When Culture Becomes Politics. Thomas Pedersen

22 See especially Karl Popper, The logic of scientific discovery. Routledge, 2002.

23 Thomas Pedersen, Area-studies and general theory; A two-way street. Working Paper, Aarhus University 2004.

24 See Eleonora Montuschi, “Metaphor in science”. In: W.H. Newton-Smith (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Blackwell, 2000.

25 See Stephen Jay Gould, An Urchin in the Storm. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.

26 José Ortega y Gasset, “The coming of the masses”. In: Bernard Rosenberg & David Manning White, Mass Culture. The popular Arts in America. New York: The Free Press, 1957, pp. 43ff.

27 The European Values Study. Tilburg University 2003. The survey was conducted in three different years in 16 different European countries.

28 Quoted in Jan-Erik Lane & Svante Ersson, Culture and Politics. A comparative Approach. Ashgate, 2005, p. 17.

29 See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, p. 87 and 171f.

30 One important exception is the Danish historian of ideas, Dorthe Jörgensen, see i.a. her Skönhedens metamorfose: De ästetiske ideers historie. Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2003; and Dorthe Jörgensen, Skönhed: En engel gik forbi. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2006.

31 Christopher Lasch, The revolt of the elites and the betrayal of democracy. W.W. Norton & Co., 1995.

32 See Hubert Vedrine, Les Mondes de Francois Mitterrand. Paris: Fayard, 1998.

33 Glenda Rosenthal, The Men behind the decisions. Lexington Mass. 1975, p. 133.

34 See Jo Shaw et.al., The convention on the future of Europe: Working towards an EU constitution. London: Federal Trust for Education & Research, 2003 for an overview of the EU convention.

35 The response rate was around 50 %, which is clearly less than ideal, but probably a realistic figure given the fact that we are dealing with very busy personalities.

36 See the survey in Peter Norman, The accidental constitution: The story of the European Convention. Brussels: Eurocomment, 2003; and also George Tsebelis & Sven-Oliver Proksch, “The Art of political manipulation in the European convention”. Journal of Common Market Studies; Vol. 45/1. 2007.

37 The views of the latter countries can however from a methodological view be said to have been to some extent covered by other former EFTA states (Scandinavians and Austria) similar in outlook. Switzerland, though, remains somewhat sui generis.

38 The method used for gathering the convention data was as follows: An extensive questionnaire was mailed to all convention members, who were given three months to return the questionnaire. Reminders were mailed several times. The response rate was approximately 50 %. This is clearly less than ideal but not surprising given the fact that we are dealing with busy politicians. In view of the fact that the statistical population is quite high, even a relatively moderate response rate can be expected to provide useful information. In order to offset the expected problems regarding a low response rate, convention members were not only presented with closed, multiple choice questions but also with open questions allowing them to comment on a number of issues. This open section of the survey is particularly interesting, when the response rate is medium or low. In this case the analysis in a sense becomes more qualitative than quantitative in that the focus shifts from aggregate figures to in-depth analysis of attitudes – in other words to a more qualitative analysis. The content of the questions ranged from questions regarding attitudes to external powers (the USA, Russia etc.) to questions regarding cultural values, e.g. the convention members were asked to list the three most important European philosophers, and the three most important European novelists etc.

      2. INTEGRISM: CULTURE IS CHOICE

      It is impossible to deal satisfactorily with the question of European identity without clarifying one’s assumptions regarding the nature of Political Man and the prospects for gaining knowledge about questions of identity. The ontological question is particularly important. Indeed, the analysis of European identity has launched me on the track towards a reflection upon more general issues to do with Political Man and the limits of politics.

      The European experience raises some fundamental questions to do with the motivations of political actors. Looking back, one is first struck by the prevalence of irrationality in European history. The 20th century saw the emergence of political ideologies in continental Europe that turned their back to the entire tradition of the enlightenment. To be true, after the Second World War Europeans rediscovered enlightenment values launching Europe on a path of regional integration initially based upon technocratic elitism. Yet, in European society the restored belief in rationality all too soon gave way to a new political irrationality epitomized by post-modernism. Earlier periods in European history reveal a similar pattern. Thus the part of the world which gave birth to rational values that could be said to have become universal, has witnessed a continuing pendulum movement between romanticist irrationality and enlightenment rationalism in its thinking about Political Man.

One of the key puzzles we face when trying to come to terms with European identity is how to separate changes in European identity politics from general changes in social identity. If Zygmunt Bauman is right in claiming that contemporary modernity is characterized by “uncertainty, fragility, insecurity, fluidity, volatility and precariousness”, then surely this makes it more difficult to envision the emergence of a cohesive and durable Europeanness and in our evaluations of European politics we would have to take this into account.¹ Zygmunt Bauman’s empirical analysis is interesting and his message certainly popular. It seems, however, that his pessimistic conclusions derive from overly idealistic criteria of normality. His analysis does not seem incompatible with the view that human choices form the backbone of human existence. The change he observes appears to relate mainly to the time factor. Arguably, what has changed is mainly the durability of identities.

      Against this background it is pertinent to ask, how one should conceive of Political Man. First of all, one can distinguish between a conception of Political Man as rational and on the other hand as fundamentally irrational. The rational view is epitomized by rational choice theory; the irrational view by post-modernism. Now both of these positions are unhelpful. I propose that one should opt for a third position, a broader view depicting Political Man as both rational and non-rational. The term non-rational should not be misunderstood: It does not seek to denote a conception of Political Man as unpredictable, but rather seeks to broaden our understanding of rationality to include i.a. spiritual