Quo Vadis, Europa?

Thoughts on Free Speech, the US, and the EU

An opinion piece

In light of Vice President Vance’s speech at the Security Conference in Munich, it is very clear that there is a widening chasm between Europe and the United States. The common people in Europe would tell you that there also is such widening chasm between themselves, as the European people, and their own elites and leaders. We keep talking about ‘Western values’, and with Western, we mean the United States as well as European countries. What those values exactly are is a whole different question, and if they are still aligned between the Old World and the New World is very questionable.

Perhaps it would be correct that the values the United States had championed during the previous Biden Administration were much more aligned. Or that the values, as promoted and paid for by USAID and a whole host of other government bureaucratic systems, devoid of electoral oversight, were much more aligned. Now that Trump is making good on his promises, and is cleaning ship not just in the finances of the United States, but also in its bureaucracies and entrenched administrative personal, a reset is in the works.

Vance’s speech is a very clear sign, both of that reset, and of a divergent set of values between America and Europe. This divergence did not start with Trump, however, and this is absolutely vital to understand. Vance called out Europe, in clear language. Not China, or even Russia, is the main threat for Europe he worries about: “And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

This fits in a pattern people in America are starting to notice. Trump is not just tinkering with the system; he is reforming it. He is going back to a more authentic and original understanding of governance, and at the same time undoing decades of gradual distortion leading to increasing oppression and state control.

In Vance’s speech was a line that many overlooked: “I look to my own country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, “combating misogyny on the internet, a day of action.”” As he was summing up examples of the internal threat within Europe that worried him, where freedoms of citizens were trampled, HE CITES AN EXAMPLE FROM WITHIN THE US! The same enemy ‘intra muros’ he is warning the Europeans about, was also active in the US. The continuous firings, restricting of access to government systems and buildings, the blocking of billions and trillions in mismanaged funds bear witness to a thorough and radical break.

In a recent interview with the Belgian magazine TeKoS (to be published very soon), I pointed out the problem Europe faces. When asked if Europe can take up an independent place on the world stage, or remain under the influence of the United States or other great powers, such as China, my answer talked about European identity, and the lack thereof. “There can only be an independent European identity when Europe dares to engage the conversation about identity. What is national (or supranational) identity? What makes a Flemish person Flemish, a German German, a Frenchman French, a European citizen European? The answer to that question is completely linked with the current immigration crisis, and is constantly avoided. The identity that thus is being built within the European Union and NATO is fully artificial, and has no feeling with the common citizens. Which subsequently gets ‘solved’ through increasingly stronger suppression to keep those same citizens under control. Quo vadis, Europa?”

Vance has echoed this, in a very powerful way: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”

But I want to talk about principles, and their history.

We often talk about the separation between church and state without thinking much about it. It is a necessary and good development that came out of the enlightenment, propelling human society forward. That is dogma, and few people stop to think about this. The fact that there is a separation, means that church and state, as a consequence, must be distinct. Yet the distinction between church and state is a recent (ish) development, given to us by Christianity! It was Jesus himself who started this idea where religion and politics are 2 separate domains. “My kingdom is not of this world”, he said. And “You are not of the world”, often coupled to another verse “but you are in the world.”

Up until that point in history, and in many cultures after the birth of Christianity, there was no such distinction. The divine and the worldly were one. The religious and the political were one, in civilizations headed by priest-kings and even god-kings. As Fr. Francis Canavan explained this change: “Now there were two distinct authorities in society, the political and the religious, the temporal and the spiritual.”

All throughout the Middle Ages, this was worked out, where the Church stood outside the political realm (except where the popes or bishops combined their religious authority with temporal authority, through the Vatican domains or in the various prince-bishoprics), yet somehow also above it. It was bishops and popes, again, who crowned the kings and emperors. It was agreed that all authority came from God, after all. This helped temper those temporal leaders, somewhat.

