THE DOUBLE CRISIS
France might have in Europe. Personally, I am convinced that France
must either reassume its leadership or die. In contrast to certain coun–
tries, such as England, which discover their real strength by turning
inwards, France has never played its part in the world save when
she proclaimed and embodied certain universal values. This is as
true of the France of Saint Louis as of the France of the Revolution.
Louis XIV is, in the eyes of Frenchmen, one of their greatest kings,
but St. Louis and the Revolution are France for all mankind.
It is a fact that cultural and political problems are separate,
certainly in our time.
If
I had to define the present, I would say that
it is the era, on the one hand, of the end of the International
in
politics (as the nineteenth century thought of it) and, on the other,
of the birth of an internationalization of culture. We had believed
that in becoming less French a man became more human. Now we
know that he becomes simply more Russian. In contrast, the immense
development of the techniques of reproduction (records, photographs,
cheap editions) and of translation have internationalized culture to
a degree never reached before. Good. But international culture is not
a matter for definition; it is being created- very confusedly to be
sure and not without trouble.
We know that great political federations are also being born. But
under what form? I am a little shy of the word "federated." Not
because of the goal to which it points, which is admirable, but because
people read into the word anything they want. No one seriously
believes that we can make Europe the way men made a Switzerland,
or even the United States. No one in America can think that England
and France will become a sort of New Jersey. It isn't enough to
say that one wants to see Europe federated; it is necessary to show
how this is to be done.
Everybody wants social justice, liberty, etc., etc. . . . and a
Federated Europe. The problem is to achieve them. People have
the idea that there is a panacea called "federation" which will pain–
lessly transform the different countries if only they will waive certain
of their national interests. There is obviously no such panacea.
Associations of nations have taken many forms, with much trouble.
The first was that of vassalage. Now, whether it is a question of an
Atlantic or a European federation, the states of Europe will enter
into neither of them except in so far as it affords a means of main-
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