The Project Europe

ENThis text is designed to explicate the European civilization, specifically with respect to its genesis and indeed continuous genesis that cannot be relaxed or relegated to the past. As the argument for Europe unfolds, there will be numerous texts and authors mentioned taken to be most relevant for understanding this significant civilization. I shall not belittle the reader by quotations from texts that assume a “school model” of presentation of basic subject matters. Rather, at the end of each chapter a list of suggested readings will be made available for those who are interested in the continuous unfolding of the European drama in various contexts, confrontations and reclaiming of what is the Project Europe. Moreover, the text is based not so much on selected statements but on basic arguments that disclose principles whose denial would lead to contradictions and nonsense. We shall not spare the critical glance toward Europe for what it was and is, but also we shall not bow before the critics of European civilization who enjoy the privileges of Europe which they could not enjoy elsewhere. The Project Europe cannot stand alone since the other civilizations are making claims not only being different from Europe, but having their own ways of living, understanding, and relating to their own contexts. They even claim, and rightly so, to be much older than Europe and thus more “experienced” in all areas, including social organization, technical achievements, and aesthetic creations. Even if Europe was powerful, it is one among equal others and cannot claim any privilege to be exceptional. Assuming this context, it becomes imperative to articulate the ways of delimiting different civilizations, their basic morphologies and their claims to be different not only from the West but from the each other. If we are successful in this first step, then we shall be able to extricate what is Europe and its “project.”.