The world created in those middle ages was that of a Great Society. Within that free society all human concerns were placed. This included culture, education, all forms of associational life (such as marriage and family life), religious life, and the political realm. This was seen as governed by man’s original rights, as well as his responsibilities. Very importantly, this dual reference to rights and responsibilities was also imposed on rulers. Yes, their authority was God-given, but had to rest on the consent of the governed, as Flemish cities and their emerging middle class had so strongly fought for (see my article on the link between those Flemish cities and the Declaration of Independence here). The power of the political realm, what we often call ‘the state’, was thus only a small part of society, ‘as a limited aspect of its administrative life, [...] set to serve the order of the Great Society,’ contained through the requirements of consent.

It wasn’t until the enlightenment that the concept of ‘Absolute Monarchy’ started to take shape. ‘We know what is best for you’ could have been their main slogan, if they had modern PR agents. In effect, they reversed the Medieval system, and made the state the overarching, and only, legitimate authority. Everything was made subservient to the state: culture, education, marriage, even religion. As a result, it tended to make everything ‘sacred’. During the French Revolution this was happening quite literally, through the institution of a cult of ‘Reason’, complete with priests, priestesses, processions, temples, etc. Today it is more subtle, through co-optation of the old religious rites of passage, or even the concept of ‘sanctuary cities’, places of refuge where people prosecuted by worldly authorities could appeal to a higher authority, superseding the worldly authority.

Through a twist in history, the American settlers were rather rebellious, and resisted the influence of the Old World. They had immigrated to find a better life, often even had to flee from the Old World and its persecutions and oppression. Absolutism, and the constant stream of regulations (and taxation), was a direct cause for the American Revolution. Yet the American Founders, wary of the chaos in Europe, drew back to older ideas, including those championed by the old free Flemish cities: consent of the governed, demanding a limited authority of the state.

Europe made a break with their Medieval legacy, not in the least through the reforms Napoleon rammed through, erasing a lot of those Medieval vestiges. In their place came laws, codes, regulations, all based on ‘reason’, and which excluded the church. Those in power who redrew the map of Europe after Waterloo during the Congress of Vienna happily kept many of those reforms in place, securing a qualitative increase in their own power.

Make no mistake: this was a fundamental change in Europe. Not a ‘break away from the feudal and church-based oppression, to usher in an enlightened form of government based on freedom, equality, and fraternity’, as the Revolutionary propagandists successfully made us all believe, but a break from a concept where rulers were given their authority by a higher power, which included responsibility and the requirement of consent by their governed, where the state, the domain of those rulers, was limited and subservient to the greater society, towards a concept where the state was the highest power, swallowing up all other domains of human life, bringing everything under their legislative and regulatory control. As such, I challenge the notion that the United States are founded upon enlightenment principles. Instead, the Founders and Framers managed to preserve the essence of the Medieval system of society, that was lost in Europe.

Look at the French Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme, and the American Declaration of Independence (and Constitution). In the French Declaration, they indeed speak of ‘inalienable rights’, just as the American Declaration does. Yet the devil is in the details. “In consequence whereof, the National Assembly recognises and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” Who recognizes and declares the rights of citizens? The state, through the National Assembly. This is not just my interpretation, the rest of their statues makes that clear.

For example, Article 10 starts off beautifully: “No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones.” First Amendment level stuff! Except, not really. The second part destroys it all: “as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.” Here we recognize the principle being used in the present-day United Kingdom, in France, in Germany. You are free to have your opinions, even religious ones, but just make sure they do not ‘interfere’ with the ‘established Law and Order’! Want to pray? Sorry, if you stand at a certain distance from an abortion center, you cannot pray. Not even in silence! As Vance pointed out, the government even warned people that praying IN YOUR OWN HOME, within the same distance from said abortion centers, might be in violation of the ‘established law and order’!

