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“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

(C.S. Lewis)

My last blog post explored the different meanings attributed to love by two of the 19^th century’s deepest thinkers. To Friedrich Nietzsche love was a delusion, while to Fyodor Dostoyevski it was the meaning of life. Nietzsche saw in it the urge of the self to possess another, while Dostoyevski viewed it as the giving of oneself to the other. There could hardly be a starker contrast: either love is the will to power in disguise, or it is true self-sacrifice. Their contrasting views on love are rooted in a more fundamental clash between their conceptions of the human person which has transformative implications for the way in which we perceive ourselves and those around us. This post will explore these implications and show how they tie into one of the defining quests of our time: the search for a healthy masculinity.

Beliefs and Behaviours

It seems mysterious how two men as profound as Nietzsche and Dostoyevski, who lived during roughly the same period of time, experienced some remarkably similar twists of fate, and were drawn to similar themes in their work, could nevertheless arrive at such completely opposite views of the world. It is precisely because the clash between their world-views goes all the way down, that it matters so much. Ideas have consequences. They shape how we see the world around us, and the way in which we interact with it. To say that history is full of examples of this would be an understatement. History itself is the example. If a person believes that civilisation is upheld by the whims of a sun god, they will do anything to secure the sun god’s favour. And if staving off the apocalypse happens to involve ritual human sacrifice, they will cheer when the priest rips out the heart of a victim and throws its severed head down the steps of a great pyramid. It would be a mistake to conclude that our modern lives aren’t profoundly shaped by basic beliefs about the world just because we have left behind archaic religion. It is true that a scepticism of grand narratives seems to be characteristic of our age and that city life can seem mundane when compared to the bloody rituals of ancient Mexico. Yet, our behaviour today is no less conditioned by the ways in which we see the world than that of our ancestors. Failing to understand that we can’t not act in accordance with some basic beliefs about the world, makes it impossible to identify which basic beliefs we are acting on at any moment. Modern man may believe that he has outgrown religion, but what really distinguishes him from his ancestors is that he is unaware of how thoroughly his daily life is shaped by quasi-religious beliefs about the nature of the world.

In the modern West, peoples’ basic beliefs seem to have moved towards a kind of materialist individualism. Reality viewed as restricted to the realm of observable objects, and truth as discoverable exclusively by way of the scientific method. For now, we don’t need to explore the implications of the fact that these beliefs are themselves not based on the scientific-method. Instead, let us note that in contrast to scientific truths, which are held to be objective, moral truths are viewed as purely subjective since they cannot be discovered by scientific experiment. Questioning another’s values is always non-sensical and often seen as inherently offensive. After all, since there are no objective truths that could serve as a guide towards common ground, all that disagreement about morality can amount to is the assertion of one’s feelings as superior to those of someone else. Where scientific reality is external and can be discovered, moral values are internal and can only be asserted. While we don’t get to create our own laws of nature, we do get to create our own values. While these beliefs do not tend to promote human sacrifice to the sun-god, they do have far-reaching consequences for how we view ourselves, our relationships and our communities.

Digging Up the Relational Person

To begin sorting out the situation we find ourselves in today we need to look at how the modern view of the “self” contrast with an earlier one. Unearthing this classical view of the human person will inevitably involve a brief (but very rewarding) foray into philosophy. To oversimplify, since the end of the middle-ages the defining dynamic in the West has been what Jacques Barzun called “emancipation”- the progressive liberation of the individual from unchosen bonds. Premised on a view of the human person as naturally abstract from social relationships, this dynamic rejected conceptions of the human person as naturally social. Its authors had pictured the human person as enmeshed in a layered tapestry of social relations starting with the family and reaching up to the (city-) state. Viewing the reconciliation of the person with these various levels of community as essential to the “good life” it described freedom as the ability to choose that which conduced to one’s flourishing as a human person situated in a rich social context. Only as part of communities could humans according to Aristotle live up to their potential. The implications of these basic elements of ancient Greek philosophy became fully evident only much later, when they were brought to completion in light of scholastic thought.

Building on Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas conceived the human person not as abstract, but as profoundly relational. His view of the human person formed part of his wider metaphysics of being as intrinsically relational. What matters for our purposes (you can find a potentially life-changing piece on this here), is that Aquinas saw all existing things as intrinsically active and self-communicative. All existing things are, by virtue of their existence, actively being. Existence is active. In addition, it is self -communicative: by existing, things continuously interact with their environment. They actively “communicate” themselves by giving something of themselves to their surroundings- forming a network of relations with them. For example, falling rain might communicate itself to the grass below it by nourishing it (you can tell that I dropped biology very early). It might communicate itself simultaneously to the laundry someone hang up to dry outside, and to countless other things. An asteroid falling onto the earth will cause a dramatic impact where it lands by communicating some of itself, some of its own properties, to our planet’s surface. Both the drops of rain and the asteroid also communicate themselves to the human mind as phenomena which we can study and understand. While all existing things are actively being themselves and actively self-communicative, only one kind of thing on earth is capable of becoming conscious of its essential relationality, and of willing it. That thing is the human person.

On this view, willing one’s inherent relationality means voluntarily giving oneself. When directed at other persons, this willing act of self-giving becomes love. Paradoxically, it is not by turning inwards, but by moving away from oneself, by giving oneself to the other, that we arrive at ourselves and find what we were meant for. This view of the “relational self” is echoed in Dostoyevski and matches the definition of “Dostoyevski Love” as ‘self-giving’ from my last post. This parallel is not accidental. Both “Dostoyevski Love” and the view of the “self” it is rooted in, embrace relationality and clash with a modern individualist ethos that sees the human person as a kind of free-floating atom whose fulfilment lies in self-assertion rather than in self-giving.

Atomising the Self

Rather than viewing humans as fundamentally relational persons, whose good lies in social flourishing, philosophy began to conceive humans as fundamentally abstract individuals, metaphysically independent from each other as well as from a natural pattern of being. This break set the stage for successive attempts by Western philosophers to justify the thoroughly Christian morality they inherited without reference to a natural order. As Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out, however, these attempts ultimately failed because their authors were unaware of the extent to which they continued relying on quasi-religious beliefs. It was Nietzsche who finally exposed these hidden religious assumptions. In his radical conclusions, he merely recognised the consequences of philosophy’s turn away from the relational person towards the “atomised self” and the parallel abandonment of natural order as a measure for human action.

