“The European Union has brought peace”: how they fool us with the “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” fallacy

Post hoc ergo propter hoc literally means "after this, therefore because of this". It means crediting a fact to be the cause of another only because it happened before.

This fallacy falls within the category of informal ones of inconsistency also called "yielding foundations". As the word reveals, these are arguments based on treacherous and not very solid assumptions, such as quicksand. And yet we must still be careful because they tend to circumvent our natural aptitude for critical analysis and logical reasoning, and therefore to persuade us.

The sophism in question is also included within the so-called non sequitur (literally: it does not follow, it does not follow) and can alternatively be designated as a red herring fallacy because it is based on an erroneous causal relationship.

Let's take an example: 1) morning always comes after the rooster has crowed; 2) therefore, the sunrise is caused by the king of the chicken coop. Obviously, this is a borderline case and makes people laugh – even chickens – for its absurdity. Yet, you have no idea how often the "shortcut" is used not unconsciously by preschoolers, but knowingly by manipulative adults.

A variant of the post hoc ergo propter hoc is the cum hoc ergo propter hoc (meaning "together with that, therefore because of that"). For example: since Ronaldo arrived and Juve did not win the Champions Cup, then Juve did not win the Champions Cup because they bought Ronaldo. However, nowhere is it written that the champion of champions must win (or let you win) the most coveted trophy.

Or: since the state increased the deficit when the yellow-and-greens went to the government, then the yellow-greens caused the deficit to increase. In fact, it is not certain that the current year's deficit is the fault of the policies of a new government. Often it depends on the choices of the previous government or even on structural or system anomalies such as those affecting the euro and the European Union.

But we come, in fact, to the case of the EU and the phony arguments used to rekindle its "myth" among the general public: the post hoc ergo propter hoc strategy was – and still is today – one of the most used.

In particular, it is used with reference to the theme of peace.

We have heard the argument so often that we have internalized it and made it our own as if it were a revealed truth and it goes more or less like this: the European Union has ensured the longest period of peace and prosperity ever known by peoples , and from the nations, of the old continent. Post hoc ergo protper hoc : peace came after the start of the European unification process and therefore peace was brought about by the European unification process. Anyone who listens to this line is led to take it for granted, "drinks" it without filters and finally makes it unconditionally his own precisely because it is based on the very powerful lever of mental and linguistic suggestion represented by the equation: A comes before B, so A has caused B. Or: B came after A, so B was caused by A; which is the same thing.

In the case of Europe, however, the ruse is doubly fallacious. Not only because the reasoning is flawed, in and of itself, at the root (in the sense that the precedence of one fact over another is not sufficient to guarantee us in a rigorous and "scientific" way that the first caused the second), but also because it is just historically wrong. It is denied both by past history and by the chronicle of the present days if not even, and paradoxically, by the probable developments of future ones.

Let's explain better. Making the European Union coincide with the origin of peace in Europe is a sensational historical falsehood consisting in reversing the cause with the effect. In fact, peace came first and then the EU. Indeed, to put it better still, two devastating conflicts came first such as the Great War and the Second World War – during which millions of Europeans slaughtered themselves in the trenches, or died during bombing or attacking the sword. – and then an extraordinary period of reconstruction first, growth and peaceful coexistence then, which continues today; albeit with critical economic issues, which became more acute, coincidentally, after the birth of the EU.

The famous boom years – which for some should be counted (in our opinion, rightly) among the best of our recent past – were the fruit of the need of European nations to start over and return to life after the nightmares of death and destruction. of previous decades. And in that magical twenty years the states of the continent, while each retaining their own sovereignty, lived in peace and harmony. And they did so also thanks to socially very advanced Constitutions and the adoption of an economic model, the Keynesian one, which is the antithesis of the neoliberal format of the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties.

It is true that, in this context (but after it, not before it), the first attempts, on a juridical level, of an “approach” and of an interstate collaboration have begun to consolidate. This is the starting point for initiatives such as the ECSC, born with the Treaty of Paris on April 18, 1951, and the EEC and Euratom, established with the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957. When these organizations became concrete with the signing of the relevant treaties , mind you, there was no European Union. If anything, there was a form of partnership on specific and restricted matters and related to very sectoral areas (coal and steel, in fact, or nuclear energy and the circulation of goods) between very few states.

The EU was born only thirty-five years later, and precisely with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on February 7, 1992. Nonetheless, in Europe the states were already getting along in love and agreement. Goods circulated between one border and another, albeit moderately "hampered" by customs barriers, and people could go from Italy to Austria or from Italy to France – or from any state to any other on the continent – without be detained in a concentration camp or sent back to the border with the pass.

Allow me, allow yourself, to joke about it. Sometimes, in fact, to sell you the magnificence of the community project, euro touts heavily use the fallacy of the post hoc ergo propter hoc pushing it to the point of making us, and especially the youngest among us, believe that the circulation of goods, people, services and capital came after, and thanks to, the European Union.

In fact, you could already travel from one country to another in Europe without any problem other than a customs control and perhaps a visa in your passport. You know what a drama! You know what a complication! Think that the Italian students could go to visit the Louvre and the French ones the Sistine Chapel! And without Erasmus … How many of us would gladly return to those times if they knew – if they had known in time – that the price to pay for the laughable benefits introduced by the Schengen Convention would have been the abdication of legislative, monetary, and therefore political sovereignty , of our Republic? Quite a bit, we suspect.

