Solutions for Europe’s problems are needed.
Norwegian web logger Bjørn Stærk makes the useful point that all the Americans who claim that Europe is doomed have only proved half of their case. (*) It is true that Europe’s aging population and decrepit welfare model do not bode well, and that large-scale Muslim immigration creates enormous new challenges of assimilation that have not been met, and perhaps cannot be without social upheaval or the establishment of sharia as dominant law in Europe. As Stærk retorts, though, that does not mean that Europe will not find solutions. Democracies can correct themselves. Perhaps someone will offer a workable plan. Perhaps someone will do something. The burden of proof remains with the Americans. That proves that.
No it doesn’t. Until someone actually comes up with a plan to save Europe from this onset of “doom”—and no one has—then it hardly matters where the burden of proof lies. This is not a debating society. We are talking about the real world. Just because someone might think of a good idea does not mean anyone will.
The challenges are apparent. It would be wise for Europe and those who care about it to expend mental energies not on parliamentary procedure but on finding a new path for the Old Continent.
Ironically, Stærk’s post is indicative of what ails Europe: a fetishization of process at the expense of dealing with reality.
December 6th, 2003 at 02:46
"The burden of proof remains with the Americans. That proves that."
Let’s separate two issues here: 1) Does Europe have major challenges ahead, which it currently is doing little to prepare itself for? Yes. Here, the Americans have proven their case. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll write about it again. We have problems, and we need to become aware of them and solve them, as soon as possible. I have some ideas in this direction, but that wasn’t the subject of my post, so I left them out. 2) Is Europe doomed, ie. is it going to _fail_ to find any solutions, and end up somewhere really bad? Here noone has proved their case, and the burden of proof is on the prophets of doom. This was the subject of my post. I try to point out the core weakness of the "Europe is doomed" argument, which is that it ignores uncertainty and the self-correcting ability of democracy. And that _is_ a fatal flaw, not a quibble.
As this part of the argument is popular in some circles, I thought it important to point this out. It does not mean that I’m trying to avoid the first, unrelated subject. And where you got your "fetishization of process" jibe from I’ll never know.
December 7th, 2003 at 18:07
We agree that Europe is in very serious trouble. If Europe changes, some of its problems can be fixed. Perhaps all of Europe’s problems can be fixed. As you say, Europe has the toolkit necessary to change. No one has figured out how to use that toolkit in such a way that fixes Europe’s problems.
Again, you can win debating points, but if Europe dies, all the debating points in the world won’t help.
By "fetishization of procedure," I refer both to your insistence on having won the debate on the basis of technicalities like the burden of proof, and the EU’s preoccupation with rules, regardless of whether the rules have meaning. The EU’s technical objections to the Iraq war are a case in point. Instead of seeing the bigger picture, the EU’s foreign policy has been hobbled by concern over rules violations. Instead of only worrying about whether the rules are violated, Europe should consider what the rules should be. A major point of advocacy that you and I have in arguing for the Iraq war (we both supported it), was that the old rules do not match the new reality of opponents who use terrorism and WMD.
December 8th, 2003 at 12:01
I don’t understand what you mean. If I had set out to prove that Europe would come out just fine, then you would be right. What I pointed out was not sufficient to show that. What I did was to point out the major flaws in the doom scenario - not the scenario where doom is possible, but the one where it is likely. That I believe I have done. The doom scenario is based on untenable extrapolations that ignore basic features of modern democracies. It’s as simple as that. And that’s all I set out to show.
December 8th, 2003 at 13:25
My point is that it is much more important to find out how Europe is going to solve its problems than it is to discuss whether those problems can be solved.