Saturday 23 November 2019

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. 










12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well put, and thank you.

'Anon' from Ireland

William Wildblood said...

Thanks for your comment. Incidentally I don't just think the UK should leave the EU. All countries should.

Adil said...

I find their is an insidious intermarriage between post-modernism and positivism. Sense data is all that counts, but at the same time the world out there is meaningless and made up of arbitrary elementary particles. That is, meaning is all in our heads, and man as a blank sheet must construct himself subjectively out of this sense data. This leads to arbitrary deconstruction of old norms that are seen as outmoded. Yet, despite this subjective rationality, there remains a complete loyalty to the positivistic addiction to measurement! There is seemingly no relation between thought and the world, thus the modern human ends up constantly mistrusting her own humanness.

Here lies a paradoxical 'outsourcing' of the personal subject and of human responsibility. Paradoxical because modernity is often defined as the time where the freedom and responsibility of the individual is the focal point.

But in the modern bureaucratic society we try to regulate our activities so that the individual does not have to take a stand for the concrete situation and use his discernment. Personal responsibility is supposed to take a back seat and impersonal criteria is supposed to replace the personal discernment. This means that when something goes wrong there is no agent that did anything wrong, only organisations that fall short in their routines..?

This measurement dogma leads to compulsive documenting and regulating public and private activities. Of course, such informal relations are necessary, but they seem to have intruded all areas of public life.

This makes the activity in itself secondary and the documentation primary. It takes away attention from the actual activity and the concrete needs in the specific, unique situation. Yet this is precisely the long-term effect of atheism, naturalism and materialism - it is what they want -- these god forsaken sorcerers -- because they can't bare the alternative.

In the end, it leads to a complete disregard of the human subject, indeed the entire human being - who becomes a burden with all her personal sensibilities and unpredictable irrationalities.

Modernity is indeed the age of paradox. Our sensitivity to the particular is diminished in favor of general, 'objective' rules, and at the same time our sensitivity to the ultimate reality of life have diminished through a common consensus that objective reality is without real value or meaning and only made of the smallest units of matter.

People end up thinking that what they experience in deep personal existential experiences only are subjective attitudes that has nothing to do with reality..

Paradoxically we can therefore conclude that modernity, where the 'individual' is supposed to come forth, has meant personal withdrawal into the secular shell of nothingness, both in the bureaucratic organisation and in our own philosophical sensibility!

Can it be anymore clear why we need God in order to dare to become a subject to the other, as God became to us.

Adil said...

Edit: Sorry if this overshadows your post I'm just trying to complement it with some additional thoughts.

Eric

William Wildblood said...

If I've got this right you are saying that modernity is incoherent and self-contradictory. Which it is!

Cererean said...

I've spoiled my ballot before. It at least makes it clear that you're not not-voting out of laziness, but because you disagree with what you're being asked to do. If Labour get in and give us a referendum between Remain and Remain, it's what I'll do in that one.

JMSmith said...

As a nationalist, I try to hold my tongue when it comes to the politics of other nations. But my loathing for the EU usually overpowers this resolution. As you say, the EU is (like Napoleon) the Jacobin Spirit in possession of State Power (i.e. the Jacobin spirit bureaucratized). Adding to the offense is the great lie that this Jacobin Spirit is the essence of Europe. As you know, I am a geographer, and when I look at a map of the world, I see that Europe is composed of exceptionally small states. I also know that they are, or at least were until recently, very distinctive while remaining no less distinctly European. This was unity in diversity and it was the essence of Europe, since without this essence Europe becomes just another sprawling empire of centralized power and subjugated peoples.

William Wildblood said...

Yes, you've summed it up very nicely. The EU is actually the antithesis of what the countries of the European continent really are. Its protagonists ridicule the idea that it seeks to subordinate national identity to a 'European' mentality but that's just completely self-deluded. You can see that is more and more the direction in which it is travelling. We all know that leftist ideology moves step by step.

As an Englishman with Scottish and Irish grandparents who lived for 8 years in France and loves historical European culture I feel myself to be very European in outlook but the EU represents a rupture with European tradition not a continuation or fulfilment of it.

Francis Berger said...

"The EU is a modern Tower of Babel, an attempt to build a utopia without reference to the transcendent"

One need look no further than the EU Parliament Building in Strasbourg for evidence of this.

One of the EU's main features is its secularism, but I would posit the EU is not merely secular, it is also rabidly anti-Christian, in much the same way the Jacobins were (as commenter JM Smith noted above), but the EU manages to successfully shroud this staunch anti-Christianity in its self-proclaimed "European values".

William Wildblood said...

I'm sure you're right, Francis. Regarding the secularism, it's becoming more and more clear that "He who is not with me is against me." The fact that all the bishops in the Church of England voted to stay in the EU speaks volumes.

Bruce Charlton said...

@William

"He who is not with me is against me."

Indeed. That the Bishops of teh CofE are working continually to make it a primarily secular and leftist organisation is one thing; but that they are also dedicated to supporting an (explicitly!) totalitarian and anti-Christian Empire Republic is another. The two options continue to get further apart. The issues get ever clearer, and the culpability of those who choose the side of evil gets further from repentance.

Repentance is *always* possible for anybody - but not equally easy, evil generally feeds on itself, and tends to double down on the rejection of God - even though Jesus made things so easy for us.

Repentance - for example among bishops, chief executives, bureaucrats, royals etc - seems extraordinarily uncommon, considering the absurd wickedness and strategic vileness that *so many* people now find themselves supporting (by words and deeds) on a daily basis.

William Wildblood said...

I agree, Bruce. The trouble for the people you mention is that they are all 'rich' meaning high up in the worldly pecking order and we know the teachings about the difficulty of rich men getting to heaven. Being rich is not just about money.