The Plight of the International Idealists
Quote:
Unfortunately for the idealistic internationalists, the mass of humanity refused to go along with this project. Most people lived and found their identities in the local and particular cultures that they were now supposed to progress beyond. Indeed, from 1914-1918, millions of Europeans slaughtered each other on behalf of those national loyalties. In 1918, G. K. Chesterton explained why:
Nobody has any such ecstatic regard for the mere relations of different people to each other, as one would gather from the rhetoric of idealistic internationalism. It is, indeed, desirable that men should love each other; but always with the recognition of the identity of other peoples and other men. Now, too much cosmopolitan culture is mere praise of machinery. It turns ultimately upon the point that a telegram can be sent from one end of the earth to the other, irrespective of what is in the telegram.
In the end, Chesterton says, “Men care more for the rag that is called a flag than for the rag that is called a newspaper. Men care more for Rome, Paris, Prague, Warsaw than for the international railways connecting these towns.”
|
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles...ton102211.html
How long until the European Union falls apart? When national interests, whether they be territorial or economic, are in opposition to a supra-governing body, like the EU, chaos and failure usually results . This degradation from the collective to the nationalistic is readily demonstrated by both the League of Nations fatal end and the UN's current carnival like internal nationalist pissing contests.