Ed West writes:
Tonight it looks like the Oxi’s have it, and Greece’s fraught relationship with the Franks has reached a new phase, with possible Grexit coming; that’s assuming the exit polls are correct and that this whole torturous episode doesn’t continue.
Whether Grexit takes place or not, though, the whole episode has fundamentally damaged the European Union by undermining the very idea it was built on – solidarity.
If you ever get Irish people on the subject of the Great Famine, the essential point they always make is that had the potato blight hit Yorkshire, no one would have starved because London would have come to its aid.
Yorkshire is the example used, because it’s far away enough from London but the people are regarded as being the same. The people of Ireland were not, clearly.
Likewise when you look at the hardships facing the Greeks, and wherever blame is portioned, do you think the moneymen in Frankfurt would stand for that if it was happening in Brandenburg or Saxony? Would Parisians allow such misery to afflict Provence?
This is not to compare the Greek tragedy with the Irish famine in terms of size or blame – it’s nothing like it, and the Greek ruling class was complicit in this disaster.
And yet the EU has started behaving like an ineffectual empire dealing with a rebellious colony.
It is in Greece’s best interests to leave the euro as soon as possible, and a benevolent European Union would try to help it move to the drachma as painlessly as possible.
The only logical explanation for why the EU is trying to keep it in is because Grexit would damage the EU; not just the economic stability of the eurozone, but the very momentum of the union itself.
Once the EU starts to shrink then, with other empires, it will gather its own momentum.
Ultimately the euro is a failing idea because it lacks what the medieval Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun defined as the all-important factor of human history - asabiyya, or ‘group feeling’.
The strength of any state, and any institution, lies in its ability to inspire asabiyya, without which it crumbles, for as the historian wrote: ‘Strength is obtained only through group feeling which means affection and willingness to fight and die for each other.’
Where is the affection for Greece?
In the case of empires, fear of physical harm; in Greece’s case fear of economic ruin.
What’s interesting about the 5 July referendum is that it emphasises a key reality of 21st century politics, that the divide is not so much Left v Right but one of globalists v localists.
On the one hand the global financial authorities, the EU, the banks and big business and the pro free-trade economists; on the other a strange combination [not in fact strange at all] of radical leftists opposed to austerity and ‘neoliberalism’ (whatever that means), as well as nationalists (both decent and deranged) and Burkean conservatives.
The difference these days is that the former also go in for utopian ideals, whether it’s the euro or immigration, because they ignore the social implications of group feeling and think only in terms of economics not history; capitalism as the new Communism.
In fact one reason it’s difficult for commentators not to use mythology as a standard cliché template for the crisis is because, like a Greek tragedy, the whole European project has ended up causing the very conflict it was designed to end – conflict and disharmony between nations.
It’s like Oedipus deciding to avoid his fate of marrying his mother by leaving town and shacking up with a woman twice his age. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Not to 66 Labour MPs at the time of Maastricht, it didn't. Nor did it to Gordon Brown and Ed Balls.
Tonight it looks like the Oxi’s have it, and Greece’s fraught relationship with the Franks has reached a new phase, with possible Grexit coming; that’s assuming the exit polls are correct and that this whole torturous episode doesn’t continue.
Whether Grexit takes place or not, though, the whole episode has fundamentally damaged the European Union by undermining the very idea it was built on – solidarity.
If you ever get Irish people on the subject of the Great Famine, the essential point they always make is that had the potato blight hit Yorkshire, no one would have starved because London would have come to its aid.
Yorkshire is the example used, because it’s far away enough from London but the people are regarded as being the same. The people of Ireland were not, clearly.
Likewise when you look at the hardships facing the Greeks, and wherever blame is portioned, do you think the moneymen in Frankfurt would stand for that if it was happening in Brandenburg or Saxony? Would Parisians allow such misery to afflict Provence?
This is not to compare the Greek tragedy with the Irish famine in terms of size or blame – it’s nothing like it, and the Greek ruling class was complicit in this disaster.
And yet the EU has started behaving like an ineffectual empire dealing with a rebellious colony.
It is in Greece’s best interests to leave the euro as soon as possible, and a benevolent European Union would try to help it move to the drachma as painlessly as possible.
The only logical explanation for why the EU is trying to keep it in is because Grexit would damage the EU; not just the economic stability of the eurozone, but the very momentum of the union itself.
Once the EU starts to shrink then, with other empires, it will gather its own momentum.
