Zygmunt Bauman's Public Lecture: Quo Vadis Europe?
Event Information
Event description
Description
In studying the set of fateful departures occurring in Europe three centuries ago, the eminent historian Reinhart Koselleck introduced a metaphor of climbing a yet unmapped and un-reached mountain pass. But as you try to reach that pass far up, you can only guess what sort of sight will open to you once (if) you finally arrive there. All you know for sure until then is that as long as it takes to reach the pitch of that steep slope, you need to keep climbing; you can't stop and settle, pitch tents and rest: first gust of gale will blow tents away, a next torrential rainfall would wash them away. Even short of gale or torrent, staying put in the middle of such declivity feels utterly uncomfortable; one look at the abyss below you've left behind but into which you may fall back making but one false step will give you unbearable vertigo... So you keep climbing - up to that unknown hoped to save you from the horrors you know...
Fitful metaphor for how we feel, we the twenty-one century Europeans, suspended betwixt and between the past full of terrors and the distant pitch full of risks. We can't know what we are to experience when you get there. But we do know that stopping now and keep mum is not an option. Though neither we can stop guessing what we will see and feel once we reach the pass...
Zygmunt Bauman's Public Lecture on the future of Europe, part of the "Politics in Times of Anxiety" Conference. More information: http://politicalhorizons.wordpress.com/politics-in-times-of-anxiety/