According to the classical tradition beginning in ancient Greece and culminating in the medieval universities, the path to human flourishing was to conform one’s life to an underlying pattern of reality corresponding with truth and order. Not the simple assertion of your will to get what you feel like you need, but conforming your will to this order, this underlying structure of reality, was taken to be the way to the good life. This idea can be found with striking similarity in Indian, far-eastern and European traditions, which used terms like “Dao” and “Logos” to describe the creative pattern of reality. Where humans conform with the Dao/Logos, participating in it, they were taken to walk the right path and to thrive. If the existence of the Dao/Logos is agreed on, questions about value judgements can be approached with reference to this reality as containing objective value. Where its existence is rejected on the other hand, humans can no more seek their place within a pre-existing cosmic pattern, than they can attempt to orient their judgements by reference to a common objective standard. As Nietzsche concluded, since there is no Dao/Logos to conform one’s will to, one’s will itself becomes primary. The authority of the Dao/Logos over the relational person is usurped by the primacy of the atomised individual’s will. Christianity, according to Nietzsche was a slave-religion designed to prevent the strong from thriving. By holding the most vigorous among us in check, it had stunted humanity and exalted weakness. He believed that the time had come to rid ourselves from its morbid constraints and unleash the vitality of those with the strength to carry out their will.

From Nietzsche to Emotivism

However, Nietzsche’s conclusion was too much for a West that had by then thoroughly internalised Christian habits. One of the main reasons why 20^th century Fascism seems so strange and repulsive to us is that it openly glorified strength and power as such, endorsing ruthless violence against the weak. People were prepared to reject the Dao/Logos but did their best to ignore the Nietzschean consequences of this choice. Instead, there emerged a belief that we each get to develop our own moral compasses based on our feelings. As Alasdair Macintyre noted, “Emotivism”, or the grounding of moral standards in one’s (necessarily subjective) emotions, is the ascendant moral framework of our times, even though most Emotivists have probably never heard the term before. If you think that when someone says that supplying arms to Ukraine is right, they really mean that the thought of supplying arms to Ukraine feels good to them, you are an Emotivist. Two seemingly paradoxical consequences follow from this belief: tribal loyalty to one’s in-group, and a deep cynicism about all value judgements.

A basic feature of Emotivism is that it doesn’t allow for constructive discussions about value judgements. There’s no reason to bother trying to understand the other side or to even keep an open mind, if the only basis for your value judgements lies in your own feelings. If value judgements are ultimately based on nothing but brain chemistry, there isn’t anything objective (outside of our brains) to agree about. Of course, you can still try to manipulate someone’s brain chemistry through clever rhetoric or tailored advertisements, but discussing questions of value makes no sense if value is exclusively a product of one’s subjective state of mind. Belief in Emotivism therefore tends to lead people with opposing views to simply shout at each other, refusing to even consider the possibility of common ground. People form tribal groups with others who share their feelings and then try to assert their claims against the political enemy in a kind of war. The label “culture war” is not accidental. The tribal fervour with which culture warriors go at it contrasts sharply with the bloodless cynicism which is the second mark of Emotivism.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

While the culture wars seem to have metastasized from the US, sucking ever more attention into their black hole, the opposing sides have never managed to mobilise more than a fraction of the population. Only a minority of European citizens feels existentially involved in the culture wars. The Emotivists’ cynicism about value judgements on the other hand has achieved a much wider prevalence even among people who have shown no interest in waging toxic online debates. Being cynical about value is only natural if all it can possibly mean is that chemical reactions inside someone’s brain make them feel a certain way about something.  

This cynical attitude extends beyond just morality and undermines all kinds of value judgements. It is inconceivable that a building might be beautiful. You’re just feeling warm and fuzzy when looking at it.  There is nothing in the Parthenon itself that makes it more appropriate to feel pleased by its sight than by that of a garbage dump. Nothing objective distinguishes their aesthetic value. And just like a piece of art can’t be beautiful, so too historical events can’t be glorious or shameful. Yes, people might release different chemicals when thinking about them, but that’s really all there is to it. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this cynicism breeds contempt of all deep emotion. Someone who fully buys into these beliefs might well read about the Spartans who knowingly sacrificed themselves to block the Persian advance at Thermopylae, and remain unmoved. Reacting to this paradigmatic case of heroism, he might even assume something like the attitude of a scientist observing mice in a laboratory. These men, he might theorise, were really just riled up by hard-wired tribal instincts that drove them to risk their lives for their genetic relatives back in Sparta. According to this reductionist view-point, they, like all of us, were simply motivated by the impulse to protect their genetic offspring. Just like nothing can be good or beautiful, nothing can be heroic, glorious, or worthy of imitation when viewed through the Emotivist lens. The world of Emotivism is one-dimensional. The feeling of awe that overcomes people when confronted with greatness of any kind is smugly reduced to a momentary chemical imbalance and thereby delegitimised as lacking any connection to reality. The consequences of this cynicism in the real lives of people today couldn’t be more vicious.

Reconnecting with Reality

The triumph of the atomised self combined with the rejection of Dao/Logos to create a mutually reinforcing cycle with consequences that could hardly have been foreseen at its inception. Having rejected objective value, we have deprived ourselves of the tools to evaluate and create it. Disoriented, we waste attention and lose touch with reality. Power hierarchies are inevitable, yet we endlessly criticise their existence rather than focussing on how to improve their legitimacy. Surrounded by soulless architecture, we resign ourselves to life in hostile surroundings rather than looking for ways to make our communities beautiful. Confronted with toxic behaviour by men, we deny the reality of the sexes rather than asking what a healthy masculinity ought to look like. Power hierarchies, beauty, and sex-differences are, however, universal facts of life. We can deny, denigrate, or ridicule them all we like. In the end, they will not go away because they are integral parts of the structure of reality. What will happen, however, is that which inevitably happens when reality is rejected. Reality proves you wrong. Ten times out of ten, you lose, reality wins. The truth of this is well illustrated by the debate about masculinity.

My previous post on “Love and Power” ended by emphasising the importance of re-focussing the debate onto the outlines of a healthy masculinity rather than wallowing in the exhaustively repeated bromides about masculinity’s inherent toxicity. I argued that this was necessary, simply because masculinity was real and because real things must be dealt with rather than denied, ridiculed, or denigrated. Failure to do so has already left too many young men without strong role-models to guide them onto the right path. Disoriented and rejected, they are vulnerable to those who affirm an exaggerated and caricaturised form of masculinity. The downstream consequences of our turn away from the relational self and towards the atomised individual striving to assert its will is making itself felt whenever a young man gets drawn in by some internet pick-up artist or worse. Each time a young man starts viewing women as objects to be manipulated for the sake of his own gratification, we see in real life what it means to reject the relational self whose fulfilment lies in self-giving. Prioritising yourself can mean very different things depending on whether you view yourself as essentially disconnected from those closest to you or not. Having explored the context of our current predicament and highlighted some of the key drivers shaping it, we must return to the quest for a healthy masculinity in order to sketch a first draft of its outline. If Dostoyevski-Love, the relational self, and the Dao/Logos have gone badly out of fashion in recent times, it is only by rediscovering them- by rediscovering them as real and true- that we can turn the tide.

