Antynomie europejskiego dziedzictwa kulturowego

Abstract

Ever since national cultures emerged in Europe, culture has been a major factor in the continent’s diversification and development of cross-cultural antagonisms. To use culture as a tool for integration would then necessarily mean either to draw on the universal, prenational patterns or to create new, post-national ones. The former would be anachronistic in the modern age, the latter is just a tentative, unprovable projection, assuming the decline of national cultures. Material culture could potentially contribute to the cultural integration of the continent but it lacks the specifically European character, being common to the whole world rather than just Europe. It is possible, however, to counteract the disintegrating influence of particularistic national cultures by allowing them to develop freely and non-competitively. This could happen only if appropriate policies creating the framework for such growth are introduced. Therefore, political integration in the form of pan-European democracy, which waives the necessity to resort to anachronistic or to create artificial cultural patterns, is a prerequisite for the cultural integration of Europe.