Book review
Lady Cecily Grey,
BA (Cultural Studies), MA (History), Independent researcher, London, United Kingdom
Address: PO Box 1142, London W11 3NA, United Kingdom
E-mail: cecily.d.grey@gmail.com
Article ID: 010520001
Published online: 1 June 2018
HANDLE: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12656/thebeacon.1.010520001
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.1.010520001
Quoting (Chicago style): Grey, Cecily, Lady. 2018. “Politics of Visibilities in the Modern European World.” Beacon J Stud Ideol Ment Dimens 1, 010410001.
Language: English
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The paper is a reflection over the book: Wolfgang Sassin, Oleg Donskikh, Alexandre Gnes, Sergey Komissarov, Liu Depei. Evolutionary Environments. Homo Sapiens - an Endangered Species? Innsbruck: Studia Universitätsverlag, 2018. 362 p. ISBN 978-3-903030-60-2. In the article, the author propounds her main observations on discussing European political ideologies offered in the book. Today’s European politics is demonstrated to be either demise or temporary slowdown of the mutual European dream that led to the bright anticipations of EU in 1990s. Current failing of this dream causes great instabilities in continental Europe and United Kingdom. It may be one of the reasons of Brexit as well. Finally, some points of critique of the book, are discussed. Key words: European Union, EU future, globalisation, contemporary European history, post-human values, European dream, Brexit, England, UK referendum, European cultural crisis
The paper represents a review of the book: Wolfgang Sassin, Oleg Donskikh, Alexandre Gnes, Sergey Komissarov, Liu Depei. Evolutionary Environments. Homo Sapiens - an Endangered Species?
The book is an unusual attempt of a team of scholars from various parts of the world (Europe, Russia, China) with various backgrounds to analyse the political history of European Union using an interdisciplinary methodology that includes historical analysis, sociological surveys, political research, legal study and even natural scientific approach (in investigating the European demographic trends). To accomplish their goal, the authors of the monograph under review, not only contributed to different chapters of the book separately, but also chose to unite their expertise in several mutual parts written together. The major achievement of the author group is their fresh look at the EU development, which they advance with the aid of homo billionis and WEstern civilisation concepts. The authors are analysing different trends in the modern EU history and describe political, administrative and legislative initiatives that could stabilise or destabilise the EU. A special attention is paid in the book to the history of EU international relations with Russia and China, and contemporary attempts of European political elites to find the EU place in the globalised world. The authors insist that the European Union experiences the turbulence period of its history, not in the last turn because of the persistent idea of EU bureaucrats, political and economic elites to create a new post-human morality and system of values that include the utter tolerance and neo-liberal ideology.
The mechanisms of the modern transformation of international politics in the policy of appearances (images) are analysed. The authors of the book attempt to perceive not only the principles and techniques used by politicians to create the desired political images in our time, but also the effects that the new type of politics has on the involvement of citizens in the political life.
The authors introduce the concept of homo billionis (“billion people”). From the authors’ view, it is a new stage of socio-political evolution of homo sapiens, which changes the whole life of a person and the set of social connections in which he or she participates. In this case, an ordinary person is imposed on an idea that he or she is a central figure in the formation of democracy in his (her) own country, whereas he (she) is a controlled and fully dependent object.
A central place in the book is devoted to the study of the political course of the current European Union and the transformation of European democratic systems in the globalised world, both in domestic European affairs and in international relations with Russia, China and the USA. A comparative analysis of the involvement of different communities in the globalised world, is carried out. It is concluded that the adoption of the ideology of neoliberalism by the society of a given country occurs in a close connection with the loss of this society’s cultural identity, and the transformation of the citizens of this country into “everyday citizens,” in fact homo billionis. According to the author of the review, the book is a successful attempt to analyse political technologies, ideologies and social programmes of modern political and economic elites of the societies of European type, especially in the EU itself.
The article also provides criticism of a number of provisions of the book, which, from the point of view of the author of the review, may be rash or not completely grounded. However, they do not diminish the value of the book. It can serve an excellent academic source on EU political ideologies and international ideological use, as well as a guide for legislative and administrative initiatives to curb the proliferation of ideological influence.
© 2018 Lady Cecily Grey. Licensee The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
