Peter McCormick is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, a permanent member of the Institut International de Philosophie in Paris, and professor emeritus of the Internationale Akademie für Philosophie’s Fürst Franz-Josef und Fürstin Gina Department of Ethics in Liechtenstein.

Professor McCormik has received many awards, including a Medal from the Rector of the University of Helsinki and the investiture as Doctor Honoris Causa in Philosophy from the University of Athens.

Professor McCormick was one of the main speakers at the Emotions and Moral Values conference, organized by the Emotional Culture and Identity project of the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Navarra, which Zurich Insurance finances.

During his conference participation in Pamplona, ​​Professor McCormick analyzed some of the main political and social challenges in contemporary Europe.

 

In one of your books, Poverty Among Immigrant Children in Europe (Palgrave, 2009), you address the problem of immigrant children in Europe. Is this really a serious problem in our societies?

Yes, it is.

When I retired from teaching 12 years ago, I moved to France, one of the richest countries in the world. Suddenly, I found a completely different situation. I wasn’t so much disturbed to see so many poor people in the streets, but rather to see the large number of children among those poor people.

Around the Gare du Nord, one of the most important train stations in Paris, early in the morning, I used to see children between 5 and 10 years old coming out from under the cabooses, where they had spent the night sleeping. They took paper bags, filled them with glue and sniffed them to avoid hunger pains.

This situation opened my eyes and I began to see more and more homeless children on the streets of Paris. They sleep under cabooses because they know that if they sleep in the streets, social groups trying to help them might take them away. Children see these groups as limiting their freedoms and therefore prefer to sleep under cabooses and steal or prostitute themselves at the station during the day.

Is it possible to help them? 

It's difficult, but not impossible. People react differently to the problem of homeless children living on the street. A person with a strong social conscience, such a journalist, can help by contacting these groups and writing about their situation, doing what the French call “reportage.” Being on the scene and writing about what their “normal day” looks like attracts the attention of many people, some of them with power and resources. A journalist’s story reminds them week after week that the situation is intolerable and something must be done.

How can someone from academics contribute?

You can think about the problem and write about it in a more professional manner. Your audience is no longer just the newspaper-reading public; your audience becomes other members of reflective communities with philanthropic interests and who want to help. In addition, it includes influential people in the world of universities.

In Europe, there are many academic specialists who study the subject and many researchers should be further encouraged to continue their studies and for that, we need to put them in contact with “patrons.” There is never enough money in the social sciences to do all the work researchers would want to do and, therefore, private funding is very important. Journalists, again, can help get that private funding through their articles.

Europe now faces an additional challenge: The refugee crisis. How can we deal with it?

In the European Union, we can only sympathize with the experience of powerlessness in the face of handling staggering needs, as well as the frustration that 28 nations with different languages, cultures, history and interests experience 24 hours a day with the aim of making fruitful decisions that apparently are not enriching. You cannot bring together a fully coherent and effective policy from 28 very different communities.

Can Europe learn from its own history, especially World War II, to solve this crisis?

Historians now say that at least 12 million people were expelled from the North and German territories. They left their homes and were forced, at some point, to decide to leave the land to which they belonged.

When politicians attempt to address these problems, contemporary historians should first remind them that the large volume of people from Syria, Lebanon or Jordan now coming to Europe reminds Europeans of what they lived through after the end of World War II.

What is the best model for the integration of immigrants in Europe?

I come from a part of the world where immigration has historically been very important, i.e., the United States and Canada.

The Canadian integration model is different from the American one, where everyone is meant adapt and become part of the “American dream”. In Canada, however, the government itself recognizes the diversity that immigration causes. The message is, "We want you to be a Canadian citizen, but we also want you to maintain your cultural heritage so we will give you money to ensure that on Saturday mornings you can bring your children to classes to study their mother tongue." In this way, children do not forget their parents’ language.

It is a particular model of society and I think that's what immigration needs: we are all Canadians and, at the same time, each person can contribute with the richness of individual traditions. Perhaps we should learn from this in Europe, contributing to the interesting experience of sharing the richness of our heritage with others.

Europe also faces another social challenge: The widening gap between the rich and poor in Europe. What are the consequences of this trend?

The increasing gap between the rich and poor is taking place at the expense of the middle class. The middle class is declining, with the majority moving downwards (lower middle class or lower class), with very few climbing to a higher stratum.

The gap between the richest 1% and the rest of the population is widening. However, I don’t think this has to be seen as a tragedy because, in contemporary Western Europe, amassing wealth changes peoples’ attitudes and wealthy people are becoming increasingly generous. This is happening, for example, in the United States with Bill Gates and other wealthy people that want to help and that have philanthropic interests.

How can you convince them to get involved in society?

It is very difficult to change a mindset, but it is possible.

In a study conducted at Princeton University, management students were asked why they had chosen their major and more than half responded, “Because I want to be rich and do something good with that money.” We need people like that— students who want to be rich to change the world. Until recently, young people wanted to accumulate wealth to buy a boat, have seven houses or marry many times. Now people want to be rich to help others; this is something new and it is a hopeful sign.

All this suggests that the purpose of social mobility is not fixed, but rather will continue to evolve and, for the moment, there are very good reasons to think a little more positively about the future.