Britain and the EU

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. We are told that if we leave the EU we will lose many advantages such as open borders, the single market, cooperation on security and medicine, freedom of movement, peace etc, and descend into rabid nationalism. This shows how little the highly-educated elite understand of real life, the deeper life in which man does not live by bread (or pottage) alone.

It is said that more intelligent people support the remain option. They are not more intelligent as real intelligence is measured. They are just more brainwashed by the modern education system (the longer you stay in it, the more it gets you), more indoctrinated by theory and ideology and more attached to the post-modern world in which there is no meaning and all value is measured by economics, pleasure or material convenience. They are more sophisticated perhaps, but less in tune with blood and earth and soul, true things. This is because a higher IQ level often results in lower instinctive understanding as culture replaces nature, making such people more prone to the idealistic foolishness that will destroy them. This is not an argument in favour of ignorance and stupidity but of the arid nature of rational intelligence unsupported by spiritual intuition.

The EU wants to be an empire, a European empire on a par with Russia or China or the USA. However, it has no roots in anything traditionally European which means Christian. It is more like an attempt to recreate the Napoleonic empire that actually was a disruption of the true European ideal in that it was based on a materialistic conception of human beings. The EU observes the same principle, the principle that the true end of man lies in this world and that his individuality must be subsumed in an overall collectivism, one based on inclusivity rather than quality. Individuality is theoretically encouraged but only within the limiting framework of an agreed set of restrictions.

I am against the EU because it means more government, more control, more bureaucracy, more domination by unaccountable elites, more centralisation, more secrecy. It means less freedom, less individuality, less honesty, less humanity. It means succumbing to the technocrats and proud rationalists who inhabit a world of ideology and abstract theory that has very little connection to the flesh and blood reality of human needs and desires, indeed human nature itself, let alone spiritual truths. The European Union is and always has been an organisation that is intended to override national sovereignty and eventually sink all the countries which form it into a supranational body run by an elite who see themselves as accountable to no one except themselves. This is the ideology of the cold intellectual who denies all natural human instincts in the name of his frigid theories.

The EU is a modern Tower of Babel, an attempt to build a utopia without reference to the transcendent, but if you try to build a single structure of that size from such disparate elements as countries with hundreds of years of their own traditions it will fragment because there is no inner connection to the centre. Everything must have a centre. What is the centre of the EU? There is none. People point to the ideal of a body that enables cooperation and prevents local wars but nobody loves the EU, however convenient they may find it, and in practice it is just a federal superstate run by a technocratic elite, a liberal organisation that seeks to impose liberal dogma and stifle real freedom in the name of an atheistic humanism which, by definition, is fundamentally nihilistic.

So it is necessary that Britain leaves the EU if it is to regain its soul. However, merely to leave and carry on in the same materialistic way is just swapping one evil for another. Leaving is only the first step on a long road, a necessary but not sufficient condition for Britain to shake off its spiritual torpor. As things stand I do not feel that Brexit will change anything serious. The populace is too addicted to money and pleasure, the culture is too corrupting and the politicians are mostly snake oil salesmen though admittedly it is democracy that makes that inevitable. But this is not a defeatist attitude because I believe that individuals can wake up. All institutions are corrupt and no help will come from any of them but now is the time for truth to be pursued inwardly by those who are serious about what it is to be a human being. That is the question we must all seek to answer. What is a human being? Anyone reading this must ask themselves that question. If you don't you are failing in the purpose of your life. The answer can be found but only by those who really want to know it and will not rest content with palliatives.

Britain must leave the EU in order to avoid being swallowed up by a system that is being used to crush its spiritual growth. But once that is done a greater decision must be taken. Will we just pursue material goals, amusement and diversion as before? Or will we ask ourselves serious questions about our purpose and destiny? Will we accept responsibility for our souls or simply fritter our lives away with entertainment or in the search for unrealisable political utopias? The question as to purpose must be asked by each individual. It cannot be a collective thing but the more individuals who do ask it, the more likelihood there is of the country as a whole breaking out of its spiritual paralysis.

The upcoming General Election in the UK is largely a distraction. I don't say the outcome makes no difference but it is unlikely to make much real difference which is why I regard the act of voting in the modern world as simply perpetuating the current rotten system. There are those who don't vote because they can't be bothered and that is a negative act. But then there are those who will not vote because they see this as making them complicit in playing a game in which two sides are set against each other in order that the battle between the two may distract one from seeing that the truth is in neither. Each has little bits of truth though I am not saying that one is as bad as the other. It's usually obvious that one is worse but that fact constantly lures people into making a choice, even if it is a reluctant one. However, all such people do is allow the game to continue. I am not calling for revolution or anything absurd like that (absurd because outer revolution without inner transformation just means more of the same once things have settled down) but the realisation that life is spiritual not political. This realisation would not solve all problems overnight but it would put us on the proper footing. At the moment, all political parties see life in materialistic terms so they are all effectively saying the same thing, just in different ways. It's as though they are arguing about which base camp is best but no one actually wants to start to climb.

Naturally, I am aware of all the arguments in favour of voting, that it is better to choose the least bad option, that not voting is a dereliction of duty, that the advantages of a democratic society are such that its drawbacks should be overlooked, that it is better than the alternative. All these are reasonable arguments and I have inclined towards them myself at various times in the past. They are hard to dismiss. Nevertheless, I now believe that the situation is such that they no longer apply and they just allow a bad situation to continue and, in fact, to get worse. And so I now reject them. Some things can be mended but others are so far gone that repair is no longer possible.