We want to talk about the transaction costs of the goods? Do you think there has been such an important saving as a result of European unification? Go and reread a study funded by the Commission in 1990 recalled in the book by Professor Bagnai, The sunset of the euro . The estimate was just 0.4 per cent of European GDP.

And at the end of all these "gifts", what is left on the plate? The European Union, in fact, which is a subsequent historical fact, and not a cause of peace.

Indeed, wanting to be picky, it should be noted that the war on European soil is back – almost a sign of fate! – precisely in 1992, that of the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. We refer, of course, to the war in Yugoslavia already mentioned above. But there is also another type of "war", this one undoubtedly caused by the philosophy underlying the whole structure of the EU: a war that has generated losses no less serious than those caused by a classic military conflict. We are talking about the effects of permanent competition between states, even codified in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union where we read of a “highly competitive” economy. This competition – together with austerity applied with obtuse maniacality from 2010 onwards – saw winners (Germany and the countries of central Europe) and losers (Greece, Italy and many other peripheral nations). Unforgettable, in this regard, is the "discovery" of the 700 Greek children who died due to austerity, then modestly censored by Federico Fubini, the first signature of the Corriere della Sera.

But there is more. We can rightly argue that the European Union not only did not cause peace, it could cause war in Europe. And we don't say it. The alarm was launched by the ultra-European, and en passant French president Emmanuel Macron, in April 2018: "A sort of European civil war is emerging". Then, making use of the variant of the non sequitur we talked about at the beginning (namely the cum hoc, ergo propter hoc ) Macron completed his work of mystification, concluding more or less like this: since the risk of civil war in Europe of I speak of is contemporary with the resumption of nationalistic demands, so it is the fault of national selfishness if there is a risk of civil war in Europe. And it seemed to you. Chapeau .

Finally, let's not forget the legal nuances, often able to make a difference when we talk about war and peace. The Italian Constitution even "repudiates" war (art. 11) both as a "means of offense" to the freedom of others and as a "tool for resolving" international disputes: as if to say that war – to our constituent fathers – was so disgusting that never take it into consideration, and for no reason whatsoever. Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union, is not so tranchant, you know: "The Union can make use of these means [civil and military, Ed.] In missions outside it to guarantee the maintenance of peace, the prevention of conflicts and the strengthening of international security, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. The execution of these tasks is based on the capabilities provided by the Member States. '

So much for the repudiation of war as an instrument for resolving international disputes …

Now, however, let's recap; the development was this:

pain for the mourning of the war ↓ pleasure to leave peacefully ↓ desire to find new forms of coexistence.

In other words, it is on the already fertile “soil” of peace that the first friendly forms of cooperation mentioned above (such as ECSC, EEC, etc.) have blossomed; and these were synergic partnership projects (between a few States and in specific subjects) that were totally different from the current “Union”. The Union, to be clear, has come to consolidate on the basis of the treaties stipulated in the last twenty years of the last century and in the first twenty years of the present one. In short, the first embryonic modalities of peaceful cooperation and non-warlike interaction of the 1950s do not at all coincide with the European Union of today.

It is admitted even by the most fanatic of pro-Europeans that the European Union, as we know it today, is quite another thing than the mild and shareable forms of mutual collaboration established close to the boom years. And in fact the EU, as already mentioned, comes to maturity, in its current bureaucratic, monetary and fiscal "hookup" only in 2007; more precisely, with the Lisbon Treaty, or, if we really want to backdate it, in 2002 with the debut of the single currency.

We can therefore argue, without fear of denial, that the " post hoc ergo propter hoc " argument is not only, in and of itself, and like all similar rhetorical devices, a dialectical fallacy (therefore, to all intents and purposes, a form of manipulation), but it is a thousand times more so – in the case of the EU and its history – because it is false from a chronological point of view.

A cross-country magician who tried to convince the unwary on duty of the harmful influence of comets, could bring a series of indisputable historical examples in which the comet was first sighted and then a catastrophe occurred. However, his argument would be flawed at the root because the epiphany of a comet, close to a bad event, does not at all prove that the wandering ice ball in the cosmos caused the disaster.

However, and if nothing else, in the case of the comet the chronological order would at least be respected: it is true, that is, that first you sight the comet and then the patatrac happens. The same also applies to the positive “signs” typical of every superstition: first I find the four-leaf clover and then I have a stroke of luck; first Romulus sees twelve vultures in the sky of the future eternal city and then – convinced of the divine predilection – he kills his brother Remus.

In the case of the European Union, however, the “ post hoc ergo propter hoc ” fallacy has no serious foundation either from a logical point of view (which is typical of all fallacies) or from a chronological point of view. Indeed, as explained above, the European Union did not precede peace, but, if anything, followed it.

There is another very effective antidote to the mental poison contained in this fallacy. And that is to demonstrate to our interlocutor the inconsistency of his favorite thesis: that according to which the demolition of customs and administrative barriers between peoples (and therefore the confusion between the institutions, the rules and the objectives of each of them) leads to the end of the specter of war. Here too, as you can see, we are in full application of the “ post hoc ergo propter hoc ”.

Usually, those who use this stratagem couples it with the typical adage of the “liberal” culture according to which – once the borders are demolished – between one State and another, goods and not cannons pass. Which, however, in addition to being all to be demonstrated does not necessarily mean that, once the commercial transactions between two or more peoples are made more fluid, the latter must also federate under the centralized guidance of a single control room. Especially if there is not that irreplaceable mastic which is the will and the consent of the people. Let's close it like this: after the unifications obtained without popular consent you can find there not peace, but the bloodiest of wars.

Francesco Carraro

www.francescocarraro.com

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