually bring about the "needed" reform...
The Tony Blankley book referred to in the last paragraph is actually worth a read. He annoys me on TV, and the only thing I hate more than "books" by right-wingers are books by left-wingers, but if the chips were ever Really Down, I'd rather count on Europe than India. But I fear it is too late.
The eurinals are heading for certain socialist/islamicist disaster.
I have a 57% confidence factor that we are not going to follow them down that path.
The man of letters with a Byronic hairdo....
The book has been excerpted in the Washington Times lately, and I believe you can still read the excerpts on the Times' website.
For the French Challenged:
The pun here is that 'Rimbaud' is pronounced in french the same as 'Rambo' in English.
Ooh-lá-lá!
"You know those showers where the merest nudge of the dial turns the water from freezing to scalding? Mainstream European politics is the opposite of that. You can turn the dial all the way from “left” to “right” and it makes no difference."
LOL! Well said. The French and German "conservatives" are both essentially in the same place as the UK conservative party was during the time of Edward Heath (pre-Thatcher). They didn't yet realize that the system had to be overthrown, and thought they could make things better by merely "managing" better. Most of Europe has truly reformed into capitalist economy, but France and Germany are behind.
We also need to recognize that capitalism alone doesn't make for a resurgent civilization. It can bring back economic growth, but for Europe to come out of decline there needs to be a strengthening of religious/cultural values... and no politician can force that to happen.
Hee.
That would be sometime in 1949 when, after abdicating responsibility for their parents' well-being to FDR and the social security scam, the greatest generation abdicated responsibility for their children to TV.
;^) Knew that. Thanks!
LoL...
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