Sketching a Healthy Masculinity

If there really is a pattern of reality to which we can either be true or false; if this pattern really calls us to find ourselves by giving ourselves for the sake of others; if the meaning of our lives really lies not in imposing our will through power, but in transformative Dostoyevski Love- the implications are staggering. First of all, it means that we don’t live for our own sake alone. That in itself is a profoundly counter-cultural thing to say in an age of pervasive hedonism. If you truly are at the most basic level relational, tied to the pattern of reality and oriented towards self-sacrificial love, the oft-repeated advice to “just do what you feel like” cannot lead to fulfilment. Rather than living an ego-centred life, we must expand our focus to the real ties that bind us to the world, and in particular to the people, around us. As a matter of fact, these ties exist. An Ubermensch capable of actually thriving as an abstract individual has so far failed to appear. We can’t choose to be independent of these ties because we are human. What we can determine is whether the ties that bind us are shackles holding us back or roots giving us the strength to live up to our potential. If we embrace the relational view of the self, it becomes clear that we can only transform our ties into roots if we begin with an attitude of self-giving first. We don’t exist next to each other and separately from each other, but for each other. Not by denying our ties, but by strengthening them do we thrive. Promising independence, the ego-centred life deprives you of roots and ultimately leaves you shackled to the very things you believed would deliver your freedom. To begin our rough draft of a healthy masculinity, we should start by asking how men in particular can serve those closest to them.

As noted in “Love and Power”, there are certain uncontroversial differences in the psychological make-up of the sexes. Among other tendencies, men have on average higher propensities for physical violence and aggression, lower propensities for both negative and positive emotion and a more pronounced willingness to engage in risk-taking behaviour. These psychological characteristics combine with indisputable physical differences such as higher muscle mass and bone density, that make men on average capable of generating more strength and explosive power. While these differences can be overstated and there is of course significant overlap, they are real and especially pronounced at the extremes. What matters, however, is not so much the mere fact of our differences or how they naturally lead to differential outcomes, but how we view them. Too often is difference presented as somehow deleterious, as a product of indoctrination by a self-serving oppressor class or a bigoted system. There can be no doubt that there are plenty of bigots out there or that all human systems are to some degree corrupt. However, diversity is real and the differences listed above are largely innate. They have been observed across time and space in a variety of cultural contexts. We do ourselves just as great a disservice by denying or denigrating them as when we overstate their importance. Instead of stubbornly trying to eradicate natural diversity, a healthy approach would focus on exploring how different potentials can complement each other in responsible service.

Power and Responsibility

It follows from the relational view of persons as existing for each other, that wherever someone’s position in life gives them power over others, that power must be exercised for the other’s sake. In an inversion of the Nietzschean approach, power means responsibility. Whether this power comes in the form of a corporate leadership position, high political office, or a policeman’s badge- its fulfilment lies in those it is meant to serve. For men as a group, the most obvious responsibility derives from their physiology. The growing impact of digital technology on our lives cannot change the fact that we are physical beings. We rely on our bodies and remain as vulnerable as ever to physical threats. The capacity for greater physical violence therefore comes with a responsibility to master one’s propensity for violence. Not strength in itself is good, but meekness- that is, strength restrained. As GK Chesterton said, it is only the truly strong man who can swing a heavy hammer and bring it to a stand-still just before touching a nail. Unrestrained power is a mark of weakness. True strength (i.e. strength that is true to the Dao/Logos), like any form of true power, lies in service to those who lack that strength and power. Any kind of physical violence directed against vulnerable people is therefore a denial of one’s responsibility as a man. The fact that learning to restrain one’s violence is a key part of a healthy masculinity, does not, of course, mean that there are no situations in which physical violence is not only permitted but called for.

It is in these kinds of circumstances that men’s higher capacity for physical violence and their higher propensity for risk-taking can be employed for worthy ends. As the events since February 2022 have made clear, war is still interested in us Europeans, even if we weren’t all too interested in it for the past thirty years. When one’s home is violently invaded, it must be violently defended if it is to be saved. The Ukrainian people, and especially the soldiers fighting at the front, have stepped up to the task. They have done so not for glory’s or power’s sake, but to defend their country, their cities and their families- in other words, that precious network of relations that defines our lives. And there is glory in that. It is in high-stakes situations like these that the broad-brush labelling of men’s on average higher propensity for risk taking as “toxic” becomes especially harmful. It is precisely that propensity that enables hundreds of thousands of brothers, sons and fathers to leave their families behind and put their lives on the line in the pockmarked fields of Zaporizhia. Again, it is not by denying or denigrating the differences that mark men out as a group, but by orienting them towards their proper ends that we can sketch the outlines of a healthy masculinity. A key pillar of that outline is the orientation of risk-taking and aggression towards service of those that rely on its proper exercise. The institution of Chivalry for example might be seen as an attempt to deal with the fact of male aggression by harnessing it to an ideal of masculinity grounded in service. Where aggression is not ordered towards such service, it becomes Machismo.

Chest-Day, Best-Day

The example of Ukraine shows the existential significance of answering the questions connected to male aggression and violence. It would, however, be a mistake to think that questions of self-sacrifice are relevant only in wartime. Beyond the battlefield, too, we show our values by what we are prepared to sacrifice for. What do we value most in our lives? Are our actions aligned with our stated values? Are we backing up our words with the sacrifices required? While it is important to meditate on and find answers to these all-important questions, it is not enough to just think about them. We aren’t computers that can simply execute a given task. We need ideals to inspire us, and courage to keep us going when the odds are not in our favour. In his essay “Men without Chests”, CS Lewis pointed out that the ubiquitous cynicism about emotions made it difficult for young people to build up the emotional strength required to persevere in the face of daunting challenges. Yet, all the greatest things in life require this kind of perseverance. We wonder why young men don’t show more self-sacrifice but make fun of the very concept. We reduce all emotion to mere brain chemistry and wonder why our Europe is the continent in which the fewest young people would be prepared to defend their homes in a war. We demand that men step up but turn masculinity into a joke.

CS Lewis recalled the ancient Greek idea that “the head (reason) rules the belly (emotion) through the chest”, where “emotions (are) organised by trained habit”. CS Lewis noted that contemporary society had completely forgotten about the need for such trained habit because it looked down on all deep emotion. It had, in other words, produced men without chests. Since Lewis wrote his essay our predicament has not improved. To the contrary, both Machismo and the denial of masculinity are on the rise. Grounded in a recognition of humans as existing for each other, a healthy masculinity is one that embraces responsibility. It requires that power be used for the sake of the powerless and in defence of those goods that make life valuable. We should foster the development of the trained habits healthy masculinity relies on and start by recognising that there is a rightful place for deep emotion where it is true to the Dao/Logos. Building these habits will take time, but like the development of one’s physical chest in the gym, it is well worth it. Taking this rough draft of a healthy masculinity as a starting point, a re-focused debate would be a first step for our societies to once again produce men with chests.

