ONLY A TSAR CAN SAVE US

America is what has no past. "Land without history," said the poet Emerson in 1883. Europe is what seems to have no longer a future. America has never had historical memory, it's projected into the future and has thought its present not as the consequence of a past, but as the moment when the future was being realized: «the future is endowed with so much life that it lives for us even in advance» Melville wrote.

Today, however, things seem to have changed. The land that seemed oriented to salvation imbued with the religious spirit of mankind, has now become the place where a post-human future is prepared, where men are going to be ruled by robotized artificial intelligences. From the place of utopia it's becoming the place of dystopia. Recently a scientist such as Stephen Hawking reminded this, warning us that the development of artificial intelligence «could be the worst event in the history of our civilization»: «theoretically, computers can emulate human intelligence and even overcome it. The success in creating artificial intelligence could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst». The messianic tension that once belonged to America, has now turned into a satanic atmosphere, prey to a technological limitless madness, which one can't oppose because the future is already present.

The time of Europe has always been another, a historical time, and today not even that, if we now are nostalgic, and nostalgic only for what we've been. We are now devoid of what characterized us: the future seen not as present, but as what is not present yet , the «not-yet-being» that Ernst Bloch was talking about. We have lost this tension and we can no longer resist the Americanization of the world, we are more and more slaves of hi-tech products, which present themselves as instruments of liberation and which instead are a source of alienation. And which in an already present future tend to modify our own human nature.

Add to this the loss of the sense of our European identity, a plural, rich identity that distinguishes us on the planet; instead of starting from our values to realize them, we open ourselves to others, forgetting ourselves; without orientation, we abandon ourselves to an acceptance that denies everything constituting our roots. Even the Catholic Church seems to have abdicated its salvific mission with a non-European Pope who should meditate on what his predecessor - nourished by European culture - wrote: «Europe, in order to survive, needs a new - certainly critical and humble - acceptance of itself. Multiculturalism, which is continually and passionately encouraged and favored, is sometimes above all abandonment and denial of what is own, an escape from one's own things». Joseph Ratzinger wrote this in the conclusions of a dense essay dedicated to Europe.

So is there still hope for Europe? Perhaps Russia? Moscow, the third Rome and the new Jerusalem: perhaps the rescue of Europe will start from there. From the restoration of Sacrum Imperium's political tradition and Christianity's spiritual tradition. The idea of another Europe comes from Moscow, because Russia has always been itself an idea of Europe - Dostoevskij reminded it very well: for a Russian, «Europe is precious as the same Russia. Venice, Rome, Florence, Paris are more precious than Russia itself». The third Rome: today the katéchon, the last force restraining the americanization of the world, has moved there. The last hope for Europe.

Translation by Donato Mancuso