The inherent retentiveness of conservatism
benefits a society because it need not “reinvent the wheel” in “starting from scratch,”
as resort can be made to customs that have been efficacious. Unfortunately,
conservatism can easily be in denial as to the need for adaptation to changes
whether in geopolitical institutions or in culture. The advent of the European
Union as a federal system of dual-sovereignty has been easy fodder for
conservatism’s proclivity of denial with regard to very new things. Eurovision,
too, was an invention beyond even the European Union, and thus also of the
post-World-War-II history of integration meant in part as a check on the full-blown
nationalism that had twice decimated Europe in the twentieth century. So it is
problematic that the EBU, the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest, has
made so many category mistakes involving Europe in favor of nationalism.
The full essay is at "Nationalism at Eurovision."