Love is one of those things nearly everyone agrees are important and hardly anyone seriously thinks about. Or at least, hardly anyone tries to go beyond the surface. Most of us are happy to echo the words of Justice Potter Stewart in Jacobellis v Ohio, who, refusing to further define the category of hardcore pornography said: “I know it when I see it”. When it comes to love, it is similarly easy to content oneself with simply pointing out examples of it when one sees them in fiction, history, and one’s personal life. Jack preferring to freeze to death in the icy waters of the Atlantic to save Rose’s life. Penelope staying loyal to Odysseus during the twenty years he fought at Troy and journeyed back to Ithaca. Maybe more controversially, King Leonidas sacrificing his own life and that of his men for the sake of slowing down the invading Persians. But what is love? What is it that unites Jack with the mythical King of Ithaca, the real King of Sparta and all of us?

What is Love?

Trying to define love as if it were a chemical element or a law of mathematics is a fool’s errand. Wiser people than me have written libraries about this question. Fool that I am, I of course gladly accept this errand, so let’s see where it leads us. A good place to start is the novel Crime and Punishment. One of the many reasons why Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a real “great” is that he is never too “in your face” when getting his point across. Reading his books never feels like reading manifestos disguised as novels. His novels do contain powerful, even life-changing lessons. But their meaning reaches us obliquely, often in the days and weeks after one has read a certain passage. It feels like his stories plant seeds deep in the reader’s mind that in growing, transform the reader from the inside out. I suspect that Dostoyevsky’s seeds reach so far into people’s hearts, because his stories are so true. His characters are us, and will be us even in the year 2100, when we’ll be asking ChatGPT3000 to project live dating advice on our smart contact lenses. Even in that world, we’ll recognise in ourselves the self-destructive egoism of Raskolnikov and the healing love of Sonia.

Crime and Punishment is a novel about love, but it is not a romance. It doesn’t tell the story of how two passionate lovers overcome difficulties to finally live out the rest of their lives together- happy forever after. Love in Crime and Punishment is hard, bitter, and more often than not deeply painful. There is nothing warm and fuzzy about love in the hellscape of mid-19^th century industrial St Petersburg. But what else could love be, if not a pair of rose-coloured glasses? Don’t lovers idealise their beloved? Turning a blind eye to each other’s flaws and even to those of the wider world? Nietzsche certainly seems to have thought so. In his characteristically provocative style, he claims that what we call love is actually just the urge to possess, to “change something into ourselves”. He says that “love is a state in which man sees things in a way they most decidedly are not”, in which we want to make the beloved ours so much that we deceive ourselves about their true character. That’s why Nietzsche also believed that one should really become disenchanted with one’s beloved if they ever loved one back. After all, we all know our own flaws well enough- how could anyone be “modest” or “stupid enough” to love someone as broken as us? Dostoyevsky cuts through this paradox like a Gordian knot. Love on his telling is at bottom not premised on a delusion.

“Dostoyevski-Love”

The lover according to Dostoyevsky sees the beloved clearly as a person with serious, sometimes tragic, flaws, but he loves anyways. He sees the beauty behind the brokenness more clearly than the beloved can and gives himself to the beloved even though he knows it may bring more suffering, even though it may be unclear whether his love will eventually be reciprocated. For long stretches of Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov seems positively disgusted at the love offered by Sonia. He treats it as a sign of weakness or stupidity. It is eery how closely Raskolnikov mirrors Nietzsche despite Dostoyevski never having read any of the German’s works. Only at the end of the novel (spoiler alert) does Raskolnikov realise that it was his own self-hatred that made him look down on the person that loved him most. Only after following the Nietzschean view to the bitter end, and all but going insane, does he see Sonia’s love for what it really was. We may all be deeply flawed and feel undeserving of anyone’s whole-hearted love. No one could look in the mirror and truthfully feel otherwise. Yet, at the same time we are entirely lost without it. The less of it we have in our lives, the more our lives turn into literal hell. That’s where Raskolnikov went, and where countless other young people, disillusioned with life have followed. But Raskolnikov escaped, and he did so by allowing Sonia to give herself to him, in other words, to love him. He opened his heart to the possibility that maybe Sonia wasn’t the deluded child he thought she was. Maybe her love was not just a glorified pursuit of someone that never really existed. Maybe her love was not an escape from reality, but the only the only way to find beauty and meaning in its brokenness.

Rather than the blind and primal urge to possess someone, to make someone into oneself, Dostoyevsky’s love is like an invitation to transform each other, for both lover and beloved to become something new and joint. The act of giving oneself to the other, which seems to be Dostoyevsky’s love, blurs the boundaries between people who each want the other’s good like their own. It requires the courage to endure the pain of seeing a loved one suffer, which sooner or later they inevitably will. It also requires the courage to deal with the risk of seeing everything one has to give be rejected. It doesn’t even seem possible to love this way at all without accepting the necessity of serious suffering. But why even have that courage if the risks are so great? To risk all this is impossible without faith in the power of love to heal broken lives, to turn that suffering into sacrifice. Anyone who experienced what it’s like to have loving parents has some reason to hope that Dostoyevsky’s love is possible. Others may remember situations outside their family life where they experienced how giving oneself transforms one’s life by making it more meaningful. We may never understand what someone who loves us sees in us, but with a little faith we may learn to trust them that there really is something worth loving inside us. And if we trust that we are worthy of love, our self-hatred dies, taking with it the arrogant view of the other as deluded. The way has then been cleared for the kind of loving relationship that transforms lives. Learning to love the other and learning to love oneself are then two sides of the same coin that reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle. Try it, Dostoyevsky seems to say, and find out for yourselves where this path will lead you. It may, he seems to believe, save the whole world. Try the other path, the one where you give yourself only to yourself, and see where that one leads. The courage and faith required for this kind of loving relationship, for the vulnerability inherent in it, are truly daunting. They are especially daunting in today’s context of an increasingly individualist culture and the technology it both generates and feeds on.

The Distraction Trap

The techno-cultural context of dating today is characterised by materialist individualism, confusion about worthy role-models, and the commodification of “love”. It’s a fast world and as relationships become more ephemeral, they are becoming more superficial, too. It’s not just our romantic relationships, but also our relationships with places and to locally rooted communities that match this trend. Technology accelerates our lives, warps time and presents us with ever flashier bits of information. Our attention spans respond by shrinking. Reading a book has become a counter-cultural act. The need for distraction from life is not new- in the 17^th century Blaise Pascal noted that people tend to cram their lives with as much “divertissement” as they can find. The problem then and now is that our attention is a limited resource and that some of the greatest goods in life can only be achieved by patiently focussing it over a long time. This kind of patient devotion is something we need to practice throughout our lives if we ever want to outgrow a state of childish impulsiveness and create something of true value. Patient devotion is essential not only to mastering a musical instrument, getting an academic degree, or learning a foreign language, but also, and for our purposes more importantly, for building loving relationships.

