DrTdaxp

“The EU and the Arabs II — Kojeve’s Latin Empire,” by Marc Schulman, American Future, 27 March 2005, http://americanfuture.typepad.com/american_future/2005/03/the_eu_and_the__1.html (from Zen Pundit).

Eastertide moves all men to ponder post-War French foreign policy. At the same time I penned by thoughts on a Carolingian (Franco-German) Explanation for a French “No” Vote, AF ponders a Latinite (Italo-Franco-Spanish) bent to French actions

The fullest embodiment of the principles of the French Revolution were for Kojeve the countries of postwar Western Europe . . . For these were societies with no fundamental “contradictions” remaining: self-satisfied and self-sustaining, they had no further great political goals to struggle for and could preoccupy themselves with economic activity alone . . . The end of history, he believed, meant the end not only of large political struggles and conflicts, but the end of philosophy as well: the European Community was therefore an appropriate institutional embodiment of the end of history.

Kojeve’s franco- and euro-centrism, which would certainly have been appealing to de Gaulle, is already apparent: the French, not the American, Revolution ushered in modernity, and the countries of Western Europe, not the United States, were the primary manifestations of modernity.

Does not the phrase “they had no further great political goals to struggle for and could preoccupy themselves with economic activity alone” apply to today’s Europe, which, in contrast to the United States, has no political goals other than stability and no faith other than materialism?

Latinité: France Looks South

More importantly, Schulman argues that the dream of Latinite propelled France’s EU policy. Specifically,

The European countries in the Latin Empire have a common “mentality”:

the differences of the national characters cannot mask the fundamental unity of the Latin “mentality” . . . this mentality is specifically characterized by that art of leisure which is the source of art in general, by the aptitude for creating this “sweetness of living” which has nothing to do with material comfort, by that “dolce far niente” itself which degenerates into pure laziness only if it does not follow a productive and fertile labor (to which the Latin Empire will give birth through the sole fact of its existence).

This shared mentality is what differentiates the Latin Empire:

this mentality not only assures the Latin people of their real — that is to say political and economic — union. It also, in a way, justifies this union in the eyes of the world and of History. Of the world, for if the two other imperial Unions will probably always be superior to the Latin Union in the domain of economic work and of political struggles, one is entitled to suppose that they will never know how to devote themselves to the perfection of their leisure as could, under favorable circumstances, the unified Latin West; and of History, for by supposing that national and social conflicts will definitely be eliminated some day (which is perhaps less distant than is thought), it must be admitted that it is precisely to the organization and the “humanization” of its free time that future humanity will have to devote its efforts.

Leisure instead of work, harmony instead of conflict. Are these not building blocks of the European Union, and the sources of much of the European criticism of America?

Further, this Latinite is distinct from the Anglosphere or Sovietism

While the Latin Empire must be as politically united as the British Commonwealth or the USSR, it is not necessary to copy the social and economic organization of the two rival empires:

there is nothing to suggest that the “liberalism” of great unregulated cartels and massive unemployment dear to the Anglo-Saxon bloc, and the leveling and sometimes “barbaric” “statism” of the Soviet Union, exhaust all possibilities of rational economic and social organization. In particular, it is especially clear that a “Soviet” imperial structure has nothing to do with “communism,” and can be easily separated from it.

The Alternative: Carolingia
France Looks East

After a detour on French views of the Islamic “other,” AF sums up

Needless to say, there is an obvious continuity between Kojeve’s advice of sixty years ago and today’s French foreign policy. Kojeve proposes nothing less than the formation of a European Union that would led by France, counter the power of the Anglo-Saxons and the Soviets (multipolarity instead of bipolarity), and keep others out of the Mediterranean area, which just happens to be where the Arab states are located. Independence from America (and Britain) was a theme in his advice to de Gaulle. The General took Kojeve’s advice; while in power, he vetoed UK membership in the European Community and withdrew France from a NATO that was dominated by the United States. In 2003, Chirac followed his advice by attempting to keep the United States (and Britain) out of what the French have long believed to be their sphere of influence. He could not stop it, but he made it more difficult.

Respectfully, I disagree. Post-War France showed no interest in reviving a Latin Empire. Among other reasons.

1. Before the Great War, a Latin Monetary Union actually existed. France did not seek to revive this, and Latin Europe only shares a common currency now because of the Euro.
   
2. While Rome and Paris signed the Treaty of Rome, Madrid did not. Spain did not even join the European Club until 1980. If a new Latin Empire was France’s goal, it is doubtful the Republic would have let a little matter of dictatorship get in its way.
   
3. French Post-War policy cenetered on harmozing with Germany. It makes no sense to call an Italo-French-German Club “Latin.”

The European Union: What France Actually Got
France Drowned?

All of these problems are solved by viewing French Post-War policy as Carolignian. France’s post-1945 goal was to harmonize all things with Germany, to create a Western European nation-state. Latinite is a valid theory to the extent it overlaps with this Carolingian perspective.