Professor Lipton’s visit to class was very enlightening to compare European versus American methods of working towards unity. For example, Prof. Lipton explained the Erasmus Program, in which European students can essentially travel and study abroad freely in other European nations. He described the intentions behind this project as working to create new generation of Europeans who don’t see national boundaries. While the program itself was established in 1987, but in the context of European history particularly World War II, the Soviet Union and satellite states in Eastern Europe, and consequential wars like the Yugoslav Wars, this program definitely targets issues of extreme nationalism, xenophobia, and ethnic tensions across nations. I found this very inspiring to learn about, particularly coming from America. Our country is facing extremism in forms of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and general right-wing politics. While a program dedicated towards unifying younger generations will certainly not solve such fundamental and threatening issues, it certainly would bridge gaps across geographic regions, race, class, and more. I also thought that the Erasmus Program’s intentions of moving past national boundaries was very interesting, as nation-states are truly just social constructs that dictate diplomacy and politics. In my opinion, they often can do more harm than good, whether producing right-wing nationalism centered around one ethnicity or race or literally creating wars over boundaries and jurisdiction. Taking a deeper look into this concept of new European generations who don’t see national boundaries proved the program to be slightly more radical in its intents than I previously would have predicted.