With limited time on our hands, and limited attention spans in our minds we cannot possibly have profound relationships with everybody we know. If we tried to do so, we’d end up having equally superficial relationships only. Of course, there’s enough people who are aiming for precisely that. No commitments, no ties, no obligations. Aiming for the freedom to do always anything, they forsake the freedom to ever build anything. Never taking the time for true devotion, they remain blind to their own true worth. Rather than breaking out of meaningless self-centredness by way of hard “Dostoyevski-love” they try to distract themselves from it. Sooner or later, however, the void reasserts itself. We run out of distractions. If there’s something very valuable to be found beyond the merely superficial and fleeting, we need to adjust our aim. But whereto? As humans, we are, according to René Girard, deeply “mimetic” animals: we inevitably imitate others, and in particular their desires. The question of who to imitate, is all important. And here we encounter another serious obstacle: the confusion about what makes a worthy role-models. Since I’m a man (and to limit the word-count of this post), I will focus on what this confusion does to boys and young men.

Role-Models Wanted

In the past decade the debate over “toxic masculinity” has picked up steam and is now waged throughout Europe and North-America. The mere fact of the debate shows that cultural shifts have shattered a previously broad consensus about what masculinity is. “Toxic masculinity” has been used as a label to denounce certain attitudes or types of behaviour, “stereotypically associated with manliness, that often have a negative impact on men, women and society in general” (WebMD). Examples of such unacceptable behaviours include objectifying women, rashly resorting to physical violence or men refusing to show vulnerability even at a cost to their own mental health. However, while the debate over masculinity has succeeded in drawing attention to the harmful effects of out-of-bounds behaviour, it has taken a wrong turn in some important ways. First, the label of “toxic masculinity” has been applied to attitudes and behaviours that are not in themselves harmful, and that might in fact be beneficial “to men, women and society in general”.

Popular definitions of “toxic masculinity” usually include clearly abhorrent behaviours like “sexual aggression against women”, “refusing to help in household duties”, or “glorifying promiscuity (but only in men)”. Side by side with these, however, one can find attitudes like “Stoicism” or items like “risk-taking” and “violence”. These terms are so broad that they cannot be rejected wholesale as hallmarks of a toxic masculinity. To be charitable, it should be noted that there is an important kernel of truth in each. If what is meant by the label “Stoicism” is simply an unwillingness to seek out help in emotionally challenging times, it clearly denotes a harmful attitude. There is nothing glorious in hiding one’s pain, preferring to break rather than appearing vulnerable by asking for support. However, Stoicism primarily stands for a classical school of thought, the principles of which have helped inspire Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which has been shown to be an effective way of treating a range of different mental health disorders. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus or Seneca don’t advise readers to shut in their mental anguish or to refrain from calling help when needed. What their writings do provide are ways to build mental resilience and to deal with mental anguish when it arises. Being mentally resilient is not a weakness and it’s certainly not toxic. Violence, too, cannot be condemned as such, since unfortunately there is at times no other way to stop violence, than by responding violently. Should the Ukrainian soldiers currently fighting to defend Ukraine turn to non-violence? Hardly. Neither does emotional volatility or a total inability to be violent make a man an attractive partner in the eyes of most women.

Overly vague definitions of “toxic masculinity” risk leaving boys and young men without orientation. They are born with (on average) markedly higher propensities for physical violence and aggression but are told that both are inherently toxic. They are born with (on average) lower propensities for both negative and positive affect, or emotion, but are told that “Stoicism” is harmful. Certain sex differences in personality traits are well established across cultures and seem to in fact increase in more prosperous societies. Clumsy condemnations of “characteristically male” attitudes risks pushing boys and young men to either deny themselves or drift towards caricatures that proudly double down on the most toxic attitudes associated with manliness. 

Healthy Masculinity

The beliefs of these “manosphere” influencers come right out of the bronze-age. To them masculinity means having three things: money, fame and sex with as many women as possible. They exemplify a turn away from the pursuit of the good, and towards the pursuit of power. “Power”, like “love” is one of those words that we hardly ever really think about despite them being everywhere. If it’s the ability to enforce one’s will, making power one’s aim leaves no place for love, for giving oneself to the other; just for good old self-assertion. Here we can see the Nietzschean urge to make someone into oneself acted out. Its aim is not the good of the other, but the manipulation of the other for one’s own purposes. Humans living the Darwinian lives of bacteria in a petri dish. The relationship advice of these “manosphere” influencers is predictable. It amounts to making women submit to such an extent that they become little more than trophies in their lords’ (social-media) gallery. Trust is good, control is better. It should be clear by now, that these beliefs lend themselves to either sleeping around, or at most the kind of toxic relationship rightly feared by most sane people. Either way, they are incapable of resulting in anything that isn’t shallow and meaningless. By viewing every aspect of their life through the lens of power, they become immune to love. A deep bond based on mutual trust cannot develop as long as one views one’s relationships primarily through the lens of power and domination. It isn’t hard to see that this is no recipe for a fulfilled life. Neither denial of manliness nor its extreme caricature does any good for boys, young men or the women in their lives. The debate surrounding “toxic masculinity” must therefore move on to the positive question of what a “healthy masculinity” looks like.

We need to start focussing on the attitudes and behaviours that make for a healthy masculinity, so as to provide boys and young men with the right kind of role-models. Healthy masculinity makes for healthy men in healthy, loving relationships. Rooted in an understanding of the foundational role that love is meant to play in our lives, it requires men to view their relationships through the lens of love first, turning power into love’s faithful servant. As long as one aims for power, one will never find love. Where both partners view love as primary, the power-balance between them is uninteresting. Where they don’t, it becomes everything. I don’t know exactly where this debate will lead us, but I know that it must centre around the meaning of love and its relationship to power. It matters that we start talking about these questions now, because it will not get easier to find answers as time goes by. Many areas of life have become easier over the past 500 years because of technological innovation- building loving relationships is not one of them. If we truly believe that its worth fostering such relationships, that they in fact are at the heart of a fulfilled life, we need to start today.

As this year begins and there is no end in sight for another bloody war in Europe, we should take a moment to remember the refugees in our midst. It is on us to empathise with their immense suffering- to not allow their pain to isolate them, to make them feel at home. In doing so we can learn from the experience of past generations of refugees. Their struggles contain lessons for those of us who were lucky enough to escape the violence of war.

A Lost World

It was a hot summer day, and except for the sound of the cicadas outside it was perfectly quiet inside the small church. We had spent some time exploring the restored building, and were standing at the centre of the nave when my grandfather asked us to chant a well known hymn to the Virgin Mary. When we began to sing, I knew immediately that this moment would etch itself into my memory.  My family was standing inside the church of the village it used to call home. Until 1974, my grandfather had gone to this church every Sunday. Friends and neighbours had been married at this church, relatives buried in its yard. Then, one day in August, they were forced to leave- driven out of their homes by  an invading army. At the time they believed they’d soon return. To this day, my grandfather carries the medieval looking key to his old house on his keychain.  A daily reminder of a lost world.