In the American Declaration of Independence, a different path is walked, as described earlier. Take a look: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is the core. The source of the rights of man is the creator, which means an authority higher than man, and as such no government or law gave those rights and thus cannot take them away. Hence, those rights are called inalienable. It is this idea, pointing at a reality outside of man themselves, that allowed for the abolition of slavery, for example.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

This, too, is vitally important, and very different from the French proposal. Governments are instituted ‘among men’, not ‘over them’, and are limited by the consent of the governed. This is the old Medieval understanding of society, where religion is part of the understanding of who man is, their relationship to the creator (as giver of unalienable rights), and where the state, the political area, is limited and in service of society at large.

This contrast is easily seen by two competing slogans from that era. We all know the slogan of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Yet we all, somehow, were never taught the second part: OR DEATH. Now contrast this with the slogan that resounded in the Colonies, coined by Patrick Henry: ‘Give me liberty or give me death’. In the French/European worldview, the state is in control, and enforces their own decrees, under threat of death for all who resist. In the American worldview, liberty at the foundation, where death is better than a life devoid of the rights and responsibilities that are inalienable to us all. (For a deeper look into the French slogan, see this article, for a deeper look into the French Revolution, see this article, or this article exploring a sermon by Fulton Sheen comparing the United States with the French Revolution).

This now brings us directly to Free Speech, and Vance’s address in Munich.

A lot of the disconnect between Trump and Vance on one hand, and many European leaders and commentators on the other, is a very different understanding of ‘free speech’. We use the same term, but hear something very different. Part of that disconnect lies in 2 different terms, as used by the ancient Athenians: isegoria (the equal right of citizens to participate in public debate in the democratic assembly) and parrhesia (the license to say what one pleased, how and when one pleased, and to whom). A lot is said about those terms, yet they remain poorly understood. Many referring to both terms make errors, not in the least by thinking of both as meaning ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of speech’, as a thorough Master’s Thesis from 2017 argued. In that thesis, the author distinguishes both terms from one another, but also from the actual concept of free speech, which, as she notes, is a legal term requiring legal protections that enshrine free speech as a right.

Without going too deep: Europe has opted for isegoria. That is the old concept Athenians enacted to allow every free citizen, provided some other conditions are met, to speak up at the political assemblies. It was revolutionary, in a way, allowing not just the elites to speak at such gatherings (they were accustomed to that already, after all), but also the poor classes of their city. It is ultimately a choice for ‘equality’.

The United States opted for a concept much close to parrhesia, namely the idea that one should speak frankly and openly, even when that might put the speaker at risk or in danger. It has the added connotation that the claims made need to be truthful, or to be believed to be truthful by the speaker. For the ancient Athenians, it meant that one could speak without having to defer to superiors, even if speaking with such frankness or candor came with possible risk or danger. Saying what you want does not mean that others have to like it, or cannot react in anger, or preemptively to prevent what you spoke about from happening or spreading. It is, ultimately, a choice for ‘freedom’ in more absolute sense.

Here is the main key to understanding the difference between the European concept of free speech. While neither term strictly can be translated as ‘freedom of speech’, when looked at from the old Athenian point of view, both terms point at a way of looking at free speech. First, isegoria. This term, as applied to Europe, has to be seen in the context of the State. It is the state who grants the right to speak and attaches certain conditions to it. It is a term that is fully political: the speech granted under isegoria is meant for addressing legislative meetings of the population.

Vance’s examples speak to this. Europe sees all speech as political, or through a political lens, and regulates it accordingly. They limit who can speak, based on conditions not all that dissimilar to those of the Athenians. Citizens who had been ostracized, banished – or put different in modern terms, those who had been deemed dangerous to the state- could not address the gathered people. People who had been accused of prostitution, or using the favors of prostitutes -or put different in modern terms, those who broke the moral rules- could not address the gathered people.

Criticism and insults of politicians are forbidden (by law in many European countries!), because they express a danger to the status quo, and thus to the survival of the state. Posting a meme with a message critical of the policies of the elites, however truthful or humorous, and even if only indirectly being critical? Police will find you, judges will condemn you, and pay you will.

