Europe of the Regions

The 1986 Single European Act was the first major revision of the Treaty of Rome that created the European Economic Community in 1957. The Act meant a commitment of joint progress, and a new manner of coordinating economic activities, after the failure of semi-plannified economy and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (dependent on the dollar) that happened during the 70's.
The result of the Act was the creation of the European Monetary System (called "of the European snake in the tunnel", as European currencies were floating in group against the rest). This was the first step to the arrival of the euro economy.
Another wanted step was the administrative reform of the recently named European Union, which was becoming more and more complex when taking joint decisiones (the system of national vetoes made agreements very long or impossible).
However, no political topics were treated (the absence of a common Defense and Foreign Affairs) nor many economical (such as the aberrant agricultural budget applied since the entrance of Spain and Portugal). But the countries agreed on one thing: reaching a free market of goods and work.
So, the decision-taking system was almost only economic. In order to ease it, the national agreement system was switched into another one in which regions had direct access to the European Council in Brussels and could act independently from their corresponding national entity. The Europe of the Regions started existing.

A new imbalance

The result was a modification of budget decisiones taken by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which identified backward European regions and distributed investments in order to estimulate their economies. Now regions avoided their Governments, not generally very willing to cooperate in regional investments. Some of them, generally the richest (such as Catalonia and Baden-Württemberg), established their own offices in Brussels to constitute true lobbies.
Consequence? The richness desequilibrium was not reduced (rather the contrary), but it was redistributed by regiones instead of countries. Now, a group of first order regions existed (Lombardy, Catalonia, Flemish Region, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Rhône-Alpes...), and another group of poor ones (Andalusia, Scotland, Wallonia, Algarve...). A new, costly bureaucracy, that did not doubt when manipulating subsidy data, intensified the problem.
In conclusion, Europe, without solving its old defects of clientelism and corruption, just diluted them into a new structure where abuses still often happened. Economic rforms based in the 50's and 60's way of thinking (already shown inefficient) unlegitimated a bit more a Union that, nowadays, is clunking and needs real measures.
Definitely, it was successful in one thing: the appearance of a new way of regional sub-nationalism. It is not a coincidence that in the most subsidied European regions, this regionalism passed from a traditional reactionary folklorism to a conscience, sometimes independentist, in which a disdain towards governmental identity, but also an Europeist supra-national thinking has invaded their inhabitants.

Postmodernism

We have all learned at school quite well (or not) the History until what is called "nowadays". How ambiguous... What does "nowadays" mean? We cannot stop wondering how will this age be called in the future, when it will not be the Contemporaneous Age anymore, when it will become History.
"Postmodernism" is the term to usually call this age. Not a great name, undoubtely, which just comes from being the successing age to Modernism. Anyway, neither Modernism was so called at its time, so let us hope a better name someday.
But, what are its values of thinking? Is it true that, as our parents say, "current society has not values"? Well, according to the Modernist point of view, maybe yes. But a Postmodernist will answer: "it depends on what you consider a value", leaving the hearer confused and a bit dizzy.

How it happened

Let us see how this mess came out. Year 1945: The World has just realised of the result of Progress, so idealized by Modernist and Positivist philosophies of the last hundred years. This way of thinking believed infinitely in the power of Technology and Reason which, through Scientific method and Experimentation, would eventually lead the Man to absolute Good and Truth, to dominate its surroundings and make him owner of his destiny. But after the Second World War and all the horrors and social injustices it created, all this was seriously argued and, except neo-modernist attempts such as the Structuralist school, progressively unbelieved.
New relativist ways of thinking arise. Sartre, Derrida and Foucault surprise thinkers with their "Existentialist", "Decontructionist" and "Post-structuralist" proposals. The idea of "one way, one truth", is substituted by "everything goes". Communication media carry information to the masses, which start to be critical and create opinion. New generations break down ethic values never argued before.
This trend, however, is ralentised by the Cold War and the division of the World in two oposing blocks, with consequent politizacion of media, which become a tool of mass opinion domination. Finally, at the end of the 80s happens the great victory of Postmodernism, communist regimes in Eastern Europe are progressively overthrown by the growing power of public opinion. The global conception of the World and Relativism compose the thought of our society. The concept of "value", as an idea whose definition exists and is commonly accepted, has disappeared.

What is a postmodernist

All of us who live in this age have postmodern lifestyles. We all are, in a greater or less extent, a product of this trend.
- A postmodern does not believe in doctrines. Knows that thinking, opinion and truth are relative. Utopy does not exist, and Progress is not more than an illusion built by the mistaken idea of "Truth". As it is a relative idea, everything else is.
- Postmoderns believe in Imagination and Creativity. They know that Reason alone is a limited tool, and besides, inhumane.
- A postmodern, however, knows that even if he is creative, he is not original. No idea that comes from his mind has been generated in there, as every idea is a copy, version or mixture of other existing ones. He/she knows, besides, that this idea is not static but fluid, its meaning changes greatly according to the time and place.
- Postmoderns are not humanists. They do not wonder about "why" or "what for" of the Being. Instead, they are humanitarian. They believe that personal experience and friendship are the ways to make individuals more compltee.
- A postmodern being is a product of Globalization. He feels as a member of the World. Has interest and admiration to different cultures, even more than the own.
- Postmoderns communicate in a non-conventional manner, they experiment. Reinvent the language. They also change their concept of art and beauty, they change all the time. They will never achieve to define themselves because they are change indeed.