Reconsidering Europe

If you read nothing else on this blog today, read the post to which I'm linking here.

For many American conservatives, Europe is a spiritual wasteland filled with materialistic pleasure-seekers who have given up on stewarding Western civilization, and who are living it up while waiting for their homelands to turn into Eurabia. For many American liberals, Europe is a progressive paradise of welfare statism, a less uptight approach to sex, and a blessed freedom from religion.

The Georgetown professor and conservative Patrick Deneen returns from a sojourn in Germany and Austria, and sees something different. And better. And crunchier. Excerpt:

In these parts of central Europe (all German speaking), I have been mightily impressed - as ever - by the strength of communal bonds, the presence of local cultures and distinctions, the persistence of tradition and memory, a culture that saves (in every sense), and a strong ethic of work aimed at preserving a high degree of independence. [snip] A question without easy answer is how these Europeans - apparently so willing to throw off their traditional allegiance to nationalities and religion - are otherwise so willing to make these sacrifices for the common weal of their communities and fellow citizens? Are the two phenomena connected, or do they persist in spite of, and in ultimate tension with, one another? And why Americans, otherwise so devoted to nation and exceptional in the developed West for their religiosity, have become otherwise so unwilling to make the individual sacrifices that might result in actual forms of liberty - liberty, that is, as self-governance, a form of liberty that would seem otherwise to comport well with self-declared love for patrie and religious faith grounded in stewardship and self-sacrifice? What otherwise ought to go together in each case seems to have been put asunder. Is there a tendency in each way of life that will eventually prevail, or will each continent continue a kind of schizophrenic combination of forms? Or maybe, and most simply, one sees in the South of each of our respective countries a way of life that is passing out of being, but which here in Germany, at least, seems to have maintained a strong and vital foothold.

I am not finally persuaded that THESE Europeans with whom I have visited and lived for the past few weeks are actually as libertarian as an emphasis on Amsterdam would have us believe. Church attendance IS low - that I did note, and I do lament. But, that may not be the most fundamental indicator of the ultimate sources of faith in the lives that are lived here in this way, and I would be unsurprised if Church attendance were to rise in coming years (the current Pope may contribute mightily to that end. There can be no coincidence that he is Bavarian, a southern German).

In between those passages, Deneen chronicles in detail the kind of daily lives he's observed in Germany, and how much more sensible, and serious, and stewardly it is than our own in throwaway America. I'd quote at more length, but really and truly, you need to read his entire post. It could have been written by a Dallas friend of mine who is living for a couple of years with his family in southern Germany, on business. He's a political and religious conservative, and has been surprised, as well as pleased, by how practically conservative and humane daily life in his part of the world is. Living there has opened his eyes to how we Americans -- even we political and religious conservatives -- are falling far short of a truly conservative way of life. One in which the relatively godless and statist Germans have managed to achieve.

Explain.

UPDATE: I just got an e-mail from a culturally conservative friend who is passionately pro-European, and who lived in Europe for many years. In his view, Deneen's analysis is superficial. He says Europe, to his deep and abiding sorrow, is spiritually dead, and just going through the motions. Which is the standard conservative line about Europe, but the practical experience and insightfulness of this particular source -- who is very far from enamored with American popular culture -- gives it resonance.