All relevant words were immediately flagged and disputed. The word ‘nation’ was an obvious problem. ‘History’ was another word that caused immediate interruption. When someone was so unwise as to use the term ‘culture’, events ground to a halt. The word had too many different connotations and disagreements around its use to be able to be used. The word itself could not be allowed to signify anything. The aim of this game – for game it was – was to maintain the pretence of academic inquiry while making fruitful discussion impossible. As in so many academies and colleges across Europe this game continues to the satisfaction or relief of its participants, and the frustration or indifference of everybody else.

If there remains any overriding idea it is that ideas are a problem. If there is any remaining commonly held value judgement it is that value judgements are wrong. If there remains any remaining certainty it is a distrust of certainty. And if this does not add up to a philosophy it certainly adds up to an attitude: shallow, unlikely to survive any sustained onslaught, but easy enough to adopt.

Yet most people in their lives seek some form of certainty. Religion, politics and personal relations remain among the very few ways to try to create such certainty before the chaos we see all around us. Most people outside Europe – or the cultures we have influenced – share none of these fears, distrusts or doubts. They do not distrust their own instincts or their own actions. They do not fear acting in their own interest or think that their own self-interest or the self-interest of their kind should not be furthered. They seek to further their own lives, aspire to standards of living they see others having attained. And they have, in the meantime, a whole range of ideas, often just as numerous as Europe’s, which draw them to other conclusions.