Habermas, Alexander Kluge, Günter Grass and Ulrich Beck are also getting into the fray:
"Do all you can to prevent France from betraying progress!" This is the message German intellectuals call out in an open letter to their French colleagues, printed today in the SZ and yesterday in the French paper Le Monde. "Europe needs courage. Without courage there is no survival. Not for France. Not for Germany. Not for Poland." The signatories include singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, Nobel Prize winning writer Günter Grass, philosopher Jürgen Habermas, author Klaus Harpprecht and Gesine Schwan, the recent SDP candidate for the German presidency.
Sociologist Ulrich Beck opposes what he calls neo-nationalism: the idea that democracy is only possible on a national level, and so not practicable in Europe, as Ralf Dahrendorf has suggested in his claim "the more EU, the less democracy", for example. "Europe needs critique, without doubt. But not blind, nostalgic critique, based on grand delusions. We need a critical theory of Europeanisation, one that is both radically new and yet which stands firmly in the tradition of European thought and politics. Such a theory must address the idea that common solutions are more fruitful than unilateral actions on the part of nations. The 'Europe of differences' does not represent a danger. It will renew, transform and open up the nations and states of Europe to the global era. Such a Europe may even become a beacon of freedom in a turbulent world."
More here (via).
The preaching post below has also been updated.
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