ABSTRACT
Europe has produced a series of cultural identities, which brought with them their own self-criticism, and the author thinks that this is unique. Even Christianity encompassed its own critique. Plurality is within Europe itself. Europe has had different kinds of Renaissance, Carolingian, twelfth-century, Italian and French, fifteenth-century, and so on. The kind of universality that Europe represents contains within itself a plurality of cultures, which have been merged and intertwined, and which provide a certain fragility, an ability to disclaim and interrogate itself. There is much talk now in Europe about the necessity to go beyond the limitations of the nation-state to a transnational federation of states on the one hand, and a devolution of power from the nation-state to regions on the other hand to regions that would be more self-governing, that would encourage the practice of local democracy, of participatory democracy. The project of universality is central to the whole debate about human rights.
