Europe Quotes

“The strength of the democratic constitutional state lies precisely in its ability to close the holes social integration through the political participation of its citizens.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure

“Debate is never finished; it can't be, lest democracy be no longer democratic and society be stripped of or forfeit its autonomy. Democracy means that the citizen's task is never complete. Democracy exists through persevering and unyielding citizens' concern. Once that concern is put to sleep, democracy expires.
And so there is no, and cannot be, a democracy, an autonomous society, without autonomous citizens - that is, citizens endowed with individual liberty and individual responsibility for the ways they use it. That liberty is another value - though unthinkable in separation from the value of democracy. Democracy rests on the freedom of its citizens, and citizens rest their confidence of being free and the courage to be free on the democracy of their polis. The two make each other and are made in the process of that making.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure

“Justice' primes the human habitat for peaceful and friendly togetherness. It sets the table - the round table - for polylogue and negotiations guided by the will of agreement. Justice is the most 'socializing' of values.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure

“These values are 'distinctly European' because they were thought out, articulated and refined in the part of the planet that tends to be described as 'Europe proper', and their articulation and refinement cannot be separated from the course of Europe's history.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure