REALIZE EUROPE

Realize its Narrative

Europe was raped by Zeus, disguised as a bull he kidnapped her threw her on the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea where she became the first queen of Creta. Europe is the place where you go on foot, where you complot in coffeehouses and where the streets have no numbers but memorable names. George Steiner: Europe’s past is both a burden and a gift, and it is the role of the critic to help us navigate the landscape.

Europe is a fable, a story, a continent, an area, a history, a culture, a political union, a conflict zone, and above all a narrative.

Many Europeans see their national differences as a root for the lack of unity, but for an American, an Asian or an African visitor, the European identity is very ostentative.

In the 1930s, Steiner notes, the Germans wanted to be German, the Italians to be Italian, etc. – only the Jews aspired to be ‘European’. It took the Holocaust for the nations of Europe to realize the virtues of this shared identity.

“You have to remember there is so much to remember” (George Steiner)

As Europe lurches back towards nationalism, we would do well to remember our legacy and the innumerably precious treasures of our shared civilization.

Europe has been the cradle of many dominant and contradicting practices in economy, lifestyle, sciences, politics, culture, and philosophy. 

Yet worldwide, we get stuck with the materialization of our actual and past concepts.

“The deadlock of our routing cannot be solved by more institutional corrections or more intelligent financial, economic engineering” (Daniel Innerarity)

Europe needs a narrative that can be understood and accepted by its citizens. We can only leave behind the old narrative with a change of deeply rooted concepts, a deep reflection on our philosophical assumptions from modernity, followed by the surge of new assumptions.

“The debate worldwide should focus on energizing a new human life path, a new aspiration a total re-invention of ourselves” (Yuval Noah Harari)

Together we will construct a narrative that is converging these, attractive, motivating and challenging dreams and visions into a coherent future scenario that can reset the societal debate from cynicism, anti-popularism and Brussels-blame into the focus on a good massive dialogue. 

We need to dare to overcome the pro or contra EU debates, we need a dialogue about the narrative that incorporates the past, and creates a new horizon in which we can aspire human values, democracy, and political participation and that can give us a clear entry point for the technological explosion.

SOCRATIC DESIGN

Value and experience-based wisdom

There are several blockades in our attempts to solve problems or to redirect our actual way of doing. Even harder is it to collectively make a new narrative.

Many think tanks and countless conferences did not deliver. 

The reasons are clear:

1. our neuronal system favors the addiction of thoughts; hence we keep repeating old concepts
2. we are unable to listen although we assume we are listening
3. we are unaware of the philosophical assumptions that are at work in our minds and hearts

These aspects avoid real collaborative thinking. Socratic Design a practical philosophical method can transform any group of individuals in strong collective attention, using the resources of philosophical assumptions to analyze our actual way of “thoughts” and design new systems of thinking and values.  

Socratic Design triggers the “art of listening,” all our proponents will engage in a mutual process of strong empathy. 

After we have become aware of our blocking assumptions, we begin the process of creating new assumptions. 

We design new assumptions using the method of appreciative inquiry and Socratic interviewing, all aiming at harvesting our best experiences and our practical wisdom.   

With the Socratic Design scenario method, we can deliver a new narrative for Europe, that is rooted in daily life experiences and at the same time, communicates fundamental values and purposes.  

We collect the top experiences, dreams, and, visions of significant personalities and thought leaders in this dynamic creative process of dialogue and making.