It is hard to describe what it felt like to enter a place so familiar and at the same time so strange. How many stories had my grandparents told us about this village;  the old family home and my family’s olive groves surrounding it. The rugged mountains of Pentadaktilos looming above and the beaches of Kyrenia beyond. This was the world of my grandparents’ youth. My grandfather is a great storyteller and I’d grown up imagining that world in vivid detail. Even the happiest stories however, had an undertone of tragedy.  It was impossible to forget even for a moment where the story was bound to lead. The war of 1974 was always there in the background colouring everything that happened before it. You heard about people living in places you knew were lost. Although you could look across the buffer-zone and see them in the distance with your own two eyes, a giant Turkish flag painted on the mountainside right above them left no doubt that these places were out of reach. You can’t return, because there’s an army stationed there, and it won’t let you. Plus, your “family home” is now home to a different family.

The border checkpoints had been open for over a decade, but so far we didn’t want to cross the buffer zone. Why would we? To take a closer look at how strangers controlled our  lands? The thought of visiting one’s own property like a tourist was hard to bear.  Wouldn’t we be playing the role assigned to us by the occupier? Despite these nagging doubts,  this summer we decided to visit anyways. For the older generation, it would be a way to consciously see those places one last time. The last time they’d been there, they were so convinced they’d return in a week that they didn’t even pack their valuables.  It would also allow us younger ones to see what the land of our grandparents’ stories was really like.

Stories and Realities

The rural village of Trakhoni lies just outside Nicosia. As the driver parked the bus in the town square, it felt like time was slowing down. A group of men in their 60s was sitting in the shadow of a large Eucalyptus tree and was watching with hard to read faces as my family walked up to them. Two men stood up and introduced themselves as the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot mayors of the community. Our arrival had clearly been expected. Together with the two mayors we walked over to the little church at the edge of the dusty square. The building, we were told, had been looted and destroyed by Turkish soldiers during the invasion. The graves in its yard had evidently been desecrated, too, their marble covers crushed and pried open. 

The church itself now looked new, because it had recently been renovated with aid from the United Nations. The simple but dignified space was being carefully maintained by a few dedicated members of the refugee community. For the time being their work means that the thousand year story of this church hasn’t yet come to an end. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the invading army succeeded in uprooting the community. There are no Greek-Cypriots left in this village. Its church, the heart of its community, had been vandalised. Yet, there we were, chanting in the restored building. Afterwards we had a coffee with the Turkish-Cypriot villagers. Their families had moved to the village after the invasion and were living in properties left behind by  Greek-Cypriots. There was no tension or hostility between us. The relations between the communities in Trakhoni were harmonious and marked by mutual respect. It was impossible to feel resentment towards the farmers sitting in the shadow of the Eucalyptus tree that day. This village was their home, too.

When we walked over to my family’s old house, a grandmother holding a little girl by the hand opened the door. With the help of the Turkish-Cypriot mayor, we introduced ourselves. Again, there was no sign of tension. On the contrary, the Turkish-Cypriot grandmother invited us in and showed us the garden in the back. The olive groves had been burned down and my family’s possessions looted well before her family had moved in. However, my grandfather immediately recognised an old fig tree standing in the middle of the garden: “It used to make such large figs back in the day”. “It still does!” said the grandmother. Having thanked her for inviting us is in, we walked back to the bus. My grandfather noted matter of factly: “There’s no way we’ll return here”.

Justice, Peace and Time

Since 1974, three generations of Turkish-Cypriots had lived in that house. They had their own stories to tell about this place and would never leave it willingly. The term “ethnic cleansing” sounds sanitary, but this is the tragedy behind it: once you uproot a community you can’t just place it back where it once was like a houseplant. Given enough time, the only way for it to return is through unspeakable violence. Ethnic cleansing by replacing one population with another requires time to be effective, but effective it is. It cruelly perverts the basic human tendency to form bonds with others and with specific places. After a few generations there is no way to just undo what is done. The descendants face the choice between revenge and peace. It is a hard choice, because peace means coming to terms with the fact that one’s home is no more. It means recognising that with the passing of time undoing an injustice may be possible only with new injustice. It means recognising that “undoing” may not be an option anymore, and that reconciliation is the only way forward. Because ethnic cleansing works in this way over time, the goal must be to stop it as soon as possible, before it can unfold its full effects. In 2023 Europe is once again confronted with a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

In the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces, evidence of mass-kidnappings of civilians has come to light along with other telltale signs of ethnic cleansing. For the West to avoid playing into the hands of Moscow it must help Ukraine liberate its occupied territories as soon as possible. If time is wasted with clumsy prevarications, we risk witnessing a tragedy we’ve seen play out too many times already on our beautiful continent. That summer day in Cyprus, my family saw that there was no sense in imagining that there was a home being kept from us anymore. That home had been taken away and destroyed. It had become a memory and a dream. For millions of Ukrainian refugees it’s still a reality. It’s on us to keep it that way.

Thoughts on our failure to draw the right lessons and ask the right questions

Lenin once said that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that these weeks in February and March 2022 are going to go down in history. The events unfolding on the border between Russia and Ukraine are of a magnitude that cannot be fully grasped today. Bearing in mind that “in war, everything is uncertain and variable” we must not allow this uncertainty to prevent us from reflecting about what we are living through. It is precisely because these are dark days, that we must not shirk the effort it takes to see as clearly as possible. What follows is not an account of the facts on the ground. Others are doing a much better job of that than I could. Indeed, plain information is available on an unprecedented scale. Rather, this is an attempt to find the right frame of mind for all this. It is with the right kind of attitude, and only with the right attitude that we will be able to make sense of the current drama.

In light of the eclectic cast of actors, the crescendo of the plotline and the stakes involved, the events in Ukraine can certainly be described as a drama. Let us first consider the man at the centre of the plot: Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. It is remarkable that the man who ordered Russia’s occupation of Crimea, its invasion of the Donbas and its military support for the Assad regime managed to deceive so many as to his character. Putin has his country’s levers of power in a vicelike grip. Nuclear-launch button in hand, he appointed himself judge, jury and executioner of Ukraine. And yet, officials and pundits alike are now lining up to confess they had gravely misjudged him. Yes, it is difficult to see into another person’s heart of hearts. That is what makes books, movies, and real life interesting. People, especially when considered individually, aren’t that predictable. Nevertheless, character does influence decisions. A person’s character can give us a clue as to how they’re likely to act in given circumstances. Besides Putin’s moves on the geopolitical chessboard, his smaller, more personal decisions could have helped us paint a clearer picture of his character.

Had we paid more attention to his track-record of murdering opposition leaders, rivals and dissenters we might have been less surprised now that he has finally revealed his hand for the world to see. For weeks, he and his henchmen laughed off western concerns about the Russian troop build-up as hysterical. Today, Russian tanks are rolling through Ukraine. The invasion is not out of character for Putin. Ever since he rose to power, he murdered opponents, interfered in other countries, and looted his own. He brazenly lied about all this, attempting to cover his tracks with disinformation. The fact that this man nevertheless fooled so many testifies more to the power of make belief than to his own charisma. Our failure to see the vindictive violence in his character is entirely on us.

