The Observer | Comment | A constitution penned by lawyers, not poets

The Observer | Comment | A constitution penned by lawyers, not poets: "An influential historian urges a radical new approach to France's political relationships "


. . . The message of France's and our own Enlightenment was that happiness was the natural consequence of liberty - the right to do what one pleased without being controlled by others - and that prosperity was the path to both. But we find we cannot be happy if others are unhappy. We have discovered complexity and unpredictability and developed a taste for diversity and for transgressing boundaries. Medicine, despite all its triumphs, is now confronted by the problem of individual variability. The simple formulae we have inherited can no longer work for everyone.

So the European dream must go beyond freedom, security and economic prosperity. What is missing from the lives of so many people today is a sense of purpose, of meaning, of achieving something worthwhile, for others as well as themselves, for the future as well as the present. Boredom is the most widespread of our chronic diseases. A more personal vision of Europe will allow us to value ourselves by what we give others, rather than simply by what we accumulate for ourselves. . . .