Must We Become Ethnocentric again?

by Guillaume Faye

Guillaume Faye discusses the importance of ethnocentrism in maintaining European identity and resisting global homogenisation.

This is the eighth part of Guillaume Faye’s essay ‘The New Ideological Challenges’, published in 1988. Also read parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.

From the perspective of the three identities — regional, national, and continental — it would be futile and ridiculous to attempt to remove the stage of national belonging.

The regionalists once desired this. Besides being utopian and overlooking the significance of historical traditions, this viewpoint seems exceedingly rationalistic and totalitarian. Although the nations of Europe were founded on completely different principles (ethnic in Germany and Italy; state-based in France, Spain, or Poland), they now exist as historical-geographical realities and garner strong feelings of belonging.