Now that his commitments to peace have been exposed as empty, the mask is off. While there will no doubt remain a stubborn minority of useful idiots, Westerners now see the tyrant for who his is: a man who cares nothing for justice, nothing at all for truth. This is a man who says that his army is liberating Ukraine, a country whose President is Jewish, from a Nazi junta- while keeping a straight face. This resentful man rose to power through force. He maintains himself there through force and fears nothing more than the limits of his power. This man speaks only the language of power. Having misjudged him for too long we must, therefore, make ourselves understood in that same language.

We didn’t see Putin as the man he was because we didn’t want to, and we didn’t want to because there was money to be made and elections to be won. Cutting down the size of our armed forces and reducing the quality of their equipment meant that the ironically named “peace dividend” could be invested in ways more likely to sway voters. Our own weakness blinded us. We kept telling ourselves that Putin’s penchant for violent revenge was limited to individuals. We forgot about the fact that he levelled Grozny. We tried to convince ourselves that the man whose air force turned the bombing of Syrian hospitals into a blood-sport surely wouldn’t dare act similarly in Europe. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Character simply cannot be neatly segmented. The man who did all these unspeakable things was the same man who a few years later orchestrated the greatest concentration of military might in Europe since WW2. Still, too many were willing to believe that his sabre-rattling was meant only as a bargaining chip. The alternative was simply too scary to contemplate. Now that reality has finally caught up with us the final verses of Stefan George’s “The Antichrist” come to mind:

“What’s left of life-essence, you squander its spells

And only on doomsday feel paupered.

You’ll hang out your tongues, but the trough has been drained;

You’ll panic like cattle whose farm is ablaze . . .

And dreadful the blast of the trumpet.”

If you find these lines over-dramatic, I suggest you ask yourself a question that many Ukrainians have been asking themselves these weeks: What are you willing to defend with your life? In the coming months and years this question will impose itself on us with irrepressible force. Zbigniew Brzezinski once remarked that “without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated Russia automatically becomes an Empire”. If you think Putin so far has been ruthless, wait until Russia becomes an empire. The world we are about to enter is going to be less patient with us than the one we are leaving behind. We can no longer afford to just look away. We can no longer avoid questions just because they’re unsettling. In any case, our answers will reveal a lot about who we are. While our words will certainly one day be judged, our deeds and sacrifices will count more heavily. What were we prepared to sacrifice when we were finally woken up by that dreadful blast of the trumpet?  

In his televised address on February 23^rd President Zelensky told Russians “when you attack, you will see our faces, not our backs.” Not just President Putin, but all world leaders and each and every one of us is revealing their true faces now. It took this invasion for the world’s illusions to be shattered. Now it is up to us if we allow it to shatter much more than that. Are we going to stand up for our most cherished values? Are we willing to defend our way of life and the international order against those who would not hesitate to destroy it given the chance? Let us deny them that chance. Let us refuse to gamble our freedom on the good will of Vladimir Putin. A threat can only become truly dangerous if it encounters weakness. Our challenge is clear: we must grow in strength, we must harden our defences and we must stiffen our resolve. If we are to succeed, we will have to learn to love our communities without idealising them. This is a daunting challenge, and it is late already. Ukraine reminds us that the stakes nonetheless require us to persevere.   

The Oxford Dictionary defines the term ‘Achilles’ Heel’ as a ‘weak point or fault in a person’s character which can be attacked by other people’. It’s important to note though, that the insidious thing about Achilles’ heels is that they’re not obvious. Who would have thought that Achilles, western civilisation’s original hero, would be brought down by a single arrow to the ankle? Why didn’t Homer let his main character die in a Game of Thrones style clash with some Trojan juggernaut? To use a modern analogy, imagine John Rambo being fatally shot in the hand in the middle of the movie right when things are getting interesting.

Protecting our ankles

Given the hidden nature and fatal vulnerability of Achilles’ heels, you might be forgiven for thinking that people try very hard to find and eliminate their personal Achilles’ heels. If we were being perfectly rational about this, you’d be right. After all, being aware of one’s vulnerability is bothersome and disconcerting, right? Unfortunately, people aren’t that straightforward. There seem to be two ways of dealing with vulnerability. First, you can try to eliminate it by taking a hard look at it and confronting it head on. That is the most effective way of dealing with vulnerability, but not necessarily the most popular. The second way people go about eliminating vulnerability, is by simply ignoring it. Looking your own vulnerability squarely in the eyes and dealing with it requires both courage and effort, and it’s in no way easy. By contrast, closing your eyes to one of your weaknesses seems like the easy way out. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Maybe, but unfortunately, out of mind doesn’t equal out of reality. Our unhealthy habits have real world consequences that become increasingly difficult to ignore. At some point they usually find a way of forcing themselves into our awareness. An infected toe can turn gangrenous and end up poisoning the entire body. The harm we have let happen has then become too difficult to ignore.

The point is that looking for one’s Achilles’ heels is scary, and dealing with them can be even scarier. It is nevertheless important to be brave since otherwise one risks harm to what one values, whether that be one’s family, friends or community. While large organisations are different from individual people in some ways, they have a lot of traits in common, and Achilles’ heels are one of them. It therefore is just as important to be aware of the vulnerabilities of one’s community as it is to know one’s own weak spots. As a community of states and citizens, the European Union and the values it’s founded on are of massive value to all of us. We therefore need to ask ourselves how to protect the Europe that we love. We need to find its Achilles’ heel.

Fake Achilles’ heels

When you ask people these days about what they think constitutes the greatest danger to Europe, you will likely get answers like ‘Terrorism’, ‘Populism’ or ‘Pizza Hawaii’. These threats however are like the Trojan juggernauts of old. They’re highly visible, and therefore defeasible.  We tackle what we see, and the first step of successfully dealing with a threat is actually seeing it. In Western Europe we’ve long become used to a narrative that tells us that we are immune to certain threats and should better focus on others. For example, we consider that sovereignty over our borders is important. We wouldn’t like for someone to just arbitrarily redraw them. They have, however, not been invaded since WW2 because we’ve all become best friends. Like long-time friends we’ve told each other that “mi casa es tu casa”. European nations used to live each in their own castles. They have now become best friends and flatmates. Like 21^st century people never think of catching the black plague, so modern Europeans never even think about threats to their borders. They’re one big happy family. Some of them are stronger than others, but as best friends, they’re all equal in a way. To find what’s most dangerous to Europe today, we need to better understand what Europe today really is. Let’s explore what exactly it means for Europeans to have become best friends and flatmates.

