Towards a New European Post-War Order as a Contribution to the Transition of Civilization

by J Michael Heynen

Europe, the EU, has failed to anticipate the future in a timely manner, to develop determination from free inner will, to transform the European vision of normative order into integrative, sovereign governmental power. National-bourgeois complacency was merely represented quantitatively and summarily in intergovernmental coordination; increasing prosperity from within and the pressure of crisis from without drove towards the lowest common denominator of minimalist cohesion. And in this process, expansive geopolitical belonging took precedence over the rule of law. Meanwhile, even the finally discontinued nonviolence, credited with the Nobel Peace Prize, is in immediate danger, for the "European House" has been forced into the existential consequences of its foundations; the "will and imagination" of the European spirit have finally evaporated, and the actors operate without conception or perception, based on expansive oligopolizing form generation of decaying governing.

This is not the preamble to an eulogy for Europe, but rather the opposite: the abstract interpretation of the cause and effect of failing European governance since 2000 at the latest. It is the formulation of insight and consequence: While in 1950 the European spirit was still tearing down barriers, today it is again about faint-hearted territorial interests for which human lives are being sacrificed; political power is not clever design, but brute force. And it confirms Alvin Toffler's insight: "Those who do not have their own strategy are part of the strategy of others!" Just as Yugoslavia did 30 years ago, the war in Ukraine today directly demonstrates what it is and how it functions: systematic European political failure!

If Europe continues to be understood only as an administrative territory controlled by others and as a mere market power, it will be further politically marginalized, and the clarity derived from the humanistic tradition of reason will finally be completely lost. Vegetative existence will then likely soon dissolve into vegetativeness, and the human spirit and free will will be sacrificed to transhumanist algorithms. And a world without Europe will not only be a world without a genuine liberal-democratic basic order, but also a world without the crucial, humanistic potential of a civility that is also a global offer. For Europe, the EU, was fundamentally formed by the reason of its rich soul, by conviction according to individual spiritual guidance, not by force and messianic world redemption. This is especially true in comparison to the major powers that pose as world powers and continually attempt to project themselves as competing drivers of a "new world order" through missionary-egomaniacal projection – a latent danger to all civilization.

When will Europe finally understand itself – for its own sake and for this world? Can't life-threatening, abject cowardice finally be overcome? Does it need more failure and human sacrifice? Can't a "European House" finally emerge from the profound power of its inner core and its civilizational-humanistic high development? This planet is a space of free will, and Europe has been closest to possible fulfillment. The opportunity for final, sustainably self-determined fulfillment nevertheless appears repeatedly present: within the framework of a new European post-war order, initiated by Ukrainian sacrifices and destructive Russian political leadership. Together (!), the European normative order must be proactively developed to be future-proof and shaped in an innovative and transformative manner – especially based on diplomacy than being fiexed on re-militarization.

© J Michael Heynen - Founding President of Senate of Cultures