Kommentar

In this passage, which concludes the third chapter, Guillaume de Bertier proposes a definition of “European culture”. At this time, in the mid-1960s, he sees it as a part of “Western culture” and believes it shares the latter’s features and its values: political and economic modernity, liberalism and capitalism, and, above all, Christianity. In his view, Christianity alone ensures continuity and is the defining feature of Western culture in the Braudelian “longue durée”. Christianity, he writes, is the crucial, unifying feature of Western culture which distinguishes Europe from other religious and political cultures such as Islam and communism. In this context, the author highlights the role of the “Roman Catholic” church in creating a coherent Occident. He writes that this region “embodies” permanence and unity, a continuity that outlasts the profound changes brought on by the cycles and events of the Braudelian “moyenne durée” and “courte durée” (p. 17). Accordingly, “European culture” – like the other “cultures” of the West – combined tradition and modernity, Christianity and progress; two elements that are by no means incompatible in the author’s view.

However, European culture also had specific characteristics of its own that distinguished it from American culture in particular, and whose key features had been imported from the “old Continent” (p. 41). The weight of history, de Bertier writes, imbued Europe with an unparalleled cultural and intellectual wealth that was unknown in the New World. The diversity of its “national cultures” (p. 43), reflecting the legacy of its history and geography, also formed a contrast to the apparent uniformity of the American geographical area and its culture. “For an American, who is accustomed to the uniformity of institutions and of material living conditions, […] this all gives the impression of a kaleidoscope of images in which he can only with difficulty recognise the roots of his own culture” (p. 44). The author gives the reader a positive, highly valorising picture of the Western culture of Europe with his vivid, colourful portrayal of Europe and its diverse culture. Presented in this way, it appears superior to the Western culture of America, which is portrayed as uniform, young and essentially “materialistic”.

The Western culture of Europe, he writes, had emerged in the European West, marked by the unifying measures of Charlemagne, and gradually expanded to the middle of the continent. Eventually it reached the heart of “Holy Russia” and went on to dominate the world in the 19th century, the true golden age of its power. However, its “sphere of influence” had recently been “drastically curtailed” (p. 46) by the new “culture of the Soviet Union” (p. 118). From now on it was confined to Western Europe.
The united Europe of the Common Market emerged out of the necessity of restoring the “old Continent” to its place on the international stage and ensuring its independence vis-à-vis the two superpowers (USA, USSR). In Western Europe, unification replaced the former divisions and rivalries. The author believes that such profound changes, such “achievements”, cannot help but impact on the traditional “aspects” of European culture, which inevitably changes as a result of the new international situation. The development of communications thanks to technical progress, the intensification of “cultural relations between the peoples of Western Europe” through the new union, and above all the influence of “the materialistic American culture” favoured a “homogenisation” of the old Continent, which now saw its “national diversity fading away”.
Was this the beginning of a new chapter in history? The author asks these questions because he sees a new “culture”, closer to the American model, emerging before his eyes on European soil. This culture symbolised the retreat of Europe and its social model before the advancing dominance of the USA over the Western world. What would be the place of human beings in this new “Western European society” (p. 54)? Were recent developments inevitably moving in the right direction? “The states will have to make every effort to ensure that this upheaval does not bring grave social unrest in its wake. They will also have to take care that urban housing serves to liberate people and protect family life, rather than subjecting them to an inhumane world of stone and asphalt” (p. 55). Like Braudel in his 1963 textbook (published by Belin), de Bertier concludes this chapter by warning his contemporaries against a material, or even materialistic, culture, cut off from social and intellectual concerns. The Catholic author hopes instead for a new Europe – modern, Christian and humanist.

Maguelone Nouvel-Kirschleger
Übersetzung: Joy Titheridge


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