European F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Europe today is more than just a massive common market. Most Europeans today feel like there is an ‘us’, a true common identity that unites them around common values and a shared civilisation. This feeling has for decades now been reinforced by rhetoric on the part of European Institutions and national governments alike. A sense of European identity is what makes our debates extend beyond mere calculations of financial cost and profit. When millions of Ukrainians protested on Kiev’s Maidan Square they weren’t risking their lives to reduce their budget deficit. They were inspired by an idea. What inspires Europeans outside the Union to join and those inside to cooperate is the idea of Europe. As an idea, Europe is a family. Without it, it’s just an economic area. It’s the difference between a friendship and the relationship between you and your coffee shop of choice. If the price or the quality of the coffee changes, you will just go find another source of coffee. Friends, in contrast, you remain loyal to even if, and especially if, they take a turn for the worse. Where there is no common identity, there is no solidarity. Where there is no common identity, each one is ultimately on his own. That, we cannot afford in our private lives, and we cannot afford it in Europe either. Since we cannot afford losing our European friendship, we need to understand its vulnerabilities.

If a friend behaves to you as if you’re just there to benefit him you’ll understand that he’s not really your friend. As friends, you’re precisely not looking to personally profit from your relationship. You’re looking to help each other out, because ultimately there’s a strong “us” between you. Imagine asking your best friend to help you out with some trouble you’re in. If he refuses to talk to you until you’re once again fun to be around, you will rightly consider him to have betrayed your friendship. It doesn’t matter at all who is weaker at any point in time- friends stick to each other or they aren’t friends. The Achilles’ heel of a friendship seems to therefore be this kind of egoistic behaviour. When the “I” takes over, the “us” falls apart. The same holds true on the level of states. If, like the member states belonging to the European Union, you claim to stick together because of common values and a shared identity beyond mere personal profit, then the kind of power politics you’d expect between simple trading partners are out of question. Instead of adhering to the creed of “Country X First” and bullying everyone else into submission, the more powerful states will be guided by what’s best for the whole. Every time states use their power in an egoistic way they undermine their friendship. Like the friendship between simple humans, the European friendship binding together states is not immortal. In fact, since the mere appearance of egoistic behaviour is enough to undermine it, actual bullying is sheer recklessness. Unfortunately, there have been too many instances of both actual and apparent self-centredness in recent years.

Shooting oneself in the heel

One example of a recent episode that triggered what seems like an epidemic of recklessness was the Eurozone Crisis. Year after year politicians from the relatively stable north of Europe and those from the hard-hit south appeared to like nothing so much as to accuse each other of being incompetent, unreliable and egoistic. These Greeks are living off of our money, and they’re not even ashamed of it! Why can’t these German robots think like human beings for once? Instead of explaining to the citizens that they’re ultimately sitting in the same boat with their European neighbours, the loudest voices seemed hellbent on pitting one friend against the other. The cynicism this form of debate has fuelled especially among those who lost out economically is reflected in heightened mistrust towards their supposed friends. That’s pretty unsurprising, considering that each of us distrusts clients and customers more than his best friends. So far, the European friends have not yet degenerated into simple trading partners, but each conflict that turns toxic is one step in the wrong direction. The Eurozone crisis of the 2010’s, while it impacted the lives of millions of people, was merely economic. Nevertheless, the damage that resulted from the toxic debate surrounding it was substantial. Now imagine the impact a more existential threat could have if Europe’s response to it wasn’t united. We are witnessing this exact crisis unfolding right now. Even worse, it affects some of the states that had suffered most under the previous crisis, too.

Far away from the centres of power in Northern Europe, a conflict has been simmering for decades and is slowly reaching its boiling point. Talk to a Western European about threats to territorial sovereignty and he’ll most likely think about black and white news-reels  or movies directed by Quentin Tarantino and featuring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. To Europeans living on the south-eastern border of Europe however, threats to their states’ territory have become a feature of everyday life. Greeks and Cypriots have for decades now been the victims of near daily violations of their borders by their larger neighbour Turkey. How come, you might wonder, that Greece and Cyprus’ powerful European friends haven’t united to deal with this threat long ago?  The truth is, that until fairly recently it was simply easier to ignore the literally tens of thousands of violations of Greek airspace and the literally tens of thousands Turkish troops occupying the northern half of the Republic of Cyprus. Why? Well, Turkey was like a rich kid that sometimes brings some cool stuff to school and that can be fun to play with, but that also has some skeletons in its closet. They’re pretty bad, but you’d rather not spoil the fun as long as things don’t get out of hand. In particular, you’re worried that if you mention the skeletons, the rich kid will join the rival gang in the schoolyard, upgrading their collection of gadgets and inviting them to its parties. The point is, however, that things have long since gotten out of hand. The skeletons in Turkey’s closet are European, and by ignoring them the European friends have slowly but steadily been undermining themselves.

            The European Achilles

As you might have guessed by this point, I am arguing that Europe’s Achilles’ heel lies in its South Eastern flank. It has remained unprotected for long enough that those who don’t care too much about Europe have been able to use it for leisurely target practice. If Europe doesn’t wake up to this threat now, it risks a being hit fatally. The threat is not military defeat, for the immediate military threat does not extend beyond Greece and Cyprus. What risks bringing down the whole of the European Achilles is rather the lack of loyalty among its constituent parts. If the more powerful, but less directly impacted states of Europe look away while their supposed best friends are under assault, they are in fact complicit themselves. Just like the attacker, they are putting the slogan “Country X First” into practice, thereby further eroding the bonds of friendship holding together the European Achilles. Only this time the risk is very high that the damage they’re inflicting on him will be irreversible. The Turkish navy has for years now been intruding into Cypriot waters, and now appears poised to extend its “exploratory operations” to those of Greece. Unlike Cyprus, Greece does have a substantial navy of its own, and its President can hardly afford to let a hostile power run roughshod over its territory. In 1996, when the conflict very nearly turned hot, it was defused at the last second by President Clinton. Since then, the Turkish Airforce has continued to violate Greek airspace on a daily basis, while Turkey claims ever larger chunks of the Aegean for itself and seems more willing than ever to engage in brinkmanship. To grasp the extent of the Turkish government’s recklessness here, please note the current effort by of President Erdogan to turn the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. By pledging to add one more mosque to a city that already boasts over 3500 of them at a time of global instability, and having himself used relations with Europe, Greece and Cyprus as a PR tool, he now appears willing to sacrifice even the last pretence of good faith. Don’t be fooled. All this is not just a threat to Greeks and Cypriots. Europe’s response will send a message to all who live by the law of the jungle. It would be a fatal mistake to believe that appeasement will work today any more than it did in the 1930’s. One’s heel looks like it’s far away from one’s eyes, but only as long as one can reliably stand on it.

In the absence of a fundamental policy shift in Ankara, it is only a question of time until the conflict boils over. If the states of Europe remember their professed common values, they’ll stand together now, deterring further escalation before it is too late. They need to realise now, that disunity will ultimately benefit none of them. Instead, those of them that feel betrayed will turn towards other, perhaps more protective allies and give up on the European idea. By betraying their friendship, the greater powers will have betrayed themselves. By harming their less powerful friends, they will have harmed themselves. A future in which a disunited Europe faces a world in which might makes right is not one in which any European state stands a good chance of succeeding. However, it will be one that Europeans brought onto themselves. It is not too late, but the clock is ticking.