By having placed the state as having full primacy over every aspect of life, through the laws and regulations, everything has become political, and everything is about power. The only way to maintain control is through power and coercion...

On the other hand, parrhesia can be political, but not necessarily. It is more common a social mode of speaking. As such, it better fits in the context of ‘society’, and NOT of ‘state’. This represents the American understanding of Free Speech: the speech of each individual member of society, openly and frankly, about anything they deem necessary or worthwhile, particularly when used to express concerns.

By placing speech within the context of ‘society’ and not of the ‘state’, it can be looked at and interpreted at many different levels, without necessarily endangering any status quo in power. Social norms help regulate speech, without becoming ‘absolute’. We all know that a funeral is not the time and place to open up about the shortcomings and sins of the deceased, in front of the gathered family and friends. But you can, if you really want to. You will have to live with the consequences, though, as you might have forfeited your welcome in that family forever. Or you might be thrown out, with a good beating as immediate ‘payback’. Freedom of speech, not freedom from the consequences of my speech. Here it is again very important to see this in the context of society vs. state. The acceptable consequences of speech are those meted out by fellow citizens, and NOT by the state. Once the state becomes involved, it quickly undermines the right itself to free speech.

Now, the above is a view where I strictly argue based on an analysis of ‘society’ vs. ‘state’, as seen through history, how that developed, and where we can see Europe and the US stand in that development, trying to explain the difference in approach that we can see. Speech, and freedom of speech, is a much broader topic, with a lot more facets to it than what I described here.

An interesting article by Thomas Hochman is titled “Why Freedom of Expression Is Better Protected In Europe Than In The United States.” In it, the author posits that since in the US the tendency is that the first amendment only applies to State actors, and not to private actors, while in Europe any protections on speech are enforced on both State as private actors, the current rise in social media platforms and the move of public discourse to such platforms might mean that “freedom of expression is better protected in Europe than in the United States.”

His argument seems compelling, yet he admits the following: “Where Citizens United v. FEC rejects any state intervention regardless of the consequences of such a decision, the French Constitution orders the legislator to intervene in order to guarantee “the pluralistic expression of opinions” and “pluralism . . . of the media.” This exposes the problem for Americans: what prevents the state to define ‘pluralistic expression’ in a capricious or subjective manner? Does it include LGBTQ+ content? Does it include religious content? Does it include ‘far-right’ content? Does it include ‘far-left’ content?

What recourse do citizens have against such government definition of what ‘pluralistic expression of opinion’ entails and requires? Very often people forget that pluralism does not require a single person or a single media/outlet to present ‘all possible opinions’, but only that people have the opportunity to voice an opinion or start their own media/outlet to advocate or present their own opinions. Here, too, the free-market rule applies: if only very few people adhere to a certain opinion, why force larger outlets to carry it? In name of ‘pluralism’? (How many people really support transgenderism, for example? The weight given by the media and government in the previous administration is fully disproportionate to the actual number of people supporting that ideology!)

The problem with this kind of thinking, as expressed in that article, is the move towards courts and judges, not just to explore the law, but to start weighing between different laws, rights, situations. This gives courts extraordinary power, well beyond their initial task, that of interpreting and applying the laws. Once they start moving into the grey zone where they weigh which of 2 rights is more important, or carries more weight, where the courts start to define new terms, they start to usurp the power of the legislature.

Case in point, from that article: who determines what ‘public spaces’ are? Is that a societal decision, after debate? Or something the lawmakers must determine? Or perhaps something best left to judges to flesh out?

The problem is that we see court decisions that attempt to define such terms and realities, but get bogged down in contradictions. On one hand, a German court decided that an urban zone that included bars, shops, a movie theater, at the end of a pedestrian zone and near a bus station (looking like a public square, but in reality privately owned and operated) should allow protests against the alcohol ban the private owner had imposed. “Today, the communication function of public streets and squares is increasingly supplemented by additional forums such as commercial centers and passages, or squares created and managed by private investors as places for strolling, shopping and leisure. Therefore, the freedom of assembly cannot be excluded from the surfaces which, in these facilities, are open to the public.”

