I would be the last to deny that the arguments for the obsoleteness of nations are powerfully persuasive, if not overwhelming. One is tempted to say that, like the Chinese emperor of yore, the nation as a political form has lost the mandate of heaven, or that the Geist—the spirit of history—has at long last deserted it. This diagnosis is all too easily documented.

The most obvious argument is also the strongest: The greatest, or at least the biggest, European nations wasted their blood and treasure and wounded their honor in two world wars that originated on their soil. World War I—the Great War—is the more meaningful in our context, since responsibility for the slaughter was shared, however unequally, among nearly all of the participants, and because it laid the groundwork for World War II. And from this poisoned well both Communism and Nazism sprang forth. However much the circumstances of the time and the place—not to mention the hazards of war—may have borne upon the unfolding of the mayhem, its primary cause undoubtedly lay in the imperial urge, the self-adoration, and the fateful hubris of the major European nations. There was something unprecedented in the process through which self-sacrifice gave way to self-mutilation and the frenzied love of death. Not even under kings and priests, or during the worst cruelties of religious wars, had these baptized peoples ever behaved so badly. And it was only a foretaste of things to come: The evidence itself, at least in this case, convinces us that world history is in fact the world tribunal, and that the nation state stands condemned without parole.

 

As if this were not enough, the most recent and potent developments of human life and activity seem to confirm that our nations, after failing us so cruelly in the past, are now utterly unable to hold their own against the wave of the future, let alone to take advantage of it. The revolution in economic, financial, and technological means, which goes by the name of “globalization,” has produced the extraordinary result that, for the first time in history, nothing less than the whole world is the natural and necessary frame of our exertions. The old self-sufficient nation, for which foreign trade accounted for only a tiny fraction of its activity—indeed, as another means of attaining a more complete autarky, according to the Aristotelian precept that held some ground until recently—is on the road to extinction, or so it seems. In more than one sense, then,“we are the world.” The national governments, particularly in Europe, have submitted, however reluctantly, to this new law of an ever-expanding globe, renouncing the age-old principle of self-sufficiency. But then, Aristotle would ask, what remains of a political form when it has lost—or abandoned—autarky? No doubt, the once proud nations of Europe have bowed their heads.

It is not just a matter of economic inevitability. Nearly all politicians, in nearly all European countries, have increasingly substituted the European perspective for their own national perspectives, even when they do not feel any strong sympathy for the European enterprise as such. It seems that once you are at the helm of a European nation, you have no choice but to adopt the larger perspective, the European one. This impressive fact cannot be the result of a string of misfortunes or individual weaknesses. The only explanation seems to be that, when in charge, politicians (whatever they may say on the stumps) discover their dear old country’s lack of density, of spontaneous orientation—precisely the hollowness I attributed above to the European Union. I will not expatiate here on the alarming intellectual passivity and pathetic artistic poverty that is rampant in many European nations today, even in those that had for many centuries contributed mightily to the spiritual life of Europe and the world at large. Indeed, it is difficult not to notice that as soon as our nations cease to pay attention to the higher law of Europe, they assume compulsively their old calamitous selves, and let loose the silliest nationalism. Thus when the Bosnian crisis flared up, for which Milosevic was undoubtedly the first to blame, the foreign ministries in London, Bonn, and Paris all entered a contest to see which one could most resemble its 1914 predecessor. I am still not sure who won.

There is no use prolonging this sad litany. We would no doubt do best to rest our case and say farewell to the nation with the bittersweet mixture of gratitude and contempt warranted by history. Perhaps I have long exhausted the patience of the reader, who surely feels that I have only been stating the obvious. If indeed I have just restated it, it is only because these facts are now a part of the picture at hand, the picture most in favor today, an expression of the ruling facts and reigning opinions. But it is only a part.

Now comes the other part. Even if our nations are verily destined to disappear into Europe, we ought not to forget that it is still the national form that stands as the cause of its own impending overcoming. After all, if there was ever a common market in the first place, it is because, after World War II, two nations that had drawn the sword against each other thrice within the space of two generations—France and Germany—decided to consider each other partners, allies, and even friends. This politically fateful decision was made by nations, and not by any supra- or post-national institution. The European enterprise is thus rooted in two national purposes that are joined and supported by other national purposes. It will not do to say that this was just an at-the-outset phenomenon, that the enterprise has since shed its national skin and become a reality beyond nations. First causes never die. If ever the French-German bond were to snap, that would be the end of the European project.

If the origin of the European Union lies in the national form, it is because everything of importance that evolved on our continent from the fourteenth century on was produced, or at least conditioned, by this form. This form is in fact so resilient that it has been able to accommodate, within its recognizable bounds, the feudal monarchy, absolute monarchy, and the democratic republic. Thus when I read King John, I recognize my English neighbors, just as they recognize me when they read about Joan of Arc. It is this resilience that gave the national form a decisive edge against its two great competitors in the fateful contest between political forms: The city and the empire. We must recognize this most elementary fact: Despite the prestige of the Greek city and early Roman Republic on the one hand, and the undying glory of the Roman Empire on the other, from the fourteenth century on the nation has constituted the only form in which European peoples were able to make sense of their lives.

Therefore, when Thomas Aquinas was teaching in Paris, Europe existed at least as much as it exists today. But the European peoples would soon choose the national form, because only by means of this form could they strike the right balance between liberty and civility—the balance that is the enduring secret of our continent, so long as we remain faithful to its genius. Through the nation, we were able to keep at arm’s length the promiscuous tumult and narrow parochialism of cities, as well as the brutal aloofness and indiscriminate embrace of empires. Only by means of our nations were we able to be “good Europeans.” To round off this point, it is convenient to add that since the beginning of civilization, man has lived in one of three political forms: City, empire, or nation. A rather limited range of choice indeed, which should give pause to those who are tempted to discard our good old nations so glibly.

Following the development of European history—and I admit this is a bird’s-eye perspective—I am naturally compelled to take up the theme raised most frequently and justifiably by people who view the European enterprise with skepticism. Democracy, as we understand it, came into being within the framework of the nation. When European peoples toredown the monarchic and aristocratic scaffolding that supported their several civil associations, they were able to govern themselves, indeed to continue living together, because citizens could regard one another as members of the same nation. I admit thatthe relation between nation and democracy is difficult to ascertain. It is no doubt a highly dynamic and volatile one: On the one hand, the democratic movement multiplied the power of European nations while the nation gave “flesh” to the democratic abstractions “general will” and “sovereignty of the people.” On the other hand, the nation was the democratic alternative to democracy—that is, the alternative to democracy in a democratic context—since the enemies of the democratic movement, the “reactionaries” or “nationalists” proper, had recourse to national passions in their rejection of the passions of equality and liberty, and could thus turn the tide of democracy against itself. In sum, the nation gives democracy a body, which can then become democracy’s worst enemy.