[Peptobismol]

For many years, the Kantian paradigm, which imputed an intrinsic immorality to the institution of the national state, found few takers in Europe. In the 19th century, it was embraced by a minuscule number of Communists and utopians, and a handful of Catholic reactionaries. But the 20th century was a different story. The Soviets and Marxists blamed the carnage of the two world wars on the order of nation-states. This was an argument that had little traction in the European mainstream between the wars. But after World War II, when Nazism was added to the list of crimes attributed to the nation-state, the result was very different. Nazism was seen as the rotten fruit of the German nation-state, and Kant looked to have been right all along: For the nations to arm themselves, and to determine for themselves when to use these arms, was now seen as barbarism and a brutish debasement of humanity.

For the record, my own view is that this line of argument is preposterous. The heart of the idea of the nation-state is the political self-determination of peoples. The nation-state is a form of government that limits its political aspirations to the rule of one nation, and to establishing national freedom for this nation. The Nazi state, on the other hand, was precisely the opposite of this: Hitler opposed the idea of the nation-state as an expression of Western effeteness. On his view, the political fate of all nations should be determined by the new German empire that was to arise: Indeed, Hitler saw his Third Reich as an improved incarnation of what he referred to as the First Reich—which was none other than the Holy Roman Empire of the Hapsburgs! The Nazis’ aim was thus diametrically opposed to that of the Western nation-states. Hitler’s dream was precisely to build his empire on their ruin.

Obvious as this seems to me, many Europeans declined to see things this way, accepting the view that Nazism was, more or less, the nation-state taken to its ugly conclusion. In this way, the Soviets’ condemnation of the Western nation-state was joined by a new Western anti-nationalism, which eagerly sought an end to the old order in the name of Kant’s march of reason. As the philosopher Jurgen Habermas, perhaps the leading theoretician of a post-national Europe, pointed out, this transition was particularly easy for Germans—given Germany’s role in World War II and the fact that post-war Germany was in any case under occupation and was no longer a sovereign state.[9] He might have added that unlike the British, French and Dutch, the German-speaking peoples of Europe had historically never lived under a single sovereignty, so that the dream of the nation-state was perhaps in any case somewhat less important to them.

Be this as it may, this post-national vision found takers all over Europe. A mere generation later, in 1992, European leaders signed the Treaty of Maastricht establishing the European Union as an international government, and stripping member states of many of the powers associated historically with national independence. Of course, there are many in Europe who have not yet accepted this course. And it’s still unclear what the future holds—whether the nation states of Europe will succeed in retaining aspects of their sovereignty, or whether these states, as independent nations, will soon be a mere memory.

But either way, the impact of the new paradigm, which is the engine driving the movement toward European Union, has already been overwhelming. Both in Europe and in North America, we are watching the growth of a generation of young people that, for the first time in 350 years, does not recognize the nation-state as the foundation of our freedoms. Indeed, there is a powerful new paradigm abroad, which sees us doing without such states. And it has unleashed a tidal wave of consequences, for those who embrace it and for those who do not.