No big deal, you might say.

Until another German court, using that same liberty to define and weigh rights, gives a woman who dared post statistics that migrants rape women at a higher percentage than all other groups a longer prison sentence than the rapists. In the mind of the judges, the right of free speech is ranked lower than the right of the immigrants not to be insulted or offended. That individual free speech is less valuable than the general peace: such statistics might add fuel to a rising ‘right wing extremism’ aimed at ‘criticism of government migration policies’. Clearly, only bigots and fascists would post such stats!

Or to go back to the example Vance gave: not only is private prayer, silently in the privacy of your own thoughts, something that can be forbidden in certain public zones (wait, does this not go directly against the claims by that German court?), but apparently ALSO within the complete privacy of your own homes within a certain distance from certain buildings? Here, the right to abortion is weighed as much more important than even the privacy of one’s own thoughts, and even homes where no sight could ever deter any woman seeking abortion.

Yet judges are given that power, and they use it. At times, within reason, such as in the case of the privately owned square in German, even though one could argue that certain principles were broken that should have remained in place. In other instances, this goes way too far. The extreme result is a case such as in Brazil, where the Supreme Court under Justice Alexandre de Moraes has made headlines many times over with his draconian reach into the free speech debate, arresting hundreds of people, blocking companies (even X), and forcing them to comply through very high fines and punishments.

Even Chief Justice Luís Roberto Barroso is very clear about this: because the Brazilian constitution includes topics about the economy, family, protection of the elderly, social security, taxes, education, etc. any question touching upon those are no longer just political, but now, in his view, a matter of constitutional jurisdiction. Judicial overreach is commonplace in Brazil now, shattering any pretense of separation of powers. As always, it starts ‘reasonable’, with courts stepping in to protect against ‘disinformation’ (strangely, always in the context of elections!), typically very vaguely and broadly defined. This then becomes a weapon to wield against any opponent who threatens the new status quo that those judges had usurped. The danger is real, we see the examples all around us.

Even here, you can disagree with my argument here, or with the American view on Speech. Yet it is of tantamount importance that the debate about it can be held, openly, without restrictions from the government, without the fear that police will come knocking on my door. I voiced criticism of the UK’s immigration policies, and their handling of the riots sparked by the fatal stabbing of 3 young girls in Southport, in my article ‘UK Riots: Notes on freedom.’ Can I now freely enter and leave the UK? Am I on a watch-list? Will I be detained, like old pensioners have been for the far lesser ‘crime’ of posting a simple meme?

I think that the criticism of Vance cut much deeper than a mere legal difference. They deal with a statist view, where everything must bend for the power of the state. Vance, and with Trump many Americans, hold to a view where the citizen, both as an individual and collectively as ‘we the people’ hold primacy when it comes to speech, and that the state needs to remain limited and subservient.

THAT is the key, I believe, when we talk about society and politics.

Europe is on a crossroads. It needs to tackle the debate, and listen to her own citizens. Not subjects, citizens. Without fear of offending anyone, but committed to a real democratic process and renewal. John F. Kennedy, in a commencement speech given at Yale University, gave the following challenge:

“For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

Just as the US, until recently, Europe has grown complacent. Their citizens lulled to sleep with nice sounding slogans about equality and charity and the need to be inclusive, while their elites ignored any and all criticisms, instead powering through their destruction of Europe, paving the way to rebuild it into something completely different. Europe needs to dare to rethink where they are, where they are headed, and where they really want to go.

Americans have voted in change, a reset. And are getting exactly what they voted for, and then some.

Europe, quo vadis? Where will you go?

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I hope this article was helpful to distinguish between state and society, the history of some of those ideas, and the importance of who we give primacy: the state, or society. Politicians, or ‘we the people’.

This part of a longer series that will be published very soon, where not just ‘state’ and ‘society’ will be analyzed, but also ‘church’ and ‘religion’.

If it was helpful, please share.