Europe Can't Escape Its Waterloo

Nowhere in Europe was the decay more evident than in Belgium, and most of all, in Brussels.

Our hotel was downtown, about a half mile easy walk uphill from the train station. Our room looked right across at the many stories of the police municipal headquarters.

But as we'd come to expect, the streets were full of trash and the nearby park and botanical gardens, with sunny royal and mythological sculptures, was, when one looked around, smashed up and tagged with graffiti when you looked.

I couldn't help feeling that this is what Central Park looked like New York City in the 1970's, when that place was an emblem of the rot of America.

America's cities have mostly come roaring back, at least in the ones that are officially abandoned. But the spirit has stirred inside the urban cores.

In Europe the cities feel as if at the end of the cycle of long period of building and stability. All of Europe was signs of it, or signs of the impeding effects of these changes, even where it hasn't yet taken hold (like Sweden).

Brussels, however, was where it was most evident. It felt like a city that although still stable, could descend into complete dysfunctional chaos at any moment.

This is quite different than an American city. In Europe it feels as if there is a lack of the social cohesion that still holds America very tightly together, but which most American's don't realize even exists to the degree it does, because outwardly we are at each other's throats (because of our insistence on finding consensus in pop culture, mostly).

Europe has no such problems because it just feels listless, as if the social fabric itself has rotted away such that it would not take much to make it all fall apart completely.

Personally I believe this is partly a result of the giant mistake of creating the Ideal of Europe, and putting it at the center of people's lives. It is a false idol, and now its emptiness is bearing bitter fruit.

My Swedish friend Stefan, who lives and works by choice in comfort of Switzerland, was not at all surprised at our observations about Brussels. He laughed when we told him all this.

And then he added a remark which sort of summed up the whole trip, and the whole situation in Europe at this moment of history. He mentioned in particular the place that is at the epicenter of the trends that have overwhelmed the continent in recent decades.

"Of course," he said. "That's the way it is. The closer you get to France..."

This video from 1974 plays on a continuous loop at the ABBA Experience in Stockholm, where the instruments and costumes are on display as well.