Ultimately the euro is a failing idea because it lacks what the medieval Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun defined as the all-important factor of human history - asabiyya, or ‘group feeling’.
The strength of any state, and any institution, lies in its ability to inspire asabiyya, without which it crumbles, for as the historian wrote: ‘Strength is obtained only through group feeling which means affection and willingness to fight and die for each other.’
Where is the affection for Greece?
In the case of empires, fear of physical harm; in Greece’s case fear of economic ruin.
What’s interesting about the 5 July referendum is that it emphasises a key reality of 21st century politics, that the divide is not so much Left v Right but one of globalists v localists.
On the one hand the global financial authorities, the EU, the banks and big business and the pro free-trade economists; on the other a strange combination [not in fact strange at all] of radical leftists opposed to austerity and ‘neoliberalism’ (whatever that means), as well as nationalists (both decent and deranged) and Burkean conservatives.
The difference these days is that the former also go in for utopian ideals, whether it’s the euro or immigration, because they ignore the social implications of group feeling and think only in terms of economics not history; capitalism as the new Communism.
In fact one reason it’s difficult for commentators not to use mythology as a standard cliché template for the crisis is because, like a Greek tragedy, the whole European project has ended up causing the very conflict it was designed to end – conflict and disharmony between nations.
It’s like Oedipus deciding to avoid his fate of marrying his mother by leaving town and shacking up with a woman twice his age. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Not to 66 Labour MPs at the time of Maastricht, it didn't. Nor did it to Gordon Brown and Ed Balls.
I disagree that the Left v Right divide has been entirely replaced by globalists v localists (though, like David Goodhart, West is right to say the Left's worship of mass immigration/multiculturalism stems from the fact they don't understand the need for "group feeling" to underpin laws and institutions in a free country).
ReplyDeleteWest was similarly right to explain in his great critique of the Leftwing multicultural project The Diversity Illusion, that diversity destroys liberty because without common values, we will not all agree to live by a common set of rules, so those rules will have to be imposed by naked force.
Which is how multicultural countries like Singapore keep the peace.
Left v Right is really about the divide between the utopian fantasy of equality (which leads to Procrustean laws and lies behind every bad thing from comprehensive education, to radical feminism and equalities laws) and the rational view that humans are naturally unequal, and must be left free to remain so.
You should be in bed. Come back on here in 15 years' time.
DeleteHave you ever met either David Goodhart or Ed West? Based on this, I don't think that you have even read their books from cover to cover.
Sleep tight. School in the morning.
Never mind reading Ed's books, based on this he has been reading yours. The second one is presumably on the Blue Labour crash course reading list for converts. This article is straight out of you and Neil Clark for the last dozen years. Welcome aboard, Ed West.
Delete"The Blue Labour crash course reading list for converts"? What a thought!
DeleteIn my experience, people with the views that Ed expresses here have been joining the Labour Party in some numbers since the Election, often having been Tories all their lives.
They know that it is all over for them anywhere else, whereas they could at least expect any kind of hearing on the Labour side.
Will Ed see that? Has he already done so? After all, he did write for the recent Blue Labour book.
I've never seen you David Goodhart in a room without you, and Ed West is such a mate of yours that he got you that Telegraph gig years ago. But an anti-immigration party contested this year's Election and sank without trace when it came to seats won. That debate is over.
ReplyDeleteIn those terms, yes, it is. But the old trade union terms are a different matter. Like the debate on the EU, in fact.
DeleteAllegedly, there used to be a taboo against discussing immigration. I must have been in a coma while that taboo was in operation.
I presume we are talking about Ed West the purveyor of soft porn with titles like How To Pull Women? If we are, then what, precisely, is West's moral claim upon the intellect of anyone except a hormonal male 16-year-old?
ReplyDeleteThat is not his most recent work. Where books are concerned, his most recent work is an essay in Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics.
DeleteAh right, that's the standard line to take on West the Smut-Hound. Insist on how long ago How To Pull Women was published (some dim bulb at The Catholic Herald referred to it as an "old" book, which makes you wonder if the dim bulb in question has ever heard of incunabula).
DeleteWest the Smut-Hound is on record as defending Charlie Hebdo's blasphemous filth too:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/01/08/sometimes-there-is-a-moral-duty-to-mock-religion/
Mr Lindsay might do well to recall the time-tested slogan "When you lie in the sewer you mix it with rats."