What Does Europe Fear: Understanding the hopes and fears of Europeans

What do people fear in the contemporary
world? Simply asking the question raises
a host of related problems. Some are
methodological – could the act of asking
be considered leading? And how should we
measure fear anyway? Others are conceptual – what actually is fear? And how does it come about? Still others relate to the complexity of human beings – do they behave in accordance with their stated responses? And, in addition, to investigate the latter may suggest a critical view of those providing the answers.

To further complicate matters, might there be a divergence between how ordinary people view things, as opposed to those who speak on their behalf, or purport to know what they think? How might this vary across different cultural settings? And, if there is such a gap, has it grown wider in a period some propose as having been marked by widespread political disengagement? Or is the space between groups narrowing, as new media technologies offer the possibility for all to have their voices heard or, at the very least, expressed?

As the world emerges from almost two years of rolling lockdowns introduced by governments in response to the uncertainties they expected over the effects of the COVID outbreak, it appears that many other profound challenges now also confront us. But are there more of these today than ever before? Or are they maybe of a different nature to
those we faced in the past, such that previous experience offers few pointers about how to address them?

Certainly, there are plenty of concerns to
choose from – the return of war in Europe
and elsewhere, rising inflation and its impact on jobs and livelihoods, strains within the education sector and a possible mental health ‘epidemic’ (exacerbated by reactions to the pandemic) – as well as future disease outbreaks, migration, the integrity of information, information systems or other networks, not forgetting climate change – among many others.

In keeping these conundrums in mind,
it may serve to reflect on a line by the
French political scientist, Zaki Laïdi, from
his 1994 landmark text, ‘A world without
meaning’1, which considered the confusions
and challenges of the Western world in
the aftermath of the dissolution of the old,
Cold War, world order. There, he proposed:
“our societies claim that the urgency of
problems forbids them from reflecting on a
project, while in fact it is the total absence
of perspective that makes them slaves of
emergencies”. It may indeed be a crisis of
meaning and purpose, more than genuine
threats, that determines things.