Wonderful extract from Thiriart's work! However, I find myself agreeing only half-way, as it were, with Jean Thiriart in some places. Full disclosure: I have not read all of 'Europe: An Empire of 400 Million' (1964), although it's on my list!
Thiriart correctly identifies several of the "brands" of nationalism that we don't want; i.e. petty nationalism that fetishizes shallow cultural differences, or sets up political independence of a tiny region as its sine qua non. Such a mindset only serves to weaken Europe and her people in the face of globalism. Thiriart correctly rejects the fetishization of race as the bedrock of all meaningful organization. All of that is well enough.
And yet, Thiriart leaves us wondering (in this particular passage) what, exactly, "our nationalism" is. Yes, we can say that because of the core racial stock of Slavic, Germanic, and Latin-Mediterranean peoples, Europe is already in a sense "multi-racial," but the danger here is that this phrasing opens the door to other racial groups participating in - or demanding to benefit from - European civilization (Thiriart, who died in 1992, may or may not have foreseen this).
Wonderful extract from Thiriart's work! However, I find myself agreeing only half-way, as it were, with Jean Thiriart in some places. Full disclosure: I have not read all of 'Europe: An Empire of 400 Million' (1964), although it's on my list!
Thiriart correctly identifies several of the "brands" of nationalism that we don't want; i.e. petty nationalism that fetishizes shallow cultural differences, or sets up political independence of a tiny region as its sine qua non. Such a mindset only serves to weaken Europe and her people in the face of globalism. Thiriart correctly rejects the fetishization of race as the bedrock of all meaningful organization. All of that is well enough.
And yet, Thiriart leaves us wondering (in this particular passage) what, exactly, "our nationalism" is. Yes, we can say that because of the core racial stock of Slavic, Germanic, and Latin-Mediterranean peoples, Europe is already in a sense "multi-racial," but the danger here is that this phrasing opens the door to other racial groups participating in - or demanding to benefit from - European civilization (Thiriart, who died in 1992, may or may not have foreseen this).
Magnificent