Discourses of crises and the European Union as a community without qualities: A view from the literary history

• Main Authors: Đerić Gordana, Tournois Laurent
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Sociological Association, Belgrade 2014-01-01
• Series: Sociološki Pregled
• Subjects: discourses of crises; era of simulation; the European Union; Man WithoutQualities; Robert Musil
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0085-6320/2014/0085-63201401003D.pdf

Proceeding from the assumption that meanings and perceptions of social reality are generated by means of public language, or in other words, from the belief that the role of public language is more that of shaping the social reality, rather than description or detection of problems, the authors assume a reserved approach to contemporary discourses on the crises of the European Union. Such approach is explained by the vagueness and deprival of meaning of the term crises, as it is typically used in current political discourses. By pointing out to a loss of the semantic core of the term, caused by its inconsistent usage and longevity of the condition termed 'crisis', they also express doubts concerning its analytical operativeness. In the authors' opinion, this 'profaned' term has become a performative representation of simulation - sort of crisis, which has, either as a justification, necessity or a pretext, created numerous effects in recent years. The assumption that simulation - seen as the absence of the reality rather than its disguise (Jean Baudrillard) - represents a leading principle of our age is examined through the concept of continued effect of literature and corroborated by the authors' interpretation of Robert Musil's novel 'Man Without Qualities', as a mythopoetic framework of the analysis and reflections of high art in the contemporary age. In the first part of the text, the authors point out to Musil's poetic anticipation of the direction taken by the European society, that is, the cultural climate and conditions favouring development of man without qualities. In the absence of these qualities and, especially, in preference given to Musil's category 'sense of possibility'over the 'sense of reality', the authors recognise the interpretative basis for the analysis of Community without qualities, as another name for the European Union. From that point of view, which, in addition to loss of specific qualities, also involves deprival of the past, the present condition is defined as the culmination of the rule of men without qualities with the sense of possibility,rather than as the crisis of the Union. The final part of the text is dedicated to empirical indicators of social changes, anticipated by the novel Man Without Qualities.